The Survivor

Chapter 47

“Nevada?” Cielle offered.

“Dude, the Grand Canyon is epic.”

Janie rubbed her temples. “First of all, Jason, the Grand Canyon is in Arizona-”

“Really?”

“Last I checked. And second, we’re not really embarking on a sightseeing tour.”

Leaving just before first light, they’d driven a short ways up State Route 2 toward Eagle Rock before pulling over to convene at a roadside diner. They required a game plan, but there was another reason Nate had opted for the early rest stop; his hands had grown loose and sloppy on the steering wheel, and he doubted his ability to hold the Jeep on the road. Forced to make a frank assessment, he had to concede that his body felt worse than it had yet, more in thrall to the illness. And not just the muscles, but dizziness, weakness, a dull throbbing in his stomach.

On the way to the corner booth now, he lagged behind with Janie to tell her softly that he needed her to take over at the wheel, and she nodded her solemn consent.

“Maybe we shouldn’t risk going on the road,” she said in a low voice. “We can’t be running around with you if-”

“No way,” Nate said. “If it gets to that, leave me at a bus stop.”

At this, Janie grimaced, unamused.

“We have to get out of the state,” he continued quietly. “As far away as possible. Besides, where the hell would we stay around here? Breaking and entering is too dangerous, as we just learned.”

Cielle and Jason reached the table ahead, Cielle watching the heated if hushed exchange across the restaurant, and so Nate and Janie cranked neutral expressions onto their faces, forged forward, and sat down to order breakfast.

Sitting with his back to the wall, handgun in his jacket, and several thousand dollars in cash stuffed into his pockets, Nate kept watch of the truckers and postal officers at the counter, sipping their coffee and forking hotcakes. Cielle picked at her food. Jason stuffed another giant bite into his mouth; after asking if the eggs were organic (no) and if the biscuits were made with lard (yes), he had sanctimoniously settled on a salad. With bacon.

Nate set his pills next to his coffee mug in a neat line. The antibiotics again, another five-hundred-milligram surge to ravage his stomach further, and good old reliably ineffective riluzole. The Lovin’ Spoonful caroled from the vintage-style jukebox: Be-lieve in the magic that kin set you freee. Would that he could.

Cielle looked across at Nate. “Why are you so quiet?”

“Don’t mean to be.” Troublingly, his voice was weak; he couldn’t get any power behind it. With shaking hands he reached for the pills. It took some concentration to bring them to his mouth. He washed them down with a sip of decaf.

“He’s fine,” Janie said, too quickly. “Just exhausted like the rest of us.”

The coffee’s bitter aftertaste lingered, and instinctively he reached for the sugar packs. It wasn’t until he had one in his weak, trembling grasp that he realized the challenge before him-of tearing it open, pouring the crystals, stirring. He flapped the pack against his knuckles, trying for casual, but Cielle’s brown eyes remained on him, not buying the routine. He let the sugar fall, and her stare dropped to his shaking fingers. Too obvious now to take his hands off the table. He strained, willing them to be still, but was rescued by Janie, who reached over and clasped them as if romantically, firming them and hiding the tremor.

Thankfully, Jason’s obliviousness could be counted on. “I still can’t believe that chick-the dude’s daughter-offed herself.”

Behind the counter, sausage links landed on the grill with a sizzle and a puff of steam. “She was just seventeen,” Nate said.

Cielle said, “She was a drunk-driving psychopath.”

“She was still a kid,” Nate said. “Like both of you.”

Cielle looked away sharply.

Freeing his hands from Janie’s, Nate reached for his coffee again but only succeeded in slopping some over the rim. He dried his hands on a napkin, all too aware of his daughter across from him. He did not want to look up, but finally he did. Sure enough, she was lasered in on his hands.

“There’s this experimental therapy.” She jerked in a breath. “In Switzerland.”

“Oh, honey,” he said. “No.”

But she drove on. “I looked it up on the Internet.”

“No, Cielle. There’s nothing that’ll-”

“No? Just no? If we live through this, you can’t fucking try it?”

“Watch your language,” Janie said.

Cielle glared at Nate. “God, you wonder why I hate you.” She banged her fist on the table, making the plates and cups jump. A spoon bounced off into Jason’s lap. The diner silenced, the patrons’ collective focus pulling toward the corner booth, and then Cielle stormed out, leaving the door jingling cheerily. Nate tracked her through the window. Casper awaited her in the Jeep, tail knocking the headrests.

“At least she hates you,” Jason said quietly.

Nate said, numbly, “Huh?”

Jason tugged his collar down in the front to reveal a necklace tattoo formed of words and letters: OLD BASTARD 1.23.70-5.10.2010. “Cirrhosis,” he said. “Dying just made him meaner. I told myself I hated him, but I really wanted him just to fucking recognize, you know, something in me.…” He shook his head. “Never mind. I’m just saying. Hate’s an emotion, you know?”

He scooted out and went after her.

Nate drank a sip of water. His face was twitching, and it took a moment for him to realize that it was not from being upset.

Janie’s voice, as if from a deep well: “-okay?”

Hand pressed to his cheek, he nodded. He could feel the muscle jumping beneath his palm. Fasciculation, the doctors called it. He had been warned.

“Just need … bathroom.” His voice, even weaker than before.

He weaved a bit on his feet but managed a course for the men’s room, closing the door behind him with his hip. The room was dank, swirling with black flies. He regarded his face in the rust-flecked mirror, the twitch just below his right eye. He squinted, trying to make it stop, but still the skin rippled. A swell of light-headedness came on, static dotting his view along with the flies, and he staggered, banging into the hand-towel dispenser. The room blurred.

Fresh air. He needed fresh air.

Shoving through the bathroom door, he took a hard right and moved swiftly through the kitchen, nearly knocking the rear screen from its hinges. The smell from the Dumpster swarmed him, and he took a knee next to crates stuffed with rotting heads of cabbage. He tried to rise, but nausea kept him down. Refuse crowded in on him, his view swirling drunkenly, and then the ground came up hard against his cheek.

His blinks grew longer. Each breath rocked the crumpled napkin an inch from his mouth. A masculine figure approached, off kilter and blurry, hoisting up his jeans like a cowboy. Blood pattered the ground before his combat boots. He had a hole straight through the middle of him, intestines dangling like marionette strings, the sun shining right through him. When he crouched, the hole disappeared and a shadow fell across Nate, the shadow of death. He looked up and saw Charles’s face peering down, a hint of sorrow hiding behind the wise-ass scowl.

“See ya soon, podnah.” Charles reached out and thumbed Nate’s eyelids closed.