walked around the side of the stable. A small herd of horses was shying against the opposite fence, and he spotted an acceptable filly and called the horse to him, making her back up against his sex.
'Pretty girl,' he said, grabbing her haunches. 'Pretty girl The horse bucked and kicked, trying to get away, but he held tight. She whinnied in pain as he mounted her.
Kevin said nothing as they drove down the empty streets, on the lookout for one of the roving bands. Here and there he saw people packing station wagons in garages and carports, surreptitiously trying to leave. He even saw one man mowing his lawn as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Could it be that some people were totally unaware of the events of the night before? It didn't seem possible.
There was no sign of the revelers. Nor any sign of their victims. There were broken bottles on the road, torn pieces of clothing, overturned cars and bicycles, occasional dead cats and dogs, but there were very few human bodies on either the streets or the sidewalks.
He supposed he should be grateful for small favors.
Kevin glanced over at Penelope, who stared grimly ahead as she drove. He would have suggested that they stop and get together with some of these other people who were leaving, but he knew that she would not go for it.
Penelope had seen something when she'd gone looking for the car, something she didn't want to talk about, something that had profoundly affected her, and he knew that she was not in the mood to approach strangers right now, no matter how safe they might be.
He thought about what he had seen last night on Ash Street, and he shivered.
He knew exactly how she felt They pulled onto Third Street. Downtown was a shambles, the destruction more random and wanton than anything he had ever seen in any post-apocalyptic movie, the rubble more awkwardly strewn about and nowhere near as aesthetically pleasing as the precisely arranged disorder found in films. The old building that had housed Phil's Photo had burned to the ground, and the blaze had spread to the vacant lot next door before apparently burning itself out. Clothes, electrical equipment, and food from the other nearby shops littered the roadway, making it nearly impossible to drive. Penelope slowed to a crawl, carefully maneuvering around the sharper, bulkier objects, trying to drive only on the garments and foodstuffs.
Ahead, Kevin could see that the Mcdonald's had been razed. And sitting atop the still Ik golden arches were two police lights.
Nipples.
The fast-food joint's trademark had been turned into a pair of monstrous breasts.
Kevin stared at the upcoming sign. The purposeful vahdalism that it represented scared him far more than, the chaotic destruction around it, and he realized that until this moment he had not entirely believed Penelope's story. He'd bought the specifics of it--he'd seen enough horrors last night to know that what she had described had no doubt happened--but he had not been able to completely buy the idea that Dion had been turned into a mythological god.
The nippled arches somehow brought that truth home to him. He did not know why. The vandalism was certainly no worse than other things he'd seen. He supposed it was the juxtaposition of such a solidly rational symbol, such a perfect example of normal American life, with this lewd sexuality, this drunken crudeness, that made him realize exactly how far things had gone.
And made him realize that Penelope was obviously telling the truth.
He wondered where Dion was now.
He wondered what his friend looked like.
The emotional impact had not yet hit him, and he supposed it was because everything was happening so fast, because he had been simply reacting to everything that was going on and had not had the luxury of reflection.
He would miss Dion, he knew. Although they'd known each other only since the beginning of the school year, Dion was his best friend. It was going to be a hard loss to take.
He was already assuming that there would be a loss.
That Dion would have to be killed.
The street cleared a little past the Mcdonald's, and Penelope speeded up. Kevin stared out the window, saw an old lady on her hands and knees licking up what appeared to be a puddle of wine on the sidewalk. It was inevitable, wasn't it? These things always ended that way. If good was to win and triumph and all that good shit, there was no other possible ending to the situation.
He was surprised that he didn't feel sadder at the thought, more affected, but in his mind Dion was already dead, replaced by this ...
god, and so the leap wasn't that great.
It was amazing how fast the mind could adjust.
They turned onto Monticello, heading toward the highway, and Kevin sat up straighter in his seat. They would be passing his neighborhood, his house. He glanced over at Penelope. Should he ask her to stop?
He had to.
He cleared his throat, spoke. 'My house,' he said. 'It's down Oak.'
Penelope turned toward him. Her mouth was still a thin, grim line, but there was confusion in her eyes, and what looked like sympathetic understanding beneath the rage and hurt.
'Do you want to ... stop?' Her voice was quiet, tentative.
'I have to check,' he said. 'I have to know.'
Penelope nodded. She slowed as they reached the corner of Oak Avenue.
'Which way?' she asked. 'Left or right?'
'Right.'
She maneuvered the car onto the street, and he pointed toward the third house on the left. His heart was pounding as she parked the car next to the curb. The lawn was littered with empty wine bottles. A pair of ripped and bloody panties hung from the branch of a bush.
The entire street was silent, and that seemed ominous.
Their driveway was empty, the car gone, but the front door was open, the screen door ripped and hanging off its hinges, and as Kevin looked through the dark doorway into the dim interior of the house, his stomach did flip flops. He felt as if he were about to throw up.
He turned toward Penelope. 'Wait here.'
'No. I'm coming with--'
'Wait here,' he ordered. 'Keep the doors locked and the engine running.
If I'm not back in five minutes, or you hear or see anything strange, take off. Don't wait for me.'
Her mouth tightened as though she was about to argue, but then she looked into his eyes and nodded slowly. Her expression softened. 'Okay,'
she agreed. 'I'll wait here.'
Kevin opened the car door and got out, hearing the locks click behind him. He was nervous, anxious, scared, and he wanted to run inside the house yelling, 'Mom! Dad!' but he walked forward slowly, cautiously, going up the driveway one step at a time. The living room window was broken, he saw as he approached the house, and as he walked up the porch steps he prepared himself for the worst.
Inside, the house was dark. And silent. The dead air smelled of something sickly, sweetly rotten, something he did not want to think about. The living room had been ransacked, lamps and tables broken, chairs and couch overturned, but there were no bodies. His parents weren't here. He passed carefully through the living room, stepped slowly around the corner into the dining room.
Nothing.
He continued on into the kitchen. The refrigerator was open, its contents spilled onto the tile floor, lettuce rotting in milk and runny yogurt, salsa blanketing hot dogs and leftover spaghetti. He clenched his fists tightly to keep his hands from trembling. Until this point he had been more worried than frightened, but now the balance had started to shift. He hoped his parents were alive and unharmed, but if they were, he knew he didn't want to meet up with them.
He walked out of the kitchen into the hall and almost tripped over a teenage girl's head.
His scream was so raw and uncontrolled, expelled with such force, that his throat hurt. But he could not stop screaming, and he continued to scream as first his mother and then his father staggered out of their bedroom. Both
