Chronic fear

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“Wendy’s not answering,” Alexis said.

“Try again.” Mark had grown more edgy and hostile the deeper they’d penetrated into the Blue Ridge Mountains, and in the first light of dawn, Alexis was horrified by her husband’s appearance. He was unshaven and his hair was mussed, but it was his eyes that made him seem wild and dangerous. As she watched his face in the rearview, his eyes flitted from side to side, then to the back of Forsyth’s head, and then to hers in the mirror.

They’d passed several recreational entrances to the wilderness area, and the houses had thinned out accordingly as the asphalt turned to gravel. Alexis was afraid they might be lost.

Finally she came upon the unmarked side road that was little more than two ruts running through the forest. There were only two mailboxes at the intersection, one of them dented and missing its flap. She pulled up alongside the mailboxes and on one of them, hand painted, were the words “Roby Snow Rd.”

“This is it,” she said.

“Try them again,” Mark said.

She concentrated on punching the correct numbers, even though the reception was spotty and she only had half a bar of signal. Forsyth watched her with eyes like a vulture’s.

“Did you hear that?” Mark said.

Alexis, who had been intent on the ringing of the phone, shook her head. “What?”

“A gun.”

“Probably a hunter,” Forsyth offered. “This looks like Daniel Boone country.”

“Except hunting season ended four months ago.”

Alexis lost the signal, but seven rings had failed to get an answer. She dropped the phone in her purse. She glanced at her husband, who was hunched in the backseat. The Halcyon had not seemed to ease his condition, and she was afraid to lure him into trying another dose. Maybe Darrell Silver’s new formula wasn’t as new and improved as he’d promised.

“Do you think Roland and Wendy set us up?” Mark asked.

“They wouldn’t tell anyone,” Alexis said. “They have as much to lose as we do.”

“And as much to gain.”

“What should I do?”

“Drive.”

Alexis pulled forward, dodging the depressions and rocks in the road. The car jerked, slamming Forsyth against the door.

“Are you okay, Wallace?” Alexis asked him, slowing to about four miles per hour.

“‘And the Lord instructed the angels to pour out the seven vials upon the Earth,’” the old man muttered.

“You can take that as a yes,” Mark said. “He’s never been better.”

“I remember,” Forsyth said. “I remember the Monkey House. That’s when I had the vision.”

A second gunshot sounded. “They’re in trouble,” Mark said. “Speed up.”

The vegetation was thick on both sides of the road, waxy rhododendrons and laurels casting permanent shade. The trees were thick with green, and Alexis saw menace in their tangled branches, slowing the car to a hushed crawl.

She soon rounded a curve, swerving to avoid a large jagged stone, and ahead of them was a black SUV with tinted windows. It was pulled to the side of the logging road, two wheels in a ditch.

“Government license plate,” Mark said. “Looks like the bad guys got here first, Forsyth.”

Alexis braked to a stop. “Now what?”

Mark answered by racking a round into his Glock. “Now I go see what the hell’s going on. You stay here and keep an eye on our friend.”

“What if somebody comes?”

Mark passed the AR-15 over the seat, nearly bumping Forsyth’s head with the muzzle. “The road looks pretty dead. But if anybody comes out of the woods carrying a gun, you want to make sure they’re pretty dead, too.”

She held the rifle as if it were a stiffened snake. Although Mark had shown her how to operate it before, she’d barely paid attention, because she’d been intimidated by it. “I can’t.”

Mark pointed to a small swivel knob. “Turn this safety. Pull trigger. Go boom.”

“No, I mean I can’t fire it.”

“It’s no harder than smashing a man’s skull.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think it means?”

Something rippled in her gut like a greasy eel. “That never happened.”

“You have thirty rounds. Just pull the trigger every time you want to shoot. The gun will do the rest.”

“You don’t want to play at this level, Mark,” Forsyth said. “You thought things were bad in the Monkey House, but you’re way out of your league here.”

“Haven’t you been listening to my wife? I’m a lunatic freaking out on a rage drug. I’d say this is the perfect league for me.”

Mark opened the door as another shot sounded, apparently just over the hill. The echo of the gunfire drove an icy spear into Alexis’s heart. She awkwardly cradled the AR-15, resting it against the steering wheel.

“If I’m not back in five minutes, turn around and head back to Chapel Hill,” Mark said, stepping out of the car.

“I can’t go back without you,” Alexis responded.

“I’m feeling a little better.” Mark twisted the vial open with his gun hand, slid out a couple more tablets, and closed it. “Maybe Silver got it right. And you might be the only one who can keep Halcyon safe.”

He leaned over the seat and gave her a kiss on the cheek, dropping the vial beside her. She turned her head, acknowledging the trust he was placing in her, and kept turning until their lips met. After a moment, and another shot sounding in the woods, he broke contact and put the two tablets to his lips.

“I hope this works,” he said, before popping them and crunching them between his teeth. “And if I forget who you are, it’s nothing personal.”

“I love you,” she said.

“I know. And I’m sorry I gave you hell about sneaking the Halcyon. You were doing it to save me.”

I was doing it to save both of us.

She squeezed his hand. “Protect Wendy and Roland. We need them.”

He pulled away. “Doesn’t it seem convenient? They invite us up here, and suddenly it’s a survivalist showdown? But I think the feds jumped the gun. Right, Mr. Vice President?”

Forsyth remained silent, his head down and eyes closed as if he was praying. As Mark closed the door and headed for the woods, he jerked alert.

“You should do your husband a favor and kill him now, while his back is turned and he still trusts you,” Forsyth said to her. His eyes were bright with secret, inner knowledge-or manic delusion.

“You’re crazy.”

“We all are. But I saw God in the Monkey House, Dr. Morgan. And I don’t mean a presence, a feeling, a theory. I mean God. And He gave me a purpose.”

“Come on, Wallace. You were dosed with Seethe. We all freaked out that night. It was a chemical reaction and nothing more.”

She was only half listening, watching Mark through the front windshield. He waved from the edge of the woods and then slipped between the dark trees.

“Don’t you believe in destiny and prophecy?” Forsyth said.

“I believe in science.”

“Then here’s some science for you.”

Before she could stop him, Wallace grabbed the vial from the seat. “We knew Darrell Silver was refining Halcyon, but we didn’t know where he’d hidden it. I apologize for using you as bait, but he wouldn’t trust us. Especially when he started playing with Seethe.”

“Seethe was destroyed.”

“Silver is a genius. He was able to fill in the gaps and extrapolate it from Halcyon, just like Sebastian Briggs did. He claims he gave Seethe an upgrade, like he told you. But you didn’t believe him.” He held the vial up as if it were the sacramental chalice at a communion. “But I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

His words finally dawned at her. “Wait. You’re saying that’s not Halcyon?”

He looked at the vial. “‘And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain.’”

She struggled to keep the semiautomatic pointed away from Forsyth’s face, because her finger begged to wrap around the trigger. “Mark just took three doses of Seethe?”

Wallace Forsyth grinned, and God wasn’t behind those wicked, twisted lips. Only darkness.