“That show was kind of funny,” Ellen said, looking up from the puzzle book.
“It was horrendous,” Alan said.
“I thought you just said it was comforting.”
“Yeah, well I misspoke. Sue me.”
“It’s funny.” When Alan didn’t ask what was, Ellen continued, “There’s a clue in this puzzle, ‘ThighMaster mistress from Three’s Company.’ Isn’t that a funny coincidence?”
“Hilarious.”
“Bad moods can be very contagious, especially in close quarters.”
“You saying you want me to leave?”
“No. Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m saying is there anything I can do to alleviate your funk?” Ellen rose from the table and began to undo her blouse, but Alan turned away.
“Not everything can be solved with sex,” he muttered.
“It used to be.”
“There are a lot of used-to-be’s. Used to be Manhattan wasn’t a massive graveyard full of corpses too stupid to stay still. Used to be we could go outside and walk around and not worry about being eaten. Used to be…”
“Okay, fine. I get the picture,” Ellen snapped, refastening her buttons. “Look, I really don’t want to get into a thing, okay? Why don’t you go to your apartment and do some drawing or something? Maybe take a walk.” Alan raised an eyebrow, but before he could say something snide Ellen added, “On the roof. Or the hall. Just go out for a while.”
“I thought this was my apartment now.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Ellen said, and instantly Alan regretted his snippiness.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but Ellen fanned him off, gesturing toward the front door. “Really, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”
On the landing Alan stared at the outside of the closed door. A domestic squabble, he thought. How banal. But not in the least bit comforting. Could Jack maintain his pretense as a preening homosexual, keeping Mr. Roper ever at bay? Could Chrissy wear a top that was even lower cut, but not so low cut the network censors wouldn’t let it air? Could Janet utter some pithy platitude that neatly wrapped up their dilemma with a trite little bow? Could he and Ellen pretend to be a happy couple while all else was unimaginably bleak?
Stay tuned.
Karl sat on his bed in his bare-walled apartment.
Along with all the pinups, gone were the posters of heavy metal demigods. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Since the arrival of Mona he’d reevaluated his secular values and desires and felt nothing but shame. That he’d intended to attempt to bed her was something he’d have to live with in private. Thank God he hadn’t articulated his impure desires to anyone, least of all her. In the passing weeks he’d born witness to her selflessness. And the way she moved unscathed by the ravenous masses outside.
Karl didn’t believe in the Rapture, but he didn’t not believe in it, either. The husks shuffling around outside weren’t “left behind.” At least that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. But maybe they were. The Bible and Bible prophecy were so open to interpretation. He thought if you didn’t get sucked up to Heaven you were to remain on the hellscape that was Earth and live out the remainder of your days, biding time until you went to hell. Where did those things outside fit into God’s plan? Karl remembered some lines from Corinthians. “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” And “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Death’s sting and victory were pretty evident to Karl’s eyes.
If Karl remembered right, at the Battle of Armageddon everyone who wasn’t a believer would be slaughtered. Were those the zombies? That’s a whole lot of unbelievers. Maybe those things outside were the husks of the righteous who’d ascended to Heaven, sort of the ultimate in recycling. Their earthly bodies no longer needed, they now were used to punish the remaining infidels-like him and his neighbors. Supposedly, after the Battle of Armageddon, Satan would be defeated and Jesus would set up the Millennial Kingdom in Jerusalem. Karl’s posture slumped. It sounded so gaga, but then again, look out the window. People eating people-or at least things that used to be people eating people.
People. People who eat people,
Are the yuckiest people in the world.…
People used to whine about their bad luck or what a cruddy day they’d had. Sometimes people would try to equate a lousy day at work with the calamities of Job. A mean boss was hardly comparable. Your job sucked, but being Job sucked worse, yet he still loved God. So maybe this was the Tribulation. In which case, Karl hadn’t seen the light until it was too late. He wondered if it was too late. It definitely was for those brainless pods outside, but Karl could still fill his heart with love for God. God was supposed to be merciful, though the physical evidence seemed contradictory to that thesis.
Karl’s feelings about Big Manfred had altered, too.
Honor thy father and thy mother. Though Manfred Stempler had been a stern and brutish presence, perhaps Karl hadn’t understood that he’d been so to fashion his sons into better adults. Karl wished he had a Bible, but he didn’t and was too embarrassed to ask around. Besides, the others were likely heathens. Alan kept only escapist fiction and was an avowed atheist. Ellen, who could tell? Probably agnostic at best. The Fogelhuts, Jews, which was perfectly all right. Jews, Big Manfred had said, were merely unperfected Christians. Eddie and Dave? Sodomites. Maybe Dabney was different, but surely not the others. Perhaps he could ask Mona to obtain a Bible for him on one of her sojourns among the unclean. If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition.
Karl was mighty confused. Mona could walk among the undead. Wasn’t that a Bible-style miracle? Was she an emissary of God? Her perpetual serenity seemed to denote some sublime characteristic. Was she imbued with the Holy Spirit? Karl heard her tunes, though. She listened to Evanescence; he heard it with his own ears. They were a Christian band, right? Or were they kind of wishy-washy about it? Maybe they were just spiritual. At any rate, he’d heard her listening to Black Sabbath, too, so what did that mean? What did any of it mean?
“Are you there, God? It’s me, Karl.” He made a face. Was it blasphemous to paraphrase Judy Blume in a time of spiritual crisis? “Anyway, forgive me for this inferior supplication, but I’m a little out of practice. Scratch that. I’m a lot out of practice. I’m so confused and everything. I’ve never stopped believing in You, but there’s so much I don’t understand, nor do I think I’ll ever understand it. Forsooth. I’m sorry. I’m trying to be fancy. That’s false. But my entreaty is for real. Sorry, I won’t try to talk all grandiose and whatnot. Ugh, this isn’t coming out right at all. Listen, I know I’ve thought many impure thoughts, but I cleansed my chambers, okay?” His mind flashed to Lourdes Ann Kananimanu Estores-Miss June 1982-secreted in his dresser drawer. His emergency stash. “I don’t want to cast out Lourdes Ann. Please. There has to be some beauty in my existence. I haven’t masturbated in weeks. Doesn’t chastity count for something? I don’t mean to wheedle. You wouldn’t have created perfection such as Lourdes Ann if it wasn’t to be admired, right?”
Karl stared up at his ceiling, noting a long crack that ran diagonally from one corner to the other, bisecting the expanse of whitewashed plaster. Just the mention of Miss June 1982 flooded impure thoughts into his head. No, no. Fight them. Fight the urge. But why bother? I’m doomed anyway, aren’t I?
Karl thought about those Left Behind books and the righ teous so-and-sos who’d created them, particularly the really creepy older one, Tim LaHaye, which sounded like LaVey, as in Anton LaVey-two sides of the same coin. When Karl had first come to New York he thought Anton LaVey seemed cool. He had the perfect look, that cue ball head and pointy beard. High Priest of the Church of Satan and the author of the Satanic Bible. Cool. But maybe not. But still, cooler than Tim LaHaye. That guy had helped Reagan into his governorship, then the presidency. He even looked like Reagan. Was that some kind of extroverted narcissism? Wasn’t that a sin? One reason Karl had turned his back on the church was that its loudest and most passionate proponents all seemed so corrupt, bullying, and insane. The clergy, the evangelists, the propagandists; none seemed all that holy.