"Fill her up and park her for me. I'll be out in a few minutes. I want to catch some breakfast."
"Breakfast?"
Douglas was annoyed. What was the matter with the man? He indicated the cafe. A truck driver had pushed the screen door open and was standing on the step, picking his teeth thoughtfully. Inside, the waitress hustled back and forth. He could already smell the coffee, the bacon frying on the griddle. A faint tinny sound of a jukebox drifted out. A warm, friendly sound. "The cafe."
The attendant stopped pumping gas. He put down the hose slowly and turned toward Douglas, a strange expression on his face. "What cafe?" he said.
The cafe wavered and abruptly winked out. Douglas fought down a scream of terror. Where the cafe had been there was only an open field.
Greenish brown grass. A few rusty tin cans. Bottles. Debris. A leaning fence. Off in the distance, the outline of the mountains.
Douglas tried to get hold of himself. "I'm a little tired," he muttered. He climbed unsteadily back into the car. "How much?"
"I just hardly began to fill the—"
"Here." Douglas pushed a bill at him. "Get out of the way." He turned on the motor and raced out onto the highway, leaving the astonished attendant staring after him.
That had been close. Damn close. A trap. And he had almost stepped inside.
But the thing that really terrified him wasn't the closeness. He was out of the mountains and they had still been ahead of him.
It hadn't done any good. He wasn't any safer than last night. They were everywhere.
The car sped along the highway. He was getting near Denver—but so what? It wouldn't make any difference. He could dig a hole in Death Valley and still not be safe. They were after him and they weren't going to give up. That much was clear.
He racked his mind desperately. He had to think of something, some way to get loose.
A parasitic culture. A race that preyed on humans, utilized human knowledge and discoveries. Wasn't that what Bill had said? They were after his know-how, his unique ability and knowledge of nuclear physics. He had been singled out, separated from the pack because of his superior ability and training. They would keep after him until they got him. And then—what?
Horror gripped him. The gold ingot. The decoy. The girl had looked perfectly real. The cafe full of people. Even the smells of food. Bacon frying. Steaming coffee.
God, if only he were just an ordinary person, without skill, without special ability. If only—
A sudden flapping sound. The car lurched. Douglas cursed wildly. A flat. Of all times…
Of all times.
Douglas brought the car to a halt at the side of the road. He switched off the motor and put on the brake. For a while he sat in silence. Finally he fumbled in his coat and got out a mashed package of cigarettes. He lit up slowly and then rolled the window down to let in some air.
He was trapped, of course. There was nothing he could do. The flat had obviously been arranged. Something on the road, sprinkled down from above. Tacks, probably.
The highway was deserted. No cars in sight. He was utterly alone, between towns. Denver was thirty miles ahead. No chance of getting there. Nothing around him but terribly level fields, desolated plains.
Nothing but level ground—and the blue sky above.
Douglas peered up. He couldn't see them, but they were there, waiting for him to get out of his car. His knowledge, his ability, would be utilized by an alien culture. He would become an instrument in their hands. All his learning would be theirs. He would be a slave and nothing more.
Yet, in a way, it was a complement. From a whole society, he alone had been selected. His skill and knowledge, over everything else. A faint glow rose in his cheeks. Probably they had been studying him for some time. The great eye had no doubt often peered down through its telescope, or microscope, or whatever it was, peered down and seen him. Seen his ability and realized what that would be worth to its own culture.
Douglas opened the car door. He stepped out onto the hot pavement. He dropped his cigarette and calmly stubbed it out. He took a deep breath, stretching and yawning. He could see the tacks now, bright bits of light on the surface of the pavement. Both front tires were flat.
Something shimmered above him. Douglas waited quietly. Now that it had finally come, he was no longer afraid. He watched with a kind of detached curiosity. The something grew. It fanned out over him, swelling and expanding. For a moment it hesitated. Then it descended.
Douglas stood still as the enormous cosmic net closed over him. The strands pressed against him as the net rose. He was going up, heading toward the sky. But he was relaxed, at peace, no longer afraid.
Why be afraid? He would be doing much the same work as always. He would miss Laura and the college, of course, the intellectual companionship of the faculty, the bright faces of the students. But no doubt he would find companionship up above. Persons to work with. Trained minds with which to communicate.
The net was lifting him faster and faster. The ground fell rapidly away. The Earth dwindled from a flat surface to a globe. Douglas watched with professional interest. Above him, beyond the intricate strands of the net, he could see the outline of the other universe, the new world toward which he was heading.
Shapes. Two enormous shapes squatting down. Two incredibly huge figures bending over. One was drawing in the net. The other watched, holding something in its hand. A landscape. Dim forms too vast for Douglas to comprehend.
At last, a thought came. What a struggle.
It was worth it, thought the other creature.
Their thoughts roared through him. Powerful thoughts, from immense minds.
I was right. The biggest yet. What a catch!
Must weigh all of twenty-four ragets!
At last!
Suddenly Douglas's composure left him. A chill of horror flashed through his mind. What were they talking about? What did they mean?
But then he was being dumped from the net. He was falling. Something was coming up at him. A flat, shiny surface. What was it?
Oddly, it looked almost like a frying pan.
THE HANGING STRANGER
AT FIVE O'CLOCK Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself.
It was getting dark. The setting sun cast long rays over the scurrying commuters, tired and grim-faced, women loaded down with bundles and packages, students, swarming home from the university, mixing with clerks and businessmen and drab secretaries. He stopped his Packard for a red light and then started it up again. The store had been open without him; he'd arrive just in time to spell the help for dinner, go over the records of the day, maybe even close a couple of sales himself. He drove slowly past the small square of green in the center of the street, the town park. There were no parking places in front of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. He cursed under his breath and swung the car in a U-turn. Again he passed the little square of green with its lonely drinking fountain and bench and single lamppost.
From the lamppost something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little with the wind. Like a dummy of some sort. Loyce rolled down his window and peered out. What the hell was it? A display of some kind? Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce put up displays in the square.
Again he made a U-turn and brought his car around. He passed the park and concentrated on the dark bundle. It wasn't a dummy. And if it was a display it was a strange kind. The hackles on his neck rose and he swallowed uneasily. Sweat slid out on his face and hands.
It was a body. A human body.
"Look at it!" Loyce snapped. "Come on out here!"
Don Fergusson came slowly out of the store, buttoning his pin-stripe coat with dignity. "
This is a big deal, Ed. I can't just leave the guy standing there."
"See it?" Ed pointed into the gathering gloom. The lamppost jutted up against the sky—the post and the bundle swinging from it. "There it is. How the hell long has it been there?" His voice rose excitedly. "What's wrong with everybody? They just walk on past!"
Don Fergusson lit a cigarette slowly. "Take it easy, old man. There must be a good reason, or it wouldn't be there."
"A reason! What kind of a reason?"
Fergusson shrugged. "Like the time the Traffic Safety Council put that wrecked Buick there. Some sort of civic thing. How would I know?"
Jack Potter from the shoe shop joined them. "What's up, boys?"
"There's a body hanging from the lamppost," Loyce said. "I'm going to call the cops."
"They must know about it," Potter said. "Or otherwise it wouldn't be there."
"I got to get back in." Fergusson headed back into the store. "Business before pleasure."
Loyce began to get hysterical. "You see it? You see it hanging there? A man's body! A dead man!"
"Sure, Ed. I saw it this afternoon when I went out for coffee."
"You mean it's been there all afternoon?"
"Sure. What's the matter?" Potter glanced at his watch. "Have to run. See you later, Ed."
Potter hurried off, joining the flow of people moving along the sidewalk. Men and women, passing by the park. A few glanced up curiously at the dark bundle—and then went on. Nobody stopped. Nobody paid any attention.
"I'm going nuts," Loyce whispered. He made his way to the curb and crossed out into traffic, among the cars. Horns honked angrily at him. He gained the curb and stepped up onto the little square of green.
The man had been middle-aged. His clothing was ripped and torn, a gray suit, splashed and caked with dried mud. A stranger. Loyce had never seen him before. Not a local man. His face was partly turned away, and in the evening wind he spun a little, turning gently, silently. His skin was gouged and cut. Red gashes, deep scratches of congealed blood. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses hung from one ear, dangling foolishly. His eyes bulged. His mouth was open, tongue thick and ugly blue.
"For Heaven's sake," Loyce muttered, sickened. He pushed down his nausea and made his way back to the sidewalk. He was shaking all over, with revulsion—and fear.
Why? Who was the man? Why was he hanging there? What did it mean?
And—why didn't anybody notice?
He bumped into a small man hurrying along the sidewalk. "Watch it!" the man grated. "Oh, it's you, Ed."
Ed nodded dazedly. "Hello, Jenkins."
"What's the matter?" The stationery clerk caught Ed's aim "You look sick."
"The body. There in the park."
"Sure, Ed." Jenkins led him into the alcove of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. "Take it easy."
Margaret Henderson from the jewelry store joined them. "Something wrong?"
"Ed's not feeling well."
Loyce yanked himself free. "How can you stand here? Don't you see it? For God's sake—"
"What's he talking about?" Margaret asked nervously.
"The body!" Ed shouted. "The body hanging there!"
More people collected. "Is he sick? It's Ed Loyce. You okay, Ed?"
"The body!" Loyce screamed, struggling to get past them. Hands caught at him. He tore loose. "Let me go! The police! Get the police!"
"Ed—"
"Better get a doctor!"
"He must be sick."
"Or drunk."
Loyce fought his way through the people. He stumbled and half fell. Through a blur he saw rows of faces, curious, concerned, anxious. Men and women halting to see what the disturbance was. He fought past them toward his store. He could see Fergusson inside talking to a man, showing him an Emerson TV set. Pete Foley in the back at the service counter, setting up a new Philco. Loyce shouted at them frantically. His voice was lost in the roar of traffic and the murmuring around him.
"Do something!" he screamed. "Don't stand there! Do something! Something's wrong! Something's happened! Things are going on!"
The crowd melted respectfully for the two heavy-set cops moving efficiently toward Loyce.
"Name?" the cop with the notebook murmured.
"Loyce." He mopped his forehead wearily. "Edward C. Loyce. Listen to me. Back there—"
"Address?" the cop demanded. The police car moved swiftly through traffic, shooting among the cars and buses. Loyce sagged against the seat, exhausted and confused. He took a deep shuddering breath.
"1368 Hurst Road."
"That's here in Pikeville?"
"That's right." Loyce pulled himself up with a violent effort. "Listen to me. Back there. In the square. Hanging from the lamppost—"
"Where were you today?" the cop behind the wheel demanded.
"Where?" Loyce echoed.
"You weren't in your shop, were you?"
"No." He shook his head. "No, I was home. Down in the basement."
"In the basement?"
"Digging. A new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame. Why? What has that to do with—"
"Was anybody else down there with you?"
"No. My wife was downtown. My kids were at school." Loyce looked from one heavy-set cop to the other. Hope flickered across his face, wild hope. "You mean because I was down there I missed—the explanation? I didn't get in on it? Like everybody else?"
After a pause the cop with the notebook said: "That's right. You missed the explanation."
"Then it's official? The body—it's supposed to be hanging there?"
"It's supposed to be hanging there. For everybody to see."
Ed Loyce grinned weakly. "Good Lord. I guess I sort of went off the deep end. I thought maybe something had happened. You know, something like the Ku Klux Klan. Some kind of violence. Communists or Fascists taking over." He wiped his face with his breast-pocket handkerchief, his hands shaking. "I'm glad to know it's on the level."
"It's on the level." The police car was getting near the Hall of Justice. The sun had set. The streets were gloomy and dark. The lights had not yet come on.
"I feel better," Loyce said. "I was pretty excited there, for a minute. I guess I got all stirred up. Now that I understand, there's no need to take me in, is there?"
The two cops said nothing.
"I should be back at my store. The boys haven't had dinner. I'm all right, now. No more trouble. Is there any need of—"
"This won't take long," the cop behind the wheel interrupted. "A short process. Only a few minutes."
"I hope it's short," Loyce muttered. The car slowed down for a stoplight. "I guess I sort of disturbed the peace. Funny, getting excited like that and—"
Loyce yanked the door open. He sprawled out into the street and rolled to his feet. Cars were moving all around him, gaining speed as the light changed. Loyce leaped onto the curb and raced among the people, burrowing into the swarming crowds. Behind him he heard sounds, snouts, people running.
They weren't cops. He had realized that right away. He knew every cop in Pikeville. A man couldn't own a store, operate a business in a small town for twenty-five years without getting to know all the cops.
They weren't cops—and there hadn't been any explanation. Potter, Fergusson, Jenkins, none of them knew why it was there. They didn't know—and they didn't care. That was the strange part.
Loyce ducked into a hardware store. He raced toward the back, past the startled clerks and customers, into the shipping room and through the back door. He tripped over a garbage can and ran up a flight of concrete steps. He climbed over a fence and jumped down on the other side, gasping and panting.
There was no sound behind him. He had got away.
He was at the entrance of an alley, dark and strewn with boards and ruined boxes and tires. He could see the street at the far end. A street light wavered and came on. Men and women. Stores. Neon signs. Cars.
And to his right—the police station.
He was c
lose, terribly close. Past the loading platform of a grocery store rose the white concrete side of the Hall of Justice. Barred windows. The police antenna. A great concrete wall rising up in the darkness. A bad place for him to be near. He was too close. He had to keep moving, get farther away from them.
Them?
Loyce moved cautiously down the alley. Beyond the police station was the City Hall, the old-fashioned yellow structure of wood and gilded brass and broad cement steps. He could see the endless rows of offices, dark windows, the cedars and beds of flowers on each side of the entrance.
And—something else.
Above the City Hall was a patch of darkness, a cone of gloom denser than the surrounding night. A prism of black that spread out and was lost into the sky.
He listened. Good God, he could hear something. Something that made him struggle frantically to close his ears, his mind, to shut out the sound. A buzzing. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees.
Loyce gazed up, rigid with horror. The splotch of darkness, hanging over the City Hall. Darkness so thick it seemed almost solid. In the vortex something moved. Flickering shapes. Things, descending from the sky, pausing momentarily above the City Hall, fluttering over it in a dense swarm and then dropping silently onto the roof.
Shapes. Fluttering shapes from the sky. From the crack of darkness that hung above him.
He was seeing—them.
For a long time Loyce watched, crouched behind a sagging fence in a pool of scummy water.
They were landing. Coming down in groups, landing on the roof of the City Hall and disappearing inside. They had wings. Like giant insects of some kind. They flew and fluttered and came to rest—and then crawled crab-fashion, sideways, across the roof and into the building.
He was sickened. And fascinated. Cold night wind blew around him and he shuddered. He was tired, dazed with shock. On the front steps of the City Hall were men, standing here and there. Groups of men coming out of the building and halting for a moment before going on.
Were there more of them?
It didn't seem possible. What he saw descending from the black chasm weren't men. They were alien—from some other world, some other dimension. Sliding through this slit, this break in the shell of the universe. Entering through this gap, winged insects from another realm of being.
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 4: The Minority Report Page 104
