The dog barked happily at the sound of his voice and leaped up again.

"Kojak!" a stern voice said, and Stu jumped and stared around. "Get down! Leave that man alone! You're going to track all over his shirt! Miserable dog!"

Kojak put all four feet on the road again and walked around Stu with his tail between his legs. The tail was still flipping back and forth in suppressed joy despite its confinement, however, and Stu decided this one would never make much of a canine put-on artist.

Now he could see the owner of the voice-and of Kojak, it seemed like. A man of about sixty wearing a ragged sweater, old gray pants... and a beret. He was sitting on a piano stool and holding a palette. An easel with a canvas on it stood before him.

Now he stood up, placed the palette on the piano stool (under his breath Stu heard him mutter, "Now don't forget and sit on that"), and walked toward Stu with his hand extended. Beneath the beret his fluffy grayish hair bounced in a small and mellow breeze.

"I hope you intend no foul play with that rifle, sir. Glen Bateman, at your service."

Stu stepped forward and took the outstretched hand (Kojak was growing frisky again, bouncing around Stu but not daring to renew his leaps-not yet, at least). "Stuart Redman. Don't worry about the gun. I ain't seen enough people to start shootin em. In fact, I ain't seen any, until you."

"Do you like caviar?"

"Never tried it."

"Then it's time you did. And if you don't care for it, there's plenty of other things. Kojak, don't jump. I know you're thinking of renewing your crazed leaps-I can read you like a book-but control yourself. Always remember, Kojak, that control is what separates the higher orders from the lower. Control!"

His better nature thus appealed to, Kojak shrank down on his haunches and began to pant. He had a big grin on his doggy face. It had been Stu's experience that a grinning dog is either a biting dog or a damned good dog. And this didn't look like a biting dog.

"I'm inviting you to lunch," Bateman said. "You're the first human being I've seen, at least in the last week. Will you stay?"

"I'd be glad to."

"Southerner, aren't you?"

"East Texas."

"An Easterner, my mistake." Bateman cackled at his own wit and turned back to his picture, an indifferent watercolor of the woods across the road.

"I wouldn't sit down on that piano stool, if I were you," Stu said.

"Shit, no! Wouldn't do at all, would it?" He changed course and headed toward the back of the small clearing. Stu saw there was an orange and white cooler chest in the shade back there, with what looked like a white lawn tablecloth folded on top of it. When Bateman fluffed it out, Stu saw that was just what it was.

"Used to be part of the communion set at the Grace Baptist Church in Woodsville," Bateman said. "I liberated it. I don't think the Baptists will miss it. They've all gone home to Jesus. At least all the Woodsville Baptists have. They can celebrate their communion in person now. Although I think the Baptists are going to find heaven a great letdown unless the management allows them television-or perhaps they call it heavenvision up there-on which they can watch Jerry Falwell and Jack van Impe. What we have here is an old pagan communing with nature instead. Kojak, don't step on the tablecloth. Control, always remember that, Kojak. In all you do, make control your watchword. Shall we step across the road and have a wash, Mr. Redman?"

"Make it Stu."

"All right, I will."

They went down the road and washed in the cold, clear water. Stu felt happy. Meeting this particular man at this particular time seemed somehow exactly right. Downstream from them Kojak lapped at the water and then bounded off into the woods, barking happily. He flushed a wood pheasant and Stu watched it explode up from the brush and thought with some surprise that just maybe everything would be all right. Somehow all right.

He didn't care much for the caviar-it tasted like cold fish jelly-but Bateman also had a pepperoni, a salami, two tins of sardines, some slightly mushy apples, and a large box of Keebler fig bars. Wonderful for the bowels, fig bars, Bateman said. Stu's bowels had been giving him no grief at all since he'd gotten out of Stovington and started walking, but he liked fig bars anyway, and helped himself to half a dozen. In fact, he ate hugely of everything.

During the meal, which was eaten largely on Saltines, Bateman told Stu he had been an assistant professor of sociology at Woodsville Community College. Woodsville, he said, was a small town ("famous for its community college and its four gas stations," he told Stu) another six miles down the road. His wife had been dead ten years. They had been childless. Most of his colleagues had not cared for him, he said, and the feeling had been heartily mutual. "They thought I was a lunatic," he said. "The strong possibility that they were right did nothing to improve our relations." He had accepted the superflu epidemic with equanimity, he said, because at last he would be able to retire and paint full-time, as he had always wanted to do.

As he divided the dessert (a Sara Lee poundcake) and handed Stu his half on a paper plate, he said, "I'm a horrible painter, horrible. But I simply tell myself that this July there is no one on earth painting better landscapes than Glendon Pequod Bateman, B.A., M.A., M.F.A. A cheap ego trip, but mine own."

"Was Kojak your dog before?"

"No-that would have been a rather amazing coincidence, wouldn't it? I believe Kojak belonged to someone across town. I saw him occasionally, but since I didn't know what his name was, I have taken the liberty of rechristening him. He doesn't seem to mind. Excuse me for a minute, Stu."

He trotted across the road and Stu heard him splashing in the water. He came back shortly, pantslegs rolled to his knees. He was carrying a dripping six-pack of Narragansett beer in each hand.

"This was supposed to go with the meal. Stupid of me."

"It goes just as well after," Stu said, pulling a can off the template. "Thanks."

They pulled their ringtabs and Bateman raised his can. "To us, Stu. May we have happy days, satisfied minds, and little or no low back pain."

"Amen to that." They clicked their cans together and drank. Stu thought that a swallow of beer had never tasted so good to him before and probably never would again.

"You're a man of few words," Bateman said. "I hope you don't feel that I'm dancing on the grave of the world, so to speak."

"No," Stu said.

"I was prejudiced against the world," Bateman said. "I admit that freely. The world in the last quarter of the twentieth century had, for me at least, all the charm of an eighty-year-old man dying of cancer of the colon. They say it's a malaise which has struck all Western peoples as the century-any century-draws to a close. We have always wrapped ourselves in mourning shrouds and gone around crying woe to thee, O Jerusalem... or Cleveland, as the case may be. The dancing sickness took place during the latter part of the fifteenth century. Bubonic plague-the black death-decimated Europe near the end of the fourteenth. Whooping cough near the end of the seventeenth, and the first known outbreaks of influenza near the end of the nineteenth. We've become so used to the idea of the flu-it seems almost like the common cold to us, doesn't it?-that no one but the historians seems to know that a hundred years ago it didn't exist. a hundred years ago it didn't exist.

"It's during the last three decades of any given century that your religious maniacs arise with facts and figures showing that Armageddon is finally at hand. Such people are always there, of course, but near the end of a century their ranks seem to swell... and they are taken seriously by great numbers of people. Monsters appear. Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden. Charles Manson and Richard Speck and Ted Bundy in our own time, if you like. It's been suggested by colleagues even more fanciful than I that Western Man needs an occasional high colonic, a purging, and this occurs at the end of centuries so that he can face the new century clean and full of optimism. And in this case, we've been given a super-enema, and when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. We are not, after all, simply approaching the centenary this time. We are approaching a whole new millennium."

Bateman paused, considering.

"Now that I think about it, I am am dancing on the grave of the world. Another beer?" dancing on the grave of the world. Another beer?"

Stu took one, and thought over what Bateman had said.

"It's not really the end," he said at last. "At least, I don't think so. Just ... intermission."

"Rather apt. Well said. I'm going back to my picture, if you don't mind."

"Go ahead."

"Have you seen any other dogs?" Bateman asked as Kojak came bounding joyously back across the road.

"No."

"Nor have I. You're the only other person I've seen, but Kojak seems to be one of a kind."

"If he's alive, there will be others."

"Not very scientific," Bateman said kindly. "What kind of an American are you? Show me a second dog-preferably a bitch-and I'll accept your thesis that somewhere there is a third. But don't show me one and from that posit a second. It won't do."

"I've seen cows," Stu said thoughtfully.

"Cows, yes, and deer. But the horses are all dead."

"You know, that's right," Stu agreed. He had seen several dead horses on his walk. In some cases cows had been grazing upwind of the bloating bodies. "Now why should that be?"

"No idea. We all respire in much the same way, and this seems to be primarily a respiratory disease. But I wonder if there isn't some other factor? Men, dogs, and horses catch it. Cows and deer don't. And rats were down for a while but now seem to be coming back." Bateman was recklessly mixing paint on his palette. "Cats everywhere, a plague of cats, and from what I can see, the insects are going on pretty much as they always have. Of course, the little faux pas faux pas mankind commits rarely seem to affect them, anyway-and the thought of a mosquito with the flu is just too ridiculous to consider. None of it makes any surface sense. It's crazy." mankind commits rarely seem to affect them, anyway-and the thought of a mosquito with the flu is just too ridiculous to consider. None of it makes any surface sense. It's crazy."

"It sure is," Stu said, and uncorked another beer. His head was buzzing pleasantly.

"We're apt to see some interesting shifts in the ecology," Bateman said. He was making the horrible mistake of trying to paint Kojak into his picture. "Remains to be seen if Homo sapiens Homo sapiens is going to be able to reproduce himself in the wake of this-it very much remains to be seen -but at least we can get together and try. But is Kojak going to find a mate? Is he ever going to become a proud papa?" is going to be able to reproduce himself in the wake of this-it very much remains to be seen -but at least we can get together and try. But is Kojak going to find a mate? Is he ever going to become a proud papa?"

"Jesus, I guess he might not."

Bateman stood, put his palette on his piano stool, and got a fresh beer. "I think you're right," he said. "There probably are other people, other dogs, other horses. But many of the animals may die without ever reproducing. There may be some animals of those susceptible species who were pregnant when the flu came along, of course. There may be dozens of healthy women in the United States right now who-pardon the crudity-have cakes baking in the oven. But some of the animals are apt to just sink below the point of no return. If you take the dogs out of the equation, the deer-who seem immune-are going to run wild. Certainly there aren't enough men left around to keep the deer population down. Hunting season is going to be canceled for a few years."

"Well," Stu said, "the surplus deer will just starve."

"No they won't. Not all of them, not even most of them. Not up here, anyway. I can't speak for what might happen in East Texas, but in New England, all the gardens were planted and growing nicely before this flu happened. The deer will have plenty to eat this year and next. Even after that, our crops will germinate wild. There won't be any starving deer for maybe as long as seven years. If you come back this way in a few years, Stu, you'll have to elbow deer out of your way to get up the road."

Stu worked this over in his mind. Finally he said, "Aren't you exaggerating? "

"Not on purpose. There may be a factor or factors I haven't taken into consideration, but I honestly don't think so. And we could take my hypothesis about the effect of the complete or almost complete subtraction of the dog population on the deer population and apply it to the relationships between other species. Cats breeding without check. What does that mean? Well, I said rats were down on the Ecological Exchange but making a comeback. If there are enough cats, that may change. A world without rats sounds good at first, but I wonder."

"What did you mean when you said whether or not people could reproduce themselves was open to question?"

"There are two possibilities," Bateman said. "At least two that I see now. The first is that the babies may not be immune."

"You mean, die as soon as they get into the world?"

"Yes, or possibly in utero. in utero. Less likely but still possible, the superflu may have had some sterility effect on those of us that are left." Less likely but still possible, the superflu may have had some sterility effect on those of us that are left."

"That's crazy," Stu said.

"So's the mumps," Glen Bateman said dryly.

"But if the mothers of the babies that are... are in utero in utero... if the mothers are immune-"

"Yes, in some cases immunities can be passed on from mother to child just as susceptibilities can. But not in all cases. You just can't bank on it. I think the future of babies now in utero in utero is very uncertain. Their mothers are immune, granted, but statistical probability says that most of the fathers were not, and are now dead." is very uncertain. Their mothers are immune, granted, but statistical probability says that most of the fathers were not, and are now dead."

"What's the other possibility?"

"That we may finish the job of destroying our species ourselves," Bateman said calmly. "I actually think that's very very possible. Not right away, because we're all too scattered. But man is a gregarious, social animal, and eventually we'll get back together, if only so we can tell each other stories about how we survived the great plague of 1990. Most of the societies that form are apt to be primitive dictatorships run by little Caesars unless we're very lucky. A few may be enlightened, democratic communities, and I'll tell you exactly what the necessary requirement for that kind of society in the 1990s and early 2000s is going to be: a community with enough technical people in it to get the lights back on. It could be done, and very easily. This isn't the aftermath of a nuclear war, with everything laid to waste. All the machinery is just sitting there, waiting for someone to come along-the right someone, who knows how to clean the plugs and replace a few burned-out bearings-and start it up again. It's all a question of how many of those who have been spared understand the technology we all took for granted." possible. Not right away, because we're all too scattered. But man is a gregarious, social animal, and eventually we'll get back together, if only so we can tell each other stories about how we survived the great plague of 1990. Most of the societies that form are apt to be primitive dictatorships run by little Caesars unless we're very lucky. A few may be enlightened, democratic communities, and I'll tell you exactly what the necessary requirement for that kind of society in the 1990s and early 2000s is going to be: a community with enough technical people in it to get the lights back on. It could be done, and very easily. This isn't the aftermath of a nuclear war, with everything laid to waste. All the machinery is just sitting there, waiting for someone to come along-the right someone, who knows how to clean the plugs and replace a few burned-out bearings-and start it up again. It's all a question of how many of those who have been spared understand the technology we all took for granted."

Stu sipped his beer. "Think so?"

"Sure." Bateman took a swallow of his own beer, then leaned forward and smiled grimly at Stu. "Now let me give you a hypothetical situation, Mr. Stuart Redman from East Texas. Suppose we have Community A in Boston and Community B in Utica. They are aware of each other, and each community is aware of the conditions in the other community's camp. Society A is in good shape. They are living on Beacon Hill in the lap of luxury because one of their members just happens to be a Con Ed repairman. This guy knows just enough to get the power plant which serves Beacon Hill running again. It would mostly be a matter of knowing which switches to pull when the plant went into an automatic shutdown. Once it's running, it's almost all automated anyhow. The repairman can teach other members of Society A which levers to pull and which gauges to watch. The turbines run on oil, of which there is a glut, because everybody who used to use it is as dead as old Dad's hatband. So in Boston, the juice is flowing. There's heat against the cold, light so you can read at night, refrigeration so you can have your Scotch on the rocks like a civilized man. In fact, life is pretty damn near idyllic. No pollution. No drug problem. No race problem. No shortages. No money or barter problem, because all the goods, if not the services, are out on display and there are enough of them to last a radically reduced society for three centuries. Sociologically speaking, such a group would probably become communal in nature. No dictatorship here. The proper breeding ground for dictatorship, conditions of want, need, uncertainty, privation ... they simply wouldn't exist. Boston would probably end up being run by a town meeting form of government again.

"But Community B, up there in Utica. There's no one to run the power plant. The technicians are all dead. It's going to take a long time for them to figure out how to make things go again. In the meantime, they're cold at night (and winter is coming), they're eating out of cans, they're miserable. A strongman takes over. They're glad to have him because they're confused and cold and sick. Let him him make the decisions. And of course he does. He sends someone to Boston with a request. Will they send their pet technician up to Utica to help them get their power plant going again? The alternative is a long and dangerous move south for the winter. So what does Community A do when they get this message?" make the decisions. And of course he does. He sends someone to Boston with a request. Will they send their pet technician up to Utica to help them get their power plant going again? The alternative is a long and dangerous move south for the winter. So what does Community A do when they get this message?"

"They send the guy?" Stu asked.

"Christ's testicles, no! no! He might be held against his will, in fact it would be extremely likely. In the post-flu world, technological know-how is going to replace gold as the most perfect medium of exchange. And in those terms, Society A is rich and Society B is poor. So what does Society B do?" He might be held against his will, in fact it would be extremely likely. In the post-flu world, technological know-how is going to replace gold as the most perfect medium of exchange. And in those terms, Society A is rich and Society B is poor. So what does Society B do?"

"I guess they go south," Stu said, then grinned. "Maybe even to East Texas."

"Maybe. Or maybe they threaten the Boston people with a nuclear warhead."

"Right," Stu said. "They can't get their power plant going, but they can fire a nuclear missile at Beantown."

Bateman said, "If it was me, I wouldn't bother with a missile. I'd just try to figure out how to detach the warhead, then drive it to Boston in a station wagon. Think that would work?"

"Dogged if I know."

"Even if it didn't, there are plenty of conventional weapons around. That's the point. All All of that stuff is lying around, waiting to be picked up. And if Communities A and B both have pet technicians, they might work up some kind of rusty nuclear exchange over religion, or territoriality or some paltry ideological difference. Just think, instead of six or seven world nuclear powers, we may end up with sixty or seventy of them right here in the continental United States. If the situation were different, I'm sure that there would be fighting with rocks and spiked clubs. But the fact is, all the old soldiers have faded away and left their playthings behind. It's a grim thing to be thinking about, especially after so many grim things have already happened... but I'm afraid it's entirely possible." of that stuff is lying around, waiting to be picked up. And if Communities A and B both have pet technicians, they might work up some kind of rusty nuclear exchange over religion, or territoriality or some paltry ideological difference. Just think, instead of six or seven world nuclear powers, we may end up with sixty or seventy of them right here in the continental United States. If the situation were different, I'm sure that there would be fighting with rocks and spiked clubs. But the fact is, all the old soldiers have faded away and left their playthings behind. It's a grim thing to be thinking about, especially after so many grim things have already happened... but I'm afraid it's entirely possible."

A silence fell between them. Far off they could hear Kojak barking in the woods as the day turned on its noontime axis.

"You know," Bateman said finally, "I'm fundamentally a cheerful man. Maybe because I have a low threshold of satisfaction. It's made me greatly disliked in my field. I have my faults; I talk too much, as you've heard, and I'm a terrible painter, as you've seen, and I used to be terribly unwise with money. I sometimes spent the last three days before payday eating peanut butter sandwiches and I was notorious in Woodsville for opening savings accounts and then closing them out a week later. But I never really let it get me down, Stu. Eccentric but cheerful, that's me. The only bane of my life has been my dreams. Ever since boyhood I've been plagued by amazingly vivid dreams. A lot of them have been nasty. As a youngster it was trolls under bridges that reached up and grabbed my foot or a witch that turned me into a bird... I would open my mouth to scream, and nothing but a string of caws would come out. Do you ever have bad dreams, Stu?"

"Sometimes," Stu said, thinking of Elder, and how Elder lurched after him in his nightmares, and of the corridors that never ended but only switched back on themselves, lit by cold fluorescents and filled with echoes.

"Then you know. When I was a teenager, I had the regular quota of sexy dreams, both wet and dry, but these were sometimes interspersed with dreams in which the girl I was with would change into a toad, or a snake, or even a decaying corpse. As I grew older I had dreams of failure, dreams of degredation, dreams of suicide, dreams of horrible accidental death. The most recurrent was one where I was slowly being crushed to death under a gas station lift. All simple permutations of the troll-dream, I suppose. I really believe that such dreams are a simple psychological emetic, and the people who have them are more blessed than cursed."

"If you get rid of it, it doesn't pile up."

"Exactly. There are all sorts of dream interpretations, Freud's being the most notorious, but I have always believed they served a simple eliminatory function, and not much more-that dreams are the psyche's way of taking a good dump every now and then. And that people who don't dream-or don't dream in a way they can often remember when they wake up-are mentally constipated in some way. After all, the only practical compensation for having a nightmare is waking up and realizing it was all just a dream."

Stu smiled.

"But lately, I've had an extremely bad dream. It recurs, like my dream of being crushed to death under the lift, but it makes that one look like a pussycat in comparison. It's like no other dream I've ever had, but somehow it's like all of them. As if ... as if it were the sum sum of all bad dreams. And I wake up feeling bad, as if it wasn't a dream at all, but a vision. I know how crazy that must sound." of all bad dreams. And I wake up feeling bad, as if it wasn't a dream at all, but a vision. I know how crazy that must sound."

"What is it?"

"It's a man," Bateman said quietly. "At least, I think it's a man. He's standing on the roof of a high building, or maybe it's a cliff that he's on. Whatever it is, it's so high that it sheers away into mist thousands of feet below. It's near sunset, but he's looking the other way, east. Sometimes he seems to be wearing bluejeans and a denim jacket, but more often he's in a robe with a cowl. I can never see his face, but I can see his eyes. He has red eyes. And I have a feeling that he's looking for me me-and that sooner or later he will find me or I will be forced to go to him... and that will be the death of me. So I try to scream, and..." He trailed off with an embarrassed little shrug.

"That's when you wake up?"

"Yes." They watched Kojak come trotting back, and Bateman patted him while Kojak nosed in the aluminum dish and cleaned up the last of the poundcake.

"Well, it's just a dream, I suppose," Bateman said. He stood up, wincing as his knees popped. "If I were being psychoanalyzed, I suppose the shrink would say the dream expresses my unconscious fear of some leader or leaders who will start the whole thing going again. Maybe a fear of technology in general. Because I do believe that all the new societies which arise, at least in the Western world, will have technology as their cornerstone. It's a pity, and it needn't be, but it will will be, because we are hooked. They won't remember-or won't choose to remember- the corner we had painted ourselves into. The dirty rivers, the hole in the ozone layer, the atomic bomb, the atmospheric pollution. All they'll remember is that once upon a time they could keep warm at night without expending much effort to do it. I'm a Luddite on top of my other failings, you see. But this dream... it preys on me, Stu." be, because we are hooked. They won't remember-or won't choose to remember- the corner we had painted ourselves into. The dirty rivers, the hole in the ozone layer, the atomic bomb, the atmospheric pollution. All they'll remember is that once upon a time they could keep warm at night without expending much effort to do it. I'm a Luddite on top of my other failings, you see. But this dream... it preys on me, Stu."

Stu said nothing.

"Well, I want to get back," Bateman said briskly. "I'm halfway drunk already, and I believe there will be thundershowers this afternoon. " He walked to the back of the clearing and rummaged there. A few moments later he came back with a wheelbarrow. He screwed the piano stool down to its lowest elevation, put it in, added his palette, the picnic cooler, and balanced precariously on top of everything else, his mediocre painting.

"You wheeled that all the way out here?" Stu asked.

"I wheeled it until I saw something I wanted to paint. I go different ways on different days. It's good exercise. If you're going east, why don't you come back to Woodsville and spend the night at my house? We can take turns wheeling the barrow, and I've got yet another six-pack of beer cooling in yonder stream. That ought to get us home in style."

"I accept," Stu said.

"Good man. I'll probably talk all the way home. You are in the arms of the Garrulous Professor, East Texas. When I bore you, just tell me to shut up. I won't be offended."