by Keith Taylor
Karen nodded, preparing herself for whatever awaited her around the corner, but when the man finally came into view she could barely hold back a gasp.
He was lying on the ground near the counter, his wife sitting by his side, rocking back and forth, and when she noticed Ramos she broke into a wide, manic smile. “Are you going to help him now, doctor?”
The man’s eyes were wide open, staring unblinking into the bright light above, his pupils milky. He was obviously blind, but it wasn’t only the blindness that shocked Karen. From the corners of his eyes the man wept blood, and at his nose and mouth a pink froth of blood, saliva and mucus bubbled gently as he took each labored breath. Karen didn’t want to look at him, but she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away. She just stared at this wreck of a human being as the woman described to Ramos what had happened to him.
“He was out in the fields,” she said, as Ramos gently took the man’s pulse and made a show of fussing over him. “You know, getting ready to bring in the artichokes. He said he saw the flash over the city, but I guess he watched it too long because he said his eyes started to go funny when he was halfway home. All swimmy, he said. That’s why he had to leave the tractor behind, you know? I found him down at the Woodrow farm just wandering around, couldn’t see a damned thing. Lord knows what would have happened to him if I’d not been home.”
Ramos reached into his plastic bag and withdrew a glass vial and a syringe, popping the foil cap with the needle. Beneath him the man moaned with pain. Ramos touched him gently on the shoulder, and then quickly turned his head to one side as his stomach convulsed and he vomited a frothy red-brown liquid.
“Do you think he’ll get better, doctor?” his wife asked, using her sleeve to carefully wipe clean her husband’s mouth. “It’s just… well, I don’t know how I’d be able to manage on my own. The farm’s too big for one person, and Lord knows you can’t find the help these days.”
Now Karen got a good look at her she could see that the woman wasn’t doing so well, either. Her eyes were sunken, and her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. After her own experience of radiation sickness it seemed that this woman had taken a larger dose.
Ramos drew a clear liquid from the vial into the syringe. He didn’t seem able to look the woman in the eye, but he finally responded to her question with a non-answer.
“This will help with his pain,” he said, taking the man’s arm and rolling up his sleeve. He tapped the skin of his forearm until a vein appeared, and then slid the needle in. A cloud of blood swam into the clear liquid of the syringe, and Ramos prepared to squeeze the plunger.
“Wait,” he said, his thumb freezing in place. “You said he drove his tractor home? From near the city?”
“Well, halfway home,” the woman nodded. “Like I said, he had to stop when his eyes started to go.”
“Which city are you talking about?” Ramos demanded.
The woman looked at him as if he was simple. “Sacramento, of course. The city that had a great big bomb dropped on it!”
Ramos looked up at Karen, his expression grim. “They hit Sacramento? Jesus, we were about to drive straight through there.”
He returned his attention to the syringe, staring at it as if he were psyching himself up. Eventually he looked up at Karen. “Could you… could you please go to the car and get ready to leave? There are some fresh clothes waiting for you on the driver’s seat. I just want to take a minute with… I’m sorry, what was your name, dear?”
“It’s Marjorie,” the woman replied. “Marjorie Gorman.”
“I just want a moment with Marjorie.” He looked back to Karen and gave her an almost imperceptible nod, then turned back to the woman. “Shall we say a prayer for Ron, Mrs. Gorman?”
Karen made her way to the door as Ramos and Marjorie bowed their heads over Ron. She had no idea why he wanted her to leave, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t want to spend another moment in there, staring down at the there but for the grace of God versions of herself. Both Marjorie and Ron were reminders of the hell she’d narrowly escaped, and just how close she’d come to death.
Karen knew that with just a little more exposure to the fallout she too would have been lying on the floor bleeding from her eyes. Right now she could be laying there in agony, praying for the end, and as she reached the Prius and saw Emily curled up on the back seat she felt an almost overwhelming rush of gratitude that she was still on her feet and breathing.
It all hit her at once, the thought that she’d come so close not only to dying, but to losing her daughter. Escaping the city had been a million to one shot. They could have died a half dozen times along the way, and each time the difference between life and death had been nothing but the toss of a coin. The fact that they were both still alive was nothing short of a miracle.
Five minutes passed before Ramos emerged from the pharmacy to find Karen in the back seat, clutching hold of Emily as tight as she dared. It was only when Karen saw the drawn expression on his face that she set her sleeping daughter back down on the seat and climbed out of the car.
“You OK, Doc?” she asked.
Ramos walked around to the passenger side of the car, slumped into the seat and closed his eyes. His fists were clenched in his lap.
“Doc, what’s up?” Karen pressed.
Ramos didn’t open his eyes. He simply shook his head and muttered, “Could you drive, please?”
Karen climbed into the driver’s seat, taking Ramos by the shoulder as she sat. “What happened in there, Doc? What’s wrong?”
Now he finally looked at her, his eyes swimming with tears, but still he didn’t speak.
“Doc? You’re really worrying me now. What did you do?”
Once again he shook his head and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Nine thousand milligrams of Secobarbital,” he said. “That’s the lethal dose. That’s enough so he’d drift away in a few minutes. No more pain. He’d just… fall asleep.”
“Doc… Please, tell me you didn’t.”
Ramos reached out for the window controls, rolling his down a few inches, and with a sigh he unclenched his fist. In his hand was the syringe, but the plunger was still drawn back. Clear liquid and a cloud of blood filled the reservoir. He reached up and dropped it out the window, then wiped a tear from his cheek and closed his eyes once again.
“I couldn't bring myself to press it down,” he said, shaking his head. “Please just drive.”
΅
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FIGHT OR FLIGHT
JACK STEPPED OUT from his room and onto the wooden porch that separated the building from the parking lot, and for a moment he just stood there, taking in his surroundings as if for the first time.
Cathy’s truck was still there, the only vehicle in the lot, just where Garside had clumsily parked it the night before, and on the far side of the lot was the little blue Parsons house. It had looked so inviting just a half hour ago, but now… now there was something ever so slightly off about the place. About the whole town. There was a chill Jack hadn’t noticed before, but it wasn’t in the air. It was something else that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
He jumped at a sudden sound to his right, a rhythmic squeaking coming from somewhere out of sight, and before he could catch himself he found his fists clenching of their own accord. He shifted his stance, preparing himself to either fight or run. His heart fluttered in his chest, and it wasn’t until the maid’s cleaning cart came wheeling around the corner that he realized his fingernails were digging into his palms.
Jack forced himself to relax. He took a deep breath and shook out his hands as Gabriela gave him a cheerful wave, and he managed to offer a smile in return.
“Hola,” she called out. “You had a good breakfast?”
Jack nodded, taking a few steps in her direction as casually as he could manage. “Yeah, thank you, it was delicious. Just, ummm, grabbing a little fresh air now. Gotta help the old digestion. I see you’re… ummm…
I see you’re cleaning the rooms. That’s great.” He cringed at the painfully stilted small talk, but it was all he could manage with his mind racing a mile a minute.
“Yes,” she replied, a look of mild concern flitting across her face. “Is everything OK with your room? I can clean it now if you want.”
“No, no, everything’s fine,” he assured her, realizing she must have thought he was criticizing her work.
Gabriela gave him an awkward smile as she reached across her cart and lifted a bunch of keys dangling from a hook on the corner. “Are you sure? I really don’t mind if you need anything.” She unlocked the door in front of her, the room next to Cathy’s, and hung the keys back on their hook.
“No, seriously, I’m fine.” Jack sidled towards her as casually as he could manage, quickly scanning the cart. “It’s just… I need…”
As he reached out to the cart and grabbed a roll of toilet paper he realized that his dream of becoming James Bond was never going to come true. “Sorry, I finished the roll in my room. Thank you.”
Gabriela smiled politely. “De nada.” The look of concern flashed across her face again, but this time it was the concern someone might feel on realizing that a guy had used an entire roll of toilet paper in just a few hours. “You can take more if you’re having… a problem,” she said, holding out another roll. “We have plenty.”
“Thank you, I’m fine,” Jack replied, awkwardly throwing her a salute with the roll in his hand. His Bond dream was quickly vanishing over the horizon. “I’ll just take… this and head back to my room. Thanks for your help.”
Gabriela’s smile had turned almost to pity now, and she hurriedly grabbed a mop and bucket and vanished into the room without another word.
“Smooth, Jack,” he whispered to himself, grabbing the keys from the hook. He could feel his cheeks glowing pink with embarrassment, but there was no time to worry about that now. He rushed back to Cathy’s door, flipping through the bunch until he found the right key, and then he walked on tiptoes back to the cart to replace them at the corner. Through a gap in the curtain he could see Gabriela carry the mop into the bathroom. She hadn’t seen him.
He returned to Cathy’s door, quickly scanned around the parking lot to make sure that nobody was watching and then slipped inside, closing the door quietly behind him.
As the door closed the room was plunged into almost complete darkness. Jack didn’t dare open the blackout curtains just in case someone happened to look through the window, so he decided to make do with what little daylight crept through from the open bathroom door at the back of the room. It wasn’t much, but it was just enough to avoid tripping over the furniture.
Parsons had been right. Unless Gabriela had already made up the room sometime this morning Cathy’s bed hadn’t been slept in. The corners of the sheets were still tucked beneath the mattress, but they were rumpled a little where, Jack guessed, she’d sat on the bed when she arrived.
He looked around at the rest of the room, but in the gloomy darkness nothing seemed out of place. Cathy hadn’t brought any luggage with her, so it’s not as if he expected to find clothing strewn from an open suitcase, but he expected at least some evidence that she’d been here. A small part of him had half expected to find signs of a struggle, broken furniture and shattered mirrors. Maybe a telltale splash of blood on the bedsheets, but not this perfectly ordinary, slightly shabby motel room.
Am I overreacting?
Hell, maybe he had put his phone and wallet in his pants pocket. He’d been exhausted when they arrived at the motel. Maybe it had just slipped his mind. And maybe Cathy had just decided to leave without saying goodbye. Maybe she’d decided that driving to Southern California with two strangers in the aftermath of a nuclear attack hadn’t been the best idea she’d ever had. God knows she’d be right about that.
And what was the alternative? That the friendly local sheriff and his wife were really hardened criminals, intent on… what, exactly? What could they possibly want with him that would lead them to rifle through his things and intentionally destroy his phone?
Jack sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly realizing what a fool he’d been. He was on edge. He was under more stress than he’d felt since the day Robbie had died, and he’d let it get to him. He’d taken a couple of perfectly innocent events and then joined the dots to create some illusory threat in his tired, addled mind, and now he was suspicious of a couple of nice, friendly people who’d done nothing but give him directions and feed him a delicious breakfast.
He just needed more sleep, he told himself. Another hour or two on a comfortable bed then he and Garside would be back on the road, fresh air blowing through the windows and a clear road ahead. He’d be fine so long as he didn’t let his imagination get the better of him. There were enough real threats out there without creating more out of thin air.
He pushed himself up from the bed, suddenly realizing he’d have a hell of a time explaining to Gabriela what he was doing in the wrong room without a key. He just hoped she wasn’t out on the deck when he left. If he could just make it back to his room without her seeing him he could put all of this behind him and get on with the—
His foot caught on something as he walked towards the door, something small that skated across the floorboards until it hit the wall beneath the window. Jack dropped to his knees, determined to leave the room undisturbed, and he felt blindly across the floor until his fingers closed over an object that felt like it didn’t belong.
He picked it up and lifted it into the dim light, and as he realized what it was all of his doubts came flooding back. For a long moment he stared at it, trying to process just what it meant, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate. There were just too many thoughts rushing through it to make any sense from the noise.
The cacophony in his head was so loud that he almost didn’t notice the real noise, just outside the door, but finally it broke through the racket.
It was the squeaking of Gabriela’s cart, just outside Cathy’s door.
He panicked. The room only had one door, and it was blocked. He fell back to his knees and scurried towards the bed, hoping he might be able to hide under there, but even in the darkness he could tell there wasn’t enough room. The base of the bed sat low above the floor, maybe eight inches high. There was no way he could fit.
He scanned around in the dim light, desperate for options, but the sparsely furnished room offered no hiding places. There wasn’t even a closet he could hide in, just a clothes rack bolted to the wall.
He could hear Gabriela now, quietly singing to herself in Spanish just outside the door, and he knew at any moment he’d hear the sound of the key in the lock. What could he do? Just bolt past her as she opened the door? Pretend he thought this was his room? Try to think up some reason he might be in here alone?
That might work, he realized, if she didn’t know Cathy had already left. If she didn’t know the door had been locked. There would be at least enough doubt that she wouldn’t immediately scream bloody murder. He and Cathy had arrived together, after all. Why shouldn’t he be in her room? For all Gabriela knew they could be a couple.
A chilling thought hit him.
What if Gabriela was in on whatever was going on? What would she do when she realized Jack knew that something was wrong?
No, he couldn’t let her see him. She couldn’t know what he’d found on the floor of the room. If he was going to buy himself the time to figure out what the hell was happening he had to get out of there, and quickly.
He fumbled through the darkness towards the second hand daylight of the bathroom. There was a window there, he knew, leading out onto the back of the building, and if it was anything like the one in his room it was just about large enough to climb through.
Jack reached the bathroom door as he heard the metallic jangle of keys. He slipped inside and carefully closed the door behind him as he heard a key slip into the lock, and he climbed up onto the toilet as the front door swung open.
; The window was already wide open, and it was just large enough to allow him to squeeze through and drop down to the narrow alleyway running behind the rooms. He lowered himself down slowly, trying to stay silent, and he winced at the sound of gravel crunching beneath his feet, but he couldn’t afford to walk on tiptoes now.
He ran. He ran until he reached the corner of the building, and then he stopped with his back pressed against the wall as soon as he was out of sight, his heart thumping in his chest and his head swimming, staring down bewildered at the object in his hands.
He could buy that Cathy might have decided she didn’t want to travel with them.
He could accept that she might have decided to leave without saying goodbye.
He could even bring himself to believe that she’d decided to leave her truck behind for them, and hitch a ride with someone else.
He could believe all of that, if he had to, but there was one thing he couldn’t believe. No matter how he turned it over in his head it still didn’t make any sense.
Why would she leave without her gun?
΅
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FIGURE IT OUT, JACKASS
THE NIGHT HAD been cold, and it felt like it had lasted a lifetime.
Cathy sat huddled among the ponderosa pines in the forest overlooking the town, just a hundred yards or so from the foot of the hill where the motel grounds began. Despite the warm morning sun she was still shivering in her light jacket, partly from the bone deep cold of the night that still clung to her, and partly from sheer exhaustion.
She’d been watching the motel from the cover of the forest since the early hours. She’d watched the cop, Parsons, lug his fat ass in and out a few times since before dawn, vanishing off towards the church in the distance before returning a half hour later.