The Taking

propaganda could have mocked the pretensions of humanity more effectively than this apparently random selection of cruel entertainment.
        Neil pressed the POWER button on the remote, but the TV did not switch off. He tried again, without success.
        Under the control of some taunting entity, the screen swarmed with rapidly changing scenes of violent sex and horrendous murder. Here un-spooled a chilling montage of humanity in its most debased and savage condition.
        "This is a lie," Neil said through half-clenched teeth. "This isn't what we are. It isn't all we are."
        The unseen master of the airwaves chose to disagree, and the images of primitive lust and blood hunger surged across the screen, tides of cinematic sewage.
        Molly remembered reading about one of the Nazi death camps- Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen, or Dachau-in which the Jewish prisoners had been subjected to propaganda that portrayed their heritage as a deformed tree watered with lies, feeding on the labor of others, its branches twisted by greed. Their tormentors wanted them first to embrace this false history of their people and then to renounce it before accepting execution as their proper reward.
        Even the architects of genocide, their hearts sold to Evil and their souls already held in the portfolio of Hell, feel the need to justify their abuse of power. They wish to believe that their victims, at the penultimate moment, acknowledge guilt and recognize the justice of mass murder-which suggests that, even if unconsciously, the executioners know how far they themselves have fallen.
        Molly turned from the hideous spectacle on the TV. She glanced anxiously at the blinded windows, at the ceiling that seemed to press lower under a roof-crushing weight of roaring rain.
        She sensed that death trains, or their equivalent, were being marshaled now in railroad yards. Long chains of cattle cars were waiting to be packed with human cargo and hauled to mass graves where the remains of millions, plowed over, would eventually fertilize vast, lush meadows for the pleasure of creatures that were deaf and blind to the beauties wrought by untold human generations.
        High in the house, something thumped loudly. Rattled. Then subsided into silence.
        Perhaps a broken tree branch had dropped onto the roof. A loose chimney stone, sluiced from its mortar bed by the rain, might have rolled along the shingles.
        Or some unimaginably strange visitor had entered by the attic, and now explored the space under those cobwebbed rafters, searching for the trapdoor and spring-loaded ladder that would give it access to the second floor.
        "Time to go," Neil said.

PART TWO
        
    "Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of the deep."

    -T. S, Eliot, Choruses from "The Rock"

----
        

    9
        
        FOR ONCE UNCONCERNED ABOUT NEXT MONTH'S electrical bill, they left lights on rather than allow darkness to take up residence in the house during their absence.
        In the utility room, they quickly donned rubber boots and black raincoats. The deep tread of the rubber soles squeaked on the tile floor.
        Beyond the utility room, the garage was chillier than the house. The humid air smelled of damp wood, moist Sheetrock; but as yet the rain had not worn a leak in the roof.
        The Ford Explorer stood ready, loaded. Although worried about the size of the monthly payments, they had recently traded up from their ten-year-old Suburban. Now Molly was glad to have this newer and more reliable vehicle.
        She took two steps toward the SUV before Neil drew her attention to his workbench. Thirty or forty mice had gathered on that surface. Because the rodents were silent and for the most part as still as ceramic figurines, Molly had not at once noticed the infestation.
        Field and forest mice, some brown, some gray, had fled their natural habitat for the refuge of this garage. As many of them congregated under the workbench as perched on top of it.
        In groups, mice huddled in the corners and along the walls. On the lids of the two trash cans. Atop a row of storage cabinets.
        They numbered more than a hundred, perhaps over two hundred. Many stood on their hind feet, alert, trembling, whiskers quivering, pink noses testing the air.
        Under ordinary circumstances, the mice would have scattered when Molly and Neil entered. These didn't