He checked on Isha. She still slept. He then went outside - he needed to go outside - and stood on the porch while it rained. He gazed at the overgrown yard, looking at the shrubs and flowers he remembered his mother and father had planted with their hands. He felt like he had momentarily stepped into the continuum of their lives.

When the rain slacked off, he walked around back. As he stood at the edge of their weed-covered garden in the corner of their back yard, lost in teenage memories of mowing and trimming and weeding, he stopped and listened carefully. This time he was sure he heard music in the distance. It faded in and out, but he was sure. The way the sound changed, he guessed that it came from a car. Someone was driving around, advertising his or her presence, with thunderously loud music.

His first impulse was to get in the car and find whoever it was. But he remembered Ted and Laura's warning. "Stay away from other people until you know what's going on." So he would be cautious. He had Isha to comfort and care for and to be comforted by. But it was good to know that someone besides himself remained. Someone was out there.

Chapter 7.

By nightfall, Martin was exhausted. Physically, his first day above-ground had been effortless, but he had moved from one world into another, and his mind was fatigued. Isha had eaten again, this time without his assistance, and while he was sitting in the living room beside two candles, she hobbled out and let herself collapse at his feet.

"Pals," he said to her, and she thumped her tail twice and rested her chin on his ankle. He stroked her head, not surprised to find her fur rough and unhealthy-feeling. He buried both his hands in her white ruff and scratched her gently behind her ears. She turned her brown eyes up at him and he wondered what her eyes had seen in the days he patiently spent underground, devising games and activities to pass the days during which the earth had depopulated.

He took the pages from his parents and turned them over in his hands. He knew that when he finally read the last word, it would break his heart. He put it off.

In the meantime, he made lists.

In the order that he thought of them, he wrote "Generator," "Gasoline supply," "Radio with shortwave," and "Collect perishable food." He knew there would be canned foods available for years, but what about dried foods, like pastas and beans? And would there be any fresh food left anywhere?

Martin blew out the two candles and went outside. Isha weakly followed him, her head hanging low, and watched from the driveway as he got the aluminum ladder from the garage, carried it to the back of the house, and propped it against the roof.

From the peak of the roof, he pulled himself up another three feet to the top of the brick chimney, and from there he could see between some of the neighborhood trees toward the downtown area. A few streetlights were on, lighting the way for evening shoppers and late traffic, but the night was peculiarly silent - no car or truck or machine noises carried from downtown.

How long, he wondered, until the electricity completely failed?

Several distant mockingbirds warbled and chittered, and somewhere a tropical bird shrieked and made a hooting laugh. Below him, in the overgrown yards, masses of crickets creaked rhythmically.

Calling for mates, Martin thought, all of them, birds and insects, and most likely so was whoever was driving around blasting music from his car.

He sat atop the chimney a while longer, looking for any lights that moved or turned on or off, but there was nothing. He could see a few house- and porchlights in far neighborhoods. They would burn till the electricity failed. Across the portion of the city that he could see, however, nothing moved, nothing changed.

Isha met him at the foot of the ladder and pushed her narrow collie muzzle into his hand.

"Feeling better, aren't you. So now both of us are back in the land of the living. Sort of." Martin knelt and put one arm around her and stroked her. He realized he was smiling - smiling for the first time that day, perhaps for the first time in several days.

Back inside the house, he did not relight the candles. His eyes were dark-adjusted and he could see well enough. Why advertise his presence? When it came to meeting people, he wanted do it on his terms, not theirs.

As for his parents' last words to him, he would read them in the morning. He didn't want to sleep with his parents' goodbye running through his head. Besides, he was exhausted, emotionally drained, and realized his rationality was frail.

From the corner cabinet in the kitchen he took out their bottle of cognac and poured himself a couple of ounces in a short glass. His eyes caught on the dim glint of moonlight on the two coffee cups at the edge of the sink. He had intended to sip the brandy, but he gulped it in one swallow, and whether his eyes clouded from that or from memories... was immaterial.

Sleeping in the guest room seemed wrong for some reason. All he could think of was his mother's hands pulling the sheets tight over the mattress and smoothing the blanket and bedspread till it was perfect. He didn't want to disturb that. So he got a blanket from the linen closet and put it on the sofa.

Isha lay on the floor beside him and sighed once heavily. It was the last thing Martin heard till the morning mockingbirds wakened him.

When finally opened his eyes, he saw Isha, crouched at the front window, her ears down, growling very softly, her attention intently focused on something outside the house.

Chapter 8.

Martin came fully awake.

He sidled up to the window and cautiously looked around its edge. Parked at the curb was an immaculately restored black motorcycle, one that could have been straight out of the 1940's, and sitting on the curb at the edge of the front lawn was a big guy, maybe about thirty years old, in levis, a blue work shirt, and a black leather vest. He was generally scruffy-looking, with tangled shoulder-length hair, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, and he was sitting there on the curb, turned sideways, reading a paperback book.

A biker? Martin thought. A biker out there waiting for him?

The likelihood of the man just happening to pick this house to stop and read was, Martin knew, microscopic.

On the other hand, if the stranger had something aggressive in mind, why wait around till Martin woke up and saw him? Why sit there in the open with his back half turned, engrossed in a book?

Martin opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. Before he could say anything, the man at the curb turned his head from his book from his book and showed a huge yellow-toothed grin. "Mornin'. Quiet neighborhood you got here."

"They're all dead. Good morning. I was told to stay away from people till I knew what was going on," Martin said. He noted that the book was The Way of Zen.

"No sweat."

The big man waved his hand as though to ward off any possibility of doubt. "That's always good advice, epidemic or no epidemic. I'll stay right here. You been out of circulation, then. Solitary?"

"I was in an isolation experiment. I came out yesterday."

He nodded. "You're one lucky guy. You didn't have to see it. I was immune. No matter how you poison the rats," he said with his huge grin, "always a few slip by. My name's Diaz."

"I'm Martin. The people who ran the experiment left me a stack of newspapers so I know the basics." He shivered. "It's colder than it should be."

"Right." Diaz nodded deeply. "You see the sunset yesterday?" As if imparting special knowledge, Diaz lowered his eyelids and raised his eyebrows. "It was beautiful, man. They're beautiful every day. Some Middle East bonzos had a nuke-it-as-you-are party and the sunsets're getting better every day, when it doesn't rain. And it's an average of fifteen degrees cooler than it should be this time of year. But the sunsets, man. Incredible. Red smeared with yellows and gold, orange and blues, purples and mold." He flashed his grin again. "I'm a poet, too."

It occurred to Martin that Diaz might also be crazy.

Diaz had started pacing slowly back and forth in front of his motorcycle, but he suddenly stopped. "I'm at the height of my cycle, man, so I'll be talking a lot. Hey, you probably think I'm a biker, lady-striker, bad-newser and dope-cruiser, right?"

"Crossed my mind," Martin said.

"Totally harmless to others. Bipolar. Manic-depressive. It's a real ride."

Without thinking, Martin automatically measured the distance the door was behind him and reminded himself of the position of the interior lock. As if reading his mind, Isha had already moved back, out of his way.

"I'll start the drugs again in a few days."

"Good," Martin said, still a bit wary. Just how excellent an idea was it to trust someone who tells you he's a harmless manic-depressive? On the other hand, Martin was starved beyond belief for company. He wanted to talk another human being so bad he ached. "You hungry?" he asked Diaz.

"Diaz is always hungry. If you don't have the grub, we could go down and have a Safeway party."

Martin felt himself grinning for the second time. "A Safeway party?"

"There are some things you need to know, Martin, my newest friend. In our new world here, we got new words, new customs." There was the grin again. "And a Safeway party," he said conspiratorily, "is one of the last good things we got left. And it doesn't even have to be a Safeway."

"I have a question, Diaz."

"Speak it."

"Why should I trust a bipolar individual who says he's harmless?"

"Good question. I look like a biker, I'm dirty, but I make sure I never stink, and I got a mental problem for which I was wrapped up a couple times in a canvas jacket." Diaz held up one finger and pointed it at Martin. "Here's my answer." He flipped open the lid to one of the carry-boxes on the back of his motorcycle and reached inside. "You should trust me because I'm going to give you this."

Delicately, with a thumb and forefinger, Diaz pulled out a black, slim-profile automatic pistol by the barrel. Carrying it that way, he came up the walkway half a dozen steps and put it in Martin's hands. "It's loaded, so be careful, all right?" Diaz turned his back and returned to the curb. C'mon, man. I'm hungry and the Safeway's waitin'."

Martin checked and saw that it was loaded. He gave it back to Diaz. Big Diaz grin. He put it away under his vest.

Diaz insisted they walk in order to enjoy the view. "I love the kind of scenery, man, where there are no people. People were the rot of the world. Lice. Ticks."

Isha followed quietly behind them, her head low.

"You don't want to drive around too much," Diaz explained. On the north side of Santa Miranda, he said, some people were getting organized and looking for other survivors. "And you think I'm whacked," he said, "their Mr. Macho thinks he's going to set up a new government, bring back cars and factories and in a few years we'll have everything back the way it used to be and we'll all be having a hell of a lot of fun again - well, after we get rid of the Greenpeacers, faggots, atheists, uppity coloreds, and those femo-ovo-Nazis."

"Civilization rears its smiling face," Martin said. He recalled what he had read in the past months - in times of chaos, people's desire for order led them to tolerate the most horrific acts in the name of security.

The Safeway had been through hard times. The front doors had been shattered and the cash registers had been smashed open with axes, which still lay on the checkout counters.

Surprisingly, a few of the overhead lights were still on. In the first moments, Martin had visions of smoking slabs of meat, crosshatched with grill marks and blackened with burned barbecue sauce, cold sliced tomatoes spread across a white plate, and watermelon and cantaloupe and....

Then he noticed the smell of rotten meat and fruit.

"You'll get used to it." Diaz pulled a hibachi off a shelf and Martin picked up a bag of charcoal. "Two weeks ago," Diaz said, "I was in a Safeway up in Sacramento, found a jaguar up in the meat section, and I don't mean the car type of jaguar. Just standing there, eatin' up round steaks and t-bones. Those things have jaw-muscles the size of footballs. He was chewin' up beef bones like cracker-jacks."

"What happened?"

"He ate all he wanted. He looked at me once and I left. Jaguars don't recognize the threat implied in my style of dress. Diaz attempts to coexist with nature."

"The whole ecology's going to change, isn't it," Martin said. "This area will dry up, fires will probably clear everything away, and then it'll start over." He was saying it, but he still couldn't believe it - not really. Before him, here in the Safeway, the clean, well-lighted place of the Western world, were rows of rat-damaged Hamburger Helper and spilled Rice-a-Roni. Bags of flour had sprayed across the floor and now showed the footprints of many small animals. Canned vegetables lay scattered everywhere.

All across the store, most packaged food had been chewed into. Grains and pastas and cereals were spread across the once-shining floor. The meat counter had been ravaged - styrofoam, plastic wrap, and scraps of dried meat were pulverized together. Martin remembered the dog pack he had seen the day before and wondered if dogs had been in here also. The rotten-meat smell was not so bad now; olfactory exhaustion was a good thing.

"I'm a vegetarian," Diaz said, loading his arms with cans of corn, beans, and fruit.

"I feel a little guilty about this," Martin said. The store was a shambles, and obviously anyone who might care was dead, but the morality he had lived with all his life kept his hands at his sides. "I don't have any choice, do I? No one's alive who can sell me anything." He felt a little less like a thief and more like a scavenger.

"Money went out of style long ago. And the people that are alive, they're more in the taking than the buying mode," Diaz said.

At Martin's feet, Isha sniffed at a scrap of meat and then licked it up and swallowed it. She looked up at him and whined once, briefly. That made his decision comfortable.

They set up two lawn chairs inside the store, on the side opposite the rotten meat section, and they had finished eating an hour ago. Isha lay dozing beside the cooling hibachi, having eaten two cans of dog food and, for dessert, one of cat food. Diaz was picking fruit out of a jar.

"I don't know what I used to be," Martin said. "I was drifting. And now I'm even less sure what I am. At the moment I'm just glad to be here."

"A zen moment!" Diaz announced.

"I thought I had it figured out," Martin said. "I was going to come back and fit into society, propose to a woman...." He had to stop talking and swallow the knot in his throat. "I was almost an architect - almost a draftsman, anyway - but the more I got into it, the less it interested me. Then I studied a few other things that seemed to take me further down some remote road. I felt too ignorant of too many things to specialize in one thing. I guess I got my head in a corner. Then I volunteered for the isolation study."

"Sounds like you were at the bottom of your cycle," Diaz said, still picking at his teeth.

"I thought that with a year to examine myself, I'd come out knowing what I wanted, that I'd be... wiser."

"It work?"

"What could ever have prepared me for this? It made everything I thought irrelevant. Look where we are, sitting in lawn chairs having a Safeway party and listening to the rats chew."

Diaz looked at him with one cocked eyebrow. "They're eating. We're eating. Seems copacetic to me."

"You're at the top of your cycle. How can I not be depressed? My parents are dead, everything's gone, I don't know if the woman I wanted to marry is alive or not...."

"She's not, man. She woulda come and found you. She's with everyone else, except those whacked bubos across town."

"I need to find out."

"Of course. But nowadays, my friend, we do not needlessly rush." Diaz stretched his feet out in front of him and leaned back, pushing his thick fingers through his dirty hair and locking his hands behind his head. "I specialized in being a euth artist."

"A youth artist?"

"As in euthanasia. People were begging to die. It almost got to be a fad. You get MIV, and to save what medical resources there were, not that they saved anybody, you go to the nearest hospital and you get on the list for the euth artist. I was all cleaned up then, hair was cut, didn't use no double negatives, and I was good, man, I was soothing, I was the best. I had my little tank of nitrous oxide and I'd make 'em feel happy for the last time. Then I'd shoot 'em full of potassium chloride or curare or whatever the hell they had on hand, and they were gone. Bed was emptied in two minutes and I'd put on my comforting smile go to the next bed. They never had a complaint."

Diaz let his chair tilt forward and he searched around in his vest pockets and brought out a dirty little tablet. Carefully he opened it up. It was a list of names, closely written in tiny, ragged script, with some numbers after each one.

"This is their names and the dates," he said. "Every one I euthed. I wrote 'em down while they checked for vitals. I always carry this." He looked at the unfolded paper a moment. "I remember almost every one of 'em, man. Like this one here." He pointed one out. His fingernail was broken and black with dirt and grease. "Foley, Linda C., November ten. She was about twenty-eight, light brown hair, funny overlapping teeth. I remember I could smell cigarettes on her breath. I gave her the nitrous and she said something like, 'This won't hurt, will it?' A lot of 'em said that. Then she said, 'I used to be pregnant.'" Diaz closed up the little tablet. "I gave her full nitrous and then shot her up. She never even blinked. Died looking at me. A lot of 'em did."

Neither said anything. In the expanses supermarket, nothing moved, but around them they could still hear the rats chewing.

"You deal with it okay?" Martin asked.

"Mostly. At least I know the names of my ghosts."

Isha groaned peacefully in her sleep and rolled over on her side.

"What're you going to do now?" Martin asked him. "Since you lived?"

"Travel. Get the hell away from the scene of my crimes. Check things out. I was on my way to New York when I saw you drivin' through town. How about yourself? Gonna re-establish civilization?"

"When I came up from underground, I knew one thing: wherever I was, I wanted to eat up every moment of being here. Corny."