HAD AN E-MAIL FROM SAN FRANCISCO: BIG BREAKTHROUGH ON STUDIES OF THE INFECTED LUNG THERE. THEY’VE GOT TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE IN THE PRESIDIO WHO HAVE HAD DRACO INCENDIA TRYCHOPHYTON FOR THREE MONTHS OR LONGER, AND NINE OF THEM SHOW EVIDENCE OF THE SAME SKILLS THE FIREMAN HAS DEMONSTRATED: LIMITED IMMUNITY FROM BURNS, AN ABILITY TO SELECTIVELY LIGHT THEMSELVES ON FIRE, CONTROLLED PROJECTION OF FLAME. IN THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY, THESE PEOPLE ARE CALLED PYROMANCERS. NOW THERE’S A SUGGESTION THAT ALL OF THE PYROMANCERS, AND MANY OF THE OTHER LONG-TERM CASES, CAN ENDURE LEVELS OF SMOKE THAT WOULD KILL MOST PEOPLE.
OF COURSE WE’VE KNOWN FOR A LONG TIME THAT THE SPORE “EATS” CARBON DIOXIDE AND EXUDES OXYGEN. BUT IN THE LONG- TERM SICK, THE SPORE EVENTUALLY COATS THE PARTS OF THE BRAIN THAT CONTROL RESPIRATION (THE PONS AND MEDULLA OBLONGATA). A PRELIMINARY THEORY HOLDS THAT WHEN THE HOST BEGINS TO SUFFER FROM SMOKE INHALATION, THE BRAIN TELLS THE DRAGONSCALE IN THE LUNGS TO GO INTO OVERDRIVE, EATING THE TOXINS, AND PRODUCING CLEAN BREATHABLE AIR. A BETTER NAME FOR DRAGONSCALE WOULD BE THE NIETZSCHE VIRUS—IF IT DOESN’T KILL YOU, IT MAKES YOU STRONGER.
WORKING ON A NEW POEM:
ALLIE STOREY IS A DIRTY WHORE,
MUCH LESS BEAUTIFUL THAN THE SPORE,
THAT PROTECTS HER LUNGS FROM SMOKE,
EVEN WHEN SHE DESERVES TO CHOKE
NO, I KNOW. NOT VERY GOOD.
THANK GOD I’VE GOT MY CABIN AND THE INTERNET AND THERE’S STILL A LITTLE PORN LEFT. THERE’S EVEN DRAGONSCALE PORN NOW! IT’S SURPRISINGLY HOT. HA HA. GET IT? GET IT?
2
The Dodge Challenger punched itself into the night with an effortless force that brought to mind a jet accelerating toward the end of the runway. It was Harper’s first time in a police cruiser. She was sitting in the back, where they put the people under arrest. That made a certain amount of sense, she thought.
She was sandwiched between Nelson Heinrich and Mindy Skilling. Mindy stared at Harper and Harper’s new haircut with damp, sympathetic eyes. Harper ignored her. Now and then Nelson whistled a few bars of “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.” She was doing her best to ignore him too.
Ben was up front, driving. Jamie Close sat in the passenger seat, with a Bushmaster across her knees. The Bushmaster had come out of the trunk, along with a .410 shotgun, which Ben had handed to Nelson. Nelson had it between his knees now, the barrel pointing straight up beneath his chin. Every time the Challenger banged over a pothole, Harper had the nauseating image of the gun going off with a deafening blam and flinging Nelson’s brains on the roof.
Of all of them she was the only one who didn’t have a gun. She wasn’t terribly surprised they hadn’t offered. Maybe they weren’t sure who she might decide to use it on.
“What if the cops who show up with the ambulance are people you know?” Nelson asked. “You were with Portsmouth PD all that time, you must know the whole team!”
“I’m sure it will be people I know,” Ben replied.
“So . . . what if they won’t give up the ambulance? If it’s guys you used to be friendly with—guys you used to go drinking with—wouldn’t they expect you not to shoot?”
“If it’s guys who know me, then they’ll know I never bluff.”
Nelson sat back and nodded placidly. “Not worth worrying about, I guess. They won’t be friends of mine. If you have any qualms at all, you know you can count on me to do what has to be done.” He whistled a little more of “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.”
“Now hold on,” Ben said, but then Jamie Close spoke up.
“Isn’t that Verdun Avenue on the left, Mr. Patchett? Don’t want to miss our turn.”
“Right,” Ben said. “Everything looks different with all the lights out.”
They had traveled two miles from Camp Wyndham and not seen another car the whole way. Snow lay undisturbed in the road. Gas-lamp-style streetlamps stood along the sidewalks, but cast no light. The only illumination at all was the blue sheen of moonglow on snow.
As they swung onto Verdun, they glided past the burned-out ruin of a CVS, a dismal concrete box lined with rectangular holes where the plate-glass windows had been. Harper looked upon the place almost as a crime scene. It had burned and the ash from the blaze fell in a poisoned snow on everyone downwind, and who knew how many were dead now as a result.
Verdun Avenue was a short side street of stately Colonials mixed, seemingly at random, with modest ranches that looked like they might date from the sixties. They slowed before a cottage with cedar shakes and a chest-high hedge bordering the lawn. Ben wheeled the car around to face back the way they had come and slugged it into park.
He reached across Jamie Close’s knees, opened the glove box, and then sat up with what looked, at first glance, like an oversized snow globe. Ben set it on the dash and turned it on: a red-and-blue strobe that lit the street in pinball-machine flashes.
Ben turned halfway around, to look into the backseat. “Nelson? I’m going to place you over there, behind that hedge. Keep low. After Mindy makes the call, her and the nurse are going to tuck themselves down in the backseat. Jamie? You and I are out front, to greet whoever turns up. You stand on the passen ger side of the car and try to look like a cop. I’ll be in the road. They’ll see my flashing lights and they’ll get out to see what’s going on. I’ll tell them to get on the ground with their hands behind their heads. That’s your cue to stand up, Nelson. Give them a whistle, let them know we’ve got them covered from both sides. We won’t have any trouble out of them once they see they’re surrounded. There’s two duffel bags in the trunk and a Styrofoam cooler packed with ice for anything we need to keep cold. Mindy and Harper will load up while the rest of us cover the responders.” Ben looked from Nelson to Jamie, carefully making eye contact with each. “We treat them with respect and understanding. No screaming. No swearing. No ‘Get your effing butt on the ground or I’ll blow your effing head off.’ Understand me? If we stay calm, they’ll stay calm.” Ben peered at Mindy. “Are you ready? Do you know what you’re going to say?”
Mindy nodded, as solemn as a child being entrusted with a secret. “I’m ready.”
Heavy-duty wire grating separated the front seat from the back, but Ben was able to pass a cell phone through a narrow slot in the center. Mindy turned it on. The screen filled the rear of the car with all the brilliance of a small spotlight. Once, Harper had thought that smooth bright glass face looked like the Future. Now she thought no other object in the entire world more fully embodied the Past.
Mindy inhaled deeply, preparing herself. Her face tightened and her chin dimpled with emotion, perhaps at some keenly remembered grief. She dialed 911.
“Yes? Yes? My name is Mindy Skilling,” she panted, breath hitching as she struggled not to sob. “I am at ten Verdun Avenue. Ten. Verdun. Please, I need you to send an ambulance. I think my father is having a heart attack.” A tear spilled out of her eye, a trickle of brightness. “I’m on my cell. We haven’t had a landline that worked in weeks. He’s sixty-seven. He’s lying down. He’s on the living room floor right now. He threw up a few minutes ago.” Another desperate silence. “No, I’m not with him. I had to run outside to get a signal on my phone. Is someone coming? Is there an ambulance coming? Please send someone.”
Distantly, Harper could hear the voice on the other end of the line, a squonk-squonk like grown-ups talking in a Charlie Brown cartoon.
“No. Neither of us have Dragonscale. We’re normal. Dad doesn’t let anyone near us. He doesn’t let me go out either. That’s what we were fighting about when—oh Jesus. I was bitching at him. He was trying to walk away from me and I was following him around bitching at him and he was holding his neck. Oh, oh, I’m so stupid.”
Harper noticed Nelson blinking at tears, watching raptly.
“Please come. Please hurry. Don’t let my daddy die. Ten Verdun. Please please pl—” Mindy abruptly pressed the END CALL button.
She wiped her thumb under one eye, then the other, smearing away tears. She sniffed—a wet, congested sound—although her expression had reverted to a look of sweet vacancy. She passed the phone back into the front seat.
“I’ve always been good at crying on cue,” Mindy said. “It’s amazing how much work you can get if you can weep on command. Insurance commercials. Allergy commercials. Mother’s Day promotions.”