Markel's thoughts went tangentially down a dark, twisted path. "Where was Rocky born? What did he do before the bombings? Did he ever say anything about the fall, how he felt, or anything—"
"Take it easy, will you? Like I said, I never seen him before the bombings. He was just there in the town, I guess."
Spitting out the twig, Markel filled his pipe and lapsed into isolated thought.
What it narrowed down to, he decided, was this: when ordinary men died they stayed dead. But Rocky died and recovered from death; therefore Rocky was not an ordinary man. The question, then: what, precisely, was Rocky? Logically, he could be only one of two things: a supernormal man or a supernatural one. Supernormal in that he was revived from death by bodily processes superior to those of normal men; or supernatural like a zombie or a vampire, both of which reputedly defied death. Markel preferred the supernormal theory; he didn't think highly of folk legends. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
And the "why" of it? Mutation, of course. Furthermore, where else would you find a mutant with superior survival qualities but among the survivors?
Markel tapped out his pipe and told the Earth Mother his theory. She listened, eyes widening. Suddenly she grabbed her hair in both hands. "Ohmygod! A vampire! All that time I stayed with a vampire!"
"Now don't get excited. I did not say he was a vampire."
"A vampire! I lived with a vampire!"
"Gad!" said Markel disgustedly.