Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  “It’s still coming!” cried Natalie.

  Gentry checked the rearview mirror in time to see the huge bus take the turn by bouncing up onto the sidewalk, taking out two no-parking signs and a mailbox, then accelerating down the hill after them in a cloud of diesel fumes. Gentry saw the small dent in the wide front bumper from the first tap. “I really don’t believe this,” said Gentry.

  The street came to a T-intersection at the bottom of the hill, a snowy railroad embankment ahead of them, vacant lots and ware houses to the east and west. Gentry took a hard left, heard the rear bumper tear loose, listened to the little four-cylinder engine revving its heart out. “Can they catch us?” breathed Natalie as the bus crashed around the corner behind them and roared partway up the embankment before bounding back onto the pavement. Gentry caught a glimpse of a driver in khaki, straight-arming the large steering wheel, dark figures lurching in the aisle behind him.

  “It can’t catch us unless we do something stupid,” said Gentry. The narrow street cut sharply to the right in front of an abandoned factory, ran fifty yards downhill between empty tenements and brick-strewn lots, and dead-ended at the railway embankment. There had been no dead-end sign.

  “Like this?” said Natalie. “Yeah.” Gentry skidded the Pinto to a stop in the narrow turnaround. Gentry knew that there was no way the Pinto was going to climb thirty feet of junk-strewn hillside. To their left, an empty brick building offered a high gate and twenty feet of chain link fence separating a muddy parking lot from the street. Gentry thought that it was possible that the Pinto could crash through the gate, but he doubted that the lot would be an improvement over their present position. To their right, a row of empty two-story buildings showed boarded-up windows and doors covered with graffiti. A narrow alley ran east from the street.

  Behind them, the bus made the right turn and started down the hill. It growled like some gut-shot beast as the driver shifted down two gears.

  “Out!” shouted Gentry. He had time to grab Natalie’s suitcase, she took the camera bag. They ran for the alley on their right.

  The bus was moving fast when it struck the Pinto a glancing shot on the left rear fender. The smaller vehicle spun completely around, metal flying, rear window popping out, as the bus bounced left, almost tipping over as the right wheels gouged up the embankment, brake lights flashing as it crashed through the chain link fence and came to a stop in the frozen mud of the parking lot. Gears ground and the bus backed over the flattened fence, caught the Pinto squarely in the passenger-side door, and shoved the rental car backward until it caught on the curb not twenty feet from the alley where Gentry and Natalie watched. The Pinto struck a fire hydrant and flipped over with a great tearing of metal. No water came from the fractured hydrant, but the stink of gasoline filled the night air.

  “This is a nightmare,” said Natalie.

  Gentry realized that he had pulled the Ruger free and was holding it in his right hand. He shook his head and dropped it into the pocket of his topcoat.

  The bus shifted gears and pulled into the center of the street, dragging tatters of chrome and engulfing them in diesel fumes. Gentry pulled Natalie a few feet deeper into the four-foot wide alley.

  “Who’s doing this?” whispered Natalie. “I don’t know.” For the first time, Gentry believed, in his gut rather than just in his consciousness, that human beings were capable of doing what Saul and Natalie had actually experienced. He remembered reading The Exorcist years before and understanding the agnostic priest’s glee at witnessing a power that could only be demonic in nature. The existence of demons suggested, if not proved, the existence of a God the priest had doubted. But what did this incredible series of events prove? Human perversity? The perfection of some parapsychological power that had always been part of being human?

  “It’s stopping,” said Natalie. The bus had backed to the embankment and turned left sharply enough to be facing back up the hilly street.

  “Perhaps it’s over,” said Gentry. He put his arm around the shivering young woman next to him. “What ever happens, the damn bus can’t get at us here.”

  The doors of the bus were on the opposite side of the vehicle, but both of them heard the compressed-air hiss. Gentry could see silhouettes against the pale glow of the interior lights as the passengers moved forward or to the rear. What must they be thinking as they were released after such an insane ride? What was the driver doing now? Gentry could make out only a tall shadow hunched over the wheel. Then he saw the seven passengers moving hesitantly, three around the front of the bus, four around the back. They walked like polio victims with steel braces, like awkwardly handled marionettes. The rest would pause as one shuffled forward, then another. An old man in the lead dropped to all fours and scuttled toward the alley, seeming to sniff the pavement as he came.

  “Oh, dear God,” breathed Natalie.

  They ran up the narrow alley, jumping over debris, scraping their arms and shoulders against brick. Gentry realized that he was still carrying Natalie’s suitcase in his left hand while he gripped her hand with his right. The end of the alley had rusted wire mesh across it. Behind them, Gentry heard a heavy, animal like panting as someone entered the narrow passage. He let go of Natalie’s hand, used the suitcase and his body as a battering ram, and tore the wire loose.

  They emerged on a street that dead-ended to their right, but to their left it ran downhill under a dark railway overpass, and continued north past lighted row houses. Gentry turned left and ran, Natalie passing him before they reached the broken sidewalk. Someone clawed through the wire behind them. Gentry looked over his shoulder and saw a man with white hair and a business suit scramble over tilted slabs of concrete like a frenzied Doberman. Gentry pulled the Ruger out and ran.

  There was ice in the darkness under the railroad bridge. Natalie reached it first. Gentry saw her feet fly out from under her and heard her hit hard in the blackness. He had time to slow but still spun and went to one knee.

  “Natalie!”

  “I’m all right.”

  He felt toward her voice and helped her up. “I’m going to leave your suitcase here,” he said.

  Natalie barked a laugh. “Let’s go.” They came up out of the darkness into a street made narrower by parked cars, most of them derelicts. Burned-out buildings mixed with row houses with lights on in the windows. There were no streetlights. Gentry could hear footsteps clapping down the hill, echoing under the railroad bridge. There were no shouts or curses when the figure fell heavily, only scrabbling sounds on ice and brick.

  “Over there,” called Gentry and half pushed Natalie uphill toward the first lighted house a hundred feet away.

  He was panting, half staggering by the time they reached the three-step concrete stoop. He turned and stood guard as Natalie pounded on the door and called for help. A dark silhouette pulled a torn shade aside for a second, but no one appeared at the door. “Please!” screamed Natalie.

  “Natalie,” called Gentry. The man in the torn and soiled business suit was rushing the final thirty feet at them. In the light from the single window, Gentry could see the wide, white eyes and the mouth agape, saliva streaming down over chin and collar. Gentry aimed the Ruger and applied enough pressure to pull the hammer back. Then he lowered the hammer and the gun. “To hell with it,” he said and lowered his shoulder to meet the man’s charge.

  The attacker hit Gentry’s shoulder at full speed and flipped into the air, landing on his back on the sidewalk and lowest step. There was a sickening sound as the man’s head bounced, Gentry leaned toward him, and the older man was on his feet at once, blood streaming from his disarrayed hair, his dentures clacking as he went for Gentry’s throat. The sheriff picked him up by the lapels and swung him out over the street; let him fall. The man hit, rolled, let out an inhuman snarl that was part laugh, and immediately was on his feet, lunging. Gentry clubbed him down with the barrel of the Ruger. The body lay on its face, twitching.

  Gentry sat on the lowest step and
lowered his head between his knees. Natalie kicked and pounded at the door. “Please let us in!”

  “I’m a police officer!” yelled Gentry with the last of his breath. “Let us in.” The door remained locked.

  More footsteps echoed from under the bridge. “God,” gasped Gentry, “I thought . . . Saul said . . . the Oberst could . . . control only one . . . at a time.”

  The figure of a tall woman emerged from the shadows under the bridge. She was running in her stocking feet and held something sharp in her right hand.

  “Come on,” said Gentry. They had run thirty feet uphill when they heard the roar of the city bus around the bend in the street. Headlights flashed off brick row houses across the street to their left.

  Gentry looked for an alley, a vacant lot, anything, but there was only the solid facade of uninterrupted row houses for the 120 feet back down to the railroad bridge. “Back down there!” he shouted. “Up the embankment to the tracks.” He turned just as the tall blond woman silently covered the last ten feet on stocking feet and crashed into him. They both went over, rolling onto the wet street, Gentry dropping the Ruger in an attempt to hold her head and snapping teeth away from his throat, trying to get a choke hold on her. The woman was very strong. She swiveled her head and bit deeply into his left hand. Gentry made a fist, struck at her jaw, but she was able to get her head down in time for her skull to take most of the impact. Gentry pushed her away, trying to decide how to knock her out without permanently injuring her, just as her right hand came around and under his arm. He felt a cold shock and did nothing but watch as the scissors slashed in a second time. She pulled back her arm to strike a third time and Gentry swung a round house that would have taken her head off if it had connected. It did not connect.

  The blond woman danced back two paces and raised the scissors to eye level just as Natalie brought her loaded camera bag down full force on the woman’s head. She crumpled tonelessly to the street just as Gentry was able to get to one knee. His left side and left hand were on fire. There was a rising roar and the headlights of the oncoming bus froze them in their glare. Gentry felt around for the Ruger, knew it must be there somewhere. The bus was fifty feet from them and accelerating downhill.

  Natalie had the gun. She had dropped the camera bag and now she took a wide stance, cradled the weapon with both hands, and fired four times the way Gentry had taught her.

  “No!” shouted Gentry even as the first bullet struck, taking out a headlight. The second one starred the broad windshield just to the left of the driver’s position. Recoil made the other two go high.

  Gentry grabbed the camera bag and pulled Natalie toward the curb and a row house stoop even as the bus swerved left toward them. It caromed off the stoop, sparks flying, the right wheels rolling over the unconscious blond woman without a noticeable bounce. Natalie and Gentry pulled each other up as the bus hit ice, spun ninety degrees to the left, and went under the railroad bridge broadside. There was a scream of metal on wood.

  “Now!” gasped Gentry and they ran for the embankment. Gentry ran in a half-crouch, holding his left arm against his side.

  A diesel engine roared, gears screamed, and a single, skewed headlight beam lanced out of the far side of the underpass as the rear wheels of the bus spun, found purchase, spun again. A wooden timber gave way with a shriek and the rear end of the bus emerged just as Gentry and Natalie reached the embankment and began to scramble up the littered, frozen slope. A rusted loop of wire caught Gentry around the ankle and brought him down heavily. For a second he was in the full beam of the crazy headlight and he looked down to see his coat slashed to tatters and hanging open, blood dripping down his arm onto his chewed hand. He looked over his shoulder as Natalie grasped his right arm and helped him up. “Give me the Ruger,” he said.

  The bus was backing up the hill, getting a run at the slope. “The gun.”

  Natalie handed him the pistol just as the driver slammed the big vehicle into first gear. Both of the bodies on the street looked flattened now. “Go!” Gentry commanded. Natalie turned and began climbing, using her hands. Gentry followed. They were less than halfway up the slope when they came to the fence.

  The bus picked up speed quickly, shifting gears, the noise echoing off brick buildings, the single headlight cocked upward at such an angle that it illuminated Gentry and Natalie on the slope.

  The fence had been invisible from below. It had sagged and rolled until it resembled concertina wire. Natalie was snagged on the second tier of ripped metal. Gentry pulled wire loose from Natalie’s pant leg, heard cloth rip, and pushed her uphill. She took four steps and stopped, snagged again. Gentry turned, braced his feet on the slope, and raised the Ruger. The city bus was almost as long as the embankment was high. Gentry’s coat hindered him. He took it off and turned sideways, raising the Ruger, feeling the weakness in his arm.

  The bus rolled over the bodies, shifted gear, bounced enough on an unseen curb to avoid burying its nose in the cold ground, and began climbing the hill.

  Gentry lowered his aim to compensate for the tendency to shoot high when firing downhill. The light reflected from the snowy hillside clearly illuminated the driver. It was a woman in khaki, eyes very wide.

  They . . . he . . . won’t let her live anyway, thought Gentry and fired the last two rounds. Two stars appeared directly in front of the driver, the entire windshield went white and collapsed into powder, and Gentry turned and ran hard. He was ten feet from Natalie when the bus caught him, the grill hitting him hard, sending him flying out and upward like an infant carelessly tossed skyward. He hit hard on his left side, felt Natalie next to him, leaned across a cold rail, and watched.

  The bus came to within five feet of the top of the embankment, lost traction, and went slewing back down with its headlight swinging like a frenzied searchlight. The right rear fender caught the pavement with a solid, final sound and the long bus tried to stand on its end, the nose hitting and bouncing thirty degrees off the slope before it rolled slowly to its right, went almost over on its back, and settled on its side with wheels spinning.

  “Don’t move,” whispered Natalie, but Gentry fought his way to his feet. He looked down and almost laughed aloud to see the Ruger still clenched in his cold hand. He went to put it in his coat pocket, found that he was no longer wearing topcoat or sports coat, and tucked it in his waistband.

  Natalie held him up. “What do we do?” she said very softly.

  Gentry tried to clear his head. “Wait for the cops, the fire department. Ambulances,” he said. He knew something was wrong with the idea, but he was too tired to think through it.

  Lights had gone on in more row house windows, but no one had emerged. Gentry stood leaning on Natalie for several long, cold minutes. It began to snow. There was no sign of ambulances.

  Below them, there was the hollow sound of pounding and a window on the side of the toppled bus popped out and fell to the ground. At least three dark forms emerged, scurrying like huge, dark spiders across the metal carcass of the bus.

  Without saying anything, Gentry and Natalie turned and began hobbling quickly down the rail bed. Once he fell against the rail and felt a solid per sis tent humming. Natalie pulled him up and urged him into a run. He could hear distant footsteps on the cinders behind them.

  “There!” Natalie suddenly gasped. “There. I know where we are.” Gentry opened his eyes to see an old three-story home sandwiched between empty lots. Lights burned from a dozen windows.

  He stumbled and fell down the steep hillside. Something sharp tore at his right leg. He staggered to his feet and helped Natalie up as a commuter train roared by above them.

  There were people on the porch. Black-sounding voices shouted challenges. Gentry saw two young men with shotguns. He fumbled for the Ruger, but his fingers failed to close on the grip.

  Natalie’s voice came from very far away, urgent, insistent. Gentry decided to close his eyes for a second or two just long enough to get his strength back.

&nb
sp; Strong hands closed on him as he collapsed.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Germantown

  Monday, Dec. 29, 1980

  Natalie looked in on Rob throughout the day Monday. He was feverish, vague about his whereabouts, and occasionally he would talk in his sleep. She had lain next to him during the night, being careful not to brush against his taped ribs or ban daged left hand. Once in his sleep he had put out his right hand and gently stroked her hair.

  Marvin Gayle had not looked overjoyed when she and Gentry had staggered up to the front door of Community House on Sunday night.

  “Who your fat friend, babe?” Marvin had called from the top step. He was flanked by Leroy and Calvin carrying sawed-off shotguns.

  “It’s Sheriff Rob Gentry,” said Natalie, regretting at once that she had identified him as a lawman. “He’s hurt.”

  “I see that, babe. Why don’t you take him out to the white folks’ hospital?”

  “Someone’s after us, Marvin. Let us in.” Natalie knew that if she could get through to the charismatic young gang leader, he would listen. Natalie had spent most of the weekend at Community House. She had been there on Saturday night when word came that Monk and Lionel had been killed. At Marvin’s request she had gone with them and photographed the dismembered bodies. Then she had staggered around a corner to be quietly sick in the dark. Only later did Marvin tell her that Monk had been carrying a print of the Melanie Fuller photograph, showing it to inactive members in the neighborhood, trying to track down the old lady. The photograph was not on Monk’s body. Natalie’s skin had gone absolutely icy when she heard that.

  Incredibly, neither the police nor the news media responded to the murders. There had been no witnesses other than George, the terrified fifteen-year-old who had escaped, and George had told no one except Soul Brickyard. The gang kept it that way. The two mutilated bodies were wrapped in shower curtains and stored in a freezer in Louis Taylor’s tenement basement. Monk had lived alone in a condemned building off Pastries Street. Lionel lived with his mother on Bringhurst, but the old woman was in an alcoholic stupor much of the time and would not miss him for days.