To the Vanishing Point

by Alan Dean Foster

  "Smells right. Looks right. Could we be back where we belong, back on the right reality line?"

  "Reality is rife with off ramps," Mouse replied gently, "but I admit it does appear promising. There is no need to try to find the interstate again. We can continue along this state highway."

  "You mean you can continue along. I’ve had it. I know I promised, but I can’t take this anymore, lady. Not even if we’re, like you said, linked together. No more."

  Mouse regarded him for a long moment. "I understand, Mr. Sonderberg. It has been harder than I thought. There will be dangers to you, but perhaps when I depart your company they will not manifest themselves. I will make my way alone the rest of the way to the Vanishing Point."

  Frank seemed confused by her ready acquiescence. "Well, okay. That’s more like it." Alicia said nothing.

  "What will you do?" Mouse asked him curiously.

  He considered, hardly daring to believe their ordeal was nearing its end. "I dunno. I guess we’ll find a motel." Now Alicia smiled. "An ordinary chain motel where we can get some rest. Then I’m calling a taxi, or a limo, or something. The outfit that rented us this machine can come and get it. I don’t give a damn if the taxi has to come all the way down from Salt Lake. I ain’t doing any more driving. We’ll head for the nearest airport. I’ll beg, borrow, or steal a charter plane to fly us home. We’re not even going into Salt Lake for a regular airline. I just want out of here as fast as possible."

  "I do understand. I hope all will be well with you."

  "Put me in the air headed toward L.A. and I’ll be well, all right."

  They entered town. A small Western town, salubrious in its ordinariness. Burger King, McDonald’s, a Kentucky Fried slid past, until their mouths were watering. They were followed by a small shopping center anchored by miniature Sears and JC Penney stores, then a Kmart. It was so much like Los Angeles on a smaller scale that Alicia started crying. Best of all, it didn’t change as they cruised up the main street. Frank pulled into the first motel with a Best Western sign out front.

  The Vacancy/No Vacancy sign wasn’t working. That didn’t matter to Frank, who could have spotted the lifeless neon letters a mile off. He pulled up alongside the fenced swimming pool and parked.

  "Guess I’ll be leaving you here, too," said Burnfingers. He raised a hand to forestall Frank’s protest. "It’s all right. I know this country well and will have no trouble here. You have been good people. I did not thank you properly for rescuing me back at that casino. Maybe someday I may even be able to explain it to myself."

  "Didn’t exactly rescue you," Frank replied. "All we did was help distract those guys who were beating on you and give you a chance to rescue yourself." He checked his watch. "Least we can do is buy you something to eat."

  "That’s kind of you. I would enjoy a proper meal. It has been a strenuous couple of days."

  "Now there’s an understatement." Alicia smiled for the first time in a while. Wendy, too, had recovered, though she wasn’t twisting and tossing her body in time to the music inside her head with quite the same abandon as before. She missed her tape player.

  Maybe a cheeseburger and fries would serve as a temporary substitute, her father mused. "Just let me check us in first." He headed for the door. "Maybe the manager can recommend a place to us."

  They must have presented an interesting sight as they crowded into the modest waiting room. There was a stone fireplace, cold this time of year; a smaller color TV on a stand, on which a young man with too many teeth was giving away large appliances; a pile of magazines; a couple of couches for the use of guests only; and the counter with the omnipresent revolving postcard rack and boxful of local giveaway pamphlets advertising attractions in Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and points in between.

  The manager/owner was in his early sixties, a large man with a tired paunch and a flowing white mustache. Thin white rimless glasses framed his eyes, and suspenders struggled to keep his waistband even with the bottom of a striped white shirt. He grinned as he inspected his visitors.

  "Well! You folks look like you’ve been through the wringer!"

  "We do?" Frank didn’t realize it showed that much. "Just been driving a long time."

  The manager grunted. "That’s tough on anybody. Y’all stayin' here?"

  "No. Just the four of us. Our friends will be looking for separate transportation out of town."

  The man shoved a registration form across the narrow counter. "Greyhound stops once in the morning, Trailways in the evening — they been kind of irregular lately."

  Alicia tried to make conversation while her husband filled out the registration form. "Pretty country."

  "That’s why folks’re livin' here." The manager chuckled. "Quiet. You want excitement, you’re in the wrong town. Wrong state, far as that goes."

  A woman juggling a glass and dishrag against each other appeared by the back door. "Hello, folks."

  Alicia smiled. "Good evening."

  "Yes, it is a good evening, isn’t it?" She frowned slightly at the glass, worked the rag a little faster. "Where you folks from?"

  "Los Angeles," Steven piped up.

  "Oh?" She left the doorway to peer over the counter. "Didn’t see you down there, sonny."

  "We’re on vacation," Steven told her brightly, "and you should’a seen some of the things we’ve seen!"

  His mother glanced sternly down at him. "That will be enough, Steven."

  "Awww." Disappointed, he turned to stare at the TV.

  Frank turned the completed registration form around. "Want a credit card imprint now?"

  "Neh. Don’t need it — unless you want to charge long distance calls. Local are free."

  "All we want now is something to eat."

  Taking his cue, the manager leaned forward and looked to his left, toward the street. "You go up Central about two blocks and you’ll hit downtown. 'Bout half a dozen good places to eat."

  "Which one would you recommend?" Alicia asked politely.

  "Oh, none of 'em. They all pretty much stink. Dave’s Diner’s a real tourist trap and Judy’s Country Kitchen’s anything but."

  "That’s right," said his wife cheerfully. "They all suck."

  "I see." Alicia regarded the pair of homey smiles askance. Frank stepped in.

  "Then where would you suggest we eat?"

  "There’s another hotel up the street. The Gables. Rooms are awful; full of roaches." The woman made a face. "And sometimes they don’t wash their linen between guests, but the kitchen is run separate. My husband and I go there ourselves sometimes when we want to eat out."

  "That’s very straight of you. Thanks."

  "Don’t mention it," said the manager. "Glad to help."

  They went back to the motor home and began gathering clothes and toiletries for their room. "That’s the kind of honesty you don’t find anymore," Frank was murmuring.

  Alicia was less sanguine. "I wonder. It was more than just honesty. They were so open, it was like they couldn’t lie if they wanted to."

  Frank grabbed a pair of clean socks. "Maybe it would’ve been different if they had a coffee shop of their own."

  "Wouldn’t it be neat if everybody was like that?" said Wendy.

  "Bad for business." Frank looked toward the back of the motor home. "Burnfingers, Mouse: dinner’s on us."

  "I can pay," Begay told him. "I have gold."

  "Which you need for your jewelry work," Frank reminded him. "Our treat, and I don’t want to hear any more about it."

  They walked, since it was only a few blocks to the hotel’s restaurant. A few locals were out enjoying the evening sunshine. They chatted easily among themselves, occasionally waving to the cluster of tourists.

  It was early for supper and they had the restaurant largely to themselves. Frank found it hard to relate to a dinner menu after hours of fleeing through permanent night. In jumping threads, they’d lost most of a day. Reality lag instead of jet lag, he told himself.

  The pl
ace wasn’t fancy, but it was clean. Flower-print tablecloths covered each dining area. The waitress was young and attractive.

  "Anything special?" Alicia asked as she studied the menu.

  "Not really, but don’t ask me. I eat here all the time. I’d change that color combination if I was you, though."

  "What?" Confused, Alicia laid her menu down.

  "Color combination. That yellow top really doesn’t go with those jeans."

  "I thought bright colors were in."

  "Maybe for some folks. They just make me kind of nauseous, you know?"

  "Hey," Frank said, "how about taking our order instead of criticizing my wife’s clothing, okay?"

  "Sure." The waitress sounded genuinely puzzled at Frank’s tone. "Hey, kid, if you gotta blow your nose, rub it on your sleeve instead of my clean tablecloth, will you?" Steven gaped at her. "And you," she went on, talking to Mouse, "we get some weird types in here, but you look like you just dropped out of some traveling freak show."

  "How about me?" Burnfingers asked politely.

  "I don’t much like Indians."

  "That’s all right," Burnfingers responded studiously. "I do not care for blondes who bleach their hair and try to look younger than they are."

  Frank held his breath, expecting to have to duck pad and pencil if not something weightier. But the woman just smiled at Burnfingers, who smiled back.

  Alicia was right. He felt a by-now familiar tenseness in his gut. Something was wrong here. He noted that Mouse was paying more than casual attention to the conversation.

  One by one they placed their orders. Frank found himself expecting additional comments and he wasn’t disappointed. The waitress found Wendy’s selection of lemonade to accompany her hamburger profoundly disgusting and didn’t hesitate to say so, to his daughter’s obvious surprise and chagrin. When Frank requested his steak well done, the young woman promptly told him what she thought of anyone dumb enough to order good meat burned. He would have shot back with a reply save for a cautioning look from Burnfingers Begay. So he bit back his natural response. Only when she left to turn their order in did he lean over and whisper.

  "Why’d you shush me? What the hell’s going on here, Burnfingers?"

  Mouse interrupted. "I fear that despite appearances we may not have returned to your reality line after all."

  "That can’t be." Alicia gestured around them. "Everything here’s normal: the people, the street signs, the brand names in the windows — everything!"

  "I’m afraid not quite everything," Mouse replied somberly.

  "You’d better spell it out for me," said Frank angrily. "Just because we run into an honest motel and a snippety waitress, you’re trying to tell us we’re still not home?"

  "What she is trying to tell you," Burnfingers Begay put in, "is that only one thing is different, but that this difference is significant. To put it another way, where reality is concerned, almost don’t make it."

  Alicia was looking around worriedly, as though she expected a host of long left-behind demons to walk in through the front door. "What one thing is so different?"

  Burnfingers looked at Mouse, who simply gazed back. Finally he sat back in his chair. It groaned under his weight. "Maybe we’re wrong. Let us just enjoy our food. Do me one favor, though, Frank."

  "If I can."

  "If the young lady who took our order, or anybody else, says something to upset you, do not get mad."

  "Okay," said Frank slowly. "She’s probably just an exception anyways."

  "Somehow I do not think so."

  As the unexpectedly silent evening meal proceeded, Burnfingers’s prediction was borne out by the conversation around them. Other diners exchanged vicious, pointed insults and commentary with their neighbors, without trying to hide their opinions from anyone who might be listening. Their waitress smilingly insulted everyone in turn, offering her observations of their personal hygiene, taste in attire, appearance, and whatever else struck her fancy. They replied in kind. Neither restaurant staff nor customers appeared in the least upset. Later they were able to overhear her exchanging similar comments with the cook and cashier.

  This biting verbal byplay was not restricted to the visiting adults. Children chatted equally guilelessly, and teenagers exhibited great ingenuity in putting down their companions. When a couple of girls Wendy’s age passed the table and all but reduced her to tears with their comments about her coiffure and clothing, she responded in kind. They smiled, nodded, and walked on. It was as though the words had no effect on them, or at least none of the intended effect.

  "Not quite our reality." Burnfingers was finishing his Coke.

  "I think I understand." Alicia pushed peas around on her plate. "It’s just like our world, except everyone here says exactly what they’re thinking. Nobody lies."

  "There’s no tact or diplomacy, either," muttered Wendy darkly.

  "Everyone here speaks the truth as they see it," said Mouse thoughtfully. "A different social system has evolved. It would probably be impossible to insult anyone in this place unless you accused them of telling a lie, and they very well may not know what a lie is."

  "That’s why the people back at the motel were so blunt with us," Alicia murmured. "An honest opinion is all they can offer."

  Wendy crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, glowering. "Well, I don’t like it."

  "No inhibitions. No restraints," said Burnfingers.

  "It doesn’t bother you?" Frank asked him. "Doesn’t get under your skin just a little?"

  "I do not have any illusions to shatter. I know exactly what I am. And also I am — "

  " — crazy. Yeah, we know," said Frank tiredly.

  "Then we’re still lost." Alicia was wonderfully calm in the face of the crushing disappointment. "We’re still not back where we belong. We still aren’t — home."

  "An almost perfect off ramp," Mouse observed, "but as Mr. Begay tells us, almost does not count."

  "We must be close, though." Alicia sounded suddenly eager. "Aren’t we close? Wouldn’t this be good enough?"

  "I dunno," said Frank. "If we stayed here I’d have to learn a whole new way of doing business. I don’t know how it works here. I don’t think I’m ready for a reality where everybody tells the truth every time. Bet politics here are interesting. I wonder if our reality is exactly the opposite of this one. I mean, where we come from, it sometimes seems like you get elected for telling the biggest lie." He looked sharply at his wife. "Are you ready for all your friends to tell you exactly what they think of you?"

  She hesitated, slumped slightly. "No. No, I guess not. I guess we better not stay here."

  "If we’re this close, then surely the next off ramp will be the right one." He tried to sound encouraging, reading the discouragement in her face. "At least this line isn’t dangerous." He cut a chunk of steak. "The food’s normal enough. Downright good."

  So was the motel, as its managers would have honestly admitted. They had real beds with thick mattresses, a full-sized shower bath, and strangely honest television to watch.

  Not wanting to send their friends off in the dark, Frank insisted Burnfingers and Mouse spend the night in the empty motor home. Both accepted, albeit Mouse tentatively. As always she was anxious to be on her way. As he prepared to climb into bed, Frank found himself checking the clock and almost laughed out loud. Time meant nothing to them until they made it back home. The numbers on the plastic face bore no relation to their experiences of the past couple of days.

  Yet despite his exhaustion and the warmth of Alicia’s slumbering form next to his own he found he was unable to fall asleep. The memories were too immediate, too strong. Alicia could sleep anywhere, anytime. The children had dropped off quickly. Only he was left to gaze at the ceiling, at the sweeps and curves in the stucco feebly illuminated by the light from the motel parking lot that filtered into the room around the edges of the curtains.

  Now that they were close to the right reality line, ne
ar to home, he found himself pondering all they’d been through and experienced. Bad dreams, the stuff of nightmares. Tomorrow they’d find the right off ramp and take it all the way to Salt Lake or Los Angeles Tomorrow they would drive back to reality. In the morning they would rid themselves of the enigmatic child-woman who called herself Mouse and the wandering maybe-crazy Burnfingers Begay.

  Meanwhile it was silly to lie here trying to decide how much of the past was real and how much hallucination. If he couldn’t rent a plane or taxi, they’d have to drive all the way into Salt Lake. He rolled over, forced himself to close his eyes.

  It was a quiet room, especially for someone used to traffic-laden Los Angeles He thought he heard a coyote howl out by the city limits, near the mountain slopes. Probably only a dog.

  He was nearly asleep when he heard something else.

  At first he thought it was a bird singing at the moon. The longer he listened, the more unlikely that seemed. Though no naturalist, he did watch a lot of nature programs on TV, and he’d never heard of any bird holding a single note for so long.

  Alicia’s back was ivory in the dim light. She hardly moved, deep in sleep, and he was reluctant to disturb her for an opinion. Yet as he started to lie back down the sound came again, a thin, lilting melody halfway between a song and a cry. It was weak with distance but still unmistakable.

  Tension and curiosity had conspired to bring him wide-awake. Frustrated, he pushed back the covers and quietly climbed out of bed. He donned jeans and shirt as silently as he opened the door.

  It was much cooler than it had been in the desert. The mountain air chilled his skin like alcohol as he carefully shut the door behind him. Around him hung the silence of Utah night.

  He stood motionless, listening. Just as he began to wonder at his foolishness he heard it afresh. Out in the parking lot the motor home squatted like a shipping container on wheels. The sound didn’t come from its vicinity or from any part of the motel.