Marin's Dale

XII

It was a cruel irony, really. Others always assumed that the people with everything had everything to lose. But Paul knew it differently. The people with everything feared losing nothing because they had everything.

But it could happen to anybody. Paul did not judge. He wished the best for everybody, but nobody could make you change. It had to come from within. No matter how many interventions, how many ODs, how many lonely nights spent in half-way houses and alleyways, in hospitals with IVs running through your collapsed veins as your heart pounded for survival—none of it mattered, if you didn't care.

And the only way to care was to find your voice.

There came a mumble from his side. Paul checked the girl once again. She was still staring out into nothingness with those eerie eggshell eyes, but something had changed. Her right arm was raised at a perfect 90 degrees to her torso, and her index finger extended outward.

Paul slowed the truck. They had come to a dead-end court.

There were nice rancher homes with manicured gardens and shiny stone walkways. They looked untouched, unscathed by the events of today. Somehow, these cozy abodes floated outside the realm of weirdness that had befallen the sacred Marin's Dale. The tulips were lovely; the bushes were green and lively.

In the middle of the court, there was a manhole. Paul rubbed his eyes. The cover had not been blown. But it was trembling, and rattling with the force of an impending doom. The little girl mumbled something again, incoherently. Paul frowned.

Then the manhole exploded, straight up like a rocket. Cracks in the asphalt and pavement radiated out from the sewer entrance; the epicenter. The court began to shudder, tremble. Paul grabbed ahold of the steering wheel, but the truck was moving, sinking. He looked once to the girl, who showed no emotion, her finger still pointed toward the opening.

Cracks became fissures, rocks and bicycles and parked cars quaked amid the tumult of moving earth, and all things inanimate and living were caught in the storm. Paul grabbed ahold of the girl, so much like his own daughter all those years ago—and then he did something.

He pulled her into his arms, in his big bear arms, and gave her his strongest, most secure hug. Saying a prayer to the Lord and Savior, Paul closed his eyes.

This was it. He tightened the seatbelt around them.

A screech, much liked grinded gears, emanated from somewhere below the street level. And the trembling stopped. The shaking homes and cars and vision halted. The mini quake was done.

Just like that.

The world was restored to a sense of normalcy. The landscape had changed, but the movement had ceased. Paul opened his eyes.

And that's when a noise, a belch from the open sewer, spewed forth a stream of human bodies.

              ###

Tyler gave his face a slap.

What a nice face. What a handsome, strapping young face. His reflection in the bathroom mirror was one gaunt and sickly and lacking the vital stuff that made the human creature tick: blood. But nonetheless, he retained something. Other squares would have crashed and burned by now, but Tyler wasn't some weaksauce kid. He was a goddamn stallion.

He closed his zipper. That blown load had sobered him up. Audrey had taken it like a good girl too. And why wouldn't she? Tyler could bang with the best. He hated going to wars strapped—he preferred the raw feel, like a slimy eel.

It was all about the rotation. A lot of these squares would thrust and pound and go to town like they were goin into freakin epileptic shock. Tyler knew that it was all about the slow and steady. He had rhythm, groove, mojo.