Jolie says, “He’s like super-smart, Oddie. In a kind of way, he was homeschooled like me, in a lab instead of a home, by scientists instead of by his mom, since he doesn’t have a real mom. But he’s humongously smarter, not because he studies harder than I do, but because he can absorb entire ginormous libraries in minutes, and because he’s never bored with anything like I am. It’s kind of sad he doesn’t have a mom and all. Don’t you think it’s sad? It’s not so sad you want to lie around all day sobbing through a thousand Kleenex, but sad enough.”
TWENTY-TWO
Ed will be my Natty Bumppo, the unlikely name of the scout in
The Jeep Grand Cherokee with the COOL DUDE license plate is equipped not just with OnStar’s real-time voice communication, but also with GPS navigation. GPS maps include all streets, county roads, state routes, and federal highways, but if you decide to go off-road, you’re on your own; the graphics on the monitor won’t be able to warn you about treacherous features of the open land, and the recorded, guiding voice of that businesslike yet somewhat sultry lady who provides direction will fall silent in disapproval.
Fortunately, Ed enjoys instant access to the latest digitized surveys of the planet conducted by satellite, and therefore he knows the most minute details of the terrain in Harmony Corner, as well as in just about anywhere else you can name. He is able precisely to locate the Jeep Grand Cherokee by the identifying signal that its transponder continuously broadcasts. His voice has not a scintilla of sultriness, but I am calmed and made confident by his assurances that he can assist me in achieving my goal, which the density of the smoke has seemed to put beyond my reach.
“In the first phase of the approach,” Ed says, “drive slowly. Will you drive slowly, Odd Thomas?”
“Yes. Yes, I will, Ed.”
“You must listen closely to my instructions and follow them to the letter.”
“Of course. Yes.”
“If I were to tell you to turn the steering wheel a quarter of a revolution to the left and you turned it forty percent—”
“I would never do that.”
“—you might drive directly into a sinkhole that we are trying to avoid. Another thing, Odd Thomas — do not interrupt me.”
“I won’t, Ed.”
“You just did.”
“I won’t do it again.”
“I am not a harsh taskmaster and certainly not a tyrant.”
“I didn’t think you were, Ed.”
Jolie says, “He really doesn’t want to rule the world.”
“However,” Ed says, “if this is going to work, I must give you precise instructions, and you must follow them precisely.”
“I understand.”
“In my experience,” Ed says, “human beings frequently say that they understand, when in fact they do not understand at all.”
“But I
“I suppose I must. However, if through no fault of mine, you drive over a cliff to your death, I will be sad.”
“If I do, I won’t blame you, Ed.”
“That will be insufficient consolation.”
The girl says, “You won’t drive over a cliff — will you, Oddie?”
“No, Jolie, I won’t. Though I might bash my head on the steering wheel until my brains come out my ears, if we don’t get started
Ed is baffled. “Why would you bash your head on the steering wheel, Odd Thomas?”
“It’s just an expression of frustration, Ed. I didn’t mean it.”
“If you would bash your brains out, there is no point in our going forward with this plan.”
“I would never do such a thing, Ed. I swear.”
“I do not detect any vocal patterns of deceit.”
“Because I’m telling the truth, Ed. May we begin?”
“Drive directly forward at five miles an hour.”
Following the foregoing reminder that life often is as shot through with absurdity as it is with terror and joy, phase one of the approach to Hiskott begins.
For all that I can see, the whole world might be smouldering, its entire substance being steadily converted to gasses and soot. Maybe the smoke is less white and more gray than before, or maybe the layer of crud gathered over the Corner is so thick now that, short of going nova, the sun can’t penetrate it.
In spite of the smell of burning grass, the fumes that sting my eyes, and the hot irritation in my throat, the realm through which I travel seems to be a steadily darkening sea full of stirred silt and clouds of minute plankton. As I follow Ed’s directions down the hills, I feel as though I am descending into an oceanic abyss where eventually I will find myself in perfect blackness eons old, where eyeless and pressure-deformed creatures eke out a desperate living in a dark cold desolation.
I suspect that this feeling of sinking ever deeper has less to do with the formless, surging masses beyond the windows of the Jeep than with the fact that I am drawing nearer to the thing that once was Norris Hiskott. It’s now a unique entity of singular malevolence, and the pressure that I sense isn’t pressure at all, but instead the black-hole gravity of its evil.
Although every vent in the vehicle is tightly shut, the air seems to be increasingly polluted, and a variety of claustrophobia overcomes me, a sense of being trapped in a place where I will slowly suffocate. I sneeze once, twice, a third time.
“Gesundheit.”
“Thank you, Ed.”
Shortly after that exchange, he tells me to brake to a stop and informs me that I have arrived at the brink of the slope that leads down to the backyard of the residence in which Hiskott has spent the past five years becoming … whatever he has become. Although the murk surrounding the Jeep seems fractionally less oppressive than before, I can see nothing of the house.
Ed agrees that my original strategy and tactics are the most likely to succeed. Because he’s able to consult Google Earth for a look-down on the building, he can refine my approach enough to substantially increase my chances of success.
At his suggestion, I release my safety harness long enough to pick up the pistol and the revolver from the passenger seat. I tuck them under my belt, the pistol against my abdomen, the revolver in the small of my back. I buckle up once more and lean forward, both hands on the wheel.
Monitoring the GPS transponders on various county fire-control-agency vehicles, Ed suggests that I wait another forty seconds until those trucks are about to enter Harmony Corner. Their sirens will add to the cacophony and further mask the noise I will be making. He says that sheriff’s deputies are close behind.
Generally speaking, these harrowing moments in my unusual life, when I am compelled to reckless action and violence, do not thrill me, do not have any quality of positive excitement or exhilaration. They are characterized by fear that must not be allowed to ripen into incapacitating terror, by abhorrence, by consternation that is mostly an expectation of the confusion that usually arises in the thick of action, the battleground confusion that can be the death of me.
This, however, is one of those rare occasions in which I’m also exhilarated. I feel so
