A Catch in Time Read online

  Kate turned to Laura. “Are you talking the real Bible kind of evil Devil shit?”

  Laura barely heard her, engrossed in threading connections. “What if Shaitan aren’t just filled with an outside force, but only have that force in them now? If they’re empty of life, that means they’re filled with something entirely different. Because,” she concluded, “when life leaves bodies, it’s called death. And these people are not dead.”

  “Huh?” Kate squinted at her.

  “That’s it,” Laura muttered to herself. “It’s not just that something else is in them. It’s actually replaced them. The Shaitan don’t have what we’ve always called souls.”

  Alex said. “Is that, like, even possible?” Confusion crossed his features. “No. Impossible,” he said defiantly. “Our souls are in God’s keeping. He can’t lose them.”

  “Read your Bible,” Kate needled him. “Stealing souls is the Devil’s pastime.”

  Alex thought of Reverend Perry’s warnings of Armageddon, his certainty that the second blackout had flooded the world with evil and that some big final battle was at hand. Was that what he meant? Satan had stolen people’s souls and filled their bodies with evil? He sprang to his feet and slammed his empty beer glass on the table.

  “Enough of this shit. Nobody’s taking my soul,” he declared, listening to the casino noises. With a choppy wave, he stomped off.

  “What’s chewing his shorts?” said Kate.

  “Preacher Perry’s hooks,” replied Josiah. “You know, Laura, I remember thinking after the second blackout that it felt like something was trying to tear an essential piece out of me.”

  Kate frowned. “Now you’re talking souls? I thought you weren’t religious, Josiah.”

  “I’m not. This wasn’t a religious experience. Who knows?”

  “I sure as hell don’t,” Eli muttered. He slid out of the booth. “I’ll go find Alex.”

  With an edge of sarcasm she tried to disguise, Kate said flippantly, “Laura knows. Go ahead, Laura, tell Josiah about your epiphany.”

  “I already told him.”

  “Yeah?” Kate turned to Josiah. “So, what do you think?”

  “Interesting.”

  “Interesting.” Kate snorted. “Bugs are interesting. Laura knows I don’t believe that shit. But I know she believes it. And now that she’s thrown in all this evil crap … hell, sounds like religion to me.” She rose, chugged the rest of her beer, then set the bottle down hard. “Let the party begin.”

  Laura started to protest but suddenly felt drained.

  CHAPTER 18

  JOHN THOMAS WAS THE FIRST TO AWAKEN, AS USUAL. His arm draped over the side of the bed to feel Reina. The room was so dark, he thought it must still be nighttime. Heat from Lucas’s body made it warm under the covers. Sometimes, Lucas got so hot that John Thomas scooted to the edge of the bed, seeking coolness. He tried to put off his new morning ritual a few more minutes. But it was no use, he had to check.

  Easing himself out of bed, he padded into the next room. Yes, there was Katie. He stood quietly and listened to her deep exhalations, and the knot in his stomach eased.

  It snowed that day. By the time the group seated themselves for breakfast, the Nevada blizzard had shifted, pounding icy flakes against the windows of the hotel restaurant.

  Catherine spread jam on her toast and glanced around the table. “Did anyone win a fortune last night?” She received headshakes and mumbles. “Did anyone gamble themselves into the poorhouse?” Another series of headshakes and mumbles. Catherine smiled, bit her toast, then said, “All those with hangovers, say ‘aye.’”

  The chorus of loud ayes caused Kate to flinch. She sipped her coffee. A muffin sat, untouched, on her plate.

  “Actually, I broke even,” Alex said. He leaned his forehead into the palms of his hands and closed his eyes. “But I don’t think I’ll ever drink again.”

  Eli laughed and dunked toast into his eggs. “Eat something, you’ll feel better.”

  Alex peeked at Eli’s plate of runny eggs. “I might never eat again, either.”

  Eli mixed his hash browns into his eggs then squirted ketchup onto the mess.

  Lucas’s spoon poised over his bowl of Cheerios, his attention riveted on Eli’s plate. He loved ketchup but had never seen it used on eggs. “I want some of that, John Thomas,” he said. Milk dribbled from his spoon onto the tablecloth.

  “Mind your spoon, Lucas,” Catherine said.

  Lucas resumed eating. “I’m still hungry,” he said through a mouthful of cereal, “and I want stuff like Eli’s.”

  “Maybe after you finish,” John Thomas said, looking to Kate for permission.

  Kate shrugged. “Why not?” She watched snow blowing past the window. “It doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere real soon, anyhow.”

  “I think I’ll check out the sermon over at the Play ‘N Pray,” Alex mumbled. “I ran into a guy last night who said the new preacher they’ve got really knows his shit. Hey, what if it’s Reverend Perry? That’d be awesome.”

  “Why bother?” Kate asked Alex. “Can’t you just pray in your room?”

  Laura glanced up from her pancakes. When they’d been in the small cabin and Alex’s interest in religion had become obvious, Kate had often baited him. It seemed she hadn’t had enough.

  “I could pray right here at the table, if I knew what the hell I was doing,” said Alex, peevishly. “I’m just starting to learn this shit. You know, maybe you could learn something, too.”

  “I’ve done my church time, fifteen years’ worth,” said Kate.

  “Out on parole?” Eli grinned.

  Kate flicked a ball of muffin crumbs across the table at him.

  “Watch out,” Eli said, “she’s armed with muffin and a mood.”

  Josiah met Laura’s eyes and smiled. Their gazes locked in a way that was not lost on Kate.

  “You’re getting religion now, too, huh Josiah?” Kate challenged.

  Josiah lifted his eyebrows. “Come again?”

  “All that talk about souls last night,” Kate said, “I was just wondering if you got religion.”

  “It’s not a disease, you know,” Alex blurted.

  “Did I say it was?” Kate shot back.

  “It’s how you sounded.”

  Kate laughed merrily, invoking one of her signature mood changes. “Aw, what do I know, honey? Hell, say a prayer for me while you’re there.”

  Laura realized she’d been holding her breath, and quietly let it out.

  Kate pushed her coffee to one side. “I think it’s time for a little hair of the dog. Who’s for a Bloody Mary?”

  “Not me.” Laura reached for her juice. She still felt guilty about the one glass of wine she’d had the previous evening.

  “How about it, Alex?” Kate smiled conspiratorially, all traces of aggression gone. “Is your head still doing a number on you?”

  Alex looked tempted but uncertain. How long would Kate’s friendliness last?

  “Oh, come on,” Kate said, “I don’t want to drink alone this early in the morning.” She coaxed with a smile, “Come on, I’ll be your best friend.”

  Alex succumbed and they left. Eli, deciding to tag along, jumped up and followed.

  Laura looked at Josiah, engaging Catherine in one of their many debates. It seemed her attention invariably drifted to Josiah. She looked at his profile, and his hands. He had beautiful hands, strong, long-fingered. She watched his lips as he spoke to Catherine and recalled a special moment from the night before: Seeing the clear, green depths of his eyes. The sensation of his most intimate self pooled within them, awaiting her …

  What’s the matter with me? she wondered. I’m in love with him. Oh, my God, I am. I’m in love with him. It happened just like that.

  She bowed her head, flustered. She’d often heard that when you fell in love, you just knew it. But no one ever told her you’d know it so suddenly. Had it been love the first time she’d seen him, when she’d held
a gun on him? Or when he’d pulled the yen from his pocket and her fingers had grazed his hand?

  She loved Josiah. She was pregnant with Mack’s baby.

  Grabbing her glass of juice, she held it tightly to still the trembling in her hands. Like the needle of a compass, her eyes turned to Josiah. As awkward as she felt, she was more greedy for the sight of him than any desire she’d ever felt.

  CHAPTER 19

  RENO, DAY 3

  IT WAS ALMOST AS THOUGH RENO EXISTED IN A VOID, thought Catherine. She switched off the television and grimly sat back in her chair. She hadn’t found a single national newscast, just local news and panel discussions. And the frequent replay of a woman dressed like a gypsy fortune-teller speaking of the “Shaitan,” spawned out of the darkness.

  Catherine decided they needed to leave this hotel immediately. Decomposing bodies were sprawled across the nation, and death bred diseases. There had been no plague in Reno yet; most likely it had been delayed by the intense cold. The city reeked of danger. Too many of the people who crowded the town were transient and might easily have contracted something along the way.

  Agitated, Catherine took a pill from her pillbox on the table beside her and swallowed it dry. She’d warned her companions of diseases since the first day at Laura’s home. With her husband, she’d seen the plagues of Africa and India.

  As soon as one of them came through the door, she would demand they leave.

  Immediately.

  With more storms predicted, they decided to settle into the house they’d found the first night in Reno. The vehicles they’d parked in its garage had remained unvandalized, a good sign.

  Laura set the can of disinfectant aside and sat back on her heels. They were cleaning the house from top to bottom. She was glad to keep busy, to allow time to become accustomed to the idea of loving Josiah. Yet, sadly, she could not see Josiah loving her. She was pregnant.

  Sighing, she scrubbed every surface Catherine had decreed must be sanitized.

  Kate had reluctantly agreed to leave the hotel but insisted that Catherine not try to imprison them in the house. “We were already cooped up in the mountains, for chrissakes,” she’d said. “We’ll be careful—wash our hands every time we pee and not let anyone breathe on us and shit.”

  Reno was both settled and unsettled, thought Laura. Midtown activity was frenzied, yet the outlying districts were deserted. The town had power—heat, water, and electricity—casinos, markets, gas stations, and restaurants flourished. Yet most of its inhabitants had fled, and most of those who came in from outlying regions stayed only a short time before contining south or east.

  Catherine said the town’s economy had been based on the entertainment industry and that most of the people who’d lived in town had migrated there for the work. From this, Catherine deduced that survivors of the blackout, whose jobs had been dependent on vacationers, had no reason to stay because only three of the major hotel/casinos were in full operation. The rest of those working in what was once a booming economy, those in construction, or who’d worked at the throngs of shopping centers and stores, or in support services, no longer had means of income.

  A migrant population based on a migrating population.

  Who knew how long power would continue to be provided, or how reliable food and other goods would be? Nevada’s harsh desert environment, its soil rich in minerals but almost impossible to farm, and its extreme weather, did not lend itself to self-sufficiency.

  Outlying areas could provide local beef, as long as the wild forage held out.

  They were lucky that the house they’d found had truly been deserted. Or, as Kate had put it, “No rotting bodies, thank God.”

  Laura surveyed the large living room. She’d removed all the knickknacks—easier than disinfecting them—and packed them into boxes, ready to be moved to the garage. Out the large picture window, the patchy blue sky predicted storm clouds to follow.

  According to the local news station, many of the satellite downlinks were not functioning. In the odd mixture of news and rumor that had become the staple of TV, they learned that a cult, calling themselves Alienists, believed the government was clandestinely involved in a galactic war.

  Laura had watched Alienists involved in a shouting match with a Fundamentalist sect, in the heart of downtown. Taunts had degenerated into a brawl, and a red-faced man screamed into the camera something about blaspheming against God while brandishing what looked like a musket.

  “Hey, Laura.” Kate appeared in the doorway, rubber-gloved hands hanging at her sides. “Break time?”

  Laura brushed back a shock of honey-colored hair. “Sounds good. This room’s done, how’s the rest of the house?”

  Kate stripped off her gloves. “Done, except for the guys, still working on the bathrooms.” She dropped the gloves on a box at her feet. “Catherine’s having tea in the kitchen. What a slave driver!”

  “Well,” Laura said, “it won’t hurt to be clean.”

  They walked down the short hallway to the kitchen.

  “Where are the kids?” Laura asked Catherine.

  “In the back bedroom,” Catherine answered. “Apparently, two viewings of some dinosaur epic weren’t enough. When I checked, they were restarting the disk.”

  “Maybe I’ll take John Thomas to the park,” Kate said. “He must have seen that thing a gajillion times by now.” Laura removed items from the refrigerator, and Kate rummaged cupboards for a snack.

  “What about Lucas?” Laura asked.

  “He’ll probably tag along, as usual.” Kate found a soda and joined Catherine and Laura at the table.

  “Kate,” Catherine said, “the favoritism you show John Thomas isn’t lost upon Lucas.”

  Kate shrugged. “I know you both think I’m a real bitch for ignoring Lucas, but the kid gives me the creeps. And I don’t think he gives a shit if I pay attention to him or not.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Laura.

  Kate bit into a piece of cheese. “No, it’s not. I don’t think he gives a shit about you both, either.”

  Laura didn’t know how to respond. That Kate ignored Lucas was one thing, but intensely disliking him was another.

  “I am curious,” said Catherine. “What led you to form such a strong opinion of him?”

  Kate shrugged. “Gut feel.”

  “I see. And just what is it that your—gut—feels?”

  Kate shrugged, annoyed.

  Laura put her hand on Kate’s. “Maybe you haven’t really given him a chance to like you. We’ve all been so busy working out our own problems, none of us have given him the attention a five-year-old needs.”

  “Uh-uh,” Kate said. She picked up her soda. “Remember that day we found the kids? And John Thomas had peed all over himself because he’d been so scared?”

  Laura nodded.

  “Well, when you went upstairs to pack their stuff, Lucas grabbed one of John Thomas’s hands and pulled on him. John Thomas was still hanging on to me, so I told Lucas to let him be, just give him a minute and he’d be okay, and Lucas said, ‘No, John Thomas has to stop crying, it’s stupid.’ I said, no, it wasn’t stupid, his brother felt bad, but Lucas acted like I hadn’t even said anything and he kept pulling John Thomas. I finally had to grab his wrist and shake him off.”

  “Maybe he was just jealous,” Laura said. “You were cuddling John Thomas.”

  “Another time,” Kate went on, “I went to check on them about ten minutes after we’d put them to bed. I could hear John Thomas crying, and Lucas asking him what their dad had looked like, dead. John Thomas was crying, and the little jerk was mad at him for not answering.

  “And don’t forget when he practically ran me over. He still won’t tell me what the fuck he was doing trying to drive a car. Hasn’t apologized, either.”

  Laura opened her mouth but Kate rushed on. “And then, one day at that cabin, me and John Thomas were trying to get a snowman started when I noticed Lucas out by that shed in the clump of tre
es. He was stooped down and whacking this stick down in the doorway, whacking and whacking, over and over. I called to him but he just kept whacking, so I went over to him, and—Jesus.” Her face twisted in disgust.

  “It was a tiny little field mouse and he was whacking it. It was still alive! It was disgusting. I grabbed him and I don’t even remember what I yelled. He looked at me all surprised … mad … and then all of a sudden he’s smiling—smiling—and asking me if I like mice.” Kate snatched up her soda and took a long swallow.

  Laura shook her head in dismay. Catherine stared intently at Kate.

  “He’s creepy,” said Kate. “I can’t keep him from hanging around John Thomas, but I’ll be damned if I’ll encourage him.”

  “This is not good,” Catherine said quietly. “Why didn’t you tell us about this when it happened?”

  “I didn’t want to leave John Thomas out there alone with Goddamn Damien. When we got back to the house, I didn’t feel like talking about it. I thought I’d mention it later.” She shrugged. “It’s later.”

  “I now understand,” Catherine said, “why you are put off by the child.”

  “Put off.” Kate snorted, then suddenly grinned. “I love that about you, Catherine—you’re soooo civilized.”

  “Humph. Frankly, I would not have guessed civilized expression to be high on your list of priorities. We seem to have a serious problem and, much as I hate to admit it, I, too, have had bad feelings toward the child. Until now, I assumed it was my lack of patience.”

  Laura tried to understand this new aspect of Lucas. She’d read enough magazine profiles of criminals who committed gruesome crimes to know they were often called sociopaths. The childhoods of such people included, as a common thread, mistreatment of small animals.

  A thought struck her. Maybe Lucas hadn’t survived the second blackout.

  Lucas appeared in the doorway. Her heart jumped. How long had he been standing there? She chided herself for leaping to conclusions. Of course Lucas hadn’t lost his “soul.” But she’d looked into his eyes enough that there was no possible way she could have missed the paralyzing black emptiness.