The Methuselah Gene Read online

  It was Julie.

  12

  We stood motionless for several seconds, staring at each other. Then I lifted my hand and wagged it slowly in a pathetic wave. The embarrassed smile on my face held her attention, but thankfully my own fears were not realized in the form of the Sheriff joining her at the door. Yet.

  I crossed toward her in my underwear, keeping the stupid smile on my face for fear she’d run. Unlocking the door, I opened it. She backed away several steps as I did, just like Madeline Stowe might do if confronted by a naked savage.

  “Where’s Cody?” I asked her, sounding a bit like a game show host.

  Her own voice was tremulous, but her wide eyes lost most of their shock. “He went up to the water tower. We saw someone up there. He didn’t want me to go with him.” Her gaze dipped again below my tee shirt to my legs and then lingered on my crotch. Then she looked from side to side along the empty street.

  “I need clothes, yes,” I confirmed. “Can you get me some? You know, if George sees me with you . . .”

  “George?” She turned to look behind her, toward where I nodded. The drug store’s CLOSED sign was now displayed, and George couldn’t be seen through the front window. But he might come out of the back any second, I realized, perhaps carrying embalming supplies to stock a shelf below the hair colorings. “Oh,” she said in memory, and I could see the memory was not good. “George.”

  “Is there a place?” I asked.

  “Didn’t you think about that before you . . .”

  “No,” I conceded. “I didn’t think. That’s been my problem all along. That, and thinking too much.”

  A look of puzzlement crossed her face. “Did anyone ever tell you what a strange man you are?” she wanted to know.

  After only five minutes absence Julie returned with a pair of blue jeans, size 34 waist, and a medium dark gray pullover shirt. It had been a tense five minutes for me, staring out the cell window in the back but seeing nothing. She examined the tatters of my former clothes as I dressed.

  “It’s hard to believe the story you tell,” she noted. “Except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  “Except there’s something going on today. I’m not sure what, exactly.”

  “You must be sure of something,” I said, “because you certainly wouldn’t be helping a stranger in his jail break. Intuition?”

  She pursed her lips, and didn’t smile back as I zipped up. Then she looked beyond me at the barred window, and it sobered her even more. “What do you think is happening up there?”

  “You really did see someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, “but I better go see, don’t you think?”

  “You mean we. I’m going too.”

  I opened my mouth, about to protest, but saw that it was futile. The determination on her face had already set, as a resistance to fear if nothing else. I retrieved my binoculars and camera instead, and stated the obvious. “It could be dangerous.”

  “It’s too late to avoid dangerous,” she contended. “You’ve already said as much.”

  As if taking my cue, I went to the gun case to test the lock’s strength. But as I was pulling on it, and as Julie searched for a second set of keys in the desk, the front door opened, and we both paused. A tall middle-aged woman with long black hair stood framed there, a box of donuts balanced atop one hand.

  “Hi, Julie,” the dark haired woman greeted Julie brightly. “Where’s Sheriff Cody?”

  Julie straightened, lifting her hands guiltily from the drawer beneath her. I walked quickly forward to join her, and surreptitiously palmed a Deputy’s badge visible near the front of the drawer.

  “What a nice day today,” the woman continued, although not getting an answer to her question. “It was supposed to be hot today, but there’s a nice breeze out there so far. Oh! Here . . . these are for Sheriff Cody.”

  Julie held out both hands mechanically as the woman came forward to give her the white box. The look on Julie’s face seemed to hold more astonishment now than guilt. “Rebecca?” she asked, as if she wasn’t sure of the woman’s name.

  “Yes? Something wrong?”

  “No,” Julie replied, suddenly coming to her senses. “And no, Cody’s not here, he’s . . .”

  “He’s out on an investigation,” I suggested.

  The woman named Rebecca seemed fascinated. “My, my—an investigation?”

  I came around from behind Julie, having slipped the Deputy’s badge onto my belt. “Yes, and my name is Alan. I’m from out of town, helping out.”

  “Well, goodness.” Rebecca now seemed genuinely surprised. “Sheriff Cody needs help from Creston?”

  “Des Moines,” I corrected. “It’s an important case. Has to do with the town water supply. Would you like some coffee, Mrs.—?”

  “Crim,” she said, shaking my hand with just the tips of her long fingers. “Rebecca, please. Gave up coffee, but thanks anyway. What’s wrong, did you say, with our water supply?”

  I hesitated, considering my options. Julie looked at me too, but in disbelief. “We’re not certain,” I lied, although it was only a partial lie. “Until we know, you should boil the water before drinking it. And tell everyone else the same.”

  “That’s odd,” Rebecca said, cocking her head slightly as she absorbed the news, or the lack of it.

  “Yes,” Julie confirmed, trying to smile. “This is certainly the oddest day on record. Can you excuse us now, Rebecca?”

  “You’re helping out here, are you, Julie?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Can I help too, then? It sounds like you need it.”

  “You can stay here and answer the phone, if you like,” I proposed. I closed the top drawer of the desk, then opened a bottom drawer to withdraw the phone book I found there. “Here . . . you can call everyone in town and tell them what I just told you. And be sure to tell them not to panic, it’s probably nothing. We’re just taking precautions. Okay?”

  Rebecca Crim circled around us to finally sit at the desk. “Okay, anything I can do to help, I will. But you’re sure this isn’t related to what Pastor Felsen called everybody about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only that he wanted to have everybody meet at the church.” She looked at her watch. “Less than an hour from now, in fact.”

  I looked at Julie, then back at Rebecca. “About the water, you mean?”

  She shook her head. “No, he didn’t mention water.”

  “Okay, then call people back and you mention it for him.”

  Along with the binoculars and camera, I took my file, containing Jeffers’ phone number and the fax printout of my face. We almost made it to the door when Rebecca stopped us. “Wait!”

  We both froze, then turned back in unison to see the black phone receiver now held high in Rebecca’s hand. It was being twisted vigorously in the air as if God Himself was on the line.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s the phone,” Mrs. Crim replied.

  But having heard no ringing, Julie and I only exchanged perplexed glances. “What about it?” Julie asked at last.

  “Well, unless I’m mistaken,” Rebecca declared, “it’s dead.”

  We excused ourselves, and left Mrs. Crim standing at the door. Once in the alley beside the building, Julie gripped my arm, stopping me. I turned to face her, but she didn’t speak. There was a harder cast to her face now, as though she was holding back panic by force of will. She deserved more than what I gave her. “I know, I know, I should have called the police in Creston or Des Moines when I had the chance,” I said. “Go ahead, you can slap me if you want to. Might wake me up from this nightmare.”

  “What’s really going on here?” she asked. “What’s happening?”

  “I told you my theory, and I think it’s a good one. But I don’t trust that the whole truth will come out at some town meeting, and so we have to get out of here, and get help.”

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nbsp; “But I can’t do that. I can’t be involved in this.”

  I stared at her, dumbfounded. “You’re already involved, Julie. Everyone is.”

  She bit at her lower lip, turning to look back toward the street behind her. An elderly couple was walking past the barber shop toward the church, holding hands. “Rebecca really isn’t herself today,” she said, as though trying to convince herself.

  “Do you mean—”

  “I mean she’s usually a one hundred percent unrepentant bitch.”

  “Oh, that’s what you mean.”

  “I mean she might have stolen the pennies off her dead mother’s eyes.”

  “Really. Her?”

  “Yes, her. She looks dazed, too, like she’s on drugs. Like Cody. Is that a symptom of your virus?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not. But maybe they put something else in the water. A barbiturate, and an anti-inflammatory. Something to make it work, this time.”

  “Work how? To do what?”

  “That’s the question. My experiments with worms was a failure, and I don’t know why. I can’t really say more. You have to trust me.”

  She thought about that. “Trust you? I don’t know if I should, even for this. How can I? Rebecca doesn’t even know about me, and the few who do won’t tell her.”

  “What is there to know, exactly?” I asked, and then, seeing her look, added: “Never mind that. Let’s find a car. We’re wasting time.”

  I went looking as Julie followed me stiffly, staring along the quiet street. “This is a good town,” she said from behind me, her voice almost pleading. “Why would they pick Zion to do whatever they’re doing?”

  I started to say that it might be for the same reason she was hiding here—its nondescript remoteness—but I checked myself. Instead of offering up some pathetic attempt at relief with levity, I let the question go unanswered. Then, just as I was about to call to the elderly couple ahead of us, they disappeared into the church. “Maybe George is in there already,” I said, thinking about his car.

  “George never goes in there.”

  “Maybe not on Sunday, but what about Saturday?” Or Judgment Day.

  We heard music coming from inside the church, as the door opened and closed. Julie looked directly at me, then over my shoulder, as something caught her eye. “Speaking of the devil,” she said.

  I followed her line of sight. In the distance two men emerged from the foliage at the base of the distant hill. Cody, and . . . Sean?

  Already hearing hell’s bells ringing in my mind, I ushered Julie quickly around to the front of the building with the back of my hand to the small of her back. “Find out what’s happening, and if you think it’s safe to say it, tell everybody not to drink any more water.”

  “No, I’m coming with you.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t, Julie. You said so yourself. Besides, I may need you to bail me out of jail again.”

  “What about Rebecca? She knows I’m involved.”

  I glanced back at the Sheriff’s office. “Take her to church with you, then.”

  “But I doubt she’s ever gone there before in her life!”

  “She’s a changed woman, now. Remember? She’s found religion at last, thanks to my Satan bug.”

  “Your what?”

  13

  As I ran north along Main street, and out into the corn, I imagined the conversation Cody and Sean might be having.

  What’s his name, Sheriff?

  Alan Dyson. From Virginia. I was gonna call his employer and verify.

  No need to do that, Sheriff. I know him, and he’s harmless. Let him go.

  You know him?

  About him. Met him the other day, thought he was a birder too, just passing through. Just another nut case, though, really. Said he was looking for UFOs. I didn’t believe him either.

  In the field behind the Shell station I zigged and zagged through the neck-high corn for ten minutes before I got lucky. Then I added the gun I’d tossed the night before to my collection of binoculars and camera, and walked back to confront Wally once again. But Wally was gone. Ditto, my rented car. The car under which the fake legs had been rolled was an Escort, not a Taurus. Same color, though.

  There was half a glass of iced tea on Wally’s desk in the office. I stared at the melting ice for a moment, considering the ramifications, then I picked up the phone. That was dead too. No dial tone. Nothing. Searching the desk drawers, I found bullets instead of keys. So I reloaded the revolver, then went out back to look at Wally’s tow truck. Of course I knew less about hot-wiring than I knew about women. Or Walter Mills. Experiencing a wave of hypertensive frustration, I craved more Xanax, or even Halcion, which in turn reminded me of Darryl’s advice. Wake up and smell the dark roast, buddy. Break outta this jail you’re in, find a woman, get a life.

  Leaving the truck, I walked cautiously out into the deserted street. As I considered going to church to see if Julie had a car, I looked from south to north toward the distant bend in the road. But the questions that mounted in my brain felt like water building behind a makeshift dam.

  Damn. The word ballooned, and echoed. Had Wally gone to Creston or Des Moines with the Taurus? Exactly how long would it be before some other lost soul rolled into town? I imagined waving over a passing driver—a tourist looking for bridges to photograph, maybe. Or a birder. Or a lost trucker . . .

  Hey, buddy, can you give me a ride to the nearest working phone? The phones are dead here, and the people are under the influence of something that apparently makes them go to Baptist church on Saturday.

  I stood dumbly in the middle of the road, waiting for answers as though waiting was my new profession. But no car came. The dead road remained dead. Only the bark of a distant dog and a faraway squeal—like a pig being stuck—met my ears, while the sun steadily dropped toward the corn to the west.

  Then a flash of light attracted me. I turned my head slightly toward where the mid afternoon sunlight heliographed off something atop the water tower on the hill. I stared at, and then squinted at . . . what?

  Evidence.

  Quickly, I lifted the binoculars, and turned the focusing screw. Between the branches of a tall maple tree I could see something metallic and shiny up there, now. Something foreign. I imagined it to be something like a silver canister—maybe a two gallon can. Then suddenly an arm came into view amid the foliage. Two arms. And the thing was lifted away by a man Cody had missed.

  I ran toward the hill, my camera and binoculars bouncing on the shoulder straps behind my back. I worked the revolver out of my pocket as I ran, and kept my finger outside the trigger guard, in case I tripped and fell. Praying that Walter Mills—or whoever he was—didn’t spot me, I stayed free of the corn for fear of the sound, and moved quickly across the open ground, wary of my footing. If I could get close enough to take a photo . . .

  Blocked by thickets of some kind of sticky and prickly shrub, I was forced to bull my way through, despite the crackling sound that generated. I was breathing heavily before I found myself up on level ground again. Then I lifted my revolver toward the curved underbelly of the water tower. But I must have been heard or seen, because I could detect no one now. Not atop the tower, or amid the surrounding trees.

  Damn, damn, damn . . .

  In frustration, I struggled closer, getting a look at the base of the fat frog tower. Below the metal ladder, which hung six feet off the ground near the support column, were tracks and assorted footprints in the dirt. I could make out four different shoe imprints, and took two closeup photos of them, kneeling to do so. Were there markings on top of the tower? Scrapes to photograph? Perhaps a puncture or forced access hatch? I heard nothing in the surrounding treeline, only a distant whippoorwill, and an even more distant dog barking. So I decided to investigate.

  I used the loop of my camera case shoulder strap to pull down the old metal ladder. I expected a screeching from the rusted hoist mechanism, but it seemed to move smoothly, and was well oiled. Slip
ping the revolver into my belt, I pulled myself up onto the rungs, and began to climb.

  The slate gray surface felt cool to the touch, but I was still in the shade on the north side. As I neared the upper slope that was more exposed to direct sunlight, the skin seemed to radiate like an oven. I lay my hand on it like one lays a hand on the body of a freshly found corpse, or on the hood of a parked car to see how long the crime suspect has been home. I continued up the ladder until it turned into an arching frame of convex rungs, which were bolted against the sloping surface. At this point I took out my gun, and tapped the belly of the reservoir with the handle. The emitted thrumming sounded hollow, and it was impossible to tell the amount of water inside. I was out of luck unless I found a gauge, or until I could plum a weighted line down a hatch. Hoping for evidence of forced entry, I continued up until it was level enough to stand.

  This was my first mistake.

  There were two gunshots. They were muffled, from a silenced automatic that nonetheless made a distinctive whumpf sound. The shots came from the south, and from the same gun. The first brought me to my knees as the bullet ripped through the flesh of my inner thigh. I fell flat and hugged the warm surface while fire and blood spread out from my wound as though I’d wet myself with acid. The faint whizzing of the second bullet registered close to my ear as it passed near my head.

  Oh my God, oh my God, oh my—

  I crawled up the very top, to the forced hatch I’d suspected would be there, in case my sniper was circling for a closer shot. I was almost certain he didn’t have a rifle, or the first bullet would have ended me, burrowing right through my left ventricle and leaving a pulpy hole in my back big enough for a final geyser of pumping blood. It had to be a pistol, I told myself, because the shots had missed my vital organs. And a pistol with a suppressor on it possessed even less accuracy on long range.