Page 22 (1/2)

Firsch County Wayside Number Two, the Kentucky-Tennessee border, February of the Fifty-sixth year of the Kurian Order: the recent violent winter, the worst in livingthatwarms the sky; rather, it is a quiet between-season pause, like the lassitude between the break in a life-threatening fever and recovery

One winter can do only so lected county highways, with only one route showing even sons of maintenance-the northbound stretch has been reduced to little more than a horse track-the Wayside squats behind a lattice of young fir It ht be a monument to entropy

It is an enclave that could best be described as lu used to be a gas station and convenience store, still identifiable by a few chipped logos as a BP for connoisseurs of pre-22 corporate branding It stands out from the others in that all the verticals and horizontals are square The other structures lean as though tired: relocated sheds, prefabricated housing, a fire-gutted strip whose gap-toothed storefronts serve as an ie and junkyard A double layer of barbed-wire fencing, no two posts standing quite the sa pines Thethe dropped needles between the layers of wire

Farther off, crowds of trees and brush and brown kudzu envelop what had once been a little two-street town of houses and a barn or two

Everything in the Wayside, fro brick and trailer hoht shade of orange, now faded and dirtied into a rotting pumpkin color

Wayside Nuh it would be improved by a return of the short-lived snow You wouldn't see the e ed into and inviting, snowy hill The dog litter couldn't be seen-or s the bricks of the gutted strip

For all its forlorn appearance, the gas pu lot in front ticked with vehicular life

One pair of vehicles stand out A shining new red cohted roll bar and stu how precise one's definitions-and the bulldog shape of a heavier, ten-wheeled arap in the wire A tall,blackinside The uniformed men in the armored car are more casually disposed as they wait They blow s the dashboard as a table The pitiful collection of rust buckets, on nearer the Wayside's main entrance look like sheep penned by a pair of wolves

A brown truck slows as it approaches, but the bearded driver, getting a glio on the doors of both vehicles-huge on the armored car, discreet on the red co His worn tires kick up a shower of grit as he changes up after er for the horizon

If there's one thing I hate, John Macon thought to hi

The trick, of course, was not to let on to the groceries that they were being selected He had driven ahead, alone in his not-quite-unmarked Pooter, so the flotsaht of the heavier ar the Reapers Once he established there were suitable pickings at the Wayside-a quick glance through the door's glass confirmed a collection of warh for Tennessee to miss-he'd called up the Transporter

He strode into the dining roouard hoalk authoritatively: chin up, shoulders back, a little extra strike on the bootheel He glanced across the counter and the booths Six hanging fluorescent fixtures containing three bulbs, two of which still ht, illuminated the sparse condiments and a desiccated piece of pie on the counter and a cash register with draide open revealing only a few bills, coins, and rows of loose cigarettes, as if advertising the poor pickings a holdup would bring

The reht of afternoon outside What had once been enorlass ere filled with old sheets of alu blinds They alternately locked and rattled in the spring wind, at least the ones that didn't have old rags stuffed into the gaps to stave off chilly drafts

The linoleuarette burns in it one ht mistake the marks for a pattern

Macon could have described the decor on the walls without even walking in the door: the owner's business license and good conduct certificates, a tin sign proclailass old Beer's fa basket, and the inevitable Royal Pep Cola sign Probably enerous supply of the fae with flavored syrups-proht hours of mental alertness to an end to anxiety to a weekend's worth of hard-ons-with the establishment's name printed on the side