Anderson Cooper: We have the Reverend Jerry Falwell on the phone from Liberty Baptist University in Luxembourg, Antigua. Good evening Reverend Falwell.

The Reverend Jerry Falwell: Good evening Anderson.

Cooper: Reverend Falwell, what is your assessment of what happened four hours ago?

Falwell: Well, I think that’s absolutely clear, Anderson. We’re entering the end times that were promised in the Bible. Jesus is prepared over the next few days to take up the faithful to heaven, and to assign the sinners their cubicles in hell.

Cooper: Where in the bible speaks to this kind of event? I mean specifically.

Falwell: I think the time for that question has passed. The thing we should be focused on now is preparing ourselves to meet the Lord, preparing ourselves to be judged by God. The fact that we are all still here says that we haven’t yet been judged. There is still time to line up behind the Lord in faith. But this would not be a good time to dally. If you haven’t made peace with the Lord, that’s what I recommend that you be doing right now. And those of you who are faithful in Christ, now is a time to explore your own heart to find whether there is something in your life that you want to change. Anything that isn’t completely in line with the teachings of Jesus as spelled out over and over in the New Testament.

Cooper: What, specifically, do advise people to do?

Falwell: First, notice that God has given you a great gift here. You have a chance not just to repent your sins, but actually to change your actions. If there’s anything you did in the last day or so before this joyous event that you regret, anything that might separate you from the grace of God, you have this one last opportunity to make a different choice in your life.

Falwell: First, notice that God has given you a great gift here. You have a chance not just to repent your sins, but actually to change your actions. If there’s anything you did in the last day or so before this joyous event that you regret, anything that might separate you from the grace of God, you have this one last opportunity to make a different choice in your life.

Cooper: When you say one last time, what do you mean?

Falwell: This is a test from God. He has offered each of us a chance to undo our actions, to undo our sins, to wipe out a day of our actions so that we may choose again, so that we may choose to live in accordance with the morality of Jesus Christ. If there’s anything you’ve done in ignorance of the imminence of God’s holy judgment, you now have a chance to choose again, knowing that God is watching, that God is judging you, and that the Judgment Day is imminent.

Cooper: For those of you watching, we have the Reverend Jerry Falwell by satellite from his studios in Liberty Baptist University in Someplace, Louisiana.

Reverend Falwell, you say that the Judgment Day is imminent. Just how imminent is it? Do you believe that we fleshly mortals have another day? A year? Just how much time do we have.

Falwell: Well that’s not something we can know precisely, Anderson. But we do know that the Judgment Day is upon us. Why else would God give us this gift of another chance, a chance to change our actions?

Cooper: Reverend Falwell, what were you doing just before the event?

Falwell: I was praying.

Cooper: And just after? Where did you end up?

Falwell: I went from praying to a staff meeting. We at Liberty Baptist University have been reviewing proposals for our youth outreach program. Six uf us suddenly appeared in our main conference room surrounded by hundreds of presentations and proposals.

Cooper: What did you think was happening?

Falwell: To be honest, Anderson, I immediately realized what had happened, that we had been given a second chance. Clearly there was some proposal that we had overlooked, or that we had dismissed without sufficient consideration. So we spent the next hour reviewing again the proposals that we had scrutinized the day before–that is, the first time we held the meeting. This time, we selected the programs that we can get up and running immediately, with low cost and with very little setup and preparation. And while we’re focusing on youth outreach, we also included a few proposals for the general population. And of course we called you.

Cooper: And what’s next for you, Reverend Falwell? What are you personally doing to prepare in case this is Judgment Day.

Falwell: I’m confident, Anderson, that I’m in the Lord’s good graces. I’ll be spending the next few days reaching as many people as I can and inviting them to Faith in Christ.

Cooper: Thank you, Reverend Falwell.

Falwell: Thank you, Anderson. I advise you and your viewers to pray, Anderson. Nothing is more important at this critical moment. Pray. Pray for your immortal souls.

This scene starts okay, then becomes goofy. But I’ll post it anyway because it introduces the teenagers, who become more important in later scenes.

Ray Andollo had reverted to the dentist’s office. Given that everyone in the place was freaking out, including him, he decided not to stay for his semi-annual drilling.

By the time he got to the precinct it was in chaos. There were robberies happening all over Sacramento. Why is it that the first people to recover from any disaster were robbers? It always happened that way. Any spectacular event that distracted people from their normal business was an opening, and criminals knew how to fill it.

There were remarkably few murders. And the riots that the police had feared didn’t happen. Or hadn’t happened yet, anyway.

Then Andollo got the call from the Captain.

“Andollo here.”

“Got something for you,” Captan Morris Quintz said. “Murder. Two eighty two Anton Court.”

Anton Court? That was where the murder had happened yesterday. The double murder. A cheating wife and her lover. The guy had been caught speeding somewhere in this sticks of Nevada. He had been scheduled for transport home to Sacramento when earth had fallen into the Twilight Zone.

“What do we know so far?” Andollo asked.

“Same two people as yesterday. Zorem Bigote and Faith Roberge. Some of the details have changed, though. Bodies found in different spots. Might be significant. Hard to say.”

“I’m on it. I haven’t seen Patty yet. Is she in?”

“Right behind you,” Patty Yonce said.

“Okay, Captain, we’re ready to go.”

“What is it?” said Patty.

“Double homicide at two eighty two Anton Court. Roberge and Bigote. Sound familiar?”

“Yeah.”

On the drive they talked about what had happened. They had been together in their cruiser, driving to a crime scene, and suddenly they were no longer there.

Ray said, “I was in my dentist’s office. People around me freaking out. I was freaking out. A woman beside me fainted, and her son, maybe four years old, just looked around and said, ‘wicked!’

“I came back here and took the call. How about you?”

“I was… uh… with Kurt.”

Ray laughed. “At 2:30? That’s one hell of a long nooner.”

“Yeah, well, we actually ate first.”

“That’s a good way to get cramps.”

The arrived on Anton Court. A dog met them as they turned onto the street and followed them the hundred yards to the Bigote house. Two cruisers were there. A uniform was talking with two teenage kids.

Ray and Patty got out of their car and approached the uniform and the teenagers.

“Hey, detectives.”

Ray pointed at the two teenagers. “Same as yesterday.”

One of the kids said, “We weren’t sure we heard the gunshots today. There was a lot of noise in our house. Our mom went crazy, and just kept screaming. It took twenty minutes before she would calm down.”

The other teen said, “That’s why we didn’t call right away. We had to take care of our mother.”

Ray asked, “How many shots did you hear?”

“I think three,” the first teen said. “But it might have been more.”

The second teen said, “I think there were only two. Sean made up the third one because we heard three yesterday. I think there were only two today.”

“We’ll get that straightened out,” Ray said. He turned to the uniformed officer. “Anything else out here?”

“Not yet. I’ll let you know if anything turns up. I haven’t checked with the neighbors yet. I’ll do that next.”

Ray and Patty went into the house. One officer was checking the stairway railing for fingerprints.

“Anything?”

“Not yet. Exley and Overton are upstairs.”

They went up the stairs and into the bedroom. Officers Exley and Overton were there.

The dead woman was in a different position this time. She was in a similar location on the floor near the door, but her head pointed away from the door rather than toward it.

The dead man was slumped near the wall beyond the bed. Yesterday he had been half under the bed.

“Looks like Roberge is still angry,” Ray said.

Officer Overton said, “Yeah, it went down pretty much the same way. Some of the details are different. Lover boy’s genitals are still attached to his body, for example.”

Patty said, “That helps to establish the time of death.”

Ray said, “How so?”

“If it’s different, it must be a second killing. This isn’t just leftovers–”

“Leftovers?”

“Sorry, wrong word. I’m still reeling a little bit myself here. What I mean is, if the killing took place before we all came back, before about 2:38, then when everything returned to now–Jesus, it’s hard to figure out how to say that–the killing would already have taken place. If Roberge shot Bigote before that, Bigote wouldn’t have his genitals now. He’d have whatever wounds he had before the thing happened. So these shootings must have happened after we all came back. And that means–I’m assuming that Roberge came back just like everybody else, to the same time–that he killed them a second time.”

“I see. If the murders had happend before we came back, then we’d find them this time in the same condition as last time. But because they are different, these murders must have happened after we came back. And also the original murders must have happened after that time the first time.

“Shit, I see what you mean about how hard it is to talk about timeframes.”

Patty said, “Well, we have a bigger problem than how to talk about timeframes.”

“Oh yeah,” said Ray, “What’s that?”

“We’re dumbasses.”

“Hey, that’s insulting.”

“Well, check this. We’ve been arguing about how the differences in the body positions might indicate whether the murders happened before or after the event, right?”

“Yes, I think you’ve captured it quite nicely.”

“Well, remember when we drove up? Those two kids?”

“Yes, teenagers.”

“They said they heard the gunshots. And they heard them after the event, while their mother was panicking. So clearly the murders happened after the event.”

“Hmmm,” said Ray. “I see what you mean. We’ve been arguing about something we already knew.”

“That’s right.”

“So we truly are dumbasses. How come we didn’t notice that before?”

“Because,” said Patty, “in the last book we weren’t dumbasses. Dale wrote us to be smart. Flawed, but smart. And since our only existence was in those pages, naturally we made the obvious mistake of thinking that that’s how we really were.”

“Now that you say it, it’s obvious! For a dumbass, you’re pretty smart.”

“You betcha,” Patty said, nodding. “Now, if only Dale knew us better, he might know what his story is about.”

I really like the beginning of the scene, up through the bit with the dog. After that: not so much. Most of it was written as a series of “word wars,” 10-minute blitzes where you type as fast as you can.

Killing Faith was easier the second time. Well, not easier, exactly. But Dan felt it less. The first time, as she lay dying he began to feel guilt and fury and jealousy and impotence and separateness—everything but relief. And he had been able—had been compelled, almost—to push the feelings down, down.

This time, nothing.

He had found himself somehow at the bottom of the stairs. Back at the bottom of the stairs. And Faith was not dead.

“She would be a witness,” he had thought. And he couldn’t afford witnesses, so he had to kill her again. Must not leave witnesses.

Now, looking back on it, Dan realized that the logic was twisted, irredeemably self-referrential. He had to kill his wife because he didn’t want her to witness that he had killed his wife. That clearly didn’t make sense.

Then again, nothing made sense.

Unable to think clearly, but clearly able to notice that he wasn’t able to think clearly, he had gone into a kind of trance, a kind of automatic pilot. That had a kind of logic: If you don’t know what to do, do what you did before. If you survived it before, you’ll probably survive it again. The wisdom of the worn path.

That approach had worked for a while. He had to adapt and adjust when Faith attacked him, but he got through the actual killings okay. Struggle, struggle, bang, bang, then down the stairs and out the door.

The dog had freaked him out. As he reached for his car door a large black dog—some kind of labrador, he thought—ran howling at him from between two houses.

Dan got in the car and closed the door just as the dog reached him. The dog ran full speed into his door, then backed up and bashed into the door again.

Dan locked his door. Okay, he thought. He had just locked the door against an insane dog. Clearly his mind had not yet returned.

The dog sat up and crossed its forepaws. Was it begging?

Dan started his car and the dog jumped and spun. Then it sat up and begged again.

Dan started the car moving forward, and the dog began to howl. It ran along side Dan until it was slightly ahead of him. It stopped and barked once, sharlply.

“Back off, Cujo,” Dan said, and checked to make sure the door was locked.

As Dan rolled past the dog it again ran ahead, stopped and barked, ran ahead, stopped, barked, until it could no longer keep up. Then it howled plaintively, spun around once in the road, howled, spun, howled, and spun until Dan turned onto Fair Oaks Boulevard could no longer see or hear it.

And then things got weird.

Dan had been paying so much attention to the dog that he didn’t notice the mess on Fair Oaks.

The boulevard was littered with cars facing in every direction. It reminded him of some post-apocalyptic horror movie.

Dan stopped—he had little choice—he could not see a path through the cars. Some of the cars had drivers. A few of the drivers were trying to weave through the mess, with little effect. Others stood in clusters between the cars, talking animatedly or holding their hands over their mouths or holding the tops of their heads with both hands.

The road was streaked with skid marks in the shapes of curves Dan had never imagined. Some of the cars had clearly crashed into each other. Others, as far as Dan could see, had avoided collision.

Some drivers stayed in their cars. One woman pressed her hands to her driver’s side window and peered out between them, her eyes wide in shock.

Dan opened his door and got out of the car.

Beside him, an elderly man leaned against a big old Buick, as if to keep himself from falling down. “It’s the apocalypse,” he said gravely.

Dan said, “Attack of the Zombie Goats.”

The man regarded him for a moment. “Judgment Day will not go well for you,” he said, and got in his car and closed the door.

Dan walked toward the nearest cluster of people. Three men and two women.

One of the women turned to Dan. “What was it for you?”

“What was what?”

“What were you doing when it happened? When you went back in time?”

Back in time! These people were even crazier than apocalypse man.

No, Dan, they’re not crazy. Think about it.

But he pushed the crazy thought away. “That’s impossible.”

The woman shook her head. “One minute I was washing the dishes, and the next I was in my car on Fair Oaks Boulevard. So what was it for you?”

I was on a prison bus being transported back to Sacramento after murdering my cheating wife.

Dan cleared his throat. “I can’t say.”

“You don’t remember? Were you sleeping? Jeff here was sleeping.” She pointed at the tallest man of the three in the group.

Jeff said, “I took an after dinner nap. Then I took a mid-nap drive.”

The woman who had spoken first extended her hand to Dan. “I’m Nancy Smith.”

“Dan Roberge.”

“What’s your theory, Dan? What do you think happened?”

“I thought I had a stroke or blacked out or something. Lost track time.”

“What day is it?”

“It’s Sunday, isn’t it?” Dan said as raised his wrist to look at his watch.

Nancy put her hand on Dan’s wrist. “No, don’t look at your watch. Just say what day it is. Say it, don’t ask it.”

Dan had spent Sunday in jail in Lovelock. Then they put him on the prison bus and tortured him with Johnny Cash. “It’s Sunday. August 9th, I think.”

Nancy nodded her head. “Now look at your watch.”

Dan did. He wore an old analog Seiko that Faith had given him. It didn’t show a date. “No date,” he said, holding it out for Nancy to see.

“Do you have a cell phone?”

Dan fished his phone out of his pants pocket. The outer display read 3:29 PM in big letters. Beneath that, the date said 08/08/08.

Nancy said, “Saturday, right? about 3:30?”

“August 8,” he said. “3:29.”

Jeff said, “That was yesterday. Or it was yesterday. Now it’s today.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Nancy said, “Dan, we went back in time. I was washing dishes on Sunday night, then I was in traffic on Saturday afternoon. On the seat beside me were three new books I had just bought at Borders, and a newspaper. The Saturday newspaper. Which I took home, read, and threw into the recycling. Wait till you hear the others.”

One of the men said, “I’m Trevor. I was walking my dog—”

“On Sunday night,” Dan said. “Then in traffic on Saturday.”

“No, that would have been better. I was walking my dog on Sunday night, then I was crossing Fair Oaks Boulevard.”

Dan imagined the scene: Suddenly finding yourself in the middle of a heavily trafficed road with cars wizzing by all around. “Holy shit!”

Trevor laughed. “It wasn’t that bad.” He pointed toward the intersection a hundred yards away. Fair Oaks Boulevard and Watt Avenue, one of the busiest intersections in Sacramento. “The light was with me, so nobody was moving. Nobody on Watt, anyway. But Fair Oaks had a green light, and things were pretty crazy for a few minutes. Fortunately I was three feet from the sidewalk. But it did take me a minute to realize where I was and get out of the street.”

Dan looked at the third man. “What’s your story.”

“I was taking a dump. Ended up in my car on Fair Oaks.” He smiled. “Scared the shit out of me.”

The second woman, who looked maybe twenty years old, said, “I was playing Guitar Hero. We were doing our first arena gig. Thirty thousand screaming fans. Next thing I know I’m changing lanes.”

Dan said, “I have no idea what nay of that means.”

Jeff said, “I was around the corner at the Y Club, singing ‘Stop Dragging My Heart Around’ with my cousin Rose.”

“Singing?”

Jeff shrugged. “Every Sunday is Karaoke Sunday.”

Dan looked at the one person who hadn’t spoken, a chubby, balding man in his forties. “What’s your story?”

“I was watching a rerun of Seinfeld.”

“Well, that’s dull,” Dan said.

“It was the soup Nazi one,” the man said.

Dan remembered the episode well. He and Faith had seen it together when it first aired. It was one of their earliest dates. “No soup for you!” he said.

“I’m Gerald, by the way.”

Nancy said, “You haven’t told us your story, Dan. What were you doing when it happened?”

“I had just got on a bus in Lovelock, Nevada, heading back to Sacramento.”

“Oh,” Nancy said. “What took you to Lovelock?”

“A wedding. My cousin.”

“You took a bus to Lovelock?”

“I drove,” Dan said. “My wife wanted to stay a few days, so I took a bus. Then I was… home.”

The second woman, the one who had been playing Guitar Hero, said, “So what do we do now?”

Jeff said, “We should probably get our cars out of the street. Emergency vehicles will need to get through. Police for sure, maybe fire. And probably a lot of ambulances.”

Trevor said, “Yeah, a lot of ambulances.”

Dan said, “Why haven’t we seen any ambulances yet? These cars are all crunched up. There are probably people hurt inside.”

Nancy said, “Yeah, maybe we should help them first, then move our cars.”

Gerald said, “No, move the cars first, in case the ambulances come.”

Dan got in his car, which was near the edge of the street, and drove it onto someone’s lawn. Then he came back to where the group had gathered.

Jeff had moved his lime green Volkswagen beetle off the road.

Trevor, of course, didn’t have a car to move, because he had been crossing the street.

In the distance, Dan heard sirens. He couldn’t tell whether they were coming this way or moving further away.

Jeff said, “I have an idea. Let’s direct traffic.”

So they all went to the big intersection of Watt and Fair Oaks.

All except for Dan, who realized that somebody needed to direct traffic in the middle of the road, not just at the intersection. Somebody had to sort out this tangled jumble of cars.

Dan found a place where on one side the cars were blocking each other, and on the other side there was a path to the intersection.

One car was sideways in the road. A truck, actually. And it was blocking two lanes and apart of the third. The third lane had a Ford Pinto, aiming back against the normal direction of traffic.

Dan went to the window of the Pinto. Nobody was inside. He looked forther up the lane, and there was a small group of people.

“Hey!” Dan yelled. “Does one of you own this Pinto?”

A kid with blue hair said, “Yeah, me.”

“Can you move it? That way we can start to untangle this mess.”

“Sure,” the kid said, and got in the car.

The kid had to back up, so Dan stood back behind the car and guided the kid out.

Now the truck.

“Whose truck is this?” Dan said to nobody in particular.

A shirtless man said, “That’s mine. I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

“Let’s push it, then.”

“Okay.”

The guy got in the truck and shifted to neutral. The truck was facing the center of the street, toward the median.

Dan turned to the group of people standing nearby. “Come on you guys, help push.”

They came over and lined up on the front of the truck and pushed. The truck started moving, slowly.

Dan ran along the side of the truck so that he could see what was behind. He wished he’d thought of that before, so that he could help the driver plot a path before they started pushing. He hoped the driver had some idea of what to do.

He did: he kept the steering wheel straight. The truck, gaining speed, bumped up onto the sidewalk, first the rear tires, then the front. It came to rest on someone’s lawn.

Dan heard the driver engage the parking brake, and the driver got out of the truck.

“Thanks,” Dan said. Then he looked at the remaining cars. There was a lot of work to do.

And he was actually happy about the clogged traffic. He really didn’t want the police to get here—to Zombie Goat’s house—before he could get away.

It took a half hour to clear a path through the cars. Once the path began clearing, it more or less cleared itself. Once people had a way to get through the tangle of cars, they got in their cars and went away, perhaps to end up clogging some other street.

Dan turned to see where his new “traffic cop” buddies were. They were just finishing up guiding people through the large intersection.

Dan walked to them. “Okay, that’s done. Now what do we do?”

Jeff said

Nancy said, “Let’s find out how big this is. It’s probably on the radio.”

Jeff got in the lime green Volkswagen bug he had been leaning on. He turned the ignition key, then pushed a button to turn on a radio.

A woman’s voice on the radio said, “—seems to be widespread, perhaps worldwide. We are getting reports of an airliner crash at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Traffic is major cities has come to a standstill. Preliminary reports from Asia indicate little damage, because the… event, uh… transported people to their beds.

“We have contacted FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency for an official briefing, but so far FEMA has not responded to our calls.

“Local emergency services are overwhelmed at this time. We are hearing reports of looting in several major cities, including New York and Los Angeles.

“At the time of the event, the President was on vacation at his beach-front home in Oregon. His location at this time has not been disclosed…”

Gerald said, “Jesus.

Nancy said, “Does anybody have someone they need to call?”

Dan shook his head.

Trevor pulled out a cell phone and held down a button. He put the pone to his ear. After a minute he shook his head. “The call isn’t going through.”

Gerald, holding a phone to his ear said, “Same here. Verizon?”

“Sprint,” said Trevor.

Dan waited. Nobody to call. “I should probably get going,” Dan said. “Faith will be worried about me.”

Nancy said, “And you about her, right?”

Dan nodded. He walked to his car, started it up, and drove away toward his home.

Chapter 5 was (except for scene 5 with Mindy and Noopie) a slog to write. I averaged about 350 words per hour. It came out mostly okay, I think, but it was no fun to write. Bleah!

Chapter 6 (coming soon) was a different story altogether. True, it was a slog like Chapter 5. And like Chapter 5 it was no fun to write. But unlike Chapter 5 it didn’t come out mostly okay. It came out poopie. True NaNo-quality poop. I’m struggling to adopt Katster’s cheerful admonition to “embrace the suck!”

But given that it sucks, I may as well embrace it, eh?

Scene 2 in particular went awry. I started writing it, hated it, set it aside, and wrote scenes 3 and 4 instead. When I came back to scene 2 I realized that it the logic of the timing was just plain wrong. So my characters lamented that I had made them so stupid—and I included their laments in the scene and abandoned it.

And then a murkle happened. I decided to interview some of my characters. That turned out to be really fun, really fast, and really interesting. I got 4000+ words of juicy stuff in under four hours. I didn’t know I could write that fast. And Dan in particular has some real attitude that I didn’t know about. I think (I hope, at least) it’s going to make writing him more fun in the near future.

So that’s that. Chapter Six: no fun. Interviews: wicked good fun.

Now: on with the show.

Note: By Saturday night I had written all the scenes I had planned for chapter 5. Then on Sunday morning, as I was hanging around in Clarksburg for Lisa to finish her half-marathon, this scene came to me. What’s interesting is that the scene appeared in my mind kind of as a mental picture, and kind of as the whole sequence of actions.

Anyway, it was a delight to write this. The words flowed out with no effort. After slogging with the earlier scenes in Chapter 5 (which came very, very slowly), I wish all my scenes were as easy and surprising and fun as this one.

Mindy Cabot’s player had come true. Her cat had come back. He was standing in the middle of the road, flipping the tip of his tail.

“Noopie!” Mindy yelped. “Get out of the street!”

The cat turned toward the porch where Mindy was playing with a box of plastic spoons. Mindy didn’t remember coming out onto the porch, or even getting up this morning. She remembered going to bed last night. And she remembered saying her players. And then she was on the porch playing with spoons.

Inside the house, Mindy’s mother screamed. Mindy jumped to her feet and looked in through the lower screen of the door.

She reached for the door handle, then turned toward the street. Noopie was walking away, toward Mrs. Lomax’s house across the street.

“Noopie, come back!” Mindy yelled, and ran after the cat.

She was in the middle of the street before she remembered what her mother taught her. Always look both ways. Her mother told her that a lot, but she told her it a real lot yesterday, after Noopie had been hit by that car.

Mindy knew what dead was from TV, but her mother had explained it anyway. “Noopie has gone to heaven, sweetie. To be with Jesus.”

Jesus was a nice man, Mindy knew. Maybe the nicest ever. But some people didn’t like cats. Mrs. Lomax was really nice, and she didn’t like cats.

“Will Jesus be good to Noopie?”

“Oh, yes,” Mindy’s mother said. “Jesus will take good care of Noopie in heaven.”

After Mindy and her mother had put Noopie in a shoe box and buried him in the woods “so that he can rest in piece,” her mother had reminded her again, “Always look both ways, okay?”

“I know that.”

“I know you do, sweetie,” her mother said, holding both of Mindy’s arms in her hands and looking her in the eye. “But promise me. Okay?”

Mindy had promised.

And now she hadn’t looked both ways.

She stopped in the middle of the street, her pretty yellow summer dress fluttering, and looked left, then right.

It was safe.

From in the house, Mindy’s mother yelled, “Mindy! Where are you?” She sounded scared.

Noopie was going around the corner of the house into Mrs. Lomax’s back yard. A lot of dogs were barking.

Mindy ran after Noopie.

Yesterday was a bad day. It was a good day at first, because it was Mindy’s birthday. She was five. She was so happy because now it took all of her fingers to show how old she was.

And then Noopie had crossed the street without looking both ways.

Mindy caught up with Noopie near Mrs. Lomax’s shed where she kept the rakes and hoes and claw–things to dig in the dirt.

She wagged her finger at the cat. “You naughty kitty. You know you have to look both ways.”

Mindy bent and picked Noopie up. He didn’t squirm the way he usually did. And he was breathing funny.

But Jesus had sent Noopie back.

“Mindy! Where are you!” It sounded like her mother was outside now, and she sounded really scared. “Mindy, call to me!”

“I’m here, Mommy. And guess what!” She ran to show her mother the good news.

Mindy came around the corner of Mrs. Lomax’s house. Her mother was on the porch. When she saw Mindy, she screamed and put her hands over her mouth.

As Mindy got to the edge of the street, her mother yelled, “No!”

Mindy stopped just in time. A car swooshed in front of her, only a few feet away. The car’s horn beeped and beeped.

Mindy almost dropped Noopie, but she was able to grab him before he fell out of her arms.

Mindy’s mother was running toward her. Mindy looked left, then right. It was clear.

Her mother caught her in the middle of the street, dropped to her knees, and hugged her.

“Oh, MIndy!” she said. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“Mommy, guess what?” Mindy wriggled free of the hug and held Noopie out so her mother could see. “Noopie came back. I played to Jesus and he sent Noopie back from heaven.”

Noopie sneezed.

Mindy’s mother screamed.

Rynn Haney drifted in the infinite blackness. Pinpoints of light moved slowly across her vision. Adrenaline rushed through her body, and a thought floated across her mind: Did it explode?

Her momentum rotated her, and Atlantis’s nose cap moved into view mere feet away.

Outside, she thought. What am I doing out here?

“Rynn?” a voice said. The voice seemed to be coming from inside her head. “Kathrynn, can you hear me?”

Jeff’s voice in her helmet speakers.

“I think I’m outside.” I think? Well, that’s stupid. Of course I’m outside.

Suddenly she spun. She felt a tug at her waist as the tether reached the limit of its length, and she began to drift back toward the nose of the shuttle.

And there was the scar, the small gouge that yesterday had made Rynn’s EVA necessary. The small gouge that yesterday she had repaired by smearing NOAX with a spatula. The small gouge that had somehow reappeared.

A voice in her speakers, a different voice, said, “Atlantis, stand by, we have a situation down here.”

Jeff, the captain of shuttle mission STS-125, said, “Standing by, Houston. And we have a situation up here, too.”

Jude Elliott was surprised to be here, straddling the railing of the twelfth-floor fire escape more than a hundred feet above the alley behind his apartment building.

Jude Elliott was surprised to be alive.

He had leaped from the fire escape. In the two and a half seconds that followed, he just had time to think, Oh, good, I’m going to miss the dumpster.

He didn’t remember hitting the ground. And yet he was pretty sure that he had hit the ground. How could he not?

Jude lifted his left leg over the railing. Holding on with both hands, he leaned forward and looked down to the empty alley.

He released his grip on the railing. Gravity pulled him forward and downward. In the two and a half seconds that followed, he just had time to think, Headline: Clumsy teen throws self at ground and misses.

Erika Howard woke up screaming. Screaming and in labor.

What the hell? She had given birth just a few hours ago.

Doctor Morris stood between her legs. He looked concerned.

How had they gotten her back on the table without waking her?

“What just happened?” Morris said.

The nurse, the plain one, screamed. What was her name? Erika couldn’t remember. The other nurse, the pretty one, fainted. Erika knew his name. He was Tom.

Outside the room several people screamed. Other moms in labor? No, one of them sounded like a man.

“What is it?” Erika said. “Twins?”

She hadn’t expected twins. She wasn’t expecting twins. The ultrasounds had showed one child. How could they have missed a second baby?

“I don’t know,” said Morris. “I’m not feeling well.”

“Well, I’m not stopping now, Doc!,” said Erika. “This train has left the station.”

Janet looked down at Tom, then at the doctor with a puzzled look on her face. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t …” Morris stepped back from between Erika’s legs. He picked up the chart that hung on a hook at the end of the birthing table.

“Howard,” he said. He looked at Erika, then again at the chart. “Didn’t we already…” Morris swayed, then put a hands on the table to steady himself.

“Yes, we fucking already,” Erika said. Her son Kyle had been born hours earlier, at 11 am.

She cramped again. The pain was excruciating. She screamed.

Morris repositioned himself. “Four centimeters?” he said. It was a question.

Jesus, Morris seemed to have no idea what he was doing.

“How the fuck did you not know about the second one!”

Morris didn’t answer. Instead he looked at Janet. “Did something just happen?”

“I was at a movie with Bob,” Janet said. “And then I was here.”

Morris looked at his watch and blinked. He held his wrist to his ear as if listening for the watch to tick. He stared again at the watch. “Digital,” he said, then brought it again to his ear.

He looked at Janet. “What time is it?”

Janet looked at her watch, then held it to her ear. She looked up at the wall. Erika followed her gaze.

The clock read 3:31.

“I don’t understand,” Janet said.

Morris said, “What day?”

“What day?” Erika said. “How fucking long was I asleep?”

“Sunday?” Janet said.

“No, I’m off on Sunday,” Morris said. “My watch says Saturday. 3:33 pm.”

“Hey, yo, who gives a crap about your watch? I’m giving birth here.”

Janet looked at her watch. “Mine, too.”

Morris looked up at the clock on the wall. “I was watching the Diamondbacks.”

“Are you going to deliver this goddamned baby or not?”

“I thought I did.”

What the hell?

“My second baby, you fucking quack.”

Morris pointed between Erika’s legs and frowned. “You’ve never had a baby before.”

“Don’t you tell me I’ve never had a baby,” Erika yelled. “He’s in your nursery.”

“I’m really not feeling well,” Morris said, and turned and walked out of the room.

Janet stared after him.

Someone screamed from down the hall.

Erika said, “Will somebody please tell me what is going on?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Janet said quietly. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Something (a bird?) loomed very close above Olin Montgomery’s head. He ducked forward instinctively and smashed his forehead solidly on the empty air in front of him, the shock sending a shower of sparks over his field of vision.

What had he hit his head on, his golf club? No, he could feel the club in his hands, and his head had hit something in between.

Between my hands?

Olin opened his eyes and screamed. He was hurtling down the highway (I’m on the 10) at full speed. Cars in front of him were moving all the wrong ways, traveling sideways, slowing, swerving, crashing into each other in a mad jumble. A hundred car horns bleated.

Olin was bearing down too fast on an old white pickup truck that was spinning in the road in front of him, spraying lawn care equipment in all directions. He stomped on the brake and yanked the steering wheel (not my five iron) sharply to the left. The rear of his Mercedes SUV snaked around to the right, jerked on something (pothole), swerved back behind and around to the left. Olin was thrown first to the right, sharply against the suddenly slackless seatbelt, then to the left against the door. A sheet of white (side air curtain) flashed in the corner of his eye, and his head hit something and twisted. The SUV tilted up on its left wheels. For a second it swivelled down the highway, wrenching the steering wheel from Olin’s hands, then tipped onto its side. The door glass splintered and the fragments spun and twisted as the car scraped and screeched roof first along the ridged concrete.

Olin could feel the SUV’s momentum slowing. I’m going to get out of this okay.

A sickening crunch hurled Olin toward the roof of the car, his seat belt slicing into his legs. The roof buckled and struck his head, bending him double as he dangled from the car seat.

Olin’s vision blended from black to red to brown, the brown of the car’s interior decor. His eyes hurt, and the top of his head felt like it was split open.

His hands still gripped the steering wheel.

Olin released the steering wheel and brought a hand to the top of his head. It didn’t feel wet. He looked at his hand. No blood. But Christ his head hurt.

Around him, beyond the crumpled confines of his SUV, the sounds of screeching tires and crumpling metal diminished. People were screaming, and perhaps had been screaming for some time. Some of the screams sounded like screams of pain. Others sounded like something worse.

“I need help over here!” someone shouted.

What the hell had loomed over him? It wasn’t a bird. It was… It was the roof of his car. As he swung his five iron back for an approach shot on the eighteenth hole at Hillcrest, the roof of his car had suddenly loomed above his head, and he suddenly he had been shooting down the 10.

Concussion. Had he passed out? He may have, when the roof had cracked him on the head.

The car’s digital clock, angled oddly above him, read 2:31 pm.

Pickles belted out a yowl that, to Mamie Levine’s ears, put the alley cats and their nightly startle-fest to shame.

Outside her open living room window and three stories below, the alley cats proved her wrong by screaming so nearly in unison that their voices beat together in alternating peaks of cancellation and summation.

Pickles spun three or four complete rotations, at the same time flopping through three or four barrel rolls, howling madly through the whole acrobatic impossibility.

“Good lord, Pickles,” Mamie said. “You’re acting as if you were caught in a blender.”

Pickles spun and rolled a few more times, jumped straight up, landed on all fours and zipped like a cartoon across the living room carpet into the bedroom.

The cats outside were joined now by dogs or wolves or coyotes.

What in blue blazes had gotten into those animals? Was there an earthquake coming? Here in Chicago?

Mamie looked into the bedroom, where Pickles was tearing at the bedspread with her claws. Bits of fluff flitted into the air.

That was going to take a lot of work to patch.

Pickles darted off the bed toward the window. Mamie heard the harsh scrabbling of Pickles’s usually dainty claws. Then something crashed (there goes the curtain rod), and Pickles burst, howling, down the hallway toward the kitchen. The howling cut off suddenly, followed by a loud bump (cat into cabinet) and a squeeky “bip” from Pickles.

“Oh, dear,” Mamie said. “I just waxed that floor yesterday.”

Mamie looked again into the bedroom. Pickles’s furry fury hadn’t disturbed the rest of the bedspread, which was still tucked primly under and folded primly over the pillows.

Mamie cocked her head and looked at the neatly made bed. Wasn’t she just in there, snuggled into bed, reading J. D. Robb’s latest futuristic detective romance novel? When had she made the bed?

And she couldn’t remember coming into the living room. One minute she had been in bed reading, and the next she had been in the living room watching PIckles go bonkers.

Another fugue. Oh, dear.

The noise outside was louder now. Mamie could not hear Pickles.

“Pickles?”

She walked down the hall to the kitchen. Pickles sat on his haunches, facing toward Mamie, panting.

Her cat was panting?

Mamie noticed that the floor was wet. In the far corner the mop stood in the mop bucket. She could smell the fresh wax.

Fugue mopping? That couldn’t be a good sign.

Outside the cats screamed and the dogs howled. And there was more. People screaming. Horns honking.

Mamie heard a siren in the distance.

Then the air raid warning siren two blocks away burst into song.

        <em>What in the blue blazes?</em>  Mamie thought.