End Day (26 page)

Epilogue

Vee slowed the Subaru station wagon as she approached the international-border crossing. A Mexican immigration officer in a gray-and-brown uniform, hat and mirrored sunglasses stood beside what looked like a miniature traffic light. Green. Yellow. Red. She slowed the Subaru to a crawl, keeping her eyes on the light. The light was green and it stayed green. There would be no spot check, no pulling over into the adjoining parking lot for a vehicle search and document inspection. A wave of relief passed over her. As she rolled by the officer, she smiled at him. His eyes were hidden behind the sunglasses, but the mouth below the pencil mustache smiled back.

The road ahead was open. Four lanes of freedom lay ahead.

Nukeday had never come to pass.

Not in her universe anyway.

After Doc had explained the Armageddon scenario that had created Deathlands, she had become more and more convinced that a different script was being written by the chaos of overlapping time lines, a script that didn't include an all-out missile exchange.

In the days after January 20, 2001, the media had broken an amazing story about a frantic, three-way, red-telephone conversation—Russian premier, one soon to be ex-President, one President to be—that had temporarily overridden all contingency plans for nuke first strikes and counterattacks. Clearly, outside forces, extra-governmental forces, were at work in Manhattan.

As nervous about terrorists as his American counterparts, the premier had offered whatever aid and assistance he and his nation could provide. Long story short, the worst disaster in the history of humankind had turned into a “Kumbaya” moment.

Vee understood, though, that in some alternative universe, she had died that day, that the world had been nuked, and that a one-eyed leader and his crew were caught in a future fighting to survive.

It was too terrible to imagine.

When her world didn't end as promised, Vee found herself left holding a big bag of brown. And there was no going back to her former life. Not unless she wanted to spend the next twenty years in prison first.

Vee had never thought of herself as a surrendering kind of person.

Luckily she had an option. She'd dyed her hair platinum blonde and got some blue contact lenses. She'd have to get used to a new name on her passport. Her freedom depended on it.

Turned out her cat-loving neighbor Mrs. Blair had taken in Talu, Petey and Lucy for safekeeping after the first terrorist attack.

The five of them—Vee, the three cats and a striped, replacement Desert Eagle—were en route to a little fishing village on Banderas Bay, north of Puerto Vallarta, where there were no high-rises and her savings would last them a good while.

And she had an idea for a new series of books.

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