White Space (23 page)

“Agent Orange?” Eric said. There was another sharp blat of static as he switched channels on his handset. “They don’t use that stuff anymore.”

“Yeah, man, there’s laws,” Bode said. “Besides, you need a bird for that. No way anyone’s flying a chopper tonight.”

Chad’s left foot jiggled as he
pick-pick-picked
. “Hey, Eric, you know how far it is to the nearest town?”

Sighing, Eric clicked off his walkie-talkie and shoved it into his parka. “No. I’ve never been down here before.”

“You know where we are?”

In the mirror, Bode saw Eric’s reflection hesitate. “No,” Eric said. “I don’t. Where were you coming from?”

“Outside Jasper,” Bode said. He ignored Chad’s sharp, reproving look. “Stopped off at this little cowboy honky-tonk around eight, nine o’clock.”

“Jasper? Never heard of it. What’s it near?”

“Uh …” For a moment, Bode’s mind simply blanked to a white dazzle. Then a word slid onto his tongue. “Casper.”

There was a small silence. Then Eric said, “Where?”

“You know … Casper.” For a weird moment, Bode thought that this was like when you tried to explain to the hootchgirl that you didn’t want any starch for your shirts, only she didn’t speak but two words of English and you kept shouting,
No starchee, no starchee!
Like that would get her to understand what you wanted, which she never did.
“Casper.”

“Where’s that? Is that near Poplar or something?”

“No, it’s …” Bode licked his lips, then blurted, “Cheyenne!” He felt like he’d just passed a really tough exam he’d forgotten to study for. “Yeah, north of Cheyenne.”

“Cheyenne,” Eric repeated.

“Yeah,
Cheyenne
.” Chad cranked his head around. “You got some kind of hearing problem? The man said Cheyenne.”

“No, no. It’s just … where do you guys think you are?

What state?”

“What
state
?” Chad repeated. “Wyoming, man. Where else?”

ERIC WAS QUIET
for so long Bode’s jaw locked. He had to really dig deep to push the word out. “What?”

“Wyoming plates,” Eric said, but he might as well have said
aha
. “That’s why you have Wyoming plates.”

“Well,
yeah
,” Chad said. “So?”

“You guys,” Eric said, slowly, “you guys are a real long way from Jasper, Wyoming.”

“Oh hell. Are we in Kansas? We’re in Kansas, aren’t we?” Chad turned to Bode. “I
told
you we took a wrong turn outside Laramie.”

“You guys aren’t in Kansas,” Eric said.

“Then where the hell are we?” asked Chad.

“You’re … Oh man.” Eric blew out. “You’re in Wisconsin.”

A beat. Then two. Chad broke the silence with a laugh. “That’s crazy.”

“No.”

“What are you talking about,
no
?” Chad sniggered again and shook his head. “No, he says. How many spiffs you smoke tonight?”

“What?” Eric waved that away. “Never mind. Look, I
started out in Wisconsin this afternoon. I know I didn’t take a snowmobile into the storm and end up blown clear to Wyoming. So we’re either still in Wisconsin, or somehow we’ve all ended up in Wyoming.”

“Mountains are right,” Bode said. “Valley’s right for Wyoming.”

“That’s true. But I honestly don’t think that’s where we are.”

“So we’re in
Wisconsin
?” Chad asked. “Like
where
in Wisconsin?”

“I’m not sure of that either, but if we are … then we’re north,” Eric said. “I … I don’t know exactly where.”

“No, of course you don’t,” Chad said.

Battle’s head still floated in the mirror, but Bode focused on Eric’s reflection. “What if …” His tongue gnarled. Bode licked his lips and tried again. “What if we’re not
anywhere
?”

“What?” Chad said.

Eric returned Bode’s look. “I don’t know where we’d be, then.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Chad asked. “We’re right
here
.”

“Yeah, but where
is
that, exactly?” Eric said.

Or when
. The thought was suddenly there in Bode’s mind, like the rip of a fart you just couldn’t ignore. “Maybe we’re in between, like limbo.”

Eric’s dark brows drew together. “Wouldn’t we be dead then?”

“Dead? You guys are nuts.” Chad bounced an anxious glance from Eric to Bode, then out the passenger’s side
window. “Nuts,” he repeated, jiggling his leg, picking furiously at his sore. “I’m not no Catholic, man.”

Bode said to Eric, “Where you shipping out to, again?”

“Marja, I think,” Eric said. “Probably.”

“Well, I never heard of that.” Chad’s voice was tight with fear and anger. “Is that, like, north or south?”

“South … actually, southwest.”

“So, like, close to Phuoc Vinh? Or Dau Tieng?”

“Dau …?” Eric paused, and Bode saw that the other boy couldn’t ignore that awful stink either. “You guys,” Eric said, evenly, carefully, “what war are you fighting?”

Bode’s mouth was dry as dust. He couldn’t speak. A fist of dread had his throat.

“What
war
?” said Chad, and gave a sour laugh. “Why … ’Nam, of course.”

OH, OF COURSE
.
A balloon of sudden fear swelled in his chest.
Vietnam, of
course.

Yet it made a certain loopy sense. Factor in the vintage uniforms, the old Dodge, the way these guys talked—not only their slang but what they didn’t know. Bode and Chad were from the past. Or Eric was in it. Or, maybe, Bode was right and the valley was some crazy kind of limbo.

But it’s also real
. How could that be? His right hand closed around Tony’s handset.
That’s real. The others are real, and so is Emma. This
has
to be real
. Or he was going crazy. The fear was an acid burn, eating its way up his throat, and Eric thought he might actually scream if he wasn’t careful. Oily sweat lathered his back and neck and face, and he pressed the back of one shaking hand to his forehead, the way he used to do when Casey had been little and got sick.
Don’t, don’t do it
. His lungs were working like a bellows.
Come on, calm down
. Sipping air, he breathed in, held it, let go … in with the good, out with the bad … 
Just hold it together
.

What if … what if this
was
limbo? Maybe he was being punished. Could that be it? God sent him here because of Big Earl? What kind of justice was that? Big Earl was the adult; he hurt people. Big Earl
shot
at him; he would’ve killed Eric if he had the chance. The beatings had gone on for as long as Eric could remember. Yes, but how long was that,
exactly
? A day, a minute, five years,
ten?

He. Did not. Remember.

No
. Eric’s heart knocked in his throat.
No, no, no, how can I not know?
He remembered how careful he’d been in high school changing for gym, always slipping into a stall or coming in with just enough time to spare so that the locker room had already emptied out.
I have scars on my back, my stomach. Every beating’s written in my skin. Why don’t I remember?
How could his memory be scrubbed clean like that, as white as all that snow?

Because … because … because it never happened?

Before he could talk himself out of it, he bit the inside of his left cheek, very hard, wincing as his teeth sank into his flesh.
There, that hurt
. A moment later, there was the warm, salty taste of blood on his tongue, and that was good, and so was the pain. Swallowing a ball of blood, he savored the ache, grabbed the feeling, held it close.
See, Ma, I’m real. I feel pain, so I must be real
.

Unless the pain was just for show. Or—and this was a truly strange thought—he
was
real … but only here and nowhere else.

That’s crazy. What are you, nuts?
His shirt, sticky with sweat, clung like a second skin.
There’s got to be an explanation that makes sense. This has to be a dream, or I’m sick and I’ve got a really high fever and I’m delirious or something
.

Or maybe … 
oh Jesus, oh God
 … maybe Big Earl hadn’t missed. Maybe that bullet blasted into Eric’s skull and drilled into his brain, and now he was lying in a hospital somewhere, his ruined head in bandages, a tube down his throat, IVs in his veins: hooked up to machines that were breathing for him, keeping him alive—and it was only a matter of time before someone pulled the plug.

Maybe I’m only one step away from dead
.

“Oh
man
.” Chad’s sharp gasp cut through the maelstrom of his thoughts. “Man, you
see
that?” Chad said. “Off to the right?”

“What is it?” Eric asked, hoarsely. Really, he was grateful to have something else to worry about.

To his right, the night wasn’t exactly there anymore. Instead, an anvil of thick white fog extended from the ground and rose all the way up and across the dome of the sky.

“Oh my God,” Eric said, and felt the sudden kick of his heart in his teeth. “It’s getting closer. Jesus, it … it’s
moving
.”

“Bode?
Bode?
” Chad said, his voice rising. “Bode, we got to turn around, man. We got to turn around right
now
!”

“I hear that.” There was a sudden lurch as Bode jammed the brake, then muscled the stick into reverse. “Hang on.”

“What? No, wait, Bode. Stop!” Eric clamped a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. As frightened as he was of this thing gathering itself in the sky—and freaked out by what might be wrong with him—he loved his brother more. “We can’t turn back now. What about the others?”

“Devil Dog, I’m sorry, but we are bugging out PDQ.”

“But my brother’s still out there!”
If this isn’t a fever, a hallucination, a last gasp …
But even if it was.
Because Casey is
here, with me, in this, and that’s on me
. “We can’t just
leave
him.”

“Yeah? You wanna watch us? We get ourselves killed, won’t do him no good anyway,” Chad said, as Bode swung the truck around. “Go, man,
go
!”

“I’m going.” Bode mashed the accelerator. The truck’s wheels spun in the snow, caught, and then they were churning back the way they’d come, the Dodge’s snow chains chattering over packed snow:
chucka-chucka-chucka-chucka-chuck!

“Bode, wait,
think
,” Eric said. “You’re a soldier. You don’t leave your people behind. Please, don’t do this.”

“Screw that. Just
go
!” Chad shouted, his voice riding a crescendo of panic: “It’s getting closer! Go, Bode, go, go!”

“I’m going, I’m going!” Bode hammered the accelerator, and the Dodge surged, the engine chugging like an eggbeater. They flew over the snow, going so fast the outside world blurred into a silvery smear. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, you hunk of junk! Move, move move
move
!”

Not going to make it
. Eric knew that. They would never outrun that white cloud or fog or whatever it was. They would spin out, or Bode would lose control and they would die out here, because, despite everything, Eric was convinced that death, like pain, was real here … wherever that was.

“Bode, you’re not going to make it,” Eric said. “Slow down, slow—”

“Shut up.” Bode pushed their speed. “Shut up, shut up!”

“But Bode—”

“Shut
up
!” Bode stomped the accelerator so hard Eric heard the hollow thud of Bode’s boot. The Dodge rocketed over the snow, slewing right and then left, the wheels spinning,
seeking traction, any kind of traction at all. “Marine, get it through your head: we are
leaving
!”

Chad was still chanting: “Go, Bode, go. Go, Bode, go, go go go!”

“Bode, slow down, you can’t outrun it! You’re going to lose it, dude, you’re going to lose it!” Eric hooked his fingers into the front seat as Bode jinked the wheel, doglegging to the right. The Dodge’s rear swayed. “Bode, you lose it out here, we’re
dead
.”

“I’m not going to lose it!” Bode shouted.

“You’re going to get us kill—”

“Man, you don’t shut up, Marine or no Marine, I’m tossing you out of this truck, right now!” Bode roared. “You got that? Now shut
up
!”

“I only—”

“Did you not
hear
the man? Ain’t you
listening
?” In the next instant, there was a pistol in Chad’s hand. He jammed the muzzle into Eric’s cheek. “You want me to end this right now?”

“Hey, hey,” Eric said, raising his hands in surrender. “Easy, Chad, easy, it’s cool, we’re cool.”

“We are
not … COOL
!” Spit foamed at the corners of Chad’s mouth, and he rammed the gun into Eric’s flesh so hard the front sight clawed his skin. “We will be
cool
if you shut up, if you shut up, if you just shut
up
!”

So Eric shut up. There was nothing else he could do. This was out of his control. He shut up, and after a long second, Chad jerked the gun away.

This is a nightmare, but I’m living it
. Eric felt blood welling from the fresh wound on his cheek.
I’m real; I’m bleeding; you
can’t bleed if you’re not real
. He watched that fog, all that brilliant empty white, storming after them, filling the world.
You can’t be scared to death if you’re already dead
.

The truck swayed, slewing into a turn, the world beyond tilting, and Eric’s blood iced, every hair on his neck prickling with a kind of stupid shock, because he suddenly understood.

The snowstorm had been a warm-up. The storm had only been a way of bringing them all together. It was the
fog
that mattered, the fog that would run them down and swallow them whole.

What then? Where—and when—will we be then?

“Oh JESUS!” Chad screamed. “It’s right on top of us, Bode, it’s right on
top—
”

“RUN!”
CASEY SCREAMED
,
and then he was dragging her over the snow. Rima staggered, nearly fell, but Casey gave her a mighty jerk, hard enough that a shout of pain balled in her shoulder.