by Robert Reed
“But you’re not a prisoner,” he promised.
I suddenly felt like a prisoner. I was trapped and desperate to be outside again, and safe—
Lillith told the driver to stop.
The truck quit moving, though the engine was still humming.
“I’d hoped for more from you,” Dr. Florida told me, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You’re not cowardly, are you, Ryder?”
I stood, and nobody tried to touch me. “What happens to my folks?” I asked. “If?”
No one spoke.
I shivered, and Lillith said, “Good-bye, Ryder. And thank you.”
“Remember,” said Dr. Florida. “Everything is hard for everyone now. You’re no exception, and I just wish this could all be neater—”
“You’ll do fine,” Lillith promised, and she smiled. “Just fine.”
I saw her strong smile.
The back door of the truck opened, sunlight flooding inwards; and Dr. Florida said, “You’ll understand it better. Someday.”
I said nothing.
Lillith kept smiling.
“Regardless what happens,” he promised, “I know you’ll appreciate our efforts and our good intentions. Ryder?”
I climbed out of the truck, down onto the pavement.
“Good-bye, Ryder,” said Dr. Florida.
I kept silent.
The door began to close; and for a moment, between the door and its reinforced frame, I saw him take Lillith’s hand and holding it flush to his face, to his cheek, saying, “Love,” with a crumbling voice. “Oh dear love.”
We were on the west side of the parkland. The truck pulled away, and I crossed the street and followed another street until it ended with a row of bright houses and the woods beyond. The day was hot and brutally dry, every lawn watering itself and the trees shaking in the furnacelike winds. I cried for a little while, then I stopped myself. I cut between houses and a man yelled, “Use the street, you little shit!” and I climbed his back fence and eased myself down a series of vine-choked terraces, down into the cool dark woods. The faint but unmistakable odor of a dead fire hung in the quieter air. I froze, my confused mind wondering if a hound had come to the parkland. Already? I thought. Was it somewhere close? Somewhere broiling trees into ashes, into food…my skin grew cold and my hands trembled, something stirred in the brush and I turned and bolted across the bottoms and up toward Cody’s house.
Of course it was too soon for any hounds. I realized that much when I was running, feeling foolish, feeling like a hopeless coward on top of everything else.
I rang the bell and knocked. Tina answered the door. She saw I had been crying, and she nodded as if she understood. “Hasn’t been much of a day, has it?” She and May had been lying on the sofa together, watching TV. “Cody’s in her room, Ryder. Healing. She took quite a fall.”
May was watching me. “Did you see her fall, Ryder?”
“No, ma’am.”
“It must have been quite a drop,” said May. “As bad as that bruise looks.”
“I guess so.”
Tina asked, “Do you want a drink? A snack? Help yourself.”
I was desperately thirsty. I slipped into the kitchen and filled a hefty glass with ice water. Fixed to one wall was a liquid crystal bulletin board, and while I drank I watched the words “THIS IS A HAPPY HOUSE” form in bright pink letters. My head ached from the cold water. I set down the glass, and the words changed. They were tall and vividly blue: “CONGRATULATIONS TO CODY—ANOTHER FINE SCHOOL YEAR!” I passed through the living room on the way to Cody’s room. Tina was snuggling against May on the sofa, and May was purring into Tina’s ear. Tina giggled. May giggled. They looked up at me.
“Nothing to eat?” asked Tina. “You’re sure?”
“Thanks, no.” I slipped into Cody’s room. She was dressed and sitting upright in bed, on top of her sheets, and the hot wind was passing through an open window. She seemed to relish the heat. She said, “Hey!” and smiled. “You been watching TV?”
The TV was hung on the wall. The news hadn’t changed since morning, except more shuttles were in position and more teams were ready to be dispatched. I saw men and some women inside their armored lifesuits. They were carrying powerful recoilless guns and strange bulky packs—“For bleeding away stray lightning bolts,” Cody told me—and each of them looked brave and self-assured. They knew nothing about the dangers, I thought to myself. They believed, wrongly, that they could win.
Cody was watching me. “You’re in some state,” she said.
“I’m just worried,” I told her.
“Not me.”
I sat on the edge of her bed, on a corner.
“I didn’t break any ribs yesterday. When I fell,” she told me. “I feel a whole lot better today anyway. I’m healing fast.”
I hadn’t thought about Marshall or the shovel for a long while. It didn’t seem to have the slightest importance anymore. Not to me.
“Anyway,” she said, “you want to hear the latest?”
“The latest?”
“About the great dragon hunter.” She poked me with a bare toe, smiling with all of her face. “After we left him yesterday? After my spill? Jack saw him later. Late at night. Jack was in the oak and Marshall was coming and going from the woods. All night long he carried stuff through the pasture and straight under the oak, and Jack told me everything this morning. You know what Marshall was carrying?”
I shook my head.
“Cans. Buckets. Big bottles. Bunches of little bottles. I’m talking about the middle of the night, Ryder.” She shook her head, her smile huge. “His folks were out somewhere or asleep. Because they didn’t hear him out in the backyard pumping gas—”
“Gas?”
“Pure old fashioned gasoline!” She paused, halfway laughing. “Jack went to sleep late. After midnight, I guess. And maybe at two o’clock there was this wham and the oak jumped and he fell off the long bench, flat on his butt, and he saw an enormous flash of light—”
I could smell the ashes again. I said, “What happened?”
“Marshall poured gas into the old well, I guess. I don’t know how many gallons. And then he set a fire—”
“Is he all right?”
“Oh, sure,” she told me. “Jack went to watch the fire. He saw Marshall sitting there, baking in the heat,” and she blinked and watched me. I felt strange. A little voice inside me told me that Marshall had tried to kill the snow dragon, that such an event was somehow important…but I couldn’t find any excitement inside myself. Not the weakest drop of interest.
“You don’t look so good,” said Cody. “You don’t.”
I admitted, “I’ve got a story too.”
“Yeah?”
“A giant secret,” I warned. “No one can know it.”
Cody was staring at me. Her eyes were round and so was her mouth, and her round mouth said, “All right,” with a whisper.
And I cried. The soldiers on TV were dropping toward the moon’s moon, singing old military songs, and I was dissolving to pieces. Cody grabbed me. She squeezed me until I ached and told me, “It’s okay. Your speed. Your voice. Explain it however you want, Ryder,” and that’s what I did.
I told everything.
And Cody shook her head, crying too. “Assholes, assholes,” she said. “Everywhere you look it’s assholes.”
Twelve
Mom and Dad were drinking coffee from their largest cups, trying to stay awake. It was after midnight, and the attack was still grinding along. I was sitting upright on the floor and feeling no need for sleep. “Are you all right?” Mom asked me. “I don’t like your color.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She didn’t stop watching me, however. “Maybe you should climb into bed,” she said after a little while. “You can see what’s happened when you get up tomorrow.”
“This isn�
�t some football game, Gwinn!” Dad’s voice glanced angry and then settled on tense. He was tense. He looked at her and forced a laugh, then asked, “More coffee? Love?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Well,” he said, “don’t let them kick a field goal till I’m back. Okay, Ryder?”
I made myself say, “All right.”
We were watching the moon’s moon from a higher orbit, watching it passing against the gray bulk of the moon itself. I saw scattered farms and occasional lights, plus bright discharges between nests in the foreground, and I thought of the soldiers fighting to plant their nuclear charges in special places, just so. There was talk of casualties, maybe a lot of them, and the hounds were proving hard to kill. No network gave us a close-up view. The U.N. was keeping its secrets, I realized. And the newscasters kept telling us that soon, maybe in minutes, the last of the killing bombs would be in place and the final countdown would begin.
“What did you do today?” asked Mom. “You never told us.”
I said I went to Cody’s and watched TV. And I walked too. I just walked.
She scratched the top of my head for a moment, then quit, saying, “I changed my mind,” to Dad. He had come back into the room, and she handed him her empty cup. “Half full. Please?”
“Yes, love.”
I blinked. Dad had turned and taken a long stride, and I blinked and saw a flash, brilliant and short-lived, and the unseen newscaster sputtered, “Goodness! Something…goodness, something’s happened!”
“What?” said Dad.
“Kip!” said Mom.
“A premature detonation?” said the newscaster, her poise shaky but reemerging. “One of the shallow nuclear charges…has somehow detonated, and we’re awaiting an official explanation. Perhaps this means nothing. Perhaps…”
The shuttles around the moon’s moon were beginning to fire their engines, pushing themselves clear of the blast area; and for an instant I thought of the teams inside the tunnels and nests, fighting and working to place their charges. And then the next blasts came fast, even brighter now, and when they quit there wasn’t any sound but for the soft breathless gasps of the newscaster herself.
The moon’s moon was shattered.
Debris was scattering from clouds of hot plasma, turning red-hot and still much too large. There wasn’t supposed to be any visible debris. The moon’s moon hadn’t been in position, none of the big lunar guns had been able to do their magic; and the newscaster tried to explain, saying, “A back-up plan was triggered by the premature blast. The Florida comet’s orbit had been changed, you see…it might have shattered and scattered hundreds of…of large pieces pell-mell. So the assault commander ordered the detonation of all nuclear devices…and it’s hoped, we can all hope, that what little debris you see can be tracked and destroyed. As soon as possible, yes…”
Mom said, “Kip?”
“Shush!” he answered.
I was thinking about the eggs. How many eggs had survived?
The newscaster spoke of the earthly defense systems: enormous radar installations, ground-based and in orbit, which had the capacity to track tiny objects; newly installed lasers able to cook hounds in a millisecond; plus the very best artificial intelligences calculating orbits and ranking the dangers even now, even as she spoke.
“What are we going to do, Kip?”
Dad settled on a chair, leaning forward. He said, “Search me,” with his face sad and weary.
“If those…those monsters…”
“I don’t know, Gwinn. I just don’t.”
I said, “I’m going upstairs to watch,” and no one spoke to me. I climbed the stairs and sat in the dark, and from time to time I heard Mom speaking with a voice turning tighter and more frightened by the minute.
“There must be something we can do,” she said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Is there someplace we can go?”
“None I know.”
“But there must be a way to hide from them.”
“They’re not at our door, Gwinn. Not yet.”
“If they come—?”
“I don’t know. Just…we’ll wait and see.”
“Sit and do nothing? And what will they do to us?” She said, “I can’t believe this. You’ll be twiddling your thumbs until they break through our walls, won’t you?”
“Gwinn—?”
“That son-of-a-bitch,” said Mom. “Him and his ego and his damned slimy charm—!”
“Gwinn?”
“You’re defending him!”
“I’m not. Believe me,” Dad told her. “If he walked in here this minute, I would shoot him. I mean it.”
She said, “It’s what he deserves.”
Dad said nothing.
“This isn’t real,” Mom decided. “It just can’t be happening.”
And Dad told her, “I know what you mean. It feels like a dream.” Then he added, “It’s a blessing, that feeling. It’s the only thing keeping me sane.”
I slept and woke, and it was still dark. My head hurt and the quiet was a little frightening while I climbed out of bed and dressed. I told the house personal to keep the lights off. I went downstairs, finding no one, and told the personal that I was going to the parkland, just for a walk, and not to let anyone worry. Please.
I didn’t want to be home when Dr. Florida arrived. He would come this morning, I thought—or someone would come in his stead—and Dad would shoot him. I could almost see him doing it. Pow and then pow again.
I walked past Cody’s house, where no lights were burning.
The Wellses’ house was nearly as dark, every good window opened to the cool night air, and I could hear two songs playing and someone laughing and someone else shouting, “Fuck!” one time. Then there were just the two songs banging their heads together. Brown shattered glass littered the graveled road. I slipped past and onto the pasture. The air was humid. The grass itself felt warm against my bare legs. A soft wind blew one way, then another, and then died away entirely. Someone threw another bottle, and I heard it burst on the road.
A light showed in the oak. It was the flickering, campfirelike light of the TV, and I heard TV voices. I said, “Jack?”
“Ryder?”
“I’m coming up,” I told him.
Jack was sitting on the floor of the big room, working by the TV’s colored glow. He had been crying. He said, “They’re coming. Did you know?” and he breathed once and shuddered. “Shit’s falling on the moon, all over, and hounds too. And there’s more shit coming our way. They’re saying so now.”
“I know it.”
He looked at me. After a minute, he said, “Glad you’re here.”
“What are you doing?”
“Working.” He brought out a sack, untying its neck and pulling a big garter snake out by its neck. I saw the tag fixed to its tail. Jack read the tag and marked down the number and location of capture, then its length and girth and its weight according to a little scale. He said, “A female,” with a distant voice. “Know how I know?”
I remembered a field guide, imagining it in my hands—
“Her build. See how thick she’s built, and big? Female garter snakes are always larger.”
I remembered. I said, “Sure.”
He watched the snake moving in his hands. He said, “You hear about Marshall?” and he lifted his eyes to find mine. “Did you?”
I said, “Cody told me.”
“Left a real mess over there. You see the mess yet? No?” He shook his head. “Jerk,” he said without heart. “The jerk left our tools over there, and his damned net. I brought them back here for him. Yesterday,” and there wasn’t any anger in his voice. “He blew the shit out of the place, Ryder.”
“Did he kill it?” I wondered.
“The dragon? I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I haven’t heard it, but then it doesn’t always scream. You know? Maybe it got out first. Maybe there was another way out of that thing.”
I
kept quiet.
“Anyway.” Jack stood and looked toward the east. “It’s getting light,” he said, and I looked up and saw a touch of red on everything. He asked, “Do you want anything to eat? Drink? What?”
“What do you have?”
“Canned shit. Fresh mulberries. And some of this.” He pulled a plastic flask out of a freezer. It was covered with frost and full of heavy liquid, and when he took off the lid, in an instant I could smell the contents.
“From the springs,” I said.
“And not too bad.” Jack took a long swallow and smiled, and he told me, “Go on. I filtered it and boiled it and it’s not bad at all.”
I tilted the icy flask and sipped, the stuff tasting like cold, thin soup. It tasted okay. I thanked him and he put the flask back in the freezer, then he turned and asked, “Are we all going to die, Ryder?”
I said, “No,” and realized that I was being truthful.
Jack said, “I’m going back to sleep. Okay?” He didn’t mention my answer, nor did he give his own opinion. He turned off the TV and made his bed on the long bench, then he put his snakes and his snake records beneath the bench and lay down. I pulled a pair of binoculars from their cabinet and sat alongside the east windows, watching Jack’s house and as much of Cody’s as I could see. The sun was close to showing. My stomach began to growl, so I opened a can of spaghetti and meatballs and ate it cold, using a grimy fork and my fingers. After a while an ordinary car pulled up beside the Wellses’ house. I heard it on the gravel, glass breaking under its tires, and I focused the binoculars and saw Dr. Samuelson stepping out. He seemed cautious and wary, looking in all directions and then crossing the street. He was going to talk to Cody’s moms first.
I waited.
Jack was asleep and dreaming. I saw his eyes flipping about beneath his eyelids, and I breathed and waited and wished I could sleep too. I so much wanted to lie down and dream, dreaming something happy. Only I couldn’t relax. Not now. Not with the heat of the day starting and the sun breaking over the trees on the horizon.
Dr. Samuelson left Cody’s house. May was beside him, and she was crying while he spoke. She stopped and shook his hand and went inside, and he turned and turned, looking everywhere, then he crossed the paved street and vanished into the Wellses’ front porch.