"Come on, kiddo," Lorelle said to the dog. They pulled back to the hallway-walls within walls, per Luther's counsel. Walls which might not stop certain bullets, but which Art Latimer had designed specifically according to stress distribution criteria. In the guest bathroom, in the medicine cabinet, were Bryan 's fancy little pillbox and Luther's prescription bottle. Both were still fully stocked.
MONDAY MORNING
The thing that had crash-landed on the roof in the middle of the night had been the hood from a cherry-red classic Cadillac, a '59, from the look of the contour. Lorelle never spotted the rest of any such car up-beach, down, floating in the sea, or hamstrung in the trees. The hood had destroyed the heart of the solar panel array and remained jutting upward like a shark fin. The last time Lorelle looked at her fortified beach home, the final thing she saw was the sparkling wedge of red hood, as clean as though polished by the rain.
Now Lorelle watched the drowned world, and its denizens: big, lazily moving tropicals in lurid, attenuated colors. Unreal, like dreamland creatures someone had made up. For all their beauty they appeared stunned or drugged; oblivious to the limits of their world, the way Price's intimates had seemed. The aquarium was their whole universe.
"Ms. Latimer? Find those cigarettes?'' It was a nice young blue-smocked man whose tag advised his name might be Rene.
Lorelle turned her abstracted gaze from the huge display tank- a window to that otherworld-and tried to recalibrate to the here and now. "Oh, yeah-two doors down at the Kwik-Stop". She had somehow made her return trip-twenty feet on the sidewalk, easy-last a whole smoke, a 100. She appreciated the concept of "a cigarette's worth of time.''
"Dr. Coulter says to come on back."
The bloated, gasping fish in the aquarium ignored Lorelle's intrusive god-like judgment and continued paddling about, perhaps thinking of predating on one another.
Blitz was sitting up attentively on the stainless-steel exam table, his hindquarters splayed to one side as though he was lounging.
"Tried to catch something that caught you instead, eh, boy?" said Dr. Coulter, ruffing Blitz's chest. Coulter was a barrel-shaped man with huge, callused hands and a fatherly sort of handlebar mustache. He wore very modest bifocals that were overwhelmed by the size of his head, wire frames that had the effect of lightly pinching a melon in midsection.
"This guy needs what's called a vital pulpotomy on that lower first molar; that's fancy talk for the prelude to a possible root canal. I just cleaned out all the junk and spackled it up with temporary fillings. That fourth premolar will have to go, and in a couple of days, too, - before it impacts. We're not equipped here for proper endodontic procedures, so you'll have to see my guy in the city right away. Posthaste. Pronto. Because otherwise, this big faker is going to be in a world of hurt."
"
Du bist halt mein Better Hund,
" Lorelle said, letting Blitz get a good snort of her hand. "
Guter Hund.
" To the doc she said, "Faker?"
"Yes. Animals prefer to suffer in silence if they're hurt. They rarely let on to the degree of hurt unless it's unbearable. I need you to call up my recommended specialist; his name's Dr. Beschorner. He can diagnose oral pathology and perform a proper dental prophylaxis. This guy is going to lose at least two teeth. But Dr. B can do proper X rays, use a laser for dental surgery, do proper restoration on the damaged teeth, and bond the loose ones up with dental acrylic, proper." Dr. Coulter used the word proper a lot; it was a comforting, specific, on-target word for him. He cocked one eyebrow and his expression was comically similar to that of a cartoon dog. "You're staring at me like the next thing you're going to say is, Christ, how much is this going to cost me?!"
"I don't care what it costs," said Lorelle. "It'll get done, and within a day, if I can help it along." She had her petty cash, and plastic-plenty.
"I won't lie," said Coulter. "It can be pricey. Figure a couple grand to do it right. If they have to put him under, make sure they have isoflurane gas anesthesia. Some places use acupuncture to ease pain during surgery."
"Dog acupuncture?"
"Sure, why not? Canine dentistry is a wider-spread specialty than it was, say, twenty years ago. You have to take your dog to a separate facility, but it's more focused. Proper.''
Coulter showed Lorelle a couple of different medications, already labeled for Blitz. More pills in bottles, meant to change things. "Now, first, remember that those temporaries will only last a day or two. Dogs can't help biting hard on things, even when it hurts. He's lucky his jaw's not broken. Keep an eye on those carni-nasal molars."
Now it was Lorelle who made the confused dog-face. Coulter clarified: "The broken teeth. Don't feed him anything crunchy or hard. He'll be in some pain, but like a headache."
"Can I give him an aspirin?"
"Bad idea. His system's not set up to handle it. Keep giving him the antibiotics; it's important not to miss a dose. You look like you've been through a little adventure yourself."
She grimaced. Her homemade bandages needed changing. "The hurricane," she said.
"Up north? Jeez, that was a bitch of a bear up there. You see it?"
"I was right in the middle of it."
"You're lucky to be standing here, then. It was all over the news."
As Luther had said,
People who watch the news don't see nothing.
TV screens were another form of inside-out aquarium. All anyone would care about is that a storm had whipped through the Pacific Northwest, and all anyone would pay any attention to was whether any damage had been done to San Francisco. The after-math had been tough to describe; the closest Lorelle could get was her impression that the ocean and the land had tried to swap places, and failed catastrophically. Even the inland highway had been backed up and strewn with dead animals, car parts, trees, and swatches of buildings or their component material. Helicopters hovered, videotaping powerline flashes. The twisted rootwork of exposed gas and water pipes offered their pretzel configurations to the cameras. Scything winds had left Half Moon Bay resembling Dresden after the firebombing. Enough salt water had blown past town to start killing much of the flora that decorated the bedroom community sections closer to the ocean. Rumor held that even the pumpkin harvest had been jeopardized. The anomalies of the storm's body count and devastation totals in the millions would be tilted against the believe-it-or-don't statistics of who or what had survived against odds that would keep medics and storm chasers marveling for weeks.
Lorelle could have been vacuumed away to oblivion any of the times she had sortied out into the blackness and blow. She remembered reading the story of Baby Aleah, an infant who had been sucked up into the funnel cloud of a killer tornado in Oklahoma in 1999, snatched from the arms of her grandmother, only to be discovered unharmed in the woods. The grandmother had been crushed. As an observer at the scene had noted at the time, "Some of the most vulnerable survived."
Which meant that Price had as good a chance at life as anybody else in the catastrophe. File closed.
While escaping Point Pitt, Lorelle had not been able to resist cruising the party house. The white modernist structure was gone, as if teleported from the earth by a wizard. Rather, it had been reconfigured. Puzzle pieces of it were strewn everywhere. Nobody was there, picking through the meager remnants. Zero partygoers.
"What was it like up there?" said Dr. Coulter. "Were you there for the whole thing?"
"Yes."
What had it been like?
How could she enumerate the things that had happened without stumbling over the loose ends that had piled up to ambush her, including death, drugs, and madness? Impossible. To replay the storm in terms of numbers? Futile. This natural disaster had been nowhere near as apocalyptic as the "super outbreak"-a massive chain of 148 interlocked tornadoes that had laid waste in a two-thousand-mile swath from Alabama to Canada in 1974. Hundreds of people were trapped beneath the remnants of their own homes. Lorelle's home had acted as a different kind of trap.
Better to deflect Coulter's question altogether. "I wouldn't be talking to you now if it weren't for my dog saving my ass."
"Well, he'll live." Coulter kept stroking Blitz's back and flanks as he spoke, his tone working to calm the animal. Sleight of sound. Vets could disburse this talent at will, like mild hypnosis-all the good vets could, anyway, thought Lorelle.
Blitz had been quaking with exhaustion and weakness when she had cradled him out to the Jaguar's backseat-inadequate for humans, perfectly sized to a prone, sleepy, injured dog. Lorelle could guess how her buddy, dad Wuschelchen, felt: Blown out, used up, rubbed raw, cut and sundered by stress, tapped to fumes, damaged and leaking, ready to quit now. The havoc wreaked on the Jag by the Bry-Guy turned out superficial; dents and scores. Wild hits. The worst handicaps were the busted headlamp, the web-starred windshield. The challenge was clearing the garage, clearing the drive, and navigating on the obstacle-course roadways out of Point Pitt in a low-slung sports car.
Add six hours to the trip, minimum. A lot of beeping heavy machinery conflicted the roads with their dinosauric clearance of junk. Orange flags, hazard cones, restriction tape, delays.
Lorelle witnessed the leavings of the storm through the surreal quartzite perspective of smashed safety glass. The world she saw was a puppet's shadow box of disaster, enclosed by the borders of her windshield. The tilted cup of the Sundial dish was abrim with jetsam, but the structure had stood fast. It was practically the only fabrication on the whole beach that was still upright, or occupying its original space.
"Could I trouble you for the use of your phone?" said Lorelle.
"I've gotta call ahead." Coulter directed her and Rene assisted, with his impermeable smile. Lorelle had left her cell phone, dead battery and all, behind.
***
Wading through normal, everyday shit was proving to be more difficult than she had anticipated. Having a mundane, chitchat conversation with the veterinary staff or simply entering a number for a phone call had become tasks abruptly beyond her competence.
When your existence ceased being a matter of the next heartbeat, or which way a gun was pointed, it was tough to summon the next dull numeral in a sequence or beckon the next boring, workaday phrase. She remembered the easy banter she had shared with Rocko, back at the
Toot 'N Moo
, a long, long time ago. To where had that version of Lorelle been abducted?
By contrast, locating Art Latimer in New York City had been a snap. A relief, when she had made the first call and spoken to a voice she knew, having dreaded the contact for so long, on top of a new phobia that the first voice she would hear would be Price-resurrected, back for the sequel, having outfoxed the world again.
Her ex sounded happy to hear from her. She had to explain what had happened to the house. She let him down easy, terming it a failure of contract, instead of design. A write-off as RSD, another demolishment of the storm's fury.
She left out the part about the jerry cans of gasoline she had liberally sprinkled around, like charcoal starter. She had ignited a single weatherproof match (strike anywhere). With the alarms and dousing systems disabled and turned off, the fire burned until the ocean had put it out.
With Blitz reinstalled in the backseat, convalescing, Lorelle continued to pick her way eastward, the roads bettering as she went. She'd pass Las Vegas next. Where waited the fabled Dr. B, for Blitz.
In New York, Art awaited her, whatever that was going to ultimately mean. Pulling against this was the voice in her head that advised her to just let it all go. There was no hidden meaning or shady subtext. Just as she had thought in the Jeep, driving away from Price's party house a lifetime ago,
It was what it was.
And the story had ended. The End. Next page.
All of us are all the sum total of the stories we tell, and the stories told about us. Sometimes the stories we tell about ourselves are the worst lie.
End of story
, Lorelle thought, keeping a steady course and trying to concentrate on what was to be.
The End. Next page
.
THANK-YOUS
For all their kindness, consideration, friendship, inspiration, and outright, hardcore help, I'd like to thank and acknowledge my Aussie paladins-Alex Proyas, Andrew Mason, Topher Dow, Matthew Dabner and Lizzie Bryant; Mr. Michael Boatman; the stalwart and always reliable Klaus Beschorner (for the dog talk); Anthony Bourdain; Frank Darabont; editress Sarah Durand; the Dust Brothers (Michael Simpson and John King); John and Peter Farris; David Fincher; Kerry Fitzmaurice (in memory of the long-lost Leon); Virginia Guilford and Thomas Moylan; Paula Guran; Melissa Mia Hall; Shen Chuan (martial science) master Joe Lansdale; Lydia Marano and Arthur Cover of Babbage Press; Chuck Palahniuk; gun guru Bret Paul (who posited the whole "limping bunny in the meadow" thing); Kaz Prapuolenis and Linda Marotta; the Mad Scots of Noblesgate-Andrew Abbott, Russell Leven, Mark Kermode S Co; Darren McKeeman of
Gothic.net
; Keith Rainville; Mark Ranee and the wily bunch at Three-Legged Cat; Jeff Rovin; William Schafer and the too live crew at Subterranean Press; the Schows-John, Eloisa, Tina, Elizabeth, and James, and in memory of my dad, the Good Major (who died in 2001 at age eighty); John Scoleri, webmaster supreme; my mutant brother Lew Shiner; go-get-'em reps John Silbersack and Scott Miller of Trident Media Group; Peter Straub (for badgering me to write another novel), and Susan Straub (for the home away from home); Tony Taylor, Bill Fraker, and the late Conrad Hall for the wild Incubus weekend; ace finance wizard Douglas Venturelli; Mehitobel J. Wilson (for hours and hours); Douglas and Lynne Winter; Bernie Wrightson, for all the midnight runs; Boaz Yakin; Jane Yolen, for writing
The Girl Who Loved the Wind
… and everyone else who helped me make it through a rather traumatic change of calendar.