"Turn your back, and remember, there's a gun on it."
Kanis did an about-face.
Tanner crawled into the car, its door flung wide, and keeping his eye and his gun on the smaller man, he removed rations from their compartments and bore them back outside.
"Here. Have yourself a ball," he said, and he set the containers down on the floor of the barn and backed away.
He watched Kanis eat, until he couldn't believe that a man could be so hungry.
Then, "How do you feel?" he asked.
"A lot better, thanks."
"I'm sure they won't kill you in Boston," he said. "If you want to come along, I'll take you with me. What do you say?"
"No. Thanks. I feel better now."
"Why, for God's sake?"
"Because I've eaten."
"I mean, why won't you come along?"
"They'll hate me."
"No they won't."
"I helped, you know, when they burned the universities."
"So don't tell them about it."
He shook his head. "They'll know."
"How, you dumb bastard? Tell me _how?_"
"They'll know. _I_ know."
"Man, you've got a guilt hang-up. I've heard of them, but I never believed it till now. Forget it! I'll take you there, you can do whatever you want to your butterflies from now till hell freezes over, and nobody'll give a damn."
"No, thanks."
Tanner shrugged.
"Any way you want it."
There came a flash of blue lightning. The force of the downpour increased, until it sounded as if a thousand hammers fell upon the rooftop. An unnatural glow illuminated the barn for a time.
"What's _your_ name?" Kanis asked.
"Hell."
"I knew it," he said. "Do you believe in God, Hell?"
"No."
"I didn't, but I do now. 'Forgive me my trespasses..."
"Don't give me that lineup," said Tanner.
"I'm sorry. I..."
There came a rumble of thunder, which drowned out his following words.
Then, "... Kill me," said the man.
Tanner stepped on his cigarette butt.
"Will you?"
"What?"
"Kill me?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Why should I?"
"I'd like it."
"Go to hell."
"I have."
"As you say, you're nuts."
"That is off the point."
"Do you want another cigarette?"
"No, thanks."
The rains relented a bit, and the thunders died. The lightnings fled away, and a natural quality of darkness returned to the quivering shadows.
"Okay, forget it," said Kanis.
"I already have."
"I don't mean to be a nuisance."
"I know. What do biologists do?"
"I've a doctor-of-philosophy degree in biological science. I'm a botanist, actually..."
"A doctor?"
"Yes."
"There's another guy inside my car, and he needs medical care. Will you take a look at him?"
"I'm not that kind of doctor."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm a doctor, but not a medical doctor. All I know about is botany."
"Biology is cutting up people and stuff like that, isn't it? Won't that help?"
"Not really. I don't know anything about medicine."
"Okay. I'll buy it. Too bad, though. He's bashed pretty bad."
"Sorry."
A certain brightness crept back into the day.
"Seems to be letting up," said Tanner.
"Yes."
"So I'll be going now."
"Now?"
"Why not?"
"It may start again."
"And then again, it may not. I'll have to take my chances."
Tanner backed toward the vehicle.
"Wait!"
"What?"
"Nothing."
Then Kanis lunged toward him, plunging his hand inside his shirt as he did so. Tanner fired twice.
"You damned fool! Why did you do that?" he cried, rushing to the fallen man's side.
Kanis coughed and spat blood.
"Why…not?" he asked. "We are all…mad... Hell!" and the rattle of his outgoing breath filled Tanner's ears.
"Crazy… Crazy..." said Tanner, and he dragged Kanis into the stall and laid him beside the skeleton of the horse. He searched him then and found that he bore no weapon.
"I wish you hadn't done that," he said, and then he returned to the barrel and sat down on it and lit another cigarette, his hand still feeling the impact of the hot and fired gun within it.
"Crazy," he repeated. "Absolutely out of his mind. Like, mad.
"That's what he was," he finally decided. "He was right."
He sat there for a long while, feeling the cold, moist breezes; and the rainfall lessened after a time, and he went back to the car and started it. Greg was still unconscious, he noted, as he backed out.
He took a pill to keep himself alert, and he ate some rations as he drove along. The rain continued to come down, but gently. It fell all the way across Ohio, and the sky remained overcast. He crossed into West Virginia at the place called Parkersburg, and then he veered slightly to the north, going by the old Rand McNally he'd been furnished. The gray day went away into black night, and he drove on.
There were no more of the dark bats around to trouble him, but he passed several more craters, and the radiation gauge rose, and at one point a pack of huge wild dogs pursued him, baying and howling, and they ran along the road and snapped at his tires and barked and yammered and then fell back. There were some tremors beneath his wheels as he passed another mountain, and it spewed forth bright clouds to his left and made a kind of thunder. Ashes fell, and he drove through them. A flash flood splashed over him, and the engine sputtered and died twice, but he started it again each time and pushed on ahead, the waters lapping about his sides. Then he reached higher, drier ground, and riflemen tried to bar his way. He strafed them and hurled a grenade and drove on by. When the darkness went away and the dim moon came up, dark birds circled him and dived down at him, but he ignored them, and after a time they, too, were gone.
He drove until he felt tired again, and then he ate some more and took another pill. By then he was in Pennsylvania, and he felt that if Greg would only come around he would turn him loose and trust him with the driving.
He halted twice to visit the latrine, and he tugged at the golden band in his pierced left ear, and he blew his nose and scratched himself. Then he ate more rations and continued on.
He began to ache in all his muscles, and he wanted to stop and rest, but he was afraid of the things that might come upon him if he did.
As he drove through another dead town, the rains started again. Not hard, just a drizzly downpour, coldlooking and sterile, a brittle, shiny screen. He stopped in the middle of the road before the thing he'd almost driven into, and he stared at it.
He'd thought at first that it was more black lines in the sky. He'd halted because they'd seemed to appear too suddenly.
It was a spider's web, strands thick as his arm, strung between two leaning buildings.
He switched on his forward flame and began to burn it.
When the fires died, he saw the approaching shape, coming down from above.
It was a spider, larger than himself, rushing to check the disturbance.
He elevated the rocket launchers, took careful aim, and pierced it with one white-hot missile.
It still hung there in the trembling web and seemed to be kicking.
He turned on the flame again, for a full ten seconds, and when it subsided, there was an open way before him.
He rushed through, wide-awake and alert once again, his pains forgotten. He drove as fast as he could, trying to forget the sight.
Another mountain smoked ahead and to his right, but it did not bloom, and few ashes descended as he passed it.
He made coffee and drank a cup. After a while it was morning and he raced toward it.
He was stuck in the mud, somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania, and cursing. Greg was looking very pale. The sun was nearing midheaven. He leaned back and closed his eyes. It was too much.