Drought

by Graham Masterton

  Peta said, ‘You think that we should go back?’

  ‘Wrack’s dead, and so I don’t think that anybody’s going to be looking for me any more. I don’t think the police are going to be worrying about Tyler, either, not now.’

  ‘But what about water, Martin? That was the whole reason we came here, for the water. How are we going to survive without water?’

  ‘We tell the water department where this lake is, and that should help. Come on, there are millions and millions of gallons here, and it would only take them a few days to set up a pipeline. In Helmand, we laid five miles of pipe in a single afternoon.’

  Peta looked around, and smiled at the children. ‘You’re right, I suppose. We’ll just have to fight for our water like everybody else.’

  As soon as she had said that, they heard thunder. It rumbled on and on, like a distant artillery barrage.

  ‘Hear that?’ said Martin. ‘The voice of God.’

  FOURTEEN

  After an hour, Santos’ blackened body rose silently to the surface of Lost Girl Lake. The two security guards pulled him into the side and then lifted him out.

  Grimacing with effort and disgust, they carried him outside, and then went back for the body of their fellow security guard. They laid them side by side with Saskia and the two security guards that Martin had shot. Peta made Nathan and George and Mina sit in Santos’ Suburban, with Susan to look after them, so they wouldn’t have to see.

  There was no question of taking five bodies with them back to San Bernardino, and that was excluding the grotesquely cremated remains of Joseph Wrack. They couldn’t bury them, however, because the ground was solid granite, and it would have taken pneumatic drills to dig even a shallow grave. Most of the bushes in the valley had been reduced to fine gray spidery ash, and the blankets in their tents had been burned, so they had nothing to cover them, apart from stones, and building a cairn for them, like they had for Mikey, would have taken hours.

  ‘We can come back for them,’ said Martin. He looked up at the turkey vultures wheeling around on the thermals that rose out of the valley. ‘Meanwhile, I think we’ll have to leave them to Mother Nature.

  He stood over Santos’ body for a few moments. ‘Hey, Kemo Sabay,’ he said, quietly. ‘You did ask me to make sure that you were burned, didn’t you? I know this wasn’t exactly what you had in mind, but I hope it’s enough for you. You’ll be going back to your land now, anyhow. Meeting all of your people. I’m sorry for what happened to you. I’m sorry for what happened to all of you Yuhaviatam. I really am.’ He paused, and then he said, ‘Gitche Manitou? Can you hear me? If you can, then take this guy to meet his Juanita, will you?’

  Peta said, ‘Come on, Martin. We need to go.’

  He checked his Eldorado to make sure that he hadn’t left anything in the glove box, and then he put up its roof and locked it. He didn’t know whether he would ever be coming back for it. Their trek along the Path of the Sacred Bear had wrecked its suspension and its muffler and ruinously scratched its paintwork, but he might be able to salvage it one day.

  Tyler drove them up the valley in Santos’ truck, with Martin sitting in the back to keep the two security guards covered. When they reached the head of the valley, they saw the two dark-blue ESS helicopters, one on either side of the wash, a Robinson Raven and an AStar. Their pilots were sitting on a rock together a little way away, smoking. Tyler brought the Suburban to a halt and Martin climbed out, with his sub-machine gun raised, and both of them stood up in alarm.

  ‘Hi there, gentlemen!’ Martin called out. ‘This isn’t as threatening as it looks, so I’m asking for a little calm. No – relax, you don’t have to put up your hands.’

  ‘Where’s Mr Wrack?’ asked one of them. ‘How come you left Mr Wrack behind?’

  Martin said, ‘Mr Wrack has had an accident. That’s why we had to leave him behind. Let’s just say that he’s not in very good shape right now. What you’re going to do now is fly us all back to your base in San Bernardino – all of us. After that we’re going to part company, as friends, I hope.’

  ‘What kind of an accident?’ said one of the pilots, in a strong South Carolina accent. ‘What – you mean he’s dead?’

  ‘Yes, he is, I’m afraid. I guess that’s what you get for playing with fire.’

  ‘Told him he shouldn’t have brung that flame-thrower,’ said the pilot. ‘Didn’t like having that dang thing aboard with me one bit. Plus all of that extra gas.’

  The other pilot shrugged. He seemed completely unperturbed. ‘Far as I’m concerned, Dooby, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.’

  They lifted off from the head of the valley and tilted south-westward, back across the Joshua Tree National Park and Desert Hot Springs until they reached Highway 19, which would take them back toward Redlands, and then to San Bernardino.

  Martin and Peta and Ella and Mina were in one helicopter, with one of the two surviving security guards, while Tyler and Susan and Nathan and George and the other security guard were in the other.

  Martin had given Tyler the pistol that he had taken from the ESS man who had dived into the water, but neither of the security guards seemed to be interested in giving them any trouble. Lief, their pilot, appeared to be positively jubilant that Joseph Wrack was dead.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘Assholes I can tolerate. If a guy’s an asshole he’s an asshole. We all behave like assholes now and again. It’s the human condition. Darwin’s Origin of Assholes. What I can’t tolerate is assholes who behave like sons of bitches, and Joseph Wrack was the meanest son of a bitch I ever came across, ever. Don’t know what’s going to happen now. Maybe his deputy’s going to take over – Jim Broader. He’s an asshole, I’m telling you. But a son of a bitch, no.’

  He talked non-stop as they flew along the highway, and Martin was glad that he was the only other person in the cabin wearing headphones.

  Far ahead of them, on the horizon, he could see lightning flicker. As they neared Redlands, however, and veered north-westward toward San Bernardino, he was sure that he could see gray clouds building. He turned around in his seat and pointed them out to Peta. ‘Haven’t seen clouds like that in over a year!’ he shouted.

  ‘What?’ she shouted back.

  ‘Clouds! Over there!’

  The wind was beginning to rise, and buffet the helicopter, and the pilot stopped talking as he concentrated on keeping them on course. The roaring of their engine rose and fell as they circled at last around the ESS helipad off East 3rd Street, on the northern perimeter of San Bernardino International Airport. Martin turned his head around to see where the other helicopter was. It was close behind them, off to their starboard side and slightly higher, but it was struggling against the wind just as much as they were. The two helicopters dipped and danced like two dragonflies before they finally settled on to the concrete landing pad.

  Almost at once, four ground crew in fluorescent orange overalls came hurrying out of the helipad building to anchor both helicopters with hooks and cables.

  They all climbed out, and by now the sky above them was heavy with low gray clouds. The speed with which they had rolled over was astonishing. There was another flicker of lightning, and a grumble of thunder, and then, like some kind of Biblical miracle, it began to rain. They all stood looking upward. The children had their arms outspread. At first, the rain was nothing more than a few warm spots, but then it started to come down harder.

  It thundered again, much nearer and louder.

  Martin turned to Peta. Her blonde hair was wet and straggly, and raindrops were running down her cheeks like tears.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ he said. ‘The voice of God.’

  It rained for only twenty minutes before the clouds passed over and the sun came out again, so that steam rose from the sidewalks and the whole city shone blurred and bright.

  But it thundered and rained again, during the night, much more heavily this time. Peta turned over and said to Martin, ‘Are
you awake?’

  ‘I haven’t slept yet,’ he told her. ‘I can’t stop thinking about everything that’s happened, and I still can’t believe that I’m here.’

  In the darkness, she touched his face with her fingertips, as if she were blind. ‘It will be different this time, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I promise you.’

  It kept on steadily raining for over two hours and he could hear it chuckling in the gutters and filling up the rain butt in the back yard. He still couldn’t close his eyes, but he put his arm around Peta and held her while she fell asleep again. He didn’t know what was going to happen to him now – whether the police would come looking for him for killing Joseph Wrack or Joseph Wrack’s security guards, as well as destroying one of his helicopters. Then there was the question of him springing Tyler from custody, when Tyler had already been charged with felony homicide. In a strange way, though, he felt completely calm about it – for tonight, anyhow. He knew that a kind of justice had been done, and that once the truth was known, he and Tyler stood a good chance of being exonerated. Most of all, though, he was back with Peta, and Tyler and Ella were sleeping in their own bedrooms, and it was raining.

  The following morning, on NBC News, it was announced that Governor Halford Smiley, who had unaccountably been missing for over twelve hours, had been discovered dead in a parking lot in south San Bernardino. Apparently he had been the victim of a car bomb, although there was no indication as to who might have wanted to blow him up, or why. No terrorist organizations had claimed credit for killing him, although an extreme group of environmental activists calling themselves Thirst For Action had said that they would ‘line-dance on his grave’ because his ‘rotational hiatuses’ had been tantamount to class genocide.

  For the time being, Lieutenant Governor Kenneth Korven would be taking over the running of the state of California. He had already agreed that the Environmental Protection Agency should temporarily take over the rationing of water, at least until the drought emergency was over. That would mean that all of those neighborhoods whose water had been permanently cut off would have their supply restored, at least every alternate day, and that those neighborhoods who never had been cut off would have to suffer the same restrictions.

  Lieutenant Governor Korven also announced the fortuitous discovery of a ‘substantial’ underground aquifer in the Joshua Tree National Park. It was possible that this water could be used to alleviate the drought crisis in San Bernardino County and surrounding areas.

  After the first rainfall in well over a year, weather forecasters were cautiously predicting a gradual return to normal precipitation. There had been intermittent rain all across the Midwest, and in parts of Louisiana there had even been flooding. Several tankers stranded on the bed of the Mississippi had been refloated.

  For the first time in days, there was no serious rioting in downtown San Bernardino, and no more fires, although some looting continued. That evening, it rained again, very softly and gently, and the air began to cool. The following morning, very early, Martin and Peta heard a gurgling noise coming from their bathroom, and it was their toilet cistern filling up.

  On the third day, Martin took a taxi down to the office in Carousel Mall. The downtown area was still a scene of devastation, although burned-out cars were being lifted up on to low-loaders and crews of men in high-visibility coats were sweeping the broken glass and rocks and trash from the streets.

  The only person in the office was Brenda, the receptionist, her hair still tightly French-pleated, scowling as always.

  ‘I think Arlene will be wanting a word with you, Martin,’ she said, as soon as he walked in through the door. ‘She’s not in today and I haven’t been able to contact her at home, but I’m quite sure that she’ll have something to say.’

  Martin smiled. ‘That’s OK, Brenda. I’ll come in tomorrow and if there’s anything eating her I’m sure we can sort it all out. For now, what staff cars do we have in the parking garage? I need to borrow one.’

  Brenda opened her desk drawer, took out three sets of car keys, and said, ‘We have a Sonic or a Cruze. Or a Prius.’

  ‘I’ll take the Prius. I don’t want anybody saying that I don’t do my bit for climate change.’

  Once he had gone down to the parking garage and picked up the car, he drove home to Fullerton Drive. Home. He liked the sound of that. There were two things he had to do first. One was to go to his apartment at Hummingbird Haven and collect all his clothes and the rest of his stuff. More important than that, though, he had to take Tyler to San Bernardino Community Hospital.

  Maria was sitting up in bed when Tyler rapped at her door, watching TV. Her face was still swollen, but the bruises around her eyes were turning yellow, and her lips were healing, although she still had several scabs.

  ‘Tyler!’ she said, and her eyes widened. ‘They told me you’d been arrested. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Is it OK?’ Tyler asked her. ‘If you don’t want to see me, I’ll go.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Stay. I wanted to tell the police that you didn’t shoot Papa. I asked the nurses but they said that no cops could come to see me, because of the riots. I asked again yesterday because I thought you were in prison but they still said no.’

  ‘You will tell them that I didn’t shoot him, though, won’t you? I mean, when all of this rioting is finished and they can come see you.’

  She held out her hand to him. Her wrist was bandaged and two of her fingernails were missing. ‘Tyler … of course I will tell them. It wasn’t you. It was that Big Puppet. I can tell the police what he looked like, everything.’

  Tyler was tempted to tell her what had happened to Big Puppet, but decided it was better if he said nothing at all. He took her hand between his. Although her face was so bruised, he thought that she still looked beautiful. ‘The other thing,’ he said, with a catch in his throat.

  ‘What other thing? What do you mean?’

  ‘What I did to you. What that Big Puppet made me do to you. I’m so sorry. You must hate me for it. I’m really so sorry.’

  Maria shook her head. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Tyler. I know that. In fact I’m glad you did it because he would have killed both of us, like my Papa.’

  ‘Is it OK if I come see you tomorrow? I’m sorry … I didn’t bring you anything. Most of the stores are smashed up so there’s nothing to buy.’

  Maria smiled at him. As she did so, rain sprinkled against the window, and as they both turned their heads to look outside, they could see clouds tumbling hurriedly across the sky, as if they had an urgent appointment to keep.

  Martin picked up the last box of books and looked around his empty apartment. He had left the TV because it was eight years old and in any case it had been given to him by Shirelle in the office because she no longer needed it and otherwise she would have sent it off for recycling.

  This was one place he wasn’t sad to be leaving. All it reminded him of was lonely evenings and Hungry Man dinners and one-night stands with girls who had known that he was never going to get serious with them.

  He heard the front door open. ‘Tyler?’ he called out. ‘Just coming!’

  He carried the box of books out into the corridor. There was somebody standing in the open doorway but it wasn’t Tyler. It was a skinny, unshaven Hispanic man with wild black hair and a sagging green linen coat, underneath which he was bare-chested, with thick curly chest-hair. He wore baggy gray pants that hung down so low that Martin could see the waistband of his Calvin Klein shorts.

  He was toothlessly grinning and he was pointing a gun at Martin, which he was holding sideways in approved gangsta fashion.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Martin.

  ‘Catched up with you at last,’ said Jesus. ‘I been looking and looking but I couldn’t find your ass noplace. Friend of mine knew that you lived here, gave me the heads up that you was back. You probably know him. Juan, the janitor. I always razz him, call him the Juanitor.’

  ‘
What do you want, Jesus?’

  ‘What do I want? What do I want? What do you think I fucking want? You pushed my head down the john and I want what’s-it-called? Retro-bewshun. That’s it. Nobody pushes my head down no john and lives to laugh about it, man. Ezzie told everybody about it, of course she did. If there hadn’t been no drought, man, you could have drowned me.’

  ‘So now you’ve come to get even?’

  Jesus shook his head so that his earrings waggled. ‘I want more than even. I want to make sure that you never stick your nose in my life never again, nor nobody else’s life, come to that.’

  He cocked the automatic and aimed it directly at Martin’s head. Martin tensed, ready to throw the box of books at him, in the hope of deflecting his aim.

  ‘Any last words, Mr Social Service loser? How about an apology? How about, “Sorry, Jesus, for pushing your head down the john”? Not that it would make no difference. I’m still going to waste you, whatever.’

  What Jesus didn’t realize was that Tyler had now quietly come up the steps to Martin’s apartment and had appeared right behind him. Martin remained expressionless, but Tyler indicated that he was going to make a grab for Jesus’ gun.

  Martin said, ‘Yes. Good idea.’

  Jesus was taken aback. ‘What does that mean, man? “Good idea”? It’s a good idea that you apologizes? Well, if it’s such a good idea, then do it. Like, apologize. “Sorry, Jesus, for pushing your head down the john.”’

  Tyler reached out and grabbed Jesus’ wrist, wrenching it upward. Jesus fired one shot into the ceiling before Tyler twisted his wrist around so violently that he had to let go of the gun. Martin dropped the box of books on to Jesus’ feet and then punched him in the face so hard that he dislocated his jaw.

  Jesus was left standing there with his mouth gaping open and his tongue hanging out, gagging and choking, unable to speak.

  ‘Now get the hell out of here, Jesus!’ Martin barked at him. ‘And don’t ever let me see your miserable face ever again. The water supply’s back on, so next time I will drown you, I swear to God!’