SelectionEvent (2ed) Page 5

  “I will,” Martin said. The thought of looking through Delana's apartment made his throat ache.

  Cars were parked along the streets, in driveways, and once they turned onto a thoroughfare, even the restaurants and fast food chains had cars in their parking lots, as though they were doing business. But through the windows, nothing moved.

  “Where are all the bodies?” Martin asked.

  “They're everywhere. At the beginning, when people got sick, they went to the clinics and hospitals. When they died, they buried them — at the beginning. Then they started the mass graves. I've seen a few. Finally, they just loaded them on trucks and dumped 'em in the river. If they get to the ocean, they're shark bait. It was noxious for a while, but the river cleans itself pretty fast with this kind of rain. Buried in the ground, a body stays nasty for a long time. ”

  Diaz didn't say anything for half a minute. The street rose slightly as it went over one of the larger irrigation canals that crisscrossed the city. The water in it was smooth and flowed steadily.

  “But whatever else you've seen, it don't compare to a mass grave. They used dump trucks to unload 'em and bulldozers to cover 'em up. Moms, dads, teenagers, all just germ bags after MIV messed 'em up. Let me tell you, bud, you stick around here, you shouldn't oughta drink the water, not after what I seen put in the ground.” He paused a moment. “God. All those dead people, and a vapor-brain like Stewart lives. And me.” He shook his head. “I was countin' on dyin'. One of the biggest disappointments in my life. Maybe the only ones who lived through it are the screwheads — me, Stewart, Captain Zero."

  “And me,” Martin said. They passed by a shopping center. Some of the larger windows had been broken out, but it looked surprisingly normal.

  “Yeah,” Diaz said. “You're the one normal.”

  “Just as normal as a guy can be,” Martin said, “who volunteers to spend a year underground in total isolation and didn't go nuts.”

  “Like I said, only the normal screwheads lived.” Diaz flashed him his big yellow-toothed grin.

  When they turned into Delana's neighborhood, Martin felt his chest tighten up, as it did when he approached his parents' house. She lived in an upscale apartment complex, surrounded by clusters of birches, blue spruce, redwoods, and dense hedges of nandina, mock orange, and privet. In the cool, wet weather, everything grew thick and green.

  From the foot of the stairway that led up to her door, he could see the pond in the center of the complex with its carefully arranged boulders. Every other time he had been here, the fountain had filled the air with a rhythmic rushing sound — but now it was silent and the water was green. No cars passed on the surrounding streets, no one was chattering a hello or goodbye, no one sunbathed, no smells of suntan lotion or barbecue.

  Up on her balcony, he saw her potted azaleas — they were now leafless collections of naked sticks.

  Martin put his hand on the banister and said to Diaz, who leaned against the car fender, “I may be a few minutes.”

  “I got no appointments,” he said. “Do what you need to do.”

  Isha sat on the sidewalk, looking toward Martin, also waiting.

  As he climbed the stairs, Martin was assailed by memory — coming up the stairs with wine, Delana opening the door before he could ring the bell, her black hair hanging in curls to her shoulders, her bright blue eyes, the smell of her neck, the smell of bread from her kitchen, her voice, low and liquid.... He pressed the doorbell and heard it chime twice inside.

  Down on the sidewalk, Diaz still leaned against the car, his thick arms folded, his eyes turned discreetly away. Isha looked up at Martin.

  Stupid, Martin thought, ringing the bell. But he waited a decent interval, while around him bugs clicked and a single midday cricket sawed slowly.

  He tried the door and the knob turned easily. He pushed it open. He was thinking that perhaps she knew he would come here one day; perhaps she knew it soon wouldn't matter whose door was locked, because no one would be left to steal anything.

  The air was thick with stale apartment smell. Everything was in its place, neat and in order. No dishes were left out in the kitchen, the two red pillows on the sofa were fluffed and symmetrically arranged, and in the bedroom the bed was made — the bed where many times they had made love — and a white envelope lay on the near corner. It had his name on it.

  He held it in his hand a moment, feeling its thinness, its dry surfaces, wondering if he had the nerve to read it now, another message from the past. From the dead.

  Martin pulled open the envelope flap and took out the one small thin sheet of paper.

  My dear Martin—

  I am so sorry I could not stay to see you again. Take as good care of yourself as I would. I love you now more than I have words for, so do well with what there is left. I'll give you my last thoughts.

  —Delana.

  With a period at the end of her name.

  He put the note in his pocket, next to the papers his parents had left, and never felt so alone in his life. Everything was gone — he'd known it for a full day, but now he felt it. He felt it down to the middle of his bones and he wanted to die.

  “Y'okay?” It was Diaz, standing just inside the front door, craning his head just enough to see him.

  Martin didn't answer, but he turned and came out.

  Diaz stood in front of him and put one of his big hands on each of Martin's shoulders. “I don't want to intrude, man,” he said quietly, “and I don't want to get into your personal business. But if you're thinkin' of puttin' yourself away, give it a pause. Take it from me, gettin' dead is easy, doesn't take much time, and you can do it in any thirty seconds.” He touched his vest, where he carried the pistol. “You can always go that direction. The problem is, do you really want to leave the world to the a-holes like Stewart and Captain Zero?"

  Isha stood behind Diaz, her head hanging but she was looking up at Martin.

  “I'm all right.”

  “Good.” Diaz dropped his hands from Martin's shoulders. “Because I can't make no more sense today. I'm out of bein' reasonable.” He gave his big grin again.

  “I'll check for drugs,” Martin said.

  “Right. While you're doing that, I'll browse through some of the other apartments.”

  Isha stayed with Martin while he went through Delana's things. Periodically, he heard the heavy thumps and splintering of Diaz kicking in doors. Under her bathroom sink he found a shoe box of sample packets — four or five kinds of antibiotics, decongestants, tranquillizers, analgesics, miscellaneous things. He took them all and then looked one last time around the room where he had spent the happiest hours of his adult life. He sat on the edge of her bed and wept into his hands until tears ran down his arms.

  When he could see again, Isha was sitting beside him, watching him anxiously with her clear brown eyes.

  “You're a pal,” he said to her.

  She pushed her head once against his leg and then rested her muzzle on his knee, waiting for his next move.

  “Let's go do it,” he said to her, “whatever it is.”

  He locked the door of Delana's apartment when he left.

  Chapter 10

  “I gotta travel,” Diaz said, adjusting his mirror-surfaced sunglasses on his nose and then swinging his leg over his bike and settling into the wide leather seat. “When I'm on my up cycle, I gotta move, go places, do stuff. Tonight I'll blow into Reno, look around tomorrow, and about sundown, head for Denver.”

  “Across the desert?”

  “Straight across. But I got safeguards,” he said with his grin. “If my machine blows and there's no vehicle to be found far or wide—” He popped open one of the saddle-boxes and pulled out a pair of white high-top roller skates with yellow wheels. “On a good day, no hills, I can make fifty, sixty miles on these.”

  “You're kidding. Roller skates?”

  “Yo. Street skates and a big canteen. Laugh not. What am I supposed to haul on this thing, a bicycle, a canoe?” />
  “I was just starting to think you were normal.”

  “An error made by many casual observers.” He shook his finger under Martin's face. “I'm unstable as they come. I see things sideways. I figure I get to New York in three, four weeks' easy travelin', then my down-cycle hits, I weather it out in some five-star hotel, eat all their food, wait till the good times roll, then see what I do next.” With his toe, he nudged out the kick-lever, lifted himself into the air and dropped his weight on it. The bike chugged, coughed black smoke, and then rumbled slowly and evenly, a bass purr. “A beauty, ain't she?” he said over the noise.

  “Diaz,” Martin said, “come back by sometime. If I leave this place, I'll put a note in the mailbox there, let you know where to find me.”

  He nodded, did his big grin, and twisted the accelerator. Over the noise he chanted, “Stompin' my pedal to the floor, wanta see me some more, what else you got to show me? Drive, I said, cause I'm one of the few that ain't dead, still got a brain in my head, a belly that's been fed, so let's hit the road now.” Another bigger grin. “I'm a poet, I know it, I don't show it, I'll prob'ly blow it.” He knocked it into gear, eased out the clutch, and rumbled down the street. Turning backward, he waved. “Ciao, pardner!”

  Martin waved back but Diaz didn't see. He had gassed it and was gone.

  Martin stood on the sidewalk a minute longer, till he could no longer hear the bike's motor, and then went into the house, Isha trailing behind, to read the letter his parents had left him. It would be a day of goodbyes.

  Goodbye Delana, goodbye Diaz — so he would say the last one. He sat on the sofa, the papers between his fingers, and hesitated. Once he read the final words, all his past would be over, all his ties would be gone, and in front of him there would only be what future he decided to walk into. His future. By himself. His alone. All his options would be open.

  He unfolded the pages, began reading, and heard his mother's voice.

  Hello, son. First we want you to know that we love you and we are not uncomfortable.

  ....

  With the pen gripped in her fingers, the woman looked at the blank pages. “I don't know what to say.” Her eyes were rimmed with tears, but she did not cry.

  She sat on their sofa, her husband next to her, with Isha at their feet, watching them carefully.

  “I want to see him again... once more.”

  Martin's father had one arm around her. “I know.” His voice choked off. He took a deep breath. “I know.”

  They had awakened that morning with headaches and a slight fever, so they knew they had only a day or two remaining. It was the eventuality they had prepared for. Already, most of the neighborhood was vacant, and the day before, three people had gone down their street to see if there were any confined pets. Mr. and Mrs. Lake had said goodbye to their remaining friends, their house was clean, everything was in order, and they were ready.

  The man reached behind him to his back pocket and took out his wallet. From it he removed a photograph — actually a piece cut from another photograph — of Martin, when he was 24, with his mother. It had been Christmas and they had their cheeks pressed together, caught in mid-laugh. He put the picture on the coffee table.

  “I didn't know you carried that,” she said, studying it.

  “For quite a while,” he said.

  Isha bobbed her head and pushed her long muzzle against his side and snuffled.

  “And my sweetest half, of course,” he said, petting her.

  “What will we do with her?”

  “We leave her for Martin. He's due to come out in a month. He's had no physical contact with the outside, so he will be safe till he comes out. And when he comes out, in the worst case, if he's exposed right then, he'll have at least three days. Forty pounds of food and a tub of water should last her till them.”

  “We know he'll come back here.” She nodded and put one hand atop her husband's. “Now, what do we say to him?”

  “We don't want to sound grieved or... tortured,” he said. “Or hysterical.”

  She smiled a little. “We never sound hysterical.”

  He kissed her neck, just below her ear. mother wrote“I think there's a bottle of wine in the refrigerator. Before we talk to our son, why don't you heat up the French bread. We have a few grapes, and the cheese will go bad if we don't eat it. We'll go outside, have a picnic in the backyard. We can write to him out there.”

  She leaned her head a moment on his shoulder. “We were all set to be grim, weren't we.”

  They spread a blanket under the mulberry tree and ate warm bread and grapes and cheese and drank wine and threw Isha's orange tennis ball for her to retrieve. They even laughed.

  Several times they thought of Martin as being there, quietly listening as they talked to each other about there being more birds this season and what they would do if they could do things over again.

  His father wrote, “I would have married your mother first, instead of second, and I would have been more like Isha. I would have smelled the air more often and listened to what I could hear. I would have done for the last fifty years what I'm doing now.”

  “I would have talked your father into having more children,” his mother wrote. Then she lay on her back on the blanket with her hands clasped behind her head and looked into the jungle of leaves over her. “I would have had more picnics.”

  The man had been admiring her upturned arms and her neck. He put down the pen, leaned over her and kissed her mouth. They knew it could be one of their last.

  She folded her arms around him and said private things. They were quiet for a while, then they wrote their last words to Martin, straightened everything up, put the pages on the kitchen table under the paperweight rock, had a final cup of coffee together, and left the two cups unwashed on the counter. Then they drove down to the clinic.

  ....

  We love you, son.

  Martin stared dully at the last line. The last door to his past had closed. His new life had begun.

  Part Two

  The New Order

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, he awakened to Isha's barking. As soon as light hit his retinas and he could focus on being awake, he knew something was wrong — her barking was alarmed and ferocious. He swung his legs off the sofa and sat up. Isha was at the front window, her ears back, glancing at him and then continuing her shrill, rapid alarm.

  From outside, a strangely amplified voice announced, “We're armed but we're friendly. We want you to come out.”

  In front of the house, up on the lawn, was a green and tan camouflaged Land Rover, and behind it, with just his head showing, stood a man in a beret with bullhorn. He was round-faced and had dark eyes and a thin mustache.

  “Come on out. You just met civilization.”

  Martin was not comforted by that statement. Another head bobbed up. It was Stewart.

  “That's one of them,” he heard Stewart say excitedly. “There's another one too, a big guy.”

  “Where's your friend?” asked the man through the bullhorn.

  Martin opened the front door but not the screen. “He isn't here,” he said.

  “Throw out your weapons.”

  “I don't have any weapons.”

  The man with the bullhorn conferred with someone concealed behind the Land Rover.

  “We don't believe you,” the man announced. “Come out with your hands up.”

  “You're friendly, but you're telling me to put my hands up. Why?” Martin asked. It seemed like a reasonable question. And after being underground for a year, it made him instantly angry that someone would stand in front of his house and yell at him through a bullhorn. “What have I got that you could possibly want?”

  The man with the bullhorn said something inaudible, and a third person, a gaunt, hollow-eyed man with thin red hair, came up from behind the Land Rover and laid a rifle across the hood of the Land Rover. He sighted along it, aiming it at Martin.

  “We could come in and
get you,” said the mustached man through his bullhorn. “Or we could just kill you. Be a nice boy and come on out. We have some things to talk about.”

  Beside him, Isha looked up at him anxiously.

  Leaving the door open and disabling the screen latch so Isha could push it open, Martin went out. The morning air was crisp and chilled his skin. He put his hands in his front pockets and stood on the porch. “So?” he said.

  Stewart ran out from behind the vehicle, pointing and babbling. “He's the one! He's the son of a bitch that shot my car! He has a gun in there.”

  “Shut up, Stewart,” the man said evenly.

  Stewart shut up and looked sullen.

  The red-haired man with the rifle nodded and seven or eight other men appeared from around the house and from behind other cars the neighbors had left along the street. All of them wore similar camouflage fatigues, all of them hollow-cheeked and silent. They moved slowly and stared unwaveringly at Martin, holding their weapons ready. The man with the rifle sighted along the barrel at Martin's chest.

  “My name is Cord Curtiz. I am the First Leader,” the man in the beret said, strolling around in front of the Land Rover. “You'll call me Mr. Curtiz. And you are?”

  “Martin.”

  “Good, Martin. That's good. We're conversing already, exchanging information. That's the essence of civilization, isn't it?”

  “Sure it is. One person threatens to kill another to get what he wants. Sounds like civilization to me. What do you want?”

  “Martin, I can see that you're just the kind of person I've been wanting to meet. You're direct, you come to the point, and you aren't easily intimidated.”

  “What do you want?”

  The man in the beret grinned. “And you're persistent. So am I, Martin. So am I.” He nodded and smiled at the ground as he strolled one way and then the other in front of the Land Rover. His thumbs he hooked in his belt loops. There was a huge serrated knife on his hip and his olive drab camouflaged pants were stuffed into the tops of his highly polished black boots.