Алан Дин Фостер - To the Vanishing Point

"What’s going to happen now, sweetheart?" She was playing at drinking her own coffee, but her hand was shaking so badly she had to set the mug down until the trembling subsided. "What’s going to happen to us?"

"I dunno. Our reality’s shot regardless."

"Perhaps not," Mouse said calmly.

He stared sharply at her. "Don’t you of all people go trying to make me feel better. I’ve been through hell the last hour and I’m in no mood to be patronized. I know my own reality when I see it. This is my house. I was in my own office, among my own people, until it all turned into something out of a real bad horror movie. Whatever happens now, nothing can change that. Our world is gone."

"Are you so absolutely sure this is your world, then? Your reality? There are millions of reality lines, Frank Sonderberg. The slightest of differences would be sufficient to distinguish yours from one very much like it."

He put the coffee down. "So how do we know if this one is ours?"

"Once the Spinner has been soothed and the fabric of reality made whole again you will return to your one true reality. Only then will you know if this line is yours — or another."

"And if this one isn’t ours, where are the local equivalents of us?"

"In Las Vegas, enjoying your vacation, I should imagine. Provided Las Vegas still exists on this line."

"You mean, if this ain’t our reality and we hang around here long enough we might run into ourselves?"

"Nothing is impossible when reality lines cross."

"That’s enough!" Wendy rose from the table, screaming and clutching her head. "That’s enough, that’s enough, that’s enough! I can’t understand any more!"

Frank rose to grab her, pull her close. She kept raving. What was he supposed to do, slap her until she quieted? That was what they did in the movies, but this wasn’t a movie. This was his daughter who’d suffered too much he was holding in his arms. He couldn’t hit her to help her.

So he just rocked her gently and kept telling her everything was going to be all right and, as it developed, that was exactly what was required.

A clattering sounded in the hallway and everyone turned sharply, but it was only Burnfingers Begay returning from his foray to the garage. His hands held the garden shears Frank had remembered seeing hanging on a wall hook. Also two small tree saws and a pair of hand clippers.

"No chainsaw, but these will help. We should take all the big knives, too." He looked over their heads. "Where is Flucca?"

Frank turned a circle. He didn’t remember when the dwarf had disappeared. His return coincided with Burnfingers’s own.

"We’re all here, then." Burnfingers nodded to himself. "We will fight our way out together, as we have done since the beginning. I am glad I will be with white-eyes who have learned how to fight."

"Fight? Our way out?" Alicia sounded despondent. "Frank, we’re not leaving again, are we? Not from here, not from our house."

"It may not be our house," he told her grimly. "Burnfingers is right. We can’t stay here. We have to go on until there’s an end to all this, no matter who wins. And if this does turn out to be our reality, I don’t want to stay here anyway. Not with the whole damn city drowned. At this rate the rest of California’s going to go, too. Maybe the whole planet." He looked over at Mouse. "I wish to hell I’d never set eyes on you."

"I’m sorry, Frank Sonderberg. Right now I’m the only reality you have left."

"Yeah, I guessed." At that instant he understood everything better than at any moment since they’d left Barstow. Small comfort at best. "Let’s go."

"No, Daddy." Wendy took a step away from him.

"Honey, we have to. We’ve come too far to stop here. Don’t you see? We don’t have any choice in the matter. Probably haven’t had for some time. Besides," he finished quietly, "if we don’t go with Mouse I have this powerful feeling we’ll never have a chance of seeing your brother again."

"What makes you think we have any chance anyway?" she replied bitterly.

"Because I believe we do. I believe it because I have to."

Mouse was smiling that thin, enigmatic smile he found so maddening. "I knew you were the right one when you stopped for me, Frank Sonderberg."

He whirled to face her. "How about you shut up for a while?" His anger surprised him. Since he had the strength in him, he took the opportunity to rail at God, the fates, and whatever other agency might have played a part in the disintegration of his pleasant, contented life. What he really wanted to do was fight back, but in this war there was nothing to strike out against except the shapeless, ill-defined nemesis Mouse called the Anarchis.

That didn’t prevent him from cursing the Cosmos, which he proceeded to do loudly and fluently. When he was finished he gave his wife a hand up from the table.

"We’re stuck, sweetheart. We can’t go back and we can’t stay here, so we have to go on. So we might as well give it our best shot. Whaddaya say?"

Her smile was full of love. "That’s how we’ve always lived, Frank. I guess I’m too set in my ways to change now even if I want to."

"That’s my gal." He kissed her lightly, then turned to Burnfingers. "I think we’re ready."

"I know it is so, my friend. Now, everyone grab something useful. Knives, cleavers, food, bottled water, juice — anything we might need."

They loaded themselves down, filling pockets with food and medicine, arming themselves with makeshift weapons. Mouse carried more than her share, but she was so full of surprises Frank didn’t even blink at the size of the sack she slung over her shoulder.

As they assembled supplies in the front hall, preparatory to making a dash for the motor home, Frank saw Burnfingers emerge from the garage carrying a double armful of unexpected devices. He nodded in their direction as the Indian began shoving them in an empty suitcase.

"What are you gonna do with all that stuff?" The small propane torch made some sense: what they couldn’t cut or stab or shoot they might be able to burn. But the rest struck him as peculiarly useless.

"You will see. At least, I hope you will have the chance to see."

Frank considered, trying to look past the present moment at something else. "You know, we sell a lot of hobby stuff in our stores." He nodded at Burnfingers’s package. "Steven used that for a little while, then got bored. Funny it should be lying around. I wonder how much of what’s happened here lately is coincidence and how much of it something else. That Mouse — I get the feeling she can do a few tricks with the threads of reality herself."

Everyone assembled in the front hall, loaded down with bags and suitcases. Flucca insisted on being first out the door. "If they aim for your heads, they’ll miss mine. Besides, I’m used to working with vegetables." Alicia’s biggest cleaver dangled from his right hand as he turned.

Burnfingers stood ready to back him up as he flung the door wide and the little man dashed outside, weapon held high. He didn’t have to use it. The plants' blind fury had burned itself out.

The front walkway was littered with debris. It looked like the aftermath of a hurricane. Branches and leaves were scattered everywhere, a fine carpet of brown-green, which was just beginning to decay. Only a few growths remained standing. All were broken and torn, ripped to pieces by their neighbors. A few of the smaller plants, which had been ignored in the greater carnage, reached weakly for the refugees, but their roots and leaves were too short to span the walkway pavement. Flucca and Frank cut them to bits anyway, glad of a chance to strike back at something.

Taking the suitcases and heavy bags from the women, Burnfingers tossed them through the motor home’s open door, then helped them inside. A shadow the size of a 727 passed overhead, but when Frank tilted back his head and shaded his eyes he saw nothing. He wasn’t disappointed. Whatever it had been might be coming back, and he was relieved when it was his turn to enter.