Chuck Palahniuk - Doomed

Henceforth I will prove my own existence. I will prove that I steer my own destiny.

As my former-Wiccan, former–Green Party, former-living, breathing parents once strove to save polar bears and white tigers, I make my bold move. Into this scorching tableau so evocative of my father’s ignited draft cards and my mom’s inflamed brassieres, I scramble.

Behind me my damned parents shout from the windows of the Town Car. “Leave it, Maddy,” says my mother. “The sad old Earth is so yesterday’s news .”

The blissed-out souls of burned-alive Boorites continue to pour into the Lincoln, each righteously certain that their destination is a well-deserved celestial reward.

My former-recycling, former-biodiesel, former–Earth First! father shouts, “Let the silly sperm whales and mountain gorillas just burn, honey! Get in the car!”

After all their years of trying to rescue illegal aliens and crude oil–marinated sea otters, this is my opportunity to try to save my parents. Perhaps to save everyone. Attired in my ooze-despoiled shirt, bearing my cat and my Beagle book, I frantically bolt down the mountain. Lugging my kitty as I’d once carried that fragile jar of sloshing tea, I take flight into the blazing canyonlands where artisan pinnacles soar overhead. Into this bland, washed-out, cataract-colored landscape I flee, rescuing the only creature I can.

Oh, my soul’s beloved, I feel the rhythm of his ghost heartbeat beneath the melody of his purr. Oh, my Tigerstripe, I breathe the ghost sweetness of his fur. Such is the perfume your heart smells when you feel love.

In the distance a spark of blue flashes. It’s the shade of electric blue my nose sees when I sniff ozone during a lightning storm. It’s the blue my fingers see when I touch the sharp point of a baby pin. It’s something not so much identifiable as it is inevitable, and I chart a course to reach it.

The angel Festus flutters, buzzing his tiny wings in my hot pursuit. He’s singing God this and God that. His angelic voice sings how the Lord commands me. The power of Christ compels me. “Return to God,” he sings, “as the Almighty is your real maker!”

Satan steers his Lincoln behemoth on my heels. He’s honking his horn and flashing his lights as obnoxiously as any long-haul trucker barreling down an upstate throughway. “Abandon yourself!” Satan howls in anger. He shouts, “It was no accident when the autodialer of Hell connected you by telephone to your bereaved family. I direct your every move! I am your true father!” Whether he’s chasing me or herding me, I’m not certain.

Me, my stout legs are dashing over the white plastic terrain even as it shatters like the Ohio River beneath the escaping feet of Eliza in Uncle Tom’s Cabin . Baying at my chunky rear end are my mother and father, my nana and papadaddy. Shouting after me is the soul of Mr. K. So, too, is the succubus, Babette, demanding my immediate capture.

Yet, Gentle Tweeter, I am not helpless. I’m an escaped slave in a blazing world.

I’m Persephone reinvented, determined to be more than a daughter or a wife. Nor will I settle for some celestial joint-custody agreement, shuttling back and forth between residences in Heaven and Hell the way I continually jetted between Manila and Milan and Milwaukee. My new goal is the reunion of all opposites. I will strive to reconcile Satan and God. In doing so, by resolving this core conflict, I will resolve all conflict. There will be no separation between perdition and paradise.

As all of creation founders around me, only my purring kitty, gathered snug in my arms, only Tigerstripe trusts that I know where I’m bound.

The End?

Fight Club

Survivor

Invisible Monsters

Choke

Lullaby

Fugitives and Refugees

Diary

Stranger Than Fiction

Haunted

Rant

Snuff

Pygmy

Tell-All

Damned

Chuck Palahniuk’s twelve bestselling novels— Damned , Tell-All , Pygmy , Snuff , Rant , Haunted , Diary , Lullaby , Choke , Invisible Monsters , Survivor , and Fight Club— have sold more than five million copies in the United States. He is also the author of Fugitives and Refugees , published as part of the Crown Journey Series, and the nonfiction collection Stranger Than Fiction . He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Visit: www.chuckpalahniuk.net

Other titles by Chuck Palahniuk available in eBook format

Choke • 978-1-4000-3270-9

Damned • 978-0-385-53314-0

Diary • 978-0-385-51150-6

Fugitives and Refugees • 978-0-307-42075-6

Haunted • 978-0-385-51583-2

Lullaby • 978-0-385-50449-2

Pygmy • 978-0-385-53034-7

Rant • 978-0-385-52307-3

Snuff • 978-0-385-52692-0

Stranger Than Fiction • 978-0-385-50450-8

Tell-All • 978-0-385-53317-1

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Chuck Palahniuk

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House LLC., New York, a Penguin Random House Company.

www.doubleday.com

DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Jacket design and illustration by Rodrigo Corral Design

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Palahniuk, Chuck.

Doomed / Chuck Palahniuk.—First edition.

pages cm

Sequel to: Damned.

[1. Ghosts—Fiction. 2. Future life—Fiction. 3. Dead—Fiction. 4. Microblogs—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.P1754Do 2013

[Fic]—dc23 2012043095

eISBN: 978-0-385-53315-7

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