Costigan's Needle

by Jerry Sohl

  “It’s no summer day,” she said, looking around. “I don’t see anybody. Not that I want to see anybody, you understand.”

  He sat up, could barely see over the top of the dead and bent grass. A few feet behind them the grass ended and the woods began, a thick mass of black bushes and trees. The sky was blue and clean and the sun was warmer than he thought it would be. Before them on the right the grass sloped away to a drop and beyond that they could see the lake. On the left the grass swept upward to the top of the hill.

  “Where did they all go?” Devan said.

  “You can’t see very far.”

  “I know. What I really meant was that I thought we’d be found. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

  “Maybe all the people found their way back through the Needle.”

  He stood beside her, the ache of suddenly tightened muscles making him grimace and he hid it as best he could because she gave no sign the night on the cold ground had bothered her. Somewhere he had read that women have an extra layer of fat that helps them withstand the cold better than men. He was ready to believe it.

  His teeth started to chatter and he mentally upbraided himself for his lack of conditioning. Then he started to shiver and held his breath to stop. He looked at her, saw her breasts rise and fall with regularity. She didn’t even have goose pimples. He would have felt better if she had. Suddenly he was aware that his fillings were gone and that his teeth were beginning to ache where the fillings had been.

  “Have you figured it out, Dev?” she said, turning to him. “Do you know where we are?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. We came through the Needle with a lot of people. Forward or backward in time or something.”

  “I’d give everything I own for a good cup of coffee. Maybe it would clear away the cobwebs.”

  “I’ll take ham and eggs and toast—”

  “Stop it, Dev! It’s hard enough being famished without being reminded of it.”

  “Sorry. Well, we can’t stand here all morning. But I’m not moving without some sort of weapon.” He started through the grass to the trees.

  “Wait.” Betty came toward him. “If we’re going to move around we might... well, we might meet someone and...”

  He shared her embarrassment momentarily. “All my lounging robes and bathrobes are at the laundry,” he said. “But I know what you mean. We’ll have to do something.”

  He moved over the ground littered with old limbs, chose one that felt good to him, returned to where Betty was arranging a skirt of grass—long strands of dry grass over a small branch she had circled her waist with. A few strands were tied about the two ends that met at her side.

  “It’s not much,” she said. “But maybe it will work. At least in case we meet somebody.”

  “If you can dress for breakfast, so can I.” Devan made a skirt of his own.

  “Beautiful,” she said. “The latest in men’s wear. I like the weave.”

  He picked up his club, balanced it in his hand, made a few practice swings. “If men are going to return to the Stone Age, we’ll have to return there, too.”

  “I think I’d feel better with one of those too,” Betty said. “It’s not that I don’t have confidence in you, Dev, but I just want to make sure. Let’s be practical. Two against one is better than ending up with some atavist who doesn’t believe in skirts.”

  When they reached the edge of the slope to the beach and could look down it, they stopped. There were several bodies there, some out of the water, others partway in, moving in rhythm with the waves. The beach was covered with footprints, but no living person was in sight.

  They went down to the beach, walked along the shore, making detours around the people lying there. Devan recognized none of the dead people except one.

  He pointed to the shriveled body of an old man lying in the shallow water.

  “Spencer O’Grady,” he said. “A member of the board of directors. Too old to make it, I guess.”

  “Hideous.” Betty turned away.

  “I wonder if Dr. Costigan and any of the others made it.”

  “Where are they? Surely—”

  Devan glanced at her quickly, saw her staring at the sky, looked there himself. Smoke from a fire was curling upward at some distance beyond the crest of the distant hill.

  “Somebody must be a Boy Scout,” Betty said. “Maybe they’re cooking breakfast and we’ll be just in time. Let’s go.”

  He put a restraining hand on her arm. “Not too fast. If they can turn savage as fast as they did last night, they can turn cannibal just as easy.”

  When they topped the rise, they found another hill to go over before they could see the fire itself. Still not a sign of anyone. Devan thought it was odd there would be no guard or someone to sound an alarm.

  “Dev!” Betty pulled his arm and he whirled, bringing his club up ready for use. She was pointing to the ground and he tried to find the snake she was so upset about. He could see nothing except the grass and a wild flower or two.

  “Isn’t it strange!” She knelt in the grass, put her face close to a flower growing there.

  “What’s so amazing about a flower?”

  “This is a claytonia virginica—spring beauty to you. Only it isn’t, Dev. Instead of having five petals, the flowers are all six-petaled. Don’t you see?”

  He knelt down and examined the fragile pink blossoms on the eight-inch stem. It didn’t seem the slightest bit unusual to him. “Ever hear of a four-leaf clover?”

  “Now you’re being funny.” She looked around the ground. “I know my flowers, Dev, and that’s a spring beauty or I’m a dead duck. Only it’s different from any I’ve ever seen before. The soil here is pretty sandy for spring beauties.”

  “Maybe in prehistoric times spring beauties had six petals.”

  “Maybe in prehistoric times men had three heads.” She got up. “Do you really think we’re in prehistoric times?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is we’d better find out who made that fire. I’m getting hungrier by the minute.”

  Betty was hesitant to leave her flower. “This makes me feel different. It makes me feel this place is alien.”

  They started once more toward the top of the hill. Suddenly a loud whooping and hollering arose from beyond it and Devan could hear people running. He put his hand out to stop Betty, then moved in front of her, taking the stance of a man ready to fight for his life and the life of his mate.

  Miss Beatrice Treat came running lightly over the hill, saw them and stopped in surprise. She was dressed in a branch and grass that hung like Christmas tree tinsel from it. She finally managed to say, “Mr. Traylor! For Heaven’s sake!” Then she rushed down the hill toward them.

  “What in the world are you doing with that club?” She looked beyond him to Betty. Devan could tell she was comparing the fashion of the hour, knowing she came off only second best.

  “This,” Devan said, “is Mrs. Peredge. Beatrice Treat.”

  The girls exchanged lukewarm greetings.

  “Mrs. Peredge is—was Dr. Costigan’s secretary,” he explained. “Where did you come from?”

  She pointed over the hill. “We’re all back there—or rather were back there. We all just received our work orders. Isn’t this fascinating?”

  “Work orders?” Betty asked.

  “Yes. I’ve got to hurry.”

  “Hurry for what?”

  “I’ve got to dig some bulbs, Mr. Traylor. The Indians used to eat them. Didn’t you know that?”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  “Really, I’ve got to move.” Miss Treat turned and ran quickly away.

  “Things aren’t as bad as they were last night, evidently,” Betty said. “There’s some sort of organization at work, anyway.”

  They started once more toward the top of the hill, but before they got to the top of it, Devan stopped, turned Betty toward him. “One thing,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t
know what’s going to happen when we get over the hill, but I want you to know I want us to be together. I don’t know when, how or if we’ll ever get back, but until we do get back, I want you with me.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  She didn’t object when he took her face in his hands and kissed her.

  At the top of the hill they looked down a slope to a natural saucerlike area in the center of which smoldered the remains of a large bonfire. They saw the small group near the fire turn to look at them.

  “Devan Traylor!” one of the party yelled, starting toward them. In a moment Devan could see that it was Orcutt, an Orcutt minus his expensive tweeds and smoking pipe, but Orcutt nonetheless in a grass skirt, his body still large and impressive without clothes and held as erect as ever. Others of the group trailed after him.

  “Where have you been?” Orcutt said, grabbing his hand, squeezing it hard and pumping it for all it was worth. “We thought you didn’t make it.” He glanced at Betty. “How are you, Mrs. Peredge? Glad you two came through all right.”

  “I’ll be damned!” It was Sam Otto, his round face illuminated with cheer and sunshine. What Devan first thought was a cigar in his mouth proved to be a stubby branch. “Thought you drowned. Where did you—Oh!” He looked at Betty. “I see. Leave it to you, old Devan boy! We see now what kept him, don’t we folks?” He laughed.

  Betty blushed all over, blushed even deeper when she realized this. She was about to say something when newcomers—Homer Parrett, Dr. Costigan, James Holcombe, Howard Tooksberry and others—had to shake hands all around.

  “Glenn Basher!” Devan caught sight of the man off to one side. “You did come through!”

  “Right you are.” Basher grinned. “Thought nobody was coming after me for a while. Then all of a sudden I hit the jackpot.”

  “Detective Griffin...?”

  “He’s around.”

  “We’re the planning committee, Devan.”

  “Better not be wasting time,” Tooksberry said. “There’s lots to do. It may turn cold.”

  “Who’s in charge? You, Orcutt?”

  “Well, temporarily, Dev.”

  After greetings had been extended all around, the group walked back to the clearing.

  “As near as we can figure it out,” Orcutt told Devan, “about two blocks all the way around the building was affected by the sudden charge of electricity through the Needle. At least that’s where the people we’ve talked to have told us they live. Nobody beyond about a thousand feet or so. Some were riding in cars, others were in bed, in the bathtub, eating, praying, shaving, sleeping—we’ve had all kinds of activities that were ended by the sudden dropping into the lake.”

  “Tell him about Eric Sudduth,” Basher said. “He’ll get a kick out of that.”

  Orcutt laughed, then sobered. “We shouldn’t think it’s funny. Those people take it all very seriously.”

  “It’s indecent. That’s what it is.” Devan looked to see who the voice belonged to and saw Mrs. Charles Petrie attired in a grass skirt and a grass stole that unfortunately only drew attention to what she was trying to conceal. “They’ll catch their death of cold, too. How can they live like that?”

  “Eric Sudduth and his bunch!” Tooksberry said disgustedly.

  “When we all got out of the water last night and shook ourselves off on the beach,” Orcutt said, “we saw the glow of this fire. So we all came up here.”

  “I kept the wood ready,” Basher said. “Figured maybe a plane would come by. I practiced making the fire by friction and when we heard the splashes and all the commotion last night, we knew something had happened, so I lighted the fire.”

  Devan decided it had been started after his tussle with the man on the beach and his escape to the safety of the grass with Betty. Because everybody had gone to the fire, he and Betty had not been discovered.

  “It was pretty awful at first,” Orcutt said. “Everybody was edging around trying to get close to the fire and some people almost got pushed into it. Lieutenant Johnson and the four policemen got things in hand, though, and restored order. We got people to sit in a large circle, several deep, and we built the fire up so everybody could get warm. We didn’t think it would be a good idea if everybody had a fire. It’s pretty grassy around here.

  “First thing we had to do was stop teeth from aching. We found a retired dentist in the crowd, a Dr. Van Ness. Lot of people seemed to know him. Anyway, he said to put clay in the holes where the fillings used to be, so you might try that, if you have fillings gone. It stopped my trouble. Dr. Van Ness is out now looking for beeswax. He says that will give us more permanent comfort. So much for teeth. After that we had a council of war—war against whatever we’d find around here, although we haven’t found anything yet.”

  “I found something,” Betty said. When they looked at her, she said, “A six-pointed spring beauty.” When nobody said anything, she went on, “Maybe you don’t know how unusual that is.”

  “You mean back where we came from they didn’t have six petals, is that it?”

  Betty nodded. “They had only five. Maybe everything else is like that around here.”

  “Well, we’ll see as time goes on,” Orcutt said. “But to get back, we tried to organize everybody into teams. We needed some people to gather wood, others to gather food, others to plan for the next day, and so on.”

  “It was a matter of ‘root hog or die,’” Tooksberry said. “And it’s easier if everybody cooperates.”

  “Everything was coming along good,” Orcutt continued, “until Eric Sudduth got up and railed at us for going against what he described as ‘God’s will.’ That was just as we were setting up a committee on clothes.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Petrie said. “He said if it hadn’t been for God’s will we wouldn’t be here. He said if God intended for us to come here with clothes He’d have provided them. He kept talking about this being Heaven and about him going away to worship Him. He talked some of the folks into going with him.”

  “They didn’t leave until sunup, though.” Dr. Costigan chuckled. “They took advantage of the fire as long as they could.”

  “But imagine them wanting to run around in nothing but their birthday suits!” Mrs. Petrie said.

  Orcutt shrugged. “There are only thirty of them. We have enough to worry about without worrying about them too. We have three hundred and twenty-eight without them, counting you two.”

  “You think Sudduth will give us any trouble?”

  “Not unless he and his acolytes get awfully hungry or cold or something. But look, Dev, we are in the middle of planning things and we can use you. Know anything about hunting or fishing or trapping? That’s what we need right now.”

  “I didn’t see any animals,” Devan said. “Are you sure there are some around?”

  “They’ve been scared away again,” Basher said. “They were frightened when I first showed up and didn’t come back for several hours. You want to be prepared, though.”

  “Why?”

  “The rabbits aren’t exactly rabbits. Their ears aren’t so long and their tails aren’t powder puffs. More like cat tails.”

  “Can they be trapped?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to find out.”

  “Basher’s been living on reindeer moss and lichens,” Orcutt said. “Tried to catch fish but couldn’t. Now we have things more or less organized. We’ll have fish before you know it.”

  “We saw Miss Treat running to do her job,” Betty said. “She’s got to dig up bulbs, she said. She told us Indians used to eat them.”

  “I’m no authority,” Orcutt said. “A couple Boy Scouts came through the Needle and they’re up on their Indian lore. A couple other people who’ve been helpful are the Navy and Army men who took survival courses. It’s all organized. We’ve got one group burying the dead, another fishing in the lake, trying to catch fish with their hands, another group making fish nets out of some of the saplings—that will be only temp
orary, though.

  “The people here early this morning joined whatever group they felt best fitted for. An ex-undertaker is heading up the burial detail, for example. Miss Treat is with the group looking for edible roots, bulbs and grubs. Another is looking for watercress and skunk cabbage and squirrel caches of walnuts, butternuts and hickory nuts. Basher says he thinks he saw a squirrel or two before we all dropped in on him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did,” Basher said. He hesitated, then added, “They were white, the three I saw, in case you want to know.”

  “There’s another group out looking for stones we can use for hammers and axes and for flint. We’ve got to make a tinderbox. Still another party’s out getting fallen logs together for lean-tos and another group is sharpening fallen branches as best they can in the hopes they can bag something with spears. We won’t starve.”

  Devan grunted. “Sounds to me as if everything is under control.”

  “Right now it is, Dev. Food is our most vital need now and always. As soon as that’s taken care of, then we can start thinking about such things as how to prepare it, how to build real shelters, how to care for the people medically and dentally. It’s going to be some job. Where do you want to fit in? I’d like to have you with me, if you don’t mind. I’ve always admired you and I think a few of us could run this show. Besides, I’ve got your job already picked out. The most important one of all.”

  “The most important? What’s that?”

  Orcutt grinned at him. “You’re the engineer, aren’t you?”

  “One of them. But there’s no need for much engineering right now that I can see.”

  “Maybe not right now, but there will be later.”

  “Still don’t understand. Housing won’t take much engineering, especially electronics engineering.”

  “You want to get back, don’t you?”

  “Sure, but what’s that got to do with it?”

  “We can’t get back through the Needle that got us here.”

  “That’s right,” Dr. Costigan said. “The pipe Blaine tossed wrecked all the circuits. I imagine some of the coils just melted together.”