"I’m sorry, Frank Sonderberg. Right now I’m the only reality you have left."
"Yeah, I guessed." At that instant he understood everything better than at any moment since they’d left Barstow. Small comfort at best. "Let’s go."
"No, Daddy." Wendy took a step away from him.
"Honey, we have to. We’ve come too far to stop here. Don’t you see? We don’t have any choice in the matter. Probably haven’t had for some time. Besides," he finished quietly, "if we don’t go with Mouse I have this powerful feeling we’ll never have a chance of seeing your brother again."
"What makes you think we have any chance anyway?" she replied bitterly.
"Because I believe we do. I believe it because I have to."
Mouse was smiling that thin, enigmatic smile he found so maddening. "I knew you were the right one when you stopped for me, Frank Sonderberg."
He whirled to face her. "How about you shut up for a while?" His anger surprised him. Since he had the strength in him, he took the opportunity to rail at God, the fates, and whatever other agency might have played a part in the disintegration of his pleasant, contented life. What he really wanted to do was fight back, but in this war there was nothing to strike out against except the shapeless, ill-defined nemesis Mouse called the Anarchis.
That didn’t prevent him from cursing the Cosmos, which he proceeded to do loudly and fluently. When he was finished he gave his wife a hand up from the table.
"We’re stuck, sweetheart. We can’t go back and we can’t stay here, so we have to go on. So we might as well give it our best shot. Whaddaya say?"
Her smile was full of love. "That’s how we’ve always lived, Frank. I guess I’m too set in my ways to change now even if I want to."
"That’s my gal." He kissed her lightly, then turned to Burnfingers. "I think we’re ready."
"I know it is so, my friend. Now, everyone grab something useful. Knives, cleavers, food, bottled water, juice — anything we might need."
They loaded themselves down, filling pockets with food and medicine, arming themselves with makeshift weapons. Mouse carried more than her share, but she was so full of surprises Frank didn’t even blink at the size of the sack she slung over her shoulder.
As they assembled supplies in the front hall, preparatory to making a dash for the motor home, Frank saw Burnfingers emerge from the garage carrying a double armful of unexpected devices. He nodded in their direction as the Indian began shoving them in an empty suitcase.
"What are you gonna do with all that stuff?" The small propane torch made some sense: what they couldn’t cut or stab or shoot they might be able to burn. But the rest struck him as peculiarly useless.
"You will see. At least, I hope you will have the chance to see."
Frank considered, trying to look past the present moment at something else. "You know, we sell a lot of hobby stuff in our stores." He nodded at Burnfingers’s package. "Steven used that for a little while, then got bored. Funny it should be lying around. I wonder how much of what’s happened here lately is coincidence and how much of it something else. That Mouse — I get the feeling she can do a few tricks with the threads of reality herself."
Everyone assembled in the front hall, loaded down with bags and suitcases. Flucca insisted on being first out the door. "If they aim for your heads, they’ll miss mine. Besides, I’m used to working with vegetables." Alicia’s biggest cleaver dangled from his right hand as he turned.
Burnfingers stood ready to back him up as he flung the door wide and the little man dashed outside, weapon held high. He didn’t have to use it. The plants' blind fury had burned itself out.
The front walkway was littered with debris. It looked like the aftermath of a hurricane. Branches and leaves were scattered everywhere, a fine carpet of brown-green, which was just beginning to decay. Only a few growths remained standing. All were broken and torn, ripped to pieces by their neighbors. A few of the smaller plants, which had been ignored in the greater carnage, reached weakly for the refugees, but their roots and leaves were too short to span the walkway pavement. Flucca and Frank cut them to bits anyway, glad of a chance to strike back at something.
Taking the suitcases and heavy bags from the women, Burnfingers tossed them through the motor home’s open door, then helped them inside. A shadow the size of a 727 passed overhead, but when Frank tilted back his head and shaded his eyes he saw nothing. He wasn’t disappointed. Whatever it had been might be coming back, and he was relieved when it was his turn to enter.
"Sure you feel well enough to drive?" Burnfingers asked him as Frank settled himself behind the wheel.
"You kiddin'? I’m looking forward to it."
They took their seats and he headed for the gate, not bothering to close it behind them as they barreled through. Whether this was or wasn’t their own reality, he doubted they’d be coming back.
He slowed as they approached the first intersection. All the streets were carpeted with shredded vegetation. The remaining stripped growth stood motionless as the dead all around them, having spent their energy in that earlier hour of cannibalistic fury. Only a few of the taller trees that lined the streets jerked spasmodically. None reached for the motor home. Not another vehicle appeared as they sat idling behind the stop sign.
"Which way?" He looked back over his shoulder.
Mouse stood by a closet, eyes closed tight. Either she was thinking hard, or else inspecting something none of them could see. Then her eyes snapped open and she looked to her right.
"That way?" Frank sounded dubious. "That way’s down. Nothing there anymore except ocean." Come to think of it, he reminded himself, there was nothing in any direction except ocean. He shrugged and pulled on the wheel, putting the motor home on the drive that wound like wire around the ragged edge of the Peninsula.
Soon the ocean came into view. Catalina was still gone and there were more waterspouts and whirlpools than before. Immense brown-red shapes the size of small ships battled in the raging water. Behind them, the sun was setting. Even it was different: a swollen, unhealthy-looking yellow globe. Frank was sure he could make out individual solar prominences flaring hellishly from the edge of the bloated disk. Was it an optical illusion or had it really grown? Would it go nova on this reality line while they were still driving in circles? He fancied he could see dark sunspots crawling across the nuclear surface, forced himself to turn back to the leaf-and branch-paved road.
The coast drive descended sharply toward a small suburb called Hollywood Riviera. Redondo Beach was the first major community up the coast.
Except Redondo Beach wasn’t there anymore. There was only the agitated green sea, which stretched as far north as the Hollywood Hills. A few taller structures still thrust their uppermost floors above the waves, now that the rate of subsidence seemed to have slowed. East and north, the towers of Wilshire Boulevard rose above the water like a line of violets. He applied the brake.
"What now?"
Mouse nodded calmly. "This is the right path. Continue."
"But we can’t," Alicia pointed out. "The road goes under the water."
The other woman smiled at her. "Reality is what you make of it. Keep going, Frank. I’ll tell you when to stop or turn."
So this was it, he told himself tiredly. They could turn back to the empty house in the devastated neighborhood and wait for the ballooning sun to fry them, or he could listen to Mouse. Tiny, elfin-faced, beautiful, enigmatic, irresistible Mouse. She’d followed as often as she’d led, these past crazy days. Now she was telling him to do the impossible.