CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Confrontation
Kevin’s keys in hand, Eric spent a frantic minute looking for the start button, before cursing himself and trying to remember how they started cars at the beginning of the century. He found a slot to the right of the steering wheel and tried fitting the key into it. Turn and hold, and the car started right up.
Cursing himself again for not paying closer attention when they drove down here, he remembered Kevin had used the stick in the center console. He tried pulling it down at first — R must mean Reverse, D for Drive — but it wouldn’t move. There was a button on the side, but even pressing that in wouldn’t work. Eric looked at his phone for the time, the seconds seeming to slip away. If he died in a nuclear blast, at least he wouldn’t have long to feel regret over not learning how to drive this car earlier.
Then he noticed a sign on the dash that told him to push the brake in to shift. Foot on the brake, he tried pressing the button in again, and this time the stick moved. He put it in reverse to get out of the driveway, then came to a stop and shifted into drive. Maybe he could do this after all.
“I know you can do it,” he muttered to himself. The words weren’t encouraging when you knew that the Sheriff had only said them because he was their only chance.
Only moments later he drove into the school parking lot and pulled to a stop. Someone wandered by in the night, oblivious to the danger upon them. Now where could he be? Eric thought to himself as he got out of the car and looked around frantically. Come on, just give me some kind of clue.
That’s when he saw a man climbing up the fire escape on the side of the building. It was hard to judge at this distance, but the silhouette of the man looked big. Like he’s carrying a nuclear warhead?
Eric raced to the fire escape.
***
Joshua increased his speed as far as he dared without turning his lights on. When he came to Shem Sweeny’s house he didn’t want the man to have run, alerted to the police. He imagined what South Mapiya, several blocks ahead, had looked like before it came back, with nothing there. After he crossed past the swamp, a person stepped out into the street in front of him. Joshua swerved, narrowly missing the pedestrian.
He turned left, to Shem’s house in the east.
When they arrived at the house, his deputy following close behind, there was a man slumped up against the front of the house, the front door wide open. Joshua was out before the car hovered down to the ground. He pulled his gun and jogged closer.
He noticed Kevin as the lights hit him. Joshua kept his gun aimed inside the house until two deputies came up behind him and entered the house to do a clean sweep. He knelt down next to Kevin. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. He noticed Kevin was hurt. “What happened to you? Were you listening to the radio again?”
“No,” Kevin said, not moving his head at all. “Shem—” Kevin blinked, looking as if he wanted to fall asleep. Joshua put a hand on his shoulder.
“Shem’s prints came back on the murder weapon from the library. He killed those two,” Joshua said.
“It’s worse. He has a nuclear warhead, from the old armory. He’s going to detonate it, maybe tonight.”
“What? How do you know?” Joshua didn’t want to believe him, but as much as it felt like Kevin was getting in his way, he was sure Kevin wouldn’t lie, not about something like this.
Kevin explained as quickly as he could, leaving out the science. Just the facts to convince Joshua. “He had the door booby trapped when I entered. I think I have a concussion.” He hesitated. “I just want to go to sleep.”
“No, stay with us.”
“Eric, the kid that turned the device off, he’s out there, at the school,” Kevin said. “Please, help him.”
“We have to get you to a hospital.”
“No,” Kevin insisted. “Help him.”
One of the deputies returned, letting Joshua know it was all clear. “Stay with him, deputy. Call an ambulance and get him to the hospital.” He motioned for the other officer to follow him. “We have to get to South Campus.”
***
Heaven pulled to a stop at the intersection of Dennis and Main. A car crossed in front of her. She recognized it as Kevin’s squad car, so she turned to follow.
She drove her stolen squad car from the future into the school parking lot. When she shut it down, she noticed a figure run off to the left, to the side of the school. Briefly, she wondered who it was, Eric or the Sheriff, and which of them had been left behind.
She got out and followed.
***
As Eric climbed to the top of the fire escape, Shem swung around to face him. He stood at the edge of the roof, the bomb strapped to his back in an over-sized pack. “Who’s there?” he demanded.
Eric swallowed nervously. This was the man they were after. “I’m just a kid,” Eric said. “My name’s Eric.”
“Don’t come any closer,” Shem said, holding out his left hand. Eric barely noticed that he had been walking towards Shem and stopped. “This is a dead man’s trigger. If I die and let go, the bomb goes off.” Eric could see the trigger in Shem’s left hand. He held his thumb down tight. There was a small lid that had previously been holding the trigger down. Now, Shem had slid the lid off, replacing it with his thumb. If his thumb let off the trigger without replacing the lid... Boom!
“I just wanted to talk,” Eric tried to assure him. “That’s it. I was at your house. I saw your message.”
“I’m through with talking,” Shem said in a slow sort of a drawl. Eric thought he might be drunk, too, and wondered how he could reason with him. “That’s all anyone ever does is talk. That’s all the President ever did. A lot of talk. But I’ve seen the future now, and my worst dreams have come true. America is gone, and everything it ever stood for.”
“So you’re a real patriot, is that it?” Eric said. Just keep him talking. Stall him until someone can get here, he thought. If anyone is even coming. He vaguely noticed someone come up the fire escape behind him, but he didn’t have time to take his eyes off Shem.
Shem shook his head, his face twisted in sadness and anger. “Don’t patronize me.”
Eric held up his hands. “I’m not,” he yelled back. “I know what it’s like to see your world spinning out of control, and whatever you do you can’t—” His voice cracked as emotion welled up inside of him, a mixture of sadness, anger, fear.... He didn’t have time to sort it out. He lowered his hands and clenched his fists, looking for the right words. “I lost my mother, five years ago. My dad has been struggling with encephalitis and he just died in the tornado on Wednesday. To top it off, I think I just lost my best friend in the world, for life. So I know!”
His face was wet with tears, but he went on. “And it’s all confusing. Where do I go from here? What can I do? I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s like the tornado is still spinning around me.” He knew he was getting off track, but if he could just keep talking, keep Shem distracted. “Whatever you do,” he said again. A picture of his dad flashed in his mind again, lying dead in the tree just after the tornado. “Believe me, I know.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shem said.
“The world can be an ugly place,” Eric said, continuing on. “And it can seem like it is all stacked up against you, that the only way out is to... to...” He left the thought hanging in the air, not wanting to say it out loud.
“They’ll never learn,” Shem said, sounding a bit less intense now. “If something doesn’t wake them up, nothing will ever change. It will just get worse. It always gets worse.”
“This isn’t the way.”
Shem looked down at his hand holding the trigger, and it looked as if there might be a chance. He might choose not to let go. But Shem shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “It’s all over.”
At that moment Heaven ran in from behind him and dove at Shem, grabbing on to his hand just before he could release the button. The momentum carried them over the balcony ledge, but Heaven held on as they fell. They fell hard onto the concrete below, Shem breaking her fall.
When Eric made it back down the fire escape and over to Heaven and Shem, she still hadn’t moved, frozen in shock and fear. She stared into Shem’s now lifeless eyes, continuing to hold onto his hand, the fear of what could happen, what almost happened, etched into her face. A police siren sounded in the distance; help would have been too late. Eric took her hand and carefully slid the lid back in place over the trigger. “It’s okay,” he said then, helping her release her hand from the trigger. He held his thumb over the lid for a moment more, making sure it wouldn’t release. “It’s okay.”
He helped her get to her feet and wrapped her in a big hug. She held on so tight. “You’re all right,” he said, letting her sob into his shoulder. “We’re all right.” He held her tight as she shivered from the fear and excitement. “Everything is going to be okay.”