Finally, in a garage about a mile from the house, he found a car he could get started, and he drove quickly to Santa Monica to pick up another station wagon. He put a new battery in it, filled its tank with gasoline, put gasoline drums in the back, and drove home. He got back to the house about an hour before sunset.
He made sure of that.
Luckily the generator had not been ruined. The vampires apparently had no idea of its importance to him, for, except for a torn wire and a few cudgel blows, they had left it alone. He’d managed to fix it quickly the morning after the attack and keep his frozen foods from spoiling. He was grateful for that, because he was sure there were no places left where he could get more frozen foods now that electricity was gone from the city.
For the rest of it, he had to straighten up the garage and clean out the debris of broken bulbs, fuses, wiring, plugs, solder, spare motor parts, and a box of seeds he’d put there once; he didn’t remember just when.
The washing machine they had ruined beyond repair, forcing him to replace it. But that wasn’t hard. The worst part was mopping up all the gasoline they’d spilled from the drums. They’d really outdone themselves spilling gasoline, he thought irritably while he mopped it up.
Inside the house, he had repaired the cracked plaster, and as an added fillip he had put up another wall mural to give a different appearance to the room.
He’d almost enjoyed all the work once it was started. It gave him something to lose himself in, something to pour all the energy of his still pulsing fury into. It broke the monotony of his daily tasks: the carrying away of bodies, the repairing of the house’s exterior, the hanging of garlic.
He drank sparingly during those days, managing to pass almost the entire day without a drink, even allowing his evening drinks to assume the function of relaxing night-caps rather than senseless escape. His appetite increased and he gained four pounds and lost a little belly. He even slept nights, a tired sleep without the dreams.
For a day or so he had played with the idea of moving to some lavish hotel suite. But the thought of all the work he’d have to do to make it habitable changed his mind.
No, he was all set in the house.
Now he sat in the living room, listening to Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony and wondering how he was to begin, where he was to begin his investigation.
He knew a few details, but these were only landmarks above the basic earth of cause. The answer lay in something else. Probably in some fact he was aware of but did not adequately appreciate, in some apparent knowledge he had not yet connected with the over-all picture.
But what?
He sat motionless in the chair, a sweat-beaded glass in his right hand, his eyes fastened on the mural.
It was a scene from Canada: deep northern woods, mysterious with green shadows, standing aloof and motionless, heavy with the silence of manless nature. He stared into its soundless green depths and wondered.
Maybe if he went back. Maybe the answer lay in the past, in some obscure crevice of memory. Go back, then, he told his mind, go back.
It tore his heart out to go back.
There had been another dust storm during the night. High, spinning winds had scoured the house with grit, driven it through the cracks, sifted it through plaster pores, and left a hair-thin layer of dust across all the furniture surfaces. Over their bed the dust filtered like fine powder, settling in their hair and on their eyelids and under their nails, clogging their pores.
Half the night he’d lain awake trying to single out the sound of Virginia’s labored breathing. But he couldn’t hear anything above the shrieking, grating sound of the storm. For a while, in the suspension between sleeping and waking, he had suffered the illusion that the house was being sandpapered by giant wheels that held its framework between monstrous abrasive surfaces and made it shudder.
He’d never got used to the dust storms. That hissing sound of whirlwind granulation always set his teeth on edge. The storms had never come regularly enough to allow him to adapt himself to them. Whenever they came, he spent a restless, tossing night, and went to the plant the next day with jaded mind and body.
Now there was Virginia to worry about too.
About four o’clock he awoke from a thin depression of sleep and realized that the storm had ended. The contrast made silence a rushing noise in his ears.
As he raised his body irritably to adjust his twisted pajamas, he noticed that Virginia was awake. She was lying on her back and staring at the ceiling.
“What’s the matter?” he mumbled drowsily.
She didn’t answer.
“Honey?”
Her eyes moved slowly to him.
“Nothing,” she said. “Go to sleep.”
“How do you feel?”
“The same.”
“Oh.”
He lay there for a moment looking at her.
“Well,” he said then and, turning on his side, closed his eyes.
The alarm went off at six-thirty. Usually Virginia pushed in the stop, but when she failed to do so, he reached over her inert body and did it himself. She was still on her back, still staring.
“What is it?” he asked worriedly.
She looked at him and shook her head on the pillow.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just can’t sleep.”
“Why?"
She made an indecisive sound.
“Still feel weak?” he asked.
She tried to sit up but she couldn’t.
“Stay there, hon,” he said. “Don’t move.” He put his hand on her brow. “You haven’t got any fever,” he told her.
“I don’t feel sick,” she said. “Just . . tired.”
“You look pale.”
“I know. I look like a ghost.”
“Don’t get up,” he said.
She was up.
“I’m not going to pamper myself,” she said. “Go ahead, get dressed. I’ll be all right.”
“Don’t get up if you don’t feel good, honey.”
She patted his arm and smiled.
“I’ll be all right,” she said. “You get ready.”
While he shaved he heard the shuffling of her slippers past the bathroom door. He opened the door and watched her crossing the living room very slowly, her wrappered body weaving a little. He went back in the bathroom shaking his head. She should have stayed in bed.
The whole top of the washbasin was grimy with dust. The damn stuff was everywhere. He’d finally been compelled to erect a tent over Kathy’s bed to keep the dust from her face. He’d nailed one edge of a shelter half to the wall next to her bed and let it slope over the bed, the other edge held up by two poles lashed to the side of the bed.
He didn’t get a good shave because there was grit in the shaving soap and he didn’t have time for a second lathering. He washed off his face, got a clean towel from the hall closet, and dried himself.
Before going to the bedroom to get dressed he checked Kathy’s room.
She was still asleep, her small blonde head motionless on the pillow, her cheeks pink with heavy sleep. He ran a finger across the top of the shelter half and drew it away gray with dust. With a disgusted shake of his head he left the room.
“I wish these damn storms would end,” he said as he entered the kitchen ten minutes later. “I’m sure...”
He stopped talking. Usually she was at the stove turning eggs or French toast or pancakes, making coffee. Today she was sitting at the table. On the stove coffee was percolating, but nothing else was cooking.
“Sweetheart, if you don’t feel well, go back to bed,” he told her. “I can fix my own breakfast.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I was just resting. I’m sorry. I’ll get up and fry you some eggs.”
“Stay there,” he said. “I’m not helpless.”
He went to the refrigerator and opened the door.
“I’d like to know what this is going around,” she said. “Half the people on the block have it, and you say that more than half the plant is absent.”
“Maybe it’s some kind of virus,” he said.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Between the storms and the mosquitoes and everyone being sick, life is rapidly becoming a pain,” he said, pouring orange juice out of the bottle. “And speak of the devil.”