Read Online Engines of the Broken World by Jason Vanhee - Free Book Online Page A

and then set it down with a clatter, because her hand was shaking that bad. She sniffed deep in the silence that came after her tale, and I felt bad for asking her about it in the first place.
    “I told you the fog was real, and I told you it was a terror.” Gospel said it soft, and he leaned over to me, but I was sure Jenny Gone could hear it too.
    “I know you did. I didn’t ever see it, though. How was I to know?”
    “Yeah, I guess.”
    I realized the Minister must have heard every word, because it had come at some point to lie down at the bedroom doorway with its head raised above its paws and big ears cocked up to listen. It panted just like a real dog with its tongue hanging out, and you could let yourself think it was real—only it wasn’t, of course. After the trouble we took to make sure the Minister hadn’t heard us yesterday, it seemed odd to just let it hear everything, but then, with the fog scarce six miles off I supposed it didn’t much matter. The Minister could catch the whole danged story, for all I cared then, because there was nothing left, no time left. In a few days every one of us was going to die, or vanish into something that wasn’t, into a cold and dead fog.
    Jenny wasn’t crying anymore, though there were still streaks on her face. She was ignoring them, and I thought it was good if I ignored them too, like a woman grown who wouldn’t pay any mind if her friend’s hair was out of place, not till there was a good moment to fix it up. Which this, for the tears, just wasn’t. Everyone was looking.
    “Does it hurt at all?” I asked finally, because I wanted to know.
    “No, it doesn’t. There’s no pain, there’s no blood, and I still feel like I can move it, only I can’t. It’s just not there. And sometimes I think I hear things from the missing ear, too. Voices, like lots of people talking, but there’s nothing there and I don’t hear it with my good ear.”
    “You just can’t get enough of this, can you, Merce?” Gospel said with a chuckle.
    The Minister spoke up from its post by the bedroom. “That is quite enough of the questions. Miss Gone has suffered enough, I should think.” Such compassion in the voice of the made thing. It shamed me to hear it so that I looked down at the rug and picked at the edge of it, where the fur was getting ragged and ratty.
    “It’s all right, I don’t much mind. My own damned fault, really. I should’ve known it was nothing but badness and left, at least after the deer went by, but I didn’t. I got just what I merited, I’d guess.”
    “No one merits such punishments, nor even knowing of them,” the Minister declared, and rose up, walking in its bounding way up to Jenny and laying its great head on her lap like a benediction. Old as it was, sometimes it did the right thing without any call being made, and this was one of those times. The poor crippled woman closed in on the Minister and started to weep freely, like I had with the Widow Cally just that morning. Gospel nodded his head to the kitchen, and I went with him, quietly creeping away to the other room so as not to embarrass Jenny any more than she likely would be already.
    In the kitchen, Gospel reached up into the top of the cabinet above the sink, where I couldn’t even get my arm to and he had to stand on his tippy toes, and pulled down a brown glass bottle.
    “What’s that?”
    “Whiskey, dope. Papa used to drink it, and the bottle’s just sat here all this time. I reckon Jenny could use a swig, and maybe I could too.”
    “The world’s coming to an end and you want to start up with liquor?”
    “Ain’t like I’ll have any more time later. And maybe you should get yours in too, huh?” He pulled out a few little glasses, the sort of thing we never used but had gobs of anyhow, and splashed some brown, smelly stuff into three. He carried one out into the other room, and I watched him set it down beside Jenny, but she didn’t seem to notice. The Minister was