Bentley Little - Dominion

"It's probably already too late." She walked over to the cupboard, got out a can of warm 7-Up, sat down at the kitchen table.

Kevin sat next to her. He was silent for a moment. "So what were they like?" he asked finally.

"Who? My mothers?"

"Yeah." He paused. "Before."

She shrugged. "All right, I guess. I don't ..." She shook her head apologetically. "I don't really know what you mean."

"I mean, were they, like, good parents? Did they read your report cards?

Did they go to Open House? Did they make sure you brushed your teeth and ate properly?"

"Yes," she said. "They were good parents." And felt an involuntary twinge of sadness at the thought.

"Were they, like, radical lesbians?"

Penelope felt heat rush to her face.

"Was it 'herstory' instead of 'history' and all that?"

"No. Besides, those words come from different roots. 'History' is not 'his story.' It comes from the Greek 'historia,' which means 'inquiry."

"His' isn't even Greek. It comes from 'he,' which is Old English."

He looked at her, surprised. "Where'd you learn that?"

She licked her lips nervously. "I don't know," she admitted.

They were silent for a moment. "You're a little spooky yourself sometimes," Kevin said.

Penelope nodded. "I know."

They looked at each other across the table, and for the first time Penelope felt as though she was in one of those movie situations. He looked as though he was about take her hand, or reach over and hug her. And she ized that she would let him.

Jack walked through the door.

"Hey," he said.

"About time," Kevin told him.

The mood was broken. If it had been there at all. Peneml ope picked up her 7-Up, took a sip.

They needed to get out of this house. If they spentl another day in here, all four x)f them would end upjj fucking each other in one huge daisy chain.

She closed her eyes, tried to push the thought out of he head.

"So who do you want to play you in the movie?" Jacfclf asked, leaning against the sink.

Penelope nearly choked. "What?"

The policeman grinned. "After this is all over and done' with, you know they're going to make a movie out of it. This is a great story. If we play our cards right, we can! cash in on it."

Penelope laughed. "Go on Donahue and Oprah and5 Geraldot "Hell, no. Let Fox make a quickie TV movie out of our| adventures. It's a lot more interesting than Waco or O. J."\

"TV movies never get top stars," Kevin said. "They'll ' just get some sitcom actors play you two, have the young j stud of the moment play me."

Penelope snorted. "Right."

"They always get actors who are better-looking thanj the people in real life." He grinned. "Maybe they'll even ij find a semi-attractive girl to play you."

"Ha-ha." Penelope looked around the kitchen. "Where's the king?"

Kevin shook his head. "His playroom. Where else? He's probably building a little model of the Parthenon out of matchsticks."

"No, I'm not. But I'm impressed that you knew the';' word Parthenon.

There's hope for you yet." Holbrook walked into the kitchen, dumping the cold contents of his coffee cup into the sink behind Jack. "As a matter of fact, I've been looking through my papers, trying to discover'

weaknesses of Dionysus, of the maenads. Things we could exploit."

"Find anything?"

"Nothing beyond the obvious. But if I had access to my database--"

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Jack said. "If I'd just made hard copies of all of my files, I would've been able to discover some way of taking this god down."

Kevin glared at them. "Didn't you guys ever think that if the gods returned, they might disrupt the power? They might screw up the phone lines? Hell, all you had to do was plan ahead a little. If you'd bought a generator and a CB radio, you could still be communicating."

He stopped, blinked, "Shit." He turned toward Penelope. "I'm as stupid as they are. All we have to do is hit Kmart, Walmart, Target, whatever, and find a generator or a battery or some type of power source--"

"We're all stupid," Penelope said. "All we need to do is find a car with a cellular phone."

"Fuck!" Kevin slammed his palm against the table.

"I would not advise leaving the house," Holbrook said.

"Why?" Kevin said dryly. "You planning to banish Dionysus from the earth by reading in your basement?"

The teacher faced him. "You don't even know what you're dealing with here, you arrogant little shit."

"I do," Penelope said.

"Your family's the one who caused it all."

Penelope stood, not bothering to respond, not even looking at him.

"Let's get out of here," she said. "Let's find us a car phone."

"I'll go with you," Jack said. "Just in case."

"You're only encouraging them."

"They might be on to something," the policeman said. He hurried out of the room. "I'll be back in a sec!" he called back. "I'm just going to get my gun!"

It felt good to be out again, driving.

There was evidence of new destruction--felled trees and still burning piles of furniture that had not been there when they'd driven the road yesterday--but it still felt re assuring to be outdoors rather than cooped up in H

And then they turned onto Monticello and she saw mall.

Whatever hope had been burgeoning within her died ii stantly. The mall was overrun. Huge holes had bees blown in the brown brick walls of the Nordstrom's partment store. The Sears building was little more than three-walled ruin. Revelers streamed in and out of open doorways in the center of the mall, dancing and vorting. Many of them were naked and covered wit blood. Many of them were carrying severed body parts. lathe parking lot, cars were crashed or overturned, then twisted metal forms gaily decorated with flowers andf multicolored streamers.

She was intimidated by the enormity of it all. Therel were only four of them. There were hundreds of people ml the mall alone. How many were there in the entire valley?! How could they hope to combat something of this magni-I tude?

Blood.

And how could they hope to combat something froffij which they were not immune? She was frightened of this I force that had turned all of these ordinary citizens into! amoral hedonists, and she hated what was happening, but! ... but it called to her. She saw these wild, drunken peo- \ pie, and a part of her wanted to join them, wanted to be \ one of them.

Did it tempt the others as well? She glanced surrepti' tiously at Kevin and Jack, but could not tell what they^ were thinking, what they were feeling.

They sped past the mall. On the other side of the street, the supermarket had been looted, all of the front windows s smashed, food thrown into the parking lot, and even; within the car, the heavy smell of bad wine, spoiled milk,:, and rotting vegetables was strong, nearly overpowering. Ahead, on the right, a fire was burning unchecked at the site of a Shell station, foul black smoke billowing up into the air and blending with the cloud cover.

This might be the end of the world, Penelope thought. Or the end of the world as they knew it. And it had not been brought about by nuclear war or a biological agent or a threat from outer space but by the resurgence of an ancient religion.

And it had been instigated by her mothers.

"We'll cruise over to a rich area," Kevin said. "Doctors, lawyers, those guys always have car phones."

Sure enough, they found an upscale neighborhood and, hidden in the locked garage of a mock Tudor mansion, a Lexus with a car phone. Most of the other cars on the street had been overturned and burned, but this one had escaped the revelers. Jack used the butt of his revolver to smash one of the back windows of the house, and while Kevin and Penelope waited outside, he foraged through the residence until he found car keys.