“You’ll have to kill me.” Plan John’s voice is perfectly steady. “Kill me or kill yourself.”
Doyle winces. He understands with abrupt clarity that what Plan John said is true, and that he’s known it from the moment he entered his office, if not before. Had he been honest earlier, when he told Plan John this wasn’t about them, not even about Carlita? The words had sounded grand. But under his rule, Funland has worked. Doyle has nothing to offer in return, nor any interest. Those men down there, those anonymous faces, they have never been more than a job, and now they aren’t even that.
“You’re right,” Doyle says, and points the pistol.
Instantly, all of Plan John’s calm is gone. “Jesus Christ, Johnson, I didn’t mean…not like this!”
“There’s no other way.” Doyle feels furiously calm. Not as when he entered Plan John’s office; this is how he imagines an out-of-body experience might be. He can be calm because this isn’t him. He’s only a spectator, one more face in the crowd.
“Wait. Wait! There are things….” Plan John’s voice has diminished to a whisper, as though they are two conspirators and not one man threatening another. “I know things. Damn you, Johnson, I made this place! I own you all. The things I know….”
Doyle hesitates, not so much due to what Plan John is saying as because he wants to. It seems to him that each additional moment is one in which this decision might, by some miracle, be taken out of his hands.
“I’ll tell you the best one, Johnson. A taster. Something you’ll like.” Plan John’s voice drops further. Against his instincts, Doyle steps closer. If this is a trap, it’s a suicidal one, for he still has the pistol pointed squarely at Plan John’s temple.
He’s a pace away when Plan John speaks again. Yet although the words are the barest murmur, Doyle hears each with perfect clarity. Some void inside him is clenched then, as if his ribcage has become a fist and the fist has squeezed hard.
His fingers contract, as though in sympathy.
He doesn’t even realize the gun has gone off until the recoil hammers his forearm.
* * *
The way the second shot comes to him, perfectly loud, perfectly clear, it’s as if the noise is electricity and the ductwork a wire, transmitting that deathly crack up and along via the cavities in ceilings and walls and deep into his head. It’s like the gun has discharged right beside his ear, like it’s Austin himself who has been shot.
He’s heard everything. He knew that his father and Plan John had gone out onto the balcony because of how the sounds changed. Whenever they spoke up, their voices were lucid, and Austin could piece the scene together in his mind’s eye. Plan John begging. His father with the gun, pointed at an unarmed man, a man pleading for his life. And Austin had been certain through every instant that his father would never pull the trigger, through every instant until the one when he did.
The first shot, which had come out of nowhere, he’d thought that had been aimed at his dad. And Austin had endured seconds of grieving that felt like an eternity, trying to make sense of all that had occurred – childhood memories, his parents seemingly happy and then quarrelling day in, day out, their final, wrenching separation – before he’d fathomed that it wasn’t his dad who’d been shot after all. With that comprehension, he had been filled with pure, crazy love for his father, such as he’d never experienced. He had vowed to stop the hiding, to give up his secrets, to strip off this shell of anger he’d kept himself safe inside. His dad was alive and everything could be okay.
But still he listened, here in the darkness. There was nothing to do except listen. And, like a dream shading by degrees into nightmare, it had all gone bad. Because there are things you don’t do, Austin knows that, lines you don’t cross for whatever the reason.
You don’t shoot an unarmed man who’s begging for his life. If you do that, there’s no coming back. If you do that, you become something else.
Suddenly Austin is dragging himself backward, shuffling on his ass heedless of sharp edges, panic rising out of his throat and bleeding through his skin, filling the darkness like smog. He doesn’t care how much noise he makes. The fear has him again; it’s found him even here, in his safe place. Now it’s larger, alive in the blackness around him. Now the choking terror he feels is of his father.
Chapter Eighteen
Aaronovich flinches when she hears the gunshot, not because it’s a surprise but because she’s been anticipating it for so long. She’d thought she heard a shot earlier, but that had been muffled, ambiguous. Since then, she’s been sitting in absolute and perfect tension, and the sound that just reached her was clear beyond the possibility of doubt.
Aaronovich waits for another report. She failed to note the time of the first, and her own internal chronometer seems unreliable. Have seconds passed? A minute? More?
Eventually, she decides that enough time has gone by. No further shots are coming. But she has no idea what to make of that fact. At least Funland hasn’t erupted into war – or if it has, it isn’t a shooting war. It occurs to her that she should go out, that someone might be hurt and in need of her help. The thought is overwhelming in its logic, and still Aaronovich doesn’t move.
She hears the outer doors open. There are footsteps along the corridor, two sets, one lagging behind the other. They march closer, closer. The slower steps fall out of synch and stop. Brief words are spoken, too low for her to identify voices. Then the door to her reception room is flung open, hard enough to rebound against the wall.
On some level, Aaronovich has been expecting Johnson, but his appearance alarms her nonetheless. Spattered blood paints a triangle across his uniform, beginning above his left knee and ending beneath his right armpit. He stops in the doorway, immobile as a monolith. “Is she safe?”
“She’s in the infirmary,” Aaronovich says. “The door’s locked from the inside.”
Johnson nods, but doesn’t relax. “Ben Silensky is outside. He’s going to need treatment. His arm got…I dislocated his arm. And he said something about Tito Contreras on the way over here. I think he’s going to need you. I’ll try and find him.”
In all the months she’s worked with Doyle Johnson, Aaronovich has never before known him to ramble. “And Plan John?” she inquires.
“There’s nothing you can do for Plan John.”
“And everyone else?”
He takes a moment to understand the question. “It’s in hand,” he says. “If that’s what you mean. They’re not fighting. It looks like Foster has enough backing to keep a lid on things.”
Normally, Johnson is unreadable. Now it seems to Aaronovich that an impalpable layer has been peeled from his face, leaving no obstruction to hide his thoughts. “Johnson,” she keeps her tone level, for she has no doubt that he’s in shock,” if there’s an injured man outside, I’d like to treat him as soon as possible. So whatever you want to say to me, please, just say it.”
His eyes narrow, as though with suspicion, as though he thinks she might somehow have read his mind. “Is it true?” he asks.
Aaronovich stands. Some quality in Johnson’s voice demands that she should. “Is what true?”
“That you killed your son.”
The feeling is exactly as if someone has tipped the entire room, the entire world, off-kilter, so much so that she almost staggers. “What?”
“Is it true that Howard used his contacts to get the charges quashed? That he pulled strings to have you moved here?” Johnson pauses, manifestly unwilling to go on. Then he says, “Did you kill your son?”
Aaronovich hangs her head, not able to look at him, unsure if the reason for that is shame or rage. “If that’s the word you want to use.”
“There’s another?”
“He was dying. He was in too much pain. I did what I had to.”
“And you made a deal with Howard?”
“I didn’t
make a deal. I didn’t even know his name until it was all over. And he didn’t have me moved anywhere. After everything that had happened, I couldn’t find work. He arranged for me to receive an offer. He said I was exactly what he was looking for. He…made certain, veiled threats.” But, she thinks, there was no need for threats. By then, I had nothing left to lose.
“You should have told me,” Johnson says.
“I couldn’t.”
“If you’d really wanted to, you would have.”
“Then I didn’t want to,” she says. “Then it was never any of your damn business.”
They stand in silence. Aaronovich no longer feels angry, no longer feels anything. And Johnson’s face has closed, the membrane of secrecy regrown, so that he is himself once more. It’s as though all emotion has been drawn from the world, and they abide in a void where feeling is impossible.
Aaronovich waits until the air seems breathable again. “That shot. It was Howard, I take it?”
Johnson nods. Suddenly he looks tired, as if whatever has been sustaining him has been leaking out, drop by drop. Rubbing a palm distractedly on his trouser leg, he appears surprised when it comes back bloody.
“And you shot him.” She speaks the words harshly. There is, apparently, a little anger left in her after all.
“It was the only way,” Johnson says.
She can tell he believes it, or at least that he wishes her to think he does. “So what now?” Aaronovich asks, more gently.
Johnson looks down at his hand, inspecting the stained palm with distant interest. The expression in his eyes suggests it’s something he’s never seen before. “Now?” he echoes. “I’m damned if I know.”
Part Three
Incubation
Chapter Nineteen
Whatever had emptied the town had done so fast.
Nothing strange in that, Ben figures. Plenty of these smaller places had been evacuated, plenty of others had been willingly abandoned, as it became clear that the crisis wasn’t about to just blow over, that isolation might be more curse than blessing. He remembers the promises of medical care, the rumors of vaccination that had come to naught. High on any list of what spread the sickness would have to be misinformation, the official lies meant to keep the peace. Or maybe, Ben thinks, that panoply of wrong advice had simply been concocted by men too afraid to admit their own helplessness in the face of the truth.
All the signs here, however, point to an orderly, though hurried, exodus. Clothes and small valuables have been taken, as has a good proportion of the food and – to Ben’s relief, with Landser poking around – any guns. There are a couple of stores, and both have been meticulously picked clean. Nevertheless, they’ve managed to siphon gas from a couple of cars and a run-down pickup; the pickup’s tank had been full to brimming. They’ve turned up canned goods, sacks of flour, rice, and beans in cupboards and pantries, and best of all, a dozen bottles of half-decent whiskey. The food will justify the risk of coming out so far. The gas will more than replenish what they’ve used to get here.
Now, they’ve gathered about the prison truck, which is pulled up across the main street, its dust-streaked decals a stark reminder of who and what and why they are. It only occurs to Ben then to ponder why no one has thought to replace their battered vehicles, and so erase this souvenir of their old existence. Houseman has the shotgun up on his shoulder, like it’s so much dead weight, and Landser is eyeing the weapon hungrily. From what Ben has pieced together, Landser is ex-military. But the tattoos peeping from collar and sleeves, ink Landser has shown off in all its ugly glory often enough when he works out in the weights pile, speaks of more recent allegiances: particularly the swastika spread between his shoulders. It’s a testament to Plan John’s tenacity, Ben supposes, that he found ways to make use of men like Landser, and to keep them in check.
“We’ve done good,” Houseman says, squinting over the boxes and fuel cans heaped in the truck’s exposed rear.
What he means is, I’ve done good. Houseman’s star has risen since Foster began running things. No, not running, Foster doesn’t have anything like the respect he’d need for that; but organizing, Plan John’s responsibilities with little of the power. Regardless, that gets Houseman more trust than he’s ever known before – such as the duty of being leader of this expedition, and the weapon he holds and clearly has insufficient notion of how to use.
No wonder, really, that Landser covets the shotgun. Yet Ben finds that he prefers the situation just as it is.
This pause has been for Landser to finish the cigarette he’s smoking, and Ben had been about to suggest that they start back. But their success and Houseman’s gloating have sparked a memory. On the journey in, he’d noticed a few houses and a farm scattered loosely in the woodland to the west. He wouldn’t expect that they’d turn up much in the houses; the farm, though, might be different. It’s the kind of place where people were used to getting by on their own for days or weeks at a time. Also, there might be supplies that Singh can make use of on their own farm, that ragged stretch of dirt that looks more and more like their only hope for the future.
“This isn’t bad,” Ben says, “but we can do better.”
“What’re you thinking?” Houseman queries, immediately anxious.
“The farm. Remember? On the way here. Got to be worth a try.”
He’d predicted an argument, but Landser is quick to say, “Fuck it, why not?”
“Isn’t it begging for trouble?” asks Houseman. “We got a good haul, no Sickers sniffing about.”
“You chickenshit,” drawls Landser, without much rancor. The cigarette finally done, he twists its butt to shreds beneath a boot heel. “Could be they’ve died out.”
They all know this isn’t true. They saw a couple of the sick as they passed through a town they’d stripped bare back in the Plan John days, another an hour up the road. In both cases, they’d been in the distance and moving fast – but, from their evident malnourishment and the not-quite-human manner in which they’d darted for cover, unmistakably infected.
“It’s worth the risk,” Ben says. “We’ve got the gun.”
“Yeah.” Landser’s gaze turns openly ravenous. “We’ve got the gun.”
“I don’t know,” Houseman says. Maybe Landser’s stare is making him nervous. “We’ve made a good haul.”
“It’s okay. We can do better.” Ben tries to sound reasonable.
He has more to say, but Landser cuts him off. “Man the fuck up, Houseman.”
His tone is implacable, the sentiment beyond argument. Just like that, the matter is settled.
* * *
They come to the farm by a long dirt track that runs carelessly through woods grown overbearing on either side. There is the main house, a small barn in front and off the road, and, some distance to their left, a corrugated metal shed like an old aircraft hangar. Outside the barn, an antique tractor sits on concrete blocks, its wheels removed, its engine open to the elements, which have rusted its innards into a single, molten mass of brown.
Ben feels sure that the place had grown dilapidated long before it was abandoned. The windowsills of the house are a decade at least past the point of needing fresh paint. A couple of panes have been shattered and covered with flattened cardboard boxes. There’s an air of hopeless impoverishment, that unapologetic kind of poverty that has long since given up hope of ever being otherwise.
Houseman pulls up on the broad oval of dirt ahead of the buildings, kills the engine, and rolls down the window. He makes a show of appraising the scene, scratches thoughtfully at his nose, and says, “I don’t see how we’re going to find anything.”
Ben expects Landser to take another shot at Houseman for cowardice, but instead he announces, “There’s never been anything here. These dirt-poor fucks probably starved out years ago.”
Since the diversion was Ben’s idea, he reads th
eir observations as criticisms of him, as doubtless they are. These days, after his utter failure to protect Plan John, with his arm in a sling and still practically useless, with so much failure to his name, criticism scares him as it never used to. It leads quickly to ridicule, and Ben feels instinctively that from there a short step would be needed before someone decided that Funland could benefit from one less mouth to feed. Ben knows he’s sent out on these supply runs because he’s disposable, in the same way that Landser is sent because he’s too dangerous not to keep busy and Houseman because he’s a worthless sack of shit that no one would miss.
And there is Ben’s out. “For fuck’s sake, Houseman,” he says, ignoring the fact that Landser has just now, clear as day, agreed with him, “it’s nothing to be a pussy about. If you’re so worried, stay in the truck.”
“Yeah,” Landser concurs, his allegiance switching in a heartbeat against the softer target, as Ben had known it would. “You stay here. Make sure no one takes off with our wheels or some fucking thing. You give me that shotgun and we’ll go get the job done.”
Houseman shrinks away. “I can’t do that.”
“It’s not much good in here,” Landser points out.
“I’ll wait outside,” Houseman decides. “In case there’s trouble.”
“Come on,” Ben says to Landser. He’s growing increasingly anxious over the prospect of the two of them fighting for the weapon in the enclosed space of the truck. Ben opens the passenger door and steps out, willing Landser to follow, and is infinitely relieved when he hears the slap of Landser’s boots in the dirt.
The house is surely empty. Both the front door and the screen door have been left open, displaying a shallow hallway. Yet even as he climbs the weatherworn steps, Ben feels a sense of disquiet that hadn’t been there in the town. He tries to reassure himself; it’s just that the place has been allowed to go to seed so badly. The carpet is scuffed to threads, and scars of plaster are revealed where faded wallpaper has rotted.
A Savage Generation Page 15
