Captives (3 page)

"I met him," the man said. "He came through here right after the invasion began. Robbed us. Threatened to kill me and hurt my wife."

"But he didn't?" Thom said.

"Does it matter? You can't say a thing like that. I should have killed him."

"Probably better you didn't. He's the one who brought down the ship."

The man blinked, laughing in disbelief. "That figures. Send a monster to fight a monster."

"There were others fighting, too. Normal people." Thom waited, but the man had nothing to say to that. "Have you seen him since?"

"If I had, I'd point you to the grave."

They allowed Thom to take water before he went on his way. In Flagstaff, he found a small community that welcomed the news of the end of the war. They had nothing to tell him about Raymond or Walt. In hindsight, he should have stopped there, but it was early in his travels and he remained optimistic. Besides, he felt drawn forward by the lure of the unknown. All that open country. All that mystery.

High summer in the South was a misery of Biblical heights, but it was the way Walt had come, and Thom didn't divert from it. The woods and roads were quiet and the survivors hadn't heard of either man. Once, Thom was shot at with intention, but he never saw the shooter and they didn't pursue.

After months of travel, as he crossed an autumn bog, the skyline rose above the trees just like it had in the movies. Besides the evidence of a few small fires, the city was in better shape than Los Angeles. The phone books listed several W., Walt, and Walter Lawsons. In a downtown apartment, a picture on a dresser framed a beautiful young woman arm in arm with a scruffy young man. The man only had a hint of the beard he'd had in L.A., but the image fit.

The apartment was dusty and smelled of nothing else. No one had been inside in months. Even so, Thom wandered around it, taking it in. Bookshelves full of Bukowski and Vonnegut and Marquez. Sink full of dishes crusted in dead mold. Empty bottles of liquor and beer. A fedora in the closet; Thom frowned. Yet after all that time chasing ghosts, immersing himself in one of their homes felt indescribable. Spiritual. Like reading a book that explained the way you have always felt inside.

On his way out the front door, he was robbed, the man appearing so fast Thom didn't have time to think about going for his gun. He didn't have much worth stealing, and replaced it with a few hours of rummaging through the apartments, but the violation left him angry in a way he hadn't felt in a long time. Three days later, confronted on the sunny, humid street by a gang of children, the oldest of whom couldn't have been older than thirteen, he shot at one. With intent.

The shot missed. He didn't fire a second one. After the kids had run off, he castigated himself with acidic venom, vowing to never pull the trigger again. But the city was full of lunatics, many of them starving or driven mad, and two days later, still hunting for anyone who might know the only person Thom knew had survived the battle, he was jumped in a park by a man with a sword. Thom shot him down and ran away. Deciding there was nothing for him in the city, he followed the address on a letter he'd found in Walt's apartment to a house on Long Island.

It turned out to be the house of his parents. Photos on the walls. Skeletons in bed. Same dust as Thom saw everywhere. He didn't stay long.

He had intended to try Boston and Philadelphia and D.C., but the East Coast felt like a dead end. He headed back to the highway to return to L.A. Outside Rolla, Missouri, he broke his leg. There was no cause for it: he simply slipped on an embankment, landed wrong, and that was it.

He thought that would be the end, that he would die of thirst or hunger, certainly of cold when fall turned and he had no wood for a fire. Instead, he built crutches, found a stream, followed it to a house, and stocked it for the winter. It wasn't that he'd given up the search for Raymond or for the man who might know what had happened to him, but he had nearly two thousand miles ahead of him. He didn't intend to test them until he was healthy.

Winter came. There was much more snow than he expected. Times got lean before the end.

* * *

A full year after he'd first left the city, he crested the San Gabriel mountains and stopped to look down on the city. It was still there. It was still quiet. When he descended, he discovered its stillness no longer spooked him.

Something had changed over the course of his trip to the city and his winter in the woods. Things didn't seem as friendly anymore, and it wasn't like they'd been brimming with brotherhood in the first place. It began to feel as if there were two Thoms: the first and old Thom, who—although well aware it wasn't always true—wanted to believe that most people were still good, and met strangers with a smile, eager to swap stories. And then there was the second Thom. Cold as the snows of the Missouri forest. The Thom who saw things with the clarity of early morning and knew that the people out there were vultures, rats, wolves. Carriers of resources who would take his the instant they felt fearful. It was his job to recognize when they were nearing that point, and then to strike first.

That other Thom knew something else, too: Raymond was dead. Or he might as well be. The search was hopeless. Worse, it was stupid. Liable to get him killed. Yet this new Thom offered no resistance to his—their—ongoing travels, because he also understood something much deeper: that survival was just as hopeless, too.

Thom carried these two compartments within himself across L.A. and Southern California. The next summer, he followed I-5 up to Seattle and their childhood home, but this was deserted. No one had heard of Raymond, but with increasing frequency, people were aware of Walt and his role in ending the invasion. Many claimed to know someone who knew him. The false leads were endless, hydratic; for every one Thom ran down, two more popped up in its place.

In this way, two more years were eaten up bite by bite.

Then he met the couple. They claimed to have met him long ago, traveling south into Mexico. Their description of him, unlike any of the others, was modest and accurate. Thom headed south on the spot.

The chase was maddening. Every time he thought he was near, the man seemed to slip through his fingers. It pulled Thom further and further south. The jungle and beyond. In Panama, the trail went dead. When Thom made his way back to the Yucatan, he learned that strangers had taken Walt away to the north.

* * *

And so he returned, once again, to Los Angeles. Much had changed. Things were no longer so quiet. Sailboats skimmed the waters around the southern hills. Campfires burned inland, rising into the seaside haze. According to Pill, who still lived on the pier and had replaced many of the fish in the aquarium with local varieties he'd trapped at the marinas, there had been a war. A churned-up thing involving pirates, gangs, and aliens. Once the dust had settled, the southern half of the basin had wound up in the hands of a teenage warlord.

"That's not all," Pill said, leaning against the teal railing, the ocean toiling behind him. "He's back. The dude you been after all these years."

"Raymond?"

Pill shook his head. "The other dude. What I hear, he heard the aliens had snuck back into the city and came to put a whompin' on 'em."

"Is he still here?"

"Hell if I know. I don't get out much more than my fish. Take your questions down to Pedro. That's where the action is."

He pronounced it "Pee-dro"; not a person, but the city. Thom headed straight there. The main road led to a cleft between two hills. The street was lively with stalls, merchants, and travelers. At its base, a converted McDonald's served stew and beer. Men and women wandered back and forth between it, the nearby motel, and the market. A few glanced Thom's way, taking his measure, but in all his travels, he'd never seen a place so open. So… normal.

Walt's trail blazed like a forge. Many of the locals claimed to have known him personally. They said he had been brought from Mexico and had stayed on Catalina Island for weeks. Thom interrogated anyone who would give him two seconds, repaying them with news of what he'd seen and heard on his travels.

Inside the bar, he had just concluded one such conversation and was enjoying an earthy-smelling beer when the woman slid into his booth. Dark-haired, thirtyish, a face that had seen loss.

"What's your interest in Walt Lawson?" she said.

Thom shrugged. "I'd like to meet him."

"Another adoring fan?"

"I'm trying to find my brother. They traveled together after the plague. Do you know Walt?"

"About as well as he can be known," she said. "We traveled together, too. Who's your brother?"

"Raymond," Thom said. "Raymond James. Did Walt ever mention him?"

The woman's mouth quirked. She looked down at the table, slowly shaking her head. "He did more than mention him. Walt's the one who killed him."

3

The house looked like exactly what it was: a) the birthplace of a great American writer that had b) been converted into a tourist attraction long after he'd left it and then c) been subjected to the end of the world.

Knee-high grass grew around the historic sign out front. The house was a Victorian, complete with a turret and a wrought iron grille enclosing a rooftop landing. A charming little stoop led to the front door. Walt supposed he ought to feel some reverence for the place, but Steinbeck was one of the many people he'd never bothered to read and almost certainly never would now that there were no cute girls in glasses to impress with one's literary breadth. Now that people had real things to care about, and culture had more or less been annihilated, who gave a shit about celebrities?

The curtains were closed. He walked up the steps, put his hand in the pocket that held his laser, and knocked on the front door. Silence answered. He knocked again. Before he finished, the door swung open, revealing a tall man in a rumpled suit. He peered at Walt through rimless glasses, his black hair tumbling over his ears.

Walt glanced at his hands and hips, saw no weapons. "You're Dim?"

"More often than I'd like." The man had a faint Indo-British accent and his voice was as scratchy as if he'd just woken up. "And you are?"

"Sirita sent me. My name's Walt Lawson, and I need—"

"As in
the
Walt Lawson?" Dim looked him up and down. "You don't look like
the
Walt Lawson."

"Wrong, actually, but I'm sorry the fantasy doesn't live up to the reality."

"If this is so, then what was the name of the man who accompanied you on the infamous balloon ride?"

"Otto."

The man shook his head sharply. "His
full
name."

"I don't have time for this," Walt said. "Two hours ago, my girlfriend was kidnapped by men in a green van. Sirita said you're a worldly guy. Thought you might know who they are. Is that true?"

"Your description rings an unsavory bell."

"Point me in the right direction, and I'll tell you all the stories you could ever want."

Dim rubbed his stubble. "Not interested."

Walt squinted. "Aren't you some kind of bard?"

"Indeed. And I like to consider myself an accomplished one. If you are the Walt Lawson, I'm not going to ask for your
story
. I have a much better use for your talents." He stepped away from the door frame and beckoned Walt inside. "Shall we come to an arrangement?"

The interior was a mess of rugs, couches, papers, guitars, and glassware. It smelled like ink and the last sip of beer in the bottom of the bottle. Dim removed a pile of papers from a couch cushion and indicated Walt should sit.

"I appreciate the hospitality," Walt said, "but maybe you missed the part where I said my girlfriend was kidnapped."

"I understand quite well." Dim installed himself in an easy chair. "Enough to know that she is relatively safe, if only for the next few days. These men are professionals, and fortunately for you and the woman in question, they are largely professional middlemen. They are not in the habit of damaging their property before the sale."

"How long until the sale?"

"Regrettably, these fine men do not invite me to their board meetings. Given the travel involved, however, I would estimate it is weeks between their trips to market."

"Somehow, knowing they'll treat her like a product does nothing to make me feel better." Walt leaned forward, forearms on his knees. "Get to the chase."

"Happily. Some time ago, I came into possession of a guitar once owned by Willie Nelson. I'll spare you the story of its personal significance to me other than to say I value no possession more highly in all the world." He lifted his chin, eyes bright. "Some months ago, it was taken for me. And I was cast onto the shoal of pain."

"Good to differentiate it from those soothing shoals everyone is always making beds out of."

Dim pressed his lips together. "It was taken by a man I considered a colleague. His name is Liam and he lives in San Jose. Retrieve my guitar, and I will tell you everything you wish to know."

"Alternate idea," Walt said. "Find another guitar and
say
it's Willie Nelson's."

"What an appalling suggestion!"

"Who's going to know?"

"I would. Far more importantly,
Liam
would."

"So this is about spite?"

"It's nothing of the sort." Dim folded his arms over his crinkled suit. "Well, no more than twenty-five percent spite. Mostly, it is about a fundamental professional difference. He believes it doesn't matter whether the stories we tell are true."

"And you do?"

"Indeed. When we present a story, it is inevitable that it is received as an example, or a cautionary tale. Those that are presented as true take on special weight, because they aren't just hypothetical. They are history." He gestured to an unseen audience. "Thus if we pass on falsehoods as truths, we warp our listeners from the realities they
will
face. Very irresponsible. And this is not even to mention the fact that Liam does nothing but sit in his garret. A true tom should travel. Be on the hunt. Expose himself to experience so he knows what is worth telling and what may be set aside."