Thirteen
Rex Hogan awakened to a strangely quiet morning. He
opened his eyes first to confirm daylight, then cautiously lifted his head
from the desk, wincing until the throbbing in his head subsided. He
rolled his head to loosen stiff muscles, thankful that he had at least
survived the night. A long and quiet Sunday would give the world a chance
to recuperate and deal with the trauma it had endured.
He rose to his feet in the empty sheriff’s
substation, gave a moment's vertigo time to pass, then turned away to
attend his first priority of the day, a fresh pot of coffee. A glance at
the wall clock told him that he had snoozed four uninterrupted hours,
entirely unintended hours of unconsciousness that had put multiple crises
on hold. Maybe for the best.
He waited out the coffee then carried a hot mug to
the front window. Leon's car was parked in front, which meant the sheriff
was probably in the basement cell area sleeping it off. Leon hadn’t
bothered to awaken him to be grilled about his confrontation with Caitlin,
but at least Rex could safely assume Caitlin had survived it in one piece.
It was quiet, even for a Sunday morning. The meteor
shower had kept the county up late. The whole damned world would probably
sleep in late, including Doc and Connie.
Well, maybe not the whole damned world. The churches
would be packed. Admonishments of impeding Armageddon would ring from
each and every pulpit. There'd be literal hell to pay later in the day.
Several thousand people were going to be out and about demanding an
explanation.
Rex drank his coffee, locked the office behind him,
and drove to Doc Kaufman's house thinking he’d catch the Doc asleep.
Meeting Doc on the front porch reminded him that Doc often complained of
not being able to sleep more than two or three hours at a time under any
circumstance.
Doc's grim expression told him that something was
still amiss. "Is Connie up yet?" Rex asked anxiously. "Is she feeling
better?"
"Up and gone home,” Doc said curtly. “On foot. She
said she wanted her car and would salvage what she needed from the house.
She said to remind you that she has the key to your apartment. She'll
meet you there."
Connie's recovery lightened his burden. "How is she
holding up?"
"She reacted quite poorly to the disclosure that a
certain young Caitlin Biggs came to her rescue."
"Has anyone else been hurt?"
Doc raised an eyebrow. "How would I know?"
Alarm jangled through him. "The phones are still
out? No shit?" He glanced up and down the block. Not a soul moved
anywhere in sight. "I don't understand."
"It's not over," Doc said, his tone of voice laden
with warning. "Seen anything of Leon?”
Rex paced the porch nervously. "Leon’s sleeping it
off in the cells. I suppose that means Caitlin’s okay.”
"Son, he's going to kill himself. His heart's
clogged up. Arteriosclerosis. He's a prime by-pass candidate. If he
doesn't get it done soon, he's a corpse."
"Is that what came out of that physical last month he
wouldn't talk about?"
"I've under strict orders to keep my mouth shut, but
last night was too much stress for a man as sick as Leon to endure. Or
me, for that matter.”
But Rex had always known Leon Biggs would live and
die on his own terms. Rex spent a moment studying the empty streets, more
concerned with Brighton Hollow’s reaction to the night’s events. Not a
soul stirred anywhere, not even a dog.
"It won't last," Doc said, accurately reading his
strained expression. "It's been a long night, but by noon, everyone's
going to be out and about asking questions. If the black-out doesn't end
soon, the roads are going to be mighty crowded with a lot of nervous
people wanting a full tank of gas in their car and their cupboards
well-stocked with food. You're going to have your hands full with
bickering and fender benders."
Rex agreed wholeheartedly with Doc's assessment of
the situation. "Maybe I had better take another crack at checking on Dick
and Orville. Doc, we ain't got enough people to handle this."
"I'm puzzled though," Doc said, preoccupied by
another train of thought. "Considering the magnitude of the crisis, I
would have thought we'd have seen something of the National Guard unit in
Culverton. You'd think they'd at least send out runners to update local
government and law enforcement on what's happening. I haven't seen an
aircraft fly over all morning, and the highways are mostly deserted."
Rex scanned the morning sky, looking for the
contrails of the commercial jets that passed overhead almost constantly.
Rex wasn't so certain the military would mobilize so fast, and maybe the
airliners were grounded pending assurance that the meteor shower was
over. In any event, they had no choice but to be patient with the
crisis. With a casual wave of farewell, he started down the stairs to the
car. "I'll stop by when I get back."
"Keep your eyes peeled,” Doc said. "I need to know
how long this will last."
That went without saying. And he, in turn, would
need the old man's objectivity, education, and intelligence to make sense
of it all and weather the brewing storm.
The night before, he had headed north for Orange City
to pay Richard Jenkins a visit first. Having sent a note ahead, he
decided now to head south instead. Orville would be good for a cold beer
and some friendly conversation. He needed a chat and a chance to sort
things out and unwind before coping with the likes of Jenkins.
He drove toward Cyprus Junction along the deserted
blacktop feeling strangely alone in the world in more than just the
physical sense of the word. His authority stemmed from Leon and the
county, but with Leon on the ragged edge of dereliction of duty, he was
left with nothing but the board of supervisors and the state to tell him
his job, faceless and now voiceless entities as useful to him and as real
in the immediate moment as the tooth fairy. He wasn't and had never been
a self-motivator. He had been a mediocre student throughout school, and
hardly more than a mediocre graduate of the police academy. It had always
been his greatest fear that he'd be someday challenged beyond his ability
to function and revealed for the loser he was.
The drive along Troll Valley Road took one half
hour. He cruised the quiet streets of the town of seven thousand and
found Orville with his feet sticking out the driver's side door of his
cruiser and his head stuffed somewhere up under the dash. Pulling up
alongside the old Ford, Rex whooped his siren and called out, "You hot
wiring that car, boy?"
Orville scrambled out the car with eyes bright with
anger. "Logan, I'll kick your ass!"
Rex parked his car and backtracked on foot,
laughing. Orville leaned against the fender of his cruiser and guzzled
the rest of a frosted beer. He gestured with the empty can. "I got a
cold one inside if you want to fetch it for yourself, asshole."
Rex went after the offer one and grabbed a couple of
warm muffins on his way out. He perched himself on the fender of his car
and popped the tab to the beer. "I take it you were checking out the
radio."
"Ain't the radio's fault, that's for damned sure.
There's static in the air."
"You're the electronics whiz. What's causing it?"
"Ozone, I would have guessed. Them green meteors
would have kicked up enough of it, except the fireworks are over. I
figure the reception would clear up by now."
Rex glanced at the bright morning sky. "Maybe the
fireworks aren't over. Any of those meteors show up about town?"
Orville gave a nervous shrug. "Found some gouged
earth here and there, and some soot. Don't know where the rocks went. I
sent some local kids out to check for fires, so I'm guessing they carted
off anything they found. The stuff ain't radioactive or anything like
that, is it?"
Worse, Rex supposed, although it didn't seem prudent
to saddle Orville with his darkest suspicions. "For all we know. Send
someone with word of anything you find to Biggs. Tell the kids to keep
their hands off. Doc says there's something damned suspicious about the
meteors."
"I don't like the sound of that," Orville said.
"Neither do I. I'm going to run up to Orange City
and check with Jenkins. It's best if the three of us stick close to home
and cover our own turf. Doc's expecting help from the National Guard in
short order, but Leon's probably pushed himself a bit too hard.”
"I can handle it.”
Rex took the back roads to Orange City and was
stopped several times by locals with questions he couldn't answer. Orange
City was the largest of the three sister towns lined up along Troll Valley
Road. Rex cruised the streets of town until he heard Jenkins' siren and
saw emergency lights sail by a block away. He chased the cruiser for
several blocks until Jenkins noticed the tail and pulled to the curb,
storming form his vehicle with his usual bluster.
Orville used the kids of Cyprus Junction to assist
his cause. Dick Jenkins tended to implement the opposite strategy. "I'm
chasing the little shits home where they belong!" was his explanation for
the lights and siren. "This ain't no Easter egg hunt!"
"See anything yet?"
Jenkins surveyed the surrounding hills with a harried
expression. "A whole slew came down here and there, maybe one in old Mrs.
Patrick's garden of weeds in the middle of town, but it's gone now.
Somebody ran off with it. No, I haven't seen anything yet. I guess
things are quiet."
Jenkins’ tone of voice became suddenly conciliatory.
"What do you say we hit the Blue Hills and have a few cold ones before you
leave? This shit is getting to me. What in hell were those damned things
anyhow? So many people pooped their pants last night, you can smell it in
the air."
Rex gave the temptation to confide in the man some
thought, then shook his head. "I gotta get back. The old man's soused
and maybe sick. We're spread too damned thin without the radios. Just
try to keep people away from anything you run across until we get some
backup."
"Yeah, well remind Biggs that we weren't hired to run
our asses twenty-four hours a day. I told him we didn't have enough
people to hold the fort down if things got rough."
Rex drove back to Brighton Hollow thinking his way
through a list of trusted locals to be deputized should the blackout last
into the week. Doc was waiting on his front porch when Rex pulled to the
curb late in the morning. Doc poked a thumb over his shoulder as he
approached. "Grab yourself a sandwich and beer."
The ham and cheese was waiting for him on the sink.
Rex fetched his second beer of the warming day from the fridge and joined
Doc on the front step.
"It's too quiet," Doc said.
Rex wanted to deny Doc's observation, but the drive
along the highway had unnerved him. "Okay, so it's way too quiet. A
whole lot more people should be out and about."
"The meteorites pose a biological hazard, Rex. I'm
certain of it."
Rex thought hard and furious about the organic mass
and the split shell in Connie's destroyed bathroom. It had been a
nightmare in itself. His mind reeled at the thought of countless numbers
of such creatures raining from the night sky. Had anyone encountered them
the way Connie had? The notion was more than a sane mind could take.
"Connie's first on your agenda for the day," Doc
said. "She didn't want to talk about what happened. We need to know
everything she can tell us about that thing that bit her. And we need to
go door to door and find out if anyone's sick or missing. The way people
around here keep their mouths shut and take the law into their own hand,
we could have a crisis on our hands and not even know about it."
Rex nodded weary agreement.
Doc's eyes narrowed. "The second item on your agenda
will be to rile the nest of polecats and wake the sheriff to help deal
with this."
Rex chuckled. "I'd rather not."
"You have no choice. You need to catch some sleep
while things are relatively quiet."
That much he could agree to. The four hour nap he
had managed during the night was already wearing thin.
"I'll have Leon conduct a door to door surveillance
of a local neighborhood or two," Doc said. "Perhaps nothing will come of
it after all."
Rex knew better. Something was up. He walked to the
car parked at the curb and paused to listen to the silence. Aside from
the lack of barking dogs, the locusts had stopped their buzzing. Even the
crickets in the grass were quiet. And birds? Rex scanned the skies and
saw nothing. It was as if the world was watching and waiting, but
watching and waiting for what?
