“Sir, stop right there!” one of the cops called out. Behind this shout, Paul was pretty sure he could hear another cop reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Paul had been in plenty of tense situations before and recognized the feeling of things starting to go south right away. It was almost tangible, like humidity on a stifling summer morning. He turned and hurried back to the truck, hoping he could maybe get moving before things got totally out of hand.
He’d barely reached the truck when he heard another cop scream: “Not another damned step!”
This was followed by one gunshot, and then another. About a second later, someone in one of the backed up cars started screaming. At this point, Paul had reached the truck. Olivia saw him reaching for the door handle, so she popped the locks and he got inside at once. As he settled in behind the steering wheel, he got his first good look at the scene following the gunshot.
The sick man was lying in the left lane, face down, an arm pinned beneath him. Horns were blaring everywhere, and a few others had gotten out of their cars to voice their displeasure at what they’d just seen.
“Idiots,” Paul muttered under his breath. He doubted that the cars would do them much good at staving off the virus, but stepping out into the open air was pretty much a death sentence. He only saw a single mask among all of them.
A few other people were now storming towards the cops. Paul wasn’t all that surprised, but terrified all the same, when he saw that one man with a long beard and a rotund beer gut was carrying a shotgun. Paul hated to think badly of anyone in a uniform, but the clear option of trying to make things as simple as possible was to just move the cars and let the traffic through. Now that there had been an ill person on the scene, it had already been infected. Judging from the posture and look of hatred on the hefty man’s face, the shotgun gripped tightly in his hands, Paul figured the cops had maybe two seconds to figure out what to do before things got very bad.
Fortunately, they used their heads. While two clearly distraught officers tried to keep the armed man away at gunpoint, the lead officer rushed to his car, carefully stepping over the body of the now-dead sick man. He got into his car so fast that he struck himself with the door when he opened it. Less than ten seconds later, he was moving his car completely out of the road, putting it so far on the side of the road that Paul feared it might hit loose soil and end up sliding down the side of the mountain.
Even though the dead man’s car was still in the way, the truck behind him nudged forward, trying to go around. The truck took to the right side of the road, having to bump against the dead man’s car to pass by. The tiny trailer attached to the back of the truck nearly turned over completely as it got hung up on the car but eventually, with a sudden burst of acceleration, the trailer and the truck were free. Slowly, other cars followed behind. Seeing the progression of traffic, the man with the shotgun hurried back to his truck and waited for his turn in line.
About ten seconds later, Paul was also inching forward. When he passed by the now broken line of policemen and their cars, he saw that one of the cops was on his knees, hands covering his face as he wailed. This, Paul assumed, was likely the officer that had lost his cool and taken out the sick man.
Paul looked away quickly, eyes on the road. On a road like this, in the middle of nowhere, an eerie scene like the one he’d just encountered seemed almost unreal. It made him wonder what other similar moments were taking place on roads all across America at the moment. The idea of it terrified him and even the familiar, winding mountain roads could not distract him from it.
Chapter 29
Roosevelt Gault had lived in the same house for the last fifty-two years of his life. Having been born and raised in rural West Virginia as the son of a coal miner, he’d never cared anything about moving away; the idea had simply never crossed his mind. Paul could remember the shock and dismay his grandfather had showed towards him when he’d decided to go to New York to chase after his dream of being a cop. He supposed it was one of the reasons he and his grandfather had grown so drastically apart over the last twenty-five years or so—well, that and the fact that he knew his grandfather’s mind was slipping. He didn’t have Alzheimer’s or anything as drastic as that, but certain basic concepts had started to escape him. It had been evident when they’d last spoken on the phone, when Roosevelt had called Paul by his father’s name.
All Roosevelt had ever known was the isolation of the mountains and the rural tropes that came with it. The idea of tall buildings and congested traffic had, as he used to put it, seemed to beg for accidents and bad attitudes. Paul could have moved to one of the moons of Jupiter and it would have been just as alien as New York City to Roosevelt. Still, when the cabin came into view as Paul drove the truck up the slanted gravel driveway, he finally got a taste of the nostalgia he’d been hoping for as they’d drawn closer to the town of Brownstone. The cabin he’d spent many adventurous weekends in as a boy was still there. And Paul was willing to bet anything the place still smelled of wood smoke, even in the summer.
When Paul parked in the circular dirt driveway, his heart seemed to leap in his chest when he saw the rickety old screen door open. His grandfather stood there, holding a cane in one hand and a soda can in the other. When Roosevelt saw that it was his grandson in the driveway, he let out a cackling sort of whoop of joy. He dropped his soda can on the wooden boards of the porch and did his best to come down the stairs.
“Stay there, Grandpa,” Paul said. “Let me come to you.”
Roosevelt did so, but mainly because it seemed that his legs were trying their very best to fail him as he made the first of the six porch steps down towards the yard. Paul met him on that step and the two men embraced in the fragile way older men above eighty are limited to.
“Thanks to God,” Roosevelt said. “Paul, I assumed you…I assumed you were dead. All the news about New York…I would have called but…”
“But nothing,” Paul said, figuring his grandfather had either lost or forgotten his number. Paul couldn’t say anything; he’d never even bothered to write his grandfather’s number down. “I could have called you, too. I hate showing up like this, uninvited.”
“Nonsense,” Roosevelt, breaking the embrace to look at his grandson. “How did you even get out of there?”
“I don’t know. It seems messed up, sort of wrong that I’d be immune, but…” he stopped here, looking back to the truck and still haunted by the scene down the road about a mile or so. He thought of the sick man and then of all the dead bodies he’d seen in New York and on the road in getting here.
“Paul, what is it?”
Hearing his name come out of his grandfather’s mouth as opposed to his father’s made him unbearably happy, but it was hard for that happiness to break through the urgency of everything else. He looked his grandfather in the eyes, bending down to get level with Roosevelt’s hunched frame. In the shadows of the surrounding trees, the man looked older than he was, a little more frail. But his eyes, though a little confused and clearly emotional, were just as bright as ever.
“I need you to be honest with me,” Paul said. “How’s your health? How’s the memory?”
“Fine, mostly. Some days I forget small stuff, but nothing bad. I can—”
“We need to get you inside,” Paul said. “There’s some bad news going on down in town and I want you safe. But first, listen…I’ve got a woman and a small girl with me. We left New York together and we’re trying to get the girl to her father. I need to bring them inside.”
“Of course,” Roosevelt said. He was looking to the truck, trying to see them. He then looked to the left, through the climbing trees and in the direction of Brownstone, as if trying to sense the trouble Paul had mentioned.
“Okay, so I’ll bring them in,” Paul said. “But I need you to go in, too. As fast as those busted old legs will take you.”
Roosevelt apparently caught the urgency in Paul’s voice because he did as he was asked without question. He did, h
owever, call out over his shoulder as he opened up the screen door. “These busted old legs can still give your backside a swift kick!”
Paul smiled, glad to see some of the old man’s friendly venom. It did his heart good. And after the last few days he’d had, he’d take any sort of good he could find.
***
Olivia thought she might have to cleverly coax Joyce into Roosevelt’s house, so she was surprised when the girl strolled right in through the front door as if she owned the place. She entered between Paul and Olivia, looking around with a smile on her face. Olivia took those first few moments to take a quick glance around as well, keeping in mind that it was normal for a child to stare at unusual surroundings but not so accepted for an adult.
The house was small and well-lived. It was tidy in a very rustic sort of way. The front door opened up onto an open-floor main level where the kitchen and the living area were separated by a half-wall with a cutout peering into the dining area in its center. A woodstove sat like an ancient relic inside of the far wall, bordered with old stone. There was only a single piece of furniture in the living area, an old, tattered recliner that was positioned to face a television that Olivia guessed was easily at least twenty years old.
Roosevelt was busy bringing in chairs from the dining room table so they could sit down. Paul chipped in, helping to move the chairs for Olivia and Joyce, but not for himself. Roosevelt was very charming as he introduced himself to Olivia and Joyce, giving them a very wide smile that made his face look slightly younger. He did his best to be jovial and polite, but Paul cut him off almost right away.
“Grandpa, are you getting any TV stations?” Paul asked.
“Just one,” he said. “Of course, I only ever got three. Four with that stupid antennae out on the roof. But they’re all crapped out except that one with the pretty red head that does the news in the evenings.”
“Mind if I check?”
“Help yourself. But you’re not going to hear anything good. Have you heard about Texas yet?”
“Yeah, we’ve heard,” Paul said. He flipped on the TV and, as Olivia expected, the channel was showing news, even though it was not yet six in the afternoon.
As the sounds of the news filled the room, Roosevelt came over to Olivia and Joyce. As if performing a magic trick, he offered Joyce an oatmeal cream pie that he pulled from his pocket. Olivia wondered if he’d snatched it up with the chairs while in the kitchen. He looked to Olivia and asked: “If it’s okay, that is.”
“It’s fine,” Olivia said.
“Gee, thanks,” Joyce said, snatching the cake and unwrapping it quickly. Her first bite was a big one, leaving white frosting at the corners of her mouth.
“Is she yours?” Roosevelt asked.
“No, sir. I run a daycare in Manhattan and Joyce is one of the children I take care of.”
“And neither of you got sick…” Roosevelt said, as if it blew his mind.
Paul turned his head, only paying the most minimal attention to the TV. “There are others, too,” he said. “We passed a few on the way here. I didn’t think you’d mind, and I thought maybe coming to the mountains might get us away from it all. We can—”
“Hush that,” Roosevelt said, waving it away. “You watch that doom and gloom and rest. If you came from the nightmare I saw in New York on the news, you need to rest. Relax. Meanwhile, I’ll whip up some biscuits and sausage and we can talk all about how the world is falling apart. It’s not much of a dinner but…well, I don’t exactly eat the healthiest.”
Having said this, he produced his own oatmeal cream pie from his pocket and winked at Joyce. Joyce giggled as she took another too-big bite of her snack. He then headed into the kitchen, walking in a sort of shuffle that may have been cute if he wasn’t so hunched over.
“Can I help?” Joyce asked.
“You can not,” Roosevelt said. “Sit. Rest.”
“Yeah, leave him to it,” Paul said. “Unless he’s lost his touch, Grandpa makes the best from-scratch biscuits you’ve ever tasted.”
“Ha!” Roosevelt said from the kitchen. “Lost my touch. Don’t make me thump you in front of these two pretty ladies!”
The comment and the cheer with which Roosevelt said this made Olivia smile. It was the first genuine smile that had touched her lips since she’d first met Paul. Yet as she looked to the television, where a reporter was telling the audience that the National Guard was currently attempting to lock down the entire East Coast, the smile faded and then disappeared completely.
***
Paul hadn’t been lying about the biscuits. They were a little dry, but the flavor and overall fullness of them made up for it. They were the highlight of a dinner that consisted of biscuits, sausage, cut up bell peppers and tomatoes, and pudding cups for desert. Roosevelt seemed both ashamed and rather proud of his last-minute dinner for his unexpected guests.
The dining room was small, and it was a little cramped for the four of them to sit around the table. It made Olivia wonder how long it had been since Roosevelt had shared it with anyone. He seemed to be a sweet man, but it was also clear that he had lived a lot of his life in solitude—and very likely by choice.
Olivia was putting together her second sausage and tomato biscuit when the conversation took the turn she’d been fully expecting. She couldn’t help but wonder if she should send Joyce out of the room but decided it was foolish. After all the girl had seen and experienced in the last few days, she didn’t think speculation and conversation about the very things she’d seen would make it any worse. Still, as they spoke, Olivia looked to the girl from time to time to gauge her reaction, Fortunately, she was quite distracted by the tasty biscuits and was cutting her eyes toward the pudding cups sitting on the edge of the table every so often.
“I still can’t believe you made it out of New York,” Roosevelt said, looking directly at Paul. “Was it really as bad as they made it seem on the news?”
“I don’t know what the news said,” Paul said, “but I can almost guarantee you that it was worse. We’re talking about the greatest city in the country, wiped out in just under a day. We’re talking about…”
He trailed off here, his voice catching as he started to get emotional.
“It came out of nowhere,” Olivia said. “One moment, everything was fine. The next, there are helicopters and jets in the sky. A few hours later, it was too late. When it started, it started fast and without warning.”
“By the time the police were properly mobilized, everyone started dying,” Paul said. “Whatever this virus is, it’s quick. It works almost like a weapon. It hits and then you’re gone in half an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes.”
“That’s what the news people are saying,” Roosevelt said. “Where they seem to be confused is just how contagious it is. They’re speculating that people that remained in their houses or apartments might have survived it. That’s why they’re trying to put together relief teams to drop down into New York to look for survivors.”
Paul thought of the elderly woman he’d gone to check on. She’d died in her home, without leaving. Somehow, the virus had gotten to her. But then again, there was also one of his neighbors that had refused to come to the door, still very much alive. The two examples lined up next to one another made no sense—unless his neighbor had also been among the small number of people that were apparently immune.
“That would be a miserable job,” Paul said. “I bet if they do undertake something like that, it will be several days from now. I know it’s got to be impossible for doctors to figure out something that moves and kills so quickly, but I’d imagine one of the things they want to discover is how long this thing stays in the air. But even then, I don’t know that it matters.”
“This thing was somehow getting through masks,” Olivia pointed out. “Even if they can prove it’s not airborne any longer, would it matter? I know nothing about how viruses work aside from jumping from person to person, but I’d think even after this thing is out of th
e air it would still be lethal.”
“That’s the sort of things they keep mentioning on the news,” Roosevelt said. “And it’s a shame that everyone is scared to answer with ‘I don’t know.’ They’re all guessing, no one wanting to admit that this thing is getting the better of us. I think there was some more urgency and honesty after that bomb in Texas. Because now it’s pretty clear that we’ve been attacked and the New York thing wasn’t a one and done occurrence. They’ve gone from wondering what the virus is to who might have sent it and who we need to go after.”
Olivia winced and looked to Joyce. She was listening, but she was also not-so subtly inching closer to a chocolate pudding cup. “It’s okay,” Olivia said. “You can have it.”
Joyce took it at once and worked at the top. Olivia helped peel it back and handed the cup to her.
“Grandpa, what do you want to do?” Paul asked, pushing his empty plate aside.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to do what I can to make sure we get the job done,” Paul said, nodding secretly towards Joyce. “I sort of want to make you go with me, just to keep you safe, but—”
“Don’t be thick,” Roosevelt said with a well-meaning smile. “I doubt there’s a safer place than this very cabin. You’ve told me many times before that I’m in the middle of nowhere, right? If that virus wants to climb this mountain to come get me, then let it.”
“It may already be here,” Paul said grimly. “On the way up, we saw some stuff on the road, right outside of Brownstone. Sick people…unprepared cops.”
Roosevelt considered this for a moment and shrugged, reaching out for one last slice of the overripe tomato he’d carved up for dinner. “Well, you can’t very well get into that truck and outrun it, now can you?”
It Falls Apart Series | Book 1 | It Falls Apart Page 25