Lucifer's Hammer

“Well done,” Eileen said. He nodded. And waited.

If Tim’s energy and determination were burned out, she still had hers. “A lot of cops know this trick. Eric Larsen told me about it. I never tried it myself…” The car lurched up onto a rail; backed and turned, tilting on the embankment; lurched forward again, and was suddenly doing a balancing act on both rails. “Of course it takes the right car,” said Eileen, with less tension and more confidence now. “Off we go…”

Off they went, balanced on the rails. The wheels were just the right width. A new sea gleamed silver on both sides. The car moved slowly, tottering and recovering, balancing like a dancer, the steering wheel moving constantly, minutely. Eileen was wire-tense.

“If you had told me, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Tim said.

“I didn’t think you’d get us up.”

Tim didn’t answer. He saw very clearly that the tracks were dipping gradually toward the water; but whatever it was that he didn’t believe now, he kept it to himself.

Gliding, gliding over the sea. Eileen had been driving for hours over the water. Her slight frown, wide eyes, rigidly upright posture made her a closed universe. Tim dared not speak to her.

There was nobody to call on them for help now, and nobody to point guns. The headlights and an occasional lightning bolt showed them only water and the rails. In places the rails actually dipped below the water, and then Eileen slowed to a crawl and drove by feel. Once the lightning illuminated the roof of a large house, and six human forms on the peaked roof, all glistening in rain gear; twelve glinting eyes watching a phantom car drive across the water. And again there was a house, but it floated on its side, and nobody was near it. Once they drove for miles past a rectangular array of bushes, a drowned orchard with only the tops of the trees showing.

“I’m afraid to stop,” Eileen said.

“I gathered that. I’m afraid to distract you.”

“No, talk to me. Don’t let me get drowsy. Make me real, Tim. This is nightmarish.”

“God, yes. I’d know the surface of Mars at a glance, but this isn’t anyplace in the universe. Did you see those people watching us?”

“Where?”

Of course, she dared not take her eyes off the rails. He told her about the six people on the roof. “If they live,” he said, “they’ll start a legend about us. If anyone believes them.”

“I’d like that.”

“I don’t know. A Flying Dutchman legend?” But that was tactless. “We won’t be here forever, though. These tracks’ll take us as far as Porterville, and there won’t be anyone trying to stop us.”

“You think Senator Jellison will let you in, do you?”

“Sure.” Even if that hope failed them, they’d be in a safe area. What counted now was a magic trick: driving to Porterville on railroad tracks. He had to keep her mind on that.

He was not expecting her next remark.

“Will he let me in?”

“Are you crazy? You’re a lot more valuable than I am. Remember the observatory?”

“Sure. After all, I’m such a damn good accountant.”

“If they’re as organized around Springville as they were in Tujunga, they’ll need an accountant to take care of distributing goods. They may even have a barter system. That could get complicated, with money obsolete.”

“Now you’re the crazy one,” Eileen said. “Anyone who does his own income tax can keep accounts. That’s everyone but you, Tim. The accountants and the lawyers run this country, and they want everyone to be like them, and they’ve damn near succeeded.”

“Not anymore.”

“That’s my point. Accountants are a drug on the market now.”

“I don’t go in without you,” said Tim.

“Sure, I know that. The question is whether we go in or not. Are you hungry?”

“But of course I’m hungry, my child.” Tim reached into the back seat. “Fritz gave us tomato bisque and chicken with rice. Both concentrated. I could put them in front of the heater. Can you drive with one hand?”

“I guess not, not on this.”

“Oh, never mind. We don’t have a can opener.”

Our thanks God for small miracles; they’re easier to grasp.

One small miracle was a road humping out of the sea to cross the tracks. Suddenly the tracks were sunk in blacktop and Eileen stamped on the brake pedal almost hard enough to send Tim through the windshield.

They flopped their seats back, rolled into each other’s arms and slept.

Eileen’s sleep wasn’t calm. She jerked, she kicked, she cried out. Tim found that if he ran the palm of his hand down her spine, she would relax and fall back to sleep, and then he could sleep too, until next time.

He woke in black night to the scream of wind and the panicky pressure of Eileen’s fingernails and the perilous rocking of the car. Eileen’s eyes were wide, her mouth too firmly set. “Hurricanes,” he said. “The big ocean strikes’ll keep spi

She laughed then. “I dare you. What happens if one of these hits us while we’re on the tracks?”

“Then you’d better be as good as you think you are.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she said, and — incredibly — went back to sleep.

Tim lay beside her in the howling and the rocking. Did hurricanes overturn cars? You bet they did. When he tired of thinking about that, he thought about how hungry he was. Maybe he could use the bumper to pry open a soup can. After the hurricane passed.

He dozed… and woke in total silence. There wasn’t even rain. He located a soup can and stepped outside. He managed to bend the bumper a little, but he also tore the soup can open. He swallowed some of the condensed tomato bisque, and that was how he happened to look up.

He looked up into a wide patch of clear stars.

“Beautiful,” he said. But he entered the car in some haste.

Eileen was sitting up. He gave her the soup can. “I think we’re in the eye of the hurricane. If you want to see the stars, look quick and come back.”

“No, thanks.”

The soup was cold and gluey. It left them both thirsty. Eileen set the can on the roof to collect rainwater, and they lay down again to wait for morning.

The rain came again, in frantic violence. Tim reached through the window for the can, and found it gone. He found the abandoned beer can on the floor, pried it open, filled it twice in the rainwater streaming from the car roof.

Hours later, the rain settled down to a gentle drumming. By then it was full daylight: just enough dirty gray light to see that the sea around them was thick with floating things. There were corpses of dogs and rabbits and cattle, far outnumbered by the bodies of human beings. There was wood in all its forms, trees and furniture and the walls of houses. Tim got out and fielded some driftwood and set it in front of the car heater. “If we ever find shelter, we’ve still got that other can of soup,” he said.

“Good,” said Eileen. She sat bolt upright at the steering wheel, and the motor was going. Tim didn’t urge her. He knew better than to volunteer for the job, and he knew what it would cost her.

She shifted into gear.

“Hold it,” Tim said, and he put a hand on her shoulder and pointed. She nodded and put the car back in neutral.

A wave came toward them in a long thread of silver-gray. It wasn’t high. When it reached the car it was no more than two feet tall. But the sea had risen in the night until it stood around the tires. The wave slapped against the car and lifted them and carried them and set them down almost immediately with the motor still going.

Eileen sounded exhausted. “What was that, another earthquake?”

“I’d say a dam collapsed somewhere.”

“I see. Only that.” She tried to laugh. “The dam has broken! Run for your lives!”

“The Cherokees is escaped from Fort Mudge!”

“What?”

“Pogo. Skip it,” Tim said. “All that water out there… this won’t be the first dam that went. All of them, probably. Maybe here and there the engineers got spillways open in time. Maybe. But most of the dams are gone.” Which, he thought, means most of the electric power everywhere. Not even local pockets of electricity. He wondered if the power houses and generators had survived. Dams could be built again.