“I’ll be down there soon,” Shy told them, trying to maintain his smile. He didn’t understand why Shoeshine wanted him to stall getting on the ship. Everyone else was going early. And it wasn’t like Shy was gonna let the thing leave without Shoeshine. He owed the guy his life.
Shy watched the group leave, then started down the hall toward Addie’s room. He needed to ask her some serious questions about her dad, who was still alive.
He knocked and waited.
No answer.
“Addie!” he shouted. “Open the door, I need to talk to you!”
When there was no response again, he looked up and down the halls to make sure no one was around. Then he kicked at the door, hard as he could. It barely budged. He backed up and kicked again, right next to the doorknob. On the third try the door swung open and he went inside.
The room was empty.
The bed was made up perfectly, like nobody had ever been in it. Where was she? Down on the beach already? Shy sat on the couch in the corner to try and think. He was mad as hell. And he was scared. Addie’s family had killed his own. It made him hate her. But he’d looked into her eyes on the lifeboat. She wasn’t like her dad. Or maybe he’d read her wrong the whole time.
And then he remembered the helicopter leaving the island. He punched the wall. What if Addie had been on it with her dad? But that didn’t make sense either. She didn’t even know he was still alive.
Shy left Addie’s room and hurried down the hall. Another group of passengers was cutting through the lobby toward the exit. “We figured we might as well go line up now,” the woman in the Raiders jersey said.
One of the men looked at his watch. “Only about twenty-five minutes before we’re supposed to be down there. We’ll see you soon, I hope.”
Shy promised he’d hurry.
49
Spotty Reception
Carmen wasn’t in her room either, so Shy started looking for Marcus’s room. Since he didn’t know the room number, or even the floor, he wandered through every level, calling out their names.
“Carmen!”
“Marcus!”
Shy was almost at the end of the fourth floor when he heard a door open behind him. He turned around and saw Carmen standing there. She didn’t say anything, just waved him over.
He followed her inside the room, where he saw Marcus sitting at the end of the bed, working on the radio. Occasionally, there would be a burst of static, but nothing more.
Marcus looked up. “Shy,” he said, setting down the radio and hopping to his feet. They slapped each other’s hands and gave a quick dude hug. “I’m so happy you made it.”
“You too.”
“Tell Shy what you heard,” Carmen said, looking upset.
Marcus sat back down with his radio. “I got it coming in pretty clear for a couple minutes,” he said. “Just before Carm showed up.” Marcus glanced at Carmen and turned back to Shy. “I’m not positive, man, but it sounded like some British dude talking about America being in a state of emergency.”
Shy looked down at the radio. “What’s that even mean?”
Marcus shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“Tell him the rest,” Carmen said.
“According to the man, they got people crowded in stadiums all over the West Coast. And because they were all so close together…” He paused and looked at Carmen again. “That disease spread through everyone.”
“Romero,” Carmen said, gripping Shy’s arm. “They all got it now, Shy. Everyone in there. And they’re not letting ’em leave the stadiums.”
“Jesus,” Shy said. It lined up exactly with what Bill had told him. What were they going back to?
Carmen reached out and banged the side of the radio. “Why won’t it come in clearer?”
“Don’t hit the thing,” Marcus said, holding the radio away from her. “You’re making it worse.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, seething.
“At the meeting they tried to say things were okay,” Shy said. “I knew it didn’t sound right.”
“We were just talking about that,” Carmen said. “I guess they didn’t want us to worry about back home until after we got rescued.”
Marcus started playing with the tuner again. “Like I said, I’m not completely positive. It was sort of hard to make out.”
“You find the bag of medicine?” Carmen asked Shy. “I told Marcus all about the penthouse.”
“Sorry to hear about Rodney, man,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “He was a really good dude.”
Shy nodded. “Shoeshine gave me the duffel bag,” he said, looking back and forth between them. “But something else happened while I was out there.”
“What?” Carmen said.
“Come with me to get the bag,” Shy said. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
Carmen stood up. “But then we gotta hurry and get down to the beach. We can talk about all this shit deeper once we’re on that damn ship going home.”
Carmen covered her mouth after Shy finished telling her and Marcus everything Bill said about Romero Disease. “Do you believe this asshole?” she asked.
Shy shrugged. “Why would he make it up?”
“How can they even do that?” Marcus said. “Just invent a disease?”
“I guess if they’re scientists,” Shy said, switching the duffel from one shoulder to the other. He’d pulled it out of the tree on their way to see the body they were now standing over. He kept looking down at the man, Bill, remembering him pointing the barrel right in his face. It made Shy feel like a ghost. Like he shouldn’t actually be standing here, breathing.
“He had the gun right against my head,” Shy said, trying to make sense of what had happened. “I thought it was over.”
“And that’s when Shoeshine blasted him?” Carmen said.
“He saved my life,” Shy told her. “Twice in one day.”
“This is really freaking me out,” Carmen said. “We have no idea what we’re going back to.”
All three of them stood there, looking at each other and at the body. “So no one knows a vaccine even exists?” Marcus asked.
“I don’t think so,” Shy said. “He made it sound like they wanted to back away from the whole thing.”
“You know what they basically did, right?” Carmen kicked the dead body right in the ribs. “They sacrificed poor people to scare money out of rich people. They sacrificed my fucking dad.”
“Beyond shady,” Marcus said. “That’s, like, some kind of genocide or something.”
“Soon as we get back,” Carmen said, “we’re telling everyone. Cops, FBI, CIA, whoever we can find.”
Shy just kept staring at the man’s head. He was so angry he was shaking and his teeth were chattering. And then a thought occurred to him. The envelope in the duffle. He unzipped the bag and reached past the pack of syringes and opened the beat-up envelope enough to see inside. His jaw dropped. It was the letter written by the comb-over man. David Williamson. They had their proof right here.
“We better get down there,” Marcus said.
“Shoe’s still out there somewhere,” Shy said. “He wants us to stall a little.”
“How ’bout we stall on the damn ship,” Marcus answered, picking up the radio.
Shy shrugged and zipped up the duffle and led the three of them back down the narrow trail that would eventually take them to the stairs. When they passed the hotel, though, he started thinking about Addie again. And the helicopter. He wondered if he should go try her hotel room one more time, just in case. And then something else occurred to him.
“Wait,” he said as they neared the top of the stairs.
Carmen and Marcus turned to look at him.