The remote was on the table, where Becky always kept it while feeding Cam. He switched channels until he found a local station that was live, a reporter standing in the middle of a vast desert. But it wasn't a desert, Cam soon learned by reading the caption at the bottom of the screen, it was one of the local beaches.
This was followed by a Presidential address, which was replayed on another channel as well. He hadn't known the President had given a speech; he'd been too busy dealing with Becky's grief and Cobe's crying last night to watch TV. The President, like everyone else, looked sickly. Liberals would be hard pressed to say the current administration was getting any special treatment. It was true: nobody had anything to drink.
He tried calling his parents and again got no answer. "Please be all right," he whispered. The last time he'd spoken to them was to inform them Becky had kicked him out and that he was staying with Joe. They'd asked why she'd done that but he didn't get into it.
Now, there was little else to do but sit at the table and wait for Cobe to wake up. He wondered if his son would eat the dried up food in the fridge (which was no longer working). Probably not. All the food in the fridge was dry as a bone. As was the air in the house; the inside of his nose was scaly and cracked, it was a wonder it wasn't bleeding.
Eventually the TV became mere background noise (how many times could he hear about the ocean disappearing and people keeling over?) and his thoughts drifted to Scott. Every time he closed his eyes he saw his brother-in-law lying under a pile of angry lunatics who were beating him to death.
Becky had blamed him, said he should have saved her brother.
She was right. He should have saved Scott. He was as worthless as Becky said he was.
Still, he had brought water to Cobe and that had to count for something. His love for his son wasn't just an act to impress Becky. It was rooted deep in his soul. He couldn't stand to see Cobe looking like this.
He also couldn't stand to see Becky so out of her mind. That wasn't an act either. Despite being back in the house with her, he still missed her terribly. How stupid he'd been to take her for granted. It seemed like just days ago they'd been going to bed together, saying I love you before they kissed and fell asleep in each other's arms. Sure, there'd been nights when they'd gone to bed angry, but those weren't worth thinking about right now.
What was worth thinking about was water. Specifically, the water in the trailer at the aquifer. How had Jack gotten so much water? There was no water tank nearby, and the small fridge was already open and tipped over when he and Scott had entered.
Where had the water come from? Why so many jars? If Jack had water, why not just pour it all into the jug in the first place. Why separate it? What was the white powder all over that pan that Scott had been so happy about?
"What was going on there, Scott. C'mon, man, just give me some kind of goddamn sign. I'm sorry about the Alanis Morissette thing."
For the next hour, he sat at the table hearing Scott's words over and over: the water has to go somewhere.
But where? And how had Jack gotten some?
The hours stretched into more hours. He measured time by how bad his insides felt.
Throughout the day, Cam moved only once, to change Cobe; the baby was ominously quiet, but there was little he could do. He tried spitting in a jar of dried baby food to moisten it, but Cobe wasn't having it. Couldn't blame him, really.
Becky never came out of her room, though he could hear her snoring from time to time. Best to let her rest.
For a long while he stared at Jesus' head on the floor.
The day erased itself.
The world continued to die.
It was as simple as that.
DAY FIVE.
CHAPTER 19.
Austin was on fire. A day ago nobody outside of Texas was giving Austin a thought, now it was all over the news, burning to cinders. The citizens had dug up the roads and planted homemade bombs along the water mains, sure that the government was blocking the water supply.
They'd missed the water pipes and hit the gas lines.
It was almost as bad as Boston, which was not only on fire, but without any civility whatsoever. Anyone suspected of having water was hanging by a noose from the nearest telephone pole. Survival now depended on how strong and crazy you were.
Chances were many other cities were facing the same problem. No one was banding together. This wasn't an outside threat like some terrorist attack by a fundamentalist group, this was mother nature against man. People were doing what they had to do to survive, to continue their very existences.
Trust was a word that no longer had meaning.
Cam knew all this from the handheld radio he kept on the kitchen table. The television stations had gone off late last night, so he'd dug around in Scott's room for the radio. It was a satellite version; leave it to a scientist to have the latest gadgets. In fact, a couple television stations still had camera feeds- live video from traffic cameras and whatnot-but there were no reports.
The Internet hadn't reported anything in a few hours either-at least the main Web sites like CNN and MSNBC hadn't. Lord knew some guy who spent his days whacking off to porn in his basement might still be blogging somewhere, but that meant little in the grand scheme of things.
Of all the stations on the radio, only a couple still had DJs talking. One was a Spanish speaking station, the other was an AM station Cam had never heard of. The man sounded old, gruff, weary-pissed off. He spoke slowly; clearly he had a sore throat, and more than once pontificated about the end of the world. Every so often he would report on something, but it was hard to tell where he was getting his information.
"Bedford residents have burned their town to the ground. The fires still rage. No water to put it out. You hear me, people? The devil has claimed us. All you adulterers, you drug addicts, and homosexuals...God is smiting us for your sins. John 4:14, people: 'But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.' But now we're all thirsting, aren't we? God is smiting us for your sins, you heathens. What's this? The hospitals in Providence have shut down. You hear that? No more medical help. The end of days, people, the end of days. Shit. Look at that, I'm cursing on the radio. Doesn't matter now. There ain't no FCC. All the feds are home hoarding their water supplies. Who wants to hear some Beach Boys?"
"Surfing USA" blared from the radio and Cam had to turn it off or he'd end up throwing it across the room. God, he wished he was surfing now, oblivious to all the death unfolding around him. At least if he was out on the waves he wouldn't feel so goddamn alone.
Which reminded him, he hadn't spoken to Joe since seeing him at the pub.
When he dialed Joe's apartment a moment later he got no answer. Maybe he was out like the rest of the world, looking under rocks for puddles, breaking into stores in search of a juice carton that wasn't empty.
"I threw up."
He looked up and saw Becky standing in the doorway of the kitchen. It hurt to stand up as fast as he did, both from the concussion and the cramps in his stomach. He shoved the chair back and ran to her. This time she didn't shy away, but she didn't hug him back either.
"Are you okay?" he asked. Stupid question. Who the fuck was okay?
"I just said...I threw up. I'm sick."
She didn't need to say it for him to see it. Her face was pallid, her lips cracked, her weight was down. Despite this, and despite her breath stinking of vomit, he still wanted to kiss her.
So he did.
She gave no reaction. Just stood there and let him do it.
"Come sit." He led her to the table.
"I saw Cobe in the living room, is he sleeping or dead?" She said it so matter-of-factly it stunned him.
"'Course he's not dead. He's sleeping. You think I wouldn't tell you if something happened to him?"
"Why not? Everyone else is dead. Everyone I care about is gone."
"I'm here. Don't you care about me?"
This time, when she didn't answer, he couldn't hold back his anger. "Jesus Christ, Becky, I'm here. I did my best. Look at me for a second. I got you water. And I'm fucking sorry already for what I did. I love you. Get it? I love you, and I'm here, so look at me like I'm a fucking human being, and say something nice because right now you're all I have, and I'm pretty sure I'm all you have, and we have a son in there who's going to die if we don't figure something out."
For the first time in two days, she looked in his eyes. "Figure what out, Cam? There's no more water and everyone's dead. The world is ending. I'm sick, you're sick, Cobe doesn't even cry anymore he's so sick. What can we figure out? Scott was the brains...and you let him-"
"Don't say it. Don't even fucking say it. I'd be dead too if Scott hadn't given me the okay to get out of there. That water I brought home, that would never have arrived if I'd stayed. Scott knew that. He gave his goddamn life for us so don't you sit here and dishonor that by locking yourself in your room and giving up. You hear me? He gave us a chance."
He fully expected her to slap him or chew him out or something, but she said nothing. They both sat in silence like that for a little while, listening to the floor creek.
"Where did you get the water?" Becky finally asked.
"I don't know. That professor friend of Scott's-"
"Jack?"
"Yeah...Jack."
"He dead?"
"Yeah. You knew him?"
"Not really. Scott said he was a nice guy, though."
"Ahhh!" The pain came out of nowhere and doubled Cam over in his chair. He groaned and grit his teeth as cramps thundered through his intestines. He'd been having them for several hours now, like the worst case of food poisoning he'd ever experienced. It took a minute, but it finally passed.
Becky was touching his shoulder, he could feel her hand there. When he sat back up she took it away. Maybe he'd finally gotten through to her with his little speech. After all, they were going to have to be a team to get Cobe some water. The thought of her warming up to him gave him a jolt of hope, but he didn't say anything; better to let the moment stand.
"Cramps?" she asked. "Me too."
"God, that one hurt."
"Good. Now you know how it feels when your husband cheats on you."
Okay, so maybe she wasn't warming up exactly; maybe she just realized she needed him to survive.
"The water?" she said, as if to remind him where they'd left off.
"Right, the water. Jack had all these jars of water in a storage closet. He also had this pan with this white stuff and Scott seemed to think he'd figured something out but I don't know what it was."
"He didn't say?"
"He was about to. He'd just dipped his hand in it and..."
A thought fluttered into Cam's woozy head. He let it sit there for a moment trying to digest it, like working out a math problem. Becky asked him if he was okay, waved a hand in front of his face.
He ignored her and went and got Scott's car keys off the counter. "He touched the keys."
"So?"
Cam flipped them around, studying the UCSD keychain on them. There, right on the logo, was what he was looking for. The white powder. From Scott's hand, no doubt. He smelled it, just like Scott had done, but couldn't discern an odor. Was it a chemical?
Tentatively, he licked it.
"It's salt," he said.
Becky got up from the table, ambled over next to him and looked at the keychain. "Some of the aquifers drill up salt water. Scott tells me...used to tell me...but it bores me so I don't listen much."
"Jack was at that salt water aquifer. The ocean is evaporating slower than everything else."
"Which all means what? You're not supposed to drink ocean water. Even I know that."
"Scott said something about third grade science."
"Did you pass third grade?"
He looked up at her and smiled. "Well well well, Becky's back."
"I wasn't kidding."
He let the snide comment slide and got back to thinking about the salt. "How can you get the salt out of the water? Or better yet, how do you get the water out, leaving the salt behind? Jack got the clean water out and into the jars somehow."
They both stood there thinking for some time, until finally Cobe woke up and made a noise. Becky gave up and went to check on him.
Cam stared at the floor and said, "Shit. Why am I not smart enough to figure this out?"
Another cramp slammed through his insides and he doubled over once more, sure he was going to die right there. Oh God, it hurt. The pain was the worst yet, spiked with heat and bubbling, the acid in his stomach like lava in a volcano.
When the pain finally passed, he stood back up...
...and saw Joe staring at him through the kitchen window. "Joe?"
"Give us some water, Cam," Joe said.
What the hell was he talking about?
Behind Joe, at least a hundred people stood on the lawn, all of them looking in through the window at Cam. All of them held some kind of weapon. A couple of them even had rifles.
One of the people was Dick.
Without thinking, Cam yelled, "Becky, lock the door!"
CHAPTER 20.