He climbed the ladder to the neck and stepped onto the lift. The lift dropped with a whoosh and a second later he stepped out in the cavelike interior of the shelter.
In one corner Mike Foster sat curled up in a tight heap, his knees drawn up against his chin, his skinny arms wrapped around his ankles. His face was pushed down; only his ragged brown hair showed. He didn't move as the salesman approached him, astounded.
“Jesus!” O'Neill exclaimed. “It's that kid.”
Mike said nothing. He hugged his legs tighter and buried his head as far down as possible.
“What the hell are you doing down here?” O'Neill demanded, surprised and angry. His outrage increased. “I thought your folks got one of these.” Then he remembered. “That's right. We had to repossess it.”
Al Conners appeared from the descent-lift. “What's holding you up? Let's get out of here and—” He saw Mike and broke off. “What's he doing down here? Get him out and let's go.”
“Come on, kid,” O'Neill said gently. “Time to go home.”
Mike didn't move.
The two men looked at each other. “I guess we're going to have to drag him out,” Conners said grimly. He took off his coat and tossed it over a decontamination fixture. “Come on. Let's get it over with.”
It took both of them. The boy fought desperately, without sound, clawing and struggling and tearing at them with his fingernails, kicking them, slashing at them, biting them when they grabbed him. They half-dragged, half-carried him to the descent-lift and pushed him into it long enough to activate the mechanism. O'Neill rode up with him; Conners came immediately after. Grimly, efficiently, they bundled the boy to the front door, threw him out, and locked the bolts after him.
“Wow,” Conners gasped, sinking down against the counter. His sleeve was torn and his cheek was cut and gashed. His glasses hung from one ear; his hair was rumpled and he was exhausted. “Think we ought to call the cops? There's something wrong with that kid.”
O'Neill stood by the door, panting for breath and gazing out into the darkness. He could see the boy sitting on the pavement. “He's still out there,” he muttered. People pushed by the boy on both sides. Finally one of them stopped and got him up. The boy struggled away, and then disappeared into the darkness. The larger figure picked up its packages, hesitated a moment, and then went on. O'Neill turned away.“What a hell of a thing.” He wiped his face with his handkerchief. “He sure put up a fight.”
“What was the matter with him? He never said anything, not a god-damn word.”
“Christmas is a hell of a time to repossess something,” O'Neill said. He reached shakily for his coat. “It's too bad. I wish they could have kept it.”
Conners shrugged. “No tickie, no laundry.”
“Why the hell can't we give them a deal? Maybe—” O'Neill struggled to get the word out. “Maybe sell the shelter wholesale, to people like that.”
Conners glared at him angrily. “Wholesale? And then everybody wants it wholesale. It wouldn't be fair—and how long would we stay in business? How long would GEC last that way?”
“I guess not very long,” O'Neill admitted moodily.
“Use your head.” Conners laughed sharply. “What you need is a good stiff drink. Come on in the back closet—I've got a fifty of Haig and Haig in a drawer back there. A little something to warm you up, before you go home. That's what you need.”
Mike Foster wandered aimlessly along the dark street, among the crowds of shoppers hurrying home. He saw nothing; people pushed against him but he was unaware of them. Lights, laughing people, the honking of car horns, the clang of signals. He was blank, his mind empty and dead. He walked automatically, without consciousness or feeling.
To his right a garish neon sign winked and glowed in the deepening night shadows. A huge sign, bright and colorful.
PEACE ON EARTH good WILL TO MEN
PUBLIC SHELTER ADMISSION 50¢
UPON THE DULL EARTH
Silvia ran laughing through the night brightness, between the roses and cosmos and Shasta daisies, down the gravel path and beyond the heaps of sweet-tasting grass swept from the lawns. Stars, caught in pools of water, glittered everywhere, as she brushed through them to the slope beyond the brick wall. Cedars supported the sky and ignored the slim shape squeezing past, her brown hair flying, her eyes flashing.
“Wait for me,” Rick complained, as he cautiously threaded his way after her, along the half-familiar path. Silvia danced on without stopping. “Slow down!” he shouted angrily.
“Can't—we're late.” Without warning, Silvia appeared in front of him, blocking the path. “Empty your pockets,” she gasped, her gray eyes sparkling. “Throw away all metal. You know they can't stand metal.”
Rick searched his pockets. In his overcoat were two dimes and a fifty-cent piece. “Do these count?”
“Yes!” Silvia snatched the coins and threw them into the dark heaps of calla lilies. The bits of metal hissed into the moist depths and were gone. “Anything else?” She caught hold of his arm anxiously. “They're already on their way. Anything else, Rick?”
“Just my watch.” Rick pulled his wrist away as Silvia's wild fingers snatched for the watch. “That's not going in the bushes.”
“Then lay it on the sundial—or the wall. Or in a hollow tree.” Silvia raced off again. Her excited, rapturous voice danced back to him. “Throw away your cigarette case. And your keys, your belt buckle—everything metal. You know how they hate metal. Hurry, we're late!”
Rick followed sullenly after her. “All right, witch.”
Silvia snapped at him furiously from the darkness. “Don't say that! It isn't true. You've been listening to my sisters and my mother and—”
Her words were drowned out by the sound. Distant flapping, a long way off, like vast leaves rustling in a winter storm. The night sky was alive with the frantic poundings; they were coming very quickly this time. They were too greedy, too desperately eager to wait. Flickers of fear touched the man and he ran to catch up with Silvia.
Silvia was a tiny column of green skirt and blouse in the center of the thrashing mass. She was pushing them away with one arm and trying to manage the faucet with the other. The churning activity of wings and bodies twisted her like a reed. For a time she was lost from sight.
“Rick!” she called faintly. “Come here and help!” She pushed them away and struggled up. “They're suffocating me!”
Rick fought his way through the wall of flashing white to the edge of the trough. They were drinking greedily at the blood that spilled from the wooden faucet. He pulled Silvia close against him; she was terrified and trembling. He held her tight until some of the violence and fury around them had died down.
“They're hungry,” Silvia gasped feebly.
“You're a little cretin for coming ahead. They can sear you to ash!”
“I know. They can do anything.” She shuddered, excited and frightened. “Look at them,” she whispered, her voice husky with awe. “Look at the size of them—their wing-spread. And they're white, Rick. Spotless— perfect. There's nothing in our world as spotless as that. Great and clean and wonderful.”
“They certainly wanted the lamb's blood.”
Silvia's soft hair blew against his face as the wings fluttered on all sides. They were leaving now, roaring up into the sky. Not up, really—away. Back to their own world whence they had scented the blood. But it was not only the blood—they had come because of Silvia. She had attracted them.
The girl's gray eyes were wide. She reached up toward the rising white creatures. One of them swooped close. Grass and flowers sizzled as blinding white flames roared in a brief fountain. Rick scrambled away. The flaming figure hovered momentarily over Silvia and then there was a hollow pop. The last of the white-winged giants was gone. The air, the ground, gradually cooled into darkness and silence.
“I'm sorry,” Silvia whispered.
“Don't do it again,” Rick managed. He was numb with shock. “It isn't
safe.”
“Sometimes I forget. I'm sorry, Rick. I didn't mean to draw them so close.” She tried to smile. “I haven't been that careless in months. Not since that other time, when I first brought you out here.” The avid, wild look slid across her face. “Did you see him? Power and flames! And he didn't even touch us. He just—looked at us. That was all. And everything's burned up, all around.”
Rick grabbed hold of her. “Listen,” he grated. “You mustn't call them again. It's wrong. This isn't their world.”
“It's not wrong—it's beautiful.”
“It's not safe!” His fingers dug into her flesh until she gasped. “Stop tempting them down here!”
Silvia laughed hysterically. She pulled away from him, out into the blasted circle that the horde of angels had seared behind them as they rose into the sky. “I can't help it,” she cried. “I belong with them. They're my family, my people. Generations of them, back into the past.”
“What do you mean?”
“They're my ancestors. And some day I'll join them.”
“You are a little witch!” Rick shouted furiously.
“No,” Silvia answered. “Not a witch, Rick. Don't you see? I'm a saint.”
The kitchen was warm and bright. Silvia plugged in the Silex and got a big red can of coffee down from the cupboards over the sink. “You mustn't listen to them,” she said, as she set out plates and cups and got cream from the refrigerator. “You know they don't understand. Look at them in there.”
Silvia's mother and her sisters, Betty Lou and Jean, stood huddled together in the living room, fearful and alert, watching the young couple in the kitchen. Walter Everett was standing by the fireplace, his face blank, remote.
“Listen to me,” Rick said. “You have this power to attract them. You mean you're not—isn't Walter your real father?”
“Oh, yes—of course he is. I'm completely human. Don't I look human?”
“But you're the only one who has the power.”
“I'm not physically different,” Silvia said thoughtfully. “I have the ability to see, that's all. Others have had it before me—saints, martyrs. When I was a child, my mother read to me about St. Bernadette. Remember where her cave was? Near a hospital. They were hovering there and she saw one of them.”
“But the blood! It's grotesque. There never was anything like that.”
“Oh, yes. The blood draws them, lamb's blood especially. They hover over battlefields. Valkyries—carrying off the dead to Valhalla. That's why saints and martyrs cut and mutilate themselves. You know where I got the idea?”
Silvia fastened a little apron around her waist and filled the Silex with coffee. “When I was nine years old, I read of it in Homer, in the Odyssey. Ulysses dug a trench in the ground and filled it with blood to attract the spirits. The shades from the nether world.”
“That's right,” Rick admitted reluctantly. “I remember.”
“The ghosts of people who died. They had lived once. Everybody lives here, then dies and goes there.” Her face glowed. “We're all going to have wings! We're all going to fly. We'll all be filled with fire and power. We won't be worms anymore.”
“Worms! That's what you always call me.”
“Of course you're a worm. We're all worms—grubby worms creeping over the crust of the Earth, through dust and dirt.”
“Why should blood bring them?”
“Because it's life and they're attracted by life. Blood is uisge beatha— the water of life.”
“Blood means death! A trough of spilled blood …”
“It's not death. When you see a caterpillar crawl into its cocoon, do you think it's dying?”
Walter Everett was standing in the doorway. He stood listening to his daughter, his face dark. “One day,” he said hoarsely, “they're going to grab her and carry her off. She wants to go with them. She's waiting for that day.”
“You see?” Silvia said to Rick. “He doesn't understand either.” She shut off the Silex and poured coffee. “Coffee for you?” she asked her father.
“No,” Everett said.
“Silvia,” Rick said, as if speaking to a child, “if you went away with them, you know you couldn't come back to us.”
“We all have to cross sooner or later. It's all part of our life.”
“But you're only nineteen,” Rick pleaded. “You're young and healthy and beautiful. And our marriage—what about our marriage?” He half rose from the table. “Silvia, you've got to stop this!”
“I can't stop it. I was seven when I saw them first.” Silvia stood by the sink, gripping the Silex, a faraway look in her eyes. “Remember, Daddy? We were living back in Chicago. It was winter. I fell, walking home from school.” She held up a slim arm. “See the scar? I fell and cut myself on the gravel and slush. I came home crying—it was sleeting and the wind was howling around me. My arm was bleeding and my mitten was soaked with blood. And then I looked up and saw them.”
There was silence.
“They want you,” Everett said wretchedly. “They're flies—bluebottles, hovering around, waiting for you. Calling you to come along with them.”
“Why not?” Silvia's gray eyes were shining and her cheeks radiated joy and anticipation. “You've seen them, Daddy. You know what it means. Transfiguration—from clay into gods!”
Rick left the kitchen. In the living room, the two sisters stood together, curious and uneasy. Mrs. Everett stood by herself, her face granite-hard, eyes bleak behind her steel-rimmed glasses. She turned away as Rick passed them.
“What happened out there?” Betty Lou asked him in a taut whisper. She was fifteen, skinny and plain, hollow cheeked, with mousy, sand-colored hair. “Silvia never lets us come out with her.”
“Nothing happened,” Rick answered.
Anger stirred the girl's barren face. “That's not true. You were both out in the garden, in the dark, and—”
“Don't talk to him!” her mother snapped. She yanked the two girls away and shot Rick a glare of hatred and misery. Then she turned quickly from him.
Rick opened the door to the basement and switched on the light. He descended slowly into the cold, damp room of concrete and dirt, with its unwinking yellow light hanging from the dust-covered wires overhead.
In one corner loomed the big floor furnace with its mammoth hot-air pipes. Beside it stood the water heater and discarded bundles, boxes of books, newspapers and old furniture, thick with dust, encrusted with strings of spiderwebs.
At the far end were the washing machine and spin dryer. And Silvia's pump and refrigeration system.
From the workbench Rick selected a hammer and two heavy pipe wrenches. He was moving toward the elaborate tanks and pipes when Silvia appeared abruptly at the top of the stairs, her coffee cup in one hand.
She hurried quickly down to him.“What are you doing down here?” she asked, studying him intently.“Why that hammer and those two wrenches?”
Rick dropped the tools back onto the bench. “I thought maybe this could be solved on the spot.”
Silvia moved between him and the tanks. “I thought you understood. They've always been a part of my life. When I brought you with me the first time, you seemed to see what—”
“I don't want to lose you,” Rick said harshly,“to anybody or anything— in this world or any other. I'm not going to give you up.”
“It's not giving me up!” Her eyes narrowed. “You came down here to destroy and break everything. The moment I'm not looking you'll smash all this, won't you?”
“That's right.”
Fear replaced anger on the girl's face. “Do you want me to be chained here? I have to go on—I'm through with this part of the journey. I've stayed here long enough.”
“Can't you wait?” Rick demanded furiously. He couldn't keep the ragged edge of despair out of his voice. “Doesn't it come soon enough anyhow?”
Silvia shrugged and turned away, her arms folded, her red lips tight together.“You want to be a worm always. A fuzzy, little cre
eping caterpillar.”
“I want you.”
“You can't have me!” She whirled angrily. “I don't have any time to waste with this.”
“You have higher things in mind,” Rick said savagely.
“Of course.” She softened a little. “I'm sorry, Rick. Remember Icarus? You want to fly, too. I know it.”
“In my time.”
“Why not now? Why wait? You're afraid.” She slid lithely away from him, cunning twisting her red lips. “Rick, I want to show you something. Promise me first—you won't tell anybody.”
“What is it?”
“Promise?” She put her hand to his mouth. “I have to be careful. It cost a lot of money. Nobody knows about it. It's what they do in China—everything goes toward it.”
“I'm curious,” Rick said. Uneasiness flicked at him. “Show it to me.”
Trembling with excitement, Silvia disappeared behind the huge lumbering refrigerator, back into the darkness behind the web of frost-hard freezing coils. He could hear her tugging and pulling at something. Scraping sounds, sounds of something large being dragged out.
“See?” Silvia gasped. “Give me a hand, Rick. It's heavy. Hardwood and brass—and metal lined. It's hand-stained and polished. And the carving— see the carving! Isn't it beautiful?”
“What is it?” Rick demanded huskily.
“It's my cocoon,” Silvia said simply. She settled down in a contented heap on the floor, and rested her head happily against the polished oak coffin.
Rick grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. “You can't sit with that coffin, down here in the basement with—” He broke off. “What's the matter?”
Silvia's face was twisting with pain. She backed away from him and put her finger quickly to her mouth. “I cut myself—when you pulled me up— on a nail or something.” A thin trickle of blood oozed down her fingers. She groped in her pocket for a handkerchief.
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick Page 21
