The Fireman: A Novel Part 52

Renee said, "We'll have to squeeze in with Gil. I hope that's all right. I won't leave him here."

"No," Harper said. "Of course you won't."

Renee nodded, then climbed up on the running board and gently eased Gilbert aside, making room behind the steering wheel.

The Fireman turned and strode across the matted gra.s.s. He crouched over the Marlboro Man.

"You," the Marlboro Man said. "I know who you are. You're going to die. My man Jakob is going to spread your f.a.ggot British a.s.s all over the road. He's going to paint the highway with you. Jakob loves killing the burners-he says it's the first thing in his life he's ever done really well. But he's looking forward to doin' you most of all. He wants to do it while she watches."

"Jakob likes finis.h.i.+ng off burners, does he?" the Fireman asked. He lifted his left hand and a trickle of green flame fluttered like a silk ribbon from the tip of his index finger. The Fireman gazed into it in a sleepy, speculative way, then blew it out, leaving the tip of his finger gray with ash. The Fireman lowered his hand and spread the ash across the Marlboro Man's forehead, drawing a cross. The Marlboro Man flinched. "Well. You better get up and get moving then, soon as you can. Because you're one of us now, friend. That ash is full of my poison. Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll find a few other people who are infected who will shelter you and look after you, as the folk in this camp once did for us. Maybe-but I doubt it. I think most people will close their doors in your face the moment you open your big mouth to ask for their help. You have a quite recognizable voice."

The Marlboro Man kicked his feet against the ground and slid six inches across the dirt, shaking his head frantically, and began to shriek. "No! No no no, you can't! You can't! Listen to me! Listen!"

"Actually," the Fireman said, "I think I've heard more than enough. The only thing worse than listening to men like you on the radio is meeting you in real life. Because out here in the world there's just no simple way to change the station." And he kicked him-lightly, almost humorously-under the jaw. The Marlboro Man's head snapped back and his teeth clapped shut on the tip of his tongue, and his scream became a high, hideous, inchoate keening.

The Fireman started away, staggering a little, his coat flapping about him.

"If I don't see you by tomorrow night," Harper shouted at him, "I'll come looking for you."

He glanced back over his shoulder and gave her a crooked smile. "Just when I thought I was out of the frying pan. Try not to worry. I'll be with you again soon enough."

"Come on, Ms. Willowes," Allie said. Allie was in the truck now, behind the steering wheel, hand on the door and leaning out to look down at her. "We have to go. There's still men with guns out there. There's still that plow."

Harper jerked her head in a nod, then cast her gaze around for a last look at John. But he wasn't there. The smoke had claimed him.

11.

The fire truck bashed aside the wreck of the Chevy Intimidator with an almost casual indifference, sent it spinning toward the circle of stones. It struck one of the monoliths with a ringing clang. Marty Ca.s.selman was approaching the overturned Chevy when the fire engine struck it. He dived out of the way, but the Uzi in his right hand went off in a chattering blast, and the spray blew off three of his toes.

The big Freightliner was backing from the half-collapsed bonfire that had once been a chapel. The driver saw the fire truck banging up the hill, but by the time Jakob got the Freightliner turned around, his wife, Renee Gilmonton, and the two children with them were long gone.

12.

Allie pulled the truck to a stop where the dirt lane met Little Harbor Road.

"Where to now?" she asked.

Harper looked out the pa.s.senger-side window toward the rusting blue hulk of the school bus. The headlights were on. A skinny girl of about fifteen, with a shaved head, slumped behind the steering wheel. Someone had left a machete in the back of her skull.

Nick reached up to touch Harper's chin, physically turning her head toward him. He was sitting in her lap. He stank of burnt hair, and it looked as if he had gone bobbing for apples in red Kool-Aid, his face was so stained and sticky with blood-but his eyes were more alert now. He spoke with his hands.

"Nick says he knows a place we can go," Harper said, then narrowed her eyes. She replied with some gestures of her own: "What place?"

"Trust me," Nick told her in sign language. "It's safe. No one will find us. It's where I hid everything I stole." He met her gaze with a haunted solemnity. "I'm the thief."

BOOK NINE.

ENGINE.

1.

In the minutes after midnight-as March became April-the fire engine rushed along Little Harbor Road, following it all the way to where it ended at Sagamore Avenue. Nick gestured for Allie to turn right. They had gone less than a mile before Nick began to signal for her to stop.

Allie turned into the entrance of South Street Cemetery, a graveyard as old as the colonies and half a mile wide. She stopped in front of the black gates, which were held shut by a length of heavy chain and padlock. Nick opened the pa.s.senger door and leapt out of Harper's lap.

Nick gripped the chain in one hand and bowed his head. Liquid metal hissed and dripped between his fingers into the dirt. The chain fell apart in two sections and he pushed the gate open, his hand still smoking. Allie drove through and then waited. Nick reached back through the bars, wound the two halves of the chain into a loose knot, and gripped it firmly. There was more smoke and his eyes were as red as coals and when he let go he had welded the links together again.

South Street Cemetery was a kind of city, in which most of the residences were located underground. Nick guided them along its streets and alleys, its winding suburbs and open pastures. They continued until they had reached the dirt road that ran along the back of the cemetery. A second, more modest sort of graveyard awaited in the wet gra.s.s and underbrush: a dozen cars in various states of collapse, filthy, burnt out, sitting on their rims. Several were half submerged in weeds, islands of rust in a shallow sea of poison sumac.

To one side of this final resting place for unmourned cars was a squat and ugly cement building with a tin roof. Cobwebbed windows peeked out from under the eaves. At one end of the building was a pair of corrugated aluminum garage doors. The center of operations for the grounds crew, Harper surmised . . . back in the days when South Street Cemetery still had a grounds crew. The knee-high gra.s.s growing right up to the front steps suggested it had been a while since anyone had punched his card for work.

Out beyond the wrecks was a wide sandy pit, some kind of debris piled into it, hidden under overlapping brown plastic tarps. Allie parked the truck between the hole and a Pontiac Firebird that had cooked down to the frame. She hunted around under the steering wheel, found a couple of bare wires twisted together, and pulled them apart, with a buzzing snap of electricity. The fire engine chugged, thudded, and died.

They sat in the stillness. Through the oaks at the rear of the park, Harper could see a flat bay, a pebbly strand, and some darkened buildings on the far side of the water. Come to South Street Cemetery. Beachside views available. Quiet neighbors.

"This is only good until the sun comes up. Then this truck will be visible from the air," Renee said.

Harper looked at the garage doors of the building for the grounds crew and wondered if there was enough room in there for an antique fire truck. Nick let himself out of her lap again, throwing open the door. He hopped into blowing mist.

"I don't think this is far enough from Camp Wyndham, either," Renee went on. Her voice had a dull, disinterested quality. She sat on Harper's left, holding Gilbert in her arms. He was between her legs, his head lolling against her shoulder, and her arms were around his waist. "There's a path in the woods. It's only fifteen minutes from here to the archery range. I walked here once or twice myself last summer."

"But it's almost four miles by the road," Allie said. "And they'd expect us to keep driving. No. I think this might do if we can get the truck under-what's he up to?" Unbuckling and letting herself out.

Nick had clambered into the sandy pit. He pulled back one flap of a tarp to reveal a midden heap of shriveled flowers, blackened wreaths, and mildewed teddy bears. Even grief, it seemed, had an expiration date. Allie caught up to him, found another corner of the tarp, and helped him drag it toward the fire truck. They would only need a couple of them to hide the engine completely.

Harper got down, put her hands in the small of her back, and stretched, popping her spine. She ached as if she were recovering from flu, every muscle sore, every joint achy.

She looked back into the truck at Renee. "We're going to cover the truck and go inside." When Renee didn't reply, Harper added, "I think you should get out now."

Renee lifted her shoulders in a weary sigh. "All right. Will Allie help me carry Gil inside?"

Allie and Nick had by then dragged the tarp to the side of the truck. Allie stiffened and darted an uneasy look at Harper. Harper nodded to her, just slightly.

"Of course I will, Ms. Gilmonton," Allie said, in a tone of insouciance that didn't jibe with her pale look of dismay.

Easing the heavy corpse of Gilbert Cline out of the fire truck was a clumsy bit of business. Renee held him under the armpits and heaved and gasped, nudging him toward the pa.s.senger door a few inches at a time. Allie got him by the ankles and they began to s.h.i.+ft him out, but Renee b.u.mped her head and lost her grip, and the top half of his body dropped all of a sudden. His head bonged against the step up into the cab. Renee made a shrill yelp of horror and almost fell out after him.

"Oh no!" she said. "Oh no, oh no, oh, Gil, I'm so weak. I'm so useless."

"Hush now," Harper said, moving past Renee and bending to get Gil under the arms herself.

"You can't," Renee said. "Don't, Harper. You're nine months pregnant."

"It's no trouble at all," Harper said, although when she straightened up, her ankles blazed and her back twinged.

They walked Gilbert through high weeds, wet gra.s.s shus.h.i.+ng against his back. His head lolled. He wore a stoic, almost patient look, his clear, quite blue eyes seeming to watch Harper the whole time.

They had to put the dead man down when they reached the corner of the garage, so Harper could rest and Allie could look for a way in. The door was locked and there was no key under the mat or beneath either of the ceramic flowerpots on the front step (pots full of dirt and a flouris.h.i.+ng crop of decorative weeds). But Nick didn't mean to enter through the door. He made his way along the side of the building, peering up under the eaves. At last he stopped and gestured to one of the windows. It was a good five feet over his head, so high up under the eaves it was hard to imagine it let in any daylight. The window was a long, narrow slot, and a triangular piece of gla.s.s was missing from one smashed pane. No man could put his hand through the gap, but a child's arm just might fit.

Nick needed Allie to hunch down, so he could climb onto her shoulders. Even when she rose to her full height, he could barely reach the gla.s.s. He had to stretch to get a hand in through the window and turn the lock. He pushed it open, grabbed the sill, hoisted himself up, and disappeared headfirst into the darkness.

There must've been something just inside the window to climb down on-some shelving perhaps-because Harper didn't hear him drop. He was gone without a sound.

"I wonder who helped him get in there last time," Harper said, and when Allie gave her a questioning look, she nodded at the high window. "He's obviously done this before, but he's too short to reach the window on his own."

Allie frowned.

The front door popped open and Nick stuck his head out and waved for them to come along, come in, his house was their house.

2.

When day broke, the engine was completely covered by a pair of tarps, one over the front, another over the rear. Harper had imagined they might be able to put the fire truck inside, but the garage already contained a John Deere and a backhoe. An orderly if cobwebbed collection of rakes and shovels hung from hooks on one wall. An expansive worktable ran the length of the other. That was where they put Gilbert, covering him with a third tarp.

At the back of the garage, a bank of windows looked into a cluttered office: two desks, a corkboard on the wall, an empty water cooler, and a couch the creamy green hue of snot. That was where they slept. Harper took the couch. Allie and Nick slept in each other's arms on the floor, wrapped in a gray blanket that Allie found in a back compartment of the fire truck. Renee didn't join them. She sat on a stool beside the worktable, holding Gilbert's hand. Sometimes she talked to him. Sometimes she laughed, as if he had said something clever. Often she just moved her thumb across his knuckles, or pressed his cold hand to her cheek.

Nick had told Harper he was the thief and promised to take her to where he had stashed the loot. But the Portable Mother was nowhere in sight. The same went for all the other little valuables that had gone missing from camp. Harper a.s.sumed Nick would explain when he was ready.

She curled up on her side under a black Windbreaker. The jacket had a print of Death himself on the back, one skeletal hand clutching a scythe . . . and the other raising a lacy bra. GRAVEDIGGERS LOCAL 13-BAD TO THE BONE, it said. The Windbreaker smelled of coffee and menthol and made her think of her father, who was always smearing Bengay on his bad neck. She cried herself to sleep, thinking about her dad, who might be dead now and who she doubted she would ever see again in her life. But she wept quietly, not wanting to disturb anyone else.

When she woke, the children were yet asleep. Was Allie still a child? Looking at her smooth cheek and long eyelashes, Harper wanted to think so. Even in sleep, though, she had a whittled-down quality that made her look very much like a young woman, worn by her cares and worries, too busy to think the things that made children happy.

Harper gazed through one of the picture windows facing the garage and saw Renee had climbed up onto the plywood table and dozed off against Gil, one plump hand resting on his chest. The high windows under the eaves looked out on featureless darkness. Harper had slumbered through the day, and might've slept through much of the next night if she weren't so hungry. They would have to do something about food soon.

The office had a Formica counter with a sink, a microwave, a Mr. Coffee, and a radio that was so old it had a ca.s.sette player built into the front. It was plugged into a wall socket, but of course there was no power. There was a fridge, but Harper didn't look inside, didn't want to smell what might be in there. She turned the radio around and found a battery compartment in the back. It required six big D batteries. There was a package of fresh D-cells in the third drawer she tried.

Harper carried the radio out of the office and into the cool, stony quiet of the garage. She paused at the workbench, beside Renee and Gil. The tarp had slipped down to their waists. Gil's s.h.i.+rt was unb.u.t.toned slightly and Renee's hand was curled on his chest, her cheek against his shoulder.

Written in faded blue letters, ornate, almost Gothic, across Gil's chest, were two lines: It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

-G. Greene Harper lifted the tarp up, smoothing it over the two of them, and left them to each other.

She settled on the cement step in a night of surprising, almost liquid warmth, filled with cricket song. She flexed her toes in the damp, gritty loam. When she tipped back her head and looked into the sky, she saw so many stars it made her ache with love for the world. And what a thing: that she still loved the world, even now. The face of the radio glowed a lightning-bug green. What was better than a warm spring night, bare feet in the warm dirt, the smell of budding trees in the air, and a little music on the radio? All she was missing was a cold beer.

She dialed through the FM bands, hoping to hear Martha Quinn and knowing she wouldn't. She didn't. Through a hiss of static she brought in a station playing archival recordings of black gospel, but after a few songs it faded out. Farther down the dial she found a young man-or was it a kid? His voice had the high-pitched, strained quality that Harper a.s.sociated with incipient p.u.b.erty-reporting from Red Sox spring training in Fort Myers. She stuck there for a while, pulse thudding heavily, shaken by the thought that baseball was going on somewhere in the world.

But after half an inning she began to suspect the kid of making it all up as he went along. Bill Buckner was playing first base again, over twenty-five years since his last game, and every single ball went between his legs. Vin Diesel was batting as the Red Sox's designated hitter and stroked a ball right at a shortstop named Kermit deFrock. When deFrock caught it, the force of the hit pulled his arm out of its socket. The Sox were playing a team called the Heretics, largely made up of Muppets, monsters, and madmen, who erupted into flames and died on the field whenever they made an error. Harper listened, smiling, for another inning. The Sox were up 3 to 1 when she changed the station. She wasn't sure how they had scored half a run. The kid doing the announcing sounded about eleven and like he was having the time of his life.

Down at the very bottom of the dial she found a boys' choir singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" and stopped to listen, and at some point she realized she was crying. She had not wanted any of them to die. Not a single one, and it didn't matter how hard it had been to live with them.

When the song faded out, a woman began a report, "Today in Blessings." It was news, of a sort. She said word had come in that J. K. Rowling, author of the G.o.dless Harry Potter novels, had been killed by firing squad in Edinburgh. Her execution had been televised on what remained of the Web. She was scribbled all over with the devil's handwriting and had used her money and status to protect and transport others who were sick. When offered the chance to ask forgiveness for her many sins-deluding children, hiding the contaminated-she scorned the opportunity and said she would not apologize for a single adverb. The announcer accounted it a blessing that she would burn eternally in h.e.l.l, praise Jesus.

In local blessings, the National Guard, supported by the Seacoast Incinerators-a volunteer militia-had discovered six hundred infected sinners hiding on the grounds of Camp Wyndham. A pitched battle ensued, ending when the sick burned to death in a church they had converted to a heavily armed compound, say hallelujah.

Farther north, new fires had started in the south of Maine, but in a sign of the Lord's mercy, the blaze was contained to a mere twenty-mile swath. The New Hamps.h.i.+re Soldiers for Christ had pledged to send more than a hundred men and a dozen fire trucks within the week. Grand Corporal Ian Judaskiller was in close communication with the Maine forest services and stood ready to help any who heard and accepted the truth of his own divine revelations, glory be. Grand corporal? His former t.i.tle had been governor, but then, his former name had been Ian Judd-Skiller.

The boys' choir returned to sing something in Latin.

When Harper lifted her gaze, Nick sat on the other end of the step, squeezing his knees to his chest.

"Nice out," she said, but with gestures, not her voice. "I love a warm night. Almost like summer."

He nodded, just a little, his chin hovering right above his knees.

"Eat we have to," she said, knowing she wasn't getting it quite right. "I'll find eat. Bring here. Don't worry if me not back soon."

He shook his head.

"I know where there's food," he told her with his eloquent, expressive hands. "Come on."