Take the Long Way Home (6 page)

Typical suburban morning, and I’d gotten the chance to tell her I loved her. But I hadn’t really said it. I’d mouthed the words, and I’d meant them, of course, but that’s all they were—perfunctory words, just like the kiss and the coffee and the snooze button on the alarm clock. They were ritual. I needed to tell her from my heart, to say more than just “I love you.” I needed to hold her in my arms and make sure she understood me; that she knew I really meant it, and wasn’t just going through the motions. Needed her to know I was okay.

Needed to know that she was okay.

“Steve?” Charlie interrupted my thoughts. “What about Hector’s body? Are we doing the right thing, leaving him behind like that?”

I turned. “Look, if you guys want to go back, I understand. But I’ve got to get home to Terri.”

I kept walking. After a moment, they followed me.

We reached the overpass for Thornton Mill Road by 8:00 p.m., and that was when things started to get worse. The interstate crossed over Western Run Creek. Darkness had fallen by then, throwing everything into shadow. As we tromped over the bridge, I heard the creek trickling below us, but couldn’t see it. The sound was eerie. Ghostly, as if the creek had vanished too and its spirit was haunting this place. Traffic was blocked again. A tanker truck lay on its side in front of the overpass. Those with four-wheel drive vehicles and motorcycles went around it, driving up over the embankment and onto the road above. Others parked their cars and milled about, exchanging gossip and small talk. I noticed that nobody was getting too close to the wrecked tanker, and when I saw the HazMat markings on its side, and the dark stains where liquid had spilled out onto the road, I understood why.

Away from the wreckage, someone had started a bonfire in a rusty fifty-five gallon drum and several people were gathered around it, warming themselves by the fire. Many of them stared upward, and when we got closer, we did the same.

A man hung from the overpass, the rope around his neck twisting slowly in the night breeze. A piece of cardboard had been stapled to his chest, the words ‘CHILD MOLESTER’ scrawled on it with black magic marker in big block letters. His face looked strange in the flickering firelight. Weird shadows danced across his skin. His bowels had let go, and shit had rolled down his legs and splattered onto the pavement beneath him. The crowd kept its distance from this, too.

4

Charlie made a noise like someone had punched him in the stomach. He turned his head and threw up all over the road.

Frank said, “What the fuck happened here?”

Cautiously, we approached the group gathered around the fire. They eyed us suspiciously. One of them, an older Hispanic man with a silver beard, nodded.

“How you doing?”

“As good as can be expected,” Frank said. “We walked from Timonium. You folks care if we rest here for a minute?”

“Help yourself.”

The man moved aside, and the others followed his lead, making room for us. They seemed to relax a bit. They were a weird assortment, business suits and blue jeans, silk and denim, gold jewelry and dirty flannel.

“I’m Tony,” the guy with the silver beard said. “Was on my way to work when it happened. Guess I’ll have to use a sick day. I work nights at the McCormick plant.”

I introduced Charlie, Frank and myself. Nods were exchanged, but nobody shook hands or traded business cards.

Tony studied us. “You guys walked all the way from Timonium?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Traffic’s at a standstill down there.”

“It’s not moving too quickly here, either,” a middle-aged black woman noted. “Not with that overturned truck blocking the road.”

“Yeah,” Frank said, “but at least it’s still moving here. The four-wheel drives and the motorcycles are getting through. Down there, the only thing moving is the wind.”

“Lots of accidents?” Tony asked.

I warmed my hands over the open flames. “Yeah, a bunch of wrecks and lots of people hurt or dead. How about here?”

“Here, too. Lots of dead—and even more missing.”

“Do they know what caused it?” Frank rubbed the back of his neck.

“So far, we’ve heard everything from terrorists to aliens. Somebody even said it was some kind of hallucinogen, sprayed through the air by a crop duster or something. Chem-trails, the guy said. I don’t know about that, though.”

Tony looked up at the moon. I noticed his eyes avoided the hanging man.

“There’s all kinds of rumors and speculation,” he said, “but no real news. We had our car radios on for a while, but none of us wanted to kill our batteries or run out of gas. Last we heard, nobody knew the cause. Only thing we know for sure is that everybody heard that trumpet noise.”

“Us, too,” I confirmed.

The black woman laughed, but there was no humor in it. “They heard it around the world. Toronto, Los Angeles, Paris, Beijing—and soon as it happened, millions of people vanished in an instant.”

Frank stepped back from the fire and mopped his brow. “What’s the government doing about it?”

Tony snorted. “Right now? Nothing.”

“But they’ve got to do something,” Frank said. “The Department of Homeland Security and F.E.M.A.—that’s what they’re for. At the very least, they should mobilize the National Guard. What the hell’s the President doing? Hiding on Air Force One again while everything turns to shit?”

“No,” Tony whispered. “The President’s among the missing.”

I shook my head. The guy we’d encountered earlier, the one who’d pissed himself, had been right after all. I wondered if he’d been right about the gray aliens part, too.

Conversation died after that. One man produced a bottle of diet soda, and another had a whiskey flask. Both were passed around, along with cigarettes. The group drank and smoked in silence.

Finally, Charlie broke the quiet. “So, anybody want to tell us what happened to the guy hanging from the noose?”

The group shifted uneasily. Charlie pointed but none of them would look directly at the swinging corpse. Nobody answered him, so Charlie tried again.

“He’s like the proverbial elephant in the corner, isn’t he? Aren’t any of you going to tell us what happened?”

They glanced at one another.

“Skinheads,” Tony said. “A gang of skinheads; six of them. There was a little girl. Both her parents were missing. That guy—” he cocked a thumb at the swinging dead man, “tried to coax her inside his car. A lot of us saw it, and it was clear that the girl didn’t know him. She started yelling and ran away. So we all confronted him. He denied it at first, but the girl swore she didn’t know him, and that he’d shown her his ‘wee wee.’ That was all it took. Before we could do anything about it, the skinheads jumped him.”

The black woman pulled her hands back from the fire. “Beat the hell out of him is what they did.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “They did that, too. Then they put that sign on him and strung him up. After that, they torched his car.” He pointed to the far lane and, sure enough, there was a burned out steel shell sitting on four heat-warped tires.

Charlie shuddered. “And you people just let them?”

“Hey,” Tony said, “there were seven of them.”

“I thought you said there were six?”

“Six. Seven. What’s the difference? They all had guns. A few of us tried calling the cops, but our cell phones aren’t working. And besides…”

“What?”

Tony shrugged. “The guy deserved it. I mean, think about what he did. He was going to kidnap and rape a little girl who’d lost her parents. He’d have probably killed her after he was done. You see it every day on the news.”

Charlie looked around. “Where’s the little girl? Is she okay?”

The black woman pointed. “She’s asleep in the back of that van over there. She’s safe. We’re watching over her, until . . .”

“Until what?”

She stared Charlie in the eyes. “Until things get back to normal. Until someone comes along and tells us what to do.”

Frank took a sip of whiskey as it passed by him. He closed his eyes and a look of sheer bliss crossed his face.

“Besides,” Tony said, “better him than us, right? They were skinheads. They could just have easily turned on us.”

“That’s right,” the black woman agreed.

“So where are these skinheads now?” I asked.

The black woman pointed up the highway. “They moved on when it was over. Good riddance, if you ask me.”

“Guess they didn’t want to hang around.” Tony smiled at his own gallows humor.

“I don’t believe this shit,” Charlie said. “Skinheads, my ass.”

Tony’s smile turned to a frown. “What? Are you calling me a liar?”

I took Charlie by the arm. “Come on. Let it alone.”

“Fuck that! They—”

“I mean it, Charlie.” I squeezed his arm hard, insisting. “Let’s go.”

“But—”

I thanked the group gathered around the fire. “Appreciate your help. We need to get moving.”

They nodded in understanding, but several of them, Tony and the black woman included, glared at Charlie. He let me lead him away. A moment later, Frank followed us.

“Where you guys heading, anyway?” Tony called out.

“Pennsylvania,” I said, without looking back.

“What’s in Pennsylvania?”

“My wife.”

“What else?”

“That’s what we intend to find out.”

Frank, Charlie and I continued on side by side, and when we passed under the body, and heard the rope creaking, none of us glanced upward.

There was no time to hang around, after all.

We didn’t talk for a long time as all of us were out of breath. My thoughts were on Terri. Random images, really. When we met in college. Our first date. First argument. First time we made love. Our wedding day, and when we moved into the house. I missed her.

Frank finally broke the silence. “Anybody know a good joke?”

“How’s this?” Charlie said. “A Jew, a Polack, and a homo are walking down the middle of the interstate at night . . .”

Frank and I both grinned.

“What’s the punch-line?” I asked.

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

Half a mile later, we came across the Soapbox Man, as Charlie called him. Wild-eyed and frothing, his clothes and hair in disarray, he’d climbed atop the hood of an abandoned car and was preaching the Gospel to all who would listen. Surprisingly, he’d attracted a small crowd. They passed a bottle of wine around and listened, staring at him with rapt attention, their eyes shining in the darkness, their mouths glistening wet.

“It’s the end times,” he hissed. “The angel has played the trump and the seven seals will be opened! Blood. Fire. Disease. And another angel will appear, the angel of death, and he shall ride a pale horse.”

5

We crept past, trying to avoid making eye contact with the crazed preacher.

“This is your fault,” the man roared, jabbing a finger at the crowd. “You have brought this upon yourselves, because you had ears but did not hear. You had eyes but did not see. You denied God, and put other gods before Him. Now He has called His faithful home, and has left me behind to warn you of what will come. You removed Him from your schools and courtrooms and allowed sodomites to marry and babies to be killed in their wombs. Now you will pay the price for your sins. This is the start of the long, dark night.”

“Fucking nutcase,” Frank grumbled. “As if things weren’t bad enough.”

After we’d safely made it past the group and were out of earshot, we picked up our pace again.

“Think that’s true?” Charlie asked.

Frank snorted. “What? That God took everybody away because of abortion and gay marriage?”

“Well . . . yeah.”

“Fucking bullshit,” Frank said. “I’ve got an easier time believing in little gray men, and I don’t believe that either.”

I grinned. “I take it you’re not religious?”

Frank scowled. “Used to be, until my wife left. Came home from work one day and she’d cleaned the house out. Left me a dinner plate, fork and spoon. And the lawnmower. Come to find out she’d been cheating on me for the last six months. Ended up moving in with the guy, and left me holding the mortgage. We got divorced. I filed for bankruptcy while she got remarried.”

Charlie whistled. “Damn. That sucks, man.”

“Yeah, it does. After that, I just quit believing. Seemed easier that way. I mean, you take a look around and all you see are wars and famine and people dying of cancer and little kids getting snatched by sick fucks like the guy back at the bridge. There’s just too much heartache and pain. Where’s the love? God’s supposed to be love, right? I don’t think He exists. Think we’re all walking around trying to live our lives according to a book that was pieced together when dinosaurs still roamed the earth.”

“So you’re an atheist?” I asked.

“Yep,” Frank said. “And probably going straight to Hell for it. Heh—I don’t believe in God but I still believe in Hell. Ain’t that funny?”

Charlie and I agreed that it was.