The Forever Man: A Near-Future Thriller (8 page)

He continues his climb and reaches the shoulder of the highway, where Arjun Khan stares at the blaze. “Was that him?” Arjun asks.

“Negative.”

“I didn’t think so. Keep me apprised.”

“Roger that.”

The contractor moves off to the rear van, while Arjun turns to the lead vehicle. He opens the door, where Zed sits in the semidarkness.

“That wasn’t him,” Arjun says.

Zed seems not to notice. “I’m cold. It’s the start of fall. It’s beginning to get chilly at night.”

Arjun winces inside. The old man is drifting, his focus temporarily gone. It’s happening more often as of late. “I’m sorry about that. Is there anything we can do to make you a little more comfortable?”

“Take me out by the fire.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I want to go out by the fire. So I can warm up.”

“I’m not sure if that’s advisable. We haven’t secured the area. And there’s always the danger of a secondary explosion.”

“I don’t want to argue. I want to warm up. Let’s go.”

The light from the flames dances in faded peach over Zed’s convoluted skin. The old man gets up very slowly and comes to the door, where Arjun helps him step down onto the running board and then to the ground.

“My coat, please. And my hat.”

Arjun reaches in, removes the overcoat and the hat from a hook, and helps Zed struggle into them. The motion strains Zed’s connective tissue to the point of pain. He then hands Zed his cane and helps him down the embankment, one cautious step at a time.

When they reach the truck, it still burns vigorously, with bright flames billowing out the broken windows and lashing out at the night sky, an angry furnace stoked by gasoline, oil, upholstery, and human flesh. About ten yards away, Arjun’s nose takes in the stink of the bubbling corpse. It repels him and he looks to Zed, hoping for a similar reaction so they can leave. Instead, Zed smiles and put out his hands to catch the warmth of the blaze.

“It’s wonderful,” comments Zed. “There’s nothing quite as nice as a big fire on a cold night. Don’t you think so?”

“I suppose.”

“I mean, you can have furnaces, you can have heaters. But they just aren’t the same.”

Arjun looks at Zed’s face. Only the eyes seem alive, small wet pockets that glisten in the firelight.

“Have you ever been camping, Arjun?”

“Yes, once or twice.”

Their conversation is interrupted by a dull thud and the outline of motion inside the truck, followed by an extra rush of flames. For a horrible moment, Arjun thinks the man is still alive inside. Then he realizes that the seat belt has burned through and the body has fallen onto the ceiling of the cab. A flaming arm flops out the window and ignites little tufts of dry grass.

Zed stares at the sizzling arm and continues. “I went camping once. When I was a young boy. My father and I took the trolley to the edge of town. We had a blanket, some bread, and a bottle of whiskey. We walked up into the hills and built a fire when it got dark. My father drank
the whiskey and passed out.” Zed pauses and wheezes out a laugh. “As soon he as he was out cold, I took the blanket away from him and sat by the fire until it went out. It was warm. It was wonderful.” He sighs. “Oh well, I guess nothing lasts forever, does it?”

“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Zed.”

The little wet eyes flash bright with fire. “Nor does anyone else. At least, not yet.”

And in the center of his head, as he basks in the warmth of the ghastly fire, Zed feels a strange little clock spring forth, a clock that only tocks and never ticks. A clock whose tocks were launched so long ago, at the time of his birth, in the twilight of the nineteenth century. He tries to keep count, to see how far back the tocks will take him, but the lateness of the hour and pleasant blanket of radiant heat make it difficult to concentrate.

As best he can tell, they stop when he is about fifteen.

The crisp morning air invigorates a young Thomas Zed as he walks down Market Street and watches the first light of dawn paint the big buildings. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and he feels the twin wads of dollar bills. He’s a smart lad, they say, the men on the waterfront that let him gamble with them far into the night. Got a way with numbers. Never forgets a card. Several have silently backed him, and he splits his winnings with them. The boy’s a moneymaker, and they protect their investment from sore losers and drunks.

At Third, he looks up at the Hearst Building as he turns south off of Market. Someday, he will have a building like that. Others dream it, but he can feel it, and the power of that feeling propels his youthful legs down the deserted sidewalk. A wagon comes up from behind, the clop of horses’ hooves bouncing off the buildings and the pavement. As it passes, he sees its teamster stare stonily down the street, with a slack grip on the reins. The back is open, so he sprints and jumps aboard and rides the next few blocks before hopping off and heading west into the tenements, the ramshackle buildings constructed mostly of wood and rising four or five stories above street level.

When he reaches home, he climbs the stairs to the fourth story, walks down the dingy hall, and unlocks the door to the single room he shares with his father. The old man dozes in an alcoholic stupor on the bed. He is fully clothed and sprawled on his back. His Adam’s apple bobs from the beneath the stubble on his scrawny neck and mirrors his snoring.

Zed sits on the cot that has served as his bed for as long as he can remember. The old man is out of work again, fired from his livery-stable job. Each time he’s fired, the intervals between the new jobs grow longer and longer. Zed would have left long ago, but the old man loves him in a crippled sort of way. The only time he raises his voice is when he finds that Zed has been skipping school. Then he raves about how bright the boy’s mother was, and how she never had the chance to finish school, and about how tragic her death was, and the horrible
episode out there on the prairie, and …

Zed gets up and goes to the room’s only window, which is nearly opaque with grime. He’s home later than usual, so he’ll probably skip school today. No problem. He can miss a week and make it up in a day if he has to, although his teachers won’t admit it. He looks out at the thin morning light and back into the semidarkness of the room. It stinks of cheap booze, stale tobacco, sweaty clothes, and mite-laden dust. He wants out.

It’s too late to grab any sleep. Soon, the old man will awaken, hack violently, and take his shrinking bladder down the hall to relieve himself. Then he will return and flop back down on the bed to return to his fitful slumber. Zed decides to walk back up to Market Street, buy a roll and some coffee, and watch the city come alive. He will sit on a stool and look north across the trolley tracks to the big buildings, the great strongholds of the rich and powerful. To him, their march up the hill is transcendental in nature, a journey to a mystical plateau of monetary privilege. While he munches on his roll, he will consider the first steps in this journey, the acquisition of enough capital to get him under way.

He crosses the room, takes one last look at the pathetic figure on the bed, and slips out the door.

He will never see the old man again. Because when he reaches the sidewalk, the ground beneath him buckles in a jolt of boundless violence.

Instinctively, he sprints out into the middle of the street, into a narrow zone of safety between the buildings on each side. The force of the quake tries to knock him off his feet and nearly succeeds as it issues a thunderous roar and begins to buckle the pavement all around him.

Dry wood snaps and splinters. Bricks crash to the ground. Metal ducts screech and rip. A dog howls in horror.

Then quiet. And dust. A great cloud of devastation sent heavenward into a cruelly neutral sky.

As the dust clears, Zed sees that his tenement has collapsed into a jagged heap of riven lumber. Four stories are now one. The same is true all up and down the block. He scans the street in both directions for survivors. At the end of the block, a man in striped pajamas kneels quietly, as if in prayer. Nearby, a woman in a nightgown walks delicately around the debris, her long, curly hair falling over her shoulders. She carries an empty birdcage, its bottom missing.

The fires ignite almost immediately. Shorted wires, overturned stoves, flammable chemicals all join to start a conflagration that will eventually burn out the entire heart of the city. The whole block begins to belch great sheets of flame and smoke, and his own tenement is no exception.

From beneath the burning wood, the screaming starts.

The heat tries to clutch his skin and broil it as he runs down the block toward Third,
where some of the structures are brick and have yet to catch fire. Ahead, a great geyser of water shoots from a ruptured main.

Zed turns on Third and jogs back up toward Market. After a few blocks, the blazing monster is behind him, and the streets have become strangely calm.

With the immediate danger past, he slows to a walk. On the far side of the street, a few people huddle around a man hopelessly pinned in the debris of a collapsed building. He screams that the fire is coming, that the fire will burn him alive, that someone should shoot him before he suffers.

A block later, he hears a single shot from a revolver.

He continues on and decides to cross Market Street, the perennial border between wealth and poverty. Today, no one will scorn him for his dirty clothes or greasy hair. Today, no beet-faced cop will shoo him back where he belongs.

On Polk Street, he comes upon a saloon, its windows broken and its door open. Inside, half a dozen men are at the bar, with big, foaming schooners of beer.

“Come on in, lad,” yells a beefy man with red hair sprouting from beneath a bowler. “Have one on the house!”

Zed does a cautionary scan up and down the street, and then enters. As he steps up to the bar and plants his foot on the brass rail, the redhead puts a big arm over his shoulders.

“You lookin’ for work, boy?” the man asks with maniacal grin.

“Depends,” Zed says as a beer is pushed his way.

“Depends on what?” the redhead asks, taking mock offense.

“Depends on what it is.”

“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, that’s what it is,” the redhead declares. “It’s a chance to get into the jewelry business. It’s a chance to get rich. So what else do you need to know?”

“What if we get caught?”

The redhead pulls back from Zed, looks at him in amazement, and then looks at the other men. They all explode in laughter.

“And just who do you think might be catchin’ us on this fine morning? Your mother, maybe?”

“I don’t have a mother,” Zed answers as he takes a sip of beer.

“Well, to tell the truth, sonny, neither do I. But I do know an opportunity when I see one.” He puts his arm around Zed again and steers him toward the door. “So let’s take a little walk.”

A few blocks later, they approach a large jewelry store. The displays are in chaos from the shaking, but the windows are intact.

“You see, on a day like today, nobody’s going to know whether a little broken glass is
God’s work or man’s,” the redhead instructs. He picks up a fallen gargoyle off the sidewalk and hefts its mass of pitted stone. “Perfect.” He throws it through the glass door, which shatters inward onto the carpeted floor.

“Maybe I better keep guard,” Zed volunteers. “I don’t know what’s valuable. I’d pick up the wrong stuff.”

“Good thinkin’, boy,” the redhead says. “You see any kind of a uniform, you yell. I’ll go shoppin’ for both of us.” He ducks in through the doorframe and reappears in the front window, pawing through the display.

As the redhead continues to rummage inside, Zed backs off a respectful distance and sits on the curb opposite the store. The sun goes red with wood smoke and a cat slinks across the deserted street. A few minutes later, he sees the soldiers. Seven of them with rifles slung, coming down Polk, right toward him.

Without hesitation, he rises and walks down the block to meet them.

The one in the lead has the chevrons of a sergeant on his sleeve and a nasty face with a broken nose. Before the man can speak, Zed takes the initiative.

“Sir,” he says respectfully. “I saw a man break into that store down there.” He points down the street to the jewelry store. “I think he’s still inside.”

“How long ago?” the sergeant asks.

“Just a few minutes ago. He wanted me to help him.”

“Good thing you didn’t,” the sergeant says. “Now get the hell out of here.”

“Yes, sir.” Zed moves away as the soldiers ready their rifles and approach the store. He conceals himself behind a pile of rubble and watches.

Two of the soldiers enter the store. A moment later, they march the redhead out at gunpoint. He is gesticulating wildly.

“Didn’t you see him?” the redhead asks desperately. “A punk kid. I caught him breakin’ in here and went to see what the damage was. Don’t tell me you didn’t see him!”

The sergeant ignores the man’s pleas and gives an order to two of the soldiers. They raise their rifles and each chamber a round, while the redhead bolts and runs in naked panic. Before he can get ten yards, the soldiers have shouldered their weapons and fired into the fleeing man’s back. He lunges forward, skids along the pavement on his belly, tries to rise, and then flops down.

All seven soldiers walk up to the body. One turns it over with a shove of his boot. Apparently, they are satisfied. Without a word, they follow the sergeant’s lead down the street, where they round the corner and head south toward Market.

Zed rises cautiously, walks into the street, and looks in both directions. No one is visible. He runs past the jewelry store to the corner and looks down the hill. The soldiers are already
rounding another corner and heading away from him. He turns and looks at the dead looter in the intersection, where a pool of blood is forming around the torso. Boring.

He trots over to the jewelry store, ducks through the shattered glass in the front door, and spots a shopping bag tipped over on the floor near a shattered display case. Inside it, he finds a gleaming jumble of jewelry all knotted into wild blossoms of gold and silver encrusted with diamonds and other stones beyond his knowledge. He grabs the bag and exits. Later, there’ll be plenty of time to inventory the haul. Right now, the important thing is to minimize his exposure.