Into the Inferno (22 page)

43. JOKESTERS WHO PUT ZOMBIES IN MOVIE THEATER SEATS

We caravanned to Joel McCain’s house, Stephanie navigating the route by memory, having followed the fire engine there earlier in the week. On North Bend Way, in the middle of town, we passed a couple of high school girls in shorts and halter tops holding cardboard signs for a car wash. I figured this was where Donovan’s Suburban had gotten wet. The thought made my blood boil all over again. They seemed helpful enough and indicated that they were working on the problem day and night, but every little thing was making me irritable.

Stephanie parked the Lexus in front of the McCain homestead while Donovan pulled his Suburban into a spot behind us in the cul-de-sac. The neighborhood was resplendent in the June sunshine, the lawns green and manicured.

A perplexed expression on her face, Mary opened the front door while we gathered at the end of her walkway. “Listen,” I said. “Let me go first. She wasn’t expecting all of us.”

“No, it’s fine!” Mary shouted. “Company will be good. I’m sure he’s ready to see people. Whoever you want to bring is fine.” As we drew closer and I made the introductions, Mary said, “If Dr. Riggs was here to treat Joel, I would veto it, but this is a matter of public health. Scientists always want to cooperate with the medical authorities. It’s in the manual. Mrs. Eddy was very explicit.”

I wondered what was going on with Joel that Mary wanted him to have this many visitors. Was it possible the syndrome really was transitory, that Holly was going to get better, and that Karrie and I weren’t doomed? That Stan had killed himself for nothing?

“Thank you, Mary.” My daughters were behind us in the cul-de-sac, Allyson walking across the street toward a girl her age, Britney lagging behind. “You two going to be okay out here?” I shouted.

“I’m going to play with Crystal, Daddy. We’ll be okay.”

“Don’t lose track of your little sister.”

“I’m not going to get lost,” Britney said, annoyed.

The four of us crowded into the McCains’ foyer, our numbers, my height, and Scott Donovan’s girth making the rooms smaller. The last time I’d been here, Joel had looked like a CPR dummy, but today Mary was so buoyant and confident, I began to get my hopes up.

Mary escorted us into the stripped-down living room, where Joel lay on a tall hospital bed. His eyes were open, but other than that he looked like a man who’d just been thrown by a bull elephant, limp, dazed, broken. He wore a white T-shirt, a bedsheet obscuring whatever else he might have had on. To my great disappointment, he was pretty much the same glassy-eyed Joel we’d left four days ago.

Stephanie walked over and spoke his name, took his pulse, temperature, blood pressure, felt his brow, and began checking his extremities for signs of conscious or reflexive movement. I thought about trying to speak to him but couldn’t get myself to do it in front of this many people. Anything I said would only make me look fatuous and show Joel off for the zombie he’d become. In fact, all I could think about was how full of life and humor Joel had been only weeks earlier.

I slipped out of the room and stepped onto the front porch, gently snicking the front door closed behind me. Across the street my girls were running in circles with two other children. Coming so soon after Stan’s funeral, seeing Joel again had been ruinous, his twisted body dressed by somebody else, his facial muscles slack, the part in his hair crooked.

It would be a good many years before Joel got a funeral or the accolades Stan had received that morning. Not unless his mother-in-law fed him another apple. By the time they buried him, he would have spent a decade, perhaps several decades, lying in musty rooms by himself. It was the worst way to die.

A day at a time.

Alone.

Forgotten.

Joel and I had joined the fire department the same year. After my divorce he used to tease me about my dating habits, joking that I’d never met a woman I didn’t want to dump. He claimed I had a pathological need to make each woman in the room fall in love with me so I could break her heart. It wasn’t true. At least, not to the extent he claimed.

Standing alone on his porch, I thought about what he’d been trying to tell me. Joel had been relentless in trying to force me to see myself from a different perspective.

What hurt was that all those years I’d treated his comments as jokes and all those years he’d been right.

Joel had seen through me.

He’d said once I must have been a lonely child. How he’d come up with that diagnosis was beyond me, because everybody else in the department thought I was a happy-go-lucky guy, assumed I always had been.

Now, standing on his front porch, for the first time in years, perhaps ever, I was able to look at myself as an outsider might. I
had
been a sad kid. Life at Six Points had been infinitely depressing and had worn me down physically, while suppressing my spirit, too. One only had to look at my choice of reading material during those years.

I’d spent hours each day in the school library or the downtown Seattle Public Library, usually when I was supposed to be out on the streets proselytizing. The Sixth Element and William P. Markham had the longest list of banned books on earth, essentially any book Markham hadn’t written, yet once I broke the tenet and began reading from outside sources, once I discovered the library, I found a whole new world. Hundreds, if not thousands, of new worlds.

I absorbed as much information about the universe outside our religion as possible.

I loved reading about war pilots, from the First World War right through Vietnam. There was something immensely compelling about the thought of being up in the wild blue while the rest of the world fought like barbarians below.

In addition to flying stories, I read every WW II escape memoir I could lay my hands on. I read about fliers slipping out of POW camps, about soldiers escaping from the Wehrmacht, about Jews, Communists, and gays escaping from the Gestapo. I read with relish and identified completely with men and women relating tortures at the hands of the Nazis, and swore that if I was ever tortured, I would do everything in my power to survive and exact my revenge. What I hadn’t realized until years later was that I had been tortured every day of my young life, and that my pitiful reprisals would eventually be launched against an old man in a nursing home.

Ironic that I should identify with prisoners of war so completely. Ironic also that I should dream incessantly of escape from a prison camp. It was my spirit that had been in prison.

Cultists lived in a fantasy world, and according to Joel I’d fallen into a fantasy world after my divorce, too, seducing and discarding women like a fisherman seducing and discarding trout in a “catch-and-release only” stream. What an incredible bastard I was. It had probably been one of my exes who’d made the anonymous call to Shad and Stevenson accusing me of blowing up Caputo’s trailer.

I was still thinking about all my exes when the front door opened behind me and Achara stepped outside. “He was like that when you saw him before?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly like that?”

“Not exactly. When we saw him, he was choking on an apple.”

“Oh, God. How many others are there?”

“Two still alive in Tennessee that we know about and two more up here. Stephanie’s sister and a woman over in the nursing home. Joel makes three. I’ll be the fourth. Karrie? The young woman at the fire station? I don’t know if you saw her. She’ll be the fifth, although I doubt she’ll talk to you about it.”

“I suppose it’s possible Joel is the way he is because of his fall?”

“It’s possible, but that’s not what happened.”

“So you expect to be . . . ?”

“By Sunday.” I dropped my hands limply, made my facial muscles go slack, and feigned brain death. It was fun to watch the look of horror in Achara’s eyes. Then, in case one of the neighbors thought I was mocking Joel, I relaxed the pose.

“That’s not funny.”

“I thought it was hilarious.” Her brown eyes held my gaze. Somehow during our explanations yesterday at Canyon View, the magnitude of the tragedy had not impressed her. For all of his scientific distance, Donovan actually seemed more attuned to the personal impact of the syndrome, perhaps because he’d seen it up close in Tennessee. I’d sensed all along that he knew my pain.

“I feel dreadful about this.”

“Join the club.”

“No, I mean . . . If there was something we could do right now, this minute. I just . . .” She was whispering now and the ringing in my ears forced me to lower my head to hear.

“What are you two conspiring about?” Donovan had opened the door without a sound.

“I was just telling Jim I’ve turned down two offers to teach at Stanford.”

“Don’t worry, Jimbo. We’ll figure this out.”

Donovan’s arrogance was almost as comforting as Achara’s deception was puzzling. Why lie to Donovan? Weren’t we all working on this together? I was beginning to wonder if she had her own agenda, if she was really committed to this quest.

“How can you say we’re going to figure this out when there’s so little time?” Achara said.

“Don’t you worry. You’re good at what you do. I’m good at what I do. Don’t forget. I went through this once before and got stumped. It’s not going to happen again.”

Gazing across the immaculate lawn at the black Suburban, I said, “Nice rig. You stop to get it washed on the way into town?”

Donovan said, “On the drive out here some idiot teenage kid threw a tomato across three lanes of freeway and just about took out our windshield. I tried to get his license, but they took the exit to Highway 18 right after that.”

When she spotted me watching her from across the cul-de-sac, Allyson jogged halfway across the quiet street and shouted, “Do we have to go now?”

“Not yet.”

She ran back to the game, laughing. I found myself looking to see whether her hands were clear, but my vision was blurred, and at this distance I would have needed binoculars even if it wasn’t. Jesus. My kids might have it. Somebody was responsible for this. I didn’t know who, but somebody had to be. Thinking about my kids getting it made me want to kill whoever was responsible.

Eight minutes later Stephanie came out of the house deep in conversation with Mary McCain, their sudden camaraderie odd, considering Stephanie was a doctor and Mary had always taken pride in the fact that she’d never visited a doctor in her life.

A few minutes later, Donovan and Carpenter were locked into a heated discussion in the Suburban, the windows rolled tight.

44. YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO MEMORIZE THIS: 7540182418630846

Positioning the vanity mirror so that I could watch the argument in the Suburban behind us, I missed all but the gist of what Stephanie was telling me, something about how much faith Mary had that her religion would bring Joel back to his old self. Despite what Mary thought, Joel was gone. He was an idiot and would be for the rest of eternity. Just as I would be.

The speed limit was thirty-five, but we were doing closer to forty-five; behind us, the Suburban quickly matched our speed.

Without warning, the Suburban swerved across the yellow line and nearly struck an oncoming vehicle, overcorrected, and went off the road on the right, a sheet of dust flaring up as it crossed the dirt.

“Achara had an accident!” shrieked Allyson, who’d been watching the Suburban with me.

“Stop,” I said.

“What?” Stephanie glanced into her mirror and pulled onto the parking strip, reversing until we occupied the stretch of roadway directly opposite the accident. The Suburban had center-punched a small tree. The vehicle the Suburban had so narrowly missed was backing up, too.

“You girls stay inside,” I said.

“Can’t we go see?” Britney asked.

“No.”

The tree, about five inches in diameter, had creased the front bumper of the Suburban. Other than that, there wasn’t much damage. The windshield was intact.

“Oh, God,” said Donovan when I reached the vehicle. He was cupping his nose with both hands, blood leaking through his fingers. The deployed air bag had popped him good. I reached inside past Donovan and turned off the ignition.

As I moved around the vehicle to see how Achara was doing, one of our volunteers, Andre Stiles, climbed out of the pickup across the street, still wearing his uniform from the funeral.

He peered around the vehicle to see where I was headed, spotted Achara, and rolled his eyes. As a group, the guys in the department indulged in a lot of adolescent humor about my homing in on the best-looking woman at any accident scene—some of them even claimed I’d elbowed them aside to get to particularly pretty victims. I almost always let them run with their joke.

Achara was on the passenger side of the Suburban, hands on her knees, staring at the ground. “You all right?” I asked.

The ringing in my ears obscured her initial reply. When I asked her to repeat, she said, “Got a pencil? I’m going to give you some numbers. Don’t tell Scott.”

“Why not?”

“Write this down. I want you to have this before I tell you anything else.”

“I don’t have anything to write with.”

“There’s no time to get it. Just listen. Seventy-five, forty.”

“Seventy-five, forty.”

“That’s the first part. The rest goes, eighteen, twenty-four, eighteen, sixty-three, oh-eight, forty-six. Write it down first chance you get. Don’t let anyone see it until you need it.”

“Need it for what?”

“Give it back to me. Do you remember it?”

“Seventy-five, forty. Eighteen, twenty-four, eighteen, sixty-three, oh-eight, forty-six.”

“Not too many people could do that.”

“Bible school.”

She wasn’t bleeding, but she would probably end up with a black eye from the impact of her air bag. “You sure you can remember that?”

“I can remember anything.”

“Jesus Christ! You could have killed somebody,” Donovan whined, rounding the rear of the Suburban holding a four-by-four inch gauze pad to his nose, his tieless shirt dappled with red.

“It was
your
fault.”

“My fault? You grabbed the wheel. You don’t
ever
grab the wheel when somebody else is driving.”

“You were in the wrong lane, Scott. You were going to kill somebody.”

“The only person was going to kill anybody was you.”

“Look who’s talking. Mr. Ethical.”

“Now don’t get into
that
.”

“I’ll get into it if I want to get into it.”

“This is my last warning. Don’t go there.” His voice was surprisingly calm considering what they’d just been through.

They glowered at each other, and before anybody could react, Achara stepped forward and kicked Donovan in the shin. He stepped back and held his leg. The contrast in size between Achara and Donovan made the skirmish almost funny. I doubted she weighed a hundred pounds. At the least, Donovan weighed two-forty.

None of this kept her from kicking him a second time.

I stopped her before she could do anything else. “No, you don’t. That’s the end of it. It’s over.”

“Get out of my way. You don’t even know what this is about.”

“Sure I do. It’s about somebody going to jail.”

“Don’t even make me tell you how many martial arts I know,” Donovan warned, over my shoulder.

Donovan’s jaw was clenched, his blue eyes glued to Achara. Yet, strangely, he seemed afraid of her. In a physical altercation he could take Achara, together with me and probably Stephanie and Stiles, all of us at once. Because of the calluses on Donovan’s knuckles, I had no doubt his martial arts skills were impressive. Yet he hadn’t made a move to defend himself.

Stiles picked up his aid kit and marched across the street to his pickup truck. Stephanie took Achara by the arm and led her behind the Suburban. I gestured for Donovan to step over to the Lexus.

“What’s going on between you two?”

“You saw her. She caused that accident.”

“What were you arguing about in the truck?”

“It’s pretty simple. I’m in charge and she’s not. She was in school so long, she never learned to take orders.”

“You two better straighten this out.”

“She’d better straighten herself out.” Donovan looked off in the distance toward Snoqualmie Pass, where billows of black smoke from the state fire academy were rolling across the foothills. We’d all trained up there at Exit 38, everyone in the department, probably every firefighter in the state. “She just needs to stay on track. She gets out of the lab so infrequently, I don’t think she knows how to behave in public.”

“I have a feeling there’s more to it.”

“Hey, listen.
She
assaulted
me
.”

“You drive back with Stephanie. I’ll go with Achara.”

“Not necessary. We’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“It’s a lot of strain, you know?” Donovan’s eyes held mine. I figured him for a real Lothario, a heartthrob with the ladies, or maybe the guys, the ones who liked that type, big, thick, muscular, the boyish haircut, the baby-blues behind the wire-rimmed spectacles. “Trying to figure this out and get the work done before we lose you. And now we have that other firefighter, what’s her name?”

“Karrie.”

“I know this is a lot of pressure on Carpenter. I tried this once before in Tennessee and we weren’t successful, and you know what? It really bummed me out. I think the same thing’s happening to Achara. You know what I’m talking about. You do emergency work all the time. We don’t get out of the office. This is just a lot of strain.”

“Yeah. Well.”

Stephanie came around the vehicle and said, “I think she’ll be okay now. Why don’t we switch cars. You drive with Achara?”

Donovan said, “Forget it. We’ve got work to do. I’ll go with Achara.”

For a split second Achara looked at me, and I had the feeling she was afraid I might tell him about the numbers she’d given me. She stepped forward and put her talon of a hand out, and she and Donovan shook.

Moments later Donovan managed to extricate the Suburban from the ditch without the assistance of a wrecker. There was no telling what was going on between them, perhaps a tinge of professional envy, Donovan finding himself upstaged by the whiz kid from MIT, Achara rankling under the yoke of a boss she knew had lesser skills than she. Or maybe it was seeing Joel. Visiting him had shaken me up, too.

What bothered me even more than Achara’s sudden show of temper was the numbers she’d given me. I had no idea what they meant or why she’d offered them. Or why she didn’t want Donovan to know about them. I had the feeling they were part of a chemical formula, but what did I know? Sooner or later I’d get her alone and we would have an interesting conversation.