Blind Panic

by Graham Masterton

  “Well, that’s exactly it, Mr. President. You’re blind.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” the president raged.

  “Of course you do, sir. But since you’re blind, how did you see this character? And how did he get in and out of here without us seeing him?”

  The nurse plumped up the president’s pillows. “I just need to check your blood pressure, sir, and your temperature. You could be running a little fever.”

  “Goddammit!” the president retorted. “I saw him! He said his name was Marcus something. He said that he was going to strike everybody blind, so that the Indians could take their lands back.”

  Jackson cleared his throat. “I’m real sorry, Mr. President, but I think you must have been having some kind of a night terror. All those drugs they’ve given you—some of them can have pretty weird side effects.”

  “The only weird side effect around here is you, Jackson. Now search the whole damn clinic and ask if anybody else saw this joker. For all you know, he could still be here.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

  When the Secret Service agents had gone, the nurse took the president’s blood pressure and temperature and checked his heart rate.

  “You seem fine,” she said. “Your heart’s beating a little fast, but you can expect that, after a nightmare.”

  The president groped around the top of his bedcovers until he found the nurse’s hand. He squeezed it tight, and said, huskily, “It wasn’t a nightmare. I swear to God.”

  “Why don’t you try to get some sleep, sir? Maybe I could bring you some hot milk.”

  “I don’t need hot milk, sweetheart. I need somebody to tell me what in Hades is going on. Do you know what he told me, this Marcus character? He told me that millions of Americans are going to die unless I give in to him. And do you know what?”

  “No, Mr. President, I don’t.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. I believe him.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Hollywood, California

  Tyler unlocked the front door of his apartment and said, “Welcome to the Casa del Jones. Come on in. Make yourself at home.”

  Tina stepped into the living room and looked around, with Tyler limping right behind her. “Nice place,” she said. “Very Mexican. They didn’t film Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia in here, did they?”

  “Hey, don’t blame me,” said Tyler. “It was decorated like this when I first moved in, and I’ve never had the time to remodel. Personally, I prefer the Scandinavian look. Like chrome, you know. And white leather. And glass-topped tables.”

  His apartment was on the second floor of a cream-colored Spanish-style house on Franklin Avenue. The living room was paneled in dark burnished oak, and the floor was dark oak, too, with a red-and-purple Mexican rug in the center. The two massive couches were upholstered in crushed red velvet, with gold tassels, and the coffee table was dark and squat with elaborately carved legs, and strewn with dogeared copies of Hot Bike and American Iron.

  Over the carved-oak fireplace hung a huge, gloomy oil painting of a bullfight, with a matador delivering the coupde-grâce to a black, bloodied bull.

  Tina lifted off her pink Prada shoulder bag and collapsed onto one of the couches. “I’m bushed,” she said. “Two and a half hours from the airport. That was insane.”

  “What can I get you?” asked Tyler. “Pomegranate juice? Pepsi? How about a strawberry smoothie?”

  “What’s the time?” Tina asked him. She peered nearsightedly at her watch. “Jesus, it’s not even eleven yet. Oh, to hell with it. Scotch, please. Rocks.”

  Tyler went through the archway to the kitchen and came back with a cut-crystal tumbler of whiskey for Tina and a bottle of Heineken for himself.

  “Here’s to the hero,” said Tina, clinking her tumbler against his bottle.

  Tyler said, “Here’s to staying alive in the face of impossible odds.”

  He went across to the wide-screen plasma TV and switched on the TV news. Homeland security secretary John Rostoff was in the middle of announcing his coast-to-coast restrictions on private traffic. In spite of the studio makeup, his face was pale and his eyes were puffed up.

  “He wants us to drive at ten miles an hour?” said Tina. “We should be so lucky!”

  Their journey from the airport had been almost unbearable. Both the San Diego Freeway and the Harbor Freeway had been jammed solid with wrecked and abandoned vehicles, and the traffic along every other street had been inching along so slowly that by the time their taxi had reached Olympic Boulevard they had been tempted to get out and walk the rest of the way.

  Ragged curtains of brown smoke hung over Los Angeles, making it look like Baghdad after an air strike, and the smell of burning had permeated even the interior of their air-conditioned taxi, making their eyes water and their noses run.

  They had shared a ride because Tina lived only five minutes away from Tyler, on La Presa Drive. But by the time they had reached Franklin Avenue, he had suggested that she come up to his place for a drink and maybe a pizza. She had opened up her laptop as they crawled along La Cienega Boulevard, and written up her report on the AMA disaster before they had reached Rodeo Drive, e-mailing it directly to the LA Times office.

  “Do you have to go back to the office today?” Tyler asked her.

  “I’m supposed to check in around five. I’ve been up for twenty-two hours straight, so my editor said that I can take a break. He won’t expect me to go back to my desk, though, not now. If he has any assignments for me, he’ll text.”

  They stepped out onto the balcony that overlooked the gardens. Even here they could smell oily smoke, and hear the distant yipping of police sirens and the honking of fire trucks. In spite of that, a warm breeze was rustling through the orange trees, and four or five plume-topped quail were contentedly warbling on the rooftop—chi-cah-go, chi-cah-go—which made Tyler feel as if the whole morning was completely unreal.

  “Apocalypse Now,” said Tina. “This is what it must have felt like in New York, on nine-eleven. Like the whole world is falling apart.”

  “‘And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun,’” Tyler quoted. “‘And power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat…And he gathered them together in a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon…And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings;…and the cities of the nation fell.’”

  “Hey,” said Tina. “I’m deeply impressed.”

  “My dad’s a preacher,” said Tyler. “A lay preacher, anyhow. He always wanted me to recite the psalms. You know, ‘The Lord is my shepherd,’ all that. But when I was a kid I always liked Revelations the best. All those avenging angels. All those earthquakes and plagues. All those fountains spouting out blood.”

  “Well, well. You have hidden depths, Mr. Jones. What made you decide to become a stuntman? Your father can’t have been too pleased about that.”

  “He didn’t mind at all. In fact, I think he was pretty proud of me. He always said that young people should follow their hearts. You can worship the Lord by doing what you do best—that’s what he used to tell me.”

  “You know what my father wanted me to be?” said Tina. “A florist, just like him. Can you imagine me arranging lilies for a living?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Tina gave him a playful shove on the shoulder. “Hey, I’m a tough nut. I broke that Culver City vice ring story last month. Me. All on my own. Even after some hoodlum came up to me in the parking garage at the office and threatened to break both of my arms.”

  “Okay. I take it back. I can’t imagine you arranging lilies for a living.” He paused, and grinned at her. “But I can imagine you pulling the wings off flies.”

  “Get me another drink, stunt boy, before you put your other foot in your mouth.”

  Tyler was on his way back to the kitchen when his phone started ringing. He picked it up and said, “Yes?”

  “Tyler? Thank God
I caught you.” The voice on the other end of the phone was far away and crackly, as if Admiral Peary were calling him from the North Pole, from 1909.

  “I can hardly hear you,” said Tyler. “Who is this?”

  “This is Dan Greeley. I live across the street from your parents.”

  “Yes, Mr. Greeley. I think we met the last time I came home. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m afraid not. Well, I don’t have to tell you what’s been happening—I saw you on the news. Very courageous thing you did there, Tyler.”

  “What’s wrong, Mr. Greeley?”

  “It’s happened here. Over a hundred people in Memory Valley have gone blind. I’m sorry to have to tell you that your parents and your sister Maggie were among them.”

  “Oh, God. When did this happen?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, around three. They were holding a craft fair in the community center. The photographer from the local paper was taking some pictures and suddenly people started to scream out that they couldn’t see. It was pandemonium, I can tell you.”

  “Where are my parents now?”

  “We took them back to their home, like most of the others. We didn’t have any choice. Marin General and Kentfield hospitals were both turning people away.”

  “Are they okay? I mean, they’re not hurt, are they?”

  “They’re as well as you could expect them to be, considering. Not injured or anything. My wife, Julia, is with them at the moment. All our phones have been on the fritz, so if you want to call them, I guess that now would be a good time. I’m just relieved that I’ve been able to get in touch with you.”

  Tina was standing in the doorway, with the sunlight behind her. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

  “It’s my mom and dad, and my sister. Their neighbor just told me they’ve all gone blind.”

  “Oh no. I’m so sorry.”

  “Mr. Greeley?” said Tyler. “Mr. Greeley?” But the line had gone dead, apart from a soft, persistent crackling noise.

  Tyler called his parents’ home number. After a long wait, Julia Greeley answered. Her voice, too, was tiny and faint. “Tyler? Oh, Tyler. Dan said that you would call. Here—your father’s right here.”

  There was another long wait, and then Tyler’s father came onto the line. “Tyler. Thank God. I tried to get in contact with you yesterday but I couldn’t get through.”

  “How are you, Dad?”

  “Not too good, to tell you the truth. We haven’t been able to get any medical attention. We’re doing our best here, but your mom’s in shock. Maggie’s doing her best, but jeez.”

  “Listen, Dad,” said Tyler. “I’ll come up now to take care of you. Stay indoors and keep your doors locked. I’ll be with you and soon as I can.”

  The phone went dead. Tyler redialed, but all he heard was a monotonous busy signal.

  “That’s it,” said Tyler. “I’ll have to go see them.”

  “Do they live far from here?”

  “That’s the snag. They live in Memory Valley, about fifteen miles north of San Francisco. Question is, how do I get there if all flights are grounded and there’s a total ban on driving?”

  “I guess you could try the back roads.”

  “Get real. It’s over four hundred miles. How long do you think that’s going to take me, even if I ignore the speed limit?”

  “Maybe you could rent a powerboat.”

  “Now that’s a good bit of lateral thinking. You’re not just a pretty face, are you?”

  “Watch yourself, stunt boy.”

  Tyler leafed through his address book until he found Jim Lacuna’s number, in Santa Monica. Jim owned a small fleet of seven powerboats that he rented out for movie productions, and Tyler had worked with him on at least five different movies.

  “Jim? It’s Tyler Jones.”

  This phone line was crackly, too, and there was a surging noise in the background, like a river that had burst its banks.

  “Tyler, you crazy son of a bitch! I saw you on the news this morning! When they said that a stunt guy had landed a seven forty-seven when the pilot went blind, who was the first person I thought of? You, you crazy son of a bitch! And it was you! They should give you a medal!”

  “Thanks, Jim, but I don’t need a medal right now. I need a boat.”

  “A boat?” Jim Lacuna paused, and coughed. “What the hell do you need a boat for?”

  Tyler told him about his parents going blind. Jim listened, and then he said, “Real sorry to hear that, Tyler. That’s rough. Believe me, I’d let you have a boat like a shot. I wouldn’t even charge you for rental. But you wouldn’t get more’n a couple of hundred yards. There’s at least two coast guard cutters patrolling offshore and they’re not letting nobody sail nowhere. They say they can’t risk no one going blind way out on the ocean someplace, with no way of giving them a bearing.”

  “No way of getting past them?”

  “Not even the way that you can steer a boat, muchacho.”

  “Okay, Jim. Guess I’ll have to find another way. Everything okay with you?”

  “I’m keeping my fingers crossed, like everybody else. I’m still waiting to hear from my best mechanic, Dan Bradley. You met him when you were working on that Samuel T. Jackson picture. His wife called me late last night and said he hadn’t made it home. I have a bad, bad feeling that this blindness thing is going to get a hell of a lot worse.”

  He started to say something else, but suddenly the crackling grew louder and surging background noise swelled up so much that Tyler couldn’t hear him at all. “Jim?” he repeated. “Jim?” But then the phone went completely dead. Tyler banged the receiver in the palm of his hand and tried listening to it again, but it was still silent.

  “What’s happening?” asked Tina.

  “We can forget boats. So Jim says, anyhow. The coast guard aren’t allowing anybody out on the ocean. They’ve running some kind of blockade.”

  “I don’t know what else to suggest,” said Tina. “Looks like there’s nothing much else you can do but sit tight and wait for news.”

  Tyler shook his head. “The way things are, I’m not going to get any news. The phones are all out.”

  “Let me try my calling the office,” Tina suggested. She took her cell phone out of her purse and pressed the speeddial button for the LA Times. She listened, and waited, and then she tried dialing again, but eventually she shook her head and said, “There’s no signal. I’ll try texting them.”

  She quickly typed out a message, her long pink fingernails tapping on the keys. She peered intently at the screen, but after a few moments she said, “It didn’t get through. The whole network’s down.”

  Almost as soon as she said it, the television blacked out. Tyler switched to another channel, and then another, and another, but the screen remained blank.

  He gave up and tossed the remote control onto the couch. “Maybe the phone and the TV people have gone blind, too.”

  “It could be much more serious than that,” said Tina. “It could be a terrorist attack. Or maybe an invasion, even. I mean, what’s the first thing you do when you invade another country? You cut off all of their communications.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Tyler. “Who’s going to invade us? The Russians? The Chinese? The Mexicans?”

  “I don’t know, Tyler. But my editor says that I should always think worst-case scenario. Apart from anything else, worst-case scenario always sells papers—a whole lot more than not-so-bad-case scenario.”

  Tyler said, “I have to get up to Memory Valley somehow. The cops are stopping cars on the highway, but I could try my hog.”

  “I made an intelligent guess that you owned a motorcycle,” said Tina.

  “Oh. Yeah. Very observant. The biking magazines.”

  “Don’t tell me,” she said, squeezing her eyes tight shut. “A Harley Softail.”

  “Almost right. Ultra Classic Electra Glide.”

  “Hey, top of the line,” said Tina. “I guess it wouldn’t
hurt to give it a shot. But you need to rest up first.”

  “No way. I need to leave now.”

  “You’re out of your mind. You’re going to ride a motorcycle all the way to San Francisco when you haven’t slept in days and the only nutrition you’ve had in all that time is one bottle of Heineken?”

  “Tina, I’m okay. I’m one hundred and ten percent fit. I can always take a couple of breaks along the way.”

  Tina pulled a face. “It’s your funeral. Don’t blame me if you fall asleep and ride slap-bang into a telephone pole.”

  Tyler went through to his bedroom to change into jeans and a white promotional T-shirt for Hammer of God, the last movie that he had worked in, and a faded blue denim jacket. While he did so, Tina tried to contact her city desk again, but she was still unable to get through to them, neither by landline nor cell phone nor e-mail nor text.

  “I’ll just have to go down to West First Street and see what’s happening,” she said as Tyler came out of the bedroom. “How about giving me a ride home on that motorcycle of yours so I can pickup my car?”

  They left the apartment and went down to the garage at the side of the house. Tyler unlocked the garage door and pushed it open with a creak of unoiled springs. Inside the garage stood a metallic green Mercury Marquis sedan, circa 1971, covered in a fine film of sandy-colored dust; a Kawasaki dirt bike speckled in mud; and a motorcycle shrouded in a black custom-made cover. Tyler lifted the cover and revealed a glossy black Harley Davidson Electra Glide. It smelled of polish and leather and fresh oil.

  “I’ve always thought that there’s something very erotic about motorcycles,” Tina said as Tyler climbed astride the saddle.

  “Well, the price was sexy enough,” said Tyler. “Not so much change out of twenty thousand dollars.”

  “Yes, but,” said Tina, as he started up the 1500cc engine, a deep, masculine burble.

  Tyler steered the motorcycle onto the driveway. He climbed off to pull down the garage door, and then he climbed back on again and said, “You coming or what?”

  Tina lifted herself onto the pillion seat and wrapped her arms around Tyler’s waist. They burbled slowly down the driveway, but as soon as they turned onto the street, Tyler opened up the throttle.