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wriggle under it. It had evidently been set high so as to clear all the humps
and rises of the ground along its route. He rolled over on his back and began
to wriggle forward again.
Once past the wire, he turned belly-down again and continued on at as good a
speed as he could make without thrashing around in the weeds and perhaps
drawing atten-tion. He thought that he should not be too far from the
relatively open area that had once been a yard sur-rounding the buildings; and
in fact, shortly, he came up against the rot-ting stumps of what had once been
a wooden fence. He passed this and the ground underneath was more even and
less littered with stones. Also, here the weeds were not as thickly clustered.
He was racing now, however, against the end of the daylight, which could not
be much more than
half an hour off. So far he had en-countered no more wires; but the thought
that someone might possibly be watching him from the buildings sent a crawling
feeling down his spine. He paused and peered ahead through the now-thin screen
of grass and weeds.
He saw the side of the house, wooden shakes weathered and stained to a
near-earth shade. What looked like three grave mounds, two with crosses half
fallen down, were in the yard to his right. Above him a couple of broken
windows, one above the other, faced in his direc-tion; but there was no sign
of anyone peering out of them. To his right was a door, above some broken
steps. The door sagged on its hinges and stood slightly ajar inward in spite
of a cleaner, newer piece of board that had been nailed diagonally across its
vertical cracks to hold them together. That new board shouted of danger; but
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the door ajar was an invitation, with night coming on.
Chaz wormed his way to the wall of the house, and then crawled along the foot
of the wall until he came to the door. Slowly, carefully, he lifted his head
until he could see around the frame and into the gap where the door hung open.
It took a long moment for his eyes to adjust to the inner shadow; but when
they did, he saw nothing but a small, empty room, and a doorway beyond leading
into a further room that seemed to have a window, or some other source of
light; for it was quite bright by comparison with the first room.
Chaz dumped caution and hesita-tion together, and squirmed his way over the
threshold into the building. Once inside, he scrambled to his feet quickly,
and stood listening. But he heard nothing. A faint unpleasant smell he could
not identify troubled him.
Looking around, he saw a heavy bar leaning against the wall beside the door;
and iron spikes driven into the frame and bent up as supports. He reached out
for the door and pushed it slightly closed; but it did not creak surprisingly,
it did not creak. He pushed it all the way shut and put the bar in place.
Turning, he went further into the building.
Plainly, it had been a large farm-type home once upon a time, but its rooms
were empty now, except for spider webs, dust and rubble. He went all through
the rooms on the ground floor before realizing that the smell that bothered
him was coming from upstairs.
Cautiously, he took the broad but broken stairs, lit by a paneless win-dow on
the landing above them. As he went up the smell grew rapidly stronger. He
followed it to its source in a room on the floor above; and found what he was
after.
He stepped into a room which had a piece of transparent
plastic non-refractive, as glass would not have been stretched across its
single, tall window. A small iron stove, unlit, stood in one corner, with a
stovepipe going through the wall behind it. In the room were sacks and boxes,
tools, and two old-fashioned rifles, a battered overstuffed chair and a wide
bed. On the bed lay Eileen; and on the floor near the door, as if he had
dragged himself, or had been drag-ged that far before the effort gave out, was
what was left of a man. It was the source of the smell that had caught Chaz'
attention. Up here the stench was sickeningly strong.
Almost choking, Chaz got a grip on the collar of the heavy plastic jacket the
dead man was wearing and hauled the whole thing out of the room, down the
stairs and to the door by which he had entered. He unbarred the door, rolled
it out, then closed and barred the door again. He went back up the stairs, two
at a time, to Eileen.
She was lying on her back on the bed, still in her jumpsuit. Chaz fanned the
door to the room back and forth hastily to drive a little fresh air inside,
and then went to her. She was half-covered by a very old, but surprisingly
clean, blanket. As he watched, however, she mut-tered something and threw it
off. Her eyes were half open, her cheeks were pink, and she licked her lips as
if she was very thirsty.
". . . The Park," she murmured. "You promised, Mommy. The Park's open today .
. ."
"Eileen," he said, touching the back of his fingers gently to her fore-head.
"Eileen, it's me. Chaz."
The skin of her forehead burned against his fingers. She flinched away from
his touch.
"You promised," she said, "we could go to the Park . . ."
He reached down and unsealed the collar of her jumpsuit. In the late daylight
filtering through the trans-parent plastic on the window, he could just make
out small reddish areas on. the slim column of her neck. Not ulcers, yet, but
inflamed patches. That, and the terribly high fever the first signs of
sickening
with the Rot.
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She must have been outside the sterile areas four or five days al-ready, and
inhaled the rot-spores im-mediately when she was put out, to show signs this
far advanced.
"You promised . . ." she said, rolling her head on the bed from side to side.
"Mommy, you promised me . . ."
To Be Concluded
GORDON R. DICKSON
The Pritcher Mass
The Pritcher Mass
The Pritcher Mass
The Pritcher Mass
Conclusion. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]