Read Black Moon for Free Online Page B

prion, ticking in the thalamus. Born in the meat of elk and deer. Bambi’s revenge.
    But what did he know? He wasn’t a researcher or physician. He still practiced the talking cure, his mind tending toward more karmic causes: all those warriors he worked with, afraid to dream, heads crowded with scorpions. Maybe that’s where it started and they brought it back from the desert, some kind of contagious psychic wound, guilt based—the empathy system hyperactivated by the policy of preemptive war, the outsourcing of torture. Maybe it was the ugliness that showed itself after the election, the town hall rage and rallies. Except it wasn’t restricted to America. Her enemies were also pacing the floor.
    Christ, maybe I did it, he proposed. Maybe it was taking this job. It was the last sellout the universe would tolerate. Trying to help Marines by asking them to write alternative endings to their nightmares.
    THE one interesting place was the aqueduct, Lila thought, which was basically a long concrete-sided canal that cut through the desert. It lay just beyond the cinderblock wall at the edge of their backyard. The banks were steep, also concrete, and when the water was low, it settled into a deep, mossy trough that ran down the middle. Dark, tinted water, silent and deceptively still. At breakfast one morning, her mother read her an article about a picnicking Latino family that was lured in, one after the other, all drowning in their attempts to save one another.
    The current was strong, but invisible because there were no rocks to show resistance in the form of rapids or waves. Only a rusted post jutted out of the middle of the stream, and thewater parted smoothly around it. A hawk was often perched there. In vast stretches, for miles and miles, there were few opportunities to climb out, since the walls were steep and smooth. She went there every now and then, daring to sit on the slanted cement bank, legs splayed out toward the water. She imagined the drowned family, passing by like figures frozen in the thick amber sap of the water, twisting and tumbling past the saguaro and chaparral toward the faraway sea. They would look like they were sleeping, she imagined. Like I was seeing into their dreams, the nightmare of their family drowning.
    NO ONE will understand this, Dr. Ferrell was certain. The mainstream media was reporting on it now, making it real. The cities showing signs—commuter traffic dropping, two out of five employees missing work, hospitals filling up and first responders unable to respond. Numbers and trends, but no explanations. He turned off the TV and glanced at his wife, who appeared to sleep at his side.
    The reasons, the source. No one understands the economy, or the climate either. If we’ve learned anything it’s that we are in the dark. Come to think of it, maybe it’s the dark matter. Makes up most of the universe and we can’t even see it. Maybe that vast reservoir of dreams has been depleted.
    IN THE posted video Lila found online, someone is rolling with a camcorder, filming a man with a chain saw. He revs it and the sound is too loud for the camera mike, causing it to distort. Then he starts sawing at a tree. The camera pans up and you can see a woman stirring high in the branches. Other people gather around. They look and sound like neighbors, but they are yellingangrily at the woman in the tree, shaking their fists. Even throwing things up at her. It sounds like Russian, or Polish. Lila can’t tell. The woman is screaming down at the man, clearly begging him to stop. But he doesn’t and the tree starts leaning, then falls with a loud cracking and moan, shuddering on impact with the ground. The woman comes down with it but the camera can’t find her on the ground, in the branches of the fallen tree. Someone titled the video:
Insomniacs Kill Woman Sleeping in Tree
.
    FOR . the second night in a row, Mrs. Ferrell was pretending to sleep as her husband paced the floor or watched TV in the