The man and dog were to be found in none of those places, and in fact she encountered no one else, either. Into the shifting curtains of mist, she called out, “Hello” and “You, sir, with the beautiful dog,” but no one replied.
The canyon was deep, and the fog appeared to condense in its depths, so that she could not see the bottom or even a significant distance down the slope. The abyss was rugged, and the way eventually grew steep, a kingdom of snakes and bobcats and coyotes into which no sensible person would venture blindly.
In that eeriness of fog-bearded trees and deserted gazebos and abandoned playground equipment, Bibi began to feel that she was being watched. Not only watched, but also manipulated, drawn forward. She was alone, far from the Honda. Although she had the pistol in her shoulder rig, she no longer felt safe.
As she headed back toward the street, a chill like the tip of an icy finger traced her spine from the small of her back to the nape of her neck. She broke into a run, certain that someone or something must be on her heels. When she cleared the opening in the low stone wall and saw Pogo’s aged Honda, she halted and pivoted, tensed for a confrontation. No one pursued her.
She’d always before been able to trust her intuition. Maybe that was another difference about this new reality, this world-gone-mad.
No sooner had this thought troubled her than she was given good reason to trust herself once more. Deep in the park, near the limits of visibility that the fog imposed, the man in the hoodie manifested out of the cold white blear, the leashed dog slightly ahead of him. They faded away and, after several seconds, returned to existence, strolling leisurely among the pepper trees.
The dog-walker had to have heard her seeking him. She almost called out again, but restrained the impulse. Even if this was the man at the hospital, she suddenly knew—without understanding from where this perception came—knew in mind and heart, in blood and bones, that by coming face-to-face with this man in the pepper woods, she would be destroyed. He might not be her enemy, but in some way he was nevertheless a threat to her. An existential dread overcame Bibi, so that she could not for a moment draw breath. Then she got into the car, shut the door, and drove away from there with no destination in mind, drove until she felt…not safe, but safer.
In rebellion against the claustrophobic fog, which had begun to cloud her thoughts almost as effectively as it shrouded the seaside communities, Bibi drove north to Newport Coast Drive and a couple of miles inland to a shopping center bathed in sunshine. She parked in a quiet corner of the lot, in the feathery shade of nonbearing olive trees, as far as possible from the busy Pavilions market.
If Chubb Coy and the dead professor had known what car Bibi was driving, they might have shared that information with others, and she might soon need new transportation. Lacking a GPS, the Honda could not be easily tracked wherever it went. Her enemies would have to be lucky to spot it in the hustle-bustle of Orange County’s millions, but they seemed to have a lot of luck.
According to Coy, arrayed against her were not merely Terezin and his large cult; there were other “factions.” She didn’t know what to make of that information. Only a day ago, had anyone babbled about a secret occult-powered fascist conspiracy, Bibi would have regarded them as citizens of Cuckoo City. Now she was being asked to fold into that idea the existence of other conspirators with different goals; Chubb Coy was adamantly not a fascist. Could it really be true that, per Shakespeare, our world in all its complexity was a stage and all its people merely players, and at the same time, per H. P. Lovecraft, that below the main stage were unknown others on which different dramas played out, secretly affecting the lives of everyone upstairs?
She didn’t want to believe that. Life was tenuous enough without having to worry about what trolls and molochs might be scheming in the basement. Yet it seemed that, to find Ashley Bell and to hope to survive the search, she needed to proceed as if this paranoid vision of the world was indisputable.
Indeed, as she watched people coming and going from Pavilions and the other stores, she quickly realized that she could adapt to this new “reality” more easily than her parents ever would. Their surrender to fate—it’ll be what it’ll be—encouraged no serious pondering of cause and effect; by laying everything at the doorstep of fate, you were reducing the intellect from the status of a world-changing tool to that of a toy with which to invent amusements that would soften the world’s sharp edges. Bibi liked the sharp edges. They kept her alert. They made her think harder. They added interest to life.