"My cell’s working again," Cat said.
Yeah, nowhere near as many people to clog the lines.
Cat punched a couple of buttons and held the phone to her ear. "Fourteen new messages," she said. She listened, nodding, then got off the couch and paced in little circles around the room. She paused against the far wall, biting her lip, still nodding. "My mom," she said. She ran a hand through her hair. A minute later, she lifted her head, still listening, and said, "My sister." More nodding. "Mom again."
Once the messages had finished, she flipped her phone shut and said, "Ten calls from mom, a couple from my sister, and a couple from girls back home. They never called before, not once, since I left, you know? Shit. I gotta call home. Mom, at least. I just don’t feel like it, though. I want to keep my head straight, and if she starts going all crazy, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that."
"Maybe they’ve heard something. Maybe there’s something on TV."
"That’s what she said. Sounds sketchy, though. Breaking news type stuff. Should I turn on the tube?" She reached for the dial, but Steve stopped her. Down in his gut, it seemed like the blue glow of a television would be the perfect beacon for the army of zombies outside.
"Let’s hold off on the TV for now," he said, and she didn’t argue. She held the phone at arm’s length, staring at it like it was a giant pill she needed to swallow.
"Your family sounds all right," Steve said. "I mean, it sounds like they really care."
She nodded again. "They’re great. It’s tough to hear them, though, you know? Mom crying and Dad all upset. He’s got high blood pressure already."
"That sucks," Steve said. "Guess you’d better give them a call, then, just so they know you’re okay."
"Am I okay?"
"Of course," he said. "You’re with me, baby." He gave her his cheesiest smile and she laughed, both of them playing the game, making the best of a decidedly bad situation because there was nothing else to do. Cat crossed the room and stood in the gloomy doorway that opened into a darkened kitchen. She got in touch with her mother right away. Steve stayed on the couch, thinking of his own family.
His father had died when Steve was just a kid, and his mother would be in bed by now. She and Steve didn’t talk much. She’d had it rough growing up and rough as an adult, so in her eyes, he’d always had it super-easy. A car at sixteen, college paid through an account she’d set up with the insurance left by his father. And then there were all the goodies his drug money bought. Phone, IPOD, stereo system, nice clothes, a Rolex. She eyed these bits of flair with obvious suspicion, and once, when he was home over some holiday or another, sleeping late, she’d shaken him awake, an uncapped container of detergent in one hand, a wad of bills in the other. "Where are you getting this money?" she’d asked. "How did you get all of this cash?"
He was hung over, and her voice made his head pound. "Odd jobs?"
"Odd jobs, my ass," she said and threw the money at him.
He would love to pass her a fat wad of bills, tell her, Mom, take a vacation on me, a long cruise. All inclusive. Get a dining room set, too. She still had the beat-ass furniture she’d had since before he was born. But that wouldn’t do. His mother was a sharp old bird, and she had to know he was dealing.
What a crazy world. She’d worked her ass off her whole life and barely had two pennies to rub together, always putting him and Tim first, making sure they had it easier than she had, then ended up feeling resentment toward them—well, toward Steve, anyway—for having it easy. Just thinking about it, even here, under these conditions, kicked Steve’s temper in the pants.
At least she cared, he reasoned. Tim probably wouldn’t call at all. Tim was a jock, way into lacrosse, and had a reading-based learning disability that had made school pretty tough on him, so growing up, all kinds of weird psychological misconnections ran between them. The one thing they agreed on was that Tim would have made a better older brother than Steve.
Now Tim was a cop back in the Burgh, a cop who said if it weren’t for their mom, he’d bust Steve in a heartbeat. What a lovely discussion that had been. Apparently, a couple of assholes back home started busting Tim’s balls about his brother selling drugs. This was just after Tim started working as a township cop. He was real ramrod, old Tim, one of those take-a-bullet-for-the-president types that didn’t have the qualifications for the secret service, FBI, ATF, CIA, state cops, or game commission. This little township police force was going to be point A and point Z for him, and Steve always figured it pissed Tim off, being stuck like that. To Tim’s credit, though, he’d bucked up, kept his brown uniform all crisp and square, and ran everything by the book.
Also to his credit, Tim had waited to talk to Steve about what he’d heard until he saw him in person. It was Christmas break. Steve, the perpetual student, was home for a few days, and he noticed right away that Tim was acting weird, all pissy and quiet and drinking too much, too fast, just sitting there grinding his teeth, not even laughing when Steve goosed their mom or cracked jokes, even good ones. At first, Steve figured Tim was just bitter about his job prospects. Steve had heard from his mom about the app Tim had sent to the state police coming back thumbs down. Shit, that was a bummer, but what the hell? Why be such a sourpuss about the whole thing? Why ruin everybody else’s good time?
Well, later on that evening, just when Steve was getting ready to confront his brother, tell him to get his head out of his ass and have a little fun, Tim pushed him up against the washers in the back of the house, and bunched Steve’s shirt in his fists, staring him in the eyes and breathing hard in his face like he was going to cry, the smell of alcohol strong on his breath. "Why?"
"What?" Steve hadn’t seen it coming, and looking back, he felt stupid. Denial, maybe.
Tim gave him another shake, and Steve said, "Why what? What are you talking about, you goddamned lunatic?" He’d been distracted, spinning an ornament he found in a box of old Christmas decorations his mother had piled on top of the dryer. He’d forgotten all about this ornament, how he’d made it in art class during third grade, using shellac to wrap and freeze a torn photo of his father and him around a generic ball.
The next thing he knew, he was up against the washer, and Tim was right in his face, lips clamped, eyes dark and dangerous, boring into Steve’s. "I heard all about it," he said, "what you’re doing up at school."
Steve shook free, told Tim to chill out, and they went back and forth a little, Tim badgering him, Steve trying to slip his accusations, but in the end, Steve just didn’t have the sap to keep the game going. He shouldered past him and said, "Look, you think what you want, but it’s none of your fucking business, all right? And keep Mom out of it, super trooper."
That’s when Tim punched him, hard in the gut.
They hadn’t fought since high school, but they made up for lost time, punching and kicking and wrestling. Steve was shocked at Tim’s strength, his fury, until their mother had come into the laundry room, shrieking and lashing out at them with a broom. It was bad. Both of them were hurt, faces cut and lips split, and there was blood on the walls and on the floor, and both of them stood there, grinning but near tears, eyeing each other like vicious dogs, both of them spitting red into the laundry sink while their mother continued to shriek at them, incredulous. To Tim’s credit, he didn’t say shit about drugs.
Steve noticed the ornament broken on the floor, the face of his father covered in shattered bulb.
Steve spat one more time, grabbed his jacket off the hook, and went out the door. He drove around and called a few people and finally ended up crashing at a trailer on the edge of town with this girl Kim he used to tap in high school. She was cool, but she’d gotten fat, and she had a kid and this smelly little cocker spaniel, and the whole scene depressed the hell out of Steve, not so much for his own sake but for the girl and her kid, stuck here in this dirty little trailer with Budweiser posters and folding lawn chairs and a little-ass Christmas tree with way too much tinsel and people stopping
by all the time. The place smelled like fried grease and diapers, and Steve couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the Burgh and back to school. He got drunk and high and banged Kim, and then the dog’s farts woke him in the night, and he peeled the fuck out of there, leaving a couple hundred bucks on her pillow.
It was a few weeks before he returned his mom’s calls. He didn’t call Tim. Tim didn’t call him.
Standing here in Cat’s living room, Steve was surprised at the power of this memory, of the sadness it brought. Almost a year, and he hadn’t heard shit from Tim or done anything on his own end to patch things up, either. Why? Was he really as selfish as Tim said? Did he only care about himself?
"You’re gonna break Mom’s heart," Tim had sneered at him, between punches. It pained Steve now to remember his brother’s face at that moment, to remember how Tim had tears springing from the corners of his eyes. Tim, crying. The kid never cried, not since they were little, when, convinced he was stupid but strong, he vowed he’d never cry again.
Shit. That’s it, Steve thought. He’d call Tim as soon as everything settled down here. Definitely. Fuck pride. He had to make things right…as right as could be, anyway.
Cat finished her call. "Well," she said, "I’m glad that’s over. Mom’s a basket case, and I had to talk Dad out of driving up here. Mom was in the background, saying how the roads are blocked anyway, but, well, you don’t know my dad."
Steve nodded, considering Cat’s strength. "I can imagine."
"It’s all over the news. They don’t know what’s happening, but they’ve got the town all blocked off, and the National Guard’s on its way. Other soldiers, too. And like ten million cops."
"Got someplace I can hide my stash?" he asked.
"No problem," she said, and they wrapped most of it up in a tee shirt and tucked it down in the springs of the old couch. "Look on the bright side. If your friend, the crazy one, is right, and this turns out to be our personal apocalypse, at least we can smoke the couch." She popped onto her tiptoes, gave him a quick, playful kiss, leaving him wanting more, and padded across the room to the kitchen, where she shut the short curtains above the sink and opened the refrigerator door, bathing the room in low illumination. "Hungry? We don’t have much, but there’s some stuff in here and in the pantry." She pointed toward the closet door in the corner of the room. "Spaghetti. Half a cheese steak."
Steve opened the closet.
The shelves were pretty well stocked for a college place. Mostly junk food, of course. The hottest girls Steve knew lived almost exclusively on it. Seeing the sack of sour cream and onion chips, he thought the night might turn out all right after all. Quarantined with weed, chips, and an exceedingly fine piece of ass.
Then, his eyes still locked on the green of the sour cream and onion chip bag, Steve heard the bottle opener, a cap struck the linoleum behind him, and everything clicked.
"No!" he shouted and spun from the pantry, dropping the chips.
In the dull light of the fridge, Cat had her head back, tilting the beer, swallowing.
He swatted the beer, and it flew from her hands, smashing on the far wall.
Cat backed away, eyes wide, and swept the knife off the counter. "What the fuck, Steve? What’s wrong with you?"
He held his hands out, palms showing. "It’s the beer."
"Are you crazy? What are you talking about?"
Steve laughed.
She stared at him with frightened eyes.
It was bad timing, laughing now, with beer foaming all over the place and Cat pointing the knife at him, especially with nothing she’d see as humorous going on, but it always worked that way during these rare moments of intuitive epiphany. The sense of knowing welled up inside him, often complete, coming in a rush that left him almost giddy.
She took a step back, raising the knife a little. "Stay back."
"Fuck…no. Put down the knife, Cat," he said, keeping his hands out in front of him and taking care not to step forward, not wanting her to feel threatened in any way. He forced the smile from his face and kept his voice calm. "Look, sorry about all that, but I think…don’t ask me how I know this, but I was standing there in the pantry, I heard the opener, and…shit, Cat, how much of that did you drink, anyway?"
"A few swallows. Steve, what’s going on? You’re scaring the shit out of me."
Steve ran his hands through his hair and started pacing around the kitchen. "It’s the beer, I think, that’s making people crazy." And saying it, he felt even surer.
"The beer?"
"Maybe just Cougar piss. Somebody must have dosed it at the brewery. Put some crazy drug in there. It makes sense. Think about it. All the people we saw. Think about how much Cougar piss this town goes through on a football weekend. Shit, I know it." He stopped pacing, looked at her, the knife. "Cat, how are you feeling?"
"Fine," she said. "Freaked out, but fine. I’m not taking any chances, though." She set the knife on the counter, leaned over the sink, and stuck her finger down her throat. She gagged once, twice, and finally heaved. Then she ran the water, spitting, and washed her face.
Toweling off, she said, "There. God, I hate puking."
He rubbed her back, and they looked at each other and at the knife and neither of them talked for a while. Then they went into the dark living room, sat on the couch together, and waited without saying they were waiting.
This is the way the world ends, Steve thought. Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but sitting quietly on the couch together.
They sat like this, silent in a silent room, until they heard someone trying to get in the back door.
Chapter 23
Feeling broken, Demetrius stared up through the black bars of the tree’s upper branches at the clearing sky, where thinning clouds gave way to hard-dark star-glittering skies. I’m alive. He needed to repeat it over and over before it would sink in. I’m alive.
He turned his head, pleased to find that his neck hadn’t broken in the fall. His gaze scaled the library to the bright rectangle that was the window from which he’d leapt. Rough, jagged glass framed the edges. He focused on the short length of hose and the faint powder blossoms where bullets had pocked the surrounding bricks.
I’m alive.
Since the jump, the shooter hadn’t fired another shot. Maybe he thought the fall was fatal. Maybe he left the rooftop. Maybe he simply didn’t care, not with so many targets coming and going. Or maybe he was panning the tree and ground with his scope this very second, waiting for Demetrius to move.
Okay, then, don’t move. Lie still. For now, that sounded fine and dandy, anyway. Moving hurt too damn much.
His hands were sticky with blood, the right palm slashed from wielding the shard of glass. His eye was swollen nearly shut, and blood and mucus packed his surely broken nose and the fall had knocked the wind out of him and bruised his back, ribs, and shoulder. None of that mattered, though. What mattered was he was alive, alive and pretty much unbroken. He’d gotten lucky. That’s all there was to it.
Thirty feet below, milling amid winking shards of glass, four or five crazies stared up at him, one of them making cooing sounds. Another, a spindly looking girl whose glasses glowed like twin flashlights in the illumination of an adjacent sodium arc pole light, jumped at the end of the hose depending from Demetrius’s waist. She clawed the air, hit the ground, and jumped again, bounding up and down like a terrier. The hose was well over her head, though. More luck there. Watching her and the cooing idiot, Demetrius knew the truth. If he had whacked and tumbled and spun the rest of the way through the limbs, he would have zipped into a three-story free fall and hit the ground hard enough to break anything the tree had left intact, giving that little crew of crazies down there an all-they-could-eat buffet.
He shifted position, keeping his movement steady and subtle, and scanned the dark line where the face of the chemistry building met the moon-bright sky. Raking his eyes back and forth, he saw no silhouette, no huddled mound of shadow, no barrel-line protrus
ion jutting sticklike against the sky.
No sign of the shooter.
He decided he would just lie still and assume the shooter could see him, whether he could see the shooter or not. He’d lie still and wait, get his head together.
What was the scope of this thing? How many people were affected? Was it contained to College Heights, or was it happening elsewhere, everywhere? And why, when just about everyone seemed to have gone completely psychotic, did he feel unaffected? It wasn’t age that had saved him—Eileen, Brian, Boyd, and Miranda, traditional students all, had also remained sane—and it hadn’t been race or gender, either. He hoped the others were all right. Then he thought of Brian, who was most decidedly not all right, and remembered the bad, stupid end he’d made in the elevator. Shit. That kid had been smart, motivated.
He couldn’t dwell on them. For now, he had to get out of this tree before Lee Harvey Oswald started shooting again or somebody handed Terrier Girl a ladder.
The first point, then, was to get moving.
The second: get out of the tree without making too much commotion or breaking his ass in half.
The third: avoid the welcome wagon.
The fourth: don’t underestimate these kids. They had changed. Now they knew enough to use weapons, to feint with one hand and strike with the other. They were strong and fast and undeterred by pain. Thinking of them as weak and cocky credit card brats would get him killed.
He wondered what Sam was up to. Passed out cold, probably. Or hung over. Or dead. Or crazy. That last thought, of Sam, out on the streets, reaping, didn’t sit well. Not one bit. Demetrius hoped—
Bang!
Demetrius flinched instinctively. Down below, Terrier Girl had stopped jumping. Now she lay on the ground, her brains smeared on the grass like bug on a windshield.
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