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silence.
"I've been expecting that," Jezak finally remarked.
Brent raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"Did you hear a shot last night?"
"Yes, but it was just one."
"One's all it takes, if it's aimed right. What you heard last night was
one of those dudes warning the other one away from his woman. I suspect
there's one less man alive back there now. No great loss, though. Neither one
of them was worth a damn." Jezak spat on the ground.
"What about the women? Weren't there two of them?"
"I talked to both of them," Alice said. "One of them I think might be
okay, but the other I'm not sure of. I only saw her for a few minutes, but I
think she's a groupie. Or maybe a prostitute working the parks."
"That was my impression, too," Jezec said. "Think we should go back,
Brent? Maybe take a peek without showing ourselves?"
While Brent was considering Bob's question, another series of shots
rang out, like the snapping of reins on a balky horse. That decided Brent.
"No, let's go on, at least for the morning. If we don't find any help
by noon, we'll turn back and see what happened, if we can. After that, we can
head for the gulf again."
Brent wasn't entirely satisfied with his decision, but it was the best
compromise he could think of. He had no desire to get into a shooting match
with the unruly truckers and if the change was only local, they could send the
law back to deal with the situation. If not, it might be best to return and
see if anyone were left alive. Humans might be awfully scarce in this odd new
world, and if it were possible, maybe they could salvage whoever was left.
Selling western wear certainly didn't do anything to prepare me for this, he
thought wryly.
HOME HEALTH care surely never prepared me for anything like this, Peggy
Carlino thought as she struggled out of the grasp of another blackberry vine.
The first day, she had alternated between sitting in her car and getting out
to walk in circles around it, gazing in wonder at the surrounding forest.
Even on the second day of her isolation, she still half hoped that she
had become disoriented while on her way to visit one of her patients, an old
black man slowly dying from lung cancer. He lived way off the beaten path,
several miles down a gravel road from the farm to market, and that was where
the change had caught her just as his tarpaper shack came into view. She was
running very late and really should have put off the visit until the next day,
but she knew the old man needed her, and besides, she always liked to visit
with him.
Peggy always stayed a little longer than necessary with the old man,
fascinated with his tales of what his youth had been like in the old
segregated south. Now, she wished mightily that she had delayed the visit
until the next day. The more she gazed into the depths of the climax forest
surrounding her, the less room there was to think she had simply gotten lost.
The shack had disappeared from the beam of her headlights at the same
time as the flash of light and clap of thunder startled her. She had been
tuned to a news station that gave the weather every half hour, and there had
been no mention of thunderstorms. Fortunately, she had slowed as the shack
came into view so stopping in time had been no problem.
The rest of the night was still mostly a blurred memory of alternating
fear and disgust at getting herself so thoroughly lost, even though she
couldn't imagine how it could have happened, and so suddenly at that. Until
the next morning when she realized the extent of the disaster, she _almost_
convinced herself that she had only imagined the nearness of the old man's
shack and had taken a wrong turn well before arriving there. Daylight brought
a horrifying return to reality.
After Peggy finally struck out through the woods, she tried to orient
her path in the direction of the nearest town to where the old man's home had
been; as the day wore on she began to doubt her ability to find it anyway. She
was as thoroughly lost and as scared as she had been the first time she
scrubbed for surgery, back during her student days. The first thing she did
was drop an instrument and, forgetting her sterile status, bend over to pick
it up. The surgeon had chewed her up and down unmercifully and she thought for
a day or two that she would simply drop out of nursing, but the feeling
passed, just as she hoped and intermittently prayed that this dreamlike
experience would come to an end.
One thing Peggy was grateful for was the little automatic pistol she
carried in her right hand. The noises she heard as she worked her way through
the woods were fearful, and not at all familiar. Don, her husband of twelve
years had bought the gun for her soon after she began working for the home
health agency out of Livingston, and insisted that she learn how to use it. It
was a comfort, now, but not that much of one.
Once, she had seen a bear. She stopped while it inspected her calmly,
then it went back to digging roots. She made a wide detour around it,
wondering what zoo it had escaped from. There just couldn't be any bears left
in this area of Texas. Could there?
Before abandoning her vehicle, she had used a pair of forceps from her
medical bag to pull the foil off the top of a liter of distilled water. She
stuffed it and the remainder of her lunch, which she had never gotten around
to finishing, into her medical bag. During the day, she drank half the bottle
of flat tasting water but still hadn't touched the orange and other sandwich.
She had no appetite, and didn't want to stop and take time to eat, anyway. She
wanted to get out of this forest and back home with Don and Bridgette.
The forest didn't cooperate and by evening, Peggy began to think she
had lost her sense of direction, even though she had tried to travel according
to the way sunbeams slanted through the overhead growth. The sun was close to
setting, she knew; even though she couldn't see it the darkening forest gave
ample evidence of how low it must be on the horizon. There seemed to be no end
to the huge trees, larger than any she had ever seen, and she was tired and
bug bitten. At least I'm wearing pants and sensible shoes, she thought, even
if they are wet and muddy. Please, please, let me find someone soon. This just
can't be real. I'm scared, and by now Don and everyone he could drum up must
be searching for me. Did Bridgette go to school today? Has she asked why I
didn't come home last night? Oh, God, let me find someone soon, I can't bear
much more of this.
As if in answer to her prayer, from somewhere in front of her, Peggy
heard faint sounds of sobbing. Why, that's a child, she thought, like a young
girl crying because her horse has broken a leg and has to be shot; no, more
like a grade schooler who has missed the bus and been left forgotten in an
empty school yard.
"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" she called out, trying to peer through
the deepening gloom.
The sobbing broke off. Peggy heard the sound of a nose being sniffed,
then, "Mama? Is that you? I'm over here!"
Peggy followed the sound, and suddenly broke into a cleared area. Mown
grass softened her steps. Thank God, she prayed silently, I've found my way
back.
"Mama?"
Now, the voice came from her right and slightly behind her. She
backtracked, looking all around. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]