There, Lyle noticed, blood dried below his nose. Lyle bent down and studied, started to study. Something not right.
He heard the whimper and paused. A few rows farther down. He made his way back and found the source of the noise: a lump beneath a blanket, muffling the hysterics. The girl he’d seen earlier, clutching a stuffed bear. He steeled himself against emotion.
“I’m a doctor? I’m here to help you.”
She blinked with trauma.
“What’s your name?”
Whimpering, terror.
“Is this your mom? I’m going to help her.”
“She… she won’t wake up.”
The girl had bangs and freckles and seemed uncertain if she were awake herself. Surely, this must be a nightmare. On the ground, he saw a piece of paper she’d drawn on and written her name.
“Andrea?”
She looked up.
“We are going to get help—for her, your mom,” Lyle said. He wanted to quiz her on what had happened here but there was no sense to be discussed, the girl too far gone. He simply carried her to the front and lowered her down to Jerry. Lyle started to lower himself down and he saw the truck pulled beside the airplane, with Eleanor behind the wheel. What new plan was this?
He didn’t have time to process it when he was struck by an impulse, more than that, a severe nag. Ignoring Jerry’s overtures to come down, Lyle pulled himself back into the plane. He could hear Jerry say, “I think he’s drunk.”
Lyle cruised back into the cabin and found the older gentleman. Pulling off his plastic glove, come what may, Lyle put his hand to the man’s left temple. Then felt for a pulse at the carotid. Then back to the temple. He focused on the frayed skin and couldn’t deny what he was looking at: a contusion. Without an x-ray he couldn’t be sure, but he’d have bet his damn booze bottles he was looking at a skull fracture.
He stood and nearly sprinted back to his row. He stared, surrounded by these near-dead creatures, inhaling whatever was in here. It hit him, right here, all of it, the weight of the last two hours. This was madness, impossible, all but a dream. He slammed his open palm against the overhead compartment to feel the pain and assure himself he wasn’t asleep. Then he opened the compartment and yanked out his suitcase and tossed it on the ground and unzipped it. He rummaged. He’d managed to bring a single suit, wrinkled with folding. In an inner compartment, he felt for his itinerary. An official invitation, embossed stationery, to give a midday talk at a small infectious disease conference.
“Bullshit,” he said. “Bullshit.”
He’d known it, of course, on some level. He must have? An infectious disease conference, here in Steamboat, in November?
Who was he kidding?
He reached behind the itinerary and pulled out a small, framed picture in the cheap Walgreen’s frame, the glass broken horizontally. Melanie smiling on a rock, an invisible bump in her belly, the last happy picture.
A sob caught in his throat.
He read the letter of invitation. He studied the stilted language, deliberately formal, an honorarium not too much or too little, a number to call, and a website to visit.
He tried to remember the seduction that got him to this putative conference—in the mountains, on this plane—the phone calls, the travel arrangements, a slow reel, patient, low pressure, persistent, striking his chords, eventually, finally pulling him out of his fetid apartment and his own stink. He must’ve known all along it was a setup. On some level. But what in the hell for? Who would want a washed-up infectious disease specialist? Especially one who had given up completely on humanity?
He stared at Melanie’s picture and sipped more gin. He turned and threw the bottle straight down the aisle toward the back of the airplane, a perfect strike flying between the half-dead passengers. It didn’t shatter, just hit with a thud against the wall of the bathroom door.
Lyle started back toward the front of the plane. But after a step, he paused. He returned to the overhead compartment. What had struck his attention? He looked at a red roller bag lodged next to where his own luggage had been. His eye stopped on a white luggage tag with green letters: “Google.” He turned the tag over and saw the name: Alex. No address, or phone number.
Alex. His seatmate, the woman who had survived. Where had she said she worked? She hadn’t, just that she was in technology sales. He shrugged and turned.
At the flight deck door, he stopped. Attached to the door, with adhesive, was a small gold rectangle, almost like a playing card. But it was made of metal. He pulled it off and after a brief wrangle with the powerful double-sided tape that held it, freed the unusual object. Hardly knowing what to make of it, other than its anomalous presence—had it been there before? He put it in his back pocket.
Lyle lowered himself through the bottom of the plane, hit the ground, saw the barrel of the gun.
Twenty-One
“Get in the truck,” Jerry said. He pointed his pistol at Lyle, then raised an eyebrow, like Try me.
Behind Jerry, Eleanor idled a heavy-load pickup truck. The back windows of the vehicle were tinted but Lyle felt he could see Alex and the two children in the backseat.
“Get that out of my face,” Lyle said.
“Get in the truck.” Eleanor repeated Jerry’s command.
Lyle stared at her.
“Heading to town. For help and to avoid whatever is here if it’s… contagious,” she continued. “We need to get on the same page. No more renegade missions.”
“This is a dead zone, a freaking patient-zero cluster fuck. We can’t be around this anymore,” Jerry spat. “If these kids get sick, we might need a real doctor.”
Lyle ignored him and spun an instant analysis. How best to isolate and build on the clues?
Useful to stay at the airport?
Maybe.
“Should we make a last attempt to call out over the radio?” Lyle said.
“So now you’re a doctor and a pilot,” Jerry said.
Useful to see the surrounding area?
Likely.
Lyle moved around to the passenger side of the dark blue cab and felt a gentle push from behind. “You heard the captain,” Jerry said. He climbed in after Lyle, sandwiching him in the middle.
The girl whimpered in the back. The cab smelled like Kentucky Fried Chicken. A driver’s license hung by a clip from the visor over Eleanor. The picture on the license belonged to the mechanic.
Eleanor pulled the silver lever and put the truck in drive and it slid to a start. The girl’s whimpers intensified. Eleanor turned on the radio but all that came out was static. Lyle reached up and turned it off.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s best.”
Eleanor shoved in a cassette tape. The voice of James Taylor filled the cab. The clock read 1:45.
Eleanor turned the truck in a tight U-turn and they headed to the edge of the terminal. They passed a movable ramp, and then an unblocked stretch of window through which they could see into the terminal, and the handful of bodies. One looked slumped on the counter. The sounds of “Sweet Baby James” filled the cab.
The tires slid on the ice as Eleanor pulled behind the right of the low-slung terminal and swung out of the airport. She reached in front of Lyle and turned up the heat. It was roaring now, actually starting to feel warm.