Wet Work: The Definitive Edition (32 page)

He was nearly there.
But what if there’s nothing, no one? What then?

Sandy.

He’d been deceiving himself with irrational hope. Love. Blind, desperate love for a woman who was probably dead, who had most likely never made it out of New York. Now he was about to find out a crushing truth. She wouldn’t be there and he had come all this way for nothing. But then there was no reason for him to stay in the rubble of Washington. Life without hope rendered any action meaningless. Better to try than to die frozen in inaction. After all, he was alive and had escaped from Hell.

The dirt road curved sharply to the right, the Toyota’s suspension bouncing over the rutted soil. Through the screen of trees, he caught his first glimpse of the two-story farmhouse. It looked the same as it did the last time he and Sandy had visited back in October last year, the house’s whitewashed timbers sagging under the weight of the old sloping roof. Eliot had been talking about replacing it for as long as he and his wife had lived there. Little chance of that happening now, Nick thought as he maneuvered the Toyota between the dried mud ruts of the road.

He pulled into the drive, the truck slaloming to a halt atop the dry, dusty soil as he braked. He saw the screen door on the porch swing open, moving back and forth, the rusted hinges creaking slightly under the touch of a light breeze.

The place looked deserted.

He started to call out as he jumped down from the cab, stopping himself to draw a deep breath. What if there were dead ones inside? Maybe Elliot and Anna, slowly rotting, dozing between feeding. He remembered the movie,
Night of the Living Dead.
That had taken place in a deserted farm house, the few survivors barricading themselves inside, fighting off the hordes of zombies. Wouldn’t it be ironic for the zombies to be inside, for him to walk into their waiting arms?

Fuck it, he was ready.

He clicked off the safety on a MAC-10.

No truck in the driveway. No vehicles anywhere in sight.

Just the screen door moving slowly in the dawn breeze.

He sighed and walked up the worn wooden steps onto the porch, turned the doorknob with his left hand and opened it, Ingram at the ready.

The front door led into the dining room. The kitchen was to the right, the living room beyond that. The table was laid for three, plates and cutlery arranged neatly on woven mats, napkins folded precisely beside the forks. The only thing out of pace was the salt shaker laying on its side, a pinch of salt spilled out on the tabletop.

As he stepped into the kitchen he smelled the pile of garbage strewn across the floor before he saw it. A small animal had gotten into it somehow by the looks of it, searching for a tasty treat, and had spread the trash all over the linoleum.

The lounge too, was vacant, the only indication of inhabitation a pile of videocassettes in front of the VCR
. Conan The Destroyer, Close Encounters, Singing In The Rain.
Stories from a dead age.

He tried the bedrooms, checked the cellar.

The house was empty.

The truth deflated him. Nick locked the doors and walked slowly back upstairs to the nearest bedroom. He collapsed on the single bed, falling into an immediate, dreamless sleep, tears struggling to fill his tired, burning eyes.

AFTERNOON

Totally exhausted, Nick slept like the true dead. And so he didn’t hear the old school bus growl its way up the dirt road. He murmured in his sleep, his eyes rolling beneath their lids as turbulent dreams held him in a nightmare’s embrace.

He was in a house in Arizona, standing in the living room, his father a bloated, rotting, red-nosed figure slumped on the couch. Will Packard opened his eyes but the sockets were empty.

“
Get me a beer, you worthless son of a bitch. I’m thirsty,” his father croaked. “Now.”

“
No,” Nick said. “You’re not my father. You’re just a drunken old bastard.”

Will Packard pawed his crotch. “You came from these boy. You’re mine. You’ll always be mine. And you’ll do as I say.” He grinned. His teeth were bloody. “I can eat you alive if I want to. Little pig.” He belched, moving his hand from his crotch to his belt, undoing the buckle. “How many more times do I have to beat that into your little skull?”

Nick wanted to run but he couldn’t; his legs felt like they were cemented into the floor.

Will Packard heaved himself off the couch, an empty bottle of Jim Beam falling to the stained rug.

“
Time to take your medicine,” he said, pulling the belt free from his soiled trousers, his sightless eyes two dark, evil pits.

Nick was seven years old again, the man before him a towering shadow of fat and muscle. Will laid a thick, meaty hand on Nick’s shoulder, shaking him.

“
What do you have to say for yourself, Nick?

(Nick)

The rough hand shook him again. He wanted to scream as the eyeless face of his rotting father leered down at him and
—

“
Nick!”

Hands were shaking him. A voice—

He opened his eyes wide, gasping. He pulled back from the hand, instinctively reaching for the gun.

Sandy stood beside the bed. With her were two men, a teenage girl and a small boy.

Jared.

He was still dreaming. The nightmare was…the nightmare was—

“
Nick!” she sobbed. “You’re here. You’re really here!”

A tear splashed his hand and he knew then that he wasn’t dreaming, that Sandy was alive. They were together again. It was going to be all right. He wasn’t alone any more. His wife had survived—thank God—and, by Christ she was here, touching him, crying and—

Sandy doubled over onto the bed, her body heaving as she coughed.

He sat up, reaching out to her. Her face was flushed. She coughed repeatedly, but he was too relieved to see her to acknowledge the significance.

“
I’m John Briggs,” said a man with the silver gray hair. “And this is my daughter, Janet.”

He placed a paternal hand on the young redhead’s arm. She smiled weakly.

“
Dick Austin,” said the younger man. “We talked on the phone.”

Jared just looked at Nick, his face pinched, almost old in the bedroom’s shadows.

Sandy coughed again, trying to stifle the harsh rasps by burying her face in the sheets. Nick squeezed her hand, his heart racing at the surprise of being roused from the nightmare to find his wife leaning over him. Sandy squeezed back in return, lifting her face from the bed. She tried to smile, but her chest hurt.

“
Are you real?” Nick asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Is it really you?”

She swallowed painfully, a desperate expression carved into her face as she threw herself into his arms.

She was hot with fever, but he didn’t notice.

She was here!

“
Let’s go downstairs. They need to be alone,” Briggs said, taking Jared by the hand and leading him to the door. The boy looked back at Sandy, reluctant to go, but Briggs gently urged him onwards. Jane smiled respectfully, taking Jared’s other hand.

As the door closed, Nick hugged Sandy tighter, crushing her into his chest as if he still didn’t believe his eyes.

“
Hon,” he whispered into her ear. “Oh, baby, I thought you were gone forever.”

He kissed her firmly on the mouth. She responded, pulling away suddenly as she started to cough.

“
I’m sick,” she wheezed.

He loosened his hold as her body was racked with dry, gasping spasms. The shock of his awakening over, he realized she had the virus. She was dying.

No! Not now…not after all—

Sandy pulled away slightly until the bronchial fit passed, then looked up, tears in her eyes. Tears of love and pain.

“
Hold me.”

They lay together for several hours, limbs so entwined they were one person not two. But they didn’t make love, and they hardly spoke. Sandy shared the barest bones of her journey from New York. He spared her the details of what he’d seen in Washington. It didn’t matter. They were together. They had made it through a firestorm of death and destruction to the peace of the farm.

And she was dying.

Nick ran his fingers through her hair. Late afternoon sunlight burned behind the window blinds. The sounds of the others in the kitchen barely registered. It was so fucking unfair. Against all odds they’d reached a haven, but the torment wasn’t over. Maybe it’s have been better if he’d never seen her again, just come to terms with her death and concentrated on keeping himself alive.

She lifted her head from his lap. “We should go see the others.”

“
In a while.”

But he didn’t want to get out of bed even though he was hungry, and the aroma of cooking food drifting up from the kitchen made his stomach rumble. He hadn’t eaten in over thirty-six hours, but he didn’t want to break the connection.

Sandy sat up.

“
Come on,” she said, coughing.

“
Don’t—”

He pulled her back to him. “I want to hold you.”

She let him, but didn’t respond with her previous passion, resting her head on his chest like a little girl in her daddy’s arms. After a while, she spoke again.

“
Let’s go. Soon I won’t have the strength to go down.” She paused. “I’ve seen others get this way. I’m going to die.”

He hushed her, held her closer. She resisted, struggling to sit up.

“
Face it. I’m going to die. Feel how hot my head is?”

She placed his right hand on her forehead and he turned away. “It’s just the beginning, but I know what’s coming. It happens fast. My lungs ache. It’s painful to breathe. I’ll be dead by morning.”

“
I know.
I’ve seen it, too.
”

He stared uncomfortably into her face.

She grasped his hand.

“
Just don’t let me come back.”

Nick opened his eyes, pulling himself out of a light doze, aware Sandy’s breathing was inaudible. He leaned over her, listening.

Nothing.

She was dead.

He didn’t cry; he was too numb. Anyway, the time for tears had long passed. Time itself had run out. There was no hope, no future. The girl, Jane, was sick, too. How long before the rest of them died? A week? Two? It didn’t matter.

He continued to sit in the dark for some time, listening to the sibilant whisper of the night breeze blowing through the trees. It reminded him of days long gone, of horse riding in the Virginia countryside, picnics and lovemaking under the stars on a warm summer night. Nick took Sandy’s right hand in his. It was cooling. He stroked her brow, leaned forward, kissed her lips.

“
Find peace,” he whispered, lifting the pillow beside her head, placing it over her face before picking up the pistol from the nightstand. Its cold weight felt good, solid. He pushed the barrel into the pillow and fired. The gun bucked, making a large, whumping noise. Then he placed the barrel in his mouth and squeezed the trigger.

The second report shattered the night.

—
| — | —

No more will I roam

Our childish dreams are

soon outgrown

But here we stand

In our theatreland.

Curtain call

About to fall.

—
The Damned

—
| — | —

THE WHITE HOUSE.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7.

The President sat behind his desk in the Oval Office, drool trickling from his open mouth.

He’d come in here to do something, something Hershman insisted he do, but he couldn’t remember what. Every time he tried to focus on a specific thought, his mind skipped like a needle jumping on a defective record.

“
Millie,” he said, not even aware he’d spoken aloud, spittle splattering on the desktop.

He scratched nervously at his left cheek, his broken fingernails scraping through the sparse growth of stubble covering his thin, pinched face. Quarter-sized scales of skin peeled away, falling onto his stained gray suit like thick flakes of dandruff. Not that he cared or noticed. An image of a golf course suddenly stuck in his mind. Playing golf with Boris Yeltsin. The Russians were our enemies and our enemies must die and—

His fingers drummed on the desktop next to a small black box. There was something attractive about the box. He didn’t know why, but it was reassuring to have it sitting in front of him.

“
The Russians are our enemies,” he mumbled, aware of what he was saying this time.

No. The Russians weren’t our enemies anymore. They were our allies and we played golf with them.

He was playing golf at Camp David, walking across the green accompanied by his secret service bodyguards. Happy because he was winning. He liked to win. If you didn’t win, there was no point in playing…

But he wouldn’t get to play golf again because—

Because they were all dead. America was dead, the world was dying, and it was the Iraqis’ fault; it had to be the Iraqis’ fault because they were our enemies and our enemies must die…

Golf.

He wanted to play golf one last time. Wanted to walk across a finely mowed lawn, swing a club, win a game. But his limbs hurt. Every time he moved, his body flared in pain. His arms were heavy, his legs leaden. It hurt.
He
hurt. The world hurt because it was dying. And someone had to put the world out of its misery.

“
The patient is dying, Dr. Kildare. Shall we…shall we pull the plug?

He giggled an insane laugh, looking over at the body of the Vice President crumpled up in a heap like a pile of old clothes beside a chair. “Feel better now…? He struggled to remember the man’s name. It began with an D. “Umm…David?” No, that wasn’t right. Well, it didn’t matter. Not really.