Ariel (17 page)

* * *

I read to Ariel until sunset. We traveled a little over an hour into the night, then made camp. George pulled another rabbit from a hat: foil packets of freeze-dried camping foods he'd grabbed from some sporting-goods department. I started a fire and heated water, and George and I ate chili-macaroni, washing it down with the last bit of instant lemonade I'd managed to hoard.

Ariel and George got into another conversation about dragons. Saying I was going to the bathroom in the bushes, I slipped away with the last of the chili mac. I shielded it from view with my body.

Three hundred yards down the road a small campfire burned. She was nowhere in sight, but her library book rested atop a large rock. I picked it up and held it away from the campfire, reading the title in the dim orange-yellow glow.
The Little Prince.

I set the book back and put the plate on top of it.

"What took you so long?" asked Ariel when I returned.

"Serious bowel movement." I looked at George, who sat cross-legged a respectful distance from the fire. "How're your feet holding up, George?"

He wriggled his toes. "Okay, I guess. They hurt, but they ain't nowhere near as bad as yours."

"Give 'em time; I've been on the road longer. Actually, though, I think mine are getting better. The new hiking boots will definitely help."

Thumb pinning spoon to aluminum plate, George searched around. "Hey, where's the rest of the chili?"

"Oh, I threw it out already. I'm sorry. I thought you were finished."

Ariel threw me a look.

"Don't worry about it." George set his plate down. "I was just gonna fill up so I wouldn't be hungry tomorrow." He unzipped his sleeping bag. "We getting up earlier tomorrow?"

I nodded. "Five-thirty. You can set your watch by it."

He glanced at his arm and smiled before crawling into his sleeping bag. "See you tomorrow."

"Good night."

"'Night, Ariel."

"Good night, George." She got up and walked around the invisible perimeter of the fire's heat. I stopped in the midst of unzipping my own sleeping bag and looked up at her.

"Threw it away, huh?" she said.

I shrugged. "I thought she might be hungry. Is there something wrong with that?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, there is."

"What?"

"Feeding a dog is no way to make it go away."

"Oh, come on. Even if you don't like her, she's not a dog. She's a person."

"She's following us like a dog. She wants to be blindly faithful to me like a dog. If you help her out she'll follow us all the way to New York."

"I can't let her go hungry."

"If she's lasted this long she isn't going to starve now. But she will turn back if she gets discouraged enough. Besides, she's not your responsibility."

The corners of my mouth tugged. "We seem to have traded places—that doesn't sound like you at all."

"I feel sorry for her," she said, "but I won't have somebody worshiping me, making me something I'm not."

"How do you know it isn't just that she appreciates what you are?"

"Bullshit. You saw how she acted. She was practically dazed. I don't need that."

"Maybe she does."

"I don't understand you. Just this afternoon you were raising hell because you didn't want her to come along, and now you're defending her."

I felt tongue-tied as I tried to sort things out. After deliberating a minute I said, slowly, "It's not her. It's you. You acted very strange today after she saw you. I think you might be letting what you are turn you into an egomaniac."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You've been acting like Miss America getting roses. 'But most of all I'd like to thank myself, because I couldn't do it without me.'"

"I don't even know what a Miss America is."

"That doesn't matter. The point is that, okay, fine, you're beautiful. But you've begun to take it for granted, and you're acting like everybody else should casually acknowledge it, too."

"What else can I do?"

I pointed a finger at her snout. "See what I mean?" I mocked her tone. "'What else can I do?' That's what I mean by egomania. You're taking what you are right in stride."

"And I repeat," she said firmly, "what else can I do? Would you like me to bask in my own glorious radiance and remind myself every day what a wonderful creature I am? Of course I take it in stride; I've lived with it all my life."

"But people like what's-her-name, like Shaughnessy, haven't. Ariel, I've been with you close to two years now. In that time I've seen you grow from the equivalent of a five-year-old human to what you are now. I see what you look like at sunset, at sunrise, and by moonlight—and
I'm
not used to it. And furthermore, I don't ever want to be. I can't imagine the novelty ever wearing off. No, I don't want her to follow us to New York—she'll probably get killed if she does—but try to realize that she's probably never seen anything like you, and understand why she thinks she needs to go with us. I don't care that you're against her coming with us. Like I said, so am I. But don't be insensitive to why she's doing it."

"I've understood since the second she saw me. Why do you think I told her the things I did?"

"Well, if you understand, then will you please tell me why you're acting like you don't give a shit? Jesus, you've told me she's not my responsibility; you said to let her go hungry to discourage her from following us; you compared her to a dog—"

"And it gets back to what I said before." She spaced her words out. "I do not want to be worshiped." She shook her mane and tossed her head, horn arcing up at the night sky. "Besides, she's not a virgin."

"Ah, the truth emerges."

"That's only part of it. There's more to it than that."

"There must be. You gladly tolerated Malachi and Russ, and they weren't pure by any means." When I said it something dawned on me with the shock of certainty, and I drew in a deep breath before speaking. "She's a threat! That's what it is, isn't it? That's the way you see her—she's a threat to you."

"I never said any such thing."

"I don't give a damn what you've said. It's what you think. I notice you don't deny it."

She said nothing.

"You've looked down your avenues of possibility and haven't liked a few of the potential routes, haven't you?"

"You're faulting me for what I am, Pete. A creature of purity, of innocence—you've said as much yourself. Yet you've also said that I'm just as human as anybody else, and now you re blaming me because I am.

"Oh, you're human, all right, Ariel. Sometimes you're so damned human it amazes me. But jealousy doesn't suit you."

"It's not jealousy, despite what you may think. There's not enough there for it to be. But as you said—" she scratched at the grass "—I can see possibilities. Potential futures."

"The way any human being would who wasn't confident in their relationship—projecting situations, following what-ifs?"

"Maybe. But I'm a woman—that's something else you've said." She stopped scratching the grass and looked into my eyes. "And women fight to keep the things they love."

* * *

That night I dreamed again.

I lay my head back against the sleeping bag and closed my eyes, listening to the eerie silence. The wind, barely sighing among the trees, was all I heard. I felt myself sinking into sleep, and then the dream, worse this time  .  .  .  .

I unbutton her shirt with trembling hands.

She is a succubus, a demon lover of the night.

I close my eyes, feeling quickened heartbeat. Etched against the backs of my eyelids in liquid coldness, seen through fogged glass: her face, looking down on her face and seeing her mouth against me. A ring of softest fire cascades down the length of my penis. I moan and rake fingers across her shoulders.

I opened my eyes. The liquid cold pictures were gone; I was looking at Orion's belt in the night sky. Ariel stirred by me, and again I wondered what sort of dreams she had. A cloud went past the moon and her glow muted. I closed my eyes and returned to

the night, the night! And her molten warmth surrounding, succoring, demanding, controlling. Slowly, drawn out in delicate suspense, and then the quickening: of pulse, of breath.

And the day returns too soon.

I awoke once more. My breath was ragged. Again I was compelled to close my eyes and feel

the pinpricks of ivory canines, the warmth  .  .  .  . Light kitten-scrapings of fingers cross my thighs, my belly, my chest. Cat's tongue rasps across nipples, neck, earlobes.

In the darkness a wild dog howled. Feral eyes gleamed blood-bright in the depths between the trees.

All the moonlight that has ever been is gathered in my head and exploded all at once. As I come, shock wave after shock wave spreading from mind to groin and back again, I know that she feels my orgasm with all its intensity.

Afterward I hold her for a long time, feeling both vampire and victim, the need and the willingly offered throat.

"Yes," whispers the night. "The day returns too soon."

Dreamless darkness ruled the rest of the night.

* * *

When Ariel nudged me awake next morning I found a plate beside my sleeping bag. On it was untouched chili mac. On the top of that were the remains of a rabbit, neatly skinned and cleaned.

I put on fresh socks and slipped into my hiking boots. Dew had coated the landscape with a light flowershop spray.

Ariel looked at me looking at the plate. "Resourceful, isn't she?"

I said nothing. I looked at George, who was pulling on tennis shoes, having already put on tight blue jeans and by now-dirty red silk shirt.

I carried the plate to the road. "All right!" A few startled birds took off at the sound of my voice. "All right, goddammit! You can come along." I heaved the plate onto the road. Ariel regarded me quietly, tail swishing. "She can come along," I repeated.

Ariel nodded but remained silent.

Thirteen

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

—
Shakespeare
, King Lear

Her name was Shaughnessy Taylor. She was twenty-four years old and, like me, she'd been in school the day of the Change. She'd been in her first year of college, though, majoring in marine biology. She'd lived with a man the first two years after the Change. He'd become bored with her and one morning she woke up in the dorm room that served as their home to find him gone, no note.

She'd read
Don Quixote
before. "But go ahead," she said when Ariel asked me to continue the story. "I loved it." I read aloud and thought about other things than Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. In the first place, I wondered what to think of Shaughnessy. Strangely, she intimidated me. Though only four years older, she made me feel immature, inexperienced. She hadn't done anything to cause those feelings; it was mostly generated by self-doubt. The fact that she couldn't touch Ariel both elated and depressed me. I felt sorry she couldn't and special because she couldn't; I felt embarrassed because I could and because she knew it.

She'd read fantasy books ever since she learned how to read. "In high school," she told me, "I started collecting fantasy animals. Especially dragons and unicorns." She played Dungeons & Dragons. Avidly. She'd seen
Star Wars
nine times.

Most of this I learned after darkness fell. I'd stopped reading when the light began to dim, but we still had a couple hours more walking to do. I was pushing to make up for lost time, despite what it was doing to my feet. Ariel never complained about walking and George had turned out to be pretty tough when you got right down to it. Shaughnessy just started talking about herself to all of us when I put the book away. I'd expected her to complain about the walking but she never breathed a word—not even to ask why we were in such an all-fired hurry to reach New York. I got the impression she didn't care; she was content just to be with us. Or rather, with Ariel.

We made camp a little after eight. Shaughnessy didn't have a sleeping bag. Mine was a down-filled bag with a nylon cover that zipped around three sides to open into a wide pad. The night was warm and, barring rain, I would probably sleep on top of the bag rather than in it. I could have opened it out and shared half with Shaughnessy, but I wasn't going to.

I boiled water and made instant coffee, black and sugarless. Shaughnessy had a cup also. George declined, saying he couldn't abide the stuff. I dug out my two collapsible metal cups and gave one to Shaughnessy. I usually tried to take it easy on coffee consumption; being a diuretic, it increased the frequency of urination and caused dehydration. I tried to hold it down to no more than a cup a day, but usually drank it just before bedtime—the worst time to. My urine had begun to turn bright orange days ago, but not from dehydration. Our thirty miles a day walking, at current elevation, was enough to cause my body to begin breaking down its own muscle protein. I'd had to calm George down because the same thing was happening to him. He'd thought something was wrong and blood was in his urine.

Supper was a feast of freeze-dried steaks (bless George!) and vegetables. After eating I lay back, shifting around to find a comfortable place. My head was propped against a large rock, and smaller ones dug in through the fabric of my sleeping bag at awkward angles. I stared into the crackling, flickering fire and did my best to think about nothing at all.

I'd piled rocks in a semicircle to help serve as a windbreak for the fire, and I'd found a couple of thick, green branches and put them over the ashes of the already burned ones. They'd keep the fire banked and smoldering through the night.

After a while, when it seemed as if everyone else had fallen asleep—George had offered Shaughnessy his sleeping bag; she declined politely and elected to sleep on the ground a few yards from the fire, though I'm sure George's intentions were pure—I picked Fred up from beside me and polished the blade with a rag and a little 3-in-One oil. Reflections of the fire ran molten gold down the length of the blade as I turned it in my hands. The crickets sang a hallelujah chorus, with a frog supplying intermittent bass. The fire's sound was made for hot chocolate and quilts.

I'd taken off my boots when we'd set up camp and had carefully toweled my feet dry. They were healing, gradually. Still, salt from perspiration made the blisters sting during the day, and I had to keep them dry to prevent the sores from festering. Infection was the last thing I needed.

I was afraid to go to sleep. The dreams had begun to stay with me after I awoke and I feared to sleep again for dreaming. That sounded suspiciously like a line from
Hamlet
but was true nonetheless. I used to like to sleep; it was a time for recuperation, a time of pleasant but unsuspected images running rampant inside my head. Lately, though, those images had become cohesive, persistent ones, growing more detailed each time. Nothing bad ever happened to me in them—actually, I guess the opposite was true, depending on your point of view—but they bothered me. To occupy my mind and time I dragged my backpack around to my side of the rock, untied it, and began unpacking it to take stock. The inventory was scantier than I'd have liked, but I'd make it. I fished two tubes of epoxy from the pile of unpacked things and repaired the hole where the arrow had pierced. While it dried I inspected the pack. A little worse for the wear, but holding up, though it wouldn't be too long before I'd have to find a new one. It was olive-drab nylon, patched in a few places with silver-gray duct tape. New backpacks were hard to find, so rather than let it give up the ghost on several occasions, I had repaired it, re-waterproofed it, taped it, and sewn it. It was the same one I'd left home with in South Florida, six or so years ago. My parents had given it to me as a Christmas present when I was thirteen. I'd read
On the Beach
and
Alas, Babylon
and become convinced the world was about to blow itself up in a nuclear holocaust at any second, and I needed to be ready in case it happened. I think my parents gave it to me to shut me up.

I wasn't being very realistic about nuclear war: we lived about fifteen miles from Homestead Air Force Base, a key coastal defense station, and though the blast probably wouldn't kill us, the firestorms or the fallout almost certainly would.

My parents never understood my morbid fascination with the concept of the end of the world. Because we lived away from the city, I sometimes walked down the street to the canal (the one at which I later saw the manticore), and it was easy, with no cars coming and no city noises, to pretend something had wiped everybody out. Everybody but me. I think I wanted it that way. I thought up endless scenarios: the typical and clichéd ones of nuclear annihilation, others involving humankind wiped out by mutant viruses, bacteriological warfare, invading aliens, or disappearance in some great exodus I'd somehow missed out on.

But I'd never figured on anything like the Change. And when it happened it turned out to be nothing like what I'd wanted all along. It wasn't some grand and glorious heroic struggle, One Man's Fight for Survival. It was work, and it hurt—emotionally and physically. I never found out what happened to some people I cared for very much. The end of the world turned out to be something I preferred to fantasize about rather than experience. In that wandering time before I met Ariel there was one thought that often ran through my head: I'd always wanted to be alone like this, but I'd never realized it would be so
lonely
.

I sighed and threw a pebble into the fire. It was outlined ephemerally in black against the orange and landed with the sound of a heavy raindrop on wood chips.

Better repack that shit, I thought, and set to it. I think I was up till two in the morning putting that damned pack back together. When it was done I tied it securely against possible rain and inevitable morning dew and returned it to its place on the other side of the rock. I checked the fire to be sure it was well banked and controlled. It had died down to a smoldering devil's pit that gave off an occasional flicker. It would be all right until morning, but to be sure I added wood shavings from a young branch, then set the stripped branch on top. I thought about going to bed and realized I wasn't tired.

I grabbed the bag George had given me and sat by the fire. I took off my shirt, spread it out on the ground, and dumped the bag's contents onto it. I picked up a strand of fake pearls and began pulling them off. Half of them were either too large or too small; I threw them away. The others I set aside on the shirt. Beads sorted, I grabbed wirecutters and umbrella wire and began snipping off four- and five-inch lengths, cutting at an angle until I had three dozen lengths of steel wire and about as many hard plastic beads. I picked up a wire and held an end into the flame until it was cherry red. I touched it to a bead, using the hole where the string had been as a guide to be sure the wire was centered. It melted its way to the center of the bead; I set it aside and started another. When I was finished I had three dozen blowgun darts, which I put into a pouch that had originally been a carrying case for a pocket camera. I'd fitted a half-inch block of Styrofoam into the bottom and pushed the tips of the darts in. The case was held shut by Velcro, and the darts stood upright, embedded in the foam.

A jet of flame in the distance caught my eye as I was pushing darts into the case. It was level with the horizon and just a touch above it, but it looked closer than that. It was a small streak of orange across the night sky, like a meteor, but with none of the sparkler-like shedding of a meteor. I fought the urge to blink and it flared again, a bright, even orange-red. No meteor; it was a tongue of flame. With the second flare came a distant sound, something like the sound you hear on a beach at night, the sound of a big wave beginning to build. A deep roar. I shut my eyes, seeing afterimages.
Son of a bitch,
I thought.
A dragon
. I looked at the sleeping figure on the other side of Ariel. Poor George—it wouldn't be long now.

I kept a lookout for another fifteen minutes but saw nothing else. Presently I went to bed.