Blind Panic (23 page)

“So Tawa stared from the sky into the slits in the coffins. He stared all day, from dawn until dusk, and filled each baby’s eyes to the brim with dazzling sunlight. When the Zuni came to see if the babies were dead, the babies stared back at them and blinded them. They had become Eye Killers.”

“From what Lizzie and her family told us, they could walk,” said Amelia. “They had bodies like boxes, but they had arms and legs, and faces, too.”

Dr. Snow sat down again, gritting his teeth because of the stiffness in his knees. “That is because—after at least
five
of the Zuni men had been blinded—the coffins were carried hurriedly back to the Pueblo, and shown to a shaman, who went by the name of Talking Hawk. Talking Hawk went into a seeing-trance, and in his seeing-trance, Tawa told him that the babies were no longer human babies (which they
had been) but sun devils. If Talking Hawk took good care of them, they would protect the Zuni people against all of their enemies, of which the Zuni had many—and this was long before the Spanish had made their appearance. The word ‘apache’ is Zuni for ‘enemy’ or ‘stranger’ or ‘people of the other side.’ The Apache themselves call their tribes ‘Ende,’ which simply means ‘Our People.’

“Anyhow, Talking Hawk instructed the Pueblo woodworkers to make jointed arms and legs for the coffins, and potters to mold masks out of white clay. Some of them were given headdresses made of deer antlers, too. When they were finished, the Eye Killers could stand and walk. Beyond a doubt,
those
were the creatures that your sister and her family saw in Hell’s Canyon.”

“But there must be more than two Eye Killers,” I said. “People have been going blind all over the country.”

“Of course there are more than two. There are probably
thousands.
Remember that the first Eye Killers were a boy and a girl, and somehow they reproduced. I’m afraid that I don’t know the intimate details, but Native American spirits multiply in many different ways. They can temporarily possess animals, such as wolves or deer, and reproduce when the animals reproduce. Some of them can increase their numbers simply by reflecting their image in a lake. Who knows what these two got up to.”

Amelia said, “They’ve blinded some people instantly, haven’t they? Like Lizzie and her family. One flash and they couldn’t see. But for other people, it must have been delayed. Like airline pilots. They were able to take off, but then they went blind in midair.”

“Of course,” said Dr. Snow. “This blinding is not a
physical
reaction, you understand, like being blinded by the sun. The flash of light that comes from an Eye Killer’s eyes is very bright, I’ll grant you, but it doesn’t irreversibly damage your sight. It’s more like hypnosis—like putting you into a trance and telling your brain that you simply can’t see. And
just like hypnotists, the Eye Killers can implant a suggestion into your mind that you’re going to lose your sight in twenty minutes, or two hours, or whenever—and presto, you do.”

“That sounds very sophisticated for a spirit,” said Amelia.

“Yes. But I suspect that’s why the Eye Killers are all accompanied by medicine men. The medicine men decide who should be blinded, and when, and for how long, and give the Eye Killers instructions.”

“Then this blindness may not be permanent?” I asked him.

“I’d say that largely depends on Misquamacus, wouldn’t you? Once he’s defeated us, he may magnanimously decide to give us our sight back. On the other hand, he may not. He may consider that—after what we did to his people—we deserve to spend the rest our lives in darkness.”

“Which brings us to the sixty-four-zillion-dollar question, doesn’t it? How can we
stop
these walking boxes?”

Dr. Snow looked at me for a very long time without saying anything, until I began to wonder whether he had actually heard me.

I was about to repeat the question, however, when he said, “To be absolutely honest with you, Harry, I don’t have the first idea.”

“There must be something in one of your books, right?”

“Most of my books are in storage, I regret to say.”

“Isn’t there somebody you can talk to?”

“In New Mexico, certainly.”

“Okay. If that’s what it takes. We’ll drive you to New Mexico.”

“Harry, I’m eighty-three years old. I have chronic arthritis. I’m also a diabetic. You can’t possibly drive me to New Mexico.”

“But it wouldn’t take much more than a day—well, a day and a half. And we’re talking about the survival of our species here. We’re talking about millions of lives. Look around you. Look around this house. None of this is going to last.
Before you know it, we’ll all be living in tepees and wikiups. Or caves, even.”

“Harry, I’d be dead before we got as far as Phoenix.”

“So what we are going to do? Wait for the Eye Killers to show up, go blind, and then let Misquamacus do whatever he wants with us?”

“Of course not. Amelia here is a talented psychic, is she not?”

I glanced at her. “Absolutely. She’s the best there is.”

“Then she must try to contact somebody who can tell us what we need to know. Some Native American shaman who knows his onions.”

Amelia said, “I couldn’t get through to any spirits in New Mexico. Unless I know them personally, like Singing Rock, and I know the way through to them—they have to be spiritually close. They have to have died in this house, or someplace nearby.”

“In that case, I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble, dear girl. This is Memory Valley, remember.”

“What about it?”

“Oh, come on. Have you never heard of Memory Valley? It was here in 1891 that General Henry Lawrence eliminated the last coherent group of Hupa Indians. Since 1826 they had been steadily driven south from their traditional lands by gold prospectors, and at last they had settled here, in this valley, which they called the Valley of the White Moon.

“There were fewer than a hundred of them—men, women, and children. They had been told to leave Memory Valley and relocate to a reservation farther inland, but they had resisted. One night in early January, General Lawrence and two hundred soldiers surrounded them and killed them all. In his report, General Lawrence said that the Indians had fired first, and for the protection of his men he had been obliged to open up with Hotchkiss guns. There were no Indian survivors to say otherwise.”

“I never heard about that,” I admitted.

“It was the month after the massacre at Wounded Knee,
and I think the government was anxious to keep it as quiet as possible. It was, in fact, the very last conflict in the Indian wars. The very last night of a civilization that had lasted for thousands of years.”

Amelia touched her fingertips to her temples. “I don’t know, Doctor. I can’t
feel
any presences. And we’ve been talking about them, too. Usually they respond when they become aware that living people are talking about them.”

“Why don’t you try the whole candle thing?” I suggested. “All that spooky chanting you used to do?
Venora, venora, spiriti venora.
”

“I could, I suppose. But even if I managed to contact one of these Hupas, what would they know about the Zunis?”

“Probably nothing at all,” said Dr. Snow. “But almost every Native American tribe has a similar story about demons who can blind you or even kill you just by looking at you. Each tribe may call them by different names, and tell different stories about where they came from, but they’re more or less the same demons.”

“I could try, I guess. But it would probably be better to do it at night. The spirits are always more receptive when it’s dark—and besides, these people were killed at night, weren’t they?”

Dr. Snow said, “Come back at around seven, then. I’m sure that Merry will be able to rustle us up something to eat. And I still have a few bottles of Arrowood Syrah-Shiraz left to get us in the mood.”

Meredith showed us to the door. “I gather you’re coming back this evening,” she said. She didn’t look too happy about it. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I have to warn you that Daddy hasn’t been well. His heart, as well as everything else. I don’t want him getting overexcited.”

“We understand that,” said Amelia. “We’ll keep everything as low-key as possible, we promise.”

We walked back to the Escape, with Meredith standing in the open doorway, watching us. As soon as we were safely out of earshot, I said, “Low-key? How are you going to summon
up the spirit of a massacred Hupa in Dr. Snow’s dining room and keep it low-key?”

Amelia opened the car door and climbed in. “I don’t think I can. But, like you said, we’re talking about the survival of our species here.”

San Fernando, California

They sped northward out of the city, weaving left and right between more and more crashed and abandoned vehicles, many of them still smoking. Perched on the seat of his Electra Glide, Tina clung on to Tyler as tightly as she could, and kept her head pressed against his back. They had passed a seven-vehicle pileup at the intersection with the Golden State Freeway, and she had made the mistake of looking. A whole family of cinder-people had been sitting in a burnedout Bravada, husband and wife and three small children, even their dog, with its blackened head stiffly raised as if it were still howling.

Tina could hear hardly anything over the aggressive burbling of the Electra Glide’s engine, and the buffeting of the slipstream past her ears, but two or three times she was conscious of a deep, compressive thump somewhere behind her, and when she looked back she could see gray cauliflowers of smoke rolling up into the sky.

“We’ll stop when we get to Wheeler Ridge,” Tyler shouted.

“How long will that take?”

“About an hour, if we’re lucky.”

“Then how long to Memory Valley?”

“Another four hours on top of that.”

“Great! I wish my fanny were better upholstered!”

Twenty or thirty cars passed them on the opposite side of the highway traveling south, toward the city, but they passed only one moving vehicle on their own side—an ancient VW Combi, decorated with faded sunflowers, chugging along at less than twenty, with oily smoke pouring out of its exhaust. Inside they saw a gray-bearded man with long gray hair and a red bandanna, and a gray-haired woman with tattoos on her shoulders. As they roared by, Tyler gave them the peace sign, and they replied with an asthmatic toot of their horn.

They passed the Los Angeles Reservoir on their left, and the sun was shining on the water like a polished silver ingot. There was no sign of any highway patrol cars, and no helicopters flying overhead, so Tyler opened up the throttle until they were speeding along at nearly ninety. After only four or five miles, though, they saw smoke up ahead of them. Tyler slowed down.

“Jesus,” he said.

A concrete bridge crossed diagonally over the highway about a half mile in front of them, but beneath it all four lanes were blocked by burning vehicles. They were smashed together so comprehensively that Tyler couldn’t even guess how many there were, but there was nobody standing by the side of the road, so it looked as if there were no survivors.

He stopped and put his feet down on the roadway. He could feel the heat from the burning vehicles on his knuckles and his face, and the warping noise of overheated metal played an eerie, melancholy tune.

It wasn’t difficult to see what had happened. A huge white semi had careered off the bridge and crashed across the highway. Another semi, southbound, had collided with it, and its trailer had overturned. After that, a shoal of cars and vans and SUVs had all crashed into them.

“What do you think?” asked Tina. “Anybody left alive?”

Tyler shook his head. “After a fire like that, they won’t even be able to tell who they were.”

“Those poor people. I hope God takes care of them.”

“Let’s hope so. I don’t think that anybody else will.”

Tina twisted around and looked behind them. “We’ll have to make a detour.”

“No way. It’s more than ten miles back to the nearest intersection. We’re low on gas, too.”

“Well, what else can we do?”

“We can go up and over.”

“
What?
”

“Up the embankment, across the bridge, and down again.”

Tina looked up at the sloping concrete walls on either side of the highway and said, “You’re out of your
mind!
Look how
steep
that it is! You couldn’t even climb up there on
foot!
You couldn’t even climb up there with a
ladder!
”

Tyler spread his arms out wide. “Ex-squeeze me? What do I do for a living? I’m a stuntperson. Can we go up the embankment, across the bridge, and down the other side? Yes, we can!”

“I thought you worked your stunts out in advance. Like really meticulously, to make sure that nobody got hurt.”

“Unfortunatelywe don’t have time for that.”

Tina said emphatically, “I’m not doing it.”

“So how else are you going to get past this inferno?”

“I’ll find a way. I’ll walk.”

“Listen, Tina. I’ve done this kind of thing dozens of times. I’ve even ridden a motorcycle straight up the side of a trailer.”

“I’m sure you have. Is that how you smashed your kneecap?”

“No, I did that jumping off a horse and onto the back of a flatbed truck. When I did the trailer thing, I only fractured my wrist.”

“That settles it! I’m not doing it!”

She started to climb off the seat but Tyler gripped her arm. “I was only kidding. I didn’t get hurt at all. And we won’t get hurt now—I swear to you. Come on. You’re Tina Freely, tough-nut lady reporter. You broke the Culver City
vice-ring story, even when they threatened to break your arms.”

There was a moment of high tension, when Tina was still trying to lift herself off the pillion but Tyler was holding her down. They stared into each other’s eyes, but it wasn’t so much a battle of wills as a mutual search for understanding.

I’ve never done anything like this. I’m scared.

I know you are, but I promise to take care of you, okay?

Gradually, she relaxed, and eased herself back down. “Okay,” she said. “So long as you’re sure, let’s go for it.”

Tyler settled himself into his seat and revved up the Electra Glide’s engine until Tina was almost deafened. Then he turned around and shouted, “Hold on to me like grim death. You got it? Lock your hands together. Don’t even think about letting go of me, even if we fall off!”

“What? You didn’t say anything about falling off!”

“Oh, didn’t I? Too late now!”

He steered the motorcycle in a wide, slow circle, until they were positioned on the southbound side of the highway, facing east. The flames from the wreckage under the bridge had died down now, apart from an occasional orange lick, but the smoke was pouring out even more thickly. Keeping the brakes on, Tyler gunned the engine up to three thousand rpm, until their saddles were quaking between their legs.

“You ready for this?” he shouted.

Tina had her eyes squeezed shut. “No! Absolutely not!”

“Okay, then.
Geronimo!
”

The motorcycle burst across the highway with an angry scream. As they rushed toward the concrete embankment, Tyler heaved up the handlebars as if were doing a wheelie. There was a loud thump and both of them were nearly jolted off their saddles, but then they were roaring up the forty-five-degree incline as if they were riding an Apollo rocket.

As soon as they came level with the railings on top of the bridge, Tyler tilted himself to the left and they flew over the retaining wall and landed on the overpass with another loud
bang. The motorcycle wobbled wildly, and for a split second Tyler thought that they had lost their balance, but they were hurtling so fast toward the retaining wall on the opposite side of the road that there was nothing he could do but yank up the handlebars again and hope that they wouldn’t hit it head-on.

As one grizzled old stuntman had once told him, “If in doubt, do it anyhow.”

They cleared the retaining wall and flew out over the embankment on the other side of the bridge. Tina screamed out, “
Aaaaahhhhhhh!
”

Now Tyler knew why they sometimes played action scenes in slow motion. He felt as if the air had turned into glue, and they were flying through it very slowly, with plenty of time to consider everything that was happening around them. They fell through a blur of smoke, and for a few seconds he was blinded, but then he could see the highway, stretching all the way north-westward, and green, forested hills.

The motorcycle’s front wheel touched the concrete with a sharp, rubbery scream, and Tyler thought,
We’ve made it.
But then the rear wheel kicked up like a bucking bronco, and Tina was thrown from the pillion, still holding him tightly around the waist. Both of them tumbled down the embankment, over and over, and all Tyler could see now was a blur of arms, legs, concrete, and sky.

The Electra Glide missed them by inches, and crashed onto the highway and bounced. Tyler ended up facedown on the blacktop with Tina on top of him. He lay there for a moment, completely still, as he had been taught to do after a stunt accident. If any bones were broken, trying to move would only make the injury worse.

After a few moments, Tina climbed off him. He twisted himself around and looked up at her. She had a large red bruise on her left cheek, but otherwise she didn’t appear to be hurt.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

“
No
,” she said. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

He climbed to his feet. His artificial kneecap had hit the road at an awkward angle, and he grunted with pain.

“How about you?” she asked him. “You haven’t broken your leg, have you?”

“No, no. I’m great.”

He limped over to the Electra Glide and heaved it upright. It didn’t look damaged, but when he pushed the starter button, there was no
whump
from the starter dampers, only an irritable clicking. He tried again, and again, but the engine refused to turn over.

“What’s wrong?” asked Tina. “Can you fix it?”

“Could be almost anything. Fuses, connections. Maybe the ECM has been damaged.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Find ourselves some alternative means of transportion, I guess.”

Tina touched the bruise on her face “I hope the bone isn’t broken.”

Tyler came up to her and said, “Here,” and gently felt it with his fingertips. “No, you’re okay,” he told her. “It’s just a contusion.”

“Oh, wonderful. It’s a good thing I’m not appearing on TV tonight.”

Tyler tried to start the Electra Glide again, but it still wouldn’t fire up. He climbed out of the saddle and said, “Guess we’d better start walking. So long, old girl. I’ll come back and rescue you, if I get the chance.”

They had walked only about a hundred yards, however, when they heard the distant bellowing of a truck. It was approaching from the south, from behind the chaos of burning vehicles beneath the overpass.

They stopped and listened. The truck came nearer and nearer, and then stopped. They could see it intermittently through the drifting smoke, a big red tractor with shiny chrome bumpers.

“Come on,” said Tyler. “It won’t be any use to us. It’ll have to turn back.”

“Yes, same as we should have done.”

“Okay. You’re right. I admit it. We nearly made it, though, didn’t we?”

“Oh, sure. We’re still having to hoof it, though, aren’t we?”

The truck slowly started to back up, but it didn’t turn around. Instead, it reversed for more than a quarter of a mile, and then stopped. Twin blasts of dirty brown exhaust blew out of its smokestacks, and they heard its engine revving.

“I don’t believe this,” said Tyler. “I hope he’s not trying to do what I think he’s trying to do.”

But the driver released the truck’s brakes, and it came blaring along the highway toward the bridge, faster and faster, until it was traveling at nearly sixty miles an hour. It collided with the wreckage with a bang like a bomb going off. Three burned-out cars came exploding out from under the bridge, and the truck followed them. Immediately, the driver slowed down, and with a long, drawn-out screech of protesting metal, it pushed the wrecks onto the median strip, and then stopped.

Tyler walked over to it, and Tina followed him. In the passenger seat he could see an elderly black woman with a bright red scarf on her head, holding a small baby. The driver’s door opened and a young black woman jumped down, wearing tight black jeans and a tight black sweater. She came around the front of the truck and said, “Hi, there. Hope that didn’t shake you up too much.”

“Are you okay?” Tyler asked her. “That was one hell of a stunt.”

The woman inspected the Titan’s bumpers. One of them was dented, and the paintwork over the nearside wheel arch was scratched, but otherwise the truck was undamaged.

“Six hundred horsepower,” the woman said. “Take a whole lot more than a few wrecked cars to stop
this
rig.”

All the same, she turned around and looked at the wrecks
and said, “Not that I wanted to do that. All those poor souls. It makes you weep, don’t it? It really makes you weep.”

The cars that she had pushed aside with her truck were so badly burned that they were all the same dead gray color, and their windows were blackened with smoke, so that their incinerated occupants were hidden from sight.

“You guys on
foot?
” the woman asked them.

“That’s my Harley over there. We had a kind of mishap.”

Tina pointed to the bruise on her cheek. “Somebody tried to be a little too clever, and we crashed.” She held out her hand. “My name’s Tina, by the way. This is Tyler.”

“Jasmine. And that’s my aunt Amadi, but I always call her Auntie Ammy.”

“And the little guy?” asked Tyler.

“I don’t know what his name is. There was a pileup on the freeway and I rescued him. His mom was killed. I tried to get in touch with children’s services to take care of him, but nobody showed.”

“It’s Armageddon,” said Tyler. “End of the world as we know it. Where are you headed?”

“I don’t know. North. We thought it would be safer if we got out of LA, that’s all. We didn’t want to go blind.”

“We’re trying to get to San Francisco. Well, Memory Valley, near Sausalito. But the same thing’s been happening there, too. My mom and my dad and my sister have lost their sight, and so have a hundred other people. I don’t think anyplace is safe.”

“Do you have any idea what’s actually
happening?
” asked Jasmine. “We went to find my brother in Maywood, but then we saw these weird characters with white faces and these bright flashing lights coming out of their eyes, and Auntie Ammy thinks that it’s
them
that’s making everybody blind, whoever they are. I don’t know. It sounds crazy, don’t it?”