“If you’re ready, we should get moving,” Caleb said.
Hollis nodded. Sara, standing apart, was gazing toward the trees. Her eyes were glassy, her face unnaturally still, as if some essential element of life had left it. She cleared her throat and spoke:
“Husband, will you do something for me?”
“All right.”
She looked him in the eye. “Kill every last fucking one of them.”
—
The going was slow. Soon all three children were being carried—Bug on Caleb’s shoulders, Elle on her grandfather’s back, Theo in his sling, Pim and Sara taking turns. They were deep into the afternoon by the time they reached town. The streets were devoid of life. In Elacqua’s yard, they found the truck, still parked where Caleb had seen it. Caleb got in the driver’s seat. He’d hoped the key would be in the ignition, but it wasn’t. He searched the cab to no avail and climbed back out.
“Do you know how to hot-wire a truck?” he asked Hollis.
“Not really.”
Caleb looked toward the house. A window on the top floor was broken, smashed from its frame. Glass and splintered wood littered the ground beneath it.
“Somebody’s going to have to go inside to look.”
“I’ll do it,” said Hollis.
“This is my responsibility. Stay here.”
Caleb left the rifle with Hollis and took the revolver. The air in the house was so still it felt unbreathed. He crept from room to room, opening drawers and cabinets. Finding no keys, he climbed the stairs. There were two rooms with closed doors on either side of a narrow hall. He opened the first door. Here was where Elacqua and his wife had slept. The bed was unmade; beside it, lace curtains shifted slightly in the breeze coming through the broken window. He searched all the drawers, then stepped to the window and waved down. Hollis gazed up with a questioning look. Caleb shook his head.
One room to go. What if they couldn’t find the keys? He’d seen no other vehicles in town. That didn’t mean there weren’t any, but they were running out of time.
Caleb took a breath and pushed the door with his foot.
Elacqua was lying on the bed fully clothed. The room reeked of piss and rancid breath. At first Caleb thought the man was dead, but then he gave a wet snort and rolled onto his side. An empty whiskey bottle stood on the floor beside the bed. The man wasn’t dead, just dead drunk.
Caleb shook him roughly by the shoulders. “Wake up.”
Elacqua, eyes still closed, batted clumsily at Caleb’s hand. “Leave me alone,” he mumbled.
“Dr. Elacqua, it’s Caleb Jaxon. Pull yourself together.”
His tongue moved heavily in his mouth. “You…bitch.”
Caleb had a sense of what had occurred. Cast out from his marital bed, the man had anesthetized himself into oblivion and missed the whole thing. Perhaps he’d been drunk to begin with and that was why his wife had sent him packing. In either case, Caleb practically envied him; the disaster had passed him by. How had the virals missed him? Maybe he just smelled too bad; maybe that was the solution. Maybe they should all get drunk and stay that way.
He shook Elacqua again. The man’s eyes fluttered open. They roamed blearily, finally landing on Caleb’s face.
“Who the hell are you?”
There was no point in attempting to explain the situation; the man was too far gone. “Dr. Elacqua, look at me. I need the keys to your truck.”
Caleb might have been asking him the most incomprehensible question in the world. “Keys?”
“Yes, the keys. Where are they?”
His eyes lost focus; he closed them again, his head, with its wild mane of hair, relaxing into the pillow. Caleb realized there was one place he hadn’t looked. The man’s trousers were soaked with urine, but there was nothing to be done about that. Caleb patted him down. At the base of the man’s left front pocket, Caleb felt something sharp. He slid his hand in and pulled it out: a single key, tarnished with age, on a small metal ring.
“Gotcha.”
His thoughts were broken by the roar of engines coming down the street. Caleb went to the window. Sara and the others were waving frantically toward the source of the sound, yelling, “Hey! Over here!”
Caleb stepped onto the porch as the trucks, three Army five-tons, halted in front of the house. A broad-chested man in uniform stepped from the cab of the first truck: Gunnar Apgar.
“Caleb. Thank God.”
They shook. Hollis and Sara had joined them. Apgar looked the group over. “Is this all of you?”