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“We thought it sounded cute,” said Hornfly. “Don’t you think it sounds cute?”
“I hate this,” said Britta. “The master of Armageddon shouldn’t be saying it wants to be cute.”
“‘Hornfly,’” said Rebecca, “sounds scary, but Wayne and Louis might be the names of nice boys who live next door. Altogether, combining scary and nice, it’s an effective name, catchy.”
“Thank you,” said Hornfly. “Now, no more questions. We have not bided our time for nine thousand years just to answer questions from a TV-sitcom personality.”
“I’m not a ‘personality.’ I’m an actor.”
To Hornfly, Britta said, “That is her position, by which I mean her contention. She has taken that position in the past, but I have yet to hear her defend it credibly.”
“Besides,” Rebecca said, “I also make feature films.”
“We are aware of feature films,” Hornfly assured her. “They are religious services attended by worshippers of nonexistent demigods such as Superman, Aquaman, Batman, and Ant-Man. Have you portrayed such a demigod?”
“No.”
With a sneer so sharp and fixed that it was likely to become a permanent feature of her face, Britta told Hornfly, “The bitch has appeared onDancing with the Stars.”
“That is a damnable lie,” Rebecca said, and it was a lie.
“She’s a true star,” said Bobby, “not just a celebrity.”
Spencer said, “She’s a fine, fine actress. She can act the pants off anyone in the business.”
“Thereis a true statement,” said Britta.
“We have never before eaten a fine actress. We will eat one now.” Hornfly moved boldly into the room, full of supercaustic digestive acid and ready to deploy it.
Bobby stepped into the monster’s way. “Hey, hey, hey! You leave her alone,” he shouted.
Although Bobby was a novelist who avoided clichés and tiresome moments to be found in countless novels written by others, he did not have the time, in this situation, to sit down at a computer and craft a line of clever dialogue or to conceive a credible attack on the monster. This was real life, where clichés and stupid actions were the coin of the realm, so to speak. Hornfly knocked him aside with such violence that he was lifted off his feet and slammed into the sofa, tipping that mohair marvel onto its hind legs and falling over it as it was upended, crashing to the parlor floor in a shudder of humiliation as a cascade of decorative pillows spilled over him and, with their tassels, tickled him into a fit of sneezing.
“Hail Beta!” Pastor Larry exclaimed. “Hail Hornfly!”
As Hornfly loomed over Rebecca, she said, “I have one more question.”
“As we told you,” the monster told her, “no more questions are permitted. Your time is up. The buzzer has sounded. You have lost. It’s dinnertime.”
“That’s so unfair. You’re big and scary and all that, but I never thought of you as unfair. Until now. You are so unfair.”
Hornfly’s orange eyes dimmed. His face squinched with what might have been puzzlement and hurt feelings. “We are not unfair.”
“Youasked me a question. I was nice enough to answer you. So it seems to me that it’s only fair I be allowed one more question.”
Scratching his head of wriggling hair, Hornfly said, “What question did we ask you?”
“You wanted to know if I’d ever played a nonexistent demigod like Superman. I told you I hadn’t, and that was true.”
He stared down at her, into her eyes, and she stared boldly up into his.
A terrible and expectant silence pooled in the parlor until Britta said, “Damn it all, bite her head off.”
The impatient pastor shouted, “Heil Beta! Heil Hornfly! Bite her head off!”
To Rebecca, Hornfly said, “One more. Don’t try to trick us into two or three.”
“Thank you,” Rebecca said. “I’m so sorry I called you unfair, but you seemed to deserve it at the time. Here’s what I’m curious about. When the Day of Fun comes, which will actually last for a year or more, you’ll kill ninety percent of humanity to save the planet but leave ten percent to enjoy life in a less populated world. That ten percent will obviously include Pastor Larry and Professor Hernishen. Now, I know you aren’t a liar. An intelligent forty-eight-thousand-ton fungus who is immortal and who possesses awesome powers has no need to lie. I have no doubt you’ll tell me the truth. Once the Day of Fun has ended, however long that might prove to be, how much longer will the ten percent be allowed to live, and what will you do with them?”