DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

His head had left a bloody streak on the pavement.

Kevin turned away from the window. “I’m tired of being cooped up in here.”

Penelope shrugged. “Who isn’t?”

“I feel like I’m wasting my time, like I should be doing something.” He waved toward the world outside the window. “You know things aren’t slowing down out there.”

“No,” Penelope admitted.

“We need to do something before it’s too late.”

“It’s probably already too late.” She walked over to the cupboard, got out a can of warm 7-Up, sat down at the kitchen table.

Kevin sat next to her. He was silent for a moment. “So what were they like?” he asked finally.

“Who? My mothers?”

“Yeah.” He paused. “Before.”

She shrugged. “All right, I guess. I don’t…” She shook her head apologetically. “I don’t really know what you mean.”

“I mean, were they, like, good parents? Did they read your report cards? Did they go to Open House? Did they make sure you brushed your teeth and ate properly?”

“Yes,” she said. “They were good parents.” And felt an involuntary twinge of sadness at the thought.

“Were they, like, radical lesbians?”

Penelope felt heat rush to her face.

“Was it ‘herstory’ instead of ‘history’ and all that?”

“No. Besides, those words come from different roots. ‘History’ is not ‘his story.’ It comes from the Greek ‘historia,’ which means ‘inquiry.’”

“His isn’t even Greek. It comes from ‘he,’ which is Old English.”

He looked at her, surprised. “Where’d you learn that?”

She licked her lips nervously. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

They were silent for a moment. “You’re a little spooky yourself sometimes,” Kevin said.

Penelope nodded. “I know.”

They looked at each other across the table, and for the first time Penelope felt as though she was in one of those movie situations. He looked as though he was about take her hand, or reach over and hug her. And she realized that she would let him.

Jack walked through the door.

“Hey,” he said.

“About time,” Kevin told him.

The mood was broken. If it had been there at all. Penelope picked up her 7-Up, took a sip.

They needed to get out of this house. If they spent another day in here, all four of them would end up fucking each other in one huge daisy chain.

She closed her eyes, tried to push the thought out of her head.

“So who do you want to play you in the movie?” Jack asked, leaning against the sink.

Penelope nearly choked. “What?”

The policeman grinned. “After this is all over and done with, you know they’re going to make a movie out of it. This is a great story. If we play our cards right, we can cash in on it.”

Penelope laughed. “Go on Donahue and Oprah and Geraldo.”

“Hell, no. Let Fox make a quickie TV movie out of our adventures. It’s a lot more interesting than Waco or O.J.”

“TV movies never get top stars,” Kevin said. “They’ll just get some sitcom actors play you two, have the young stud of the moment play me.”

Penelope snorted. “Right.”

“They always get actors who are better-looking than the people in real life.” He grinned. “Maybe they’ll even find a semi-attractive girl to play you.”

“Ha-ha.” Penelope looked around the kitchen. “Where’s the king?”

Kevin shook his head. “His playroom. Where else? He’s probably building a little model of the Parthenon out of matchsticks.”

“No, I’m not. But I’m impressed that you knew the word Parthenon. There’s hope for you yet.” Holbrook walked into the kitchen, dumping the cold contents of his coffee cup into the sink behind Jack. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been looking through my papers, trying to discover weaknesses of Dionysus, of the maenads. Things we could exploit.”

“Find anything?”

“Nothing beyond the obvious. But if I had access to my database—”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Jack said. “If I’d just made hard copies of all of my files, I would’ve been able to discover some way of taking this god down.”

Kevin glared at them. “Didn’t you guys ever think that if the gods returned, they might disrupt the power? They might screw up the phone lines? Hell, all you had to do was plan ahead a little. If you’d bought a generator and a CB radio, you could still be communicating.”

He stopped, blinked. “Shit.” He turned toward Penelope. “I’m as stupid as they are. All we have to do is hit Kmart, Walmart, Target, whatever, and find a generator or a battery or some type of power source—”

“We’re all stupid,” Penelope said. “All we need to do is find a car with a cellular phone.”

“Fuck!” Kevin slammed his palm against the table.

“I would not advise leaving the house,” Holbrook said.

“Why?” Kevin said dryly. “You planning to banish Dionysus from the earth by reading in your basement?”

The teacher faced him. “You don’t even know what you’re dealing with here, you arrogant little shit.”

“I do,” Penelope said.

“Your family’s the one who caused it all.”

Penelope stood, not bothering to respond, not even looking at him.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Let’s find us a car phone.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jack said. “Just in case.”

“You’re only encouraging them.”

“They might be on to something,” the policeman said. He hurried out of the room. “I’ll be back in a sec!” he called back. “I’m just going to get my gun!”

It felt good to be out again, driving.

There was evidence of new destruction—felled trees and still burning piles of furniture that had not been there when they’d driven the road yesterday—but it still felt reassuring to be outdoors rather than cooped up in Holbrook’s claustrophobic home. There was something at being outside, being able to travel and see the sky, lifted Penelope’s spirits. It was completely illogical, solely on emotional preference, but more than Holbrook’s arsenal of facts and tales of secret societies, it gave hope that they could find a way out of this, and could triumph over Dionysus and his minions.

And then they turned onto Monticello and she saw mall.

Whatever hope had been burgeoning within her died instantly. The mall was overrun. Huge holes had been blown in the brown brick walls of the