Damnation Alley (5 page)

Greg said, "If we don't make it, the population of the continent may be cut in half."

"If it's a question of them or me, I'd rather it was them."

"I sometimes wonder how people like you happen."

"The same way as anybody else, mister, and it's fun for a couple people for a while, and then the trouble starts."

"What did they ever do to you, Hell?"

"Nothing. What did they ever do _for_ me? Nothing. Nothing. What do I owe them? The same."

"Why'd you stomp your brother back at the hall?"

"Because I didn't want him doing a damn fool thing like this and getting himself killed. Cracked ribs he can get over. Death is a more permanent ailment."

"That's not what I asked you. I mean, what do you care whether he croaks?"

"He's a good kid, that's why. He's got a thing for this chick, though, and he can't see straight right now."

"So what's it to you?"

"Like I said, he's my brother, and he's a good kid. I like him."

"How come?"

"Oh, hell! We've been through a lot together, that's all! What are you trying to do? Psychoanalyze me?"

"I was just curious."

"So now you know. Talk about something else if you want to talk, okay?"

"Okay. You've been this way before, right?"

"That's right."

"You been any farther east?"

"I've been all the way to the Missus Hip."

"Do you know a way to get across it?"

"I think so. The bridge is still up at Saint Louis."

"Why didn't you go across it the last time you were there?"

"Are you kidding? The thing's packed with cars full of bones. It wasn't worth the trouble to try to clear it."

"Why'd you go that far in the first place?"

"Just to see what it was like. I heard all these stories, and I wanted to take a look."

"What was it like?"

"A lot of crap. Burned-down towns, big craters, crazy animals, some people...”

"People? People still live there?"

"If you want to call them that. They're all wild and screwed up. They wear rags or animal skins, or they go naked. They threw rocks at me till I shot a couple. Then they let me alone."

"How long ago was that?"

"Six, maybe seven years ago. I was just a kid then."

"How come you never told anybody about it?"

"I did. A coupla my friends. Nobody else ever asked me. We were going to go out there and grab off a couple of the girls and bring them back, but everybody chickened out."

"What would you have done with them?"

Tanner shrugged. "I dunno. Screw 'em and sell 'em, I guess.

"You guys used to do that, down on the Barbary Coast, sell people, I mean, didn't you?"

Tanner shrugged again. "Used to," he said, "before the Big Raid."

"How'd you manage to live through that? I thought they'd cleaned the whole place out?"

"I was doing time," he said. "A.D.W."

"What's that?"

"Assault with a deadly weapon."

"What'd you do after they let you go?"

"I let them rehabilitate me. They got me a job running the mail."

"Oh, yeah, I heard about that. Didn't realize it was you, though. You were supposed to be pretty good, doing all right, and ready for a promotion. Then you kicked your boss around and lost your job. How come?"

"He was always riding me about my record, and about my old gang down on the Coast. Finally, one day I told him to lay off, and he laughed at me, so I hit him with a chain. Knocked out the bastard's front teeth. I'd do it again."

"Too bad."

"I was the best driver he had. It was his loss. Nobody else will make the Albuquerque run, not even today. Not unless they really need the money."

"Did you like the work, though, while you were doing it?"

"Yeah, I like to drive."

"You should probably have asked for a transfer when the guy started bugging you."

"I know. If it was happening today, that's probably what I'd do. I was mad, though, and I used to get mad a lot faster than I do now. I think I'm smarter these days than I was before."

"If you make it on this run and you go home afterward, you'll probably be able to get your job back. Think you'd take it?"

"In the first place," said Tanner, "I don't think we'll make it. And in the second, if we do make it and there's still people around the town, I think I'd rather stay there than go back."

Greg nodded.

"Might be smart. You'd be a hero. Nobody'd know much about your record. Somebody'd turn you on to something good."

"The hell with heroes," said Tanner.

"Me, though, I'll go back if we make it."

"Sail round Cape Horn?"

"That's right."

"Might be fun. But why go back?"

"I've got an old mother and a mess of brothers and sisters I take care of, and I've got a girl back there."

Tanner brightened the screen as the sky began to darken.

"What's your mother like?"

"Nice old lady. Raised the eight of us. Got arthritis bad now, though."

"What was she like when you were a kid?"

"She used to work during the day, but she cooked our meals and sometimes brought us candy. She made a lot of our clothes. She used to tell us stories, like about how things were before the war. She played games with us, and sometimes she gave us toys."

"How about your old man?" Tanner asked him after a while.

"He drank pretty heavy, and he had a lot of jobs, but he never beat us too much. He was all right. He got run over by a car when I was around twelve."

"And you take care of everybody now?"

"Yeah. I'm the oldest."

"What do you do?"

"I've got your old job. I run the mail to Albuquerque."

"Are you kidding?"

"No."

"I'll be damned! Is Gorman still the supervisor?"

"He retired last year, on disability."

"I'll be damned! That's funny. Listen, down in Albuquerque do you ever go to a bar called Pedro's?"

"I've been there."

"Have they still got a little blonde girl plays the piano? Named Margaret?"

"No."

"Oh."

"They've got some guy now. Fat fellow. Wears a big ring on his left hand."

Tanner nodded and downshifted as he began the ascent of a steep hill.

"How's your head now?" he asked when they'd reached the top and started down the opposite slope.

"Feels pretty good. I took a couple of your aspirin with that soda I had."

"Feel up to driving for a while?"

"Sure, I could do that."

"Okay, then." Tanner leaned on the horn and braked the car. "Just follow the compass for a hundred miles or so and wake me up. All right?"

"Okay. Anything special I should watch out for?"

"The snakes. You'll probably see a few. Don't hit them, whatever you do."

"Right."

They changed seats, and Tanner reclined the one, lit a cigarette, smoked half of it, crushed it out, went to sleep.

The bell drowned his every seventh word, but since he had said his words more than seven times over, nothing was really lost upon the eight steadfast listeners who huddled on the benches before him: five women and three men in various stages of age and distress. Others came, stood in the distance near to the streetlight, listened for a time, hurried on, for a light rain was beginning to fall, and that which he was saying was not altogether new.

His clerical collar was frayed, and there was a bandage about his right hand which seemed dirtier each time that he gestured with it, which was often.

His beard seemed recent, his black suit ancient.

"The marks are upon my body, ...... they tell me my days are ......!" he said, his eyes as dark and moist as the night and the rain, as glistening as the streetlight. "And I say that it is ...... judgment. We are all of us, ...... and every one of us, man, ...... and child, judged in these, the ...... days, and found to be guilty! ...... is what caused this thing to ...... upon us, you may be sure! ...... and nothing else! You see it ...... day of your lives! And now ...... is angry, my brethren, for the ...... of which we are all mutually ......! You know this! I know it! ...... tells us of these days! Can ...... look about us and fail to ...... that the very words of the ...... are become an actuality in our ......? Of course not! This is because ...... ran like a beast too long, ...... and corrupting, and men turned to ......! No wonder then that the Beast ......, with seven heads and ten horns ...... them, rises up from the ocean, ...... the seven seals have been broken ...... the four horsemen out of the ......, whose names we all know as ......, that dreaded ravener of the countryside! ...... who followeth in the wake of him! ...... who lays his hand upon us! ......, the final, terrible one, who killeth! ......, all of these be here tonight! ...... has judged us, and now only ...... can save us from the awful ...... that lies upon all mankind! Yes! ...... is the answer, my brethren! True ...... may save us still, from the ...... into which will be cast all ...... who bear the mark of the ...... upon their hands and their foreheads! ...... has said so in the holy ......! Can we think otherwise? Can we ...... this? You know it in your hearts, ......! Let us join together and ......!"

He bowed his head then, winced as he clasped his hands, and continued to fight with the bell, for he knew that the odds were six to one in his favor.

"How long? How long? Oh my ......!" he cried. "Until mankind will see the ever-present ......?"

And the heavens were full of signs, cryptic and undecipherable, as the blue lightning stalked from pole to pole.

Wondering, he licked the rain from his lips and swallowed, to ease the dryness of his throat.

When Greg awakened him, it was night. Tanner coughed and drank a mouthful of ice water and crawled back to the latrine. When he emerged, he took the driver's seat and checked the mileage and looked at the compass. He corrected their course and, "We'll be in Salt Lake City before morning," he said, "if we're lucky… Did you run into any trouble?"

"No, it was pretty easy. I saw some snakes, and I let them go by. That was about it."

Tanner grunted and engaged the gears.

"What was that guy's name that brought the news about the plague?" Tanner asked.

"Brady or Brody or something like that," said Greg.

"What was it that killed him? He might have brought the plague to L.A., you know."

Greg shook his head.

"No. His car had been damaged, and he was all broken up, and he'd been exposed to radiation a lot of the way. They burned his body and his car, and anybody who'd been anywhere near him got shots of Haffikine."

"What's that?"

"That's the stuff we're carrying, Haffikine antiserum. It's the only cure for the plague. Since we had a bout of it around twenty years ago, we've kept it on hand and maintained the facilities for making more in a hurry. Boston never did, and now they're hurting."

"Seems kind of silly for the only other nation on the continent, maybe in the world, not to take better care of itself, when they knew we'd had a dose of it."

Greg shrugged. "Probably, but there it is. Did they give you any shots before they released you?"

"Yeah."

"That's what it was, then."

"I wonder where their driver crossed the Missus Hip? He didn't say, did he?"

"He hardly said anything at all. They got most of the story from the letter he carried."

"Must have been one hell of a driver, to run the Alley."

"Yeah. Nobody's ever done it before, have they?"

"Not that I know of."

"I'd like to have met the guy."

"Me too, I guess."

"It's a shame we can't radio across country, like in the old days."

"Why?"

"Then he wouldn't of had to do it, and we could find out along the way whether it's really worth making the run. They might all be dead by now, you know."

"You've got a point there, mister, and in a day or so we'll be to a place where going back will be harder than going ahead."

Tanner adjusted the screen, as dark shapes passed.

"Look at that, will you!"

"I don't see anything."

"Put on your infras."

Greg did this and stared upward at the screen.

Bats. Enormous bats cavorted overhead, swept by in dark clouds.

"There must be hundreds of them, maybe thousands . . ."

"Guess so. Seems there are more than there used to be when I came this way a few years back. They must be screwing their heads off in Carlsbad."