Deadly City

by Paul W. Fairman

Loop.

  A gun was not the only weapon ever created, though, and Frank searchedthe store and found a line of pocket knives still in neat boxes near theperfume counter.

  He picked four of the largest and found, also, a wooden-handled,lead-tipped bludgeon, used evidently for cracking ice.

  Thus armed, he went out through the revolving door. He walked throughstreets that were like death under the climbing sun. Through streets andcanyons of dead buildings upon which the new daylight had failed to shedlife or diminish the terror of the night past.

  At Dearborn he found the door to the Tribune Public Service Buildinglocked. He used the ice breaker to smash a glass door panel. The crashof the glass on the cement was an explosion in the screaming silence. Hewent inside. Here the sense of desolation was complete; brought sharplyto focus, probably, by the pigeon holes filled with letters behind thewant-ad counter. Answers to a thousand and one queries, waitingpatiently for someone to come after them.

  Before going to the basement and the back files of the Chicago Tribune,Frank climbed to the second floor and found what he thought might bethere--a row of teletype machines with a file-board hooked to the sideof each machine.

  Swiftly, he stripped the copy sheets off each board, made a bundle ofthem and went back downstairs. He covered the block back to the hotel ata dog-trot, filled with a sudden urge to get back to the fourth floor assoon as possible.

  He stopped in the drugstore and filled his pockets with soap, a razor,shaving cream and face lotion. As an afterthought, he picked up a lavishcosmetic kit that retailed, according to the price tag, for thirty-eightdollars plus tax.

  He let himself back into the room and closed the door softly. Norarolled over, exposing a shoulder and one breast. The breast held hisgaze for a full minute. Then a feeling of guilt swept him and he wentinto the bathroom and closed the door.

  Luckily, a supply tank on the roof still contained water and Frank wasable to shower and shave. Dressed again, he felt like a new man. But heregretted not hunting up a haberdashery shop and getting himself a cleanshirt.

  Nora had still not awakened when he came out of the bathroom. He went tothe bed and stood looking down at her for some time. Then he touched hershoulder.

  "Wake up. It's morning."

  Nora stirred. Her eyes opened, but Frank got the impression she did notreally awaken for several seconds. Her eyes went to his face, to thewindow, back to his face.

  "What time is it?"

  "I don't know. I think it's around eight o'clock."

  Nora stretched both arms luxuriously. As she sat up, her slip fell backinto place and Frank got the impression she hadn't even been aware ofher partial nudity.

  She stared up at him, clarity dawning in her eyes, "You're all cleanedup."

  "I went downstairs and got some things."

  "You went out--alone?"

  "Why not. We can't stay in here all day. We've got to hit the road andget out of here. We've overshot our luck already."

  "But that--that man in the hall last night! You shouldn't have taken achance."

  "I didn't bump into him. I found the place he fixed his hand, down inthe drugstore."

  Frank went to the table and came back with the cosmetic set. He put itin Nora's lap. "I brought this up for you."

  Surprise and true pleasure were mixed in her expression. "That was verynice. I think I'd better get dressed."

  Frank turned toward the window where he had left the bundle of teletypeclips. "I've got a little reading to do."

  As he sat down, he saw, from the corner of his eye, a flash of slimbrown legs moving toward the bathroom. Just inside the door, Noraturned. "Are Jim Wilson and Minna up yet?"

  "I don't think so."

  Nora's eyes remained on him. "I think you were very brave to godownstairs alone. But it was a foolish thing to do. You should havewaited for Jim Wilson."

  "You're right about it being foolish. But I had to go."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm not brave at all. Maybe that was the reason."

  Nora left the bathroom door open about six inches and Frank heard thesound of the shower. He sat with the papers in his hand wondering aboutthe water. When he had gone to the bathroom the thought had neveroccurred to him. It was natural that it should. Now he wondered aboutit. Why was it still running? After a while he considered thepossibility of the supply tank on the roof.

  Then he wondered about Nora. It was strange how he could think about herpersonally and impersonally at the same time. He remembered her words ofthe previous night. They made her--he shied from the term. What was theold cliche? A woman of easy virtue.

  What made a woman of that type, he wondered. Was it something inherentin their makeup? That partially opened door was symbolic somehow. He wassure that many wives closed the bathroom door upon their husbands; didit without thinking, instinctively. He was sure Nora had left itpartially open without thinking. Could a behavior pattern be traced fromsuch an insignificant thing?

  He wondered about his own attitude toward Nora. He had drawn away fromwhat she'd offered him during the night. And yet from no sense ofdisgust. There was certainly far more about Nora to attract than torepel.

  Morals, he realized dimly, were imposed--or at least functioned--for theprotection of society. With society gone--vanished overnight--did themoral code still hold?

  If and when they got back among masses of people, would his feelingstoward Nora change? He thought not. He would marry her, he told himselffirmly, as quick as he'd marry any other girl. He would not hold whatshe was against her. I guess I'm just fundamentally unmoral myself, hethought, and began reading the news clips.

  * * * * *

  There was a knock on the door accompanied by the booming voice of JimWilson. "You in there! Ready for breakfast?"

  Frank got up and walked toward the door. As he did so, the door to thebathroom closed.

  Jim Wilson wore a two-day growth of beard and it didn't seem to botherhim at all. As he entered the room he rubbed his hands together in greatgusto. "Well, where'll we eat, folks? Let's pick the classiestrestaurant in town. Nothing but the best for Minna here."

  He winked broadly as Minna, expressionless and silent, followed him inexactly as a shadow would have followed him and sat primly down in astraight-backed chair by the wall.

  "We'd better start moving south," Frank said, "and not bother aboutbreakfast."

  "Getting scared?" Jim Wilson asked.

  "You're damn right I'm scared--now. We're right in the middle of a bigno-man's-land."

  "I don't get you."

  At that moment the bathroom door opened and Nora came out. Jim Wilsonforgot about the question he'd asked. He let forth a loud whistle ofappreciation. Then he turned his eyes on Frank and his thought wascrystal clear. He was envying Frank the night just passed.

  A sudden irritation welled up in Frank Brooks, a distinct feeling ofdisgust. "Let's start worrying about important things--our lives. Ordon't you consider your life very important?"

  Jim Wilson seemed puzzled. "What the hell's got into you? Didn't yousleep good?"

  "I went down the block this morning and found some teletype machines.I've just been reading the reports."

  "What about that guy that tried to get into your room last night?"

  "I didn't see him. I didn't see anybody. But I know why the city's beencleaned out." Frank went back to the window and picked up the sheaf onclips he had gone through. Jim Wilson sat down on the edge of the bed,frowning. Nora followed Frank and perched on the edge of the chair hedropped into.

  "The city going to blow up?" Wilson asked.

  "No. We've been invaded by some form of alien life."

  "Is that what the papers said?"

  "It was the biggest and fastest mass evacuation ever attempted. I piecedthe reports together. There was hell popping around here during the twodays we--we waited it out."

  "Where did they all go?" Nora asked.

  "South. They've evacuated a forty-
mile strip from the lake west. Thefirst Terran defense line is set up in northern Indiana."

  "What do you mean--Terra."

  "It's a word that means Earth--this planet. The invaders came from someother planet, they think--at least from no place on Earth."

  "That's the silliest damn thing I ever heard of," Wilson said.

  "A lot of people probably thought the same thing," Frank replied."Flying saucers were pretty common. Nobody thought they were anythingand nobody paid much attention. Then they hit--three days ago--and wipedout every living soul in three little southern Michigan towns. Fromthere they began spreading out. They--"

  Each of them