A Catch in Time Read online

  A snuffling sounded behind him.

  With a gasp, he whirled. A dog stood in the doorway, golden head lowered. Brown eyes, edged beneath by white crescents, gazed up at John Thomas, who froze. He had no experience with dogs. He risked a glance at the back door, then riveted his attention back on the dog, afraid it would lunge at him.

  The dog moved forward one hesitant step, floppy ears pressed tightly back. Then another. Just as John Thomas braced himself to dash to the door, it slowly lay down and rolled to its side, head tucking in with a small whine. John Thomas relaxed when he saw the dog’s tail, its tip quivering in tiny wags.

  “Poor little puppy,” he crooned as he approached it. His fear gone, he saw now how thin the dog was beneath its silky fur, even though its stomach was terribly distended. Tenderly, he touched the soft ears, the fluffy neck, and smiled as a warm tongue tentatively licked his hand. Something tugged his mind. The image, one of a golden dog being struck by a car, a dog similar to this one, faded before he could grasp it.

  The memory it would have evoked, linked to Lucas before, sank back into its dark depths.

  CHAPTER 13

  “LOOK TO YOUR SOULS, SINNERS, LOOK INTO YOUR hearts and cast out the evil that is Satan’s mark. He has poured his evil upon us. Six days ago, we all felt the fire of that evil as it filled our world and seared our souls. The Devil was recruiting, brothers and sisters, the battle has been joined. Armageddon is upon us. Join the army of the Lord. We must all choose the side of good, or evil will choose us. Now, let us pray …”

  Fifteen of Reverend Perry’s followers fell to their knees in the crowded studio, heads bowed. Fourteen of them prayed in fear, groping for the right words so God would know they were good, worthy, wholly at His disposal. The fifteenth prayed that the decrepit generator he’d set up for the reverend’s broadcast wouldn’t fail. The reverend’s message had to get out.

  If it didn’t, and Armageddon swept across the nation, without all the good Christians out there knowing about it, it would be his fault. He clasped his hands with bruising force and prayed for the generator as he listened to the reverend’s exhortations.

  “Back off, man,” Josiah thundered.

  Startled, Eli jerked his head around the open hood of the truck. He’d never heard anger in Josiah’s voice; violence loomed. Through the dusky evening light, he saw Josiah and Alex, facing off at the tailgate.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, man?” Alex challenged. “All I said was maybe we should rethink this leaving shit.”

  Josiah turned away from Alex, shut the tailgate. “No one’s forcing you to come,” he said, his suddenly low tone more menacing than his shout.

  Eli cleared his throat. “Alex, you heard the broadcast. California is a dead state; no power anytime soon.” He shrugged. “No point in staying here.”

  Josiah walked angrily toward the garage. “Save your breath, Eli,” he said. “The kid’s been suckered by that preacher.”

  Alex, shoulders slumped in surrender, said, “Shit, Josiah.” But Josiah was gone. Frustrated, Alex turned to Eli.

  “It’ll be okay,” Eli reassured him.

  “He hasn’t even listened to the guy,” Alex complained.

  “How’s he know the reverend’s not right?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Eli said, sharply. “He decides for himself. You heard him; nobody’s forcing you to come with us.”

  Eli couldn’t help feeling sorry for Alex. The kid was confused, scared. Listening to Reverend Perry’s diatribes about Armageddon, about the battle against evil, had triggered something in Alex. Everyone was looking for someone to tell them what had happened to the world. The preacher had managed to get on the air, and Alex stayed glued to the broadcasts. Station ATL, Preacher Perry called it. Army of the Lord.

  Eli said, “If you think the preacher can get people organized and get stuff back on line, stay. But we’re leaving in the morning.” Eli felt the cold breeze stiffen in the growing dusk. He went to the garage, where Josiah was moving boxes so there’d be enough room to pull the truck in.

  During the evening meal, Josiah behaved as if nothing had happened. Encouraged, Alex casually mentioned their upcoming trip. He offered to drive the second vehicle, a Cherokee Chief they’d found two days ago.

  Josiah nodded. “Remember to watch the oil gauge.”

  A little later, Alex asked, “It’s okay if I listen to Reverend Perry on the radio, isn’t it?”

  Eli looked at Josiah and rolled his eyes. The kid was a glutton for punishment.

  Josiah set his plate aside. “You listen to people like Preacher Perry,” he said to Alex, “and pretty soon you can just stop thinking for yourself.”

  Josiah thought of his mother’s illiteracy and his own struggle to teach himself to read, to think clearly, to see the world for what it was and not for what he wished it to be. Part of Josiah’s problem with Alex came from knowing that Alex was from a well-to-do family but dropped out of high school to experience “real life.” The futility of that bad choice angered Josiah, knowing the “real life” he himself had experienced, on streets he hadn’t chosen.

  He had every intention of surviving in this new world and of helping Eli survive it, too. Alex? Alex could make his own bed.

  CHAPTER 14

  LOW CLOUDS FILTERED THE DAWN, CHILLING THE GRAY morning. Laura staggered down the stairs with another box and placed it on the curb near Kate. Breathing hard, she leaned against the Chevy she’d taken from a garage next door. Exhausted from all her trips up and down the stairs, she’d stopped wondering where the neighbors were. Still with dozens of trips to make, she grabbed a large sack of rice from the sidewalk.

  “There’s hardly room left for this,” she grumbled to Kate, who hobbled closer and peered through a tinted window. The back of the Suburban was jammed. Even the floorboards were covered by an assortment of last-minute additions.

  “Just toss it in,” Kate said. “I’ll find a spot.”

  As Laura heaved the sack through the door, Kate cried out, “That’s him!”

  Laura looked up the street in time to see a small figure vanish from sight. “Who?” she said, but Kate was already hobbling up the hill as fast as her crutches would allow.

  “Kate!” Laura called. Catherine stood at the open rear doors of the Suburban, shaking her head. Laura took the gun from her jacket pocket, gave it to Catherine, and ran after Kate.

  “It’s the kid I saw in the car,” called Kate. “He’s the reason I’m on these damn sticks.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Hey, kid,” Kate yelled. “Stop! You little shit.”

  “Kate! Watch it!” Laura jumped to the side, barely avoiding being smacked by a flailing crutch.

  A block later, they rounded another corner just in time to see the boy disappear into a house up the street.

  “Hah,” Kate wheezed. “Gotcha.”

  As they neared the house, Laura said, “You’re going to tell his parents? What’s the point?”

  “Laura, I’ve had nightmares about that kid. He can’t be more than five, who knows what the hell else he’s doing? He’s out on the street all by himself.” Kate was angry.

  “Wait a minute.” Laura put a hand on Kate’s arm. They stared up at the shuttered windows. “What if his parents are dead? And he’s there all alone—scared. It’s been two weeks. If he’s been alone …”

  “All the more reason.” Kate moved a crutch.

  “Wait. We don’t want to scare him more.”

  “We don’t want him sneaking out the back, either. Come on.” Kate put both crutches into one hand, grabbed the banister, and hobbled up. Laura followed her, ready if Kate stumbled. They reached the door. Kate rapped her knuckles on it, put her ear to the wood, and knocked again, louder.

  Laura put her head close to the door. “I think I heard something,” she whispered.

  Kate nodded. She’d heard it, too, a distant, furtive sound.

  “Wanna bet there’s no adults in this house
?” Kate put her hand on the doorknob and turned it. It was unlocked. They looked at each other, nodded, and Kate swung it open.

  Laura followed Kate into a large foyer that fronted a wide, carpeted staircase. To their right was a high-ceilinged living room, to their left, a kitchen. She could see a chair and part of a table, the rest hidden by the doorway.

  “Hello!” Kate called out. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. Olly, olly, oxen-free-oh.” Then she whispered, “How about you check upstairs while I look down here?”

  “Don’t leave the door, he might bolt. Wait here while I see about a back door.” Laura hurried away.

  John Thomas barely breathed. Pressed into the farthest corner of the hall closet beneath the staircase, he listened as the two strangers discussed their strategy for finding Lucas. He wished he’d grabbed Lucas as soon as he’d dashed in the door, yelling that people were after him. Lucas had pounded upstairs, shouting “Hide! Hide!”

  John Thomas had run up the stairs after Lucas, but as he neared the top he’d realized the front door was unlocked. Stifling his fear, he’d hurried back down. He’d almost reached the door when loud knocking had frozen him. Afraid to take his eyes from the door, he’d tiptoed backward, along the staircase, until he’d felt the knob of the closet door. Darting in, he’d shut the door and buried himself in the corner.

  The children-eaters had entered the house.

  John Thomas’s scalp prickled in terror. He’d been so careful these past weeks to keep them both safe. The dog, Reina, too. He hoped she’d stay quiet, not come scratching at the back door. He couldn’t bear the thought of her being hurt.

  Reina soothed something inside him, a jagged harshness he carried with him through the painful days, the constant worry over keeping her and Lucas safe and fed. He’d named her Reina because it meant “queen.” At first, he’d worried about food for her, but, in many of the houses he looted, pet food was all that was left.

  He wished Reina was with him now, pressed against him in the dark corner. And hoped that Lucas was well-hidden. His world had shrunk to himself, Lucas, and Reina. Now, even that tiny world had been violated by outsiders.

  Children-eaters.

  His heart thumped. Eyes squeezed shut, he hoped the bad people would go away.

  The door swung open. He held his breath, too frightened to cry.

  Kate nearly shut the door, but something caught her eye. A tiny movement of a shoe. Now she could see a child, partly obscured by a hanging garment.

  “Come on out, kiddo. The jig is up.” Kate reached in to press aside the overcoats.

  A moan of terror came from John Thomas’s small body. His heart felt ready to burst, and he was unaware of the warm urine soaking his pants. He felt nothing but paralyzing panic.

  Kate caught her breath at the sound of his moan. This was no longer a game. She knelt, ignoring the pain in her foot.

  “Hey, little guy, it’s all right,” she crooned gently. The child sobbed. “Come on, honey, come on out and let me help you. It’s all right, honey, really it is.”

  John Thomas flung up his head, stunned. Honey. Such a good word. Honey. That was him, he was Honey. An eternity of repressed tears flooded his eyes.

  “Come on, honey, come on out.” Kate held herself still, fighting the impulse to just reach in. The boy shifted onto his hands and knees and began crawling toward her. She saw his wild eyes shimmering with tears and a mixture of fear and hope. This was not the child she had faced through the windshield of the car. She placed gentle arms around him and drew him onto her lap.

  Emotions gave way as he crawled into her lap. With sudden ferocious strength, he gripped her to him, his small fingers pinching her arms, his head pressed against her breast, his sobs shivering through her.

  Kate laid her cheek against his soft hair. Tears burned her eyes as she rocked him.

  Catherine, pistol in one hand, cane in the other, stood erect by the Suburban and watched their approach. Kate and Laura had not only two children in tow but a dog as well, and were laden with duffel bags and backpacks.

  “This wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I asked you to find a man or two.”

  Laura laughed. “What can I say, Catherine? They stole our hearts.” Stepping close to Catherine’s ear, she whispered, “Orphaned.”

  Catherine murmured, “And now shanghaied.”

  “Kate’s doing, this time,” Laura said, swinging a duffel bag into the back of the Chevy.

  Kate grinned. “That’s Lucas, and this is John.” John Thomas tugged on her hand. She bent to his whisper. “Oh—sorry. This is John Thomas,” she corrected. She had both crutches in one hand and John Thomas’s hand in the other. Reina paced around them both, to the limits of her leash. Dropping the crutches, Kate began shrugging off the backpack stuffed with the boys’ clothing and found that John Thomas would not release her hand. She was about to shake him free until she saw the panic in his eyes. “Come on, kiddo,” she said, “let’s help Laura pack this stuff into the car.”

  “Just leave the rice on the seat,” Kate suggested to Laura, looking past her into the car. “Lucas can sit on it. The sack’s soft enough and it’ll boost him up to the window.”

  Catherine peered in at the tightly woven sack. “Cover it with plastic and a blanket,” she said. “I prefer my rice without child flatulence.”

  Kate turned to Lucas. “Hear that, kiddo? Don’t fart on the rice.”

  John Thomas giggled and pressed himself even closer to Kate. The added pressure put too much weight on her injured foot. “Ow, shit.” She glanced at John Thomas and could have kicked herself. Sudden worry clouded his eyes and his chin quivered.

  Kate dropped to one knee and gathered him to her. The child attached himself to everything she said. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  Hearing a car, Laura recognized Josiah’s and Eli’s truck coming around the corner below. A Cherokee Chief followed and, as the two vehicles parked behind the Suburban, she saw both were heavily loaded.

  Greetings and introductions of Alex overlapped.

  Laura glanced repeatedly at Alex. Something in his lanky awkwardness and shaggy hair reminded her of her younger brother, Conrad. She imagined poor Conrad, stuck in a foreign country, and wondered if she would ever see him again.

  Then Josiah was beside her, smiling, his smoothly planed face capturing her attention. “A yen for your thoughts,” he said.

  She grinned, then the double meaning struck her. Was he flirting with her, or was she being stupid? She said, “Could you pay up if I told you?”

  “Yup.”

  Laura laughed. “In yen?”

  Grinning, he drew a coin from his pocket and held it out on his flat palm. She looked closer.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said. “It really is a yen.” She touched it and, in doing so, was abruptly aware of her fingers brushing his skin.

  Kate called, “Time to hit the road, people.”

  Josiah and Eli took the lead, with the Suburban and then the Cherokee following behind. The route had been planned. North, over the partially cleared Golden Gate Bridge, along Highway 101 to Ukiah, then inland on Highway 20, avoiding the worst of the urban growth east of the city, nearly a solid sprawl from San Francisco to Sacramento. They would rejoin Highway 80 at some point past Sacramento, where they hoped to get more information.

  It took them an hour to reach San Rafael, normally a fifteen-minute drive. Although a makeshift lane had been bulldozed through the debris, its path twisted through four lanes of dense destruction.

  Driving slowly, Laura looked at Kate and the boys in her rearview mirror, crammed in among the supplies.

  Despite their slow progress, Laura maintained a safe distance from the truck in front of them. She began worrying about their fuel supply, then realized her worries were groundless; the highways were littered with the tanks of crashed and abandoned cars.

  She slammed on her brakes as a small black shape darted in front of the Chevy. “What was that?” she ex
claimed.

  “Who cares?” said Kate. “We got miles to go and we’re only in San Rafael. Get on the mike and tell Eli he drives like an old woman.”

  “I believe it was a cat,” Catherine said, sitting next to Laura. “Although it might have been a large rat.”

  “Cats an’ rats an’ elephants,” Lucas sang loudly and tunelessly, then, straining forward against his seat belt, said, “Maybe it was a small elephant. There’s lots of small elephants around here, I’ve seen ‘em. Do you think it was a small elephant?”

  John Thomas laughed. He sat between Lucas and Kate in the backseat, with Reina behind him, atop boxes in the crammed cargo area. As though John Thomas’s laugh were a signal, she poked her muzzle at the back of his head and he reached a hand up to her.

  “There aren’t no elephants in America, Lucas, except for in zoos and circuses.”

  “Let’s go to the zoo.” Lucas bounced with excitement.

  “My God,” said Laura, “the zoo. Those poor animals.”

  “I must confess, I hadn’t had a thought for them, myself,” Catherine sniffed.

  “Maybe someone put them out of their misery,” Kate offered. Noticing John Thomas’s sudden deflation, she nudged him. “Hey, cheer up, honey, we got Reina, don’t we? Good rescue job, by the way. She’s one fat, happy dog.”

  “She’s not fat, she’s pregnant,” Laura said.

  The sad fate of zoo animals overshadowed, John Thomas squealed. “Puppies? Cool.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Cool, huh? Just wait ‘til you have to take care of them.”

  “How many do you think she’ll have, Katie?” John Thomas squirmed with excitement and looked at Reina with glowing eyes.

  Laura smiled and wondered if he’d be as excited to hear about her own pregnancy. She hadn’t said anything yet to anyone about her baby. But she worried about such things as finding a hospital when her time came. Or even a doctor. She remembered well the chaotic scene at the hospital. Would things be back to normal by the time her baby was born?