Girlfriend in a coma (20 page)

Afterward, Richard fell into a dreamless sleep.Then this morning he drove to Culver City, but after ten minutes of work, he started to panic. He went to the washroom, rinsed off his face, breathed furiously, and then instinctively hightailed the rental car to LAX, catching the next flight up the coast, paying for full-fare Business Class, desperate to be aloft, the wheels no longer on the ground.

On the tarmac while awaiting takeoff, he looked out the window of his
ZF
seat just in time to see a blue-overalled airline luggage handler praying at the feet of another obvious dead luggage handler. The man from a fuel truck was screaming into a cell phone while an airline employee threw his blazer over the employee's head. An ambulance came, the body was sheeted, the stewardess closed the door latch, and the plane took off.

Now, five miles above Oregon, Richard continues trying to make sense of his rashness and his tangled feelings. He tries using the GTE Airphone, but service is out. "Good afternoon, this is your captain speaking. We're experiencing a delay on the ground at Vancouver. Traffic controllers there have requested we stay aloft for half an hour or so while the situation down there is rectified. I hope you'll understand our situation and continue enjoying today's flight. As a goodwill gesture, flight attendants will be serving complimentary beer and wines."

There are groans and cheers while the jet flies over Seattle and then follows I-5 up to the Canadian border. The traffic below looks jammed like he's never seen it before. Holiday sales.
Once near Vancouver, the plane circles the city then flies over the Coast Mountains and makes
lazy-eights over the pristine frozen alps and lakes behind, a flying tour of Year Zero. Another
delay is announced, and then finally, after two hours of dawdling, the plane lands on the runway, but just before doing so, the runway lights that guide the way go black.
22 NATION
OR
ANT COLONY?

At Vancouver's airport, Richard's flight is the only moving plane on the tarmac. The captain announces another delay, and the passengers spend one more hour on the tarmac - a problem with ground staff, but not to panic, even though, as passengers can plainly see, half the building is without light and there's not a single ground person in view.

The passengers become increasingly
crazed
with the discovery of a seat-buckled dead salesman in 670 and then a dead teenager in 18E Fear amplifies. Passengers can plainly see that there's no action at the airport - no trucks or luggage carts or other activity. Another whole Section of the terminal's lights blink then fail, and finally the flight attendants pop open the door and the passengers slide down an inflatable yellow escape chute. To enter the airport, they pass through

176
a utility door with quiet, orderly docility. Upon finding a dead stewardess propped against an access door, this soon devolves into anarchy. Outside it's raining and inside the building it's cold. There are almost no people present - at the immigration lineup there are no staff, save for one woman in the corner wearing a white paper breathing mask waving them onward. Bodies are strewn about the airport. Passengers scuttle toward the mild hum of the luggage carousel, which chugs and dies, never again to cough forth the passengers' luggage.

Something has gone dreadfully wrong. Richard is
dazed.
Karen's future has come true. An adrenaline fang bites the rear of his neck.
There are no staff at customs. The phones are blank and no taxis wait outside - only one or two cars speeding like mad through the main traffic corridor. Richard hears a voice calling his name it's Mr. Dunphy, no,
Captain
Dunphy, a neighbor from West Van,
"Richard? Is that you, Richard Doorland?"
"Oh. Hey, Captain Dunphy. Hi. What the hell's going on
here?"
"Christ.
You wouldn't believe it. You on the Los Angeles flight?"
"Yes, but - "
"There was a real debate about whether they should let you land or let your fuel run out flying over the mountains." Richard is dumbstruck. "The tower operators thought that planes would bring in more infected people, but it turned out
everybody
was dropping off. The moment you touched the runway they turned off the lights and went home. C'mon, let's scram."
They bustle through a labyrinth of metal corridors, ramps, and NO ACCESS hallways for which Captain Dunphy has a magnetic card. At the end of their jaunt, they stand on the runway's apron, where the rain has temporarily stopped and clouds blot the sky like sullied dinner plates. From a piece of yellow luggage that has fallen from the hold of a 73 7 and then split open, Richard takes a large winter coat. Captain Dunphy grabs an electric luggage wagon.
"Where are we going?" Richard asks.

"To the jetty at the runway's end. My brother Jerry's coming over from West Van in his sixteenfooter to pick me up. Called him on mycell phone - I just got in from Taipei. Fucking nightmare. We had three deaths onboard and the passengers were going ape-shit between Honolulu and Vancouver. Screaming, wailing
Christ.
We had to bolt shut the cockpit door."

The two scan the horizon for a boat or a light. "I wouldn't have believed it possible in all my years flying. I'm just glad I was able to get home. Once we docked, all the passengers simply ran. They didn't even wait for their luggage. I don't even know where these people could have gone. Waiting relatives? No taxis then, too."

"The plague - what is it?" Richard asks, his mind spooling out plotlines from 1970s sci-fi movies. "Who's dying? Old people? Babies? Any one group?"
"No pattern.
Everybody.
It brought down planes everywhere. All the big cities are fucked up. Vancouver, too. Noon today people started dropping like flies. It's pointless trying to drive anywhere downtown. It's a parking lot clogged with desperate, freaked-out people. People who catch this thing - whatever it is - have this powerful urge to sleep, so they lie down wherever they are - in their cars, on the mall floors, in the offices. A minute later, they're dead."
The runway drive is far longer than Richard might have thought. North, toward the city, Richard can see the plumes of smoke of several fires and patches of the city with failed electrical grids. They park near the muddy water at the runway's end. They hop off the luggage cart and stand in the rain as Captain Dunphy blinks a flashlight. They can see a boat coming toward them in the distance, and soon they hear a boat's engine in the December wind. Captain Dunphy blinks the flashlight to signal his brother; the boat berths sideways against the shore onto which sloppy water laps feebly. Captain Dunphy sees Jerry's suspicious face and says, "He's with me, Jerry. This is Richard, my neighbor."
"Hop in. It's going to be dark soon. Christ, the city's a mess. Everywhere's a mess. This plague - it's speeding up."

They hop into the boat, which jolts away from the shore like a knife tugged from a magnet. As the boat slaps against the small whitecaps, its passengers goggle the fevered city. Richard tries tophone home to Karen on Jerry's cell, but something's not working.

As they near West Vancouver, binoculars reveal that Lions Gate Bridge is full of cars. On the mountain, fires are burning - their gray plumes more reminiscent of autumn leaf burn-offs than of burning houses.

The boat travels up the shore and docks at a private dock a mile west of the Park Royal Mall, currently in flames. Onshore, Mrs. Dunphy is in a Volvo. They weave throughout West Vancouver's curves and hairpins. They see cars parked on the roadsides with dead drivers behind the wheels. A minivan stops at a stop sign and they briefly see four children looking out the rear window, chalky silent faces frightened out of their wits. At the corner of Cross Creek and Highland, two men try to stop them, but Mrs. Dunphy stomps the gas pedal as they race down the hill toward home. A shot is fired, which cracks the rear window.

On Rabbit Lane, the electricity still works, but Lois's and George's cars are gone. Karen is on the floor by the blank, snowstorming TV. Her knees are up to her chin, but her eyes are far, far away. She's shivering madly. Her forearms resemble a freshly plucked chicken.

"Karen? Karen
honey?"
Richard says, but there is no response. He picks her up in his arms and is about to stand up when Karen speaks.
"It's happening," she says. "It's here. What I saw back then . . . "
"I know, honey."
"I tried to run away from it so long ago."
"Karen - I know, but you've gotta tell me. Something big's going on - all over the world. And

you know what it is. Tell me, please." Karen squeezes her eyes shut and says nothing. Richard is exasperated: "Jesus H.
Christ,
Karen, can you tell me what's going on! Speak tome!" She says, "The world's falling asleep. But not me. I don't know about you."
"Who told you?"

"The voices - they came in clearly this afternoon. I could finally hear them. Him. Jared.
It.
I don't know."Richard carries her onto the couch, smothers her body in blankets, and ignites the gas fireplace, which throws off considerable heat. He then cradles Karen in his lap and she calms down. Richard collects his thoughts. "Now tell me, Karen, what are we in for? Why us? Why here? Why you and me and . . . ?"

"Richard, I have a brain the size of a seventeen-year-old's. It's not always easy." "Does anybody else live?"
"I don't know. I only know about us here close to home."
"What are we supposed to be doing?"
"I told you I don't know. Now stop this."
Richard thumps the sofa. "Jared!
Jared!
Can you hear me?"
"Don't scare me by thumping like that. Anyway, he, or whatever it is, can't hear you,

Richard. He's busy."
"How obvious. I should have known."
"This is
not
a very good time or place for sarcasm, Richard."
"It's called irony these days."

"Whatever."
23 STEEL
MINK
BEEF
MUSIC
She breathes deeply; the plastic-wrapped beef cool on her cheeks.

The lucky people, thinks Lois, will fall asleep
inside
their sleep: blissful sleepiness followed with a visit to dreamland forever
heaven
- the cold clear hills that graced the world of her youth.

Lois was at Super-Valu in Park Royal, striding purposefully amid the store's glorious aisles of glorious food all gloriously lit, when the sleeping began. She was savoring the waves of admiration sent her way by staff and shoppers who recognized her from the previous evening's broadcast.

"You are so
strong,"
said one young woman.
"A saint," said another. Lois's cheeks burned with pleasure.
181

Lois was the first shopper to notice a sleeper, a young woman in blue sweat clothing asleep beneath the cauliflower and broccoli bins. Lois bent down to gently tap her on the shoulder; a shank of hair fell from the woman's face revealing her peaceful death mask.

Paramedics were called, and no sooner had the young woman been moved into the back office when a shout came from down the mall outside the Super-Valu - news of another death. A nervous buzz began among the shoppers. "Just the
oddest
thing, isn't it?" said the woman in line in front of Lois. "Plastic bags, please - I mean, you just don't see something like that too often and then - "

Lois's eyes flared wide open; behind their till the cashier was yawning, falling down onto her knees and taking a nap before them. "Hello?"
The cashier from the next till came over. "Susan?
Susan?"
The cashier looked up at Lois. "No," Lois said, "it can't be."
The woman grabbed the intercom and beckoned management down to the tills pronto. Another shopper fell asleep on the frozen foods aisle's cold white floor. With news of this, delicate pandemonium broke out. Customers abandoned their carts and dashed for the exits. A voice came over the speakers announcing that due to technical problems, the store would have to close for the day.
Lois watched the shoppers panic. The man behind her squeezed his full cart through the space behind the clerk and left the store without paying. Lois, like some shoppers, moved out of the checkout area and stood silently in one of the main aisles to watch the scene unfold. Two more shoppers keeled over; the mall's tiny first-aid post lost its ability to cope with trauma. From some unknown corner, a siren, dormant since the days of the USSR, woke up frightened and cranky.
At the end of the aisle Lois saw her neighbor, Elaine Buchanan, piling steaks and chickens into a cart. She walked down to say, "Elaine - "
"Lois. If you're smart, you'll do this, too. Whatever's going on is
way bigger than any of us." Elaine lurched slightly, putting a Family

Pak of hamburger into the storage area on the cart's bottom. "That does it - I'm bailing out of here. Better for you, too.""But Elaine - how do we know this isn't just a local thing?" "Lois, listen to the sirens."
Lois had the strange sensation of being back in the 1960s, back when grocery stores had

contests where a winner could keep all the food that could be crammed into a cart within sixty seconds. She had always wanted to win that particular prize.

Many shoppers had taken Elaine's strategy to heart; Lois stood and watched her world go random, shoppers pilfering the shelves as fast as tinned pyramids could topple. There was a scream, a shout, the sound of tipped carts and breaking jars. And then the main lights failed and emergency lighting kicked in. Lois saw panicked silhouettes, like visions of souls in the underworld, percolate over by the front entrance where lazy daylight chinked into the structure. Another body hit the ground.

The lights returned and the store was almost empty of patrons; a few lay conspicuously asleep on the floor. Rather peaceful looking, Lois thought. She bent down to look into their faces and said good night to them. She walked out toward the front of the store and nobody stopped her or prodded her onward. Shrill alarms continued flaring from unknown corners. Turning around, Lois saw that the store was all but abandoned. The lights failed once more and Lois calmly walked around the supermarket bathed in pale orange emergency lights. Nearby, Elaine lay asleep on the floor, a cartload of beef her tombstone.