Ahead, a homemade sign by the side of the river, written in bright fluorescent colors, read styx. On the far side of the waterway, the land was barren, blackened. The dead shambled mindlessly amidst the burned trees and charred rubble.
Mother Janine and Mother Margaret, naked and screaming, rushed by, pine cone-tipped spears held aloft and dripping blood. Penelope considered calling out to them but decided against it. She did not want to deal with them.
Where was Dion?
That was the big question. She looked across the field to the trees where his throne had been. Was he there? Somehow she didn't think so, but that was as good a place to start as any.
She had started to lead Kevin across the open land when Mother Janine jumped in front of her. Her mother was visibly lactating, twin dribbles of runny milk marking her sunburned skin from nipple to navel. "Are you here to join us?"
Penelope tried to make her voice as slurred as possible. "Where is he?"
"You want him?"
She nodded.
Her mother pointed northeast, toward the mountains. "He is on the new Olympus, readying the house of the gods." Her voice dropped lower, and she grinned slyly. "He's waiting for you."
Penelope felt cold.
"You've never had a man until you've had a god." She snickered darkly.
"I bled afterward. I'm still bleeding inside."
Penelope backed away.
Mother Margaret had come up behind her. "He got tired of waiting for you, you know." Penelope smelled the wine on her mother's hot breath.
"He's going to have us repopulate Olympus."
They were surrounding her. Did they know? Could they tell she was faking it?
"Where's Mother Felice?" she demanded.
Mother Janine laughed drunkenly. She turned away without answering, hoisting her spear and running after a teenage boy who was dashing across the meadow.
Penelope turned around. "Where is she?"
Mother Margaret grinned. "Ask her." She pointed toward Dion's mom, who was standing silently next to her.
She looked from her mother to Dion's, a growing anxiousness within her.
"Where's my mother?"
April's voice was low. "She's dead."
"What?"
The shock must have shown on her face. Dion's mother nodded, and there was real sympathy in her expression. "He used her up. He finished her off. He was done with her."
Penelope stumbled back, feeling as though she'd just had a heart attack and been punched in the stomach at the same time. Her legs were wobbly.
It seemed nearly impossible to breathe. Kevin took her arm, held her up.
"Where?" she managed to get out.
April was already walking, gesturing for them to follow. Both of her mothers had fled, and Penelope walked through the crowd, across the field, after Dion's mom, using Kevin as a crutch. She felt empty inside, hollowed out, and everything around her seemed to be happening slowly, as if on a delay, a few seconds behind what should have been.
Her mother was dead.
It was still a fact to her, had not yet been translated into an emotion, and she followed Dion's mom past a daisy chain of men and nymphs, past a crowd of feasting satyrs, into the trees.
Her mother was lying on the grass in front of the god's throne.
Penelope knelt down next to her mother. She could not see for the wash of tears, but she took her mother's dead hand in hers, stroking the cold, soft skin. "We never got to say good-bye," she said, and the act of speaking started the sobs. "We never ..." But she could not finish the sentence.
Kevin watched Penelope crying over the body of her mother and started crying himself. What had happened to his own parents? Were they dead too? He had not had a chance to say good-bye either. Their last contact had been at the house, when they'd come after him and he'd run away.
Was that the last time he'd ever see them?
More than anything else, it was the sight of Penelope clutching her mother's hand, sobbing, tears and snot flowing unchecked down her face, that brought home to him the personal tragedy of what had happened here.
They'd been so busy running and hiding, planning fights and escapes, that the dead bodies they'd seen had just been horror show props, disgusting background, objects in their way. As frightening as those corpses were, though, they were all relatives of someone: mothers, fathers, children, uncles, cousins. Each body was a loss.
He had not seen it that way before.
He stood above Penelope, wiping his eyes. It was awkward to watch her, uncomfortable to witness such unadulterated grief, but he could not look away. She cried and he cried, and it was a while before he realized that Dion's mom was crying too.
Dion's mom.
One of them.
He turned on her. "What are you doing here, huh? Why are you hanging around?"
"I'm here to help you," she said.
Kevin looked at her coldly. "We're here to kill your son."
She hesitated only a second. "I'm here to help you. I'll take you to him."
Penelope didn't know how long she knelt over her mother's body--too long, she was sure--but she could not seem to pull herself away. For a brief second she considered taking her mother across the river--Styx--and into the land of the dead, but she knew that her mother was gone and nothing could bring her back--especially not that travesty of afterlife.
But she could not tear herself away. It was as if her mother was not completely dead as long as Penelope sat by her, and she held her mother and cried until she had no tears left.
Finally she stood, her back hurting, her legs cramping. She wiped the last vestiges of tears from her eyes. "Let's go," she said, and the resolve was evident in her voice. "Let's kill the motherfucker."
She met April's gaze.
"I'll take you to Olympus," April said.
They drove up the highway toward Rutherford, taking small side road detours wherever the highway was blocked.
The wineries along the way had been raided and razed, drunken celebrants perched atop casks and crates as the buildings burned behind them.
Inglenook had collapsed it on itself, the old winery building now looking like a bombed crater, chunks of stone wall and strands of ivy protruding from the caved-in earth. Mondavi had been flattened into nothingness by Caterpillars and steam rollers that were still having some sort of demolition derby atop the winery's remains.
Penelope was driving. Kevin had said that he still did not completely trust Dion's mom, and although she had offered to drive them, he had insisted that Penelope take the wheel instead. His right hand had been on the screwdriver tucked in his waistband as he made this demand, but April had not argued, and the two of them had gotten into the backseat, leaving Penelope alone in the front.
"Just in case," Kevin said.
They reached Rutherford, and April told Penelope to head east on Highway 128.
"I don't want to burst your bubble," Kevin said, "but we've been here, we've tried this. The road's blocked."
"Not until the last mile."
She was right. The ambush they'd encountered before was gone, and though the road was damaged and heavily rutted, they were able to drive past Lake Hennessey and into Chiles Valley before a wall of felled trees festooned with ribbons and garlands and dead Christmas lights effectively ended the highway. Penelope braked to a stop.
"You'll have to hike it from here on in." April leaned over the front seat, pointed toward the high hill before them. "It's up there."
Penelope's gaze followed her finger. "Olympus?"
"At a lake." She tried to think of the name.
"Berryessa."
"That's it."
Kevin leaned forward, looked through the windshield. "Somehow," he said dryly, "I'd imagined mighty Mount Olympus, home of the great Greek gods, as being a wee bit taller."
"Be thankful it's not," Penelope said.
They got out of the car, slamming the doors. "I want the keys," April said.