The Midnight Country

Chapter 6

It didn’t take long for what remained of the Excelsior to come crashing down, its great, bullet-shaped envelope almost completely burned away and its interior girders warping and melting. Nor did the hydrogen-eaters abandon it even then, but continued to draw sustenance from it as their abdominal sacs swelled and their manta ray/bat wings beat furiously and their eyes seemed to spiral like the storms of Jupiter itself.

As for myself, I’d retreated to the relative safety of a roofed area near the dugout, where I continued to record as the now-gorged hunters at last began to rise ... and in very short order disappeared into a cloud of their own making.

And then—finally—it was over, and I could only stare at the ruins of the Excelsior as a few survivors stumbled from the smoke and swirling particulate—at which instant I awakened as if from a dream and hurried to assist them.

I was helping an elderly woman get back on her feet when I first heard the gasps and expressions of surprise happening all around us. Nor did it take long to figure out what they were responding to, for when I followed their collective gaze to the blue-gray sky I saw two enormous creatures rising into the clouds—huge creatures, as big as mountains, shaking off avalanches of snow with each undulating breath, pulsing upward like man-of-wars in water.

And I remembered the old Indian.

They fall from sky ... onto my land.

And knew nothing would ever be the same.

A BOY AND HIS DINOSAUR

We’d been doing so well all day, Shad and I had even helped Grandma prepare Sunday dinner without bickering, when I mentioned that Brown Sugar Meatloaf had always been Mom’s favorite—and brought the whole thing crashing down again.

“You just had to do it—didn’t you?” said Shad, seething, as Grandma went into full Mr. Bill mode, her voice high and quavering as she began quoting Psalms and disappeared into the kitchen, slamming dishes, banging cupboards. “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the older order of things has passed away—Shad! Come get the salad.”

“Jerk,” said Shad, glaring at me over the candles.

He untucked his napkin and joined her in the kitchen, leaving me alone with the Boston Pops and the meat loaf.

“I didn’t mean to ...” I started to say, intending to add: ‘to upset anybody’—but quickly trailed off, mostly because it was a fat-headed lie; a lie as big and fat as Mrs. Carmichael’s—my history teacher’s—calves, which were big as hams. Then I got up and left the table—ducking out the little-used north entrance and double-timing it to the garage—where our poles stood sentinel near the fender of Grandma’s mint, black GTO like skinny green reeds.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain ...

I must have bit my lower lip as my fingers hovered near the poles—near mine which was battered and nicked and looked as though it had been used as a whip; near Shad’s which was as clean and straight as the day Dad had bought it (and not because he never used it). For the older order of things has passed away ... Then I gripped Shad’s rod—as well as his tackle box, a fish bonker, and a bucket—and was on my way. Past the kitchen window which I ducked beneath so as not to be seen—and into the California woods. Down to the Mohawk River, the waters of which, this time of year, were as cold and swift—and as unforgiving, Mom used to say, which was funny—as any ocean.

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