Convergence - The Last Science #2.1 - In Plain Sight

B2: Chapter 6 - Over the Border and Through the Woods - II

  "Jeremy?" Lani asked, as he merged them into the off-ramp.

  "Sorry. Just thinking."

  "You got any ideas about what we're heading into?"

  "An empty ditched car from when they hopped the border without a single clue on it." Jeremy shrugged. "But we've gotta check anyway."

  Lani sighed. "With our luck, it won't even be her car."

  "Now you're catchin' on." Jeremy's phone buzzed with a pile of text messages. "Chief found two more bodies in the woods with the rangers. Harrison and one other older male. Probably Smith. Both dead back in May. We can knock two more off our count."

  Lani glanced over at him. "Do you think we'll find other survivors? At this rate, it sounds like the entire town was killed off."

  "Can't be sure. You made the count. You think it's actually accurate?"

  "It's the most recent census plus the last submitted university records and voter registration cross-referenced. It's the best we're going to get."

  "So we've got no fuckin' clue," Jeremy grumbled. Lani pulled the jeep off to the side of the road. "What's up?"

  "This is where we break off," he replied. The jeep bounced with an angry thump as they started rumbling through the underbrush into the wooded hills. "You'd better hope it's clear all the way there."

  "The forest didn't look that thick."

  "We're in a car."

  "We'll make it," Jeremy said firmly.

  "...She's alive."

  Jeremy looked at him sharply. "You don't fuckin' know that."

  "You don't know she isn't."

  "Why d'you think we're in fucking Canada?"

  "Hey, it's actually pretty nice up here. It's better than the city."

  "I don't need reassuring, Lani," Jeremy said, leaning back and trying to relax while the jeep tumbled along the rough ground. "We're gonna find her either way, and she's gonna tell us what the fuck happened back in Rallsburg. Simple as that."

  It was slow going through the forest. As the tree cover thickened, they were forced to take longer and longer detours to get back on track with the GPS map Lani had on his phone. Jeremy spent most of it running through the details of the case in his head, but as they reached the halfway point, Lani broke the silence.

  "You know what this all seems like to me?"

  A psychotic serial killer with way too much firepower? "What?"

  "It's all a sign. It's warnings."

  Jeremy didn't have anything better to do, and he didn't feel like going into the field with animosity from his partner, so he decided to entertain Lani's train of thought. "Warnings of what?"

  "The end of the world."

  He barked out a short laugh. "Christ, Lani, people have been callin' out end of the world for way too long. What makes this pile of bodies different from Jim Jones or Heaven's Gate?"

  "Those were all suicides. These people didn't kill themselves. We don't have any reason to believe they were crazy."

  Jeremy shrugged. "Jury's out on the crazy, but how'd you get from mass death to end of the world?"

  "The way those bodies were laid out in the street sure looks like a sign."

  He frowned. "You said it yourself, they were trying to reach somethin' in the middle. Probably whoever killed 'em."

  "I'm not so sure anymore," Lani muttered. He paused while navigating a particularly tricky section of forest. "The people getting torn up, and now with Hauserman dying so much later... This is end of the world stuff."

  "Or it's confirmation bias."

  "What?"

  "Look, I mean this with all respect," said Jeremy, "but you're a lot more superstitious than me. Fair?"

  "Yeah."

  "So you're way more likely to believe in somethin' supernatural occurring here. Even if it doesn't make sense."

  "You're saying I don't make any sense?" Lani asked, without any hostility.

  "I'm saying you gotta watch your biases, that's all. So does the whole fuckin' world, from the shit we get on the tip line. Apocalypse is fucking trendy these days."

  "What do you mean?"

  "People want the world to change, but they don't feel like they got the power to do it themselves. So they want a redo." Jeremy sighed. "They feel so powerless that the majority of the world gettin' knocked off is preferable to trying to fix our shitty real world."

  "That could just be our tip line."

  He shook his head. "You wanna know how the world is feeling? Don't watch the news, check out what entertainment people love the most. When we were inventin' space flight, people wanted science fiction with rubber suited aliens, humanity reachin' for the stars, optimistic shit. Go way back to Shakespeare, and people loved it because he wrote for the fuckin' peasants, not the royalty. He got what they were feelin'. Or look at all the anti-war songs and movies around 'Nam."

  "And now we're in the apocalypse?"

  "Well, there's so much shit these days that it's got thinned out. But yeah, check out what's popular. People love the 'pocalypse, they love the whole world gettin' reset or blown away. Shit, there's even post-apocalyptic books for kids now."

  "You were reading kids books?" Lani asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "Saw 'em in the store," Jeremy replied without missing a beat. "Point is, it's saturating everything. That's where our culture's at, and culture reflects the times. People want an apocalypse, and something this crazy? Mass unexplained death and an entire town evaporating into thin air?" He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat as they bumped along. "They might be so desperate that this kicks it off all on its own."

  "Are they wrong?"

  Jeremy's eyes snapped back open. He glared at his partner. "Of course they're fucking wrong!"

  "But—"

  "Just because our country's fucked up doesn't mean it's a lost fuckin' cause," he growled. "People fought for this place. Fuck if I'm gonna let some looney tunes serial killer and a bunch of end of the world addicts ruin our home."

  "Even if it might actually be a lost cause?"

  "Lani, do you really believe that?"

  "...No. But I get where they're coming from."

  Jeremy sighed. "You and me both."