able to hold his students' rapt attention semester after semester as he chatted about Da Vinci's financial woes or Napoleon's stomach cancer. But lately with each passing day he seemed to say less and less, reverting to some animal silence that didn't require speech. He didn't like it.
Eric glanced at the door. A stripe of flickering light glowed at the bottom. He heard voices on the other side, but couldn't make out what was said. He didn't have to hear the exact words. He knew that they were the main topic.
Almost immediately upon being captured, Tracy and Eric had been locked back in the same room that they'd crawled into from their canoe. The canoe had been dragged off into another room and they'd been told to wait. On the other side of the building where that Piper had crashed, they had heard the large ship docking. The shouting and arguing of men and women, sounding none too friendly, had been going on since then.
The orange Kool-Aid sky had burned itself out for another and the hazy gray of night took over its watch. That's when Eric saw the Long Beach Halo that enclosed them all as a malevolent guard. Tracy described that phenomenon as a giant Tupperware bowl. 'Seals in freshness,' she joked, 'keeps out ugly refrigerator smells. Not to mention the rest of the world.' At first there had been weekly government leaflets dumped from Air Force planes flying over the Halo, describing medical and military efforts underway to rescue the survivors of California, asking for patience. And specifically warning residents not to try to escape by sea through the Halo due to fears of contamination. Every Monday they had come drifting out of the orange haze like a heavenly bulletin from God. But after a while they came every other week. Now monthly. There was still talk of rescue, but not as much of it.
Eric didn't care. If there was a way out, he would find it. But first he had to find Timmy.
Eric and Tracy sat in the dark room, fighting the chilly wind that swept into the gaping hole in their prison wall. Any thought of escaping through the hole was immediately dismissed. With no boat, it would be impossible to swim to land they couldn't even see in the daylight.
But Eric wouldn't sit there helplessly, waiting for whoever was outside that door to decide his and Tracy's fates. The room itself was bare except for the metal filing cabinet, its gray paint chewed through by the saltwater, and that proved to be empty. Immediately, Eric had yanked off his Vasque hiking boots.
Tracy had looked at him as if he'd gone crazy. 'I told you, I'm not swimming for it.'
But Eric hadn't answered. He'd dug inside the boots, tearing away until he finally worked free the steel arches that the sporting-goods salesman had once chatted on about. After ripping up a section of soggy carpet from the floor, Eric began the slow task of honing the edge of the steel against the exposed cement until they were both as sharp as surgical blades. He'd handed one to Tracy and they'd both waited for their chance.
The wait continued. By sunset, Eric had decided to shave, as he had done every day since the quake. He was one of the few men who still did, most having surrendered to whiskers and long hair. At first, Tracy had tried to imitate Eric's actions by shaving her legs, but the nicks and gouges hadn't proved worth it. Eric had finally convinced her that he actually preferred her with her hair.
What Tracy didn't understand was that Eric shaved not just out of fastidious personal hygiene, as she thought, but out of fear.
Fear of what he might become.
He had started to feel it a few months ago. When he was honest with himself, he admitted it had started even before the quakes, back during that first night when Fallows had sent that killer into his home. He had been afraid at first, afraid for his family and for his own life. But that had passed quickly, too quickly, he later realized. In its place had come that adrenaline rush he'd felt in 'Nam when he ran with the Night Shift, the squad of Special Forces assassins that nobody official ever admitted existed. He'd hated the group, and even more their leader, Col. Dirk Fallows. But there were times, too many times, when the power that went with their anonymity pumped through his veins like molten steel. The knowledge that they were sanctioned to do anything had disgusted him, yet at the same time exhilarated him. Many of his friends had given in to the power, like walking into a blinding light. They had become cruel and arrogant, as sadistic as their leader. Some had fought it openly, only to die in battle under mysterious circumstances: bullets in the back, sudden grenade attacks. Eric had fought his battle internally.
But now the lure was there again. California was an island cut off from civilization, and as such had become a primitive war zone like 'Nam. The survivors fought for existence, not vague patriotic philosophy. And the struggle permitted any acts, no matter how horrible, all in the name of survival. They were all playing jungle ball.
Eric had felt the power that came with no morality, no boundaries of behavior. The freedom of pure, cruel selfishness. Living in the Void, he called it. And he felt a constant tug, a temptation to become as free as Fallows. He had felt good sometimes in 'Nam, racing with Fallows through a village occupied by Cong, flinging grenades, feeling a heady intoxication as he saw the bodies tumble six feet into the air, their 7.62-mm Chinese Type-50 submachine guns as twisted as their limbs. He had felt invincible, a wisp of wind able to pass through walls or catch bullets in his teeth. He could do anything he wanted, no matter how disgusting, and no one would question him. It was total freedom. But with that freedom came evil. He fought it still, shaving daily to remind himself of who he had been before the quakes. Back when he'd taught history, instead of making it.
What was the sign they found at Jonestown when they discovered the piles of dead bodies? That famous quote from philosopher George Santayana: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
His hands were stiffening from the cold wind, but still he scraped the blade along his jaw, edging his scar. He traced the winding pattern, remembering the feel of the hot smoking blade that Fallows had gouged across his face back in Nam. His nostrils filled with the sour smell of his own sizzling flesh. He could still see Fallows' grinning face through the puffing smoke of his own seared skin. His blood sissing on the tip of the knife like a drop of water in a frying pan.
'Eric?' Tracy said, dragging him back into the present.
He wiped the cold sweat his memories had produced from his forehead. 'Yeah?'
'When we get back to the mainland and write our book about our adventures and the movie studios buy it for millions, who do you think should play me?'
Eric laughed. 'How about Goldie Hawn?'
'Nah, too skinny. I was thinking of someone taller, like, uh, Jacqueline Bisset.'
'How tall is she?'
'I don't know. But she looks tall.'
'But she has an English accent?'
'Yeah, it'll give the whole thing some class. Maybe I can affect one when I'm doing all the talk shows. 'Bloody good to see you, Merv, ol' boy.' How's that?'
'Lousy.'
'I'll work on it.'
Eric noticed the strain in Tracy's voice and knew her hip was getting worse. If nothing happened to them by morning, he'd have to use his makeshift blade and cut some of the infection from her wound.
Shadows fractured the bar of light at the bottom of the door as footsteps approached outside. They heard the door being unchained and sat up straight. Tracy slid her sharpened blade into her pants, hooking one curved edge over the top of her panties. The razor edge lay flat against her pubic hairs.
Eric quickly laced up his boots, wedging the steel blade at the hollow next to his ankle.
The door swung open and a crowd of anxious faces peered into the room. Behind them a dim glow from several kerosene lamps cast a shroud of shadows over them disguising their features with flickering splotches of dark. It gave them all sinister hulking looks.
One man emerged from the crowd and stepped into the room, holding a red railroad lantern in one hand and a saber in the other. He was easily six feet four inches with a leather belt worn bandolier style across one shouder. The empty saber scabbard dangled at his hip. But he also wore a shoulder holster with a.38 Dan Wesson Model 15-2 VH tucked snugly away.
He was about Eric's age, mid-thirties, with light black skin that extended into a little bay at the top of his balding head. He was grinning hugely as he stepped into the middle of the room.
'Wonderful,' he smiled, holding the lantern up to see better. 'We finally got some poor sonsabitches to walk that damn plank we built.' He paused. 'Unless you can give us Alabaster's map.'
