A vivid flash of sheet lightning illuminated everything like a sepia print. Road, bushes, and trees were stained a muddy yellow, the scene fading at the edges where the gusting rain reduced visibility. As the lightning flickered out the air sparked and crackled with ionized particles. A million electrical fireflies danced in front of Chase's dazzled eyes. The smell tasted like old pennies on his tongue and he had to clench his teeth to prevent his stomach spurting up his throat.
Ruth's cry was lost in the boom of a thunderclap that shook the ground and the jeep. Impossible to survive out in the open. The highly charged air made every breath a searing agony, as if windpipe and lungs were on fire. This stuff would eat into their tissues like acid into copper.
Wiping the foul yellow moisture out of his eyes, Chase brought the jeep to a halt. Ruth handed him his goggles and respirator, having already donned hers. As he put them on, another lightning flash transfixed them in its glare: Goggled and masked, they resembled a pair of divers at the bottom of some primordial ocean, caught helplessly in fierce currents that threatened to sweep them away.
Once more, as darkness descended, the air came alive with fireflies, crackling and spitting. Chase helped Ruth into the passenger seat just as the crash of thunder pressed down on them like a giant hand, making the jeep rock on its springs.
"You all right?" Chase shouted.
Ruth nodded. Her dark hair was plastered to her scalp, the bandage a sodden strip stuck to her forehead. Chase cursed, incensed at his own stupidity. Where had he been living these past five years--in some fucking fairy tale? In the womb of the Tomb, that's where, safe and snug and protected from all the nastiness outside. Good God, he should have known that this wasn't going to be a joyride, and yet he'd calmly set out as if on a bloody Sunday picnic!
He slammed the jeep into gear and they moved on through the teeming sulfurous rain.
A mile or so along the road Ruth spotted a building. It was a service station, with no lights showing, and as they drove into the forecourt it became obvious why. The pumps had been vandalized, the cantilevered roof slanted at a dangerous angle, and every single window in the two-story stucco-fronted building had been broken. The concertina doors leading to the repair shop were mangled out of shape, as if rammed by a truckdriver with a score to settle.
Chase was anxious to get the jeep under cover. Everything was already soaked and reeking, but he was afraid that prolonged exposure to the acid rain would leave the tires threadbare and the bodywork looking like Gruyere cheese. Around the back was a concrete ramp leading up to a door. Without hesitation he ran the jeep inside, then switched off the engine and slumped back in his seat, exhausted.
Ruth peeled off her goggles and mask and sucked in air. The smell was still strong, though not quite as pungent as outside. "Would you believe they used to call Californian rain liquid sunshine?" she panted.
"It's yellow, what more do you want?"
"Yeah, so is horse--"
"I know, I know." Chase smiled wearily.
They unloaded all the gear and supplies and spread them out to dry. By now it was dark and they worked by the light of a battery lamp, which extended its welcoming circle across the pitted floorboards and along the bare, crumbling plaster walls. A calendar with scenic views advertised Firestone tires: the Grand Canyon basking in a pink sunset, the month March, the year 2011.
While Ruth sorted out something to eat, Chase unpacked the gas stove and got it going. Then he took a flashlight and poked through the derelict building, finding an office-cum-shop stripped bare except for a battered cash register, its empty drawer thrust out like a rude tongue. A worn wooden staircase led up through a trapdoor to three large rooms, two used for storage, the other, apparently, as a bedroom, containing a mildewed mattress and a dresser with a cracked, discolored mirror. In the storerooms metal racks and shelves, thick with dust, reached almost to the ceiling, and the floor was knee-deep in brown wrapping paper and squashed cardboard boxes. Either the owner had cleared out fast, Chase surmised, grabbing what he could, or the garage had been raided and pillaged.
He switched off the flashlight and stood at the shattered window and looked out at the yellow rain spattering the black surface of the highway, lit spasmodically by flickers of lightning moving toward the west.
Something rose up inside, choking him, and he had to stifle a sob. Tomorrow he would see Cheryl and Dan. The memory of those wasted years was far more painful than the bruise in his side. He was fifty years old. Had it really taken half a century for him to learn what mattered, what was important? He had quite deliberately chosen to sacrifice their happiness in pursuit of an ideal. And that word sacrifice was loaded with an ambiguity of meaning. Had he, Gavin Chase, made the sacrifice, playing out the role of noble martyr and savior of mankind, or were they the sacrificial victims in his grand scheme? They had been the ones to suffer while he remained pious and impregnable inside his cast-iron conscience. Good for you, Gav. Always in the right, even if you were wrong, to the bitter end.
The rain had slackened, though the storm rumbled on distantly. Outside it was almost too dark to see anything. He and Ruth should be safe for the night here. From the road the building would appear deserted, with the jeep out of sight and the only light in a back room.
Chase stood absolutely still, holding his breath, the hairs on the nape of his neck springing erect. There was somebody, or something, up here with him.
Mouth suddenly dry and heart thumping, he turned slowly and switched on the flashlight. Its beam traveled along the floor, over the crumpled boxes and brown paper, and up to the empty metal shelves. Could he hear breathing or was it the beat of blood in his ears?
The distorted circle of light moved along the shelves, bending and folding itself around the metal uprights. A triangular fragment of beam struck the far wall and he thought he saw movement there, but when he shone the light there was nothing. It had been an exhausting trip and they hadn't had much sleep the night before--were his nerves shot and his mind playing tricks?
Chase squatted down on one knee and aimed the beam under the lowest shelf. Scraps of paper, dust, some round dark shapes that looked like mouse-droppings, but nothing else. Yet he still felt, sensed, another presence . . . something with the stealth and cunning of a jungle beast, observing him from the darkness, waiting for the right moment to leap out with fangs bared and claws unsheathed--
"Gavin!"
A convulsive spasm shook his body like an electric shock and the flashlight fell, making a dull thud and rolling away, its beam diffuse and dim through crumpled brown paper. Good God, what kind of state were his nerves in? His stomach felt like a cold hollow pit and his face and neck were bathed in icy perspiration. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and reached shakily for the flashlight--
"Gavin, where are you?"
--and heard a movement above his head. No doubt that time. His head snapped up and his eyes stretched as wide as they would go, straining to see through the brownish gloom, which was the only illumination provided by the buried light. Something up there near the ceiling. Watching. Waiting. Ready to spring.
In his hasty grab for the flashlight he managed to bury it deeper among the cardboard and paper. His scalp seemed to contract and pull the skin tight on his skull as if in anticipation of the thing hurling itself down upon him from above. He was on his knees, both hands thrusting frantically into the litter and throwing it aside, steeling himself for the crushing impact, and as his hand found and closed around the grooved metal casing, he heard footsteps on the stairs and Ruth's voice calling his name, uneasy at the lack of response.