I really like the beginning of the scene, up through the bit with the dog. After that: not so much. Most of it was written as a series of “word wars,” 10-minute blitzes where you type as fast as you can.
Killing Faith was easier the second time. Well, not easier, exactly. But Dan felt it less. The first time, as she lay dying he began to feel guilt and fury and jealousy and impotence and separateness—everything but relief. And he had been able—had been compelled, almost—to push the feelings down, down.
This time, nothing.
He had found himself somehow at the bottom of the stairs. Back at the bottom of the stairs. And Faith was not dead.
“She would be a witness,” he had thought. And he couldn’t afford witnesses, so he had to kill her again. Must not leave witnesses.
Now, looking back on it, Dan realized that the logic was twisted, irredeemably self-referrential. He had to kill his wife because he didn’t want her to witness that he had killed his wife. That clearly didn’t make sense.
Then again, nothing made sense.
Unable to think clearly, but clearly able to notice that he wasn’t able to think clearly, he had gone into a kind of trance, a kind of automatic pilot. That had a kind of logic: If you don’t know what to do, do what you did before. If you survived it before, you’ll probably survive it again. The wisdom of the worn path.
That approach had worked for a while. He had to adapt and adjust when Faith attacked him, but he got through the actual killings okay. Struggle, struggle, bang, bang, then down the stairs and out the door.
The dog had freaked him out. As he reached for his car door a large black dog—some kind of labrador, he thought—ran howling at him from between two houses.
Dan got in the car and closed the door just as the dog reached him. The dog ran full speed into his door, then backed up and bashed into the door again.
Dan locked his door. Okay, he thought. He had just locked the door against an insane dog. Clearly his mind had not yet returned.
The dog sat up and crossed its forepaws. Was it begging?
Dan started his car and the dog jumped and spun. Then it sat up and begged again.
Dan started the car moving forward, and the dog began to howl. It ran along side Dan until it was slightly ahead of him. It stopped and barked once, sharlply.
“Back off, Cujo,” Dan said, and checked to make sure the door was locked.
As Dan rolled past the dog it again ran ahead, stopped and barked, ran ahead, stopped, barked, until it could no longer keep up. Then it howled plaintively, spun around once in the road, howled, spun, howled, and spun until Dan turned onto Fair Oaks Boulevard could no longer see or hear it.
And then things got weird.
Dan had been paying so much attention to the dog that he didn’t notice the mess on Fair Oaks.
The boulevard was littered with cars facing in every direction. It reminded him of some post-apocalyptic horror movie.
Dan stopped—he had little choice—he could not see a path through the cars. Some of the cars had drivers. A few of the drivers were trying to weave through the mess, with little effect. Others stood in clusters between the cars, talking animatedly or holding their hands over their mouths or holding the tops of their heads with both hands.
The road was streaked with skid marks in the shapes of curves Dan had never imagined. Some of the cars had clearly crashed into each other. Others, as far as Dan could see, had avoided collision.
Some drivers stayed in their cars. One woman pressed her hands to her driver’s side window and peered out between them, her eyes wide in shock.
Dan opened his door and got out of the car.
Beside him, an elderly man leaned against a big old Buick, as if to keep himself from falling down. “It’s the apocalypse,” he said gravely.
Dan said, “Attack of the Zombie Goats.”
The man regarded him for a moment. “Judgment Day will not go well for you,” he said, and got in his car and closed the door.
Dan walked toward the nearest cluster of people. Three men and two women.
One of the women turned to Dan. “What was it for you?”
“What was what?”
“What were you doing when it happened? When you went back in time?”
Back in time! These people were even crazier than apocalypse man.
No, Dan, they’re not crazy. Think about it.
But he pushed the crazy thought away. “That’s impossible.”
The woman shook her head. “One minute I was washing the dishes, and the next I was in my car on Fair Oaks Boulevard. So what was it for you?”
I was on a prison bus being transported back to Sacramento after murdering my cheating wife.
Dan cleared his throat. “I can’t say.”
“You don’t remember? Were you sleeping? Jeff here was sleeping.” She pointed at the tallest man of the three in the group.
Jeff said, “I took an after dinner nap. Then I took a mid-nap drive.”
The woman who had spoken first extended her hand to Dan. “I’m Nancy Smith.”
“Dan Roberge.”
“What’s your theory, Dan? What do you think happened?”
“I thought I had a stroke or blacked out or something. Lost track time.”
“What day is it?”
“It’s Sunday, isn’t it?” Dan said as raised his wrist to look at his watch.
Nancy put her hand on Dan’s wrist. “No, don’t look at your watch. Just say what day it is. Say it, don’t ask it.”
Dan had spent Sunday in jail in Lovelock. Then they put him on the prison bus and tortured him with Johnny Cash. “It’s Sunday. August 9th, I think.”
Nancy nodded her head. “Now look at your watch.”
Dan did. He wore an old analog Seiko that Faith had given him. It didn’t show a date. “No date,” he said, holding it out for Nancy to see.
“Do you have a cell phone?”
Dan fished his phone out of his pants pocket. The outer display read 3:29 PM in big letters. Beneath that, the date said 08/08/08.
Nancy said, “Saturday, right? about 3:30?”
“August 8,” he said. “3:29.”
Jeff said, “That was yesterday. Or it was yesterday. Now it’s today.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Nancy said, “Dan, we went back in time. I was washing dishes on Sunday night, then I was in traffic on Saturday afternoon. On the seat beside me were three new books I had just bought at Borders, and a newspaper. The Saturday newspaper. Which I took home, read, and threw into the recycling. Wait till you hear the others.”
One of the men said, “I’m Trevor. I was walking my dog—”
“On Sunday night,” Dan said. “Then in traffic on Saturday.”
“No, that would have been better. I was walking my dog on Sunday night, then I was crossing Fair Oaks Boulevard.”
Dan imagined the scene: Suddenly finding yourself in the middle of a heavily trafficed road with cars wizzing by all around. “Holy shit!”
Trevor laughed. “It wasn’t that bad.” He pointed toward the intersection a hundred yards away. Fair Oaks Boulevard and Watt Avenue, one of the busiest intersections in Sacramento. “The light was with me, so nobody was moving. Nobody on Watt, anyway. But Fair Oaks had a green light, and things were pretty crazy for a few minutes. Fortunately I was three feet from the sidewalk. But it did take me a minute to realize where I was and get out of the street.”
Dan looked at the third man. “What’s your story.”
“I was taking a dump. Ended up in my car on Fair Oaks.” He smiled. “Scared the shit out of me.”
The second woman, who looked maybe twenty years old, said, “I was playing Guitar Hero. We were doing our first arena gig. Thirty thousand screaming fans. Next thing I know I’m changing lanes.”
Dan said, “I have no idea what nay of that means.”
Jeff said, “I was around the corner at the Y Club, singing ‘Stop Dragging My Heart Around’ with my cousin Rose.”
“Singing?”
Jeff shrugged. “Every Sunday is Karaoke Sunday.”
Dan looked at the one person who hadn’t spoken, a chubby, balding man in his forties. “What’s your story?”
“I was watching a rerun of Seinfeld.”
“Well, that’s dull,” Dan said.
“It was the soup Nazi one,” the man said.
Dan remembered the episode well. He and Faith had seen it together when it first aired. It was one of their earliest dates. “No soup for you!” he said.
“I’m Gerald, by the way.”
Nancy said, “You haven’t told us your story, Dan. What were you doing when it happened?”
“I had just got on a bus in Lovelock, Nevada, heading back to Sacramento.”
“Oh,” Nancy said. “What took you to Lovelock?”
“A wedding. My cousin.”
“You took a bus to Lovelock?”
“I drove,” Dan said. “My wife wanted to stay a few days, so I took a bus. Then I was… home.”
The second woman, the one who had been playing Guitar Hero, said, “So what do we do now?”
Jeff said, “We should probably get our cars out of the street. Emergency vehicles will need to get through. Police for sure, maybe fire. And probably a lot of ambulances.”
Trevor said, “Yeah, a lot of ambulances.”
Dan said, “Why haven’t we seen any ambulances yet? These cars are all crunched up. There are probably people hurt inside.”
Nancy said, “Yeah, maybe we should help them first, then move our cars.”
Gerald said, “No, move the cars first, in case the ambulances come.”
Dan got in his car, which was near the edge of the street, and drove it onto someone’s lawn. Then he came back to where the group had gathered.
Jeff had moved his lime green Volkswagen beetle off the road.
Trevor, of course, didn’t have a car to move, because he had been crossing the street.
In the distance, Dan heard sirens. He couldn’t tell whether they were coming this way or moving further away.
Jeff said, “I have an idea. Let’s direct traffic.”
So they all went to the big intersection of Watt and Fair Oaks.
All except for Dan, who realized that somebody needed to direct traffic in the middle of the road, not just at the intersection. Somebody had to sort out this tangled jumble of cars.
Dan found a place where on one side the cars were blocking each other, and on the other side there was a path to the intersection.
One car was sideways in the road. A truck, actually. And it was blocking two lanes and apart of the third. The third lane had a Ford Pinto, aiming back against the normal direction of traffic.
Dan went to the window of the Pinto. Nobody was inside. He looked forther up the lane, and there was a small group of people.
“Hey!” Dan yelled. “Does one of you own this Pinto?”
A kid with blue hair said, “Yeah, me.”
“Can you move it? That way we can start to untangle this mess.”
“Sure,” the kid said, and got in the car.
The kid had to back up, so Dan stood back behind the car and guided the kid out.
Now the truck.
“Whose truck is this?” Dan said to nobody in particular.
A shirtless man said, “That’s mine. I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
“Let’s push it, then.”
“Okay.”
The guy got in the truck and shifted to neutral. The truck was facing the center of the street, toward the median.
Dan turned to the group of people standing nearby. “Come on you guys, help push.”
They came over and lined up on the front of the truck and pushed. The truck started moving, slowly.
Dan ran along the side of the truck so that he could see what was behind. He wished he’d thought of that before, so that he could help the driver plot a path before they started pushing. He hoped the driver had some idea of what to do.
He did: he kept the steering wheel straight. The truck, gaining speed, bumped up onto the sidewalk, first the rear tires, then the front. It came to rest on someone’s lawn.
Dan heard the driver engage the parking brake, and the driver got out of the truck.
“Thanks,” Dan said. Then he looked at the remaining cars. There was a lot of work to do.
And he was actually happy about the clogged traffic. He really didn’t want the police to get here—to Zombie Goat’s house—before he could get away.
It took a half hour to clear a path through the cars. Once the path began clearing, it more or less cleared itself. Once people had a way to get through the tangle of cars, they got in their cars and went away, perhaps to end up clogging some other street.
Dan turned to see where his new “traffic cop” buddies were. They were just finishing up guiding people through the large intersection.
Dan walked to them. “Okay, that’s done. Now what do we do?”
Jeff said
Nancy said, “Let’s find out how big this is. It’s probably on the radio.”
Jeff got in the lime green Volkswagen bug he had been leaning on. He turned the ignition key, then pushed a button to turn on a radio.
A woman’s voice on the radio said, “—seems to be widespread, perhaps worldwide. We are getting reports of an airliner crash at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Traffic is major cities has come to a standstill. Preliminary reports from Asia indicate little damage, because the… event, uh… transported people to their beds.
“We have contacted FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency for an official briefing, but so far FEMA has not responded to our calls.
“Local emergency services are overwhelmed at this time. We are hearing reports of looting in several major cities, including New York and Los Angeles.
“At the time of the event, the President was on vacation at his beach-front home in Oregon. His location at this time has not been disclosed…”
Gerald said, “Jesus.
Nancy said, “Does anybody have someone they need to call?”
Dan shook his head.
Trevor pulled out a cell phone and held down a button. He put the pone to his ear. After a minute he shook his head. “The call isn’t going through.”
Gerald, holding a phone to his ear said, “Same here. Verizon?”
“Sprint,” said Trevor.
Dan waited. Nobody to call. “I should probably get going,” Dan said. “Faith will be worried about me.”
Nancy said, “And you about her, right?”
Dan nodded. He walked to his car, started it up, and drove away toward his home.
Tags: manuscript