Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalipse

All the same, I wondered if we were wise for leaving Dave free to pursue God. The crew had talked about it before we’d gone our separate ways, but none of us knew what else we could do about him. He wouldn’t rest until he’d tried everything he could think of, and none of us wanted to attempt confining him to prevent it. I suppose after the prayer meeting and the chickadee incident none of us really believed he would succeed, which was why we weren’t more concerned about it. We were all hoping he’d give it up after a while and become the normal-if somewhat obsessive-friend and crewmember we’d all learned to live with.

#

We realized we’d made a mistake when Gwen got a call from him a few days later. She had formally renounced her title as captain and flown to Hawaii, but she was still acting as our coordinator. Dave had called to find out where the rest of us were, and when she’d asked him why, he would only tell her to warn us away from Cheyenne, Wyoming, or any place downwind of it.

"Downwind?" I asked when Gwen called us to relay his message. "What the hell is he trying this time?" *

Jody and I were in the car again, headed north toward Mammoth hot springs. A ghost of Gwen’s face peered at us through the phone’s heads-up windshield display. "He wouldn’t tell me," she replied. "He just said to keep everyone away from the American Midwest for a while."

"I bet he’s going to blow up a nuclear bomb," Jody said. "Cheyenne’s one of the Air Force bases where they stored them."

"A nuclear bomb?" asked Gwen. "What does that have to do with God?"

I laughed. "Maybe he thinks we just need to knock loud enough to be heard."

"Yeah, but where’s the door?" Jody asked. "Certainly not in Cheyenne. I’ve been there; it’s a dirty little government town out on the prairie."

My smile faded. "If physical location matters at all, I’d guess the Grand Teton,

"He wouldn’t nuke the Tetons, would he?" Jody asked, horrified at the thought.

"I don’t know," Gwen said. "Probably not for his first shot, at least. He’ll probably just lob one into Nebraska or somewhere. But if that doesn’t work, then he might."

We’d been passing through a long straight notch cut in an ocean of lodge pole pine; I let off the throttle and the hover car slid to a stop, snow billowing up all around it. "We’re still in Yellowstone," I told Gwen, "but we could get to Cheyenne in-what, four hours? Five?" We’d been dawdling along on ground-effect until now, but we could fly as high as we liked if we had to.

"I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not," Gwen said. "I don’t like the idea of you two heading toward a nuclear explosion."

"I don’t exactly like it either," I said, "but I’m even less happy about the idea of him blowing up an entire mountain range just to get God’s attention."

"And screwing up the ecosystem just as it’s starting to straighten out again," Jody put in.

Snow had quit swirling around us. The car’s fans had blown it all away. I tilted the joystick to the side until the car pivoted halfway around, then pulled upward on it and shoved it forward again. The car rose up above the trees and began accelerating southeast.

I said, "Cheyenne itself should be safe enough. That’s where Dave will be, after all. Do you think we should call and let him know we’re coming, or should we try to catch him off guard?"

"He’ll just hide if we tell him we’re coming," Jody said.

"But he might not blow the bomb if we make him think you’re near the blast zone," Gwen said.

"Might not?" I asked. "Just how far around the bend do you figure he’s gone?"

"Maybe not at all," Gwen said. "I don’t know. This is a very emotionally charged issue for all of us. I doubt if any of us are behaving entirely rationally, but how can we tell if we are or we aren’t? We’re on completely new ground here."

"I don’t think exploding a nuclear bomb is a rational act," Jody said.

"Not even if he succeeds in getting God to notice us?"

"Especially not then."

Gwen smiled wryly. "That’s not entirely rational either, Jody."

"It’s the way I feel."

"And Dave no doubt feels he has to get God to come back for him."

"No doubt. Well I feel like I have to stop him."

Nodding, Gwen said, "Just don’t get yourself killed in the process."

Jody laughed. "That would kind of defeat the purpose, now, wouldn’t it?"

#

We were flying over a windswept basin about a hundred kilometres northwest of Cheyenne when we saw the mushroom cloud peek up over the horizon.