The Leftovers (21 page)

Tom didn’t believe all this nonsense about the Miracle Child, of course. He didn’t even understand what it would mean to
save the world.
Would the people who’d disappeared come back? Or would things just get better for the ones left behind, less sadness and worry all around, a brighter future ahead? The prophecy was maddeningly vague, which led to all sorts of groundless rumors and wild speculation, none of which he took seriously, for the simple reason that his faith in Mr. Gilchrest was pretty much shot to hell. He was only helping Christine because he liked her, and because this seemed like a good time to get out of San Francisco and on to the next chapter in his life, whatever that was going to be.

Even so, just for fun, he sometimes allowed himself to entertain the remote possibility that it could all be true. Maybe Mr. Gilchrest really was a holy man, despite all his flaws, and the baby really was some kind of savior. Maybe everything really did depend on Christine, and therefore, on him. Maybe Tom Garvey would be remembered thousands of years from now as the guy who’d helped her when she needed it most, and had always acted like a gentleman, even when he didn’t have to.

That’s me,
he thought with grim satisfaction.
The guy who kept his hands to himself.

*   *   *

IT WAS
early evening by the time they got moving, too late to enjoy the Rocky Mountain scenery. The bus was new and clean, with plush reclining seats, onboard movies, and free wireless, though neither Tom nor Christine had any use for that. The bathroom didn’t even smell that bad, at least not yet.

He tried watching the movie—
Bolt,
a cartoon about a dog who mistakenly believes he has superpowers—but it was hopeless. He’d lost his taste for pop culture after the Sudden Departure and hadn’t been able to get it back. It all seemed so hectic and phony now, so desperate to keep you looking over there so you didn’t notice the bad news right in front of your face. He didn’t even follow sports anymore, had no idea who’d won the World Series. All the teams were patched together anyway, the holes in their rosters plugged by minor leaguers and old guys who’d come out of retirement. All he really missed was music. It would have been nice to have his metallic green iPod along for the ride, but that was long gone, lost or stolen in Columbus, or possibly Ann Arbor.

At least Christine seemed to be enjoying herself. She was giggling at the tiny screen in front of her, sitting with her dirty feet on the seat cushion and her knees hugged tightly to her breasts, which she claimed were a lot bigger than they used to be, though Tom couldn’t really see much of a difference. From this angle, with her little bump hidden beneath a baggy sweater and a ratty fleece jacket, she just looked like a kid, someone who should have been worrying about homework and soccer practice, not sore nipples and whether she was getting enough folic acid. He must’ve stared a little too long, because she turned suddenly, as if he’d spoken her name.

“What?” she asked, a little defensively. The bullseye on her forehead was a bit faded; she’d have to touch it up when they got to Omaha.

“Nothing,” he said. “I was just spacing out.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, go back to your movie.”

“It’s pretty funny,” she told him, her eyes crinkling with pleasure. “That little dog’s a trip.”

*   *   *

THERE WAS
a run on the bathroom when the movie ended. The line moved efficiently at first, but it came to a standstill after an older guy with a cane and a grimly determined expression ducked inside and stayed put. The people behind him grew visibly annoyed as the minutes ticked by, sighing with increasing frequency, instructing their colleagues up front to knock and see if he was alive in there, or at least find out if
War and Peace
was all it was cracked up to be.

As luck would have it, Henning happened to be second in line during the traffic jam. Tom kept his head down, pretending to be engrossed in the freebie paper he’d picked up at the terminal, but he could feel the soldier’s insistent gaze boring into the center of his bullseye.

“Pigpen!” he cried when Tom finally looked up. He sounded pretty drunk. “My long-lost buddy.”

“Hey.”

“Yo, Grampa!” Henning barked, addressing the closed door of the restroom. “Time’s up!” He turned back to Tom with an aggrieved expression. “What the fuck’s he doing in there?”

“Can’t rush Mother Nature,” Tom reminded him. This seemed like something a Barefoot Person would say.

“Fuck that,” Henning replied, drawing an agitated nod of agreement from the middle-aged woman in front of him. “I’m gonna count to ten. If he’s not outta there, I’m gonna kick the door down.”

Just then the toilet flushed, sending a visible wave of relief down the aisle. This was followed by an extended, oddly suspenseful interlude of silence, at the end of which the toilet flushed a second time. When the door finally opened, the now-famous occupant stepped out and surveyed his public. He mopped his sweaty brow with a paper towel and made a humble appeal for forgiveness.

“Had a little problem.” He rubbed his stomach, a bit tentatively, as if things still weren’t quite right. “Nothin’ I could do.”

Tom caught a whiff of misery as the old guy limped off and his replacement stepped into the restroom, uttering a soft cry of protest as she shut the door.

“So what’s going on back here?” Henning asked, a lot more cheerful now that the logjam had been broken. “You guys partying?”

“Just hanging out,” Tom told him. “Trying to get some rest.”

“Yeah, right.” Henning nodded, like he was in on the joke, and patted one of his back pockets. “I got some Jim Beam. I’m happy to share.”

“We’re not really into alcohol.”

“I get it.” Henning pinched his thumb and forefinger together and brought them to his lips. “You like the herb, huh?”

Tom gave a judicious nod. The Barefoot People definitely liked the herb.

“I got some of that, too,” Henning reported. “There’s a rest stop in a few hours if you want to join me.”

Before Tom could answer, the toilet flushed.

“Thank you, Jesus,” Henning muttered.

Stepping out of the bathroom, the middle-aged woman smiled queasily at Henning.

“It’s all yours,” she told him.

On his way in, Henning took another toke on his imaginary joint.

“Catch you later, Pigpen.”

*   *   *

LULLED BY
the hum of the big tires, Tom drifted off to sleep somewhere outside of Ogallala. He was awakened a while later—he had no idea how long he’d been napping—by the sound of voices and a muddled sense of alarm. The bus was dark except for the glow of a few scattered reading lights and laptop screens, and it took him a few seconds to get his bearings. He turned instinctively to check on Christine, but the soldier was in the way. He was sitting right next to her, a pint of whiskey in his hand, talking in a low, confidential tone.

“Hey!” Tom’s voice came out louder than he meant it to, earning him several annoyed glances and a couple of shushes from his fellow passengers. “What are you—?”

“Pigpen.” Henning spoke softly. There was a sweet expression on his face. “Did we wake you?”

“Jennifer?” Tom leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse of Christine. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, but Tom thought he detected a note of reproach in her voice, which he knew he deserved. He was supposed to be her bodyguard, and here he was, sleeping on the job. God only knew how long she’d been trapped like this, fending off the advances of a drunken soldier.

“Go back to sleep.” Henning reached across the aisle and patted him on the shoulder with what felt like parental reassurance. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Tom rubbed his eyes and tried to think. He didn’t want to antagonize Henning or cause any sort of disturbance. The one thing they didn’t need was to draw any unnecessary attention to themselves.

“Listen,” he said, in the friendliest, most reasonable tone he could muster. “I don’t mean to be a jerk, but it’s really late, and we haven’t had a lot of sleep in the past few days. It would be really cool if you just went back to your seat and let us get some rest.”

“No, no,” Henning protested. “It’s not like that. We’re just having a conversation.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Tom explained. “I’m asking you nicely.”

“Please,” Henning said. “I just need somebody to talk to. I’m going through some bad shit right now.”

He sounded sincere, and Tom started to wonder if maybe he’d overreacted. But he just didn’t like the whole situation, the stranger pressed up against Christine, occupying the seat that Tom had so stupidly surrendered.

“It’s okay,” Christine told him. “I don’t mind if Mark stays.”

“Mark, huh?”

Henning nodded. “That’s my name.”

“All right. Whatever.” Tom sighed, acknowledging his defeat. “If it’s okay with her, I guess it’s okay with me.”

Henning extended the bottle like a peace offering.
What the hell,
Tom thought. He took a small sip, wincing as the liquor ignited in his throat.

“There you go,” Henning said. “It’s a long way to Omaha. Might as well enjoy ourselves.”

“Mark was telling me about the war,” Christine explained.

“The war?” Tom shuddered as a bourbon aftershock traveled through his body. All at once he felt clearheaded, wide awake. “Which one?”

“Yemen,” he said. “Fucking hellhole.”

*   *   *

CHRISTINE DOZED
off, but Tom and Henning kept talking softly, trading the bottle back and forth across the aisle.

“I ship out in ten days.” Henning sounded like he didn’t quite believe it. “Twelve-month deployment.”

He said he came from a military family. His father served; so had two uncles and an aunt. Henning and his older brother, Adam, had made a pact to enlist right after October 14th. He came from a small rural town full of Bible-believing Christians, and back then just about everyone he knew believed that the End Times were upon them. They were expecting a major war to break out in the Middle East, the battle foretold in the Book of Revelation. The opponent would be nothing less than the army of the Antichrist, the honey-tongued leader who would unite the forces of evil under a single banner and invade the Holy Land.

So far, though, none of that had happened. The world was full of corrupt and despicable tyrants, but in the past three years, none of them had emerged as a plausible Antichrist, and no one had invaded Israel. Instead of one big new war, there was just the usual bunch of crappy little ones. Afghanistan was mostly over, but Somalia was still a mess, and Yemen was getting worse. A few months ago, the President had announced a big troop escalation.

“I talked to a guy who just got back,” Henning told him. “He said it’s like the Stone Age over there, just sand and rubble and I.E.D.’s.”

“Damn.” Tom took another hit of bourbon. He was starting to feel pretty loose. “You scared?”

“Fuck, yeah.” Henning tugged on his earlobe like he was trying to yank it off. “I’m nineteen years old. I don’t wanna wake up in Germany with one of my legs cut off.”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“Did to my brother.” Henning spoke matter-of-factly, his voice flat and distant. “Fucking car bomb.”

“Oh, man. That sucks.”

“I’m gonna see him tomorrow. First time since it happened.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Okay, I guess. They got him in a wheelchair, but he’s gonna get a new leg pretty soon. One of those high-tech ones.”

“Those are pretty cool.”

“Maybe he’ll be one of those bionic sprinters. I saw an article about this one guy, he’s actually faster now than he used to be.” Henning swallowed the last few drops of bourbon, then shoved the empty bottle into the seat pocket in front of him. “It’s gonna be weird seeing him like that. My big brother.”

Henning leaned back and closed his eyes. Tom thought he was drifting off to sleep, but then he gave a soft grunt, as if something interesting had just occurred to him.

“You got it right, Pigpen. Just go wherever you want, do whatever you want. Nobody ordering you around or trying to blow your head off.” He looked at Tom. “That’s the deal, right? You just wander around, looking for the party?”

“It’s our duty to enjoy ourselves,” Tom explained. He was pretty familiar with the theology; a lot of the teachers he’d been training in San Francisco had gone through a Barefoot phase before becoming Holy Wayners. “We believe that pleasure is the creator’s gift, and that we glorify the creator whenever we have a good time. The only sin is misery. For us, that’s Rule Number One.”

Henning grinned. “That’s my kinda religion.”

“It sounds simple, but it’s not as easy as you think. It’s like the human race has been programmed for misery.”

“I hear that,” Henning said, with surprising conviction. “How long you been doing it?”

“About a year.” Tom and Christine had been honing their cover stories in preparation for exactly this sort of interrogation, and he was glad they had—he was a little too drunk to be improvising. “I was in college, but it all felt so pointless. Like, the world’s coming to an end, and I’m getting a degree in Accounting. What good’s that gonna do me?”

Henning tapped his forehead. “What’s with the circle thing?”

“It’s a bullseye. A target. So the Creator will recognize us.”

Henning glanced at Christine. She was breathing softly, her head resting against the window, her features delicate in repose, as if they’d been sketched on her face rather than sculpted.

“How come hers is a different color? Does it mean something?”

“It’s a personal choice, like a signature. I do maroon and gold ’cause those were my high school colors.”

“I could do green and beige,” Henning said. “Kind of a camo thing.”

“Nice.” Tom nodded his approval. “I haven’t seen that before.”

Henning leaned across the aisle, like he wanted to share a secret.

“So is it true?”

“What?”

“You guys are into orgies and shit?”

From what Tom had heard, the Barefoot People held these big solstice gatherings out in the desert, where everybody ate mushrooms and dropped acid and danced and fucked. It didn’t sound all that great to him, just a big, sloppy frat party.