By the light of the moon

open. The unnatural self-awareness of neurons,
axons, and nerve pathways faded as abruptly as it had seized
her.
    Now the only thing that felt peculiar was the point at which she
had received the injection. An itch. A throbbing. Under the bunny
Band-Aid.
    Paralyzed by dread, she could not peel off the bandage. Shaken
by shudders, she could only stare at the tiny spot of blood that
had darkened the gauze from the underside.
    When this paralytic fear began to subside, she looked up from
the crook of her arm and saw a river of white doves flowing
directly toward the Expedition. Silently they came out of the
night, flying westward in these eastbound lanes, came by the
hundreds, by the thousands, great winged multitudes, dividing into
parallel currents that flowed around the flanks of the vehicle,
forming a third current that swept across the hood, up and over the
windshield, following the slipstream away into the night, as hushed
as birds in a dream without sound.
    Although these uncountable legions rushed toward the truck with
all the blinding density of any blizzard, allowing not one glimpse
of the highway ahead, Dylan neither spoke of them nor reduced his
speed in respect of them. He gazed forward into these white
onrushing shoals and seemed to see not one wing or gimlet eye.
    Jilly knew this must be an apparition only she could perceive, a
flood of doves where none existed. She fisted her hands in her lap
and chewed on her lower lip, and while her pounding heart provided
the drumming not furnished by the soundless wings of the birds, she
prayed for these feathered phantoms to pass, even though she feared
what might come after them.

13
    Phantasm soon gave way to reality, and the highway
clarified out of the last seething shoals of doves gone now to
boughs and belfries.
    Gradually Jilly's heart rate subsided from its frantic pace, but
each slower beat seemed as hard struck as when her fear had been
more tightly wound.
    Moon behind them, wheel of stars turning overhead, they traveled
in the hum of tires, in the whoosh-and-swish of passing cars, in
the grind-and-grumble of behemoth trucks for a mile or two before
Dylan's voice added melody to the rhythm: 'What's your modus
operandi? As a comedian.'
    Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick, but she sounded normal when
she spoke. 'My material, I guess you mean. Human stupidity. I make
fun of it as best I can. Stupidity, envy, betrayal, faithlessness,
greed, self-importance, lust, vanity, hatred, senseless violence...
There's never a shortage of targets for a comedian.' Listening to
herself, she cringed at the difference between the inspirations he
claimed for his art and those she acknowledged for her stage work.
'But that's how all comedians operate,' she elaborated, dismayed by
this impulse to justify herself, yet unable to repress it. 'Comedy
is dirty work, but someone has to do it.'
    'People need to laugh,' he said inanely, reaching for this trite
bit of reassurance as though he sensed what she'd been
thinking.
    'I want to make them laugh till they cry,' Jilly said, and at
once wondered where that had come from. 'I want to make them
feel...'
    'Feel what?'
    The word that she had almost spoken was so inappropriate, so out
of phase with what everyone expected a comedian's motivations to
be, that she was confused and disturbed to hear it in the echo
chamber of her mind. Pain . She'd almost said, I want to
make them feel pain . She swallowed the word unspoken and
grimaced as if it had a bitter taste.
    'Jilly?'
    The dark charm of self-examination abruptly had less appeal than
the threat-filled night from which they'd both taken a brief
holiday and to which she preferred to return. Frowning at the
highway, she said, 'We're headed east.'
    'Yeah.'
    'Why?'
    'Black Suburbans, explosions, gorillas in golf clothes,' he
reminded her.
    'But I was headed west before all this... all this excrement
happened. I've got a three-night gig in Phoenix next week.'
    In the backseat, Shepherd broke his silence: 'Feces. Feculence.
Defecation.'
    'You can't go to Phoenix now,' Dylan objected. 'Not after all
this, after your mirage—'
    'Hey, end of the world or not, I need the money. Besides, you
don't book a date, then back out at the last minute. Not if you
want to work again.'
    'Movement. Stool. Droppings,' said Shep.
    'Did you forget about your Cadillac?' Dylan asked.
    'How could I forget? The bastards blew it up. My beautiful Coupe
DeVille.' She sighed. 'Wasn't it beautiful?'
    'A jewel,' he