A Catch in Time Page 6

  For the first time in days, she thought of Mack.

  How much safer she’d feel if he were with her now. A fight broke out somewhere deep in the echoing dimness, a sudden flurry of shouts and smacking flesh.

  She leaned hard against the weighted cart and hurried to the exit.

  At the Bronco, she flung everything inside. Winded, she pulled herself in behind the wheel and turned the key.

  Nothing. No engine sounds. Not even a whir. Just a faint click when the key turned.

  Biting back her frustration, she yanked the hood release and leaped out of the car. It took both hands to raise the hood. Perplexed, she began jiggling hoses and wires.

  “Problem?” A voice asked.

  Laura gasped and shot upright. A slim, brown-haired young man stood a couple of feet away, on the passenger side of the Bronco, looking at her expectantly.

  “Need some help?” he asked with a smile.

  Normally, she wouldn’t have thought twice about accepting such an offer. But circumstances had left her unable to judge motives.

  Without another thought, she plunged her hand into her jacket pocket and withdrew her gun.

  “Hey,” he said, raising empty hands in alarm. “Hold it, I just wanted to help.”

  “I told you,” said a voice from the driver’s side of the Bronco.

  Laura cried out, stumbled back a step, and swung her gun to the other side. The second stranger was taller. He leaned easily against the car parked next to the Bronco, his arms folded loosely. He wasn’t looking at Laura, though.

  “What’d I tell you, Eli?” he said, then looked at Laura with a smile.

  “I know, I know,” the one named Eli replied. “But—”

  “But nothing, man. You’re gonna get us both blown away.” Before Laura could respond, Josiah said, “Can’t you see she’s still scared?” His eyes were clear, water green. “You want us to leave,” he offered gently, “then you just say so. No need to shoot our balls off.”

  “Jesus, Josiah,” Eli said.

  “What?” Josiah laughed. “You think she doesn’t know that just pointing her piece that direction is making me sweat?”

  Laura then realized the gun had sagged in her hand and was now pointed at his crotch. Despite herself, she nervously smiled at him, lowering the gun to her side. After introductions and talk about the Bronco’s failure to start, she felt herself relaxing. They were behaving quite normally.

  “Do you know what just happened to everyone?” she asked.

  Eli shook his head. “No,” he said. “But I swear I thought I was going to die.”

  Josiah moved to the front of the Bronco and leaned over the engine. “If hell exists,” he said, unclipping the distributor cap, “that had to be it.”

  Laura watched him explore beneath the hood. She asked carefully, “And if hell doesn’t exist?”

  Josiah ducked out from beneath the hood and met her gaze. He was good-looking. Very. Flustered, she looked at Eli, who was peering at the engine.

  “If hell didn’t exist before,” Josiah responded in a soft voice, “maybe it does now.”

  The Bronco was indeed dead. Eli and Josiah offered to take Laura home and, hesitatingly, she accepted. Their truck was loaded with their own supplies, yet they managed to pack Laura’s things in, piling the overflow into the back of the crew cab. The three squeezed into the front seat, Laura in the middle.

  Crossing Market Street, Josiah stopped and Eli jumped out.

  “Back in a minute,” said Eli.

  “What’s he doing?” Laura asked as she watched Eli skirting wreckage. He appeared to be heading for a group of people halfway down the block. Aware that she was pressed close to Josiah, though Eli’s seat was now empty, she carefully shifted herself, opening a gap between them.

  “This kid we’ve got with us, Alex” he said. “Eli’s rounding him up.”

  However, Alex, it seemed, wasn’t ready to go.

  Reverend Perry, who had helped him during the painful blackout, was preaching his heart out, and what he preached was fascinating Alex.

  When Eli placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder, Alex said, “Go on without me, man. I’ll catch you later.”

  Josiah and Eli helped Laura unload her supplies from the truck. During their first trip up to the apartment, Laura did introductions. During unloading, Kate’s and Catherine’s duties were to stay out of the way.

  Eli, Laura, and Josiah coordinated themselves so that one of them was always by the truck, guarding it. The street, however, remained empty. When the last of Laura’s provisions were up and the five of them were in the apartment, Josiah stayed by the window so he could see the truck, still full of his and Eli’s supplies.

  Catherine sat in the armchair. She’d asked Laura for her gun and now sat with it in her lap. She’d never stopped watching Eli and Josiah while they were in the room.

  Kate offered to fix sandwiches, but Josiah and Eli declined.

  “We should get going,” Eli said, “get our stuff home.”

  Josiah’s survey of the room stopped at Catherine. She stared unwaveringly at him, her head high, saying nothing. He nodded, acknowledging her attention and the suspicion that prompted it. Her eyes narrowed. He turned to Laura and gestured at the room.

  “Looks like you’re packing. Are you leaving the city or just the apartment?” he said.

  Catherine spoke directly to him for the first time. “I imagine a great many people are evacuating the city. Have you similar plans?”

  “Yes, we do,” Josiah answered.

  “What’d Laura do, shanghai you guys?” Kate asked. “She has a reputation for that, you know.”

  “I do not,” Laura laughed, then added, “Although I did nearly shoot them.”

  “No shit?” Kate looked at Laura, then at Eli and Josiah. “What happened?”

  “It was my fault,” Eli said. “I sort of scared her.”

  Josiah turned again from the window. “It happened after that weird thing hit.” He moved toward the door. “Eli, we’d better go.”

  “Wait a minute,” Kate said. “Weird thing? You mean that—that horrible—” she grabbed two handfuls of red curls, shook her head and groaned.

  Eli grimaced. “That’s the one.”

  “Then everyone felt it?” Catherine asked faintly. “Kate and I were quite … Rather a nerve-wracking experience.”

  “Nerve-wracking?” Kate rolled her eyes. “Shit, Catherine, it kicked my ass through my head. Some headache cure.”

  Everyone agreed.

  Laura looked at Kate, then the others. No more headaches? she wondered. Then the headaches hadn’t been blocking the knowledge. If they had, and everyone now knew what she knew, they wouldn’t have been able to contain the joy. There was no more reason to wait before telling Kate and Catherine what she knew, no hope that the knowledge would revisit them.

  Laura wondered how they would take it. It would probably be impossible to convince them that it was real, but that was no reason to change her mind about telling them. As soon as Eli and Josiah left, she’d tell them everything she remembered.

  “Sound good to you, Laura?” Kate said.

  Laura’s head jerked up. “What?”

  Kate laughed. “Pay attention, honey, there’s something new every minute. I just asked the guys if they wanted to caravan out of the city with us. Safety in numbers and all.”

  Laura looked at Catherine, whose caution of the men hadn’t escaped her. Kate followed her glance.

  “Oh, for chrissakes,” said Kate, “Catherine probably wants their resumes.”

  “No need to decide right now,” Josiah said. He reached past Laura for the doorknob. “We checked out the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday and it’s still a huge mess.”

  “We’ve heard the southern routes are even worse,” Eli offered, “and the East Bay’s a nightmare. A lot of people are walking out, maybe figuring they’ll get a car once they’re past the worst of it.”

  Laura stepped away from the door as
Josiah opened it. He said, “We’d rather get as many supplies together as we can before we leave. Who knows what’s left out there.”

  They all agreed to meet again in two days, then the two men left.

  There was a moment of silence before Catherine thumped her cane on the floor. “I think it’s a splendid idea,” she said. “What do you think, Laura?”

  “I—” Laura began.

  “Jeez, Catherine,” Kate interrupted. “You coulda said so while they were still here, you know.”

  Laura took a deep breath. It was time.

  “I know what happened during the blackout,” she said. “I know what it was.”

  CHAPTER 11

  CATHERINE AND KATE STARED AT LAURA. CURIOSITY flickered in Catherine’s eyes. Kate became guarded.

  And I haven’t even started, Laura thought.

  It doesn’t matter if they believe you, she told herself. At least you can stop feeling like you’re keeping the biggest secret ever. Maybe it would trigger their own memories.

  “I can’t explain all of it; there are some gaps in my memory, but I do remember a lot of it and it was … beyond wonderful. The blackout was …”

  “What?” said Catherine.

  “It was knowledge,” said Laura triumphantly.

  Having begun, she couldn’t talk fast enough. “Knowledge of everything, of life after death. It exists, we’re all there, we’re everywhere, on that side and on this, in the trees and grass, we’re in ponds and oceans and dirt, in bacteria and animals and—all of life—it’s all us.” She ignored the sidelong glances.

  “We’re it,” she continued. “We’re the creators. We made this earth—I mean, not the minerals and gasses that formed it, but everything that came after, everything organic.” She described the being which she—and everyone else—had experienced. The oddness of time/energy without space.

  “The—the huge effort that went into creating life—indescribable. The pushing it took to cross the barrier into this other dimension … I can’t explain it right. We learned to push our energy into this space, into form, and it was incredible. Just single cells, at first. Years, eons, of firsts. But we learned—and, and since then, building has consumed us. We’re the directors of evolution, it’s Us—the soul Us, Our plans, Our designs, that have gotten us from algae to human.” She drew a deep breath, her eyes glowing.

  “There are no missing links,” she said. “Every single life-form is a link.”

  It was the first time she’d put it into words and, instead of doubt, she found certainty. It was as she said, and she knew it.

  Catherine’s face was inscrutable, but Kate’s skepticism was obvious.

  “It’s all right, Kate, I didn’t think you’d believe me,” she said, quietly.

  “Laura, it’s not that I don’t believe you.”

  Laura smiled. “It’s okay, really. I just wish you remembered—that somebody, other than myself, remembered it.”

  “I must admit, it’s interesting,” Catherine said. “Appealing, even, to think that we are responsible for our own lives, in the greater sense, and that death is not an end. However,” she smiled gently at Laura, “I was never one for fantasies, not, mind you, that I am saying flatly that your epiphanous experience is fantasy. The deficit of being irreligious is that I have no religious entitlements.”

  “Someday, Catherine,” Kate drawled, “I’m gonna have to teach you how to talk normal.”

  “This is not about religion,” said Laura. “Not at all.”

  “Let’s assume, Laura,” Catherine resumed, “that everything you have said is true. You are suggesting that a disembodied We are the creators of physical life; and that We, in turn, caused what we have come to call the blackout. To what purpose?”

  “I’m not positive,” Laura answered, “but I think maybe just to connect us with Us. So that we know.”

  Catherine frowned. “It seems to me a contradiction that, having worked so hard to create ourselves, We would cause an event that has wrought such havoc. The count of dead must be in the millions, if not billions.”

  “Maybe,” Kate suggested, “it was some kind of population control. Earth is overpopulated and if we just keep coming back, then what’s the diff?”

  “No,” Laura frowned. “That doesn’t feel right. Life is,” she groped for the right word, “sacred to Us. We wouldn’t do that.”

  “Honey,” Kate retorted, “we’ve been slaughtering life since Day One. Christians to the lions, Jews to the ovens, hell, even babies to the gods.”

  “That’s different,” said Laura. “It’s our earth selves that are doing all those things, not Us.”

  “Great,” Kate rejoined. “We’re screw-ups in the afterlife, too.”

  Catherine shifted. “Laura, dear,” she said. “I hate being a bother, but could you please help me to the powder room?”

  “Uh-oh, Laura. You’re gonna get it now,” remarked Kate.

  “Don’t be crass, Kate,” Catherine said over her shoulder.

  “Me? Crass? No way. What’s crass mean?”

  Catherine shut the bathroom door. It was just as well that she’d ended the discussion. Obviously, Laura didn’t think she was offering a theory, but a Truth. One shouldn’t add fuel to such a fire, not even a twig. Poor Laura.

  That night, Laura lay in her sleeping bag by the dying fire, listening to Kate’s breathing, reviewing their conversation. She struggled now to remember a word Catherine had used. A “something” experience, she’d said. Epiphanous. Yes. Epiphanous experience.

  Epiphany. The word fit well the exalting revelations that had burst upon her. She hunched deeper into her sleeping bag, feeling a small spot of warmth on the small of her back from the dying fire.

  Even if Kate and Catherine didn’t believe her, she reflected drowsily, they had tried to understand. And neither of them had made her feel foolish. Warmed by the friendship this implied, Laura drifted off.

  CHAPTER 12

  JAMES WALSH CUPPED A HANDFUL OF VITAMINS AND IBU profen into his mouth and gulped them down with tepid water. He tossed the paper cup atop the trash can overflowing with empty beer and vodka bottles. He’d needed the vodka last night, even if he didn’t usually drink.

  The mirror in the men’s washroom indicated his eyes weren’t bloodshot. Not that anyone watching the news would care. Was anyone even watching? He had no idea. He hadn’t been outside in four days. Neither had Carol. Phil had brought in food and booze.

  They were due to broadcast in five minutes, as soon as Carol finished printing out the latest from D.C.

  At least he wasn’t shaking anymore. The first two days after whatever the hell had happened, he’d felt like his muscles were going to burst through his skin.

  He stuck his right hand out and held his breath. Okay. Steady.

  “Hey, James.” Phil’s voice came through the door. “Atlanta’s standing by. Let’s go.”

  “Right,” he called. He left the washroom and hurried down the corridor into the studio. Carol, standing by the camera, handed him the news sheets.

  James waited behind the anchor desk and watched her count down to the point.

  “President Caldwell today announced that a team of scientists has been assembled to determine whether the blackout was caused by a biological pathogen. The president stated that, although it is too early to speculate on the possibility that a bioweapon was used, he was taking no possibility from the table.

  “Ten teams of professionals have been gathered. In addition to forensic pathologists, the groups include physicists, geologists, biochemists, etiologists, toxicologists, meteorologists, astrophysicists, military strategists, and engineers. Churches have demanded the involvement of theologians. There has been no word as to whether the pope will be asked to participate.

  “Several more countries have been added to the list of those that have contacted the network set up by the U.N. Among these are Panama, Greece, Iceland, Israel, and New Zealand. There is still no word from China.

&nb
sp; “We now go to WNN’s Manny Milowicz, at the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, for announcements on preventative measures people should be taking.”

  John Thomas crouched behind a bush and peered out at the small group of people slowly passing. They were led by a man pedaling an old-fashioned ice cream wagon, its child-beckoning tune filling the air. The music filled John Thomas with dread.

  He made himself as small as he could and thought about food. He was so hungry.

  He’d already sneaked into most of the empty houses on this block looking for food, any kind of food. But people were stealing everything. If he didn’t find something here today, he’d have to go to the next block, or even the next one after that. What if he got lost? What if Lucas got tired of waiting for him and he … He held his breath as the group passed. He couldn’t remember what it was like not to be scared all the time.

  Seeing the bad people reach the end of the block and turn the corner, he eased himself out of his crouched position and waited for the music to fade completely.

  Satisfied with the silence, he darted quickly along the side of the house and squirmed through a gap between two broken boards in a fence, then paused in the backyard, a tangled expanse of evergreens and spreading trees. He quickly followed an overgrown walkway to the back door.

  The kitchen had been ransacked, its drawers and cabinets open. But John Thomas was elated; whoever had gone through this house had missed things. Already, he saw some cans in the dim recesses of an open cabinet. He boosted himself onto the counter, grabbed a shelf for balance, and removed five cans, one at a time, hesitating only briefly when he saw that they were dog food. Moving along on his knees, he went through all the cabinets, taking everything he could find. He giggled with delight when he opened a canister and found it full of spaghetti, the raw lengths packed together. John Thomas could hardly wait to surprise Lucas, who loved spaghetti.

  When he was done, he stood at the counter gazing at his prizes. He’d gathered some things, such as baking soda and cornmeal, that were unfamiliar to him. His best finds were the spaghetti and a bag of sprouting potatoes.