"You are sure?" I asked. "About all the cars, I mean. You're sure they've stopped running everywhere?"
"I ain't sure of nothing," said the woman. "All that I know is I ain't seen a car go by in the last two days." "You're sure of that, though?"
"I'm sure of that," she said. "Now I'll go and get your breakfast cooking."
Was this, I wondered, this thing that had happened, what the Devil had meant when he had told me he had a plan? Sitting atop Cemetery Ridge, he had made it sound as if it were no more than a plan that he was formulating when, in fact, it already had been put into operation. Perhaps it had been initiated at that very moment when Kathy's car had left the turnpike and had entered into the shadow world of man's imagination. The other cars on the highway had rolled to a stop, but Kathy's car had been shunted to the cart track atop the mountain. When Kathy had tried to start it later, I recalled, it had refused to start
But how could such a thing be done? How could all the cars be made to cease to operate, rolling to a stop, and then impossible to start?
Enchantment, I told myself; enchantment, more than likely. Although, just thinking of it, the idea seemed impossible.
Impossible, certainly, in the world in which I sat, waiting for the woman in the kitchen to cook my breakfast for me. But probably not impossible in the Devil's world, where enchantment would stand as a principle as solid and entrenched as were the laws of physics or of chemistry in this world of mine. For enchantment was a principle asserted time and time again in the olden fairy tales, in the ancient folklore, in a long line of fantasy writing that extended even into the present day. At one time people had believed in it, and for many, many years, and even in the present there were many of us who paid polite and not quite whimsical regard to this old belief, still reluctant to put aside the old beliefs and in many cases still half believing in them. How many people would go out of their way to avoid walking underneath a ladder? How many still felt a chill of apprehension when a black cat crossed their path? How many still carried a secret rabbit's foot, or if not a rabbit's foot, a certain lucky piece, a coin, perhaps, or some silly little emblem? How many people, in idle moments, still hunted four-leaf clovers? None of it was serious intent, perhaps, or only mock-seriously to cover up an unmodern attitude, but in their very acts betraying still the basic fear that lingered from the cave, the eternal human yen for protection against bad luck or black magic or the evil eye or whatever other name one might put to it.
The Devil had complained that mankind's simple, thoughtless adages gave a lot of trouble to his world, which must accept them as laws and principles, and if such things as three times is a charm became actually operative in the Devil's world, then the simple matter of enchantment as a moving force became a certainty.
But while it was operative there, how could it be extended to this world of ours, where the principles of physics surely would hold an edge over the forces of enchantment? Although, come to think of it, this whole business of enchantment had its origins with man. Man had thought it up and passed it on to that other world and should the other world turn around and employ it against him, it would be no more than he deserved.
The whole thing didn't make any sort of sense when viewed within the logical context of the human world, but cars standing on the highways, the inoperative telephones, the silent radios and television sets did make a powerful kind of sense. Much as man might disbelieve in the efficiency of enchantment, there was here, all about me, evidence that it really worked.
And here was a situation, I told myself, that badly needed sense. If no cars would run, if no trains could operate, if all communications were cut off, then the country, in a few more days, would be heading for disaster. With transportation and communications gone, the economy of the nation would grind to a shuddering halt. Food would be in short supply in many urban centers, perhaps with an unreasoning rush of hoarding hastening that time. People would be hungry and the hungry hordes would stream out from the cities to seek food wherever they might find it.
Even now, I knew, twinges of panic must be in evidence. Facing the unknown, with the free flow of information halted, all manner of speculation and rumor would arise. In another day or two, spurred by those rumors, a full-fledged panic would be on.
The world of man, perhaps, had been struck a blow from which, if no answer could be found, it might not recover. The society, as it existed, was an intricate structure which rested, in large part, upon rapid transportation and instant communication. Pull those two foundation blocks out from under it and the whole frail house might come tumbling down. Within thirty days this proud structure would be gone and man would be hurled back into a state of barbarism, with roving bands seeking bases where they could sustain themselves.
I had one answer—an answer as to what had happened, but certainly no answer as to what to do about it. Thinking about it, I knew that even the answer I did have would be unacceptable. No one would believe it; no one, more than likely, would even give me the time to try to convince them it was true. The situation would give rise to a lot of crackpot explanations and mine would be only another one of them—another crackpot explanation.
The woman popped her head out of the kitchen. "I ain't seen you around," she said. "You must be a stranger."
I nodded.
"There are a lot of them in town," she said. "Came up off the highway. Some of them a right smart ways from home and no way to get back and…"
"The railroads must still be running."
She shook her head. "I don't think they are. Nearest one is twenty miles away and I heard someone say that they aren't running."
"Just where is this place?" I asked.
She eyed me suspiciously. "Seems to me," she sai4, "you don't know much of anything."
I didn't answer her and she finally told me what I'd asked. "Washington," she added, "is thirty miles down the road."
"Thanks," I said.
"It's a good, long walk," she said, "on a day like this. Going to be a scorcher before the day is over. You plan on walking all the way to Washington?"
"I'm considering it," I said.
She went back to her cooking.
Washington, thirty miles: Gettysburg, what would it be—sixty miles or more? And I had no assurance, I reminded myself, that Kathy would be in Gettysburg.
I thought about it—Washington or Gettysburg?
There were men in Washington who should know, who had a right to know, what I could tell them, although it was most unlikely they would listen to me. There were men, some in fairly high positions, who were friends and others who were good acquaintances, but was there any one of them who would listen to the story that I had to tell? I checked a dozen of them mentally and there wasn't one of them who'd take me seriously. To begin with, they couldn't afford to; they couldn't subject themselves to the polite ridicule which would greet their lending any credence to what I had to say. In Washington, I was convinced, I could accomplish nothing more than butting my head against dozens of stone walls.
Knowing this, my very inclination shouted that I must get to Kathy's side as quickly as I could. If the world was going to go to pot, the two of us should be together when it smashed. She was the one person in the world who knew exactly what I knew; she was the only member of the human race who would understand the torment that I faced—the one person who would be sympathetic and willing to lend me help.
Although there was more than just sympathy and help; more than understanding. There was the remembrance of her body warm and sweet within my arms, the vision of her happy face looking up at me in the*flaring light of the witch's fire. After many years, I thought, after many other women in strange and distant lands, here finally was Kathy. I had gone back to the land of boyhood, not certain it was right to go, not sure of what I'd find, and Kathy had been there.