Free After the End: Survival by Dave Stebbins Page B

terms with the minister.
    "He's a slime ball."
    "Do you know who this is?" He handed her the girl's portrait.
    "Why sure, it’s Susan." Then she put her hand to her mouth and inhaled sharply. "Is this who they found? The dead girl? Oh, poor little Susan. That poor little girl."
    "Mrs. Langley, I'm sure sorry for your trouble. I'm working with the sheriff's department, trying to find out who did this. When did you first meet Susan?"
    She handed the copy back to Pete.
    "Well, let's see. I first met her four? No, five years ago. Her family moved into that blue house, see it down the street there? Her and my daughter were friends, they were both the same age. Then the Change came, and I lost all three of my kids and my husband, and little Susan lost all her family too. So, she just sort of moved over here? I was glad for the company, to tell you the truth. You know, a familiar face? For a short while it was her and me against the world." She made a crooked smile and looked away. "Anyway, a few other kids came by and stayed, then my current husband, Travis? Well, he needed to be around kids so he started hanging around, too. He's a good man, great with kids, always fixing things and trying to make it a little easier around here. So anyway, looks like I got a family again."
    "Tell me about Susan."
    "Oh, she was pretty good, mostly quiet but she didn't take any sass from anybody. I remember once a boy came around, bothering the other kids. I was watching from the kitchen. She didn't say a word, just walked over to the grill, picked up a cast iron skillet, and proceeded to lay into the side of that boy's head." She chuckled. "That boy didn't come back again for a long time, and when he did he was real polite."
    "She was pretty serious about her religion."
    "Yeah." She pressed her lips tightly together for a few seconds before continuing. "Maybe six months after the Change that man Dingman came through the neighborhood, visiting with all the families and telling them how important it was that the kids know about Christ and all, you know, how religion could help them? Well it seemed like a good idea at the time so we let all the kids go. Most of them just liked the stuff they made in Sunday school, but Susan, she swallowed all that religion crap, hook, line and sinker. She was spending three or four evenings a week over at the church and getting all dreamy eyed about Dingman, about how Christian he was. That went on for, I don't know, a year or maybe a year and a half? Then one night I hear the shower in the backyard and I go out to see who's using all the water? It was Susan. And I said, ‘Honey, what are you doing?’ And she says, ‘I gotta get clean, I gotta get clean.’ She just says that over and over. Then she came inside and threw up a couple of times. Just dry heaves. No fever or anything. She kept going back to that church for a while, but then she'd take these long showers after. She got real quiet. I mean she was always quiet, right? But I mean where she wouldn’t hardly talk to anybody, not even to the other kids. Not even to me. And we were...close, you know? So one night, I ask her, I say, ‘Susan, I know you better than anyone in the world, and I know something's wrong. Tell me what it is, honey, and maybe I can make it better.’ Well, she was quiet for a spell, and I thought maybe she wasn't going say anything and then she just comes right out and says, ‘Does Travis ever come at you with his thing?’ Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather, but I tried to stay calm and I say, "Honey, Travis and me are husband and wife and when two adults love each other, like we do, they do things with each other that are private and real special." She doesn’t say anything else but then I put together all that stuff with her that had been going on and I get a real bad feeling. And I say, "Has Harold Dingman been coming at you with his thing?" And she doesn’t say anything but she looks at me and I knew. She's