Tony lay down on the street, seizing the unbroken portion of asphalt, and furiously heaved his body in an attempt to free his right leg. It looked as is he might even win back some inches, but the headlights behind him were inexorably closing. There was no engine noise so far, but the crunch and rustle under its wheels became clearer and clearer. One more jerk—horror on the verge of madness gave extra force to Logan—and he succeeded in freeing his leg almost to the knee. At that moment, right behind him, something crunched with an especially vile sound—probably, the bus had crushed a dead bird—and Tony understood that he wouldn’t be in time. He screwed up his eyes, expecting the blow…
But no blow followed. Wheels rustled to the right of him and stopped. Logan opened his eyes without believing that he was still alive.
The vehicle stood opposite him and it was not the M13 bus. It was much smaller white truck. With improbable relief, Logan recognized a USPS truck, with a blue eagle head and the motto on the side.
Tony did not ask why a postal truck was driving at night. Express delivery—what could be easier and more commonplace? Everything has a reasonable explanation and that thing holding his ankle is simply heavy dirt. The driver of the truck will now help him to get out and will explain how to reach normal transportation. Maybe the driver will even agree to give him a lift, though this is against the rules… And all this idiotic phantasmagoria, at last, will end!
The driver’s door lock clicked and a foot in a laced boot stepped onto the roadway. And at the same moment Tony noticed that the motto on the side of the truck differed a little from what he had gotten used to.
Instead of “We deliver for you,” was written “We deliver you.” To be more exact, “We de·liver you,” with either a dot or a tiny hyphen separating “de” from “liver.”
We rip out your liver.
And the eagle’s head looked too predatory and spiteful. Logan at once remembered the myth about the eagle tormenting the liver of Prometheus.
The door opened more widely with an unpleasant scratch. The driver, a bulky bald Negro, got out of the truck. And turned his face to Logan.
Or what he had instead of a face.
Seeing it, Tony screamed… or rather, squealed, without controlling himself at all. A high cheekboned white skull looked at him. At the same time, there was black flesh on each side of the head and Tony distinguished the silhouette of chubby cheeks and a fat neck. But between them there was only the deathly whiteness of bone, long ago and completely cleared of flesh either by knife or by decomposition. However this skull had a nose—bone white too, but a nose, instead of a triangular hole appropriate to a decayed corpse.
“What’s wrong with you?” the dreadful driver inquired in a sepulchral, but almost friendly voice. And Tony, as frightened as he was, noticed that on this terrible whitish mask there was not only a nose, but also lips moving to shape words. Nevertheless he could not squeeze out of his throat anything articulate and only spasmodically twitched, trying to free his leg.
“Oh, I guess, my face,” said the Black man (or whatever he actually was). Tony had a flashing thought that this…this being was looking for an occasion to be aggressive, and he pitifully waggled his head.
“Everything is all right, sir,” the driver continued just as amiably. “Many people are frightened when they see me for the first time. It’s a skin defect called ‘vitiligo’. Don’t worry, it’s not infectious.”
“My God, what an idiot I am,” Tony thought, again relaxing with immense relief (which allowed his leg to be pulled several inches deeper at once). Certainly, vitiligo, a pigmentation disorder. He had seen people with this skin condition before, but they were white. On a black face it looks particularly terrible… Especially when the spot is shaped exactly like a skeleton’s face. Moreover, taking into account the existing circumstances…
“Sorry,” Tony murmured confoundedly.
“You need help,” the driver said more affirmatively than interrogatively.
“Yes, my leg is stuck, and, in general, I’m in a stupid situation…”
“Now we’ll relieve you of it.”
But the motto? What about the motto? Could it be a one more trick of imagination which caused him to not see the preposition “for”?
No. There was no “for.” And “de” was quite distinctly separated from “liver.”
The driver stepped towards Tony and Logan saw his right hand that had been hidden by the truck door before. No—the hand itself was okay. No pigment spots and the fingers were not decayed. But these fingers clenched the handle of a huge butcher’s hatchet, devilishly sharp even by sight and with a brown-stained blade.
“What… are you going to…?” Tony, who had instantly lost all his newly found calmness, plaintively exclaimed.
“To relieve you of it,” repeated the Negro, taking one more step towards him, and Logan understood that “it” meant not his trouble, but his leg.
There was not the slightest chance of releasing himself in the remaining seconds. But when the driver had already raised his weapon, Tony seized the largest piece of asphalt and with all his might threw it right in the terrible white-black face.
The sound of the blow turned into a wet crunch. The jerked back and fell, hitting his head against the edge of the opened truck door (it slammed with a scratch)—and then finally tumbled down on the asphalt, still clutching his hatchet. Logan heard a new crunch and at first thought that it was one more sound of a breaking skull. But then he saw a new crack that ripped the asphalt from the edge of the hole into which Tony had slumped to the front wheels of the truck, having passed under the driver’s motionlessly stiffened body.
And in the following instant something moved under the asphalt, heavily rolling towards the vehicle—or, maybe, towards the bald head from which, probably, blood exuded? Tony felt the grasp on his ankle weakened. Having gathered all his strength, he jerked once again—and his right leg broke loose with a viscous damp sucking sound. Without a shoe and all bedaubed with mud, but those were insignificant details. Logan jumped up and rushed farther along the street. He did not even try to pick up the postman’s hatchet (let alone getting behind the wheel of his truck), as he was not sure at all that the asphalt under him wouldn’t break again.
Or that this guy won’t come to senses at the most inopportune moment as always happens in movies.
“Well, it’s unlikely,” Tony told himself (while still maintaining his pace). “His skull was broken in two places at least, and however sturdy he seemed…”
A familiar scratch came from behind. And then—a door slam.
Tony looked back over his in shoulder in panic and saw headlights again. Actually, they were not switched off even when the truck was standing. But now… they, seemingly, were approaching again.
Logan ran to the nearest house and hastily tugged at the door handle. Screws pulled from the mouldering wood, leaving the handle in his hands. The door had been locked. Having rejected his “trophy,” as useless as a weapon, Tony rushed off farther along the street. How many seconds are left to him?
From the fog a traffic sign appeared. A rhombus with an inscription “DEAD END.” Holy crap!
However, he guessed there was a certain extense of free space beyond the sign. While it still could be nothing. There could be a fence blocking his path…
Without stopping, he threw one more glance back. The headlights were definitely closer. Tony again looked forward and saw a metal fence. But, no, it was not too high. And the main thing—there was a semicircular gate in it and it was open. And beyond the gate something like a town in miniature appeared in the fog: rows of low stone structures stretching into the gloom and silent pale figures erect between them…