Pestilence

41

Ian sat in the passenger seat of the Audi and tested his knee. He placed his left foot over his right and pressed down. Then he lifted the leg at the back of his injured knee. The lower part of his leg separated about two inches. Nothing was holding it in place.

“So other than delivering meals to the homeless,” he said, “what do you plan to do with your life?”

“I wanted to be an environmentalist. Work at a non-profit, something like that.”

“What for?”

She kept her eyes on the road. “Someone like you wouldn’t understand.”

“Someone like me?”

“You don’t care about anything but yourself.”

“Probably true, but let me tell you a little secret about your Mother Earth. She doesn’t care about anything but herself, either. She’s constantly trying to kill us with earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis and disease… She’s not our friend, and she’s not in need of saving. If I stripped you naked and dropped you anywhere over ninety percent of this planet, you would be dead within one day.” He twisted his injured knee to the side, and a sharp pain shot up his leg.

“The earth is apathetic,” she said. “It’s not malicious.”

“Surveys were done in 1904 in New York, asking people what they were scared of. The number one thing was black lung, tuberculosis, and number two was famine. They didn’t mention viruses or asteroids or heart disease or car accidents because they didn’t know about them. Now think a century from now what knowledge we’ll have and what the answers would be to the same survey. It’ll be things we don’t even know about. That’s nature. It runs on death. If anything, I’m more in tune with it than you are.”

Ian pulled out his phone and checked his list. There had been an update on this one. Samantha Bower was initially last on his list since he was going to fly back to Atlanta, where she lived, once everyone in California had been taken care of. But the update stated that she was in Los Angeles.

“What did this doctor do?” she asked.

“I told you, it’s nothing they’ve done. It’s what they will do.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Fair? What are you, six years old? Haven’t you learned that lesson yet?”

She spent most of the ride in silence. Occasionally, Ian asked her questions, which she answered with only single sentences or yes and no. He eventually stopped trying and stared out the window.

He knew Los Angeles well. It was all glimmer and shine on the surface, but underneath was a dark heart that beat in harmony with the worst aspects of men. The city’s essence was one of use-everyone was used by someone else. And the city never seemed to run out of people. So it had an endless supply of people to drain and discard. The vampire city, his father had called it when Ian told him he was moving back there after his stint in the military.

“I lived here once,” he said, not taking his eyes off the passing landscape before him. “Twice, actually. First, maybe fifteen years ago, when I was a young kid. I saw a man get shot in the middle of the sidewalk during the day. At least a dozen people saw it. The person closest to him as he died on the cement looked at him less than five seconds before stepping over him… I’ve never forgotten that. They’ll all step over you in the end, Katherine. Everyone.”

She glanced over, and he was fidgeting with a small statue of Saint Cyril in his hand. “What is that?”

He glared at her and, for a moment, forgot who she was. Then he remembered and put the trinket back into his pocket. “Nothing. She’s supposed to be at the hospital up here. Stop in front and wait for me.”