Dead On Arrival

by Matt Richtel

  Lyle walked outside and looked down at Jerry. He lay on his back, his gun hand palm up to the right, nine millimeter spilled out of it. His head tilted sideways, and on his face he wore a dumb-looking smile.

  Twenty yards away, near one of the motel’s metal support poles that the police officer had hidden behind, the man lay on the ground. He looked much like Jerry. Then another body near the door of the motel; it was the woman who had been behind the desk, her iPad near her feet. She must’ve come outside when the shooting started.

  Eleanor’s head lolled back in the passenger seat. Lyle cringed. “I’m sorry, Captain,” he said quietly. “It’s the only way.”

  Lyle returned to Jerry and knelt beside the fallen flight officer and felt the carotid for a pulse. He pulled back an eyelid and saw that the pupils looked, at first, to be dilated. Then Lyle really focused and noticed the pupils moving so rapidly as to appear fixed.

  Just like Steamboat. The syndrome. The whole town must be like this. He carried Jerry into 106 and laid him on the bed. He did the same for Eleanor so the pair were side by side. He covered them with the flower comforter to keep them warm. He shut the door and studied the room and its oddities. First, the clock. It wasn’t the usual motel room clock. It looked similar, but the numbers were going backward and rapidly so.

  4:26:27

  4:26:26

  4:26:25

  Counting down.

  Until what?

  He shuddered at the possibilities. The rest of the country? The world? Lyle’s own fate? All of the above?

  He focused his attention at the crisp green apple next to the clock. There was a bite out of the apple with a light sheen around the edges. Lip gloss, maybe. The part where the bite had been taken was turning brown. It had been here awhile.

  Lyle stood and ran his hand along the metal-looking wallpaper. It was held in place by nails, closely spaced but inexpertly placed, probably with a nail gun. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble. Jackie had gone to a lot of trouble. She had protected this place from the syndrome. He circled slowly, looking in each corner, knowing he was being told something and wasn’t sure what it was. How to understand Jackie Badger, this virus? He looked back at the apple.

  What does an apple symbolize?

  “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” he murmured. No, that was too clever by half. “Eden. The apple, the snake, Eve and Adam,” he said. “Some Eden.”

  He scanned the room, struck by revelation. There must be a camera in here. Of course; it’s how Jackie knew to trigger the syndrome outside this room. She was watching. On some level, he realized he’d known it all along. Subconsciously, it’s why he set these bodies on the bed, so Jackie could see her success. Now Lyle would take further advantage of Jackie’s digital presence here, her watchful eye. It was time to turn up the heat on this madwoman.

  Lyle walked to the right side of the bed. He leaned close to Eleanor and he whispered, “I’m very sorry, Captain Hall. No violation intended.” He leaned down and swallowed and then kissed Eleanor gently on the cheek. He held his lips there.

  It might even draw her out. It was a similar analysis he felt like he’d been through before in the snowy Steamboat night.

  He withdrew from Eleanor. He turned and walked from the room.

  “Nicely played,” Jackie said, watching Lyle separate from Eleanor. Her words didn’t match the sneer on her face. Lyle was right. She was furious. “Fucking bitch,” she muttered. “Alex, that captain is a hideous siren, you know that?

  “Hey, you hideous siren, how do you expect to please your man when you’re locked in paralysis. You’ve been paused, bitch.”

  She took a deep breath. Okay, no biggie. Maybe Lyle was just messing with her, giving her his best match. He probably didn’t care about this woman. Remember who you’re dealing with, she told herself; it’s Dr. Lyle Martin, the best of the best, her future and eternal playmate. He was just playing.

  She looked at the computer windows on her monitors. They showed her that much of what had needed doing was already done. Virtually the whole world was teed up, the telecommunications infrastructure ready to send paralyzing bursts. The final commands had been keyed in. Only she knew the password to turn it off. So it was just a matter of time.

  4:22:19

  4:22:18

  “Alex, can you hold down the fort for me? I have to grab something from the car.”

  Jackie pulled on a dark knit cap. It had odd-looking gold-colored lines woven into the sides. These would, in theory, protect her from any inadvertent surges in electromagnetic frequencies. There shouldn’t be any. She turned it all off now that she held the town in stasis. But it never hurt to be careful. That’s why she’d parked the whole operation in this room downstairs, isolated from the surges bombarding the rest of the world. It was a nice little bunker. As she shut the door, it made her a touch nervous to leave the comfort and safety of this place. But the initial surge was finished, so she should be just fine, just as she had been in Steamboat.

  Besides, she was too close to starting this world over to let it be screwed up by Captain Hall. It was exhilarating, in a way, being involved in this game with Lyle. He was searching for her, not merely physically, but searching to understand her, and she was searching for him. Oh, to see and be seen.

  Upstairs and outside, she let herself into her Tesla. She glanced in the glove box and withdrew mace and a Taser.

  Forty-Seven

  Lyle searched the motel room one last time for clues, anything at all that might tell him what to do next. He found nothing. It had been scraped clean other than the apple and countdown clock. He left the room, then carried the woman who had fallen outside to the motel office and put her on a couch. Her name tag read becky. Her laptop, still running, displayed a Gwen Stefani YouTube video on a loop.

  Lyle looked around the office, scoured the front desk for some clue or insight. Not a ton to offer. Nothing telltale in Becky’s backpack or the little zip pack on the back of her bicycle that leaned against the couch. No clue planted on the coffee table.

  “Ah,” Lyle said. On the tiny screen of the cordless phone, he could see the most recent calls in and out and when they’d taken place. It appeared that Becky had placed two calls right about the time that they’d first arrived at the motel. Both were to a phone number in the 415 area code. Lyle jotted down the number. He took Becky’s cell phone, a spanking new iPhone. He made sure the phone was turned on.

  He picked up the landline and discovered a dial tone but also static. It was half working. He dialed 911. More static. The communications system was down here.

  On the counter, on a piece of scrap paper, Becky had made a doodle, a little drawing. It was quite impressive. It was a pencil sketch of a woman. It was her, Jackie.

  Lyle found a phone book and the address for a medical clinic, the closest thing here to a hospital. It was only a few blocks away. A few minutes later, he’d pulled out of the Days Inn lot in the Miata. Jerry was in the backseat, covered in the flower bed comforter, so he wouldn’t fall off the seat. Eleanor was belted into the front seat, a pillow behind her head.

  At first blush, this town at two thirty in the morning looked no different from any other early morning at this time. Dead quiet. Behind the clinic counter, the all-night nurse, comatose, had her face planted on her iPad. Could Lyle read her mind, he’d have seen it delighted by a video of her son hitting a line drive up the middle in his recent Little League game. Inside her head, it was on constant loop.

  Lyle let himself into the rooms behind the counter and found the medical supplies. He took a saline pouch and a needle kit and some first aid stuff and returned to the Miata. If need be, the hydration system could be used to sustain someone left in a stasis state. He found smelling salts. He was walking to the car when he ran back in and found the defibrillator. He stood with it staring at Jerry and Eleanor. Then he decided it would do more harm than good. He couldn’t just start experimenting.

  Having gotten this far, Lyle f
elt totally helpless. How the hell was he going to reverse this condition? How was he going to stop whatever was going to happen in four hours and change?

  Jackie must have left him a clue. What was it?

  He started driving, thinking he might go look for help. He wound up back at the weigh station where they’d been questioned on the way in. The woman in the booth had fallen to the side, propped up against the glass, eerily, her eyes still pointed at her phone, which sat on her open palm on the desk. On the screen, a frozen shot of a regular gag from a late-night show where an adorable animated dog spewed expletives.

  Lyle wondered if it made sense to keep driving, try to get help. How long would he have to go to find someone?

  “Why here? Why Hawthorne?” he asked aloud. Then he answered his question: “She’s here and her operation is here. She brought us here.”

  Lyle reached into his back pocket and he looked at the receipts he’d pulled from Jackie’s recycling bin. One was for the hotel, where they’d been. Another from a diner. Another from what looked like some outdoor store. Then a receipt for an electric-car charging station, and one from a 7-Eleven. Lyle looked at all of them. He looked at the receipts again. What was nagging at him?

  The 7-Eleven receipt.

  It was a receipt for a comb and steel wool.

  What bell did that ring?

  Steamboat again. Hadn’t he tried to create static electricity using items like these?

  Had this woman bought the same thing? Or was she toying with him, sending him these little in-jokes, clues. He remembered seeing the 7-Eleven not far from the motel. He gunned the Miata, muttering to himself, becoming more aware of the little signs of a world at a standstill: lights flickering, the eerie sign of a woman at a gas pump, slumped beside her car, a dog wandering the street. At the 7-Eleven, Lyle walked inside, causing a bell to jingle at the door. This did nothing to stir the attention of the guy sitting behind the counter, face-planted on his iPad. Inside his head played a highly amusing video loop of a famous actress being caught on camera stealing a purse from a major department store. The man smiled. So hilarious.

  Lyle went to the freezer and took out some ice. He returned and laid the man on the floor, placing his jacket beneath his head and gently lifting his head to put the ice under his neck. The cold would help slow the man’s metabolism and retain his brain function. Lyle walked to the section with personal supplies, like aspirin and toothpaste and combs. He leafed through the $1.99 combs. Would Jackie be leaving him a clue? Nothing. He went to the cleaning supplies and found the steel wool. A few pieces hung next to the sponges. He leafed through them for anything unusual. Nothing. Frustrated, he threw them to the ground. He walked to the corner of the store and he looked up at the camera that scoped the inside of the place.

  “What do you want, Jackie?” He spread his arms out to the sides. “Where are you?”

  He couldn’t be sure she was watching. He couldn’t be sure she wasn’t. He pulled out Becky’s phone, thought about dialing the phone number he’d found in the motel office. He strongly suspected he’d get Jackie. He stared at the phone.

  Then he stared at the receipts again.

  He ran back to the Miata and drove two blocks away to the diner. Another all-night place. Another employee slumped on the counter. Coffee spilled everyplace, when the poor chump fell over on the shitty, ancient counter sipping coffee and watching a fishing tutorial on his phone. Lyle looked again at the receipt that had caught his attention. It said: Delivery.

  Jackie had gotten delivery from this place. Lyle started pulling out drawers and looking frantically for a ledger of take-out orders, or customers. It didn’t take long to find it. There were several recent delivery orders for J.B. at Google, and an address listed in scrawl. It was 85209 Deer Valley Road.

  In a drawer under the register, Lyle found an old-school atlas with detailed maps of the local surroundings. It would take him fifteen minutes to find the place where Jackie Badger took food deliveries.

  “Just about ready, Alex. How do I look?” Jackie stood before her gaunt, near-death colleague, still in stasis. “I hate wearing lipstick. I think it’s sexist and he shouldn’t be able to expect I’m always going to dress up like this. Every once in a while, right?”

  Her insanity notwithstanding, she looked stunning: a black cocktail dress, tight around her petite figure, short hair combed straight down. Taser in her hand. “Dressed to maim.” She smiled. “Then lovingly heal.

  “He and I can put the world on pause together, and then watch it like New Year’s Eve.”

  She looked at the video feed from Washington, D.C.; the media was going nuts there, talking about how the Million Gun March was just a few hours away. Police had amassed in force. It looked like Tiananmen Square was about to break out. Jackie thought how proud Lyle would be after he came to his senses.

  She dialed Becky’s phone number.

  Forty-Eight

  The Miata zoomed east on the highway, in the direction away from town and the weigh station, farther into Nevada. A ringing sound exploded. It came from the new iPhone Lyle had plucked from Becky the motel clerk. Lyle wasn’t sure the phone would even work but he suspected it might because Jackie had done something to allow it. It rang and rang. Lyle sent the call to voice mail. Better to let Jackie stew. He needed her riled up, not thinking clearly. The phone rang again. He sent it to voice mail again.

  The fifth time the phone rang, Lyle put it on speaker.

  “Hello, Dr. Martin,” Jackie said.

  Lyle grimaced. He tried to measure her voice, figure out the best way to play her.

  “This is not what Eden looks like, Jackie.”

  “Not yet, Dr. Martin. Lyle. I’m so delighted you got the reference. Where are you?”

  “I’m sure you know that. Jackie, this needs to stop.”

  She just laughed, casually, like he was a husband being inadvertently annoying or naggy. “How does it feel?” she asked. “To be alive, truly awake.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, Lyle.” She chuckled.

  “What do you want, Jackie?”

  “What do you want, Lyle?” It was weirdly flirty.

  “I want you to stop this, and I want you to revive Eleanor.”

  Silence.

  “You don’t give a shit about her.”

  “Jackie, do you remember how you stood out in my lecture class.”

  “Do you remember?”

  “Let’s not play games, Jackie.”

  “Okay, so why taunt me with this hapless pilot?”

  “She’s my friend, Jackie. It’s beside the point, you’ve got to make this sto—”

  “I see how you look at her and how she looks at you. Of course, she’s not looking at you at all now. She’s hanging in space like a macabre puppet.”

  “Stop this, Jackie. You have to stop this.”

  “I don’t want to fight!” A veritable explosion. Lyle withdrew from the phone. “Sorry, Lyle. We’re better than that. I think it’s hard right now with all the stress. But it’ll be easier when things slow down.”

  “Okay, Jackie, how do we make this stop?”

  “Well, first, and thank you, the seduction has to be mutual.”

  “What seduction?”

  “I’m not going to do all the work. Try harder. I’m trying to tell you what I need here.” She hung up.

  Lyle took a right onto a dirt road. He turned off the lights. But what did it matter; she’d know he was approaching. Hell, she probably was tracking the phone. He tried to let his mind go blank. He wanted to tap into instinct. But for a moment, he could see the strange beauty that Jackie must be seeking. In the silence of a dead world, you could listen and be heard. Here she would be seen. He appreciated its seduction. And here, there was no risk of death or terrible plague because there was no life. There was no infidelity. He understood this virus called Jackie. He understood the countdown clock. She would do this to the entire world, hang it in s
pace, free of humanity, free of menace.

  The seduction has to be mutual.

  Try harder.

  What did she mean by that?

  He let his mind go blank, trying not to overthink it.

  Five minutes later, a dark shape appeared on the landscape. It was a building or huddle of them. A light hung over one of the buildings, just enough to betray the clutch. Lyle pulled into a lot beside a Tesla and he looked at the corrugated metal structure. The door was propped open, inviting him inside. He noticed a video camera—these things were everywhere—this one atop the building, scanning. Lyle pulled himself to the right to try to be as shaded as possible from the camera’s view.

  He fished in his pocket for a pen and paper he’d taken from the motel and scribbled a note. Then he reached below Eleanor’s feet for the medical supplies he’d taken from the clinic. The defibrillator was still in the trunk. He left it there. He readied everything else. He picked up the pistol. He’d been to a shooting range once. He wasn’t sure he’d be any good with this thing or if he could make himself use it. Even if he did, and he shot and killed Jackie, then what? How would he stop this thing, or reverse it?

  He looked at Eleanor and Jerry.

  It was time.

  A minute later, he walked to the door of Lantern. A light wind blew, chilling further a desert night. The last time he’d approached a mysterious setting, in Africa, he’d failed miserably. He’d failed the villagers, himself, Melanie. Yes, she’d failed him first, but he’d long before laid the foundation. As he walked, Lyle’s mind and eyes played tricks on him. He thought for a second that he saw bodies, piles of them, then they disappeared, then scattered sufferers, and then darkness again, and then a plain full of frozen humanity, people stalled in stasis by this electrical weapon that Jackie purveyed.

  He walked inside and surveyed the warehouse-size room. It was largely empty. Cubicles, a bunch of litter on the floor around one particular cubicle near the middle-center. A nondescript conference table took up the room. No sign of an operation Lyle supposed he expected to see here. What was this place? He walked in tight circles, looking, gun outstretched, sidestepping discarded candy bar wrappers and empty water bottles, a soda can. He saw dirt scuffs on the floor and followed the scuffs. They went toward the back, in the direction of a stairwell. Jackie appeared at the top of it, resplendent with formal wear and evil.