They carried Jimmy into Croze’s cubicle and laid him down on the bed. Toby asked two Craker women and Ren to aim the flashlights she’d got from the kitchen. Then she found her medical materials, on the shelf where she’d left them before setting off to find Amanda.
She did all she could for Jimmy: a sponge bath to get off the worst of the dirt; honey applied to the superficial cuts; mushroom elixir for the infection. Then Poppy and Willow, for the pain and for a restful sleep. And the small grey maggots, applied to the foot wound to nibble off the infected flesh. Judging from the smell, the maggots were just in time.
“What are those?” said one of the two Craker women, the tall one. “Why do you put those little animals on Snowman-the-Jimmy? Are they eating him?”
“It tickles,” said Jimmy. His eyes were half open; the Poppy was taking effect.
“Oryx sent them,” said Toby. That seemed to be a good answer, because they smiled. “They are called maggots,” she continued. “They are eating the pain.”
“What does the pain taste like, Oh Toby?”
“Should we eat the pain too?”
“If we ate the pain, that would help Snowman-the-Jimmy.”
“The pain smells very bad. Does it taste good?”
She should avoid metaphors. “The pain tastes good only to the maggots,” she said. “No. You should not eat the pain.”
“Will he be okay?” Ren said. “Has he got gangrene?”
“I hope not,” said Toby. The two Craker women placed their hands on him and began to purr.
“Falling,” said Jimmy. “Butterfly. She’s gone.”
Ren bent over him, brushed his hair back from his forehead. “Go to sleep, Jimmy,” she said. “We love you.”
Cobb House
Morning
Toby dreams that she’s in her little single bed, at home. Her stuffed lion is on the pillow beside her, and her big shaggy bear that plays a tune. Her antique piggy bank is on her desk, and the tablet she uses for her homework, and her felt-tip crayons, and her daisy-skinned cellphone. From the kitchen comes the sound of her mother’s voice, calling; her father, answering; the smell of eggs frying.
Inside this dream, she’s dreaming of animals. One is a pig, though six-legged; another is cat-like, with compound eyes like a fly. There’s a bear as well, but it has hooves. These animals are neither hostile nor friendly. Now the city outside is on fire, she can smell it; fear fills the air. Gone, gone, says a voice, like a bell tolling. One by one the animals come towards her and begin to lick her with their warm, raspy tongues.
At the edge of sleep, she gropes towards the retreating dream: the burning city, the messengers sent to warn her. That the world has been changed utterly; that the familiar is long dead; that everything she used to love has been swept away.
As Adam One used to say, The fate of Sodom is fast approaching. Suppress regret. Avoid the pillar of salt. Don’t look back.
She wakes to find a Mo’Hair licking her leg: a red-head, its long human hair braided into pigtails, each with a string bow: some sentimentalist among the MaddAddamites has been at work. It must have got out of the pen where they’re keeping them.
“Move it,” she says to it, shoving it gently with her foot. It gives her a look of addled reproach – they’re none too bright, the Mo’Hairs – and clatters out through the doorway. We could use some doors around here, she thinks.
The morning light is filtering in through the piece of cloth that’s been hung over the window in a futile attempt to keep out the mosquitoes. If only they could find some screens! But they’d have to install window frames because the cobb house wasn’t built to be lived in: it had been a parkette staging pavilion for fairs and parties, and they’re squatting in it now because it’s safe. It’s away from the urban rubble – the deserted streets and random electrical fires and the buried rivers that are welling up now that the pumps have failed. No collapsing building can fall down on it, and as it’s only one storey high, it’s unlikely to fall down on itself.