Desperation

He thought harder than he had in at least ten years, nod-ding to himself as he did.

“Then I threw one of his own nonsense-words back at him. At least it seemed like nonsense to me, or something in a made-up language. It had a guttural quality…

“Was it tak.” Mary asked.

Joh

“I don’t believe that happened,” Audrey said. “I guess you’re a famous writer or something, and you’ve got the look of a guy who isn’t used to having doubt cast, so to speak, but I just don’t believe it.”

“It’s what happened, though,” he said. “You didn’t see anything like that. Strange, aggressive animal behavior.”

“I was hiding in the town laundrymat,” she said. “I mean, hello. Are we talking the same language here.”

“But-”

“Listen, you want to talk about strange and aggressive animal behavior.” Audrey asked.

She leaned forward, eyes bright and fixed on Marinville’s. “That’s Collie you’re talking about. Collie as he is now. He killed everyone he saw, everyone who crossed his path.

Isn’t that enough for you. Do we have to have trained buz-zards, as well.”

“What about spiders.” Steve asked. He and the ski

“What about them.”

“Did you see any spiders kind of… well… flocking together.”

“Like birds of a feather.” She was favoring him with a gaze that said CAUTION, LUNATIC AT WORK.

“Well, no. Wrong word. Travelling together. In packs. Like wolves. Or coyotes.”

She shook her head.

“What about snakes.”

“Haven’t’seen any of them, either. Or coyotes in town. Not even a dog riding a bike and wearing a party hat. This is all news to me.”

David came back onto the stage with a brown bag in his hands, the kind that convenience-store clerks put small purchases in-Twinkies and Slim Jims, cartons of milk, single cans of beer. He also had a box of Ritz crackers under his arm. “Found some stuff,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Steve said, eyeing the box and the little bag. “That should certainly take care of hunger in America. What does it come to, Davey. One sardine and two crackers apiece, do you think.”

“Actually, there’s quite a lot,” David said. “More than you’d think. Um He paused, looking at them thought-fully, and a little anxiously. “Would anybody mind if I said a prayer before I hand this stuff around.”

“Like grace.” Cynthia asked.

“Grace, yeah.”

“It works for me,” Joh

“Amen,” Steve said.

David put the bag and the box of crackers down between his sneakers. Then he closed his eyes and put his hands together again before his face, finger to finger. Joh

“God, please bless this food we are about to eat,” David began.

“Yeah, what there is of it,” Cynthia said, and immedi-ately looked sorry that she had spoken. David didn’t seem to mind, though; might not have even heard her.

“Bless our fellowship, take care of us, and deliver us from evil. Please take care of my mom, too, if it’s your will.” He paused, then said in a lower voice: “It’s probably not, but please, if it’s your will. Jesus’ sake, amen.” He opened his eyes again.

Joh

Sure it did. Because he believes it. In his own humble way, this kid makes Pope John Paul in his fancy clothes and Las Vegas hat look like an Easter-and-Christmas Christian.

David bent over and picked up the stuff he’d found, seeming as cheerful as a soup-kitchen tycoon presiding over Thanksgiving di

“Here, Mary.” He took out a can of Blue Fjord Fancy Sardines, and handed it to her.

“Key’s on the bottom.”

“Thank you, David.”

He gri

The veterinarian gave him a watery gaze and didn’t reply.

David gave a can of sardines to Steve and another to Cynthia.

“Oh, no, honey, that’s okay,” Cynthia said, trying to give hers back. “Me’n Steve can share.”

“No need to,” David said, “there’s plenty. Honest.”

He gave a can to Audrey, a can to Tom, and a can to Joh

Something tapped him on the shoulder. It was Mary, holding out the box of crackers. She looked almost ecstatic. Fish-oil ran down from the corner of her mouth to her chin in a shiny little ru

“Yep,” Cynthia said cheerfully, “everything tastes better when it shits on a Ritz, that’s what I always say.”

Joh

“This settles it once and for all,” Cynthia said, her mouth full. She sounded the way Mary looked. “Food is way better than sex.”

Joh

It had gone all the way around the group, everyone had at least half a dozen crackers (Billingsley might have taken even more; the old goat was really cramming them in), but that cylinder of waxed paper was still in there, and Joh

Ralph recounted the crash of the Carver family as clearly as he could, eating sardines between bursts of talk. He was trying to clear his head, trying to come back-for David’s sake more than his own-but it was hard. He kept seeing Kirstie lying motionless at the foot of the stairs, kept seeing Entragian pulling Ellie across the holding area by the arm.

Don’t worry, David, I’ll be back, she had said, but to Ralph, who believed he had heard every turn and lift of Ellie’s voice in their fourteen years of marriage, she had sounded already gone. Still, he owed it to David to try and be here. To come back himself, from wherever it was his shocked, over-stressed-and guilty yes, there was that, too-mind wanted to take him.