Hitchers

by Will McIntosh

  There were so many people I needed to call immediately. Mom. Annie. Grandma. Jeez, Grandma lived closer to downtown than I did. She didn’t go out much, so hopefully she was all right.

  I went for my phone on the night stand, then remembered it was in my car, in the reservoir. To call anyone I would have to get up and reach the land line in the kitchen. I tried to sit up; my back and neck blazed with pain. In fact, every single part of me hurt.

  Slowly, painfully, I struggled to a sitting position. The blankets slid off of my torso, exposing me to arctic air. I felt like I was in a meat locker.

  “I need a hot shower,” I said, tucking my fingers under my armpits.

  I slid out of bed. My hip was bruised, and my right knee and ankle hurt, but it didn’t seem that I had any serious injuries. I looked longingly at the door to the bathroom before grabbing a bathrobe and limping into the kitchen to call Annie.

  There was no answer.

  That didn’t necessarily mean anything, I told myself. There were a hundred reasons she might not be able to answer. For all I knew she was taking a shower.

  I decided to try again in a few minutes, and in the meantime, called my mom. She sobbed with relief while I trembled and ached, and simultaneously assured her I was fine. When I told her about the accident, she flipped. She wanted to hop on the next plane from Phoenix and take care of me, but all flights into the Atlanta area were suspended.

  I never quite understood how my mom turned out to be so well-adjusted. When damaged people had children, it seemed to me their children invariably ended up damaged in some way. Somehow Mom had escaped that fate, or compensated for it.

  Mom told me that Grandma was fine, but afraid to leave her house in Ansley Park. Smiling, I promised to look in on her as soon as I was able. Grandma could take care of herself, as she’d demonstrated in negotiating terms for giving me the rights to Toy Shop. She didn’t need my help or my warm fuzzies.

  I asked what was happening with the anthrax.

  When all was said and done, the CDC was estimating half a million casualties. Half a million. The city was under martial law. Ten thousand Iraq War vets had been called back into service because they were vaccinated against anthrax, but it was taking time to get them assembled.

  “There’s a vaccine?” I asked.

  “They don’t have much,” Mom said. “Antibiotics are supposed to work sometimes as well, but in this case they haven’t. They’re saying that means it’s ‘weaponized’ anthrax—designed to be resistant to antibiotics so it’s better at killing people.

  Half a million people. I still couldn’t get that number out of my head. I needed to try Annie again, and then Dave Bash. Two other local friends came to mind.

  “I’m so relieved you’re okay,” Mom said. “You almost drowning... I can’t help thinking of Kayleigh.”

  It took me a moment to answer. “She was one of my last thoughts, before I—” Drowned. “It seemed so, I don’t know, so fateful that both of us would die in the water.” Whenever I thought of Kayleigh it wasn’t her face I saw, it was the pier she’d jumped from, trying to keep up with her twin brother. I could see every knot in the pier’s wood planking, smell the fish guts left by fishermen, every time I thought of her.

  “I’m so grateful you didn’t. I couldn’t lose you. Not both of you. When I get up there I want to meet the man who saved your life and hug him.”

  “Well, I’ve got his card, so that can be arranged.”

  I got off the phone and limped to the bathroom. There was an abrasion on my forehead, probably from the airbag.

  It hit me again, as I stood there in front of the mirror. I had died. I choked up, my throat clenching. It didn’t ease up, though—it stayed clenched. It was a strange feeling, as if a finger had wrapped around my vocal cords and was tugging. I gripped my throat, coughed, turned my head from side to side.

  Finally, it relaxed.

  I parted my hair to examine a cut. It wasn’t bad, not deep enough for stitches. Not that I’d be able to get anywhere near a doctor or a hospital right now.

  Maybe that’s where Annie was—at a hospital or a clinic. Though, wouldn’t she have her phone right by the bed? I just couldn’t believe she was mortally ill, or worse. Annie was the athlete, always covered with a sheen of sweat, jumping into the shower after a five-mile run when I went over to watch reruns of The Sopranos. Emotionally, she struggled mightily, but physically she was a rock. If only I had her parents’ number, to see if they’d heard from her. They lived in New York, so I couldn’t count on them to get to her and help her, assuming she needed help.

  That’s what I’d have to do, I realized. If I couldn’t get her on the phone, I had to get to her. I couldn’t leave her stranded in her apartment. The first thing I had to do, though, was shower.

  As hot water pounded the back of my head I puzzled over my vision of Lyndsay in her apartment. I was sure I heard on her TV that the outbreak began in the subway. Either I had to chalk it up to coincidence, or believe, what, that my soul had left my body and witnessed what was happening?

  Maybe as you die your mind unleashes everything it’s got, to the point that you can pick up on things around you in an extra-sensory way. When the dust had settled I’d have to check the Internet for any mention of that happening in other people’s near-death experiences.

  I tried Annie again after my shower. No answer. She’d only been mildly sick when I talked to her last night; was it possible she could be so sick now she couldn’t reach the phone? I turned on the news, trying to get more information about how someone might walk through the worst-hit area without getting sick. The emergency personnel were wearing masks, gloves, and clothes that left no exposed skin. I could put together everything but the mask, and one of the shots on the news showed National Guard troops helping themselves to masks from a truly huge pile.

  From what the feds had pieced together so far (and were willing to share with the public), the terrorists had used light bulbs filled with “weaponized” anthrax. They’d dropped the bulbs from between moving MARTA cars onto the tracks at the Five Points station, where four separate lines use the same track. As trains flew by, the spores were drawn up into the cars, infecting the passengers. Those passengers got off at malls, bus stations, and the airport and spread the anthrax.

  The incubation period was twenty-four to forty-eight hours—time for hundreds of thousands of people to inhale the spores and carry them to other places on their shoes, fingertips, clothes before anyone knew what was happening.

  I dragged myself off the couch like an octogenarian and donned heavy flannel sweats and brown leather gloves. The very last thing I wanted to do was march into the eye of the storm, but someone had to help Annie.

  I was momentarily confused by the absence of my Jetta in the gravel drive, then remembered it was at the bottom of the reservoir. I went back inside to retrieve the key to Lorena’s Toyota Avalon. It felt strange to drive Lorena’s car, especially while using her old flip cell phone after reactivating it to my number. Suddenly things I’d hidden away because I didn’t want to deal with them were useful again.

  I called Grandma. I didn’t tell her where I was headed, but I gave her a blow-by-blow account of my accident. We agreed this anthrax attack was scary, exchanged a few tidbits of what we’d heard on the news, then I told her I was tired and had to go.

  I called Dave and got his voice mail. Cursing, I closed the phone. People who were okay would be answering their phones to let people know they were okay.

  I couldn’t lose Dave. I couldn’t lose Annie. That was all there was to it. I’d suffered my losses. Maybe that was a selfish way to look at it, but I didn’t care. I was already too alone; my twin sister and my wife were gone, the core of my inner circle carved away. On top of that, when I lost Lorena a lot of my friends went as well. They’d been her friends, it turned out, or they’d been couple-friends who came as a matching set and preferred their friends come in similar matching sets. After that I’d discovere
d I was no longer very good at making friends on my own. It had come as a surprise; I wasn’t painfully shy, but I was somewhat shy, and I learned that in adulthood that was enough.

  My agent Steve called my home phone, checking to see if I was okay. He’d grown worried when I didn’t answer my cell. Once again I related the story of my death and recovery. Steve interjected with “Oh my Gods” until I finished, then gave a low whistle.

  “Unbelievable. So glad you made it, my friend. Sounds like you’ve had a rough time.”

  For an instant the black water was rushing in again. “Do they know who did it yet? I haven’t seen anything on the news.”

  “They haven’t figured it out. I’m thinking Al-Qaeda. My wife thinks anti-government right-wingers. I have a client who’s an army colonel, and he’s saying Russia.”

  “Russia? Why would he think that?” As soon as I asked I realized I didn’t care all that much.

  “They’re the only ones known to possess weaponized anthrax—enough to kill everyone in the world several times over, in fact. The thing is, their supply was loaded onto tanker cars, covered with bleach, and buried on an island in the Aral Sea in 1988. Gorbachev had just signed a weapons treaty with the U.S., and didn’t want us to discover it.”

  “I just don’t see what they have to gain.”

  “No, it doesn’t make any sense. The colonel also thought some of their supply could have been pilfered long ago and sold to some nut.”

  Some Nut. I’d be willing to put money on Some Nut being involved.

  “I’ll contact the syndicate and tell them there may be a delay on the strips we’re supposed to deliver Friday,” Steve said, trying to strike a tone that said the strips were not important in the scheme of things, but sounding panicked nonetheless.

  “Okay,” I said noncommittally. Right now the thought of working on the strip was like returning to my upside-down car with the water rushing in.

  CHAPTER 5

  Moving southbound, Route 85 was deserted. I breezed along in the Avalon, my unease growing as I flew past mile upon mile of grinding, bumper-to-bumper traffic heading the other way. I had no idea how I’d get home once I reached Annie.

  I cleared a rise; the forest of skyscrapers that comprised the downtown area came into view. Dozens of helicopters, like giant bumblebees, drifted among the skyscrapers. My bowels loosened at the sight. I’d seen that skyline a thousand times, but today it looked foreign, like a battle zone in some war-torn country.

  When I reached the roadblocks at Baker Street I turned and drove along the perimeter, scanning the sidewalks, until I spotted a box sitting on a low concrete wall. Masks. I parked, plucked a mask out of the box as I went by, and slipped it on. It fit snugly over the bottom half of my face, made me feel both anonymous and oddly powerful. No anthrax spores could touch me now. I put my head down and walked, watching the frenetic activity out of the corners of my eyes.

  People in uniform were everywhere, shouting orders, clomping boots, flashing lights. I spotted a police officer moving to intercept me. I kept my head down, tried to look like I belonged.

  “Where you headed?” she asked. She had braided hair and reminded me of Whoopi Goldberg.

  “I live on Auburn Avenue.” I swallowed, my casual expression falling away for an instant to reveal the scared boy underneath. “My wife is all alone; I was away at a conference and I have to get back to her.”

  She nodded, took my elbow and propelled me gently. “Get inside once you’re home, and stay inside.”

  “I will. Thank you.” I kept moving.

  A block further a big canopy had been erected. Medics and doctors in white scrubs were moving among victims in cots. Screams of pain ripped the air; a raised syringe caught the light. I half-closed my eyes, willing myself to walk faster. I wanted to run, but didn’t want someone with a gun to mistake me for a looter.

  Down the street I spotted white bags piled in a heap. They looked to be trash, but as I got closer I realized they were body bags. I crossed the street to avoid getting too close, but couldn’t help staring at them as I passed. It was hard to wrap my mind around it; those were people, dead, in a pile. According to the news they were just the tip of the iceberg.

  I desperately wanted to get out of there and climb back into bed. I was so sore, so achy. I’d always thought Atlanta was a striking city, but today I felt like I was walking in an enormous tomb, the buildings blackened by the soot of a billion tailpipes, a million grey gum-smears mottling its sidewalks.

  The glass door to a high-rise swung open; a woman in a black coat guided a young girl out.

  “Excuse me,” the woman called. I kept my head down and hurried on, pretending I didn’t hear. I wasn’t afraid to catch anthrax—on the news they’d made it clear it wasn’t contagious. You picked up or inhaled spores, and they could be anywhere. I just didn’t want to get waylaid from reaching Annie.

  “Hello? Can you help us?”

  I stopped, turned. The young girl was wheezing, her eyes ringed in red and her nose running. She was wearing a pink Dora the Explorer jacket.

  “She’s sick,” the woman said. “On the news I saw big tents with doctors—do you know where I can find one?”

  I pointed back down Courtland. “I passed one about three blocks down. You can’t miss it.”

  She thanked me more profusely than my stingy help deserved. I wished her luck and hurried on, watching my sneakers—white blurs flitting in and out of my narrow field of vision.

  My damned throat seized again, like it had in the shower, and my first thought—laced with a jolt of fear-induced adrenaline—was that it was the first whispers of an anthrax infection. I hadn’t heard anything about throat clenching as an early symptom, though, only a sore throat, and mine wasn’t sore.

  I spotted Annie’s building and quickened my pace, suddenly filled with a sense of urgency.

  Annie lived on the third floor of a brown brick walk-up. My muscles screaming, I took the steps three at a time, huffing from the exertion, the scratchy mask pressing against my lips on the inbreath.

  Annie didn’t answer the door. She could be out getting food, or looking for help. I weighed my options. I didn’t relish the thought of sitting in the hall, and if Annie was inside and too sick to answer, I wasn’t doing her any good in the hall.

  I’d never knocked in a door before. After making sure the hall was empty I tried kicking it. After seven or eight fruitless kicks I tried ramming it with my lowered shoulder. When I hit the door, pain lanced up my neck, but I felt the door rattle. I tried again, and this time heard a splintering crunch. It swung open on my third attempt.

  Annie was lying on the couch, curled on her side.

  “Annie?” I knew she wouldn’t answer. If she hadn’t heard me break in the door, she was beyond answering.

  There was an empty bottle of Valium on the coffee table, and a note.

  Finn,

  I know I have it, and it’s hurting too much. Love you.

  Tell my family goodbye.

  XX

  Annie

  CHAPTER 6

  Exhausted from dealing with the police and emergency management, from six hours in the crush of traffic heading out of the city, I stayed in my apartment and watched the news for the next few days. There were people sick in dozens of U.S. cities, plus London, Cape Town, Hong Kong, the list went on.

  People in what looked like space suits were spraying the subways, MARTA stations, and the surfaces all around the hardest-hit stations. But the spores had been carried all over the city and beyond, on the wind, tires, the soles of shoes. They couldn’t scrub it all.

  Footage of army engineers using bulldozers to plow up the big field in Chastain Park played on all the news channels. They were digging mass graves—big enough to bury half a million people.

  When the guy in the hazard suit had taken Annie from my arms, while another took down her name and address, they assured me they’d take good care of her. I knew they were lying, but I also knew they
weren’t going to let me put her in the back seat of my car and drive away.

  CHAPTER 7

  I sipped tea with gobs of honey, my mom’s suggestion for relaxing the spasms in my throat. It hadn’t worked so far, but it tasted good.

  On TV, the Wolfman was strangling a remarkably well-dressed young woman in a fog-laden forest. The hero, waving a silver-tipped walking stick, rushed to save her.

  The problem with the original version of The Wolfman was that the Wolfman was too cute. With that blow-dried bouffant hair and puppy nose you wanted to hug him, not flee in terror. Come to think of it, how much of Wolfie was conjured from my memories of The Wolfman? I hadn’t done it consciously, but the similarities were hard to miss.

  I felt frozen to the couch. No way I could concentrate on work, or on a book, on anything really. I’d be a fool to go out needlessly, but that was all right, because the thought of putting on shoes and a coat and walking outside was more than I could even contemplate.

  I turned back to the news.

  The dead looked like giant cocooned larvae as they were bulldozed into the burial pit. One of those bags, or one just like them, held Annie, and Dave, and Dave’s wife Karen.

  On day three the military had begun setting up food banks, and now, on day seven, everyone in the affected area was getting enough to eat. There was no formal quarantine, because the spores had quickly spread beyond any feasible protection zone, but no one was coming into the city voluntarily. So far I’d kept my mother from driving in from Arizona by calling three or four times a day with updates on how well I was doing.

  Now the worst seemed to be over. Anthrax spores were still out there, but the number of deaths had dropped off dramatically in the past forty-eight hours.

  I dropped the TV remote on the couch and looked for something to distract me. My photo album lay on the coffee table, open to the page of pics from the rock climbing trip Dave Bash and I had taken after high school graduation. Dave had been my best friend back then, and, though it had been about a month since I last talked to him, he’d still been when he died. Or maybe he and Annie had been tied.