Jason Frost - Badlands

"That Paul Simon?" she asked.

Eric smiled. " 'St. Judy's Comet.' I used to sing it to Timmy and Jennifer. Like a lullaby. They used to pretend to fall asleep just to make me feel good, like they felt sorry for the old guy sitting there with his guitar and corny song. The moment I left the room they'd start throwing pillows at each other. You know, it meant more to me that they tried to fake it than if I'd really put them to sleep. Understand?"

Tracy nodded. Talking about Annie or the kids was unusual for them. Kind of an understood no man's land. Eric had done his best to bury these memories, as if some inner earthquake had destroyed them. It was the only way he could live with what had happened. And with his mission to rescue Timmy from Dirk Fallows.

"Won't be able to call him Timmy anymore," Eric said. "He's grown. An inch, maybe more. Better start thinking of him as Tim now, or Timothy. No more Timmy." He slid his left hand along the frets of the guitar, finger picking and staring into the dark hole in the guitar. When he started to sing, Tracy realized for the first time that she had never heard him sing since that last night at University Camp. When Jenny and Annie had been murdered. The kids had given him a beat-up old cassette player with a tape of the Beatles' old songs. He'd sung along with them that night, but never again. Until now.

He sang softly, almost to himself, in a voice that was pleasant but not very good. Still, it made Tracy want to hug him, bury her face in his chest and keep hugging him for hours. Singing. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed it until now. She joined in.

Little sleepy boy

Do you know what time it is?

Well the hour of your bedtime's

Long been past

And though I know you're fighting it

I can tell when you rub your eyes

You're fading fast

Fading fast.

As they sang, Eric glanced out into the street and saw the sky suddenly filled with drifting paper. He recognized the familiar yellow paper of the government's bulletins, dropped on the first day of every month. It was the only way the survivors knew what was going on outside the island of California. It was also the only way most could keep the months separate. But something was wrong here. This wasn't the usual drop.

Eric slid the guitar onto the table and grabbed his crossbow. "Didn't they just drop these two weeks ago?"

"Uh-huh. Two weeks yesterday."

"I don't like it."

"What's not to like, aside from the litter problem? So they've decided to increase the frequency of distribution. Great. I wonder what Farrah's done with her hair now."

"It's not that simple. The government doesn't change routine unless something special's up." He stood on the seat and climbed out through the window. Once outside he scooped up a couple of the single-sheet flyers and climbed back through the window. He handed one to Tracy. They both read silently.

"Christ!" she said, balling it up and throwing it out the window. "Evacuate! To where?"

Eric read the paper again. Then again. His eyes narrowed and he chewed on his lower lip.

"What?" Tracy said.

He looked up. "Huh?"

"What're you thinking? I recognize that hunched expression. Something's going on."

"This," he said, tapping the paper. "They tell us to evacuate the whole area within a fifty-mile radius of Santa Barbara because they plan to conduct special experiments on the Long Beach Halo."

"Santa Barbara's only about twenty miles from here."

Eric ignored her. "They claim that the experiments will involve dangerous chemicals and radiation that can kill us, cause cancer, and give us bad breath."

"So? We've got a week to clear out. Even a gimp like me can make it out of here by then. Tell you the truth, I'm not so crazy about the local cuisine anyway. Eric?"

Eric crushed the paper in his fist. He was nodding to himself as he paced next to the table. His face was smooth, untroubled, as if he'd just made an important decision. There was a hint of a smile on his face. Suddenly he picked up the guitar and smashed it against a nearby table.

"Eric, you're starting to scare me," Tracy said.

"Let's pack up," he said. "We're going."

"Great, where? San Francisco? Fresno? Los Angeles?"

He flattened the yellow sheet on the table. At the bottom was a map of the island of California with a big red X where the experiments were scheduled to take place and concentric circles extending for fifty miles in every direction. The kill zone. Eric put his finger on the big red X and smiled. "This is where we're going. Santa Barbara."

Paige Lyons rolled over in her bed and nudged the guy snoring next to her. "Hey, Steve. Wer'e on TV."

Steve didn't budge.

She shook his naked shoulder, not pausing as she usually did to appreciate his sculpted muscles. "Steve. Wake up time, Captain."

Steve shrugged her hand from his shoulder and kept snoring.

"Shit." She sat up and looked at the blue digital clock set in the Hitachi VCR next to the TV. 2:30 a.m. She slid over to the edge of the bed, liking the way the satin sheets felt against her naked backside, and reached over for the remote control box on the bedstand. She knocked over an empty wine glass that bounced on the thick carpeting without breaking. The sudden movement frightened her black cat who'd been curled under the bed. The cat ran out of the room and down the stairs.

Paige Lyons stabbed the Mute button and the I sound came back on the TV. The newscaster was Cindy Treetown, an ex-classmate of Paige's from Bennington. They'd once double-dated to a Crosby, Stills amp; Nash concert with a couple of Yalies who'd tried to get them stoned on grass that turned out to be mostly oregano. The Yalies were both MBA candidates more angry at having made a bad business deal than the fact that their dates had been in the restroom for forty-five minutes. When the Yalies finally tumbled that something was wrong, Paige and Cindy had already sneaked out through the crowd with two Penn State guys they'd met near the restrooms. They'd both come a long way since then, Cindy had pointed out yesterday right before she'd interviewed Paige for the cable news channel.

"… About the space shuttle Columbia's mission, Cindy was saying, her face set in the typical newscaster's stony expression. "When interviewed yesterday, astronaut Paige Lyons insisted it was just a routine flight."

The screen filled with Paige's face. A hint of makeup, the long, blond hair parted down the middle, curving softly around her face "like the disheveled wings of a mischievous angel," Norman Mailer had described it for Life. A funny little man, she remembered, who over lunch told her there was one principle that guided his whole professional life. Alimony.

"Informed sources tell us that this mission was thrown together rather quickly, Dr. Lyons," Cindy was asking.

"That's somewhat true, Cindy," Paige said. "Part of the purpose of this mission is to see how flight-alert we are in case of a space emergency. How quickly can we activate a shuttle and be in space to affect repairs to a space station or a malfunctioning satellite? That's what we want to find out."

Paige smiled at her image on the screen. "What a good little liar you are, dear."

"So it's strictly routine," Cindy asked. "Including using the old Columbia!"

"The taxpayers bought it, they might as well get their money's worth, don't you think?"

"What about rumors that you intend to focus special attention on the California situation?"

"Sure, we intend to observe it, study it. We want to make sure the so-called Long Beach Halo isn't shifting and starting to move toward the continent. But that's all. Just observation for now."