Swan Song

by Robert McCammon

“God,” the president repeated. A tear broke and trickled down his cheek. “God’s looking at me right now, Hans. I feel Him watching me. He knows I’ve murdered the world. Me. I’ve murdered the world.” He put his hands to his face and moaned. America is gone, he thought. Gone. “Oh ...” he sobbed. “Oh ... no ...” “I think it’s time, sir.” Hannan’s voice was almost gentle. The president looked up. His wet, glassy eyes moved toward the black briefcase across the aisle. He snapped his gaze away again and stared out the window. How many could possibly be still alive in that holocaust, he wondered. No. A better question was: How many would want to be alive? Because in his briefings and research on nuclear warfare, one thing was very clear to him: The hundreds of millions who perished in the first few hours would be the lucky ones. It was the survivors who would endure a thousand forms of damnation.

Josh knew he had to get some sleep, and he was about to close his eyes when he detected a small movement just to his right. He stared and saw a little roach crawling slowly over the scattered bits of hay. Josh balled up his fist and started to slam it down on the insect, but his hand paused in midair. Everything alive’s got its own way of speaking and knowing, Swan had said. Everything alive. He stayed the killing blow, watching the insect struggle tenaciously onward, getting caught in pieces of hay and working itself loose, plowing forward with stubborn, admirable determination. Josh opened his fist and drew his arm back. The insect kept going, out of the light’s range and into the darkness on its purposeful journey. Who am I to kill such a thing? he asked himself. Who am I to deliver death to even the lowest form of life? He listened to the keening of the wind whistling through holes in the walls, and he pondered the thought that there might be something out there in the dark—God or Devil or something more elemental than either—that looked at humankind as Josh had viewed the roach—less than intelligent, certainly nasty, but struggling onward on its journey, never giving up, fighting through obstacles or going around them, doing whatever it had to do to survive. And he hoped that if the time ever came for that elemental fist to come crashing down, its wielder might take a moment of pause as well. Josh drew the blanket around himself and lay down in the straw to sleep.

Swan wanted to know more about everything—to learn to read better, if books could be found; to ask questions and learn to listen; to learn to think and reason things out. But she never wanted to grow up all the way, because she feared the grown-up world; it was a bully with a fat stomach and a mean mouth who stomped on gardens before they had a chance to grow. No, Swan decided. I want to be who I am, and nobody’s going to stomp me down—and if they try, they might just get themselves a footful of stickers.