Eupocalypse Box Set

by Peri Dwyer Worrell

  “Questions?”

  As one, the suits began clapping. Smiling faces, nods of approval, excited side chatter among them. DD could tell this was something they’d wanted for a long time. She’d solved a huge public-relations problem for them, by solving an environmental problem for everyone. She puffed her chest a little. Savior of Amrencorp, savior of the planet. Nice to be appreciated. I think I’m going to like this corporate gig.

  She powered down her laptop and disconnected from the hotel’s projector. As the first after-lecture questioner came up to introduce himself, she pulled her USB drive out of the computer and dropped it in her pocket; her thumb came away sticky. She wiped it on her jacket without thinking, unclipped her lavaliere mike from her collar and set it down for the hotel’s AV guy. She paused to shake hands with several attendees as she finished packing up.

  IX.

  Ferry Tale

  DD cruised down Seawall Boulevard. The architecture of Galveston’s main drag ran towards exquisite Victorian houses, charming 1930s Craftsman bungalows, and of course, the architectural style, based on Texas’s distinctive red limestone, which DD privately thought of as Brick Elephant: columns, porches, turrets, gables, bartizans, all intertwined in an arbitrary, massive, ungainly red-brick-and-sandstone salad. She observed that, once one got a few blocks away from the bridge, Galveston seemed quiet, especially since it was Saturday night. Perhaps its storied days of seedy bar fights among oil roustabouts, fishermen, and merchant marines were only a ghost from the past. Or perhaps I’m just in the wrong neighborhood to see it. Galveston was less than an hour from downtown Houston’s grit and gaud, but the air was breezy and the climate sunny. The quiet atmosphere was vividly unlike the Gulf Coast beach cities in her native Florida, which had been gradually ruined by commercial tourism and hemmed in by retirement condominiums in the last few decades.

  She’d met her new lab staff when she delivered the cultures in Houston. What a pleasure that was! The people she’d be working with were top-notch and motivated. The lab facility was brand-new, and her office was at least as nice as the assistant football coach’s at FCU.

  She’d built some extra travel time into her schedule, just in case; DD believed in over-preparing, but it left her with extra time on her hands now. Fortunately, she loved to travel. She’d never seen the Texas Gulf Coast before, so she decided to make a weekend of it. There was a car ferry from Galveston to the Bolivar peninsula; she planned to stop for the night on the peninsula and move on in the morning.

  The route to the Galveston ferry terminal was well-marked, though her phone's GPS was also fine. At the boarding station, she obeyed the ferry crew, who gestured with neon-yellow gloves for her to take lane number three. She pulled her little SUV in line, where it was eclipsed behind a customized Ford Expedition, and lilliputianized next to a Silverado 3500 (yes, I’m in Texas, truck capital of the USA). She cut off the engine. The sun was two fingers’ breadth from setting and the bay water was choppy, with steely gray waves in sharp regular rows like a bastard-cut file. The fall air was fresher, now that the sun was low. A dolphin’s supple back gleamed briefly among the waves. Pelicans circled and dropped, lunging into the water with flapping feet.

  The ferry’s motor was running, a slowly oscillating bass growl she could feel through the soles of her feet and up into her hips. She returned to her car and checked her e-mail: nothing pressing. She watched a tiny tugboat push a gigantic oil platform towards the cluster of refineries ashore. A group of laughing children ran along the beach. She glanced back down at her phone, then looked up and slammed her foot on the brake in panic, briefly disoriented to see the dock pylons moving past her as the boat left its berth. The ship’s start had been so gradual she hadn’t felt the movement.

  She got out of the car again. There was an odd hole in the hem of her jacket, almost like a cigarette burn, and she didn’t smoke. Damn, I really liked this suit! She tossed it into the vehicle and circled the walkways around the deck. Reaching the rail at the bow, she stood next to a bronze-faced Hispanic family: dad, mom, and three girls with silky long black hair, the youngest’s in two long braids. The sunset comprised utterly saturated, extravagant streaks of lemon yellow, apricot, and lavender. Another latex-shiny grey fin and back flashed and were gone, back below the whitecaps, even as she exclaimed aloud, “Dolphin!” The family scanned in vain, the little girl bouncing on her toes. DD smiled, thinking of her own innocent little girl, years ago, and a familiar pang of grief-guilt-fear shot the smile down, just as quickly.

  The lights of Houston twinkled to life on the horizon below the sunset. She checked her phone again; five full bars of coverage, but still no response from Tim. I’m just being a twitch. But she wanted to confirm she’d used the right data in that report. She’d changed the inclusion criteria at the last minute, and edited the spreadsheet and saved it, but she’d an irrational fear that she’d used the old data file, like the niggling worry that you left the oven or the iron on when you left the house. Tim could check the save dates and tell her for sure. She shrugged; it was late, it was the weekend, he’d be busy packing to move, and she wasn’t likely to hear back from him until Monday. The lay people she’d presented to would never notice, but an error in the report file that was going up on the web page could potentially come back to bite her in the ass later on.

  Oh, well. She might as well let it go for the moment and enjoy a restful weekend drive up the beach. She’d never been to Bolivar peninsula before, but she figured that, like most beach towns, it would be full of hotels and restaurants.

  The ferry approached the dock. Another dolphin’s fin crested and was gone. She got back in her car, turned the key, and attended the process of being ushered off the boat by costumed traffic directors. There was a park-like rest area by the dock: bathroom, small office (closed), and cement walkway along the top of the seawall. Mercury-vapor lights overhead had come on automatically, casting a pinkish tinge that melded with the sunset. A tiny yellow-white hangnail of sun remained unconsumed by the horizon. A few people fished placidly off the seawall. They’d left some things behind on the concrete picnic tables: a straw cowboy hat, a tote bag. So: petty crime, not an issue here.

  She pulled in, used the restroom, got back in her car, and Googled “hotels bolivar texas.” Two. Hmm. And the lack of lighted signs on the long, straight road ahead told her she might have erred in assuming she could easily find a place to spend the night. At least I’ve already eaten. The first hotel listed was the Seaside Motel, advertising $35/night, a price which pretty much said that the price was the only thing to recommend it. Nope!

  How about the Down By The Sea bed and breakfast? She tapped the number to dial. The phone rang and rang, and then what sounded by its clicks and static like an old-fashioned mechanical answering machine picked up. She hung up and drove down the long, lonely strip of highway to the Seaside Motel. The hotel was clearly identified by a yellowed plastic light-box sign above a concrete central pool, surrounded by a chain-link fence and a few rusty steel lounge chairs. The doors and trim had been painted a distressing Pepto-Bismol pink, and the glossy paint had obviously been slopped over plenty of wood rot. The general gestalt of the semicircular structure, considered as a place to sleep, grabbed one by the lapels shrieking, “BEDBUGS!” Two cars were parked by the office’s dirty plate glass windows at one end of the semicircle, and only one guest car was parked in front of the motel proper; meager occupancy for a Friday night. She hesitated a few moments, her hand resting unconsciously on the gun concealed at her waist, wondering if she should see if the rooms would be as bad as they obviously were. She felt a bit of lurid curiosity, but she didn’t get out of the car.

  She pulled out and drove down the interminable highway towards the gray horizon.

  Now it was really getting dark. Not many lights out here. Rather than drive around and sightsee on the peninsula, which doesn’t seem to have many sights anyway, she’d better zero in on finding a place to spend the night.

&nbs
p; She pulled out her phone. She dialed the number for Down By the Sea again. Still no answer, still that archaic answering machine.

  “Hi, my name is DD Davis. I’m on the peninsula for the night and I was hoping you had a room available.” She left her number. The turnoff for the B & B was two miles ahead.

  The light had faded from all but the farthest western sky and the first stars were showing. She couldn’t see Houston's lights from here. She followed the glowing map on her phone, turned right on Alberdie Street and almost missed the sign for Vista Boulevard, but there it was: the B & B, marked by a tiny, colorful, painted-wood sign. It was a big beach house on high timber pilings, surrounded by a weathered deck. Just as she closed the navigation app, the phone rang. She answered, and a woman’s voice said, “Is this DD?”

  “Yes, this is DD.”

  “This is Joanne Jebali. I’m the owner of Down by the Sea Bed and Breakfast. We do have one room available…”

  DD interrupted, “Great! I’m right here!” and stepped out of her car. She sprinted up the steps to the front door and rang the doorbell.

  “Excuse me, hold on a minute, I need to get the door. Then I’ll give you directions,” Joanne said. “Don't go away!”

  “No, I don’t need directions.” Joanne was perplexed as DD tried to convey that she was in front of the B & B that very minute, but the light came on in her eyes after she opened the door and saw DD holding the phone to her ear. They started their acquaintance with a laugh.

  One of the best ways to meet someone new. Joanne’s sharp brown eyes crinkled in the corners with delight. Joanne was perhaps 60, old enough to be my mother.

  Joanne welcomed DD into a living room with glorious picture windows facing east over a spacious deck. The overstuffed furniture was too big for the room, which was decorated for Christmas. This is late September! Early? Or Late? The artificial Christmas tree’s needles were highlighted with fake frost which had gathered grey dust on its tips. Last Christmas, then. Adding to the room’s overall clutter was jewelry: stacks of sterling silver, semiprecious stones, and beaded hand-made adornments were laid out on every horizontal surface.

  “Don’t mind the jewelry. We’re getting ready for the Jane Long festival in downtown Bolivar tomorrow. It’s great fun! People dress up in pioneer costumes and we have talks and demonstrations. You must come!”

  DD allowed as how she might come. Joanne swiped DD’s credit card and DD filled out a short form. Joanne gave her a metal key. Joanne pointed out which of the maze of decks outside to follow to get to her room. Her Michigan accent was touched by gravel, from neither smoking nor cheering at sports events, DD would later learn, but from a ventilator accident during her career as a nurse; a patient’s ventilator had literally exploded in her face, throwing spores everywhere, leaving Joanne’s chest full of the spores of a virulent fungus. DD's room was in a separate, smaller building, connected by a high, weathered, wooden walkway to the main house.

  “How much luggage do you have?” Joanne asked. “The stairs are pretty steep to lug suitcases up. I just had an elevator put in.” She pointed to an expansion-mesh cage at the edge of the deck.

  “Thanks. I do have a pretty big suitcase. I'll go get it.” DD went out the front door and pulled her car out of the narrow street and onto the slab foundation beneath the home, which was built on stilts, like many houses in hurricane-prone beach towns. The area under the house was set up as a shaded patio, with porch swing, outdoor furniture, and a grill. She wrestled her scuffed, hard-sided spinner case out of the car, and rolled it to the elevator cage. But she couldn’t see how to get the elevator to come to her. She looked all around the entrance, puzzled, and was about to give up and just lug her case up the stairs backwards, one step at a time, when a friendly male voice interrupted.

  “Need to get that on the elevator?” The accent was a Texas twang with something else overlaid on it, something DD couldn’t quite place. She looked up; the deep voice was attached to a dark-haired man with a congenial smile who popped his head over the deck railing. Before she could answer, he disappeared, and the next thing she knew, he was clattering his long, muscular legs down the flight of steps at the back of the slab. He grabbed a philodendron vine fervently climbing one of the wood stilts and ripped it down, revealing a giant red toggle switch. “Here’s the button,” he said.

  “Let me guess,” she pointed, grinning, to the top of the switch, “up,” pointing at the bottom, “and down.” She found her gaze angling up at him coyly, without conscious intent.

  “You got it!” He stepped back to allow her entry.

  She pressed the button and held it while the elevator clanked its way down. “Thanks,” she said, suddenly awkward, “those stairs are a little steep.”

  Once the elevator stopped at the bottom, the latch on the steel door clicked. He opened the door for her and set her suitcase inside. It was dark below the stairs, but she could see he had a square jaw, broad shoulders and a lean physique in jeans and work boots. Hmm.

  “I’m Jeremy Robinson,” he introduced himself, offering a handshake.

  She took his hand. Strong but gentle grip. Calluses. “DD,” she smiled. He smiled back. She stepped into the elevator and found a toggle switch like the one on the post.

  “Thanks so much, Jeremy! Goodnight!” He shut the expansion-mesh door; she waggled her fingers at him and smiled. She pressed the button and the elevator lurched up to the patio.

  She rolled her case along the deck to the room, clutching her key. There was a row of houses between the B&B and the ocean, but she heard the waves distinctly, rolling into the shore and chanting a soothing, slow song with a chaotic, swirling rhythm. The room was snug, white wicker and a canopy bed. The bathroom had a jetted tub, which she delightedly filled. By the time she finished a sybaritic soak, she was logy and drowsy.

  It was only 9:00 pm, but it’d been a long day; a few of the cultures she brought to the lab had been strangely double-labeled in Tim’s neat handwriting. She’d had to identify the hybrids and pure strains visually, based on the colony configurations on the culture medium, and so they’d taken a little more time to organize than she’d expected. She’d met her new lab staff. Trying to learn their names and get a clear first impression of these people, on their best behavior in front of their new boss, had also been taxing. She smiled, though: they impressed her at first meeting, all sharp and inquisitive. Then came the evening’s drive, and despite the short length of the trip, she was beat. She cracked open the window and drifted off to sleep on top of the covers, listening to the sound of the waves.

  X. TGIF

  Dr. Viswanathan pressed his intercom button. He’d asked Juni to put the international call through to Chakrindar at the Bureau ten minutes ago and hadn’t heard from her since. Ah! The intercom button failed to light up or make its usual beep when pressed. The phone system must be down. He looked up and realized the overhead light had gone off at some point. He’d failed to notice because the sun’s evening rays were streaming in across Lake Michigan, which was visible as a slice of turquoise-green between the skyscrapers. It was a chilly Fall day, and if the power didn’t come back on in a few minutes, he might as well go home because it would soon be too uncomfortably cold to work in the office. He stepped to his office door and popped his head out. Juni was standing in the corner, feet in a spreading puddle of cold coffee on the floor, the handle of the pot warped beyond recognition in her hand. The cheap white-plastic drip coffee maker itself looked like a cake that had fallen.

  “Juni?” He asked, which snapped her out of her obvious shock. She tried to put the coffee pot down, but the handle stuck to her hand. She pushed it off with the other hand, but like the American folktale someone had told Amit about a Tar Baby, it just stuck to her more. She grabbed for a roll of paper towels, but they just stuck to the gooey plastic residue on her hands. Dr. Viswanathan took a step towards her just as her left shoe came apart, causing her to turn her ankle. She sat down abruptly in the puddle of coffee, be
wildered.

  He strode over to her and put his hand out to take her sticky one, bringing his other hand behind her arm to help her up. Then he slipped, he thought at first in the wet coffee, but as he scrambled up he felt a squishy pulp under his knees and shoes and noted with astonishment that the false-wood laminate floor was turning semiliquid where the coffee’d spilled. He was down on one knee, Juni was still sitting on the floor holding her ankle, and this could not possibly be happening!

  But it was. Some bizarre solvent must have spilled. Or something. There was no smell, and his skin wasn't burning, but anything that would dissolve two different types of plastic so thoroughly and so quickly could be quite toxic and shouldn’t be trifled with. The wisest course seemed to be to get out of the office, put Juni in a cab to the hospital, and go home. He could call building maintenance from his cell phone. Then, he’d forget about it and enjoy his weekend.

  “You’ll want to have that X-rayed; I’ll get you into a taxi,” he told Juni. She nodded, fixing him hopefully with her doe-like brown eyes. He asked protectively, “Can someone meet you at the hospital to take you home?”

  She nodded again. “My brother. I can go to the urgent care center at the hospital a few blocks from his apartment.”

  “Very good. Let’s get you up…” Awkward, with his feet wanting to slide in the liquefied laminate. He felt awkward, too, touching her, a woman and his subordinate; it grated against his traditional Indian upbringing. But he had to grasp her firmly to get her upright; Juni was a trim but solidly-built black woman, only an inch or two shorter than he. He finally managed to help her up onto her good foot. The other shoe gave way now, fortunately without injuring her further, and she hobbled along in her stocking feet, leaning on him for support. They reached the elevators—of course, those weren’t working either, due to the power outage. Strangely, the emergency exit lights over the stairwell weren’t lighted either; he thought they were required to have a backup power supply. Into the stairwell they went, finding their way by the dim light streaming in through the narrow, east-facing windows. Seventeen stories. It would be slow.