You look pretty, I say. How does it feel to be pretty?
Phineas, please.
I know. I need to get up.
Molly gives me her hand.
Don’t help me, please.
I pull myself upright and allow myself a fuzzy look around. This is a room I’ve not yet seen. High, vaulted ceilings with exposed rafters. The hardwood floor. Tall windows and bright morning sun. There is no furniture but a shitty-looking mattress on the floor, with no sheets. Miller sits naked on the mattress, grinning. Jude stands on the other side, unbuttoning her dress, the same sleeveless white dress. Dizzy and I wobble sideways into Molly, who holds me up.
Help me, I say.
I’m here, she says.
I have to talk to Jude, I say. I have to ask her something.
You can’t, says Molly. Not now.
Why not?
Hush…please.
Where am I?
This is John’s room, she whispers.
It’s…nice.
I’m a son of a bitch, says Miller. You’re a tough cookie, Poe.
Thanks. What are we doing?
He shrugs. Just getting ready to shoot a little sex scene.
The crew is dead, I say. You killed the crew.
I know, he says. Nasty business, isn’t it.
Jude is a shadow behind him.
Nasty, I say. Yes.
Anyway, he says. Looks like I need you behind the camera today, Poe.
Lucky, I say. Lucky thing you didn’t kill me.
Miller nods, staring at me. He touches himself. Behind him, Jude removes a knife from her boot and slips it under the mattress.
Who is the shadow that walks beside you? I say.
Miller is still nodding, like he can’t stop.
What? he says.
I shake my head. Never mind.
There is no dialogue, no foreplay. Molly has one camera, I have another. She weaves around the room, drifting close to the bed and then away. I am positioned against the wall on the far side of the room, shooting the wide angle. Molly moves in and out of my shot, but I’m not really paying attention to her. Jude takes off her boots and throws them across the room, sailing high then crashing to the wood floor. Now she lets the white dress fall from her shoulders. Miller sits on the edge of the bed, his lips wet. The dress slips slowly to the floor and she is naked before him. The long brown body that was once mine, and never mine. Molly moves across the room and for a moment my view is obscured. Miller reaches for the prize, dragging Jude roughly down onto the bed. He mashes her mouth with his. Jude groans and pulls at him and in a moment he is on top of her, grunting and trying to get inside and when he finds purchase there is a silence in the room like no other. There is no dialogue, no foreplay.
Jude makes a sobbing sound and Molly glances back at me, her eyes bright with shame.
I shake my head. Not yet, not yet.
Jude raises her head to look at me over Miller’s shoulder, staring at me for a long, dreadful moment. Then closes her eyes as if in prayer.
Miller thrusts at her like a great hairless pig.
I place my camera on the floor and motion for Molly to do the same. She comes across the room as if it’s five miles wide. She goes through the door behind me and her footsteps are brutal whispers falling down the stairs. I stare across the room at the two bodies grinding and rutting on the bare mattress until they become one, until they become a green shadow that is not man or woman.
Outside. The sky is white. I cross the yard and enter the garage, where I collect a small yellow funnel and one of the plastic red jugs of gasoline. In the kitchen, I gather four empty liquor bottles and line them up along the sink. My head is ringing like a church bell and my peripheral vision is gone. I have a tiny window of daylight in front of me and that’s all I need. I am so fucking calm. My hands don’t shake at all as I fill the bottles with gas. I take off my shirt and rip it into four pieces, which I twist into coiled rags and stuff into the mouths of the bottles. Molly comes through the kitchen, carrying the boy against her chest. Her face is pale and bloodless and when I look at her I see a corpse wrapped in a white sheet, sleeping beneath a window. I wonder how weak she must be. The boy wakes up and turns to look at me, his eyes bright with fever.
It’s okay, I say. It’s okay, Sam.
Molly takes him outside and I empty the rest of the gasoline in the kitchen, the hallway. I run through the living room and dining room splashing gasoline behind me and I remember Molly’s monologue about families and the way they smell of furniture polish and dead flowers, of shampoo and dirty boots. They smell of ashtrays and garlic and spilled gin and gasoline.
Blackbirds slash the air around me. Molly walks up the long driveway with Sam in her arms. He weighs not quite fifty pounds but make no mistake, the boy is heavy, so heavy. One small child is enough to crush you. I stand maybe ninety feet from the house, the Molotov cocktails at my feet. I watch Molly and Sam until I’m satisfied they’re safely away, then pick up the first bottle. I light the rag and let it burn a moment, then heave it through the living room window with a shocking crash of fire and light. I pick up another bottle, grinning like a fool. I light the rag and hurl the second bottle at the kitchen window. There is a gorgeous little explosion this time, showering me with glass.
I am sorry about the reptiles. They didn’t ask for this. But they have been prepared for the apocalypse since the beginning of time. I throw the third bottle at what I think is the library, the last at an upstairs bathroom window, and already I hear the sirens. Impossible, I think. No one has a response time like that, but maybe we tripped a silent alarm. I turn and see that Molly has nearly made it to the road. The sirens are close and coming closer and I believe old Huck must have gotten his shit together and gone to the cops, or maybe it was the pretty motorcycle girl who turned to smile at me as she passed by with cigarettes that weren’t hers.
Jude waited for Miller to come, I imagine. She tolerated his breath, his crushing weight, to allow us time to get outside. The stink of his skin. Then she cut his throat with my knife when he came and his body was trembling, defenseless. I imagine she cut out his eyes, then took his hair. And I think it’s possible that she gathered her clothes and went out the window, swinging to the ground like a monkey with wings, but maybe not. Maybe she closed her eyes and curled up beside him as the bed filled with his blood, her blood. I see it in a wide, overhead shot.
The sirens are terribly loud and I think of dying angels and now three black and white police cars come down the driveway with blue lights flashing. Molly stops and stands at the mouth of the driveway with the boy in her arms. The first car slides to a stop in a mushroom cloud of dust. Two police officers come out of the white cloud, one male and one female. They are gentle with Molly, as if she might be Sam’s sister, and I am glad for that. I don’t think I could stand it, if they abused Molly. I might just pull the gun and then all would be lost. A third man gets out of the car and for a split second the sun and clouds are perfectly aligned so as to cast him in green shadow and I think this is Death coming for me, but then he steps out of the shadow and I see he’s just a man, a tall blond man with a prosthetic hand.
The cops are coming toward me now with guns held high. They are screaming at me and I don’t understand the words that fly jagged from their lips but they seem to want me to get on the ground. They don’t look like they want to be so gentle with me. I need to stop them from reaching the house too quickly. I need to give Jude a minute to get away, just a minute could save her. I crouch down and gather fine white dust into my hand as the house of Miller burns furiously behind me. I raise my hands above my head to show that I am not armed and still the cops are screaming.
Down, get the fuck down.
I am not armed. I am not armed but I can show you fear in a handful of dust.