“They may have the highway barricaded,” his driver agreed. In the semi-gloom, the company toughs were indistinguishable from one another; to Hamilton each was a vague, heavy-set Germanic giant, brutal-faced and emotionless.
“How many men do we have here?” Tillingford demanded.
“Thirty,” the answer came.
“Better light a flare,” another company tough suggested, without particular conviction. “It’s too dark to see them when they start moving.”
Shouldering his way to Doctor Tillingford, Hamilton said harshly, “Is this all serious? Do you people really believe—”
He broke off, as a brick crashed against the remains of the Cadillac. Off in the gathering shadows, dim shapes raced and crouched.
“I see,” he said, filled with dread. And with comprehension.
“Oh my God,” Marsha said thinly. “How can we live through it?”
“Maybe we won’t,” Hamilton answered. A second brick came singing through the darkness. With a shudder of fright, Marsha ducked and made her way to Hamilton. “It almost hit me. We’re right in the middle; they’re going to kill each other right here.”
“Too bad it didn’t hit you,” Edith Pritchet said quietly. “Then we’d be out of this.”
Aghast, Marsha gave a little despairing cry. Around her, the hard, unsympathetic faces of the group were stark white in the uncompromising flicker of the company flare. “You all believe it. You think I’m a—Communist.”
Tillingford turned quickly. An almost hysterical terror appeared on his brutal, corrupt face. “That’s right; I forgot. You were all out on a Party picnic.”
Hamilton started to deny it. Then weariness overcame him. What did it matter? Probably, in this world, they had been out on a Communist picnic, a Progressive rally with folk dances, songs of Loyalist Spain, slogans and speeches and petitions. “Well,” he said mildly to his wife, “we’ve come a long way. Through three worlds to get here.”
“What do you mean?” Marsha faltered.
“I wish you had told me.”
Her eyes blazed. “Don’t you believe me, either?” In the darkness, her slim, pale hand flashed upward; a stinging pain burst against his face and shattered around him in a blinding turmoil of sparks. Then, almost immediately, the resentment drained out of her. “It’s not true,” she said hopelessly.
Rubbing his swollen, burning cheek, Hamilton said, “It’s interesting, though. We were saying we wouldn’t know until we could get into people’s minds. Well, here we are. We were in Silvester’s mind; we were in Edith Pritchet’s mind; we were in Miss Reiss’ insane mind—”
“If we kill her,” Silvester said evenly, “well be out of here.”
“Back in our own world,” McFeyffe said.
“Keep away from her,” Hamilton warned them. “Keep your hands off my wife.”
Around them stood the tight, hostile circle of the group. For a time none of them moved; the six figures were stiff with tension, arms rigid at their sides. Then Laws shrugged and relaxed. Turning his back he walked slowly off. “Forget it,” he said over his shoulder. “Let Jack take care of her. She’s his problem.”
Marsha began breathing in rapid, shallow gasps. “This is so damn awful … I don’t understand it.” Miserably, she shook her head. It just doesn’t make sense.”
More stones had fallen around them. In the eddying shadows, sounds were audible, faint and rhythmic, swelling until they had become drifting chants. Tillingford, his heavy features cruel and bitter, stood listening.
“Hear them?” he said to Hamilton. “They’re out there, hiding in the darkness.” His coarse face twisted in a spasm of loathing. “Beasts.”
“Doctor,” Hamilton protested, “you can’t believe this. You must know this isn’t you.”
Without looking at him, Tillingford said, “Go join your Red friends out there.”
“Is that the situation?”
“You’re a Communist,” Tillingford said tonelessly. “Your wife’s a Communist. You’re human debris. You have no place at my plant, no place in decent human society. Get out and stay out!” After a moment he added, “Go back to your Communist picnic.”
“Are you going to fight it out?” Hamilton asked him.
“Naturally.”
“You’re actually going to start shooting? You’re going to kill those men out there?”
“If we don’t,” Tillingford said logically, “they’ll kill us. That’s the way it is; it’s not my fault”
“This stuff can’t last,” Laws said disgustedly to Hamilton. “They’re dummy actors in a cheap Communist play. This is a shoddy parody—Life in America. You can damn near see the real world showing through.”
A burst of staccato gunfire broke out wildly. On the roofs of nearby houses, workmen had silently mounted a machine gun. Puffs of luminous gray cement dust billowed up as the line of bullets rattled closer. Tillingford dropped awkwardly down on his hands and knees behind the ruin of his Cadillac. His own men, squatting and running, began to fire back. A hand grenade was tossed through the darkness; Hamilton hunched over, rocking with the concussion as a column of exploding flame leaped searingly into his eyes and face. When the fury had settled, a deep pit lay spread out, half-filled with littered rubble. Several of Tillingford’s henchmen were visible among the debris, their bodies distorted into impossible postures.
As Hamilton dully watched their broken struggles, Laws said in his ear, “Do they look familiar? Look close.”
In the billowing darkness, Hamilton could not make out the sight with clarity. But one of the shattered, inert figures had a familiar appearance. Baffled, he stared down at it. Who was the person stretched out among the littered ruin, half-buried by sections of torn-up pavement and still-smouldering chunks of ash?
“It’s you,” Laws said softly.
So it was. The dim outlines of the real world wavered and ebbed, visible behind this distorted fantasy. As if even the creator of the scene around them had developed certain fundamental doubts. The rubble-littered pavement was not the street; it was the floor of the Bevatron. Here and there lay other familiar figures. Stirring faintly, they were beginning to creep back to life.
Among the smoking ruins, a few technicians and medical workers inched cautiously forward. They picked their way with care, moving with agonizing slowness, step by step, careful not to expose themselves. Descending from nearby houses to ground level, they dropped stealthily to the gutted street … or was it a street? Now it seemed more like the walls of the Bevatron, and the safety catwalks leading to the floor. And the red arm bands of the workmen seemed more like Red Cross arm bands. Confused, Hamilton gave up trying to unscramble the montage of places, shapes.
“It won’t be long,” Miss Reiss said quietly. With the break-up of her world she had reemerged, exactly as before, in her long corduroy coat, wearing her usual hornrimmed glasses and clutching her precious purse. “This particular conspiracy isn’t very successful. Not nearly so well constructed as the last”
“You found the last one convincing?” Hamilton inquired icily.
“Oh, yes. At first I was almost taken in. I thought—” Miss Reiss smiled with fanatical intensity. “So very clever, really. I almost believed it was my world. But, of course, when I started into the lobby of my apartment building, I realized the truth. When I found the usual threatening letters on the hall table.”
Shivering and kneeling down beside her husband, Marsha said, “What’s wrong with it? Everything seems so hazy.”
“It’s almost over,” Miss Reiss said remotely.
In an ecstasy of hope, Marsha clutched convulsively at her husband. “Is it? Are we going to wake up?”
“Maybe,” Hamilton answered. “Some say so.”
“That’s—wonderful.”
“Is it?”
Panic fluttered across her face. “Of course it is. I hate this place—I can’t stand it It’s so—bizarre. So mean and dreadful”
“We’ll talk about it
later.” His attention was fixed on Tillingford; the ponderous capitalist boss had assembled his gang of men and was talking with them in low, measured tones.
“These goons,” Laws said softly, “are by no means done. Before we’re out of here, we’re going to see a fight.”
Tillingford had finished his discussion. Jerking his thumb toward Laws, he said, “String him up. That’s one out of the way.”
Laws grinned starkly. “Another nigger about to be lynched. The capitalists do it all the time.”
Incredulous, Hamilton almost laughed out loud. But Tillingford meant it; he was in deadly earnest. “Doctor,” Hamilton said thickly, “this only exists because Marsha believes in it. You, all this fighting, this whole demented fantasy—she’s already letting it fall apart. It’s not real—it’s her illusion. Listen to me!”
“And that Red,” Tillingford said wearily. He mopped his bloody, grimy forehead with a silk handkerchief. “And his Red floozy. Douse them with gasoline when they’re through kicking. I wish we’d stayed at the plant. We were safe there for awhile, at least. And we could have set up a better formula of defense.”
Like ghostly shadows, the workmen were creeping through the rubble. More grenades exploded; the air was heavy with indistinct bits of ash and fragments of debris that rained silently down. “Look,” David Pritchet said, awed. Across the dark night sky, huge letters were forming. Hazy, uncertain, luminous blurs that gradually burgeoned themselves into words. Already partially disintegrated slogans of comfort, written shakily across the black emptiness, for their benefit.
We Are Coming.
Hold Out.
Fighters Of Peace.
Arise.
“Very comforting,” Hamilton said, revolted. From the darkness, the dull chanting had risen in pitch. The cold wind swirled phrases of shouted song to the half-concealed group. “Maybe they’ll save us yet;” Mrs. Pritchet said uncertainly. “But those awful words up there … they make me feel so strange.”
Here and there, Tillingford’s men moved, gathering rubble, collecting odds and ends, building up fortified positions. Almost lost in the swirling clouds of mist and smoke, they were only dimly visible. Now and then, a harsh, bony face was illuminated, rising momentarily into sight and then sinking back into the nebulous gloom. Who did they remind him of? Hamilton tried to think. The pulled-down hats, the beaked noses …
“Gangsters,” Laws reminded him. “Chicago gangsters of the ‘thirties.”
Hamilton nodded. “That’s it”
“Everything according to the book. She must have memorized it perfectly.”
“Leave her alone,” Hamilton told him, without much conviction.
“What comes next?” Laws said ironically to the huddled shape of Marsha Hamilton. “The capitalist bandits become crazed with desperation? Is that it?”
“They look desperate already,” Arthur Silvester commented in his somber way.
“Such unpleasant-looking men,” Mrs. Pritchet fluttered apprehensively. “I didn’t realize such men existed.”
At that moment, one of the fiery slogans in the sky exploded. Bits of flaming word cascaded down, setting the heaps of rubble on fire. Cursing, beating at his clothing, Tillingford reluctantly retreated; a section of burning rubbish had fallen on him, setting his coat on fire. To his right, his group of company toughs were half-buried under a vast, incandescent outline-portrait of Bulganin that had come loose from the sky and fallen directly on top of them.
“Buried alive,” Laws said, with satisfaction.
More words were falling now. A gigantic sizzling Peace had landed on Hamilton’s tidy little house; the roof was ablaze, as well as the garage and clothesline. Wretchedly, he watched it flare up brilliantly and send flickering tongues of flame high into the night. There was no responding wail of sirens from the dark town; the streets and houses lay stretched silently out, closed and hostile to the incineration.
“Good Lord,” Marsha said fearfully. “I think that big Coexistence is coming loose.”
Crouched with his men, Tillingford had lost control of the situation. “Bombs and bullets,” he was repeating, over and over again, in a low, monotonous voice. Only a few of his gang of toughs survived. “Bombs and bullets won’t stop them. They’re starting to march.”
In the flickering darkness, a line of shapes was moving forward. The singing chant had risen to an orgy of feverish excitement; dark and harsh it swelled out, preceding the stern men making their way through the burning piles of rubble.
“Come on,” Hamilton said. Grabbing his wife’s limp hand, he led her swiftly off into the settling chaos around them.
* * * * *
Finding his way by instinctive memory, Hamilton led his wife around the side of their burning house, along the cement path and into the back yard. A section of fence had charred through and disintegrated; pulling Marsha along, he shoved his way among the smoking fragments and into the dark yard beyond. The houses were opaque forms that loomed ominously. Now and then, a transient vision of running men appeared ahead; faceless, interchangeable workmen quietly making their way to the scene of the fighting. Gradually, the shapes and the sound of gunfire died. The sputter of flames receded. They were out of the immediate battle.
“Wait.” Laws and McFeyffe appeared behind them, panting for breath. “Tillingford has gone berserk,” Laws gasped. “God, it’s a mess.”
“I can’t believe it,” McFeyffe muttered, his thick face shiny and contorted. “They’re down on all fours. Matted with filth and blood. Fighting like animals.”
Ahead of them, lights winked and glowed.
“What’s that?” Laws demanded suspiciously. “We better keep off the main drag.”
It was the business section of Belmont that lay spread out. But not as they remembered it
“Well,” Hamilton said acidly, “we should have expected it”
It was a sprawling slum that winked and glowed in the night darkness. Seedy, slatternly shops rose up like unwholesome mushrooms, ugly and blatant Bars, pool halls, bowling alleys, houses of prostitution, gun shops … and over everything came a metallic screech. The blaring din of American jazz, projected by speaker horns mounted over tawdry pinball arcades. Neon signs flashed and winked. Armed soldiers wandered aimlessly, picking over the stale choices in this crumbling expanse of moral depravity.
In a store window, Hamilton saw a strange sight. Rows of knives and guns displayed in plush cases.
“Why not?” Laws said. The Communist idea of America—gangster cities, full of vice and crime.”
“And the rural areas,” Marsha said drably. “Indians, wild killings and lynchings. Bandits, massacres, bloodshed.”
“You seem pretty well informed,” Laws observed.
Dejected, despairing, Marsha sank down on the curb. “I can’t go any farther,” she informed them.
The three men stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do. “Come on,” Hamilton told her roughly. “You’ll freeze.”
Marsha said nothing. Shivering, she hunched over, face down, arms clasped together, body small and frail against the cold.
“We better get her inside,” Laws said. “Maybe one of these restaurants.”
“There’s no point in going on,” Marsha said to her husband. “Is there?”
“I suppose not,” he answered simply.
“You don’t care if we get back.”
“Is there anything I can say?”
Hamilton, standing behind her, indicated the world around them. “I can see it; that’s about all there is.”
“I’m sorry,” McFeyffe said clumsily.
“If s not your fault;” Hamilton answered.
“But I feel responsible.”
“Forget it” Bending down, Hamilton placed his hand on his wife’s trembling shoulder. “Let’s go, honey. You can’t stay here.”
“Even if there’s no other place to go?”
“That’s right. Even if there’s no other place to go. Even if we’ve reached the e
nd of the world.”
“Which you have,” Laws commented brutally.
Hamilton had no answer. Crouching down, he pulled his wife firmly to her feet. Listlessly, she permitted him to drag her up. In the cold and darkness, she was an unimposing collection of matter that followed obediently after him. “It seems like a long time ago,” Hamilton reflected, holding onto her hand. “That day I met you in the lounge and told you Colonel T. E. Edwards wanted me.”
Marsha nodded.
“The day we visited the Bevatron.”
“Just think,” McFeyffe said harshly, “if you hadn’t visited it, you wouldn’t have found out.”
The restaurants were too lavish, too ostentatious. Uniformed servants bowed and scraped, rat-like obsequious men who scuttled about among the ornate tables. Hamilton and his group roamed aimlessly, with no particular destination in mind. The sidewalks were almost deserted; now and then a ragged shape pushed past them, a bent-over figure hunched against the wind.
“A yacht,” Laws said spiritlessly.
“What?”
“A yacht” Laws nodded toward a block-long illuminated display window. “Lots of them. Want to buy one?”
In other windows, expensive furs and jewelry were displayed. Perfumes, imported foods … and the eternal rococo restaurants with their bowing servants and luxurious hangings. Occasional clusters of ragged men and women stood gazing in, without the means to buy. Once, moving glumly along the street, came a horse-drawn cart. In the back of the cart, a dull-eyed family sat clutching its lump of belongings.
“Refugees,” Laws conjectured. “From drought-starved Kansas. From the Dust Bowl. Remember?”
Ahead of them stretched the vast red-light district
“Well,” Hamilton said presently, “what do you say?”
“What have we got to lose?” Laws agreed. “We’ve gone as far as we can; there’s nothing left”
“We might as well enjoy ourselves,” McFeyffe muttered. “While we still can. Before this unholy ruin breaks down completely.”
Wordlessly, the four of them made their way toward the mass of glaring neon lights, beer signs, blaring horns and flapping, tattered awnings. Toward the old familiar Safe Harbor.