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"She has MS," theas I could That’s e agreed, when she started to get bad last winter They’re supposed to send a nurse, but we haven’t seen one in a while now" He shifted his feet on the gravel and wetly cleared his throat "My guess is, nobody’s ast told him his narown sons, one in California, the other in Florida Carl had been an electrician at Oregon State down in Corvallis, until they’d bought the store and retired up here

"What can I do?" Wolgast asked

They’d shaken hands before but did so again "Just keep yourself alive," Carl said

Wolgast was driving back to the caht of Lila They were memories of another time, another life A life that was over now-over for hi about Lila, as he had: he was saying goodbye

Chapter SIXTEEN

It was August, the days long and dry, when the fires ca in the yard; bythe air was thickened with an acrid haze He climbed to the roof to look but saw only the trees and the lake, thehow close the fires were The wind could blow the smoke, he knew, for hundreds of miles

He hadn’t been off the mountain in over two months, not since his trip down to Milton’s They’d found a routine: Wolgast slept each day till nearly noon, worked outside till dusk; then, after dinner and a swi or playing board gae He’d found a box of games stored in one of the cabins: Monopoly, Parcheesi, checkers For a while he let Amy win, but then found he didn’t need to; she was a shrewd player, especially at Monopoly, buying up property after property and swiftly calculating the rents they’d bring in and counting her lee Boardwalk, Park Place, Marvin Gardens What did the naht he’d settled in to read to her-20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which they’d read before but she wanted to hear again-when she took the book froht, started to read aloud to him She didn’t so much as pause over the book’s difficult words, its contorted, old-fashioned syntax When did you learn to do that? he asked her, utterly incredulous, as she paused to turn the page Well, she explained, we read it before I guess I just remembered

The world off the mountain had becoet the generator working-he’d hoped to use the shortwave-and had long since stopped trying If as happening hat he thought was happening, he reasoned, they were better off not knowing What could he have done with the inforo?

But now the woods were burning, driving a wall of choking smoke from the west By the afternoon of the next day it was clear they had to leave; the fire was headed their way If it juast loaded the Toyota and placed Aer seat He had a soaked cloth for each of the eyes

They didn’t get two miles before they saw the flames The road was blocked with smoke, the air unbreathable, a toxic wall A hard as blowing, driving the fire up the mountain toward the they would have until the fires arrived He had no way to wet the roof of the lodge-they would simply have to wait it out The sealed s at least offered sohtfall they were both coughing and sputtering

In one of the outbuildings was an old alued it to the shore, then fetched Amy from upstairs He paddled to theup the ht of furious beauty, as if the gates of hell had opened Aainst him in the botton There was nothing else to do All the energy of the day left him and, despite hi, the ca The fires hadn’t jumped the river after all The wind had shifted so the flames to the south The air was still heavy with ser had passed Later that afternoon, they heard a great boo over their heads, and rain poured down, all through the night He couldn’t believe their luck

In the asoline to drive down theAmy this time-after the fires, he intended never to let her out of his sight again He waited until dusk and set out

The fires had come close Less than a mile away from the ca ruins, the ground scorched and denuded, like the afterast could see the bodies of animals, not just small creatures like possums and raccoons but deer and antelope and even a bear, folded onto himself at the base of a blackened tree trunk as he’d searched the ground for a pocket of breathable air and perished

The store was still standing, undisturbed No lights were on, but of course the poould be out Wolgast told Aht, and stepped onto the porch The door was locked He knocked, loudly, again and again, calling Carl’s naht to break the

Carl and Martha were dead They were spooned together in Martha’s hospital bed, Carl curled against her back with one ar It could have been the sast they’d been dead htstand was a half-empty bottle of Scotch and, beside it, a folded newspaper, like the first one he’d seen, disquietingly thin, with a huge, shouting headline he averted his eyes fro instead to put it in his pocket to read later He stood a moment at the foot of the bed where the bodies lay Then he closed up the room and, for the first time, he wept

Carl’s van was still parked behind the store Wolgast cut a length of garden hose and drew the Toyota around to the rear, to siphon the contents of the van’s tank into his car He didn’t knohere they o, but the fire season wasn’t over It had been a uard He’d found an eas can in a shed behind the house, and when the Toyota’s tank was topped off, he filled this as well Then Aather supplies He took all the food and batteries and propane he thought he could fit, put it all in boxes and carried it to the car Then he returned to the roo his breath, removed Carl’s 38 from the holster on his waist

In the early hours of the ast took the paper frole sheet this tio Who knehere Carl had gotten it Probably he’d driven down into Whiteriver, and then, when he returned, and because of what he’d read and seen, put an end to things The house was full of h for hiast had put the paper in his pocket out of fear, but also a fatalistic certainty about what he would find written there Only the details would be new to him

CHICAGO FALLS

"Vampire" Virus Reaches East Coast; Millions Dead

Quarantine Line Moves East to Central Ohio

California Secedes froht, Threatens "Liainst Pakistan