Snake Oil - Waiting For The Galactic Bus - Snake Oil - Waiting for the Galactic Bus Part 25
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Snake Oil - Waiting for the Galactic Bus Part 25

She ran out of the bathroom and stumbled downstairs. As she hit the bottom step, all the screens went on - kitchen, living room, guest rooms; a repeating loop, the child running to the butchered sack of her mother, screaming in slow motion, then not screaming but looking up with Charity's own eyes at the pistol barrel with that obscene knowledge in her eyes.

" - told you how it would be."

"Stop. Stop, you son of a bitch."

" - how it would be."

Her instinct was to bury herself deep in the pillows of the sofa, blot out the sight and sound, but as the loop repeated, shorter and shorter now - Roy's leer, the words, her own eyes staring not at death but a sudden understanding of life - something else began to counterbalance the horror in Charity Stovall. The fruitless nausea passed, replaced by a wholly alien emotion more powerful than she'd ever felt. Detached, from a long distance, she turned her gaze back to the screen, to Roy's gloating face and swaggering words, and the nightmare of her own violent child death.

That's me could be me is me . . .

" - told you how it would be."

Yes, you did, she thought, watching the screen from the depths of an icy calm. You sure as hell did, and I heard it and didn't think about it.

Faster and faster the loop ran: Charity at ten, screaming, then

no voice left to scream, only her own eyes lifting to the gun, knowing what a child shouldn't have to know but so many did and had and would.

" - told you how it would be."

Scream. Silence. Look up. Knowing.

Until at last the film froze on the eyes and their final recognition of horror. The child, with one second, one century or an infinity to exist, would never again look on anything or anyone unshadowed by that terrible knowledge.

Obscene . . . I never used that word, always thought it meant dirty movies. But this is obscene. I could scream from now until the end of time, every dirty word I ever knew, they wouldn't be as obscene or dirty as this. Not that you kill a child, but that you could put such a knowledge into her.

Now she knew the passion churning in her: rage - not from any wound to her but simply that humans could do that to children, take the brief innocence and stain it forever with the knowledge that there was no safe place anywhere ever. Forever or for a few seconds, children shouldn't know that much about the world.

The gun didn't kill her. She was dead when she looked up at him. Like some old people in Plattsville who came from Europe after we beat Germany. You could see that shadow of a gun barrel all their lives.

No music, love or joy would leach that shadow from the little girl's eyes.

" - told you how it would be."

"Damn straight you told me," Charity lashed back. "You murdering piece of shit, I should've seen you coming. But I'm glad, Roy. Glad I'm dead; that's cleaner than being alive with you. You better hope you never meet up with Jesus. He's sure as hell not gonna like the way you use His name. I'm afraid of you, Roy. And I think you like that."

Trembling, near-traumatized by the force of her own rage, Charity didn't notice Simnel switching off the set or the silence that followed.

"Can't sleep, mum?"

"Where were you?" Charity mumbled in a voice with no life in it. "I called and called but you weren't here."

"Sometimes I go for a walk in the wee hours."

"Do you know what I just saw?"

"The purges? Yes, I was there. You can see the fires burning from the balcony."

"No, Simnel. I don't want to."

"The government conveniently did nothing to stop them. No one did."

"No one?" Charity whispered, still trembling. "Not one person? Did you see what they were doing?"

"Yes, of course," said mild little Simnel. "I expect things will change at Congress Hall, The government won't last. Not to worry; none of this will touch us in Ultimate Rise. Shall I fix some hot cocoa, mum?"

"It's already touched me," Charity muttered. "I feel dirty just watching that."

"The postmoderns would call you sentimental," Simnel observed. "Trying to encompass inhuman behavior with human sensibility."

"Dirty . . . They ain't fixed the phones yet?"

"No, mum."

That was good, that gave her time to think. "Simnel, I don't live here. Just like before, you never heard of me."

"Charity who?"

"Right. Good night, Simnel."

"Good morning, mum."

Charity tried to climb the stairs. All of sudden there were too many of them. "Oh, Simmy - Jesus!" She slumped down on the steps. "Even . . . even dead, how can they do this to people? To children?"

She felt a hundred years old, too utterly spent to climb the rest of the stairs. Like a child herself, she allowed Simnel to guide her upward, his wise, gentle voice close to her ear though she didn't understand any of what he was telling her. Something about a tiny animal who developed in the dark while bigger animals ruled the day. A funny little thing with big eyes and fur and fear, born looking over its shoulder for danger, and out of this twitching bundle of need and terror came humans never to be wholly free of the dark or their own nightmares.

When Simnel tucked her in like a tender parent, Charity saw a wisdom in his eyes older than mountains, and a pity beyond tears.

21 - Doing the Reichstag rag

The Case White takeover had been accomplished without a shot fired. Roy might have relished at least a little shooting after his bold blood-purge raids, but the Wembley wimps gave in to the will of the people. That will was a steady roar as Roy's armored Cadillac inched through the Paladin-lined streets toward Government Square and drew up before the marble steps of Congress Hall. The armored car carrying his personal guard slowed in his wake.

"We're the fuckin Congress now," Roy smirked to Drumm beside him. "Gonna be some changes."

"Don't lean out too far," Drumm cautioned. "There's a possibility of snipers."

"Hey, yeah." Roy ducked back inside. They waited until the police and hulking Paladin security guards shouldered and heaved the screaming crowd back from the cars to clear a path up the steps.

"Okay, let's go." Roy stepped out of the car and stood a moment as the crowd caught sight of him and loosed a roar of delirious excitement.

Roy! Stride! Roy! Stride!

He basked in the sound like sunlight after long winter. It warmed and sufficed him. All they had to do was follow his word and Below Stairs would be their kind of paradise. A new order, rough on some, but you couldn't fry eggs without breaking shells, he thought in a flush of originality. Impulsively, Roy flung up his right hand with the whip. The screaming cut like edited tape. The crowd hovered, quivering, for his words.

"We been down! Going UP!"

The mob roared like maddened animals. GOING UP!