Alex Adams: White Horse

Then everything blows apart at the seams. A roaring boom shakes the countryside until even the grass sinks to its knees. We hit the ground, our stomachs flat against the soft soil, arms forming a protective M over our heads. Food scatters as the bicycle falls between us.

The air thumps. Pressure forces us deeper into the grass.

“Are you okay?”

Lisa nods, her cheek flattened by the ground. Her eyes are wide and unblinking. She’s unhurt—or at least not bleeding on the outside. I determine the same about myself and roll onto my back, propping myself up on my elbows.

“You?” she asks.

“I’m okay.”

“What was that?”

“Something blew up.”

The explosion came from behind us. I know this because that’s where the fireball is rising into the sky. Smoke is a voluminous, billowing, high-fashion cloak framing the fire, enhancing its dangerous beauty.

Its significance is not lost on me, and the surge of hormones that is my flight-or-fight response whips my pulse onward, telling me flight is smarter.

“We have to go. And we have to get off the road.”

Her lips sag at the edges. “But that means we have to go through the mud. Our feet…”

“I don’t like it, either, but we don’t have a choice.”

“But why?”

“Because that explosion means there might be someone behind us. So it’s better if we stay out of sight.”

“Do you think it was the church?”

“Probably.”

There’s a short pause. “What was in there?”

“Have you ever heard of those old maps, the kind from before we knew what the continents really looked like, when people thought the earth was flat?”

“I think so. In school. Why?”

“Some of them used to have pictures of dragons or other fantastical beasts strategically placed in unexplored areas.”

The wheels turn. “Are you saying a dragon did this?”

“No. I’m saying that the whole world is dangerous now. And there are monsters out there that used to be us.”

We move on from this place, sticking to the thicker grass so our boots don’t sink and us along with them. The rain persists.

I hate you , I mouthacross the table at my sister.

She shrugs. What?

I scratch my nose with the middle finger of my right hand. Grown women acting like teenagers.

“The Chinese,” the voice next to me drones on. “Now that’s our biggest threat. They’re playing God over there with their weather modification program.”

“So they can dry their laundry faster?” my brother-in-law asks. Mark is no racist, but I can see he’s as bored with the boob next to me as I am.

My blind date’s ego is made of yeast, and the hotter it gets, the more he puffs up. It’s a marvel his trendy polo shirt and chinos don’t pop.

“They did it during the Olympics,” I say. “They shot silver iodide pellets into the sky. But it’s not just China. We do it here, too.”

Daniel, the dough man, recoils like I’ve slapped him. “We do not.”

“Yeah, we do.”

Jenny picks at the tablecloth. She knows I won’t let this go. Anyone else and I might, but this guy is rubbing sandpaper on my raw nerves.

“What did you say you do again?”

“I work for Pope Pharmaceuticals.”

He nods. “I’ve seen their products advertised. Antidepressants and sleeping pills.”

Over bagged lunches the cleaning crew jokes that Pope Pharmaceuticals is an insurance policy: it manufactures drugs for every contingency, including things you never knew you had.

“And drugs for dicks,” Mark says. “For when you can’t get it up.”

Daniel ignores him. “What do you do there?”

“I clean.”

He throws his hands in the air like he’s won some victory in some competition only he knows about. “Ladies and gentlemen, domestic engineering now qualifies a person as an expert on weather control.”

It’s all I can do not to shove my wineglass down his throat.

“Excuse me.” I take off for the privacy of the backyard. I pace the length of the pool, stop, turn, retrace my steps. The moon is bright in its glassy surface. By the time I reach the diving board my fingers are searching for my phone.

I dial. Four rings. The fifth breaks as the connection is made.

“You’re there. I thought you’d be gone for the day.”

“Who is this?” Dr. Rose asks.

My voice catches and he laughs.

“I’m joking, Zoe. Are you okay?”

“No.” I rub my fingers over my forehead like it’s a piece of crumpled paper and I’m smoothing out the lines. “Yes. Can I ask you something?”

“Boxers,” he says. “Briefs exacerbate my claustrophobia.”

Normally I’d laugh, but my body is a violin string held taut to the point of snapping.

“I’m on a blind date. It was my sister’s idea.”

He lets out a grunt that triggers an image of him leaning back in his chair, resting his feet on his desk, because this is going to be a long night and he wants to be comfortable.

“A blind date,” he says. “How—”

“Please don’t ask me how I feel about it. If I had to pick a word, I’d say homicidal .”

“That answers my question. Which was going to be ‘How’s it going?’”

I throw a leaf into the pool and the moon shivers.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. You have a life outside of neurotic patients.”

“You’re not neurotic,” he says. “You’re on a blind date. The only other question is: Why aren’t you drinking heavily?”

“I’m allergic.”

“To alcohol?”

“To assholes. I get hives when I mix the two.”

I can feel him smile.

“You mentioned a husband in our first session.”

“Sam.”

“Sam. Tell me about him.”

“What’s to tell? We fell in lust, married in a quickie ceremony in Las Vegas, then he died before we had a chance to fall in love.”

“I’m sorry. I assumed you were divorced.”

“That’s the logical conclusion these days.” The question hangs in his silence. “Car crash. His mother was driving.”

“Drunk driver?”

“Seizure. She drove straight into the path of a semi.”

His voice is cool balm on my raw nerves. “I’m sorry for your loss. How long ago?”

“Five years. My family think it’s time I moved on.”

“What do you think?”

“I’d like to move on with a non-asshole. I hear they can test DNA for that now.”

There’s silence, and for a moment I think we’ve lost our connection. Until he laughs.

Daniel pokes his head around the open door frame, an extinguished pharos incapable of shedding revelatory light.

“Come on,” he says when he spots me. “Don’t be a pouty brat.”

“Excuse me,” I tell Nick. “I think my invisibility cloak just failed.”

“If you kill him, call me. I’m bound by doctor-client privilege.”

“Really?”

“No. But the courts make exceptions for assholes.”

I follow Daniel into the house.

“I’ve got tickets for Waiting for Godot .” He says this like he just laid a golden egg.

“I’m right about the weather,” I say. “Tell Jenny and Mark I said good night.”

Darkness creeps across the countryside. When it catches us, we have to stop. There are no worn paths here where hundreds of feet have gone before us, or even the same pairs of feet hundreds of times over. The ground is virgin, and each step a potential danger.

“We’ll take turns keeping watch. Between your ears and my eyes, we should be okay.”

Lisa’s tired. We both are. There’s a weariness to my bones that has become a part of me, like a leg or an ear. It belongs to me. In return, it owns my body and dictates when I should rest, sleep, yawn from fatigue. Every day a fear flashes through me: that I have White Horse and it’s the disease commanding my routine, not the journey. But there’s been no blood, no tissue-deep pain, so the fear creeps away and hides until it can ambush me the next time.