The vintage sat heavy in his pocket like a tiny bomb.
Instead he picked up the bottle Rainy had given him. The label was muddy and the ink smudged, but he’d been able to decipher the important details: the patient was Elsa Hooke; the prescribing doctor was Dr. Fraelich, Marla; and the three tablets were for something called “Mifeprex (Mifepristone)”—neither of which he’d ever heard of. The tablets came in large 200-milligram doses, and all three were still in the bottle. The prescription had expired more than six months ago.
Jo had known that the reverend had the pills and hadn’t used them. He thought of Jo sitting in this room when she realized that her body had betrayed her again, that it had once again manufactured a fertilized egg like a tumor—unwanted, unearned, and unasked-for. The idea of three such invasions in a dozen years horrified him.
He put the medicine bottle into his pocket—and look, here was the vial of vintage.
He held the tube in his hand, turning it. He decided to empty the vial into the toilet. Later he resolved to take one sip and then throw the rest away. Sometime after that he committed to a new life: In the morning he’d return to his house, empty the freezer, and call his father to tell him he’d never be able to visit in person again.
Then, as morning approached, he thought, One last drink. A toast to my new life.
He removed the cap and kissed the lip of the vial, small mouth to his larger one. He tipped the tube higher and held it until he could no longer feel the thick drops on his tongue.
Even after it was empty he couldn’t let it go. He sat on the couch for a long time, turning the empty thing in one hand while he typed nonsense words and strings of numbers and every Bowie lyric he could think of.
The wind picked up, setting the back door to knock against the frame like a cranky child. Finally he set aside the laptop and walked to the kitchen. He started to close the door but instead opened it wider. The cold breeze felt good against his face. It was 6:00 a.m., still an hour before dawn, but the blanket of clouds had begun to thin. The huge tree, still bulky with leaves, held back a charcoal gray sky.
He sensed someone behind him and turned. She leaned in the kitchen doorway, her arms folded across her chest. She was dressed for warmer weather: a white wife-beater T-shirt, khaki shorts, bare feet. Her skin shone, a glaze of dark raspberry.
“Hey, Jo,” he said.
She smiled, turned, and walked into the living room. She looked at the laptop.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been trying to violate your privacy. Haven’t had much luck, though.”
She tilted her head and smiled.
He said, “So what’s the password, Jo?”
And then he knew. As surely as if she’d spoken it aloud.
He sat down and put the computer on his knees. He was such an idiot. There was only one possible password. And if it didn’t open the laptop he’d chuck the thing out the window.
He typed three letters—SOS—and tapped return.
The password dialog box blinked away, and a screen full of icons replaced it.
“Switchcreek Orphan Society,” he said. Jo pursed her lips, silently laughing.
He opened a folder on the hard drive just to see if he could. “You care to tell me where you left your suicide note?”
She shook her head. He didn’t know whether that meant she hadn’t left one or didn’t want him to read it.
“I can look at this later,” he said. “Right now I want to—”
He noticed a folder on the desktop named “RM” and forgot what he was going to say. He clicked on it and saw a long list of word processor documents, spreadsheets, scanned images, as well as a dozen subfolders. The names “Rhonda” and “Mapes” and “RM” were on most of them. He clicked on a folder at random—Tema2007—then opened an image named MedFund2007Page01.tiff. It was a scan of a complicated form from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency—some kind of payment for medical services. Dr. Fraelich’s name was near the top, and he wasn’t surprised to see Rhonda’s name right after it. The dollar amount was for over a million dollars—$1,100,022.00 to be exact. And there were a dozen more forms just in this one folder.
If he was going to understand what the form meant he’d have to go through all these documents, look for any notes from Jo herself. But he was pretty sure it wouldn’t paint Rhonda in a positive light.
He shook his head, amazed. “How much did you have on her, Jo?” He looked up and she was walking away from him, toward the back door. He set aside the laptop and hurried after her.
She walked out into the backyard. Her hand trailed across the trunk of the huge oak, but she didn’t glance up. He almost caught up to her as she entered the trees at the edge of the yard.
The faint light from the sky vanished. She was only a few feet ahead of him, but he could barely see her pale T-shirt against her dark shoulders. They went uphill, Jo moving quickly and noiselessly, Pax stumbling over roots and rocks, cursing, jogging to catch up with his hands held out in front of him to warn him of tree trunks.
After ten, fifteen minutes they stepped out into a clearing like a basin of moonlight.
Jo turned to look at him. Her eyes gleamed. Her shirt seemed to glow.
He looked around. The path continued on the other side of the clearing, heading back down into the valley, toward the Whitmer farm and the Co-op.
At the high edge of the clearing was a makeshift bench made from three logs. Jo sat down and held out a hand. He sat next to her and she warmed his hand in hers. They stared out at the silvery grass, the dark woods. He knew she was a figment of his imagination, a chemical dream like all the other vintage-prompted hallucinations. He didn’t care.
“I’m sorry, Jo,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
She said nothing. That was all right. The heat of her skin against his was enough.
Above them the gray sky took on indigo hues. Color seeped into the air, painted the grass with faint greens and yellows, rusted the leaves at the edge of the clearing.
Jo looked at him, then looked back at the bushes behind her. He followed her gaze but didn’t see anything. He stood, stared up the slope into the trees. They were still a half hour’s hike from the top of Mount Clyburn.
“I don’t know what you want me to see,” he said to her. He moved behind the bench, still peering into the woods, and his foot came down on something round and hard.
He reached down into the long grass and picked up a metal flashlight streaked with mud. Jo’s flashlight, he decided. He clicked the button, and the light snapped on. After months in the woods, the batteries were still good.
She looked up at him over her shoulder, her gaze steady. She’d come here that night, he realized. She’d left the house after the girls were in bed, then made her way up to this place, following the flashlight. She’d sat on this bench, waiting.
And this is where she died.
He clicked off the light and came around to the front of the bench and kneeled in front of her, instantly wetting his knees.
“Who was here, Jo? Who did you meet? Was it the reverend?”
She gazed down at him with oil-black eyes. Then she smiled—a very un-beta smile that summoned the girl she’d been—and then rapped her knuckles against his forehead: tock, tock. Figure it out, knucklehead.
He stood up, looked back the way they’d come, then at the path that led down to the farm, the Co-op. This clearing was the halfway point. He started down the slope, then realized that Jo wasn’t following.
He looked back. She sat on the bench, her eyes on him. She was going no farther.
He lifted a hand. He knew that she wasn’t really there, but he was nevertheless reluctant to leave her behind. Yet again.
She nodded toward the woods behind him. Finally he turned and started down.
Chapter 21
“MAYOR?” ESTHER SAID. “A couple of them stormtroopers to see you.” The charlie woman looked nervous. Until a few days ago she’d been just the elementary school’s cook
, and then Rhonda had promoted her to administrative assistant to the mayor. Mostly that meant answering the phones.
“Just a second, Esther,” Rhonda said. She loaded another ream of paper into the photocopier and slammed the door. Full circle, she thought. Here it was the crack o’ dawn and she was working the copy machine like she’d never stopped being church secretary. Harlan never used to write his sermons until the last minute—couldn’t even tell her the scripture he’d be using until Saturday night—so she used to have to come in early on Sundays to type up the programs and run them off.
Rhonda had commandeered the elementary school for her quarantine headquarters because it had the most phones, computers, and photocopiers—and because nobody was using it. School had been canceled because almost all the teachers lived outside of Switchcreek. She’d have to do something about that, eventually. Idle children equaled insane parents.
Rhonda picked up one of the finished copies and turned to Doctor Fraelich, who was tapping at a computer. “You’re sure Dr. Preisswerk got this to the newspaper?” Rhonda asked.
“Eric met with them yesterday—it’s definitely going out this morning.” The doctor looked haggard from lack of sleep. Well, join the club, Rhonda thought.
“Let ’em in,” Rhonda said to Esther. The woman moved aside and two National Guard soldiers in breathing masks stepped into the room. Rhonda thought she recognized the lead one as an assistant to Colonel Duveen, but she wasn’t sure.
Rhonda said, “You know, it would really help us if y’all wore name tags.”
“Likewise,” the assistant said.
“Young man,” Rhonda said sharply. “Do not mess with me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at the other soldier. “Colonel Duveen would like to see you—as soon as possible.”
“I bet he would,” Rhonda said. She took a few more copies of the document and tucked them into her bag. “Esther, keep running those. Make sure you hand one to whoever wants one, and make sure everyone has one of the blue sheets.” She nodded to the light blue, half-size instruction sheets stacked on the table next to Dr. Fraelich. Rhonda took an inch off the top of one stack and put those in her bag too.
“Good luck,” the doctor said.
Rhonda followed the Guardsmen outside. It was not yet full light, and the cold breeze teased at her fortress of hair. Everett stood beside the Cadillac, waiting. “I’ll take my own car,” she told the soldiers.
Evidently this was permissible. The soldiers got into the Humvee and Everett held open the Caddy’s passenger door for her.
“Did you get any sleep?” Rhonda asked him. He’d been on duty nonstop since the quarantine began, and last night she’d sent him out to the car to take a nap.
“You’re the one who should be resting, Aunt Rhonda,” the boy said. “You can’t keep burning the candle at both ends.”
“I’ll rest a little easier after today,” she said.
Everett followed the Humvee the three blocks to the Cherokee Hotel, which the Guard had commandeered as their headquarters. He hopped out to open her door. “You want me inside?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Just keep the phone on in case the newspeople call.”
The soldiers were holding the door for her. Oh so polite. Rhonda walked up the front steps, patted the shiny, much-rubbed cheek of the wooden Indian by the door, and went inside.
The renovation project had been proceeding on and off for three years, whenever Rhonda had extra money to pour into it. When it was done it would be the world’s first hotel that could accommodate all three clades—and skips in wheelchairs to boot. The new ceilings were high enough for argos, the doors broad enough for charlies. For the betas she’d specified that the women’s restrooms outnumbered the men’s four-to-one. Before Babahoyo, people thought it was a waste of money—everyone who could use the new features were already residents in Switchcreek. But she’d always intended it as a model for the outside world to follow, and if not that then a political statement. And now that there’d been a second outbreak Rhonda looked like a visionary. Someday Ecuadorian clades would visit.
Colonel Duveen had made his office in the banquet room. The walls had been stripped to the studs, but the wiring was all in place and bare bulbs lit the big room. His desk was at one end of the room, ten yards from the desk of any assistant. Duct-taped cables snaked across the bare wooden floor.
The colonel didn’t look up from his papers until she was almost on top of him. Typical power gesture—she’d used it herself. She said, “It’s awful early for a meeting, don’t you think?”
He smiled and removed his glasses. “I appreciate you making time for me,” he said. In defiance of his own regulations, he wore no breather mask. His voice was soft, and his boyish haircut and earnest eyes gave him the look of a Mormon missionary. She’d found it hard to believe he’d served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan—until she started working with him. He permitted no bullshit. She respected his competence and liked him because he didn’t underestimate her.
“Rumor has it,” he said, “you have something planned for this morning.”
“Oh, Colonel, I would have told you sooner, but it’s all been decided in such a rush.” She opened her bag and gave him one of the blue instruction sheets. “The march starts at eight-thirty a.m. Or oh-eight-thirty for you military types.”
He frowned at the sheet. “You want to walk all the way down to the north gate?”
“We’re putting in two little crosses there,” Rhonda said. “It’s a tradition around here—when someone dies in an accident, they put up a little white cross to mark the spot.”
“Those are for car accidents, aren’t they?”
“An accident is an accident,” Rhonda said.
“That’s it? Two crosses?”
“Two little crosses. As well as eight little flags—one for every fallen soldier.”
“Interesting touch.”
“It’s the Christian thing to do.”
He took a breath, then shook his head with a nicely calibrated display of regret. “I’m sorry, no.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s too dangerous. Emotions are running too high.”
“Among your soldiers or my people?”
“Both. I’m surprised at you, Mayor. We’ve talked about the need for calm.”
“My people will have firm instructions.” She nodded at the blue sheet. “They won’t do anything to your men, not look at them, not talk to them. This is a silent march—no one will even speak until we get to the checkpoint, at which point Reverend Hooke will say a prayer. You’re not against prayer, are you?”
“Mayor, it’s already abundantly clear that the argos cannot be controlled.”
“The same could be said for your soldiers.” A moment passed, and then Rhonda changed tactics. “Colonel, my people need this.” She let the weariness surface in her voice. “They need to express their grief. If you make it impossible for them to let off steam, this town will explode.”
“Mobs don’t let off steam, Mayor, they generate it.”
“The anger’s already there. My people know that this quarantine is a sham. And after today, the world will know it.” She brought out the document she’d copied this morning. “This will be coming out in The New York Times today. It’ll be on every news channel by the time we march.”
He put on his glasses and peered at the first page. “Why don’t you tell me what I’m looking at?”
“That’s a leaked CDC report, Colonel. The report was suppressed, but a few scientists are blowing the whistle. The rationale for this quarantine is full of holes. Not only has no one found a transmission method that would let these plasmid thingies hop from body to body, but it turns out—and this may come as a surprise to you, it certainly did to me—that all those cases the president talked about on TV, those cases of TDS plasmids showing up in unaffected people? Not one has panned out.”
“You don’t say,” the colonel said.
<
br /> “No, sir, not a one. In fact, the only people who seem to have them, in Switchcreek or in Ecuador, are people who already have TDS.” Rhonda shook her head as if marveling at the impossibility of it all. “Isn’t that something? They’re an effect, not a cause.”
“The government’s never said that plasmids definitely caused TDS,” the colonel said. “Only that it couldn’t be ruled out. Besides, this is just the opinion of a couple of scientists. Other scientists say differently.”
“Yes, yes, the government managed to find their own scientists—and their own lawyers too—to give them a pretext for isolating us. But the jury can’t be out forever.”
“This won’t change anything,” the colonel said.
“Oh, I have no illusions that a couple of leaked reports are going to change the government’s position. I fully expect this quarantine to go on for as long as the public is petrified of getting TDS. But sooner or later, as the evidence keeps coming out, the public will realize that this quarantine isn’t protecting them, that it’s never going to.
“Hell, even if you killed every last charlie, beta, and argo in Ecuador, Tennessee, and across the planet, TDS is going to spread. Someday, I’m betting soon, we’ll turn on our TVs and there will be another outbreak. Then another one. And another. A new world is coming, Colonel Duveen. And then do you know where you’re going to be?”
“In a war zone?”
“Worse than that.” She leaned forward. “You’re going to be on the wrong side of history.”
He took off his glasses and set them on the desk. “That may be so,” he said. “But that doesn’t change this morning. No march, Rhonda, silent or otherwise. No service at the checkpoint.”
“Oh, hon, there’s going to be a march whether you want one or not. Your only decision is to figure out how you’re going to respond to it.” She glanced at her watch. “Well, I better get going. Oh, and afterward we’re having a breakfast at the church. You like biscuits and gravy, don’t you?”
“Are you inviting me?”
“You and as many of your men as you want.”
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