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I landed us atop Helix, Betty's largest apartment-complex, wherein Eleanor had her double-balconied corner suite, affording views both of the distant Noble and of the lights of Posh Valley, Betty's residential section.
Eleanor prepared steaks, with baked potato, cooked corn, beer--everything I liked. I was happy and sated and such, and I stayed till around midnight, making plans for our future. Then I took a cab back to Town Square, where I was parked.
When I arrived, I thought I'd check with the Trouble Center just to see how things were going. So I entered the Hall, stamped my feet, brushed off excess waters, hung my coat, and proceeded up the empty hallway to the elevator.
The elevator was too quiet. They're supposed to rattle, you know? They shouldn't sigh softly and have doors that open and close without a sound. So I walked around an embarrassing corner on my way to the Trouble Center.
It was a pose Rodin might have enjoyed working with. All I can say is that it's a good thing I stopped by when I did, rather than five or ten minutes later.
Chuck Fuller and Lottie, Eleanor's secretary, were practicing mouth to mouth resuscitating and keeping the victim alive techniques, there on the couch in the little alcove off to the side of the big door to T.C.
Chuck's back was to me, but Lottie spotted me over his shoulder, and her eyes widened and she pushed him away. He turned his head quickly.
"Juss..." he said.
I nodded.
"Just passing by," I told him. "Thought I'd stop in to say hello and take a look at the eyes."
"Uh--everything's going real well," he said, stepping back into the hallway. "It's on auto right now, and I'm on my--uh, coffee break. Lottie is on night duty, and she came by to--see if we had any reports we needed typed. She had a dizzy spell, so we came out here where the couch..."
"Yeah, she looks a little--peaked," I said. "There are smelling salts and aspirins in the medicine chest."
I walked on by into the Center, feeling awkward.
Chuck followed me after a couple of minutes. I was watching the screens when he came up beside me. Things appeared to be somewhat in hand, though the rains were still moistening the one hundred thirty views of Betty.
"Uh, Juss," he said, "I didn't know you were coming by..."
"Obviously."
"What I'm getting at is--you won't report me, will you?"
"No, I won't report you."
"...And you wouldn't mention it to Cynthia, would you?"
"Your extracurricular activities," I said, "are your own business. As a friend, I suggest you do them on your own time and in a more propitious location. But it's already begi
"Thanks Juss," he said.
I nodded.
"What's Weather Central have to say these days?" I asked, raising the phone.
He shook his head, so I dialed listened.
"Bad," I said, hanging up. "More wet to come."
"Damn," he a
"Me too," said I. "I'm going to run now, because I want to get home before it starts in bad again. I'll probably be around tomorrow. See you."
"Night."
I elevated back down, fetched my coat, and left. I didn't see Lottie anywhere about, but she probably was, waiting for me to go.
I got to my car and was halfway home before the faucets came on full again. The sky was torn open with lightnings, and a sizzlecloud stalked the city like a long-legged arachnid, forking down bright limbs and leaving tracks of fire where it went. I made it home in another fifteen minutes, and the phenomenon was still in progress as I entered the garage. As I walked up the alley (cane switched on) I could hear the distant sizzle and the rumble, and a steady half-light filling the spaces between the buildings, from its _flash-burn-flash-burn_striding.
Inside, I listened to the thunder and the rain, and I watched the apocalypse off in the distance.
Delirium of city under storm--
The buildings across the way were quite clear in the pulsing light of the thing. The lamps were turned off in my apartment so that I could better appreciate the vision. All of the shadows seemed incredibly black and inky, lying right beside glowing stairways, pediments, windowsills, balconies; and all of that which was illuminated seemed to burn as though with an internal light. Overhead, the living/not living insect-thing of fire stalked, and an eye wearing a blue halo was moving across the tops of nearby buildings. The fires pulsed and the clouds burnt like the hills of Gehe
I watched until the sizzlecloud drew its legs up into itself, hung like a burning cocoon, then died like an ember retreating into ash. Suddenly, it was very dark and there was only the rain.
Sunday was the day of chaos.
Candles burned, churches burned, people drowned, beasts ran wild in the streets (or swam there), houses were torn up by the roots and bounced like paper boats along the waterways, the great wind came down upon us, and after that the madness.
I was not able to drive to Town Hall, so Eleanor sent her flyer after me.
The basement was filled with water, and the ground floor was like Neptune's waiting room. All previous high water marks had been passed.
We were in the middle of the worst storm in Betty's history.
Operations had been transferred up onto the third floor. There was no way to stop things now. It was just a matter of riding it out and giving what relief we could. I sat before my gallery and watched.
It rained buckets, it rained vats; it rained swimming pools and lakes and rivers. For awhile it seemed that it rained oceans upon us. This was partly because of the wind which came in from the gulf and suddenly made it seem to rain sideways with the force of its blasts. It began at about noon and was gone in a few hours, but when it left our town was broken and bleeding. Wyeth lay on his bronze side, the flagpole was gone, there was no building without broken windows and water inside, we were suddenly suffering lapses of electrical power, and one of my eyes showed three panda-puppies devouring a dead child. Cursing, I killed them across the rain and the distance. Eleanor wept at my side. There was a report later of a pregnant woman who could only deliver by Caesarean section, trapped on a hilltop with her family, and in labor. We were still trying to get through to her with a flyer, but the winds...I saw burnt buildings and the corpses of people and animals. I saw half-buried cars and splintered homes. I saw waterfalls where there had been no waterfalls before. I fired many rounds that day, and not just at beasts from the forest. Sixteen of my eyes had been shot out by looters. I hope that I never again see some of the films I made that day.
When the worst Sunday night in my life began, and the rains did not cease, I knew the meaning of despair for the third time in my life.
Eleanor and I were in the Trouble Center. The lights had just gone out for the eighth time. The rest of the staff was down on the third floor. We sat there in the dark without moving, without being able to do a single thing to halt the course of chaos. We couldn't even watch it until the power came back on.