The Burning Road

by Ann Benson

  “I’m pretty strung out myself.” He pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around her, then whispered in her ear, “I have this big tub in my bathroom.”

  She hesitated, then said, “What will everyone else think?”

  “Whatever they want to think. I’m not concerned about anyone else right now. Just you and me.”

  “What about Kristina? Tom, I know you’re important to her … I don’t want to upset her.”

  Tom laughed softly. “You won’t.”

  Janie leaned her back against Tom’s chest and rested her head on his shoulder, and together they let the warm water soothe away the gritty, insistent coat of trouble that seemed to have settled on everything around them.

  She snuggled closer and in response he tightened his arms around her. “This must have been what it was like back then …” she whispered, “in Alejandro’s time. During the Black Death. Everything fell apart then too. No one knew what was happening—it was total chaos.”

  “Oh, I think we know a little more about what’s happening now than they did then.”

  “Well, we know what causes our plague.”

  “They didn’t?”

  “No one had a clue. Except Alejandro, of course. He figured out that it was associated with rats somehow. But no one would believe him, anyway.”

  “Did anyone believe the prophets of doom when they said we should shut everything down in this country a few years ago?”

  “No. And I don’t know if it would’ve made a difference. We can’t do anything more about our plague than they could about theirs. Our controls are useless.”

  He dipped a sponge in the warm water and squeezed it out on Janie’s arm. “You said the controls made a difference in England.”

  “When I first got there it felt like they did, and I thought it was different, like they’d survived DR SAM better. Everything was so orderly and no one was screaming about the government being too heavy-handed, or not heavy-handed enough, not like it was here. But it started to feel tight pretty fast. I was glad to get home.”

  “I remember.”

  She turned to the side slightly and slipped an arm around him. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For what I brought you when you came to get me.”

  “Janie, you can’t change that, and you didn’t know.”

  “No, Tom, please, just hear what I have to say. Bruce was—so necessary for me. He came into my life at a time when I really needed someone like him. It was such a coincidence that I’d known him years before, but that was so brief, really, and he was so different then.”

  “There’s nothing like an old flame,” Tom said. He kissed her lightly on the top of her head. “I speak with some authority on this subject.”

  She sighed and snuggled closer. “I think that’s what made it easy for me to connect with him—not that we were flames, but he was so familiar—and he was very willing. But when Caroline was finally well enough to go home, we talked things out and I thought we were going to go our separate ways. Then when I got on the plane, he was there and it made me feel so happy … I guess I just didn’t think about what it really meant.”

  “And now what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been a year of long distance, we’ve seen each other three times in that period, but never any place where we could really spend good time together. Iceland was beautiful and wonderful, but we argued—over the stupidest things. And then I got called home … it’s been one frustration after another.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I already did something. I told him not to come. At least not for a while—I think it would be better.” She turned to face him. “And that would give you and me some time to try to figure things out.”

  He smiled and took her chin in his hand and pulled her face toward him. When Janie had pulled back from the deep, satisfying kiss, she spoke again. “What is it with us and catastrophes? We have the worst timing.” She dripped water from the tip of her finger onto the skin of his chest, and watched the rivulets slide down between the hairs. “I suppose one thing works out about this timing, at least, although I feel incredibly guilty even saying it—Bruce won’t be able to get in right now. They’ll probably start shutting the airports down again to international flights.”

  Tom was quiet for a moment, then said, “He will if he leaves right away.”

  Janie separated herself from Tom’s embrace and sat up in the tub. “What do you mean?”

  “I got a message this afternoon, Janie. His visa came through.”

  Janie stared at the steaming mound of scrambled eggs with a mix of horror and revulsion. “You can’t be serious,” she said to Linda Horn.

  “They caught that chicken,” she said. “And these eggs are from our own henhouse. Organic, range-fed, one hundred percent unblemished.”

  Janie sat down at the table, still looking reluctant. “You’re sure?”

  “Watch.”

  Linda helped herself to a portion of eggs, then sat down next to Janie and began to eat them. “See? I eat them.”

  “You’re a brave woman.”

  “No, I’m not. I just know they’re okay. It wasn’t the genetic change in the chicken itself that was a problem—and it’s almost impossible to absorb an altered gene by eating it. But they weren’t sure of that back then. The foundation people were frantic, because the work could be connected to them if an investigator was persistent enough, as you’ve been. What they did was supposed to be precautionary and though they didn’t know it at the time, completely unnecessary. If they’d just left it all alone, no one would have been any wiser and all those boys would be fine. But they didn’t. They tried to cover their tracks. And in doing so, they created a much bigger problem.”

  Janie watched Linda eat for a few seconds, then said, “You knew it was an agricultural gene, a chicken gene, for God’s sake. Why didn’t you just tell me? You might’ve saved me a lot of trouble.”

  Linda put down her fork and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I’m sorry for your trouble,” she said quietly. “We all are. We had no idea of the things that would happen to you. I’m just glad you weren’t inside that house at the time.”

  “I am too.”

  “It had to look like someone just stumbled onto it—I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d been waiting for someone to start looking into this. If any one of us had gone forward with this information, we might have uncovered our group. And that would’ve been a very bad thing. We have a lot of work to do yet.”

  “So you just kept putting things in my path, things for me to discover.”

  “We wouldn’t have come to you with those things if you hadn’t made the initial discovery on your own. We just kept feeding your curiosity. We were all starting to laugh about what an insatiable beast your curiosity is.”

  “To think all this happened so someone could extract the calcium out of eggshells more easily,” Janie said sadly. “How incredibly inane. How trivial. One bird gets loose and dozens of boys are horribly affected.” She looked up from her plate into Linda’s eyes and said, “Where was God when all this was happening?”

  “God only knows,” Linda said simply.

  After a quiet moment, Janie went on with her queries. “And the call from Jameson …”

  “One of us, of course. But you could’ve just brushed it off. You didn’t, though.”

  She smiled weakly. “It’s a habit I might have to change.”

  They heard a door opening and turned to see Tom approaching from the far side of the main room. He got himself a cup of coffee and came to the table. As he was pulling out his chair, Linda gave Janie a conspiratorial wink and got up to leave.

  “Good morning,” she said to Tom, then, “I’ll see you later, I hope?” to Janie.

  “Don’t know yet,” Janie said. “There are some things I need to do outside.”

  “Well, hurry back,” she said. “We need you.” Then she left Tom and Janie alone at
the table.

  They traded glances, and after a few seconds of discomfort Janie said, “Bruce wasn’t there when I called. I left a message for him to contact me right away.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  “I know. I can only hope he isn’t already on his way. It would be like him to do that—he likes to surprise me.”

  Tom drew in a long, worried breath, then expelled it slowly. “Well, there isn’t much we can do about it now. And over the next few days what we can do will get less and less, I guarantee it.” He sighed heavily and handed over the front page he’d printed from a Net newspaper. The headline read: MARTIAL LAW REINSTATED.

  With a pained and frightened look on her face, Janie scanned the first few lines of the article below it. She looked up at Tom, her brow tight, and said, “I don’t really need to read it all. I know what it’s going to say.”

  Tom nodded gravely. “Same as last time. The plague era begins. Again.”

  “I guess it does. There’s a lot to do. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it all today. It might take two.”

  “You can let it all go, and just stay here.”

  She looked him in the eye. “No, I can’t.”

  He smiled sadly and squeezed her hand. “You have gasoline, I hope?”

  “Close to a full tank.”

  “Good.” He sat back in his chair and let out a sigh. “Well, then, I guess I can’t delay this any longer.” He reached into one of his pockets and handed her a small gun.

  Janie actually recoiled at the sight of it. “Tom, this is nuts—I have no idea what to do with that thing. Put it away, please.”

  “No. I want you to take it.”

  “I can’t. And even if I take it, I would never use it.”

  “Janie, it’s already very dangerous out there. Carjackings, looting, it’s crazy. And it’s only going to get crazier. I don’t even want you to go back, but if you have to I want you to be able to protect yourself.”

  Eventually, she took it. After a few minutes of instruction, she put it gingerly in the case next to Virtual Memorial. And as Tom drove back to town, back into the growing anarchy, Janie sent out messages to the operatives with detailed instructions for the administration of the serum. But she added something more, something she hadn’t planned on adding the night before. Stand by for additional communication, later today.

  She remembered where she’d seen the photo of that orthopedist.

  It was midmorning when they pulled into the square. The street outside the foundation’s main door was teeming with frantic people, all scurrying around with packages and bags, pulling children along behind them, weaving helter-skelter through the tight foot traffic. An area of sidewalk was cordoned off in green tape, and suited cops stood guard over someone who had fallen. Janie thought she saw Michael among them, judging by height and stance and movement, but she couldn’t really be sure, because of the masks on the cops’ faces.

  They both stared in silent horror as the car glided slowly past. Tom said quietly, “Might have been a heart attack, or something like that.”

  “Might have. Probably not, though.”

  “Probably not.”

  Tom guided the car carefully through the sea of jaywalkers and brought it to a stop at the curb.

  “Where do they all think they’re going to go?” Janie wondered aloud.

  “Wherever,” Tom said quietly. “To their homes, or the homes of friends or relatives, most likely. Whatever seems safest.”

  As she watched from inside Tom’s car, Janie took hold of his hand and gripped it like a lifeline. “God be with them all,” she said. “I don’t usually say things like that—but I guess now’s as good a time as any.”

  “May something—anything—be with them all.”

  Tears came to Janie’s eyes. Her own voice sounded shaky to her. “Last time no one knew what it would be like, but this time … oh, God, can we all make it through this?”

  Tom reached out and brushed back a strand of her hair. “This time some people will be better prepared, you and me included. Try to think of it that way. And the ones who aren’t, well … hopefully that unknown something will find a way to be with them.”

  After a quiet pause, he said, “You don’t have to do this, you know. It can wait.”

  “I don’t think it can, Tom.”

  “Okay,” he said sadly. “Your call completely. Where will you go tonight, if you don’t finish up today?”

  “Michael and Caroline’s. And if they’re not home, I have a key. But I think they’ll be there.”

  “Sure you don’t want to come right out?”

  “If I can, I will. But I need to see Caroline.”

  At that moment a green van passed by them with its lights flashing. They both followed it with their eyes. “Michael may have to be on duty,” Tom said.

  “Then Caroline and I will stay together.” She paused, then said, “Look, Tom, I’ve been wanting to ask you since last night, but I was afraid—how much can I tell them? I mean, it would be good to bring them out—they could make a real contribution.”

  Tom’s face took on yet another layer of worry. “Michael’s a cop,” he said. “Now that the old regulations are back in place, he might have to report us. It’s possible that he could end up having to reveal the camp.”

  “He’s already been involved in some of this pretty deeply, and he hasn’t revealed anything yet. He gave me information on the coach’s autopsy … he knows everything that happened in London, and he’s never breathed a word of it.”

  “I know, but I just don’t think—”

  “Tom, Caroline is like a sister to me. She’s the only family I have left.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “But I can’t decide without the others. The rest of the group will have to discuss it.”

  “Michael could be an incredible resource … and Caroline, I can’t begin to tell you how—”

  “Janie, please, I’d love to say yes, but I can’t. Not without talking it over first. I’ll do that tonight when I get back.” Then he reached across the console that separated them and held her painfully close for a few short moments. “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you too.”

  “You be careful out there,” he said.

  “I will,” she promised.

  The air was close and hot in the wood-paneled elevator car. It was filled with worried-looking people, some of whom she recognized, none of whom bothered to greet her. “Every man for himself” was settling in, hard and fast.

  When the door opened at the floor where Janie once worked, panic hung in the air like heavy weather, primed to drop its destructive load on anyone without protection—and no one even knew what the proper protection might be. Janie shoved her way out of the car as people clambered to get in. She found Chet Malin behind his desk, packing up his personal items and looking even more frazzled than she’d expected.

  She sat down calmly in the chair opposite him.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be—”

  “Gone? Scared off?” She chuckled bitterly. “I’m scared, all right. But not of you. Or the people upstairs. There isn’t much more they can do to me beyond what they’ve already done.”

  He glanced around nervously as if someone might overhear them. “Look, Janie, get out of here. Can’t you see what’s happening? We have patients to move, wards to seal off, all sorts of shit to do.… Now, unless you’ve got a cure for DR SAM, you’d better leave.”

  He started to place a framed photograph in the box before him. Janie reached across the desk and took it out of his hand.

  “You look a little like your father, I think,” she said as she regarded it. When she’d satisfied herself that it was the orthopedist she sought, she handed it back. “I know about what happened, Chet.”

  He stared at her, and for a moment he looked frightened. But then the arrogance returned. “Yeah, well, things are getting hinky again,” he sneered, “and no one will give a shit about a l
ittle genetic accident that happened years ago. Especially since it wasn’t even a human genetic accident. It’s all gonna get lost in the shuffle.”

  “And when the shuffle stops, Chet, then what? I have copies of the evidence. And there are a few others out there in obscure places, so if anything happens to me, anything more, that is …”

  He looked around again. Beads of sweat started to form on his forehead. He wiped it on his rolled-up sleeve, adding another smear of grime. And then the full confession gushed out of him, as if he could not stop himself. “It was supposed to be just a little fire, just to scare you, not an inferno—but the guy got a little nuts on me, and the egg thing, Janie, you have to believe me, it was an accident, for God’s sake. And we tried to fix it with a gene wash. We had something we thought might work. The Giardia thing was just a way to scare people into cooperating so we could give it to everyone. We thought it had worked, because nothing showed up till recently. But we tried, we really did … listen, Janie, my father—he was sick over this. That’s what killed him—the stress of feeling like he was responsible for what happened.”

  “He was responsible, Chet. And you know what? It wasn’t the original accident that caused the problem. It was your ‘cure’ —”

  “Please! A bird got loose. A valuable bird with a patented gene, so we were keeping a pretty close eye on it.”

  “But birds will be birds, won’t they? They have those annoying wings.” She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “And now you own part of that patent.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “So when everything gets normal again you stand to make some money on it.”

  “Yeah, I do. But that’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “Someone who wasn’t worried about losing that fortune would have come forward before now.”

  He started to say something, then stopped. He heaved a big sigh in and out and then stared down at his fingernails.

  “You know, we used to call you Monkey Man, but I think Chicken Man is more appropriate.”

  He looked up. “Monkey Man?”

  “Please don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t.”