Ben Winters - Countdown City

As we slam to a stop outside Rocky’s, I can see two distinct pyres radiating up from the different wings of the Steeplegate Mall.

“Minutes,” says McConnell angrily. “This block will be on fire within five minutes.”

“I know.”

Kelli is waking, looking around, as I jump out of the car.

“I’m serious, McConnell,” I call. “Go if you have to.”

“I will,” she says, shouting after me as I run toward the pizza place. “ I’m going to.”

The doors are closed and looped with chains. I’m wondering if it’s too late, but I don’t think it is. I think they’re still in there, Martha and her father, Rocky. The city is on fire and they’re huddled and waiting like Sergeant Thunder for salvation that is not coming. Huddled together in the center of that giant room, the vast space emptied of its valuables, everything turned over to the con: the wood-burning oven, the paintball guns and targets, the heavy appliances with their yards of copper and coolant and gas tanks.

I bang again, kick at the glass. Rocky and Martha in there, sitting, going crazy. They’ve been in there since this morning, since Rocky showed up to get her, today’s the day, no more waiting around for your stupid runaway husband. Bad luck for Cortez that he happened to be there when Rocky arrived, time ticking away, in no mood to discuss a damn thing with anyone. He just needed his daughter, and he needed her now. Today was the big day—not a moment to waste.

I move to the left, along the wall of the building, occasionally pounding on one of the windows with the heel of my good hand. No chance of kicking open this door; it’s thick Plexiglas. If Jeremy stopped by here after Martha’s house, and I bet he did, he would have found another dead end, another place his true love had disappeared from. No wonder he went home and ate poison.

But they’re in there. Waiting. I know they are. The world collapsing all around them and still waiting for the men who promised they would come.

“Hey?” I shout, slamming against the window. “Hey!”

I shield my eyes and try to peer through the tinted glass, but I can’t see anything, and maybe they’re not in here, maybe I’ve got it wrong. Martha’s not here to be rescued and I’m risking my life and McConnell’s and the kids’, too, for nothing. I glance back over my shoulder and I can see Trish glaring from the driver’s seat. I hope she does, I hope she goes, takes her children and my dog and abandons me for safety.

It’s hot, it’s so hot, even in the middle of the night, the black summer night tinted by the crazy oranges and yellows of the fires.

I yell their names again— Rocky! Martha! —but there must be one more code word, a shibboleth they memorized at the behest of the smooth-talking salesmen from the World Beyond, something they’re expecting to hear when the nice men from the rescue convoy roll up in their black cars and jumpsuits. I turn around. McConnell is still sitting there. I jab one finger in the air and I whirl it around, a little piece of police sign language, and in case she can’t see me or doesn’t understand, I yell it: “Lights, McConnell,” I holler. “Turn on the lights.”

McConnell turns on the lights. They spin on the top of the car, the classic cop-show colors, blue reflecting on black. It’s a cruel trick, but I need Martha out here. I need her to come out and you can’t tell a trooper car from a CPD Impala, not from inside a dark restaurant. And it works. She sees what she wants to see, just like she did in her dream. The door slams open and she races out, flies toward the car.

“Martha.”

But she doesn’t wait; she races past me to the police car, stares into the windows. I see McConnell up front and Kelli in the backseat, jerking backward, away from the desperate phantom at the window. He’s not in there and she spins around as Rocky Milano comes lumbering out to retrieve her. He’s out of his apron, in a sweat suit, his bald forehead red and dripping with sweat.

Martha runs back toward me, whipping her head one way and another, her cheeks flushed. Her pale eyes are wide with need. “Where is—where is he?”

“Martha—”

“ Where is he? ” cries Martha, lunging at me across the lot.

I don’t know what to say, how much of the story is worth telling. A kid was obsessed with you. He tricked your husband into leaving. Your husband went on a madman’s crusade. He was shot and he died in a field by a beach.

“Where is he?”

“Martha, get inside,” says Rocky. “It’s dangerous out here.”

“That’s right,” I say. “Time to go.”

Rocky peers at me like a stranger. Barely recognizes me. He’s focused on the next step of his life, on cashing in the promise of escape he’s been given—for himself and his daughter and for his son-in-law, too, until Brett’s mysterious disappearance. I wonder if he asked the World Beyond people for that special: “Hey can this guy get in there, too? My daughter won’t come without him.” I wonder if the hucksters hemmed and hawed and finally agreed, no skin off their backs, peddling one more nonexistent spot in their nonexistent underground compound.

“Where’s Brett, Henry?” says poor Martha, and I just tell her, I say, “He’s dead,” and she collapses to the ground on her knees, buries her face in her hands and wails, one long keening senseless syllable. That’s the end of the world right there for Martha Milano.

“Sweetheart?” Rocky is all business, heaving her up by the armpits and clasping her with his big hands. “It’s okay. We’re going to mourn him, but we’re going to move on. Come on. We’re moving on.”

He’s dragging her back toward the building, which will be on fire any minute now. McConnell honks the horn. But I can’t leave. I can’t leave her here. I can’t let her die.

“Martha,” I call. “You were right. There was no other woman. He was—he was doing God’s work.”

Martha pulls away from her father. She looks at me, and then up at the sky, at the asteroid, maybe, or at God. “He was?”

“He was.” I take a step toward Martha, but Rocky grabs her again.

“Enough,” he says roughly. “We need to get inside and wait securely until they come.”

“They’re not coming,” I say, to him, to her. “No one’s coming.”

“What? What the hell do you know?” Rocky steps toward me, veins bulging on his forehead.

But he understands—he’s got to understand—some part of him must surely understand. Whatever time they told him the convoy would arrive, that time has long since passed. Even old Sergeant Thunder let himself admit it many hours ago.

I keep my voice calm and even, authoritative, as much for Martha’s benefit as for Rocky’s. “There is no such thing as the World Beyond. You’ve fallen prey to a con artist. No one is coming.”

“Bullshit,” says Rocky, pushing his hand into my chest, rolling me back on my heels. “Bull. Shit .” He turns to Martha, grinning uneasily. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I did everything these people asked. Everything.”

There’s a rolling crash behind us, and everybody turns: it’s the roof of the Steeplegate Mall, just across the parking lot, caving in with a series of splintering cracks. McConnell leans on the horn and I wheel around and shout, “I’m coming, here I come,” and then I reach for Martha again, hold open my hand to her.

“Martha.”

“No,” says Rocky. “They’re coming. They’re fucking coming. We have a contract.”

A contract. This is what he’s got and he’s going to stand on it. No shaking him loose. No making him see sense, because now, at this pass, this is sense. This is what’s left of sense. And the helicopter did come for Nico, that is true, that did happen, and maybe Jesus Man really went to Jesus, and maybe this convoy is different from the one that didn’t come for Sergeant Thunder: Maybe it’s just up the road, maybe it’s a con and maybe it’s not. Nothing—nothing—nothing can be counted on, nothing is certain.