Eventually they left the crowds of wandering people behind and crossed a lake on a four-lane bridge. After another stretch of mostly empty road, they turned onto a narrow and lonely-looking street that wandered into Thomas’ neighborhood. From there it was a short drive to his house, a large, French country home that stood on the shore of the lake and looked like it had been built yesterday.
Thomas unloaded her luggage and carried it toward the house. Inside she found European sofas that sat near the ground, a mixture of dark and light woods, enormous plate glass windows that opened to a grand view of the lake. As if any of it mattered.
“It’s great that we’re here now, but I’m still scared to death. I’m afraid I’m never going to see my family again.”
He reached for her then, and Skylar let herself be held. She barely knew this man, but she also understood they were in this together. She was overwhelmed, near panic, and somehow Thomas seemed so unflappable about it all.
“I hope you’re wrong,” Skylar confessed. “Just like that woman said. I hope you’re full of shit. Because in your screenplay almost everyone dies.”
Thomas let go of her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Listen to me. I don’t know what’s going to happen. No one does. But we have a better chance than most.”
“Why is that? Because of your car?”
“Not just that. Let me show you something.”
Thomas led her deeper into the house until they were standing in front of a sturdy steel door. He retrieved a key from his pocket and inserted it into the dead bolt lock.
“This is a safe room. The walls are eight inches of reinforced concrete. It’s built to withstand an EF-5 tornado and even a catastrophic fire. Hence the name.”
Thomas threw the door open. With no windows, the room was dark, but he grabbed a couple of flashlights and handed one to her. He switched his on and waited for her to do the same.
What she saw took her breath away. Shelves had been mounted, from floor to ceiling, along all four walls. The room was as large as a typical bedroom.
Food covered every available surface. Rice and beans and cereal and oatmeal. Dried milk and jars of pickles and mayonnaise. Industrial sized cans of vegetables. Canned meats and sauces. Gallon jugs of water were stacked in crates, along with hundreds of individual bottles. Cases of beer and liquor covered an entire corner. Flour and sugar and spices and salts. Packages of corn chips and potato chips and an entire platoon of nuts— cashews, peanuts, mixed nuts, Spanish nuts, pecans, almonds, pistachios.
“Good lord, Thomas. This is so much food.”
“After I wrote that film,” he said, “after researching the ways to prepare for an EMP, I decided to build this room. Primarily to amuse myself. I never imagined I would have to use it.”
She knew he wanted her to be impressed with his astonishing provisions, and of course she was. But seeing such careful preparation also made her feel uncomfortable. Conspiratorial. It seemed impossible that anyone could know about an EMP before it happened, but a part of her still wondered if he had.
“It’s kind of you to share your food with me. But I can’t stop thinking about how similar all this is to your screenplay. That’s why I came here, to talk about The Pulse, and then a fucking pulse happens right after I land. That doesn’t seem a little strange to you?”
“It’s an incredible coincidence,” he said. “But so what? How does it change anything?”
Skylar didn’t know. But she also didn’t see how it could be an accident. In Thomas World, the entire story had taken place inside a simulated world created by the eponymous protagonist, and the success of this film had furnished real-life Thomas with the kind of money and fame few screenwriters ever achieved. Wired even published a story about the topic called Art Creates Life: How Thomas Phillips transformed fantasy into reality, in which the author postulated how the film’s success—and the ripple effects created by that success, including the author’s own Wired story— were all part of a larger, artificial reality designed by some extra-dimensional Thomas. Even late-night comedians pounced on the idea, like Trevor Noah, who on “The Daily Show” quipped, Hey Thomas, if this world is yours, that means Donald Trump is your fault. Thanks a lot, asshole!
“Maybe it’s not even happening,” she said. “Just like in your first film.”
“Maybe it isn’t. But what then? We just sit around and wait for the game to end?”
Skylar stared at him. She picked at her cuticles.
“If you saw the film,” Thomas said, “you know it doesn’t matter if any of this is real. The only thing that matters is what we do with the reality we’re faced with.”
“Like just sit here and eat peanut butter and wait for everyone else to die?”
“If you want to live, I don’t see what other choice we have.”
“That’s not good enough,” she replied. “We have to share your food. We have to help other people. We have to do something.”
“If anyone else around here finds out about my safe room,” said Thomas, “they will march over here with guns and take it from us. We won’t be able to stop them. There will be too many.”
Skylar remembered the starving mob in his screenplay and knew Thomas was right. If they were going to help someone, it had to be on the sly. And a limited number of people.
“I think we should check on Seth,” she finally said. “You promised him you would.”
“Skylar—”
“I know you don’t want to leave this fortress of solitude. But if Seth is dead, we really should help the wife and kids.”
“That’s a nice idea,” Thomas agreed. “Except Natalie and her family don’t live around here.”
“Where do they live?”
“In Tulsa.”
“Like Oklahoma?”
“Which is four hours away. At least it was.”
“Holy shit,” Skylar said. “I didn’t expect that.”
“I know I made a promise, but that was before all this. That was basically about money. Now, trying to save their lives could mean losing our own.”
“So all you want to do is hunker down? Live off your rations until everyone dies and then repopulate the world?”
“I didn’t say that. But it’s a long drive into empty countryside where anything might happen. We might not make it there. We might not make it back.”
“Maybe not,” she said in a quiet voice. “But what’s the point of surviving all this if survival is the only point?”
SIX
Natalie tried to focus on the road, but she kept looking up at the new star. It had risen higher into the sky and seemed to be following her. She turned away and imagined the faces of her boys, the moment she would have them safely in her arms.
“I just can’t believe it,” Blake said. “It’s like something in a science fiction movie.”
“You don’t have children, do you?”
“No, why?”
“How about a girlfriend?”
“Nah. I moved here from Austin a few months ago but my girlfriend didn’t come along.”
“Aren’t you worried about her?”
“I suppose, but we broke up and she’s far away and I don’t know what I can do about it, anyway.”
“You could worry about her like an empathetic human being!”
“Eh, they’ll get the power back on pretty soon. And even if they don’t, what’s the immediate danger?”
They were on the 71st Street bridge, crossing the Arkansas River. Steering the drink cart between numerous stalled cars made it feel like they were moving faster than they really were. Many of the vehicles were still occupied, as if their drivers expected someone to come along and rescue them.