Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

XXIII

The Cleveland Joey’s lacked the party atmosphere and pure sexual energy of its sister establishment in Spring City. No girls dancing in cages. No smiling women working the crowd. But as a reasonably friendly neighborhood saloon it was passable. Men playing poker and drinking at various tables, an ancient toothless crone behind the bar, serving slow but eventual mugs of beer. The lighting was low but not too dark. The music was something by the Dixie Chicks. Mortimer recognized it because Anne had been a fan. Maybe she still was.

The old lady indicated they should take any open table, so they found one in a corner and sat. Shelby showed up ten seconds later, looking harried and put out.

“If you want a girl, I’d get on the waiting list now.”

Mortimer shook his head. “Just food.”

“And beer,” added Bill.

“There’s omelets and sausage. The eggs are fresh. I just got them.”

Mortimer smiled. Looked like he’d have a chance to try some of Bobby’s eggs after all. “Okay.”

“You got anything else?” Bill asked.

“No. I’m cooking myself. No chef.”

“He quit on you?”

“Hell if I know,” Shelby said. “He never showed. At least if I was running a circus the fucking clowns would turn up for work, right? Anyway, I thought I heard some shooting, so maybe he’s dead.”

Mortimer frowned. “Shooting?”

“Way out on the edge of town. Like an hour ago, and it’s been quiet since.”

Mortimer and Bill exchanged glances. Mortimer asked, “Should we expect trouble?”

Shelby shrugged. “Town militia will handle it. Anyway, a thousand Red Stripes could ride in on Harley Davidsons for all I care as long as they brought me a chef and ten guys for the bikes. You want the omelets or not?”

“We’ll take two plates,” Mortimer said.

“And beer,” Bill shouted after Shelby.

The old lady brought two mugs of the Dishwater Lager. They sipped. Mortimer realized he was comfortable. Warm. He’d been warm since coming here and figured maybe the church was old enough to have an oil-burning furnace. Maybe even coal-burning. He wondered if there was anyplace a nuclear power plant still functioned. That would be a lot of energy. A town could pretend nothing had happened with that kind of power, dishwashers and microwave ovens and televisions. Except there were no TV channels anymore. You could watch DVDs maybe.

“This sure don’t compare to the Joey’s in Spring City,” Bill said.

“Nope.”

“You want me to go put our names on the waiting list?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.”

The omelets arrived with long, thick links of sausage. Mortimer tasted the eggs. Fresh and good. The sausage was heavily spiced, perhaps to cover the taste of the meat itself. He remembered pigs and cows were scarce.

“What do you think this is?” Mortimer stuffed another big chunk of sausage in his mouth.

Bill shrugged. “If we’re lucky, squirrel or raccoon or something. Best not to ask.”

They ate. They drank. It was pleasant and quiet. They didn’t ask.

Barely audible over the sad notes of a Kelly Clarkson song, the distant pop pop pop of small-arms fire froze everyone in the saloon. Mouths stopped chewing. Patrons held beer mugs halfway to lips. Everyone waited and listened. The seconds crept by, and everyone was about to breathe again when they heard another burst of fire. Maybe a little closer. Maybe a little farther away. It was hard to tell.

A tall man pushed away from a table across the room. He sighed and stood. He was thin; his face had deep lines and thin lips. He wore a state trooper’s hat and a Georgia Tech sweatshirt, and had an automatic pistol on his belt. “Keep on with what you’re doing, everyone. I’ll take a look.” He left through the front door.

“Who was that?” Bill asked.

An old man leaned over from the next table. “Officer in the town militia.”

“Trouble?”

The old guy snorted. “Hell, there’s always trouble. The world is sewn together with it.”

Right.

They finished their meals, and Mortimer said he was heading back to the room. He wanted an early start. Bill said he wanted to stay a while longer, have another beer and see if he could get some more news out of the locals.

Mortimer went next door. The bank lobby was empty. It might have been nice to shoot a game of pool. On the way upstairs, he noticed somebody looking at him through a cracked door to another room. The door closed quickly as he passed.

Mortimer entered his own room, sprawled on the bed. He stared at the ceiling a long time. Tired, bone weary, but sleep didn’t come. The stucco patterns on the ceiling were random, but if a person looked at them long enough, they formed images. Even as a kid, Mortimer had seen that, the faces in the stucco, animals and battleships and the Empire State Building. The mind wanted to see things, wanted something to be there, needed there to be anything but nothing.

Mortimer looked at the ceiling and saw pigs and cows. Maybe it was the sausage playing tricks on him. He tried to see something else, a message, anything useful.

Pigs and cows and no sleep at all.

He almost didn’t hear the knock at first, thought it was part of some obscure dream, but he’d never really gotten to sleep, had only been lying there letting his thoughts drift. He waited until he heard the knock again before saying, “Who is it?”

The door creaked open, a sliver of hallway light widening to put the small figure into silhouette. She turned, and Mortimer could see her figure wrapped in something thin and silky, small breasts turned up and firm, thin waist. She was short and young, although difficult to tell how young in the poor light.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She closed the door and went to the bed, sat on the side next to Mortimer. Her weight barely registered, sagging the mattress only a little.

“Did Shelby send you? I’m not paying for this.” But there was little conviction in Mortimer’s words. She smelled good. Soap.

“I saw you coming up the stairs.” Her voice was light and sweet. She was very young. She put her hand on Mortimer’s leg, ran it gently down to the knee. He winced slightly when she rubbed over the arrow wound but didn’t say anything. An erection began working in his pants.

With her other hand, she reached toward the nightstand and switched on a lamp. It was a pink lamp with bunnies on the shade, a child’s lamp. The twenty-five-watt bulb cast weak yellow light.

He could see her face now, heart shaped with full lips. She was sixteen or seventeen at most, but Mortimer wasn’t sure that sort of thing mattered anymore. Her copper hair looked like a dye job, but it was clean and shiny and bobbed at her neck. Her skin was clear and smooth and white. She looked familiar, but maybe that was just something he wished, so he wouldn’t be in bed with a stranger.

She started working on his belt, her feather touch unbuckling him with practiced ease. He opened his mouth to object again but couldn’t make any words come out. Soon he was lifting his ass, letting her pull down his pants. She reached for his erection. It was so hard, it was almost painful. He gasped when she stroked it. She cupped his balls, held them a moment, then stood and dropped her robe. She was white. Pink nipples. A small, downy patch of brown hair between her legs.

There was something in her hands, a little package she ripped open. She grabbed the base of his erection, unrolled the condom over him.

She straddled Mortimer, lowered herself slowly onto him. He moaned. Mortimer had forgotten. It had been so long. How could he have forgotten?

She started to ride, bouncing with quickening rhythm.

Mortimer took her by the hips, held her. “Slow down.” He wouldn’t be able to hold back, and he didn’t want it to be over so soon.

She slowed, rocked back and forth. He cupped a breast, and she leaned down so he could take it in his mouth. When she sat back up again, Mortimer looked at her face, took in the shape and the eyes.

“I know you.”

She smiled and nodded.

“Sheila.” She no longer looked like the squashed, terrified child who had been at the beck and call of the Beast, the man who had beaten and robbed him and cut off his pinkie finger.

“This is my way of saying I’m sorry, I guess.” She nibbled her bottom lip, shrugged, looked almost coy. “I couldn’t help you before, when Kyle was doing all those things.”

The Beast’s name had been Kyle. Not Bruno or Spike or Butch. Kyle.

Now he did let her ride. She picked up a good rhythm, made little circular motions as she slipped up and down. He thrust back into her, hands full of her backside, moaned from the throat raw and feral. She made whining little grunts every time she came down, tiny gasps as she went back up again.

He came so hard, he thought he might blast her into the ceiling. She yipped surprise and shuddered on top of him, then slid off with a little giggle, curling next to him, both of them breathing heavily, soaking the sheets with their sweat.

Sheila put a hand on him, idly stroked his chest hair. They lay for a while not saying anything. Mortimer mused that Sheila had been exactly what he’d needed. He felt like he could sleep now all the way to morning, although he found he was even more eager to find Anne.

When they heard the gunfire, it seemed much closer this time. And when they heard it again, it was right out in the street.