Grants Pass (19 page)

His mind racing, Matt shook his
head. “That’s not important right now. What is important is that she was
planning for this. She knew the importance of gathering people together in one
place. She wanted them to join her so that maybe something could survive.”

Not that he planned to tell them
what the preacher had thought of her plans.

“
You knew
this and didn’t tell anyone? Why didn’t you put it in that rag of yours instead
of calling us all here?” Bill demanded. “I knew we couldn’t trust you
reporters. You’re in cahoots with those government people, the ones who started
these super germs in the first place. I bet you’re still hiding stuff from us!”

Matt indeed hid more information
than he offered. The region’s Congressman had confessed a great deal over the
phone shortly before his death. Terrorists had finally mounted a major
offensive, but not with airplanes or nuclear bombs, as everyone had feared.
They’d managed to get their hands on some of those “super germs” from the
well-guarded stores of several world powers. The old politician had been
delirious with fever, but Matt thought he had told the truth. His raving
quietened toward the end of the interview, winding down until he gasped,
“You’re not recording this, are you?” Then he had hung up. Matt had been trying
to confirm some of the details for a major story when everything fell apart.
Not that he planned to tell these yokels that. It’d only play into Bill’s hands
at this point. And he certainly wouldn’t tell them Kayley said her online note
was as much a mental exercise as a practical solution.

Instead, he said: “I didn’t put it
in the
News
because people don’t need to go off willy nilly. We need to
band together. Do you want old Mr. Ferguson there trying to make the trip by
himself? Or what about Sally here, with her three kids? People out there are
scared, and fear turns men into animals. I’ve seen it time and time again.”

“
Well, you
just got an answer for everything don’t you? So where is this magical place?”

“
You’re not
going to like this part,” Matt warned. “It’s a town called Grants Pass in
Oregon.” The protest rose once more, louder than before. Leave Paris to become
a Yankee? It took several minutes to die down enough for him to continue.
“Look, people. I told you that you wouldn’t like it. But just hear me out. It’s
a nice place, and not all that different from Paris.”

He told them what little he found
out before the Web imploded. Grants Pass nestled in the mountains of southern
Oregon about an hour north of the California border at the intersection of I-5
and U.S. Highway 199. The town sat on the Rogue River; Paris lay between the
Sulphur and Red rivers. They both had about the same population. He told them
about the giant redwoods and the so-called House of Mystery at The Oregon
Vortex, where people supposedly changed height.

“
No one said
we had to stay there. It might not be more than a staging area. But we can’t
stay here, and we can’t roam aimlessly around the United States just hoping to
come across some other people,” Matt said.

“
We need a
target, and this is as good as any. Better, really. Before it went down, people
were searching the Internet for anything they could find about the end of the
world or the apocalypse. This page was near the top of every search.

“‘
When the
end of the world comes, meet me in Grants Pass, Oregon,’ Kayley wrote. If this
isn’t the end of the world, what is?”

Bill walked out first, glaring murder
at Matt as he shoved his way past the reporter. Seven or eight more looked at
each other, shrugged and filed out at erratic intervals. The rest exchanged
glances, but remained and planned. They would leave in a month.

Matt laughed.
A month!
Another month proved pestilence still walked the land. By the end of July, he
was sure everyone else was dead until he wandered downtown and saw flickering
lamplight — electricity had died weeks before — in a second-floor window of
City Hall and witnessed his first meeting of the new City Council.

A week after that, he wished
everyone else had died after Bill tried to blow his head off with a shotgun.
Matt lost count of the number of close calls in the last two months as Bill
tried to shoot him and run him over. The last incident, about two weeks ago,
was certainly more memorable. Bill decided to take a more biblical approach and
stone him to death. Fortunately, few rocks hit their target. Even in this new
world where Matt could say with some confidence he was the best journalist
alive, no one would pick Bill to pitch for the Texas Rangers. Since then, Matt
hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his would-be assassin. He hoped Bill had given up
and gone back to Clarksville for good. If not, maybe he should head to Oregon
by himself.

The rain slackened as Matt walked up
the street to the newspaper offices, before dying altogether as he turned the
key in its lock. The long walk from City Hall to the paper gave him much needed
exercise, plus the building offered plenty of room and hiding places should
Bill ever try to force his way in. More importantly, the lights still worked.

It had taken him several days to
find the generator. He knew the paper had one to keep computers running in case
of an outage, but he never thought to ask where. Once located, a length of
hose, gas can and a wagon pilfered from the local Wal-Mart let him keep the
generator running with fuel siphoned from cars in town. Matt figured there was
probably a way to get it out of the ground storage tanks at nearby gas
stations, but he could not puzzle out how.

The generator couldn’t power the
building’s air conditioning system but proved sufficient to run a few lights
and his Macintosh.

Exhaustion threatened to pull him
under, but Matt had a job to do. He needed to get the day’s story filed before
he went to sleep. He did not want to get stuck in a backlog where he had to
spend all day writing just to catch up.

An hour and a half later by the
clock on the wall, Matt saved his story with the hundred or so others he had accumulated
in the last three months. He turned out the light and made his way to a pallet
on the floor of the editor’s office. Sleep claimed its due, pulling him under
almost before his head hit the pillow. The night passed peacefully.

The morning brought a gun to his
face.

Matt blinked once and scrambled
back, hitting his head on the editor’s desk. The shotgun barrel followed,
tracking every movement of his head in perfect synchronization.

“
Time to
wake up, news boy,” Bill said.

Matt looked about wildly. The side
doors locked automatically and he chained the double doors in front every
morning.

“
How?” he
said.

“
You
shouldn’t put chains on the outside if you really want to keep somebody out,”
Bill said with a chuckle. “A hacksaw doesn’t make much noise, you know.”

He straddled Matt and dropped the
shotgun slightly as he leaned over. “This is all your fault. If it weren’t for
you and the government, my Betty would still be alive. Our kids would still be
alive. Do you have any idea what it’s like to bury your wife and children in
the back yard, news boy?”

Matt didn’t bother trying to answer.
His foot shot upward, straight into Bill’s crotch.

Big Bill fell hard with a strangled
croak. The shotgun clattered to the floor as he clutched himself. Matt
scrambled to his feet, grabbed the gun and smashed the butt into Bill’s head,
who fell limp as a boned fish.

Matt dashed out the front door. One
foot kicked the cut chain and sent it slithering into the grass. The city’s new
fire truck sat in the parking lot, a red behemoth blocking his path. Matt
barely paused as he skidded into a turn and ran around. The shotgun fell from
hands and clattered to the ground. He let it go, not daring to stop or even
slow to retrieve it. Panic held him in its grip and refused to let go. He
barreled down Lamar Avenue and headed west.

His flight carried him nearly to
downtown before his body decided to call a halt. Matt sank to his hands and
knees, gulping air in great gasps. His heart galloped in his chest, and black
spots danced in and out of his vision. Matt thought he might either have a
heart attack or vomit. After a few moments, he decided on the latter. He
remained staring at the remains of last night’s dinner until loud growls and
wild howls reached his ears.

Turning, Matt saw the fire truck
racing up the street, careening off parked cars and utility poles. Its engine
growled in protest at the pace Bill forced it to while its sirens howled with
murderous intent. Too bad he didn’t have a camera; this would make a
spectacular photograph.

“
What is
your deal, dude?” Matt yelled.

He climbed to his feet and started
an unsteady trot west. Maybe he could lose Bill among the buildings that
remained downtown — if he could reach downtown. He crossed the road and dashed
through yards and onto a side street. Lamar Avenue was a major thoroughfare,
but many of the residential lanes were much smaller. Given Bill’s difficulty
just keeping the fire truck on the road, these smaller streets with cars lining
the curbs might well prove impassable.

Following a path of turns, dead ends
and backtracks, Matt soon lost sight of his pursuer. Bill never fell out of
earshot, however. The engine and sirens rose and fell. Metal screeched in
protest a few blocks over, followed shortly by a loud boom as he ran into something
he could not simply push out of the way. Once or twice, Matt even caught a
whiff of the fire truck’s diesel engine.

His shambling flight eventually
brought him to First Street. Turning north, he started toward City Hall, taking
advantage of buildings, piles of rubble, trees and any other hiding place he
could find. He stopped in a doorway across the street. The storms had carved
erratic paths through downtown, flattening some buildings while leaving
structures like Culbertson Fountain on the Plaza and the Peristyle in Bywaters
Park intact. City Hall stood alone, exposed.

Matt paused, uncertain, until Bill
made his mind up for him.

The fire truck raced past in a red
blur. Matt jumped, and ran from his hiding place. Tires screeched behind him as
he wrenched open a door and ran up the stairs.

Matt crouched, half-crawling his way
to a corner office. Reaching the window, he pulled himself up to peer over the
ledge. He saw no sign of Bill or his fire truck, but he could hear the siren
warbling somewhere behind City Hall.

The noise grew louder. Matt stood
and leaned out the window, straining for some sight of his attacker. The fire
truck barreled through an intersection and leapt up the square, smashing into
the marble fountain. Matt stared for several minutes at the mangled rescue
vehicle. Surely no one could have survived the impact.

The driver’s door opened, indicating
Bill indeed lived, if not in perfect health. He limped across the street with
blood streaming down his face. He paused at the corner, looking around. Matt
pulled back. The motion caught Bill’s attention. He grinned and pointed up at
the reporter before resuming his limping march. The swish of the front doors
announced his entrance into City Hall.

Matt’s head swung side to side. What
was he going to do? He could hear Bill’s stuttering gait coming up the stairs.
He took off his shoes and ran silently across the hall into the City Council
chambers.

As expected, he found the council in
session. Apparently not everyone agreed with the mayor’s approach to the duck
problem. Matt ran to the horseshoe-shaped bench and crouched behind it. Gary
squawked in surprise.

“
Mr. Godwin,
what do you think you are doing? You know better than to just barge in here!”
Matt tried to shush the mayor, to no effect. “Get out of there! If you don’t
get up right now, I’ll…”

Bill kicked open the doors. “You in
here, news boy?” he shouted. “I hear clucking, so this must be where all the
chickens are!”

Gary stood as he turned from Matt to
the new intruder. His eyes bulged and a vein started throbbing in his forehead
at sight of the shotgun cradled in Bill’s arm.

“
Firearms
are
not
allowed in here! Signs are clearly posted at the entrance!”

“
Shut up,”
Bill replied.

He swung the shotgun around and
pulled the trigger. A mannequin’s head disintegrated. The second blast caught
Gary in the gut, knocking him back against the wall and out of sight.

Matt took advantage of the commotion
to scramble from behind the table and rush along a wall toward the door. The
shotgun roared to life and punched a hole through a dummy’s chest. The next
shot blew the arm off another, which caught between Matt’s legs. As he
struggled for balance, Bill caught up and swung the shotgun in a wide arc. The
impact buckled Matt’s knee and dropped him to the floor. He managed to push
himself onto his elbows before Bill planted a boot on his groin. The big man
slowly rocked forward, grinding all his weight down on the ball of his foot.
Pain exploded through his abdomen.