by Pamela Davis
"Argh," he said aloud. The song was one he'd been writing at their camp in Africa, a song about the different way of life he and Alex were learning with the Kung tribe. As a cultural anthropology student, he'd been fascinated by the idea of oral history passed on from one generation to another by song and recitation, so he'd decided to write about the differences, cultural differences, between the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and the world he and Alex had grown up in...so very different. The people there seemed more in tune with nature, much more aware. Of course, they had to be, he reminded himself. There were dangers they had to face every day just to survive.
He heard the screeching of a car outside come blaring through the window and he chuckled. There were dangers every day to be faced here in America as well. Life could be dangerous just about anywhere, he concluded. Then he shook his head as he thought about the earthquake. So much damage, so many lives lost. And somehow the woman Tiknay had known about it beforehand. He didn't understand it, but it felt absolutely true that the L.A. earthquake was what she'd been referring to on their last day in Africa. She had known, and she had implied other dangers were coming. If that earthquake was only the beginning...Nathan shuddered.
Cape Fair, the Samuels' House
Jessica sat huddled in a corner of the plush, dark gold couch in the den, smoothing her pale, aqua satin nightgown over legs tucked tightly beneath her. She twisted her emerald and diamond wedding band round and round her finger, waiting for John to finish putting Samantha to bed. As she heard the last good night called out and John's bare feet on the hardwood floor in the hall, her body tensed further.
John walked into the den and stopped when he saw Jessica. He knew she wouldn't sleep until they had talked out the astounding events of the day, and he wondered if he could ease her mind. "Jess," he said quietly, "do you want some herbal tea?"
"No, John, I don't want some tea. I'm not some irrational person who needs to be calmed down, so get that irritating, patronizing tone out of your voice or else it's going to be a very long night."
"I did not mean to sound patronizing Jessica. Look, it's been a long and surprising day, and we are probably both on edge," he replied as he sat in the leather wing-backed chair across from her.
"I don't know, John, you didn't seem too 'on edge' at Mrs. Philpott's house. You seemed thrilled by all of it, excited even," Jessica said accusingly. Then she continued in a small voice, "Aren't you just a little bit afraid of what is happening?"
John moved to sit by Jessica on the couch. He took one of her hands in his and said, "Listen, I don't know what to think about it yet. Yes, I am excited by the possibilities it presents--to actually communicate with animals, know their thoughts, and learn more of their lives--that seems amazing and wonderful to me. Perhaps there is a little fear in me as well, just as there is for anyone confronted with something so profoundly new and different. People generally don't react well to change initially, and I'm no different except that I am more apt to accept change because I spend a lot of my time imagining things changing in the future." He paused and asked, "What is it that bothers you so about this, Jess? What are you afraid of?"
She pulled her hand out of his and got up to stand on the large, braided rug in front of the couch. "What am I afraid of? Let's see. For starters there's the fact that our daughter seems to be having supernatural dream experiences. What does that mean? Has she become psychic or something? And why is she so connected to Harry? John, it's not normal for a child to be able to communicate in dog language! And who knows what that meant anyway." She stopped pacing and laughed shortly. "Do they sit around and bark at each other? I don't think so. I think that is something I would have noticed around here. And what does it say about me as a mother, that I didn't even recognize there was something strange going on with my own child?"
As John opened his mouth to speak, she held up a hand to stop him. "John, have you considered the possibility that something has happened to change Samantha? We know she was affected by toxins in the environment. What if this is another effect of that? Isn't it possible that the dreams are a hallucinogenic side effect of the chemicals in the pesticide she was exposed to? Or worse, how do we know whether or not she was born different with some kind of environmental damage in the womb from some chemical you or I were exposed to that changed her into this?"
John said forcefully, "Into this? What does that mean? She is still our daughter, the same little girl we've lived with for six wonderful years. She's not a monster, Jessica!"
Tears filled Jessica's azure blue eyes as she said, "That's not what I'm saying, John! I love her, I would give my life for her, but I'm so scared for her right now. I don't know what's going to happen to her, what this will mean in her life. She's still recovering from the illness and now she has to deal with dreams that--you saw her last night, how terrified she was--she's just a child, John, my child--and I don't know how to protect her from horrible dreams and--and--talking animals!"
John got up and put his arms around Jessica, holding her tightly as she cried softly on his shoulder. "Oh, Jess! She's going to be okay. You and I are going to see to that. We'll be there for her to help her deal with whatever comes up--dreams, dog conversations, whatever. If she has us with her, she can handle it, I know she can. It's that feeling of helplessness that will drive you and me crazy if we let it get to us. Sometimes I think feeling helpless is the cause of most mental health problems. We all want to control our lives, our environment. But life isn't like that. It constantly throws us curve balls, like some kind of test to see how quickly we can adjust to something new and different. I know we can adjust to this, Jess. I have faith in us. We'll find out everything we can about it and we'll help our daughter. Because the one area we are not helpless in is our love for our child."
Jessica snuffled against his shoulder. "I need a Kleenex."
After wiping away the tears and blowing her nose, she said, "Oh, how I hate to cry! I always feel like a mess when I cry."
John smiled at her and said, "You certainly don't look like a mess to me. You look like the most beautiful woman in the world right now with a red nose. I love you, wife."
Jessica sat down on the couch and patted the cushion next to her saying, "I love you, too, John. And you're right--our love for each other and for our daughter...that will get us through anything."
As he sat next to her and she leaned against him, Jessica said, "But you might as well get used to the fact that I'll probably need your shoulder to cry on from time to time. I do well in a crisis so long as I can have these sessions of fear and tears."
"I know," John replied. "And it's probably pretty healthy. If you didn't let yourself go ahead and feel the fear, it would affect you more, and then it would affect your interactions with Sam. Remember how you did the same thing when Sam first got sick?"
"Yep, that batch of fear took up half a box of Kleenex," she said, laughing softly. "Don't you get scared by these things, John?"
"I don't know. I guess I was scared last night when Sam had the dream and I didn't understand it--how strange it seemed. Now that there seems to be some kind of explanation for it, I don't feel so scared. It probably reassured me to find out Mrs. Philpott had the same dream. Hey, have you thought about that? Mrs. Philpott had the same dream as Sam and she's quite a bit older than Sam, so it can't be some brand-new genetic mutation. Today, when I saw her peering over those wire-rimmed glasses at me in her sturdy Birkenstock sandals and flowered skirt with an Oxford button-down shirt, well, she just seemed so solid and normal. A bit eccentric, I'll grant you that--have you seen her latest hat?--but definitely a practical, down to earth type. I have a feeling that she will get to the bottom of whatever this is."
"Did you see those roses in her garden? I've never seen such gorgeous flowers before. Wonder what she does to them--some kind of magic potion probably," Jessica said, laughing.
"I read this book once about crones--the wise old women of the world. I would say Mrs. Philpott is a crone of the highes
t order," John said.
"A crone? I'll have to read the book to see what I think about that," Jessica replied. Stretching, she got up from the couch, saying, "I'm so-o-o tired! Crying is exhausting. Let's go to bed. I want to snuggle under the covers with you. A nice, warm, naked snuggle."
John followed her out of the den. "Sounds like a plan. A good plan. An excellent plan."
Chapter 4
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Merlin was acting weird. Lisanne was shocked to discover he had let her sleep until ten in the morning. And now he was refusing to sit with her for coffee--their wake-up ritual. He just kept growling at her every time she tried to talk to him.
Merlin was pissed off. He liked that phrase and had considered making it literal by pissing on Lisanne's bed. How could she be so stupid? Had the drinking really damaged her brain? No, she just couldn't conceive of her cat using the computer. Well, he thought, I've had it with her. If she doesn't have the sense to realize someone else lives here besides her, then the hell with her. A self-absorbed little brat, that's what she was. He knew Lisanne was frustrated by his inattention since yesterday. She was really going to blow it for herself. Only a day and a half remained until the hurricane showed up, and he sure wasn't going to stay around for that little adventure. No way. Except the thought of her sitting at the computer as the winds blew the sliding glass doors in on her or seeing her washed out to sea, these thoughts continued to torment him. Could he really just leave her to die? Even if she was a human, she was still a living creature. Was he really that callous? She had saved his life. Didn't he owe her?
Haunted by his thoughts, Merlin paced the apartment. He realized he'd miscalculated. All the time they'd been together, he assumed Lisanne knew he understood her, that they were communicating. All the conversations with her, he'd thought she understood him. The computer message should have been so clear to her--just another achievement of his in learning to communicate with her. But wait...maybe she really never knew. After all, except for the humans who had discarded him shortly after his birth, she was the only human he'd ever been around. Was it possible that she was like all other humans? That they really didn't communicate with cats?
Merlin shook his head and scratched behind his ear, irritated. No, that was impossible. Living creatures communicated with each other, and everything was alive on the planet, so of course they all talked to each other. Lisanne was just plain stupid. Deficient. Feeble-minded. A poor, inadequate human. And where did that leave him? If it were true, then he had been charged with the responsibility to look after one of the more imperfect specimens of humanity. Could he just walk away from that obligation? Was he to sink to the level of those humans who had thrown him from a car on the highway--abandoning a helpless creature?
Merlin meowed plaintively. Resignedly. No, the contract between humans and cats was a long-standing one. From the royal courts of Siam where stealing a cat was an offense punishable by death, to the Egyptian tombs where cats were found mummified along with their masters, cats and humans had been joined in a bond of fellowship, love, and mutual protection for eons. It would not be proper for him to heedlessly abandon the commitment simply because he was involved with a human who happened to be an idiot. He would have to make the attempt to save Lisanne...or die trying.
Las Vegas, Nevada
The pyramid of ice gleamed in the blazing morning sun. A glistening tomb of frozen death encased the city of Las Vegas. As the helicopter circled above the unbelievable sight, Maria had to remind herself to breathe. Overwhelmed by the incongruous structure, she felt weightless, dreamy--except this was more like a nightmare. Finally, she turned to Zack and said abruptly, "Are you getting this on tape?"
He didn't answer for a moment and then seemed to register that she had spoken. "Yes--getting it--it's...what the hell is it? Are they sure this is Las Vegas?"
"It's Las Vegas, Zack. Or rather, it used to be," Maria said. "I don't understand how...what happened...some freak weather system?"
Zack stared through the lens of the video camera as a thrill of fear went zinging through his tense body. He imagined this was the way people felt when they first came upon Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon. The immensity of the structure of ice in such an unlikely location was enough to scramble his senses. It felt supernatural, not quite real. Awed by the impossible sight, he wondered if fear was appropriate to feel. The power to create such beautiful devastation...yes, he thought, you either fear it or worship it. Or maybe a bit of both.
Maria was mesmerized by the crystallized city, eyes watering as she forgot to blink. There seemed no place within her mind to conceptualize what she saw below, no way to make any logical sense out of it. Maria's strength was in the perseverance she exhibited to understand any problem that found its way into her life. She never read science fiction or fantasy growing up because it didn't fit into her practical view of the world. In her broadcasts, Maria tried to show the reasons behind the chaos that seemed to reign in everyday modern life. Confronted by the vast pyramid of ice that was Las Vegas, she wanted desperately to believe there would be a logical explanation. But the frozen fingers clutching the pit of her stomach said otherwise. It was ice, a natural phenomenon, but Maria knew instinctively that the pyramid below was the most unnatural thing she had ever seen in her life.
Biloxi, Mississippi
Andy Jordan flopped onto the sandy beach and stretched out, only slightly winded from his morning run. Drooling saliva dripped onto his face from the open mouth of his dog, Waldo, who panted above Andy's head.
"Yuck," Andy said, sitting up to move out of the line of dribble. "That's definitely gross." The black Labrador grinned at him with a wagging tail. "You don't even care, do you, big fella," Andy said, laughing.
The fact that Andy owned a dog was a minor miracle. He had grown up on military bases, moving every year or two as his father was promoted up the ranks in the Air Force. Throughout his childhood he'd had a dog as a pet, but never the same dog. Accidents happened with increasing regularity to each dog, usually just as Andy became strongly bonded to the animal. There had been dogs who escaped the yard to get run over, dogs that ate pest poison to die from the toxins, but mostly dogs that just turned up missing. His parents told Andy dogs take it in their heads to run away sometimes. The worst accident happened in the garage. Andy opened the garage door to get his bike and found Tonto, a Dalmatian puppy, with his head smashed flat under a large roll of newsprint that was stored in the garage. The sight of Tonto's smashed head haunted Andy's dreams for months.
The truth of the accidents was revealed to Andy on a hot, humid night in Marietta, Georgia when he was twelve. He was unable to sleep and had gone outside to sit on the patio in hopes of catching a breeze, thinking any movement of air would be an improvement over the stuffy bedroom. As he quietly opened the sliding glass doors, he heard a muffled yelp from the back yard. Rolf, his cocker spaniel puppy, had a doghouse outside and Andy wondered anxiously what was wrong. As he crossed the yard, the clouds separated to allow light from a full moon to banish the shadows across the night-blackened lawn. Revealed in the moonlight was Andy's father, Captain Mel Jordan, pilot of B-52's, slitting the throat of the puppy. Andy's mouth opened to scream as he watched blood spurt when an artery was cut, but no sound came out. Choking back the yell he wanted so desperately to make, Andy knew in an instinctual way that it was vital to his own survival that he not let his father see him. Creeping back to the house, he turned for one last helpless look, tears streaming down his face, to see his father's grim smile as he smeared blood across his bare chest and gazed up at the moon.
The next day when his father told him Rolf was killed jumping over a picket fence, impaling himself, Andy said he didn't want any more pets, that they were too much trouble. But within a month, his father brought home a new puppy, shoving it into Andy's limp arms saying, "For you, son. Every boy needs a dog." Andy suffered the torment of watching more animals disappear for the next three years until the day of his
liberation, the day his father was killed during a high-speed car crash. Andy's mother was a mousy woman who had been completely under the thumb of her husband's iron rule, and as Andy matured he wondered what indignities she must have suffered at the hands of his unbalanced father. She never offered to buy him any more pets, and Andy swore he would never have a dog again as long as he lived.
He never knew what caused his father's bizarre obsession with killing animals. In college, he read psychology texts and decided his father was at the very least a sociopath, probably made worse by what he'd seen during his tours in Vietnam, but was never able to forgive his actions.
One evening, after the 6:00 broadcast, Andy overheard the feature reporter talking about the segment profiling animals at the shelter for adoption. She was describing a litter of puppies who'd been abandoned and said she didn't think all would be adopted and how sad it was that some would be put to sleep. Visions of dogs stiff in death from poisoning by his father came to Andy's mind and he walked away. That night, he suffered from nightmares about dogs dying and realized in the morning that he had to do something to save at least one animal, or he wouldn't be able to live with himself. The connection between Waldo and himself was immediate, and the relationship was the most cherished in Andy's life.
Las Vegas, Nevada
It was quiet. Too quiet. No normal sounds that come from a city alive with people--engines humming, cars running, horns honking, just...nothing. The few people who had driven to Las Vegas seemed to be in a state of denial as she interviewed them. All they kept saying was, "This is just not possible. It can't be happening," over and over again. Yet it was happening and suddenly Maria found herself asking "Why?" with a different sense. The earthquake and now this...it could not be a coincidence. Maybe everyone was right and it couldn't all be happening at once. So, if it was happening, then something was making it happen.
"Whoa, girl! Something is making it happen?" Maria asked herself out loud. "Right. There is 'something' out there that can control nature. I must really be losing it." Shaking her head, she reached for her Styrofoam cup of cold coffee and gulped it down. Her cell phone rang. She answered it, hearing Phoebe say, "Maria, you have to leave Las Vegas for another story."