Book of the Dead (24 page)

By Hoagie’s side Dawson learned how to live without money, how to live without food when he had to, and how to get both when he could without compromising his integrity. He also learned that integrity was an extremely personal thing, separate from any rules or strictures that had ever been imposed from without, and that each man had to discover its composition for himself.

Dawson learned about the Network. Something Hoagie referred to as “the only functional anarchy existing in the United States.”

“All it is,” Hoagie had told him, “is folk lookin’ out for folk, knowin’ that the favor’ll be returned somewhere down the line. Some folks call it karma, some call it castin’ your bread upon the waters, some just say ‘what goes ’round, comes ’round.’ Just simple cooperation is all, but so few really live that way, that when they see it work, they think it’s some remarkable achievement.

“Think about it: You don’t need no Bill of Rights if there ain’t nobody tryin’ to interfere with you.”

*  *  *

Hoagie taught Dawson about hardship and freedom. And Hoagie taught Dawson about time.

I can almost believe that it is all over. That the horror has finally ceased. That I have traveled forward or backward in time, to a period when the threat does not exist.

Such thinking is dangerous. I cannot permit myself to believe such things. But it is difficult.

For twenty-four hours I have not been threatened. Looking out this window I am confronted only by grass and trees, shimmering in the complacent afternoon sun. There is a stream too. Not large enough for trout, but certainly supporting a thriving population of minnows, crayfish, frogs, salamanders, dragonflies and water-skaters.

Everything within my range of vision is so tranquilly unaffected.

And then there is me.

Wondering if I am insane.

Yet.

Wondering if the horror is really ended.

I cannot entertain such thoughts. I might begin to consider staying yet another day. And, if that day was uneventful, yet another.

Eventually they would find me.

My time here is limited. If I do not impose that limit, they most certainly shall.

Two men alone on a hillside, lying motionless among tall grasses that obscured them from the vision of the world, just as surely as it obscured the world from their own sight. A warm September sun was running gentle fingers over their weary muscles, inducing them to laziness and introspection. Occasionally from the base of the hill rose the sound of a passing train. To them the sound was unintrusive, even welcome. It was an affirmation of their freedom, and of the infinite multiplicity of choice. In all other ways the afternoon was silent.

Softly, dove-voiced, one of the men spoke.

“You know, all this was underwater once. Prehistoric fishes and sharks swimmin’, right up over our heads. Maybe even that first fish that got so adventurous. The one that crawled up onto the shore to check things out or to get away from the sharks. The very one that started that long and weary march. That march that started turnin’ fish into reptiles, and reptiles into birds and mammals, and some of them mammals into something like men. That march that we’re continuin’ whether we will or no.

“And maybe the reason that he got so damn adventurous is that he looked down here below him, and saw us lyin’ in the tall grass in the sun, and it looked good to him.

“Better’n dodgin’ sharks, anyway.

“Or maybe he just saw us, and recognized the fact that if somethin’ like us was ever gonna happen, then someone somewhere along the line was gonna have to do a heap of adventurin’. Maybe he decided that it might as well be him as got the ball started rollin’.

“Or maybe he saw the next thing. The thing we’re frayin’ our fins into hands to become, without our ever knowin’ it.

“Do you see ’em up there, swimmin’ about?”

There was a significant pause before the second man replied. When he did, his voice was shaded faintly with a tone of loss, regret.

“No… no, I don’t. Not really.”

“Well I can. Know why?”

Silence.

“’Cause they’re there, right now, swimmin’ ’round just like they was a million years ago. Just like they always was, and always will be.

“ ‘All at once, is what eternity is.’

“That’s what The Poet told us. And he was right. He was right about alot of things. But most people just don’t see it.”

“Which poet?”

“
The
Poet. The only Poet. And I don’t mean Shakespeare, or Milton, or Too Sad Eliot. Naw, none of them they teach at schools. Schools won’t touch him, cause he got too much of it right. They don’t want to deal with that. That’s why I walked away a half-dozen credits shy of my B.A.”

Another brief silence.

“Want an example?”

“Sure.”

“Hear that train comin’?”

The second man listened, but heard nothing. He waited a moment before making his reply. As he opened his mouth to speak, his ears did pick up the sound, so faint and far as to be nearly indiscernible.

“Yes! I hear it.”

“Okay, that’s a start. Think with me now. Together we’ll go back. Not nearly so far back as them fish, just a short hop. About a hundred years or so should suit.

“Think of it: the nineteenth century, the age of steel, the birthing and bursting Age of Industrialization, the heyday of the Iron Horse. Yeah, that very train is one of the things them fishies worked their fins to fingers for, or so the vanity of man would have you believe.

“The West’s still wild, the slaves but lately freed, and a handful of Indians ain’t laid down and given up the Ghost Dance yet.

“You got all that in your head now?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now you just think on that a space, and when that train gets ’round to comin’ up beneath this hill, you just raise up and have yourself a peek. See if what The Poet said ain’t true.”

The first man closed his eyes and lay still.

The second man waited alertly, almost without breathing. He thought about what his companion had said. He listened intently, until he could almost feel himself becoming one with the slowly increasing sound of the train. He was soon convinced that something was different, that something had changed, but was uncertain whether the change he felt was within himself or without.

The train was a long time coming. When he was certain that it had reached the base of the hill, he rose up on his knees and peered downward over the tall grasses.

Then he drew in his breath and held it, as a wave of vertigo washed over him.

He was watching a huge, black, nineteenth-century steam engine pull a sooty tender, and an equally dated line of passenger cars, along the shining double line of the rails. His eyes lingered on the mixture of smoke and steam pouring out of its stack, trailing down the entire length of the train and dispersing gently in the still summer air.

When the train had passed from sight, he sat back down and stared at his companion, who seemed to have fallen asleep. Puzzled, he laid himself back in the grass, his eyes searching the sky above him.

A voice floated gently over him, as if his friend were chanting softly in his sleep.

“Swim, little fishy, swim.

“Crawl, little fishy, crawl.

“Build, little fishy, build.

“Fly, little fishy, fly.

“Then blow it all to hell, and die.”

Later Dawson would come up with any number of logical, and unsatisfying, explanations for what had occurred that afternoon. But the magic of those moments would never diminish, or recede from his memory.

So I will leave at dawn, grateful for my brief reprieve.

I have gathered everything that I intend to carry with me, into this one room. I have left the window open for two reasons: to allow in the breeze, which is gentle and kind; and to allow in any sounds from below, which might not be.

A small bureau is pushed up against the bedroom door. I know that it might slow down my escape, if things should take a certain turn; but it might also buy me some valuable time, if things should twist a slightly different way.

My pack is stuffed, as full as I can get it, with the food and water that I have found. I am also taking the bottle of rum. Perhaps this is foolish, but I tell myself that I have no other form of anesthetic. Foolish or not, it is the choice that I have made.

At dawn I will set out, once again, for the Hub. Hoagie told me once that I could find him, if I ever really needed him.

I need him now.

If anyone knows how to survive this horror, and still remain alive, it is him.

“If you ever need to find me, this is the place to start. It’s like the Network is a nervous system, and the Hub is the brain. A word dropped here at nightfall will be travelin’ six different directions by noon the next day. By noon the day after that, you couldn’t tabulate all the places it’s gone. And the word’ll reach its man, sure as rain, if he’s still on the Network, no matter where on the continent he may be. You can count on it.

“So if you ever need me, start here. If I ain’t around, just put out the word and wait. You’ll get me, or my message, before too long.”

That November had started out cold. Dawson pulled his tattered overcoat more tightly around his body, shuffled his feet and nodded.

“I’ll be back,” he said softly, making a pretense of adjusting the straps on his backpack. Then he looked into his companion’s eyes, nodded more firmly, and spoke with greater resolution.

“Yeah. Probably in the spring.”

He was startled by his friend’s laughter.

“Oh yeah. I got you pegged, brother. Fair-weather sort, eh?”

Though the assertion was made good-naturedly enough, Dawson felt his face color. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Hoagie just shook his head, slowly letting his smile give way to a more sober expression.

“Yeah, you’re a fair-weather sort, for now at least, but that’s okay. You’re young yet. Life hasn’t burned you. The cradle hasn’t cramped you up too bad. But you’ll grow.”

He raised a hand to Dawson’s shoulder, gripped him hard.

“Maybe I’ll see you next spring, and maybe not. You’ll make that decision when the time comes. Either way, remember this: someday, when you wake up and realize what a mess you’re in—what a goddamn mess the whole of the civilized world has got itself in, draggin’ you along to boot—and you decide you just don’t wanna stay caught up inside that mess anymore… just remember you ain’t gotta be. You got choices, and nobody’s got a right to make them choices for you, or to tell you which is right and which is wrong.

“There’s alot worse ways to live than this, even if a bunch of them ways are easier and a bit more comfy. There ain’t no reason you gotta live and die in any of them worse ways.

“It’s up to you.”

[7]

A muffled thumping sound, followed by a faint scraping.

The same sounds repeated. Clumsy. Erratic. Intermittent. Persistent.

A similar series of noises rising from a slightly different location.

The noises doubled.

Trebled.

Dawson’s heart was racing even before he opened his eyes. This time there was no luxurious forgetfulness, no vagrant searching for the nightstand and the clock. He was immediately aware of his desperate situation.

Dazed, he listened.

There was the sharp crack of wood splintering. Then a grating sound, as if a heavy object were being pushed across the wooden floor downstairs.

Somehow, he could not bring himself to move.

The first emotions he became conscious of were anger and indignation. They were invading his
sanctum sanctorum
. They were proving his sense of security to be false. They were proving him for a fool.

Then came the fear, and all other emotions became meaningless.

He was trapped.

Judging by the sounds, there were already too many at the entrance downstairs. Too many
in
the entrance. There would be no escape through the narrow confines of the house. Clumsiness notwithstanding, their sheer numbers would overwhelm him.

Where had they all come from so suddenly?

Finally he bolted from the bed and thrust himself toward the window to look out.

Darkness.

Within the darkness, five darker shapes—no, seven— shambling about, moving vaguely toward the broken entrance of the house.

Eight—no, nine.

A sound behind him indicated that the first one had stumbled onto the base of the stairs. It was on his scent.

Eleven outside.

He wrestled his arms through the straps of his backpack, cursing his own clumsiness, then lurched back to the window. More were coming through the trees. Several had disappeared around the front of the house.

He thrust his legs out the window and bent awkwardly at the waist to get his head through. When he tried to sit up straight on the windowsill, his backpack struck the underside of the window, nearly causing him to fall. He ducked again, this time low enough to clear the backpack, and perched there, peering into the darkness below.

One of the ghouls in the yard looked up at him and made a wretched sound. Another turned toward it, then followed its gaze to the window.

Behind him Dawson heard the bureau being pushed slowly across the floor.

He leapt.

A moment of freedom.

Falling.

Movement through the night’s damp air.

A sensation of speed.

PAIN!

Ankles legs spine stomach ribs PAIN. White/black PAIN. Red/white PAIN. Everything PAIN. Nothing but PAIN.

Then a thought crept in:

“Can’t walk can’t run can’t escape.”

Then, in answer:

“If I can’t walk, they cannot make me be like them. Not like that. A predator.”