Life on the Preservation, US Edition (13 page)

H
OT WATER POURED
into a Melitta filter, raising steam. Ian watched himself set the kettle down on the stove. His movements were mechanical, halting. Ian
pushed
and he came forward, and the floating part became like a dream fragment.

The coffee smelled good, but Ian felt deeply depressed and didn’t even know how he’d managed to crawl out of bed. In fact, he couldn’t remember doing it. He dumped the used filter into the trash, added cream to his coffee, and took it into the living space.

He stopped when he saw the pill bottles arrayed on the bedside table.

Seconal, Halcion, Xanax. What the
hell
were they doing out? He tried to remember but could not. A throbbing ache started behind his right eye. He reached to pick up the bottles then left them.

At his desk he sat heavily. Riding three hundred miles to Pullman seemed like an impossible effort to make – physically and mentally. He looked back at his unmade bed – and for a moment, a single beat, he thought he saw
himself
sprawled half off the mattress, his skin death-gray.

He stood up, his body clenching with fear. Willing himself to calm down, he grabbed the phone, held it in his fist a few moments, then put it down again. God, he was tired. He felt drugged. The sleeping pill bottles stood on the bedside table.
Had
he taken the pills? If he had he wouldn’t be standing here wondering about it; he’d be dead asleep – or just dead.

Last night, though, knowing he
must
sleep if he was going to be rested enough to drive all the way across the state at such an early hour, he had intended to take two Xanax. Just two. The prescriptions were his ‘escape kit’, kind of a joke, but not a funny one. He had been collecting the contents of his escape kit over the last year, mostly buying the prescriptions online, where it seemed possible to buy
anything
, legal or not. Nembutal, Seconal, Halcion, Xanax. These were the brands his mother had tried, and a combination of which had killed her. After her death Ian’s father had flushed the remaining pills and thrown the empty prescription containers in the trash. Ian had retrieved them. He kept the empty containers for years, setting them on his bookshelf or window sill, like plastic bad luck icons.

Just two Xanax. Intention is everything, though; he brought three full prescription bottles to his bedside.

Ian stood up and went to the window. His dad’s Indian Chief sat wheel-cocked in the alley. Maybe if he got on the damn thing it would revive him. There’s no way he could skip Pullman, especially without calling. It would be like telling Sarah
outright
that he couldn’t keep seeing her. He thought of the inevitable confrontation after his no-show. It might take place on the phone or in person, probably both. It filled him with anxiety. He didn’t want to let Sarah go, but he knew he couldn’t go forward with the relationship. He had never gone forward.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his mind in shutdown mode. Fucking sleeping pills. Despite the well-provisioned ‘escape kit’, Ian had never taken even one pill, not even the over-the-counter variety. He had always been afraid to. But last night... last night...

His cell phone started shrilling. Ian reached for it then stopped.

It rang seven times and ceased. A minute later it started ringing again. Ian looked at the caller ID and saw it was Zach. Which made zero sense at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning. Text messages started blooping in. Ian ignored them, switched the phone to silent mode and went back to bed. At some point the intercom buzzed repeatedly, a wasp stitching through his twilight consciousness.

He woke up, or came to, or whatever, and his mouth was dry as shoe leather. Shadows occupied the room. Blocky furniture squatted silently. Pictures too dim to be seen, dead lamps. His only window faced south, and after the sun traveled past two o’clock his apartment was stranded.

Ian made a face at the clock. Almost five pm. He had slept all day. Suddenly he wanted to get outside. Irrationally, he thought if he didn’t go out now he might
never
go out again. He rinsed his mouth in the bathroom sink, splashed cold water on his face, threw on a sweatshirt and leather jacket and left every light in his apartment burning so it wouldn’t be dark when he returned.

As he stepped out the front door of the building he looked at the sky, searching for something he couldn’t remember. He slid his phone out, turned it on. There were like ten text messages from Zach. Instead of reading them he thumbed RETURN CALL on one of the missed incoming. It started to ring – and across the street the tinny theme from
Bonanza
began to play. Zach answered.

“Hello?” Ian said.

“Hello yourself. I see you.”

“What?”

“I’m over here, in the park.”

Across the street a figure on a bench stood up and started waving.

CHAPTER TWELVE

OAKDALE, WA., 2013

B
ILLY RAN THE
big Honda Goldwing at the mob. They completely blocked the street and the dead lawns on either side. Those with torches held them high. Kylie, her arms tight around Billy’s waist, watched over his shoulder. The mob
had
to give way.

But they didn’t.

In fact, they did the opposite. The man who had pointed at them with the baseball bat yelled and charged
towards
the oncoming motorcycle. It was Ralph DeVris. He used to own the town’s only movie theater, the Olympic Regal Cinema, a place in which Kylie had spent many hours. It was only open Friday and Saturday nights. Kylie had known Mr. DeVris her whole life. His wife died of breast cancer two years before The Judgment. He had soldiered on, for the sake of his nine-year-old daughter, Sandy. At the Olympic Regal Ralph DeVris had always been a one man band: ticket-seller, popcorn and Coke slinger, projectionist. You had to buy your snacks before the movie, since the concession closed five minutes prior to show time, so Mr. DeVris could run up the stairs in his trademark hillbilly overalls and start the projector. After his wife’s death he started bringing Sandy to the theater. She became the ticket-taker and kept the concession open an extra half hour, just in case, before joining her dad in the projection booth. After the first year of his wife’s death, he seemed to finally come back to life a little.

Then the Judgment’s shockwave rocked the Olympic Regal off its foundation, crushing Sandy DeVris under a collapsed roof.

And now Ralph DeVris was pounding down the middle of Main Street with a baseball bat in both hands, yelling, “Get them!”

And the mob of dying towns’ people surged after him.

Billy turned the bike at the last moment, leaning and accelerating at the same time. DeVris swung his bat and caught the Goldwing’s taillight, smashing it off the bike’s rear fender. Kylie screamed, craned her head around to see. At the same moment Billy cranked the throttle and the sudden acceleration nearly unsaddled her. She adjusted her hold on Billy’s waist and watched the angry mob recede.

Billy took them around the block. His headlamp burned a path down the deserted street. He slowed the bike, yelled to Kylie over his shoulder, above the roar of the powerful engine. “I’m going to try an end run, get behind them, then straight out to the state highway, or whatever’s left of it.”

“What’s an end run?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. It’s a football thing. Kylie, listen. There will be the usual guards at the end of Main Street. We’re going through them, no matter what. Even if I have to shoot.”

Another sheet of lightning ripped across the sky. Revealed in the stark flash, a dozen townspeople poured between the ruins of a couple of tract houses, making for the street to head them off.

Billy goosed the throttle.

One young man, gaunt with post-apocalyptic flu or whatever it was, angled straight for them, ahead of the others, his eyes wild and mouth opened wide, screaming something. He was going to reach them. All that in the instant of the lightning flash before they were plunged back into darkness and the narrow fan cast by the Goldwing’s headlamp.

Thunder rolled over them like an iron drum. The bike accelerated and Kylie held on. The man was right there, grabbing the handlebar. The bike veered violently and went down. Kylie rolled into the street. She immediately got up – and someone grabbed her arms from behind.

“Got you, you horny little cunt,” a man said right next to her ear, his breath like rancid eggs.

“
Get off me,
” Kylie said, trying to twist free.

The Goldwing’s engine was still running and Billy’s leg was pinned under the heavy bike. The rest of the mob approached, bringing their torchlight. Ralph DeVris, baseball bat loose in his left fist, walked up to the bike. Billy was trying to get the rifle out of its scabbard. DeVris bent over and slapped his hand back. “None of that,” he said, then turned the ignition key back and killed the engine. “Come on, boys, help me move this thing offen him.”

Two more men stepped forward and together with DeVris they lifted the Goldwing off Billy, waited for him to scoot out, then dropped it. Even though the engine was off, the headlamp continued to burn. DeVris swung his bat casually into it. “No machines,” he said

“Do you even know how stupid that is?” Billy said.

One of the young men slugged him and Billy doubled over. “Do you even know how stupid
you
are,” the man said. He wasn’t that much older than Kylie. His name was Derrek Goetzinger. She remembered him being a senior when she was a sophomore at Oakdale High. It seemed like a million years ago. Suddenly furious, Kylie drove the heel of her shoe into her captor’s shin, wrenched loose and ran to Billy. “You asshole! I know you, Derrek Goetzinger.”

“You don’t know shit.”

DeVris stepped between them. “Back off,” he said to Goetzinger. “We’re not hoodlums. Leave their junk here and bring them along. We’re locking them up, just like we said, until Father Jim comes around.”

T
HEY LOCKED KYLIE
and Billy in the basement furnace room of the Presbyterian church and posted Derrek Goetzinger outside as guard – a job Derrek was less than thrilled about. “What am I supposed to do if it rains?” When the Judgment struck, the steeple had fallen, taking out the roof and part of the floor, exposing the basement. But the furnace room was intact and made a secure holding cell. DeVris handed him an umbrella. “Stay dry.” He gave Billy and Kylie one homemade candle and a couple of matches, then pushed the heavy fire-resistant door shut, sealing them in. The air tasted rusty and dry. Kylie immediately wanted a drink of water. She scratched one of the stick matches on the cement floor and put the flame to the candle wick then sat on a bench next to Billy, their backs to the wall.

“How long before Father Jim wakes up, do you think?” she asked.

“A while. I don’t know.”

“Does your head hurt a lot?”

“Like murder. I’m sorry, Kylie. I really blew it.”

“No you didn’t either.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Maybe a little.”

He looked up, smiling in a pained way. “You aren’t supposed to
agree
with me. Geeze.”

They were quiet a minute, then Kylie said, “I won’t let him cut me.”

“When they open the door I’ll rush them, maybe you can make a break for it.”

“That won’t work. You’re not even very good at walking yet.”

“I might feel better by the time they come.”

“Don’t worry, Billy. I’m not going to let him cut me.” Kylie reached down and pulled something out of her boot.

The toy-sized automatic.

“You had that the whole time, even at your mother’s?”

“You
told
me to keep it with me. But I was afraid when I saw Jim, and then I never had a chance to get it out. Then you rescued me.”

“Some rescue.”

“It’s okay, Billy.” She leaned against him and closed her eyes. His breathing was rough. The heat of fever radiated from him. The sound of rain began rattling on the ceiling. After what seemed like a long time there was a heavy, metallic clunk as someone lifted the fire-door’s latch. Kylie stood up, holding the automatic behind her back. The door swung out heavily on creaking hinges. Goetzinger stood in the rain gripping a Coleman lantern in one hand and the open umbrella in the other. The ragged umbrella was purple with a pattern of dancing Disney-esque elephants. A broken rib poked out like a bone from a torn wing.

Kylie pointed the gun at him. “We’re leaving,” she said.

Goetzinger spat. “I know that.”

He stepped into the furnace room, and Maggie moved into view holding a butcher knife pointed at his back.

“Mom!”

She was dripping wet, hair plastered to her head.

Kylie ran to her mother and hugged her. “What are you doing here?”

“Like I said to Jim: I changed my mind. You two better get out of here now, before the others come back. Unless you’re planning to shoot everybody with your pop gun.”

“What you all are doing is getting yourselves in a world of hurt,” Goetzinger said.

“You shut up,” Billy said.

“Yeah, shut up.” Kylie poked the gun at him. “Get over there against that wall.”

Goetzinger did as he was told. Billy relieved him of the lantern Goetzinger leaned against the wall and twirled his broken umbrella. Kylie and Maggie shoved the door shut and dropped the latch.

“Did they hurt you, Mom?”

“Of course they didn’t. Who would hurt me?”

“Your friends and neighbors,” Billy said.

“You’re coming with us this time, right?” Kylie said.

“On your motorcycle? I don’t think so. Where would I sit? Your boyfriend knew all along I wasn’t coming.”

Kylie looked at Billy. “That isn’t true! You said you wanted her to come. You said it. Why couldn’t we drive a car instead?”

“The road’s messed up pretty bad,” Billy said. “Remember, I walked here. Car wouldn’t make it two miles. Even the Goldwing might not make it all the way to Bremerton.”

“But–”

Kylie’s mom took her hand. “Honey, I’m real sick. Even if we had a car, it wouldn’t do me any good to go with you. I don’t
want
to go. I don’t have the stamina for it. I have a plan for when it gets too much to bear. In the meantime, I just want to be home. Now come on, while it’s still raining.”