Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

“That’s what I keep telling everyone.”

I picked up Bill’s client at 2 p.m. sharp at the Beverly Wilshire hotel. I’ve done the Beverly Hills to LAX run so many times I could do it napping in the back with the passengers. The client’s name was McKee. I recognized him because he’s the one standing all by himself, far away from the crowd. Yeah, claustrophobic as shit.

“Mr. McKee?” I said. “I’m Paul, your driver. Would you like me to take your luggage?”

“Yes. Thank you,” he said. I didn’t get too close to him or bother asking about his attaché case, which he was clutching to his chest with both arms like it was the Lindbergh baby. When I opened the backseat door for McKee, he looked around inside before getting in. That and the attaché case said a lot and made me a little nervous. I studied the crowd for a minute before getting back in the limo. If there was trouble coming, I wanted to know from which direction. But I didn’t see anything funny, so I steered us out of the hotel and headed for the airport.

McKee didn’t say a word on the drive down, just stared out the window and checked his watch. And he never once let go of the attaché case. I’ve driven around enough show biz low-lifes and business creeps to know that there’s only a few things McKee could be so worried about. The case was full of either embezzled cash or drugs. I glanced at him in the rearview mirror and our eyes locked for a second. He gave me a tight little smile, gripped the case tighter, and went back to staring at the traffic on the 405.

I had to tell someone about this ridiculous situation, but my wife would be at a business meeting this time of day, so I got out my phone and texted Alexandra, my girlfriend. She was a singer with her first single on the charts and a lot more on the way. She was also beautiful and young enough that the fact I was married just made me more exotic and not a big fucking problem. And she loved hearing gossip about my clients.

I texted: In the limo with a metric ton of coke. Want some?

A second later, I got back: YES!!!

Where are you?

At home bring drugs and fuck me NOW From the back, McKee said, “Are you texting? Could you please not do that?”

I looked at him in the rearview. “Sorry. Company business. I’ll be done in a second.”

I texted: Be there soon. Don’t bother with clothes .

The accident happened in the second it took me to hit send. I didn’t see a pickup truck cut across two lanes toward an exit until it was too late, and I realized what was happening just in time to rear end an Escalade that had hit its brakes to avoid the truck. A cab hit me from behind and nudged me over into the next lane where I got sideswiped by a moving truck. The limo slammed nose-first into the guardrail on the side of the freeway. We hit hard enough that McKee’s door popped open. The asshole wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and almost flew out of the car. His attaché case launched like a goddamn rocket out of his hands and smashed open on the freeway shoulder. When I got out and went around the car, he was on his hands and knees in a blizzard of hundred-dollar bills.

“My pills,” he said over and over.

A million bucks was blowing down the freeway and all McKee was worried about was his fucking pills ? I reached out to help him up and he lurched back. Right. No touching. There was blood all over the money where he knelt. He touched his face. Blood trickled out of his nose. He sat back on his haunches and laughed. Took a handful of money and threw it in the air.

“What do you believe in?” said McKee.

“Are you all right, sir? Did you hit your head?” I crouched next to him, but he moved away.

“I mean it,” he said. “When things go bad—really bad—what do you blame? Global warming? Chemtrails? Aliens? An angry God?”

“Please. Don’t move around so much.”

He waved a finger at me. “It’s none of those things. It’s just me. And I don’t know why. It just happened one day.”

Fuck this. He was bleeding and maybe something worse. I had to get him to settle down. “Calm down, sir. You’ll be all right.”

“Call it evolution. Call it de volution,” he said. He smiled. “My wife evolved. I don’t recognize her anymore. I hoped the pills would keep it from happening to me.”

I’d seen this kind of thing before. People get a shot to the head and their brain goes sideways. They talked about their dreams, some movie they saw when they were six, all kinds of shit. He needed medical attention fast. I tried to get him to lie down, but he wriggled away.

“When my wife changed she tried to eat me.”

Goddamnit. This was bad, but maybe if I went along with it it would calm him down. “What do you mean tried to eat you?”

He threw out his arms and looked around. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m sorry about all the blood. I was hoping to get far away before something like this happened.”

“Just wait there, sir. I’m calling you an ambulance.”

He stabbed a finger in my direction. “Some bodyguard you are. This is your fault. When the shit hits the fan, you’re the one who threw it. I’m toxic, but I was going away. Now it’s too late.” He touched his nose and held out a bloody hand.

By now, there was a crowd around us. People were running wild, grabbing the cash. The situation was getting out of control. I gently put my hand on McKee’s shoulder. “Please, sir. Stop moving.”

He bit my hand until I let go. Then he jumped over the freeway guardrail and started down a small embankment toward the feeder road. “It’s too late,” he shouted. “It’s out in the air. I’m out in the air. It’s too late.”

I followed him, but wasn’t fast enough. McKee calmly stepped in front of a fuel truck headed for the airport. For someone who was worried about a few drops of blood a minute earlier, he sure left a lot around after that stunt.

Poor bastard.

Hell, poor me . I was about to be out of a job. Maybe worse.

I went back up the embankment and found my phone on the floor of the limo. Before calling work, I texted Alexandra.

Shits come up. Can’t make it now. See you tonight?

And got back: okay later gator

I called the company and told them about the wreck and McKee offing himself. They were sending the cops, an ambulance, and a corporate rep. I was more scared of the rep than anything else that had happened that day.

I sat in the car, rubbed my shoulder and thought about what McKee had said. Something was out. What did that mean? And his wife tried to eat him? None of it made any sense, which I guess helps explain why he strolled out in front of that truck. He was nuts.

While I was waiting for the rep and others to arrive, the wind changed direction and my throat went dry. Nearby, someone said, “What’s that smell?”

A few of us stood there for a minute with our noses in the air like a pack of dogs.

Finally, the cabbie who hit me said, “I think it’s chalk. Like in school.”

He was right. That was my first time smelling it on the wind. Later on, I realized that most of these grinning idiots with me on the side of the road were probably dead meat.

Me, on the other hand? If I didn’t get arrested, I was going to a fucking party.

You learn your lessons the hard way these days. You learn or you’re gone. It’s not a rule. It’s just reality.

The thing you need to know about Rollers is that while they look like one big beast, they’re really made out of a lot of little ones. You see, people who get infected change fast. You can hear their bones crack as they curl up into fetal balls, while spines like barbed wire sprout out of their backs. If more than one person is changing, they’ll crawl together and spiral around each other into a spiked ball of bleeding meat.