A half hour later, they were clean and combed and had finished their breakfast, such as it was. Kevin was still keeping watch on the window, but the women had not come back and the street outside remained empty save for the corpse of the farmworker.
Penelope forced herself to smile. 'So what are we going to do today?
Have a picnic? Hit the mall?'
'We should try to get out of here,' he suggested. 'Out of the valley.'
'We tried,' she said. 'We failed.'
'Well, we can't just sit here and wait and ... and hope that someone comes to rescue us.'
'We could find someone to help us.'
Kevin snorted. 'Yeah. Right.' He was silent for a moment, thinking, then a look of hope passed over his features. He turned toward Penelope. 'Mr.
Holbrook. He knows about things like this. We could find him, see if there's any way he can help us. His address is probably in the phone book.'
Penelope blinked dumbly.
'He knows a lot about Greek mythology,' Kevin continued. 'Maybe he can figure out something that can get us out of this.'
She shook her head. 'I don't want to see him. I don't like him. He's creepy.'
'Creepy or not, we don't have much choice. And he can't be any creepier than the other shit we've seen.'
'If he's still here,' she pointed out. 'Or if he isn't one of them. Or dead.'
Kevin was obviously excited. 'We'll wait a little while longer, make sure no one else is out there, then we'll haul out to the car and get out of here.' He started opening the dresser drawers, looking for a phone book. 'Start packing our stuff.
We need to be ready to roll.'
Penelope thought of arguing, then nodded, saying nothing. She walked into the bathroom, where she began filling up empty sports bottles with tap water. She stopped after the second bottle, looked at herself in the mirror above the sink.
Holbrook.
Logically, it sounded good, but the thought of going out to look for the teacher gave her an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wished she could be as optimistic about this as Kevin was, but the idea didn't sit well with her. She told herself that she was being stupid and paranoid, but she knew that she wasn't, and the worry showed on her face. The face staring back at her looked scared.
She glanced away from the mirror, picked up another bottle, filled it up.
Outside, there was a different feeling in the air, a different emotional atmosphere. Both of them felt it. It was subtle, indefinable, but there, a tangible presence, not merely her own altered perception. She felt nervous, anxious, as though there was a wildness within her struggling to break out--or, more accurately, a wildness without her that was struggling to break in. There were still no people on the street, but the sense that there were no rules of behavior, no boundaries, that everything was acceptable, anything goes, was alive and well and struggling for supremacy with the ordinary values inside both of them.
She could see it in Kevin's face, could feel it in herself.
In the sky above, an airplane, a jumbo jet, flew from east to west, toward the ocean. It was strange to realize that everything that was happening down here was merely a two-second blip on the ground to the people in the airplane. If they blinked, they'd miss the valley. While she and Kevin were desperately trying to escape the hellhole that Napa had become, those people would be served free drinks from the stewardess as they settled in to watch their in-flight movie in air-conditioned comfort.
But how long before all this spread? How long befo it affected Sonoma?
Vallejo? San Francisco?
She didn't want to think about it.
They loaded their supplies in the trunk of the car, thenfj got in, Kevin driving.
He looked down at the page he'd torn out of the phonel book. 'Palmer,'
he said. 'That means we'll have to go| through downtown.' He glanced over at Penelope. 'Don't | worry. We'll make it.'
Penelope looked out the windshield of the car at the bloody body of the footless farmworker. 'I hope so,' she; said.
He started the ignition, put the car into gear, and pulled onto the street. 'I just hope he's there and alive and not one of them.'
Holbrook's house was a nondescript crackerbox on a street of small, identical subdivision houses.
Kevin was not sure what he had expected, but it had not been this. Hell, Holbrook's house was even shittier than his own. He thought of Holbrook lecturing at the front of the class, giving grades, meting out punishment, and it was hard to reconcile that figure of authority and respect with a man who lived in this small, slightly rundown home.
He parked the car by the curb in front of the house and got out, leaving the engine on. He grabbed one of his screwdrivers from the storage space on the side of the door. 'Same deal,' he told Penelope. 'Be ready to take off. I'll go up and check things out, and if something's wrong, I'll speed back, hop in, and we'll haul ass.'
Penelope smiled. 'You don't want me to take off without you this time, huh?'
'Fuck no!' He grinned. 'I must've been crazy.'
'There's a lot of that going around.'
They both laughed.
'Okay,' Kevin said. 'I'm--'
'What are you doing out there in the street? Get inside!'
Kevin looked up, startled by the sound of the voice. Over the roof of the car, he saw Holbrook standing in the open doorway of his house, holding a shotgun.
'Get your asses in here!' the teacher roared.
Penelope looked toward Kevin, panicked.
'Now! Before they see you!'
She opened the door of the car and got out, hurrying across the lawn toward Holbrook. Kevin sped around the front of the car and passed her, clutching his screwdrive ... just in case. Holbrook's fear and concern indicat< that he was probably all right, but they couldn't afford to| take any chances.
The teacher raised the shotgun to his shoulder, andl Kevin's heart lurched in his chest--it was a trap! the basf tard was going to blow them away!--but he stopped in front of the stoop, screwdriver outstretched. 'Are youf drunk?' he demanded.
Holbrook lowered the shotgun, smiled grimly. 'Well, I guess that answers that question. I think we're all okayij here.' He moved to the side, holding the door open. 'Get; inside. Quickly.'
Penelope moved up the stoop and past him, into the; house. Kevin started to follow, then realized that the car's'; engine was still running. He turned, sprinting back out to : the street.
'Hey!' Holbrook yelled.
'The car!' Kevin yelled back. He reached the vehicle, opened the door, threw himself across the seat, and switched off the ignition, turning and pulling out the key. Closing the car door behind him, he hurried back to where Holbrook stood frowning.
The teacher grabbed his arm as he started to walk into the house. 'What were you doing? You could've been killed.'
Kevin yanked his arm out of the man's grasp. 'There's no one on your street. And that running engine was a red flag to every psycho out there. Besides, I don't want anyone stealing my car.' He looked into Holbrook's eyes. 'I'm going to need it.'
'Get inside.'
Penelope was standing just inside the living room, looking uncertainly around. Holbrook closed the door, locked it, started throwing a series of dead bolts. Kevin wished that Penelope had grabbed a weapon before leaving the car.
Holbrook put down his shotgun, resting it against the wall next to the door. He turned toward Penelope. 'The
