[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
young girl, the situation had not changed; it had only become more
complicated. She patted Sheila's shoulder, and as gently as she could, said,
"It's not that simple, hon. The same thing that happened to you, happened to
me."
Sheila backed away, bringing both hands up to her face as if trying to
hide from Wanda's revelation. "Oh, no! You mean it's like this everywhere?
What -- oh, shit! What's happening? Have I gone crazy?"
"I don't know what's happened, but if you're crazy, so am I. Come on,
let's get away from here, and we can compare stories." Wanda looked back over
her shoulder apprehensively. During the previous day, she had caught glimpses,
and seen tracks, of animals that she had no desire to meet, especially
standing in the open like this. She took Sheila Holloway's hand and led her
towards the farmhouse, reminding her to pick up her rifle. If what had
happened to the two of them was a universal phenomenon, they would certainly
be needing it.
I SHOULD HAVE been dead, Dawson Reeves thought to himself, but I'm not.
Whatever the fucking hell happened, it saved me from the gurney, and that
damned injection. Dawson struggled along, carrying his broken left arm in his
right. He had gathered dead limbs and torn strips from his shirt to make a
crude splint. He still cried out sometimes with pain when his arm was jostled,
but he didn't let it slow him down. He wanted to get as far from Huntsville as
possible.
Eventually, I'll find out where I am, he thought, and then it's just a
matter of getting close to some unwary person. That shouldn't be hard; he
could use his obviously broken arm for an excuse, and the smudges and dirt
should camouflage the white prison garb to some extent. It would be easy, he
hoped, and then nobody better get in his way. No way I'll ever let myself get
strapped in again.
During the day, Dawson passed through two areas of displacement, but
never noticed; it was simply a clearing to him, and a threat rather than a
promise. He skirted the area and went on, trying to mark a passage south by
the sun. Houston should be in that direction. If he noticed the incongruity of
centuries old trees and unfamiliar animals he didn't let it distract him. His
whole being was totally concentrated on getting just as far from Huntsville as
he could.
He traveled southeast rather than south. He was very lucky. He made
another twenty miles that day with nothing more to hinder him other than the
pain of his broken arm and a raging hunger. He slept that night scarcely ten
miles from the farmhouse where Sheila Holloway and Wanda Smith were comparing
notes.
AT THE ROADSIDE park on highway 59 between Livingston and Corrigan,
about eighty miles north of where Houston had once been located, Darla
Cranston had made a friend. She had spent the night in the rear of Brent
Sampson's van, sleeping soundly beneath the canopy of western pants and
shirts, which Sampson peddled to western stores in a territory encompassing
half of Texas.
Brent wasn't the type of man Darla was ordinarily attracted to. He had
a slight physique and thinning brown hair, but compared to the three male and
two female truckers who had been displaced along with them, he might as well
have been six feet tall and as handsome as her father. He had a quiet,
confident demeanor that made her feel safer than any amount of shallow
braggadocio would have.
Darla was still numb with the sudden change the world had undergone.
She had been traveling towards Galveston to meet with her estranged husband
when the change caught her at the roadside park where she had stopped for a
rest. She was intending to tell him, finally, and in no uncertain terms that
their marriage was over. She was tired of trying to support him on her
schoolteacher's salary while he perpetually worked at one odd job or another
just long enough to qualify for unemployment benefits.
She wondered why they had ever married in the first place, and then she
stopped wondering because she knew. He was a handsome hunk of a man with a
bubbling, extroverted personality, just like the high school and college jocks
she had always been attracted to. It had taken several years of marriage to
discover just how shallow he was beneath the confident shell he presented to
the world.
When the truckers had become belligerent during the first day of the
displacement, she welcomed Brent's diffident invitation to sleep in his van
rather than her own little car.
During that day, Darla watched as the truckers congregated together,
after a fashion, but she noticed that they were wary of each other, like
strange dogs meeting for the first time. She kept her distance as they drank
up whatever liquor they had been carrying and began vandalizing the vending
machines. Once, when she had gone inside the comfort station to use the
bathroom, she came back out to see the looming figure of the odd male trucker.
"Hey, lady, looks like we're all stranded here together. What say let's
get acquainted?"
Darla didn't even like his looks, let alone his attitude. He was a big
man running to fat, with a balding head hidden by a dirty blue cap with a
Poulon logo on the brim. She stepped aside with a murmured, "Later, maybe." He
let her pass, but she could feel his eyes following her as she returned to her
car, parked beside the diminutive salesman's van.
Brent greeted her as she returned. She had stifled a giggle when he
told her his last name. Sampson. If there was ever a miscognomen, he owned it,
but he was very nice. He shared his plunder from earlier excursions to the
vending machines with her. He was quietly polite, and stayed close to her when
the truckers began getting raucous again.
As the evening wore on, and night approached, she noticed the big
trucker who had approached her earlier glancing in her direction. It didn't
take much persuasion to induce her to sleep in Brent's van again.
Darla woke early, and peeked out of the rear window. Not seeing any
movement yet from the parked rigs, she crawled out of the clothed cave in the
rear of the van. Brent was already awake.
"Good morning," he said. "Don't try the bathrooms. They're plugged up,
or at least the men's side is."
"Oh. Where -- ?"
"I went into the woods there." He pointed.
Apprehensively, Darla approached the line of trees and brush.
Wildflowers graced the periphery, then vanished abruptly at the tree line as
if they had been devoured by the forest. She stopped behind the first tree,
relieved herself, then ran hurriedly back to the van where the little salesman
was waiting.
"What do we do now?" was Darla's first question.
Brent hesitated before he answered. He took in her slim figure and
apprehensive expression. "It doesn't look good. We're nearly out of food, and
there doesn't seem to be much chance of help arriving. I think we should
leave."
"Why do you say that?"
"If anyone were coming, I think they would have been here by now. And
look around you. Does anything look familiar?"
"No, but -- "
"There's another reason. I talked to one of the truckers in the john
this morning. He seems to be fairly decent, but he warned me about the others.
He says they're all bad characters, except for the woman he's gotten hooked up
with. And I heard a shot during the night."
"Maybe it was someone else," Darla said hopefully.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]