SelectionEvent (2ed)

  “So argue.”

  “Why?”

  “Get her wound up, she might tell you what's on her mind, even if she doesn't mean to.”

  Martin considered it. It could be nasty. Plow into the situation, churn it up until something recognizable came to the surface. Uck. “I keep thinking that here at the end of the world, people should be considerate of each other. There are so few of us, I guess I'm afraid she'll leave.”

  “Well,” Winch said, “I don't want to get into your business.”

  “Winch....” Martin looked up at him and squinted a little. “Everyone I meet seems crazy. So tell me the truth. Are you the exception? Or are you hiding it?”

  “Me?” His forehead wrinkled and he thought a moment. “Well, I never thought about being unbalanced,” he said, “but I'm probably not the best person to ask.”

  “Everyone I've met seems to be from Zerk City. Except Diaz. Well, Diaz too, but he seems to deal with it pretty well.”

  “Like you said, what's the end of the world for if you can't live out your dreams. I got my saxophone, Diaz has his open road. Other people have some dreams that shouldn't come true.”

  “I've seen that.”

  “Likewise.”

  “Let's go back.”

  ....

  It was mid-afternoon when they walked in the front door. Martin noted that Mona was no longer on the mantel. Gasping whimpering noises came from the Moreen's room, then a scream. She sat facing the television, her face a drained mask of horror. Behind the fall of her hair, her wide eyes stared at the television and her mouth hung slack and open. Voices, screams, and gunshots came from the movie. The air in the room had a strange, pungent smell.

  Winch stayed back, but Martin rushed forward and turned off the set and knelt in front of Moreen, taking her shoulders firmly in each of his hands and repeating her name into her face.

  Her mouth closed and her eyes changed focus. Within the curtains of her hair, her expression changed smoothly from fear to cold hostility. “What are you doing?” she said quietly, barely moving her teeth, staring at him. “Why are your hands on me?”

  Martin was suddenly aware of Isha dashing through the room, sniffing one place and another, then, rushing up to Moreen, taking quick deep breaths near her hands, then backing off, whimpering, and trotting through the house, her nose to the floor.

  “Moreen, where's Mona?”

  “I don't know anything about it,” she said with a toss of her head, as though she didn't care if he believed her or not.

  Isha now ran from room to room, whining and moaning. Winch had discreetly disappeared.

  “Moreen, what did you do with her? Moreen.”

  “I don't know anything about it.”

  He heard the click of the remote control. Agonized screaming came from the movie.

  Frustrated and enraged, Martin picked up the television, ripped it free of its cables and slammed it into the corner. It crashed into silence.

  “Why do you watch things die? Haven't you seen enough of that already? What did you do with Mona?”

  “I don't know anything about it,” she said, her eyes glassy and her face blank. “I don't know anything—”

  From the back of the house, he heard Isha madly scratching at the door, then he heard Winch open it, letting her out.

  Martin grabbed Moreen's wrist and jerked her to her feet and shook her. “Just tell me what you did to Mona, where she is, and then you're out of here. Tell me!”

  “I don't know any—”

  He shook her again, this time very hard, twice.

  Her lips began moving as she whispered softly, rapidly, “Yes, lord, my god, yes. Yes, I do lord,” and she smiled, her eyes rolling up in her head. “Yes,” she was murmuring, “yes... yes... yes...” over and over, “At last... I do, yes.... You may strike me now,” she said, looking into his eyes.

  Martin released her and she dropped back down on the sofa, murmuring to herself, her hair closing around her face like a mask.

  What she was doing — making her world miserable to get back her spiritual life, watching death tapes, doing something to Mona.... He didn't want to think what he was thinking.

  But that was it: After their few hours of happiness together, she had to hate the world again, to get back the voice of her god in her head.

  He got a blue nylon backpack out of the closet, stuffed a windbreaker into it, and from the kitchen counter he grabbed two packages of dehydrated food, put them in it, and then pushed her arms into the straps. She fought him at first and then stood meekly, breathing heavily. As soon as the second buckle clicked shut, she flailed and screamed noises at him.

  “Come on,” he said. “Our time is over. You can pretend we never met.”

  She slung her head around and jabbered constantly, “Yes, my God, I hear you, yes!” He led her to the front door, past Winch, who politely held it open and stood aside, an embarrassed look on his face. Winch then shoved his hands into his pockets and looked extremely uncomfortable. When Moreen saw she was outside, her eyes bulged wide and she threw her arms out to grab at Martin. He pushed her away. “No, no, no! Don't send me away, don't! Let me stay! Let me stay! God speaks to me here!”

  “You'll have to be miserable someplace else.” He shoved her through the gate as she twisted away from him, her hair flying, and then ran into the street.

  She stopped a dozen yards away and turned and screamed at him, “You raped my soul! I hate you! I hate everything!” A flash of joy crossed her face. “I love.... I hate....”

  Martin breathed through his mouth, deeply, several times, tasting the cool damp-cement-smelling air. Once again, he would be starting over.

  He heard Winch come up behind him. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “Probably not, and she's going to love it,” Martin said, still looking down the street after her. In the distance the blue backpack fastened on her grew smaller and fainter. Birds flew up around her and then settled back in the yards. “I wish you could have come tomorrow and missed this.”

  “Unusual woman,” Winch said.

  “She wasn't happy unless she hated the world, if you can figure that one,” Martin said, still watching after her. “As long as her world is a nightmare, a horror, she thinks she has a chance for salvation.”

  “Right off hand, I'd say her chances were pretty good.”

  “I'm sorry. About her. For her.” Finally, the blue smudge disappeared and Martin turned and went back into the house.

  “I'll leave, if you'd like,” Winch said, still holding back, standing in the doorway. “If you want to be alone after all this.”

  They stood there a moment, unsure of what to say to each other.

  “No,” Martin said. “Aloneness is always plentiful. Help me look for Mona, will you? You saw her on the mantle — a black manx.”

  “Sure. Be glad to help. Good friends are hard to come by, no matter how many legs they got.”

  Chapter 37

  Isha knew her pet was not inside, but once outdoors, outside the fence and circling, she found no trace of her scent, so she widened the circumference of her search, nose to the ground, plowing through the taller grass. Several times during a circle, she would raise her head and make her slurring, here-I-am bark and then look round her for movement. Then she would circle again, sometimes picking up the scent of strange animals that made the ridge of her back bristle, but she moved on, circling wider still, barking again, and watching for movement, circling.

  Mona's smell hit her all at once, the smell of her fur and her fresh blood. The hair on the back of Isha's head raised in a bristle. She circled the area when she again smelled Mona's blood. But which direction did her pet go?

  Isha moved carefully now so she wouldn't obliterate the scent with her own or with crushed grass or disturbed dirt. She turned in tight, body-wide circles, touching stems of grass with her nose until she caught the bad scent again. She looked back at the first place she had scented Mona, then at this place, and the
n moved more assuredly in the direction the places led.

  Again she caught a touch of the smell Mona carried in her black fur. In her mind, she saw Mona leaping from one spot to another, unlike how she herself would move. Her head down, she moved steadily now, tail switching in the weeds behind her.

  White fangs in a black mouth spit-hissed in her face. Mona reared up on her long back legs, ears flattened, ready to slash into whatever appeared in front of her.

  Isha recoiled, frightened only an instant, and then crouched down on her belly and panted happily. Mona came down on her four feet and walked stiff-legged in a tight circle, her back still fluffed and ridged, making her look half again larger than she was. She gave Isha two quick sidelong glances and then ignored her and moved on, through high weeds, away from their house.

  Isha walked up next to her and pushed Mona off balance with her nose, exploring her for the smell of blood. The smell came from a small place on her head. Isha tried to lick it clean, but Mona growled at her and kept moving in the same direction.

  Isha walked astraddle of her pet, trying to distract her, and then reached down and nipped her on the scruff of her neck. Mona ducked lower and sprinted ahead. Isha followed, but Mona would only growl and keep moving.

  When Isha raised her head to orient herself, she saw the object of her pet's pursuit. Ahead, Isha saw the woman who had lived with them. Isha lowered her head and walked more carefully, more silently.

  The woman did not move fast and she stopped frequently. She always talked, so it was not necessary to even watch for her or search for her scent.

  The woman dropped a jacket and Mona passed by it, paying it no attention, in her single-minded pursuit. Isha stopped and pushed her nose into it, smelling not only the sharp odor of the woman but the good smell of the man she lived with. She wanted to go back, but she couldn't go back without her pet — who was now far ahead of her, in the street, slinking along a parked car.

  Long after it had become dark, the woman found an open place beside some large buildings where there was a wide dry surface marked with many straight lines. She lay down in the middle of it, on her back, still making noises to herself. Around them, crickets screeched and overhead glowed the white smudge of the moon. Mona waited unmoving behind a car tire, until the woman was quiet and still. Then, with her belly nearly touching the hard surface of the ground, Mona moved toward her, cautious step by cautious step.

  Isha watched.

  Chapter 38

  In the white light of the hissing gas lantern, Martin held Mona on his lap and with a peroxide-moistened cotton ball he dabbed at the wound on the side of her head. At his feet, Isha sat, panting as she attentively watched his hands and occasionally glanced up at his face.

  “She look okay?” Winch asked, picking his teeth. They'd come back from their futile search two hours before, put together a decent dinner, and had been sitting talking about the weather, working on the second bottle of wine, when they heard Isha barking at the front gate. Outside, two sets of eyes looked in at them.

  Martin put his hand on Mona's side. “She's purring like crazy, so I guess she's all right.”

  “I've heard stories about manxes,” Winch said. “All of them good, if you like an animal that's dog-smart and thinks like a cat. And that's some dog you got there, to go out and find her like that.” He wiped the toothpick on his shirtsleeve and dropped it into his shirt pocket.

  “Was my parents' dog.” Martin put the cotton ball aside and moved his hands over the cat, feeling for anything unusual. From between her split claws he pulled several pieces of hair. He thought about that for an instant and figured that she had swiped at Moreen when the woman had done to her whatever she had tried to do.

  Mona sprang off his lap, sat in the floor, and began washing her face. Isha nuzzled her anxiously, licked her and then sat with her ears up watching her.

  “What do you suppose they've been doing out there?” Winch said.

  Mona had settled in an arched lump under Isha's watchful gaze, her eyes closing to slits. Martin thought about the hair he had pulled from her claws. Dogs considered humans to be their gods, but cats never suffered that illusion.

  “Maybe—” Martin said but then broke off. “Who knows.”

  They left it at that.

  ....

  The next morning as they drank coffee and watched the night's rainclouds drift apart, Martin said, “I think we should make an effort to get us a little more company.”

  “Bored with my conversation already?”

  “Hardly. How about we take a drive over to the East Bay, circle around to Sacramento, then come back. Take a couple of days and see what or who we find.”

  “I'd think after your experience with Moreen, you might want to cool out a bit.”

  “Life is short.”

  “You've noticed.”

  “Ready?”

  “Is my hair okay?”

  Part Four

  The Fall of Artifice

  Chapter 39

  Along the freeway, where Martin had seen hundreds of cattle and sheep when he had come this way as Ryan's hostage, there were now only dozens. Either they were thinning out as they spread or predators had been at them. Winch was intrigued by what he first thought were dogs trotting alongside the empty freeway. But whenever the car got within a hundred yards of them, they vanished.

  “Coyotes,” Martin said. “Aggressive survivors. They're moving back in.”

  Once, just before they turned into the Coast Range, Martin saw something moving near several head of cattle — something low in the weeds, something tan-backed and slinking — a mountain lion, a hundred miles from where it had lived a year ago.

  The coast range was a jungle. When he had come over the Altamont Pass as Ryan's hostage, the normally barren mountain sides were green, but now the green had grown into tall clumps of grasses and weeds and had merged with the scattered trees till it looked more like Oregon than California.

  “Weird weather,” Winch said. “I've never seen it look this good over here.”

  The earth would take care of itself. It would balance and rebalance, there would be death and rebirth... but whether it would include human beings remained to be seen.

  Oakland and Berkeley were disaster areas. What had not been looted had been burned, and from the appearance of the debris, the burning had probably happened prior to the rainy weather, before the final human gasp had sounded. Right up to the end, people had victimized each other, the stronger stealing from the weaker.

  Berkeley was worse. Martin and Winch stood in the midst of the University, awed by the frenzy of destruction that must have taken place. It had been utterly destroyed. Winch pointed out a low area.

  “See that? I'd say something big went off here. Left kind of a crater. And see how the library got its front side blown in. Something big.”

  Inside, thousands of books that hadn't burned had been ruined by the rains. Between the rebar-spiked chunks of cement and fire-blackened plasterboard lay half-burned book covers, pieces of wet pages, a shelf bracket, ends of florescent bulbs, the debris of education.

  Martin picked up a shred of a book page and read it: “...the faint breeze-crinkled notes of the piano, he looked at all the things here, at the vineyard, the row of eucalyptus trees, the crows, the bright grass, the sprinklers and their rainbows, at the appearance of solidity and weird grace, at this asylum without fences” —and the scrap ended. What writer had spent his time writing the words, for whom, and for what purpose? Martin was saddened more than he would have expected.

  “Used to be a good library, I heard,” Winch said quietly.

  “One of the best.”

  “There must've been people who really hated this place.”

  “Let's drive around some more.” Martin had to get away from the place. This was too graphic a demonstration of what he sadly remembered from all parts of the old world: People hated the ideas they disagreed with and, given the chance, would have removed competing id
eologues from the face of the earth. Some, apparently, thought they had at last been given the chance.

  They drove up into the hills behind the University, honking the car horn three quick blasts every block or so then listening half a minute for any response. As they drove, Martin had been thinking of the destroyed library.

  “We have to preserve books,” he said.

  Winch nodded. “Some generation down the line will need what's in them. They'll need to know what we did right and what we did wrong.” He thought a second. “If there's any generation down the line.” Winch had his elbow out the window and was watching the houses and yards go by, looking for any sign of life. “I'm not seeing a lot of hope here,” he said. “Maybe there are pockets of people in some of the remote places in the Andes or Mongolia or the backwoods of Alaska or Canada.”

  They drove through the winding streets for another half hour and finally, Martin suggested they stop and look through a few of the houses. “We can stretch our legs, maybe find something to drink or see some signs of survivors.”

  A few of the homes still housed their dead, people rotting in their beds or in front of their televisions. One place had been the scene of a shoot-out — a man dead in the entryway, blood splattered on the wall behind him, and another man, probably the owner, in the kitchen, at the end of an old trail of blood, decomposed beyond stink. Later in the day, in a house surrounded by trees and dense foliage, they found a library that took up almost the entire bottom floor. There was even a wall of plastic-wrapped magazines that went back to the 1920s. It wasn't the University of California library, but it was worth making a note of. Martin wrote down the address and stuck the paper in his pocket.

  The house had a terrace around the upper floor, and from there they could look through the green gloom down into a ravine to moss covered rocks. Martin saw movement in the undergrowth and nudged Winch. Silently, almost holding their breath, they watched a troop of five gorillas, two of them younger and smaller, pick their way through the trees. Their leader was twice as large as any of the others, and when they drew near the house, he looked up at the two men, paused and grunted, and continued their trek, unconcerned.