and exciting confines of the lab, where the battle could be fairly joined. There was so little time.
He saw a big semi headed his direction, the first all day. Henry reached into his backpack and took out two packages of jerky, which he waved in the air. Like every other vehicle the truck sped up, but then the airbrakes squealed and the truck came to a halt fifty yards down the interstate. Henry negotiated a ride as far as downtown Atlanta for three packages of jerky—one of the few occasions that being a vegetarian turned out to be an economic advantage.
The driver was an older Hispanic man with a white goatee and a pronounced accent. He was listening to a scratchy radio show in Spanish. “It’s from Mexico,” the driver explained, pronouncing it May-hee-ko.
“What are they saying?”
The driver laughed. “The Mexicans they say get out! Come to May-hee-ko, our brothers! The gringos are loco!”
“Any American stations?”
“Sometimes I hear WWL in New Orleans. I think they have electricity there. Not like here.”
The driver turned the dial, which was mostly empty, except for a station in Tallahassee, which was broadcasting Alex Jones. “We’ve all been expecting this, haven’t we?” Jones was saying. “Big Brother has been looking for a way to exercise total control. It’s a plot to eliminate Christians. Look at who lived through this plague. That’s right, the Jewish mafia. Jews and the communists—a global, corporate combine. They tell you it’s a disease, this Kongoli stuff. Don’t buy it! It’s a lie! They put chemicals in the water. They targeted good Christian Americans…”
The driver looked for other stations, but Alex Jones was the only voice in English.
The truck was carrying emergency radiation detection devices. The driver didn’t know why they were needed. He let Henry off at the North Avenue exit.
The city was still gleaming and splendid, but pedestrians were scarce. The skyscrapers appeared to be vacant. Henry could see through their windows to the city behind. Despite the strangeness, he was struck by the splendor, the majestic architecture amid the natural beauty that Atlanta was built on. In the scope of the world, it was a mere bijou, a small brilliant monument of civilization. Behind the cityscape, the sun was sinking into a ravishing persimmon gloaming. The sunset made him think of the Thelonious Monk tune “Crepuscule with Nellie.” Vernon Dixon must love that song. Maybe one day they would play it together, if there were more days. In the absence of traffic, the air was super pure and too rich. Henry felt like he was breathing straight oxygen.
By the time he crossed over the parkway leading to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, the moon was up, shaped like a cup into which Venus was about to drop—the star and crescent, symbol of Islam, still destroying itself in a pointless war. The night was dark and the sidewalk was uncertain, with fallen tree limbs occasionally blocking his path. Henry’s eyes adjusted to the dim glow of starlight. He was close to home now. He cut through the park, passing the playground where he had taken Helen and Teddy when they were young and the community garden where Jill had always intended to get a plot. He was so close. His heart began to pound.
Then he heard the dogs.
At first he couldn’t see them, hidden in the shadows of the trees, but suddenly there they were, a pack of eight or nine, not barking, but growling in a low, almost inaudible tone. One of the smaller dogs began yipping and dancing around in excitement, but the largest dog advanced slowly, head down, stalking. Henry held his cane up as a warning, which caused the alpha, a German shepherd, to hesitate. But there was another intelligence at work, the mind of the pack. The dogs spread out, flanking Henry on either side. Henry would have to take out the alpha with the first blow.
As the shepherd came within leaping distance, Henry slammed his cane on the ground and yelled, “Sit!”
The dog immediately sat. Most of the other dogs followed his lead. They were abandoned pets that had not yet forgotten their training. Henry slowly bent down, avoiding eye contact and making sure that he appeared unthreatening. He picked up a stick and waved in front of the shepherd’s nose. Then he tossed it into the trees. The dogs all rushed to retrieve it.
Henry started to hurry away, but the dogs returned too quickly, the stick in the shepherd’s mouth, ready to