“That’s not what happened. It’s more complicated than that.”
“No, Jessie, it’s actually more simple. Up until the time you met Russ, everything was normal. But then he went out of his way to separate you from Alex and the moment he did your fantasy started.”
“This isn’t a fantasy!”
He stared at me. “Pull over to the side of the road.”
“No. You’re in no shape to drive.”
“You can keep driving but first you’re going to listen. Pull over.”
I did as he requested and we sat in silence for several minutes before he spoke. “Jessie, have you ever heard of STP?” he asked.
“That’s a motor oil, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s a motor oil. It’s also the initials of a drug far more powerful than LSD. I’ve been reading about it in the paper lately. It was created in the sixties but few people took it then because it was too scary. But now a modified version has reappeared and the police are worried. The person under the influence of it can be so convinced they have entered a new reality, they never come out of it.” He reached over and took my hand. “Jessie, there are people in mental hospitals swearing that they are witches, warlocks, and wizards—all because of this drug.”
I felt profoundly sad. I realized then there was a chance he’d never believe my story. And I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have believed it.
“Are you saying Russ slipped me this drug at the blackjack table?”
“As soon as Alex was gone, the miracles started happening. That was no coincidence.”
“What about the money we won?” I asked.
“Like I said, I’d have to see it to believe it.”
“But when you see it, will you believe me?”
“No.”
“Jimmy.”
“How can you expect me to believe that for one night—no, make that two nights—all of Las Vegas was transformed into the Twilight Zone?”
“The transformation happens again and again, between today and tomorrow.”
“And that sounds like reality to you?”
“Jimmy. You have no idea what I went through before I finally accepted all this.”
“Did Russ keep hammering on you until you did accept it?”
“Russ and my father.”
“Your father? Jessie, your father’s not here.”
“How do you know?”
“If he’s here, then call him. Call him right now.”
“I don’t know his cell phone number.”
“Jessie. Do you know how feeble that sounds?”
“Explain to me how I was able to beat you up.”
“I don’t know. I can’t. But that doesn’t mean you just returned from a journey to an alternate reality.”
“My supernatural strength is a fact. My speed is also a fact.” I pointed to a desert hill out the window. “How about we stop the driving and have a race to that hill?”
“Right. You forget how far-off objects often look closer in the desert. That hill is five miles away.”
“What if I run there in ten minutes? Will you believe me then?”
“Five two-minute miles? That’s impossible. The greatest runners on earth haven’t been able to string together two four-minute miles in a row.”
“Then you’ll have proof.” I opened the Expedition door.
“Shut the door, Jessie.”
“Why?”
“Close it, please.”
I closed the door. “I know what’s wrong. I know why you can’t believe me.”
“I hope that’s true. Are you beginning to accept that what you’re saying is impossible?”
“That’s not it. The Jimmy I know believes in the impossible. He believes in magic, or at least he used to believe in it.” I paused. “It’s because I told you Huck’s still alive.”
“That’s not it.”
“Yes, it is. When I told you your son was alive, you reacted with disbelief. But then you dropped it, you dropped it right away. The reason is because you can’t go there. It’s too painful. But the more I talk, the more you realize that’s where my story’s heading. That’s why you’ve got to stop me.”
“That’s not true,” he replied.
“But it is,” I said.
Jimmy gripped his fists tightly together. I could see he wanted to get behind the wheel, turn around, head back to Las Vegas. “I swear, when I meet this Russ, I’m going to beat the shit out of him.”
“That won’t be easy,” I said calmly.
He stared at me. “Do you have a crush on him?”
I smiled sadly. “You know I only have a crush on one boy. And he’s sitting right in front of me.”
Jimmy sat silent a long time. Then he reached out and put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close.
“I’m sorry I said that,” he said.
“It’s all right.”
“But I’m not sorry I stopped you. Your story may seem true to you but it’s not. Right now, for one reason or another, you’re delusional. Only it’s not your fault. You say you know me, Jessie, and I can’t argue with that. Even though I left you for Kari, I know you took me back because you know I love you. And I know you love me. That’s how you were able to forgive me for going back to Kari. The bond between us is real, it’s deep, and there’s no way you’d intentionally try to hurt me by bringing up Huck unless that Russ guy hadn’t screwed with your brain somehow. That’s why I’ve listened to you this long. But now I have to stop you, and help you come back to reality.”
“Thank you for your kind words. They mean a lot to me.” I nuzzled his side and kissed his cheek before pulling back. “They just happen to be false. And the only way to prove that to you is to shock you again. Harder this time. So hard your head cracks wide open and you’re able to accept a story about an entire town playing twenty-two.”
Before he had a chance to react, I got out of the SUV and closed the door. Hurrying to the rear bumper, I knelt down and lifted up the back of the vehicle. This time I felt the weight but it seemed manageable. Creeping forward with my head beneath the driveshaft, I let my arms spread out wide and gripped the vehicle as close as I could to the edges. Inside the SUV, I could hear him shouting but paid him no heed.
When I reached the center of gravity, I allowed the front to lift off the ground so that I was holding the Ford Expedition six feet above the asphalt. Breathing hard, focused on my task, I began to walk up the road. I went maybe fifty yards, half a football field. Thank God the road was deserted.
“Jimmy!” I called finally.
He sounded close to hysteria. “Jessie?”
“Do you need any more proof?”
“No!”
“Are you sure? Can I put you down?”
“Yes!”
Crouching down, dropping to my knees, I slowly lowered the front of the vehicle and then the back. Finished, I rolled out from beneath it and brushed the dust off my shorts. I climbed back in the front seat.
“You look white as a ghost,” I said with a smile.
He nodded in faint, jerky movements. “You look like a witch,” he whispered.
I started the SUV. “Is it all right if I keep driving?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to hear the rest of my story?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you think I’m delusional?”
“No.”
“Good.” I leaned over and kissed him on the lips. “I love you, Jimmy. I love you in both worlds.”
He stuttered. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”
I put the vehicle in gear and gunned the engine. “Trust me, you will,” I said.
Ninety minutes later we were stopped on a dirt road with our windshield covered in dust. Reaching for the wipers, I activated the sprinkler system and tried washing away the guck. It took a lot of fluid to get a clear view.
Jimmy was busy studying the maps in the travel book I had purchased at the hotel. “From what I can see, a
lot of these towns will be cordoned off with high fences and barbed wire.”
“I can handle that,” I replied.
He glanced at me. “Please don’t go crazy on me. I don’t think my heart can take any more.”
I laughed. “I’ll try to behave. How close are we to ground zero?”
Jimmy squinted at the map. “Funny you should ask that. These places seem to be grouped in a rough semicircle around a big black X that’s labeled ‘Ground Zero’—in caps. The names of the towns are appropriate: Hades, Purgatory, Inferno, Fission’s Fury, Blaze.”
“Were they all built to determine what a certain-strength bomb would do to a certain-size city?”
“Yeah. But from what I’ve read, the army also stocked them with plenty of pigs. They put pigs in the houses, pigs in the barns, pigs in the basements—and they left a bunch of pigs outside.”
“Why pigs?” I asked, not really wanting to know.
“Because pigskin resembles our skin the most closely. So does their cardiovascular system. That’s why pigs’ valves are still used in heart surgery. Plus pigs are one of the smartest animals in the world. The scientists probably wanted to see what kind of effect the radiation had on their whole bodies, their brains, and their skin.”
“It disgusts me we could treat animals so cruelly,” I said.
“Just think, we dropped two of these bombs on Japan. On real live people.”
“That’s a scary thought.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to come out here. You know you still haven’t told me why.”
“My dad made a remark about how the Lapras experiment on human beings using the radiation left over from atomic tests. I want to see if it’s true.”
“Can’t we just believe your dad and call it a day?”
“No.” I was trying to avoid Jimmy’s question and I think he sensed it. The real reason I had driven us to these towns was beyond reason. I had come here because I felt I had to come here. The name Inferno drew me the strongest. I asked Jimmy where it was located.
“It’s to the right, east of here,” he said. “It’s pretty close to ground zero.”
“That’s our destination,” I said, making a sharp right, kicking up more dust. Ironically, it seemed the faster I drove, the easier it was to keep in front of the dirt. But the potholes and bumps made the road painful on our butts.
Twenty minutes later we were forced to halt. A thirty-foot steel gate, topped with three feet of barbed wire, blocked our way. Jimmy quickly gave me a suspicious look but I just nodded and climbed out.
“Scoot over, get behind the wheel,” I said.
We were in the hills far east of Las Vegas. We couldn’t see the city, nor much of anything else except sand and tumbleweeds. The sun was straight overhead. I had forgotten to put on sunscreen that morning and I could literally feel the moisture being sucked out of my pores. It appeared witches were not impervious to everything.
A heavy-duty chain, along with a lock the size of a book, held the gate shut. Grabbing hold of the chain, I tested its strength.
“What do I get if I break this chain with my bare hands?” I called to Jimmy.
“Break it and I’ll kiss your ass!” he shouted back.
“How about my breasts! I’m an old-fashioned girl!”
“Jessie! Give it up! There’s nothing out here . . .”
I shut him up by snapping the chain in two pieces. Even through the dust and the SUV’s tinted window, I could see his incredulous expression. I kicked open the gate and gestured for him to drive through.
“Amazing stuff, that STP,” I said as I climbed in beside him.
He stared at me. “How do I know you’re a good witch? You never told me how I could be sure.”
“The only way to be absolutely sure is to make love to me. If you die when you come, I’m a bad witch. Now drive. I want to get to Inferno before I melt.”
We kept the windows rolled up and the air conditioner on full and still the heat penetrated the SUV. Fortunately, we didn’t have to drive far before we reached Inferno.
The makeshift town stood with low, sloping hills on one side and a barren plain on the other. I assumed the open area led in the direction of ground zero. In the distance, in a straight line toward the spot where the bombs ignited, I saw two smaller towns that looked as if they had absorbed far more damage.
I understood in an instant why the government had staggered the towns. It was trying to gauge the degree of destruction each bomb caused relative to how far it was from the target. Since Inferno was at least three miles away from ground zero, it was still largely intact.
Yet that was not saying much. It looked like a ghost town that had been ravaged by locusts. The structures that had been made of wood were sagging skeletons of soot and ash. The cement-and-brick buildings had fared better, although the paint had peeled away, probably from a combination of the blasts and dust storms. More than half the windows had shattered and the bulk of the tar-based roof shingles had melted through to the ceilings.
However, in a strange way, Inferno was impressive. It had been pulverized by dozens of nuclear weapons, yet it had survived to tell its tale.
Besides normal buildings, on our side of town there was a kids’ park that had a few swings and slides that would have been serviceable if not for the thick layers of rust. Plus, of all things, in the center of town there was a stone fountain that was bubbling with a modest amount of underground water. I assumed that was where the water was coming from. I doubted there was any electricity in place to pump the liquid from a nearby pond or stream.
I sensed instantly that the town was inhabited. Yet the mind, or minds, I picked up felt alien. And I couldn’t help noticing how Jimmy stared at the town. He was not connected yet but he was no dummy. He studied the town closely before he suddenly turned to me.
“We’re being watched,” he said.
I nodded. “You’re right. Are they good witches or bad witches?”
He hesitated. “There’s danger here but also something else.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Why did you bring us here?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, we make a fine pair.” Jimmy opened his door. “You stay here, keep the engine running, be ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.”
I grabbed his arm gently. “You must realize by now that I can take care of myself.”
He shook his head. “Don’t get cocky. If someone shot you through the heart, I doubt it would matter how many witch genes you have.”
“Good advice.” I let go of his arm. “But I’m still coming with you.”
We walked together toward the town. Jimmy was smart, he brought along two Evian water bottles. He also had a white baseball cap, to shade his head from the sun, but he put it on top of my head.
“If you knew we were coming out here, why didn’t you buy a Geiger counter in town?” he asked.
“Because the thing would probably be beeping so loudly by now you would have driven off and left me no matter how much you say you love me.”
“Not funny. I was serious when I said radioactive elements can hang around for thousands of years. The fact the government stopped nuclear testing in the sixties means nothing.”
“It especially means nothing because they haven’t really stopped.”
“Who told you that?”
“My father,” I said.
“Wonderful. If we ever get married and have kids, they’re probably going to be born with two heads.”
I had told Jimmy about everything in witch world except Lara. Somehow, after Huck, I didn’t think he could take any more.
I suddenly held up my hand. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“Footsteps. Someone running.”
“Toward us or away from us?”
I listened closely. “They’re near. They’re watching us.”
Jimmy spoke seriously. “Every minute we stay here increases our danger.
You could inhale a stray particle of plutonium. Just one particle could give you breast cancer like Debbie’s mom.”
His remark sobered me. But it was right then I noticed a trail of muddy liquid leading from the central fountain toward what was labeled a drugstore. It was the best-kept building in town and I suspected someone was using it as their home.
“Somebody just had themselves a little drink,” I said.
Jimmy knelt and studied the trail. “They’ve got small feet.”
“Yes.” I stopped and shut my eyes. The sensation of being watched intensified, and on top of that, I began to sense the mind behind the person who studied us. He or she felt young. I opened my eyes. “We’re being watched by a kid.”
“Are you sure?”
“He’s alone and he’s curious about us.”
“How many eyes does he have?”
It was supposed to be a joke but I didn’t smile.
“I don’t know,” I said softly.
We found him in the drugstore munching on a protein bar and a bag of barbecue potato chips, drinking water from a jug he had filled at the fountain. He was not naked but close. He wore a torn piece of canvas that was held to his waist by a piece of dirty rope. He was maybe six, filthy, and extraordinarily tan—either burned by the sun or other forms of the radiation. He had ten fingers and ten toes, and seemed okay in that respect, although he had a dry cough and his skin was badly marked. Lesions, maybe. His cobalt-blue eyes seemed to glow.
I gave him a warm smile. “Hi, my name’s Jessie and this is Jimmy. What’s your name?”
He heard me, definitely, he went still at my question. But he didn’t open his mouth to reply. Instead, he reached for a notepad and picked up a blue marking pen and wrote out four letters. He struggled to form them, like a right-handed person being forced to write left-handed.
WHIP.
“Your name is Whip?” Jimmy asked.
The boy nodded and smiled shyly at Jimmy. He stood and offered him a protein bar and some of his potato chips. The food was all fresh; I could only assume someone was bringing it in from the outside.
Jimmy accepted the food graciously. I assumed he would be worried the kid had some kind of infection or disease—his cough appeared chronic—but Jimmy showed no such concern. His behavior made no sense, especially after the lecture he had just given me. Of course the food looked fine, like it had been recently delivered. For sure, Whip had not scavenged it from the local buildings. But then I realized that Jimmy’s desire to accept the kid’s food went deeper. Jimmy was thinking of Huck while he was with Whip. I don’t know how I knew this, but I was sure it was true. And he wanted the boy to like him.