June 16, 1:45 pm
"Pil, we need to keep moving," Billy whispered.
"I know, Billy. Just give us a minute..."
Keith looked drawn and pale. He sank down onto the curb, resting his injured arms carefully on his bent knees. Pil knelt next to him, and as Billy glanced around nervously, the two men talked about what to do next. They were deep in discussion, but Billy wasn't listening. All of his senses were on fire, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something big had shifted. No longer were they walking through a ghost town. He now sensed movement, and danger, lurking in every shadow and behind every locked door.
"Pil, I really think we need to go. We're very vulnerable here..."
"I know, but Keith needs to rest a minute."
Billy couldn't dispute that. There were beads of sweat on the chubby man's forehead, and his fingers were quivering where they stuck out of the ace bandages that covered his arms and hands. Billy could see that he'd picked up a shard of the shattered safety glass from the SUV that Pil called Big Bird, and he was rolling it back and forth between his thumb and index finger like a diamond. The look in Keith's eyes said that the OxyContin he had taken was wearing off, and he was in ever-increasing pain.
"Maybe we should break into one of these houses and look for some car keys," Keith suggested. "There are still a few cars on the street. Or maybe there's one in a garage."
"I think that would be risky, K," Pil said, scanning the silent houses around them. "I'm sure that a lot of these houses are full of the dead, which would be... bad." He furrowed his brow. "Or the living, which could be even worse."
Billy knew Pil was right. The Avenues were feeling less like an abandoned suburb, and more like a battlefield under siege. They needed to keep moving.
As Keith and Pil continued to discuss their options, Billy saw a figure at the end of the block behind them that he instinctively knew was one of Drouillard's angels. The ghost looked like a nurse or a medical student in crisp and clean scrubs. She was young, with her hair piled on top of her head in a neat knot. The horned rimmed glasses on her face were stylish, but a throwback to a half century before, and her scrubs showed no sign of violence. Billy watched the woman silently moving through the street and around the abandoned cars, but fortunately she didn't pay any attention to the trio on the sidewalk. She stopped as if she was listening for signs of life from the surrounding houses, and when she heard one, she darted quickly through a closed front door and disappeared.
The sound of a muffled scream from inside the house shocked Pil and Keith into silence. Slowly, Keith reached up and gripped Pil's hand, and the trio stared down the street behind them. Billy thought of telling Pil and Keith about the ghost in the scrubs, but saw no point in it.
"We need to go," Billy said, his voice as steady as he could make it.
Pil and Billy looked at each other, and then Pil reached out and put his other hand on the back of Keith's shoulders. He helped his friend to his feet, and the trio once again began walking east—away from the house that Pil had shared with Michelle, and away from the sounds of death that were still coming from inside the house down the block.
"Did you see something?" Pil asked. "Was it one of... them?"
"Yes, I saw her," Billy answered.
"Do you see any more? Should we be worried?"
"Not yet. But I sense them. I think we're walking into a pocket that's... more dangerous. We're going to have to keep our wits about us and keep moving."
"Why are they here?" Pil asked. "I mean, why here, and not back from where we came?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe it's random. Or maybe they're drawn to where people are congregating."
As if on cue, they began to see the living.
At first it was just one man glimpsed on a side street. But then, slowly, in groups and alone, the refugees trickled out of side streets and out of the houses. They huddled together in their family units, their eyes darting into shadows and checking out each other, and Pil and Keith, with wary eyes. As they watched, Billy realized that most were heading in the same direction they were, as if they were all being drawn by a desperate need to get out of the narrow streets.
At the intersection of M Street, a group of people fell in about three car lengths behind Billy.
"Don't turn around, guys," he said. "We have a group of five behind us. Just keep walking. I'll let you know if I think they're dangerous." He watched them over his shoulder as they walked, grateful for perhaps the first time that he was invisible to the living.
Three of the group were big guys, one of whom could have been a grandfather, but still looked strong as an ox. Two younger guys and two women were with him, but it was not clear whether they were related. For almost a block, the group walked behind them silently; keeping pace, but being careful not to pass. As far as Billy could tell, they looked harmless, but he also knew that, at this moment, the living could be more dangerous than the dead.
Finally, Pil stopped and turned. Keith took a single step, but then he too turned to face the group, who froze in their tracks and stared back at the two men.
"Pil, I told you to keep moving," Billy whispered.
The big man didn't speak, but silently sized up the group. Billy could see that he was being careful to keep his tire iron visible, but down at his side. And he saw that the older man behind him was staring at it unwaveringly. His right thumb was hovering at his belt buckle, but Billy couldn't see any gun. Perhaps it was hidden by the loose folds of his jacket.
"Billy, do you sense anything dangerous about them?" Pil whispered.
"No, I don't think so," Billy said. "I think they're scared. But I think they're okay. The older guy might have a gun tucked in his belt, under his jacket."
"We may be safer if we're not out here alone," Pil suggested. "Maybe they want to walk with us. I'm going to talk to them."
"Okay. Just don't let them know you can see me," Billy said, not at all sure this was a good idea. "I don't think we want to explain to them what is really going on..."
Billy eased himself off to one side, watching the scene intently.
"My name is Pil Kilani," Pil said, loud enough for the group to hear. "This is Keith Woo. We're from here in the Avenues, and we're on our way out of the city."
"Us too. And we don't want any trouble," the older man said, his hand still poised at his belt. The rest of his clan fell in behind him as if he was the point of the spear. To Billy's eyes, it looked like some military training was at play here. And he was now certain that bulge underneath the man's untucked shirt was a small caliber handgun.
"No trouble here," Pil said. "We're just walking. How about you?"
"Heading east," the older man said. "We abandoned the car a ways back. We tried for a while to drive through the Avenues. But every other street we tried was blocked. We figured we'd have better luck on foot. You?"
"We live down on J Street," Keith said, and Billy noted he included Pil in that, rather than explaining anything more. "Our car was stolen. So we're on foot too."
The man stared at the pair for a moment, and Billy realized he was looking at the bandages on Keith's arms. For a moment, he was sure the man would ask about them, and Billy wondered what they would say. But then the man just smiled and let his hand fall from his belt. He must have decided that the pair weren't a threat.
"Well, we don't mind if you walk the same direction as us. South Temple is full of folks on foot. But not all of them are safe, if you know what I mean. We saw... Well, we saw some folks get killed down there."
"More than once," said one of the women, who looked rattled.
"Where are you heading?" Pil asked.
"We have no idea. But we heard it's safer once you're out of the city. We thought we'd just try to get up in the hills somewhere. Maybe up above the University. Maybe find a place to hole up out of downtown. Things down there have totally gone ape shit."
"We're heading the same direction. We can walk with you."
"No offense, friend," the older man said, losing his smile. "But I don't think we need the company. And I don't trust you with that hunk of iron. I think we're walking faster. How about if you just step aside and let us pass?"
Pil appeared to be considering whether to press the issue, But Keith jumped in.
"That's fine by us. We understand." He looked at Pil. "Come on, let them go."
Keith guided Pil onto the sidewalk, and Billy followed. The group started moving, but Billy saw that the older man was keeping himself between the strangers and his family. And he kept his eye on Pil and his tire iron until they were a half a block further on, and then turned and moved back to the front of the group.
"He was right," Keith said. "I'm moving a lot slower than they are. I'd never be able to keep up. I'm sorry."
"It's all right, K. That guy made me nervous. Let's just keep going."
A block later, a few other groups had filtered into the street. Everybody was trying to keep away from each other, and nobody ventured to start a conversation. Everybody looked to Billy as if they were scarred and battle weary, either from actual fighting and injuries, or simply from lack of sleep and hours of unrelenting stress. Soon, the dozen people that were surrounding them made him think of a group of zombies, walking steadily and aimlessly forward.
Everybody is afraid of everyone else, Billy thought. And yet, they're also drawn together. It's like some kind of herd instinct...
Before they got to O Street, they saw the road ahead of them was blocked. Somehow, a dozen cars had been rammed together in the street and set on fire. And the trees and the houses on either side were burning as well. They definitely couldn't continue up 3rd Avenue. Their choice was to go up or down a street and try to find a way around the blockage. The group in front of them turned right, toward South Temple.
"Well, we need to leave the Avenues eventually anyway," Keith said. "We might as well do it now."
Pil turned over his shoulder. "What do you think, Billy?" he asked.
"It's hard to say," Billy replied, turning the brim of his straw hat over and over in his hands. "That old guy said there are more people down that way. And that he'd seen some violence on South Temple. But Keith's right. We have to go that way eventually, if we're going to get up to the University. And going further up into the Avenues would take us out of our way."
"Pil," Keith said, clearly frustrated that his friend was talking to someone that he couldn't hear or see. "I don't know what Billy is saying. But I walk this way to work every day. Trust me. We don't want to get caught up in the little side streets. Let's get down to South Temple. I think we're safer around other people, and everybody else seems to be going that way."
Pil just shrugged his shoulders and looked to Billy for an argument. When he didn't get one, he and Keith made the right-hand turn, and headed down the slight incline toward South Temple. More nervous than ever, Billy followed.
Billy was watching Keith carefully now. He was still moving okay, but his face definitely showed signs of increased pain, and it was clear that he was getting feverish. It would be a close thing, to see if he had the energy to get up into the foothills.
Pil looked like a fierce bear guarding his cub. His left hand was looped into Keith's belt, while the right was white-knuckled on the tire iron. His eyes were constantly and methodically scanning the road in front of them as they walked.
Shortly after they turned the corner Billy saw another of Drouillard's angels jogging down the street. This one looked like an older and shirtless version of Samuel L. Jackson, and his hard eyes and angular face chilled Billy. He was about to yell to Pil when the thing slammed into a middle-aged woman who was walking hand-in-hand with her adult son across the street. Billy saw the ghost hit her, and she tottered there on the sidewalk. But only for a second. The woman's son was already putting a hand on his mother's shoulder, and turning to ask if she was feeling okay, when the woman rammed the heel of her hand up under the man's chin so hard that Billy was pretty sure she'd snapped his neck.
"Pil! Watch out! The woman behind you and to the right!" Billy yelled.
Pil used his grip on Keith's belt to swing the smaller man behind him, so roughly that Keith almost lost his footing. Pil raised the tire iron, just in time to see the woman running at him, and it was her banshee-like wail that attracted the attention of the half-dozen people on the street that surrounded them. Even as the woman advanced, they all scattered. It appeared that none of them had seen the woman's son go down. They turned to see the big man with the tire iron raised above his head like a club. Billy realized they were running from Pil, as much as from the wailing woman.
Even as the crowd scattered, the woman skidded to a halt, just outside of Pil's range. Her eyes narrowed, and Billy was sure she was trying to decide if she should try to take on someone who was both huge and armed, or go after easier prey. Fortunately, she cackled briefly, and then turned, chasing after the fleeing crowd.
Pil didn't relax, and he kept the tire iron aloft, as the woman disappeared down the street.
"Jesus Fucking Christ, what the fuck was that?" Pil stuttered, as most of the visible crowd ran screaming toward South Temple.
"I saw him," Billy gasped. "That was one of them."
"I... I almost killed her," Pil said, his voice quavering. "I think... I would have..."
Billy glanced back at the woman's son, who laid still and motionless on the ground, and he was unsure whether the man was alive or dead. Pil followed Billy's gaze, but neither he nor Keith suggested they check on the man. The crowd had disappeared now, including the possessed woman. But as they approached the end of the block, they were shocked to see the wide thoroughfare, thick with people. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of them. Slowly they walked out of the Avenues until they stood at the edge of a milling crowd that extended south and east for the better part of a block.
"My god, why are they all here?" Keith asked. "There have to be three or four hundred people."
"I think it's because there is a hospital here," Pil said, pointing across the street.
"Yeah, I'd forgotten that," Keith said. "It's the Salt Lake Regional Medical Center. I've never paid much attention to it."
"It's small," Billy said, aware that Keith could not hear him. "But I think it's a natural reaction, when people are afraid. They head toward places like hospitals."
"Especially if they're injured," Pil said, his eyes roving over the refugees that milled about in the big parking lot in front of the medical center.
Indeed, Pil was right. Many of these people had injuries, varying from mild to life-threatening. But few of them were getting into the hospital itself. The doors to the medical center that they could see had been chained shut, and they were being guarded by several security men. Nevertheless, the parking lot was filled with the injured, most lying on the hard pavement on beds made of blankets or, for the lucky few, sprawled on portable cots. Even as they watched, orderlies were rushing back and forth with arms full of medical supplies, bedding, and additional cots. There appeared to be a few doctors that were performing triage on the bodies in the parking lot, and as the three men stood off to the side, they watched the doctors pass over those with the worst injuries and move on from those with anything that seemed minor. Only those injuries that appeared to be life threatening, and those who could survive only with professional care, were getting the doctors' attention.
"Look," Keith said, pointing. "The security guys don't have guns. They have holsters, but they're empty."
Keith was right. And Billy knew that somehow they had figured out, even if only instinctively, that having a weapon would only endanger the lives of those they were trying to protect. Billy wasn't sure if the guards fully understood why they had discarded or destroyed their firearms. It amazed him to think that, even this quickly, after just over a day of chaos, there was already a kind of survival response kicking in for those who had made it this long.
A ripple passed through the crowd as some kind of commotion broke out around the corner, near the emergency room entrance. They couldn't see exactly what was happening, but the shouts were shrill and piercing. Dozens of people were running away from the epicenter of the altercation, but a few were also rushing towards it—to get a better view, or perhaps because they believed that the chaos meant they might find a way into the interior of the hospital.
Pil reached out and grabbed the arm of one man fleeing the fight. He was about twenty-five, significantly overweight, and huffing heavily as he tried to put as much distance as he could between himself and the fight. Billy thought this man had spent much more time playing Mortal Kombat than actually engaging in it.
"Wait!" Pil shouted, holding the man's arm in his powerful grip. "What's going on over there? Do you know?"
"It's just..." the man huffed, putting his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath, "some lady with a hatchet. She hacked up a couple of people, and then they tackled her. But now it's one of the guys who stopped her. He has the hatchet now. So I got the fuck out of there."
Pil released his grip on the man's arm, but he didn't run. He had made an instantaneous calculation that he'd be safer with this big man than he would be on his own. If the guy with the hatchet came for them, he was obviously hoping the big guy with the tire iron would be a match for him.
"My name is Gordon," the young man said, offering his hand. "I live down by the Salt Palace."
"I'm Pil, and this is Keith. We're from up in the Avenues."
"You're lucky," Gordon said. "Downtown's pretty much toast. I think the Avenues are better."
"How do you know that?" Keith asked.
"I've been here since dawn. I've talked to a lot of people. Things are shit all over." The fight around the corner had calmed, and the screaming had died down. "What do you guys know? Have you seen anything?"
"No. We don't know anything," Keith said, too quickly. "We were holed up inside. We're just trying to get out of town."
"Yeah, you and everybody else."
"We were looking for a car. Somebody stole mine," Pil said.
Gordon just laughed. "Be glad you don't have one. They're more trouble than they're worth. You're not likely to have much luck with a car once you get out of downtown. Everybody's abandoning them."
"Why's that?" Pil asked.
"It's the roads, man. Everything's all fucked up. Every way out of town is blocked. Everybody tried to get out at once as soon as the sun came up this morning. The streets aren't too bad here, but if you get up toward the mountains, it's so bad that you can't even move. I guess it started with gridlock, but then people got scared and started abandoning their cars, and that made it impossible. It's like a maze, and you'll never thread your way through it on anything bigger than a bicycle."
"What about the army?" Keith asked. "I heard they declared martial law."
"Oh Jesus Christ, you really are out of it, aren't you?" the man said, staring at Keith. "The army is the one that has the roads blocked! Everything out of town. They pulled out just after midnight and took all their tanks and toy soldiers with them. Now, they are just containing us. They're turning people back if they try to get out. That is, if they don't shoot you."
"How do you know all this," Pil said, eyeing the man suspiciously.
"I told you, I've been talking to people since this morning. A lot of people tried to get out of town, and couldn't, so they ended up back here. A woman I met said she and her five kids tried to get out through Parley's Canyon early this morning. They got as far as Mountain Dell Reservoir, but that's where they have the roadblocks set up. They gave her a choice—turn around and go back down the canyon, or stay and get shot. She said there was a pile of bodies there that proved they weren't kidding. They skedaddled. And now they're here."
Billy listened to this exchange with growing alarm. He wondered if perhaps the blocked roads weren't part of Drouillard's plan. Perhaps his angels were commandeering cars and crashing them in such a way as to trap everybody in the city, like rats on a sinking ship. If so, then the army was playing directly into the Wanderer's plan.
He doesn't just want death and destruction, Billy thought. He wants extermination.
"Why in the hell would the army want to keep people here?" Keith asked.
"Word is," the heavy man said, leaning close, "they think it's a virus. They want to keep us contained until they can get a handle on it. But the rumor is that if they don't, they're going to take care of the problem another way."
"How?" Keith asked, although Billy was sure he really didn't want to know.
"Nobody is sure. But it might be bad. Gas maybe. Napalm. Or maybe even a nuke."
"Jesus Christ!" Pil said, suddenly angry, "You can't be spreading shit around like that! No wonder people are panicking!"
"Hey brother, you can believe it, or not. That's up to you. All I know is that things here seem about as bad as they can get, and if the world out there," he gestured over his shoulder as if he meant everything to the east, "decides that wiping us out will protect the fuckers in California and New York, then you know they will. You know it, man..."
Billy wondered if Gordon was right. Unfortunately, he didn't think they could rule it out.
This is what the Wanderer has wrought, he thought.
"Well, we're heading toward the University," Pil said, gesturing to the East. "We... We heard that it's safe if you can just get up into the hills."
"No, man, fuck that. Things up there are the worst. You'd have to get past the University Hospital. Even when the news was still on, they were saying not to go up there. Most of the cops that didn't get the fuck out of Dodge are there, keeping people out."
Pil let out an audible groan. "What about heading West?"
"Guy this morning told me he and his parents were trying to get out over the Salt Flats. They went west on I-80 in their dune buggy. But they didn't get past Salt Air. They had the road blocked at the choke point, just south of the lake. No getting out through there either."
Billy knew he was right. There were lots of ways out north and south, but to the West, there was really only one. I-80 went through a small gap between the Oquirrhs and the Great Salt Lake. If that got choked off, then nobody was getting out to that way, short of swimming through the lake or scaling the Oquirrhs.
"What are you going to do?" Pil asked the fat man, who had regained his breath.
"Hide, motherfucker!" the man said with a nervous laugh. "There isn't any getting out! We just got to go to ground. Find a safe place. A closet, or a rooftop. Something! I'm going to get off the streets with a box of Twinkies and a six-pack of Coke and I'm not coming out until somebody in charge sounds the all clear. And I suggest you guys do the same!"
"Good luck," Keith said, reaching out his hand to the man. But it was too late. Gordon was already running, back the way they had come. Billy watched him go, feeling very little hope that the man would make it through another twenty-four hours.
Keith looked up into Pil's face, which was drawn with worry and confusion. "What do we do, Beastie?" Keith asked.
Pil didn't have a chance to reply.
The fight, which Billy thought had calmed down at the far end of the parking lot, suddenly exploded. More people started screaming and running. And then there were gunshots—first one, and then a half dozen in quick succession. Billy could see the bodies fall, but couldn't tell where the shots were coming from.
"We're getting the fuck out of here," Pil said, pulling Keith back out of the parking lot, and into the street.
They jogged east, up South Temple, surrounded by several dozen others. It became clear that a large part of the crowd had, all at once, decided that the hospital was not the safest place to be. And as greater numbers of the crowd moved, panic set in, and the fleeing crowd only grew. Billy was suddenly more worried about all of them getting trampled than any supernatural attack. He ricocheted painfully off several people to keep up with Pil and Keith, who were moving quickly up South Temple with the surging crowd.
Just as the crowd thickened further, they came very close to disaster.
"Pil, behind you! To your left!" Billy cried.
He had seen the angel coming at them through the crowd, and it occurred to him too late that although the tire iron gave Pil some protection, it also made him an attractive target. Getting a hold of a big man with a weapon would be exactly what a malevolent ghost would want.
Pil whirled around at the sound of Billy's voice, and he saw the ghost, a thin boy of about ten, whip-sawing through the crowd directly toward him. Without even thinking, Pil raised the tire iron over his right shoulder like a baseball bat, and then the boy lunged. Billy thought he saw terror in the kid's eyes as he realized Pil was looking directly at him, and actually seeing him. His limbs flailed at the air, but it was too late. He was already airborne, and hurtling at the big man, who was midway through his swing.
The tire iron sliced through the boy's raised right arm and then struck the head of the hurtling ghost, shattering it as if it was a glass Christmas ornament. The boy's momentum continued, and the splintered pieces of his head struck Pil first, before the rest of the body, already shattering like the window of Pil's SUV, peppered him as well. Billy was grateful that Pil could feel none of that, as the boy dissipated and was gone—reset to wherever in this valley he had died.
Pil stood in the middle of the street, looking stunned, as the crowd parted around him. Most had seen none of this, of course, and neither had Keith, who also stared at him, unsure what exactly had just happened. But then Pil looked up, and his eyes caught Billy's directly. And he could see the overwhelming anguish in them.
"I killed him," Pil said, numbly. "He was just a little boy... And I... I crushed his... I killed him." He let the tire iron fall to the ground, and it made a clanging sound at his feet.
"Pil, no! Pick it up. You need it. There might be another!" Billy said.
But he didn't need to worry. Even though Keith could not see or hear what Billy had said, he reached down cautiously with his burned arm, and picked up the weapon. He put it back in Pil's numb hand as the big man continued to stare into space.
"I killed him..." Pil was saying.
"No," Keith said, deducing what had happened. "Pil, you didn't kill anybody. Look at me." He reached up and took Pil's big face in his hands, and turned his head until he was looking directly into Keith's eyes. "He was already dead. You know that. All you did is... reset him. You didn't kill him. You couldn't kill anybody. Pil, I know you. You couldn't kill anybody."
Billy knew Keith was right, but he also knew that to Pil, it wouldn't matter. For the rest of his life Pil would be haunted by the memory of that little boy leaping at him, and making the split second decision to cave in the boy's head with his tire iron. It didn't matter that the boy was already dead. It didn't matter that he meant them harm. And it didn't even matter that the boy could come back later and try again. All that mattered to Pil was the act that he had committed. To him, it would always be something that called into question the very nature of his own soul.
Finally, Pil stopped quivering, fell to his knees, and threw his arms around Keith. On his knees, they were almost the same height, but Keith was a couple inches taller, and it allowed him to wrap his injured arms around the big man's head. Pil in turn hugged Keith's chest, and Billy watched his sad, desperate hands as they bunched into Keith's shirt.
Keith held Pil for a few moments there, in the middle of the street, as the crowd continued to stream past them, like water flowing past a pair of stones in a stream. Billy watched them, his own heart aching from the pain that he knew Pil felt, and for the strength that Keith was showing to his friend. Billy knew that Keith's arms must feel as if they were on fire all over again as he squeezed Pil. The sweat on the man's brow told him all he needed to know about the amount of pain that Keith was enduring. But none of that mattered to him in that moment. Where Pil had been strong for him, Keith was now returning the gift.
Billy couldn't help but feel that the power dynamic between the two had shifted. No longer was Pil the fierce bear protecting his cub. What Billy saw, as they knelt together in the rushing flow of humanity, were two equals. Despite the huge contrast in their size, both had hearts that were big enough to contain the other.
Finally, Pil struggled to his feet and wiped his wet eyes on his shirtsleeve. Keith kissed the back of the big man's hand, and then helped him turn and begin walking with the crowd, as it continued east.
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