Damnation Alley

"Yeah."

As he drove on, he saw five bikes move onto the road. They stayed a good distance behind him, but they stayed.

He tried the radio, but there was no response. He hit the brakes and stopped, and the bikes stopped too, staying well to the rear.

"Well, at least they're scared of us. They think we still have teeth."

"We do," she said.

"Yeah, but not the ones they're thinking about."

"Better yet."

"Glad I met you," said Ta

She nodded, and he put it into gear and started forward.

The motorcycles moved ahead also, and they maintained a safe distance. Ta

After a while they drew nearer again. Ta

When they drew near enough, they began to fire, rifles resting on their handlebars.

Ta

He stopped once more and the bikes did too, remaining just out of range of his flames. He cursed and ground ahead again. The car wobbled as he drove, listing to the left. A wrecked pickup truck stood smashed against a tree to his right, its hunched driver a skeleton, its windows smashed and tires missing. Half a sun now stood in the heavens, reaching after nine o'clock; fog-ghosts drifted before them, and the dark band in the sky undulated, and more rain fell from it, mixed with dust and small stones and bits of metal. Ta

He saw an orange glow ahead and to his right. It had been there for several minutes, but he had not become conscious of it until just then.

"Volcano," she said when he indicated it. "It means we've got another sixty-five, seventy miles to go."

He could not tell whether any more shooting was occurring. The sounds coming from overhead and around him were sufficient to mask any gunfire, and the fall of gravel upon the car covered any ricocheting rounds. The five headlights to his rear maintained their pace.

"Why don't they give up?" he said. "They're taking a pretty bad beating."

"They're used to it," she replied, "and they're riding for blood, which makes a difference."

Ta

Then the five headlights behind him suddenly became four, and the others slowed, grew smaller. "Accident, I hope," he remarked.

They sighted the mountain, a jag-topped cone bleeding fires upon the sky. They left the road and swung far to the left, upon a well-marked trail. It took twenty minutes to pass the mountain, and by then he sighted their pursuers once again, four lights to the rear, gaining slowly.

He came upon the road once more and hurried ahead across the shaking ground. The yellow lights moved through the heavens, and heavy, shapeless objects, some several feet across, crashed to the earth about them. The car was buffeted by winds, listed as they moved, would not proceed above forty miles an hour. The radio contained only static.

Ta

When the lights appeared in the screen, he flung the door wide, leaped down, and hurled the grenade back through the abrasive rain.

He was into the cab and moving again before he heard the explosion, before the flash occurred upon his screen.

The girl laughed almost hysterically as the car moved ahead.

"You got 'em, Hell! You got 'em!" she cried.

Ta

The road grew cracked, pitted, slippery. They topped a high rise and headed downhill. The fogs thickened as they descended.

Lights appeared before him, and he readied the flame. There were no hostilities, however, as he passed a truck headed in the other direction. Within the next half hour he passed two more.

There came more lightning, and fist-sized rocks began to fall. Ta

They waited for three hours, but the storm did not let up. One by one, the four view screens went dead, and the fifth showed only the blackness beneath the car. Ta

"I think we've had it," he said.

"Yeah."

"How far are we?"

"Maybe fifty miles away."

"There's still a chance, if we live through this."

"What chance?"

They reclined their seats and smoked and waited, and after a while the lights went out.

The storm continued all that day and into the night. They slept within the broken body of the car, and it sheltered them. When the storming ceased, Ta

"We'll wait till morning," he said, and she held his Hell-printed hand, and they slept.

Henry Soames, M.D., knew that he was losing. The bells kept telling him so. He covered over the boy and nodded to Miss Akers, all in white.

"Dead," he said, "obviously. Have them type it up so I can sign it."

She nodded. "Cremation?" she said.

"Yes."

Then he moved on and regarded the girl. "Evvie?" he asked her.

"Yes?" from far away.

"How are you feeling?"

"Could I have a drink?"

"Sure. Here."

He poured her a glass of water, raised her, and held it to her lips. Soon he would contract it himself, he knew. It couldn't be otherwise. Too much exposure. .

"Where's Fred?" she asked after she had drunk.

"Sleeping."

Then she closed her perspiration-ringed eyes, and he lowered her and moved on to another.

"How long has she got?" asked Miss Akers, all in white.

"A day or two," he replied.

"Then there's a chance, if the serum comes?"

"Yes. If the serum comes."

"You don't think it will?"

"No. It's too far, too much. The odds are too great."

"I think it will."

"Good," he said. "A true believer." Then, "I'm sorry, Karen. I didn't mean that. I'm tired."

"I know. You haven't slept for two nights, have you?"

"I got a nap a little while ago."

"An hour doesn't mean much when the fatigue factor is so high."

"True. But I'm sorry."

"There's a chance," she said. "You may not think so, but my brother is a driver. He thinks the Alley can be run."

"Both ways? In time? I don't. It would take an awful lot of luck, and the best drivers they've got. And we don't really know if they still have the serum, even. I think this is it."

"Maybe."

He slapped his clipboard against his thigh.

"Why speculate?" he said. "That girl could be saved. Very easily. Just get me some Haffikine, and I can start treating her. Otherwise, we're just keeping score."

"I know. It'll come, though."

"I hope so."

He stopped to take a pulse.