Fear Nothing

his big-browed competitors from Aristotle to Kierkegaard to Thomas More to Schelling - to Jacopo Zabarella, who believed in the primacy of logic, order, method. Logic, order, method. All important, sure. But can all of life be analyzed and understood with only those tools? Not that I'm about to claim to have met Bigfoot or to be able to channel dead spirits or to be the reincarnation of Kahuna, but when I see where diligent attention to logic, order, and method have at last brought us, to this genetic storm… Well, I think I'd be happier catching some epic waves.
        

    * * *
        
        For Sasha, apocalypse was no cause for insomnia. As always, she slept deeply.
        Although exhausted, I dozed fitfully. The bedroom door was locked, and a chair was wedged under the knob. Orson was sleeping on the floor, but he would be a good early-warning system if anyone entered the house. The Glock was on my nightstand, and Sasha's Smith & Wesson.38 Chiefs Special was on her nightstand. Yet I repeatedly woke with a start, sure that someone had crashed into the bedroom, and I didn't feel safe.
        My dreams didn't soothe me. In one of them, I was a drifter, walking alongside a desert highway under a full moon, thumbing a ride without success. In my right hand was a suitcase exactly like my father's. It couldn't have been heavier if it had been filled with bricks. Finally, I put it down, opened it, and recoiled as Lewis Stevenson rose out of it like a cobra from a basket, golden light shimmering in his eyes, and I knew that if something as strange as the dead chief could be in my suitcase, something even stranger could be in me, whereupon I felt the top of my head unzipping A and woke up.
        

    * * *
        
        An hour before sundown, I telephoned Bobby from Sasha's kitchen.
        “How's the weather out there at monkey central?” I asked.
        “Storm coming in later. Big thunderheads far out to sea.”
        “Did you get some sleep?”
        “After the jokesters left.”
        “When was that?”
        “After I turned the tables and started mooning them.”
        “They were intimidated,” I said.
        “Damn right. I've got the bigger ass, and they know it.”
        “You have a lot of ammunition for that shotgun?”
        “A few boxes.”
        “We'll bring more.”
        “Sasha's not on the air tonight?”
        “Not Saturdays,” I said. “Maybe not weeknights anymore, either.”
        “Sounds like news.”
        “We're an item. Listen, do you have a fire extinguisher out there?”
        “Now you're bragging, bro. The two of you aren't that hot together.”
        “We'll bring a couple of extinguishers. These dudes have a thing for fire.”
        “You really think it'll get that real?”
        “Totally.”
        

    * * *
        
        Immediately after sunset, while I waited in the Explorer, Sasha went into Thor's Gun Shop to buy ammunition for the shotgun, the Glock, and her Chiefs Special. The order was so large and heavy that Thor Heissen himself carried it out to the truck for her and loaded it in back.
        He came to the passenger window to say hello. He is a tall, fat man with a face pitted by acne scars, and his left eye is glass. He's not one of the world's best-looking guys, but he's a former L.A. cop who quit on principle, not because of scandal, an active deacon at his church and founder of-and largest contributor to-the orphanage associated with it.
        “Heard about your dad, Chris.”
        “At least he's not suffering anymore,” I said-and wondered just what had been different about his cancer that made the people at Wyvern want to do an autopsy on him.
        Sometimes, it's a blessing,” Thor said. “Just being allowed to slip away when it's your time. Lots of folks will miss him, though. He was a fine man.”
        “Thanks, Mr. Heissen.”
        What're you kids up to, anyway? Gonna start a war?”
        “Exactly,” I said as Sasha twisted her key in the ignition and raced the engine.
        “Sasha says you're gonna go shoot clams.”
        “That's not environmentally correct, is it?”
        He laughed as we pulled away.
        

    * * *
        
        In the backyard of my house, Sasha swept a flashlight beam across the craters that had been clawed out of the grass by Orson the previous night, before I'd taken him with me to Angela Ferryman's.
        “What's he have buried