Mr. Hopedale said: “Do it, Norris. Do it. We can scrape together enough cash for one big promotion and then the end. I’m going to see Brewster of Commercial Factors in the morning. I believe he will advance us sixty-five per cent on our accounts receivable.” He tried on a cynical smile. It didn’t become him. “Norris, you are what is technically called a Publisher’s Bright Young Man. We can get seven-fifty for a scholarly book. With luck and promotion we can sell in the hundred thousands. Get on it.” I nodded, feeling sick, and started out. Mr. Hopedale said in a tired voice: “And it might actually be work of some inspirational value.”
Professor Leuten sat and listened, red-faced, breathing hard.
“You betrayer,” he said at last. “You with the smiling face that came to Basle, that talked of lectures in America, that told me to sign your damnable contract. My face on the cover of the Time magazine that looks like a monkey, the idiotic interviews, the press releasements in my name that I never saw. America, I thought, and held my tongue. But from the beginning it was a lie!” He buried his face in his hands and muttered: “Ach! You stink!”
That reminded me. I took a small stench-bomb from my pocket and crushed it.
He leaped up, balanced on one leg and thumbed his nose. His tongue was out four inches and he was panting with the terror of asphyxiation.
“Very good,” I said.
“Thank you. I suchest we move to the other end of the car.”
We and our luggage were settled before he began to breathe normally. I judged that the panic and most of his anger had passed. “Professor,” I said cautiously, “I’ve been thinking of what we do when and if we find Miss Phoebe.”
“We shall complete her re-education,” he said. “We shall point out that her unleashed powers have been dysfunctionally applied--”
“I can think of something better to do than completing her reeducation. It’s why I spoke a little harshly. Presumably Miss Phoebe considers you the greatest man in the world.”
He smiled reminiscently and I knew what he was thinking.
La Plume, Pa. Wednesday 4A.M. (!)
Professor Konrad Leuten c/o The Hopedale Press New York City, New York
My Dear Professor,
Though you are a famous and busy man I do hope you will take time to read a few words of grateful tribute from an old lady (eighty-four). I have just finished your magnificent and inspirational book How to Live on the Cosmic Expense Account: an Introduction to Functional Epistemology.
Professor, I believe. I know every splendid word in your book is true. If there is one chapter finer than the others it is No. 9, “How to be in Utter Harmony with Your Environment.” The Twelve Rules in that chapter shall from this minute be my guiding light, and I shall practice them faithfully forever.
Your grateful friend,
(Miss) Phoebe Bancroft
That flattering letter reached us on Friday, one day after the papers reported with amusement or dismay the “blackout” of La Plume, Pennsylvania. The term “Plague Area” came later.
“I suppose she might,” said the professor.
“Well, think about it.”
The train slowed for a turn. I noticed that the track was lined with men and women. And some of them, by God, were leaping for the moving train! Brakes went on with a squeal and jolt; my nose bashed against the seat in front of us.
“Aggression,” the professor said, astonished. “But that is not in the pattern!”
We saw the trainman in the vestibule opening the door to yell at the trackside people. He was trampled as they swarmed aboard, filling, jamming the car in a twinkling.
“Got to Scranton,” we heard them saying. “Zombies “
“I get it,” I shouted at the professor over their hubbub, “These are refugees from Scranton. They must have blocked the track. Right now they’re probably bullying the engineer into backing up all the way to Wilkes-Barre. We’ve got to get off!” he said. We were in an end seat. By elbowing, crowding, and a little slugging we got to the vestibule and dropped to the tracks. The professor lost all his luggage in the brief, fierce struggle. I saved only my briefcase. The powers of Hell itself were not going to separate me from that briefcase.
Hundreds of yelling, milling people were trying to climb aboard. Some made it to the roofs of the cars after it was physically impossible for one more body to be fitted inside. The locomotive uttered a despairing toot and the train began to back up.
“Well,” I said, “we head north.”
We found U.S. 6 after a short overland hike and trudged along the concrete. There was no traffic. Everybody with a car had left Scranton days ago, and nobody was going into Scranton. Except us.
We saw our first zombie where a signpost told us it was three miles to the city. She was a woman in a Mother Hubbard and sunbonnet. I couldn’t tell whether she was young or old, beautiful or a hag. She gave us a sweet, empty smile and asked if we had any food. I said no. She said she wasn’t complaining about her lot but she was hungry, and of course the vegetables and things were so much better now that they weren’t poisoning the soil with those dreadful chemical fertilizers. Then she said maybe there might be something to eat down the road, wished us a pleasant good day and went on.
“Dreadful chemical fertilizers?” I asked.
The professor said: “I believe that is a contribution by the Duchess of Carbondale to Miss Phoebe’s reign. Several interviews mention it.” We walked on. I could read his mind like a book. He hasn’t even read the interviews. He is a foolish, an impossible young man. And yet he is here, he has undergone a rigorous course of training, he is after all risking a sort of death. Why? I let him go on wondering. The answer was in my briefcase.
“When do you think we’ll be in range?” I asked.
“Heaven knows,” he said testily. “Too many variables. Maybe it’s different when she sleeps, maybe it grows at different rates varying as the number of people affected. I feel nothing yet.”
“Neither do I.”
And when we felt something specifically, when we felt Miss Phoebe Bancroft practicing the Twelve Rules of “How to be in Utter Harmony with Your Environment” we would do something completely idiotic, something that had got us thrown --literally thrown-- out of the office of the Secretary of Defense.
He had thundered at us: “Are you two trying to make a fool of me? Are you proposing that soldiers of the United States Army undergo a three-month training course in sticking out their tongues and thumbing their noses?” He was quivering with elevated blood pressure. Two M.P. lieutenants collared us under his personal orders and tossed us down the Pentagon steps when we were unable to deny that he had stated our proposal more or less correctly.
And so squads, platoons, companies, battalions and regiments marched into the Plague Area and never marched out again.
Some soldiers stumbled out as zombies. After a few days spent at a sufficient distance from the Plague Area their minds cleared and they told their confused stories. Something came over them, they said. A mental fuzziness almost impossible to describe. They liked it where they were, for instance; they left the Plague Area only by accident. They were wrapped in a vague, silly contentment even when they were hungry, which was usually. What was life like in the Plague Area? Well, not much happened. You wandered around looking for food. A lot of people looked sick but seemed to be contented. Farmers in the area gave you food with the universal silly smile, but their crops were very poor. Animal pests got most of them. Nobody seemed to eat meat. Nobody quarreled or fought or ever said a harsh word in the Plague Area. Add it was hell on earth. Nothing conceivable could induce any of them to return.
The Duchess of Carbondale? Yes, sometimes she came driving by in her chariot, wearing fluttery robes and a golden crown. Everybody bowed down to her. She was a big, fat middle-aged woman with rimless glasses and a pinched look of righteous triumph on her face.