“If you don’t take her, I’ll tell her to go without you. She won’t listen, but I will tell her.”
Michael was ashamed of himself for it, but he was grateful that his father had given him this reprieve. “Okay,” he said quietly.
“And you might want to talk to your brother Stephen about taking your niece along,” his father added.
“Which one?”
“Well, the twins are both a little young, wouldn’t you say?”
“Melissa?”
“She’s as bright as a light,” his father said. “And her future was equally bright until that rock up there happened along. And she’s the most like you of all the others; she lives in her own head. She’d have a lot to offer a new society. Provided that guy will let you bring her.”
“He probably would, but there’s no guarantee that—”
“There are never any guarantees, Michael. It’s a chance—that’s all—but it’s more of a chance than ninety-nine percent of the rest of the world has. And she’s worthy of it.”
“She’s your favorite,” Michael said, taking a sip.
“All the more reason,” his father admitted. “I make no apologies for how I feel about any of you. I’m the founder of the feast.”
It was one o’clock in morning before Michael and Veronica were able to discreetly lure Stephen into the garage, and by the time they finished telling him of their intentions, he was looking at them as if they’d lost their minds.
“What’s with you two?” he said, adding: “And what’s up with the old man?”
“It’s just something to think about, Stephen,” Veronica said. “If nothing bad happens, we’ll come back. But if it does—”
“Ronny, no,” Stephen said. “My daughter’s staying here with us. I can’t believe Dad would even suggest something like that. It had to be the wine.”
“He wasn’t drinking tonight,” Michael said.
“Well, then he shoulda been!”
Veronica gave Michael a look, signaling she thought the time had come for them to play dirty.
“Well, that’s not the worst of what Dad’s got on his mind,” Michael said.
“I can imagine.”
“I doubt it,” Michael said. “Have you thought about what will happen after the food runs out? You do realize people are going to start killing one another.”
“And eventually,” Veronica tossed in, “they’ll be eating one another.”
“Stop it!” Stephen insisted. “You two are insane!”
“Then what do you think is going to happen?” Michael asked again.
“I don’t know, but not that! Christ Almighty. This isn’t Thunder Dome.”
“So where is the food going to come from?” Veronica wanted to know.
“The government. Where else?”
“Stephen, there isn’t going to be any goddamn government,” Michael argued. “That rock is going to obliterate this country. Millions are going to die. Millions.”
“Okay, fine,” Stephen said. “Then we die together. Just like we were all talking about earlier.”
“Suppose we survive the blast?” Michael ventured. “Then what?”
Stephen’s mind was searching, trying to form a counterargument, but he couldn’t come up with anything. “We do what we have to do,” he said. “How’s that?”
“Just like everyone else,” Michael said. “And what happens to Melissa if you get killed by some psychopath over a can of dog food? We’re not talking about a temporary downturn in the economy. We’re talking about the end of society—and it’s going to happen.”
Stephen stood leaning against the fender of their father’s car and didn’t respond.
“You don’t have to decide tonight,” Michael said. “There’s time. But consider this… If the time comes and you find yourself watching your children starve to death—or worse—don’t you think you might end up wishing you’d let Melissa come with us? Just maybe?”
For the first time, it seemed that Stephen had heard him. He came off the fender and went to the garage door, looking out through a window. “Do you really think it’s going to be like that?”
“How else could it be?” Michael said. “This is precisely the same kind of event that wiped out the dinosaurs. I know it’s hard to accept but you need to try.”
Stephen turned around. “This is why you’re the doctor and I’m the pipe fitter. I’m too… I don’t know. Simple-minded.”
“You are not,” Michael said. “And this was Dad’s argument, not mine. I’m only just now coming to grips with it myself.”
“And you’ll bring her back if things aren’t too bad?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to get Cindy to go along with this,” Stephen said. “You’re going to have to really scare the shit out of her—I can’t be the one to do it.”
“Melissa will probably decide to stay anyhow,” Michael said. “But it makes—”
“No,” Stephen said. “She’ll go. She’s smarter than Cindy and I put together. She’s always talking to me about things I don’t even understand.” He stood chewing his knuckle, a nervous habit he’d had all his life. “She’s Dad’s favorite, you know.”
Michael grinned. “Everybody knows. Hell, she’s mine too.”
“That’s because she’s exactly like you two,” Stephen said. “I just wish I understood her better.” And without warning, he broke down and began to cry. “Now it looks like I never will, goddamnit.”
Veronica went to Stephen and put her arms around him. She knew that scenes all too similar to this one were playing out all across the planet, and she couldn’t help feeling slightly detached from it all. Perhaps it was because she had never been close with her own family, but she found the idea of having a front-row seat to the end of civilization morbidly fascinating. And now that Michael had decided they would join Jack and the others after all, she found herself feeling almost excited. This was going to be the ultimate sociological paradigm.
“It’s not fair!” Stephen was moaning. “I have to give my baby away. I can’t fucking believe this is happening…”
Twelve
The asteroid wasn’t due to strike for fourteen more days, but Forrest had asked Veronica if she and Michael would be willing to come early in order help them with the final preparations. There were still certain items that needed to be purchased, like batteries, deodorant, toilet paper—which was bound to run out no matter how much they stocked—and other miscellanea. There was also still a lot of organizing to be done belowground.
Forrest arranged to meet them at the same truck stop where he had met Veronica. Right on time, a black Volvo station wagon pulled into the lot and drove straight over to the Humvee, where he sat behind the wheel smoking a cigarette. The unexpected sight of the pretty teen with curly brown hair in the backseat should have annoyed him, but it didn’t.
“Hang tight, champ,” he said to Laddie and got out, crushing the cigarette on the fender.
“Now before you go off the deep end,” Veronica said, getting out on the driver’s side, “give me a second to explain.”
“Off the deep end?” he said with a grin. “Do I strike you as an off-the-deep-end kind of guy? If I don’t like her, she’s not coming. It’s that simple.”
He smiled at Melissa as she was getting out.
“How ya doin’, Doc?” he said to Michael.
“Not bad,” Michael said, still nervous about the situation. “You?”
“Hello,” Forrest said to Melissa. “I’m Jack. I hope these two haven’t told you what an asshole I am.”
Melissa smiled shyly. She was fair-skinned with an unblemished complexion and light brown eyes.