Year One

by Nora Roberts

  hope’s just a lie in soft focus. You lie in soft focus. I have two dead ex-wives now, and my son … my son’s dead. It’s all over, and they’re coming for the rest of us, so there’s no point. I’d be doing you a favor.”

  He turned the gun back to Arlys, cocking his head. “Think about what the demons might do to a young, pretty woman like you. Do you want to risk that?”

  “I don’t believe in demons.”

  “You will.” He turned to the camera. “You all will, when it’s too late. It’s already too late. This is Bob Barrett, signing off.”

  He put the gun under his chin, pulled the trigger.

  Blood splattered, a shock of warm and wet, on Arlys’s face even as Bob fell back in the coanchor chair.

  She heard—that same bad connection—Fred’s scream, the shouts. For three banging seconds, her vision grayed.

  She lifted a trembling hand. “Don’t cut the feed.”

  She felt Jim’s hands grip her. “Come with me, Arlys. Come on with me.”

  “No, no, please.” She tipped her face to his, saw tears sliding down his cheeks. “I need to … On me, Steve,” she told the cameraman. “Please. Bob Barrett built an illustrious, admirable career as a journalist with his ethics, his integrity, his no-bullshit style, his dedication to serving the ethos of the Fourth Estate, to serving the truth. His son, Marshall, was … seventeen.”

  “Eighteen,” Jim corrected.

  “Eighteen. I didn’t know Marshall had died, and can only speculate how Bob suffered with his great, personal loss in the last several days. Today, he succumbed to his grief, and we who try to serve the truth, who try to mirror his ethics and integrity, suffer a great, personal loss. He shouldn’t be remembered for his last moments of despair. And even in them, even in them, he showed me I still have a long way to go to reach his level. In tribute to him, I’m going to serve up the truth.”

  She knuckled a tear away, saw the red smear of blood, let out a breathy moan.

  “I have to.” She looked directly at the camera, hoped—prayed—Chuck was watching. “I have information from a source I consider absolutely reliable. I’ve had this information since early this morning, and I withheld it. I withheld it from my boss, from my coworkers, and from all of you. I apologize, and offer no excuse. Contrary to the information and numbers given to the media by the World Health Organization in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, the death count as of this morning from H5N1-X is more than two billion. This is one-third of the world population, and does not include deaths from murder, suicide, or accidents connected to the virus.”

  Under the desk, she forced her hands to release their fists, continued to stare into the camera.

  “Again, contrary to what is being reported, the progress on the vaccine has stalled as the virus has, again, mutated. There is no vaccine at this time. Moreover, the virus itself has not yet been identified. Previous reports categorizing H5N1-X as a new strain of avian flu are false.”

  She paused, fought to find her center. “All evidence indicates that only humans are affected. Recently sworn-in President Ronald Carnegie contracted H5N1-X, and succumbed to it yesterday. Former Secretary of Agriculture Sally MacBride has been sworn in as president. President MacBride is forty-four, a Yale graduate—summa cum laude—and prior to accepting the cabinet position had served two terms in the United States Senate from the state of Kansas. President MacBride’s husband of sixteen years, Peter Laster, died in week two of the pandemic. Her two children—Julian, age fourteen, and Sarah, age twelve—are reported to be alive and in a safe location. I can’t, at this time, verify the veracity of that information.”

  She reached for the water bottle she’d set out of camera range, look a long drink. She saw Carol weeping silently, Jim’s arm around her. Fred stood beside them, a hand stroking Carol’s back as she nodded at Arlys.

  “I have further information that military forces—I can’t verify under what authority—have begun sweeps to find those of us who appear to be immune, and to quarantine the immune in unspecified locations for testing. This will not be voluntary. It will be, essentially, martial law.

  “I don’t believe in demons. That isn’t a lie. But I have seen what was once the unbelievable. I’ve seen the beauty and the wonder of it. I believe what we’ve termed the Uncanny—there is light and dark in them, as there is light and dark in all of us—will also be swept up and detained and tested. And, I fear, that what H5N1-X leaves us, all of us, will not destroy us, but the fear and violence it breeds in those of us who give in to it—the forced restrictions on freedom—could.”

  She paused, took a breath, looked over at Jim, gave him a signal to be ready to cut the feed. With a nod, he murmured to Carol. She shook her head.

  “I’ll do it,” Carol murmured, walking off to go back to the booth.

  “I held this information knowing if and when I broadcasted it, it would very likely be the last broadcast from this station. That I would endanger my coworkers. And further, I let myself lower the bar on my expectations of the human race. I told myself it wouldn’t matter if you knew, if I told the truth. I apologize for that. And I commend everyone with me in this studio for risking everything to get the truth. To all of you, don’t give in to fear, to grief, to despair. Survive.

  “I’ll find a way to reach you again, with truth. For now, this is Arlys Reid, signing off.”

  She sat back, hitched in a breath. “I’m sorry, Jim.”

  “No, forget that.” He moved to her when she looked over at Bob, slumped in his chair, blood soaked through his shirt.

  “Oh God. Oh God.”

  “Come away now. I’ll take care of him. I’ll take care of him.”

  “I had to do it.” Shaking, quaking, she let him steer her away. “Bob killed himself. He was wrong, he was wrong, but he was right about the lies. I was part of the lies. I couldn’t keep lying after … Now they’ll shut us down. You did so much to keep us up, and—”

  “It was going to happen sooner or later. You got the truth out before we go dark. You need to go, Arlys. If you go home, they’ll likely come for you there.”

  “I … I have a place nobody knows about.”

  “All right. What do you need?”

  “I need to destroy the computer I’ve been using. My source told me how.”

  “All right. Do that. Fred, get Arlys some supplies.”

  “I’m going with her,” Fred told him.

  “Enough for two then,” Jim said without missing a beat. “Fred, you can get both of you some clothes out of wardrobe.” As he spoke, Jim unbuttoned the blood-spattered jacket Arlys wore. “I’ll take care of the rest. We probably don’t have a lot of time.”

  Arlys went straight to the computer, her hands shaking. She couldn’t destroy her notes, just couldn’t, so she stuffed them into her briefcase before following the steps Chuck had outlined.

  Basically, he’d explained, she’d give the computer a virus, and everything on it would be wiped away. Then she was to remove the hard drive, and … smash the shit out of it, in Chuck’s words, with a hammer.

  Even with that, some genius cyber freak might dig out something, but—according to Chuck—by then it wouldn’t matter.

  She had to change her shirt—more of Bob’s blood—clean off the blood and the TV makeup. Fred rushed in, snagged some eyeliners, lipsticks, mascaras.

  “Nobody’s going to use it around here so we might as well take it.”

  “Really? I think pretty faces are going to be the least of it.”

  “Pretty’s never least.” Fred stuffed makeup in her pockets. “Jim says we should hurry, we should go.”

  She grabbed her coat on the fly, found Steve waiting. He offered two backpacks. “These got left behind when people stopped coming back.”

  “Thanks.” Arlys shrugged hers on, looking over at Jim and Carol. “Come with us. You should all come with us.”

  “I’ve got things to d
o here. If they come before I’m done, I know ways out.”

  “I’m with Jim,” Carol told her. “We’re going to close down right.”

  “I need to go home. I’m going to give them a hand, then I’m going home. Good luck.” Steve offered a hand.

  Arlys ignored it, wrapped her arms around him, then the others.

  “We’re going to—”

  “Don’t tell us,” Jim interrupted. “We can’t tell anyone what we don’t know. Be careful.”

  “We will. I’ll find a way,” she promised.

  “If anyone can.”

  They went out, down the stairwell.

  “You were really brave. With Bob. He just, you know, lost it, and you were really brave.”

  “I wasn’t. It was mostly shock. And then it was shame because he said I was lying, and I was, even if he didn’t know about what, I was lying.”

  “I think you need to cut yourself a break there.”

  “A journalist—”

  “Kind of an apocalypse going on right now,” Fred reminded her, “so everybody gets cut a break.”

  When they reached the lobby, the dark of night had fallen. Arlys headed for the door, paused.

  “I didn’t question why nobody’s busted in here. I’ve just been glad no one did. Did you do something? Like with the market?”

  “I had help. It’s a lot bigger than the market. You probably didn’t look up high enough to see the symbols. It won’t last forever, but it’s holding so far.”

  “You’re full of surprises, Fred. Will it keep out the cops, the military, whoever tries to get in?”

  “I didn’t think of that!” Doing a hip wiggle, Fred punched Arlys’s arm lightly. “I think so. I’m not absolutely a hundred percent, but yeah, they’d mean harm, right? Maybe some of them, it’s just duty, but even then … I think ninety percent. No, eighty-five.”

  “I’ll take it. Let’s go.”

  “Where, exactly?”

  “Hoboken.”

  “Yeah? I went to an art fair there once. How are we getting there?”

  “We’re taking the PATH.”

  “None of the subways are running.”

  “The tracks are still there. We’re hiking it. We head to the Thirty-third Street station, go down, follow the tracks. It’ll take us awhile.” They slipped out, headed west again, trying to keep out of the glow from any of the streetlights still operating. “But we’ve got time. My source isn’t going to meet us until three a.m.”

  “We’re meeting up with your source? Excellent! I never met with a source.”

  “Don’t get too excited. I’m counting on having understood his code about where and when—and that he watched the broadcast so he knows I’m coming. If any of that didn’t pan out? We’ll have to keep going. I need to get to Ohio.”

  “I’ve never been to Ohio.” Fred shot Arlys a sunny smile. “I bet it’s nice.”

  * * *

  Lana wept in her dreams. She sat under a dead tree with skeletal branches jutting toward a starless sky. Everything dark and dead, her own body and mind aching, exhausted.

  Nowhere to go, she thought, in a world so full of hate and death, so swollen with grief.

  She was too tired to go on pretending, to walk another step. She’d lost everything, and the hate would hunt her to the grave. What point was there in fighting it?

  “You don’t have time for this.”

  Lana looked up.

  A young woman stood over her, hands fisted on her hips. Raven black hair cut short and sharp formed a dark halo around her head. Though she wore black, she was light. Luminous. In the moonless dark, she shimmered with light.

  She stood slim and straight, a rifle slung over her shoulder, a quiver on her back, a knife sheath on her belt.

  With them, she carried a palpable strength and an almost careless beauty.

  “I’m tired,” Lana told her.

  “Then stop wasting your energy on tears. Get up, get moving.”

  “For what? To what?”

  “For your life, for the world. To your destiny.”

  “There is no world.”

  The woman crouched so they were eye to eye. “Am I here? Are you? One person can make a world, and we’re two. There are more. You have power in you.”

  “I don’t want it!”

  “It doesn’t matter what you want, but what is. You hold the key, Lana Bingham. Get up, go north. Follow the signs. Trust them. Trust what you have and are, Lana Bingham.” The woman smiled on Lana’s name, and Lana felt a flash of knowing, of recognition, that rippled away. “You have all you need. Use it.”

  “I … Do I know you? Do I?”

  “You will. Now get up. You need to get up!”

  “Lana, you have to get up.” Max shook her shoulder. “We need to get going.”

  “I … all right.”

  She sat up in the lumpy bed in the musty-smelling room. They’d found a run-down motel far enough off the main road that Max felt it was safe enough to stop, to sleep for a few hours.

  God knew they’d needed it.

  “There’s bad motel-room coffee.” He gestured to the pot on the TV stand. “It’s better than none—barely.” He took her face in his hands. “It’s still shy of dawn. I’m going to go out, see if there’s anything in the vending machines. Ten minutes. All right?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  She took the coffee into the bathroom, splashed water on her face. It smelled metallic; but like the coffee, it was better than none.

  She looked in the mirror, saw hollow eyes, pale skin. She did a subtle glamour—not for vanity this time, but for Max. If she looked too tired, too weak, he wouldn’t push.

  After yesterday, she understood they needed to push.

  They’d finally gotten across the river on the 202, just after the all but deserted city of Peekskill. Deserted, she’d discovered, as they hadn’t been the only ones trying to get across.

  Wrecked cars, abandoned cars, some with bodies at the wheels.

  They’d had to leave the SUV less than halfway across and carry their belongings around an overturned semi blocking the way. She’d realized while some had fled west—or tried—others had been rushing east.

  Barricades erected on the east side lay smashed. Someone, she thought, had gotten through. But to what?

  It took them eight hours to travel from Chelsea and make that final crossing of the Hudson River.

  They took another car—bald tires, but a half tank of gas—and began to head west, then north, sticking to back roads, avoiding populated areas—or what had been populated.

  When she insisted he needed to stop, rest, eat, they turned toward what looked like an abandoned house in an area with a winding two-lane road. Boarded windows, unshoveled snow. But as they bumped along its pitted drive, a woman, wild-eyed and armed with a shotgun, stepped out on the sagging porch.

  They drove on.

  They hadn’t stopped until full dark, at a two-pump gas station alongside the dingy motel called Hidden Rest.

  Lana made chicken and rice on a hot plate in the motel’s office. The dust and grime on the check-in counter told her they were the first guests, more or less, for weeks.

  But they ate, and they slept.

  Now they’d keep going. They’d find Eric, and Max would figure out what to do next.

  She heard the seven-knock signal, gathered up the bag they’d brought in when Max opened the door.

  “I’m ready.

  “Got some chips and sodas, a few candy bars. And we’ve got another car,” he told her. “It’s in better shape than the last one, though dead out of gas. But I got one of the pumps going, so we can fill it up once we get it to the pump.”

  “Okay. You need to eat something besides chips and candy.” She pulled an orange out of her bag.

  “Split it with you,” Max said.

  “Deal.”

  “Let’s get the car moved, loaded, and gassed up first. You look rested.”

  She smiled, glad she
’d done the glamour. “Who wouldn’t look rested after a night in this palace?”

  She walked out with him, shivering in the cold despite her jacket. “It smells like snow.”

  “Yeah, we could get some, so gassed up or not, if we see a four-wheel, we switch again.”

  “How much farther, do you think?”

  “About three hundred and fifty miles. If we can use major roads, we’ll make decent time. If we can’t…”

  He let that lay, picked up a red can marked gas, then led her about thirty feet down the road where a car sat crookedly on the skinny shoulder.

  “They almost made it,” she murmured.

  “Wouldn’t have made any difference if the pumps had been turned off. I managed to move it magickally about ten, twelve feet, but that’s about all I could do. We could probably do better together, but this is just as fast.”

  She said nothing, as she knew he pushed himself too far, too hard. Power, they’d both learned, didn’t come free.

  He gave the tank the gallon of gas, stowed the can in the trunk.

  “I can drive awhile.”

  He slanted her a look. “We tried that yesterday.”

  Until yesterday, she’d never driven a car. She lived in New York. “I need the practice.”

  He laughed, kissed her. “No argument. Practice by driving back to the gas station.”

  They got in, and Max nodded to the ignition button. “You do it—you need practice there, too.”

  She’d left the starting of engines, gas pumps, and boosting of electricity to him. But he had a point—she needed to practice.

  She held a hand over the ignition, focused. Pushed. The engine sprang to life.

  Riding on the flash of power, she grinned at him. “Practice, my ass.”

  He laughed again, and oh, how the sound of it steadied her. “Drive.”

  She gripped the wheel like a falling woman grips a rope, squealed and inched, lurched, and swerved her way to the gas station.

  “Don’t hit the pumps,” Max warned. “Ease up, a little to the left now. Stop!”

  She hit the brakes hard so the car jerked, but she’d done it.

  “Put it in Park. Engine off.”

  They both got out. Max put the nozzle in the tank, flipped it on. At the hum, he put an arm around Lana. “We’re in business.”

  “I never knew I’d be thrilled to smell gas fumes, but—” She broke off, pressing a hand to his chest. “Did you hear—”

  Even as she spoke, he spun around, shoving her behind him. He pulled out the gun from his hip.

  A young dog, barely more than a puppy, gamboled across the lot, tongue cheerfully lolling, eyes bright.

  “Oh, Max!” She started to crouch down to greet the dog, but Max called out.

  “I know you’re back there. Come out, and I want to see your hands up.”

  Lana stood stock-still even as the dog scrambled his front paws up her legs, wagging and yipping.

  “Don’t shoot. Jeez! Come on, man, don’t freaking shoot me.”