Instinct (31 page)

“Romie is taking us to a place of power,” Robby said. “She’s allowing herself to feel her instincts. If you allow yourself, you’ll feel them too.”

“My instinct says we should get indoors before daylight. We’ve been lucky that we haven’t run into any killer liquid, and we got really lucky with the mist and the flame. I don’t want to take any chances on being snatched up into the sky.”

“We’re past that now,” Romie said. “There’s no danger of that.”

“See, you
say
that, but you have no evidence. Do you understand why that’s so damn annoying? You’re risking our lives on a hunch. When we stop, I’m going to take the keys and I’m going to drive next time. The person driving has to understand that this is a democracy and we all get a say in whether we keep going or we stop for the…”

His sentence trailed off as Romie slowed. They saw a few abandoned vehicles, parked next to the road. The doors were open and they were empty.

“Hey,” Lisa said. “Aren’t those the Land Rovers that…”

“Luke’s group,” Brad said. He pressed his hands on the window, like he wanted to reach out and touch the empty Land Rovers.

“Why would they leave them here?” Lisa asked.

“Don’t stop,” Pete said. He put his hand on Romie’s shoulder. “Go slow, but keep moving.”

Brad turned to watch the Land Rovers as Romie kept rolling. He turned around to see that they were moving slowly down another hill. Romie had her eyes on the rearview mirror and only Pete’s yell turned her attention back forward.

“Wait, wait!” Pete said. He pointed through the windshield. As they drew closer, everyone saw what he was pointing at. The way the road sloped down, it was difficult to see. A washout had taken a chunk of the road away, leaving a miniature canyon at the bottom of the hill.

“Hold on,” Pete said. “I think I saw something back a ways. Can you turn around?”

“Sure,” Romie said. She swung the front end of the car over to the left side. She spun in her seat as she put it in reverse.
 

“Romie?” Lisa said.
 

Pete had his head in the map and everyone else seemed to be focused on what Romie was backing towards. Only Lisa was looking out the front.

“Romie, I think you should stop,” Lisa said.

“Why?” Romie asked.

“Them.”

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Lisa pointed out through the windshield. They all turned to see the men coming from the woods at the side of the road. Everyone jerked as Romie stomped on the brake. First there were two, then three, and then five, as more appeared from the brush. A couple held handguns. The rest had rifles.

Robby tapped Pete on the shoulder, who lowered the map and then saw what the rest of them saw. The bearded men approach quickly, and with their weapons at the ready.

“Hey!” Pete said. “I think I recognize that guy.” He pushed open his door and jumped out of the car.

“Get down!” one of the men shouted. They all raised their guns higher. “On the ground!”

“Show us your hands!” another man yelled.

“Hey, hey,” Brad heard Pete say.

Another bearded man reached the front of the car and brought the butt of his rifle down on the hood. He tapped twice and then raised his weapon again. “Get out,” he ordered.

“What do we do?” Lisa asked.

“We get out,” Romie said. “Don’t be stupid.”

They opened their doors.

CHAPTER 20: NEW YORK

“C
OULD
EVERYONE
PLEASE
HOLD
on for a second? You’re all talking at once and nobody can hear a thing,” Hampton said. He was standing atop a hay bale and addressing the crowd. The discussion at breakfast had gathered momentum naturally and slowly morphed into a mob. Judy stood along the side, about three-quarters of the way to the back. She could barely see Hampton over the angry heads. People were shifting on their feet. They were agitated and couldn’t hold still.

“Where’s Luke?” a woman asked.

“As I was saying—Luke is on a supply mission. We expect him back at any time,” Hampton said. He held up both of his hands as he spoke. It wasn’t a “I surrender” gesture, it was more like he was trying to tamp down their aggression.

“Who elected you the leader?” a man yelled.

“Nobody elected me anything. I happen to know that Luke is on a mission, so I’m addressing everyone to make sure you’re informed.”

Judy heard an older man turn to a younger one in front of her. “Who is this guy?” he asked.

“We should have an election,” a woman yelled. “Why don’t we have a say in the decisions?”

Judy looked across to Ron, who stood on the opposite side of the group. He had his arms crossed and looked pleased with himself. Judy hadn’t expected the people to get that riled up so quickly. In fact, she hadn’t realized how big their group had become until they all gathered there behind the big barn. She guessed that there were at least sixty people, and more walked up every minute. A heated discussion between two picnic tables had turned into a group debate. That debate ended with a call to action. That’s when the mob had formed and gone to find answers. What they’d found was Hampton, and he had tried to assuage their concerns. Everything Hampton said just seemed to make the mob more angry.

Murmurs were breaking out all through the group. Little side conversations were turning into shouted debates here and there.

“If you want to have elections, then please feel free,” Hampton said. “But don’t accuse me of usurping power that I neither have nor want.”

A man, mid-twenties if Judy had to guess, stepped up on another hay bale near Hampton. He hardly needed to stand on anything to be seen—he was already pretty tall. He didn’t need to speak to draw everyone’s attention. People turned to him and quieted down.

“Who here wants to have an election?” the tall man asked the group.

About half the group voiced their agreement with the idea. The tall man didn’t ask how many disagreed.

“Let’s just do it then. I nominate Ed Allen to be our leader,” the tall man said. The name was only halfway out of his mouth when the boos began. Only a handful of people had a positive opinion of Ed. The rest seemed to hate him. “Hold on. Hold on. I know some of you are still sore at Ed because of what you think happened at the creek. I was there. Ed did everything he could. It’s in a time of crisis that we see the true character of a person.”

The boos grew so loud that Judy could barely hear the tall man trying to defend Ed. She knew his argument was lost as soon as the tall man began to address individual complaints that were yelled at him. People around the edges of the group began to disperse. She didn’t notice Hampton until he was right next to her.

“Can we talk, Judy?” he asked.

She walked with him. A faction of the group had begun chanting. Judy couldn’t quite make it out as she and Hampton walked down the path that led to the pond.

“That was clever,” Judy said.

“What was?”

“I’ve seen your guys talking to that tall man. I’m pretty sure he nominated the most hated person of this whole little community. That’s a good way to break up the election.”

“That does sound clever, but I didn’t do it,” Hampton said. “I want an election. If you people would install a system of government, it would give me the freedom to get away with a lot more.”

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Judy asked.

“We found the patch of vines behind the manure pit,” Hampton said. “I have a pretty good idea of what happened to Luke. You lured him off to the vines and let them take him away.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Judy said.

“Right. Of course you don’t. Listen, Judy, it’s not arrogance or ignorance that makes us want to keep you around. We know a lot more than you give us credit for.”

“Does this conversation have a point?”

Hampton nodded and paused. He looked out over the pond to the woods on the other side. When he looked back at Judy, he was smiling. “I know you’re just one nerve ending in an enormous network. What are the odds that a signal from you would reach the brain? Still, I hope you understand. We’ve got the solution here. We understand all the variables and we are moving forward with the protocol. You’re going to lose. And, on some level, I think that loss will hurt you. At the very least, it’s going to leave a bad taste in your mouth. There are plenty of examples of times when you’ve pulled out in the face of overwhelming odds. Our fossil record shows us those times. Pull out now and save us both some effort. What happens next has only one conclusion if you persist, and it’s not a conclusion that you’ll find satisfactory.”

“That’s quite a speech,” Judy said. “But I’m afraid you’ve confused me with someone else. I’m just a survivor, living amongst the wreckage of a destroyed world. I don’t have the power to do anything.”

“Judy, don’t play dumb. You saw what we did to the last envoy. Is that how you want to end up? You think you’ll feel rewarded with a bullet in your head? Do you think that…”

He was cut off when a bearded man ran up. The man looked at Judy and then cupped a hand to Hampton’s ear and whispered something.

“Think about what I said,” Hampton said to Judy. He ran off with the bearded man.

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Brad had a blank spot in his memory. As he thought through the timeline, he found a ridge where a memory was locked. One minute, he had been in the back of the stale-smelling car, hoping that Romie wouldn’t tumble the vehicle down into the washout as she tried to turn around. The next minute, he was being hustled from the car by armed men. Now, he was in a gray, windowless room, looking at his own breath as it misted every time he exhaled.

The door opened.

A man walked in.

“Mr. Jenkins,” the man said with a big smile. He held a sheath of papers under his arm and he pressed them to his side as he reached up to remove his reading glasses. He let them fall to dangle at the end of the tether that held them around his neck. “I’m so happy to see you.”

Brad stood up from his chair and bumped his thigh on the metal table.

“Don’t get up. Let’s have a chat for a second.” The smiling man sat down opposite and waited for Brad to sit. They were alone in the room, but Brad imagined that there were probably more compatriots of this man, just outside the door.

The man opened his folder and began flipping through the contents. It looked like a diary—dates, followed by a paragraph of what happened on that day. The man flipped through to a picture and then slipped that out of the folder.

“We’ve been training our people on your photo for weeks. I’m so pleased that they spotted you. We were very embarrassed that nobody recognized you back in Portland. You can imagine.”

“No,” Brad said. “I can’t.”

“You look remarkably different,” the man said. When he flipped the picture around, Brad finally recognized himself. It was a picture of him out in the yard of his Kingston house. The soft lines of that face seemed like they belonged to someone else.

“After the embarrassment of Portland, you can imagine how please I am that you were spotted and identified. It was one of the volunteers that made the identification, too. I’ll make sure he gets an extra piece of cake.”

The man retrieved his glasses from where they hung against his chest. He flipped back through his papers.

After several seconds, Brad asked a question. “Where did you get that picture of me?”

“One of Herm’s guys took it,” the man said. “You know, before the dispersion, I would say that the majority of us didn’t believe in collusion. Herm made a strong case for why you should be evacuated and set free somewhere else in the world.”

“Collusion?”

“I believed that you were a facilitator. I still believe it, actually. You were there at ground zero once, and now you’re here for round two. That seems like a tad more than coincidence.”

“Maybe you could back up and explain things so I can understand,” Brad said. He failed to keep the frustration out of his voice, but he stopped short of yelling at the man.

“Okay, fine,” the man said. He let go of a weary sigh. “It’s probably not your fault anyway. Here’s the last report from Herm.” The man read over the passage and then paraphrased it for Brad. “They achieved ninety-three percent containment. That exceeded his goal by seventeen percent. They only needed seventy-six to prevent dispersion.”

“I have no context for what your saying,” Brad said. “I don’t understand any of it.” Brad stood up and moved towards the door.

“Sit down, Brad,” the man said. His tone had an edge that stopped Brad’s feet. Brad turned to regard him.

“The
only
way that ninety-three percent containment would fail, is if the effort were sabotaged. Do you know what my former position was? I was in risk assessment. There is
nobody
better in the world to issue that judgement, before or after the dispersion.”