Damnation Alley (8 page)

"It's just about ready, Hell."

"Great."

"What're you doing out there?"

"Jackin' off in my mind."

The door slammed. Tanner sat there for a few more minutes, and a light rain began to fall, taking the bright gleam off the world, silencing the rubbish, drenching the bird in its tree and the rats in their lairs, tickling his face, spattering his boots, raising a smell like ashes from the earth. He stood then and entered the garage, shaking droplets from his beard.

"All set," said Monk, gesturing at the car. "Want to Wait and see if the rain stops?"

"No. It'll probably start to get dark again soon."

"Probably."

They moved to a window. For the space of a few breaths, they watched the rain. Outside, the people still lined the streets.

"Dumb bastards," said Tanner. "Don't know enough to get in out of it."

"They're determined to see us off."

"Well, we'll give them a show then, lay down a little rubber. Might as well open the doors now, Monk."

"Thanks for the breakfast," said Greg.

"It's the least I could do."

"What happened to that guy?" Greg asked.

"Who?"

"Blinky. The one who had the accident."

"Oh. He's in the hospital. The cops took him in to get him patched up, and he had a heart attack there. They're giving him oxygen now. He was a small-town crook, record long as your arm. Not worth a damn. Can't say he's any loss."

"Too bad."

Monk shrugged. "That's what he gets for busting in and falling all over himself. So you're taking Forty, huh?"

Greg looked at Hell.

"That's right," Tanner said. "Who eats the Gila Monsters?"

"Huh?"

"We've got big snakes that the Gilas chorrfp up, along with a lot of other things, like bison and coyotes and God knows what all, and there's big bats that eat off the mutie fruit trees down Mexico way, and some freak spiders that feed on anything comes into their nets. But who eats the Gilas? A guy named Alex back home was telling me that since everything eats something else, then something had to have it in for the Gilas. I couldn't answer him, though. Do you know?"

"The butterflies," said Monk, "is what I've heard."

"Butterflies?"

"Yeah. You're lucky if you've never run into them. They're bigger than kites, and they settle down on the Gilas' necks and sting them half-dead. Then they lay their eggs. The caterpillars feed on the paralyzed lizards after they're hatched."

"I see."

"Then who eats the butterflies?" asked Greg.

"Damned if I know. Maybe the bats. That's a whole new world out there from what it was maybe a hundred years ago, and it's still changing fast. I doubt anybody knows what everything eats."

"Um-hm."

"I've got a hunch that anybody who goes looking will find that most of them will settle for humans in a pinch."

"Thanks," said Greg, "for everything. It's been nice knowing you, Monk."

"See you again." They shook hands.

"I doubt it," said Tanner. "I don't think I'll ever see you again. But thanks for the chow. Maybe you'll hear about us someday."

"Good luck. We're all pulling for you."

"You know what they call that," said Tanner, and he crossed the floor to their vehicle. He opened the door and climbed into the driver's seat. After a moment Greg entered from the other side.

"You didn't even shake his hand," he said.

"I don't hold with handshaking," said .Tanner. "Most citizens couldn't care less when they do it. You stick out an empty hand, it once meant you didn't have a knife in it, that's all, and if you're left-handed, they're screwed. And vice-versa. Now, I'm left-handed, so I can do it and get away with it, but I still don't hold with it worth a damn. If there was ever anybody was my friend, he wouldn't have to shake hands with me to prove it. He'd know it, and I'd know it. And you know how it is, too. You meet somebody, and suddenly you both know you're somehow alike. No blood. Nothing. And you're buddies. No need for all that protocol crap that went out with the old age. That's all."

They locked the doors, and Tanner started the engine. Re listened to its idling for a time, then switched on the View screens.

The big garage doors rattled open, and he beeped the horn once.

"Let's roll."

There was cheering as they rolled forth onto the street and sped away into the east.

"Could have used a beer," said Tanner. "Damn it!"

And they rushed along beside the remains of what had once been U.S. Route 40.

Tanner relinquished the driver's seat and stretched out on the passenger side of the cab. The sky continued to darken above them, taking upon it the appearance it had had in L.A. the day before.

"Maybe we can outrun it," Greg said.

"Hope so."

The blue pulse began in the north, flared into a brilliant aurora. The sky was almost black directly overhead.

"Run!" cried Tanner. "Run! Those are hills up ahead! Maybe we can find an overhang or a cave!"

But it broke upon them before they reached the hills. First came the hail, then the flak. The big stones followed, and the scanner on the right went dead. The sands blasted them, and they rode beneath a celestial waterfall that caused the engine to sputter and cough.

They reached the shelter of the hills, though, and found a place within a rocky valley where the walls jutted steeply forward and broke the main force of the wind/sand/dust/rock/water storm. They sat there as the winds screamed and boomed about them. They smoked and they listened.

"We won't make it," said Greg. "You were right. I thought we had a chance. We don't. Everything's against us, even the weather."

"We've got a chance," said Tanner. "Maybe not a real good one. But we've been lucky so far. Remember that."

Greg spat into the waste container.

"Why the sudden optimism? From you?"

"I was mad before, and shooting off my mouth. Well, I'm still mad, but I got me a feeling now: I feel lucky. That's all."

Greg laughed. "The hell with luck. Look out there," he said.

"I see it," said Tanner. "This buggy is built to take it, and it's doing it. Also, we're only getting about ten percent of its full strength."

"Okay, but what difference does it make? It could last for a couple days."

"So we wait it out."

"Wait too long, and even that ten percent can smash us. Wait too long, and even if it doesn't, there'll be no reason left to go ahead. Try driving, though, and it'll flatten us."

"It'll take me ten or fifteen minutes to fix that scanner. We've got spare 'eyes.' If the storm lasts more than six hours, we'll start out anyway."

"Says who?"

"Me"

"Why? You're the one who was so hot on saving his own neck. How come all of a sudden you're willing to risk it, and mine too?"

Tanner smoked awhile, then said, "I've been thinking," and then he didn't say anything else.

"About what?" Greg asked him.

"Those folks in Boston," Tanner said. "Maybe it is worth it. I don't know. They never did anything for me. But hell, I like action, and I'd hate to see the whole world get dead. I think I'd like to see Boston, too, just to see what it's like. It might even be fun being a hero, just to see what that's like. Don't get me wrong. I don't give a damn about anybody up there. It's just that I don't like the idea of everything being like the Alley here, all burned out and screwed up and full of crap. When we lost the other car back in those tornadoes, it made me start thinking. . . . I'd hate to see everybody go that way, everything. I might still cop out if I get a real good chance, but I'm just telling you how I feel now. That's all."

Greg looked away and laughed, a little more heartily than usual.

"I never suspected you contained such philosophic depths."

"Me neither. I'm tired. Tell me about your brothers and sisters, huh?"

"Okay."

Four hours later, when the storm slackened and the rocks became dust and the rain fog, Tanner replaced the right scanner and they moved on out, passing later through Rocky Mountain National Park. The dust and the fog combined to limit visibility throughout the day. That evening they skirted the ruin that was Denver, and Tanner took over as they headed toward the place that had once been called Kansas.

He drove all night, and in the morning the sky was clearer than it had been in days. He let Greg snore on and sorted through his thoughts while he sipped his coffee.

It was a strange feeling that came over him as he sat there with his pardon in his pocket and his hands on the wheel. The dust fumed at his back. The sky was the color of rosebuds, and the dark trails had shrunk once again. He recalled the stories of the day when the missiles came down, burning everything but the northeast and the southwest; the day when the winds arose and the clouds vanished and the sky had lost its blue; the days when the Panama Canal had been shattered and radios had ceased to function; the days when the planes could no longer fly. He regretted this, for he had always wanted to fly, high, birdlike, swooping and soaring. He felt slightly cold, and the screens now seemed to possess a crystal clarity, like pools of tinted water. Somewhere ahead, far, far ahead, lay what might be the only other sizable pocket of humanity that remained on the shoulders of the world. He might be able to save it, if he could reach it in time. He looked about him at the rocks and the sand and the side of a broken garage that had somehow come to occupy the slope of a mountain. It remained within his mind long after he had passed it. Shattered, fallen down, half-coyeked with debris, it took on a stark and monstrous form, like a decaying skull which had once occupied the shoulders of a giant; and he pressed down hard on the accelerator, although it could go no farther. He began to tremble. The sky brightened, but he did not touch the screen controls. Why did he have to be the one? He saw a mass of smoke ahead and to the right. As he drew nearer, he saw that it rose from a mountain which had lost its top and now held a nest of fires in its place. He cut to the left, going miles, many miles, out of the way he had intended. Occasionally the ground shook beneath his wheels. Ashes fell about him, but now the smoldering cone was far to the rear of the right-hand screen. He wondered after the days that had gone before, and the few things that he actually knew about them. If he made it through, he decided he'd learn more about history. He threaded his way through painted canyons and forded a shallow river. Nobody had ever asked him to do anything important before, and he hoped that nobody ever would again. Now, though, he was taken by the feeling that he could do it. He wanted to do it. Damnation Alley lay all about him, burning, fuming, shaking, and if he could not run it, then half the world would die, and the chances would be doubled that one day all the world would be part of the Alley. His tattoo stood stark on his whitened knuckles, saying "Hell," and he knew that it was true. Greg still slept, the sleep of exhaustion, and Tanner narrowed his eyes and chewed his beard and never touched the brake, not even when he saw the rockslide beginning. He made it by and sighed. That pass was closed to him forever, but he had shot through without a scratch. His mind was an expanding bubble, its surfaces like the view screens, registering everything about him. He felt the flow of the air within the cab and the upward pressure of the Pedal upon his foot. His throat seemed dry, but it didn't matter. His eyes felt gooey at their inside corners, but he didn't wipe them. He roared across the pocked plains of Kansas, and he knew now that he had been sucked into the role completely and that he wanted it that way. Damn-his-eyes Denton had been right. It had to be done. He halted when he came to the lip of a chasm, and headed north. Thirty miles later it ended, and he turned again to the south. Greg muttered in his sleep. It sounded like a curse. Tanner repeated it softly a couple times and turned toward the east as soon as a level stretch occurred. The sun stood in high heaven, and Tanner felt as though he were drifting bodiless beneath it, above the brown ground flaked with green spikes of growth. He clenched his teeth, and his mind went back to Denny, doubtless now in a hospital. Better than being where the others had gone. He hoped the money he'd told him about was still there. Then he felt the ache begin, in the places between his neck and his shoulders. It spread down into his arms, and he realized how tightly he was gripping the wheel. He blinked and took a deep breath and realized that his eyeballs hurt. He lit a cigarette and it tasted foul, but he kept puffing at it. He drank some water, and he dimmed the rearview screen as the sun fell behind him. Then he heard a sound like a distant rumble of thunder and was fully alert once more. He sat up straight and took his foot off the accelerator.

He slowed. He braked and stopped. Then he saw them. He sat there and watched them as they passed, about a half-mile ahead.

A monstrous herd of bison crossed before him. It took the better part of an hour before they had passed. Huge, heavy, dark, heads down, hooves scoring the soil, they ran without slowing, until the thunder was great, and then rolled off toward the north, diminishing, softening, dying, gone. The screen of their dust still hung before him, and he plunged into it, turning on his lights.