“You and me both,” said Skylar. “But whatever happens, it needs to be soon.”
Thomas nodded and stepped out of the car. His heart thundered in his chest.
TWELVE
There was a part of Skylar that knew how absurd it was to compare the awful reality she was currently living to a story Thomas had written. But how could she not? She’d come to Dallas to discuss The Pulse just in time for a real pulse to happen. And even if it was all coincidence, wondering about it at least distracted her from the horror that lay ahead.
Now she was standing in front of a house they believed to be Natalie’s, which was a whole different kind of distraction, a scene that would be either awkward or terrible depending on what had happened to Seth after the old world ended.
Thomas knocked again, harder this time. Finally, there were sounds behind the door. The lock clicked audibly. The door swung open.
A man appeared. His face was pink and ruddy, his hair disheveled. He was medium height and build except for the pouch of his gut.
“Holy shit,” said the man.
“Who is it, Seth?” asked a woman somewhere out of sight.
“How did you even?” said Seth before he turned away from the door and shouted inside. “He came all the way here.”
“Who did?”
Now Seth faced them again and looked toward the street.
“So you have a car that runs. You drove all the way here. I can’t believe it.”
Up to this point the man had not acknowledged Skylar’s presence, but when he finally looked more closely at her, his eyes widened in a surprise of recognition she had learned to expect from people who weren’t in show business. In the typical fashion he blinked and opened his eyes even wider, as if to reconfirm the appearance of a familiar face in unfamiliar context. She returned his look with the bland, non-threatening smile that diffused tension in encounters like this.
“Seth, who is it?” the off-camera woman said.
“Your high school friend. Thomas.”
“Thomas?” said the woman. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Seth looked back at them.
“I guess I should thank you for coming, especially after everything that’s happened. Honestly, I can hardly believe you’re standing here.”
He was looking at Skylar as he said this.
“Seth, who is it really?”
Now the door opened wider, and Skylar saw Natalie for the first time. She was pretty in the way of large-featured Texan women—wide, sloping nose, big eyes, plenty of foundation. Brittle hair that had been bleached for decades.
“Seth, what is going on? How did—”
When Natalie looked at Thomas, her eyes narrowed visibly, as if she didn’t trust them. But when she saw Skylar, all the muscles in her face appeared to lose tension and her mouth fell visibly open.
“Holy shit!” Natalie said. “What is wrong with my manners? Please come in, both of you.”
She jerked the door open. Thomas motioned for Skylar to enter and he followed. Natalie led them to the living room, where she gestured at a sofa and two chairs, but no one sat. On the coffee table stood a bottle of liquor.
“You must be Seth,” said Thomas, extending his hand to shake. “And yes, of course I came. I promised. I’m so relieved to see you’re all right.”
Skylar noted how Thomas was subtly taking credit for the decision she had forced him to make.
“Natalie,” Seth finally said. “One thing I didn’t tell you was my backup plan in case the insurance didn’t come through: I asked Thomas to pay the bookie in Dallas if my claim was denied.”
“Oh, Seth.”
“I know it seems ridiculous, but the last thing I wanted was for Jimmy to come looking for you. And I couldn’t ask my dad. You have to understand how desperate I was.”
“But still,” Natalie said. “Why did he—”
“Because he called me. He tried to talk me out of it and I wouldn’t listen. But I did ask him to help you and the boys after I was gone. I never expected him to follow through after all this.”
The four of them stood there while seconds of unbroken silence slid by.
Finally, Natalie looked directly at Skylar again.
“And how did you end up here? This is like a dream.”
“I was visiting Thomas in Dallas. In fact, we were just leaving the airport when, you know, when it happened.”
Skylar reached out to shake Natalie’s hand. Whenever she met someone this way she felt ridiculous.
“I’m Skylar,” she said.
“Of course. I’ve seen you in lots of stuff. I’m Natalie.”
They shook for what felt like an awkwardly long time, and then Natalie addressed Thomas again.
“It’s so thoughtful of you to come. Wasn’t it dangerous to drive this far? What did you plan to do when you made it?”
It was obvious that both Natalie and her husband had been drinking. And who could blame them, considering the circumstances? Still, alcohol was not going to simplify this conversation.
“Take you back with us,” he said.
During the drive, after Thomas ignored the ailing man on the highway, Skylar had retreated inward. Those empty hours, she understood now, had given her a chance to face reality and muddle through stages of grief. It was nearly impossible to accept she would never see her family again, that she would never see Roark again. Everyone close to her was in L.A. or New York; her entire life, in fact, was split between the two coasts. Now, because of a decision that could be generously described as impulsive (reckless was more like it), she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a man she barely knew.
The quiet nature of the disaster only made things more awful. In Dallas, the EMP had behaved as a proper apocalypse, where planes fell out of the sky and the horizon erupted into flames. But Skylar’s emotions had bottomed out when they crossed into Oklahoma and the array of stalled cars mostly evaporated. It was so difficult to reconcile the untouched countryside with the awful reality of the EMP that she had nearly collapsed into tears. Only pride held her together. A refusal to reveal weakness to Thomas, to betray herself as the damsel in distress he expected.
She wanted to believe he was wrong about the reach of the pulse, that its effects were not as widespread as he feared. As they approached Tulsa, Skylar kept hoping they would discover cars driving and traffic lights blinking and planes streaking across the sky. But it hadn’t happened. And if two cities so distant from each other were burning uncontrollably, that meant the same scene was being repeated across the country and maybe around the world. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the horror of it.
“Thomas,” Seth said. “I appreciate you coming here. Honestly. But as you can see, we are fine.”
“Sure, but for how long?”
“We stocked up at the store this morning. We have food.”
“For a week? Two? Then what?”
Skylar pictured the supplies Thomas had shown her. It was impossible to know how long this food would last with six people consuming it, but to her that didn’t matter. The most important thing was to help others. Not sit on a mountain of calories while everyone around you starved.
“This is just like your screenplay,” said Natalie. “Isn’t it?”
Thomas looked embarrassed, as if the pulse had been his fault.
“So far it is. And after I wrote the script, I was so freaked out I gathered a bunch of supplies in case something like it ever happened.”
“So did we,” said Seth.
“I’m saying I have food and water and propane to last for weeks or months. We came here to help you survive.”
“Thank you for that,” said Seth. “But we can’t just leave. We have family nearby. Everything we own is here.”