The Extinction Event by David Black

difference between your people and mine.”
    2
    Another gentleman came to me to ask a favor. Could I have one of the boys here buy a bouquet, something special, and deliver it to a hospital .
    â€œAll we have to do,” Jack said, “is figure out who that other gentleman is.”
    â€œThat should be easy,” Caroline said. “There aren’t a lot of gentlemen left in the world.”
    Jack and Caroline walked down the long, sloping drive from Gainsvoort Gardens to the parking lot off Route 203.
    Caroline said, “A dead end.”
    Jack shook his head no and said, “We’ve been stirring up trouble.”
    â€œI thought,” Caroline said, “we were trying to get out of trouble.”
    â€œIf you expected a cotillion,” Jack said, “you should have stayed in the ballroom.”
    â€œGiven the results, I don’t see it would’ve made any difference.”
    â€œI’m the one in the jackpot, not you, Five Spot. You want to sit this one out, it’s okay with me.”
    â€œFive Spot. Why do you call me that?”
    â€œIn fifth grade,” Jack explained, “I hung out in a store, the Acre General Store out on Route 66. It had a pinball machine called Five Spot . Cost a nickel to play. I used to save up. On the display, there was a picture of a woman I fell in love with.”
    â€œYou fell in love with a picture?”
    â€œI figured someday I’d meet someone who looked like her.” Jack smiled.
    â€œI look like a pinball bimbo?” Caroline asked.
    â€œThat tickles you?”
    â€œYou have no idea.”
    â€œWhen I got supplies the other day, when I moved into the shack down by the boat basin, I stopped in the store. The machine’s still there.”
    â€œFive Spot, huh?” Caroline said.
    3
    The woman on the pinball display was dressed in a harem costume, beaded and fringed top covering nose-cone breasts, a voluptuous belly with a green jewel in her navel, and translucent pantaloons covering a skimpy bikini bottom. Her arms were raised to her right, hands palms out, obviously in the middle of a belly dance.
    â€œStill costs a nickel,” Caroline said.
    â€œThe good things never change,” Jack said.
    Caroline stood at the old pinball machine, her hands on the flipper buttons. Jack stood behind her, his hands over hers.
    â€œThis is the way you used to do it?” Caroline asked.
    â€œNot quite,” Jack said as Caroline moved her body back against Jacks. Bells rang and lights flashed. On the machine.
    â€œDo you always hit the target?” Caroline asked.
    â€œEvery time,” Jack said.
    At the shack, Jack parked, got out of his car, and started for the door. Standing first on one leg and then on the other, Caroline paused to take off her shoes—to save them from the muddy path. She was looking down when she heard the noise, a thud, like a bat against a softball.
    Jack was falling as a man, face hidden in the dark, raised the two-by-four he had used to crack Jack’s head.
    â€œJack,” Caroline cried, running half on, half off the planks toward where the stranger was beating Jack with the two-by-four.
    The stranger gave Jack one last thwak in the ribs before running to a pickup truck and roaring off.
    Kneeling in the mud, Caroline cradled Jack, half conscious from the beating, in her arms.

CHAPTER TEN
    1
    Kerosene light flickered on Jack’s bruised face. One eye was swollen half closed. His upper lip crusted with dried blood. His shirt was off. Tigerlike welts striped his side, ribs. Caroline was sponging the wounds on his chest. Open beside her on the side table was her car emergency Red Cross kit.
    â€œYou’ve got great bedside manner,” Jack said.
    â€œThis isn’t exactly how I imagined we’d end up in bed,” Caroline said.
    She touched a raw spot. Jack winced.
    â€œSorry,” Caroline said.
    Caroline wrapped gauze around Jack’s chest.
    â€œIs