The Methuselah Gene (19 page)

A black helicopter.

I stared at it numbly, frozen for one amazed and amazing moment.
 
Like it was the last thing I would ever see.
 
And what a surprise, at that.
 
A bulbous high tech marvel, a black widow in the sky, but without any markings around its smoke tinted
plexiglass
.
 
Not a police helicopter, this one.
 
It belonged to some other agency.
 
A shadow agency, or private security force?

I stretched for my gun too late.
 
As the widow-maker hovered over me, its downdraft sent the pistol sliding over and away.
 
I snatched a rung in desperation, and swung out in pain as the clot at my thigh pulled free.
 
I screamed up into the column of roaring hot air, and wrapped my good leg around the ladder below.
 
Then I pulled myself around to descend, hand under hand.
 
I was almost to the sliding portion of the ladder, when my arms gave out.
 
I dropped nine feet to the ground, and rolled.
 
Sharp, hot needles shot through both legs, my left leg now awash in blood.
 
Hurting like hell.

The copter drifted off, no doubt looking for a place to land.
 
I pulled myself up onto my useless legs, using the center structure.
 
Breathing heavily, I looked behind me, expecting to see a silenced automatic taking aim at my head.
 
But there was no one.

I was alone.

My legs didn't feel broken.
 
What they felt was abuse.
 
Dull pain, plus ripping knifelike pain, plus numbness—all these were combined and layered.
 
I staggered forward experimentally, away from the support, like a newly dropped farm animal taking its first steps.
 
When I made it to the gun, I had to sink down, buckling at the last.
 
Then I slid the pistol into my belt, and waited for the strength to get up again.
 
As I waited I saw a hose that I hadn't noticed before, snaking down from the base of one of the support beams, leading down into the trees below, on the side opposite the town.
 
The hose was thick and tan, and I followed it upward with my eyes until I saw that it connected to a valve near where the support connected to the belly.
 
A bleeder valve, or a fresh tap?
 
I couldn't tell, but it was too late now to investigate.
 
An ominous silence had returned.
 
The spider had landed somewhere below.
 
It was now hatching, giving birth.

I struggled back up to my feet with intense effort, taking deep breaths so as not to black out.
 
I stumbled toward the trees to the south, in the opposite direction from where the copter had disappeared.
 
Only when I'd made cover, and begun to slide down the slope on the other side, did I realize that I'd left my binoculars and camera atop the water tower.

After half an hour hiding in the corn below the hill, I sensed the impending sunset, as high clouds directly overhead caught their first reflected color.
 
I felt weak and nauseous, and didn't know if I could walk, but had to try.
 
Luckily, my bleeding seemed to have stopped again, perhaps because no major vein or artery had been severed, and because the clot had partly reformed.
 
The helicopter did not reappear as I expected, to catch me in the open, so I stumbled painfully south in a direct line for Mabel's boarding house, afraid to look behind me.
 
Even when I thought I heard movement in the trees on the hill, I kept my head low . . . much like the ostrich which sticks its head in the sand, thinking that because it can't see the farmer approaching with the axe anymore, there aren't restaurants out there willing to pay top dollar for exotic meats.

I came to a dirt road past a scrub field.
 
I hobbled along it toward a two-story structure flanked on the one side by some kind of low bunched crop I couldn't identify in the dim light of dusk.
 
A hundred yards before I got there was a row of rusting mailboxes.
 
I paused to read the names while they were still visible.

There were four.
 
One had been bashed in.
 
Another read Mabel
Carstairs
.
 
Another Jim
Crowther
.
 
The final one read:
 
J. Durham.

Julie?

I realized Julie never said she lived at Mabel's boarding house.
 
It now seemed unlikely that she would, anyway.
 
I'd only seen her walking in this direction.
 
She might have been going to her own home.
 
And sure enough, a narrower dirt road lead off from the one I was on, further south, toward what I could see were two other houses lit against the deepening night.
 
I dropped to one knee at the fork with some difficulty and examined the sandy lane for footprints.
 
There were several sets, both coming and going, amid and atop the tire tracks.
 
The shoe size of the freshest set was smaller than mine.
 
A woman's shoe.
 
Did Julie not even own a car?
 
I felt like the lost adventurer who stands before two doors, one of which hides a lady and the other a tiger.
 
I chose the path less traveled by, as the saying goes.
 
I followed the prints.

The lane took me to a rustic old house with shuttered windows, surrounded by a redwood fence.
 
Through the slats I could see a light on in there, but there were no cars.
 
The other house, some distance further, was brightly lit and had a pickup and a Jeep in front of it.
 
So this had to be it, if I was right about the name on the mailbox.

I found the gate leading to the walkway locked.
 
I rattled it, and called.
 
“Julie!”
 
My voice seemed weak to me, and I got no response.
 
So I picked up a clump of hardened dirt, and taking aim, did my best to hurl it at the front door.
 
It spattered across the teardrop glass panels near the top.
 
“Julie!” I yelled again, as loudly as I could.

Another light came on inside.
 
Then the outside light.
 
I squinted at the face that silhouetted one of the upper panes.
 
I waved, then stumbled and fell forward onto the gate.
 
When I heard the door open, I looked up to see Julie standing framed in the doorway, a rifle gripped in both hands.

“Alan?”

She rushed out to me, and unclasped the gate's lock.
 
I fell forward onto the walkway, then tried to stand up again.
 
I couldn't, though.
 
Not quite.
 
She helped me with her free hand.

“What happened?”

“Got shot,” I announced, almost in apology.

“What?
 
Where?”
 
Her searching gaze stopped at my crotch, where the dark stain had spread.
 
Then I saw her eyes widen with the realization of what—by being here—I was asking her to do.

We did it in the kitchen.
 
I kept my underwear on.
 
It was not fun.
 
I wanted to scream at one point, but for the most part she was gentle.
 
Good with a needle and thread too, which would have to do for a while.

Luckily, the wound was not serious.
 
More of a grazing than a deeper puncture or bone shot.
 
A bit ragged, but with a nice makeshift bandage wrapped around my left leg after a sterile cleaning I was able to give myself a sponge bath, and slip into the thankfully oversized robe that Julie produced as if by magic.
 
While my clothes were being machine washed in the laundry room, she prepared me a sandwich, too.
 
I watched her in the kitchen from a couch in the adjacent living room, the door open between us.

“They say knowledge is power,” I told her.
 
“I suppose that's why I'm feeling so powerless right now.
 
I don't even know who they are.”

She turned for a moment from her cutting board to give me a quizzical look.
 
“I'd say you feel powerless from a loss of blood,” she proffered.

“Right, right.
 
Sorry about this.
 
I can't believe this is happening to me.”

“Or me,” she added.

“Yes.
 
Or you.
 
Or Zion.”

“Who do you think they are?”

“In the black helicopter I saw?
 
Spooks from Langley, maybe.
 
Or maybe it's Maybelline.
 
I think I can rule out my company, or any other known pharmaceutical conglomerate.
 
I can't imagine those fashion conscious boys from Eli Lilly coming here from Trenton, New Jersey to set this up, can you?
 
By the way, you wouldn't happen to have any
Vicodin
or
Darvon
, would you?”

“What?”

“
Percodan
?
 
Codeine?”

What she brought me were two aspirin, plus a ham and cheese sandwich on rye, with a glass of milk.
 
The dinner plate bore the blue design of a kid carrying a sled toward a snow drift.
 
It reminded me of the movie
Citizen Kane
.

“Rosebud,” I said, faintly recalling a plot about lost youth.

She leaned over me, her penetratingly sexy eyes bearing a worried look.
 
“What?”

“Nothing.
 
Just thinking about what could be motivating our Walter Mills.
 
What am I missing?
 
Any clues at the town meeting?”

“Yeah, a couple peculiar things happened.
 
Although Cody and that stranger didn't show up while I was there, thank God, and there was no talk about the water until I brought it up.”

“What was the purpose of the meeting, then?”

“There's going to be a movie filmed in Zion.
 
A made for TV kind of thing, for Showtime or HBO, I can't remember.
 
A cable movie.
 
Felsen
said there'd be some disruption, but the town would get some money out of it, too.
 
He said there was a scout in town looking at locations, and wanted to know what people thought about the idea, and if there were any objections.”

“Why would Reverend
Felsen
be . . .”

“Conducting town business?
 
He's also the mayor, is why.”

I shook my head.
 
“A movie.
 
What kind of movie, and when would they start filming?”

“I think it's a horror movie.
 
Independent thing.
 
Felsen
said some minor roles would go to folks in town, and filming would start soon.”

“You mentioned disruption.
 
What kind, did he say?”

“No, but that's when Jimmy Watson started acting weird, and I didn't stay around to find out.
 
Maybe he
was
acting, though.
 
You know, trying out for a role?
 
He's always been a ham.
 
Hog farmer, actually.
 
Anyway, he had my vote.
 
I left.”
 
She paused, studying my face.
 
“You think the movie scout
Felsen
mentioned is this Walter Mills?”

“It's a good bet, and an excuse to be here.
 
They could blockade the town, control traffic.
 
Control the experiment too, whatever the hell it is, while they look for me.
 
But I still can't figure it.
 
If
Tactar
or terrorists aren't involved, could I still be right to suspect someone like Darryl selling out?
 
I can't even call Darryl for help, with the phones down.
 
Did
Felsen
mention anything about that?”

“He said the telephone company is working on the long distance problem, and in the meantime people are welcome to come by the main switchboard to place a call out.”

“Convenient.”

“Folks have stars in their eyes, I guess.”

“Or something else.
 
So what happened when you told people there might be something wrong with the water?”

“At first they saw me with Rebecca, and figured I was her mouthpiece.
 
Didn't take me serious.
 
Then our school principal Rudy Morgan said he saw somebody up at the tower too, and figured it was somebody from the water company.
 
Thought it was unusual, since the old tower hadn't been connected to the system for over two years, not even for emergency backup.”