The weather had become bright and pleasant after the storm of the previous night, and the gusty wind had little effect on the heavy car. But the signs of recent devastation were everywhere: burned-out buildings, shattered storefronts, hulks of useless vehicles waiting to be towed away, ominous body-sized areas marked off on roads and sidewalks. In spite of everything, people were on the streets in increasing numbers. It was enough to suggest that, in this area at least, the worst effects of Supernova Alpha were over. Recovery was finally on the way.
Art and Dana sat, side by side and silent, all the way through the northern suburbs and up onto I-270. Finally she sighed and said, “All right, I know I talked too much last night. I shouldn’t have gone on and on that way, and I’m sorry.”
Art turned and stared. “Do you mean about your son? I didn’t mind at all. I knew how hard it was for you to tell me what he did, and why he’s hiding out down south under a false name. But it just made me feel closer to you. I liked that. It wouldn’t be fair if you had to listen to me, and I didn’t listen to you. And I did my own share of talking — more than I ever have to anyone.”
“But now you’re wishing you hadn’t.”
“I’m not.”
“I think you are. You haven’t said two words to me in over an hour. And your face says you’re upset.”
“I am. But it’s not with you. I thought last night was wonderful, all of it. I’m worried about today. What will happen when we get to Catoctin Mountain Park?”
“I’ve been relying on you to answer that. I’ve never been there, and it’s your home ground. You don’t think Seth and Oliver Guest will already be up there, do you?”
“I doubt it. They would have to have traveled awful fast. But even if they’re not there, we have to answer some questions. I guess I’m having second thoughts. When we were at the Treasure Inn, it seemed obvious. We had to wake Oliver Guest, so he could tell us how to continue our treatments. I hope he does that. But suppose he comes through, and we get what we want. What are we going to do with Oliver Guest afterward}”
“I don’t know.” Dana looked forward. The glass partition between the front and back of the car was intact, and the driver was unlikely to hear her even if she screamed. Even so, she lowered her voice. “We can’t just let him go. We’ll have to turn him in to the authorities.”
“I agree. But what will Oliver Guest have to say about that? He must have thought about it. He knows that whether he helps us or not, his only real hope is to escape and hide. We can’t protect him forever. He may be crazy, but he’s not stupid. I’m beginning to think we were crazy, waking him up.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“A couple of things. First of all, I don’t want you there when I go to my house. Suppose that Oliver Guest went there with Seth, then found some way to overpower him? He could be there now, waiting to dispose of us, too.”
He knew before he finished speaking that he had made a mistake. Dana’s face changed from concerned to furious.
“What century do you think you’re in, Art Ferrand? You’ve got this poor helpless little female, so the big strong man has to make sure she stays out of danger. Is that it? Well, your way of thinking was old-fashioned before I was born — before you were born. You’re not Sir Galahad, and I’m not the Lady of Shalott.”
“Sir Lancelot. You’re mixing knights.”
“Fuck the knights. You know what I mean. I had as much to do with pulling Oliver Guest out of cold storage as you did. If there’s danger ahead, I helped make it.”
“All right.” Art held up his hands. “I surrender. It’s just that I care what happens to you. I’ve got a personal interest in seeing that parts of you don’t get damaged.”
“That’s fair. It works both ways. I’m not finished with you, either. But it doesn’t mean you protect me. It means we share dangers, and protect each other.”
“I think it means we try to avoid danger. When we can’t, you want to be in with me every step of the way. I accept that — even if I don’t really like it. But I still don’t want to head straight to my house. We might find out when it’s too late that Oliver Guest has killed and eaten Seth and has a booby trap waiting so we can be dessert.”
“So what’s the answer? Do you have one?”
She was much calmer. Art risked a hand (friendly, not protective) on her knee, and it wasn’t smacked away. “Funnily enough I do have an answer, though I didn’t two minutes ago. We don’t go straight to my house.”
“Where do we go?”
“Somewhere close by. And we enlist reinforcements.”
Joe Vanetti and Ed O’Donnell were surprisingly restrained in their reactions. Joe, at one point in Art’s description of his actions over the past two weeks, said, “You dumb shit.” Ed confined himself to shaking his head and staring at Dana’s calves. They were spattered with mud from the mile walk along a sticky dirt road, but Art didn’t think that the mud was the main object of interest.
He was almost done with his story — minimizing the dangerous and experimental nature of the telomod therapy itself — when Ed’s wife, Helen, appeared. She greeted Art, was introduced to Dana, and rounded on Ed. “They’ve been here an hour, and you’ve never offered them a bite to eat?”
“They’ve got a drink.”
“And you think that’s the same thing, you drunken Irish sot? Come on, dear” — to Dana — “we’ll be through to the back kitchen, and leave these daft devils to talk. They’re worse than animals. When there’s women around the men won’t feed themselves, and if we don’t feed them they turn on us.”
Ed waited until they were gone, then said, “That’s it. Your friend’s in for the third degree. By the time Helen’s done with her, Dana’s back teeth will be counted and numbered. She won’t have a secret mole or birthmark left.”
“He knows where those are already.” Joe nodded toward Art. “Look at the man. Did you ever see such a picture of mindless sexual satisfaction?”
“Ah, don’t be hard on him. It’s been a long time coming.”
Ed and Joe, not for the first time, spoke as though Art were not in the room.
“Only he’s trying to make up for it all at once,” Ed went on. “It’s a miracle he’s not gone blind.”
“She must be the blind one.”
“Not only that, you can see that it agrees with him. He looks healthier. How long’s it been since you had your leg over, Art?”
“What do you think of Dana?” Art, with mass murderers half a step behind or maybe ahead of him, interrupted with a more important question.
“She’s great,” Joe said. “Sweet and sexy and sensible. Just what you need — what you’ve needed for all these years. Though I can’t think what she’s doing hanging around with you.” Ed nodded agreement, and Joe went on, “And why you’d talk a nice, sane woman like that into the maddest scheme I’ve ever heard of, that’s beyond me. Oliver Guest, for God’s sake. And by the sound of it, your friend Seth Parsigian’s as bad or worse. Why didn’t you go the whole way and take Frankenstein along to wake up Dracula?”
No point in telling Joe and Ed that Dana had been as keen on the idea as he was — or that Seth had pushed both of them. No point in mentioning that nothing in the past couple of weeks had been normal, not even here. On the trek up to the house, Art had noticed three ominous crosses on top of piles of dirt, a few hundred yards off the main road. Catoctin Mountain Park seemed quiet, but Supernova Alpha had left its marks of violence everywhere, not just in the cities.