The Methuselah Gene (17 page)

“That's odd,” Rebecca said, cocking her head slightly as she absorbed the news, or the lack of it.

“Yes,” Julie confirmed, trying to smile.
 
“This is certainly the oddest day on record.
 
Can you excuse us now, Rebecca?”

“You're helping out here, are you, Julie?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Can I help too, then?
 
It sounds like you need it.”

“You can stay here and answer the phone, if you like,” I proposed.
 
I closed the top drawer of the desk, then opened a bottom drawer to withdraw the phone book I found there.
 
“Here . . . you can call everyone in town and tell them what I just told you.
 
And be sure to tell them not to panic, it's probably nothing.
 
We're just taking precautions.
 
Okay?”

Rebecca
Crim
circled around us to finally sit at the desk.
 
“Okay, anything I can do to help, I will.
 
But you're sure this isn't related to what Pastor
Felsen
called everybody about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that he wanted to have everybody meet at the church.”
 
She looked at her watch.
 
“Less than an hour from now, in fact.”

I looked at Julie, then back at Rebecca.
 
“About the water, you mean?”

She shook her head.
 
“No, he didn't mention water.”

“Okay, then call people back and you mention it for him.”

Along with the binoculars and camera, I took my file, containing Jeffers' phone number and the fax printout of my face.
 
We almost made it to the door when Rebecca stopped us.
 
“Wait!”

We both froze, then turned back in unison to see the black phone receiver now held high in Rebecca's hand.
 
It was being twisted vigorously in the air as if God Himself was on the line.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It's the phone,” Mrs.
Crim
replied.

But having heard no ringing, Julie and I only exchanged perplexed glances.
 
“What about it?” Julie asked at last.

“Well, unless I'm mistaken,” Rebecca declared, “it's dead.”

We excused ourselves, and left Mrs.
Crim
standing at the door.
 
Once in the alley beside the building, Julie gripped my arm, stopping me.
 
I turned to face her, but she didn't speak.
 
There was a harder cast to her face now, as though she was holding back panic by force of will.
 
She deserved more than what I gave her.
 
“I know, I know, I should have called the police in Creston or Des Moines when I had the chance,” I said.
 
“Go ahead, you can slap me if you want to.
 
Might wake me up from this nightmare.”

“What's really going on here?” she asked.
 
“What's happening?”

“I told you my theory, and I think it's a good one.
 
But I don't trust that the whole truth will come out at some town meeting, and so we have to get out of here, and get help.”

“But I can't do that.
 
I can't be involved in this.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded.
 
“You're already involved, Julie.
 
Everyone is.”

She bit at her lower lip, turning to look back toward the street behind her.
 
An elderly couple was walking past the barber shop toward the church, holding hands.
 
“Rebecca really isn't herself today,” she said, as though trying to convince herself.

“Do you mean—”

“I mean she's usually a one hundred percent unrepentant bitch.”

“Oh, that's what you mean.”

“I mean she might have stolen the pennies off her dead mother's eyes.”

“Really.
 
Her?”

“Yes, her.
 
She looks dazed, too, like she's on drugs.
 
Like Cody.
 
Is that a symptom of your virus?”

I shook my head.
 
“No, it's not.
 
But maybe they put something else in the water.
 
A barbiturate, and an anti-inflammatory.
 
Something to make it work, this time.”

“Work how?
 
To do what?”

“That's the question.
 
My experiments with worms was a failure, and I don't know why.
 
I can't really say more.
 
You have to trust me.”

She thought about that.
 
“Trust you?
 
I don't know if I should, even for this.
 
How can I?
 
Rebecca doesn't even know about me, and the few who do won't tell her.”

“What is there to know, exactly?” I asked, and then, seeing her look, added: “Never mind that.
 
Let's find a car.
 
We're wasting time.”

I went looking as Julie followed me stiffly, staring along the quiet street.
 
“This is a good town,” she said from behind me, her voice almost pleading.
 
“Why would they pick Zion to do whatever they're doing?”

I started to say that it might be for the same reason she was hiding here—its nondescript remoteness—but I checked myself.
 
Instead of offering up some pathetic attempt at relief with levity, I let the question go unanswered.
 
Then, just as I was about to call to the elderly couple ahead of us, they disappeared into the church.
 
“Maybe George is in there already,” I said, thinking about his car.

“George never goes in there.”

“Maybe not on Sunday, but what about Saturday?”
 
Or Judgment Day.

We heard music coming from inside the church, as the door opened and closed.
 
Julie looked directly at me, then over my shoulder, as something caught her eye.
 
“Speaking of the devil,” she said.

I followed her line of sight.
 
In the distance two men emerged from the foliage at the base of the distant hill.
 
Cody, and . . . Sean?

Already hearing hell's bells ringing in my mind, I ushered Julie quickly around to the front of the building with the back of my hand to the small of her back.
 
“Find out what's happening, and if you think it's safe to say it, tell everybody not to drink any more water.”

“No, I'm coming with you.”

I shook my head.
 
“You can't, Julie.
 
You said so yourself.
 
Besides, I may need you to bail me out of jail again.”

“What about Rebecca?
 
She knows I'm involved.”

I glanced back at the Sheriff's office.
 
“Take her to church with you, then.”

“But I doubt she's ever gone there before in her life!”

“She's a changed woman, now.
 
Remember?
 
She's found religion at last, thanks to my Satan bug.”

“Your
what?”

As I ran north along Main street, and out into the corn, I imagined the conversation Cody and Sean might be having.

What's his name, Sheriff?

Alan Dyson.
 
From Virginia.
 
I was gonna call his employer and verify.

No need to do that, Sheriff.
 
I know him, and he's harmless.
 
Let him go.

You know him?

About him.
 
Met him the other day, thought he was a birder too, just passing through.
 
Just another nut case, though, really.
 
Said he was looking for UFOs.
 
I didn't believe him either.

In the field behind the Shell station I
zigged
and
zagged
through the neck-high corn for ten minutes before I got lucky.
 
Then I added the gun I'd tossed the night before to my collection of binoculars and camera, and walked back to confront Wally once again.
 
But Wally was gone.
 
Ditto, my rented car.
 
The car under which the fake legs had been rolled was an Escort, not a Taurus.
 
Same color, though.

There was half a glass of iced tea on Wally's desk in the office.
 
I stared at the melting ice for a moment, considering the ramifications, then I picked up the phone.
 
That was dead too.
 
No dial tone.
 
Nothing.
 
Searching the desk drawers, I found bullets instead of keys.
 
So I reloaded the revolver, then went out back to look at Wally's tow truck.
 
Of course I knew less about hot-wiring than I knew about women.
 
Or Walter Mills.
 
Experiencing a wave of hypertensive frustration, I craved more
Xanax
, or even
Halcion
, which in turn reminded me of Darryl's advice.
 
Wake up and smell the dark roast, buddy.
 
Break
outta
this jail you're in, find a woman, get a life.

Leaving the truck, I walked cautiously out into the deserted street.
 
As I considered going to church to see if Julie had a car, I looked from south to north toward the distant bend in the road.
 
But the questions that mounted in my brain felt like water building behind a makeshift dam.

Damn.
 
The word ballooned, and echoed.
 
Had Wally gone to Creston or Des Moines with the Taurus?
 
Exactly how long would it be before some other lost soul rolled into town?
 
I imagined waving over a passing driver—a tourist looking for bridges to photograph, maybe.
 
Or a birder.
 
Or a lost trucker . . .

Hey, buddy, can you give me a ride to the nearest working phone?
 
The phones are dead here, and the people are under the influence of something that apparently makes them go to Baptist church on Saturday.

I stood dumbly in the middle of the road, waiting for answers as though waiting was my new profession.
 
But no car came.
 
The dead road remained dead.
 
Only the bark of a distant dog and a faraway squeal—like a pig being stuck—met my ears, while the sun steadily dropped toward the corn to the west.

Then a flash of light attracted me.
 
I turned my head slightly toward where the mid afternoon sunlight heliographed off something atop the water tower on the hill.
 
I stared at, and then squinted at . . . what?

Evidence.

Quickly, I lifted the binoculars, and turned the focusing screw.
 
Between the branches of a tall maple tree I could see something metallic and shiny up there, now.
 
Something foreign.
 
I imagined it to be something like a silver canister—maybe a two gallon can.
 
Then suddenly an arm came into view amid the foliage.
 
Two arms.
 
And the thing was lifted away by a man Cody had missed.

I ran toward the hill, my camera and binoculars bouncing on the shoulder straps behind my back.
 
I worked the revolver out of my pocket as I ran, and kept my finger outside the trigger guard, in case I tripped and fell.
 
Praying that Walter Mills—or whoever he was—didn't spot me, I stayed free of the corn for fear of the sound, and moved quickly across the open ground, wary of my footing.
 
If I could get close enough to take a photo . . .

Blocked by thickets of some kind of sticky and prickly shrub, I was forced to bull my way through, despite the crackling sound that generated.
 
I was breathing heavily before I found myself up on level ground again.
 
Then I lifted my revolver toward the curved underbelly of the water tower.
 
But I must have been heard or seen, because I could detect no one now.
 
Not atop the tower, or amid the surrounding trees.

Damn, damn, damn . . .

In frustration, I struggled closer, getting a look at the base of the fat frog tower.
 
Below the metal ladder, which hung six feet off the ground near the support column, were tracks and assorted footprints in the dirt.
 
I could make out four different shoe imprints, and took two
closeup
photos of them, kneeling to do so.
 
Were there markings on top of the tower?
 
Scrapes to photograph?
 
Perhaps a puncture or forced access hatch?
 
I heard nothing in the surrounding
treeline
, only a distant whippoorwill, and an even more distant dog barking.
 
So I decided to investigate.