Bill nodded, threw an arm around her, held her close, and for the first time in a long while, he felt happy. 'Yes,' he said. 'It's over.'
EPILOGUE
1
For weeks, the Internet had been buzzing with news of The Store and the bodies. Photos from all over the country of the people who had driven, walked, or crawled to the parking lots of the individual Stores had been electronically transmitted and transferred, scanned and analyzed. The conspiracy theorists and the UFO fanatics had had a field day, postulating outrageously complex scenarios that conformed to their preconceived ideas and at the same time explained the Store occurrences. Even legitimate news agencies had given the story play, although they were strangely silent on the causes, and their usual experts were not publicly offering any opinions.
In Juniper, sixteen men and women, all Store employees, had crawled to the parking lot to die.
Several dozen animals had done the same.
Street had returned. He'd seen the commotion on the news, from the trailer he'd been renting in Bishop, California, and he'd known that it was finally safe to come back. He'd driven to Juniper the next day, reopened his shop as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. He let Bill know he was back in town not by stopping by, not by calling, but by leaving an E-mail message: 'Want to play chess tonight?'
Bill had driven to the electronics shop immediately after reading the E mail, and Street filled him in on what had occurred the night he'd left. Bill, in turn, explained what had become of Ben.
They were silent for a moment after that, each of them thinking of their lost friend, then Street walked into the back, pulled out two beers from the fridge, and the two of them toasted their old companion.
Bill had missed his deadline on the human resources documentation, but it was no big deal. The city for which the package was intended was in no great hurry, and besides, it was the first deadline he had ever missed. His supervisors at Automated Interface assumed that it was because they had not given him enough lead time, and his deadline had since been readjusted.
He was well on the way to meeting it.
And that was that. Life was already settling back into its normal routine.
A new town council had been elected last week, and though it was a tricky business and the town had had to hire an outside lawyer and accountant to sort through the red tape, the police department was once again a municipal agency, and most of the remaining Store-sponsored 'reforms' were on their way to being rescinded. There'd been a town meeting in the gym the night before last, with Ted, the new mayor, presiding, and though it went against the basic instincts of most of the people present, they'd agreed unanimously to levy on themselves a temporary one-cent sales tax until Juniper was in the black again.
The Store was still open. Bill had resigned, and Russ Nolan, an employee who was somewhere in the chain of command, somewhere on the management fast track, had been appointed temporary manager. He'd no doubt been gung ho for all of the old ways, but he'd adapted, changed, and he seemed fairly levelheaded.
No one knew how long The Store would stay open, though. There were rumors that the entire chain would be bought out by Federated or Wal-Mart or Kmart.
When Bill called Mitch, the manager could not substantiate any of those stories, but he did not automatically discount them.
Another rumor had Safeway or Basha's buying the old Buy-and-Save and converting it to one of their stores. While Bill had no desire to see another corporate chain open up an outlet in Juniper _ever_, Ginny seemed excited by the prospect, and he had to admit that he wasn't about to put up any real fight against it.
He didn't have much fight left in him.
He and Ginny were still healing. They'd talked through what had happened.
Many, many times. On the surface, everything was fine, everything was back to normal. And neither of them had brought up Dallas in several weeks. But it was still there, between them, and Bill did not think it would ever entirely go away. He understood that, though.
He could live with that.
It was late, after midnight, after sex. Shannon was fast asleep in her room down the hall, and the door to their own bedroom was closed and locked.
They lay in bed, naked atop the covers, and Ginny traced the brand on his buttocks, her fingers lightly following the ridges. He'd been permanently marked by The Store, and while he and Ginny had talked about having the brand removed by a plastic surgeon, he had decided that he was going to keep it. It no longer hurt, and he wanted the scar.
To remind him.
So he would never forget.
'Where do you think Sam is now?' Ginny's voice was soft.
He rolled over, sat up. 'I don't know.'
'She said she was going to come back.'
A hot flush of shame crept over Bill's face, and he looked away from her, saying nothing.
'You think she's all right?'
'I hope so.'
'But do you _think_ so?'
'I don't know,' he admitted.
Ginny began sobbing quietly, her shoulders heaving, tears rolling down her cheeks, but only a muffled inhalation of breath escaping from her mouth. He leaned over, pulled her to him; hugged her tightly.
'We'll get through it,' he said. 'We'll survive.'
He was crying, too, suddenly, and she pulled back, looked at him, wiped the tears from his cheeks as he wiped the tears from hers.
'Yes,' she said.
And, through the tears, they smiled.
2
They'd been traveling for most of the day, hadn't seen a real town since Juneau, hadn't seen a building since an hour or so after that. Pavement had ended long ago, and though the four-wheel-drive Explorer was having no problem handling the rocks and ruts of the muddy road, Cindy Redmon didn't like being this far away from everything, this far out in the middle of nowhere. She appreciated Ray's desire for a unique honeymoon, and the idea of an idyllic week in the woods had definitely appealed to the romantic within her, but the reality of Alaska was not quite what she'd expected. It was beautiful, yes. As picturesque as the brochures and books had led them to believe. But it was cold as well. And remote. And the farther they went into the woods, the less comfortable she felt with the knowledge that the CB was their only lifeline to civilization.
What if there was an accident?
What if one of them had a heart attack or choked on a piece of salmon?
Ray, seeming to sense her mood, smiled over at her. 'Don't worry, hon.
Everything'll be fine.'
And then they rounded a curve, and in a small clearing carved out from a stand of monstrous trees, they saw The Market.
They were silent, both of them. It wasn't a particularly impressive place.
It wouldn't have stood out in a real city, in a real state, in a civilized area of the nation. But here, in the backwoods of Alaska, it seemed downright miraculous, and she stared at the small building as Ray slowed the Explorer. It was about the size of a convenience store and was built in the same style, with a flat front and an upward-sloping roof. But there were no windows, only a one door entrance and cinder block wall. Strangest of all was the sign, a brightly lit freestanding rectangle bearing the name of the place in green-on-white letters: THE MARKET.
'The Market,' Ray said. 'What the hell kind of name is that?'
'Got _your_ attention,' she pointed out.
He laughed. 'Didn't need a sign to do that. Not way out here.' He pulled up in front of the building. 'Feels like _Apocalypse Now_ or something, doesn't it? That part where they think they're out in the middle of the jungle and come across that high-tech stage with the USO show?'
He was right. There was some of that surrealism here. But there was something else as well, something she
