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And what about you? Abrahas

Slugs don’t bothermy merry way

What’s with the talk anyway? Abrahain the way you talk?

Why, sir, she replies with a sly sine what you h an empty desert dotted with dense copses of brushwood They put Fountain Hills behind them, and the bandits, and the accumulated dead The Todds made sure, as they always do, that those they killed are killed for good They will not swell the rout of walking dead on the surface of the earth

Soon they are in a town called Sunflohich is a nothing of a place They take an off-ras, so the street Some of the corpses try to pick theine drive by – but so old are they that their flesh has burned itself to the very tarmac, and when they rise, they pull half their faces off Then they sit, their energy wasted in the si, and poke curiously at their own faces, the exposed skull and the dry eye, now lidless, which will never shut again

But there is a wo of the tiny town, and the Vestal A than those Abraham found for her in the bandits’ inventory They do not trust her not to run away again, so the Todd brothers go into the store with her They stay at the front, spreading out a ure out the best way to reach Colorado Springs The largest freeways are not always ideal, travelling as they do through cities most densely populated with the dead

As they consult theaway, distracted It’s the Vestal She’s walking up and down the aisles pure naked She tries on gars them over her arround if she doesn’t Her face and hair are still spattered with dried blood, but the rest of her body is a pale white thing like so the sunlight for the first time in years She is freckled all over her chest, and her bosoms are small and pointed Unselfconsciously, she scratches at her crotch and the bush of red pubic hair until she finds a pair of red underpants that suit her Moses does not knohat kind of textile those underpants are made from, but they are shiny and not at all modest

She wears a necklace, Moses sees It’s a s, Moses says to Abrahaotta walk around like that for? Abraham whispers She’s testin me, Mose That nun is testin my mettle

I told you she ain’t a nun

Then what is she? She think she’s immune to the appetites of live men like she is to those of the dead?

I don’t knohat she thinks Let’s just take her where she’s gotta go and get our leave of her That’s all

They continue north, and the road cli population is sparse Where there were very few living, there are very few dead They co underneath Moses pulls the car over, and they cla his brother, to where the water runs cold and clear

Thank God, says the Vestal I’m crusty all over

She strips off the iot in the last town – a leather skirt and a corset-type top – and wades into the river naked, splashing the water on her skin

It’s bracing! she cries You boys have a nose for the good life Maybe I’ll think twice before running off again Hey, what’s the matter with Abraham?

Moses looks at his brother There is an expression on his face of outraged desire – as though he is furious at the girl forhim want so much Moses has seen that expression before, and it does not bode well

Moses says, I reckon you best try to keep yourself covered up around us, Vestal A desperate hs and splashes water at theone dead everywhere you look, we’re livin on the opposite side of grand apocalypse, and they’re still Adah the corridors of their own shame They’re just bodies is all I bet you seen countless dead pussies, but a living one gives you quivers all over Puzzle that one through for hs, her arh she were soe has by now lost all of its polish and elegance The Todd brothers say nothing in response They have been scolded by a naked earthindeed

All right, she relents finally I don’t like to cause a fuss I’ll go secret myself behind that bush to conclude my ablutions

She moves down the riverbank a little way until she is just out of sight But they can still hear her singing happily while she washes herself

Oh, Mademoiselle from Armentare, parlay voo

Oh, Madeot the Pal soldiers’ underwear

Hinky, dinky, parlay voo

You didn’t have to know her long, parlay voo

You didn’t have to know her long, parlay voo

You didn’t have to know her long,

To know the reason

Hinky, dinky, parlay voo

She’s the hardest working girl in town, parlay voo

She’s the hardest-working girl in town, parlay voo

She’s the hardest-working girl in town,

But sheupside down