'You think you can stop the Epidemic? You want to stop it?' Purslane Dunnstreet asked, sounding dismayed.
'Stop it altogether? The dead just fall down and don't get up again, nobody else rises from the grave, we get around to the long and painful process of rebuilding?' the Civilian asked, looking greedy.
Clark folded his arms behind his back and nodded, just once. This was it. The last best chance for humanity and it could be done in his back yard with a handful of men.
'So you're saying,' Dunnstreet said, very, very slowly, 'that you don't want to participate in the Defense of the Potomac.' She went to her charts. 'I had a company picked out for you, especially, Captain. A company all your own.'
Clark's face fell. After decades of keeping his feelings to himself, this was too much.
'Purslane, I think perhaps we've covered enough for today,' the Civilian said, rising from his chair.
'Captain,' Dunnstreet said, ignoring him. 'I can understand if my battle orders frighten you. I can, truly, I know what it is like to quaver before a grand duty. I hope you will reconsider. Before you leave, though, will you do one thing for me? Will you pray with me for our nation?'
Without taking her eyes off of him she sank to her knees on the floor. She wove her fingers together into a tight, bony ball and looked deep into him with dewy, innocent eyes that sat in that porcelain face like raw oysters on a dish.
'Well, you two?' she asked. The Civilian grumbled and got down on his knees.
FULL UP'NO REFUGEES
No food, no water, no drugs, no money,
NO TRESPASSING NO SOLICITATION
Sorry, we're closed!
[Painted on the front entrance of a DiscountDen superstore in Springfield, MO, 4/11/05]
As she wriggled through the gap below a chainlink fence on the edge of a golf course a sharp point of steel stuck into Nilla's back. She felt her shirt tear, then her flesh. She grimaced'there was little pain, but she knew the wound would look terrible and she needed to pass for human. At the very least she would need a new shirt.
Nothing for it. She squirmed in the dirt and crawled through, onto immaculate bluegrass. She kept low and moved quickly across the green, knowing that if she was caught she would be slaughtered on sight. She was halfway to the clubhouse when a barking dog made her jump in her skin.
'Shut up!' someone yelled. 'Shut up already! What the fuck's the matter with you?' The voice came from just over a low rise in the course. Nilla dropped to the grass on her stomach and stopped breathing. The dog appeared on top of the rise, ears flicked back, nose sniffing at the air. A German shepherd, straining on its leash. She quieted herself as Mael had taught her and banked the fuming darkness of her energy. It was getting so much easier, and she could hold the darkness down for longer and longer periods of time. There. She was invisible. The dog pawed at the ground and whimpered for a moment, then kept right on barking.
Damn. It could smell her. She imagined sinking her teeth into the dog's neck. How good it would feel. The animal's golden life glared in the darkness and she wondered if it was thinking exactly the same thing.
'There's nothing there, facewhore,' the dog's handler said. A teenaged boy in a brown baseball cap and a tan windbreaker. He had his collar up to keep out the night's chill and a lit cigarette dangled from his fingers. 'See? Nothing. Now shut the fuck up!'
The boy yanked at the dog's chain, viciously. The dog howled in pain but at least it stopped barking. Boy and dog both disappeared behind the rise again and Nilla let go of the death grip on her energy, sinking back into visibility.