A small caf�� had also collapsed, except for the sign that read GOOD EATS Every step an exercise in agony, Josh walked past the crumbled buildings. A sign flapping back and forth on its hinges advertised TUCKER'S HARDWARE AND FEEDS, but the store's front window was shattered and the place looked bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. There was a Texaco station with one pump and a garage whose roof had collapsed. He saw no cars, no hint of light or life. The dark town-just a scatter of wind-ravaged buildings and a few widely spaced houses on dusty lots-beckoned him onward. "If you don't mind, we'll just go on our way." He thought he must look like a zombie, or like the Frankenstein monster carrying the fainted heroine in his arms. He carried the exhausted child in his arms, as he had for the past two hours, and walked stiff-legged, the soles of his feet oozing with blisters and blood in shoes that were coming apart at the seams. The wind was still shoving mightily at his back, but after what seemed like eight hours of walking yesterday and at least five today, he was about to topple to the ground. "You broke my screen door," a woman's voice said in the gloom. "Leo-" And then it was interrupted by a strangling, terrible spasm of coughing. "Leona" a weak voice called from inside the house. He and Sister entered the woods after the shuffling figure of the man in the ski mask and left the highway of death behind. His ribs ached where the beast had hit him, and his legs felt like short pieces of soft rubber. Artie looked over his shoulder, terrified of more lurking predators coming up behind him. They had no choice but to hurry after him. He headed for the next house, further along and across the road. He approached one of the houses but stopped when he saw a body curled up like a question mark on the front porch steps. She held onto that Cookie Monster doll like life itself and occasionally flinched in her tormented sleep. Josh was stiff with cold, and he knew Swan must be freezing, too. He lifted his foot and kicked at its center, knocking it off its hinges, and they crossed the porch to the front door. "Wake up, now." She mumbled, and he set her down then he tried the door but found it latched from the inside.
Josh walked across the dirt lot and up the porch steps to the screen door. The hand-lettered name was Davy and Leona Skelton. The mailbox, supported on a crooked pedestal, was painted white and had what appeared to be an eye, with upper and lower lids, painted on it in black. Still, they'd been out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wasteland and dead fields, and both of them had dreaded first light because they knew they had to start walking again. They had spent last night in the windbreak of an overturned pick-up truck bound-up bales of hay had been scattered around, and Josh had lugged them over to build a makeshift shelter that would contain their body heat. "We ought to go with him," Artie said to Sister.
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