She twisted the deadbolt locks with a sliding click, then yanked open the door with more force than she intended. “What?”
The man waiting on her front porch gaped at her in sudden surprise. He looked flustered. He was in his early thirties, with a large and muscular build; his face was sunburned and framed by lanky blond hair. He looked like an out-of-luck surfer. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Heather started to slam the door in his face; but something new inside her found the man’s blustering question amusing. “Well who the hell are you? I’m Heather Dixon. Pleased to meet you. And why are you standing on my front porch?”
The man took a full step backward. “Where are my parents?”
The question threw her. “Who?”
“Jan and Howard Brooks. I’m Connor Brooks, their son. They live here.”
Now Heather began to understand, and her initial anger gave way to a little pity. “Sorry, but they moved. I’ve rented this place for four years now. I used to get junk mail addressed to Brooks, but that was a long time ago.”
Standing on the porch, Connor Brooks shook his head in amazement. “They moved? They didn’t even tell me!”
Heather stayed quiet; it sounded like a bad joke.
Connor thought it over. “I don’t suppose they left a forwarding address?” His eyes were wide and blue and hopeful. Heather sized him up and for some reason liked what she saw.
“Afraid not. The landlord might know, but he lives down in Sedona, and the phones are out. I don’t expect you’ve got a car?”
Connor grasped the porch railing as if to prevent himself from falling. “If I had a car that worked it wouldn’t have taken me a week to get here. I can’t believe it! After all I’ve been through—and they moved!” He ran his hands through his hair in apparent anguish, but Heather got the distinct impression it was just an act. He tried to peer inside the house. “Hey, could you spare anything to eat? I’m starved.”
She thought for a moment. Did she really want this guy around? Everything he said sounded reasonable. Still…
She said, “Power’s gone out, but there’s some leftovers in the fridge. Wait here.” She bolted the door after she stepped back inside.
She watched him for a minute from the corner window. He stepped off the porch and looked up and down the street. Jamming his hands in his pockets, he rocked back and forth on his heels, waiting for her to return.
Heather grabbed some stale bread and cheese from the refrigerator; before opening the front door, she returned to the kitchen and took out two beers.
Connor turned when she came outside. “Not much of this looks familiar to me. My parents moved here after I left home, and I… I haven’t been back to visit too often.”
She raised her eyebrows. “No kidding.” She handed him the food. “Here.”
His eyes widened at the beer. “Thanks!”
As they spoke she could not say why she found him intriguing, but Connor Brooks gave the impression of being a survivor. He had no connection to her old life. She began to calculate whether it might be worthwhile having him around.
He seemed to read her thoughts. “Do you think I could impose a little more? I’d really like a shower. It’s been a rough couple of days, and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”
She thought it over; the suggestion sounded so preposterous that it made her pause. Funny what a difference a few hours can make. The old Heather would have been flustered, even terrified—and that was enough to make her change her mind. “You do smell like you could use a bit of freshening up. The water will probably be cold, but I’ve got a hose out back you can use.”
“Out… back?”
“Consider yourself lucky,” Heather smiled. “Times are changing. Besides, I’ll bring you a towel.”
Chapter 40
Alex Kramer’s two horses were excited to be taken out. Todd ran his calloused right palm along the hot, soft neck of Ren, the palomino, patting gently; he stepped into the stirrup, hauling his leg over the horse’s back.
He reached back to gather the reins from Stimpy’s bridle, looping them around the saddle horn. The corral gate stood open, and Todd squeezed Ren with his knees, nudging the horse toward the open road. “Let’s head ‘em out!” he said.
Todd reveled in the warm redolence of the horses. The thick scent brought back fond memories of his younger days, as did the hollow clatter of hooves on the hard road surface. It had been in a long time since he’d taken a horse and slept under the Wyoming stars. Of course, it would be different riding through downtown San Francisco, and a heck of a lot more dangerous. He kept Alex’s old Smith & Wesson loaded and at his side.
Whispering to the horses, Todd guided them alongside the paved road. The hills were quiet and still. It was time to move on, to stop waiting for the world to fix itself. Besides, he had to go rescue Iris, whether she wanted it or not. Staying in the city would be plain stupid. If the downtown areas weren’t already burning, the mobs would ge out of hand before long.
Todd kept his eyes forward, Alex’s abandoned house at his back. On the winding road, he passed mailboxes, driveways, but the houses sat quiet, deceptively peaceful. Blue-gray wood smoke curled from one chimney. He came across a man walking his German shepherd, as if it were a normal afternoon; Todd and the man nodded to each other, and the dog barked, but the horses continued down the road.
It seemed unreal to him. Elsewhere in the world, planes were crashing, buildings falling apart, communications severed. The last he had heard, the president was stuck out of the country. The C&W radio station had mentioned something about the Vice President being killed in an elevator accident, but they had not been able to confirm the rumors… and then the radio station blinked out, replaced by static. Todd couldn’t get any other stations on the radio either. When he pried it open, he discovered the plastic circuit board had melted.
Only a week ago he’d been flying in the Oilstar helicopter, spraying the Prometheus microbe. At the time, Todd had considered the Zoroaster spill a terrible disaster. Now his entire definition of disaster had changed.
After an hour he reached U.S. highway 101, which stretched down the Marin peninsula, across the Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco and then the south bay. Todd took the two horses at a rapid trot down the middle lane. The hard road would not be good for the horses’ hooves, and he moved over to the grassy median whenever he had a chance. He wondered if the asphalt itself would turn soft and spongy once the petroplague got hungry. The microbe’s appetite for plastics seemed random and unpredictable.
He felt idiotically out of place on horseback in the middle of a six-lane highway that should have been filled with vehicles zooming by at 70 miles an hour. He felt like a ranger in the wilderness.
Groups of scavengers moved among the dead cars littering the highway, smashing into locked cars or just pushing windshields through the soft insulation holding the glass in place. One tall man without a shirt tucked a set of hubcaps between his elbow and his ribs, leaving a serrated smudge of grease and dirt along his side. A middle-aged woman in a red canvas jacket carried a paper grocery bag stuffed with loose cables and metal housings of car stereo boxes. A blond-haired teenaged boy slashed out seatbelts with a long knife, draping a long tangle of them over one shoulder. Todd couldn’t imagine what the kid would want them for. As Todd approached, the boy jerked his head out of a Volvo and flashed a broad grin.
At a fast trot, the horses made good time on the empty highway. Before long, Todd reached the cavernous tunnel that cut through a ridge. The horses trotted into the tunnel, their hooves booming inside the enclosed space.