Behind, he heard a scuffle and swiveled his head to see Jurie, his face contorted, trying to grab a pistol and the security guards doing an awkward little dance keeping their weapons out of his reach.
Scientists with guns, Dicken thought. That really was the living end. Somehow, the absurdity cheered him. He squeezed the girl’s hand and marched toward the others standing by the gate.
They did not stop him. Maggie Flynn actually held the gate open. She looked relieved.
40
CALIFORNIA
Stella and Will had left the car after it ran out of gas near a town called Lone Pine. They were in the woods now, but she did not feel any closer to freedom, or to where she wanted to be.
They had left Mrs. Hayden asleep in the car, drained after driving all night and then cutting back and forth across the state routes and freeways and back roads all morning. Will trudged ahead of Stella, carrying two empty plastic bottles.
At noon, the air was cool and hazy. Summer was turning into fall. The pines and larches and oaks seemed to shimmer as breezes blew and clouds raced over the low mountains.
They had seen very few houses along the road, but there were some. Will talked about a place that was in the middle of nowhere, with no humans for tens, if not hundreds, of miles. Stella was too tired to feel discouraged. She knew now they did not belong anywhere or to anyone; they were just lost, inside and out. Her feet hurt. Her back hurt. The discomfort from her period was passing. That was a small blessing, but now she was beginning to wonder who and what Will really was.
He looked more than a little feral with his hair sweaty and sticking straight up at the back where he had leaned against the rear seat in Mrs. Hayden’s car. He smelled gamy, angry, and afraid, but Stella knew she did not smell any better.
She wondered what Celia and LaShawna and Felice were up to, what had happened to the drivers trussed up and left by the side of the road.
She had only a dim idea how the map in Will’s back pocket correlated with where they were. The road looked like a long black river rolling into the distance, vanishing around a tree-framed curve.
For a moment, she stopped and watched a ground squirrel. It stood on a low flat rock beside the shoulder, hunched and alert, with shiny black eyes, like the Shrooz in her room in Virginia.
She hoped they would end up on a farm and she could be with animals. She got along well with animals.
Will came back. The squirrel fled. “We should keep moving,” he said. They trotted clumsily into the trees as two cars rumbled by.
“Maybe we should hitchhike,” Stella suggested from behind a pine trunk. She smelled the cloying sweetness of the tree’s sap and it reminded her of school. She curled her lip and pushed away from the rough bark.
“If we hitchhike, they’ll catch us,” Will said. “We’re close. I know it.”
She followed Will. She could almost imagine a big blue Chevy or a big pickup barreling down the road with Mitch behind the wheel. Mitch and Kaye, together, looking for her.
The next time they heard a car coming, Will ran into the trees but she kept walking. After the car had passed, he caught up with her and gave her a squinch-faced look.
“We’re helpless out here,” Stella said, squinching back at him, as if that were a reasonable explanation.
“More reason to hide.”
“Maybe somebody knows where this place is. If they stop we can ask.”
“I’m not very lucky,” Will said, his mouth twisting into a line that was not a smile and not quite a smirk. Wry and uncertain. “Are you lucky?” he asked.
“I’m here with you, aren’t I?” she asked, deadpan.
Will laughed. He laughed until he started waving his arms and snorting and had to stop to wipe his nose on his sleeve.
“Eeyeew,” Stella said.
“Sorry,” he said.
Against her better judgment, Stella liked him again.
The next car, Will stuck out his hand, thumb up, and gave his biggest smile. The car flashed by doing at least seventy miles an hour, smoked windows full of blurred faces that did not even look their way.
Will hunched his shoulders as he resumed walking.
They heard the next vehicle twenty minutes later. Stella looked over her shoulder. It was an old Ford minivan, cresting a rise in the two-lane road and laying down a thin cloud of oily white smoke. Neither she nor Will moved back from the road. Their water bottles were empty. It wouldn’t be long before they had to turn around and retrace their journey.
The minivan slowed, moved into the opposite lane to avoid them, and passed with a low whoosh. An older man and woman in the front seats peered at them owlishly; the back windows were tinted blue and reflected their own faces.
The minivan pulled over and stopped about two hundred feet down the road.
Stella hiccupped in surprise and crossed her arms. Will stood sideways, like a fencer expecting a strike, and Stella saw his hands shake.
“They don’t look mean,” Stella said, but she thought of the red truck and Fred Trinket and his mother who had cooked chicken, back in Spotsylvania County.
“We do need a ride,” Will admitted.
The minivan backed up slowly and stopped about twenty feet away. The woman leaned her head out of the right side window. Her hair was salt-and-pepper gray and she had a square, strong face and direct eyes. Her arm, elbowing out, was covered with freckles, and her face was heavily wrinkled and pale. Stella saw she had lots of big silver rings on the fingers of her left hand, which rested on her forearm as she looked back at them.
“Are you two virus kids?” the older woman asked.
“Yeah,” Will said, hands shaking even harder. He tried to smile. “We escaped.”
The older woman thought about that for a moment, pursing her lips. “Are you infectious?”
“I don’t think so,” Will said, and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
The older woman turned back to the man in the driver’s seat. They shared a glance and reached a silent agreement possible only to a couple who had lived together a very long time. “Need a ride somewhere?” the woman asked.
Will looked at Stella, but all Stella could sniff was the thick fume of oil. The man was at least ten years older than the woman. He had a thin face, bright gray eyes, and a prominent nose, and his hands, on the wheel, were also covered with rings—turquoise and coral and silver, birds and abstract designs.
“Sure,” Will said.
The minivan’s side door popped and slid open automatically. The interior stank of cigarette smoke and hamburgers and fries.
Stella’s nose wrinkled, but the smell of food made her mouth water. They hadn’t eaten since the morning of the day before.
“We’ve been reading about kids like you,” the old man said as they climbed in. “Hard times, huh?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “Thanks.”
PART THREE
SHEVA + 18
“We’re in year eighteen of what some have called the Virus Century. The whole world is still running scared, though there are faint and tremulous hints of a political solution.
“Yet the majority of people polled today haven’t the faintest idea what a virus is. For most of us, ‘They’re small and they make us sick’ just about says it all.
“Most scientists insist that viruses are genetic pirates, hijacking and killing cells to reproduce: ‘Selfish genes with switchblades,’ ‘Terrorist DNA.’ Others say we’ve got it mostly wrong, that many viruses are genetic messengers, carrying signals between cells in the body and even between you and me: ‘Genetic FedEx.’