Стивен Кинг. Клетка (engl)
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...ere locking-bars, but he had a toolbox in his garage," Tomsaid. "Alice used a wrench to break them off."
"They were cookies," Alice said modestly. "This was in the garage
behind the toolbox, wrapped in a piece of blanket. Is it what I think it
is?" She picked it up off the Ping-Pong table, holding it carefully by the
wire stock, and carried it over to Clay.
"Holy shit," he said. "This is . . ." He squinted at the embossing
above the trigger-guard. "I think it's Russian."
"I'm sure it is," Tom said. "Do you think it's a Kalashnikov?"
"You got me. Are there bullets that match it? In boxes that match the
printing on the gun, I mean?"
"Halfa dozen. Heavy boxes. It's a machine gun, isn't it?"
"You might as well call it that, I guess." Clay flicked a lever. "I'm
pretty sure one of these positions is single shot and the other is
autofire."
"How many rounds does it fire a minute?" Alice asked.
"I don't know," Clay said, "but I think it's rounds per second."
"Whoa." Her eyes got round. "Can you figure out how to shoot it?"
"Alice-- I'm pretty sure they teach sixteen-year-old farmboys how to
shoot these. Yes, I can figure it out. It might take a box of ammo, but I
can figure it out." Please God don't let it blow up in my hands, he thought.
"Is something like that legal in Massachusetts?" she asked.
"It is now, Alice," Tom said, not smiling. "Is it time to go?"
"Yes," she said, and then-- perhaps still not entirely comfortable
being the one to make the decisions-- she looked at Clay.
"Yes," he said. "North."
"Fine with me," Alice said.
"Yeah," Tom said. "North. Let's do it."
GAITEN ACADEMY
1
When rainy daylight arose the next morning, Clay, Alice, and Tom were
camped in the barn adjacent to an abandoned horse-farm in North Reading.
They watched from the door as the first groups of crazyfolk began to appear,
flocking southwest on Route 62 in the direction of Wilmington. Their clothes
looked uniformly soaked and shabby. Some were without shoes. By noon they
were gone. Around four, as the sun broke through the clouds in long, spoking
rays, they began flocking back in the direction from which they had come.
Many were munching as they walked. Some were helping those who were having a
hard time walking on their own. If there were acts of murder today, Clay,
Tom, and Alice did not see any.
Perhaps half a dozen of the crazies were lugging large objects that
looked familiar to Clay; Alice had found one in the closet of Tom's guest
bedroom. The three of them had stood around it, afraid to turn it on.
"Clay?" Alice asked. "Why are some of them carrying boomboxes?"
"I don't know," he said.
"I don't like it," Tom said. "I don't like the flocking behavior, I
don't like them helping each other, and I like seeing them with those big
portable sound-systems least of all."
"There's only a few with-- " Clay began.
"Check her out, right there," Tom interrupted, pointing to a
middle-aged woman who was staggering up Highway 62 with a radio/CD player
the size of a living room hassock cradled in her arms. She held it against
her breasts as though it were a sleeping toddler. Its power-cord had come
out of the little storage compartment in back and dragged beside her on the
road. "And you don't see any of them carrying lamps or toasters, do you?
What if they're programmed to set up battery-powered radios, turn them on,
and start broadcasting that tone, pulse, subliminal message, whatever-it-is?
What if they want to get the ones they missed the first time?"
They. The ever-popular paranoid they. Alice had produced her little
sneaker from somewhere and was squeezing it in her hand, but when she spoke,
her voice was calm enough. "I don't think that's it," she said.
"Why not?" Tom asked.
She shook her head. "I can't say. Just that it doesn't feel right."
"Woman's intuition?" He was smiling, but he wasn't sneering.
"Maybe," she said, "but I think one thing's obvious."
"What's that, Alice?" Clay asked. He had an idea what she was going to
say, and he was right.
"They're getting smarter. Not on their own, but because they're
thinking together. Probably that sounds crazy, but I think it's more likely
than them collecting a big pile of battery-powered FM suitcases to blast us
all into loony-land."
"Telepathic group-think," Tom said. He mulled it over. Alice watched
him do it. Clay, who had already decided she was right, looked out the barn
door at the last of the day. He was thinking they needed to stop somewhere
and pick up a road-atlas.
Tom was nodding. "Hey, why not? After all, that's probably what
flocking is: telepathic group-think."
"Do you really think so or are you just saying that to make me-- "
"I really think so," he said. He reached out and touched her hand,
which was now squeezing the little sneaker rapidly. "I really really do.
Give that thing a rest, will you?"
She gave him a fleeting, distracted smile. Clay saw it and thought
again how beautiful she was, how really beautiful. And how close to
breaking. "That hay looks soft and I'm tired. I think I'll take a nice long
nap."
"Get down with your bad self," Clay said.
2
Clay dreamed that he and Sharon and Johnny-Gee were having a picnic
behind their little house in Kent Pond. Sharon had spread her Navajo blanket
on the grass. They were having sandwiches and iced tea. Suddenly the day
went dark. Sharon pointed over Clay's shoulder and said, "Look! Telepaths!"
But when he turned that way, he saw nothing but a flock of crows, one so
huge it blotted out the sun. Then a tinkling began. It sounded like the
Mister Softee truck playing the Sesame Street theme song, but he knew it was
a ring-tone, and in his dream he was terrified. He turned back and
Johnny-Gee was gone. When he asked Sharon where he was-- already dreading,
already knowing the answer-- she said Johnny had gone under the blanket to
answer his cell phone. There was a bump in the blanket. Clay dove under,
into the overpowering smell of sweet hay, shouting for Johnny not to pick
up, not to answer, reaching for him and finding instead only the cold curve
of a glass ball: the paperweight he'd bought in Small Treasures, the one
with the haze of dandelion fluff floating deep down inside like a pocket
fog.
Then Tom was shaking him, telling him it was past nine by his watch,
the moon was up, and if they were going to do some more walking they ought
to get at it. Clay had never been so glad to wake up. On the whole, he
preferred dreams of the Bingo Tent.
Alice was looking at him oddly.
"What?" Clay said, checking to make sure their automatic weapon was
safetied-- that was already becoming second nature to him.
"You were talking in your sleep. You were saying, 'Don't answer it,
don't answer it.' "
"Nobody should have answered it," Clay said. "We all would have been
better off."
"Ah, but who can resist a ringing phone?" Tom asked. "And there goes
your ballgame."
"Thus spake fuckin Zarathustra," Clay said. Alice laughed until she
cried.
3
With the moon racing in and out of the clouds-- like an illustration in
a boy's novel of pirates and buried treasure, Clay thought-- they left the
horse-farm behind and resumed their walk north. That night they began to
meet others of their own kind again.
Because this is our time now, Clay thought, shifting the automatic
rifle from one hand to the other. Fully loaded, it was damned heavy. The
phone-crazies own the days; when the stars come out, that's us. We're like
vampires. We've been banished to the night. Up close we know each other
because we can still talk; at a little distance we can be pretty sure of
each other by the packs we wear and the guns more and more of us carry; but
at a distance, the one sure sign is the waving flashlight beam. Three days
ago we not only ruled the earth, we had survivor's guilt about all the other
species we'd wiped out on our climb to the nirvana of round-the-clock cable
news and microwave popcorn. Now we're the Flashlight People.
He looked over at Tom. "Where do they go?" he asked. "Where do the
crazies go after sundown?"
Tom gave him a look. "North Pole. All the elves died of mad reindeer
disease and these guys are helping out until the new crop shows up."
"Jesus," Clay said, "did someone get up on the wrong side of the
haystack tonight?"
But Tom still wouldn't smile. "I'm thinking about my cat," he said.
"Wondering if he's all right. No doubt you think that's quite stupid."
"No," Clay said, although, having a son and a wife to worry about, he
sort of did.
4
They got a road atlas in a card-and-book shop in the two-stoplight burg
of Ballardvale. They were now traveling north, and very glad they had
decided to stay in the more-or-less bucolic V between Interstates 93 and 95.
The other travelers they met-- most moving west, away from 1-95-- told of
horrendous traffic-jams and terrible wrecks. One of the few pilgrims who was
moving east said that a tanker had crashed near the Wakefield exit of 1-93
and the resulting fire had caused a chain of explosions that had incinerated
nearly a mile of northbound traffic. The stench, he said, was like "a
fish-fry in hell."
They met more Flashlight People as they trudged through the outskirts
of Andover and heard a rumor so persistent it was now repeated with the
assurance of fact: the New Hampshire border was closed. New Hampshire State
Police and special deputies were shooting first and asking questions
afterward. It didn't matter to them whether you were crazy or sane.
"It's just a new version of the fucking motto they've had on their
fucking license plates since forever," said a bitter-faced elderly man with
whom they walked for a while. He was wearing a small pack over his expensive
topcoat and carrying a long-barreled flashlight. Poking out of his topcoat
pocket was the butt of a handgun. "If you're in New Hampshire, you can live
free. If you want to come to New Hampshire, you can fucking die."
"That's just . . . really hard to believe," Alice said.
"Believe what you want, Missy," said their temporary companion. "I met
some people who tried to go north like you folks, and they turned back south
in a hurry when they saw some people shot out of hand trying to cross into
New Hampshire north of Dunstable."
"When?" Clay asked.
"Last night."
Clay thought of several other questions, but held his tongue instead.
At Andover, the bitter-faced man and most of the other people with whom they
had been sharing their vehicle-clogged (but passable) route turned onto
Highway 133, toward Lowell and points west. Clay, Tom, and Alice were left
on Andover's main street-- deserted except for a few flashlight-waving
foragers-- with a decision to make.
"Do you believe it?" Clay asked Alice.
"No," she said, and looked at Tom.
Tom shook his head. "Me either. I thought the guy's story had an
alligators-in-the-sewers feel to it."
Alice was nodding. "News doesn't travel that fast anymore. Not without
phones."
"Yep," Tom said. "Definitely the next-generation urban myth. Still, we
are talking about what a friend of mine likes to call New Hamster.
Which is why I think we should cross the border at the most
out-of-the-way spot we can find."
"Sounds like a plan," Alice said, and with that they moved on again,
using the sidewalk as long as they were in town and there was a sidewalk to
use.
5
On the outskirts of Andover, a man with a pair of flashlights rigged in
a kind of harness (one light at each temple) stepped out through the broken
display window of the IGA. He waved to them in companionable fashion, then
picked a course toward them between a jumble of shopping carts, dropping
canned goods into what looked like a newsboy's pouch as he walked. He
stopped beside a pickup truck lying on its side, introduced himself as Mr.
Roscoe Handt of Methuen, and asked where they were going. When Clay told
them Maine, Handt shook his head.
"New Hampshire border's closed. I met two people not half an hour ago
who got turned back. He said they're trying to tell the difference between
the phone-crazies and people like us, but they're not trying too hard."
"Did these two people actually see this with their own eyes?" Tom
asked.
Roscoe Handt looked at Tom as though he might be crazy. "You got to
trust the word of others, man," he said. "I mean, you can't exactly phone
someone up and ask for verification, can you?" He paused. "They're burning
the bodies at Salem and Nashua, that's what these folks told me. And it
smells like a pig-roast. They told me that, too. I've got a party of five
I'm taking west, and we want to make some miles before sunup. The way west
is open."
"That the word you're hearing, is it?" Clay asked.
Handt looked at him with mild contempt. "That's the word, all right.
And a word to the wise is sufficient, my ma used to say. If you really mean
to go north, make sure you get to the border in the middle of the night. The
crazies don't go out after dark."
"We know," Tom said.
The man with the flashlights affixed to the sides of his head ignored
Tom and went on talking to Clay. He had pegged Clay as the trio's leader.
"And they don't carry flashlights. Wave your flashlights back and forth.
Talk. Yell. They don't do those things, either. I doubt the people at the
border will let you through, but if you're lucky, they won't shoot you,
either."
"They're getting smarter," Alice said. "You know that, don't you, Mr.
Handt?"
Handt snorted. "They're traveling in packs and they're not killing each
other anymore. I don't know if that makes them smarter or not. But they're
still killing us, I know that."
Handt must have seen doubt on Clay's face, because he smiled. His
flashlights turned it into something unpleasant.
"I saw them catch a woman out this morning," he said. "With my own
eyes, okay?"
Clay nodded. "Okay."
"I think I know why she was on the street. This was in Topsfield, about
ten miles east of here? Me and my people, we were in a Motel 6. She was
walking that way. Only not really walking. Hurrying. Almost running. Looking
back over her shoulder. I saw her because I couldn't sleep." He shook his
head. "Getting used to sleeping days is a bitch."
Clay thought of telling Handt they'd all get used to it, then didn't.
He saw Alice was holding her talisman again. He didn't want Alice hearing
this and knew there was no way to keep her from it. Partly because it was
survival information (and unlike the stuff about the New Hampshire state
line, he was almost positive this was solid information); partly because the
world was going to be full of stories like this for a while. If they
listened to enough of them, some might eventually begin to line up and make
patterns.
"Probably just looking for a better place to stay, you know? No more
than that. Saw the Motel 6 and thought, 'Hey, a room with a bed. Right up
there by the Exxon station. Only a block away' But before she got even
halfway, a bunch of them came around the corner. They were walking . . . you
know how they walk now?"
Roscoe Handt walked toward them stiffly, like a tin soldier, with his
newsboy's bag swinging. That wasn't how the phone-crazies walked, but they
knew what he was trying to convey and nodded.
"And she . . ." He leaned back against the overturned truck and
scrubbed briefly at his face with his hands. "This is what I want you to
understand, okay? This is why you can't get caught out, can't get fooled
that they're getting normal because every now and then one or two of them
has lucked into hitting the right controls on a boombox and started a CD
playing-- "
"You've seen that?" Tom asked. "Heard that?"
"Yeah, twice. Second guy I saw was walking along, swinging the thing
from side to side so hard in his arms that it was skipping like hell, but
yeah, it was playing. So they like music, and sure, they might be retrieving
some of their marbles, but that's exactly why you have to be careful, see?"
"What happened to the woman?" Alice asked. "The one who got caught
out?"
"She tried to act like one of them," Handt said. "And I thought,
standing there at the window of the room where I was, I thought, 'Yeah, you
go, girl, you might have a chance if you can hang on to that act a little
while and then make a break, get inside somewhere.' Because they don't like
to go inside places, have you noticed that?"
Clay, Tom, and Alice shook their heads.
The man nodded. "They will, I've seen em do it, but they don't like
to."
"How did they get on to her?" Alice asked again.
"I don't exactly know. They smelled her, or something."
"Or maybe touched her thoughts," Tom said.
"Or couldn't touch them," Alice said.
"I don't know about any of that," Handt said, "but I know they tore her
apart in the street. I mean literally tore her to pieces."
"And this happened when?" Clay asked. He saw Alice was swaying and put
an arm around her.
"Nine this morning. In Topsfield. So if you see a bunch of them walking
up the Yella Brick Road with a boombox that's playing 'Why Can't We Be
Friends' . . ." He surveyed them grimly by the glow of the flashlights
strapped to the sides of his head. "I wouldn't go running out yelling kemo
sake, that's all." He paused. "And I wouldn't go north, either. Even if they
don't shoot you at the border, it's a waste of time."
But after a little consultation at the edge of the IGA parking lot,
they went north anyway.
6
They paused near North Andover, standing on a pedestrian overpass above
Route 495. The clouds were thickening again, but the moon broke through long
enough to show them six lanes of silent traffic. Near the bridge where they
stood, in the southbound lanes, an overturned sixteen-wheeler lay like a
dead elephant. Orange pylons had been set up around it, showing that someone
had made at least a token response, and there were two abandoned police
cruisers beyond them, one on its side. The rear half of the truck had been
burned black. There was no sign of bodies, not in the momentary moonlight. A
few people labored westward in the breakdown lane, but it was slow going
even there.
"Kind of makes it all real, doesn't it?" Tom said.
"No," Alice said. She sounded indifferent. "To me it looks like a
special effect in some big summer movie. Buy a bucket of popcorn and a Coke
and watch the end of the world in . . .what do they call it? Computer
graphic imaging? CGI? Blue screens? Some fucking thing." She held up the
little sneaker by one lace. "This is all I need to make it real. Something
small enough to hold in my hand. Come on, let's go."
7
There were plenty of abandoned vehicles on Highway 28, but it was
wide-open compared to 495, and by four o'clock they were nearing Methuen,
hometown of Mr. Roscoe Handt, he of the stereo flashlights. And they
believed enough of Handt's story to want to be under cover well before
daylight. They chose a motel at the intersection of 28 and 110. A dozen or
so cars were parked in front of the various units, but to Clay they had an
abandoned feel. And why wouldn't they? The two roads were passable, but only
if you were on foot. Clay and Tom stood at the edge of the parking lot,
waving their flashlights over their heads.
"We're okay!" Tom called. "Normal folks! Coming in!"
They waited. There was no response from what the sign identified as the
Sweet Valley Inn, Heated Pool, HBO, Group Rates.
"Come on," Alice said. "My feet hurt. And it'll be getting light soon,
won't it?"
"Look at this," Clay said. He picked up a CD from the motel's turn-in
and shone the beam of his flashlight on it. It was Love Songs, by Michael
Bolton.
"And you said they were getting smarter," Tom said.
"Don't be so quick to judge," Clay said as they started toward the
units. "Whoever had it threw it away, right?"
"More likely just dropped it," Tom said.
Alice shone her own light on the CD. "Who is this guy?"
"Honeybunch," Tom said, "you don't want to know." He took the CD and tossed
it back over his shoulder.
They forced the doors on three adjoining units-- as gently as possible,
so they could at least shoot the bolts once they were inside-- and with beds
to sleep in, they slept most of the day away. They were not disturbed,
although that evening Alice said she thought she had heard music coming from
far away. But, she admitted, it might have been part of a dream she was
having.
8
There were maps for sale in the lobby of the Sweet Valley Inn that
would offer more detail than their road atlas. They were in a glass display
cabinet that had been smashed. Clay took one for Massachusetts and one for
New Hampshire, reaching in carefully so as not to cut his hand, and saw a
young man lying on the other side of the reception counter as he did so. His
eyes glared sightlessly. For a moment Clay thought someone had put an oddly
colored corsage in the corpse's mouth. Then he saw the greenish points
poking out through the dead man's cheeks and realized they matched the
broken glass littering the shelves of the display cabinet. The corpse was
wearing a nametag that said my name is hank ask me about weekly rates. Clay
thought briefly of Mr. Ricardi as he looked at Hank.
Tom and Alice were waiting for him just inside the lobby door. It was
quarter of nine, and outside it was full dark. "How did you do?" Alice
asked.
"These may help," he said. He gave her the maps, then lifted the
Coleman lantern so she and Tom could study them, compare them against the
road atlas, and plot the night's travel. He was trying to cultivate a sense
of fatalism about Johnny and Sharon, trying to keep the bald truth of his
current family situation front and center in his mind: what had happened in
Kent Pond had happened. His son and his wife were either all right or they
weren't. He would either find them or he wouldn't. His success at this sort
of semi-magical thinking came and went.
When it started slipping, he told himself he was lucky to be alive, and
this was certainly true. What balanced his good luck out was that he'd been
in Boston, a hundred miles south of Kent Pond by even the quickest route
(which they were definitely not taking), when the Pulse happened. And yet
he'd fallen in with good people. There was that. People he could think of as
friends. He'd seen plenty of others-- Beer-Keg Guy and Plump Bible-Toting
Lady as well as Mr. Roscoe Handt of Methuen-- who weren't as lucky.
If he got to you, Share, if Johnny got to you, you better be taking
care of him. You just better be.
But suppose he'd had his phone? Suppose he'd taken the red cell phone
to school? Might he not have been taking it a little more often lately?
Because so many of the other kids took theirs?
Christ.
"Clay? You all right?" Tom asked.
"Sure. Why?"
"I don't know. You looked a little . . . grim."
"Dead guy behind the counter. He's not pretty."
"Look here," Alice said, tracing a thread on the map. It squiggled
across the state line and then appeared to join New Hampshire Route 38 a
little east of Pelham. "That looks pretty good to me," she said. "If we go
west on the highway out there for eight or nine miles"-- she pointed at 110,
where both the cars and the tar were gleaming faintly in a misty drizzle--
"we should hit it. What do you think?"
"I think that sounds good," Tom said.
She looked from him to Clay. The little sneaker was put away-- probably
in her backpack-- but Clay could see her wanting to squeeze it. He supposed
it was good she wasn't a smoker, she'd be up to four packs a day. "If
they've got the way across guarded-- " she began.
"We'll worry about that if we have to," Clay said, but he wasn't
worrying. One way or another, he was getting to Maine. If it meant crawling
through some puckerbrush, like an illegal crossing the Canadian border to
pick apples in October, he would do it. If Tom and Alice decided to stay
behind, that would be too bad. He'd be sorry to leave them . . . but he
would go. Because he had to know.
The red squiggle Alice had found on the Sweet Valley maps had a name--
Dostie Stream Road-- and it was almost wide-open. It was a four-mile hike to
the state line, and they came upon no more than five or six abandoned
vehicles and only a single wreck. They also passed two houses where they
could see lights and hear the roar of generators. They considered stopping
at these, but not for long.
"We'd probably get into a firefight with some guy defending his hearth
and home," Clay said. "Always assuming there's anyone there. Those
generators were probably set to come on when the county juice failed, and
they'll run until they're out of gas."
"Even if there are sane people and they let us in, which would hardly
be a sane act, what are we going to do?" Tom said. "Ask to use the phone?"
They discussed stopping somewhere and trying to liberate a vehicle
(liberate was Tom's word), but in the end decided against that, too. If the
state line was being defended by deputies or vigilantes, driving up to it in
a Chevy Tahoe might not be the smoothest move.
So they walked, and of course there was nothing at the state line but a
billboard (a small one, as befitted a two-lane blacktop road winding through
farm country) reading YOU ARE NOW ENTERING NEW HAMPSHIRE and bienvenue!
There was no sound but the drip of moisture in the woods on either side of
them, and an occasional sigh of breeze. Maybe the rustle of an animal. They
stopped briefly to read the sign and then walked on, leaving Massachusetts
behind.
9
Any sense of being alone ended along with the Dostie Stream Road, at a
signpost reading NH ROUTE 38 and MANCHESTER 19 MI. There were still only a
few travelers on 38, but when they switched to 128-- a wide, wreck-littered
road that headed almost due north-- half an hour later, that trickle became
part of a steady stream of refugees. They traveled mostly in little groups
of three and four, and with what struck Clay as a rather shabby lack of
interest in anyone other than themselves.
They encountered a woman of about forty and a man maybe twenty years
older pushing shopping carts, each containing a child. The one in the man's
cart was a boy, and too big for the conveyance, but he had found a way to
curl up inside and fall asleep. While Clay and his party were passing this
jackleg family, a wheel came off the man's shopping cart. It tipped
sideways, spilling out the boy, who looked about seven. Tom caught him by
the shoulder and broke the worst of the kid's fall, but he scraped one knee.
And of course he was frightened. Tom picked him up, but the boy didn't know
him and struggled to get away, crying harder than ever.
"That's okay, thanks, I've got him," the man said. He took the child
and sat down at the side of the road with him, where he made much of what he
called the boo-boo, a term Clay didn't think he'd heard since he was seven.
The man said, "Gregory kiss it, make it all better." He kissed the child's
scrape, and the boy laid his head against the man's shoulder. He was already
going to sleep again. Gregory smiled at Tom and Clay and nodded. He looked
weary almost to death, a man who might have been a trim and Nautilus-toned
sixty last week and now looked like a seventy-five-year-old Jew trying to
get the hell out of Poland while there was still time.
"We'll be all right," he said. "You can go now."
Clay opened his mouth to say, Why shouldn't we all go on together? Why
don't we hook up? What do you think, Greg? It was the sort of thing the
heroes of the science fiction novels he'd read as a teenager were always
saying: Why don't we hook up?
"Yeah, go on, what are you waiting for?" the woman asked before he
could say that or anything else. In her shopping cart a girl of about five
still slept. The woman stood beside the cart protectively, as if she had
grabbed some fabulous sale item and was afraid Clay or one of his friends
might try to wrest it from her. "You think we got something you want?"
"Natalie, stop," Gregory said with tired patience.
But Natalie didn't, and Clay realized what was so dispiriting about
this little scene. Not that he was getting his lunch-- his midnight lunch--
fed to him by a woman whose exhaustion and terror had led to paranoia; that
was understandable and forgivable. What made his spirits sink to his
shoetops was the way people just kept on walking, swinging their
flashlights, and talking low among themselves in their own little groups,
swapping the occasional suitcase from one hand to the other. Some yob on a
pocket-rocket motorbike wove his way up the road between the wrecks and over
the litter, and people made way for him, muttering resentfully. Clay thought
it would have been the same if the little boy had fallen out of the shopping
cart and broken his neck instead of just scraping his knee. He thought it
would have been the same if that heavyset guy up there panting along the
side of the road with an overloaded duffelbag dropped with a thunderclap
coronary. No one would try to resuscitate him, and of course the days of 911
were done.
No one even bothered to yell You tell im, lady! or Hey dude, why don't
you tell her to shut up? They just went on walking.
"-- cause all we got is these kids, a responsibility we didn't ask for
when we can hardly take care of ourselfs, he has a pacemaker, what are we
supposed to do when the baddery runs out, I'd like to know? And now these
kids! You want a kid?" She looked around wildly. "Hey! Anyone want a kid?"
The little girl began to stir.
"Natalie, you're disturbing Portia," Gregory said.
The woman named Natalie began to laugh. "Well tough shitl It's a
disturbing-ass world!" Around them, people continued doing the Refugee Walk.
No one paid any attention and Clay thought, So this is how we act. This is
how it goes when the bottom drops out. When there are no cameras turning, no
buildings burning, no Anderson Cooper saying "Now back to the CNN studios in
Atlanta." This is how it goes when Homeland Security's been canceled due to
lack of sanity.
"Let me take the boy," Clay said. "I'll carry him until you find
something better to put him in. That cart's shot." He looked at Tom. Tom
shrugged and nodded.
"Stay away from us," Natalie said, and all at once there was a gun in
her hand. It wasn't a big one, probably only a .22, but even a .22 would do
the job if the bullet went in the right place.
Clay heard the sound of guns being drawn on either side of him and knew
that Tom and Alice were now pointing the pistols they'd taken from the
Nickerson home at the woman named Natalie. This was also how it went, it
seemed.
"Put it away, Natalie," he said. "We're going to get moving now."
"You're double-fuckin right you are," she said, and brushed an errant
lock of hair out of her eye with the heel of her free hand. She didn't seem
to be aware that the young man and younger woman with Clay were holding guns
on her. Now people passing by did look, but their only response was to move
past the spot of confrontation and potential bloodshed a little faster.
"Come on, Clay," Alice said quietly. She put her free hand on his
wrist. "Before someone gets shot."
They started walking again. Alice walked with her hand on Clay's wrist,
almost as if he were her boyfriend. Just a little midnight stroll, Clay
thought, although he had no idea of what time it was and didn't care. His
heart was beating hard. Tom walked with them, only until they were around
the next curve he walked backward, with his gun still out. Clay supposed Tom
wanted to be ready to shoot back if Natalie decided to use her little popgun
after all. Because shooting back was also how it went, now that phone
service had been interrupted until further notice.
10
In the hours before dawn, walking on Route 102 east of Manchester, they
began to hear music, very faint.
"Christ," Tom said, coming to a stop. "That's 'Baby Elephant Walk.' "
"It's what?" Alice asked. She sounded amused.
"A big-band instrumental from the age of quarter gas. Les Brown and His
Band of Renown, someone like that. My mother had the record."
Two men pulled even with them and stopped for a blow. They were
elderly, but both looked fit. Like a couple of recently retired postmen
hiking the Cotswolds, Clay thought. Wherever they are. One wore a pack-- no
pussy day-pack, either, but the waist-length kind on a frame-- and the other
had a rucksack hanging from his right shoulder. Hung over the left was what
looked like a .30-.30.
Packsack wiped sweat from his seamed forehead with a forearm and said,
"Your mama might have had a version by Les Brown, son, but more likely it
was Don Costa or Henry Mancini. Those were the popular ones. That one"-- he
inclined his head toward the ghostly strains-- "that's Lawrence Welk, as I
live and breathe."
"Lawrence Welk," Tom breathed, almost in awe.
"Who?" Alice asked
"Listen to that elephant walk," Clay said, and laughed. He was tired
and feeling goofy. It occurred to him that Johnny would love that music.
Packsack gave him a glance of passing contempt, then looked back at
Tom. "That's Lawrence Welk, all right," he said. "My eyes aren't half-right
anymore, but my ears are fine. My wife and I used to watch his show every
fucking Saturday night."
"Dodge had a good time, too," Rucksack said. It was his only addition
to the conversation, and Clay hadn't the slightest idea what it meant.
"Lawrence Welk and his Champagne Band," Tom said. "Think of it."
"Lawrence Welk and his Champagne Music Makers," Packsack said. "Jesus
Christ."
"Don't forget the Lennon Sisters and the lovely Alice Lon," Tom said.
In the distance, the ghostly music changed. "That one's 'Calcutta,' "
Packsack said. He sighed. "Well, we'll be getting along. Nice passing the
time of day with you."
"Night," Clay said.
"Nope," Packsack said. "These're our days now. Haven't you noticed?
Have a good one, boys. You too, little ma'am."
"Thank you," the little ma'am standing between Clay and Tom said
faintly.
Packsack started along again. Rucksack fell sturdily in beside him.
Around them, a steady parade of bobbing flashlight beams led people deeper
into New Hampshire. Then Packsack stopped and looked back for a final word.
"You don't want to be on the road more than another hour," he said.
"Find a house or motel unit and get inside. You know about the shoes,
right?"
"What about the shoes?" Tom asked.
Packsack looked at him patiently, the way he'd probably look at anyone
who couldn't help being a fool. Far down the road, "Calcutta"-- if that's
what it was-- had given way to a polka. It sounded insane in the foggy,
drizzly night. And now this old man with the big pack on his back was
talking about shoes.
"When you go inside a place, you put your shoes out on the stoop,"
Packsack said. "The crazy ones won't take them, don't worry about that, and
it tells other people the place is taken and to move along, find another.
Saves"-- his eyes dropped to the heavy automatic weapon Clay was carrying--
"Saves accidents."
"Have there been accidents?" Tom asked.
"Oh yes," Packsack said, with chilling indifference. "There's always
accidents, people being what they are. But there's plenty of places, so
there's no need for you to have one. Just put out your shoes."
"How do you know that?" Alice asked.
He gave her a smile that improved his face out of all measure. But it
was hard not to smile at Alice; she was young, and even at three in the
morning, she was pretty. "People talk; I listen. I talk, sometimes other
folks listen. Did you listen?"
"Yes," Alice said. "Listening's one of my best things."
"Then pass it on. Bad enough to have them to contend with." He didn't
have to be more specific. "Too bad to have accidents among ourselves on top
of that."
Clay thought of Natalie pointing the .22. He said, "You're right. Thank
you."
Tom said, "That one's 'The Beer Barrel Polka,' isn't it?"
"That's right, son," Packsack said. "Myron Floren on the squeezebox.
God rest his soul. You might want to stop in Gaiten. It's a nice little
village two miles or so up the road."
"Is that where you're going to stay?" Alice asked.
"Oh, me and Rolfe might push on a dight farther," he said.
"Why?"
"Because we can, little ma'am, that's all. You have a good day."
This time they didn't contradict him, and although the two men had to
be pushing seventy, they were soon out of sight, following the beam of a
single flashlight, which Rucksack-- Rolfe-- held.
"Lawrence Welk and his Champagne Music Makers," Tom marveled.
" 'Baby Elephant Walk,' " Clay said, and laughed.
"Why did Dodge have a good time, too?" Alice wanted to know.
"Because it could, I guess," Tom said, and burst out laughing at her
perplexed expression.
11
The music was coming from Gaiten, the nice little village Packsack had
recommended as a place to stop. It was not nearly as loud as the AC/DC
concert Clay had gone to in Boston as a teenager-- that had left his ears
ringing for days-- but it was loud enough to make him think of summer band
concerts he'd attended in South Berwick with his parents. In fact he had it
in his mind that they would discover the source of the music on the Gaiten
town common-- likely some elderly person, not a phone-crazy but
disaster-addled, who had taken it into his head to serenade the ongoing
exodus with easy-listening oldies played through a set of battery-powered
loudspeakers.
There was a Gaiten town common, but it was deserted save for a few
people eating either a late supper or an early breakfast by the glow of
flashlights and Coleman lanterns. The source of the music was a little
farther to the north. By then Lawrence Welk had given way to someone blowing
a horn so mellow it was soporific.
"That's Wynton Marsalis, isn't it?" Clay asked. He was ready to call it
quits for the night and thought Alice looked done almost to death.
"Him or Kenny G," Tom said. "You know what Kenny G said when he got off
the elevator, don't you?"
"No," Clay said, "but I'm sure you'll tell me."
" 'Man! This place rocks!' "
Clay said, "That's so funny I think my sense of humor just imploded."
"I don't get it," Alice said.
"It's not worth explaining," Tom said. "Listen, guys, we've got to call
it a night. I'm about kilt."
"Me too," Alice said. "I thought I was in shape from soccer, but I'm
really tired."
"Yeah," Clay agreed. "Baby makes three."
They had already passed through Gaiten's shopping district, and
according to the signs, Main Street-- which was also Route 102-- had now
become Academy Avenue. This was no surprise to Clay, because the sign on the
outskirts of town had proclaimed Gaiten home to Historic Gaiten Academy, an
institution of which Clay had heard vague rumors. He thought it was one of
those New England prep schools for kids who can't quite make it into Exeter
or Milton. He supposed the three of them would be back in the land of Burger
Kings, muffler-repair shops, and chain motels soon enough, but this part of
New Hampshire 102 was lined with very nice-looking homes. The problem was,
there were shoes-- sometimes as many as four pairs-- in front of most of the
doors.
The foot-traffic had thinned considerably as other travelers found
shelter for the coming day, but as they passed Academy Grove Citgo and
approached the fieldstone pillars flanking Gaiten Academy's entrance drive,
they began to catch up to a trio just ahead: two men and a woman, all well
into middle age. As these three walked slowly up the sidewalk, they
inspected each house for one without shoes placed at the front door. The
woman was limping badly, and one of the men had his arm around her waist.
Gaiten Academy was on the left, and Clay realized this was where the
music (currently a droning, string-laden version of "Fly Me to the Moon")
was coming from. He noticed two other things. One was that the road-litter
here-- torn bags, half-eaten vegetables, gnawed bones-- was especially
heavy, and that most of it turned in at the gravel Academy drive. The other
was that two people were standing there. One was an old man hunched over a
cane. The other was a boy with a battery-powered lantern parked between his
shoes. He looked no more than twelve and was dozing against one of the
pillars. He was wearing what looked like a school uniform: gray pants, gray
sweater, a maroon jacket with a crest on it.
As the trio ahead of Clay and his friends drew abreast of the Academy
drive, the old man-- dressed in a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows--
spoke to them in a piercing,
I-will-be-heard-all-the-way-to-the-back-of-the-lecture-hall voice. "Hi,
there! Hi, I say! Won't you come in here? We can offer you shelter, but more
importantly, we have to-- "
"We don't have to anything, mister," the woman said. "I got four burst
blisters, two on each foot, and I can hardly walk."
"But there's plenty of room-- " the old fellow began. The man
supporting the woman gave him a look that must have been unpleasant, because
the old fellow stopped. The trio went past the drive and the pillars and the
sign on old-fashioned iron S-hooks reading GAITEN ACADEMY EST. 1846 "A Young
Mind Is A Lamp In The Darkness."
The old fellow slumped over his cane again, then saw Clay, Tom, and
Alice approaching and straightened up once more. He seemed about to hail
them, then apparently decided his lecture-hall approach wasn't working. He
poked his companion in the ribs with the tip of his cane instead. The boy
straightened up with a wild look as behind them, where brick buildings
loomed in the dark along the slope of a mild hill, "Fly Me to the Moon" gave
way to an equally sluggish rendition of something that might once have been
"I Get a Kick out of You."
"Jordan!" he said. "Your turn! Ask them in!"
The boy named Jordan started, blinked at the old man, then looked at
the new trio of approaching strangers with gloomy mistrust. Clay thought of
the March Hare and the Dormouse in Alice in Wonderland. Maybe that was
wrong-- probably it was-- but he was very tired. "Aw, they won't be any
different, sir," he said. "They won't come in. Nobody will. We'll try again
tomorrow night. I'm sleepy."
And Clay knew that, tired or not, they were going to find out what the
old man wanted . . . unless Tom and Alice absolutely refused, that was.
Partly because the old man's companion reminded him of Johnny, yes, but
mostly because the kid had made up his mind that no one was going to help in
this not-very-brave new world-- he and the one he called sir were on their
own because that was just how it went. Only if that were true, pretty soon
there wouldn't be anything worth saving.
"Go on," the old man encouraged him. He prodded Jordan with the tip of
his cane again, but not hard. Not painfully. "Tell them we can give them
shelter, we have plenty of room, but they ought to see, first. Someone needs
to see this. If they also say no, we will indeed give up for the night."
"All right, sir."
The old man smiled, exposing a mouthful of large horse-teeth. "Thank
you, Jordan."
The boy walked toward them with absolutely no relish, his dusty shoes
scuffing, his shirttail hanging below the hem of his sweater. He held his
lantern in one hand, and it fizzed faintly. There were dark up-all-night
circles under his eyes, and his hair badly needed washing.
"Tom?" Clay asked.
"We'll see what he wants," Tom said, "because I can see it's what you
want, but-- "
"Sirs? Pardon me, sirs?"
"One second," Tom said to the boy, then turned back to Clay. His face
was grave. "But it's going to start getting light in an hour. Maybe less. So
that old guy better be right about there being a place for us to stay."
"Oh, yes, sir," Jordan said. He looked like he didn't want to hope and
couldn't help it. "Lots of places. Hundreds of dorm rooms, not to mention
Cheatham Lodge. Tobias Wolff came last year and stayed there. He gave a
lecture on his book, Old School."
"I read that," Alice said, sounding bemused.
"The boys who didn't have cell phones have all run off. The ones who
did have them . . ."
"We know about them," Alice said.
"I'm a scholarship boy. I lived in Holloway. I didn't have a cell
phone. I had to use the dorm mother's phone whenever I wanted to call home
and the other boys would make fun of me."
"Looks to me like you got the last laugh there, Jordan," Tom said.
"Yes, sir," he said dutifully, but in the light of his fizzing lantern
Clay saw no laughter, only woe and weariness. "Won't you please come and
meet the Head?"
And although he had to be very tired himself, Tom responded with
complete politeness, as if they had been standing on a sunny veranda-- at a
Parents' Tea, perhaps-- instead of on the trash-littered verge of Academy
Avenue at four-fifteen in the morning. "That would be our pleasure, Jordan,"
he said.
12
"The devil's intercoms is what I used to call them," said Charles
Ardai, who had been chairman of Gaiten Academy's English Department for
twenty-five years and acting Headmaster of the Academy entire at the time of
the Pulse. Now he stumped with surprising rapidity up the hill on his cane,
keeping to the sidewalk, avoiding the river of swill that carpeted Academy
Drive. Jordan walked watchfully beside him, the other three behind him.
Jordan was worried about the old man losing his balance. Clay was worried
that the man might have a heart attack, trying to talk and climb a hill--
even a relatively mild one like this-- at the same time.
"I never really meant it, of course; it was a joke, a jape, a comic
exaggeration, but in truth, I never liked the things, especially in an
academic environment. I might have moved to keep them out of the school, but
naturally I would have been overruled. Might as well try to legislate
against the rising of the tide, eh?" He puffed rapidly several times. "My
brother gave me one for my sixty-fifth birthday. I ran the thing flat . . ."
Puff, pant. "And simply never recharged it. They emit radiation, are you
aware of this? In minuscule amounts, it's true, but still. . . a source of
radiation that close to one's head . . . one's brain . . ."
"Sir, you should wait until we get to Tonney," Jordan said. He steadied
Ardai as the Head's cane slid on a rotten piece of fruit and he listed
momentarily (but at an alarming angle) to port.
"Probably a good idea," Clay said.
"Yes," the Head agreed. "Only . . . I never trusted them, this is my
point. I was never that way with my computer. Took to that like a duck to
water."
At the top of the hill, the campus's main road split in a Y The left
fork wound its way to buildings that were almost surely dorms. The right one
went toward lecture halls, a cluster of administration buildings, and an
archway that glimmered white in the dark. The river of garbage and discarded
wrappers flowed beneath it. Headmaster Ardai led them that way, skirting as
much of the litter as he could, Jordan holding his elbow. The music-- now
Bette Midler, singing "Wind Beneath My Wings"-- was coming from beyond the
arch, and Clay saw dozens of discarded compact discs among the bones and
empty potato chip bags. He was starting to get a bad feeling about this.
"Uh, sir? Headmaster? Maybe we should just-- "
"We'll be fine," the Head replied. "Did you ever play musical chairs as
a child? Of course you did. Well, as long as the music doesn't stop, we have
nothing to worry about. We'll have a quick peek, and then we'll go over to
Cheatham Lodge. That's the Headmaster's residence. Not two hundred yards
from Tonney Field. I promise you."
Clay looked at Tom, who shrugged. Alice nodded.
Jordan happened to be looking back at them (rather anxiously), and he
caught this collegial interplay. "You ought to see it," he told them. "The
Head's right about that. Until you see it, you don't know."
"See what, Jordan?" Alice asked.
But Jordan only looked at her-- big young eyes in the dark. "Wait," he
said.
13
"Holy fucking shit," Clay said. In his mind the words sounded like a
full-throated bellow of surprise and horror-- with maybe a soupзon of
outrage-- but what actually emerged was more of a whipped whimper. Part of
it might have been that this close the music was a...
