Ed, watching the buses on closed circuit video monitors inside the main office, said, “Looks like we got the short end of the stick. Hold tight for a minute. I’ll call Arturo, see if I can’t get some answers.”
Sam didn’t bother to answer. He relayed the message to the drivers, who all sat snug ensconced inside a bulletproof plastic cocoon. This way, if the prisoners ever managed to gain the upper hand over the guards, they couldn’t reach the bus drivers. When Sam delivered the news, each of the three drivers shrugged and shook out a folded newspaper over the giant steering wheel, settling down for a long wait. These guys didn’t give two shits about the situation. The union only said they had to drive the bus, and nothing else.
Sam’s phone rang. It was Ed. Sam answered with, “Any luck?”
“Arturo isn’t answering his phone. So I called the sheriff’s office. Turns out the boys from the CDC have commandeered a number of prisoner buses. Won’t say why. Just that the buses aren’t available. When I pressed the issue, they told me, strictly off the record of course, that the CDC and FEMA and god knows who else had already commandeered the rest of the prisoner transfer buses in Cook County. Sounded to me like they’re anticipating some trouble in the evacuation. Either way, we got three buses, so we’re gonna have to do this in shifts.”
“Figures. Same old story. No help from anybody.”
“You got it, brother. Sit tight out there, and I’ll figure out who gets to ride the first merry-go-round.”
Sam didn’t bother to relay the message to the bus drivers. He didn’t want to interrupt their reading. He wandered over to one of the empty benches, sat down, closed his eyes, and turned his face to the hazy sun for a few minutes. He wished he’d brought his flask along, but he’d left it in the car.
He wondered if he could sleep if he stretched out on the warm bench. If he could just close his eyes for a while, he could pretend that the soldiers behind him, busy setting up more roadblocks along Van Buren, were actually El trains clattering along the tracks. He knew deep down that it wouldn’t work. The sound of the El trains screeching around corners and rumbling into stations was unique, and in that absence, he could never shake the feeling that armed soldiers now patrolled his city.
And so he would never be able to fall asleep.
Not until this was finished, one way or another.
CHAPTER 59
12:39 PM
August 14
Qween and Dr. Menard picked their way through a sub-basement full of old conference chairs, outdated copy machines, and plenty of cobwebs. On the far wall, Qween found a large panel with three long lines scratched in the metal. At first glance, it looked as if it was just regular wear and tear, but if you cocked your head just right, the three scratches eventually arranged themselves into a ragged capital H. Qween pulled it away from the wall, revealing a large vertical air duct. “Old Henry told me about this place. He holes up back here when it gets too cold.”
Dr. Menard peered down into the absolute darkness and sighed. “I don’t know if I’ll fit.”
Qween snorted. “If I can fit, you can fit. I’ll go first, ya big baby.” It was old enough and big enough that she fit without straining too much, using her butt and knees to slow her descent. She looked up at Dr. Menard’s silhouette, framed within a square of dusty light. “Almost there, Doc. Your hospital is on the other side of this wall. You want in quiet, this is how we get there.”
Dr. Menard didn’t say anything, but he climbed inside, blocking the light. She heard him coming down in a shuffling slide. Ten feet down, Qween hit the bottom of the shaft. It stretched away on both sides. She called up, “Head to your left when you get down here.”
She crawled along until a hazy blob of faint light appeared. The light sharpened into a square of horizontal strips as Qween got closer. She pressed her face against the grill, looking at another large, forgotten, filthy storage room, full of discarded furniture, outdated technology, and boxes full of mold.
Something was different about this one, though. It almost looked as if a flood had been flash frozen as it tore through the room, the murky water solidified midsurge. The edges clung to the corners and under conference room tables, and the shadows collected and pooled in the dim light.
She dug around in her cloak and found a tiny flashlight. She clicked it on.
Dr. Menard’s voice was half-surprised, half irritated. “You’ve had a flashlight this whole time and didn’t use it?”
Qween said, “You’re a smart man. Woulda thought you’d know these take batteries. They ain’t free and they ain’t cheap. Ain’t gonna use ’em up when I don’t need to.” She aimed the light down at the material, but still couldn’t figure out what it was. It almost looked like black sand had collected in drifts over the years. She got impatient and gave the grill a solid thump with the bottom of her fist, knocking it out of the way. It hit something hard directly under the airshaft, bounced off into the center of the room, landing in the drifts with a soft thump, sending a cloud of the stuff flying into the air. The debris settled fairly quickly, and Qween decided it wasn’t dust. Too heavy.
She stuck her head out and saw they had gotten lucky; a table had been shoved against the wall directly under the airshaft. She rotated her body and stuck her feet out first, then lowered herself to the table. She kept her flashlight on the whole time, watching to make sure that whatever the material was, it wasn’t moving.
One wild thought kept bouncing around her head, and although she dismissed it as being too ridiculous, it kept coming back. She was worried that they’d stumbled into a nest of those damn bugs, but there was no way that many bugs would clump together in one place like this. No way. So she flicked the light around the mounds of what looked like rich black soil. But she knew it wasn’t dirt. The particles were a touch too large for one thing, and the other was that they were flat, and lacked the way soil crumbled when it fell apart. It wasn’t clay, or mud.
Dr. Menard climbed out of the airshaft and sneezed.
Qween got down and leaned over the edge of the table. She held the flashlight close to a stagnant wave of the substance. It wasn’t exactly black; that was just the lack of light in the sub-basement. Up close, the stuff was a dark reddish-brown, and in some spots, almost translucent. Whatever it was, it wasn’t alive. She reached out to touch it; most of it crumbled to dust under her fingers. She cupped her hand, and brought a sample up so they could get a better look.
“Any ideas, Doc?”
“I don’t . . .” Dr. Menard trailed off. He pinched some of the stuff between his thumb and forefinger, taking the flashlight from her hand and holding the lens an inch away. The substance reminded Qween of fish scales for some reason.
“Oh good Christ,” Dr. Menard whispered. “It’s all the shells, it’s their exoskeletons. These bedbugs, they molt. Five times, if I can remember it correctly. And this . . .” The flashlight swept the room. The dark material was a least two feet deep, sometimes higher near the walls and some of the furniture. “This is what is left, when . . . when they . . .”
“When they shuck they skin,” Qween finished for him.
Dr. Menard’s eyes raced around the huge room. “This city has got a bigger problem than anyone realizes. There’s nothing on record.... I don’t think there’s anything that indicates . . . There’s gotta be . . . millions of exoskeletons here. Billions.” He swallowed. “If these things carry that virus, we are all in such big trouble.”
“I don’t have no fancy degree or anything, but I coulda told you that. So let’s get moving.” She slid off the table into the drifts of the shells of dead bugs. They came up to her knees. It felt like when she was a little girl, playing in an old silo full of wheat chaff. “We ain’t going back the way we came, ’less you can climb up that air shaft.”