House of the Rising Sun, page 14
“And you don’t agree?”
“I do now!” Skylar said. “I’m scared to death and I feel exactly the way I didn’t want her to feel.”
Thomas didn’t know what to say. If the power didn’t come back on, modern life could be rolled back two centuries.
“Everyone believes the world changed with #MeToo and Times Up,” Skylar said. “And I’m so glad some of these assholes have finally paid a price for their shit. But hashtags and headlines don’t collapse a power structure that has been in place forever. Even if a man is afraid to sexually abuse you doesn’t mean he won’t fuck you over. Like if I just headlined a film that grossed a billion dollars, and I get paired in Darkest Energy with a man in his first leading role, and that guy still gets offered more money than me, what do you call that other than spite? From some pencil-dick executive who wanted to punish me for being more successful than him?”
“You’re right. He punished you with dollars. Don’t you think that kind of man will take even more advantage now?”
“Look,” said Skylar. “The Pulse was terrifying and compelling because of how plausible it was. I mean, we’re living it right now, so I would say it was pretty fucking real. And I wanted to play a powerful, resilient character who was the most a woman could be. I wanted her to be strong even if I knew, in real life—like right now—she would be at a physical disadvantage. I didn’t want to be the fantasy love interest for an insecure screenwriter who never got the girl. Because a girl is not a prize. Does that make sense?”
Thomas wondered if her questions about the reunion had been to confirm he was the insecure screenwriter she suspected. And it was true that for much of his life he had been that guy. But now?
“In an ideal world I want to play roles where women exist on their own terms, even if I acknowledge at this moment in time I’m pretty much dependent on you.”
“I understand,” Thomas said. “It just didn’t seem realistic to expect the average woman to defend herself against alpha men who could behave without consequence.”
“You’re probably right. It’s fucking depressing. But is your nonstop downward spiral really a film anyone wants to see?”
Thomas smiled gamely. This was precisely what he feared Skylar would say when she landed in Dallas—that neither she nor anyone else would be able to stomach the truth of a pulse-ravaged world. But stark reality was what he had intended to deliver. Pretending as if a technology apocalypse could be solved by a handpicked gaggle of airbrushed twentysomethings was not the story he was trying to tell.
“But I appreciate you letting me stay with you,” Skylar said. “I’d be fucked otherwise.”
They were approaching the turnpike entrance, which was adjacent to the ammunition plant. To his great relief Thomas did not see evidence of an Army presence, at least not until they had almost reached the interchange, where a lone soldier in fatigues observed the road with a pair of binoculars. As they reached the bridge, the soldier pulled one hand toward his face.
“Did you see that?” he said to Skylar. “That guy had a radio. Like a walkie-talkie.”
“So?”
“So maybe the Army does have a plan. Maybe they have equipment that still works.”
“Yay for them.”
“I’m saying maybe there’s a reason to hope after all.”
“You think?” Skylar deadpanned. “Aren’t the large transformers that run the electrical grid manufactured overseas? Doesn’t it take like a year to get a new one?”
Thomas blinked.
“And that’s if you wanted it yesterday. Now we need thousands of them. Have you forgotten your own screenplay?”
Honestly, he was surprised she had read the script closely enough to remember such detail.
“Whatever plan the Army has isn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough. We may as well be on our own.”
* * *
The turnpike turned out to be so empty that for much of the stretch Thomas pushed the speedometer to near eighty. Even when the road ended at Henryetta, when they entered U.S. 75 again, stalled traffic remained sparse compared to the same highway in Texas. By this point nearly all drivers had abandoned their vehicles and were walking in the median or on the shoulder, some headed north, some south. Many of them gestured to Thomas to stop, but he avoided eye contact as much as possible.
When they eventually approached Tulsa, a diffuse cloud of black smoke rose from the horizon and widened as they grew closer. Once again the road became congested with stalled cars.
“So how are we going to find her place?” asked Skylar.
“I think I see a gas station up there,” he answered, pointing. “I’ll stop and see if they have a Tulsa city map.”
“All right.”
Eventually, on the east side of the road, a Conoco sign resolved itself. A small crowd of people loitered in the parking lot.
“I know it was my idea to come here,” Skylar said. “I’m the one who said survival wasn’t enough, and now I’m talking like there’s no point to anything. I’m sure that’s confusing.”
Thomas nodded.
“But all I’ve been able to think about on this trip is your screenplay. You wrote this shit and then it happened, which is already weird and disturbing. Then it turns out you were right. Everything so far has happened like it did in the opening pages of your script. And if you keep being right, it means the ending will also be the same, which is Everyone Dies™, the end. So even though I think we should help Seth and Natalie, at the moment I feel torn between trying to survive and giving up. Does that make sense?”
“It makes perfect sense.”
“So let’s see if we can find that map.”
In the Conoco parking lot, several overweight men wearing various patterns of plaid shirts and dirty jeans stood near a row of disabled pickup trucks. Another fellow was slightly less heavy, dressed in a black golf shirt and gray slacks. Above them, the sky was gray with smoke.
“So I’ll stay in the car,” Skylar said, “while you run in and get the map.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with a bunch of men we don’t know.”
“Didn’t we just talk about this? You think one of them is going to abduct me while you’re inside?”
Thomas rolled his eyes. He reached under his seat for the gun and shoved it into his pants.
“That’s a mighty fine vehicle you got there,” said one of the men when Thomas shut off the ignition. “First runnin’ car we seen since that red pickup went by.”
“Texas plates, too,” said another man. “You must be far away from home, boy.”
Thomas opened his door and climbed out. He looked at the men and smiled.
“Here to help a friend. How are you guys?”
“Been better,” said one. “I’m supposed to be on a rig down in Okmulgee this morning, but instead I’m stuck here. Want to give me a ride? Behind your pretty lady?”
“We just came through Okmulgee,” Thomas said. “And now we’re going the other direction, I’m sorry to say.”
“You come all the way from Texas?” said another man. “Same thing going on down there as here?”
“Dallas is on fire. Planes down everywhere.”
The man whistled ominously.
“If it’s like this everywhere,” he said, “we’re in for some shit.”
Thomas shot a look at Skylar, who smiled as if today was a day like any other. Against his better judgment, he turned away and went into the store, where he found a wary-looking man standing behind a counter that was cluttered with cigarette boxes and ads for Red Bull and a messy pile of spent lottery tickets among silver shavings.
“I got me four winners,” said the man. “One of them is five grand. I’ll sell it to you for a hundred bucks right here and now.”
“No, thanks. But I’ll take a Tulsa city map if you’ve got one.”
The man pointed to a stand of maps behind a giant plastic tub of beef jerky.
“Sure do,” said the man. “Hundred bucks cash.”
“Excuse me?”
“Supply and demand, mister. I got the supply and you got the demand. You want the map or not?”
Thomas grunted. He’d put a small amount of cash in his pocket and kept the bulk of it in the car.
“Well shit,” said the man as he watched Thomas flip through bills. “Any man who’ll pay a hundred bucks for a map can probably afford two.”
When Thomas went back outside, the men had moved closer to his car. The fellow in the golf shirt was leaning against the passenger door.
“Didn’t know we were in the presence of the Hollywood elite,” said the man. “I hear you’re the guy who wrote that movie about himself and got rich off it.”
“It was luck,” Thomas said. “Now if you’ll excuse us—”
“Miss Skylar and me was just getting acquainted. Really she was getting acquainted with all of us. Weren’t you, sugar?”
But the alarm in Skylar’s eyes was obvious.
“Sorry,” he said. “We need to get going.”
“I don’t know,” the man in the golf shirt replied. “I don’t think we’re ready to—”
Thomas reached into his pants and pulled the gun free. He didn’t point it anywhere in particular, but the man in the golf shirt jumped as if he’d been bitten.
“Hey!” he said. “No call for a gun. It’s not every day people like us get to meet a famous actress.”
“I was polite before. Please back away so we can get going.”
“You ain’t the only one who’s carrying,” said one of the other men. “You best be careful if you come through here again, Tex.”
“I have no quarrel with any of you,” Thomas said. “But we’re on our way to help someone.”
“‘Quarrel,’” said another of the men. “You sound just like one of them elitists.”
But the men made no further move to harass them, and soon Thomas and Skylar were back on the highway.
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “Is that what it’s like to live here?”
“This is what it’s like when they don’t have to pretend anymore.”
As Thomas drove closer to Tulsa, Skylar studied the map and eventually deciphered the nomenclature of city streets. The east-west streets were numbered. The north-south streets were given alphabetic names. To his relief, one of these was named Braden. The intersection of 77th and Braden seemed to be where Natalie’s house would be located.
And finally, nearly eight hours after the appearance of the new star, Thomas stopped the Mustang in front of an idyllic residence that did not betray the adversity that had corrupted its interior. The grass, freshly mowed, was a dark and dense green. Flowers bloomed in weedless beds near the front porch and spilled onto the lawn. The window shutters and front door had been given a fresh coat of paint. It was obvious someone cared about this house. Someone was proud of it.
“Thomas?” Skylar said.
He turned and looked at her.
“Shouldn’t we hurry up? This is a hell of a lot of smoke.”
She gestured upward, and Thomas was alarmed to find the sky almost completely overcast. The smoke was so thick, in fact, he could barely make out the new star, which by now was in the western sky and starting downward. The acrid odor tickled his nose.
“I’m wondering what’s going on inside the house.”
“You and me both,” said Skylar. “But whatever happens, it needs to be soon.”
Thomas nodded and stepped out of the car. His heart thundered in his chest.
TWELVE
There was a part of Skylar that knew how absurd it was to compare the awful reality she was currently living to a story Thomas had written. But how could she not? She’d come to Dallas to discuss The Pulse just in time for a real pulse to happen. And even if it was all coincidence, wondering about it at least distracted her from the horror that lay ahead.
Now she was standing in front of a house they believed to be Natalie’s, which was a whole different kind of distraction, a scene that would be either awkward or terrible depending on what had happened to Seth after the old world ended.
Thomas knocked again, harder this time. Finally, there were sounds behind the door. The lock clicked audibly. The door swung open.
A man appeared. His face was pink and ruddy, his hair disheveled. He was medium height and build except for the pouch of his gut.
“Holy shit,” said the man.
“Who is it, Seth?” asked a woman somewhere out of sight.
“How did you even?” said Seth before he turned away from the door and shouted inside. “He came all the way here.”
“Who did?”
Now Seth faced them again and looked toward the street.
“So you have a car that runs. You drove all the way here. I can’t believe it.”
Up to this point the man had not acknowledged Skylar’s presence, but when he finally looked more closely at her, his eyes widened in a surprise of recognition she had learned to expect from people who weren’t in show business. In the typical fashion he blinked and opened his eyes even wider, as if to reconfirm the appearance of a familiar face in unfamiliar context. She returned his look with the bland, non-threatening smile that diffused tension in encounters like this.
“Seth, who is it?” the off-camera woman said.
“Your high school friend. Thomas.”
“Thomas?” said the woman. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Seth looked back at them.
“I guess I should thank you for coming, especially after everything that’s happened. Honestly, I can hardly believe you’re standing here.”
He was looking at Skylar as he said this.
“Seth, who is it really?”
Now the door opened wider, and Skylar saw Natalie for the first time. She was pretty in the way of large-featured Texan women—wide, sloping nose, big eyes, plenty of foundation. Brittle hair that had been bleached for decades.
“Seth, what is going on? How did—”
When Natalie looked at Thomas, her eyes narrowed visibly, as if she didn’t trust them. But when she saw Skylar, all the muscles in her face appeared to lose tension and her mouth fell visibly open.
“Holy shit!” Natalie said. “What is wrong with my manners? Please come in, both of you.”
She jerked the door open. Thomas motioned for Skylar to enter and he followed. Natalie led them to the living room, where she gestured at a sofa and two chairs, but no one sat. On the coffee table stood a bottle of liquor.
“You must be Seth,” said Thomas, extending his hand to shake. “And yes, of course I came. I promised. I’m so relieved to see you’re all right.”
Skylar noted how Thomas was subtly taking credit for the decision she had forced him to make.
“Natalie,” Seth finally said. “One thing I didn’t tell you was my backup plan in case the insurance didn’t come through: I asked Thomas to pay the bookie in Dallas if my claim was denied.”
“Oh, Seth.”
“I know it seems ridiculous, but the last thing I wanted was for Jimmy to come looking for you. And I couldn’t ask my dad. You have to understand how desperate I was.”
“But still,” Natalie said. “Why did he—”
“Because he called me. He tried to talk me out of it and I wouldn’t listen. But I did ask him to help you and the boys after I was gone. I never expected him to follow through after all this.”
The four of them stood there while seconds of unbroken silence slid by.
Finally, Natalie looked directly at Skylar again.
“And how did you end up here? This is like a dream.”
“I was visiting Thomas in Dallas. In fact, we were just leaving the airport when, you know, when it happened.”
Skylar reached out to shake Natalie’s hand. Whenever she met someone this way she felt ridiculous.
“I’m Skylar,” she said.
“Of course. I’ve seen you in lots of stuff. I’m Natalie.”
They shook for what felt like an awkwardly long time, and then Natalie addressed Thomas again.
“It’s so thoughtful of you to come. Wasn’t it dangerous to drive this far? What did you plan to do when you made it?”
It was obvious that both Natalie and her husband had been drinking. And who could blame them, considering the circumstances? Still, alcohol was not going to simplify this conversation.
“Take you back with us,” he said.
During the drive, after Thomas ignored the ailing man on the highway, Skylar had retreated inward. Those empty hours, she understood now, had given her a chance to face reality and muddle through stages of grief. It was nearly impossible to accept she would never see her family again, that she would never see Roark again. Everyone close to her was in L.A. or New York; her entire life, in fact, was split between the two coasts. Now, because of a decision that could be generously described as impulsive (reckless was more like it), she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a man she barely knew.
The quiet nature of the disaster only made things more awful. In Dallas, the EMP had behaved as a proper apocalypse, where planes fell out of the sky and the horizon erupted into flames. But Skylar’s emotions had bottomed out when they crossed into Oklahoma and the array of stalled cars mostly evaporated. It was so difficult to reconcile the untouched countryside with the awful reality of the EMP that she had nearly collapsed into tears. Only pride held her together. A refusal to reveal weakness to Thomas, to betray herself as the damsel in distress he expected.
She wanted to believe he was wrong about the reach of the pulse, that its effects were not as widespread as he feared. As they approached Tulsa, Skylar kept hoping they would discover cars driving and traffic lights blinking and planes streaking across the sky. But it hadn’t happened. And if two cities so distant from each other were burning uncontrollably, that meant the same scene was being repeated across the country and maybe around the world. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the horror of it.
“Thomas,” Seth said. “I appreciate you coming here. Honestly. But as you can see, we are fine.”
