Last Gasp

by Trevor Hoyle

  “Twelve hours,” Chase laughed shortly. “Who in his right mind would want to stay any longer?” He squinted up through the murk. The sun was a diffuse orange blur and it was noticeably warmer, by several degrees. A thermal inversion layer, trapping the heat and fumes in a thick vaporous blanket that hugged the ground. It was like driving through a hot burning mist of sulfuric acid.

  Buildings loomed and they realized they were in the city itself.

  Beyond knowing that he wanted to head roughly northwest Chase hadn’t a clue where he was going or which direction to take. Headlights came toward them like dim yellow eyes. Several times he had to stamp on the brakes as a glowing red taillight warned him of stalled traffic.

  “Like being back in New York,” Ruth said with mordant humor.

  Chase peered hopelessly ahead. “Can you see any signs? Can you see anything?” Nightmares were like this, wandering about lost in an eerie blank timelessness. He began to believe that it was a dream and would last forever, driving through acid mist for all eternity. It was almost restful, nothing to see, everything distant and muffled and muted—

  “Watch out!”

  Chase wrenched the wheel and the jeep skidded, missing the tailgate of a truck by less than a foot. They hit the curb with a bouncing jolt that threw them forward, Ruth striking her forehead above the goggles on the windshield’s metal upright, blood spattering the glass like teardrops.

  They had stopped with their headlights blazing into a shop window. The world was indeed going crazy. Illuminated like a stage set, the window was filled with inflatable rubber dolls with jutting red nipples and silky vaginas.

  Ruth was holding her head in both hands and moaning softly, blood seeping through her fingers and running down her wrists.

  If there was one part of the procedure that Cy Skrote abhorred, it was this. Bad enough to theorize about it in the sterile atmosphere of the labs, or engage in dispassionate debate over coffee with his colleagues, but the surgical blood and guts of it made him physically ill. There was no escape, however—he had to be present in the operating room, gowned and masked, custodian of the refrigerated vacuum flask containing the culture.

  The seeds of our own destruction ... the thought flitted unbidden through his mind like a torn scrap of paper.

  Standing three feet away from the operating table he had a ringside view of the surgeon at work. The column of mirror-directed light from above made every last detail clear and sharp. On a stretcher nearby the round gray flask with the chrome handle and the recessed red stirrup release mechanism waited ominously: on its side in stenciled black letters, STERILE CELL CULTURE, and underneath in scrawled graphics, Experimental Batch MC-Dl 17-92.

  The last two digits indicated that this was the ninety-second strain to be tested. Incubation would take anything from fourteen weeks to the usual nine months, always supposing the fetus didn’t self-abort. The success rate wasn’t high. Of the previous ninety-one, forty-eight had been rejected within six weeks, some in under two weeks.

  What had come as a surprise was the fourteen-week pregnancy. Not a termination, as had been supposed, but the full-term delivery of a perfect specimen: blind, dumb, deaf and mentally retarded, but with lungs three times the normal capacity. Dr. Rolsom had congratulated the team, calling it “an important and encouraging breakthrough.”

  Skrote tried not to look as the surgeon’s scalpel sliced through the epidermis and the fatty layer of the abdomen. The surgeon made another incision at right angles to the first and a nurse folded back the flap of tissue and swabbed the V-shaped area underneath, already saturated with blood.

  “Tie off,” the surgeon instructed. The nurse clamped the pumping arteries and applied ligatures to stanch the flow.

  “Young, healthy, good pelvic cavity,” the surgeon said, pleased. “She should give us a fine bouncing mute or my name’s not Sweeney Todd.”

  Everyone around the table laughed. It was one of his standard jokes, but it helped break the monotony.

  Before going in, the surgeon glanced toward the anesthesiologist, who was looking down at the woman’s face, obscured by a sterile green sheet. “How is she?”

  “Everything okay. She’s dreaming of fluffy white lambs in a spring meadow.” The eyes of the anesthesiologist curved as he grinned behind his gauze mask.

  “I’m fond of lambs myself,” the surgeon quipped. “Especially with mint sauce.”

  Everyone laughed again, and one of the younger nurses got the giggles.

  “Right, boys and girls, in we go.” The surgeon began cutting in earnest, the three assisting nurses standing by with sponges, clamps, plastic tubes and ligatures. It was a perfectly choreographed ballet of gloved hands and shiny steel instruments. As the layers were stripped back and the cords of muscles pushed out of the way, the surgeon became more intent as his work became more intricate. In the center of the raw gaping hole the narrow end of the Fallopian tube, at the point where it entered the uterus, was now exposed. A tiny snick of an incision in the wall of the Fallopian, high up at the site of fertilization, and he was ready for the cell culture.

  Grasping the red stirrup, Skrote unscrewed the heavy lid from its brass seating and lifted it out. A puff of dry ice floated away. Very carefully he withdrew the stainless-steel core and set it down on the stand alongside the operating table. Now the surgical team would take over; ensuring that the correct culture was delivered safely from lab to operating room was Skrote’s task and responsibility, implantation was theirs.

  Batch ninety-two was rather special. It comprised the splicing of genes from two patients with different characteristics. Both were severely deformed, yet each possessed certain physical peculiarities that, combined in the right proportions, might produce the ideal specimen. Skrote wasn’t too optimistic, however. It was a wild gamble and he had the nagging fear that the “ideal” specimen might well resemble a monster.

  Part of its genetic heritage would enable it to survive in conditions normally hostile to human beings—the lungs would be rudimentary, their function taken over by gill-like growths on either side of the neck and chest. These would give it an appearance not unlike that of a humanoid water-dwelling lizard.

  The other fundamental difference was in cranial capacity. Breathing deoxygenated air would render a normal-size brain comatose, followed quickly by death. So this brain had to be smaller and less complex and yet capable of the basic modes of comprehension and communication. After all, there wasn’t much point in breeding a new species that was incapable of understanding commands and carrying them out.

  Something between a cretin and an educationally subnormal person was what they were aiming for, with an IQ, say, in the low sixties.

  Skrote closed his mind to picturing such a hybrid. Equally distasteful to him was that this creature would receive its sustenance from the body of a normal healthy woman, growing and forming inside her womb like an alien reptile. Suitable female incubators were shipped in from the mainland. Like the woman on the table, they were poor, ignorant, and sadly misinformed. Told that a minor form of pollution sickness they were suffering from (usually a rash that proper treatment could have cured) was a terminal condition, they were invited to participate in an experimental drug program that, while risky, would give them an excellent chance of survival.

  “Right, kiddies. Let’s sew the lady up and make everything shipshape!”

  With the culture in place, fertilization would now begin. The newly formed zygote would start to divide into a cluster of 64 cells, taking about a week to travel down the Fallopian tube to the uterus. There the young embryo—the blastocyst—would attach itself to the lining of the uterus and—if there were no complications—pregnancy would proceed in the usual way.

  Using an interrupted suture, the surgeon was sewing up the subcutaneous tissue. One by one the layers were folded back, the wall of the abdomen sealed up, and finally the outer flap of skin and fatty tissue replaced and stitched, leaving a puckered V-shape edged with red against the
alabaster white.

  Skrote felt relieved that it was over. He thought longingly of a cup of coffee. Even more longingly he thought of his rendezvous with Natas-sya after dinner that evening. Her note said that she couldn’t make it to the bar, their usual meeting place, but that he was to go directly to her room where she would be waiting.

  The surgeon called out jovially, “Next, please!” and the operating-room staff dutifully laughed, if a little wearily this time.

  As he turned to leave, Skrote noticed a group of people watching from the observation room, high up in one corner behind the angled glass panel. Dr. Rolsom was there—he sometimes liked to look in—but it wasn’t usual to see General Madden among them. Madden was gazing down with a rare smile; in fact, he seemed to be actually laughing.

  For one dreadful moment Skrote imagined that Madden knew about him and Natassya. But it was impossible. He was being stupid.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  “Sorry.” Skrote stepped aside as the nurse wheeled the trolley to the door, the rubber tires squealing on the linoleum floor. He looked down at the bleached face above the white sheet, the eyebrows like black brush marks on a flawless porcelain vase.

  Skrote stood rooted to the spot, his heart small and hard as though the blood had been squeezed from it by an angry fist. He watched as Natassya was wheeled out and the doors swung silently shut behind her.

  Sierraville. Loyalton. Vinton. Doyle. Milford. Janesville. Standish. Ravendale. Termo. Madeline. Likely.

  The small towns on highway 395 rolled by, the cozy suburbanity of their names in stark contrast to what they had become: the refuge and the dumping ground for those fleeing north to escape the stench and decay seeping up from the south. They had escaped, but they were tainted by it. For Chase and Ruth it hung in the air like a sickly odor.

  Chase had done the best he could with the nasty gash in Ruth’s forehead. It really required medical attention, though the idea of looking for a hospital (never mind what it would be like if and when they found one) filled them both with wearisome despair. Chase had decided that the sensible course was to reach Goose Lake with all speed; there would surely be somebody at the settlement with medical expertise.

  Highway 395 was patrolled by state police and the armored personnel carriers of the National Guard, their blue-and-gold crest fluttering from the radio masts. Without such protection Chase doubted whether they would have made it past Sierraville.

  By late afternoon they were midway between Likely and Alturas, about sixty miles from the settlement. Chase had made room for Ruth in the back of the jeep where she was wedged into a cubbyhole padded with blankets. She lay back, eyes closed, her face whiter than the bandage around her head. Without actually thinking about it he’d made up his mind to take Cheryl and Dan back with him. A vulnerable community like Goose Lake was no place for a seriously ill woman, and besides it wouldn’t be long, at this rate, before the craziness he’d observed spread there too. The Tomb wasn’t impregnable but it was a lot safer than being out here. And it had the supreme advantage of being a sealed enclosure; as the atmosphere continued to deteriorate, such places would be the last remaining refuge in an increasingly hostile environment.

  Chase had lost count of the number of checkpoints they’d passed through since Reno. There was another one ahead now. In a sense it was reassuring to know that some form of rule of law was still operating.

  The ebbing sun was distended into a flattened brown balloon by the stratified layers of noxious gases in the lower atmosphere. It would soon be dark, and traveling the last fifty or so miles on a pitch-black highway—with or without patrols—was an experience he would much rather avoid. Aside from which he felt ragged with tiredness and his bruised ribs throbbed painfully.

  Yet again he went through the rigmarole with documents and IDs, explaining for the umpteenth time what was the matter with Ruth. The young state police trooper on duty, not unsympathetic, advised them, “Don’t go through Alturas after nightfall. There’s been some bad trouble there. Even the National Guard had to pull out.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Riots, looting, arson. A lot of people killed. There’s a big refugee camp near Cedarville and they send raiding parties in who take whatever they can lay hands on. You want my advice, mister, you’ll find someplace to stay overnight. They’re a bunch of crazies, believe me.”

  Chase glanced over his shoulder at Ruth. “Is there another route into Oregon?” he asked the trooper.

  “Not unless you go back to Standish and take one-thirty-nine through Susanville, and even then I couldn’t guarantee it.”

  Standish was a hundred miles back the way they’d come; plainly out of the question. Chase said, “It’s my friend I’m concerned about. I was hoping to make Goose Lake tonight to get her some medical attention.”

  The trooper shrugged. “I can’t stop you, mister, but it’s at your own risk, you realize that.” He looked at the sun dipping behind the trees, casting long spiky shadows across the road and the concrete guardhouse. “I’d say you’ve got thirty minutes of real daylight left. Alturas is seventeen miles from here. If you move like a bat out of hell and stop for nothing and nobody, you might just make it. Good luck.”

  They might just have made it, but for the storm.

  It was a weird kind of storm such as Chase had never seen before.

  Years ago it would have been described as freak weather, though today the freakish had become commonplace. Chase saw the ALTURAS 5 MILES sign flash by in the dusk, his body bathed in nervous sweat as he tried to solve the equation of distance versus waning light. It reminded him of a problem in physics, plotting a light-distribution curve: If 1 mile is equivalent to a reduction of 3.6 lumens, calculate the distance to be traveled before ...

  Then, without any warning, the jeep was enveloped in a cloud of yellow rain, the color of piss. It smelled even worse. The headlights sliced feebly through the solid slanting downpour and a sudden wind flung it into Chase’s eyes with stinging force.

  He managed to slow down without swerving off the road, leaning forward to peer through the jerking wipers. The acrid, smarting smell of rotten eggs filled his nostrils. What the hell had they run into—a cloudburst of industrial waste?

  A vivid flash of sheet lightning illuminated everything like a sepia print. Road, bushes, and trees were stained a muddy yellow, the scene fading at the edges where the gusting rain reduced visibility. As the lightning flickered out the air sparked and crackled with ionized particles. A million electrical fireflies danced in front of Chase’s dazzled eyes. The smell tasted like old pennies on his tongue and he had to clench his teeth to prevent his stomach spurting up his throat.

  Ruth’s cry was lost in the boom of a thunderclap that shook the ground and the jeep. Impossible to survive out in the open. The highly charged air made every breath a searing agony, as if windpipe and lungs were on fire. This stuff would eat into their tissues like acid into copper.

  Wiping the foul yellow moisture out of his eyes, Chase brought the jeep to a halt. Ruth handed him his goggles and respirator, having already donned hers. As he put them on, another lightning flash transfixed them in its glare: Goggled and masked, they resembled a pair of divers at the bottom of some primordial ocean, caught helplessly in fierce currents that threatened to sweep them away.

  Once more, as darkness descended, the air came alive with fireflies, crackling and spitting. Chase helped Ruth into the passenger seat just as the crash of thunder pressed down on them like a giant hand, making the jeep rock on its springs.

  “You all right?” Chase shouted.

  Ruth nodded. Her dark hair was plastered to her scalp, the bandage a sodden strip stuck to her forehead. Chase cursed, incensed at his own stupidity. Where had he been living these past five years—in some fucking fairy tale? In the womb of the Tomb, that’s where, safe and snug and protected from all the nastiness outside. Good God, he should have known that this wasn’t going to be a joyride, and yet he’d calm
ly set out as if on a bloody Sunday picnic!

  He slammed the jeep into gear and they moved on through the teeming sulfurous rain.

  A mile or so along the road Ruth spotted a building. It was a service station, with no lights showing, and as they drove into the forecourt it became obvious why. The pumps had been vandalized, the cantilevered roof slanted at a dangerous angle, and every single window in the two-story stucco-fronted building had been broken. The concertina doors leading to the repair shop were mangled out of shape, as if rammed by a truckdriver with a score to settle.

  Chase was anxious to get the jeep under cover. Everything was already soaked and reeking, but he was afraid that prolonged exposure to the acid rain would leave the tires threadbare and the bodywork looking like Gruyere cheese. Around the back was a concrete ramp leading up to a door. Without hesitation he ran the jeep inside, then switched off the engine and slumped back in his seat, exhausted.

  Ruth peeled off her goggles and mask and sucked in air. The smell was still strong, though not quite as pungent as outside. “Would you believe they used to call Californian rain liquid sunshine?” she panted.

  “It’s yellow, what more do you want?”

  “Yeah, so is horse —”

  “I know, I know.” Chase smiled wearily.

  They unloaded all the gear and supplies and spread them out to dry. By now it was dark and they worked by the light of a battery lamp, which extended its welcoming circle across the pitted floorboards and along the bare, crumbling plaster walls. A calendar with scenic views advertised Firestone tires: the Grand Canyon basking in a pink sunset, the month March, the year 2011.

  While Ruth sorted out something to eat, Chase unpacked the gas stove and got it going. Then he took a flashlight and poked through the derelict building, finding an office-cum-shop stripped bare except for a battered cash register, its empty drawer thrust out like a rude tongue. A worn wooden staircase led up through a trapdoor to three large rooms, two used for storage, the other, apparently, as a bedroom, containing a mildewed mattress and a dresser with a cracked, discolored mirror. In the storerooms metal racks and shelves, thick with dust, reached almost to the ceiling, and the floor was knee-deep in brown wrapping paper and squashed cardboard boxes. Either the owner had cleared out fast, Chase surmised, grabbing what he could, or the garage had been raided and pillaged.