Cell Read online

  Then Tom was shaking him, telling him it was past nine by his watch, the moon was up, and if they were going to do some more walking they ought to get at it. Clay had never been so glad to wake up. On the whole, he preferred dreams of the Bingo Tent.

  Alice was looking at him oddly.

  "What?" Clay said, checking to make sure their automatic weapon was safetied--that was already becoming second nature to him.

  "You were talking in your sleep. You were saying, 'Don't answer it, don't answer it.' "

  "Nobody should have answered it," Clay said. "We all would have been better off."

  "Ah, but who can resist a ringing phone?" Tom asked. "And there goes your ballgame."

  "Thus spake fuckin Zarathustra," Clay said. Alice laughed until she cried.

  3

  With the moon racing in and out of the clouds--like an illustration in a boy's novel of pirates and buried treasure, Clay thought--they left the horse-farm behind and resumed their walk north. That night they began to meet others of their own kind again.

  Because this is our time now, Clay thought, shifting the automatic rifle from one hand to the other. Fully loaded, it was damned heavy. The phone-crazies own the days; when the stars come out, that's us. We're like vampires. We've been banished to the night. Up close we know each other because we can still talk; at a little distance we can be pretty sure of each other by the packs we wear and the guns more and more of us carry; but at a distance, the one sure sign is the waving flashlight beam. Three days ago we not only ruled the earth, we had survivor's guilt about all the other species we'd wiped out on our climb to the nirvana of round-the-clock cable news and microwave popcorn. Now we're the Flashlight People.

  He looked over at Tom. "Where do they go?" he asked. "Where do the crazies go after sundown?"

  Tom gave him a look. "North Pole. All the elves died of mad reindeer disease and these guys are helping out until the new crop shows up."

  "Jesus," Clay said, "did someone get up on the wrong side of the haystack tonight?"

  But Tom still wouldn't smile. "I'm thinking about my cat," he said. "Wondering if he's all right. No doubt you think that's quite stupid."

  "No," Clay said, although, having a son and a wife to worry about, he sort of did.

  4

  They got a road atlas in a card-and-book shop in the two-stoplight burg of Ballardvale. They were now traveling north, and very glad they had decided to stay in the more-or-less bucolic V between Interstates 93 and 95. The other travelers they met--most moving west, away from I-95--told of horrendous traffic-jams and terrible wrecks. One of the few pilgrims who was moving east said that a tanker had crashed near the Wakefield exit of I-93 and the resulting fire had caused a chain of explosions that had incinerated nearly a mile of northbound traffic. The stench, he said, was like "a fish-fry in hell."

  They met more Flashlight People as they trudged through the outskirts of Andover and heard a rumor so persistent it was now repeated with the assurance of fact: the New Hampshire border was closed. New Hampshire State Police and special deputies were shooting first and asking questions afterward. It didn't matter to them whether you were crazy or sane.

  "It's just a new version of the fucking motto they've had on their fucking license plates since forever," said a bitter-faced elderly man with whom they walked for a while. He was wearing a small pack over his expensive topcoat and carrying a long-barreled flashlight. Poking out of his topcoat pocket was the butt of a handgun. "If you're in New Hampshire, you can live free. If you want to come to New Hampshire, you can fucking die."

  "That's just... really hard to believe," Alice said.

  "Believe what you want, Missy," said their temporary companion. "I met some people who tried to go north like you folks, and they turned back south in a hurry when they saw some people shot out of hand trying to cross into New Hampshire north of Dunstable."

  "When?" Clay asked.

  "Last night."

  Clay thought of several other questions, but held his tongue instead. At Andover, the bitter-faced man and most of the other people with whom they had been sharing their vehicle-clogged (but passable) route turned onto Highway 133, toward Lowell and points west. Clay, Tom, and Alice were left on Andover's main street--deserted except for a few flashlight-waving foragers--with a decision to make.

  "Do you believe it?" Clay asked Alice.

  "No," she said, and looked at Tom.

  Tom shook his head. "Me either. I thought the guy's story had an alligators-in-the-sewers feel to it."

  Alice was nodding. "News doesn't travel that fast anymore. Not without phones."

  "Yep," Tom said. "Definitely the next-generation urban myth. Still, we are talking about what a friend of mine likes to call New Hamster.

  Which is why I think we should cross the border at the most out-of-the-way spot we can find."

  "Sounds like a plan," Alice said, and with that they moved on again, using the sidewalk as long as they were in town and there was a sidewalk to use.

  5

  On the outskirts of Andover, a man with a pair of flashlights rigged in a kind of harness (one light at each temple) stepped out through the broken display window of the IGA. He waved to them in companionable fashion, then picked a course toward them between a jumble of shopping carts, dropping canned goods into what looked like a newsboy's pouch as he walked. He stopped beside a pickup truck lying on its side, introduced himself as Mr. Roscoe Handt of Methuen, and asked where they were going. When Clay told them Maine, Handt shook his head.

  "New Hampshire border's closed. I met two people not half an hour ago who got turned back. He said they're trying to tell the difference between the phone-crazies and people like us, but they're not trying too hard."

  "Did these two people actually see this with their own eyes?" Tom asked.

  Roscoe Handt looked at Tom as though he might be crazy. "You got to trust the word of others, man," he said. "I mean, you can't exactly phone someone up and ask for verification, can you?" He paused. "They're burning the bodies at Salem and Nashua, that's what these folks told me. And it smells like a pig-roast. They told me that, too. I've got a party of five I'm taking west, and we want to make some miles before sunup. The way west is open."

  "That the word you're hearing, is it?" Clay asked.

  Handt looked at him with mild contempt. "That's the word, all right. And a word to the wise is sufficient, my ma used to say. If you really mean to go north, make sure you get to the border in the middle of the night. The crazies don't go out after dark."

  "We know," Tom said.

  The man with the flashlights affixed to the sides of his head ignored Tom and went on talking to Clay. He had pegged Clay as the trio's leader. "And they don't carry flashlights. Wave your flashlights back and forth. Talk. Yell. They don't do those things, either. I doubt the people at the border will let you through, but if you're lucky, they won't shoot you, either."

  "They're getting smarter," Alice said. "You know that, don't you, Mr. Handt?"

  Handt snorted. "They're traveling in packs and they're not killing each other anymore. I don't know if that makes them smarter or not. But they're still killing us, I know that."

  Handt must have seen doubt on Clay's face, because he smiled. His flashlights turned it into something unpleasant.

  "I saw them catch a woman out this morning," he said. "With my own eyes, okay?"

  Clay nodded. "Okay."

  "I think I know why she was on the street. This was in Topsfield, about ten miles east of here? Me and my people, we were in a Motel 6. She was walking that way. Only not really walking. Hurrying. Almost running. Looking back over her shoulder. I saw her because I couldn't sleep." He shook his head. "Getting used to sleeping days is a bitch."

  Clay thought of telling Handt they'd all get used to it, then didn't. He saw Alice was holding her talisman again. He didn't want Alice hearing this and knew there was no way to keep her from it. Partly because it was survival information (and unlike the
stuff about the New Hampshire state line, he was almost positive this was solid information); partly because the world was going to be full of stories like this for a while. If they listened to enough of them, some might eventually begin to line up and make patterns.

  "Probably just looking for a better place to stay, you know? No more than that. Saw the Motel 6 and thought, 'Hey, a room with a bed. Right up there by the Exxon station. Only a block away.' But before she got even halfway, a bunch of them came around the corner. They were walking... you know how they walk now?"

  Roscoe Handt walked toward them stiffly, like a tin soldier, with his newsboy's bag swinging. That wasn't how the phone-crazies walked, but they knew what he was trying to convey and nodded.

  "And she..." He leaned back against the overturned truck and scrubbed briefly at his face with his hands. "This is what I want you to understand, okay? This is why you can't get caught out, can't get fooled that they're getting normal because every now and then one or two of them has lucked into hitting the right controls on a boombox and started a CD playing--"

  "You've seen that?" Tom asked. "Heard that?"

  "Yeah, twice. Second guy I saw was walking along, swinging the thing from side to side so hard in his arms that it was skipping like hell, but yeah, it was playing. So they like music, and sure, they might be retrieving some of their marbles, but that's exactly why you have to be careful, see?"

  "What happened to the woman?" Alice asked. "The one who got caught out?"

  "She tried to act like one of them," Handt said. "And I thought, standing there at the window of the room where I was, I thought, 'Yeah, you go, girl, you might have a chance if you can hang on to that act a little while and then make a break, get inside somewhere.' Because they don't like to go inside places, have you noticed that?"

  Clay, Tom, and Alice shook their heads.

  The man nodded. "They will, I've seen em do it, but they don't like to."

  "How did they get on to her?" Alice asked again.

  "I don't exactly know. They smelled her, or something."

  "Or maybe touched her thoughts," Tom said.

  "Or couldn't touch them," Alice said.

  "I don't know about any of that," Handt said, "but I know they tore her apart in the street. I mean literally tore her to pieces."

  "And this happened when?" Clay asked. He saw Alice was swaying and put an arm around her.

  "Nine this morning. In Topsfield. So if you see a bunch of them walking up the Yella Brick Road with a boombox that's playing 'Why Can't We Be Friends'..." He surveyed them grimly by the glow of the flashlights strapped to the sides of his head. "I wouldn't go running out yelling kemo sake, that's all." He paused. "And I wouldn't go north, either. Even if they don't shoot you at the border, it's a waste of time."

  But after a little consultation at the edge of the IGA parking lot, they went north anyway.

  6

  They paused near North Andover, standing on a pedestrian overpass above Route 495. The clouds were thickening again, but the moon broke through long enough to show them six lanes of silent traffic. Near the bridge where they stood, in the southbound lanes, an overturned sixteen-wheeler lay like a dead elephant. Orange pylons had been set up around it, showing that someone had made at least a token response, and there were two abandoned police cruisers beyond them, one on its side. The rear half of the truck had been burned black. There was no sign of bodies, not in the momentary moonlight. A few people labored westward in the breakdown lane, but it was slow going even there.

  "Kind of makes it all real, doesn't it?" Tom said.

  "No," Alice said. She sounded indifferent. "To me it looks like a special effect in some big summer movie. Buy a bucket of popcorn and a Coke and watch the end of the world in...what do they call it? Computer graphic imaging? CGI? Blue screens? Some fucking thing." She held up the little sneaker by one lace. "This is all I need to make it real. Something small enough to hold in my hand. Come on, let's go."

  7

  There were plenty of abandoned vehicles on Highway 28, but it was wide-open compared to 495, and by four o'clock they were nearing Methuen, hometown of Mr. Roscoe Handt, he of the stereo flashlights. And they believed enough of Handt's story to want to be under cover well before daylight. They chose a motel at the intersection of 28 and 110. A dozen or so cars were parked in front of the various units, but to Clay they had an abandoned feel. And why wouldn't they? The two roads were passable, but only if you were on foot. Clay and Tom stood at the edge of the parking lot, waving their flashlights over their heads.

  "We're okay!" Tom called. "Normal folks! Coming in!"

  They waited. There was no response from what the sign identified as the Sweet Valley Inn, Heated Pool, HBO, Group Rates.

  "Come on," Alice said. "My feet hurt. And it'll be getting light soon, won't it?"

  "Look at this," Clay said. He picked up a CD from the motel's turn-in and shone the beam of his flashlight on it. It was Love Songs, by Michael Bolton.

  "And you said they were getting smarter," Tom said.

  "Don't be so quick to judge," Clay said as they started toward the units. "Whoever had it threw it away, right?"

  "More likely just dropped it," Tom said.

  Alice shone her own light on the CD. "Who is this guy?"

  "Honeybunch," Tom said, "you don't want to know." He took the CD and tossed it back over his shoulder.

  They forced the doors on three adjoining units--as gently as possible, so they could at least shoot the bolts once they were inside--and with beds to sleep in, they slept most of the day away. They were not disturbed, although that evening Alice said she thought she had heard music coming from far away. But, she admitted, it might have been part of a dream she was having.

  8

  There were maps for sale in the lobby of the Sweet Valley Inn that would offer more detail than their road atlas. They were in a glass display cabinet that had been smashed. Clay took one for Massachusetts and one for New Hampshire, reaching in carefully so as not to cut his hand, and saw a young man lying on the other side of the reception counter as he did so. His eyes glared sightlessly. For a moment Clay thought someone had put an oddly colored corsage in the corpse's mouth. Then he saw the greenish points poking out through the dead man's cheeks and realized they matched the broken glass littering the shelves of the display cabinet. The corpse was wearing a nametag that said MY NAME IS HANK ASK ME ABOUT WEEKLY RATES. Clay thought briefly of Mr. Ricardi as he looked at Hank.

  Tom and Alice were waiting for him just inside the lobby door. It was quarter of nine, and outside it was full dark. "How did you do?" Alice asked.

  "These may help," he said. He gave her the maps, then lifted the Coleman lantern so she and Tom could study them, compare them against the road atlas, and plot the night's travel. He was trying to cultivate a sense of fatalism about Johnny and Sharon, trying to keep the bald truth of his current family situation front and center in his mind: what had happened in Kent Pond had happened. His son and his wife were either all right or they weren't. He would either find them or he wouldn't. His success at this sort of semi-magical thinking came and went.

  When it started slipping, he told himself he was lucky to be alive, and this was certainly true. What balanced his good luck out was that he'd been in Boston, a hundred miles south of Kent Pond by even the quickest route (which they were definitely not taking), when the Pulse happened. And yet he'd fallen in with good people. There was that. People he could think of as friends. He'd seen plenty of others--Beer-Keg Guy and Plump Bible-Toting Lady as well as Mr. Roscoe Handt of Methuen--who weren't as lucky.

  If he got to you, Share, if Johnny got to you, you better be taking care of him. You just better be.

  But suppose he'd had his phone? Suppose he'd taken the red cell phone to school? Might he not have been taking it a little more often lately? Because so many of the other kids took theirs?

  Christ.

  "Clay? You all right?" Tom asked.

  "Sure.
Why?"

  "I don't know. You looked a little... grim."

  "Dead guy behind the counter. He's not pretty."

  "Look here," Alice said, tracing a thread on the map. It squiggled across the state line and then appeared to join New Hampshire Route 38 a little east of Pelham. "That looks pretty good to me," she said. "If we go west on the highway out there for eight or nine miles"--she pointed at 110, where both the cars and the tar were gleaming faintly in a misty drizzle--"we should hit it. What do you think?"

  "I think that sounds good," Tom said.

  She looked from him to Clay. The little sneaker was put away--probably in her backpack--but Clay could see her wanting to squeeze it. He supposed it was good she wasn't a smoker, she'd be up to four packs a day. "If they've got the way across guarded--" she began.

  "We'll worry about that if we have to," Clay said, but he wasn't worrying. One way or another, he was getting to Maine. If it meant crawling through some puckerbrush, like an illegal crossing the Canadian border to pick apples in October, he would do it. If Tom and Alice decided to stay behind, that would be too bad. He'd be sorry to leave them... but he would go. Because he had to know.