Damnation Alley (14 page)

"Did you ever go looking for it?" Jerry asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I wouldn't have found it."

"How do you know?"

"Because it isn't there. There is no machine. It was all a comparison. The teacher was just trying to say that life is _like_ a big machine, not that that's what it is. I didn't understand him right, though, and I spent years thinking about the goddamn thing."

"How do you know there's no machine?"

"He explained what he'd meant to me later, when I went to ask him where the thing was. Boy, did I feel stupid!"

"He could have been wrong."

"Not a chance. They're too hip on stuff like that, those old teachers."

"Maybe he was lying."

"No. Now that I'm older, I know what he meant. He was wrong one way, though. It's too screwed up to be like a machine. But I know what he meant."

"Then they're not too hip, the teachers, if they can be wrong even one way."

They resumed walking again. Jerry looked at his ring. Tanner said, "They're hip in different ways. Like a biologist I met a while back. They're smart with words, mainly. My teacher knew what he was saying, and now I know. But it takes some getting older to figure what they're talking about."

"But what if he was wrong? What if it is there? And if you found it someday? Would you still do it? Would you still want to be the keeper of the machine?"

Tanner drew on his cigarette.

"There ain't no machine."

"But if there was?"

"Yeah, I guess so," he said. "I guess I'd still like the job."

"That's good, because I still want to fly, even though you told me I can't. Maybe the winds'll change someday."

Tanner put his hand on the boy's shoulder and squeezed it. "That'd be nice," he said.

"I hope you find it someday and fix everything, so I can fly, too."

Tanner flipped the butt into the ditch beside the road.

"If I ever do, that'll be the first thing I fix."

"Thank you, Hell."

Tanner jammed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the wind. The sun rose a little higher, and the fog-snakes died beneath his heels.

Tanner regarded his freed vehicle, said, "I guess I'll be going, then," and nodded to the Potters. "Thanks," he said, and he unlocked the cab, climbed into it, and started the engine. He put it into gear, blew the horn twice and started to move.

In the screen, he saw the three men waving. He stamped the accelerator, and they were gone from sight.

He sped ahead, and the way was easy. The sky was salmon pink. The earth was brown, and there was much green grass. The bright sun caught the day in a silver net.

This part of the country seemed virtually untouched by the chaos that had produced the rest of the Alley. Tanner played music, drove along. He passed two trucks on the road and honked his horn each time. Once he received a reply.

He drove all that day, and it was well into the night when he pulled into Albany. The streets themselves were dark, and only a few lights shone from the buildings. He drew up in front of a flickering red sign that said, "Bar & Grill," parked, and entered.

It was small, and there was jukebox music playing, tunes he'd never heard before, and the lighting was Poor, and there was sawdust on the floor.

He sat down at the bar and pushed the Magnum way down behind his belt so that it didn't show. Then he took off his jacket, because of the heat in the place, and he threw it on the stool next to him. When the man in the white apron approached, he said, "Give me a shot and a beer and a ham sandwich."

The man nodded his bald head and threw a shot glass in front of Tanner, which he then filled. Then he siphoned off a foam-capped mug and hollered over his right shoulder toward a window at his back.

Tanner tossed off the shot and sipped the beer. After a while, a white plate bearing a sandwich appeared on the sill across from him. After a longer while, the bartender passed, picked it up, and deposited it in front of him. He wrote something on a green chit and tucked it under the corner of the plate.

Tanner bit into the sandwich and washed it down with a mouthful of beer. He studied the people about him and decided they made the same noises as people in any other bar he'd ever been in. The old man to his left looked friendly, so he asked him, "Any news about Boston?"

The man's chin quivered between words, and it seemed a natural thing for him.

"No news at all. Looks like the merchants will close their shops at the end of the week."

"What's the last you heard of the situation there?"

"Folks keep dyin'. Other folks keep leavin' town, so's not to be caught by it. Dozens of 'em pass through here every day. There's a block up, up the road, for flaggin' em down to tell 'em they can't stop. So they go on through and stop wherever they can find a settlement'll take 'em in. Also, there's a whole bunch of 'em that's taken to campin' up in the hills, thataway." He indicated the north. "It's three, four miles out of town. You can see their lights from the square."

"What's it like, the plague?"

"Ain't never seen a man die of it. But I hear tell he gets real thirsty and then starts to swell, under the arms and around the neck and down there, and then his lungs just fill with his own juices, and he drowns hisself."

"But there's still some people alive in Boston?"

"They keep comin'."

Tanner chewed his sandwich and thought of the plague. "What day is today?"

"Tuesday."

Tanner finished his sandwich and smoked a cigarette while he drank the rest of his beer.

Then he looked at the check, and it said, ".85."

He tossed a dollar bill on top of it and turned to go.

He had taken two steps when the bartender called out, "Wait a minute, mister."

He turned around.

"Yeah?"

"What you trying to pull?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you call this crap?"

"What crap?"

The man waved Tanner's dollar at him, and he stepped forward and inspected it.

"Nothing wrong I can see. What's giving you a pain?"

"That ain't money. It's nothing."

"You trying to tell me my money's no good?"

"That's what I said. I never seen no bill like that."

"Well, look at it real careful. Read that print down there at the bottom of it."

The room grew quiet. One man got off his stool and walked forward. He held out his hand and said, "Let me see it, Bill."

The bartender passed it to him, and the man's eyes widened.

"This is drawn on the bank of the nation of California."

"Well, that's where I'm from," said Tanner.

"I'm sorry, it's no good here," said the bartender.

"It's the best I got," said Tanner.

"Well, nobody'll make good on it around here. You got any Boston money on you?"

"Never been to Boston."

"Then how the hell'd you get here?"

"Drove."

"Don't hand me a line of crap, son. Where'd you steal this?" It was the older man who had spoken.

"You going to take my money or ain't you?" said Tanner.

"I'm not going to take it," said the bartender.

"Then screw you," said Tanner, and he turned and walked toward the door.

As always, under such circumstances, he was alert to sounds at his back.

When he heard the quick footfall, he turned. It was the man who had inspected the bill that stood before him, his right arm extended.

Tanner's right hand held his leather jacket, draped over his right shoulder. He swung it with all his strength, forward and down.

It struck the man on the top of his head, and he fell.

There came up a murmuring, and several people jumped to their feet and moved toward him.

Tanner dragged the gun from his belt and said, "Sorry, folks," and he pointed it, and they stopped.

"Now, you probably ain't about to believe me," he said, "when I tell you that Boston's been hit by the plague, but it's true, all right. Or maybe you will, I don't know. But I don't think you're going to believe that I drove here all the way from the nation of California with a car full of Haffikine antiserum. But that's just as right. You send that bill to the big bank in Boston, and they'll change it for you, all right, and you know it. Now, I've got to be going, and don't anybody try to stop me. If you think I've been handing you a line, you take a look at what I drive away in. That's all I've got to say."

And he backed out the door and covered it while he mounted the cab. Inside, he gunned the engine to life, turned, and roared away.

In the rearview screen he could see the knot of people on the walk before the bar, watching him depart.

He laughed, and the apple-blossom moon hung dead ahead.

Evelyn listened. Was she hearing things that weren't really there within the belltones? No. It came again, a knocking on the front door. She moved to the front of the room and looked out through the small window.

Then she unbolted the door and flung it wide.

"Fred!" she said. "This...”

"Back up!" he told her. "Quick! All the way across the room!"

"What's wrong?"

"Do it!"

She moved ten paces back, her eyes narrowing.

"Are your parents home?"

"No."

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He was eighteen years old, and his dark hair was straight and unruly. His angular jaw was clenched tight, his breathing was rapid, and his eyes drifted from place to place.

"What's the matter, Fred?"

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"I… Oh, no!"

He nodded. "I think I've got it. I had a fever earlier, and now I've got a chill. My armpits hurt, my throat is sore. No matter how much I drink, I still feel thirsty. That's why I don't want you to get near me."

Evelyn raised her hands to her cheeks and stared at him over the bright hedge of her nails. "After last night;" she said, "I . . . I haven't been feeling so good, either."

"Yeah," he said. "I probably killed you last night."

Evelyn was seventeen, had reddish hair, and her favorite color was green.

"How… What can we do?"

"Nothing," he said. "We can go to the clinic, and they can put us to bed and watch us die."

"Oh, no! Maybe the serum will come in time."

"Ha! I came to say good-bye, that's all. I love you. I'm sorry I gave it to you. Maybe if we hadn't done it… Oh, I don't know! I'm sorry, Evvie!"

She began to cry.

"Don't go!" she said.

"I've got to. Maybe you're only catching a cold or something. I hope so. Take some aspirin and go to bed."

He rested his hand on the doorknob.

"Don't go," she said.

"I've got to."

"To the clinic?"

"Are you kidding? They can't do anything. I'm just going, away . . ."

"What are you going to do?"

He looked away from her blue-green eyes.

"You know," he said. "I'm not going to go through all that misery. I've seen people die of it. I'm not going to wait."

"Don't," she said. "Please don't."

"You don't know what it's like," he said.

"The serum may come. You ought to hold out for as long as you can."

"It won't come. You've heard what it's like out there. You know they won't make it."

"I think I've got it, too," she said. "So come here.. It doesn't matter."

They met in the center of the room, and he wrapped his arms around her.

"Don't be afraid," she said. "Don't be afraid," and he held her for a long while, and then she took his hand and said, "Come this way. Don't be afraid. They won't be home for a long time," and she led him up to her bedroom and said, "Undress me," and he did.

They moved to the bed and did not speak again until after he had ridden her for several minutes and she heard him sigh and felt the warm moisture come into her. Then she rubbed his shoulders and said, "That was good."

"Yes." He raised himself to draw away then, and his elbow collapsed. "Oh, God!" he said. "I'm so weak all of a sudden!" He rolled to his side and swung his feet over the edge of the bed. He sat there and began to shake.

She draped a blanket over his shoulders and said, "You're thirsty, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"I'll get you a drink."

"Thanks."

He gulped the water she brought him. His head filled with bells as he drank it. "I love you," he said, and, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was good."

Silently, he began to cry. She didn't realize it until his chest contracted about a sob, and she looked and saw that his face was wet.