Pestilence

60

Rick burst through the bathroom door and saw a man banging on his RV.

“Hey!” Rick ran over, grabbed him by the shoulders, and flung him away. He went in for a kick as the man was still struggling to get up and stopped.

The man was pale, and his eyes were rimmed so red that they looked painted. His clothes were stained black and wet, and Rick immediately knew it was blood. He jumped back as the man vomited so violently one of his eyes popped out of the socket. The slick, wet cord allowed it to dangle over the pavement as the vomit continued to flow.

Rick ran to the RV and tried to open the door, but it was locked. He banged on it and called out to Trudy. Marcus opened the door, and Rick jumped in, then shut the door behind him before locking it again. He ran up to the front to look out the windshield.

The day was warm and quiet, and with senses newly attuned from fear, he heard everything he had missed before. Or, in this case, he noticed what he hadn’t heard.

No airplanes in the sky. No cars on the interstate. No voices outside. He turned on the radio and got static on every station. Rick pulled out his phone and dialed 9-1-1, but got a busy tone. He tried Googling the nearest police precinct, but the Internet on his phone wasn’t working.

“Is your internet working, Trudy?”

“No, it hasn’t worked for three days. I thought it was the canyons.”

Rick sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, staring out at the truck stop, thinking about the man with the face that appeared to be falling off. His flesh had been ragged, as though it were weak from being soaked in water and were slipping off his skull.

Rick started the RV and headed back onto the interstate. Trudy was sitting up in the passenger seat, and Marcus was on the floor behind him.

“What’s happening, Daddy?” Trudy asked.

“I don’t know.”

They passed several cars, but none of them were moving. They were all pulled over to the side of the road without occupants. As they rolled into Los Angeles, a heavy, dark, feeling came over Rick, and for some reason, it was familiar. But he couldn’t place it for a long time, until they saw a body in the middle of the road.

A man, maybe in his mid-twenties, was flat on his back, and some birds were picking at his belly, which was exposed underneath a dirty tank top. His face was bloody and torn up, and all his limbs were a dark black, as though they had been barbequed.

Rick stopped behind the corpse, recognizing the feeling he’d had before. In Yosemite, when they had entered the place where the Yosemite Killer had spread terror and evil for months, he’d felt the same.

“Dad?” Marcus said.

“Yeah.”

“You gonna go around him?”

“Yeah,” Rick said, not realizing he had been stopped for a long time. He rolled the RV around and continued down the interstate.

“Look at that,” Marcus said.

Corpses were piled on the side of the road. A massive accident had occurred. At least twenty to thirty cars were strewn about like children’s toys, rolled over or thrown onto the surrounding fields.

Bodies were everywhere. But the bodies didn’t appear to have been flung around by the accident. These bodies had collapsed from something else. And the road was painted a faded red, with droplets thrown around like on a canvas painted by a drunken artist. It was so out of the ordinary that Rick’s mind couldn’t recognize the red paint for what it was: gallons of blood from the body of every person who had died out here.

“I’m scared, Daddy.”

“We’re safe in here,” he said, unable to sound convincing. He caught her eyes, trying to appear as upbeat and positive as possible. “We’re safe in here, sweetheart. Go lay down on the bed. We’ll be home soon.”

He pulled the RV over the median and around the corpses. Then he continued down the interstate, but what they saw was no different. Corpses rotted in the sun while birds, coyotes, and dogs tore at them. He kept driving, following the speed limit, and then grasping how pointless that seemed, he sped up to seventy-five and barreled toward his home as if that were their safe house and none of this would be real if they could get there.

The inner city was even worse. Bodies lay in the gutter like trash, and cars had run through convenience stores, wrapped around light poles, and flipped upside down. He didn’t see anyone out.

Rick’s home was up on a hill overlooking the city. To get there he had to go through Laurel Canyon, and he rolled down his windows so he could smell the eucalyptus leaves. The wind hit his face and made him feel better. He glanced in his rearview, and both his children were sitting attentively on the bed, neither of them speaking. Their eyes were glued to the windows, and he knew they were scanning for more dead bodies.

Pulling into their driveway, he stopped and put on the parking brake. None of them moved. Rick turned to them, and they exchanged glances.

“Why don’t you guys stay here a minute,” he said. “Just while I check out the house.”

He walked outside and shut the door behind him. The bright sun was hot on his face, and he scanned his home, a five-bedroom built right on a cliff over the canyon, then walked to it.