I was bigger than she was; there wasn’t room for me back there; my body jackknifed over the driver’s seat as I grabbed the blanket and helped her stuff it. I was vaguely aware that the passenger door banged open on the Toyota, and I saw Charley’s foot emerge from the black. He was going to try his luck outside. Maybe we should, too, I thought, as I helped her with the blanket. The blanket wouldn’t do any good, it was just a delaying tactic. Already I sensed the particles were sifting right through the cloth; the car was continuing to fill. The air was getting darker and darker. I felt the pinpricks all over my skin. “Mae, let’s run.”
She didn’t answer, she just kept pushing the blanket harder into the cracks. Probably she knew we’d never make it if we went outside. The swarms would run us down, get in our path, make us slip and fall. And once we fell, they would suffocate us. Just as they did to the others. The air was thicker. I started to cough. In the semidarkness I kept hearing a tinny voice from the headsets. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Mae’s headset had fallen off, too, and I thought I had seen it on the front seat, but now it was becoming too dark to see. My eyes burned. I coughed continuously. Mae was coughing, too. I didn’t know if she was still stuffing the blanket. She was just a shadow in the fog.
I squeezed my eyes against the sharp pain. My throat was tightening, and my cough was dry. I felt dizzy again. I knew we couldn’t survive more than a minute or so, perhaps less. I looked back at Mae, but couldn’t see her. I heard her coughing. I waved my hand, trying to clear the fog so I could see her. It didn’t work. I waved my hand in front of the windshield, and it cleared momentarily.
Despite my fit of coughing, I saw the lab in the distance. The sun was shining. Everything looked normal. It was infuriating that it should appear so normal and peaceful while we coughed ourselves to death. I couldn’t see what happened to Charley. He wasn’t in front of me anywhere. In fact-I waved my hand again-all I saw was-
Blowing sand.
Jesus, blowing sand.
The wind was back up.
“Mae.” I coughed. “Mae. The door.”
I don’t know if she heard me. She was coughing hard. I reached for the driver’s side door, fumbling for the handle. I felt confused and disoriented. I was coughing continuously. I touched hot metal, jerked it down.
The door swung open beside me. Hot desert air rushed in, swirling the fog. The wind had definitely come up. “Mae.”
She was racked with coughing. Perhaps she couldn’t move. I lunged for the passenger door opposite me. My ribs banged on the gearshift. The fog was thinner now, and I saw the handle, twisted it, and shoved the door open. It banged shut in the wind. I pushed forward, twisted, shoved it open again, holding it open with my hand.
Wind blew through the car.
The black cloud vanished in a few seconds. The backseat was still dark. I crawled forward, out the passenger door, and opened the back door. She reached to me, and I hauled her out. We were both coughing hard. Her legs buckled. I threw her arm over my shoulder and half carried her out into the open desert.
Even now, I don’t know how I made it back to the laboratory building. The swarms had vanished; the wind was blowing hard. Mae was a dead weight on my shoulders, her body limp, her feet dragging over the sand. I had no energy. I was racked with spasms of coughing, which often forced me to stop. I couldn’t get my breath. I was dizzy, disoriented. The glare of the sun had a greenish tinge and I saw spots before my eyes. Mae was coughing weakly; her breaths shallow. I had the feeling she wouldn’t survive. I trudged on, putting one foot ahead of the other. Somehow the door loomed in front of me, and I got it open. I brought Mae into the black outer room. On the other side of the glass airlock, Ricky and Bobby Lembeck were waiting. They were cheering us on, but I couldn’t hear them. My headset was back in the car. The airlock doors hissed open, and I got Mae inside. She managed to stand, though she was doubled over coughing. I stepped away. The wind began to blow her clean. I leaned against the wall, out of breath, dizzy.
I thought, Haven’t I done this before?
I looked at my watch. It was just three hours since I had narrowly escaped the last attack. I bent over and put my hands on my knees. I stared at the floor and waited for the airlock to become free. I glanced over at Ricky and Bobby. They were yelling, pointing to their ears. I shook my head.
Couldn’t they see I didn’t have a headset?
I said, “Where’s Charley?”
They answered, but I couldn’t hear them.
“Did he make it? Where’s Charley?”
I winced at a harsh electronic squeal, and then over the intercom Ricky said, “-not much you can do.”
“Is he here?” I said. “Did he make it?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“Back at the car,” Ricky said. “He never got out of the car. Didn’t you know?”
“I was busy,” I said. “So he’s back there?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, no. He’s alive.”
I was still breathing hard, still dizzy. “What?”
“It’s hard to tell on the video monitor, but it looks like he is alive…”
“Then why the fuck don’t you guys go get him?”
Ricky’s voice was calm. “We can’t, Jack. We have to take care of Mae.”
“Someone here could go.”
“We don’t have anyone to spare.”
“I can’t go,” I said. “I’m in no shape to go.”
“Of course not,” Ricky said, turning on his soothing voice. The undertaker’s voice. “All this must be a terrible shock to you, Jack, all you’ve gone through-”
“Just… tell me… who’s going to get him, Ricky?”
“To be brutally honest,” Ricky said, “I don’t think there’s any point. He had a convulsion. A bad one. I don’t think he has much left.”
I said, “Nobody’s going?”
“I’m afraid there’s no point, Jack.”
Inside the airlock, Bobby was helping Mae out and leading her down the corridor. Ricky was standing there. Watching me through the glass.
“Your turn, Jack. Come on in.”
I didn’t move. I stayed leaning against the wall. I said, “Somebody has to go get him.”
“Not right now. The wind isn’t stable, Jack. It’ll fall again any minute.”
“But he’s alive.”
“Not for long.”
“Somebody has to go,” I said.
“Jack, you know as well as I do what we’re up against,” Ricky said. He was doing the voice of reason now, calm and logical. “We’ve had terrible losses. We can’t risk anybody else. By the time somebody gets to Charley, he’ll be dead. He may be dead already. Come on and get in the airlock.”
I was taking stock of my body, feeling my breathing, my chest, my deep fatigue. I couldn’t go back out right now. Not in the condition I was in.
So I got into the airlock.
…
With a roar, the blowers flattened my hair, fluttered my clothes, and cleaned the black particles from my clothes and skin. My vision improved almost immediately. I breathed easier. Now they were blowing upward. I held out my hand and saw it turn from black to pale gray, then to normal flesh color again.
Now the blowers came from the sides. I took a deep breath. The pinpricks were no longer so painful on my skin. Either I was feeling them less, or they were being blown off my skin. My head cleared a little. I took another breath. I didn’t feel good. But I felt better. The glass doors opened. Ricky held out his arms. “Jack. Thank God you’re safe.”
I didn’t answer him. I just turned around, and went back the way I had come.
“Jack…”
The glass doors whished shut, and locked with a thunk. “I’m not leaving him out there,” I said.
“What’re you going to do? You can’t carry him, he’s too big. What’re you going to do?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not leaving him behind, Ricky.”
And I went back outside.
Of course I was doing exactly what Ricky wanted-exactly what he expected me to do-but I didn’t realize it at the time. And even if somebody had told me, I wouldn’t have credited Ricky with that degree of psychological sophistication. Ricky was pretty obvious in the way he managed people. But this time, he got me.
DAY 6
4:22 P.M.
The wind was blowing briskly. There was no sign of the swarms, and I crossed to the shed without incident. I didn’t have a headset so I was spared Ricky’s commentary. The back passenger door of the Toyota was open. I found Charley lying on his back, motionless. It took me a moment to see he was still breathing, although shallowly. With an effort, I managed to pull him into a sitting position. He stared at me with dull eyes. His lips were blue and his skin was chalky gray. A tear ran down his cheek. His mouth moved. “Don’t try to talk,” I said. “Save your energy.” Grunting, I pulled him over to the edge of the seat, by the door, and swung his legs around so he was facing out. Charley was a big guy, six feet tall and at least twenty pounds heavier than I was. I knew I couldn’t carry him back. But behind the backseat of the Toyota I saw the fat tires of a dirt bike. That might work. “Charley, can you hear me?”
An almost imperceptible nod.
“Can you stand up?”
Nothing. No reaction. He wasn’t looking at me; he was staring into space.
“Charley,” I said, “do you think you can stand?”
He nodded again, then straightened his body so he slid off the seat, and landed on the ground. He stood shakily for a moment, his legs trembling, and then he collapsed against me, clutching me to hold himself up. I sagged under his weight.
“Okay, Charley…” I eased him back to the car, and sat him down on the running board. “Just stay there, okay?”
I let go of him, and he remained sitting. He still stared into space, unfocused.
“I’ll be right back.”
I went around to the back of the Land Cruiser, and popped the trunk. There was a dirt bike, all right-the cleanest dirt bike I had ever seen. It was encased in a heavy Mylar bag. And it had been wiped down after it was used. That would be David’s way, I thought. He was always so clean, so organized.
I pulled the bike out of the car and set it on the ground. There was no key in the ignition. I went to the front of the Toyota, and opened the passenger door. The front seats were spotless and carefully ordered. David had one of those suction cup notepads on the dashboard, a cradle for his cell phone, and a telephone headset mounted on a little hook. I opened his glove box and saw that the interior was neatly arranged, too. Registration papers in an envelope, beneath a small plastic tray divided into compartments containing lip balm, Kleenex, Band-Aids. No keys. Then I noticed that between the seats there was a storage box for the CD player, and beneath it was a locked tray. It had the same kind of lock as the ignition. It probably opened with the ignition key.
I banged the tray with the heel of my hand, and heard something metallic rattle inside. It might have been a small key. Like a dirt bike key. Anyway, something metal. Where were David’s keys? I wondered if Vince had taken David’s keys away on arrival, as he had taken mine. If so, then the keys were in the lab. That wouldn’t do me any good. I looked toward the lab building, wondering if I should go back to get them. That was when I noticed that the wind was blowing less strongly. There was still a layer of sand blowing along the ground, but it was less vigorous.
Great, I thought. That’s all I need now.
Feeling new urgency, I decided to give up on the dirt bike and its missing key. Perhaps there was something in the storage shed that I could use to move Charley back to the lab. I didn’t remember anything, but I went into the shed to check, anyway. I entered cautiously, hearing a banging sound. It turned out to be the far door, banging open and shut in the wind. Rosie’s body lay just inside the door, alternately light and dark as the door banged. She had the same milky coating on her skin that the rabbit had had. But I didn’t go over to look closely. I hastily searched the shelves, opened the utility closet, looked behind stacked boxes. I found a furniture dolly made of wooden slats with small rollers. But it would be useless in sand. I went back outside under the corrugated shed, and hurried to the Toyota. There was nothing to do but try to carry Charley across to the lab building. I might be able to manage it if he could support part of his own weight. Maybe by now he was feeling better, I thought. Maybe he was stronger.
But one look at his face told me he wasn’t. If anything, he appeared weaker.
“Shit, Charley, what am I going to do with you?”
He didn’t answer.
“I can’t carry you. And David didn’t leave any keys in his car, so we’re out of luck-” I stopped.
What if David were locked out of his car? He was an engineer, he thought of contingencies like that. Even if it was unlikely to happen, David would never be caught unprepared. He’d never be flagging down cars asking if they had a wire hanger he could borrow. No, no. David would have hidden a key. Probably in one of those magnetic key boxes. I started to lie down on my back to look underneath the car when it occurred to me that David would never get his clothes dirty just to retrieve a key. He’d hide it cleverly, but within easy reach. With that in mind, I ran my fingers along the inside of the front bumpers. Nothing. I went to the back bumper, did the same. Nothing. I felt under the running boards on both sides of the car. Nothing. No magnetic box, no key. I couldn’t believe it, so I got down and looked under the car, to see if there was a brace or a strut I had somehow missed with my fingers. No, there wasn’t. I felt no key.
I shook my head, puzzled. The hiding place needed to be steel for the magnetic box. And it needed to be protected from the elements. That was why almost everybody hid their keys inside the car bumpers.
David hadn’t done that.
Where else could you hide a key?
I walked around the car again, looking at the smooth lines of the metal. I ran my fingers around the front grill opening, and under the back license plate indentation. No key.
I started to sweat. It wasn’t only the tension: by now I could definitely feel the drop in the wind. I went back to Charley, who was still sitting on the sideboard.
“How you doing, Charley?”
He didn’t answer, just gave a little shrug. I took his headset off, and put it on. I heard static, and voices talking softly. It sounded like Ricky and Bobby, and it sounded like an argument. I pulled the mouthpiece near my lips and said, “Guys? Speak to me.”
A pause. Bobby, surprised: “Jack?”
“That’s right…”
“Jack, you can’t stay there. The wind’s been falling steadily for the last few minutes. It’s only ten knots now.”
“Okay…”