In the End Read Free Page B

Yeah, everyone's been coming in all morning.” The young man bobbled his head and snapped his gum especially loudly.
    Lucien nodded once.               “Well, I certainly don't know why they're being so strange.”
    “ Like, not even the science-type guys know what's up! Did you see that one guy this morning on the TV? The one who thought it might be terrorist aliens trying to – hey, you're going to buy one?” Lucien had picked up one of the cheap tourist compasses, one emblazoned with cheery rainbow letters.
    “ I suppose,” he answered. “Good to keep an eye on these things.”
    ***
    He returned to the apartment, compass in one hand and the store's logo-emblazoned plastic bag crumpled in the other. “It's true,” he told Antichrist. “Look.” He knelt and placed the compass on the floor between them – one of the cheap touristy kind. The Fallen and the cat watched the needle swing lazily in a circle, then back the other way, every so often halting abruptly and shivering towards any direction that wasn't due north. Antichrist reached out one paw and touched it gently.
    “ I wonder why too,” Lucien said. He picked up the compass, then the cat and walked around the apartment, noting the areas in which the needle reacted. Finally, he placed it on the windowsill and buried his nose in Antichrist's long, dusky fur. He thought, and when he was done thinking, he pondered.
    ***
    The Second of the Last Days was marked with an earthquake, and the ground spent the day gently vibrating, as if whatever force kept the earth still had been distracted. There was a strange resonance in the air, and all of Lucien's things rattled a little where they sat on their shelves. A wine glass, placed in the center of the coffee table, rang softly and with even consistency. Lucien shot it a worried look every few minutes throughout the day, sometimes stopping to chew his lip at it and frown. When finally he was about to go mad from the rattling, he neatly duct-taped the smaller things in place; the larger ones he simply took down onto the carpet.  Antichrist sat curled on the back of the couch and glowered.
    “ It's not my fault. Don't give me that look.”
    The cat flicked his left ear.  The power flickered a few times until six o'clock, when Lucien stepped out to find a copy of the evening news.
    “ RED TIDE IN THE BAY,” proclaimed the headlines, and the pictures showed a fishing ship with orange-caked sides, clouds of crimson marbling the water, and graphs of the bloom's sudden surge; the fishing economy would be affected in the next few months.
    Such things weren't unheard of, but all the same, when Lucien looked at the pictures of the harbor... Blood , his mind insisted. Entire oceans of blood.
    He didn't have the foggiest idea.
    ***
    The next morning, the earth was still, the newspapers again showing the affliction of the harbor – a fresh slew of photos marked the advancement of the algae. Great patches of orange-red flecked and fingered their way across the water, clumping against the beaches and between the waves.
    There was a radio on near the news kiosk. The reporter was saying something about a surge in animal-related injuries in zoos and wildlife refuges around the country, a common occurrence before natural disasters. Something bigger, they suggested, might be on its way. Lucien noted this absently and glanced at a cat nearby on the sidewalk. The reporters briefly discussed the possibilities of evacuation in case of emergency.
    Lucien continued staring warily. The cat nonchalantly licked one paw. Lucien backed slowly away, folding his newspaper and tucking it under one arm.
    “ At the Nevada State Hospital, ambulances have been rushing in victims of an unidentified hemorrhagic fever.” Temperatures of 104 degrees, they said, coughing up blood, chest pain, collapsing suddenly. Easily stabilized, though, and although many of them remained unconscious, the few who had woken up didn't remember anything