The Fireman: A Novel Part 34

1.

From the diary of Harold Cross: AUGUST 10th: THEY LOVE SINGING THOSE OLD-TIME HYMNS IN THIS CAMP. WE GET "AMAZING GRACE" ALMOST EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, CAROL STROKING THE KEYS OF THE ORGAN LIKE SHE THINKS SHE'S RAY CHARLES. LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, THERE'S NO GRACE AND THERE'S NO G.o.d AND I'M THE PROOF. IF THERE WAS A KIND, BENEVOLENT MASTER SPIRIT WATCHING OVER US, I WOULD NOT BE A VIRGIN AT TWENTY-FIVE. I AM PERHAPS THE ONLY WHITE AMERICAN MALE OVER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN WHO HAS NOT MANAGED TO USE THE APOCALYPSE TO GET HIMSELF SOME p.u.s.s.y.

ALLIE STOREY SPENT TWO WEEKS COMING ON TO ME-PRACTICALLY HUMPING MY LEG. SITTING WITH ME IN CHAPEL. ASKING ME TO "HELP OUT" IN THE KITCHEN WHEN THE PLACE IS DEAD EMPTY, SO WE COULD BE ALONE TOGETHER. FLICKING WATER ON ME SO I'D FLICK WATER ON HER, SO SHE COULD LET ME HAVE A LOOK AT THE TWINS UNDER HER WET T-SHIRT. I THOUGHT MAYBE SHE WAS FEELING NEEDY BECAUSE HER MOTHER DIED. AS I NOTED EARLIER, ALLIE'S LOSS SUGGESTED MY POSSIBLE GAIN: THE DEATH OF A LOVED ONE IS A NATURAL APHRODISIAC. IT WAS LOGICAL TO HOPE SHE'D SEE MY c.o.c.k AS A POTENTIAL COPING MECHANISM.

BUT I THINK NOW SHE WAS PLAYING SOME f.u.c.kING GAME WITH ME. MAYBE SHE PRETENDED TO LIKE ME TO ENTERTAIN THE OTHER GIRLS-MAYBE THEY DARED HER TO SEE HOW MANY DAYS SHE COULD STRING ME ALONG, HOW MANY TIMES SHE COULD GIVE ME BLUE b.a.l.l.s AND THEN LEAVE ME HANGING. FINALLY AFTER WEEKS OF WAVING IT IN MY FACE, I MAKE A MOVE ON HER, AND SHE ACTS LIKE IT WAS ATTEMPTED RAPE.

"JESUS, YOU s.h.i.tHEAD, CAN'T YOU LET ANYONE JUST BE YOUR FRIEND?" SHE SAYS.

"YEAH," I SAY. "LET'S BE FRIENDS. LET MY d.i.c.k BE FRIENDS WITH YOUR FUN HOLE."

SHE SHOVES ME SO HARD MY G.o.dd.a.m.n GLa.s.sEs. .h.i.t THE FLOOR AND SHE GRINDS HER HEEL ON 'EM ON THE WAY OUT AND NOW I'M JUST ABOUT BLIND.

I WISH SHE WAS IN THE COTTAGE WHEN HER MOTHER BURNED. I WISH THEY BURNED TOGETHER. I WISH THIS WHOLE PLACE BURNED.

THIS PLACE IS A HOT, DUSTY PRISON CAMP, AND EVERYONE IS WATCHING ME ALL THE TIME, BUT A LATE-BLOOMING FRIENDSHIP WITH JR HAS MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO SLIP OUT OF CAMP ON AN ALMOST DAILY BASIS. THE MAN IS A MAGICIAN. EVERY TIME I VISIT THE CABIN, I ASK MYSELF WHY THE h.e.l.l I STAY AT CAMP WYNDHAM. NOT ONLY DO I HAVE A GENERATOR AND INTERNET THERE, I HAVE HOT POCKETS. EVERY BITE IS EXTRA DELICIOUS KNOWING NO ONE ELSE IN CAMP GETS ANY.

HAD AN E-MAIL FROM SAN FRANCISCO: BIG BREAKTHROUGH ON STUDIES OF THE INFECTED LUNG THERE. THEY'VE GOT TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE IN THE PRESIDIO WHO HAVE HAD DRACO INCENDIA TRYCHOPHYTON FOR THREE MONTHS OR LONGER, AND NINE OF THEM SHOW EVIDENCE OF THE SAME SKILLS THE FIREMAN HAS DEMONSTRATED: LIMITED IMMUNITY FROM BURNS, AN ABILITY TO SELECTIVELY LIGHT THEMSELVES ON FIRE, CONTROLLED PROJECTION OF FLAME. IN THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY, THESE PEOPLE ARE CALLED PYROMANCERS. NOW THERE'S A SUGGESTION THAT ALL OF THE PYROMANCERS, AND MANY OF THE OTHER LONG-TERM CASES, CAN ENDURE LEVELS OF SMOKE THAT WOULD KILL MOST PEOPLE.

OF COURSE WE'VE KNOWN FOR A LONG TIME THAT THE SPORE "EATS" CARBON DIOXIDE AND EXUDES OXYGEN. BUT IN THE LONG-TERM SICK, THE SPORE EVENTUALLY COATS THE PARTS OF THE BRAIN THAT CONTROL RESPIRATION (THE PONS AND MEDULLA OBLONGATA). A PRELIMINARY THEORY HOLDS THAT WHEN THE HOST BEGINS TO SUFFER FROM SMOKE INHALATION, THE BRAIN TELLS THE DRAGONSCALE IN THE LUNGS TO GO INTO OVERDRIVE, EATING THE TOXINS, AND PRODUCING CLEAN BREATHABLE AIR. A BETTER NAME FOR DRAGONSCALE WOULD BE THE NIETZSCHE VIRUS-IF IT DOESN'T KILL YOU, IT MAKES YOU STRONGER.

WORKING ON A NEW POEM:.

ALLIE STOREY IS A DIRTY Wh.o.r.e,.

MUCH LESS BEAUTIFUL THAN THE SPORE,.

THAT PROTECTS HER LUNGS FROM SMOKE,.

EVEN WHEN SHE DESERVES TO CHOKE.

NO, I KNOW. NOT VERY GOOD.

THANK G.o.d I'VE GOT MY CABIN AND THE INTERNET AND THERE'S STILL A LITTLE p.o.r.n LEFT. THERE'S EVEN DRAGONSCALE p.o.r.n NOW! IT'S SURPRISINGLY HOT. HA HA. GET IT? GET IT?

2.

The Dodge Challenger punched itself into the night with an effortless force that brought to mind a jet accelerating toward the end of the runway. It was Harper's first time in a police cruiser. She was sitting in the back, where they put the people under arrest. That made a certain amount of sense, she thought.

She was sandwiched between Nelson Heinrich and Mindy Skilling. Mindy stared at Harper and Harper's new haircut with damp, sympathetic eyes. Harper ignored her. Now and then Nelson whistled a few bars of "I'd Like to Buy the World a c.o.ke." She was doing her best to ignore him too.

Ben was up front, driving. Jamie Close sat in the pa.s.senger seat, with a Bushmaster across her knees. The Bushmaster had come out of the trunk, along with a .410 shotgun, which Ben had handed to Nelson. Nelson had it between his knees now, the barrel pointing straight up beneath his chin. Every time the Challenger banged over a pothole, Harper had the nauseating image of the gun going off with a deafening blam and flinging Nelson's brains on the roof.

Of all of them she was the only one who didn't have a gun. She wasn't terribly surprised they hadn't offered. Maybe they weren't sure who she might decide to use it on.

"What if the cops who show up with the ambulance are people you know?" Nelson asked. "You were with Portsmouth PD all that time, you must know the whole team!"

"I'm sure it will be people I know," Ben replied.

"So . . . what if they won't give up the ambulance? If it's guys you used to be friendly with-guys you used to go drinking with-wouldn't they expect you not to shoot?"

"If it's guys who know me, then they'll know I never bluff."

Nelson sat back and nodded placidly. "Not worth worrying about, I guess. They won't be friends of mine. If you have any qualms at all, you know you can count on me to do what has to be done." He whistled a little more of "I'd Like to Buy the World a c.o.ke."

"Now hold on," Ben said, but then Jamie Close spoke up.

"Isn't that Verdun Avenue on the left, Mr. Patchett? Don't want to miss our turn."

"Right," Ben said. "Everything looks different with all the lights out."

They had traveled two miles from Camp Wyndham and not seen another car the whole way. Snow lay undisturbed in the road. Gas-lamp-style streetlamps stood along the sidewalks, but cast no light. The only illumination at all was the blue sheen of moonglow on snow.

As they swung onto Verdun, they glided past the burned-out ruin of a CVS, a dismal concrete box lined with rectangular holes where the plate-gla.s.s windows had been. Harper looked upon the place almost as a crime scene. It had burned and the ash from the blaze fell in a poisoned snow on everyone downwind, and who knew how many were dead now as a result.

Verdun Avenue was a short side street of stately Colonials mixed, seemingly at random, with modest ranches that looked like they might date from the sixties. They slowed before a cottage with cedar shakes and a chest-high hedge bordering the lawn. Ben wheeled the car around to face back the way they had come and slugged it into park.

He reached across Jamie Close's knees, opened the glove box, and then sat up with what looked, at first glance, like an oversized snow globe. Ben set it on the dash and turned it on: a red-and-blue strobe that lit the street in pinball-machine flashes.

Ben turned halfway around, to look into the backseat. "Nelson? I'm going to place you over there, behind that hedge. Keep low. After Mindy makes the call, her and the nurse are going to tuck themselves down in the backseat. Jamie? You and I are out front, to greet whoever turns up. You stand on the pa.s.senger side of the car and try to look like a cop. I'll be in the road. They'll see my flashing lights and they'll get out to see what's going on. I'll tell them to get on the ground with their hands behind their heads. That's your cue to stand up, Nelson. Give them a whistle, let them know we've got them covered from both sides. We won't have any trouble out of them once they see they're surrounded. There's two duffel bags in the trunk and a Styrofoam cooler packed with ice for anything we need to keep cold. Mindy and Harper will load up while the rest of us cover the responders." Ben looked from Nelson to Jamie, carefully making eye contact with each. "We treat them with respect and understanding. No screaming. No swearing. No 'Get your effing b.u.t.t on the ground or I'll blow your effing head off.' Understand me? If we stay calm, they'll stay calm." Ben peered at Mindy. "Are you ready? Do you know what you're going to say?"

Mindy nodded, as solemn as a child being entrusted with a secret. "I'm ready."

Heavy-duty wire grating separated the front seat from the back, but Ben was able to pa.s.s a cell phone through a narrow slot in the center. Mindy turned it on. The screen filled the rear of the car with all the brilliance of a small spotlight. Once, Harper had thought that smooth bright gla.s.s face looked like the Future. Now she thought no other object in the entire world more fully embodied the Past.

Mindy inhaled deeply, preparing herself. Her face tightened and her chin dimpled with emotion, perhaps at some keenly remembered grief. She dialed 911.

"Yes? Yes? My name is Mindy Skilling," she panted, breath hitching as she struggled not to sob. "I am at ten Verdun Avenue. Ten. Verdun. Please, I need you to send an ambulance. I think my father is having a heart attack." A tear spilled out of her eye, a trickle of brightness. "I'm on my cell. We haven't had a landline that worked in weeks. He's sixty-seven. He's lying down. He's on the living room floor right now. He threw up a few minutes ago." Another desperate silence. "No, I'm not with him. I had to run outside to get a signal on my phone. Is someone coming? Is there an ambulance coming? Please send someone."

Distantly, Harper could hear the voice on the other end of the line, a squonk-squonk like grown-ups talking in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

"No. Neither of us have Dragonscale. We're normal. Dad doesn't let anyone near us. He doesn't let me go out either. That's what we were fighting about when-oh Jesus. I was b.i.t.c.hing at him. He was trying to walk away from me and I was following him around b.i.t.c.hing at him and he was holding his neck. Oh, oh, I'm so stupid."

Harper noticed Nelson blinking at tears, watching raptly.

"Please come. Please hurry. Don't let my daddy die. Ten Verdun. Please please pl-" Mindy abruptly pressed the END CALL b.u.t.ton.

She wiped her thumb under one eye, then the other, smearing away tears. She sniffed-a wet, congested sound-although her expression had reverted to a look of sweet vacancy. She pa.s.sed the phone back into the front seat.

"I've always been good at crying on cue," Mindy said. "It's amazing how much work you can get if you can weep on command. Insurance commercials. Allergy commercials. Mother's Day promotions."

"You were great." Nelson's voice was thick with emotion. "I almost started crying myself."

Mindy sniffled, wiped her hands down her pink, wet cheeks. "Thank you."

Ben nodded at Jamie. "Now it's our turn onstage. Come on, let's do this."

Ben and Jamie climbed out of the front, and Jamie opened the door so Nelson could slide out of the back. When Nelson was standing next to the car, Jamie slammed the door shut again. If they were all killed in the next few minutes, Harper and Mindy Skilling would be trapped in the police car. Mindy, at least, had a gun, a little silver-plated .22. If she could play a gun moll as well as she could play a grieving daughter, Harper thought they'd have a chance.

"Crying is easy," Mindy continued. Harper didn't think she was talking to her. Instead, she seemed to be addressing the empty car, as if she hadn't noticed the others had left. "At least for me. I think it's harder to appear genuinely happy-to laugh like you mean it. And then, hardest of all, is dying in front of a crowd. I had to do a death scene as Ophelia . . . worst five minutes I've ever had onstage. I could hear people sn.i.g.g.e.ring at me. By the time the scene was over, I wished I really had died."

Harper tracked Ben and Jamie with her gaze as they made their way to the front of the car to stand in the headlights, where they would be backlit. Ten Verdun Avenue was behind a thick wall of snow-dusted hedge that came to Nelson Heinrich's chest. Ben waved a hand, A little more to your right, a little more, positioning him about midway along the hedge.

She looked past Nelson, at the house where once the Fireman had dwelt with Allie and Nick and the dead woman. Around one side of the cottage she could see a plank fence, the gate open just slightly to show the corner of an empty swimming pool.

Harper tried to imagine John and the others crowded around a picnic table back there. She pictured Nick squirting some mustard on a hot dog, Allie pawing in a bag of chips, the plastic crinkling noisily. She visualized Tom and Carol Storey sitting across from each other with a Scrabble board between them, heard the click of tiles as Tom played a word. It was not hard to conjure up the smell of burgers charring on the grill, the odor mixing with the sharp chlorinated scent of the pool. And then, what's that? The first thuds as propane tanks begin to explode at the CVS, and John turning from the grill with his spatula in one hand and Sarah coming out of the water to stand stiff and alert in the shallow end of the pool and-Harper caught herself there, thinking about Sarah Storey in the pool. Thinking about chlorine.

"Now, this, this is exciting," Mindy said, leaning forward, big damp eyes glittering in the dark.

"Is it?"

"Yes," Mindy said. "I've always wanted to play a heist scene."

Harper heard the yowl of an approaching siren. Blue and silver lights made the street corner into a wintry discotheque. A police cruiser swung around the corner, in no great hurry, and glided toward them.

Ben walked forward, one hand raised in greeting, while the driver of the police car pulled himself out from behind the wheel. The interior of the cruiser was fully lit. A second police officer, a thickset woman, remained in the pa.s.senger seat with a laptop open across her knees,.

The cop who had been driving stepped into the headlights, raising a palm to shield his eyes and see Ben more clearly. He was a short little guy, his hair gray bristles like shavings of dull steel, a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles resting on the end of his nose. Harper's first impression was that he looked more like an accountant than a police officer.

"Ben Patchett?" He smiled a puzzled smile. "Hey, I don't think I've seen you in-"

A shocked realization clicked into place behind his eyes. The dumpy police officer turned and began to run back to the car, handcuffs jingle-jangling on his belt.

"Bethann! Bethann, radio back-" he was shouting.

Jamie Close reached between the Challenger's headlights for her Bushmaster. It had been propped against the grille, half hidden behind her.

Ben lowered his head and took four hustling steps toward the police cruiser-not moving toward the officer who looked like a CPA, but crossing in front of the hood, moving around toward the pa.s.senger side of the car.

"Hey!" Jamie shouted. "Hey, f.u.c.ker, stop running or someone is-"

The shotgun went off from behind the hedge with a heart-freezing clap of sound. The little gray-haired police officer stumbled and his gold-rimmed spectacles fell into the road and Harper thought, He's been shot, Nelson just shot him. But then the little man steadied himself and stood still, holding his open hands out to either side of his body.

"Don't shoot!" he screamed. "For G.o.d's sake, don't shoot!"

The female police officer inside the car had twisted her head around, so her chin was pressed to her collarbone. She had one hand on a mic attached to her shoulder, was squeezing the b.u.t.ton. Ben stood over her, pointing his pistol at her temple through the window.

"It's all clear," Ben said. "All clear! Possible heart attack, that's a code twenty-four, code twenty-four. Let them know, Bethann."

Bethann stared at him from the corners of her eyes, then repeated, "Code twenty-four, code twenty-four at ten Verdun Avenue, officers on scene, awaiting ambulance."

She released the mic without being told, closed her laptop, and rested her hands on top of it.

Jamie walked down the center of the road, the b.u.t.t of the Bushmaster socked into her shoulder, sighting down the barrel at the little police officer in the street.

"Get on your knees," she said. "On your knees, cop. We aren't looking to hurt no one."

"Bethann, if you'd step out of the car and lay facedown on the sidewalk, I think we can get through this without any ugliness," Ben said.

Harper heard another siren now, deeper in tenor, rising in volume to make the cold air reverberate in a way she could feel on her skin. Mindy glanced at Harper, her eyes shining with excitement.

"I wish we were filming this," she whispered.

"Ben," called the gray-haired cop, as he lowered himself to his knees. Jamie stood over him, pointing the Bushmaster at the back of his head. "You got the s.h.i.t, don't you? You got that s.h.i.t all over you. You're sick with it."

"I'm carrying Dragonscale, but I don't know you'd rightly call me sick, Peter. By my way of thinking, I'm better than I ever was." Ben stepped back, keeping his gun leveled on Bethann, who opened her door and got out with her hands raised. Without looking away from her, Ben called, "Nelson, didn't I tell you to keep your finger off the trigger? Why did you discharge your weapon?"

Nelson stood behind the hedge, holding the .410 so it pointed into the sky. "It stopped him running, didn't it?"

Ben said, "While you were blazing away, Bethann was speaking into an open mic."

"Oops!"

"What's that mean?" Jamie asked.

"It means if you're smart you'll get out of here while you still have time to run," Bethann said. "There's a good chance they heard the shot over the radio and are already sending additional officers."

"Oh, I don't think so," Ben said. "Around the time I had to stop going to work, we were already stretched so thin it could take upwards of half an hour to get any kind of backup. And that was months ago. Everyone knows things have only gotten worse. Even if dispatch was listening, they're not going to send the cavalry because they might've heard something irregular in the background."

"Yes, that's true!" Peter agreed, on his knees in the road, hands stretched out to either side. "But it isn't just dispatch listening these days. You don't know who's on the radio anymore."

"Now what the heck is that supposed to mean?" Ben asked, but if Peter answered, Harper couldn't hear it. His voice was drowned out by the caterwaul of the ambulance turning onto Verdun off Sagamore.

Jamie was the first to move, stepping around Peter, on his knees, and striding toward the ambulance as it pulled in behind the police cruiser. She pointed the Bushmaster through the windshield, calling out as she came forward: "Hey there! Take your hands off the wheel-"

Nelson's shotgun went off with a thunderous slam. The ambulance leapt forward, like a person jumping in surprise. Jamie sprang aside to get out of the way and even still was clipped by the driver's-side mirror. The Bushmaster was knocked out of her hands and would've hit the road if she hadn't been wearing the strap around her neck.

The cop named Peter got up on one foot, the other knee still touching the road, and the shotgun blammed again. Peter's head snapped back. His wispy gray combover flipped up. He began to sink backward as if he were performing some sort of advanced yoga pose.

"Stop shooting!" someone screamed. Harper never knew who. For all she knew, she was hearing herself.

The ambulance began to back up. Its bent front b.u.mper was tangled in the police cruiser's rear fender, and it dragged Peter and Bethann's car along with it, through a cloud of smoke. Ben watched the ambulance dragging the cruiser away in a kind of gaping bafflement, as if he himself had been shot.