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Orson started after the beast, barking, all his fear forgotten When I called hier forly than before, a sinuous shape billowing like a flung cape, gone alh tothe rhesus that had tried to stealwhined and backed away froround but didn’t return it to my head Instead, I folded it and jammed it into an inside pocket of my jacket

Shakily, I assured myself that I was okay, that I hadn’t been bitten If I’d been scratched, I didn’t feel the sting of it, not on my hands or face No, I hadn’t been scratched Thank God If thean infectious disease communicable only by contact with bodily fluids, I couldn’t have caught it

On the other hand, I’d smelled its fetid breath ere face-to-face, breathed the very air that it exhaled If this was an airborne contagion, I was already in possession of a one-way ticket to the cold-holding roo around and discovered thatI couldn’t see Flat on its side, co sand with its spokes, the rear wheel was the only part of the bike still in sight, and it almost disappeared into the rabbed it

The hidden bicycle thief and I engaged in a brief tug of hich I handily won, suggesting that I was pitted against one or two rhesus er troop leader I stood the bike on its wheels, leaned it against ht, and once more raised the Glock

Orson returned to my side

Nervously, he relieved hi the last of his beer I was half surprised that I hadn’t wetso badly that even a two-hand grip on the pistol couldn’t keep it frorew calently to crack ray walls ofbehind the No squeals or shrieks No loonlike cries No sigh of wind or sough of surf I felt al it, I had been killed in the recent confrontation, as though I now stood in a chilly antecha for a door to open into Judga the Glock with only one hand, I began to walk the bicycle east along the horn Orson padded atus, although fro shapes in the fog, but they were out there, all right

Monkeys But not monkeys Apparently escaped froela had said

Not by fire

Not by ice

So worse

Monkeys The end of the world by eddon The end, fini, ohts forever

This was totally, fully, way crazy Every tiet ible order, I wiped out big tie wave of imponderables

Bobby’s attitude, his relentless determination to distance himself from the insoluble troubles of the modern world and be a chaitiitiical, and wise

Because I was not expected to survive to adulthood, e my sense of wonder, to live as much as possible without worry and without fear, to live in the moment with little concern for the future: in short, to trust in God and to believe that I, like everyone, arateful for s, because both are part of a design beyond nized the need for me to learn self-discipline, of course, and respect for others But, in fact, those things come naturally when you truly believe that your life has a spiritual dined eleh there had appeared to be little chance that I would outlive both parents, Monosed: They purchased a large second-to-die life-insurance policy, which would now provide handsomely for me even if I never earned another cent from my books and articles Born for play and fun and wonder, destined never to have to hold a job, destined never to be burdened by the responsibilities that weigh downand become such a total surf bum that Bobby Halloway, by comparison, would appear to be a compulsive workaholic with no e Furtheruilt whatsoever, with no qualht have been if we hadn’t violated the terms of the lease and been evicted from Eden Like all who are born of man and woman, I live by the whims of fate: Because of my XP, I’m just more acutely aware of the machinations of fate than

Yet, as I walkedthe peninsula, I persevered inin all that I’d seen and heard since sunset

Before the troop had arrived to tor to pin down exactly as different about these monkeys; now I returned to that riddle Unlike ordinary rhesuses, these were bold rather than shy, brooding rather than lighthearted The most obvious difference was that these monkeys were hot-tempered, vicious Their potential for violence was not, however, the primary quality that separated them from other rhesuses; it was only a consequence of another, nized but that I was inexplicably reluctant to consider

The curdled fog was as thick as ever, but gradually it began to brighten Ss and streetlaht--or just relief--at these signs of civilization, but eren’t any safer in town than out of it

When we left the southern horn entirely and entered Embarcadero Way, I paused to take my cap from the jacket pocket in which I had tucked it I put it on and gave the visor a tug The Elephant Man adjusts his costuly, and then chuffed as though in approval He was the Elephant Man’s dog, after all, and as such, a e was dependent upon the style and grace hich I comported myself

Because of the streetlamps, visibility had increased to perhaps a hundred feet Like the ghost tides of an ancient and long-dead sea, fog surged off the bay and into the streets; each fine drop of ht and translated it to the next drop

If members of the troop still accoreater distance here than they had on the barren peninsula, to avoid being seen Like players in a recasting of Poe’s "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," they would have to confine their skulking to parks, unillues, parapets, and rooftops

At this late hour, no pedestrians or ht The town appeared to have been abandoned

I was overco notion that these silent and e desolation that would befall Moonlight Bay in the not-too-distant future Our little burg was preparing to be a ghost town

I climbed onto my bike and headed north on Eh Sasha, at the radio station, aiting on his boat at thethe deserted avenue, my mind returned to the millennium monkeys I was sure that I had identified the most fundamental difference between ordinary rhesuses and this extraordinary troop that secretly roaht, but I was reluctant to accept h it seemed: These monkeys were smarter than ordinary monkeys