12.21: A Novel

by Dustin Thomason

  12.21 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Dustin Thomason

  Maps copyright © 2012 by David Lindroth, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by The Dial Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  DIAL PRESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  The drawings and glyphs are by Jillian Fitzgerald.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Thomason, Dustin.

  12.21 : a novel / Dustin Thomason.

  pages cm

  eISBN: 978-0-679-64428-6

  1. Mayas—Antiquities—Fiction. 2. Manuscripts—Fiction. 3. Prophecies—Fiction. 4. Communicable diseases—Fiction. I. Title. II. Title: Twelve twenty-one.

  PS3620.H646A614 2012

  813′.6—dc23 2012001945

  www.dialpress.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  12.19.19.17.10: December 11, 2012

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  12.19.19.17.11: December 12, 2012

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  12.19.19.17.12: December 13, 2012

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  12.19.19.17.13: December 14, 2012

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  12.19.19.17.14: December 15, 2012

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  12.19.19.17.15: December 16, 2012

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  12.19.19.17.16: December 17, 2012

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  12.19.19.17.18: December 19, 2012

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  12.19.19.17.19: December 20, 2012

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  HE STANDS SILENTLY IN THE MOONLIGHT AGAINST THE WALL OF the temple, the small bundle held tightly under his arm. The sisal wrapping chafes against his skin, but he welcomes the feeling. It reassures him. In this drought-stricken city, he would not trade this package, even for water. The ground beneath his sandals is cracked and dry. The green world of his childhood is gone, and he is beginning to wonder if soon he will be too.

  Satisfied that the temple guards haven’t detected his presence, he hurries toward the central square, where artisans and tattoo-painters once thrived. Now it is populated only by beggars, and beggars, when hungry, can be dangerous. But tonight he is lucky. There are only two men standing by the east temple. They have seen him before, and they know he gives to them what he can. Still, he holds the bundle close as he goes.

  At the boundary between the central square and the maize silos, there is a guard posted. No more than a boy. For a moment, he considers burying the bundle and returning for it later, but the earth is dust, and the winds drive through fields where trees once stood. Nothing in this parched city remains buried for long.

  He takes a breath and continues walking forward.

  “Royal and Holy One,” calls the boy. “Where are you going?” The boy’s eyes are tired, hungry, but spark when they take in the bundle under the man’s arm.

  “To my fasting cave.”

  “What are you carrying?”

  “Incense for my dedications.”

  The man tightens his arm around the parcel and prays silently to Itzamnaaj.

  “But there has been no incense at the market for days, Royal and Holy One.” The guard’s voice is jaded. As if all men lie now to survive. As if all innocence has fled with the rains. “Give it to me.”

  “Warrior, you are right. It is not incense but a gift for the king.” He has no choice but to invoke the king’s name, though the king would have his heart ripped out if he knew what he was carrying.

  “Give it to me,” the boy says again.

  The man reluctantly obeys.

  The boy’s fingers unwrap the bundle roughly, but when the sisal falls away, he sees disappointment in the young guard’s eyes. What had he been hoping for? Maize? Cacao? He does not understand what he has seen. Like most boys in these times, he understands only hunger.

  Rewrapping it quickly, the man hurries away from the guard, offering thanks to the gods for his good fortune. His small cave lies at the eastern edge of the city, and he slips through the opening undetected.

  There are cloths spread across the floor, placed here in preparation for this moment. He lights his candle, sets the bundle at a careful distance from the wax, then carefully wipes his hands. He drops to his knees and reaches for the sisal. Inside is a folded stack of pages made from the bark of a fig tree, hardened with a glaze of limestone paste.

  With the great but seemingly effortless care of a man who has trained for this act his entire life, he unfolds the paper. Twenty-five times it has been doubled back on itself, and when it is completely unfurled, the blank pages stretch across the width of the cave.

  From behind his hearth, he gathers three small bowls of paint. He has scraped cooking pots to make black ink, shaved rust from the rocks to make red, and searched fields and riverbeds for anil and clay to make indigo. Finally, he makes a puncture in the skin of his arm. He watches the crimson rivulets run over his wrist and into the bowls of paint before him, sanctifying the ink with his blood.

  Then he begins to write.

  12.19.19.17.10

  DECEMBER 11, 2012

  ONE

  DR. GABRIEL STANTON’S CONDO SAT AT THE END OF THE BOARDWALK, before the Venice Beach footpath morphed into lush lawns where the tai chi lovers gathered. The modest duplex wasn’t entirely to Stanton’s taste. He would have preferred something with more history. But on this odd stretch of the California coastline, the only options to choose between were run-down shacks and contemporary stone and glass. Stanton left his home just after seven A.M. on his old Gary Fisher bike and headed south with Dogma, his yellow Labrador, running beside him. Groundwork, the best coffee in L.A., was only six blocks away, and there Jillian would have a triple shot of Black Gold ready for him the minute he walked in.

  Dogma loved the mornings as much as his owner did. But the dog wasn’t allowed into Groundwork, so after Stanton tied him up, he made his way inside alone, waved at Jillian, collected his cup, and checked out the scene. A lot of the early clientele were surfers, their wetsuits still dripping. Stanton was usually up by six, but these guys had been up for hours.

  Sitting at his usual table was one of the boardwalk’s best-known and strangest-looking residents. Hi
s entire face and shaved head were covered with intricate designs, as well as rings, studs, and small chains protruding from his earlobes, nose, and lips. Stanton often wondered where a man like Monster came from. What had happened to him in early life that led to the decision to cover his body entirely with art? For some reason, whenever Stanton imagined Monster’s origins, he saw a split-level home near a military base—exactly the type of houses in which he himself had spent his childhood.

  “How’s the world out there doing?” Stanton asked.

  Monster looked up from his computer. He was an obsessive news junkie, and when he wasn’t working at his tattoo shop or entertaining tourists as part of the Venice Beach Freak Show, he was here posting comments on political blogs.

  “Other than there being only two weeks before the galactic alignment makes the magnetic poles reverse and we all die?” he asked.

  “Other than that.”

  “Hell of a nice day out there.”

  “How’s your lady?”

  “Electrifying, thanks.”

  Stanton headed for the door. “If we’re still here, I’ll see you tomorrow, Monster.”

  After Stanton downed his Black Gold outside, he and Dogma continued south. A century ago, miles of canals snaked through the streets of Venice, tobacco magnate Abbot Kinney’s re-creation of the famed Italian city. Now virtually all of the waterways where gondoliers once ferried residents were paved over and covered with steroid-fueled gyms, greasy-food stands, and novelty T-shirt shops.

  Stanton had ruefully watched a rash of “Mayan apocalypse” graffiti and trinkets pop up all over Venice in recent weeks, vendors taking advantage of all the hype. He’d been raised Catholic but hadn’t been in a church in years. If people wanted to seek their destiny or believe in some ancient clock, they could go right ahead; he’d stick to testable hypotheses and the scientific method.

  Fortunately, it seemed not everyone in Venice believed December 21 would bring the end of the world; red and green lights also decorated the boardwalk too, just in case the crackpots had it wrong. Yuletide was a strange time in L.A. Few transplants understood how to celebrate the holidays at seventy degrees, but Stanton loved the contrast—Santa hats on rollerbladers, suntan lotion in stockings, surfboards festooned with antlers. A ride along the beach on Christmas was as spiritual as he got these days.

  Ten minutes later, he and the dog reached the northern tip of Marina del Rey. They made their way past the old lighthouse and the sailboats and souped-up fishing vessels bobbing quietly in the harbor. Stanton let Dogma off his leash, and the dog bounded ahead while Stanton trotted behind, listening for music. The woman they were here to see surrounded herself with jazz at all times, and when you heard Bill Evans’s piano or Miles’s trumpet over the other noises of the waterfront, she wasn’t far. For most of the last decade, Nina Countner had been the woman in Stanton’s life. While there had been a few others in the three years since they’d split, none had been more than a substitute for her.

  Stanton trailed Dogma onto the dock of the marina and caught the mournful sound of a saxophone in the distance. The dog had arrived at the tip of the south jetty above Nina’s massive dual-engine McGray, twenty-two pristine feet of metal and wood, squeezed into the last slip at the end of the dock.

  Nina crouched beside Dogma, already rubbing his belly. “You guys found me.”

  “In an actual marina for a change,” said Stanton.

  He kissed her on the cheek and breathed her in. Despite spending most of her time at sea, Nina always managed to smell like rosewater. Stanton stepped back to look at her. She had a dimpled chin and striking green eyes, but her nose was a little crooked, and her mouth was small. To Stanton, it was all just right.

  “You ever going to let me get you a real slip?” he asked.

  Nina gave him a look. He’d offered to rent her a permanent boat slip so many times, hoping it would lure her back to shore more often, but she’d never accepted, and he knew she probably never would. Her freelance magazine assignments hardly provided a steady income, so she’d mastered the art of finding open slips, out-of-sight beaches, and off-the-radar docks that few others knew about.

  “How’s the experiment coming?” Nina asked as Stanton followed her onto the boat. Plan A’s deck was simply appointed, just two folding seats, a collection of loose CDs strewn around the skipper’s chair, and bowls for Dogma’s water and food.

  “More results this morning,” he told her. “Should be interesting.”

  She took the captain’s seat. “You look tired.”

  He wondered if it was the encroaching tide of age she was seeing on his face, crow’s-feet beneath his rimless glasses. But Stanton had slept a full seven hours last night. Rare for him. “I feel fine.”

  “The lawsuit’s all over? For good?”

  “It’s been over for weeks. Let’s celebrate. Got some champagne in my fridge.”

  “Skipper and I are headed to Catalina,” Nina said. She flipped the gauges and switches that Stanton had never bothered to really master, firing up the boat’s GPS and electrical system.

  The faint outline of Catalina Island was just visible through the marine layer. “What if I came with you?” he asked.

  “While you waited patiently for results from the center? Please, Gabe.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  Nina walked up, cupped his chin in her hand. “I’m not your ex-wife for nothing.”

  The decision had been hers, but Stanton blamed himself, and part of him had never given up on a future for them together. During the three years they were married, his work took him out of the country for months at a time, while she escaped to the ocean, where her heart had always been. He’d let her drift away, and it seemed like she was happiest that way—sailing solo.

  A container ship sounded its horn in the distance, sending Dogma into a frenzy. He barked repeatedly at the noise before proceeding to chase his own tail.

  “I’ll bring him back tomorrow night,” Nina said.

  “Stay for dinner,” Stanton told her. “I’ll cook whatever you want.”

  Nina eyed him. “How will your girlfriend feel about us having dinner?”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “What happened to what’s-her-name? The mathematician.”

  “We went on four dates.”

  “And?”

  “I had to go see a man about a horse.”

  “Come on.”

  “Seriously. I had to check out a horse in England they thought might have scrapie, and she told me I wasn’t fully committed to her.”

  “Was she right?”

  “We went on four dates. So, are we on for dinner tomorrow?”

  Nina fired up Plan A’s engine as Stanton hopped onto the dock to collect his bike. “Get a decent bottle of wine,” she called back as she unmoored, leaving him once again in her wake. “Then we’ll see.…”

  THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL’S Prion Center in Boyle Heights had been Stanton’s professional home for nearly ten years. When he moved west to become its first director, the center had occupied only one small lab in a mobile trailer at Los Angeles County & USC Medical Center. Now it spanned the entire sixth floor of the LAC & USC main hospital building, the same building that for more than three decades had served as the exterior for the soap opera General Hospital.

  Stanton headed through the double doors into what his postdocs often referred to as his “lair.” One of them had strung Christmas lights around the main area, and Stanton flipped them on along with the halogens, casting green and red across the microscope benches stretching across the lab. After dropping his bag in his office, Stanton threw on a mask and gloves and headed for the back. This was the first morning they’d be able to collect results in an experiment his team had been working on for weeks, and he was very eager for them.

  The center’s “Animal Room” was nearly the length of a basketball court and contained computerized inventory stalls, touch-screen data-recording cen
ters, and electronic vivisection and autopsy stations. Stanton made his way toward the first of twelve cages shelved on the south wall and peered inside. The cage contained two animals: a two-foot-long black-and-orange coral snake and a small gray mouse. At first glance it looked like the most natural thing in the world: a snake waiting for the right moment to feed on its prey. But in reality something unnatural was happening inside this cage.

  The mouse was nonchalantly poking the snake’s head with its nose. Even when the snake hissed, the mouse continued to nudge it carelessly—it didn’t run to the corner of the cage or try to escape. The mouse was as unafraid of the snake as it would have been of another mouse. The first time Stanton saw this behavior, he and his team at the Prion Center erupted in cheers. Using genetic engineering, they’d removed a set of tiny proteins called “prions” from the surface membrane of the mouse’s brain cells. They’d succeded in their strange experiment, disrupting the natural order in the mouse’s brain and eradicating its innate fear of the snake. It was a crucial step toward understanding the deadly proteins that had been Stanton’s life’s work.

  Prions occur in all normal animal brains, including those of humans, yet after decades of research, neither he nor anyone else understood why they existed. Some of Stanton’s colleagues believed prion proteins were involved in memory or were important in the formation of bone marrow. No one knew for sure.

  Most of the time, these prions sat benignly on neuron cells in the brain. But in rare cases, these proteins could become “sick” and multiply. Like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, prion diseases destroyed healthy tissue and replaced it with useless plaques, squeezing out the normal function of the brain. But there was one key, terrifying difference: While Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s were strictly genetic diseases, certain prion diseases could be passed through contaminated meat. In the mid-1980s, mutated prions from sick cows in England got into the local food supply through tainted beef, and the entire world became familiar with a prion infection. Mad cow disease killed two hundred thousand cattle in Europe and then spread to humans. First patients had difficulty walking and shook uncontrollably, then they lost their memories and the ability to identify friends and family. Brain death soon followed.