Nor was it the only one. Glistening forms uncoiled in the corners of the little room, all lengths of featureless muscle, malice in their every squirming motion. Two emerged from behind their maker. Another was climbing up the counter to the right of Hotchkiss, and wriggling towards him. In order to avoid it, he took a backward step, and realized too late that the maneuver had put him within reach of another of the beasts. It was at his leg in two beats, ascending it in three. He dropped Armageddon a second time and reached down to strike at the thing, but its gaping mouth struck first, the twin motions throwing him off balance. He staggered back against a shelf of cages, his flailing arms bringing several of them down. A second snatch, this time at the shelf itself, was just as fruitless. Built only to bear kittens and their cages, it gave way beneath his weight, and he fell to the ground, the shelf and its load coming down after him. Had it not been for the cages he might have been slaughtered on the spot, but they delayed the Lix converging on him from front door and back. He was granted ten seconds' reprieve while they tried to worm their way between the cages, during which he managed to roll over and prepare to get to his feet, but the creature fixed to his leg brought such hope to an end, its jaws sinking into the flesh of his hip. The pain took his sight for a moment, and when it returned the other beasts had found their way to him. He felt one of them at the back of his neck; another wrapped itself around his torso. He started to yell for help, before the breath was squeezed out of him.
"There's only me," came the reply.
He gazed up at the man called Raul who was no longer squatting in ordure, but standing over him—still hard, still swarming—one of the Lix draped around his neck. He had the first two fingers of his hand in its open mouth, stroking the back of its throat.
"You're not Raul," Hotchkiss gasped.
"No."
"Who...?"
The last word he heard before the Lix wound around his chest tightened its knot, was the answer to that question. A name, made up of two gentle syllables. Kiss and soon. It was these words he thought of at the last, like a prophecy. Kiss; soon. Carolyn, waiting on the other side of death, lips ready to press to his cheek. It made his last moments bearable, after all the horrors.
"I think what we've got here is a lost cause," Tesla said to Grillo as she emerged from the house.
She was shaking from head to foot, hour upon hour of exertion and hurt taking its toll. She longed to sleep, but she had a terror that if she did she'd have the dream Witt had had the night before: the visit to Quiddity that meant dying was very close. Maybe it was, but she didn't want to know about it.
Grillo took hold of her arm, but she waved him away.
"You can't hold me up any more than I can hold you—"
"What's happening in there?"
"The hole's started to open again. It's like a dam's going to burst."
"Shit."
The entire house was creaking now; the palms lining the driveway were shaking down dead fronds as they rocked, the driveway cracking as though it was sledge-hammered from below.
"I should warn the cops," Grillo said. "Tell them what's coming."
"I think we lost this one, Grillo. Do you know what happened to Hotchkiss?"
"No."
"I hope he gets out before they come through."
"He won't."
"He should. No town's worth dying for."
"I think it's time I made my call, don't you?"
"What call?" she said.
"To Abernethy? Break the bad news."
Tesla made a small sigh. "Yeah, why don't you? The Last Scoop."
"I'll be back," he said. "Don't think you're getting out of here alone, you're not. We're going together."
"I'm not leaving."
He got into the car not really aware until he tried to align his hand with the ignition key just how violent the shaking in the ground had become. When he finally succeeded in getting the car started, and backed it down the driveway to the gate, he found any warning to the cops was redundant. The bulk of them had withdrawn a good distance down the Hill, leaving a single vehicle just outside the gates, with two men posted as observers. They paid little notice to Grillo. Their twin concerns—one professional, one personal—were watching the house, and preparing for a rapid retreat if the fissures spread in their direction. Grillo drove on past them, and down the Hill. There was a half-hearted attempt by one of the officers lower down the slope to halt him, but he simply drove on by, heading to the Mall. There he'd hope to find a public telephone in which to make his call to Abernethy. There too he'd find Hotchkiss, and warn him, if he didn't already know, that the game was up. As he negotiated the rat maze of streets blocked or plowed up or turned into chasms, he experimented with headlines for this last report. The End of the World Is Nigh was so commonplace. He didn't want to be just another in a long line of prophets promising the Apocalypse, even if this time (finally) it was true. As he turned into the Mall, just before his eyes alighted on the animal jamboree going on there, he had an inspiration. It was Buddy Vance's collection that brought it to mind. Though he suspected he'd have a hard time selling the idea to Abernethy he knew there was no more appropriate headline for this story than The Ride Is Over. The species had enjoyed its adventure, but it was coming to an end.
He stopped the car at the entrance to the lot, and stepped out to survey the bizarre spectacle of animal playtime. A smile came to his lips, despite himself. What bliss they knew, knowing nothing: playing in the sun without the least suspicion of how short their span was. He crossed the lot to the book store but Hotchkiss wasn't there. The stock was scattered over the floor, evidence of a search that had presumably ended in failure. He headed along to the pet store, in hope of finding some human company, and a phone. There was a din of birds from inside: the store's last captives. If he had time he'd set them free himself. No reason why they shouldn't get a glimpse of the sun.
"Anyone home?" he said, putting his head around the door.
A gecko ran out between his legs. He watched it go, the same inquiry on his tongue. It went unsaid. The gecko had run through blood on its way out the door; blood smeared and spattered everywhere he looked. He saw Elizando's body first, then the companion corpse, half buried beneath cages.
"Hotchkiss?" he said.
He began to haul the cages off the body. There was more than a smell of blood in the air, there was the stench of shit too. It came off on his hands, but he kept up his labors until he'd seen enough of Hotchkiss to be certain he was dead. Uncovering his head confirmed that fact. The skull had been crushed to smithereens, shards of bone sticking up like broken crockery from the mush of his mind and senses. No animal housed in a store this size could have committed such violence; nor was it easy to see what weapon might have caused it. He didn't linger to ponder the problem, not with the very real possibility that those responsible were still in the vicinity. He scanned the floor, looking for some weapon. A leash, a studded collar, anything to ward off the slaughter. His search took him to a book, dropped on the floor a little way from Hotchkiss's body.
He read the title aloud:
"Preparing for Armageddon?"