A Hard Rain: Book Two Of The Shift Trilogy

Chapter 9

Approaching Charlottesville, Virginia

Greater Monticello

January 1, 2013

Keep it together, Helmut. Hold on. Don't lose it here, not now. Helmut Spankmeister sat in the back of a late model Suburban beside Captain Nguyen and the lady who stood behind the mirrors in the debriefing room while her cronies grilled him for every piece of information they could squeeze out of him. Rochelle wasn't what he expected. Neither was the constable. Rochelle was a lot more rustic than he had imagined it would be, and the constable seemed much more human than he had built up in his mind's eye. He wondered what Rita in Monticello would be like. Frankly, he was amazed he made it this far. If he could keep his head together a little while longer, sell his story to her as he did to her Vicious Rabbits friends, he might get Rita to return with him and she can save the world.

"You okay, Mr. Spankmeister?" asked the puppet master lady sitting across from him. Her generous brown, almond shaped eyes looked at him with what he could swear was genuine sympathy.

"Just...you know, carsick." He shaded his eyes from the intense morning sun.

"The roads don't help matters much," added the regal looking constable with considerable charm. He could see why the whole community liked this man. He really did exude a kind of pheromone that made you want to follow him. It wasn't just that his father had been the previous constable—that's what he gleaned from the transmissions, anyway—Jon looked and acted like a leader, even if he was more down to earth than he had been built up to be.

"We'll be there in another fifteen minutes or so."

The caravan passed the charred ruins of the north end of Charlottesville trundling over the broken pavement at an impressive forty miles per hour, something Helmut hadn't experienced since before the Shift. Most of the vehicles travelling on the road were ugly tortoises covered in corrugated armoring that made them crawl. Not the constable's Suburban. Helmut figured that since the lands between Rochelle and Greater Monticello were settled and pacified, there was little need for such burdensome armor.

"It's impressive," he said. "What you all have done here."

"Thank you," Jon answered. "We worked hard to get here."

"I can see," added Captain Nguyen. "It's clear that your people are the guiding light of the Divine Logos."

Helmut found Jean Paul to be an interesting character. He was very philosophical for someone looking to sell oil. Of course, it was an unfair assessment to label everyone outside his compound as knuckle draggers, but it was true by-and-large. But Jean Paul seemed to defy his rough exterior and his Brooklyn accent, which he later learned was actually a New Orleans accent.

"The Divine Logos," Jon repeated. "Oh, the reverend's gonna love that one."

"It's a Catholic thing," Helmut added.

"Yes, Mr. Spankmeister. We have a lot of Catholics here."

"That's good to hear," Jean Paul said.

"I'm not one of them. And the reverend certainly isn't."

"That's okay. Nobody's perfect."

Helmut lost track of the rest of the banter between the captain and the constable. He rubbed his temples trying to massage away the nausea. His thoughts became more jumbled. He didn't know how long he could stay sharp. He lifted his head to find the woman staring out the window in deep meditation.