End Time (55 page)

“No thanks, I used some before,” Bhakti said.

Cheryl, one hand on the wheel, spritzed a touch around her neck and shoulders like perfume, then dropped the spray bottle back in the door pocket.

Suddenly she asked, “How many people do you think have … y'know … gotten sick? I mean, out of everyone, how many?”

How many absent people did it take to make everything revert to wall-to-wall Muzak? Bhakti shrugged.

“Since we left Los Angeles? Hard to tell. A lot of people. Three in ten? How about 2.755 in ten? That's almost the same thing as one in three. You get to percentages like that, like 3.7 or 4.2, and it'll feel like half of everyone is sick.”

He paused for a moment, calculating cause and effect.

“When three out of ten people don't show up for work and go to a hospital instead, the hospital shuts down. When four out of ten people are out of action the world shuts down.”

Cheryl gripped the wheel. Rachel's ghost sat silently in the backseat of the SUV and stared at the people of Vandalia through the car window, the dead gazing at those already gone and those soon-to-be. Rachel turned away sadly. “There are more dead people than I can count. Most of them are lost, and they don't know where to go. I think they're running out of room, above and below.”

“Wonderful,” Cheryl remarked, answering both at once. “I wish I hadn't asked.”

 

29

On the Banks of the River Styx

At the entrance to I-70, the outlying buildings of Vandalia stared back at the three vehicles with blank windows like vacant eyes. Beatrice nudged the Gran Torino around a stalled tractor-trailer, and the cars crawled onto the interstate heading east, then picked up speed. Overhead, clouds clamped down from horizon to horizon. On either side of the highway the leaves at their peak in this part of the country sped past like a counterpane of flame, as though the trees were on fire.

And smoke. Smoke?

Smoke curled into the air from burning houses half a mile off and drifted across the black asphalt like belts of fog. Not every building was burning, but enough of them, every ten miles or so—a warehouse, a silo—pouring smoke into the sky.

Tractor-trailers and other vehicles on the interstate, heedless of the speed limit, roared by at 75 to 80 mph, only slowing down when a dense screen of smoke blocked the road ahead. Nobody seemed to care about state troopers or the highway patrol. In the white minivan, the police band had been silent for miles; Billy Shadow switched over to the CB for some cross-chatter. The citizens band was eerily quiet too, like none of the truckers wanted to talk.

A young, querulous voice broke the static:

“Hello? Anybody out there, copy?”
Silence. He came again.
“Anybody?”

But no one answered.

Billy Shadow frowned for a moment. Even the truckers were scared of what was out there. The caravan climbed into the hills, approaching West Virginia, endless slopes of maple and pine. They crossed the Ohio River and Wheeling; stacks of burning tires blocked the exit ramps, the message:
Keep Moving
. They kept going, their engines sucking juice. The miles rolled by.

Billy picked up the walkie-talkie, pressed the button, and held it down.

“I think we're all low on gas. I'm close to a gas-gauge warning. A little east of Wheeling there's the Dallas Pike Fuel Center. But uh…” Billy paused, holding down the transmission bar. “But I don't think we should just bomb in there. I think we ought to scope it out from an overpass or an interchange.”

Static for a moment; then Big Bea broke through. “Smart thinking, Crazy Horse.”

A few miles farther, at Exit 11, the convoy pulled off the highway. The exit ramp wasn't blocked; no burning tires or roadblocks. The convoy pulled off the highway and stopped. Gantzer's Ridge Road ran parallel to the interstate; the road wound off along a thick belt of trees. Some smoke in the distance rose from where the fuel station was supposed to be.

Everyone got out.

Billy climbed to the roof of the minivan for a better view. The day was getting on dusk, the light fading.

“Can't see a damn thing,” Billy growled.

“We're gonna have to move up a little,” Bea said, her face taut with dismay. Back on the ground, Beatrice and Cheryl gazed at the belt of smoke blocking their view. A pair of binoculars were passed around. Nobody liked the prospect of moving any closer; it felt like blind groping. Problem was, they had no choice; time to gas up, now or never.

Beatrice, Cheryl, Billy, and Bhakti packed into the Gran Torino and did a thousand-yard crawl up the road, hugging the line of trees; they passed a Ford dealership, every car on the lot either on fire or a smoldering, twisted hulk. They got out of the Torino and crept to the side of the tar strip. Between a break in the trees they peered through their binoculars at the comforting sight of a Holiday Inn Express. No fire, no smoke. And beyond that, the Dallas Pike truck stop was easy enough to spot, the white overhang of a Citgo canopy next to the flat-topped beige concrete of a Taco Bell.

The Citgo canopy was lit, and the reassuring thrum of a heavy generator throbbed across the road. Several rigs sat behind the pumps, their chicken lights running. Out in the parking lot picnic tables stood by the restaurant door with a dozen flickering candle buckets on them.

Everything normal, except along the flat roofline of the concrete building the dark silhouette of a man with a rifle stood sentry. Another man with a long gun sat in a camp chair, smoking a cigarette, the burning ash visible a couple of hundred yards off. Not exactly the welcome wagon, but it didn't seem like anybody at the Dallas Pike Fuel Center was trying to hide anything. As if to allay suspicions, the pacing sentinel paused, leaned his rifle against the roof ledge, and lit his own cigarette. Then he used his lighter to light another row of bucket candles along the roofline. A sharp breeze blew out of the rugged hills—October nights were chilly up here in the mountains. The bucket candles flickered but didn't blow out.

“Do you smell it?” Billy asked.

Cheryl shook her head. “Can't smell a thing. No, wait—”

“Yeah,” Bea whispered. “Citronella. Citronella candles.”

A hopeful sign. “Guess they don't like mosquitoes either,” Bhakti said.

The three vehicles rolled into the truck stop parched for gas. The concrete apron in front of the pumps seemed oddly vacant. You half expected a mess of men in plaid shirts and guns to be standing guard. For a few moments, nothing happened. Then somebody inside the truck stop threw a switch, and
pang-pang-pang
the place lit up like shock and awe.

Heavy-duty floodlights on the corners of the building, an easy thousand watts apiece, hit the gang from six different directions. Inside every one of the cars, the light so blinding you couldn't see, like when a flashbulb goes off in your face, or the aliens' ship appears out of nowhere to zap you away—

A woman's voice from a loudspeaker barked,
“Show us your hands!”

Everyone in the three vehicles clamped their eyes closed and held up their hands for a long ninety seconds of silent observation, while their retinas burned from red to blue and back again. From the roof one of the sentries hollered, “Gosh darn it, Jilly, will you
warn us
next time? I can't hardly see up here.”

The woman's voice over the loudspeaker growled, “Oh, quit your bitchin'.”

Then
pang-pang-pang
the lights died. “Okay, if you could get out of the cars for us, we'd appreciate that.”

The travelers climbed from their vehicles, shielding their eyes; their sight began to return on waves of electric-blue optic shock. The door to the convenience jumped open, and a flock of kids burst out followed by their mom, Jilly.

“Hey, easy now!” she cautioned them. The swarm of scamps pranced around in a bewildering melee dressed up for Halloween. Only four kids, but it felt like forty: a fairy in pink ballet tights, a clown, a lamb, and the littlest of the four as a bunny rabbit, all clamoring at once, “Trick or treat! Trick or treat!”

Their mom, hillbilly Jilly, looked like she could have been Dolly Parton's sister, but without the sequined cowboy shirt. She carried a large plastic jack-o'-lantern; then set it down outside the double door and lit the lantern's citronella candle with a flick of a lighter.

Beatrice staggered out of the driver's seat, shaken by the sudden flash; the bright lights had hit her harder than the others. She snapped her brace so the game leg didn't fold and leaned heavily on the hood of the car. She delicately rubbed the side of her head. One of the ragamuffins bumped into her, and she slid along the car hood, groping for balance. Without thinking, Cheryl came to Big Bea's side.

“I'll be all right,” Bea whispered. “Bright lights shake me up. It passes.”

“
I said, you be polite!”
Jilly hollered at her children. And the imps quieted down a little.

“Don't you get suckered.” Their mom smiled. “My doodlebugs got more candy inside than they can eat in a month. Just a moment while we turn on the pumps. Good thing you're not looking for diesel; we only got about six hundred gallons left and we're considering taking it home for the furnace. Who the hell knows when we'll get another delivery. What'd you see back in Wheeling? Everybody standing around with their mouths open catching flies, hoping to get bit?”

Jilly seemed to know about that, so the rumor had taken on a life of its own.

“A lot of smoke,” Beatrice replied. “And blocked interstate exits like no one wanted strangers stopping by.”

“Suckers who think getting bit by skeeters will save them, right? Well, we don't believe everything that's on the net,” Jilly said. “And we use a lot of bug spray, for good measure. Where you headed, if it's any of my business?”

“We're trying to make New York tonight,” Cheryl said.

Jilly exhaled gravely. She glanced over at the tractor-trailers on the concrete apron, three of them still thrumming with power, their rig lights blazing. “You're braver than them. They were heading east too, but now they ain't so sure. Thinking maybe it's better to hole up here, until whatever blows over. Seems things in Pennsylvania aren't so good.”

The travelers pulled out of the Dallas Pike truck stop before night fell over the hills and hollows of West Virginia. Their short convoy lost some time over Allegheny Plateau. The pillars of smoke invisible in the dark, but the travelers smelled burning wood, burning rubber, and every so often the crushed velvet mountainsides were dotted with red-and-yellow flame. A house afire, a burning cornfield, or an abandoned town glowered into the cloudy night.

They took their chances on another fuel run a little east of Harrisburg. The caravan almost didn't stop, but desperation made them roll into an I-78 service area. Jilly knew the score, all right. Elements of the Pennsylvania National Guard were trying to keep order from Hershey to Hamburg. A lot of uniforms. A lot of guns in the hands of uniformed kids trying to stop a rash of gimme-takee. A sign read
BE PREPARED TO STOP.
Then the inevitable, implacable: “Could you pull over please? We'd like to perform a search. Please have your license and registration.”

Oh, this wasn't going to do at all. Guaranteed one of these soldier boys would find them with too many guns, too much medicine, and an Injun toting a hunk of frozen ear like a lodgepole scalp. The three vehicles crawled to a coned-off area of the parking lot. Three Guardsmen approached, two privates and an officer.

In the yellow Toyota 4Runner Cheryl took a deep breath. How to get out of this? Flash her LAPD union card? Like they'd care. Bhakti lost patience, smacking the dashboard with his palm, a futile gesture. He turned to Cheryl, angry and annoyed. “Do something! You're a cop. Can't you show them your badge?”

Rachel's ghost stared apprehensively out the window as the men drew closer. She caught Cheryl's eye. “Oy,” Rachel whispered. “This is starting to feel like white hoods and torches. I hope you remember how to do the goose-step two-step.”

To which Cheryl responded to both, “It wouldn't do any good. Not with these guys.” The Punjabi scientist looked like he was ready to boink. “Be still and try to look normal,” Cheryl told him. “I know it's an effort, but do it for Lila. Do it for Eleanor. Do it for me. Just keep a lid on it.”

Inside the white minivan, Billy Shadow approached a frustration point close to that of Bhakti. But totally controlled, his mind worked furiously, wondering if he could scoot back to the fridge and maybe hide some of the dicier items. That scalped ear, for sure. But for some reason, Billy didn't stir from the driver's seat, as Big Bea had already unlatched the Ford Torino's gleaming purple door and stepped out.

The soldiers were about ten yards away.

Big Bea stared at the men like one of those wise cowgirls you see in old Westerns. The solid sister of Randolph Scott; a steady hand who knows the score, knows how far she'll go and how far she'll let anyone push her around. She shut the Gran Torino door, showing no sign of weakness. She planted one hand on her holster and held up the other in warning, the message clear:
Halt.

So great was Bea's authority, one of the younger soldiers missed a step.

She fished some kind of ID out of her shirt pocket, flipped it open, and showed it to the Guardsmen, her arm outstretched. At first, the officer was not overly impressed, but he took a hand scanner out of his battle dress cargo pocket and ran it across the tough lady's identification. In three seconds, the scanner database verified her pedigree. The Guardsman whistled under his breath, mildly impressed. Beatrice nodded to the white minivan and yellow Toyota. “They're with me.”

The officer gave the woman a smart salute and waved to the other vehicles.