Robert Charles Wilson - SPIN

"Pardon me?"

"I don't mean to be rude, but I was wondering: do you consider yourself an atheist?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that. Simon had been helpful—had been invaluable—in getting us this far. But he was also someone who had hitched his intellectual wagon to a team of lunatic-fringe Dispensationalists whose only argument with the end of the world was that it had defied their detailed expectations. I didn't want to offend him because I still needed him—Diane still needed him.

So I said, "Does it matter what I consider myself?"

"Just curious."

"Well—I don't know. I guess that's my answer. I don't claim to know whether God exists or why He wound up the universe and made it spin the way it does. Sorry, Simon. That's the best I can do on the theological front."

He was silent for another few miles. Then he said, "Maybe that's what Diane meant."

"Meant about what?"

"When we talked about it. Which we haven't done lately, come to think of it. We disagreed about Pastor Dan and Jordan Tabernacle even before the schism. I thought she was too cynical. She said I was too easily impressed. Maybe so. Pastor Dan had the gift of looking into Scripture and finding knowledge on every page—knowledge solid as a house, beams and pillars of knowledge. It really is a gift. I can't do it myself. As hard as I try, to this day I can't open the Bible and make immediate sense of it."

"Maybe you're not supposed to."

"But I wanted to. I wanted to be what Pastor Dan was: smart and, you know, always on solid ground. Diane said it was a devil's bargain, that Dan Condon had traded humility for certainty. Maybe that's what I lacked. Maybe that's what she saw in you, why she clung to you all these years—your humility."

"Simon, I—"

"It's not anything you have to apologize for or make me feel better about. I know she called you when she thought I was asleep or when I was out of the house. I know I was lucky to have her as long as I did." He looked back at me. "Will you do me a favor? I'd like you to tell her I'm sorry I didn't take better care of her when she got sick."

"You can tell her yourself."

He nodded thoughtfully and drove deeper into the rain. I told him to see if he could find any useful information on the radio, now that it was dark again. I meant to stay awake and listen; but my head was throbbing and my vision wanted to double, and after a while it seemed easier just to close my eyes and sleep.

* * * * *

I slept hard and long, and miles passed under the wheels of the car.

When I woke it was another rainy morning. We were parked at a rest stop (west of Manassas, I learned later) and a woman with a torn black umbrella was tapping on the window.

I blinked and opened the door and she backed off a pace, casting cautious looks at Diane. "Man said to tell you don't wait."

"Excuse me?"

"Said to tell you good-bye and don't wait for him."

Simon wasn't in the front seat. Nor was he visible among the trash barrels, sodden picnic tables, and flimsy latrines in the immediate neighborhood. A few other cars were parked here, most of them idling while the owners visited the potties. I registered trees, parkland, a hilly view of some rain-soaked little industrial town under a fiery sky. "Skinny blond guy? Dirty T-shirt?"

"That's him. That's the one. He said he didn't want you to sleep too long. Then he took off."

"On foot?"

"Yes. Down toward the river, not along the road." She peered at Diane again. Diane was breathing shallowly and noisily. "Are you two okay?"

"No. But we don't have far to go. Thank you for asking. Did he say anything else?"

"Yes. He said to say God bless you, and he'll find his own way from here."

I tended to Diane's needs. I took a last look around the rainy parking lot. Then I got back on the road.

* * * * *

I had to stop several times to adjust Diane's drip or feed her a few breaths of oxygen. She wasn't opening her eyes anymore—she wasn't just asleep, she was unconscious. I didn't want to think about what that meant.

The roads were slow and the rain was relentless and there was evidence everywhere of the chaos of the last couple of days. I passed dozens of wrecked or burned-out cars pushed to the side of the road, some still smoldering. Certain routes had been closed to civilian traffic, reserved for military or emergency vehicles. I had to double back from roadblocks a couple of times. The day's heat made the humid air almost unbearable, and although a fierce wind came up in the afternoon it didn't bring relief.

But Simon had at least abandoned us close to our destination, and I made it to the Big House while there was still some light in the sky.

The wind had grown worse, almost gale force, and the Lawtons' long driveway was littered with branches torn from the surrounding pines. The house itself was dark, or looked that way in the amber dusk.

I left Diane in the car at the foot of the steps and pounded on the door. And waited. And pounded again. Eventually the door opened a crack and Carol Lawton peered out.

I could barely make out her features through that crevice: one pale blue eye, a wedge of wrinkled cheek. But she recognized me.

"Tyler Dupree!" she said. "Are you alone?"

The door opened wider.

"No," I said. "Diane's with me. And I might need some help getting her inside."

Carol came out onto the big front porch and squinted down at the car. When she saw Diane her small body stiffened; she drew up her shoulders and gasped.

"Dear God," she whispered. "Have both my children come home to die?"

THE ABYSS IN FLAMES

Wind rattled the Big House all that night, a hot salt wind stirred out of the Atlantic by three days of unnatural sunlight. I was aware of it even as I slept: it was what I rose to in moments of near-wakefulness and it was the soundtrack for a dozen uneasy dreams. It was still knocking at the window after sunrise, when I dressed myself and went looking for Carol Lawton.

The house had been without electrical power for days. The upstairs hallway was dimly illuminated by the rainy glow from a window at the end of the corridor. The oaken stairway descended to the foyer, where two streaming bay windows admitted daylight the color of pale roses. I found Carol in the parlor, adjusting an antique mantel clock.

I said, "How is she?"

Carol glanced at me. "Unchanged," she said, returning her attention to the clock as she wound it with a brass key. "I was with her a moment ago. I'm not neglecting her, Tyler."

"I didn't think you were. How about Jason?"

"I helped him dress. He's better during daylight. I don't know why. The nights are hard on him. Last night was… hard."

"I'll look in on them both." I didn't bother asking whether she had heard any news, whether FEMA or the White House had issued any fresh directives. There would have been no point; Carol's universe stopped at the borders of the property. "You should get some sleep."

"I'm sixty-eight years old. I don't sleep as much as I used to. But you're right, I'm tired—I do need to lie down. As soon as I finish this. This clock loses time if you don't tend to it. Your mother used to adjust it every day, did you know that? And after your mother died Marie wound it whenever she cleaned. But Marie stopped coming about six months ago. For six months the clock was stuck at a quarter after four. As in the old joke, right twice a day."

"We should talk about Jason." Last night I had been too exhausted to do more than learn the basics: Jason had arrived unannounced a week before the end of the Spin and had fallen ill the night the stars reappeared. His symptoms were an intermittent, partial paralysis and occluded vision, plus fever. Carol had tried calling for medical help but circumstances had made that impossible, so she was caring for him herself, though she hadn't been able to diagnose the problem or provide more than simple palliative care.