Zombies of the Gene Pool

taken forever, staring at the rice and bean curd as if she couldn't remember what they were. Marion had caught herself thinking, Well, she's not real! The realization that she had thought that about someone even for an instant was an unsettling feeling. It gave her kinship with people she would rather not think of at all, and it made her wonder where such arrogance might have led. Did any of the Lanthanides share this view of reality? Now that she thought of it, it was just the opposite of Curtis Phillips' problem: Marion thought that most people weren't real and didn't matter; Curtis Phillips had fervently believed that demons were, and did.

'So tell me about Curtis Phillips,' said Jay Omega, as if on cue. (Marion could never decide if Jay was real or not, but he was utterly unlike Jeremy, and that was enough.)

'Poor Curt,' said Erik Giles, who had suddenly awakened. 'He had such talent.'

'When someone mentions Curtis Phillips, I always think of Richard Dadd,' said Marion. She glanced at Jay to see if he recognized the name. It was obvious that he did not. Dadd was one of the things Marion had learned about in her 'Middle Earth' period. 'Richard Dadd was a mid-nineteenth-century English artist who became famous for his wonderfully complex paintings of fairy life. His paintings-surrealistic in style and much ahead of their time- were much admired, right up until the night that the artist cut his father's throat.'

'Another practitioner of nonfiction?' asked Jay.

'Apparently so. He seemed to be having delusions about demons, and hearing voices ordering him to kill, so perhaps he was painting what he saw. He was tried and found insane, and they put him in Broadmoor, where he spent the remainder of his life painting increasingly bizarre landscapes peopled by demons.' In lecture mode, Marion prattled happily on. 'The asylum kept his paintings, and many of them are still on display there. They're worth a fortune.'

'It sounds very like poor Curtis,' Erik Giles agreed. 'He didn't kill anyone, of course, but after the early success of his horror novels, his behavior became more and more erratic, and I believe there were a few episodes of violence with various editors.'

'What sort of episodes?' asked Jay, possibly in search of inspiration.

'I believe he mailed a dead opossum to one of them. And he threatened another one with a razor. He confounded the local police a few times by confessing to murders.'

'Murders?'

'Yes. President Kennedy, Janis Joplin, and, I believe, Joan of Arc. I'm told that every police department has cranks whose hobby is confessing. He once wrote to me saying that he had killed George Woodard and Pat Malone, but since Pat had been dead for a couple of years and I had a letter from George that same day, I dismissed it as wishful thinking.'

'It sounds as if he needed psychiatric treatment,' said Jay.

'He got it. That was when it was decided that he had to be institutionalized. I am told that he continued to write his fantasy stories even while he was in Butner, and in fact two of his short story collections were written there. In the end, of course, his personality became too fragmented for the discipline of composition, and he degenerated into-well, I didn't go and visit him in those final years. I did go once in the mid-sixties, and he seemed lucid enough then.'

'Did he seem well enough to be released?' asked Marion.

'Oh, no. He asked about Brendan and Peter, and I told him what they were doing, and then he told me about his demons and what they were doing. I never went back.'

'Do you suppose the asylum owns the copyright to Curtis Phillips' later work?' asked Marion. 'You know, the way Broad-moor owns the Dadd collection?'

'I don't know. I doubt it, though. Curtis was so well known before he was committed that I would have expected his family to take legal steps to administer his estate.'

'It will be interesting to see if anyone turns up to represent his interests at the auction.'

'Bunzie will know about all that. His people contacted us, because we all had to agree to let Bunzie's agent represent us in the book deal. He thought negotiations would be much simpler if we had only one representative working for the entire group.'

'He has put a lot of work into this reunion,' said Marion, taking another look at the brochure.

Erik Giles grinned. 'He hates to see other people screw up. Besides, he can delegate most of the arrangements to his staff.'

'I suppose he can,' said Marion, but she made a mental note to observe Bunzie carefully. She tended to distrust altruistic people.

Jay Omega slowed the car. 'Look! A 'Welcome to Tennessee sign. Shall we go in search of the Mountaineer Lodge, stop for dinner, or go and look at the lake?'

Marion shivered. 'I don't think I want to look at the lake just yet.'

'Nor do I,' said Erik Giles.

Chapter 6

In the town's open grave he lies under star spillage, bone cold and sore, thinking his way home.

– DON JOHNSON Watauga Drawdown

The Mountaineer Lodge had been designed to be picturesque. In the early eighties an architect for the Tennessee State Park Service had designed a rustic-looking hotel of timber-framed oak and glass, intended to make out-of-state visitors think of Davy Crockett and to satisfy environmentalists that the new building harmonized with its pastoral surroundings. The Mountaineer Lodge was an imposing fretwork of rafters, joists, beams, and purlins slotted together with hand-tooled joints: a modern version of the pioneer cabin, expanded to accommodate fifty guests in neo-rustic splendor, i.e. with central heating and air conditioning, multilevel decks encircling the building, and floor-to-ceiling vistas of the Gene C. Breedlove Lake. Nestled into a hillside of oaks and mountain laurel, the lodge was known for its simple elegance and for its breathtaking views of the lake.

At present, one of these attributes was missing.

Gone was the shining green lake that had formerly stretched out from beneath the lodge's decks to meet the green hills on the far side of the valley. In its place was a mud hole two miles wide, dotted with rubble and dead trees. In the center of this moonscape, the Watauga River coursed along in its accustomed banks, carrying the lake water on downstream in daily increments.

Erik Giles stood at the glass wall of the hotel lobby and stared out at the desolation. His suitcase sat forgotten beneath the ledge of the check-in booth.

'Do you think we ought to go and talk to him?' whispered Marion to Jay, who was filling out a reservation card.

'I don't know,' said Jay. ' 'What company are you with?' Should I put the university?'

'No. This isn't an academic conference.' Marion looked at Giles' unmoving figure in the fading light. 'It's a wake.' Without waiting for Jay's reply, she hurried to Giles' side, touching him lightly on the arm. 'Are you all right?'

He turned to look at her. 'Yes, of course. I was just a bit surprised by the look of it. I'm trying to get my bearings, but this bears no resemblance to the valley I remember, so I've no idea where we are in relation to the farm. Still it's fascinating to see what engineers can do in such a short time. I wonder what they did with all the water.'

'I expect Jay would know,' said Marion, still trying to gauge Giles' mood. She pointed to the dead landscape of rocks and red mud. 'You don't find this depressing?'

Giles seemed puzzled by her concern. 'Why? They're going to put it back, aren't they? It isn't as if it were strip mining. Three weeks from now this will be a lovely lake again.' He started back toward the registration desk. 'Well,