Deadly City

by Paul W. Fairman

Minna. You and I got to have alittle conference. We got things to talk about." Grinning, he walkedtoward the rear of the restaurant. Minna got up more slowly. Shefollowed him behind the counter and into the rear of the place.

  Alone with Nora, Frank said, "You aren't eating. Want me to look forsomething else?"

  "No--I'm not very hungry. I was just wondering--"

  "Wondering about what?"

  "When it will happen. When whatever is going to happen--you know what Imean."

  "I'd rather know _what's_ going to happen. I hate puzzles. It's hell tohave to get killed and not know what killed you."

  "We aren't being very sensible, are we?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "We should at least act normal."

  "I don't get it."

  Nora frowned in slight annoyance. "Normal people would be trying toreach safety. They wouldn't be sitting in a restaurant drinking beer. Weshould be trying to get away. Even if it does mean walking. Normalpeople would be trying to get away."

  Frank stared at his bottle for a moment. "We should be scared stiff,shouldn't we?"

  It was Nora's turn to ponder. "I'm not sure. Maybe not. I know I'm notfighting anything inside--fear, I mean. I just don't seem to care oneway or another."

  "I care," Frank replied. "I care. I don't want to die. But we're facedwith a situation, and either way it's a gamble. We might be dead beforeI finish this bottle of beer. If that's true, why not sit here and becomfortable? Or we might have time to walk far enough to get out ofrange of whatever it is that chased everybody."

  "Which way do you think it is?"

  "I don't think we have time to get out of town. They cleaned it out toofast. We'd need at least four or five hours to get away. If we had thatmuch time the army, or whoever did it, would still be around."

  "Maybe they didn't know themselves when it's going to happen."

  He made an impatient gesture. "What difference does it make? We're in asituation we didn't ask to get in. Our luck put us here and I'm damnedif I'm going to kick a hole in the ceiling and yell for help."

  Nora was going to reply, but at that moment Jim Wilson came striding outfront. He wore his big grin and he carried another half-dozen bottles ofbeer. "Minna'll be out in a minute," he said. "Women are always slowerthan hell."

  He dropped into a chair and snapped the cap off a beer bottle with histhumb. He held the bottle up and squinted through it, sighing gustily."Man! I ain't never had it so good." He tilted the bottle in salute, anddrank.

  * * * * *

  The sun was lowering in the west now, and when Minna reappeared itseemed that she materialized from the shadows, so quietly did she move.Jim Wilson opened another bottle and put it before her. "Here--have adrink, baby."

  Obediently, she tilted the bottle and drank.

  "What do you plan to do?" Frank asked.

  "It'll be dark soon," Wilson said. "We ought to go out and try toscrounge some flashlights. I bet the power plants are dead. Probablyaren't any flashlights either."

  "Are you going to stay here?" Nora asked. "Here in the Loop?"

  He seemed surprised. "Why not? A man'd be a fool to walk out on allthis. All he wants to eat and drink. No goddam cops around. The life ofReilly and I should walk out?"

  "Aren't you afraid of what's going to happen?"

  "I don't give a good goddam what's going to happen. What the hell!Something's always going to happen."

  "They didn't evacuate the city for nothing," Frank said.

  "You mean we can all get killed?" Jim Wilson laughed. "Sure we can. Wecould have got killed last week too. We could of got batted in the canby a truck anytime we crossed the street." He emptied his bottle, threwit accurately at a mirror over the cash register. The crash wasthunderous. "Trouble with you people, you're worry warts," he said withan expansive grin. "Let's go get us some flashlights so we can find ourway to bed in one of those fancy hotels."

  He got to his feet and Minna arose also, a little tired, a littleapprehensive, but entirely submissive. Jim Wilson said, "Come on, baby.I sure won't want to lose _you_." He grinned at the others. "You guyscoming?"

  Frank's eyes met Nora's. He shrugged. "Why not?" he said. "Unless youwant to start walking."

  "I'm too tired," Nora said.

  As they stepped out through the smashed window, both Nora and Frankhalf-expected to see other forms moving up and down Madison Street. Butthere was no one. Only the unreal desolation of the lonely pavement andthe dark-windowed buildings.

  "The biggest ghost town on earth," Frank muttered.

  Nora's hand had slipped into Frank's. He squeezed it and neither of themseemed conscious of the contact.

  "I wonder," Nora said. "Maybe this is only one of them. Maybe all theother big cities are evacuated too."

  Jim Wilson and Minna were walking ahead. He turned. "If you two can'tsleep without finding out what's up, it's plenty easy to do."

  "You think we could find a battery radio in some store?" Frank asked.

  "Hell no! They'll all be gone. But all you'd have to do is snoop aroundin some newspaper office. If you can read you can find out whathappened."

  It seemed strange to Frank that he had not thought of this. Then herealized he hadn't tried very hard to think of anything at all. He wassurprised, also, at his lack of fear. He's gone through life pretty muchtaking things as they came--as big a sucker as the next man--making morethan his quota of mistakes and blunders. Finding himself completelyalone in a deserted city for the first time in his life, he hadnaturally fallen prey to sudden fright. But that had gradually passed,and now he was able to accept the new reality fairly passively. Hewondered if that wasn't pretty much the way of all people. Newsituations brought a surge of whatever emotion fitted the picture. Thenthe emotion subsided and the new thing became the ordinary.

  This, he decided, was the manner in which humanity survived. Humanitytook things as they came. Pile on enough of anything and it becomes theordinary.

  Jim Wilson had picked up a garbage box and hurled it through the windowof an electric shop. The glass came down with a crash that shuddered upthe empty darkening street and grumbled off into silence. Jim Wilsonwent inside. "I'll see what I can find. You stay out here and watch forcops." His laughter echoed out as he disappeared.

  Minna stood waiting silently, unmoving, and somehow she reminded Frankof a dumb animal; an unreasoning creature with no mind of her own,waiting for a signal from her master. Strangely, he resented this, butat the same time could find no reason for his resentment, except thefeeling that no one should appear as much a slave as Minna.

  Jim Wilson reappeared in the window. He motioned to Minna. "Come on in,baby. You and me's got to have a little conference." His exaggeratedwink was barely perceptible in the gloom as Minna stepped over the lowsill into the store. "Won't be long, folks," Wilson said in high goodhumor, and the two of them vanished into the darkness beyond.

  Frank Brooks glanced at Nora, but her face was turned away. He cursedsofty under his breath. He said, "Wait a minute," and went into thestore through the huge, jagged opening.

  Inside, he could barely make out the counters. The place was larger thanit had appeared from the outside. Wilson and Minna were nowhere about.

  Frank found the counter he was looking for and pawed out severalflashlights. They were only empty tubes, but he found a case ofbatteries in a panel compartment against the wall.

  "Who's there?"

  "Me. I came in for some flashlights."

  "Couldn't you wait?"

  "It's getting dark."

  "You don't have to be so damn impatient." Jim Wilson's voice was hostileand surly.

  Frank stifled his quick anger. "We'll be outside," he said. He foundNora waiting where he'd left her. He loaded batteries into fourflashlights before Jim Wilson and Minna reappeared.

  Wilson's good humor was back. "How about the Morrison or the Sherman,"he said. "Or do you want to get real ritzy and walk up to the Drake?"

  "My fe
et hurt," Minna said. The woman spoke so rarely, Frank Brooks wasstartled by her words.

  "Morrison's the closest," Jim Wilson said. "Let's go." He took Minna bythe arm and swung off up the street. Frank and Nora fell in behind.

  Nora shivered. Frank, holding her arm, asked, "Cold?"

  "No. It's just all--unreal again."

  "I see what you mean."

  "I never expected to see the Loop dark. I can't get used to it."

  A vagrant, whispering wind picked up a scrap of paper and whirled italong the street. It caught against Nora's ankle. She jerked perceptiblyand kicked the scrap away. The wind caught it again and spiralled itaway into the darkness.

  "I want to tell you something," she said.

  "Tell away."

  "I told you before that I slept through the--the evacuation, or whateverit was. That wasn't exactly true. I did sleep through it, but it was myfault. I put myself to sleep."

  "I don't get it."

  "I tried to kill myself. Sleeping tablets. Seven of them. They weren'tenough."

  Frank said nothing while they paced off ten steps through the darkcanyon that was Madison Street. Nora wondered if he had heard.

  "I tried to commit suicide."

  "Why?"

  "I was tired of life, I guess."

  "What do you want--sympathy?"

  The sudden harshness in his voice brought her eyes around, but his facewas a white blur.

  "No--no, I don't think so."

  "Well, you won't get it from me. Suicide is silly. You can have troublesand all that--everybody has them--but suicide--why did you try it?"

  A high, thin whine--a wordless vibration of eloquence--needled out ofthe darkness into their ears. The shock was like a sudden shower of icewater dashed over their bodies. Nora's fingers dug into Frank's arm, buthe did not feel the cutting nails. "We're--there's someone out there inthe street!"

  * * * * *

  Twenty-five feet ahead of where Frank and Nora stood frozen there burstthe booming voice of Jim Wilson. "What the hell was that?" And the shockwas dispelled. The white circle from Wilson's flash bit out across theblackness to outline movement on the far side of the street. Then FrankBrook's light, and Nora's, went exploring.

  "There's somebody over there," Wilson bellowed. "Hey, you! Show yourface! Quit sneaking around!"

  Frank's light swept an arc that clearly outlined the buildings acrossthe street and then weakened as it swung westward. There was somethingor someone back there, but obscured by the dimness. He was swept by asense of unreality again.

  "Did you see them?"

  Nora's light beam had dropped to her feet as though she feared to pointit out into the darkness. "I thought I saw something."

  Jim Wilson was swearing industriously. "There was a guy over there. Heducked around the corner. Some damn fool out scrounging. Wish I had agun."

  Frank and Nora moved ahead and the four stood in a group. "Put out yourlights," Wilson said. "They make good targets if the jerk's got anyweapons."

  They stood in the darkness, Nora holding tightly to Frank's arm. Franksaid, "That was the damndest noise I ever heard."

  "Like a siren?" Frank thought Jim Wilson spoke hopefully, as thoughwanting somebody to agree with him.

  "Not like any I ever heard. Not like a whistle, either. More of a moan."

  "Let's get into that goddam hotel and--"

  Jim Wilson's words were cut off by a new welling-up of the melancholyhowling. It had a new pattern this time. It sounded from many places;not nearer, Frank thought, than Lake Street on the north, but spreadingoutward and backward and growing fainter until it died on the wind.

  Nora was shivering, clinging to Frank without reserve.

  Jim Wilson said, "I'll be damned if it doesn't sound like a signal ofsome kind."

  "Maybe it's a language--a way of communication."

  "But who the hell's communicating?"

  "How would I know?"

  "We best get to that hotel and bar a few doors. A man can't fight in thedark--and nothing to fight with."

  They hurried up the street, but it was all different now. Gone was theillusion of being alone; gone the sense of solitude. Around them theghost town had come suddenly alive. Sinister forces more frighteningthan the previous solitude had now to be reckoned with.

  "Something's happened--something in the last few minutes," Norawhispered.

  Frank leaned close as they crossed the street to the dark silent pilethat was the Morrison hotel. "I think I know what you mean."

  "It's as though there was no one around and then, suddenly, they came."

  "I think they came and went away again."

  "Did you actually _see_ anyone when you flashed your light?"

  "No--I can't say positively that I did. But I got the impression therewere figures out there--at least dozens of them--and that they movedback away from the light. Always just on the edge of it."

  "I'm scared, Frank."

  "So am I."

  "Do you think it could all be imagination?"

  "Those moans? Maybe the first one--I've heard of people imaginingsounds. But not the last ones. And besides, we all heard them."

  Jim Wilson, utterly oblivious of any subtle emanations in the air,boomed out in satisfaction: "We don't have to bust the joint open. Therevolving door works."

  "Then maybe we ought to be careful," Frank said. "Maybe somebody else isaround here."

  "Could be. We'll find out."

  "Why are we afraid?" Nora whispered.

  "It's natural, isn't it?" Frank melted the beam of his light with thatof Jim Wilson. The white finger pierced the darkness inside. Nothingmoved.

  "I don't see why it should be. If there are people in there they must beas scared as we are."

  Nora was very close to him as they entered.

  The lobby seemed deserted. The flashlight beams scanned the empty chairsand couches. The glass of the deserted cages threw back reflections.

  "The keys are in there," Frank said. He vaulted the desk and scanned thenumbers under the pigeon holes.

  "We'd better stay down low," Jim Wilson said. "Damned if I'm going toclimb to the penthouse."

  "How about the fourth floor?"

  "That's plenty high enough."

  Frank came out with a handful of keys. "Odd numbers," he said. "Four ina row."

  "Well I'll be damned," Jim Wilson muttered. But he said no more and theyclimbed the stairs in silence. They passed the quiet dining rooms andbanquet halls, and by the time they reached the fourth floor the doorsgiving off the corridors had assumed a uniformity.

  "Here they are." He handed a key to Wilson. "That's the end one." Hesaid nothing as he gave Minna her key, but Wilson grunted, "Forcrissake!" in a disgusted voice, took Minna's key and threw it on thefloor.

  Frank and Nora watched as Wilson unlocked his door. Wilson turned."Well, goodnight all. If you get goosed by any spooks, just yell."

  Minna followed him without a word and the door closed.

  Frank handed Nora her key. "Lock your door and you'll be safe. I'llcheck the room first." He unlocked the door and flashed his lightinside. Nora was close behind him as he entered. He checked thebathroom. "Everything clear. Lock your door and you'll be safe."

  "Frank."

  "Yes?"

  "I'm afraid to stay alone."

  "You mean you want me to--"

  "There are two beds here."

  His reply was slow in coming. Nora didn't wait for it. Her voice rose tothe edge of hysteria. "Quit being so damned righteous. Things havechanged! Can't you realize that? What does it matter how or where wesleep? Does the world care? Will it make a damn bit of difference to theworld whether I strip stark naked in front of you?" A sob choked in herthroat. "Or would that outrage your morality."

  He moved toward her, stopped six inches away. "It isn't that. For God'ssake! I'm no saint. It's just that I thought you--"

  "I'm plain scared, and I don't want to be alone. To me that's all tha
t'simportant."

  Her face was against his chest and his arms went around her. But her ownhands were fists held together against him until he could feel herknuckles, hard, against his chest. She was crying.

  "Sure," Frank said. "I'll stay with you. Now take it easy. Everything'sgoing to be all right."

  Nora sniffled without bothering to reach for her handkerchief. "Stoplying. You know it isn't going to be all right."

  Frank was at somewhat of a loss. This flareup of Nora's was entirelyunexpected. He eased toward the place the flashlight had shown the bedto be. Her legs hit its edge and she sat down.

  "You--you want me to sleep in the other one?" he asked.

  "Of course," Nora replied