We waited, looking from Willard to the open fields and back to Willard. “Well?” I said.
“I see the city, but I can’t see nothing but buildings.”
I pulled the binoculars out of his hand and took a look for myself. I couldn’t see nothing but buildings, either, but Chicago kept getting closer, and soon I could focus on one street. I could see people walking in the street—but not nearly as many as you’d expect in a big city. There were plenty of cars, parked ass to bumper down both sides of the street, but I couldn’t see who’d be driving all those cars. I could see a shoeshine stand with the rags draped on a hook, waiting, but there was no one around it.
As we got even closer, I could take a look at the people up close, and they didn’t look right at all. They were walking with their heads down, taking slow, careful steps like they was afraid they might fall down, or step in something they didn’t want on their shoes.
New York jerked to a stop. I’d gotten used to the whistling sound the air made when the city was moving, and now it felt deadly still. I offered the binoculars to Lois.
There was an awesome rumbling, like the engine of the world’s biggest motorcar coming to life. Lois nearly dropped the binoculars over the wall as Chicago leapt forward, jerking and bouncing. It headed straight for New York.
“Looks like they want to talk,” Willard said.
Lois and me didn’t answer. There was something wrong about Chicago. I wanted to get another look at those people walking the streets, but it seemed rude to ask for the binoculars back.
Chicago kept on building steam, adjusting itself a bit to the left or right to make sure it was coming right at us. It reminded me of something. I guess a city can’t look angry or crazy, but that’s what came into my head—that it was like an angry bull.
“It’s gonna run right into us!” Willard said, his hand knifed over his eyes to shade them from the glare.
The honking alarm went on, and this time I didn’t need nobody to tell me what to do. I hopped off the wall, helped Lois down, and then planted my behind on solid ground.
New York jerked to life. We waited a nickel’s worth, then got back on our feet to watch. New York cut sideways, out of Chicago’s path, picking up speed in a hurry. Chicago swerved toward us; it was going to be a close thing.
“Have they lost their minds?” Lois asked, holding her hat so it didn’t fly off.
I gritted my teeth; if Chicago hit, it would hit right about where we were standing. It was too late to run—if it hit it would chew up this whole park and more.
People were running anyhow, as Chicago got bigger and bigger, its skyscrapers rising up over our heads. Willard took two steps. He looked at me, his face a big question mark. I shook my head. “Too late.”
New York shifted direction, digging a big curve and kicking up dirt as it wove forward, in the opposite direction from Chicago. The walls of the two cities matched up, sliding by each other like two pirate ships passing on the water. I watched the Chicago street closest to the wall, watched the people on it peering between their fingers like they was watching Frankenstein at the movies. They didn’t want the cities to collide neither.
“There’s someone on the wall,” Lois shouted, pointing.
Sure enough, there was a Chicago man balancing on the wall, his arms spread, his knees bent.
He jumped toward us, feet pedaling the air. It didn’t look like he had enough giddyup to make it. I reached out; the man just made the wall and I grabbed hold of one of his hands as he clawed at the bricks. Lois leaned out and grabbed him under one armpit. We pulled him up and over.
“Thank you, thank you,” the man babbled before he even had a chance to brush himself off. “Oh Lord, thank you.” He had a cut on his head, just over his eye, and his hands and arms were scraped bad, but he didn’t seem to notice. He turned and leaned his hands on the wall, watching Chicago retreat. “Thank you, Lord.”
“What’s going on over there, friend?” I asked, putting a hand on the man’s back, trying to calm him. His face was shaking. His hands, too, but I never seen someone so scared that his face shook.
He fixed me with a crazy stare. “Your worst nightmare, that’s what.”
“Look out! What are they doing?” Willard said, still watching over the wall. The rest of us joined him. Chicago had turned left, right into the path of a small town.
It plowed right over the town.
“Jesus, Lord,” Willard wailed.
We could hear screams mixed with crunching wood and brick as Chicago mowed down house after house. People ran, but where was there to go? It was a whole city; no one was going to outrun a city.
There was a commotion behind us; we turned to see soldiers rushing toward us, some carrying rifles, some pulling cannons.
We took the fella from Chicago, whose name was Perry, to a diner on Eighth Avenue. We offered him scotch, but he wanted tea. He was a wispy sort, skinny and small with nervous hands and a mustache that had grown in too thin, leaving spaces where the skin showed through. He didn’t want to talk about Chicago—he held the cup close to his face like he could hide behind it and kept shaking his head and saying, “You don’t want to know.”
I did want to know, so finally I reminded him that he’d be nothing but roadkill if it wasn’t for us, and that maybe he owed us an explanation.
“All right.” Perry put the cup down, leaned back on the couch. “I’ll tell you. But I don’t want to.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out with a wheeze. “I don’t want to think about it. I want to pretend it was a bad dream.” He looked like he was going to cry.
He collected himself, and finally started talking.
“One of the five lived in Chicago—Crowley, the conjuror. He didn’t hold any office, but he may as well have been king the way people did what he wanted. What he wanted was more life fluids for the city. He pressured Mayor Cermak into raising the requirements again and again, until we were all being siphoned on a weekly basis.”
“Oh, my,” Lois said, shaking her head.
Perry shook his head in a ‘You ain’t heard nothing yet’ way. “Then people started dying. In their bathtubs, elevators, the subway. At first it seemed like a rash of freak accidents, but then word spread that there was a detail being covered up by the coroner: the victims were dry—they’d been drained.”
Willard opened his mouth to speak, but Perry waved him silent.
“There was panic. A lot of residents would have fled, but Chicago was moving, and it kept moving. And people kept dying. More ‘accidents.’” He stopped, fixed me with a stare that dared me to hear what he was about to say. “Then the city began killing openly. Gouts of steam might come up through a grate in the sidewalk as you walked over it, boiling you alive. The corner mailbox might close on your arm and squeeze until it cut your arm right off—”
“Stop it!” Lois leapt to her feet. “You’re lying. Obviously you’re lying. If you’re not going to tell the truth, why—”
Perry laughed. “What a wonderful thought. God, how I wish I was lying. How I wish all the things I’ve seen…” He balled his fists and rubbed his eyes, like he was trying to erase all the things his eyes had seen.
“Go on, Perry,” I said, nice and soothing.
Perry dragged his hands down his face, making pink pockets under his eyes. “Those of us who managed to stay alive have been sleeping in the parks, keeping away from the places where the city gets you.”
Lois snorted, like she thought it was nothing but a fish story, but the rest of us ignored her. I believed the man, crazy as the story was. Maybe I believed him because the story was so crazy—no one would make up such a yarn and expect anyone to believe it.