Rand Quigley, a far more thoughtful man than most gave him credit for, was also hunkered down. His spot was in a plastic chair in the visitors’ room. In his lap he had overturned the toddler-sized toy car from the family area. It had been a source of disappointment for as long as Rand could remember; the kids of the inmates climbed in it and pushed forward, but got frustrated because they couldn’t turn. The problem was a broken axle. Rand had fetched a tube of epoxy from his toolbox and glued the break, and now he tied the pieces together to set with a bowline knot of twine. That he might be in his last hours did not elude Officer Quigley. It comforted him to do something useful with whatever time might be left.
On the wooded knoll above the prison, Maynard Griner stared up at the stars, and fantasized about shooting them out with Fritz’s bazooka. If you could do that, would they pop like light bulbs? Had anyone—scientists, maybe—poked a hole in space? Did aliens on other planets ever think about shooting out stars with bazookas or death-rays?
Lowell, propped against the trunk of a cedar, commanded his brother, who was flat on his back, to wipe his mouth; the light of the stars, sent out billions of years ago, glimmered on Maynard’s drool. Low’s mood was sour. He did not like to wait, but it was not in their best interest to unload with the artillery until the cops made their move. The mosquitoes were biting and some hemorrhoid of an owl had been screeching since sundown. Valium would have improved his spirits greatly. Even some Nyquil would have been helpful. If Big Lowell’s grave had been nearby, Little Lowell would not have hesitated to dig up the rotting corpse and relieve it of that bottle of Rebel Yell.
Down below, the T-shaped structure of the prison lay pinned in the harsh radiance that shone from the light towers. On three sides, woods surrounded the dell in which the building stood. There was an open field to the east, running up to the high ground where Low and May were camped. That field was, Low thought, an excellent firing lane. Nothing at all to impede the flight of a high-explosive bazooka shell. When the time came, it was going to be awesome.
3
Two men crouched in the space between the nose of Barry Holden’s Fleetwood and the front doors of the prison.
“You want to do the honors?” Tig asked Clint.
Clint wasn’t sure it was an honor, but said okay and lit the match. He placed it against the trail of gas that Tig and Rand had laid earlier.
The trail flamed, snaking from the front doors across the apron of the parking lot and under the interior fence. In the grass median that separated this fence from the second, outer fence, the piles of doused tires first smoldered and then began to flicker. Soon, the firelight had cut away much of the darkness at the perimeter of the prison. Curls of filthy smoke began to rise.
Clint and Tig went back inside.
4
In the darkened officers’ break room, Michaela used a flashlight to sift the drawers. She found a pack of Bicycles, and asked Jared to play War with her. Everyone else, save the three remaining wakeful prisoners, was on watch. Michaela needed something to occupy herself. It was around ten PM on Monday night. Way back last Thursday morning, she had awoken at six sharp and gone running. Feeling frisky, feeling fine.
“Can’t,” Jared said.
“What?” Michaela asked.
“Super busy,” he said, and gave a twitchy grin. “Thinking about stuff I should have done, and didn’t. And how my dad and mom should have waited to be mad at each other. Also about how my girlfriend—she wasn’t really my girlfriend, but sort of—fell asleep while I was holding her.” He repeated, “Super busy.”
If Jared Norcross needed mothering, Michaela was the wrong person. The world had been out of tilt since Thursday, but as long as she’d been around Garth Flickinger, Michaela had been able to treat it almost like a lark, a bender. She would not have expected to miss him so much. His stoner good cheer was the only thing that made sense once the world went wacky.
She said, “I’m afraid, too. You’d be crazy not to be afraid.”
“I just . . .” He trailed off.
He didn’t understand it, what the others around the prison had said about the woman, that she had powers, and that this Michaela, the warden’s reporter daughter, had supposedly received a magic kiss from the special prisoner that had given her new energy. He didn’t understand what had come over his father. All he understood was that people had started to die.
As Michaela had guessed, Jared missed his mother, but he wasn’t angling for a substitute. There was no replacing Lila.
“We’re the good guys, right?” Jared asked.
“I don’t know,” Michaela admitted. “But I’m positive we’re not the bad guys.”
“That’s something,” Jared said.
“Come on, let’s play cards.”
Jared swiped a hand across his eyes. “What the hell, okay. I’m a champ at War.” He came over to the café table in the middle of the break room.
“Do you want a Coke or something?”
He nodded, but neither of them had change for the machine. They went to the warden’s office, emptied out Janice Coates’s huge knit handbag, and crouched on the floor, sifting for silver through the receipts and notes and ChapSticks and cigarettes. Jared asked Michaela what she was smiling about.
“My mom’s handbag,” said Michaela. “She’s a prison warden, but she’s got, like, this hippie monstrosity for a bag.”
“Oh.” Jared chuckled. “But what’s a warden’s handbag supposed to look like, do you think?”
“Something held together with chains or handcuffs.”
“Kinky!”
“Don’t be a child, Jared.”
There was more than enough change for two Cokes. Before they went back to the break room, Michaela kissed the cocoon that held her mother.
War usually lasted forever, but Michaela beat Jared in the first game in less than ten minutes.
“Damn. War is hell,” he said.
They played again, and again, and again, not talking much, just flipping cards in the dark. Michaela kept winning.
5
Terry dozed in a camp chair a few yards behind the roadblock. He was dreaming about his wife. She had opened a diner. They were serving empty plates. “But Rita, this isn’t anything,” he said, and handed his plate back to her. Rita handed it right back. This went on for what seemed like years. Back and forth with the empty plate. Terry grew increasingly frustrated. Rita, never speaking, grinned at him like she had a secret. Outside the windows of the diner, the seasons were shuffling past like photographs through one of those old View-Masters—winter, spring, summer, fall, winter, spring—
He opened his eyes and Bert Miller was standing over him.
Terry’s first waking thought was not of the dream, but of earlier that night, at the fence, Clint Norcross calling him out about the booze, humiliating him in front of the other two. The irritation of the dream mixed with shame, and Terry fully comprehended that he was not the man for the sheriff’s job. Let Frank Geary have it if he wanted it so bad. And let Clint Norcross have Frank Geary if he wanted to deal with a sober man.
Camp lights were set up everywhere. Men stood in groups, rifles hung from straps over their shoulders, laughing and smoking, eating food from crinkly plastic MRE packages. God only knew where they’d come from. A few guys knelt on the pavement, shooting dice. Jack Albertson was using a power drill on one of the bulldozers, rigging an iron plate over the window.