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The Human Touch

Chapter Fifty-nine

Gene Packerson awoke from the depth of shock to confused self-awareness while wandering a dark side street of Eagle Junction. The air had grown humid, filled now with strange and unpleasant odors. He kicked his way through raw earth with each stumbling step, and occasionally a piece of rotting wood, a shred of cloth, or even a human bone. Abandoned by a world gone insane, the bulk of his ego huddled in a tiny and well-protected corner of his mind where no more horror could touch him.

A car passed him in the street moving at less than twenty miles an hour, bouncing and rocking every few feet over a piece of rock or debris. It took a moment to recognize the badly dented vehicle as his own patrol car. Why had he abandoned a perfectly functional car to go running off into the night on foot, he wondered.

The driver, John Hartman, did not see him as he passed by. John was accompanied by his dead wife and his sickly ten-year-old boy, except that David was no longer ill, and Marlene Hartman no longer dead. His best hypothesis for being marooned in this strange new world remained the same as it had been earlier. He had blown a blood vessel having sex with Sheila Davies. His brains were addled. The enthusiastic twenty-six-year-old had been too much for an old man. He should have known better than to fall prey to a temptation of that magnitude.

Crimson taillights vanished in the direction of the Ridge. In time, it occurred to him that he had a spare radio clipped to his utility belt. He tried a call to the substation and sighed in relief when Sheila answered, except that there was a tremor of fear in her usually confident and cheerful voice.

"Are you okay, Gene-honey?"

Gene looked around the deserted night to assess his situation. He studied the sky, but the green light was gone.

"I think so.”

“Gene, I'm scared," Sheila said in a carefully controlled tone of voice. "Do you understand what any of this is about?"

He looked around the deserted and sinister night, the town he used to know, and shook his head emphatically. "No, but I know who to ask. I'll let you know what he has to say, but don't tell anyone. I don’t know nothing. That’s my official stance. I'm not taking any crap from anybody."

He took a deep breath of foul air. When he finished choking, he said, “In fact, I think I retired tonight."

"Where are you, Gene?"

He judged that he was a half mile from the substation. "Give me a few minutes. I’m on foot. John Hartman stole my fucking car."

"Want me to put on some fresh coffee?"

He all but burst into tears. "God, yes, please do.”

He put his radio away. He brushed the stinking dirt from his hair and shoulders and picked up his pace along the deserted sidewalk. There was nothing more to be done for the evening. He was free to go home to Sheila and a fresh cup of coffee. What more could a madman ask of the world? 

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