“Well, there’s certainly no shame in it.” Jake sounded a little defensive. “For all we know, these people work three jobs to afford what little they’ve got.”
“Whatever,” she scoffed.
He recognized her tone as the one that dismissed his outlook on such things as naive and ill informed. It was a quirk in his wife’s personality that he’d never been able to understand. She’d set a standard for herself that no mere mortal could possibly attain, and even as they wallowed together in that stage of their lives where an evening out for pizza and beer had to be carefully budgeted, she showed a disturbing, almost cruel intolerance for people who were “poor.” Every time Jake tried to point out that their income hovered perilously close to the poverty line, she’d insist that he was missing the point. It was their
potential
that made the difference, she’d say. As college graduates, with degrees in a worthwhile, technical field, they had limitless potential. The fact that Jake’s father had spent a career in the coal mines, working night shift until the day he died, and that his mom had cleaned houses to make ends meet didn’t seem to impress Carolyn in the slightest. She was funny that way. Jake figured it all had something to do with her childhood; something that twisted her outlook on the world. In all other ways a charitable, giving wife, Carolyn could be brutal where money was the issue.
Jake let it pass. “Where do you think we are?”
Carolyn craned her neck, as if she’d be able to recognize this stretch of river by sight. “No idea,” she said at length. “Downstream from where we were before.” She smiled, lighting up the whole boat. All the snottiness and intolerance in the world couldn’t cheapen the pure beauty of that smile, Jake thought.
A few minutes passed before the horizon changed again, revealing a line of dilapidated shops, which, like the surrounding residences, were built right up against the edge of the river. The tallest of the structures also looked to be the oldest, built of stone at its lowest level, with two additional stories stacked on top, sporting faded wood siding and a once-red, hand-painted sign, “Bobby’s Bait and Tackle.”
“Hey, look,” Jake said, pointing. “Let’s go see if Bobby’s has a phone we can use.” He steered the canoe toward shore, running it aground against the gravel parking lot, where it joined the waterline. He got out first, holding the boat steady as Carolyn joined him. Together, they pulled the canoe safely ashore and chicken-walked through the gravel, unconsciously flapping their elbows as they guided their bare feet across the sharp-edged rocks. Thirty yards later the gravel gave way to smooth concrete, and they paused to let the pain subside.
“Welcome to Buford,” Carolyn said.
Jake cocked his head. “How do you know that?”
She giggled and pointed across the street. “Buford Hardware.” Then, pointing two blocks down the street, “Buford Motel.”
“Your powers of deduction are truly awesome,” he teased. “How do you know that some guy named Buford doesn’t own a hardware store and a motel?”
She shot him her know-it-all smirk. “People named Buford don’t own businesses.”
The town was bigger than Jake had expected. Stretching on for several blocks in three directions, it sported an interesting mix of old business district construction, with its tall false fronts and wrought-iron fencing, interspersed with the pastel and glass architecture of the sixties. The mining town where Jake grew up had been a lot smaller than this, and it bragged ten thousand residents. Using that as a benchmark, he pegged Buford—if indeed that’s what it was called—to be good for about twenty. All the more remarkable, given the fact that not a soul was in sight.
“Where is everybody?” Carolyn asked, speaking Jake’s thoughts.
“Kinda spooky, isn’t it?” Bobby’s Bait and Tackle, like every other building in sight, was locked tight, with the lights off. “Didn’t I see a
Twilight Zone
that started like this?”
Carolyn shivered inadvertently, and then she got it. “They must have been evacuated!” she proclaimed. “The fire down at the plant must have run them off.”
Jake scowled. “Jeeze, you think so? This far away?”
“Well, we really don’t know how far away we are. Five miles is a long way.”
“And this is a big town,” he finished for her. “What a nightmare getting all these people moving.” He placed his hands on his hips and looked up and down the street. “Do you see a pay phone?”
With none in sight, they started moving toward the Buford Motel. Surely, they’d have one there. They walked quickly, gripped by an odd paranoia. The total absence of people, at a time when the streets rightfully should have been packed, felt strangely post-apocalyptic. Jake half expected to see Mad Max appear with his band of refugees.
Could it be that the contamination had actually extended this far? Five miles was the default evacuation distance for hazmat disasters, and as such carried a safety factor of at least five, meaning that the evacuation zone encompassed five times the distance that was truly in danger. Was it possible, in this case, that wind directions or thermal inversions, or any number of other physical or meteorological anomalies, had actually put them in harm’s way?
They discussed these things as they wandered across the street, but Jake was the one who put it in the proper perspective: “Too late to start worrying about it now. If this is a danger zone, then we’ve been exposed all day.”
Clearly, he and Carolyn had dodged the bullet for the most acute hazards of whatever they might have been exposed to. Now they’d just have to wait another twenty or thirty years to see what chronic effects might lie ahead. Cancer maybe. Or blindness. God, there were countless possibilities. Signs and symptoms could take decades to show themselves. In any case, that particular horse was out of the barn.
And that’s what made this such a scary business. Some of the most hazardous chemicals on earth were colorless, odorless, and tasteless, with toxic effects that took years to manifest themselves. How could a person know if the tumor that materialized after his sixty-fifth birthday was just another tumor, like the last three that the oncologist had treated, or if it was the result of some ancient chemical exposure?
The parking lot of the Buford Motel was deserted, just like everything else in town. A single story in height, the complex looked like every other motel constructed in the 1960s. A couple dozen rooms stretched out at parking lot level, anchored on the near end by a small, glass-walled office. Being this close to a bed and an air conditioner made Jake realize just how exhausted he was. Suddenly, each step took just a little more effort than his legs were willing to give.
“Not bad, all things considered,” he commented. Someone here had quite a green thumb. A sea of phlox and pansies surrounded the small swimming pool, itself an obvious afterthought, planted as it was smack in the middle of the parking lot. Geraniums grew in uniform clusters in colorful window boxes outside of every room.
“You suppose they rent for whole nights, or just for a few hours at a time?” Carolyn quipped.
Jake shook his head. “You’re such a snot.” He was careful to keep a smile in his voice.
She chuckled. “Well, I can afford to be snotty when I’m so fashionably dressed.” He hadn’t thought about it until that very minute, but they looked like hell. Sweaty, sunburned, barefoot, and filthy, they truly were quite a sight.
“I need a nap,” he said, reaching for the tinted glass door to the office. The door pulled open easily.
Like the building itself, the furniture was old yet clean. Sort of Early American, with some Colonial and Danish Modern thrown in for flavor.
“How nice,” Carolyn mumbled sarcastically.
“Shh,” Jake snapped. “Hello?” he called to the room. “Anybody here?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “I feel like a burglar.”
“Well, hi there!” The two of them jumped a foot as the clerk materialized from behind the counter. Pushing seventy, with a genuine smile brightening his stubbly face, the guy looked way too old to be greeting visitors at the counter. “Sorry, folks. Didn’t mean to startle you. Name’s Terrell. Can I help you?” Terrell’s smile remained unchanged, but his eyes darkened as he took in his visitors’ appearance. “Y’all okay? You look sorta . . . Well, everythin’ okay?”
Carolyn opened her mouth to answer, but Jake touched her back lightly. “We’re fine, thanks,” he said. “But we’ve had a bit of an accident. Mind if we use your phone to call the police?”
Suddenly, Terrell’s smile disappeared, replaced with a deep, concerned scowl. He hurried out from behind his counter. “Goodness, folks,” he said, motioning them toward some chairs. “You hurt?”
Jake waved him off with a smile. “Oh, no thanks, nothing like that. Just had a bit of a problem with our boat, is all. Sure could use a cop.” He could feel Carolyn’s eyes boring into him for his transparent lie, but he ignored her.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Terrell seemed ready to drive them to the hospital in his own car.
“Perfectly fine,” Jake assured him.
Terrell regarded them for a moment longer, then pointed to the seats. “Please, sit down.”
They did.
“You’re welcome to use the phone, but unless there’s somebody dead in the road, or the Russians are invading Little Rock, you’d best save the quarter. Every cop within a hundred miles is up at Newark helping with the evacuation. Threatened to arrest me, as a matter of fact, if I didn’t leave, but gave it up once they got word they had to evacuate the jail.” Terrell laughed hard, triggering a cough.
Smoker,
Jake thought.
Menthols.
“Evacuation?”
The look Carolyn shot him spoke volumes.
What are you doing?
Again, Jake ignored her.
“You ain’t heard?” Terrell gasped. It was as if they’d just admitted they didn’t know what a Razorback was. “There was a big explosion and fire out near Newark. Got nerve gas, nuclear weapons, all kinds of stuff, and it all leaked into the environment. Every place within fifteen miles has been evacuated.”
Jake did a great job of feigning surprise. “No kidding! Are we in danger?”
Terrell scoffed and strolled back toward his counter. “I don’t believe in none of that stuff. I figured if the Good Lord wanted me with him today, I’d be havin’ a heart attack in the evacuation shelter, know what I mean?” He disappeared around the corner but kept talking the whole time. “Way I figure it, this is a perfect time for punks to come around lootin’. They come around here, though, and I got one hell of a surprise for ’em.” He produced a sawed-off twelve-gauge, with a combat grip where a stock should have been. “Now, tell me, wouldn’t you think twice about taking my stuff if you were staring down one of these?”
Carolyn gasped. Jake felt his stomach cramp.
So much for Grandpa Hospitality.
At the sight of them, Terrell turned immediately apologetic and put the gun back behind the counter. “I’m sorry. There I went and scared you folks a second time.”
This time the Donovans’ laughter sounded a bit forced. “No, no,” Jake said. “That’s okay. Guess that should make me feel safe.”
The grin returned to Terrell’s face.
“So how long before they lift the evacuation?” Carolyn asked.
“Can’t say as I know,” Terrell answered, shifting his eyes. “I can’t imagine it’ll go on much after tomorrow. Can y’all wait that long for the police?”
Jake looked to Carolyn and made a face. “I gotta tell you,” he said at length. “What I really need is some sleep. Maybe we could rent one of your rooms and call the police from there?”
Terrell’s eyes brightened even more. “Well, I can sure as shootin’ accommodate you there. You can have your pick of the rooms.” He pulled a registration card out of a box and a pen out of his pocket. “Just fill out this information here.”
Jake filled in all of the blanks on the card, fighting off a final wave of exhaustion. His brain felt numb. When he was done, he handed the card back to Terrell. “You take Visa?”
“Oh, we take ’em all.” Terrell laughed, clearly delighted there’d be at least one customer today.
Three minutes later the Donovans were making their way across the parking lot toward room 15, which, according to Terrell, had the best view of the pool.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?” Carolyn asked.
Jake shrugged; kind of a shiver, really. “I don’t know, I just got a funny feeling. This place is so inbred, for all I know, that sniper on the hill might be Terrell’s brother. Just didn’t seem like a good idea to share the story yet. I want to tell it directly to a cop.”
They arrived at their room, and Jake opened the door. Same decorator as the office.
Carolyn collapsed dramatically onto the bed. “So are you going to call right away?”
“In a minute,” he said.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
Jake awakened to the sound of distant sirens.
Disoriented at first, he stretched his back and scanned the darkened room. “Shit,” he moaned. “I fell asleep.” He checked his watch.
For three hours.
He’d fallen into the sagging, overstuffed lounge chair just for a minute, he thought. To give his back and shoulders a rest. He didn’t even remember closing his eyes.
The sirens reminded him that he’d forgotten to do something. Then, like a curtain being parted, the events of the day raced back into his consciousness.
Somebody had tried to kill him! The bullet came within an inch, for Chrissakes! As his mind replayed the impact of that bullet, the sheer force of it, even as it missed him, a lump formed in his stomach, and his hands began to tremble. Trapped in the netherworld between sleep and reality, he felt the blast of heat all over again, blistering hot against his shoulders and his back, despite the protection of his suit. And he saw the bodies of his friends, scattered like logs across the old roadbed. Even in his memory, they didn’t look real; they didn’t look dead. He could only presume that the man on the hill had shot them, just as he had tried to shoot Carolyn and him, but the horror of it all was somehow muted by the absence of blood and the facelessness of the bodies.
“Got to call,” he whispered.
Got to find out what happened.
Taking care not to make any noise, he pulled hard against the arms of the chair and sat up straight. Raking a hand through his hair, he twisted first to his left and then to his right, releasing a ripple of pops from his spine. Only twenty-four years old, and tonight he felt every bit of seventy.
In the darkness of the room, the sparse furnishings were visible only as shades of black against a charcoal-gray background. Fumbling blindly along the nightstand, Jake placed his hand on the telephone but paused as his attention turned once again to the sound of the sirens. They seemed to be growing louder. He stood and hobbled over to the front window, where he used two fingers to part the heavy, rubber-lined blackout curtains.
A gentle but steady rain fell in the empty parking lot, giving everything a glassy, reflective look, which in the darkness of the night took years off the age of everything. The wail of the first siren reached a crescendo, then stopped abruptly as a police car sped into view and slid to a stop in front of the motel office.
“What the hell is this?”
Carolyn stirred at the sound of his voice. “What’s going on?” she groaned sleepily.
“I don’t know yet.” He watched with a growing sense of dread as the trooper climbed out of his car with his hand on his pistol and moved cautiously to the door of the office. The cop pulled hard against the lock, then pounded heavily with his fist on the glass panel. “I think our friend Terrell might be in a bit of trouble.” In the distance, more sirens approached.
Her curiosity piqued, Carolyn joined her husband at the window and watched as a light came on in the office, casting a greenish hue through the tinted glass. Soon Terrell’s lanky form appeared through the glass. He opened the door wearily, then seemed suddenly animated as he listened to whatever the trooper was telling him. He nodded a couple of times, then shook his head a couple more.
Finally, Terrell pointed directly at Jake and Carolyn. They both jumped. “Holy shit,” Jake gasped.
“What?”
“This doesn’t look good.” The trooper moved quickly as he said something into the microphone clipped to his shoulder, then climbed back into his cruiser. He never took his eyes off their motel room.
“What?”
Jake could hear the edge of panic in Carolyn’s voice—the same emotion he felt building in the pit of his own stomach. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“What are you
talking
about?” She was crying now, gripped with fear.
He turned two quick circles in the dark, trying to figure a way out of the room without being seen.
“Jake!” she nearly shouted.
“Shh!” he commanded. “The bathroom window! Come on!” He dragged her by the hand toward the back of the room, even as the police car’s high beams pierced the thin seam in the curtain and cast a laser-width spear of light against the far wall.
“What are we doing? I’m not going anywhere,” she insisted, following along as she spoke.
“Look,” he snapped. “People tried to kill us today, and now that cop looks mad as hell. Looks to me like staying here could get us shot.”
The window in the bathroom was of standard height and size, but made of smoky white glass. Yet another siren peaked in volume and fell silent.
Shit,
Jake thought.
There’s two of them now.
And still more in the distance. The window lock turned easily, but he had to pound upward with the heels of both hands to get it to slide open.
“Jake, this is stupid!”
He made a stirrup with his hands. “Here. You go first.”
“Go where?”
“Out!” he hissed. “I don’t know where. Just out.”
Carolyn opened her mouth to argue but then complied. No sooner had she placed her bare foot in his hands than he nearly launched her through the opening. She came out too fast, tumbling headfirst into the wide alley behind the motel. She got her hands out in time, though, preventing damage to everything but her pride.
Jake arrived feet-first, just as the blue and red lights of a police car began to sweep the trees at the far end of the complex to their right. “Shit! They’re coming around to the back, too!”
They needed cover; something to hide behind. With the cop car approaching, they’d never make it to the tree line without being seen. The Dumpster! Jake grabbed Carolyn’s hand again and pulled her behind him as he dashed twenty yards or so and ducked behind the maroon trash receptacle. The warm rain had reinvigorated the stench of old garbage and rotting food, and he found himself instinctively breathing through his mouth.
“Why are we hiding from the police?” Carolyn shouted at a whisper. “We’ve done nothing wrong!”
“I don’t know. I have a bad feeling.” It was as honest an answer as he knew to give.
The second cop car approached more cautiously, killing his lights as he closed in on the back of their room. Once in place and stopped, the cop opened his door carefully and rolled quickly out of the car, taking his twelve-gauge with him. He scampered over to the passenger-side door, where he could use the vehicle as cover.
The Donovans exchanged panicked glances in the dark.
“Are they trying to
arrest
us?” Carolyn whispered.
Jake answered with a shrug that was invisible in the darkness. “Look at him. He’s scared shitless.”
They both jumped as the cop’s radio squelched and an electronic voice pierced the muted thrumming of the rain. “All units be advised, we have positive ID from the manager. These are definitely our shooters.”
The cop muttered something unintelligible into his microphone, then racked a round into the chamber of his shotgun and leveled it at the window they’d just climbed through.
“Oh, my God,” Carolyn breathed.
“He can’t wait to pull that trigger,” Jake said, not believing what he was seeing. This trooper wanted them bad, and he didn’t much care whether they were breathing or not. Jake pulled Carolyn away from the Dumpster and headed for the tree line. “We gotta get outa here. They’re liable to have dogs and all kinds of bullshit out here soon.”
This time she needed no pulling or prodding to get her to run. A second car pulled up to the rear of the building just as they reached the first line of cover. The police were shouting now, apparently no longer worried about a stealthy approach, and that was the Donovans’ cue to run like hell, while noise didn’t matter.
“We going back to the boat?” Carolyn asked.
“I sure as hell hope so.”
They’d floated in the dark nearly all night before Carolyn got the idea to contact her uncle in Chicago. A men’s clothing retailer turned real estate mogul, Harry Sinclair had more money than God, and if there was anyone in the world with the connections to lift them out of this mess, it would be him. They still didn’t know why they’d gone from near victims to Public Enemies #1 and #2 in the space of just a few hours, but it was clear as crystal that they needed some answers before they showed their faces again. And, assuming that the Visa card had alerted the cops back at the motel, they could forget about credit cards taking them where they wanted to go. They needed to develop alternative resources fast. Which meant Harry Sinclair.
It took them nearly two hours to give Travis that much of the story. There were parts he didn’t understand, and still more that he didn’t want to. But as it dragged on, and his parents shared the details about who they really were, and who they really weren’t, he found himself burrowing further and further under his Army blanket, finally wishing that they’d just stayed quiet and let him believe that things remained as they’d always been.