The long black Mercedes rumbled out of the fog on the road south from Dijon, moisture running in cold trickles across its windshield. Horst von Ranke carefully read the map spread on his lap, eyeglasses perched low on his nose, while Waffen Schutzstaffel Oberleutnant Albert Fischer drove. “Thirty-five kilometers,” von Ranke said under his breath. “No more.”
“We are lost,” Fischer said. “We’ve already come thirty-six.”
“Not quite that many. We should be there any minute now.”
Fischer shook his head. His high cheekbones and long, sharp nose did much to accentuate the black uniform and the silver death’s heads on the high, tight collar. Von Ranke wore a broad-striped gray suit; he was an undersecretary in the Propaganda Ministry. They might have been brothers, yet one had grown up in Czechoslovakia, the other in the Ruhr; one was the son of a brewer, the other of a coal-miner. They had met and become close friends in Paris two years before, and were now sightseeing on a three-day pass in the countryside.
“Wait,” von Ranke said, peering through the streaming drops on the side window. “Stop.”
Fischer braked the car and looked in the direction of von Ranke’s long finger. Near the roadside, beyond a copse of young trees, hunched a low, thatched roof house with dirty gray walls, almost hidden by the fog.
“Looks empty,” von Ranke said.
“It is occupied; look at the smoke,” Fischer said. “Perhaps somebody can tell us where we are.”
Fischer turned the car up a short, rugged drive. They got out, von Ranke leading the way across a mud path littered with wet straw. The hut looked even dirtier close up. Smoke curled in a brown-gray twist from a hole in the peak of the thatch. Fischer nodded at his friend and they cautiously approached. Over the crude wooden door, letters wobbled unevenly in some alphabet neither could read, and between them they spoke nine languages.
“Could that be Romani?” von Ranke asked, frowning. “It looks familiar—maybe Vlax or Baltic.”
“Gypsies don’t live in huts, and besides, I thought they were rounded up long ago.”
“Well, that’s what it looks like,” von Ranke said. “Maybe they will speak French.” He knocked on the door. After a long pause, he knocked again.
The door opened before his knuckles could make a final rap. A woman too old to be alive stuck a long, wood-colored nose through the crack and peered at them with her one good eye. The other eye was obscured by a sunken caul of flesh. The hand that gripped the door edge looked filthy, its nails long and crusted black. Her lips parted in a wrinkled grin, revealing toothless jaws.
“Good evening,” she said in perfect, even elegant, German. “What can I do for you?”
Von Ranke strove to hide his revulsion. “We need to know if we are on the road to Dôle,” he said.
“You are asking the wrong guide,” the old woman said. Her hand withdrew and the door started to close. Fischer kicked out and pushed her back. The door banged open and leaned on worn-out leather hinges.
“You do not treat us with the proper respect,” he said. “What do you mean, ‘the wrong guide’? What kind of guide are you?”
The old woman limped back a few steps. “So strong,” she crooned, wrapping her hands in front of her withered chest and retreating farther into the gloom. She wore ageless gray rags. Tattered knit sleeves extended to her wrists.
“Answer me!” Fischer said, advancing despite the strong odor of urine and decay.
“The maps I know are not for this land,” she sang, and doddered before a cold and empty hearth.
“She’s crazy,” von Ranke said. “Let the local authorities take care of her. Let’s be off.” But a wild look was in Fischer’s eyes. So much filth, so much disarray, and impudence as well; these things made him angry.
“What maps do you know, crazy woman?” he demanded.
“Maps in time,” the old woman said. She let her hands fall to her sides and lowered her head as if, in admitting her specialty, she were suddenly humble.
“Then tell us where we are,” Fischer demanded.
“Come, let’s go,” von Ranke said, but he knew it was too late. There would be an end, but it would be on his friend’s terms, and it might not be pleasant.
“On a through road no whither,” the old woman answered.
“What does that mean?” Fischer towered over her.
She stared up as if at some prodigal son, single eye glinting, hanging lip shining with spittle. “If you wish a reading, sit,” she said, indicating a low table and three dilapidated cane and leather chairs.
Fischer glanced at her, then at the table. “Very well,” he said, suddenly obsequious. Another game, von Ranke knew—cat and mouse. Fischer pulled out a chair for his friend and sat across from the old woman.
“Put your hands on the table, palms down, both of them, both of you,” she said. They did so, von Ranke looking uncertainly between his friend and the old woman. The old woman leaned over and touched her ear to the table, eye veering crazily toward the beams of light sneaking through the thatch. “I see arrogance in plenty,” she said. Fischer did not react. “As well, pride and hatred in equal measure. I see no good way for either of you. Only a winding journey bringing you ever closer to fire and to death.”
She peered off over their heads, waving one gnarled hand. “Your cities collapse in flames, your women and children shrivel to black dolls in the heat of their burning homes. Your death camps are found and you stand accused of hideous crimes. Your nation is broken and divided between your enemies. All will be lost. Many will be tried and hung. Your nation is disgraced, your cause abhorred.” A peculiar, greenish light appeared in her one good eye. “There is infinite disgrace and generations of shame. You will be admired by the unbalanced, the lowest of the low. Only psychotics will believe in your cause.”
Fischer’s smile did not waver. “Has this already happened,” he said, “or is it yet to be? I am confused.” He pulled a pfennig from his pocket and threw it down before the woman, then pushed the chair back and stood. “Your words are as crooked as your chin, you filthy hag,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“I’ve been suggesting that,” von Ranke said, rising. But Fischer made no move to leave. Von Ranke tugged on his arm but the SS Oberleutnant shrugged free.
“Gypsies are exceedingly few, witch,” he said. “Soon to be fewer by one.” He reached for his Luger, but von Ranke managed to grip the holster and pull his friend just outside the door.
The woman followed and shaded her eye against the misty light. “I am no Gypsy, and I am no witch,” she said, then pointed a crooked finger to the letters above the door. “You do not even recognize the words?”
Fischer squinted. The letters seemed to have changed while they were inside. New recognition and amazement dawned in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I do, now. Remarkable! This is not any sort of Romani. It is a dead language.”
“Which language?” von Ranke asked, suddenly uneasy. He could not see how the letters could change if they were truly alone in these woods, with the old woman in the hut.
“Hebrew, I think,” Fischer said. “She is a Jewess.”
“No!” the woman said. “I am no Jew.”
Von Ranke thought the woman looked younger now, or at least stronger, and his unease deepened. There could still be partisans, terrorists, in these woods, waiting for young officers to drive through. He had heard rumors …
“I do not care what you are,” Fischer said. “I only wish we were in my father’s time.” He stepped toward her, into the hut again, stamping his boot on the dusty boards. She did not retreat. Her face became bland, and her bad eye seemed to fill in. “Back then, there would be no regulations, no rules. I could take this pistol,” he unstrapped his holster, “and apply it to your filthy Kike head. Perhaps I would be killing the last Jew in Europe.” He pulled out the Luger.
The wom
an straightened in the dark hut. She seemed to be drawing strength from Fischer’s abusive tongue. Von Ranke feared for his friend. Blind rashness could get them in trouble. “This is not our fathers’ time,” he reminded Fischer.
Fischer paused, finger curling around the trigger. “Filthy, smelly old woman.” His lips pulled back to reveal long, even teeth.
The woman did not look nearly as old as when they had entered the hut, perhaps not old at all, and certainly not bent and crippled.
“Stop this nonsense!” von Ranke shouted, trying to divert the pistol’s barrel. “You have had a narrow escape this afternoon,” he warned the woman.
Fischer wove the gun around von Ranke’s interference.
“You still have no idea who I am!” the woman half sang, half moaned.
“Scheisse,” Fischer spat. “I will shoot you, then report you and your hovel.”
The woman grew dark, as if hiding from the last light of day—and yet she did not move. The darkness concentrated in her eyes. “I am God’s left hand,” she breathed. “I am the scourge. A pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.” Her voice dropped in timbre and rose in power. Even four strides away, her breath smelled like brimstone.
The pistol barked three times, deafening in the small room. The woman did not flinch or appear at all injured.
Fischer lowered the Luger, then laughed, though his laughter sounded brittle. “You’re right!” he said to von Ranke, too loudly. “She isn’t worth our trouble.” He turned and stamped back outside. Von Ranke followed with a frightened glance over his shoulder. The last of the woman’s shadow seemed gray and ill-defined before the ancient stone hearth. No one has lived in this hut for years, he thought.
In the car, sitting behind the wheel, he sighed at his friend. “You tend to foolishness, you know that?”
Fischer smirked and shook his head. “She will be dead soon. I hit her square. You saw it.” He leaned back and yawned, more with tension than exhaustion. “You drive, old friend. I’ll look for the roads.” He shook out the Pan-Deutschland map. “No wonder we’re lost. This is five years old—from 1979.”
Von Ranke ramped up the Mercedes’ turbine until its whine was high and steady and its exhaust cut a swirling hole in the fog. “We’ll find our way,” he murmured, and looked in the side mirror at the hut.
From the hut’s doorway, the old woman watched them, head bobbing. “I am not a Jew,” she called, her voice like the rumble of a distant storm, “but I loved them, too, oh, yes. I loved all my children.”
Fischer turned on the leather seat to look, incredulous. Von Ranke loosed the brake on the long black Mercedes before his friend could do something even more foolish.
The woman raised her hand as the car roared into the fog. “I will guide you to justice, wherever and whenever you live,” she cried, “and all your children, and their children’s children!” A twist of black smoke dropped from her elbow to the dirt floor. As she waggled a wisp of finger, the smoke drew figures in the dirt. “As you wish—into the time of your fathers you will go!”
She lowered her arm and the fog around the hut thinned. Forty years melted away. Sunlight broke through. High above the forest, a gut-shivering growl descended on the long road. A wide-winged shadow passed over the hut, wings flashing stars, black and white invasion stripes, and white-yellow cannon fire.
“Hungry bird,” the shapeless figure said. “Time to feed!”
Dead Run
My irritation at television evangelists is boundless. Nothing unusual in that. Religious visions of damnation seem to be particularly horrible in a Christianity that claims to worship a loving God. These upwellings of tribal animosity and primordial hatred should have been abandoned thousands of years ago, but they strongly influence hundreds of millions to this day.
Well, all right, so what else is new? Humans are imperfect.
But if we’re made in God’s image, then perhaps God is imperfect, as well. Maybe God gets tired. Maybe he isn’t dead, but has simply retired from the scene, exhausted or punch-drunk from our sins. I’ve written two stories on this theme. The other is “Petra.”
“Dead Run” was submitted to Twilight Zone Magazine and rejected. The editor explained that this simply was not a Twilight Zone story. So I shipped it off to Omni and Ellen Datlow bought it.
A few years later, my friend Alan Brennert was working on the reincarnation of the Twilight Zone TV show, airing on CBS. Michael Toman, a mutual friend and well-read individual of considerable if quiet influence, handed Alan “Dead Run,” which somehow he had missed. Alan loved it and thought it was perfect for the show. He wrote the screenplay—a brilliant job, I must say—and it went into production in 1985. Astrid and I drove to the Indian Hills, outside Los Angeles, to watch the show being filmed, under the direction of the late Paul Tucker. Dozens of extras were funneled through the gates of Hell that day. One of them had taken the trouble to dress up like Michael Jackson in Thriller. The camera, needless to say, did not linger on him.
A few days later, I returned to watch filming on a soundstage in Los Angeles, where a high-rise, tenement Hell set had been constructed at a cost of about $50,000. It was all marvelous to a novice. To my delight, I was even able to contribute a line to a scene at Paul’s request.
An actor on the set approached me during a break and asked for a loan. I explained that I wasn’t anybody important or rich—just the original writer. He understood immediately; my status was below that of the extras. But I was treated nicely and had a grand time.
Standards and Practices, the “censorship” office at the network, approved the screenplay with the single wry comment that this could be a good way to get back at Jerry Falwell. I doubt that Falwell noticed.
The show was aired to a huge response: two letters, one for, one against. Evangelical Christians simply don’t watch shows like Twilight Zone. By and large, they stay away from fantasy and science fiction altogether.
This is my only filmed story to date.
My experience with magazine rejections has never been so ironic.
There aren’t many hitchhikers on the road to Hell.
I noticed this dude four miles away. He stood where the road is straight and level, crossing what looks like desert except it has empty towns and motels and shacks. I had been on the road for six hours and the folks in the cattle trailers behind me had been quiet for some time—resigned, I guess—so my nerves had settled a bit and I decided to see what the dude was up to. Maybe he was one of the employees. That would be interesting, I thought. Truth to tell, once the wailing settles down, I get bored.
The dude stood on the right side of the road, thumb out. I piano-keyed down the gears and the air brakes hissed and squealed at the tap of my foot. The semi slowed and the big diesel made that gut-deep dinosaur-belch of shuddered-downness. I leaned across the cab as everything came to a halt and swung the door open.
“Where you heading?” I asked.
He laughed and shook his head, then spit on the soft shoulder. “I don’t know,” he said. “Hell, maybe.” He was thin and tanned with long greasy black hair and bluejeans and a vest. His straw hat was dirty and full of holes, but the feathers around the crown were bright and new, pheasant if I was any judge. A worn gold fob hung out of his vest. He wore old Frye boots with the toes turned up and soles thinner than my retreads. He looked a lot like me when I had hitchhiked out of Fresno, broke and unemployed, looking for work.
“Can I take you there?” I asked.
“Sure. Why not?” He climbed in and slammed the door shut, took out a kerchief and mopped his forehead, then blew his long nose and stared at me with bloodshot eyes. “What you hauling?” he asked.
“Souls,” I said. “Whole shitload of them.”
“What kind?” He was young, not more than twenty-five. He tried to sound easy and natural but I could hear the nerves.
“Human kind,” I said. “Got some Hare Krishnas this time. Don’t look that close anymore.”
I coaxed the truck along, wondering if the engine was as bad as it sounded. When we were up to speed—eighty, eighty-five, no smokies on this road—he asked, “How long you been hauling?”
“Two years.”
“Good pay?”
“I get by.”
“Good benefits?”
“Union, like everyone else.”
“That’s what they told me in that little dump about two miles back. Perks and benefits.”
“People live there?” I asked. I didn’t think anything lived along the road. Anything human.
He bobbled his head. “Real down folks. They say Teamsters bosses get carried in limousines, when their time comes.”
“Don’t really matter how you get there or how long it takes. Forever is a slow bitch to pull.”
“Getting there’s all the fun?” he asked, trying for a grin. I gave him a shallow one.
“What’re you doing out here?” I asked a few minutes later. “You aren’t dead, are you?” I’d never heard of dead folks running loose or looking quite as vital as he did but I couldn’t imagine anyone else being on the road. Dead folks—and drivers.
“No,” he said. He was quiet for a bit. Then, slowly, as if it embarrassed him, he said, “I’m here to find my woman.”
“No shit?” Not much surprised me but this was a new twist. “There ain’t no going back, for the dead, you know.”
“Sherill’s her name,” he said, “spelled like sheriff but with two L’s.”
“Got a cigarette?” I asked. I don’t smoke but I could use them later. He handed me his last three in a crush-proof pack, then bobbled his head some more and squinted through the clean windshield. No bugs on this road. No flat rabbits, no snakes, no armadilloes—nothing.
“Haven’t heard of a Sherill,” I said. “But then, I don’t get to converse with everyone I haul. There are lots of trucks and lots of drivers.”