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She sat stiffly, not moving, neither pushing him away nor responding. Tim moved against her on the seat. His hand went to her shoulder, then down to her breast. Her blouse was damp, but her flesh was warm when he put his hand under the blouse. She still hadn’t moved. He moved closer, putting his head to her breasts.
“Is this appropriate?” Her voice might have been a stranger’s. It was Eileen, but detached, from a long way away.
“What is?” Tim said. He felt vaguely ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry.” The glow from the beer was gone now.
“Don’t be. I’ll sleep with you, if that’s what you want. I’d rather not. Not now…”
“Yeah, there have to be better times.”
“Not if that’s what you really want,” she said. “I’ve been thinking. Were we ever really in love?”
“I asked you to marry me…”
“And I wanted to, only I didn’t want to marry anybody. Well, we’re married now.”
Tim was silent in the darkness. He felt an insane urge to giggle. Mother will be pleased, he thought. Little Timmy’s married now. He wondered where his mother was, and the rest of his family. Could I have done anything? Should I have tried? I didn’t try. I didn’t do anything but run for my life.
“Sure you want me?” he asked.
“Tim, when I came out of Corrigan’s and saw you I was never so glad to see anyone in my life. Yes.”
Was she putting him on? And what was the point of worrying about it?
“We’ll learn to love each other,” she was saying. “We’ve been learning it all day. So if” — she patted his hand that still lay passively on her breast — “this is what you want, I’m willing.”
He sat up and moved away from her.
“Tim, please don’t be angry.”
“No, that’s okay. You’re right, it feels wrong. The whole car is wet, and our clothes stick to us, and if you’re not tired half to death, I am. Jesus, we came close to driving off that bridge!”
She reached to squeeze his hand.
“Wrong time, wrong place. Hey, how about the Savoy Hotel?”
“Huh?”
“Savoy Hotel in London. Elegance. Incredible room service. Huge bathtubs. If this is the wrong place for a love affair, the right place is the Savoy Hotel. Only, it’s probably underwater.” He was babbling. “Sure, there’s a right place somewhere, but what if we never reach it? Eileen, I damned near didn’t get that fence down, and it had to be done. You don’t need me, you need Conan the Barbarian! Him for brawn and you for brains.”
“Will you stop that?”
“I can’t. You’re the one who kept us going. If you want manly strength, I don’t think I have it. I don’t have the skills either. I used to know how to hire skills.”
“You carried me down the hill,” she said, exaggerating for effect. “You knew where to go. You’ve done all right.”
He couldn’t see her in the dark. But he knew she wasn’t laughing at him, because she had a death grip on his hand. He moved toward her again, and she came to him, holding him desperately. He had no sexual urge now, only a feeling of i
The sea is withdrawing from England.
Sluggish with debris, the water that has conquered London flows back toward the Cha
Buildings along the Thames have been smashed to their foundations, and even those are being torn loose. Tremendous pressures pry the concrete away in pieces and send them, with megatons of mud from the banks, down into the river bed.
Tomorrow and forever after, there will be no way to tell where the Savoy Hotel once stood.
They woke with cramps, tingling limbs and the shivers.
“What time is it?” Eileen asked.
Tim pushed the button on his watch. “One-fifty.” He shifted uncomfortably. “The stuff we read in Lit classes made it sound romantic, this business of sleeping in each other’s arms, but it’s damned uncomfortable.”
She laughed in the dark. Lovely, Tim thought. It was Eileen again, her laugh, and he could imagine her sunburst smile although he couldn’t see it. “Do these seats do anything?” she asked.
“Du
The car had a divided bench seat. Tim reached down, feeling for controls. He found a lever and pulled. The seat back collapsed against the seat behind, not quite horizontal but a great deal more comfortable than it had been. He told her what he’d done and she flopped hers back as well. Now they were not quite lying side by side. She moved against him. “I’m freezing.”
“Me too.”
They huddled together, seeking each other’s warmth. They were not very comfortable. Arms got in the way. She put her arm over him, and they lay still for a moment. Then she drew him tightly against her body, pushing her legs against his. She felt warm along her whole length. Suddenly her mouth found his and she kissed him. That went on for a moment and she drew away, and laughed, very softly. “Still in the mood?” she asked.
“Back in the mood,” Tim said, and he gave up on speaking.
They kept most of their clothes on, peeling back shirt and blouse and skirt and pants, giggling, reaching under cloth that was needed for warmth; and they coupled suddenly, with a fervor that left no room for laughter. It felt right, now. Even the flavor of insanity matched what was happening to the world around them. Afterward they rested in each other’s arms, and Eileen said, “Shoes.”
So they curled around each other, maintaining contact, to wrestle their shoes off; they caressed each other with their toes; they coupled again. Tim felt the wiry strength of Eileen’s legs and arms, caging him. She relaxed slowly, and sighed, and was out like a light.
He pulled her skirt down as far as it would go. She slept soundly, stirring only slightly when he moved. Tim lay awake in the dark, wishing for dawn, wishing for sleep.
Why did we do that? he wondered. The night the world ended, and we screw like mad minks, here at the end of nowhere on the Big Tujunga Canyon Road, with a dead bridge in front of us and ten million dead behind… In a car seat, yet, like a couple of teen-agers.
She moved slightly, and he put his arm across her, protectively, without volition. He realized he had done that. Reflex. Protective reflex, he thought.
Suddenly Tim Hamner gri
There was a gray tinge to the sky when they both woke. They sat up together, wrapped in thoughts and memories, wondering what had wakened them. Then they heard it over the drumming of rain on metal a motor, a car or truck coming very fast up the highway. Presently there were lights behind them.
Tim felt a terrible sense of urgency. He ought to be doing something. Warning. He ought to warn that car. He shook his head violently, trying to shake himself awake. It must have worked. He reached past Eileen for the steering wheel. The horn shrieked in mechanical terror.
The car went past them like a bat out of hell, followed by the terror-sound. Tim released the horn and heard real mechanical terror: a long scream of brakes, and then nothing, no sound at all for crawling eons. Then metal smashed rock, and light flared ahead of them.