'Find anything?'
'Nothing beyond the obvious. But if I had access to my database--'
'That's exactly what I was thinking,' Jack said. 'If I'd just made hard copies of all of my files, I would've been able to discover some way of taking this god down.'
Kevin glared at them. 'Didn't you guys ever think that if the gods returned, they might disrupt the power? They might screw up the phone lines? Hell, all you had to do was plan ahead a little. If you'd bought a generator and a CB radio, you could still be communicating.'
He stopped, blinked, 'Shit.' He turned toward Penelope. 'I'm as stupid as they are. All we have to do is hit Kmart, Walmart, Target, whatever, and find a generator or a battery or some type of power source--'
'We're all stupid,' Penelope said. 'All we need to do is find a car with a cellular phone.'
'Fuck!' Kevin slammed his palm against the table.
'I would not advise leaving the house,' Holbrook said.
'Why?' Kevin said dryly. 'You planning to banish Dionysus from the earth by reading in your basement?'
The teacher faced him. 'You don't even know what you're dealing with here, you arrogant little shit.'
'I do,' Penelope said.
'Your family's the one who caused it all.'
Penelope stood, not bothering to respond, not even looking at him.
'Let's get out of here,' she said. 'Let's find us a car phone.'
'I'll go with you,' Jack said. 'Just in case.'
'You're only encouraging them.'
'They might be on to something,' the policeman said. He hurried out of the room. 'I'll be back in a sec!' he called back. 'I'm just going to get my gun!'
It felt good to be out again, driving.
There was evidence of new destruction--felled trees and still burning piles of furniture that had not been there when they'd driven the road yesterday--but it still felt re assuring to be outdoors rather than cooped up in H<j brook's claustrophobic home. There was something at being outside, being able to travel and see the sky, lifted Penelope's spirits. It was completely illogical, I solely on emotional preference, but more than Holbrooi^j arsenal of facts and tales of secret societies, it gave hope that they could find a way out of this, feat could triumph over Dionysus and his minions.
And then they turned onto Monticello and she saw mall.
Whatever hope had been burgeoning within her died ii stantly. The mall was overrun. Huge holes had bees blown in the brown brick walls of the Nordstrom's partment store. The Sears building was little more than three- walled ruin. Revelers streamed in and out of open doorways in the center of the mall, dancing and vorting. Many of them were naked and covered wit blood. Many of them were carrying severed body parts. lathe parking lot, cars were crashed or overturned, then twisted metal forms gaily decorated with flowers andf multicolored streamers.
She was intimidated by the enormity of it all. Therel were only four of them. There were hundreds of people ml the mall alone. How many were there in the entire valley?! How could they hope to combat something of this magni-I tude?
Blood.
And how could they hope to combat something froffij which they were not immune? She was frightened of this I force that had turned all of these ordinary citizens into! amoral hedonists, and she hated what was happening, but! ... but it called to her. She saw these wild, drunken peo- pie, and a part of her wanted to join them, wanted to be one of them.
Did it tempt the others as well? She glanced surrepti' tiously at Kevin and Jack, but could not tell what they^ were thinking, what they were feeling.
They sped past the mall. On the other side of the street, the supermarket had been looted, all of the front windows s smashed, food thrown into the parking lot, and even; within the car, the heavy smell of bad wine, spoiled milk,:, and rotting vegetables was strong, nearly overpowering. Ahead, on the right, a fire was burning unchecked at the site of a Shell station, foul black smoke billowing up into the air and blending with the cloud cover.
This might be the end of the world, Penelope thought. Or the end of the world as they knew it. And it had not been brought about by nuclear war or a biological agent or a threat from outer space but by the resurgence of an ancient religion.
And it had been instigated by her mothers.
'We'll cruise over to a rich area,' Kevin said. 'Doctors, lawyers, those guys always have car phones.'
Sure enough, they found an upscale neighborhood and, hidden in the locked garage of a mock Tudor mansion, a Lexus with a car phone. Most of the other cars on the street had been overturned and burned, but this one had escaped the revelers. Jack used the butt of his revolver to smash one of the back windows of the house, and while Kevin and Penelope waited outside, he foraged through the residence until he found car keys.
They hurried back into the garage to try the phone.
The line was jammed.
They moved the car out of the garage onto the driveway, tried again.
Still jammed.
On the next block over, they found another car with a phone. A Mercedes.
Jammed as well.
'Shit!' Kevin slammed the car door. 'What the fuck are we supposed to do now?'
'It was a long shot to begin with,' Penelope told him.
'So let's find a CB,' Jack said.
Kevin nodded, although clearly whatever hopes he'd harbored of finding a way to communicate with the outside world were dashed. 'All right,' he said. 'Let's go.'
They traded their car in for the Mercedes, which had a double gas tank, both of which were full. A gang of small children threw rocks and bottles at the car as they drove up and down streets looking for a semi or a pickup that might have a CB radio. At one point a group of naked, obviously menstruating women, wielding homemade spears constructed of broom handles and trowels, cha them for nearly two blocks before the car finally out them.
After a several false starts they finally found a roofri company truck with keys still in the ignition that hadl CB.
They turned on the power, turned on the radio.
Every channel was filled with the sound of drunke babbling.
'Hello!' Penelope tried. 'Is anybody out there?'
'Is anybody out there?' came the mocking reply.
They sat there for a half hour, taking turns, trying eac| channel, hoping against hope that someone some^j where--a trucker out of the valley and on the road haps--would hear them and answer, but the only responses they received were the jeering and increasingly obscene replies of the bacchantes.
Finally Kevin hung up the microphone and turned off! the CB, discouraged. 'It's getting late,' he said tiredly^f 'Let's hit the road.
We don't want to be caught out her after dark.'
'You're right about that,' Jack said.
Penelope nodded, starting toward the Mercedes.
How long would tonight last? she wondered. Tell hours? Twenty?
They drove back to Holbrook's in silence.
April smashed the empty wine bottle against the forehead of the man she was riding, and reached her orgasm as she knocked him into unconsciousness. His fluttering eyes closed, blood gushed from the broken skin, but his organ stayed hard, and she pressed herself all the way down on it until the last shudder of ecstasy passed through her body.
She rolled off him, onto the blood-soaked grass.
The others were going to strike tonight.
She knew of their plans, though they had not told her of them, and while she wanted to be involved, wanted to share in the fun, she did not entirely approve. It was her upbringing, she supposed. She was a maenad, she was
