A Gift Upon the Shore (9 page)

Food, clothing, linens, tools, paper, books—all the books—anything the Rovers hadn't destroyed went into the van, then into the garage at Amarna. Mary didn't look at any of it, refused to recognize it as touching the lives of two people she had called friends. Only one thing briefly commanded her attention: the engraved handcuffs Jim was awarded when he retired as chief of the Shiloh Veepies.

And finally, when the last load had been piled into the van, Rachel climbed into the driver's seat and asked, “What happened to Sparky?” But she didn't seem to expect or want an answer to that question. Eyes fixed ahead, she drove away from the Acres house for the last time.

When they reached the gate at Amarna, Mary got out to open it, then after Rachel drove through, she pushed it shut. Her hands shook as she fumbled with the chain and lock. Pulling up the drawbridge, letting down the portcullis. She should call Harry Berden. Not that Harry could do anything. The cavalry was under siege, too, and the captain had lost a third of his troops two nights ago in the battle of the mall. But he could send someone to decently dispose of the bodies.

She turned away from the gate, looked up, seeking the sun, then looked down to the glow behind the wall of clouds in the west. Her watch blinked the time: 8:14. She got into the van, tried—and failed—to think of something to say to break Rachel's terrible silence.

Rachel stopped the van in front of the garage, but all she said was, “We'd better move some of the stuff so we can get the van inside.”

Shadow and Topaz came to greet them, but they were subdued, panting despite the evening chill. Rachel and Mary worked in the waning light, shifting cartons and sacks into the north studio or the basement, until finally there was enough room in the garage for the van. The van was still full, but they didn't try to unload it. All they took with them when they left the garage was their rifles. The door rumbled shut, and Mary leaned against it, her knees on the verge of giving way.

“Where are the dogs?” Rachel asked.

Mary found it an effort to speak. “Shadow's in the house. I saw her when I took the last load to the basement.”

Rachel nodded, called Topaz. She seemed to materialize out of the fading light from near the breezeway gate, and Rachel knelt to stroke her head. “Sweet lady, you don't know what the hell's going on. Neither do I, love, neither do—” Her voice caught, and Mary expected the break in her underlying silence, the iron silence that bound her grief.

But it didn't come.

Rachel rose and went to the gate. Mary followed her into the breezeway. The astringent smell of the firewood stacked against the house was oddly reassuring; she could hear a soft chirking from the chicken coop behind the garage.

And a throaty, distant rumble.

She thought herself inured to terror now. But she had only become inured to horror.
This
was terror, striking hard at the solar plexus.

What she heard was the sound of a motor. A car.

“Rachel?”

She had heard it, too. She turned and went back to the gate. Mary stood beside her, breath caught, listening.

Rachel whispered, “It's coming up our road.”

Mary nodded. It could, of course, be quite innocent. A lost tourist, perhaps. It might even be an Apie patrol.

There. Lights glimmering through the trees.

Topaz whined impatiently, but she didn't bark. Maybe the car was familiar to her. Now the lights flashed around the curve; the pitch of the motor changed as the car slowed. The gate. Whoever was driving had seen the gate.

Mary stared at the twin points of light. It occurred to her that she should go call the Apies, but at that moment the motor roared and the car hit the gate with a clanging crash, plunged through, one-eyed now, careened down the road toward the house. Topaz began barking, and Rachel shouted, “Mary, are there any lights on in the house?”

“No, I didn't turn any on except in the basement, and I know I turned that one
off
.”

“Maybe they'll think the house is empty. That gives us the advantage of surprise.” And she brought her rifle up into firing position, resting the barrel on the top of the gate.

Mary stared at Rachel, suddenly transformed into a steady-handed guerrilla soldier, ready to kill. The rumble of the motor reverberated in a numbing crescendo, and Mary was struck with a new kind of fear.
I can't kill anyone
.

It was then that she recognized the vehicle roaring toward them; there was just enough light left.

Jim Acres's old brown Dodge van.

And within her, after this day of hideous revelations, terror found a channel into rage.

Topaz barked manically, and the van lurched across the lawn, a hubcap spinning off, flashing away in the skewed light of the remaining headlight. Mary snapped off the rifle's safety, felt the polished wood against her cheek, relished the potent weight of the weapon as she watched the last seconds of the van's approach through the scope, cross hairs centered on the windshield, on the glowing skull mask behind it.

The van slewed to a stop, both front doors swung open, the side door slammed back, and Rovers spilled out. Six—no, seven, eight raffish scarecrows in fluorescent paint, all laughing and shouting in demented camaraderie, staggering stoned. “
Tice diggin for the take!
” Had they said the same thing last night at the Acres house?

Mary fixed one in the cross hairs, squeezed off a shot. The recoil pounded her shoulder, the muzzle flash startled her, and her ears were numbed by the report, yet she heard a yelp as the Rover jerked back, fell writhing. Rachel's gun cracked while Mary lined her sights on another skull-faced figure, this one with an automatic snugged in his hands. She fired, and a spray of bullets smashed into the walls of the house, but they were high, and the gun tumbled to the ground as he fell.

Another fluorescent apparition dived for it. Rachel's shot dropped him. Shouted obscenities and Topaz's barking filled a millisecond before Mary and Rachel pulled off shots almost in unison, before Mary saw another Rover move out from behind the van with another automatic. She fired, shouting, “Get down!” and crouched behind the gate as the top of it vanished in a shower of splinters. But the Rover was wounded, and Rachel sprang up to fire again as soon as the burst ended. Mary saw the remaining Rovers running for the van, fired five more rounds, and Rachel yelled, “Mary, let them go!”

Mary hadn't assimilated that command when something hit her shoulder. A piece of wood. Topaz had climbed to the top of the stacked wood, dislodging wedges of fir. Mary grabbed for her, caught only more falling wood, and Topaz leapt over the gate, landed running, charging the last Rover while he scrambled for the van. Rachel cried, “
Topaz!
” and fumbled at the latch. Mary tried to get a shot at the Rover as Topaz closed in on him. His steel-toed boot lashed out, and Topaz howled, hurtled backward. Rachel threw the gate open and ran for Topaz, but not before the Rover took a long step, and with vicious deliberation, kicked the dog again.

Mary fired without aiming, staying a few paces behind Rachel, and the Rover made a dash for the van, jerked crazily at the impact of one of Mary's bullets as his mates pulled him in the side door. The van wobbled into reverse, and Rachel fired shot after shot at it. Flashes of light in the open side window—another automatic—but Rachel stood firm, oblivious. Mary dropped to the ground to join Rachel's desperate fusillade, while the van lurched toward the gate.

And it vanished in a ball of blinding light. The concussion hit like a hard slap against Mary's ears.

Dazed, she stared at the incandescent ball, watched it expand, then shrink until the shape of the van emerged, black against yellow flames.

And she began to laugh.
Taste of your own medicine, you bastards!
She felt no remorse nor even pity for the people burned to death in that van. She lay in the clover-scented grass and laughed. Until she saw a face in the grass not a yard away, the fluorescent skull smeared, glowing in the light of the fire.

One of the Rovers. Dead. A woman. Strange, she hadn't really thought of the Rovers as being male or female any more than she'd thought of them as being human.

This face was human beneath the painted mask. Now it was human, now that it was dead.

Mary heard a sobbing cry, and it wasn't her own.

In the flickering glare of firelight, she saw Rachel huddled over Topaz. Mary stumbled to her, sank to her knees beside her.

Rachel's silence had been broken. She wept now, sobs that racked her body, made her seem frail and small. Topaz lay on her side, every breath a whimper of pain, her eyes edged with crescents of white. Mary touched her flank, felt the crushed ribs soft under her palm, and her hand came away wet with blood. Her eyes burned, but she wouldn't give in to tears now. Throughout this terrifying day, Rachel had held back her tears. Now, Mary knew, it was her turn.

Rachel said, “Damn it, there's no vet within a hundred miles. Connie—she could've helped . . . oh, Connie . . .” The name ended in a keening cry.

Topaz coughed and whined, blood spattering out of her mouth. Mary said huskily, “Rachel, she can't survive this.”

“I know.” Those two words seemed a tangible weight, and the speaking of them bowed her down into a crouch. She stroked Topaz's head, whispered, “But I can't . . . kill her. Oh, my sweet Topaz, I haven't the courage. . . .”

“I'll take care of it.” And even as she spoke, Mary wondered if she
could
do what she must to put Topaz out of her misery. Kill her. Rachel at least didn't sink to the euphemism. Mary looked down at her own bloody hand. She had, with no remorse, taken part in killing eight people tonight. Yet she shrank at killing this agony-stricken animal out of kindness.

But Topaz's final act was, however unintentionally, an act of mercy. She didn't force Mary to kill her. A retching cough, then she shuddered and closed her jewel eyes for the last time.

Mary didn't try to stop Rachel's weeping. She waited, dry-eyed, and the only other sounds were the crackle of the burning van and the omnipresent murmur of the sea.
I am here
. . . . There was still a glow of red at the horizon and a bright star above the clouds. Venus, probably. Lucifer. The wind blew chill out of the west.

She sat cross-legged in the grass on this erstwhile battlefield, smelled the bitter smoke, the gunpowder and blood on her hands, and tried to recapture that sense of triumph she felt when she became a killer. Self-defense? Of course. And more: revenge. But where was the satisfaction that was supposed to accompany revenge, that glorious, righteous satisfaction that was stuff of epics and history?

She felt none of that now. She felt no guilt, but neither did she feel anything she could equate with satisfaction.

She remembered the birth of Josie's kids—was it only hours ago?—and tried to recapture her desire to take part in the mystical cycle of motherhood. But that was gone, too. She would bring no children into
this
world. Rachel was right. There were already too many children. And too many of them grew up only to starve or go insane.

Finally she rose, helped Rachel to her feet, and saw the dark patch on her jacket just below her right shoulder.

“Rachel, you're hurt!” And it occurred to her then what a miracle it was that either of them was still alive.

Rachel stared down at Topaz. “I have to bury her.”

“I'll do that. Let me look at your arm first.” But Rachel didn't seem to hear her, and Mary added, “Shadow's still in the house. She'll be terrified.”

Rachel stiffened and abruptly set off for the house. “Oh, damn, she'll be over the edge.”

And Rachel was nearly over the edge of endurance. She almost fell when they reached the backdoor. Mary got her inside and felt for the light switch, and Rachel began calling Shadow. They found her in the kitchen, huddled trembling in one corner. Rachel knelt by her, nearly fell again. Mary steadied her. “Rachel, your arm—”

“It's not serious, Mary. If I could just . . . sit down.”

Mary helped her to the couch in the living room, then had to carry Shadow to her; she wouldn't leave her corner. Rachel took her in her lap and whispered reassurances, and Mary thought, it's not fair that Shadow should suffer this terror and that Topaz should die simply because the humans they live with were victims of the insanity of other humans. It's not fair that Jim and Connie, who were kind and loving, should be so cruelly murdered because of that insanity.

But if she had ever doubted it, it was a conviction now.
Fairness
is the exception to the rule
in
life
.

Rachel looked up at her, studying her face as if she hadn't seen her for a span of years. “I'm grateful, Mary. For you.”

Mary could only nod. Then she went to the kitchen and a few minutes later returned with two glasses and a fifth of Jack Daniel's. She put them on the side table, poured whiskey into the glasses. “Water?”

“No.” Rachel took the glass Mary offered, closed her eyes as she sipped the whiskey. “I suppose we should call Captain Berden.”

Mary wanted to laugh, but knew better than to allow herself that. She tipped up her glass, held the whiskey hot in her mouth. A poor remedy, she thought, wondering if there
were
any real remedies.

Clad in rumpled pajamas and robe, a rifle in her hands, Mary looked out over the broken top of the breezeway gate into the glare of the early-morning sun. Her head ached unmercifully. Only a few hours ago she had seen the light of dawn in the windows before she achieved the oblivion of sleep.

And a few minutes ago she had been wakened by the sounds of Shadow's hysterical barking and a car horn. Now she stood trembling, trying to put her thoughts and memories in order. An Apie patrol was parked in the driveway, and she recognized the officer approaching her. Harry Berden. She opened the gate and went out to meet him, but stopped a few feet away. If she let him take her in his arms, she knew she'd start crying, and she wasn't sure she could stop. For a moment he stared at her, then glanced at the rifle, and finally nodded.