grief and the sorrow as deep as a well. The fact is, Josh is correct. Lilly has said things to him in the throes of late-night lovemaking that aren’t exactly true. On some level she loves him, cares for him, has strong feelings … but she’s projecting something sick deep within her, something that has to do with fear.
“That’s just fine and dandy,” Josh Lee Hamilton says finally, shaking his head.
They are approaching the gap in the wall outside town. The entranceway—a wide spot between two uncompleted sections of barricade—has a wooden gate secured at one end with cable. About fifty yards away, a single guard sits on the roof of a semitrailer, gazing in the opposite direction with an M1 carbine on his hip.
Josh marches up to the gate and angrily loosens the cable, throwing it open. The rattling noise echoes. Lilly’s flesh crawls with panic. She whispers, “Josh, be careful, they’re gonna hear us.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass,” he says, swinging the gate open for her. “Ain’t a prison. They can’t keep us from comin’ and goin’.”
She follows him through the gate and down a side road toward Main Street.
Few stragglers walk the streets at this hour. Most of the denizens of Woodbury are tucked away indoors, having dinner or drinking themselves into oblivion. The generators provide an eerie thrum behind the walls of the racetrack, some of the overhead stadium lights flickering. The wind trumpets through the bare trees of the square, and dead leaves skitter down the sidewalks.
“You have it your way,” Josh says as they turn right and head east down Main Street, trudging toward their apartment building. “We’ll just be fuck buddies. Quick pop every now and then to relieve the tension. No muss, no fuss…”
“Josh, that’s not—”
“You could get the same thing from a bottle of rotgut and a vibrator … but hey. Warm body’s nice every now and then, right?”
“Josh, c’mon. Why does it have to be this way? I’m just trying to—”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He bites down on his words as they approach the food center.
A cluster of men gather around the front of the store, warming their hands over a flaming brazier of trash burning in an oil drum. Sam the Butcher is there, a ratty overcoat covering his blood-spackled apron. His gaunt face puckers with distaste, his diamond-chip blue eyes narrowing as he sees the two figures approaching from the west.
“Fine, Josh, whatever.” Lilly thrusts her hands deeper into her pockets as she strides alongside the big man, slowly shaking her head. “Whatever you say.”
They pass the food center.
“Hey! Green Mile!” Sam the Butcher’s voice calls out, flinty, terse, a knife scraping a whetstone. “C’mere a minute, big fella.”
Lilly pauses, her hackles up.
Josh walks over to the men. “I got a name,” he says flatly.
“Well, excuse the hell outta me,” the butcher says. “What was it—Hamilburg? Hammington?”
“Hamilton.”
The butcher offers a vacuous smile. “Well, well. Mr. Hamilton. Esquire. Might I have a moment of your valuable time, if you aren’t too busy?”
“What do you want?”
The butcher’s cold smile remains. “Just outta curiosity, what’s in the bag?”
Josh stares at him. “Nothing much … just some odds and ends.”
“Odds and ends, huh? What kind of odds and ends?”
“Things we found along the way. Nothin’ that would interest anybody.”
“You do realize you ain’t covered your debt on them other odds and ends I gave y’all couple days ago.”
“What are you talking about?” Josh keeps staring. “I’ve been on the crew every day this week.”
“You ain’t covered it yet, son. That heating oil don’t grow on trees.”
“You said forty hours would cover it.”
The butcher shrugs. “You misunderstood me, hoss. It happens.”
“How so?”
“I said forty hours on top of what you logged already. Got that?”
The staring match goes on for an awkward moment. All conversation around the flaming trash barrel ceases. All eyes are on the two men. Something about the way Josh’s beefy shoulder blades are tensing under his lumberjack coat makes Lilly’s flesh crawl.
Josh finally gives the man a shrug. “I’ll keep on workin’, then.”
Sam the Butcher tilts his lean, chiseled face toward the duffel bag. “And I’ll thank you to hand over whatever you got tucked away in that bag for the cause.”
The butcher makes a move toward the duffel bag, reaching out for it.
Josh snaps it back and away from his grasp.
The mood changes with the speed of a circuit firing. The other men—mostly older loafers with hound-dog eyes and stringy gray hair in their