Damnation Alley (6 page)

"We never see them in L.A. Maybe they're pretty much harmless."

"Last time I was up to Salt Lake, I heard talk that a lot of them were rabid. Someday someone's got to go,
 
them or us."

"You're a cheerful guy to ride with, you know?"

Tanner chuckled and lit a cigarette, and, "Why don't you make us some coffee?" he said. "As for the bats, that's something our kids can worry about, if there are any."

Greg filled the coffeepot and plugged it into the dashboard. After a time it began to grumble and hiss.

"What the hell's that?" said Tanner, and he hit the brakes. The other car halted, several yards behind his own, and he turned on his microphone and said, "Car three! What's that look like to you?" and waited.

He watched them: towering, tapered tops that spun between the ground and the sky, wobbling from side to side, sweeping back and forth, about a mile ahead. It seemed there were fourteen or fifteen of the things. Now they stood like pillars, now they danced. They bored into the ground and sucked up yellow dust. There was a haze all about them. The stars were dim or absent above or behind them.

Greg stared ahead and said, "I've heard of whirlwinds, tornadoes, big, spinning things. I've never seen one, but that's the way they were described to me."

And then the radio crackled, and the muffled voice of the man called Marlowe came through: "Giant dust devils," he said. "Big, rotary sandstorms. I think they're sucking stuff up into the dead belt, because I don't see anything coming down...”

"You ever see one before?"

"No, but my partner says he did. He says the best thing might be to shoot our anchoring columns and stay put."

Tanner did not answer immediately. He stared ahead, and the tornadoes seemed to grow larger.

"They're coming this way," he finally said. "I'm not about to park here and be a target. I want to be able to maneuver. I'm going ahead through them."

"I don't think you should."

"Nobody asked you, mister, but if you've got any brains, you'll do the same thing."

"I've got rockets aimed at your tail, Hell."

"You won't fire them, not for a thing like this, where I could be right and you could be wrong, and not with Greg in here, too."

There was silence within the static, then, "Okay, you win, Hell. Go ahead, and we'll watch. If you make it, we'll follow. If you don't, we'll stay put."

"I'll shoot a flare when I get to the other side," Tanner said. "When you see it, you do the same. Okay?"

"Okay."

Tanner broke the connection and looked ahead, studying the great black columns, swollen at their tops. There fell a few layers of light from the storm which they supported, and the air was foggy between the blackness of their revolving trunks. "Here goes," said Tanner, switching his lights as bright as they would beam. "Strap yourself in, boy," and Greg obeyed him as the vehicle crunched forward.

Tanner buckled his own safety belts as they slowly edged ahead.

The columns grew and swayed as he advanced, and he could now hear a rushing, singing sound, as of a chorus of the winds.

He skirted the first by three hundred yards and continued to the left to avoid the one which stood before him and grew and grew. As he got by it, there was another, and he moved farther to the left. Then there was an open sea of perhaps a quarter of a mile leading ahead and toward his right. He sped across it and passed between two of the towers that stood like ebony pillars a hundred yards apart. As he passed them, the wheel was almost torn from his grip and he seemed to inhabit the center of an eternal thunderclap. He swerved to the right then and skirted another, speeding.

Then he saw seven more and cut between two and passed about another. As he did, the one behind him moved in terrible spurts of speed. One passed before him, exhaled heavily and turned to the left.

He was surrounded by the final four, and he braked, so that he was thrown forward and the straps cut into his shoulder, as two of the whirlwinds shook violently. One passed before him, and the front end of his car was raised from off the ground.

Then he floored the gas pedal and shot between the final two, and they were all behind him.

He continued on for about a quarter of a mile, turned the car about, mounted a small rise, and parked.

He released the flare.

It hovered, like a dying star, for about half a minute.

He lit a cigarette as he stared back, and he waited.

He finished the cigarette.

Then, "Nothing," he said. "Maybe they couldn't spot it through the storm. Or maybe we couldn't see theirs."

"I hope so," said Greg.

"How long do you want to wait?"

"Let's have that coffee."

An hour passed, then two. The pillars began to collapse, until there were only three of the slimmer ones. They moved off toward the east and were gone from sight.

Tanner released another flare, and still there was no response.

"We'd better go back and look for them," said Greg.

"Okay."

And they did.

There was nothing there, though, nothing to indicate the fate of car three.

Dawn occurred in the east before they had finished with their searching, and Tanner turned the car around, checked the compass, and moved north.

"When do you think we'll hit Salt Lake?" Greg asked him, after a long silence.

"Maybe two hours."

"Were you scared, back when you ran those things?"

"No. Afterward, though, I didn't feel so good."

Greg nodded.

"You want me to drive again?"

"No. I won't be able to sleep if I stop now. We'll take in more gas in Salt Lake, and we can get something to eat while a mechanic checks over the car. Then I'll put us on the right road, and you can take over while I sack out."

The sky was purple again, and the black bands had widened. Tanner cursed and drove faster. He fired his ventral flame at two bats who decided to survey the car. They fell back, and he accepted the mug of coffee Greg offered him.

The sky was as dark as evening when they pulled into Salt Lake City. John Brady, that was his name, had passed that way but days before, and the city was ready for the responding vehicle. Most of its ten thousand inhabitants appeared along the street, and before Hell and Greg had jumped down from the cab after pulling into the first garage they saw, the hood of car number two was opened and three mechanics were peering at the engine.

One of the mechanics approached them. He was short and stained dark with sun and grease, so that his eyes appeared even paler than they were. He regarded the black-framed nails of the hand he had begun to extend, then jerked it back and wiped it on his green coveralls, grinning as he did so and revealing a row of gold-capped teeth.

"Hi. I'm Monk," he said. "You're the ones bound for Boston, huh?"

"Yeah."

"I'll have my boys go over everything. Probably take a couple hours. What're your names?"

"I'm Greg."

"Hell," said Tanner.

"Hell?"

"Hell," he repeated. "Where can we get breakfast?"

"There's a diner across the street. But judging from that mob outside, you'll never make it. Why don't I send one of the boys after some chow? You can eat it in the office."

"Okay."

"I thought they'd send more than one car."

"They did. We lost two."

"Oh. Sorry to hear. You know, I talked with that guy Brady when he passed through. He said Boston'd sent six cars. He sure looked bad, and his car looked like it'd been through a war. The President wanted him to stay,
 
said we could send someone the rest of the way. But Brady wouldn't hear any of that. He'd driven this far, and by God he'd finish it, he said."

"Jerk," said Tanner.

"He pulled a gun when we tried to take him to a doctor. Wouldn't leave his car. I think he was off his rocker. That's why we sent a car of our own after he left, to be sure you'd get the message."

"What car?" said Greg.

"It didn't . . . ?"

Greg shook his head.

Monk snatched a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket. He offered them around, and his hand shook as he held the flame.

"I thought maybe our driver gave you the message."

"Only Brady," said Greg. "Nobody else."

"How is Brady?"

"Dead."

"His shielding was in bad shape when we serviced the car," he said. "The Geig went mad when we tried it inside. We wanted to give him another car, but he pulled this gun. By God, he'd have _his_ car, he said, hot as it was. So we fixed the shielding, but it isn't that easy to decontaminate in a hurry. When he rode out of here he was like sitting in an oven. That's one of the reasons we sent Darver. . . . Let's go on into the office." He gestured toward a heavy green door. "Hey, Red!" he called out. As they moved toward it, a younger man who fit the description left a work bench and approached, wiping his hands on a gasoline-soaked rag.

"Yeah, Monk?"

"Go wash up and run across the street. Get these guys some breakfast and bring it back here. We'll be in the office."

"Okay. Where do I get the money?"

"Take a five out of the cash register and leave a note."

"Right," and he moved off toward a yellow-streaked sink set against the far wall.

They entered the office. Monk closed the green door behind them and waved toward the chairs.

"Make yourselves comfortable." He drew a venetian blind closed as he spoke, cutting off a view of four faces staring in. Then he leaned against a green and battered filing cabinet and sighed.

"I want to wish you the best of luck," he said. "Boy! You should have seen that Brady when he pulled in here! Like death warmed over!"

"All right!" said Greg. "Stop reminding us, huh?"

"Sorry. I didn't mean… You know . . ."

"Yeah, sure. Let's talk about something else."

Tanner chuckled and blew a smoke ring. "Think it'll rain today?" he asked.

Greg opened his mouth, then closed it and swallowed whatever he might have said.

Monk raised a slat of the blind and squinted out beneath it.

"There's a couple cops keeping the people out," he said, "and I see another trying to clear the way for a car. I think maybe it's the President's, but I can't tell for sure."

"What's he want?" asked Tanner.

"To welcome you and wish you luck, probably."

Greg ran his hand through his hair. "How about that, the President," he said.

"Screw," said Tanner.

Greg cleaned his fingernails with the edge of a matchbook. "We're celebrities," he said.

"Who needs it?"

"It doesn't hurt any."

"Yeah, it's the President," said Monk, dropping the slat. "I'll go out and meet him. He'll be here in a minute."

"Rather have breakfast," said Tanner as Monk left the room.

"Why've you got to be that way?" asked Greg.

"What way?"

"Obnoxious. The guy's a big wheel here, and he's coming over to say something nice to us. Why do you want to blast him?"

"Who said I'm going to blast him?"

"I can just tell."

"Well, you're wrong, citizen. I'm going to be the sweetest, nicest, ass-kissingest hero the bastard ever went to talk to, hoping that it would help to get him reelected, of course. Okay?"

"I don't give a damn."

Tanner chuckled again.

The noise level rose as a door opened somewhere in the building. Tanner ground his cigarette out on the concrete floor and lit another.

"Who'd want to be a President?" he asked, as somewhere a door banged closed.

Greg crossed the room to a water cooler, filled a paper cone, and drank. After a time they heard footsteps, and the door opened once again.

The President, who was a thin, balding man, hooknosed, pink-faced, and smiling round pearly dentures,, raised his right hand and said, "I'm Travis. I'm very glad to meet you boys and welcome you to Salt Lake."

"This is the President," said Monk, smiling and wiping his hands on his coveralls.

Tanner stood and extended his hand.

"My name's Tanner, sir. I'm honored to make your acquaintance. This is my friend Greg. I'm happy to see Salt Lake again. It looks better each time I come this way."

"Hello, Greg… Oh, you've been this way before?"

"A considerable number of times. It's one of the reasons they passed over a lot of the other volunteers for this job and selected me. I did quite a bit of driving, before I retired, that is."

"Really?"

"Yes. I have a small ranch now and only a few servants, and I spend most of my time listening to classical music and reading philosophy. Sometimes I write poetry. When I heard about this thing, though, I knew that I owed it to humanity and to the nation of California to volunteer. After all, they've been pretty good to me. So that's how I find myself visiting your town once more."