Three Days in April (4 page)

“Hi, Terry,” she says. “I don't think I'm going to be able to talk about the wedding today. Bad things are happening here.”

 

3. ELISE

I
drop my phone back into my bag, take a deep breath, and gag so hard that I throw up a little into my mouth. The man in the next booth has finally stopped screaming. I can see his foot jutting out into the walkway between tables, twitching. Twitch. Twitch. Then still. My waitress is still facedown where she fell, two tables away. There's a bloody-­looking puddle by her mouth, and something is starting to seep out from under her skirt. The smell is unbearable. I try mouth breathing. I can actually taste the stink. I need to get out of here, but I haven't gotten a check yet.

I half stand, and look around the restaurant. Other than a woman slumped over a table across the way whose hand is still shaking, nobody else seems to be moving. I ordered an artisanal field green salad, chamomile tea, and a slice of lemon tart. I never got the tart, though, and it doesn't look like I'm going to, so I'm pretty sure I don't need to pay for that. The salad was twenty-­two dollars and the tea was seven. Tax is ten percent and the tip . . . ugh. I pull out two twenties and leave them on the table. I think I might be shorting the waitress. I glance over at her again. She's definitely not moving. It's probably okay.

Getting out of the restaurant is like walking through the world's grossest minefield. When ­people started screaming, a lot of the customers tried to either get to the bathroom or get out the door. Doesn't look like any of them made it, and they're everywhere—­and not just them, but the goo that came out of them, which I definitely do not want on my shoes.

My shoes. Keep looking at my shoes. Two steps forward. One to the left. Step over a hand. Don't look at what it's attached to.

Up by the hostesses' stand, there's a kind of a logjam, with four ­people sprawled across the entrance and completely blocking the way. Two of them are a ­couple, lying side by side with their arms around each other. The one who's doing most of the blocking is a five-­hundred-­pounder, lying facedown with his arms at his sides.

He's not a person. He's a beached, incontinent whale. I know the hostess, though. Her name is Kelly, or maybe Kiley. She graduated from my high school a year ahead of me. She was a cheerleader. She's lying half in and half out of the door, propping it open. At least she's letting some fresh air in.

I pull off my shoes and tuck them into my bag. They're strappy Roman sandals with four inch heels—­perfect for either a day at the office or a night on the town, but not so much for walking across a dead whale and a former cheerleader. I'd really rather not step on anything that's oozing, so I hop up onto the whale's back with both feet. He shifts underneath me and lets out a long, low moan. I wave my arms for balance. It's like trying to stand on a beach ball. I jump forward onto the back of his neck, then onto Kelly's back, lean into the door and vault out onto the sidewalk, stagger forward two steps and sprawl across the hood of a car parked at the curb. There's a girl slumped over in the passenger seat. Her chin and chest are covered with blood. I slide down to the sidewalk, curl up into a ball, and scream. And scream. And scream.

I
'm not sure how long it is before I think to try to call Tariq. Maybe a half hour? He's in Baltimore today, playing for the tourists in the harbor. I need to tell him not to come home this afternoon.

I need to tell him not to come home, ever.

I'm up and moving again by then, and mostly back from Crazytown. My phone won't link to any of the networks, though. It just sits there and beeps at me. At least I'm wearing shoes again. I've seen a ­couple of other still-­alive ­people—­one guy on a motorcycle flying up National Pike towards 68, and a woman looking out of a third-­story window on Locust. Neither of them seemed to want to talk. I've also seen a whole lot of not-­alive ­people—­­people in their cars, ­people on the sidewalks, ­people in stores, all of them with something awful seeping from their mouths and noses, none of them moving.

I've been trying not to think about the restaurant, but I'm starting to feel like I need to understand what's happening, and right now, I definitely don't understand what's happening. The only person I actually saw go down was my waitress. She'd just come by to refill my water glass. She took two steps away from my booth, then dropped the pitcher she was carrying, took one more staggering step, and fell. I was staring at her, wondering if she'd had a heart attack or something, wondering if I should be calling an ambulance, when . . .

Okay, don't think about that anymore. Keep moving forward.

I don't understand what's happened, but it looks like whatever it was happened really quickly, and at the same time everywhere. I don't see any more police cars around than usual, and no ambulances or fire trucks, either, so I'm guessing nobody even had time to call EMS. Like the waitress, like Kiley and the whale, it looks like everyone just dropped where they stood.

I'm not an expert on crazy doomsday stuff, but I don't know of anything that could just kill everyone in an entire city at once like that. I've read about black pox and dirty bombs and poison gas, the kinds of things that NatSec is always arresting and deporting and disappearing ­people for making, or trying to make, or thinking about making. But I'm pretty sure none of those things could do anything like this. Poison gas would be the closest, I guess, but if that's what this is, then what about me?

As I turn the corner onto North, I almost trip over a woman sitting on the sidewalk. She's leaning against a lamppost, hugging her knees and crying—­pretty much doing what I was doing a little while ago. I stop, kneel down, touch her shoulder.

“Hey,” I say. “Are you okay?”

She stops crying, and her eyes focus on mine.

“Am I okay?” she asks. “Are you a fucking idiot? No, I am not okay. Have you looked around? Fuck!”

I rock back on my heels. She seems pretty worked up.

“Seriously,” she says. “Don't you know what's happened?”

I shake my head.

“It's the Rapture!” She's screaming now. “It's the Rapture, and I'm still here!”

I stand up and back away. She presses her head against her knees and wails.

“I don't think this is the Rapture,” I say. I didn't pay a lot of attention in church when I was a kid, but I'm pretty sure there was nothing in there about everybody bleeding out through their anuses. She looks up at me. Her eyes are bloodshot and staring.

“So,” she says. “What is it, then? What happened to everyone?”

I look around.

“They're dead,” I say. “Everyone is dead.”

She looks away again. At least she's being quiet now.

“Why aren't you dead?” she finally whispers. “Why aren't I?”

I turn away and keep walking.

I
live in a two-­bedroom bungalow that backs onto Reed Park. Walking down my street, I could almost convince myself that nothing bad is happening. The neighbor's dog charges across their front yard and stands barking at me from the driveway, and the sprinklers are on in front of the house across the street. There aren't any ­people out, but that's not too unusual, even on a sunny afternoon like this one. I can see a sliver of the soccer field in the park between the houses.

Sunday afternoons are a big time for league games.

I'm not going to look out there.

I let myself in the front door and close it behind me. “House,” I say. “Are you there?”

“Yes, Elise.”

Thank God. I was afraid my house avatar might be as dead as my phone.

“Direct contact, please. Terry.”

There's a long pause. That isn't good.

“I'm sorry, Elise,” House says finally. “Direct contact is not possible. Would you like to prime an avatar? I can queue it for transmission as soon as communications are restored.”

“Yes,” I say. “Voice only. Zero interactive. Terry, contact me. Now.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Queued for transmit.”

“House. Are incoming feeds active?”

“Yes, Elise. Reception is normal. Transmission is blocked.”

“Blocked by who?”

“Blocked by whom?”

“What?”

“Correct phrasing is, ‘Blocked by whom?' ”

Terry set my house avatar to correct my grammar. I don't know how to unset it. This is not the time.

“Fine, jackass. Blocked by whom?”

“Unknown.”

“Can I get vids?”

“Yes. Topic?”

“News. National. Live. Centrist. Kitchen wallscreen.”

I hear the caster talking as I walk through the foyer and into the kitchen. He's saying something about rising bond rates in the European markets, and how that's good for some investors and bad for other investors. I've never understood why they bother with stories like this. As far as I can tell, every single thing that ever happens in the world is good for some investors and bad for other investors, and knowing which investors any particular thing is good for is only helpful if you know it before that thing happens.

Anyway, he's not talking about the apocalypse, which, if that were what was happening, you would think would be the lead story.

I run cold water in the sink, splash some on my face, and spend a solid thirty seconds scrubbing at my hands. When I look up again, the crawl across the bottom of the screen is saying something about a labor dispute in Uzbekistan that's threatening to undercut production of beryllium. The announcer has moved on to a story about the orbital power platform they're building over Nebraska, and how the locals are very, very upset with the location of the rectenna.

“House,” I say. “Vids. Search topic: apocalypse.”

“That search returns one-­point-­seven million results. How would you like to prioritize?”

“Eliminate all entertainment.”

“Search now returns two hundred fifty thousand results.”

“Limit to news, limit to North America, limit to segments produced today.”

“Search now returns twelve results.”

“Start with the most recent.”

The wallscreen flips to two men in suits, sitting on a sofa. House includes an overlay that says “Local interest, Charleston, WV. Released today, 12:32:00.”

“Welcome to
Good News Sunday
,” the man on the right says. “Today we're joined by the Reverend Donald Blakesly, who believes that we are living through the final stages of the End Times. Welcome, Reverend Blakesly.”

“Thank you, Jerome,” says Reverend Blakesly. “It's a pleasure to be here.”

I need to have a talk with House about what I mean when I say ‘news'—­but actually, what's going on outside does seem kind of biblical, so I decide to let it run.

“Reverend Blakesly,” Jerome says, “we've heard many times before that the prophecies laid out in the Book of Revelations are being fulfilled, and that the End of Days is nigh. Why do you believe that this time is different?”

“Well, Jerome,” says Reverend Blakesly, “I know that others have claimed to have interpreted the signs before, and I also bear in mind our Lord and Savior's admonishment that he will come like a thief in the night, and that none will know the hour of his coming.”

Jerome leans forward, one eyebrow raised.

“But Reverend Blakesly, you have said repeatedly in your public and private casts that you believe that the End of Days is nearly upon us. How can that be, if our Lord Himself has said that none can know the time?”

The reverend leans back in his seat and steeples his fingers.

“I have never claimed to have divined the day and time of our Lord's return, Jerome. However, I do think that if you look closely at the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelations, it becomes increasingly clear that the Seals are being opened, one by one.

“The first Rider, who comes upon a white horse, and the second, whose mount is red, are harbingers of warfare and slaughter. And are those not present in this world wherever one looks? In the south, the godless Brazilians run roughshod over their pious neighbors. In the east, the Chinese have subdued half of Asia. In the north, Chris­tian Russia kneels before the terrible Swedes. And in the west, California seems on the verge of passing Proposition 117.”

“Proposition 117? The one allowing temporary contract marriages?”

“The very same.”

This is too much.

“Search forward,” I say. “Keyword ‘apocalypse.' ”

House skips the cast ahead. Jerome is leaning back in his seat now, and I'm guessing from the expression on his face that he's finally realized that he's booked a lunatic.

“So tell me,” he says. “What form do you expect the final apocalypse to take?”

“Well, Jerome, this brings us to Chapter Fifteen, and the Seven Last Plagues. The first of these is shown by painful sores, which appear on those with the Mark of the Beast. Are you aware of how widespread antibiotic-­resistant gonorrhea has become? The second plague involves the poisoning of the sea. The ever-­accelerating acidification of our oceans certainly fills this bill. The third plague refers to the poisoning of groundwater, which I think we can take as a given, and the fourth refers to the increasing heat of the sun. The fifth plague is a plague of darkness. That I believe has not yet come. Nor have the sixth and seventh plagues, which are the drying of the Euphrates and a great earthquake and rain of fire. I believe that these will be fulfilled through a great asteroid strike, most likely somewhere in the Middle East.”

Jerome leans forward again, moving in for the kill.

“Of course,” he says, “our government has had a very thorough catalogue of all near-­Earth asteroids for many years now, and we would know—­”

“Pause,” I say. I thought maybe we were making progress with the seven plagues, but none of the ones the good reverend talked about involved massive anal bleeding.