ʺJust a cold,ʺ he says. ʺI had it already.ʺ But he sounds frightened, too. He coughs again.
Another person coughs. And now she is back in the other car. Still hearing coughing. The man in the front seat. His head is twisted around so she can see it.
His face is gone.
Glass has peeled off the skin, the nose, even the eyelids. One eye is gone, the other roves around sightlessly in its socket. That single eye and a bloody mouth are the only features on a red sea of muscle and blood.
She screams, though she is never sure if the scream comes from her mouth or exists only in her mind.
This is why she never remembers the manʹs face: because he has no face to remember. Something stole it.
An accident?
Another cough. The man in the front seat. Not of the car with the man and woman, but of the car with the dark men, for her present/past/future has taken her there once again.
ʺJust a cold,ʺ says the man in front. ʺIʹve had it for days–ʺ
One of the other men shoots him in the head. They kick him out the door.
The car keeps rolling, rolling, rolling.
Moving like her memories, through a night that never seems to end. Past and present, present and past. Haunted at every turn by faceless men who wear only darkness, who see from within and who frighten her.
She whispers from within her own darkness. No sound comes from her. Her lips do not even move.
Jesus loves me, this I know….
BLINDING LIGHT
From: POTUS
To: 'X'
Sent: Friday, May 31 5:35 AM
Subject: WH outbreak
Several of the staffers are coughing.
From: X
To: Dicky
Sent: Friday, May 31 5:35 AM
Subject: RE: WH outbreak
Bully for them. Colds are still around, you know.
BTW: permitting your secretary to use this email was uncalled for and against the terms of our agreements. You realize you have to make a choice? Itʹs between foregoing my company and foregoing hers.
From: POTUS
To: 'X'
Sent: Friday, May 31 5:37 AM
Subject: RE: RE: WH outbreak
I will have someone see to it. Sheʹll be gone as soon as I can make appropriate arrangements. Do you have someone I can use?
From: X
To: Dicky
Sent: Friday, May 31 5:37 AM
Subject: RE: RE: RE: WH outbreak
You screwed up. You fix it. You have 24 hours to kill her or you will never hear from me again.
***
All those people.
Pai Nosso, que estás no céu….
The words of the Lordʹs Prayer, begun in the Portuguese of Serafinaʹs mother and her motherʹs mother, the prayer that had always comforted her, failed this time to give her comfort or any hope. Instead of hearing the words continue as they should, she heard others.
Pai Nosso, onde você está?
Our Father, where are you?
A good question. She had always had faith; had never had a problem believing in something higher than she. She went to church, she prayed, and in doing these things she felt comfort even in the face of the death she saw every day.
But maybe that was because there was a sense that such deaths were appropriate. After all, a hospital was a temple to death, or at the very least an oracle where people discovered their fates. If the tests came back negative: good fortune and long life. If the MRI found a mass: the Heavens had frowned.
It was all part of a plan, at least in her head.
But what she had just seen…
There was no plan to that. At least, no plan she wanted any part of.
Father, where are you?
ʺYou okay?ʺ
Streetlights flashed by outside her window. Every third or fourth one was out. The sun was coming up and photocells were shutting down the lamps.
ʺYou all right?ʺ John repeated.
ʺNo,ʺ she said. She didnʹt turn to look at him. Stared at the lights blinking off outside.
He sighed. ʺMe neither.ʺ
Now she looked at him. She didnʹt want to, but something inside, perhaps the same thing that had compelled her to be a nurse in the first place, made her do it.
He was driving straight. His eyes were focused perfectly.
But his hands clenched so tightly on the wheel she thought she heard it creak. His body was so rigid she could have bounced quarters off his muscles.
ʺIʹm sorry,ʺ she said.
He laughed. ʺShouldnʹt I be the one saying that?ʺ
ʺProbably.ʺ
She turned back to the window. All the streetlights were off now. The dawn hadnʹt quite come yet. Which was good. She had driven down this street enough times to know that if you went down it when the sun came up, all it did was blind you. No pleasant morning rays, just painful shafts of light that turned driving into an act of…
…faith.
Just like going to work every day.
Just like taking a breath.
Just like sitting here, beside a virtual stranger in whom she had chosen to put her life and future.
Everything was faith. And that wasnʹt what she wanted right now.
She cursed under her breath.
ʺWhat now?ʺ she said. Still looking at the dark streetlights, staring down at her like empty eyes. She thought of the many dead she had seen in her life. Too many.
ʺNow…we keep going east.ʺ
ʺWhy? What the hell is east?ʺ
ʺSomething important.ʺ
He sounded uneasy. She turned on him again. Angry this time. ʺHow can you say that? You donʹt even remember your name, John. So how do you know whatʹs waiting for us beyond what you can see? Maybe all youʹre gonna find when you get over the next hill is another goddam hill. You ever think of that?ʺ
He grimaced. ʺDidnʹt peg you for that type.ʺ
She folded her arms. ʺWhat type?ʺ
ʺThe type that would say something like that.ʺ He reached out and touched her. At first her body clenched and she thought she might be stuck in a car with a bigger, badder version of Doctor Hershel, sans FiveFinger Shoes.
But he wasnʹt going for a cheap feel. He pulled something from under her shirt. The tiny cross her mother had given her, a long time ago. The day she died.
Serafina knew John was referring not to her anger but to the fact she had taken the Lordʹs name in vain. She was suddenly ashamed that she had said such a thing–certainly her parents would not have approved–and in the next instant she was laughing.
Men were trying to kill her.
She was on a fantasy quest to who-knew-where.
Buildings were falling down all around her.
But she was worried about breaking the fourth commandment (or was it the fifth?).
Sure, that made sense.
A moment later, John started laughing as well. She wondered what he was laughing at. She suspected he was laughing with her; that he knew exactly why she was laughing so hard and that he thought it funny as well.
She laughed harder. So did he.
He patted her shoulder. Nothing sexual, but a purely friendly pat. A gesture that said, ʺItʹs all right, weʹre all right, weʹll get through this.
ʺHave faith.ʺ
Have faith.
She kept laughing.
The dark lights passed outside.
The sun crested the horizon.
She would be blind in a moment.
John would keep driving into a sun that made sight all but impossible.
The laughter grew as the light came into the car. Serafina felt like everything might be all right. Like she might make it through this and maybe even find out what ʺthisʺ actually was.
John stopped laughing. Not
a slow petering-out like you did when gripped by near-hysteria. One moment he was in the throes of deep belly laughs that nearly doubled him over to the point that Serafina wondered if it would be best for them to pull over for a moment. Then, abruptly, all she could hear was her own laughter.
She stopped as well. Now the only sound was the wind rushing past weathered windows that had ceased fully sealing sometime in the early parts of the new millennium, the click-clack-click of a motor tumbling through its last days.
John had stolen this car because it was available. He had just tried doors until one opened, then looked for keys. She thought he had the best luck sheʹd ever seen until he told her that even in big cities about one in three people left their cars unlocked, and a huge percentage of them left a spare key in the glove box, under the seat, tucked in the visor.
She wondered how he knew that. Soldier? Assassin? Mobile locksmith?
Regardless, they were in an old Toyota, the air fairly slapping them as it passed by, the motor laboring to pull them up any hill steeper than two degrees.
And John was looking in the rearview mirror and not laughing at all.
Serafinaʹs stomach sank. She looked over her left shoulder.
A car was behind them. Far back, blocks away. But coming up fast.
She didnʹt doubt who was inside. Sometimes faith brought hope and action, an ability to keep moving even when common sense demanded that you simply sit down and die.
Sometimes it brought a deadening certainty that a killer with a priestʹs habit was following you. A knowledge that the car you were in had no way of leaving him behind. Nor could they hope to ditch their pursuer in a series of turns: they were on a straightaway, a part of the street that had no side streets or intersections for a while. Just small storefronts built right against one another in a nearly unbroken line.
John spoke quietly. ʺYou buckled up?ʺ
She nodded. She didnʹt know why he cared. It wasnʹt like this car was going to get much faster than forty miles per hour. She could practically run faster.
ʺWe canʹt outrun him,ʺ she said.
ʺI know.ʺ
As if in agreement, the engine coughed.
Serafina looked over her shoulder. The sedan was closer. Within a block. ʺShould I get out and push?ʺ
ʺI wouldnʹt.ʺ
ʺWhy?ʺ
ʺYou might want to face forward. And keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times.ʺ
She did. She saw Johnʹs face as she swung back to forward position. His jaw was clenched. His arms were flexed, though there was a slight bend in his elbows, like he didnʹt want to lock them out.
She had a sudden inspiration. A horrible thought.
Heʹs going to kill us.
And at that moment, John swerved off the street. Hard right. A huge bounce over the curb.
Straight into the face of a building.
Serafina screamed. Her hands went over her face.
ʺPray,ʺ said John.
She did. In spite of her moments-old confusion and anger at God, she reverted to habit and whispered a quick entreaty. It actually helped–she realized that John wasnʹt trying to kill them. Why would he tell her to pray if he was trying to kill them?
Unless he was saying ʺPray for our soulsʺ or something like that.
All this went through her mind in an instant. The tiny eternity between the slam of front and rear tires over the curb and the impact.
Glass crashed. Wood crunched.
Something else shrieked. Brick collapsed.
Her body slammed forward. The seatbelt cut across her chest and stomach. It felt like it sliced her in half.
Then something creaked and thunked. A door?
A hand grabbed her arm. There was a click and the seatbelt slid off her.
ʺCome on.ʺ John pulled her out of the car through his side.
She looked around, coughing in the dust.
They were in some kind of restaurant. A little mom-and-pop place with round tables (kindling), cheap seats (bits and pieces), vinyl tablecloths (ripped and torn).
ʺWhat did you do?ʺ
John started dragging her through the debris. ʺWe couldnʹt outrun him.ʺ He jerked a thumb back toward the front of the restaurant. ʺWeʹve blocked him off and thereʹs no other way through. Heʹll have to find a way around and thatʹll buy us some time. Worst comes to worst he gets through on foot and at least weʹre even.ʺ
Serafina looked at the front of what had until recently been a restaurant. And understood.
The car was halfway through the front of the place. It had slammed through a window that she now saw spanned just the width of the car. On either side: reinforced concrete. The priest would have a tough time pulling a similar stunt. Even if he could bash his own vehicle through those concrete spans, there was no room in the restaurant for another car to get all the way through.
Not only that, but John had only jammed their car partway in. He had somehow spun a bit as well, so the old Toyota lay at a slight angle. The motion had caused most of the building roof to collapse, dropping it on the carʹs roof so there was no way to get through between the top of the car and the debris. And this building, like most in the area, was built in a solid line without gaps between the others. There was no way through to the other side for blocks.
John had pounded a door right through the wall, then sealed it behind them with several tons of glass, wood, and steel.
They were in the back of the restaurant. The kitchen. And looking around Serafina was glad sheʹd never eaten here. Several rats and more than several roaches, frightened by the collapse of their home, streamed across the floor. She figured that would probably warrant a downgrade by the health inspector.
Someone should close this place.
She almost giggled.
John was looking around. Looking for a way out.
Now it was Serafinaʹs turn to lead. She had worked in a place like this while getting through nursing school. The back door tended to be by the freezer.
Sure enough, there was an emergency door with a crash bar right by the freezer, across from a unisex bathroom that looked like it hadnʹt been cleaned since sometime right after chamber pots went out of vogue.
Serafina actually paused. The door had ʺEMERGENCY EXIT ONLY–ALARM WILL SOUNDʺ written on it, and she thought for a moment, What if the priest hears it? Heʹll know where we are.
Then she realized how ridiculous that was.
She hit the door with her shoulder.
The crash bar depressed, the door opened. Apparently the owners of this place believed in fire and safety protocols about as much as hygiene, because there was no alarm.
They exploded into an alley that ran behind the buildings that lined this part of the street and the buildings that lined the street that paralleled it. Serafina looked up and down the alley. She figured they would steal another car.
But John didnʹt move in any direction she expected. And she realized that, whatever she thought he had done when he crashed them through the restaurant, she had only figured it out in part.
John had a plan–maybe one he intended all along, maybe one he had just come up with.
Regardless, she didnʹt know what it was.
She just hoped it was a good one.
SMALL STEPS
From: POTUS
To: 'X'
Sent: Friday, May 31 5:37 AM
Subject: CHINA FLASH
Just leaked that there are several men in China who are apparently carriers. HOW MANY ARE THERE?
From: X
To: Dicky
Sent: Friday, May 31 5:37 AM
Subject: RE: CHINA FLASH
Will investigate.
From: POTUS
To: 'X'
Sent: Friday, May 31 5:38 AM
Subject: RE: RE: CHINA FLASH
W
ait you donʹt KNOW? Good CHRIST. This could end us all.
From: X
To: Dicky
Sent: Friday, May 31 5:37 AM
Subject: RE: RE: RE: CHINA FLASH
Repeat: Will investigate. Letʹs worry about our own neck of the woods first.
***
Every moment felt heavy. Like the worldʹs gravity was increasing, bearing down on Johnʹs shoulders more and more. A large part of him wanted to sit down and just wait for the priest. It seemed that whatever happened, the last rites he offered would be something quite spectacular.
Only…what about his mission?
What about Serafina?
And what would he say for his final confession? What does a man with no past say when given a chance to offer up his sin?
All this moved him along. Pushed him to action.
Serafina followed. Which was at once both a reason to keep moving and a reason to bow his shoulders a bit lower.
The building beside the restaurant looked like it had actually attempted some kind of outward appeasement of safety regulations. A fire escape clung to the back of the building, walking up to a second-floor back window.
John didnʹt care about the second floor. He had no intention of going in the building. He was interested in the ladder that went to the roof.
He ran up the ladder. Moving quickly but as quietly as possible. Serafina was a cat, her footsteps silent. He marveled at this for a moment, then realized it was only the same competence she had shown at everything else. She had no training, but she was tough and smart and enduring.
He went up the stairs, then the ladder. She followed without question. The weight on his shoulders grew.
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