by Pike, JJ
“I hope so.” She drove with confidence. What was she using to navigate? The roads weren’t well signposted and they’d barely seen another car for miles.
“And I hope we have this genetic predisposition she was talking about.”
“Hmm.” Alice was distracted, not answering, eyes trained on the road.
Bill fell silent. If she was deciding which way to turn in order to get them home sooner he didn’t want to interfere with her thought process. He willed the car to go faster. They might as well cover as much ground as possible while he was numbed out.
“I know you want to be awake, Bill…”
“But?”
“I want to take the car off road when we hit any blocks.”
“Okay.”
“Can you cope with that?”
“I’m still fairly numb.”
“Fairly?”
“The feeling has been creeping back.”
“It’ll keep coming back.”
“Give me another shot. Numb me out again.”
Alice shook her head. “I shouldn’t have given you that first shot. It was foolish of me. You’ve been taking tramadol. Adding propofol was a gamble. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’ve been awake for a very long time, but that’s no excuse. I watched you while you slept to make sure you didn’t aspirate or have a heart attack, but it was still stupid in the extreme.”
Damn. That was not Alice’s usual M.O. She was cautious when it came to narcotics. She must have been truly irritated with him. “Sorry,” he said.
“Why are you sorry? I’m the one who should be saying sorry.”
“That I was such a pain in the butt.”
“That wasn’t it at all, my darling. I was frantic. I’d been listening to you cry out in your sleep for days. It drove me half mad. I thought I’d lose my mind if I had to listen to it all the way home. Like I said, I was selfish and reckless.” She patted his knee. “You forgive me?”
“Always,” he said, squeezing her fingers. “So if you’re not going to let me have delicious, dangerous propofol, what are you going to do to knock me out and stop me from making you a crazy person this time?”
She laughed. He loved that sound: Alice laughing at one of his lame jokes. When she was happy, he was happy. All they needed now was their children and life would be perfect. It didn’t matter that Manhattan was gone or that their house in New Paltz was about to be contaminated for a 1,000 years (it matters a little, said a tiny voice in his head; there’ll be no insurance payout for that loss). All they needed in order to be happy was the kids.
“You want to get ahead of the pain. Don’t give it any opportunity to gain traction. As soon as you’re at a three or four out of ten, take another tramadol.”
Mouse whined. The dogs had been so quiet he’d almost forgotten they were back there.
“He needs to go out,” said Alice. She pulled over, let the dogs out, stretched, and herded them back in again. He loved watching her. Even when she was dirtier than a potato she was gorgeous.
“What?” she grinned, turned the key in the ignition, and hit the gas. She knew what he was thinking.
“I’m so glad I met you.”
“Not as glad as me,” she replied. “I married up. I was the luckier one.”
It so wasn’t true. He was about to launch into his favorite story—the one about her coming home with him that first time—when the windshield split straight up the middle.
Alice dove on top of him, crushing his arm. “Out. Get out.” She was trying to open the passenger side door by reaching over him, but he was fighting her. He had to. The pain was unbearable. “Out, out, out,” she said.
The door finally gave way.
Alice scrambled over him, reached back, undid his seatbelt, pulled him into the ditch, opened the back door, let the dogs out, grabbed the gun bag, selected a rifle, apologized a hundred times, then set up so she could shoot back at whoever’d shot at them.
Bill rolled onto his side, cradling his arm. It was worse. The pain. It had never been this bad. How he hadn’t passed out was an impossible mystery.
“Quiet,” she said.
He couldn’t stop himself from groaning. It wasn’t deliberate. The noises poured out, unbidden. Alice stuffed something in his mouth. Another bandage. It was becoming a habit.
Alice crept up the bank, rifle in hand. Bill watched her through his tears. Why wasn’t she keeping her head down? If there was a sniper they’d be waiting for this moment, when her head came up over the top of the ditch, he could pick her off.
Nothing happened.
Alice did what Alice knew how to do. She waited until she was certain each move was safe, then took the next action. When Bill came round again she was behind the wheel of the car, looking down the road. He blacked out. When he finally woke she was sitting on the ground beside him, wiping his forehead, telling him it was all going to be alright.
“It was a rock.”
“Rock?”
“Yup. We hit one pothole too many. The rock flew up. The windshield is cracked. Sorry I overreacted.”
“It’s higher than a three.” Bill tried to smile. He didn’t pull it off. He bared his teeth, then closed his eyes and hoped she understood he didn’t mean to bite her. “The pain is higher than a three.” He couldn’t be sure if he’d said it or thought it.
Alice pressed a pill into his mouth, then a flask of water to his lips. “Swallow.”
She moved off to one side. He couldn’t feel her. He patted the ground, found a dog, moved on, found the gun bag, moved on, didn’t find his wife.
She was on the phone. She’d been on the phone for a while. He’d blacked out.
“Does it matter if we believe him?” she said. “What matters is stopping MELT. Is Christine any closer to a solution?”
She wasn’t talking to Michael or Christine, which left Fran. Fran was a good person to talk to. If Alice had had friends, Fran would have ranked up there. She’d been to their house, their cabin, spent the weekend. She knew their kids, their proclivity for prepping, their preference for country to city living. Bill was glad Alice had her to talk to.
“Do you think you can keep her working? I need to get back on the road. You think? Well, okay. But I’m going to keep it short.”
There was a pause, presumably so Fran could hand off to Christine.
“Hey there, my favorite Professor. How’s it going?” Pause. “Good, good. Listen. We’re still in Massachusetts. I want to drive as far as I can before it gets dark. Uh-huh. Yup. I’m hearing what you’re hearing on the radio. Reports all indicate people are moving west and the highways are impassible. Yep. We will. We’re staying on local roads, no highways for us. I just wanted to let you know I’m thinking about you. I know you’ll do your best. If there’s anything I can do to help. Well, yes.” She laughed. “Apart from that. I can’t leave him. There’s no way he could make it home alone. He needs me.”
Bill squeezed his eyes shut. He was the one keeping Alice on the side of the family. It was galling to be crippled, but if that’s what it took to stop her from traipsing after an impossible quest, he’d roll with it.
“Oh, good. That sound promising. Yep. No, yep. I like it. Keep pressing ahead with ideas like that. We want to keep it from spreading any further. No, sure. I hear you. Three states aren’t what we would have called ‘localized’ before now, but it’s a new age. We’re post-MELT, I believe. We need to think in a different way. Hey, Christine? I have a question for you. When you say we’re possibly immune to MELT, are you talking nature or nurture? Your questions were about what Bill and I ate as kids, but you mentioned genetics, and it got me to wondering…”
Alice was quiet for an age. That or he’d blanked out again.
“Okay. I sure will. Yep. And you. Want to hand me back to Fran for a second?”
Another pause.
“That went pretty well, I think. She sounds a lot better. Keep reminding her that her ideas are what will save us. Don’t let her look at Mi
chael, if she can help it. And Fran? Thanks. You’re one in a million. I don’t know why you stuck around, but I’m glad you did.”
Alice’s hands slipped under his shoulders. She sat him up. He tried to help, but the pain was pounding his body into submission. It wasn’t just his arm, it was everything. If he could have chopped everything off, he’d have done it. Moving him to the van took forever. She was a slender woman, his wife, so it was a surprise when she hoisted him up and pressed him into his seat. It wasn’t a fireman’s lift so much as a bartender’s determined push into a taxi.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”
Alice talked to the dogs. Listened to the radio. Talked to him. It was all gibberish. He wanted sleep. He’d wake when it was over. There was too far to go. He’d misjudged. He didn’t want to stay awake through this. He lunged forward, flapping at the drug supply, but he couldn’t focus and his good hand—only hand, remaining hand, what good is one when you need two?—was formless and lacked tone and had no directionality. He was drugged, but not out; fuzzed, but not gone; zoned out, but not zonked out.
“More,” he said. “Give me more.”
“You’re at your limit, darling.”
She was wrong. He couldn’t die of an overdose when he was on the rack. It wasn’t possible. The meds would simply allow him to drift off. He didn’t care where he went. He’d take the weird dreams and hallucinations and not being there for his wife. Anywhere but this dungeonous pit, filled with pointed spears and sharpened knives.
The sun went down. Finally. Which meant they could stop. Finally. Which meant he could get out. Finally. And lie down. Yes, please. And sleep. No, sorry, not happening. Even stretched out on the grass, able to flex his legs and uncurl his spine, there was no reprieve. He’d make her give him something. What did he have? What would change her mind? How could he bend his unbending wife to his will?
“I need propofol,” he said. “What will it take?”
“I’ll give you a micro dose,” she said.
Well, glory hallelujah. What had changed her mind?
“It’s been ten hours since your last dose.”
Not mercy. Just time. She was still Alice, practical to the core.
The merciful narcotic took him back to the lake and let him float on his back, eyes on the stars, body no longer in existence for eternity. Or was it minutes? He had no freaking clue. Time meant nothing in the land of pain-free living.
Alice had her hands under his arms, dragging him back to the van. When had she slept? She’d said she’d been awake for a long time. The human body can only withstand so much punishment. He knew her, though. If they needed someone to keep watch and there was no other “someone” available, she’d do it.
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” It was getting old, apologizing every time he woke up, but he meant it. He was sorry that he’d lived. Sorry he was a burden. Sorry he couldn’t keep watch. Sorry that he needed so much care. Sorry he needed more propofol. Sorry that he knew he’d do anything to get it.
“You’re in pain, my love. I understand. Pain forces you to places you never thought you’d go.”
Did she? Was she talking about that? They’d barely ever discussed it outside of their therapeutic sessions.
“Don’t…” Bill couldn’t form the words. He wanted to tell her she didn’t need to go there. His pain was physical. Hers was mental. He tried to push the next thought away, but it came nonetheless. She’d survived a physical assault. More than once. What he was going through would come to an end. Hers never would. The tears ran down his face. She’d think he was crying for himself, when he was crying for her. His mouth moved, but no sounds came out.
“I’ll get you home as soon as I can.”
Why wasn’t it like last time? Why wasn’t he numb and cheery and able to move about? She’d said she would micro dose him so he’d have his mind back when he next woke, but it hadn’t worked like before. He was blurred and blanking out. No bueno, as Paul would say. Could he tell her that? Would the words come?
“We’ve crossed into New York. We’re not far from Albany. Not long now, my love.”
“Awake,” he said.
“I know. I’ll make sure you’re awake when we get home. Now, sleep.”
The needle went in, the curtain fell, and Bill Everlee left the land of the living for the 100th time in however many days. He didn’t know. Counting was for…
Sweet…
Black…
Dark…
Nothing…
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Michael Rayton was being escorted from his vehicle to the transport vehicle where Jo planned to have the meeting of a lifetime.
She’d already told him he had immunity. They’d had a complicated conversation about why he couldn’t see it in writing, during which she’d told more lies per square inch than she’d ever told in her life.
“You’re telling me the FBI’s lines are down?” He didn’t buy it.
She had to be careful not to oversell. “Look around you, Michael. Things are falling apart. We’re not going to be magically shielded from the forward march of MELT simply because we’re the FBI.”
“But you have field offices.”
“And a team already working on this. I can’t switch up teams and have thirty men and women poised and ready to pounce the minute I click my fingers. We need continuity…”
“They have generators, fall back plans, hot failovers, ways to make this happen.”
She shrugged. Better to say nothing than implicate herself further. She needed a lie she could back out of when the time came. “Last time I talked to my colleagues, they told me they were sending your paperwork. I waited five minutes and when nothing arrived, I pinged them again.”
“And couldn’t get through?”
“Correct.”
“No internet, no phones, no satellite? All down?”
“I can make calls,” she said, “but for whatever reason they’re not receiving or dialing.”
“I can’t talk to you,” he said. “You get where I’m coming from? I did my job, followed orders, and it looks a certain way. Once you have all the facts it’s going to look very different, but I need that paper.”
Jo’s phone rang.
Michael smirked. “Never play a player.”
Jo checked the number. It wasn’t Jim or Sam, thank goodness. Very few people had this number. This was going to be the gamble of her career. She hit “reply.”
“Jo?”
“Hey, Alice.” Jo managed not to smile. The relief, though…the relief was incredible. She’d never been high in the real world, but if this was what it felt like, no wonder junkies became junkies.
“Fran gave me your number. I know you’re busy, but if I could borrow your brain for a couple of minutes?”
“Be my guest.” Jo turned her back on Michael, then thought better of it. She had nothing to hide. He was the traitor.
“Christine said something about some kind of built-in resistance to MELT; a kind of immunity?”
“Right?”
“I don’t want to get her on the line. It takes forever to get off but I’ve been thinking about what that means, ‘immunity.’ I wondered if you knew more?”
What a strange phone call. “Christine has an operating theory which seems to hinge around how much plastic is already in your body. The less you’ve been exposed to, over your lifetime, the less MELT has to…well…eat, I guess is the word.”
“She mentioned there might be a genetic component? Did she mean some of us were predisposed to reject or resist MELT?”
Christine had said that, but Jo hadn’t paid it much mind. There was no way to test so it seemed like a dead end. “I guess so, why?”
“The kids…” Alice’s voice broke. “They were raised here, in America. They’ve eaten far more processed foods than either Bill or me.”
“Right.” There wasn’t much Jo could add. Kids across New York state were going to fare far worse
than their grandparents and, in some cases, their parents, depending on how much processed and packaged food they’d had access to. “Sorry.”
“So, she hasn’t said much about that? About genetics?”
“Not much. Do you want me to ask her?”
“No,” said Alice. “I can’t get through to the kids anyway and…what would I tell them? Get in a time machine and go back to your childhoods and listen to me when I tell you fast food is bad for you; that microwave dinners are leaching plastic into the food you’re putting into your mouth; that all these preservatives and colors in your cereal are the opposite of what you want to be eating…”
