I bit my lip. “Maybe after all these years, it finally got out of that cave. There’s always construction going on and things being dug up.”

“Like in that movie where they find a dragon egg.”

“Reign of Fire, but that’s just a takeoff on the Japanese movies where nuclear tests wake up something ancient and ominous.”

“Godzilla, which my mom says is just a Japanese parable about the dangers of nuclear weapons destroying the world.”

“Which,” I continued, putting on my professor’s voice, “in itself is just a modern version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, wherein our monsters are just models of the worst part of our human selves, and science doesn’t necessarily make anything better.”

We stood there, nodding our heads and feeling pleased with ourselves, as if we’d actually figured something out and not just worked our way back into our familiar routine of talking about scary creatures. Except this wasn’t a senior-high seminar on monster motifs in film and fiction.

“Except for the fact,” Roger said, reading my mind again.

“That this is real,” I concluded.

Roger sighed. “Maddy,” he said, shaking his head, “whatever way you look at it, we got real trouble.”

15

GOOD COURAGE

I AM NOT SURE when we started running. Maybe I said something about our jogging some to dry off from the rainstorm. All I know is that running was the only thing that made sense to me just then and so I ran, legs thumping the pavement in a sweet, even rhythm, my heartbeat as steady and strong as the pumping muscles in my calves and thighs and hips. Running.

No matter how far you run, you can’t escape fate. Grama Delia had said that to me once.

The memory of her words shot through my head like a poison dart. It made me stumble and almost fall. I slowed down to a jog and Roger slowed with me until the two of us were walking, our hands on our hips, taking measured breaths. Even though it was still hot, the storm had cleared some of the mugginess from the air. We hadn’t run that far, only about five K. Neither one of us was anywhere close to winded. But I knew that no matter how far I ran, even if I ran a hundred miles through the mountains like the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico do, I couldn’t manage to run away from what was after me.

I looked around to get my bearings. We’d been running along Riverwalk, next to the Woonasquatucket River. We’d stopped by the amphitheater near the tunnel that leads from Riverwalk to Kennedy Plaza and the center of downtown Providence. I looked at the tunnel.