H10N1 (12 page)

He managed to rinse off the top of her head without getting her totally soaked. She used the back of her tee shirt to dry off.

“Okay, let’s have a look.” He let go of her hair and stepped back. “Holy shit.”

“Now what?”

“You’re hurt.”

Again with the fingers, making a
very
vague reference to her chest. Taeya craned her neck, chin to chest. Red claw marks ran from her shoulders to beneath the camisole. “Oh, great.”

“You better put something on those.” His face blazed redtalking.

“Would you stop ogling?” she snapped. “Geez, let me get a new shirt.”

She stomped for the van, then turned. “I think I liked you better as a jerk.”

CHAPTER TEN

Thank God they were finally on the road. Rick let Sanchez drive. She was just as anxious as he was to get away from there, because she took the first bend in the road on two wheels. Twisting her mouth, she gave him one of those “oops” grins. Then she eased back on the throttle.

That whole scene back at the tunnel was surreal. He’d heard Sanchez plug the first dog, and once his hand was free, he’d blasted that shepherd right between the eyes. He’d thought that was the end of it, but then he heard Sanchez fire again, saw her head slam onto the pavement. He was sure she was dead.

That would have really capped it: the Doc getting killed because he’d been so stubborn about the damn wheel cover. That sublime body of hers—those firm tits, the long legs, that fine ass—chewed up by friggin’ dogs.

Sanchez glanced over and caught him ogling again. He blinked back at her, like he was innocent.

“You know,” she said, “I’m not going to go any faster than this, so you might as well knock it off with the bug-eye.”

“Fifty’s fine.” Rick glanced out his window, pretending to enjoy the scenery. “So, Doc. You ever shoot anybody?”

“Not yet. But lately, I’ve been considering it.”

She got a big kick out of that little dig, squelching a smirk, staring him right in the eyes. But then she nestled her shoulders against the seat to get comfortable.

“Why don’t you tell me some more about your friends?” she said. “Do they have any children?”

“Funny you should ask that.” He perched both elbows on his armrest and went back to staring at Sanchez’ body. “Judith and Devin have been together for about nine years. But still no bambinos. I don’t know if it’s intentional or if there’s a biological problem. Could be they think the world’s too screwed up for kids.”

“Of course, they would be second amendment freaks like you.”

“Come on, Doc. Don’t bust my balls. Let’s pretend we’re on a nice afternoon drive and we actually like each other, okay?”

Without taking her eyes off the road, she said, “It’s a stretch, but I’ll try.”

It was like something Judith would say. Now, that woman never let him get away with anything. If he said something stupid, Judith called him on it. And if he shot off his mouth, she expected him to back up his claim with facts. She wasn’t some girly chick who agreed with him a hundred percent. But she wasn’t some moody bitch who pouted and whined either.

Rick flashed back to the day he told Devin and Judith he was leaving. They were shocked. And there was no way he could explain why he had to get away. He hardly understood himself. There was just something about watching those two that made his heart ache.

“You said something about a brother,” Rick said. “Is he a doctor, too?”

“Yes.” The Doc sounded a little leery.

“But not a member of the country club.”

She cracked an itty, bitty smile. “No. He had a practice in Los Angeles, but he also did a lot of mission work. You know, the doctors without borders. The last time we talked, he was going to Guatemala. But then all this hit. And of course, communication collapsed in poorer countries a lot sooner than it did here. So, I’m not sure where he is.”

“Bummer.”

The whole close-knit family business was a mystery to Rick. He and his sisters had spent their childhood watching their mother get slapped around by his alcoholic father, and trying to stay invisible to avoid the old man’s wrath themselves. One time, when Rick was fourteen, he tried to defend his mother. His dad had come stumbling in, drunk on his ass, and thrown a full plate of food at his mother. Said it was cold. She managed to deflect the plate with her forearm, but the spaghetti got her right in the face. It was so humiliating. Rick mumbled something about the food being hot when she’d set it on the table an hour earlier. His dad grabbed him by the hair and bashed his face into the wall.

Later, when Rick was in the bathroom pulling dried toilet paper from his bloody nose, his mom came to the door. At first, he thought she was going to thank him for standing up for her. But all she told him was to mind his own business next time. When the pandemic hit, Rick took a distinct pleasure in imagining his father dying a slow, agonizing death.

At first, when Michelle found out she was pregnant, and they got married, he got a few tugs from the kind of family ties Sanchez talked about. Especially once Richie was born. Lying in bed on a day off with the baby nestled between him and Michelle. Parading around the dinky neighborhood with the baby in his buggy.

But the fussing, and dirty diapers, and spit-up on clean clothes got to Michelle. She really hated having to wake up in the middle of the night, too. She wasn’t working. Money was tight. Her frustration frayed those bonds. At the time, he was glad to have the driving job that took him away from her nagging.

There were no vacations, no weekend trips, no pictures of a day at the lake even.

But of course, Sanchez had this fantasy family that actually cared about each other. He bit his tongue to keep from saying something rude about her brother. After all, Rick was the one who insisted they play nice.

“Where are your folks?” he asked.

“I don’t know that either.” She must have conjured up some sort of fond memory, because she smiled. “I bought them a shortwave radio a few years ago, when I was abroad most of the time. But they couldn’t get the hang of it. My father thought he was supposed to say ‘breaker, breaker’ and ‘ten-four’.”

She didn’t think her old man was a dork, she thought he was sweet.

“And I suppose he had a camera in his hand for every birthday, every holiday.”

“He manned the movie camera. My mom snapped the photos.” Again with the toothy grin. “You should have seen the bookshelves full of photo albums in our family room. Each one had a typed list taped on the spine with the year and what was inside. My mom was a little anal about staying organized.”

“Did you ever look through the books?”

“Oh, yeah. Photo albums are addictive. You think you’re just going to flip through to find a particular picture. Next thing you know, you’re sitting on the floor, studying every photo. And you’re thinking, ‘I didn’t know Aunt Carmen had red hair when I was a baby.’” Her smile faded. “I suppose they’re all gone now. Burned up with their home.”

Rick wondered if there were any pictures of his family in some old photo album somewhere. He couldn’t recall ever see one. As far as he knew, his dad didn’t own a camera. Hell, his mother never even wanted to pay for the packet of pictures the school took each year.

* * *

In Asheville, Sanchez slowed to check out a small traffic jam. Was she looking for a suitable vehicle? Surely not, after he’d insisted he was in too much pain to drive. He’d even staggered before he climbed into the passenger seat, pretending that whatever she’d given him had made him a little loopy. A true threat behind the wheel.

At first, he wasn’t quite sure why he’d done that. But then he’d decided that all the bullshit about being on his own, the one-man road-trip, was just that—bullshit. He enjoyed having someone to talk to, even if it was Sanchez. And there was that whole safety-in-numbers thing to consider.

But the Doc wasn’t feeling it.

“We had pretty good luck finding a vehicle at a gas station last time,” she said. “Shall we try it again?”

Shit. And just when she was starting to grow on him.

“You’ve got plenty of time,” Rick said as he shifted his weight and winced in pain again. She bought it and kept on driving.

“So, where exactly are you heading,” he asked. “Once you get your own car?”

“West.” Her eyes blinked like she’d just let some deep, dark secret out of the bag.

“Could you narrow down the locale just a little bit more for me,” he said. Was she worried he might try to follow her?

After raking her teeth over her lips, and checking her rearview for cops a couple times, she finally told him she was going to Arizona.

“Arizona?” Rick asked. “Jesus, Doc.”

She tossed her hair back, and straightened in her seat. “I have a friend near Tucson.”

“A friend?”

“She and I went to UCLA together.”

With that, she was off and running, telling him that she and her friend Mai roomed together their freshman year, then spent a summer in Indonesia after a tsunami hit. Mai stayed in Sumatra for a couple years and ended up with a nursing degree, but Sanchez came back to the States and got her degree in Epidemiology.

She was up to Mai’s work in Chicago with displaced children when Rick squinted an eye shut. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were stalling, Doc. What’s the deal? Is Mai an old lover of yours?”

“No!”

“Well it seems to me that Arizona is a rather inhospitable place to hunker down. From what I hear, the air is so dry the inside of your nose cracks and bleeds in the summer. And when it does rain, it’s monsoons that wash everything away. Now if it was Texas—”

Sanchez interrupted. “What difference does it make?”

Oh-ho. He’d found a hot button.

“What could there possibly be in Tucson—.”

“She’s living in the Biosphere, okay? So have your fun now and get it over with.”

“The Biosphere.”

“That’s right.”

“The colony in a bubble.”

“Right.”

Sanchez sighed and propped her elbow on the window ledge, waiting for him to rip the idea apart.

Rick remembered hearing about the place years ago. It was some kind of experiment to see if people could live in an enclosure without any help from the outside. The place even recycled its own air and water. But hadn’t the project gone bust?

“Are you sure she’s still there?” he asked.

“She was two days ago.”

“And why aren’t folks busting the door down to get in?”

Taeya shrugged. “Mai didn’t sound worried. The place isn’t very well known. And it’s in the middle of the desert. It’s not like anyone’s going to just happen onto it.”

The van slowed, and Rick’s heart lurched. He quickly glanced out the windshield to see if she was pulling up next to a car. But they were cruising passed a high stone wall and a sign for the Biltmore Estate.

“Hey, here it is.” Rick searched down the tree-lined road, but there was no mansion in sight. When he glanced back at Sanchez, she was hunched over, looking for the house, too.

“Do you suppose it’s been looted?” she asked.

“Oh, hell, yeah.”

“Maybe some survivors will move in,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be something? Living in that castle?”

“Too drafty.”

A smile actually crossed her lips. Was he finally making some headway?

“Just think of all the estates and villas and castles all over the world, sitting idle now.”

“Yeah,” Rick nodded. “Hell, I could go live in the Playboy mansion.”

“Yes, but you’d be alone,” she reminded him. “What about the White House?”

“That would be a fitting end,” Rick snorted. “The White House full of homeless people.”

Sanchez’ mouth turned into a frown. “Did a lot of the historical buildings burn in D.C.?”

“You mean, like the Washington Monument?”

“No.” She rolled her eyes, but he didn’t see the same flicker of anger like before. Maybe she was starting to get his humor. “I mean like all of those museums: The Smithsonian, the American History, the National Art Gallery.”

“I never got down into the historical part of the city, so I can’t say. But sooner or later, somebody’s going to blow up the FBI building.”

Rick was primed for a rant on the billions of dollars the government had spent over decades, scavenging dirt on people who were probably all dead now. But Sanchez had drifted off into her own private nightmare.

“Think of all the priceless artifacts, the works of art, the historical documents.”

“Yeah. All ripe for the picking. No alarms, no locks, no security. Anything can be taken.”

Her mouth gaped as she sucked in a breath. “My God. The Mona Lisa.”

“I’d bet that’s already gone. Or somebody has spray painted a moustache on her face.”

He got the scowl. Witty banter goes just so far with chicks.

“Think about Fort Knox,” he said. “All that gold.”

“I hope St. Peter’s in Moscow doesn’t burn, or the Louvre.”

“Or Buckingham Palace. Versailles.” He added a solemn click of the tongue to show how tragic those losses would be.

She shot her hand out to stop him. “The Baseball Hall of Fame. I could get Babe Ruth’s baseball glove.”

Rick groaned. “Or the Honus Wagner baseball card.” That one card alone was worth over a million. Or at least it was a few years ago.

A giggle bubbled up out of Sanchez. “Maybe I’ll make a side trip to Roswell, New Mexico, and see if there really are aliens.”

“Maybe they’ve just been biding their time, waiting for all of us to croak so they can take over the planet.”

* * *

The subject of Sanchez’ own transportation didn’t come up again, and before Rick knew it, they were skirting around Nashville on a side road that ran along a big reservoir. He saw a sign for a boat ramp and told Sanchez to take a left.

“Let’s check it out. Maybe we can get some lunch and stretch our legs.”

The neglected road wove through trees, opening up on a narrow boat launch and a couple of picnic tables. Sanchez drove through the grass along the perimeter while Rick searched for any signs of life. When she finally parked, she had the van nosed back up the road.