"And what's he thinking with?” said Apollo.
Hermes tipped his head toward his belt.
"So—the usual,” Zeus said.
* * * *
"No thought without you in it,” Atalanta read. “No dream that isn't you."
"That's so romantic,” said Aphrodite.
"It's scary,” said Atalanta.
"It's charming,” said Aphrodite.
"It's obsessive,” said Atalanta.
"Shut up,” said Artemis and Athena together.
"—cow does tri-tip come from?” finished the Sphinx.
"What?” said Athena.
"Wait, I know this, it's the saddle,” Artemis said. “I mean, if it's the same as venison."
"Is it the same as venison?” said Athena.
"Probably. Why wouldn't it be?"
"Well, if that's all we've got....” Athena wrote SADDLE on the white board.
The Sphinx called time and the teams lifted their boards.
"Dammit,” said Artemis. “Sirloin. That's what I meant."
"What's that on the Sumerian board, under the answer?” said Aphrodite.
"It's a diagram of a cow,” said Athena, “with a little star where tri-tip comes from."
"No way,” said Artemis.
"Were we supposed to do that?” said Aphrodite.
"No,” said Athena. “They're just showing off. They've been illustrating their answers since the beginning. They drew a pretty good Ben Franklin in Round Four."
"Unbelievable,” grumbled Artemis.
"—and now,” said the Sphinx. “with the scores tallied I'm happy to announce the winners of Seventeenth Millennial Interpantheonic Trivia Bee ... for the fourth time running, the Eye of the Tigris!"
"Dammit, dammit, dammit,” said Artemis. “Dammit. I thought we had them this year. That's it, I need to go hunt something. You'd better come with me,” she said, nudging Athena. “Nobody needs a pissy war goddess on the loose."
"I am not,” Athena flashed, “pissy."
"Whatever,” said Artemis. “A little sylvan slaughter will do you good. Let's go shoot something in the sirloin.” She waved goodbye to Atalanta and whispered to Athena, “Next time we're bringing Medea. I don't care how creepy she is."
Atalanta waved back, then stooped to gather the three golden apples in her arms.
"What are you going to do with those?” Aphrodite said.
"Give them back,” Atalanta called over her shoulder as she stalked off through the dispersing crowd.
Hermes appeared at Aphrodite's side. “Well,” he said, “the kid's on his own now. Do you think he can pull it off?"
Aphrodite stared after Atalanta's determined stomp. “She's going to make applesauce out of him."
"Wanna watch?"
"No.” Aphrodite said, turning away. “You know how I hate to lose."
* * * *
"I think these belong to you.” Atalanta thrust the apples at Hippomenes, who was a bit more clearheaded now.
"No,” he said, pushing the apples back, “they really don't."
"Well, they don't belong to me, either."
"They're in your hands. That means they're yours."
"Take them,” said Atalanta.
"No."
Atalanta knelt down and began to place the apples carefully on the ground. Hippomenes took the fact that she didn't just drop them as an encouraging sign.
"That won't make any difference,” he said. “Even walking away won't make any difference. They're yours. They'll always be yours."
Atalanta stood up, one apple still in her hand. She stared at him, her expression incomprehensible to Hippomenes, a man unacquainted with the more extreme forms of female anger.
Atalanta drew back her arm and hurled the apple at him.
The golden apple shattered against Hippomenes’ chest, vanishing into a gust that drove the breath into him. He shot the breath back out, letting it carry the only thing he wanted to say.
"I love you,” he said.
"You don't even know me."
"Yes, I do."
"Prove it,” she said.
She realized his intention too late, and when she lunged for the flickering apple she clasped his hand instead. She held on for a moment, the apple in his hand, his hand in hers. He smiled. She jerked away, arms wrapped around her head as she ran.
Hippomenes lobbed the golden apple. It followed Atalanta's darting path until it hit the crown of her head and disappeared in a cascade of sparks. She would have cursed, but was overwhelmed by the sensation of knowing clearly and precisely what another person thought of her.
"Wow,” she said, staring into space.
"Oh, no,” said Hippomenes as he ran to Atalanta. “Are you okay?” He held her shoulders, frightened at her dazed look. “Oh. Oh no. That didn't turn you into me, did it? No. No no no no, that would be bad. I don't want that. I just wanted you to know what I thought. Atalanta?” He shook her. “Atalanta?"
She looked up at him, eyes focused at last and expression distinctly hers.
"You really think my front teeth are a little crooked?” she asked.
"That's what you take away?” Hippomenes said in disbelief. “You get the sum of my thoughts about you and that's the one you take away?"
"I like that one. It makes you seem less, I don't know, crazy. Like you still have some sense of perspective."
"Well, yeah, your teeth are a little crooked. And, you know, you're not exactly graceful. And frankly I think your left br—"
"Yeah, okay, I got it."
"Sorry,” he said.
"And you really think this could be a terrible mistake but you want to do it anyway?"
"Well, yeah,” Hippomenes said. “But anything could be a terrible mistake."
They stood over the last apple in silence, watching it pulse.
"What are we going to do with this?” Atalanta finally said.
Hippomenes didn't answer. Atalanta picked the apple up. She stared at it.
"It's very pretty,” she said. “Beautiful, really."
"Thank you,” he said.
She stepped toward him, apple resting upright in her palm. She held it out, just inches from his chest.
"It's probably safer in there,” she said.
"Probably,” he said.
Atalanta didn't know if Hippomenes was reaching for her or for the apple, but in the end her arms were tight around him, the rosy golden apple crushed into nothing between them.
When she kissed him he tasted tart, and sweet, a welcome crisp autumn after a long summer, and the slight metallic tang of heart's blood was easy to ignore.
And if afterward his heartbeat had the faintest echo, she never noticed. It was too close to her own.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack In the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers by John Langan
John Langan's past contributions—including “Mr. Gaunt,” “On Skua Island,” and “Tutorial"—are due to be published in a story collection next year. His new story is a grim and hard-hitting tale that would probably get an “R” rating from the late Jack Valenti and his MPAA board. It probably says just enough about this story to mention that it will be reprinted next year in Wastelands: Stories of Life After Apocalypse, which is edited by our own Assistant Editor, John Joseph Adams.
"There's a whole lot of hate left on this world, Spiderman."—Samuel R. Delany, The Einstein Intersection
"Come On Down, Make the Stand."—The Alarm, “The Stand"
AFTER three days and nights on the run—
—during which they slept in thirty-, sixty-, and ninety-minute snatches, in the backs of large cars and SUVs, in a hotel lobby, in a sporting goods store at one end of a mall—
—they managed to pull ahead of the Pack—
—who had been too close from the start and drawn closer than that, despite Wayne's traps, all of which were clever and a few ingenious and the least of which thinned the Pack by two or three; until Wayne succeeded in
luring them onto the walkway between the foodcourt and the mall's front entrance, where he detonated something that not only dropped the floor out from beneath the Pack, but brought the roof down, too, raining shards of glass like so many economy-sized guillotines—Jackie had wanted to stay and finish the survivors, but Wayne had declared it was still too dangerous and hauled her out the door—
—cross the Bridge—
—too congested with cars for them to take the Jeep Cherokee Wayne had navigated up the surprisingly empty stretch of Route 9 between the mall and the Mid-Hudson Bridge, which had made them debate the pros and cons of continuing north along this side of the Hudson until they reached the next bridge, which might be clear or might not (for once, Wayne couldn't make up his mind), until Jackie insisted they might as well cross here as cross anywhere: there would be plenty of cars on the other side, and if they didn't do something, they were going to squander their lead and face the Pack on their terms (which, aside from that first, terrible introduction, they'd succeeded in avoiding)—so they abandoned the Jeep, shouldered the backpacks, heavy as ever (so much for having rested), and (the Bridge shifting underfoot in the wind that hummed through its cables like a choir warming up) wound their way through a labyrinth of vehicles jammed, it seemed, into every possible configuration , their interiors choked with the oversized, thick-stemmed purple flowers Jackie and Wayne had found inside the vast majority of vehicles they'd encountered thus far, wound around steering wheels, gearshifts, and pedals (the windows talced with violet pollen), which made operating the cars a problem they had neither tools or time to solve—there was a pickup whose cab was empty, but it was boxed against the railing by a trio of smaller cars, as if they'd brought it to bay there—
—set up camp on the other shore—
—on a ledge overlooking the spot where the Bridge slotted into the steep hills on the western shore of the Hudson—Wayne had noticed the shelf of rock as they followed the road up and to the right, past another cluster of cars full of purple flowers, pointing it out to Jackie—when they reached a place where the ledge was accessible from the road, up a steep path blocked by a gate Wayne was certain he could open, he had steered them toward it (even though Jackie's legs trembled at the prospect of more and harder climbing), urging her on, murmuring encouragements, praise, until they had gained the top of the path and Wayne had sprung the lock on the gate, let them through, and snapped the lock closed again behind them—Jackie had followed him as he picked his way across the rocks littering the shelf; no more than fifteen feet at its widest, she guestimated; the Bridge returning to view, and then Wayne had held up his hand as if he were some kind of native guide signaling the rest of the safari and said that this would do—
—and were preparing an ambush—
—Wayne starting back along the ledge almost as soon as they'd shucked their backpacks, taking with him only the bulky black canvas bag that Jackie thought of sometimes as his bag of tricks and sometimes as his utility belt, and one of the pistols, leaving the other guns with her: the rifle whose name she couldn't remember but which Wayne had been very excited to find in the sporting goods store, and the two remaining pistols, one of which had come from Wayne's father's safe, the other from an empty police cruiser—"You don't have to cover me,” he'd said, “but pay attention,” and she had, sitting with her bag propped against the backpacks, the rifle resting against the dome of her belly, as Wayne retraced their route down the hill to the Bridge and then out onto it, to set up some trap that had occurred to him, maybe two if there were time, till he was lost to view, obscured by the lean of the hill opposite her.
Jackie—
—Jacqueline Marie DiSalvo: twenty years old; five foot six, tall as her (most likely dead) father; she didn't know how many pounds anymore, since stepping on scales hadn't been at the top of her list of priorities for some time, now; her hair dark brown, long enough not to look short; her eyes brown, as well; her features carefully proportioned, (once, her [dead] father had described them to her as prim, which she hadn't been sure how to take); her skin less tanned than she would have expected, considering all the time they'd spent outdoors this past month: much of it at night, true, and there had been almost a solid week of rain in the middle of it, but still; wearing an extra-large men's white cotton T-shirt, gray sweatpants, white cotton athletic socks, and knock-off Birkenstocks that were comfortable but growing too tight: again, shoe shopping not a priority when you were running (or waddling, in her case) for your life—five weeks ago, she had been thirty-five days less pregnant, six and a half instead of nearly eight months “along” (her [most likely dead] doctor's favorite euphemism for pregnancy, as if carrying a child were an exotic vacation): a difference that meant, practically speaking, a smaller stomach, smaller breasts, smaller everything; smaller her, who didn't tire quite so quickly; who didn't feel so out of breath all the time; who didn't sleep well but better than lately, when comfort had taken the last train out; who didn't need to stop to pee all the time, while Wayne stood guard, his gun out, his eyes sweeping whatever landscape they were in for the inevitable (re)appearance of the Pack—
—sat waiting for Wayne—
—Wayne Anthony Miller: twenty years old, two days younger than Jackie, in fact: she born on the third of July, he the fifth; six foot three; maybe one hundred and seventy pounds, not yet grown out of adolescent gangliness (his [most likely dead] mother's term, which he'd overheard her use at a New Year's party and which he'd confessed to Jackie left him feeling betrayed in some fundamental way); his hands and feet large, hung from long, skinny arms and legs that attached to a long, skinny torso; his hair grown long, a light brown that had been blond until his teens, framing a broad, square face with a small nose, narrow eyes, and generous mouth; he was wearing the same pair of jeans that had seen him through the last month, and which were little worse for wear (what an ad campaign: “Levi's: We'll Get You Through the End of Civilization: Rated Number One in Post-Apocalyptic Scenarios"), with a red plaid shirt open over a gray T-shirt emblazoned with Batman's black bat emblem, and Doc Martens—five weeks ago, he had been working at the Barnes and Noble just south of the Bridge on the other side of the river and spending more of each paycheck than he should have at the comic book store in the plaza, there; his Associates Degree in Liberal Arts from Dutchess County Community College completed the previous semester; his future, which revolved around dreams of writing one of the Batman titles, still, as he liked to put it, a work in progress (this back when the future had extended further forward than the next twelve hours, and been somewhat more complex, yet also somewhat simpler, than trying to locate food and defensible shelter).
The sun was hot—
—roasting was a better word for it; although there was a substantial breeze blowing up from the river—Jackie supposed that the exposed rock around her, a grayish, sharp stuff that she should have been able to name but whose identity apparently lay in that part of her memory marked, “No Longer Useful,” amplified the heat, which wasn't completely oppressive (soon, it would be, she would be panting like a dog with it, most likely feel the urge to strip down to her underwear, but for the moment it radiated through her pleasantly).
Later—
—the better part of two hours; what had he been doing out there?—
—Wayne returned—
—waving to her as he walked off the Bridge; she waved back—
—long enough to pick up some rope—
—digging it out of his backpack, a hefty coil that looked like something a mountain climber might use and that he had been happy to find in a hardware store two weeks ago, which Jackie hadn't understood, since the rope looked pretty heavy and she didn't see the point in either of them taking on any more weight than was absolutely necessary—already, Wayne was carrying more than his fair share to compensate for her; she didn't want him exhausting himself because of an inability to pass on everything that might prove useful someday—she hadn't said anything out loud, though, and the additi
on of the rope seemed to have made no significant difference to him—
—and return to the Bridge—
—where he strung the rope across the road, running it back and forth and back and forth between a pair of the Bridge's support cables, weaving a kind of improvised web that Jackie thought would slow down the weakest members of the Pack for about half a second, and that the leader and its (hers? his?) companions would be through in no time at all.
When he was done with his final trap—
—which didn't look any more impressive once it was finished than it had when Jackie had realized what it was; although there was more of it than she had expected, a dozen, maybe fifteen strands that Wayne had layered according to a design she couldn't discern, so that some strands ran a foot or more behind the others—she hadn't exactly dozed while he'd constructed it: she'd kept her eyes open throughout the process, but her mind had wandered, as it had so often in the last day and a half, to the baby, which had gone from what she referred to as its daily calisthenics to complete stillness, not moving at all that she could feel (and, at this stage, she could feel a lot) for roughly thirty-six hours, now, which might have been entirely normal for all she knew: there was a rather dramatic lack of obstetricians in these parts (ha ha) and while Wayne knew a surprising amount about all sorts of things, his expertise tended toward the ultraviolent and not so much the whole miracle-of-life end of the spectrum—the best he could do was hear her concerns, shrug, and tell her not to worry about it, advice she'd already given herself and that was growing impossible to follow—she could feel panic gathering inside her, coalescing into a storm that would wash her away in a torrent of tears and screaming, because the child inside her was dead, she was carrying a dead baby—all right, to be honest, her mind hadn't wandered so much as gone directly to her anxiety and watched it growing—the point was, she wasn't sure if Wayne had rigged his web with any of the explosives (proper and improvised) that stuffed his bag of tricks, or if he had other plans for his oversized Cat's Cradle—
—he came back—
—and a good thing, too, because the sun had dipped behind the hill to her back, and though the sky overhead was still blue, it was that darker blue that would spend the next couple of hours shading steadily darker, into that indigo that a month of looking up at the night sky had shown her was the actual color against which the stars shone, and while the Pack had more than proved their ability to appear at any time of day, there was no doubting they preferred to move after the sun was down, and although Jackie had trained with the pistols, had opened up on one of the Pack at terrifyingly close range (it had scampered off, unhurt), she'd had a single lesson with the rifle (whose name was on the tip of her mind) with it unloaded, and had no faith in her ability to get off more than a single shot, if that, which was not saying anything about her ability to kill or even hit her target, so when Wayne tied the final knot in his rope barrier and started up the road, relief suffused her—
FSF, September 2007 Page 8
