Hitchers (3 page)

“I guess I've left you speechless,” Lyndsay said, raising an eyebrow.

I set my coffee down. “I'm really sorry. I think I made a mistake. I thought I was ready to date, but I'm not.” My tongue felt thick and cottony, maybe from the burn.

Lyndsay regarded me, then fished the strap of her purse from the back of her chair. “If you're not interested in me, just say so.” She pulled two twenties from her purse and dropped them on the table. “The least you could do is be honest if you're going to waste my Friday night.”

“It's not an excuse, it's the truth,” I insisted, although it was only partially true. I wasn't ready to date, but I also was not interested in her.

“Mm hm.” She pulled on her coat.

I picked up her twenties, offered them back to her. “I can get this.”

She looked at my hand like I was offering her a dead rat. “I'm not sure you're ready.”

I dropped the bills back on the table. “Look, my wife died, okay?” Even as I said it, I regretted it. I was using Lorena's death to win an
argument. “I left that out of my profile as well. I'm sorry if I wasted your valuable time, but this is hard for me.”

Lyndsay froze, her hand buried in her purse. “I'm sorry. Your profile said you were divorced.”

“I know.” I didn't want her to be sorry; I resented her even knowing.

Lyndsay nodded understanding. “Why don't you go ahead? I'll wait for the bill.”

Relieved, I thanked her, pushed two twenties of my own into her hand and rushed for the exit.

The wind dug into me as I opened the door—a wind more appropriate for Detroit than Atlanta. I ducked my head, clamped a fist over my collar and trotted through a haze of snow flurries to my car.

I didn't understand how Lyndsay could be the same woman who wrote the profile I'd responded to.
Quirky, easygoing bookworm who loves organic gardening and wandering Little Five Points
. I felt guilty about running out; it was clear from Lyndsay's reaction that she had a good heart.

As soon as I was out of the parking lot I called Annie.

“I lost it. Completely melted down. Something made me think of Lorena, and that was it.”

“Aw,” she said. “I'm sorry.” She coughed thickly.

“You sound worse.”

“I've never felt so terrible.”

“I'm coming over. Is there anything I can get you?” Up ahead, a police officer was diverting traffic. Barricades were set up across Piedmont Avenue.

“That's okay. I'm way out of your way.”

“I'm coming,” I said. “It'd be nice to see a friendly face right now. What can I bring you?”

I hung a right onto Baker, then tried to go left on Courtland, but it was blocked off as well. Red lights flashed languidly on three or four parked cruisers. I craned my neck as I drove past, peering
down the blocked-off street. A dozen police officers and people in blue windbreakers conferred in the middle of the street.

“Wow, something's going on downtown. Everything's blocked off.”

Further down I spotted another half-dozen officers. One of them was running—not trotting, running—toward the huddled group.

“There are police everywhere,” I added.

“Can you see smoke or anything?” Annie asked.

“No.”

I drove on. I despised onlookers who lined up at barricades, nosing to find out what was going on even though it had nothing to do with them, and I didn't want to be one.

Annie was quiet—either waiting for an update or feeling too sick to talk.

Peachtree was blocked as well.

“Damn. It's all blocked off.”

An ambulance was parked halfway on the sidewalk. Nearby, a guy was handing out medical masks from a red plastic crate. Some of the police were already wearing them, their mouths and noses hidden under a white swatch.

“You okay?” I asked Annie. She sounded wheezy.

“Yeah.”

“I was going to stop and get you soup, but I'm thinking I should come straight there.”

“Thanks, I don't feel like soup anyway. You get full credit for the thought, though.”

A big, unmarked black truck rumbled past, swerved to a stop at the next corner. The back door flew open and seven or eight men in military uniforms jumped out carrying assault rifles.

“Oh, shit,” I said.

A news van pulled up beside the truck.

“What?” Annie asked.

“There are soldiers running around. Is this on the news?”

I clicked on the radio, turned to WSB. They were covering the flu
outbreak at the moment—no mention of blocked-off streets and soldiers with guns.

The air was filled with the whine of sirens. I cracked the window: it sounded like a pack of coyotes howling.

“Jesus,” I muttered.

“It's on TV,” Annie said. I heard a news anchor's voice in the background, waited while Annie listened. “They don't know what's going on. They think it's about the flu outbreak. People are being rushed to hospitals.”

The door to an apartment building flew open. Two paramedics rushed out carrying a stretcher. Two more followed close behind with a second stretcher. I pulled over, rolled down my window.

“What's going on?”

One guy looked up at me and shook his head. It might have meant he didn't know, or that he wasn't saying, if it wasn't for the warning in his eyes. He was saying I should get out of there.

The problem was, Annie lived fifteen blocks into that sealed-off area.

I got out of my car. “Excuse me, I need to get to Auburn Avenue. Is there a way around this?” There was a young blonde woman in the stretcher, her eyes glassy and scared. Every strained breath she managed was accompanied by an awful rattling.

“You can't go there,” said a big, muscular guy in a surgical mask carrying one end of a stretcher. “Go home now.”

“What's going on?” I asked in a tone that made me sound like a lost child. The woman in the stretcher looked more than very sick—she looked like she was dying.

“Go home.” He gestured toward my car with his head.

They hurried the stretchers into the ambulance and turned on the red bubble. The big guy rolled his window halfway. His voice was half-drowned by the scream of the siren, his lips hidden by the mask and unreadable, but I was almost certain he shouted “anthrax.”

They raced off, giving me no time to ask if I'd heard right, if they
were sure, if they were shitting me, if they were high.

Anthrax
? Had he said anthrax?

I got in my car, and drove off, afraid to call Annie back. Could she have anthrax? No, she didn't seem nearly as sick as the woman in the stretcher. Unless Annie was just earlier along. I didn't know anything about anthrax, except that it killed people.

I passed two Latina women straining with a big man, trying to push him into the back seat of a sedan. I slowed as I passed, peered through the window at the man. His eyes were open but blank, as if he was in shock. His chest was hitching, spasming.

“Oh God,” I whispered. I wanted to get out of there, but it would be cowardly to leave Annie. I called her.

“It's on CNN,” Annie said immediately. “They're saying it's the flu epidemic. They're saying it gets much worse after the first forty-eight hours, that people are
dying
.”

“Oh, God.” It came out before I could stop it.

“What?”

I didn't want to tell her. Annie was a painfully anxious person; this would terrify her, probably needlessly.

“What?” she repeated. “Tell me.”

I couldn't lie to her. “I heard something. From someone on the street.”

“What did you hear?” Annie sounded like she wasn't at all sure she wanted to know.

“It was one person, in the street.” I didn't add that it was a paramedic. I wanted to water it down if I was going to say it.

“Just tell me.” She sounded annoyed.

“Someone said it could be anthrax.”

Annie whimpered.

“I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sure it's not true.”

A man in a business suit was half-lying on the bottom step of a walk-up. He raised a weak hand to a couple hurrying past. They picked up their pace.

Annie stopped crying; there was silence on the line. “Are you
okay?” I asked.

“I'm Googling anthrax,” she said.

I waited, listening to the wet hiss of her breathing. It wasn't nearly as bad as the woman on the stretcher.

“Causes muscle aches, fever, sore throat. Often mistaken for the flu. After twenty-four to forty-eight hours, severe breathing problems, shock, meningitis.” She sobbed. “Almost always fatal.”

“There are a million things that give people flulike symptoms. We don't know that's what it is.”

“What are all those sirens? Are they ambulances?”

“Some are.” Up ahead the street was blocked off, forcing me to turn left, away from Annie. “I'm coming to get you.”

“You said it's blocked off.”

“I'll find a way in.”

Annie coughed. The next right was blocked off as well, pushing me another block out of my way.

“Don't you dare come,” Annie said. “If it's the flu, I don't need you. If it's anthrax, you can't help me. Go home and lock your door.”

“I can't leave you there alone. I'm coming,” I said.
I ran away and left Lorena to die
, was what I was thinking.
I'm not doing the same to her best friend
.

“Finn, there's no point. I don't feel that sick. I probably have the flu; I visited my sister last weekend and my little nephew was sick. I probably caught what he had.”

“Should I call 911? Just to be safe?”

“I don't know.”

“I'm calling,” I said. “I'll call you right back.”

I punched 911 and got a recording. All lines were in use. I waited thirty seconds, called again, and got the same recording. I called Annie back.

“How do you feel?”

“About the same, I guess.”

I wondered if I could circle around, try to get in on the minor
roads coming from the west.

“Listen.” Annie's voice got low, to almost a whisper. “I was thinking. If I've got it, it's okay. Living is so hard for me that I wouldn't be that disappointed if it stopped. You know?”

I didn't know what to say. Annie suffered from such terrible anxiety and depression that it seeped from her pores. She was on tremendous doses of SSRIs and other anti-depression meds. Was it really so bad she wanted to die? “I didn't know it was that bad.”

“It is. I'm really not afraid to die. I'm just afraid it's going to hurt. You know?”

“Yeah.” I choked back tears. “I still don't think you should be alone. If I can get close, I'll cover my face with a sweatshirt.”

“Why don't we wait an hour, see if things calm down?” Annie suggested. “Just stay on the phone with me?”

“Okay.” That made sense. I could stay on the phone with her the whole time, try again in an hour when things had hopefully calmed down.

“My throat hurts, so you talk, I'll listen.”

“What should I talk about?”

“I don't know.”

I tried to think of something happy. I heard a gurgling from Annie's end. “Are you okay?”

“I'm just drinking. Drink lots of fluids and get plenty of rest, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Annie laughed a little.

“The two of us are going to laugh about this over drinks in a few days, after you're over the flu,” I said. “It's the flu. Even if there was an anthrax outbreak, people still get the flu this time of year.”

“You're probably right.”

I tried to drive with tunnel vision. I didn't want to see what was happening outside. Every block seemed crowded with people trying to get help. A woman wearing a head scarf flagged me from between two parked cars. I didn't stop; I felt like shit, but I didn't
want to contract anthrax. Could it get into the car through the vent? I turned off the heat, just in case.

“Would you say your life has been mostly happy up till now?” Annie asked.

I wasn't sure how to answer. “Yes and no. I'm happy when the universe isn't dropping giant shit-bombs on me.” I was going for an ironic tone, but it came out dripping with self-pity.

“How old were you when your twin sister died?” Annie asked.

“Twelve.” I had a flash of memory: sitting in the Buckhead diner, holding Lorena's hand, Annie sitting across from us in the booth, tears rolling down her cheeks as I told her the story of how Kayleigh drowned.

I made it to the 75/85 interchange. It was crowded, but so far the traffic was moving.

Annie started to say something, but it tripped off a coughing jag. “You still there?”

“I'm here,” I said.

“Someone on CNN said anthrax. Maybe terrorist attack. Not confirmed.”

“They're probably hearing the same rumor I heard.”

I drove in silence, the phone to my ear, digesting Annie's words. Terrorist attack? They were just sensationalizing a bad flu outbreak for ratings. That had to be it.

My chest felt tight, and for a second I wondered if I was infected. Annie had said the breathing difficulties came later. This was just anxiety.

I made it to Collier and got off at the exit. It wasn't mine, but the parkway was bogging with traffic.

I tried to think of something else to say—something that didn't involve terrorists, ambulances that sounded like a pack of wolves. I was flying along Howell Mill Road, with the reservoir on my right. Almost home now—another fifteen minutes. Almost safe. “I'm on Howell Mill Road. Have you ever heard the legend about this road?”