Journey for Seven

Chapter V Folk of Iron

Stan Weaver sat on the cell bunk and said, “I always wondered how it would feel to go nuts.”

“Suppose you’re not crazy,” Bellbight said.

Weaver stood up. “Of course I’m crazy! Look here.” He went over to the cell door, grasped the bars, spread them wide and easily bent them back. He said. “I’ve read enough magazine articles and seen enough movies about people with broken wagons, bud. I just thought I bent those bars.”

“Look, Weaver. Something happened to you. You’re not crazy. At this moment you’re probably the strongest man in the world. Bullets would bounce off you. This is so strange to you that you’ve jumped on what you think is a reasonable explanation. I’ve interviewed your wife in the hospital. I assure you that you didn’t imagine what happened to her when you gave her that love tap.”

Stan Weaver sat down heavily. He said, “I hated driving those crates full of sourpuss people. Now I wish I was on the route again and I wish I couldn’t even remember what happened. I wish Madge was okay.”

He looked up and gave Tom Bellbight a weak smile. “This time I just tapped her, real light like, across the cheek. If I’d hit where I usually do I’d have busted her back.”

“I’ve been talking to your wife as I said. I explained a few things. She’s withdrawing the complaint. You can walk out of here with me.”

“Maybe it isn’t safe for me to be around. Maybe I’m better off here.”

“Now you’re beginning to think straight, Mr. Weaver. I’ve got a car outside. The sergeant has the stuff on his desk that he took out of your pockets. Come on along and just remember every minute that you can smash anything you touch too quickly, up to and including the human species.”

“Where do we go? I don’t want to go home. Madge’s sister is looking after the kids. She’s got a tongue like a rusty razor.”

“No. We’ll go to my lab. It’s at the Loma plant.”

“I know the place. Go by there six times a day.”

After using up the whole box of blades, McGoran gave up trying to shave. He was almost devoid of imagination. There was a logical explanation for everything. If a fact could not be explained it could be utilized. There was no capacity for awe in him. In the hotel room he carefully tested his new characteristics, cannily avoiding any destruction that would be overly noticeable.

As the full import struck him he began to make plans that were more inclusive than any he had ever considered before. If it was possible to roll a dime between his fingers into a pellet, then it followed that no barrier of metal would stop him. Thus jails were no longer traps. If bullets had little effect the police were no longer to be feared. Of course an artillery piece would probably do the trick.

Definitely they would be hunting him. The biggest question mark was how much longer this new invulnerability would last. Thus, if the duration were suspect, it would be wise to utilize the benefits of it before it wore off.

He had always possessed a considerable scorn for fellow humans. Now this scorn was intensified. At last his inner suspicion of superiority had been definitely proved. And he realized that he had always suspected that one day it would be proved.

The urge to put it to the test was too strong to withstand. He tiptoed down the corridor of the hotel until he heard voices behind one of the doors. It was eleven in the morning.

He tried the knob and it twisted off in his hand. He rammed his finger into the keyhole, the metal spread to admit it. He crooked the finger, turning it, feeling the rasp of broken metal inside. The door swung open as he pushed.

The man stood in his underwear by the window. A doughy young girl sat on the edge of the bed pulling on her nylons. The man whirled and said, “Wrong room, brother.”

“Right room. Let’s see your money.”

The man was young and huge. He tensed and said, “A gag?”

“No gag.”

With no warning the man rushed him. McGoran tried to dodge the blow but it landed squarely on the blunt point of his chin. There was the tiny crunch of broken bones. The huge young man screamed thinly, bending x> hug his broken hand to his belly.

To McGoran the blow felt as though somebody had flicked him with a towel. He chopped down at the young man’s head with his clenched fist. The blow-drove the young man face down onto the floor, blood welling slowly into the ugly concave fracture of the skull.

McGoran sucked his lip. He hadn’t planned on murder. The girl, without a sound, darted for the door. He snatched her wrist as she went by him. He swung her around, feeling the bone give. There was a pressure point at the base of the skull... She dropped across the body of the young man with the limp impact of death.

McGoran pocketed the sixteen dollars he found in the man’s billfold, plus the seven dollars from the girl’s purse. This had not gone properly but there was time to rectify it. He slid the window open, picked them up as though they were rag dolls and slung them through the opening, the girl first.

The excitement gave him the mask of obscurity as he went through the lobby out onto the street and turned away from the crowd that already was blocking traffic.

McGoran walked down the street, feeling larger than life, stronger than a god, invincible and untouchable. He walked with a wide grin on his face, breathing deeply.

There were two tin cups and they drank from them. The cups had to be handled as carefully as though they were made of wet paper.

Bill Dorvan said solemnly, “Announcement to make. Man of iron announces liquor still works. Fact of scientific interest, no doubt.”

Shirley Sanger peered at him. “You’re a mess, bub. Indians used to pull their beards out. Read it in a book. Can’t you do that?”

He grasped one hair by the corner of his mouth and tugged. It came out. “Hurts too much. Always wanted a beard. Now gotta have one.”

She looked around. “Nice apartment here. But dirty. Needs a good cleaning.”

“Sandra used to keep it clean. That’s the toaster right there. Toaster the note leaned on. Famous toaster. Hate it.”

“You just feel sorry for yourself. Poor abused male.”

“All women no good. Accepted fact.”

“You say.”

“I say. Know from experience.” He frowned at her. “I know you’re no good too but I like you. And we got a lot in common.” He reached over and patted her shoulder.

“Hands off, iron man. I told you before and I tell you again that whatever it is that has happened to us doesn’t give you any invitation to play house. I came back here this morning because I scared the whey out of Jane, my roommate. I had her try to comb my hair.”

He said, “Carnival act.”

“What?”

“Manifest destiny. You and me. Go do tricks for the people. Bend iron bars. Lots of dough in it.”

“I wouldn’t team up with a drunk.”

“Who’s a drunk?”

“You are, William Dorvan. A sloppy self-pitying no-good escapist drunk.”

“Then why hang around?”

“I won’t.” She got up and picked up her purse and headed for the kitchen.

He scrambled after her, breaking the chair in the process. He caught her at the door. He shook his head. “Wait a second while I talk sense. Right now I’m beginning to feel sober. You scared me. Shirley, I was drinking to try to get this thing that’s happened to us into better perspective. I wasn’t drinking on account of Sandra. All that doesn’t seem so important any more.

“Shirley, I like you. I want you around. Suppose that this iron business never wears off. You could never kiss a man without being afraid of crushing his ribs and snapping off his teeth. No man but me. In a world that’s suddenly turned crazy we’re going to be outcasts. But this is what is important — even without the craziness I’d still want you around.”

She gave him a long level look. She sighed. “If I’m careful enough maybe I can whip up some coffee, Dorvan.”

Benny Farr lay in the brush, for once unashamed of tears.

He knew that he could not go home. Home had suddenly become an enormously desirable place. He had the idea that if he slept in his own bed he would wake up to find that this new enormous and terrifying strength bad gone from him as inexplicably as it had arrived.

His torn pockets jangled with the nickels he had taken from phone booths and pinball machines. But the money wasn’t any good. Not with someone watching his house so that he couldn’t go back. He knew that he had broken the cop’s arm. That would mean reform school if not something worse.

When the tears finally faded away he rolled to where he could sit with his back against the bole of a tree. He picked up a stone and slowly powdered it between his fingers. It gave him a sense of power to be able to do that.

There was a lump in his throat. He couldn’t go home. If he stayed close to Stockland they’d get him sooner or later.

A freight train chuffed along in the distance. That had to be the answer. He walked at first, then ran. A new city, empty houses to break into. He knew he could kill a normal man with his bare hands. Let a brakeman try to throw him off the train. He’d throw the brake-man off piece by piece.

He ran along beside the box car. The freight was moving. He could not run as fast as it was going. He snatched the hand rail. His body slammed against the side of the box car as the hand rail snapped in his fingers. He fell to the roadbed, bounded under the wheels.

There was a tenth of a second of shrill fear, an enormous blow, then a melting velvet darkness.