The Methuselah Gene (26 page)

I got up and continued walking, regaining some measure of resolve.
 
But in the process of redirecting my mind, I found myself reconsidering the implication of Darryl's theory.
 
What if some agency like the CIA really was in Zion to test the virus, and for the reason he intimated?
 
Might that explain the grove of trees Julie had seen?
 
I thought about Jim's tobacco etch virus, as a transport mechanism for the gene.
 
Was a reversal possible?
 
If so, why the rush to test it now?
 
Certainly refugees from an increasingly hostile world might want to escape the unstable and crowded conditions of their own countries.
 
But overall, population growth was beginning to stabilize, except in India, and in isolated areas of Indonesia, Africa, and Latin America.
 
And so the numbers just didn't add up.
 
Unless . . .

Unless those numbers were
dollars
, not head counts.

Then it made sense.

Because with fewer dollars coming in from earning taxpayers in the States, the future for much in the way of foreign aid looked bleak.
 
Then the Boomers wouldn't just bust Social Security, they'd bust World Security, while sprouting more terrorist cells, perhaps even capable of nuclear atrocities.
 
Forget about pollution, then, or bizarre weather phenomena destroying bioengineered crops.
 
The real problem would be paying for all the new prescription drug benefits out of funds from the Department of Defense.
 
And while all the geezers watched football on TV there'd be a—

“Alan,” Julie suddenly alerted me.
 
“Alan!”

“What?” I replied, coming out of my reverie of supposition.

An old blue Ford pickup truck with dirty windows appeared, approaching us from ahead.
 
Trundling along, and trailing a backwash of dust and white smoke, the truck resembled something out of the movie
Road Warrior
.
 
But Julie waved at it to stop.

“What are you doing?” I asked, with alarm.

As though prompted by our distress, the truck seemed to weave, then suddenly sped up, heading straight at us.
 
I snatched Julie's arm, and jerked her out of its way, into the field, just in time.
 
The truck raked a clump of packed sand at the ditch with its wide chrome bumper in passing, and I caught a glimpse of the driver in the side window.
 
An older man with a hawkish face, he continued to stare straight ahead as he drove, weaving as though against his will, straining to hold a line, and finally straightening again.
 
He never stopped or looked back, provoking me to recall the movie
Dawn of the Dead
this time.

“Is everybody crazy?” Julie wondered, frustration edging her voice.

“Yes,” I answered her.
 
“It's the virus.
 
Psychosis, delusions.
 
God . . . damn this!”

Julie now looked at me with a new dread in her eyes.
 
But after cursing I felt oddly better.
 
Her returning frustration had sparked my own back to life, and this beat out shock, too.
 
I was back at last, to some degree, which was good because I needed to act before it was too late.

We started walking again with renewed determination, back on the road.
 
We hadn't walked long toward a dirt crossroad before another vehicle appeared, this one a yellow compact sedan.

“Look,” Julie said.

I tried to look, but sunlight heliographed off the car's windshield, as if it were signaling to us.
 
I felt momentarily hopeful, but then observed it with suspicion, and stepped backward, off the road.
 
As Julie followed my lead, she tripped in a rut of clumped mud, and twisted her ankle.
 
Her yelp of pain was real.

“Come on!” I urged, and nabbed her flailing arm.

I pulled her up.
 
She leaned against me for support, hopping on one foot, and out of the way.
 
We started for the corn beyond, where it was safer.
 
Then I saw that I was mostly dragging her forward, and that her pain was intense.
 
So I picked her up, instead, and carried her.
 
The car beeped behind us, giving several long sustained bursts, as if signaling to Cody beyond the hill.
 
But I didn't stop or turn around.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Once hidden deeper into the corn, I made a space and laid her down.
 
“How bad is it?” I whispered.

“
Ouuuuu
!” she replied.
 
Her face contorted as I tested her ankle.

“You've pulled a tendon.”

“Feels broken.
 
What time is it?”

I checked my watch.
 
“Almost noon.
 
Are you hungry?”

“No!
 
How can you ask me that now?”

“Sorry.”

“And stop saying that, please.”

Sorry, I thought.
 
Then, looking at her foot, I said, “You can't put weight on this.
 
Looks like I'll have to carry you to . . . wherever.
 
Piggyback.”

“But how can you, with your leg wound?”

“I'll manage.
 
You're as light as . . .”
 
I paused, listening to what I thought was movement in the corn far away.
 
We hunkered silently for a full five minutes before Julie chanced a whisper.

“As a feather?
 
Is that what you were going to say?”

“What?”

“As light as a feather?”

I stared at her in disbelief at her question.
 
It was commensurate with asking for a refill of ice water to be served on the tilting deck of the Titanic.
 
But then I saw her motive in mimicking me, which had to do with coping, with survival.
 
“Not exactly.”
 
I forced a smile.
 
“I don't know.
 
A pile of feathers?
 
The nice, soft, cuddly kind?”

She favored me with an ironical smile, against her own pain, while I considered the prospect of carrying her again.
 
“Do you even know which way to go, Sir Lancelot?”

“Can't you tell me, Gwen?
 
And is that your name, by the way?”

“No.
 
And hey, how would I know what direction, anyway?
 
I was following you.”

I chuckled in astonishment.
 
“Me?
 
But I've never been out here before.”

“Neither have I, actually.”

“But you said—”

“What did I say?
 
I said it was eight miles to either town, as the crow flies.”

“You said nothing about crows,” I contested.
 
“You pointed at the road.”

“Well, if I did, I . . . well, I'm sure I meant it's easier to walk on the road, where there's less chance to twist an ankle.”

“Huh?”
 
I felt my bemusement evolving into exasperation.
 
A burn on my neck was revived by the heat of the sun.
 
“You mean you've never been down the roads we were just on?”

She shrugged, staring at her ankle.
 
“I don't get out much.
 
What can I say?”

“How about explaining why we didn't bring a map or a compass—can you say that?”

“Why would we need a compass, when we could follow the sun?”

“It's noon,” I pointed out.
 
“It's summer.
 
The sun is right above us.
 
I can feel it, believe me.
 
And anyway, we're heading east, not west.
 
But even if we were following the sun, using your logic, where would you propose we follow it to, anyway—the planet Mercury?”

For a moment she was silent.
 
No way out, logically.
 
But she was a woman.
 
Very definitely a woman.
 
So she lifted one hand, and pointed.
 
“That way,” she announced.

I turned and looked over the neck-high stalks in the direction she indicated.
 
Then I sneezed, and followed that with a slow three-sixty.
 
It was the same in all directions.
 
Low rolling hills of farmland, beyond which might be anything.

“You sure?” I asked, skeptically.

“Positive,” she replied, with just a detectable trace of uncertainty.

“What—woman's instinct?”

“Don't knock it.
 
It's never failed me before.”

“I'd rather have a compass,” I told her, “and a map.”

“Men,” she said.

“Women,” I mimicked.

She looked up at me, squinting over a wry smile.
 
“What?
 
What about women?”

“Always changing your mind, that's all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your usual complaint about men is that we never ask for directions.
 
Well, I'm asking, am I not?”

“And I'm answering,” she insisted, and pointed again.

I studied her raised arm.
 
“Yes, you are,” I admitted.
 
“But in a slightly different direction now.
 
As the crow flies.”

We ate what we could, then left the backpack behind, along with Julie's jacket.
 
Carrying her piggy back wasn't as much fun as I expected.
 
Her arms were crossed in front of my chest, and my hands were locked under her legs for a good fit, but I guesstimated her weight to be a hundred fifteen pounds, to my one hundred eighty.
 
Relatively light, but with every step that I took, an electrical spike of pain shot from my leg through my groin and into my back.
 
I didn't complain at first, with her arms and legs snugly around me, but it soon felt more like I was carrying a backpack filled with Tom Cruise's fee on a
Mission Impossible
sequel—and in hundred dollar bills, no less.
 
Whenever my left leg impacted the ground, I gave a slight
wuffing
sound, as though repeatedly gut punched.

“You really should leave me,” she said.

“In the middle of nowhere, with Cody and company on the loose?”
 
I noticed that the dirt road ahead appeared to parallel what looked like a hog farm.
 
“Besides, what would I have to do then?”
 
I indicated the buildings there, while panting with fatigue.
 
“Carry a wounded hog?”

Wuff
,
wuff
,
wuff
.

She shifted one hand to throttle my neck.

“Careful,” I gasped when she released pressure.
 
“If I pass out, then where will you be?”

She didn't answer.
 
Maybe she didn't know.
 
I surely didn't.

A farm house came into view beyond a stand of maple trees.
 
The large corrugated prefab storage building beside it bore the word Jensen's on top in faded twelve foot letters.
 
I could hear animal sounds too, but there was no movement on the grounds yet.
 
Then, with a subtle shift of an uncomfortably hot breeze, we soon smelled the unmistakable odor that only confirmed what I'd guessed at a greater distance.

“Do you want to tell me what you saw in the last house now?” Julie asked with an erratic hesitation, as though she'd been waiting a long time for the appropriate moment to ask.

“No,” I replied quickly, against the image that threatened to return.

“Okay.”
 
Her response was without detectable disappointment.
 
She indicated the farm house that now almost flanked us on the other side of the road, and changed the subject.
 
“Do you think they're outside Zion's calling area?”

“Have you heard the name Jensen before?”

“I'm not sure.
 
Maybe.”

“Then I don't know.
 
Maybe.”

“You can't carry me for another six miles, or however many miles it is,” she noted.

She had a point.
 
“No, I can't do that, either,” I agreed.
 
“So I'll go as far as I can, then we'll get help.
 
When we have to.”