A Catch in Time Read online

  For the first time since the blackout had changed her entire outlook, she remembered that she’d been planning to abort, because she’d wanted Mack, and a baby would have complicated things. She could not now imagine trading this baby for anything. She could barely remember what had made her so willing to do just about anything for Mack.

  Thank God he was on another continent, she thought. He probably wouldn’t have stayed with her anyhow. The baby was hers. Hers.

  PART II

  CHAPTER 15

  THE BLEAK DESPAIR THAT STRUCK EVERYONE ON THE third day following the blackout had destroyed many people, and changed many others.

  Mack Silby had changed. Forever.

  The sucking darkness had filled his mind, extinguished every thought, obscured every emotion, and then formed a funnel through which everything that was him fled, screaming. When he was emptied, a whisper, soft and cool as silk, slid the last of his empathy from him. Then the darkness dissipated, was gone. And so was Mack.

  He sat up and wondered what had happened. First, he noticed his headache was gone. Second, he realized the crowded Munich airport, moments ago stricken silent, was now noisy with the voices of hundreds of people speaking dozens of languages, thankful for their miraculous release from black despair. The murmur grew to a clamor.

  Annoyed, he shifted in the plastic chair. People. A woman bumped his legs and he glared at her. Stubble on his chin itched and his annoyance grew. He needed a shave. Jumping to his feet, he looked for a restroom.

  For three days, travelers had been jamming the airport, desperate to get home. The airport was packed with people awaiting flights, as exhausted personnel used the one runway left operative after the blackout. There’d been horrific collisions directly overhead as well as on the runways when the blackout hit, and debris from the explosions and crashes still littered all but one runway.

  Mack cursed when he couldn’t see a restroom sign.

  A bubble of pure rage rose in him, exploded, and flooded him with fury that coursed through him. In the first instant, he felt a vague suggestion of pain, but that was quickly subsumed in something vast, on the very edge of fear. Then, with a tumbling drop in the pit of his stomach, he exploded past all known sensation. Nerve-endings buzzed.

  He was heat, ice, raw power. His eyes glittered. His nostrils flared like an animal smelling blood.

  Twelve-year-old Mohammed Al-Kujbahan was barely aware of Mack standing next to him. He sat, hunched over by the terrifying desolation from which he’d just emerged. He prayed over and over. Praise Allah, the One and Only God, Allah is His name. Allah had saved him from the darkness. He had pulled His miserable servant into the light.

  He looked up and saw Mack’s icy eyes staring down at him.

  “Mack?” he ventured, uncertainly. Why was Mack looking at him like that? Then someone bumped into Mack, hard enough to make him almost lose his balance. A snarl of rage twisted Mack’s face. He grabbed the stranger, fingers digging into his arms like talons.

  Panic in his eyes, the paunchy, middle-aged man froze in Mack’s grip.

  Mack’s rage had no plan or thought. Violent images filled his mind.

  “Sorry, sorry,” the man stammered. “I didn’t mean to, I—someone pushed, I—”

  Aware of others turning toward them in curiosity and apprehension, Mack pushed his fury down and fought for composure. He smiled.

  “No problem,” he said, and released the man. Glancing at the onlookers, he shrugged.

  Mack was still irritated. Stupid people, he thought. First they’re scared there’ll be a fight, then they’re disappointed when there isn’t. Maybe he should pick a fight, scare the shit out of them. His restlessness grew to an itch. He knew it had something to do with the new feelings that wanted out. Controlling them wasn’t easy. Harder yet, keeping a grasp on the fact that he should.

  Disoriented by this new balancing act he felt somehow bound to perform, he glanced around for distraction. He spotted a young man slouched against a pillar. He’d noticed him before. What was it about him? Something familiar.

  Mack wove through the crowd, toward the slouched figure. The young man looked up, looked right at him. Goddamn. Looks just like her. thought Mack. Laura’s younger brother, whom she’d often mentioned, whose photograph sat on Laura’s dresser. They had the same honey-tinted hair, brown eyes, red cheeks.

  Hiding his surprise, Mack struck up a conversation with the young man. An expert at small talk, at conjuring a veil of camaraderie, within minutes Mack had Conrad at ease.

  “Name’s Mack,” he said, inviting Conrad to follow him to where Mohammed was saving his seat.

  “Conrad Morgan,” said Conrad.

  It was impossible to move through the crowd without being jostled. Mack felt a new surge tightening his stomach, heating his limbs, but he managed to stem the eruption.

  It felt dangerous. And exciting.

  Whatever it was begged to be savored. Predatory impulses swirled through him. He was thinking, feeling differently. And he liked it.

  Conrad asked if Mack had heard anything about the next flight to the States. He’d been waiting in the airport for two days, he said, and had heard nothing but rumors.

  Mack ran a hand over his stubble. “Shouldn’t be too much longer. Be glad you weren’t in India when it hit, or Tunisia, like me.” He yanked open the zipper of his duffel, found his shaving kit.

  “I’ll be back,” said Mack. “Keep an eye on my stuff, would you?”

  Conrad was extremely tired. For the past three days, he’d been snatching sleep as he could. He dozed in Mack’s chair.

  And startled awake when his arm was joggled. Turning to the squirming figure next to him, he saw a skinny, dark boy with large brown, thickly lashed eyes who grinned and bobbed his head. The turban he wore fascinated Conrad.

  “Hello, hello,” the boy said in clipped syllables.

  “Hi. What’s your name?”

  “Mohammed. I em called Mohammed.”

  “Where’s your folks, Mohammed?” asked Conrad. “This group’s headed for New York. You sure you’re in the right place?”

  Mohammed tilted his head. “Please?” he said. He pecked his lips with tucked fingertips, “Slow, hah?”

  Conrad gestured toward the crowd. “We,” he said, speaking slowly, “are going in an airplane.” He flattened his hand and flew it over Mohammed’s head. “To America.”

  Mohammed brightened at the last word. “Yes,”

  he said excitedly, prodding a thumb into his chest. “America. I go. I go America, yes.”

  “Hey, Ali Baba, you hungry?” Mack asked, appearing before them. He spoke a few guttural words and Mohammed scampered off through the crowd. Food was being rationed by tired personnel and the queues were long. Mack sat in the vacated chair.

  “He’s with you?” Conrad inquired.

  Mack’s ice-blue eyes shone in his freshly shaven, tanned face. “Yup. Like I said, I was in Tunisia when this thing hit, at the edge of the desert. Ali Baba was one of the camel boys. His sister was trampled by the herd and I never found out how his mother died. His uncle was head of the family, but he disappeared.

  “I had a hell of a time getting out of there and it’d have taken me a lot longer if it wasn’t for Ali Baba.”

  Conrad barely listened, his thoughts on getting home. “What do you suppose we’ll find back in the States?”

  Mack shrugged. “More of the same. Where you headed?”

  “California.”

  Mack squinted at Conrad. It was like looking at Laura.

  She should have come with him, like he’d asked. She couldn’t leave her job, she’d said. He’d let it slide, but now, thinking of her refusal angered him.

  Conrad stared back at Mack, his strange eyes.

  “Tell you what, Conrad,” Mack said, abruptly. “We get to Kennedy, and it doesn’t look good, I’ll get you to California.”

  “How?”

  “I fly small craft,” Mack said, his smile hiding h
is thoughts. He couldn’t remember why he’d wanted Laura to come with him, only that she’d refused. Conrad looked like Laura, was related to Laura, but knew nothing of Mack’s relationship with her. He was intrigued by that. He couldn’t make a useful connection, yet. But he would.

  And then he’d use it.

  Two days later, Conrad and Mohammed sat in a commuter airport in upstate New York, guarding Mack’s three suitcases while Mack conferred with an old man in overalls. The small airport was virtually deserted, nothing like the chaotic mess their commercial flight from Munich had landed them in at Kennedy Airport Conrad glanced at Mack and saw him press something into the old man’s hand. The man nodded. Mack walked back to them.

  “Let’s go,” Mack said, lifting a suitcase.

  Conrad grabbed another suitcase, leaving the third for Mohammed. “Did you buy it?” he asked.

  “I sure as hell didn’t rent it.”

  The three went out the swinging door into an unseasonably warm fall day. The sky was hazed by smoke from forest fires, as it had been throughout their entire tortuous drive upstate over demolished roads.

  The plane was fueled and ready. As Conrad buckled himself into the copilot’s seat, he saw the old man give a halfhearted salute and limp back to the terminal.

  Conrad had never experienced a small plane. He tried to fathom the dials and gauges.

  Mack started the plane and Conrad felt his first doubt. “It sounds like a Volkswagen,” he commented. “Is this thing all right to fly?”

  Mack maneuvered the plane onto the runway. “That’s how they sound.”

  The small cabin filled with noise. The engine backfired and Conrad gripped his armrests with clammy hands. “Maybe this one needs a tune-up, or something,” he said nervously.

  As Mack accelerated down the runway, the gray strip blurred beneath the nose of the plane. Conrad was certain the tiny, shuddering aircraft wouldn’t leave the ground but would, instead, rattle apart into a million pieces. He squeezed his eyes shut, felt a terrifying lurch, and they were in the air, in a steep climb.

  Banking a wide turn, Mack settled into a cruising speed, scanning the sky for other aircraft. Flying was second nature to him, but now he couldn’t remember why he’d liked it. He shrugged it off. Who cared what he used to like? None of it had ever felt as good as those moments at the Munich airport.

  That hot exquisite ice.

  The panic in that man’s eyes when he’d grabbed him: It’s the fear I want, he realized. It tugged at that new feeling, and he wanted more than anything to feel that again. He bared his teeth, not realizing it wasn’t a smile anymore.

  Conrad took several deep breaths. Looking at the countryside far below, he saw plumes of smoke, roads dotted with smashed vehicles. He wished he felt safer.

  “What’s our first stop?” he asked. He didn’t see the hot look Mack shot him.

  “I don’t know,” Mack said. “Depends on a lot of things: runways, the amount of fuel we burn. We need to land somewhere we can refuel.”

  Conrad looked at Mack’s tanned profile, his muscular hands on the controls. What did he really know about Mack? That he dressed in a bush outfit. That he’d been in Tunisia during the blackout. That he had three suitcases he refused to leave behind.

  Conrad had no experience with unknowns like Mack. All his life, he’d known everyone around him, most of them ranchers like his parents. His friendly, cheerful personality had caused everyone to like him.

  He assumed Mack liked him, too.

  He swiveled around and looked at Mohammed. The boy’s presence said something good about Mack: he hadn’t abandoned the orphan.

  “Hey, Ali, whatcha think? Pretty cool, huh?” Conrad pointed out the window.

  Mohammed grinned and nodded. “Cool, Conrad.” He wasn’t sure what “cool” meant, but Conrad said it, so it must be good. Conrad was good. Mack had become frightening.

  Mohammed’s attention was on the gentle curve of the horizon that he intuitively understood; the earth was a giant orb. As they flew over a small town, he strained to see people, but the ground was too distant. No matter, he thought, enjoying the spread of forests and farmland. All of it, all of it is us.

  He wished he had the English for his new understanding. Had Conrad and Mack forgotten, like everyone he’d questioned back home had?

  And now, there was this new, more recent knowledge. Did anyone else know that the terrible darkness that struck everyone two days ago still yawned before them all, just on the other side of life? That the insurmountable void barred them from rejoining their source?

  Mohammed shivered. Surely Allah would fix it. Or maybe He would leave it up to them to find their own way.

  Mohammed knew he had to stay alive until the way was fixed, knew he would be forever lost if he fell into that void. He wondered sadly about his little sister, Aida. Had she made it across before the cold blackness swept in?

  CHAPTER 16

  MACK LANDED ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF KANSAS CITY, Missouri, at a private airstrip. He’d flown low above the runway several times to determine its safety before landing. When he cut the engine, the small cabin throbbed with silence.

  Jumping to the ground, Conrad stamped his feet to get his land-legs back and laughed at Mohammed, who was imitating his every move. Mack ignored them as he locked the plane and looked around. The light was fading. Across from the field was a farm, composed of a house, a barn, and several outbuildings, corrals, and fenced yards. At least four vehicles were parked between the house and barn, and the place appeared deserted; no lights, no smoke from the chimneys, no movement. He set off briskly.

  Conrad and Mohammed hurried after Mack. They were going to get a car, Mack had said, and go to town for food. As they crossed the field, the aroma of the soil reminded Conrad of home.

  By the time they reached the dirt road leading to the farmhouse, dusk had deepened to darkness. They approached the farmhouse and stopped in the front yard, a mere widening of the driveway.

  “Looks empty to me,” Conrad said.

  The bare windows gave the house a desolate look, a stark collection of cold, empty rooms.

  Mack moved to one of the cars parked alongside a decrepit fence. Removing a pencil-flashlight from his shirt pocket, he opened the door of the large, dusty vehicle and inspected the dash and ignition. He ducked back out and shut the door. “No keys,” he said as he moved to an old truck parked in front of the car.

  In the darkness, Conrad followed the narrow beam of light. “Keys? I thought you were going to hotwire it.”

  Mohammed plucked at his sleeve. “Conrad,” he said. “Haht-wire?”

  “Not now, Ali, it’s too hard to explain.”

  “Way cool.”

  “None here, either,” Mack said. “Why go through the trouble of hotwiring when we’re likely to find keys?” He walked toward the huge, weathered barn, and the two cars parked before it.

  The entrance to the barn was darker than the night. Edging around the cars, Conrad peered into the cavernous gloom. He sniffed the musty odor of old hay and motor oil.

  “Maybe there’s something in here, Mack.” The barn seemed to swallow his voice. Something rustled faintly in its depths before black darts flew over their heads. Conrad pinned himself against the wall.

  “Aieeee,” Mohammed screeched. He curled into a ball on the ground. Mack nudged him with his boot and he exploded to his feet with a cry.

  Mack laughed. “Lighten up, Ali Baba,” he said. “It’s only bats.”

  “Some country boy you are,” Mack said to Conrad.

  “I hate bats,” Conrad said. “And what makes you think I’m from the country?” How could Mack know that?

  Ignoring the question, Mack walked back toward the house. They hurried after him.

  Conrad held the screen door as Mack pushed the back door open and flashed his light into a small mudroom. An inner door stood ajar and they saw the linoleum flooring in the room beyond. A greasy pile of rags lay just inside the second doorway a
nd the sharp smell of gasoline filled the air.

  “Hello,” Mack called into the house. They listened to the silence. He stepped into the mudroom and inspected the wall just inside the door, shining the light in quick sweeps. “Bingo.”

  He flipped a switch and Conrad blinked in the sudden light.

  “Double bingo,” Mack said, reaching higher up on the wall. He removed a set of keys from a hook then stepped back out, knocking the screen door all the way back against the house, where he latched it with a dangling hook. “Whew. Those rags are potent. Don’t light a match, whatever you do. See if you can find any more keys while I check these out.” He trotted down the steps.

  “Come on, Ali,” said Conrad, and the two of them entered the house. Conrad stretched his hand around the second doorframe, seeking another switch. Mohammed stepped past him. They were both in the kitchen when he flipped on the lights.

  Conrad froze, hit by sickening odors mixed with the smell of gasoline. Outlined by the glaring overhead light, a woman stood five feet from them, fair hair matted around her face, eyes open so wide that her dark irises were ringed by white. She was shapeless beneath the stained blue shift she wore. Doughy arms braced a shotgun in front of her ample chest, its barrels aimed at them.

  She whispered harshly, “Come in, duckies, come in and sit down,” and smiled crookedly. Waving the gun in short circles, she motioned them to the table behind her. As she stepped aside, Conrad saw two seated corpses, portions of their faces replaced by glistening red tissue mingled with crushed bone and edged by ragged flesh. He moaned, not hearing Mohammed’s terror beside him. His eyes darted back to the woman.

  She stared greedily at him, nodding her head, her mouth open as she breathed loudly with excitement and rasped, “Dinner guests, ducky, dinner guests. Join them, join them, the more the merrier. Mom always said the more the merrier. Didn’t ya, Mom?” She grinned at the corpses, then swung her gaze quickly back to Conrad. “Mom loved to cook. But there’s no more to cook, no more roasts, no more chickens, no more pork chops. No more duckies, ducky.” She screeched a laugh, then jerked a hand to her mouth as she turned her head toward the yard.