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Out of sight, but not for long.
She motored past an abandoned roadside motel, and a sign announcing a scenic lighthouse ahead. Seconds later she saw not a lighthouse but a pillar of smoke, and a military helicopter landing, and what must be every emergency or police vehicle within fifty miles.
It looked as if the CHP were starting to set up a roadblock on the PCH, but she was there ahead of them. She gave a saucy wave and passed by, unchallenged.
“What the hell was that?” Armo shouted above the engine.
“I don’t think we should stop and ask,” Dekka said. Then added, “What do you think?”
“I don’t think we should stop and ask.”
“At least we know every CHP in the area is busy.”
They came at last to the edge of the Stefano Rey National Forest and passed a CHP car driven not by California Highway Patrol troopers, but by a young black man with two white-looking kids as passengers.
“There’s a story there,” Dekka said, before accelerating past them.
Into the forest, into deep shade with a watery autumn sun strobed by the trees. Dekka’s stomach churned and her breath came short and too fast. It was near now. She was already within the diameter of what had been the FAYZ.
She slowed without really meaning to, her throttle a reflection of her state of mind. Still she missed the turnoff and had to come back around to find it. Now the SUV she’d passed earlier passed her, still heading south.
Then she was at the edge of town. She pulled over to the side of the road just to let the feelings wash through her. This place . . . the people . . . the horror . . . She felt as though if she went any farther, she would be trapped. She’d been within the FAYZ ever since she entered the forest. But for Dekka the FAYZ meant, above all, the town of Perdido Beach.
This was where she had fought. This was where she had starved and had been thrilled to have a rat leg to eat. This was where she first met Sam Temple, Edilio, Lana . . .
This was where she had loved Brianna.
The Breeze.
She slowed to low gear like a motorcycle at a parade. She kept her helmet on less for safety than in the paranoid sense that someone might recognize her. This wasn’t old home week for Dekka; this was a return visit to hell.
And yet, didn’t you enjoy parts of it?
By the end of the FAYZ, the town had been largely burned down, hundreds of homes lost. The businesses had all been looted and gutted. Since then, much had been rebuilt—the traffic lights worked, the street signs had been put back up. The shattered storefront windows were all plate glass again.
There was light traffic, a strangely surreal sight to Dekka. During the FAYZ, gasoline had quickly become scarce, and any vehicle you saw either was Edilio and one of his militia or it signaled some kind of trouble.
“Hey, what exactly is this place?” Armo asked.
“The FAYZ,” Dekka said. Then, with a sigh, “The Perdido Beach Anomaly. The PBA.”
“Okay, cool,” Armo said, apparently satisfied.
They came to the town square, site of so many bloody battles, site of so much horror and death. The town square had been the symbolic heart of the FAYZ.
A boy named Edilio, who had started his life in the FAYZ as an undocumented kid with no friends and zero status, had become the single most trusted and relied-upon person in the FAYZ. If Dekka had been Sam Temple’s strong right arm, Edilio had been his endlessly competent executive officer, his rock-solid support, and at times his conscience.
It was Edilio who had taken on himself the job of burying the dead. Edilio had dug the graves and fashioned the simple markers, and stood by those graves with bowed head asking God to watch over the souls of the dead.
To Dekka’s amazement and gratification, those graves had not been removed. On the contrary, someone had arranged for stone grave markers to be erected in place of the wooden crosses and awkward stars of David and the one weak effort at a Muslim crescent that had marked those shallow graves.
She parked her bike. “This part I do alone,” she said, then amending, “Unless you’d like to come.”
Armo did not want to come. He climbed off the bike and headed toward the McDonald’s.
Dekka walked on trembling legs to the graves. An informational marker had been set up. In raised bronze letters it read:
In respectful memory of both the wise and the foolish who struggled to survive unspeakable horror in this place.
