End Time (68 page)

“Don't forget to take those acidophilus pills,” the lady cop told him. “I shot you full of enough bread mold to kill off half your stomach lining.”

“I'll remember,” Guy croaked.

The women decided on the yellow Blue Bird school bus with the big red plow parked in maintenance. The antique ran on diesel; a sixty-gallon tank might get them almost there, six hundred miles without refueling. Nevertheless, they planned to fill as many five-gallon fuel containers as they could scrounge with extra juice so they could top off along the way. Still, it would be close.

It fell to Cheryl and Beatrice to get the diesel into the bus' fuel tank. On a nice warm day in June no problem; drive around the corner to maintenance, stick the nozzle in the tank. But at the crack of dawn on half a night's sleep, the job turned three kinds of nasty. The garage pump was a snowman with a frozen lock on it. The wind picked up, gusts to 15 mph then 20 mph that almost peeled the skin off your face. You couldn't see past the edge of the maintenance garage. A white squall.

Big Bea got growly quick when Cheryl had trouble working the key to the pump lock and discovered the slot jammed with ice. No point in banging the thing. Cheryl found some antifreeze in the garage, dipped the key in that, and after a bit of jiggling got it open. By that time Beatrice, downright snarly, sagged on her bad leg, and her face had gone gray.

“Go inside and sit down,” Cheryl told her over the wind.

“Sure,” Bea grumped back at her as she stumped into maintenance. “Let's see if that clunker starts. Where'd you say the bus key was at?”

Beatrice found it in the adjoining security office; apparently those silent watchers became scarce when people with guns showed up. She made a mental note to leave Guy and Lauren a pistola and plenty of ammo.

After two tries the Blue Bird bus turned over with a throaty roar. Beatrice found an ancient garage door clicker tucked behind the windshield flap and pressed the button. The massive electric door at the end of the bay rumbled upward. A single figure stood in the white light. Billy Shadow in his overalls and fur-trimmed parka, the only things missing were a fish spear and a kayak. She gunned the Blue Bird and it lurched forward. She yanked the hydraulic passenger door lever to let Nanook of the North climb inside.

“Let's get the chains on this baby, the tank topped off, and on the road,” Billy said. He brushed white crystals off his eyebrows. “And drop that cowcatcher a notch or two; there has to be half a foot out there already.”

Beatrice pulled up to where the tire chains hung on the garage bay wall. Thank God they didn't have to put the chains on outside. She glanced at Billy and again at the chains on the wall. Smiling wryly, “I love a man around the house.”

*   *   *

Snow flew past the steamy bus windows; Billy hovered between sleep and waking. Through half-closed eyes, he watched the endless stretch of Interstate 84 West. From Connecticut to the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge, they'd seen no traffic of any kind. The bus cruised past the empty eastbound tollbooths on rattling tire chains, while the wind whipped snow over the span and into the Hudson below, the river black as sin.

Beatrice roused Billy for a spell and he took the wheel through Pennsylvania. The land rose and fell over rolling hills, then wound toward the sharp granite cleft of blue-collar Wilkes-Barre. Only a few days ago fires had lit dark forest and a darker sky. This time the hills were an endless white wasteland where nothing moved. The roar of the bus drummed into his head; the sharp plow split the snow like the prow of a ship. Billy pushed the bus to 55 and 60 mph, the chains clacking away underneath him. Frost glazed the windshield, making him peer into the thick air as though through fogged eyeglasses, and the vehicle's antenna sang as the wind played it like a harp. Every twenty miles Billy pulled over, scraped the ice off the windshield, and then climbed back inside.

In normal weather going from Connecticut to Ohio took about twelve hours, but in a snowstorm the trip took longer. Sixteen hours all told, including potty stops in snowbound rest areas. Billy, Big Bea, or Cheryl stood guard outside the stalls while they each took turns, but they need not have bothered. No one was around.

The blizzard seemed to come and go; during the whiteouts the bus crawled. When the wind eased, they used the plow to push abandoned vehicles or wrecks out of the way. A miracle they hadn't broken down or slammed into a guardrail.

For the last couple of hours, Eleanor sat in the rear with the urn of Janet's ashes wedged in beside her; she'd found her own pad and pencil, her own little diary, and grimly sat there muttering to herself and drawing that same M. C. Escher creature again, just like young Alice. Only in Eleanor's case she kept going over and over the pencil lines, making the little armored worms darker and darker until her pencil wore through the paper and onto the next page.

Eleanor had almost reverted to the manic state of months ago when she woke up after Pi R Squared robot surgery and crawled out the meat seam. When she'd driven off into the rain and pulled into a Dairy Queen to work on herself with a plastic spoon. Now the time had come to rip something living from Pi R's uterus. Her fingers frittered away, scribble-scribble, conversing all the while with her poor dead husband.

“Yes, Bhakti, I understand. I know why they want the children. I understand why they want Lila Chen.”

A pause.

“You want me to repeat it all again?” Eleanor sighed. “All right, stop interrupting. Through Lila Chen they can enhance our physiological profile, make überhumans through gene mutation. With the little fortune-teller girl they can sharpen the species with combined clairvoyance and remote viewing. But not for everyone, just the chosen few. While millions of slaves serve the Celestials. The Anointed. Am I right?”

She seemed to listen, finally replying, “No, I don't expect you to fix it all yourself.”

A longer pause, then:

“I miss you too.” Then whispering so no one could hear, “It's so good to see you again.”

Finally, the pencil point snapped on the overworked paper. Eleanor looked around the bus, agitated, annoyed. “Are we there yet?”

Was the poor lady going cuckoo the closer they got to Ohio? From another part of the bus, Cheryl's voice rose over the clanking tire chains.

“Yes, Eleanor. Almost there.”

Rachel's ghostie reclined nearby, lounging over a couple of seats like a teenager who won't sit up straight. Cheryl's bestest girlie gazed dismally at half-mad Eleanor, shrugged, and gazed blankly at the snow streaming past the window. No doubt she could see Bhakti well enough herself.

“Since your pal Bhakti got his knickers in a twist everything's haywire,” Rachel remarked to Cheryl offhand. “I kept after him for a while, making sure he didn't do anything too crazy, but now he's blocking me. And I'm stuck. Stuck right here with you.” She paused, absorbing the dreary surroundings of the bus again. “I don't know why I'm hanging around. I don't know why I can't just go. I'm dead, and I haven't a clue what God wants.” Rachel looked down at her skimpy hospital gown. “And I
still
don't have anything good to wear.”

Cheryl cleared her throat but said nothing. Wise enough to know you could never soothe a woman who felt ill-dressed for an occasion.

The bus bumped like an angry bronco, and Beatrice dropped into a nearby seat. The large woman reached over and touched Cheryl's wrist. Bea was only trying to reach across the last few inches that separated them. Silently, Cheryl nodded back at her friend and pressed her wrist too, as if to say,
Yeah, I understand.
Rachel stared from her seat, going from envy to loneliness to sympathy all in a few moments.

“Well, I'm just glad you're here,” Cheryl said to both.

*   *   *

Dusk came, and then nightfall; they crossed the Susquehanna, another black river.

By then Cheryl was driving and Billy's eyes had rolled into his head again.

*   *   *

He stood on the path to Granny Sparrow's trailer.

Instead of curled in bed sick and afraid, Granny waited for him on the top of those creaky wooden steps. An inch of snow had fallen on the ground, and more descended in peaceful spirals. Billy looked at Granny's wrinkled paw as it emerged from the ghost dancer shirt. He took her hand and let her lead him through the buffalo grass into the Black Hills, dusted in white.

They stood overlooking a rocky hollow. In an arena of stone, Lakota braves had made a teepee fire by a stunted cottonwood tree. A medicine man with a face older than Granny's beat time on a drum with feathered drumsticks as the snow fell in lazy spirals. The fire burned brightly. The warriors, naked to the waist, circled the drummer's fire. Their chests were painted yellow and blue; porcupine quills hung from their stamping knees, clacking to their chant. Billy heard them indistinctly, but sensed they sang of pain and loss as their words vanished into the air on puffs of breath and smoke. He watched as the spirits, the ghosts of the Ghost Dancers, chanted out of the long past as if their bones still cried from the earth, while the buffalo grass shivered in the wind.

“They're calling the rabbits to save the People,” Granny Sparrow said into Billy's ear. “For every rabbit that thumps its bunny paw another baby lives.”

Billy looked into the old woman's wrinkled face.

“That can't be right, Granny. We never had a Rabbit Chant. That's something you made up. Come on, tell me the truth.”

Her kind, wrinkled face smiled kindly back at him; she stroked his wrist with her soft fingers:

“I always tell you the truth, Wakanisha. You're my little Easter Bunny, my little Bunny Thumper.” Billy knew that word.
Wakanisha
meant “Sacredness,” but Bunny Thumper? He almost laughed. A pale white face floated into his silly dream. Big Bea hovered over him in the clanking bus, her meaty hand on his shoulder. He glanced out the streaked window and listened to the rumble of plowed snow sluicing past.

“Wake up. We're getting close now. Your turn to drive again.”

The three women silently watched the back of Billy's head as he lowered himself into the driver's seat. With both hands on the wheel he stared straight out, concentrating on the dangerous icy road—alert, but not tense. You could tell he'd handled a lot of different vehicles; no white-knuckle driver. The bus headlights pierced the night, and the white snow swirled in every direction. On this last stretch the wipers flashed
whap-whap-whap,
leaving streaks on the windshield. As the snow increased the closer they got to the meatpacking plant, Billy's fingers tensed on the wheel, then relaxed, then tensed again.

There was something about this guy.… Maybe it was his quiet command. Billy Shadow could make you think everything was going to turn out all right. Something most men never did. People talk about animal magnetism; this guy had animal courage.

The bus swayed and rocked them against the cold window.

Billy's shoulders were hunched a little, tense now. As they closed in on the Whiteside Meatpacking Plant, they climbed a switchback toward the factory. Everyone in the bus saw a faint light thrown against the smokestacks. One more twist of the switchback and the top of the battered chain link came into view, snow-laden vines coiled over barbed wire. A few compound lights on the high stanchions cast a pale glow.

Which is when the tire chains lost it.

Pong
and the bus shimmied sideways. The wheels spun into the icy muck, and the bus slowly slid backwards. Eyes scared wide, everyone cried, “No!”

Headlight beams glanced strangely off the switchback walls as the Blue Bird skidded down the slope. Helpless at the wheel, Billy stared at his white knuckles. The bus was going to pop over a switchback, roll all the way to the bottom. They all knew it; they all felt it. The sound of metal grinding on rock shrieked like giant fingernails against a blackboard. The Blue Bird bus jerked to a halt, flinging its riders like rag dolls in their seats. What the—?

That big red cowcatcher plow had dug its way into the slope and caught an edge, wedging the bus into the hillside.

“Are we there yet?” Eleanor repeated; then soberly, to the metallic urn wedged in beside her, “I think we're here, Janet. Don't you go anywhere. I'll be right back.” She paused, waiting for Janet's ashes to answer.

“Or do you want to come along?”

 

41

You Really Don't Want to Know

Under the factory smokestacks, the shabby side door under the bare lightbulb stood ajar. The group had slogged up from the last switchback with as much gear as they could carry: Billy with a rifle, the gals with handguns, gas cans, and bottles. Molotov cocktail fixings.

“Follow me,” Eleanor said in a normal tone of voice, leading the others into the tunnel.

“Y'know, maybe we weren't thinking straight,” Billy said. “A sophisticated facility like this must have some kind of Halon fire-control system, some kind of automatic spray.” He let that sink in for a moment. “Gasoline might be totally useless.”

Beatrice realized how unprepared they were. “Maybe we should have raided a National Guard armory,” she growled. “Or a construction site.”

“Well,” Cheryl remarked. “There's nothing here—”

Click-Click
. Everyone fell silent.

They weren't alone.

Again:
Click-Click.

Flashlight beams crossed like shining sabers. The tunnel roof:

Click—

Their first Rolpen.

The creature was only about eight inches long, its pearl-colored exoskeleton segmented into that familiar nautilus armor plating. The hybrid clung to the ceiling upside down and stared incuriously at them with glassy emerald eyes. Unlike the funky M. C. Escher lithograph, a pair of tiny emaciated human hands clung to the tunnel roof, while toward the tail elongated human vulture toes did the same. The parrot beak went
Click-Click
again. Cheryl drew her weapon, took a step back, and aimed point-blank at the tunnel roof.