Parable of the Talents - Octavia E Butler Page 0,21

on the highways during the day. It’s illegal to walk on highways in California, but everyone does it. By custom now, most pedestrians walk during the day, and most cars and trucks run at night. The vehicles don’t stop for anything that won’t wreck them. I’ve seen would-be high-jackers run down. No one stops.

But during the day, they park to rest and refuel.

Danton and Krista Noyer kept their children near them, but didn’t post a regular guard. They thought their isolation and general watchfulness would protect them. They were wrong. While they were busy with housekeeping, several men approached from their blind side—from the north—so that the chimney that had not quite hidden them had blocked their view. It was possible that these men had spotted the truck from one of the ridges, then circled around to attack them. Dan thought they had.

The intruders had rounded the wall and, an instant later, opened fire on the family. They caught all seven Noyers outside the truck. They shot Danton, Senior; Krista, and Dan. Mercy, who was nearest to the truck, jumped inside and hid behind a box of books and disks. The intruders grabbed the three other girls, but Nina, the oldest, created such a diversion with her determined kicking, biting, gouging, and struggling, breaking free, then being caught again, that Kassia, free for an instant, was able to slither away from her captor and scramble into the truck. Kassia did what Mercy had not. She slammed the truck door and locked it, locked all doors.

Once she had done that, she was safer than she knew. Intruders fired their guns into the truck’s armor and tires. Both were marked, but not punctured, not much damaged at all. The intruders even built a fire against the side of the truck, but the fire went out without doing damage.

After what seemed hours, the men went away.

The two little girls say they turned on the truck’s monitors and looked around. They couldn’t find the intruders, but they were still afraid. They waited longer. But it was terrible to wait alone in the truck, not knowing what might be happening just beyond the range of the monitors—on the other side of the chimney wall, perhaps. And there was no one to take care of them, no one for them to turn to. At last, staying in the truck alone was too much for them. They opened the door nearest to the sprawled bodies of their parents and big brother.

The intruders were gone. They had taken the two older girls away with them. Outside, Kassia and Mercy found only Dan and their parents. Dan had come to, and was sitting on the ground, holding his mothers head on his lap, stroking her face, and crying.

Dan had played dead while the intruders were there. He had given no sign of life, even when one of the intruders kicked him. Stoic, indeed. He heard them trying to get into the truck. He heard them cursing, laughing, shouting, heard two of his sisters screaming as he had never heard anyone scream. He heard his own heart beating. He thought he was dying, bleeding to death in the dirt while his family was murdered.

Yet he did not die. He lost consciousness and regained it more than once. He lost track of time. The intruders were there, then they were gone. He could hear them, then he couldn’t. His sisters were screaming, crying, moaning, then they were silent.

He moved. Then gasping and groaning with pain, he managed to sit up. His legs hurt so as he tried to stand that he screamed aloud and fell down again. His mind, blurred by pain, blood loss, and horror, he looked around for his family. There, near his legs, wet with his blood and her own was his mother.

He dragged himself to her, then sat holding her head on his lap. How long he sat here, all but mindless, he did not know. Then his little sisters were shaking him, talking to him.

He stared at them. It took him a long time to realize that they were really there, alive, and that behind them, the truck was open again. Then he knew he had to get his parents inside it. He had to drive them back down to the highway and into a town where there was a hospital, or at least a doctor. He was afraid his father might be dead, but he couldn’t be sure. He knew his mother was alive. He