“No doubt,” Thaxton said, lifting up the phone and scanning a menu he’d found on the dresser. “Hello, Room Service? Yes, room 203, here. Is supper still being served? Breakfast?” He looked at his watch. “Fine. I’ll take tea, toast, orange juice, and all that, two cock’s eggs, hard-boiled, and the biggest basilisk steak you have, rare. That’s right. Room 203, and be quick about it.”
Twenty-four
City
It was still dark when they boarded an omnibus heading for the suburbs. The sky was starless and the streets were almost deserted, a lone street cleaner, whirring its way along the curb, the only denizen stirring. The bus driver gave them a cheery smile when they got on.
“Getting an early start, eh?” she said. “Your shop storming for a quota overfulfillment?”
“Better and better!” Gene said.
“Every day!” she responded.
Gene’s hand had instinctively reached into his pocket for fare, and he took comfort that the reflex was still there. The two days he’d been here had seemed the longest stretch of time he had ever experienced.
He held Alice’s hand out of the driver’s sight as they rode. The high rises continued for several miles, then thinned out, the gaps filled by older structures, some that were once single-family homes now carved up into tiny apartments. There were many vacant lots with old foundations still standing. The city had a raw look, as if it were being continually cleared for new development. The past must be obliterated and the present erected over top of it. Soon the landscape would hold nothing but faceless monoliths.
Dawn came, shading the sky purple.
“Do you know how far out the last stop is?”
Alice shook her head. “I’ve never ridden this line.”
The city gave way to suburbs. There were a few factories and more high rises, but no houses. There were some boarded-up apartment buildings.
“Do you know the population of … whatever this is, the country, the state?”
Alice said, “The population? How many citizens? I don’t know.”
“Did it ever strike you that there aren’t a lot of people, that there are less and less as time goes on?”
“Well, not really. What made you ask?”
“Housing doesn’t seem to be a problem. Or is that because of heroic construction-worker efforts?”
Alice shrugged. “I’ve never thought of it.”
They passed light-industrial parks, warehouses, yards full of building materials, lots with parked earth-moving equipment. Everything looked dreary and forlorn.
They rode for about fifteen more minutes, passing through the last of the suburbs. Finally the omnibus pulled over to the side of the road.
“End of the line,” the driver announced.
They got off and walked along the road. There were overgrown fields to either side, trees bordering them.
“Let’s cut across and get into the woods,” Gene said.
Dew drenched their shoes as they made their way through the tall grass.
“Do you know where we’re going?” she asked.
“Only generally. The place I want to get to is due east of the city. The roads are different here, but the lay of the land is the same. As far as I can tell, that road would be U.S. Route 30 in my world. We want to get as far along it as we can. Trouble is, we’re miles from the place I want to get to. Maybe thirty miles. That’s a lot to walk.”
“We’ll get there,” she said gaily.
“Don’t be so goddamned optimistic. I’m sick of the smiles, the phony cheeriness.”
“Sorry.”
He drew her to him and hugged her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“It’s all right,” she said.
“No, it’s not. You’re the only ray of light in all this darkness. You shouldn’t exist. I —”
She drew back from him. “What’s the matter?”
He turned away. “It’s starting.”
“InnerVoice?”
He nodded. “Nausea. There was a little on the bus but I was hoping it was just nervousness. Let’s keep walking.”
The woods were green and cool, alive with morning birdsong. They followed a deer path through thin maple trees and dense undergrowth: ferns, laurel, wild raspberry bushes, mayapple plants.
“What are you feeling?” she asked.
“Fear,” he said.
“Bad?”
“Yes, getting worse.”
She held his hand tightly. They came out of the woods and crossed a hayfield, entering the trees on the other side. A slope led down to the road, which had curved to the right and crossed in front of them.
“Let’s chance the road for a while,” he said.
They walked for about a quarter mile before encountering a garage with numerous official-looking vehicles parked in front of it. Most were trucks, but there were two cars, nondescript gray sedans. He led her across the parking lot to one of them. He tried the driver’s door — it was unlocked.
“Get in,” he said.
The interior was stripped down and functional, the dashboard made of unpainted metal with minimum instrumentation. The car had a standard transmission with a floor shift. As he suspected, the key was in the ignition.
He looked around a lot. No one was about. He depressed the clutch pedal and turned the key. The engine coughed, turned over, and started chugging and rattling.
He struggled with the gearshift.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“Feel weak. The nausea. Can you drive?”
“No. I never learned.”
“Fine. I’ll be … fine.”
He got it into reverse and backed out of the parking slot. Jamming the lever into first gear, he started across the lot for the road.
A man in greasy overalls came out of the garage, stopping when he saw the car pulling out. He yelled something.
Gene floored the accelerator pedal, spinning tires on the gravel. He drove off the lot, swerving onto the road with only a cursory glance to see if traffic was coming. The engine howled but didn’t put out much power. He kept his foot to the floor, though, and the speedometer soon read eighty — miles or kilometers or something else, he didn’t know. He kept at that speed until it was apparent that they weren’t being chased.
He slowed down.
“Well,” Gene said, “the guy is sure to call the … the what? Would he call the army?”
“He might report the incident to the local Committee for the Investigation of Unsocial Behavior,” she said. “They might call Constant Struggle.”
“Does Constant Struggle always patrol the countryside?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s who picked me up. What were they doing out there? Do you have any idea?”
“No, Gene. I don’t.”
“There’s gotta be more to this.” He coughed. “Oh, God, I gotta throw up.” He swallowed bile.
“Stop,” she said.
“No, don’t want to take the chance. If I have to puke I’ll do it out the window. Hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind, Gene.”
“The thing is the anxiety, the fear. It’s not as powerful as it was that first day, but it’s getting to me.”
“I don’t understand, Gene. You shouldn’t have InnerVoice at all. You’re a maladapt.”
“Maybe this is psychological? Psychosomatic? I hope.”
“If you’re not a maladapt, maybe you have something that’s fighting InnerVoice.”
“I don’t know what it could be.”
“You must have something.”
The road went into a series of turns and the motion sickened him even more. He slowed down, swallowing the lubricating mucus that had worked its way up his esophagus, preparing the way for the return of his breakfast of near-rotten potatoes. Then the road straightened again, his stomach rumbled, and the breakfast stayed down. He belched.