Take The Long Way Home Part 3

"If it's as bad as I think it is," Frank added, "then I imagine the National Guard is probably out in force. Maybe we should wait for them to show up."

"And do what?" I asked. "If it really is that bad, their hands are full. If people are disappearing, if planes and trains are cras.h.i.+ng like you say they are, then the National Guard are going to be doing more than clearing traffic jams. There's liable to be riots, looting-all kinds of s.h.i.+t."

Frank wrung his bandana out and shoved it back in his pocket. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Hadn't thought of that."

Another scream rang out, followed by a horn.

"So where do you guys live?" Frank asked, shuffling his feet.

"Shrewsbury," Charlie told him. "Just off Exit One on the Pennsylvania side."

"I'm pretty close to you," Frank said. "Parkton-last exit in Maryland."

"That's where the Park-and-Ride is, right?" Charlie asked.

"Yeah. Listen, you guys care if I tag along with you?"

I shrugged. "Sure. There's safety in numbers."

"Safety?" Charlie c.o.c.ked his head. "Safe from what?"

Instead of replying, I checked my cell phone. There was still no service, but the clock was working. It was 5:30 p.m.

"Britney!" Stephanie screamed from the tall gra.s.s. "Where are you, baby?"

Britney didn't answer.

None of the missing did.

Twenty minutes later, after weaving our way through the snarled traffic, we reached Exit 18-Warren Road and c.o.c.keysville. Those were twenty minutes of dazed and hysterical commuters, wrecked vehicles, and mangled, b.l.o.o.d.y bodies. Twenty minutes of despair and hopelessness that grew with each tortured cry. Twenty minutes of diesel fumes and burning rubber. Twenty minutes that seemed like an eternity.

We stopped to rest and took seats on the guardrail, right beneath the exit sign. Frank breathed heavily, gasping for air, and the veins stood out in his face. He looked like he was ready to have a heart attack. All three of us were drenched with sweat, and Charlie and I both had dark circles under the arms of our dress s.h.i.+rts.

"Whew," Frank panted. "Talk about taking the long way home."

"I'm still not sure we should be doing this," Charlie grumbled.

"Both of us got banged up when Hector hit the construction barrier. Should we be walking this far? I don't know about you, Steve, but my head hurts. What if we've got concussions or something?"

I cracked my neck to get rid of the stiffness. "I don't care. Only thing I want to do now is get home to Terri."

There was a stone quarry to our right, nestled in the shallow valley below. One of the facility's buildings was on fire. Orange flames flickered across the rooftop, and thick, black smoke poured from the doors and windows, drifting up the hill and billowing over the highway. Workers scurried around the building like panicking ants. A few more employees lay on the ground, unmoving. There were no fire trucks or ambulances in sight. We'd only seen one state police cruiser since the Timonium exit, and it was deserted, parked along the side of the road. I'd wondered if the officer disappeared with the rest or had abandoned the vehicle afterward.

3.

My headache grew worse.

"You guys got any aspirin?"

They both shook their heads.

"I'd kill for a beer right now," Frank said.

I wondered about the bars. Would they be jam-packed tonight, filled to overflowing as word of the disaster spread and people's loved ones didn't come home? Would people flock to them, seeking comfort in the presence of others? Or would they all go to church or temple instead? Personally, I'd always thought that there wasn't much difference between a tavern and a place of wors.h.i.+p.

Frank watched the flames spread in the quarry. A second building caught fire.

"Where are the authorities?" he asked. "Why aren't they doing something? That whole place is gonna be toast. And it looks like they've got injured."

Charlie took off his shoe and shook a stone out. "Busy elsewhere, I guess."

"They can't all be elsewhere," Frank said. "Some of them should have responded to the fire by now. At least an ambulance."

"Maybe they can't get through," I said.

Charlie frowned. "Like we said earlier, maybe they're shorthanded. Or some of them might have disappeared, too."

I considered this. There was no rhyme or reason to the missing people, nothing to indicate why they'd been taken. From what we'd seen, it affected all races, genders and age groups. The only thing I'd noticed was that we hadn't seen a single infant. Just lots of empty car seats. Were all of the babies missing? I wondered if this could be the glorious Rapture that Terri and her parents had talked about, but decided against it. I'd seen several priests, nuns and preachers among the survivors, and a dozen occupied vehicles with Jesus b.u.mper stickers and license plates. Plenty of Christians were left behind. And Craig was a Christian too, and hadn't necessarily believed in the Rapture, yet he was missing along with the rest. The only common denominator was that everybody had vanished at the same time, immediately after that bizarre blast-except for the black guy, Gabriel. He'd vanished later, after helping me. He'd told me something, just before he disappeared. I tried to remember what it was but the words wouldn't come. Trying to figure it out made my head hurt, so I stopped.

"Maybe it really was a terrorist attack," Charlie said. "Maybe they got their hands on some kind of black ops weapon."

"It isn't that," Frank replied.

"How do you know?"

Frank shrugged. "I don't. I'd just rather not think about the possibility, is all."

"So what is it then?"

"It just is what it is."

A disheveled man wandered towards us. He reeked, the stench reminding me of a litter box. The crotch of his trousers had a wet splotch where he'd p.i.s.sed himself. There was a long, b.l.o.o.d.y gash on his forehead.

"Excuse me." His eyes looked dazed. "Do you guys have the time?"

I checked my cell phone. "Almost six."

"Thanks. How about a cigarette? Got one of those?"

All three of us shook our heads.

The man lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Need a smoke. I keep thinking that maybe I should find an unguarded gas station and steal some cigarettes. But I've never done anything like that before."

"I wouldn't try it," Charlie said. "The police are probably out by now, patrolling for that kind of thing. I'm sure things will be back to normal by tomorrow."

"Normal?" The man blinked at him. "I guess you guys haven't heard."

I looked up, holding my breath to avoid breathing in his stink.

"Heard what?"

"Alien abduction," he gasped. "Everybody's talking about it. All these folks that are missing? They were abducted by aliens. You know-the Grays, like you see on TV? The ones they talk about late at night on the radio? We're under attack!"

"Get the f.u.c.k outta here." Frank spat on the pavement. "Little gray men, my a.s.s."

"I'm serious," the man insisted. "This is happening all over the world, not just here. New York, Was.h.i.+ngton, London, Moscow, Budapest, Jerusalem-you name it. I heard they even got the President and some of his cabinet. Disappeared right out of the White House. That's why he hasn't addressed the nation. Famous people, too. You guys know that rapper, Prosper Johnson?"

Frank shook his head. Charlie and I nodded. Terri and I had seen him in concert the first year we were dating, back when we still did fun things like that (these days, as we got a little older, we were happy to stay home and play a game of Uno).

"Well," the man continued, "you know how he was up for the n.o.bel Peace Prize, on account of stopping the violence in L.A., right? He was giving a speech on TV. All the cable news stations were carrying it. He vanished live, on camera."

"Seriously?" Charlie asked.

The man raised his right hand. "Swear to G.o.d. Disappeared in mid f.u.c.king sentence. f.u.c.king aliens beamed him up or something, just like everybody else. People are going nuts. Everything's in chaos."

"Alien abduction," Charlie said. "You really believe that?"

"You got a better explanation?"

None of us did, and the man stumbled away. We watched him stop and b.u.m a cigarette off another man, and tell him the same story.

"So," Charlie said. "Prosper Johnson is among the missing. That's too bad."

"I hate that rap s.h.i.+t," Frank muttered. "Bunch a black guys singing about how much money they got, and how many b.i.t.c.hes they got and this gun and that gun."

Charlie threw a pebble over the guardrail. "It's not just *black guys.' There are plenty of white rappers."

"What's your point?"

"Well, no offense, Frank, but that's kind of a racist statement."

Frank scowled. "How is that racist?"

"You're implying that all black people rap. That's like saying all Asians are good at math, or that all gay men watch Will and Grace. It's a stereotype. I'm gay, and I hate that f.u.c.king show."

"I ain't a racist."

"You work in construction, right?"

Frank nodded.

"You mean to tell me you and your buddies never stood around on the site and told jokes about queers?"

"Don't start with that politically-correct bulls.h.i.+t. Talk about stereotypes-you think all construction workers stand around and make fun of gay people and whistle at women? You think we're all just a bunch of ignorant, uneducated rednecks?"

Charlie opened his mouth to respond, but Frank cut him off and continued.

"You ever tell a Polack joke?"

Charlie shrugged, then reluctantly nodded.

"So I could call you a racist, too, then. You're making a joke-a stereotype-about how stupid my ancestors are supposed to be. Well, I ain't stupid and I ain't a racist. All I did was state a fact. Most rappers are black. That's where it started, right?"

Charlie turned to me and changed the subject. "How far is it to Shrewsbury, you think?"

I took my tie off and wrapped it around my head for a sweatband. "About thirty more miles."

"And how far have we gone?"

"One mile."

"s.h.i.+t." He stood up. "At this rate, it'll be morning before we get home. We'd better keep moving."

I tried calling Terri again, but there was still no service, not even when we pa.s.sed directly beneath a cell phone tower.

We stayed on the side of the road, trying to keep a steady pace. The tension eased between Charlie and Frank. We made small talk. Frank talked about his job, and we told him about ours. Then we came to a bridge. The guardrail forced us into traffic, and we walked between the cars. People leaned back in their seats with the windows rolled down, or lounged on the hoods. Some asked for news, or for help finding a companion, but we had time for neither.

As we pa.s.sed the Shawan Road exit, I looked to my right at the shopping center, light rail station, hotel and convention center. People milled about in the parking lots. Cars moved on the streets, albeit slowly. The traffic lights at the bottom of the exit ramp still worked and, for the most part, drivers obeyed them. On the surface, things looked surprisingly normal, but I knew it was an illusion. I wondered how many people had vanished in the darkness of the movie theatre, or from the swimming pool at the hotel, or sitting on the train. Did their loved ones even know they were missing yet? Did they expect them to come home tonight?

Footsteps thudded on the macadam ahead of us. We looked up as a guy in a charcoal-colored business suit ran past us, shouting at the top of his lungs to n.o.body in particular that the stock market had crashed. His tie fluttered behind him as he dashed by. He skidded in the gravel, almost losing his balance. Then, without even glancing at Frank, Charlie or myself, he vaulted over the guardrail and slid down the embankment. A cloud of dust marked his pa.s.sage.

We pa.s.sed by a Cadillac with its driver's door hanging open. The keys dangled from the ignition, and were turned to the accessory option. The radio was on, tuned to the news, and sure enough, the stock market had crashed, just like the man had been shouting. I wondered if this was his car. A cell phone lay on the pa.s.senger seat. The floor was littered with fast food bags and Styrofoam coffee cups.

"Should we take the car?" Charlie asked.

I stared at him in disbelief. "This isn't f.u.c.king Thunderdome, man. Stealing cars is still against the law."

"Well it ain't like whoever left it here needs it. Maybe the driver vanished."

"That's not the point."

Charlie glanced up the highway. "We've got a long walk home, Steve. We'd be there in an hour with the Caddy."

"No." Frank stepped forward. "Much as I hate to say it-believe me, my feet hurt already-but a car will just slow us down. Look how congested things are. Traffic's not moving."

We listened to the frantic reporter for a minute. The news was bad, getting worse by the second, and the reporter's voice kept breaking. The world's financial markets were in an uproar. Millions were reported missing, including politicians, C.E.O.'s, world leaders, religious figures and celebrities. They'd vanished from their homes, their cars and their places of business. According to NASA, a Russian cosmonaut had even gone missing off the International s.p.a.ce Station, leaving one countryman and an American astronaut behind. Planes fell from the sky. Trains crashed. The highways were deathtraps. A nuclear reactor at a power plant in China was reportedly in meltdown. Fires and rioting had broken out in just about every major city on Earth, and there were dozens of reports of authorities shooting looters and declaring martial law amidst the unrest. Religious fighting swept through Asia and the Middle East, with the worst of it centered in Israel. All of this within a few hours. I wondered how much worse things would get before it was over.

Charlie gave one last, lingering look at the Cadillac, and then we continued on, trying to ignore the screams and plaintive calls for loved ones from those left behind. I saw surreal signs of the missing as well: an abandoned baby doll in the middle lane, an empty wheelchair, a pair of empty shoes, a castaway purse, and a cl.u.s.ter of roadside construction vehicles-steamroller, bulldozer, and dump trucks. Judging by the path of destruction, it looked like the steamroller had kept going after its operator disappeared, flattening orange traffic cones and toolboxes.

A few minutes later, we came across a tractor-trailer. The seal on the back door had been broken and a gang of youths was looting it, hauling away televisions and DVD players. Most of the teens were armed. Stranded motorists minded their own business, pretending they didn't see it happening. Charlie, Frank and I did the same. There were no cops around. Not even the distant sound of sirens. The last thing we needed right now was more trouble, and besides, stopping would just slow us down even more and impede me getting home to Terri. So they were stealing electronics. It wasn't our problem. It was somebody else's.

The construction ended after Shawan Road and the lanes expanded again, making it easier for us to navigate. Traffic was less snarled here, and although there were still plenty of wrecked cars with missing, injured, or dead occupants, many more had driven on. Several pa.s.sed slowly by us, and Frank choked on the exhaust fumes.