Anodyne Eyes

by Milt Mays

  Sam put a hand on Dan’s thigh. Dan flinched, but left the hand there.

  “Fred was a great guy,” Sam said. “I know you miss him.” He leaned forward and eyeballed Rachel sideways and his frown told her this was a subject that should never be broached again.

  Then he punched Dan gently on the shoulder. “But I’m here now, and I’m damn good, too. Right?”

  Dan’s head lifted and he smiled, putting one hand over Sam’s. “Not as good as me.”

  The lady in back of them began a running dialogue about the food coming down the aisle. “Oh, man. That’s corn on the cob, green beans and filet mignon they’re serving. I can smell it from here. Had it two days ago on the flight down. You know, I used to hate vegetables as a kid, but those new ones they got over the last year are fabulous. And that corn-fed beef is so tender it melts in your mouth, right along with the real butter.”

  About that time, their meals were being served by the flight attendant. Rachel knew the airlines had a five-year contract with Childress Foods. She also knew Childress was a front for Ambrosia. The plate full of food sat in front of her. As it turned out, she really wasn’t hungry.

  Dan dug in, always a fan of fresh corn. He glanced at her. “Why aren’t you eating?”

  “Think I’ve got stomach flu or something. Not hungry. Never liked airline food, anyhow. It’s—” She stopped. Maybe she should not alarm him. Anyway, airline food would have to be the safest. Probably less than Ambrosia’s “acceptable one percent.”

  “Well, I’m starved.” Dan mumbled around bites. “This filet is so tender, and the beans are wonderful.” He began humming while he chewed.

  Sam pulled out a book to read. Dan glanced at him. “What gives? I’ve seen you eat carrot cake after . . . you know, killing someone.”

  “Not my cup of tea. Been on a fish and fruit diet recently.” He eyed Dan and twisted his mouth sideways. “Maybe you should wait, too. Milwaukee has great restaurants.”

  The woman behind them was loud, even between bites. “This food is the best in the west, or anything I’ve ever—” A funny noise erupted from her, like a squeak and gurgle combined in one.

  Rachel and Sam turned in unison to look behind them, their noses almost touching Dan’s ears. That’s when the loudmouth spewed. Only it wasn’t merely food and it wasn’t just from her mouth. Blood poured out of her nose and mouth, splattering on the back of Dan’s seat and spraying over the top of his head onto his food tray.

  Rachel jumped sideways, disgusted at the sight, but at the same time glad Dan wasn’t going to eat any more of the food.

  Dan sat absolutely still, as if the spray was a poison that would kill him if he moved a muscle. Rachel unfurled her napkin and dabbed at the mess, holding back a gag. “It’s okay, Dan. This stuff won’t hurt you now. But your meal is ruined.”

  He frowned at her. “Really?” It was so deadpan she had to suppress a laugh.

  The commotion behind them sounded like a train with a load of dishes passing over logs. Rachel glanced back. “Shit. She’s having a seizure. Get up, Dan. We’re going up front to the restrooms. You need cleaning up.”

  Sam went with them. They pressed forward around the contingent of help that had arrived with a multitude of towels and an AED. The sounds of the convulsing woman rattled another two seconds then all was quiet, except for the weeping from her seatmate.

  Rachel had to squeeze past a woman moving down the aisle, graying at the temples and as portly as a Louisiana chef. She said, “I’m a doctor.”

  Rachel turned to let the doctor by, then watched her bend and look over the woman who was now quite still.

  The doctor put two fingers on the woman’s neck. “The defibrillator will not be needed.” The doctor shook her head at the dead woman’s friend who had given up her weeping for a few seconds to eyeball the doctor, the only hope she probably had. After the doctor’s exceedingly kind pronouncement and wonderfully negative body language—must have been a pathologist with that bedside manner, Rachel thought—the woman recommenced, only this time it was wailing. Loud. Breathless murmurs moved through the passengers, also gaining volume.

  Rachel turned and hurried after Dan who was a step behind Sam. They were almost to the bathroom when a male voice in the rear proclaimed, “Holy shit!”

  Rachel couldn’t believe this was happening so soon, didn’t want to turn around, but had to. Five rows back from the crowd around the dead woman, a teenage boy was standing up. Black blood streamed from his ears and nose. His eyes were wide and pleading. A gangly tall man was getting out of his seat, presumably to help, when the boy fell forward, twitching and bucking on the aisle floor. A woman seated in front of where he hit the floor screamed. Others near her yelled expletives and unclicked their seatbelts. But the woman was way ahead of everyone else. She was already out of her seat belt and hurrying toward Rachel.

  Rachel turned around. Dan, wide-eyed, was watching the kid on the floor who began convulsing. Dan definitely fit the teenage-boy version Rachel had come up with. He looked like a geek who’d had his lunch taken by a bully. She moved into him. “Get in the bathroom. Now!” Sam was already there, holding the door open.

  Dan’s whole body went rigid at her touch.

  Rachel gripped the front of Dan’s shirt and pushed him backwards, almost tossing him through the fold-in door of the bathroom.

  He sat down forcefully on the closed toilet, eyes wide. “Geez. What’s wrong? I didn’t kill them. I didn’t. I swear. Not me.”

  Sam held the door and his face drooped, his eyes like a sad bloodhound.

  “I know,” Rachel said. “I . . . I hate to see this happening. I was hoping we could get there before it spread.”

  Sam put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. “We’ll be landing in about a half hour, nothing closer. Besides they’re dead, right? Let me get Dan cleaned up. Maybe you can help them back there.”

  Maybe she could. But not this way. She needed a microscope, a computer, a lab and her trusty assistant in D.C.

  Sam went in the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

  If she could have punched the wall without breaking her hand she would have. Son of a bitch! Why had she ignored this possibility two years ago? Alex had warned her this would happen.

  She glanced back at the now still boy and the dead woman. How many more would die before they landed?

  Chapter 23

  Bash! Jeff jumped sideways in the car, and winced. A shotgun blast had hit the windshield. But the windshield held. He looked down at his chest. Whew! No bullet holes.

  He was supposed to be asleep, or unconscious, or at least with his eyes closed, not ogling his new girlfriend wreaking havoc with the local rednecks. Though, kinda weird, she wasn’t hitting them. She dodged them and touched them and they dropped. Several of them were weeping, but had no injuries he could see. And . . . Shit! Did she sprout wings?

  A guy with a large shotgun started coming to the car. Jeff closed his eyes. Once he’d seen a kid in the high school lunchroom have a seizure. He tried to imitate it, twitching and flailing about. They would believe that. Right?

  Smash! Another blow, this time to the window beside his head. Luckily he’d picked the headrest instead of leaning his head on the window to finish his grand mal imitation. But the closeness of the blow almost made him open his eyes. Almost. She said they would ignore him if he kept his eyes closed. He did.

  Several minutes later, sound became something he yearned for. He had to open his eyes or die of curiosity.

  The driver’s side door opened. He bolted upright, eyes popping. She got in. Splatters of mud painted the end of her pants legs. Her shoes were scuffed with red clay. The shimmering fabric of her shirt lay open in a tear at her right flank, revealing a new pink scar that before his eyes became normal skin.

  He knew he was gawking. But Jesus. “I would ask if you were okay, but . . . Are you, like, related to werewolves by any chance? Maybe vampires?”

  She smiled, her eyes
now a shimmering orange with only a hint of the lime green fading in and out. “No such thing as werewolves or vampires. Now where were we?”

  “Wait a minute. What was with the touch thing? What did you do? I didn’t see you really hurt anyone.”

  “I just convinced them to stop. Why would I want to hurt someone?”

  She turned the key and punched the accelerator. It took all of three seconds to screech a one-eighty and zoom northwest, past the first barrier. The road was bare of any followers. She flicked the switch for the nano-camouflage, and then cranked the stereo. Some weird-ass music vibrated his skull and he hoped the car was soundproof. Otherwise, what was the point of camouflage?

  He’d not heard this tune, and assumed it had come out while he’d been busy in the Oil War, or under its spell the year after.

  “Who’s this?” he yelled.

  “James Gang. Funk #49.”

  “Oh.” Never heard of them, that’s for sure. “Have to be so loud?” He remembered enjoying some of the newer music loud. Ahhh. Another memory: Crazy Jack and the Cheeseballs. Their stuff had multiple instruments and crazy high vocals, but the same rock beat. It seemed rock-’n‘-roll just kept on playing.

  She laughed and shook her head and her hair bounced like a proud horse that had won the Kentucky Derby. “Yeah. That’s the way me and Mom like it.” She turned it down a tad, smiling at him.

  His head started to hurt again. Maybe he had heard this tune before. Had Dad played it once?

  Soon, for miles on either side, yellow fields shimmered. It hurt his eyes.

  “What’s that?”

  “Rapeseed. You know, canola oil? It was banned in the 70s in Europe and the U.S., mostly due to the toxic nature of one of components, erucic acid. Some people think it caused Mad Cow disease in the UK. Canada supposedly fixed that in the 80s, and patented the name Canola oil, for Canada oil, with only about 1% erucic acid instead of 20%. The prior oil, called HEAR, or High Erucic Acid Rapeseed, can be used in biodiesel fuels, so growing it became a priority after the Oil War.”

  When he breathed he felt like coughing and his eyes started to water and itch.

  She punched the AC and recirculate button. “Another problem with rapeseed: The vapors from the plant cause lots of allergic reactions and asthma. The recirculation filter and the AC should help.”

  She turned the volume way down and cocked an ear. He heard it, too: a helicopter. And the sound was growing closer.

  It was behind them, but wouldn’t take long to catch up. He was hoping for the good guys, but she was driving way too fast, like she knew the helicopter was bad news. Even so, they could maybe go ninety-five, dodging the potholes. The helo could probably make 200 knots.

  The vibrant yellow fields abruptly stopped ahead, and there was nothing but sagebrush and patches of small farms with green fields of sprouting hay or wheat rolling over the hills.

  The thunder of the chopper was almost on them.

  She jerked the wheel left. A crash and flash of light obliterated the right lane they’d been in. His head banged against the window as the car jangled from the explosion. She barely managed to keep the car on the road. The helicopter was shooting missiles at them. He eyed the instrument panel but didn’t see any James Bond buttons that said “Flak” or “Heat-Seeking Missile.” They were toast.

  She pressed the accelerator, and they flew over the next rise. The road sloped down. At the bottom another barrier loomed. Only this one was twice the size of the previous one, and had twenty trucks behind it.

  He’d thought this was supposed to be a nice easy ride through the heartland of the U.S. That was about as incorrect as he had been in high school English when he’d read The Hobbit and reported it as The Habit. Just his luck: live through a world war then die while driving through farmland.

  Yet, she was smiling. Maybe she enjoyed fighting. Or maybe she was crazy, a screw loose in her weird DNA.

  Some of those trucks ahead were flipped around, their beds facing them, guys inside with RPGs on their shoulders. Great. He was going to get it in the mouth and the ass. No way out.

  The helicopter sounds became fainter. One of the RPG dudes let one loose. It went over their heads.

  Boom! The whop-whop of the helicopter ended.

  He looked back at the smoking and fiery conflagration crashing to the ground. “Damn straight!”

  He looked back at the guys ahead in the trucks. “Okay, who are those guys? That was a great shot.”

  “Farmers.” She glanced at him. “Friends.”

  They were getting close enough that he could see their faces. They were older, some with grizzled three-day stubble, and tee shirts that said, “Harley Davidson Forever” and “Carhartt.”

  “But we were just attacked by farmers, right? Or, you attacked them, or . . .”

  “These are real farmers. Those other guys were hired hands.”

  “Ambrosia?”

  She raised eyebrows and curled her lips in, as if to say, Duh.

  “So, who do these guys work for?”

  “Themselves.”

  “I thought Ambrosia did all the farming.”

  She gradually braked to a stop as the middle of the barricade opened. A small rotund man stepped forward. Jowls hung from his cheeks and bags under his eyes were creased dark and spoke of bone-weary fatigue. But the smiling blue eyes and suspendered blue jeans over a light blue plaid shirt shouted friend.

  She threw open the door and ran to him, yelling, “Thanks, Charlie! You’re my hero.” He grabbed her and they hugged. Two Labrador retrievers milled around their feet, one black, one blond, both with tails wagging, happy eyes and dripping pink tongues. They wanted some love, too. She obliged them, kneeling after Charlie let her go, and letting them lick her face while she ruffled their necks.

  Jeff stood by his opened door. A thin blond woman about the same age as Charlie with jaw-length hair, a brown Carhartt tee shirt, and brown eyes strode toward Jeff. Her blue jeans were patched here and there, but were tight, and her weathered and deeply creased face reminded him of someone—an aunt, grandmother—Who? A memory was trying to break through.

  She put out a hand over the car. “I’m Lorna, Charlie’s wife.”

  He took her hand and for a moment thought she was going to pinch his off in the more than firm shake. “Jeff.” He almost winced, but thought better of it, not wanting to look like the weak-assed city guy he was.

  “Come on over, Jeff, and meet everyone.”

  Alexis walked to the driver’s side. “I’ll get the car. You go on.” She jumped inside and cranked the motor. He closed his door and walked with Lorna, a part of him nervous and worried about getting stuck here and not getting to his dad. But when he looked up, they were all smiles. He could do happy for a while.

  The rest of that day was like a fairy tale. The city, or town, or whatever this was, had rebelled against GMO foods and had enough land out here they could do it. Many had owned farms since Great-Grandpa had homesteaded; others had bought into old timer’s land because they loved farming. They called this place Realfood.

  They talked, they walked. The sun went down. An hour later it was time to eat.

  “We’ll pay a price for that helicopter,” Charlie sat next to Jeff and Alexis at a massive indoor pine table, a picnic table for giants. There were about twenty people sitting around the table eating. Jeff had cleaned up and wore a newer set of camouflaged pants and shirt, still worn, but better. Alexis had on the same coffee-colored pullover and jeans, but had washed up and her skin glowed and blond hair shone in the indoor light.

  Lorna explained this was their shift to eat while others were on guard duty. A trio had begun playing country music on guitar, bass fiddle, and harmonica. The aroma of barbecue pork, beef, and beans with spring spinach had been floating over the farmhouse for the last three hours. Jeff’s stomach had finally caught up to him after the ordeal with the Ambrosia dudes. The aromas made it hard for him to concentrate on anything Charlie and Lorna said.
But he remembered the gist: These farmers were on their own as far as the government was concerned. And that was fine with them. The only problem was Ambrosia’s hired help.

  Jeff shoveled in another mouth of barbecued pork. Corn kernels as sweet as he remembered and baked beans and cooked spinach with bacon waited for another bite. They must have canned or frozen the corn, but it tasted fresh. The music and atmosphere reminded him of bars and beer and great times in high school. If there was a heaven, this must be it. Alexis caught his eye and pointed at a side of her cheek. He wiped off sauce and smiled and nodded at her.

  She eyed Charlie. “Sorry for the problems.”

  “If it hadn’t been you,” Charlie said, “it would have been someone else. Those assholes think they own the highways, the rivers, the crops, even the air. That’s how it started, you know. Back in the 90s Ambrosia decided to market GMO foods so strongly that no one could even save the seeds, and if you had a farm next to their pollinating GMO wheat and their pollen floated in the air over your land, you were stealing their pollen. They actually sued.”

  Jeff paused between bites, remembering a tidbit from high school. “They won, too, didn’t they, with that guy in Canada, Peter Schmidt?”

  Charlie smiled, a piece of spinach stuck between his front teeth. “Yeah. They won a lot, starting with Peter and then with several organic food growers. Until we decided to stop suing. About that time the Oil War started. Martial law helped us get back what the Supreme Court took away. Now that we have it, they’ll have to kill us all to get it back. And we’re such a small part of the U.S. crop, Ambrosia doesn’t really care. Keep us in the back alleys and they’re happy to run the freeways and major boulevards full of GMO foods. Today though, with us destroying their helicopter, retaliation is coming. Big time.” He caught the eye of someone in the shadows and nodded.

  Jeff could not make out who he nodded at, but darkness fell over Charlie’s countenance, as if a thundercloud had rolled in. He got up. “Excuse me. I’ll be back in moment.”