Immortality (41 page)

“
Have all the latest outbreaks occurred in the hot zones you’ve described in your report?” asked the reporter.

“
Yes,” said Professor Minasu. “If we look at the latitudinal lines that circle the globe, we see that kill zones are clustered into a pair of neatly arranged hemispheric bands; one in the Northern hemisphere and one in the Southern hemisphere. The equatorial and polar regions have been left relatively unscathed. The majority of the kill zones, 92 percent in fact, have fallen into this pair of bands that are about eight hundred miles wide. Now I’m not implying that the plague is following geographic lines of latitude just for the heck of it. I believe the bands are areas which are attractive to this pathogen. All the kill zones have hit areas that are environmentally damaged. So that is the first attraction. All the kill zones have hit areas that have a lot of water, beaches, rivers, lakes, marshes. So that’s the second attraction, water.”

“
So, what does this mean in a practical sense?” asked the reporter. “Are you suggesting the population be relocated south of these danger bands and away from water and pollution?”

“
Not simple pollution, environmental damage. There is a difference. For example, clear-cutting forests is not pollution but it is environmental damage. Another example would be water pollution that is severe enough to result in environmental damage. The Hudson River is a good example of that. Now, getting back to your question, I’d put it this way: if you live between the thirty-eighth to the forty-eighth parallels, northern or southern hemispheres, you are eight times more likely to die from the plague than if you lived in Miami which is on the twenty-sixth parallel. There is generally more environmental damage in these two hemispheric bands than in the equatorial and polar regions. This bug may be something which thrives in environmentally damaged places where its natural predators have been eliminated or beaten down.”

“
Los Angeles is latitude thirty-four,” said the reporter. “Up until the New York kill zone, Los Angeles was the worst hit location in the world. Doesn’t that disprove your hemispheric bands theory?”

“
All the scientists I have talked with agree that L.A. was a statistical anomaly. My personal bet is that Southern California’s extreme environmental problems made it a very attractive place for this bug to flourish.”

The scientist sitting next to his colleague nodded in agreement. Artie stood up, walked over to the television and ripped the cable from the back of it. He didn’t want to hear trash like that. He didn’t want Suzy to hear trash like that. These people were insane. How could anyone call hundreds of thousands of people dying a statistical anomaly?

Artie and Suzy walked out the doors of their building. Sunrise had not brought much light with it. Clouds of smoke were blocking the sun. The smoke carried a peculiar scent that was pungent and earthy. Artie suspected the cause of the scent but refused to think about it. Ash was falling around them like snow. Everything was lightly coated with a dusty gray powder. They both had bandannas over their mouths and noses to filter the air into something breathable.

Artie’s eyes were roaming in every direction, checking for possible threats. The tools of survival were all coming back to him like old habits. The streets were his home. He wore a black winter jacket; underneath it the Smith and Wesson .357 magnum was strapped to his side in a shoulder holster. On his hands were an old pair of fingerless black gloves made from a stitched, double layer of leather. He thought of them as his fighting gloves. Many times, they’d protected his knuckles from being ripped open on someone’s jaw.

With Artie in the lead, they walked down a ramp into the garage. The electric gate opener still worked. Suzy’s car, a brand new Toyota, was parked near the front. Artie had already made several trips alone to the garage. The trunk was filled with food and water. The rear seat was piled with warm clothes and personal items. He didn’t think they would be lucky enough to make it out of the city with the car, and there was too much in it to carry very far on foot; but it was worth a try. He planned on trading at least half of the goods for some type of transportation when they reached New Jersey. Artie got in behind the wheel.

“Ready, honey?” he said.

“Yeah, I got my safety belt buckled.”

He thought he saw the lines of a smile underneath her bandanna. Suzy’s eyes were dry. She reached over, took his hand, and lightly squeezed it. This was the end of everything that had been their dream.

As Artie edged up onto the street, he could feel glass crunching under the tires. He kept the headlights on. The streets were empty except for the smoky fog. In the pre-dawn world, he could make out bodies of people lying in odd places amid a ruin of debris. He imagined what it would be like as the air warmed and sunlight filled in all the shadows.

He glanced over at Suzy. She’d brought some of her professional video gear with her and was videotaping through the window. Her face was pale and stiff. He could tell she was fighting to keep her grip – and succeeding. He wondered if this was the documentary producer in her; in any event, it was a personality he had never witnessed until now. He tried to imagine what it must be like to look through the focused lens of a camera and see bodies drifting in and out of view amid shadows and dust.

As they went though an intersection, Artie saw the burnt-out tail of a helicopter protruding from the ground floor of an expensive apartment building. A fire had gutted parts of the building. Neither of them talked. Artie looked at his left wrist. The tattoo of a red dragon coiled around a dagger was partly visible between the glove and jacket sleeve. He turned onto Riverside Drive and headed north toward the George Washington Bridge. Artie was under no illusions that New Jersey would be an ideal haven, but at least it wasn’t a cramped little island with no resources other than abundant hate.

The sun had risen higher and was now a red circle enlarged by projection through a screen of smoke. The orb hung over the city like a bleeding eye. They had traveled fifty blocks north with another twenty to go. Artie had made countless detours and had been forced to drive on sidewalks more than once. The Toyota bore fresh scars from wreckage that he’d pushed out of the way with it.

He was growing nervous. They seemed to be the only car moving down these streets. Kids in gang colors were loitering everywhere. Some held weapons in plain view. Heads followed their car as they inched past at no more than ten miles per hour. He knew terrible things had happened here amid the darkness of night. People had done unimaginable things to their neighbors. He’d seen a young man’s body tied across the bumper of a car. His chest looked like it had been crushed open from repeated impacts. On an iron gatepost, someone had jammed the decapitated head of an elderly man; and on the opposite post, a young woman. It was the artwork of sociopaths. Artie wondered when the first attack would come.

He slowed the car to a crawl. The road ahead was flooded. A hydrant had been sheered off at street level and was spouting into the air. Just past it, a van was smashed into the side of a building. Debris floated in the water: a red high-heeled shoe, a chair cushion, a plastic garbage bag bloated with trash. His window had been slightly open so that he could hear approaching danger. He raised it. They passed under the geyser. Water landed on the roof with a sound and force as though people were jumping on the metal above his head. Suzy had picked up her camera and was shooting video of the water as it cascaded down the windshield. Artie was certain the attack would come now while they were temporarily blinded. He reached inside his jacket. The waterfall started to clear. He could see shapes moving in front of him. He expected an army of gangbangers brandishing Uzis.

The water abated. The windshield drained. There was nothing except an empty street. Artie was stunned. A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead. He’d been certain this was the moment his past would catch up with him. Instead, it was almost as if the deluge had washed all the evil from the streets. Suzy looked at him. Her eyes were the only part of her face visible above the bandanna. He saw them wrinkling at the edges and knew she was smiling because she’d felt what he was going through. A bullet zipped through the windshield. Artie yelled something meaningless and guttural. He floored the gas pedal. Time seemed to expand. One second was an eternity. His head was clear. He was doing what he had to do. Another bullet punched though the rear window on Suzy’s side and exited in a small spray of glass less than a foot behind his head. Suzy was still sitting up. He popped her seatbelt, grabbed the back of her coat, and pushed her down toward the foot well. Gunfire was exploding around them, but little was hitting the car.

They were moving fast and accelerating. Two blocks from the attack, Artie swerved left onto a cross-street that connected with the Henry Hudson Parkway. A fast escape was what he had in mind. The middle of the block was barricaded with the remains of an accident. He tried to stop, but the road was slick with something like oil. They smashed into the wreckage, adding their own car to the growing collection.

Suzy moaned. The force of the impact had jammed her into the foot well. Artie carefully helped her up. She seemed groggy. He was panicked waiting for the sight of blood.

“Are you okay?” he said.

No response, but also no blood.

“Suzy, are you okay?”

“Think so…”

The gunfire was still going. It sounded like a war zone. Artie realized what was occurring. He looked back at the opening to Riverside Drive. No one was coming down the street after them. The gunfire let up for a few seconds and then started again, punctuated with a small explosion. Suzy was clinging to him.

“We’re safe,” he said. “I’m positive we’re safe. They’re shooting at each other. We just got caught in the middle of their war.”

Artie looked at the wreckage in front of them. He had to make a decision. Should they leave the Toyota behind and climb over the wreckage to the other side? He looked back at the corner. The block across the intersection was clear of wreckage. The Toyota hadn’t collided that hard. The car was still drivable. He could turn around and race across the intersection. They’d be exposed to gunfire for maybe two seconds, but then they would still have the car. If they’d been walking and had stumbled into that firefight, they’d both be dead. Having a car had saved them. There was really no choice. He was going to do some Kamikaze driving with Suzy’s Toyota instead of his bike.

Artie gunned the engine. He had positioned the car up the street past where the slickness began. Suzy was back in the foot well, this time by choice. He floored it; then, dropped the transmission into drive. The front tires spun. The car accelerated hard. He fought against it swerving. They entered the intersection. Artie cringed; then they were through it. Suzy peered up over the dash.

“Stay down,” he yelled.

“The hell with that,” screamed Suzy. “The next time bullets are flying I’m going to be shooting footage.”

“You do that and I’ll take away your camera and ground you for the rest of this life and the next.”

“Nobody takes my camera, Mr. Bully man!”

Artie smiled. That’s it, baby, he thought. They’d just been through gunfire and she was shrugging it off. He was proud of her. They were going to make it.

The Toyota had held up better than he could have asked. Artie shut the trunk. The last box of food was lashed onto a cart that he’d fashioned from a dolly they’d rented for the move into their new apartment. With leather belts that were buckled together, he had made a harness to pull the cart behind him. He lifted the front of the cart by pulling the belts over his back and shoulders. He dragged the rig a few feet. The cart was crude but workable. Suzy slung a duffel bag over her shoulder. The video camera hung from a chest sling. A camera-belt loosely circled her waist. Tucked into the belt’s pockets were spare tapes and extra battery packs. They walked the last hundred yards to the tangle of huge steel cables that marked the edge of the George Washington Bridge.

Artie looked down the Manhattan Expressway from the entrance ramp where they stood. The Expressway ran across the George Washington Bridge and turned into Interstate Route Eighty on the other side. At the far end of Route Eighty was the Pacific Ocean.

There were no cars moving across the bridge, only people. Artie and Suzy stood motionless and watched the sea of humanity shuffling by: dirt smudged faces, people with knapsacks, people carrying small children, people with shopping carts. There were tens of thousands filing across the bridge like a tide of lost souls. The exodus reminded Artie of images he’d seen on television of mass migrations from the famines and wars in less fortunate countries. He used to think about how hard life must have been in those places. Now, in one night the entire world had been equalized.

Artie listened to fragments of conversations from the people slowly filing past. The lines would stop for a brief time and then start up again. There must have been rumors of every sort circulating like bad colds. One man was talking about a telephone call he’d made to his brother.

“My brother said Idaho is fine. Stores are open, people are going to work. Looks like God spared the heart of this country.”

“Idaho’s just next,” said a guy behind him. “When you finally get there, it’ll be just like here.”

Suzy was videotaping the two men. She lowered her camera and pulled off her bandanna. Artie watched her take a deep breath. He pulled off his bandanna and joined her.

“Do you remember rule number four?” asked Suzy.

“No sweetheart,” he said. “What’s rule number four?”

“Everything humanity ever accomplished started with a single wish.”

He kissed her and wished for a new home and a healthy baby. They picked up what they had and stepped into the stream of humanity.