He liked Jesus now. He didn’t understand why Jesus was white when the Virgin was Mexican. Don’t you know that had been a shocker to Joseph? The brown eyes were large and shocked with pain — we should’a known; he was telling it was coming for years. We all look like that now. Jesus had caught up with the times or the times caught up with Jesus. The crying had stopped and praying had started. Prayers were pretty free- form, mainly to Jesus or the Blessed Virgin, but occasionally someone worked in a call to Yog Sothoth; as Keeper of the Gate, he was pretty popular. Maybe he would gate them all back. It was one of the few Names everybody knew. CNN had lasted for twenty-three days after the Rising. So everybody knew something. Even in Doublesign, Texas.
He thought of his youngest brother Xavier. Nat hadn’t been there to witness what had happened to Xavier, but he’d heard about it from people who had, and he could envision it so vividly in his mind that he might as well have been. Not that it would have made any difference.
Xavier had decided the thing to do was get with the program. He rented some horror DVDs from Blockbuster — he figured that he would get in good with the New Bosses. He studied the ritual sequences, the sacrifices. So he drove into Austin, found an occult shop, bought some black candles, some chalk, a fancy knife, and a big chalice to pour blood into. Mama told him to have faith. It was a stupid argument. Had faith kept Cody from getting HIV? Had faith kept Esmeralda’s pickup from being hit by the eighteen-wheeler?
Xavier drove to the parking lot of Sam Houston high school that night. The Moon was full and high and it had not yet opened its Eye. He spray-painted two big circles one inside the other. A crowd of people watched. It was better than listening to what was going on in Japan. You’d think after all them Godzilla movies they could have handled it. No one had told Father Murphy. The witnesses later said they’d wanted to see if Xavier was right. He lit five black candles in the shape of a star. Then he opened a used black paperback book that he had paid top-dollar for in Austin. He read some gibberish by flashlight.
Then he went to his old Chevy half- ton and took his red-nosed pits out. He had them tied up with bungee cords and they were squealing and barking. He dumped them in the center of his circle, put on his black graduation robe and got the Chalice and Knife from the front of his truck. He carried an MP3 player with him and lay it next to the dogs. He cranked up The Symphony of the Nine Angles and started yelling stuff about the “Blood is the Life” and “Passing through Angles Unknown.” I guess I should have paid more attention in Mrs. Gamble’s geometry class, Nat thought, well after the fact, hearing about this.
Xavier picked one of his dogs up and cut its throat. It was not easy to manage this and hold the Chalice and the paperback. The dog made a terrible sound, and maybe someone was going to rush in and stop all this, but no one did. Everyone was scared. Everyone had seen the Terrible City on CNN and the Thing at the North Pole.
He dropped the squirming and whimpering dog. “¡Venga adelante y aparezca O Utonap’stim! ¡Venga! ¡Venga! ¡Yog Sothoth! ¡Beba la sangre se ha ofrecido que! I call you by the Seal that is at once Four and Five and Nine! ¡Venga! ¡Venga!”
The dying dog tried to crawl away. The other screamed like no one had never heard a dog scream. Xavier’s flashlight went out, but it wasn’t very dark because of the Moon. Then the Moon went dark. It was as though every piece of light was sucked away suddenly. People who told Nat about this later claimed they could feel sound being sucked away, too. In Robert E. Lee Park, next to the school, there were the usual late spring lightning bugs flashing on and off. Suddenly they all flew toward the parking lot. They clustered all over Xavier. Everyone could see him struggle, but couldn’t hear a word. He fell over and the dark went away; even his flashlight flickered back on. Finally, someone ran up to him. The bugs had eaten his skin and eyes. Juan found a gun and put the dog out of its misery. The others had trouble getting the cords off the other dog without getting bitten. When they did, she ran away. Somebody burned the book. CNN reported a few days later that if you called them by night they came.
Nat didn’t like thinking about that. But you couldn’t think otherwise. He looked at poor white Jesus. Poor bastard. Even being white didn’t save you now.
Nat was rich right now; he had made a run into Austin with Jesús’ truck. He had found an HEB that hadn’t been looted. Dried pinto beans, jalapenos, canned ham, tangerine jello, soup, flour (without too many weevils), and a large can of fruit cocktail. Mama invited over the MacLeods from next door. Dr. MacLeod had taught classes in chemistry at the University of Texas. His wife had taught painting classes for adults at the community college here in Doublesign. They had been great neighbors since before the Rising. They were Mormons so they had over a year’s supply of food saved up. They loved Mama, even when Nat and Jesús and Juan were sowing wild oats, they took her applesauce bread, and had had her over for “Mormon Beans” back when ground meat was available. Dr. MacLeod had been so helpful when the Rising happened. He knew all about the Masons and the Illuminati. He spoke at one of the last town meetings and everyone agreed to crucify the old men in the Masonic Lodge. It was easy to catch them; not one was under eighty — besides they died quickly, which everyone says is a Good Thing these days. Dr. MacLeod explained how the One World Government was really about Cthulhu. After the Moon opened its Eye, it was clear what the “All Seeing Eye” on the dollar bill had been about.
Mama didn’t have electricity, of course. But Nat had driven to Barton Creek Mall the day after one of the Shining Waves had passed through Austin. It had paused at the Mall, breaking it into three big pieces. Nat and Juan had loaded up their trucks two times each with the stock of a Wicks and Sticks. At first (before Victoria had walked into the sky) Nat had kept all the candles at his place. But when his wife was Called by the Thing Behind the Winds, he had moved everything (including Stephanie) to Mama’s. They lit candles everywhere, and only once had the house caught fire by one burning too low.
Dr. MacLeod was explaining the world, as usual. “What we didn’t understand is that it is all personal. I never understood that the many nights I researched stuff on the Web. All the scholars said it was impersonal.”
Mama just smiled. It was not that she lacked intelligence, but like so many, something had shut down in her. She never left the house except to get water at el rito. By day she read old fotonovelas and copies of the Reader’s Digest. At night she prayed in her sala. She would not go with Nat to Church. Safety was here, in her home. She was happy when she could serve food to other people and when people brought her things.
“What do you mean, Dr. MacLeod?” asked Nat.
“It isn’t about what happened in the Pacific or the Arctic,” he said, “It’s your brother. It’s my son. Some Thing out there interfaced with us.”
Mrs. MacLeod said, “Is it because we were bad? Because the world was bad?”
“No, honey. We weren’t bad. We were just good food.”
“We weren’t the ones that were eaten or,” she said looking at Nat, “called.”
“Our suffering feeds them. When they take poor Stephanie there,” he began.