The Julian Year Page 22

Watching him run to her mother’s house, she closed the door and got into the car. The tears came, her chest heaving as she secured her seat belt.

  Denny stood on the stoop and rang the doorbell. Lynette’s mother opened the door, her face registering surprise. Then her mother looked in her direction.

  Lynette waved to her, then stepped on the gas and drove away.

  April 9

  Dressed in a black Lycra running suit with sky-blue markings and a red knit cap, Rachel ran alongside the train tracks parallel to the Columbia River in Cascade Locks, Oregon. To her left, the river gorge climbed to the grounds of the hotels on Wanapa Street overlooking the river. Ahead in the distance, rising from mist-shrouded forestry, the Bridge of the Gods, a steel truss cantilever bridge, spanned the river between Oregon and Washington. Soldiers manned checkpoints at each end of the bridge.

  She ran for another ten minutes, then turned around and returned to her departure point. Each day she ran closer to the bridge.

  Veering away from the tracks, with the choppy river to her back, Rachel cut through the woods, breathing in damp air. She circled an old RV park, avoiding its residents, her sneakers snapping brittle twigs on the ground. Her rented log cabin appeared through the trees ahead, her Volvo beside it.

  She trotted up the steps to the narrow porch, unlocked the double glass doors, and entered the self-contained unit that consisted of a bedroom, kitchenette, and dining area and had the all-important Wi-Fi. One-third of the world population was dead, possessed, or incarcerated, so she had little trouble convincing the owner of the RV park to rent her the cabin at a minimal cost.

  There was no TV in the cabin, but she left the radio tuned to the news and had her laptop. She took off her cap and ran one hand through her sweaty, platinum blonde hair. She had pierced her nose too and had resisted the temptation to get a tattoo. As an ex-cop, she knew that tattoos were the next best thing to fingerprints when it came to identifying criminals and fugitives.

  Sitting on the reading chair in one corner of the cabin, she removed her sneakers and allowed them to drop on the floor. Then she stood and peeled off her running outfit and stepped into the shower, ignoring the jet tub. She had learned to keep her showers short since the hot water turned cold without warning. When she got out, she dressed in her waitress uniform and left for work.

  Despite the close proximity of the Wanapac Diner, Rachel drove to work because she never knew when she might need to escape in a hurry. She drove uphill, toward the Best Western at the peak, and parked in her regular spot in the diner’s parking lot. Surrounded by ponderosa pine trees and nature trails enveloped by fog, she felt as if she had landed on top of the world. The men and women crisscrossing the street with firearms as part of their regular attire suggested she had been transported to another time as well.

  Inside the diner, she nodded at Bear, a bearded three-hundred-pound man who sat on a wide chair in the back with a rifle spanning his thighs. Every business needed armed security these days, even in Cascade Locks. Rachel took a seat at the empty counter.

  Joanie Everson, the owner, served her lunch: a BLT and a bowl of potato soup. “Here ya go, hon.”

  “Thanks.” Rachel had placed the order after the breakfast shift. She had agreed to work breakfasts, lunches, and dinners in exchange for free meals and time off in between. She worked six hours a day, six days a week; Joanie closed the diner on Sundays.

  “I’m going out for a smoke,” Joanie said.

  Rachel liked Joanie, who she estimated was just shy of fifty. Her husband had died two years earlier, and both of her daughters had reported to detention. One of them had worked at the diner as a waitress, and Rachel felt like she had replaced her in more ways than one.

  “My last day is in June,” Joanie had told her the other day. “I’ve got no one left to leave this place to. It’s yours if you want it.”

  Rachel had been flattered and touched, but she was working off the books and living underground for a reason. Eight weeks. She would have to move on in seven, then.

  The front door opened, and a man wearing jeans, a plaid shirt, and a brown leather jacket entered, a holstered revolver on one hip. “Hi, Charlene.”

  Rachel looked in his direction. “Howdy, Samuel.”

  April 10

  Lynette checked into a motel outside Gallatin, Tennessee, en route to Nashville. The old man behind the counter winked at her, and it took very little persuasion on her part to get him to accept cash without a credit card deposit. She didn’t know much about being a fugitive, but she knew she couldn’t leave behind a credit card trail. She had failed to report to detention that afternoon and had spent the previous day driving across Kentucky instead. Crossing state lines made her an interstate fugitive, a prime target for the FBI.

  Just like Rachel, she thought. She had been surprised when her old navy friend had showed up on her doorstep because she knew that Rachel was one of the February 29 survivors. For the life of her, she couldn’t comprehend why Rachel would look a gift horse in the mouth; if it had been her, she would have welcomed the government’s enhanced protection.

  Would I, even if it meant leaving Denny behind?

  She pondered the hypothetical scenario.

  I left him anyway.

  She had told her son that he meant more than anything to her, but now, standing inside the dirty little motel room, she had to admit that she had run because she cared more about her own life than anything else. She didn’t want to be possessed, but she didn’t wish to be incarcerated like a criminal, either. She wanted to die a free woman.

  Lynette had no intention of reporting Rachel, just the opposite: she planned to emulate her. She harbored no illusions that she alone would be able to resist possession, but she intended to give it her all. But first she wanted to see the Grand Ole Opry.

  In the bathroom, which reeked of too much disinfectant, she removed the hair dye she had bought at CVS.

  April 11

  Rachel’s feet ached as she faced the crowded diner. The population in Cascade Locks may have decreased from twelve hundred to eight hundred, but the number of customers had increased. In some cases, she knew that men had lost their wives and didn’t want to cook. In others, she suspected people feared the diner would close soon and wanted to eat out as much as possible before the world took another turn for the worse. What troubled her were the people whose motives she couldn’t guess, whose faces she didn’t recognize. Strangers continued to pass through the city.

  More like pilgrims, she thought.

  She had seen the feverish gazes of the enlightened and the dark expressions of the fatalistic. Then there were those she couldn’t peg at all, despite her cop instincts. Watching the hungry men now—as they watched her—she couldn’t help but imagine a logging camp a century earlier.

  “I wish my husband had lived to see this business,” Joanie said beside the cash register.

  “We need extra help,” Rachel said.

  “Don’t I know it. I’ve got my eyes peeled for any drifters.” Joanie winked at her.

  Behind them in the kitchen, Miguel barked orders to his cousin in Spanish.

  Sitting in a booth along the far wall, one of four big men sitting shoulder to shoulder raised a hand.

  “I’m going in,” Rachel said.

  As she drew closer to the men, the one who raised his hand stared at her, and her stomach tightened. Despite the security measures offered by the national ID cards, there was no way to really ensure who was possessed and who wasn’t unless they had red eyes.

  “Can I get you something, sir?”

  The man smiled, which caused her discomfort to increase, his teeth yellow and gapped. “Me and my buddies are visitors here, and we were just wondering if you’d like to go for a walk later. Maybe you’d like to show us the sights.”

  Rachel’s smile felt as tight as her stomach. “No, thank you.”

  The man opened his heavy flannel hunting jacket, revealing a Magnum holstered beneath his arm. “You
see this?”

  Rachel resisted the urge to hike up her waitress uniform and pull the .22 strapped to the inside of her thigh. “It’s hard to miss.”

  The man stroked the gun’s holster. “It’s big, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe it’s too big for you to handle.”

  The other men laughed.

  “Oh, I can handle it, all right. Just like I can handle you.”

  Setting both hands on the table, Rachel leaned forward. “You think so?”

  “Honey, I know so.”

  “What would your wife back home say?”

  “Who cares? I’ll leave her to be with you.” Closing his jacket, the man burst into laughter, and his friends followed suit.

  Satisfied that she had avoided trouble, Rachel returned to the counter.

  Later when she went home to her cabin, she turned on her laptop and went to the National Police Force website. Selecting Indiana from the drop-down menu, she clicked on the New Fugitives link. Scanning the list of names, she came to a sudden stop and swallowed. Lynette Bryson had been added to the list. Rachel looked at the calendar taped to the front of the refrigerator.

  One more day, she thought.

  Lynette stood outside the Grand Ole Opry House and Ryman Auditorium, wearing her brand-new white cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and Levi’s. Five National Guards stood before her, holding machine guns.

  Goddamn it. The show had sold out, and the staff wasn’t admitting anyone else. I’ve missed my only chance.

  The guards stared at her with stony expressions, as if daring her to rush past them.

  Instead, with her head bowed, she went looking for the nearest bar. So much for living it up on her last night.

  Get laid, a voice in the recess of her head said, which struck her as odd because with her departure from the earth not far off, having sex was the last thing on her mind. But after a few drinks, who knew?

  The Whispering Hills, a concoction of Bulleit rye whiskey and several liquors, went down smooth and hot, just like the two before it. While country-and-western tunes played on the jukebox, Lynette listened to the off-duty soldier drone on. He wore his brown hair in a brush cut and had full lips like Elvis. At another time, she would have been drawn to him, but her gaze kept darting to the clock above the bar while she thought of Denny.

  Let him take you home and screw your brains out, the voice in her head said.

  “Denny . . .”

  “Who’s Denny?” the soldier said. “I’m Mark.”

  Lynette blinked at him. “I know who you are.”

  He put one arm around her. “Why don’t we get out of here?”

  She sipped her Whispering Hills. “Where would we go?”

  “Why do we have to go anywhere? I can get us a room right here.”

  She didn’t like him. “All right, but I want to finish my drink first.”

  April 12

  Lying nude on her back in the hotel room, Lynette stroked the hair of the soldier as he licked between her legs. For reasons she didn’t understand, she couldn’t stop thinking about Rachel.

  I’m not a lesbian, she thought, even while recalling some incidents in the navy that suggested otherwise. She might have been attracted to Rachel at one point.

  But that’s not why I’m thinking about her. She just didn’t know what the reason was.

  Mark rose onto his knees with a sigh. She welcomed him inside her despite her lack of interest, and he grunted as he pounded away.

  Rachel . . .

  Lynette squeezed her eyes closed. Shut up!

  “Harder,” she said, trying to shut out the voice in her head.

  He thrust harder, faster, and after a few minutes he arched his back, moaned, and wilted over her, his sweat mixing with hers.

  The voice in her head grew louder: Rachel!

  Scowling, she pushed Mark off her, and he rolled onto one side with his back to her. She climbed out of bed and staggered to the bathroom.

  I had too much to drink.

  Inside, she closed the door and vomited. When she looked at her reflection in the mirror and felt herself dissipating, she knew exactly why she kept thinking of Rachel.

  Thirty

  A spark in the darkness.

  A light, growing brighter.

  A damned soul returned to earth, reborn into a new body. Cut off from the void in the same instant that she connected with the One Mind on earth.

  I’ve got one, she thought.

  Rachel Konigsberg, one and a half billion souls on earth responded.

  Thirty-one

  Serving breakfast to the patrons in her crowded diner, Joanie Everson glanced out the wide front window and watched a black SUV park at the curb. At first she thought the men who piled out of the vehicle were feds, because they wore sunglasses and long coats, but it didn’t take long for her to change her mind. The coats didn’t match, and who wore shades on a dark, rainy morning?

  She wanted to get behind the counter, where she kept her late husband’s sawed-off shotgun, but before she could move, the men poured inside and the door closed behind them. There were five: two whites, one black, one Hispanic, and one Asian. A regular United Nations envoy.

  Around the diner, heads turned and voices quieted, and a palpable stillness hung in the air.

  “Five?” Joanie said. “It will be a few minutes if you expect to sit together. I’ve got a full house.” Indeed, she had served some thirty breakfasts since opening.

  The man at the head of the wing formation removed his sunglasses, revealing glowing red eyes. The other four men left their sunglasses on but drew handguns, a rifle, even an Uzi.

  Joanie cringed. Goddamn those eyes are disturbing. But something disturbed her even more than the glowing eyes. She had heard of possessed people going crazy. Hell, she had even seen some go nuts right here in her diner. But these freaks weren’t crazy; they were organized. Calculating, she thought.

  “We want Rachel Konigsberg,” the leader said. “Give her to us, and we’ll leave the rest of you in peace.”

  Joanie avoided looking around the diner. Everyone knew that secret cells of possessed people existed. “I don’t know any Rachel Cronenberg.”

  Thunder crackled.

  “You’re lying,” a short man standing at the rear of the formation said. “I’ve seen her here, waiting tables. She goes by the name Charlene. We know that’s an alias.”

  Joanie recognized the man, a semi-regular the last two weeks. She had seen him around town too. He must be a scout. “Oh, Charlene. Why didn’t you say so? She didn’t come in to work today.”

  “You’re still lying.”

  “Really? Take a look around. I’ve served everyone in here by myself. Would I do that if I didn’t have to?”

  The leader scanned the interior. “Where does she live?”

  He would ask that. “I’d rather not say.”

  The four men brandishing guns aimed them at her.

  “She stays in a cabin behind the RV park down the street.”

  The man opened his mouth, but before he could speak a roar thundered from the direction of the kitchen and his chest exploded in a shower of bright red blood.

  Joanie didn’t need to turn around to know that Miguel had fired the shotgun. She dropped to the floor, no mean feat for a woman her age. From her vantage point she saw the leader’s corpse on the floor, those horrible red eyes unblinking in her direction. The other men turned to the kitchen.

  Gunshots rang out, forming a cacophony that hurt her ears, which she covered with both hands. Muzzle flashes created spots in her eyes, and she heard screams and glass shattering. The melee lasted no more than ten seconds. She feared the worst, but when she forced herself to look again, a pile of twisted bodies lay bleeding on the floor.

  Joanie heard a ringing in her ears, more like a siren. Someone took her forearm and helped her to her feet. Bear, God bless him. His lips moved but she couldn’t hear his words. She couldn’t hear anything anymore, except for a hollow throbbing sound, like
when she submerged her head in a bathtub as a kid.

  The front window had disappeared, and cold wind dispersed the gun smoke in the air. All around the diner, her customers faced the bodies, brandishing weapons.

  Behind her, Miguel waved, an unofficial salute.

  Charlene was right, Joanie thought. The freaks really did come for her.

  They never stood a chance in Cascade Locks.

  Thinking he heard gunfire, Arlowe Hanes rose from his seat behind the registration counter of the Wanapa Street Motel and peered out the front window, his vision obscured by the rainwater running down the glass. Lightning flickered in the sky. Arlowe waited for the thunder to follow, then concluded he had only heard rumbling in the sky, not gunshots.

  A silver SUV pulled into the driveway and rolled toward the office.

  It’s early for guests, he thought.

  The windshield wipers stopped moving and rain spattered the glass, making it impossible for Arlowe to see inside the vehicle. All four of its doors opened, triggering the overhead light, and five people climbed out: three men, one woman, and a girl maybe twelve years old. Or was it a boy? Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. One man appeared to be Greek, another Indian, and the woman looked like a mixture of Chinese and African American. They marched up the steps to the front porch and entered the office. They all wore sunglasses.

  Arlowe stood straight. “Good morning, folks. It’s a wet one out there, isn’t it? I can hardly hear myself think with all that thunder.”

  The Indian said, “Which cabin does Charlene live in?”

  Arlowe raised his eyebrows. “Miss Milhouse?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Cabin four at the far end of the park.”

  “Take us there,” the girl said in a flat voice.

  Creepy kid, Arlowe thought. “It’s raining like the second coming of Noah’s ark out there. I’ll point you in the right direction, but that’s all I’ll do.”