by Frank Owen
‘Thirsty yet?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘There’s the deal with the tap water.’ Adams reached down into the footwell for the bottle of water. ‘Doesn’t look different, does it? But it’s chock-full of antivirals. New one every day, or so they say. To combat what you bad-ass Southerners are sending over in the air.’ He took a sip. ‘’Course, I know that’s horseshit.’
He offered the bottle to Felix. The old man held up a hand. ‘No offense, but I don’t exactly know where that’s been.’
Adams grinned, and he looked almost normal.
‘Can we skip a turn?’ he asked. Felix nodded. ‘Long odds here, but are you one of the Des Moines Callahans? You know, the ones who managed to blow up Renard’s wife? You look plenty old enough.’
‘You know how to ask them, don’tcha?’
‘That a yes?’
‘It’s a sure-am-but-it-wasn’t-like-that. Truth is, Renard blew his own wife up just so that he could justify what he was about to do to the South. What do you think of that?’
‘You’re shitting me.’
‘You’d smell it, pal,’ said Felix. ‘Now I’ve answered, so it’s your turn. Why were you looking for me?’
Adams spoke slowly, still processing what Felix had told him. ‘Well, not you specifically. Anyone from the South. Just got lucky, I guess. I happened to find you.’
‘How did you know my name?’
‘We monitor the phone lines – specially the numbers that belonged to people who were sent South for the census. The thinking was whoever comes back might just give their old lives a ring-a-ding-ding. Turns out we were right. You tried to call your apartment in New York. Bingo!’
Felix thought back to the diner, to the phone booth that smelt like a sewer, and the smooth-worn, time-traveling coin. That was where sentiment had got him. Goddam cat! he thought. Always more trouble than a creature was worth. But it was love, wasn’t it? And that counted.
‘We been monitoring those numbers close on a decade now with fuck-all to show for it. But then that storm! Man! That storm! Call from Sara-fucking-toga right on the border line? And right when that big-ass hurricane ripped through? It had to mean something. We got a fair few folk out looking, some of my best men plus some of my worst, even a Santee name of Otis who can track a locust across a prairie. But a call like yours! That was something I had to investigate my very own self. So I came racing, your knight in shining armor, and here you are. My turn.’
‘Hell, no! I want the whole story. Why are you looking for Southerners anyway? I woulda thought you’d want to see the back of us, considering the lies you been told.’
‘Ah! The best bit!’
‘It better be. My back is killing me.’
‘Well, listen close. We can’t make any sort of attack on Renard while he has the water, right? Can you imagine? Guys dropping like flies. Ghost towns. And the absolute end of any real resistance. So we’ve been looking for, ah, alternatives for some time now. We need a cure-all. Something antiviral, at least, strong enough to knock out whatever comes in on the wind.’
‘That going well?’
Adams grimaced. ‘I’ve volunteered three times to test some prototypes. I survived all three – but only just.’ He pointed a thick finger at his own face. ‘Not the ladies’ man I used to be. So for now, I drink the water like it comes outta the Holy Grail. Let some other young buck take one for the team. You wanna know what’s under this plaster?’
Felix shook his head, but Adams plowed on.
‘My tongue! The hole goes right through! The plaster’s on so I can drink without getting my shirt wet!’
‘That’s too bad. I mean that.’
‘Not as bad as some others I’ve seen.’
‘So you’re looking for Southerners for what? More guinea pigs?’
‘We figured that any Southerner who’s survived without Renard’s magic water for as long as this – and then this storm stirring up all the old viruses we ever had – well, that man might know a thing or two.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as how to get the old immune system going into a higher gear. And if that’s the case, then Renard better get his baseball cup on, ’cause we’re going to hit him where it hurts.’
‘You talking about them mushrooms?’
‘What mushrooms?’
‘Those two travelers got them: black girl named Vida and her white boy, Dyce. I warned them the storm was on its way; then we bumped into each other again at the ghost colony. They had a stash of mushrooms with them, last time I saw – some dried, and a whole bunch of spores tucked away inside, I reckon. And some funny ideas about them too. She told me those things are antiviral. But I can’t say for sure that either one of them’s North-side. Might even be that they’re dead by now. Sickness ain’t the only thing you got to worry about up here, right?’
Adams was quiet at last, his disappointment thick between them. Felix looked out of the window. Here and there, scattershot as they drove, were the wrecks of old wartime aircraft, Southern fighters and gunships, he was sure, downed in dogfights with their exact replicas. Or were these the Northern aircraft graveyards? They were going fast, and he couldn’t tell. On one fuselage someone had sprayed in white: REMEMBER. Felix hiccuped a laugh when he saw it.
‘Don’t mean shit to remember, if you’re remembering it wrong,’ he said. Adams didn’t respond. They both had a lot to think about.
At an intersection, Adams turned right, so that the mid-morning sun shone in their eyes.
‘We going east now?’ asked Felix.
‘Land where the sun rises, old man,’ replied Adams.
12
With the rising sun came the cars. The night before, the storm-draggled North had been desolate: not so different from the wasteland of the South, Vida had thought – and then a pang of longing for Ruth had shot through her. She tamped it back down. Later. There was time for all that later. But as she rubbed at the dull exhaustion at the back of her eyes and peered out of the window of the ruined cockpit, she saw that people had begun the long run home, cars growling and farting carbon monoxide into the moist air, their passengers’ prayers just as thick; not all of them would get home to find their houses still standing. Vida guessed that these were the lucky ones who had come from the huge governed spaces that were always thrown into emergency use: football stadiums, church halls, schools. And their journey wasn’t over yet, either. Progress was slow.
Dyce came to stand behind her, resting his chin on the top of her head. He whistled.
‘Damn! Those guys aren’t going anywhere, are they?’
‘You said it, brother.’
The traffic was backed up for miles. The cars closest to them lining the highway were piled high and covered with tarps, bulbous and deformed. So many people! With so many things! It made Vida think of the locust swarms that had moved in their rustling mandibled clouds back South.
When the drivers realized that the traffic had stopped altogether, doors began opening. Vida kept expecting something miraculous to tumble out, like clowns out of a circus car, but it turned out to be men and children needing to pee. They stood on the verges, hands on hips, looking for a close and private place, or just surveying the changed landscape. Around them some of the kids were hunting for stones in the grass and then taking turns to aim at the decrepit phone poles. A couple of guys stepped gingerly onto the marshy slope, shaking out their stiff muscles. The women stayed at the cars, shading their eyes or shouting at the children or divvying up the sandwiches they’d packed in some other life on top of the ticking hoods.
Dyce went to lie down and pulled the dusty blanket up to his armpits, leaving his arms free so he could eat. Buddy’s first-aid kit had come in pretty handy. His ration stash wasn’t too bad either – almonds and jerky and boiled sweets, like a sulky picnic. Loaves and fishes, baby, thought Dyce. He didn’t care where they came from. He just wanted to get something down him before he slept and before they checked the bandag
es on Vida’s wound again. He was pretty sure it was worse. Soon she wouldn’t be able to walk. He didn’t know how she had lasted as long as she had; inside Vida was a cruel engine that kept running even as it ate her frame.
Buddy appeared at the door. He was holding some things from his truck. Now he jutted his pointy little chin at Dyce, who was trying not to choke. ‘Hope you’re going to eat that slow, son. Pardon my saying so, but it doesn’t look like your body knows exactly what to do with it.’
He was right. Dyce had learnt to eat deliberately, but even so his stomach was cramping and he kept coughing, a dog with a toad lodged in its throat.
Vida knew Dyce was okay – he’d be asleep soon enough, and he had youth on his side. It was just easier to travel in the dark, and they would have to get used to it. She turned back to the window and nearly shrieked: there was a man so close to the jet that he could touch its rusted side. Most of the men had stopped to pee a little way from the cars, aiming their dicks at the wreck like it was magnetic north, but this one had kept coming, hadn’t he? She drew back, shocked, though he’d probably find it difficult to see through the smeared windows. The man looked like trouble – those husky Dutch genes still going strong. He kept glancing back at a cream-colored Lincoln – it wasn’t moving in the gridlock any time soon – and then stepping from tuft to tuft so that his boots didn’t sink in the mud. Now he moved around the jet, closer and closer, deciding something. Then he unbuckled his trousers and squatted, and Vida had to look away.
She waved a hand at Buddy. ‘Hey,’ she mouthed. ‘Someone’s here.’
‘Shit.’ He pulled his cap on and got down low and crawled toward Vida’s window.
‘What now?’ asked Dyce, sitting up.
‘Nothing,’ Vida replied. ‘We’re not doing anything wrong. Just poor Northerners caught without shelter, same as anyone.’
‘Stay here, both of you,’ Buddy whispered and disappeared again.
The man had straightened up and fastened his pants again, but he had left a steaming turd on the ground next to the plane.
Buddy stepped carefully around it. The man was making his way to the other side now, his hand on the fractured wing, cool as you please. He was bending to look through the engine mounting when Buddy rounded the plane and coughed.
‘Morning,’ he began.
‘Hey there,’ replied the man. He was a full head taller than Buddy. They wouldn’t stand a chance, even three against one. You never knew what had got inside people since the War, what unseen damage was doing a tour of their private insides. Vida strained to hear them.
‘Where you headed, friend?’ Buddy was saying.
‘Back home. Laramie. You?’
‘Nowhere right now,’ said Buddy. ‘Me and the missus were caught in the storm. Wanted to get home early and misjudged the weather. Sitting tight for a while and now there’s all this.’ He waved at the traffic jam.
‘You sleeping in this baby?’ The man slapped a giant hand against the side of the wreck.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘Guess so. You need any, ah, assistance?’ The man smiled, his teeth square and white, cartoonish.
At the window, Vida shivered. There was something weird about him, voracious. I will eat you up, those teeth said.
‘That’s okay. I’m all set. If you got a cigarette, though . . .’
‘All out. Smoked about a year’s worth just thinking about my little house being blown to kingdom come.’
Liar, thought Vida, and her armpits prickled. Those aren’t smoker’s teeth. No, siree.
‘Amen,’ said Buddy.
The man put his hands in his pockets. He’s touching himself, thought Vida, wondering which little piggy he’d fuck. Why was it always the one thing men wanted when they turned? To hurt something? It was like the viruses tweaked a brain switch like a nipple, and when they went crazy it was all they could think about. But that was in the South, and she knew how they got that way: Renard. So why were they this fucked up in the North, the old land of Canaan?
The man was looking the aircraft up and down.
‘Say, I had an uncle who used to fly one of these things. You mind if I take a look inside?’
Buddy shifted from foot to foot. ‘The little woman ain’t decent.’
The man side-eyed him, then winked. ‘I don’t mind.’
He brought his wide face up close, breathing fog onto the glass, and Vida ducked down fast, her leg screaming. The man rubbed her window clean with the ball of his palm.
‘Oh, hey now . . .’ Buddy began, but then trailed off. The man ignored him, cupping his hands around his eyes to help them adjust to the dim interior.
Please don’t cough. Please don’t cough.
‘Can’t see shit!’
There was honking from the road.
‘Traffic’s moving,’ said Buddy.
‘Yeah, I can hear that,’ replied the man, backing away from the plane. ‘Looks like you and me and the missus will have to take a rain-check. See you again soon.’
He turned and sauntered back, unashamed of the erection pitched against his trousers. He made it all the way across the soggy prairie grass, not hurrying, and back up to the road even as the horns rose in a chorus of protest at the car holding up the homecoming queue. Buddy, Vida and Dyce watched him turn around to look at the plane one last time. He rubbed at his troublesome crotch and then slid back into the bucket seat of the Lincoln. The engine revved.
‘Jesus,’ said Vida as Buddy crawled back into the fuselage, his silver cross dangling outside of his shirt. ‘What the fuck was that?’
‘Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, if you don’t mind. And side effects, most likely.’
‘Sorry. Side effects of what?’
‘The antidotes. They do different things to different people.’ Buddy’s mouth turned down. ‘How do you think Renard managed to boost numbers after the War?’
13
The southbound traffic was getting heavier by the minute, and it slowed as it went. Cars loaded down with lifetimes of possessions crawled by.
‘Engine’s hot,’ muttered Adams. He had his arm out of the window, and now he rapped a quick drum roll on the body of the car. ‘Plus, any cars heading away from the evacuation zone are likely to get pulled over. Only looters got any business heading north right now. Looters and us. Cops won’t know what to do with you – nothing about you says you’re from the South exactly – but it’s just better to stay off the radar. Once the southbound traffic’s eased up a little, we’ll be in the clear. You don’t mind sitting tight for a bit?’
‘Just about all I been doing my entire life,’ Felix told him. ‘I got no problem with that.’
Adams nodded and turned off the highway onto the gravel of a roadside picnic spot – a rotted bench beside a wall. There’d been a stone memorial here once, for some long-loved wife killed in a car crash, but her rocks had been rearranged in rings and blackened by campfires. Adams parked the De Luxe beneath the lone green ash, and they both got out and watched the line of cars creep past, yard by yard.
‘We done with a question for a question?’ Felix asked.
‘Yup. Practically related now,’ said Adams, and grinned stiffly until the plaster on his face pulled too hard at the skin again. He leant back against the bonnet.
Felix went on. ‘Right. So. Back in Saratoga, right, I’m sure I saw a giraffe. First out by the diner and then running alongside the car while we were being used for target practice. I’m hoping you saw it too. Unless it’s dementia setting in – and that’s an option – I’m pretty sure I still got eyes. What’s the deal with the animals?’
Adams searched his pockets for a couple of cigarettes, put one in his mouth and offered the other to Felix.
The old man held up a hand. ‘Got to keep my baby-soft skin, don’t I?’
‘You know it,’ said Adams. He found a lighter in his shirt pocket, then lit the cigarette between words. He puffed it a couple of times to make sure it
had taken, and then hoisted himself onto the bonnet of the De Luxe. ‘It’s kind of weird to think that you don’t know any of this stuff. I mean, we just take it for granted. Anyhoo. There always were a ton of preserves about in the old US of A. Africa’s always had the big hitters. We just shipped in the megafauna. You can’t supersize a bison, my farmer friend used to tell me, but dollars can buy an elephant. Then the War came and most preserves got blown wide open. No one left to do the upkeep or feed the animals, or else the fences were destroyed. There were all kinds of animals roaming the place, wandering into town. Looking for food, right? Guy I knew said his wife was bringing in the washing one evening and walked right into a goddam rhinoceros munching on her dahlias. And not just the safari-zoo types, either – weird bears and goats from Asia, a couple of kangaroos. But none of those lasted free-range too long. Climate’s wrong, there’s nothing to eat. Different plants here than they’re used to. A whole bunch ate milkweed or pokeweed or something, saw it in the paper. They lined up the bodies and took a photo. Like Noah’s ark got into a high-speed crash.’ Adams sucked in a lungful of smoke and when he let it out, a thin stream leaked through the plaster. Felix shivered. It wasn’t right.
‘Giraffes were different, though,’ Adams was saying. ‘Adaptable. Found their niche. They don’t graze low down, see – never ate the real deadly stuff. Then word comes from Renard that they’re protected. Like a national symbol.’
‘Like the eagle,’ said Felix. He thought of Tye Callahan and the way he’d loved that harrier of his. Vicious fucking thing. Hadn’t helped in the end, though, had it?
‘You got it. You don’t touch a giraffe. Lucky they don’t turn rogue, the way elephants do.’
Felix shook his head. ‘You think you’ve heard everything.’
The men sat together listening to the idling of the convoy of cars on the road, and looking up at the sky – lighter now than it had been for weeks. High up, swifts were swooping and diving after the flying ants thrown up by the change in pressure.
Adams pinched out his cigarette and then cleared his throat. ‘Been meaning to tell you where we’re headed.’
