Robert Charles Wilson - SPIN

I learned, for one thing, that we had been wise to avoid big cities. Major cities were disaster areas—not because of looting and violence (there had been surprisingly little) but because of catastrophic infrastructure collapse. The rising of the red sun had looked so much like the long-predicted death of the Earth that most people had simply stayed home to die with their families, leaving urban centers with minimally functioning police and fire departments and radically understaffed hospitals. The minority of people who attempted death by gunshot, or who dosed themselves with extravagant amounts of alcohol, cocaine, OxyContin, or amphetamines, were the inadvertent cause of the most immediate problems: they left gas stoves running, passed out while driving, or dropped cigarettes as they died. When the carpet began to smolder or the drapes burst into flames nobody called 911, and in many cases there would have been no one there to pick up. House fires quickly became neighborhood fires.

Four big plumes of smoke were rising from Oklahoma City, the newscaster said, and according to phone reports much of the south side of Chicago had already been reduced to embers. Every major city in the country—every one that had been heard from—was reporting at least one or two large-scale uncontrolled fires.

But the situation was improving, not deteriorating. Today it had begun to seem possible that the human race might survive at least a few days longer, and as a result more first-responders and essential-service personnel were back at their posts. (The downside was that people had begun to worry how long their provisions might last: grocery-store looting was a growing problem.) Anyone who was not an essential-service provider was being urged to stay off the roads—the message had gone out before dawn over the emergency broadcast system and through every radio and TV outlet still functioning, and it was being repeated tonight. Which helped to explain why traffic had been reasonably scarce on the interstate. I had seen a few military and police patrols but none of them had interfered with us, presumably because of the plates on my car— California and most other states had begun issuing EMS license plate stickers to physicians after the first flicker episode.

Policing was sporadic. The regular military remained more or less intact despite some desertions, but Reserve and National Guard units were at fractional strength and couldn't fill in for local authorities. Electrical power was sporadic, too; most generating stations were understaffed and barely functional, and blackouts had begun to cascade through the grid. There were rumors that nuclear plants at San Onofre in California and Pickering in Canada had come close to terminal meltdowns, though that was unconfirmed.

The announcer went on to read a list of designated local food depots, hospitals still open for business (with estimated waiting times for triage), and home first-aid tips. He also read a Weather Bureau advisory cautioning against prolonged exposure to the sun. The sunlight seemed not to be immediately deadly, but excessive UV levels could cause "long-term problems," they said, which was about as sad as it was funny.

* * * * *

I caught a few more scattered broadcasts before dawn, but the rising sun obscured them all with noise.

The day dawned overcast. I did not, therefore, have to drive directly into the glare of the sun; but even this muted sunrise was dauntingly strange. The entire eastern half of the sky became a churning soup of red light, as hypnotic in its way as the embers of a dying campfire. Occasionally the clouds parted and fingers of amber sunlight probed the land. But by noon the overcast had deepened and within the hour rain began to fall—a hot, lifeless rain that coated the highway and mirrored the sickly colors of the sky.

I had emptied the last jerican of gasoline into the tank that morning, and somewhere between Cairo and Lexington the needle on the gas gauge began to sag alarmingly. I woke Simon and explained the problem and told him I'd pull into the next gas station… and each one after that, until we found one that would sell us some fuel.

The next station turned out to be a little four-pump mom-and-pop gas-and-snack-food franchise a quarter mile off the highway. The store was dark and the pumps were probably dead, but I rolled up anyhow and got out of the car and took the nozzle off its hook.

A man with a Bengals cap on his head and a shotgun cradled in his arms came around the side of the building and said, "That's no good."

I put the nozzle back, slowly. "Your power out?"

"That's correct."

"No backup?"

He shrugged and came closer. Simon started to get out of the car but I waved him back in. The man in the Bengals cap—he was about thirty years old and thirty pounds overweight—looked at the Ringer's drip rigged up in the backseat. Then he squinted at the license plate. It was a California plate, which probably didn't win me any goodwill points, but the EMS sticker was plainly visible. "You're a doctor?"

"Tyler Dupree," I said. "M.D."

"Pardon me if I don't shake your hand. That your wife in there?"

I said yes, because it was simpler than explaining. Simon shot me a look but didn't contradict me.

"You have identification to prove you're a medical doctor? Because, no offense, there's been some auto theft happening these past couple of days."

I took out my wallet and tossed it at his feet. He picked it up and looked at the card folder. Then he fished a pair of eyeglasses out of his shirt pocket and looked at it again. Finally he handed it back and offered me his hand. "Sorry about that, Dr. Dupree. I'm Chuck Bernelli. If it's just gas you need, I'll turn on the pumps. If you need more than that, it'll only take me a minute to open the store."

"I need the gas. Provisions would be nice, but I'm not carrying a lot of cash."

"The heck with cash. We're closed to criminals and drunks, and there's no lack of those on the road right now, but we're open all hours to the military and the highway patrol. And medical men. At least as long as there's gas to pump. I hope your wife's not too badly off."

"Not if I can get where I'm headed."

"Lexington V.A.? Samaritan?"

"A little farther than that. She needs special care."

He glanced back at the car. Simon had rolled down the windows to let some fresh air in. Rain spackled down on the dusty vehicle, the puddled oily asphalt. Bernelli caught a glimpse of Diane as she turned and began to cough in her sleep. He frowned.

"I'll get the pumps going, then," he said. "You'll want to be on your way."

Before we left he put together some groceries for us, a few cans of soup, a box of saltine crackers, a can opener in a plastic display pack. But he didn't want to get close to the car.

* * * * *

A racking, intermittent cough is a common symptom of CVWS. The bacteria is almost canny in the way it preserves its victims, preferring not to drown them in a catastrophic pneumonia, though that's the means by which it eventually kills—that, or wholesale cardiac failure. I had taken an oxygen canister, bleeder valve, and mask from the wholesaler outside Flagstaff, and when Diane's cough began to interfere with her breathing—she was on the verge of panic, drowning in her own sputum, eyes rolling—I cleared her airway as best I could and held the mask over her mouth and nose while Simon drove.

Eventually she calmed down, her color improved, and she was able to sleep again. I sat with her while she rested, her feverish head nestled into my shoulder. The rain had become a relentless downpour, slowing us down. Big plumes of water rooster-tailed behind the car every time we hit a low place in the road. Toward evening the light faded to hot coals on the western horizon.

There was no sound but the beating of rain on the roof of the car and I was content to listen to it until Simon cleared his throat and said, "Are you an atheist, Tyler?"