Ring Around the Sun

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CLIFFWOOD after dark had the smell and feel of home and he drove along its streets and felt the lump of loss come into his throat, for it had been here that he had thought to settle down and spend his years in writing, in setting down on paper the thoughts that welled inside of him.

His house was here and the furniture and the manuscript and the crudely carpentered shelf that held his freight of books, but it was his home no longer, and now, he knew, could never be again. And that wasn't all, he thought. The Earth, the original human earth — the earth with the capital E — was his home no longer and never again could be.

He'd go and see Eb first and after he had seen Eb, he'd go to his own house, and get the manuscript. He could give the manuscript to Ann, he thought; she would keep it for him.

On second thought, he'd have to find some other place, for he didn't want to see Ann — although that was not precisely the truth. He did want to see her, but knew he shouldn't, for now there lay between them the almost-certain knowledge that he and she were part of a single life.

He pulled the car to a stop in front of Eb's house and sat there for a moment looking at it, wondering at the neatness of the house and yard, for Eb lived alone without wife or child, and it was not usual that a man alone would keep a place so tidy.

He'd spend just a minute with Eb, would tell him what had happened, what was going on, would make arrangements to keep in touch with him, would learn from him whatever news might be worth knowing.

He closed the car door and went across the walk, fumbling at the latch of the gate that opened to the yard. Moonlight came down through the trees and splotched the walk with light and he followed it to the porch, and now, for the first time, he noticed that there were no lights burning in the house.

He rapped on the door, knowing from poker sessions and other infrequent visits that Eb had no doorbell.

There was no answer. He waited and finally rapped again and then turned from the door and went down the walk. Maybe Eb was still down at the garage, putting in some overtime on an urgent repair job, or he might be down at the tavern, having a quick one with the boys.

He'd sit out in the car and wait for Eb. It probably wouldn't be safe to go down into the village business section where he'd be recognized.

A voice asked: "You looking for Eb?"

Vickers spun around toward the voice. It was the next door neighbor, he saw, standing at the fence.

"Yes," said Vickers. "I was looking for him."

He was trying to remember who lived next to Eb, who this person across the fence might be. Someone that he knew, someone who might recognize him?

"I'm an old friend of his," said Vickers. "Just passing through. Thought I'd stop and say hello."

The man had stepped through a break in the fence and was coming across the lawn.

The man asked: "How well did you know Eb?"

"Not too well," said Vickers. "Haven't seen him in ten or fifteen years. Used to be kids together."

"Eb is dead," the neighbor said.

"Dead!"

The neighbor spat. "He was one of them damned mutants."

"No," protested Vickers. "No, he couldn't be!"

"He was. We had another one, but he got away. We always had a suspicion Eb might have tipped him off."

The bitterness and hatred of the neighbor's words filled Vickers with a feeling of sheer terror.

The mob had killed Eb and they would kill _him_ if they knew he had returned to town. And in just a little while they'd know, for any minute now the neighbor would recognize him — now he knew who the neighbor was, the beefy individual who ran the meat market in the town's one chain store. His name was — but it didn't really matter.

"Seems to me," the neighbor said, "I've seen you somewhere."

"You must be mistaken. I've never been East before."

"Your voice…"

Vickers struck with all the power he had, starting the fist down low and bringing it up in a vicious arc, twisting his body to line it up behind the blow, to put the weight of his body behind the balled-up fist.

He hit the man in the face and the impact of flesh on flesh, of bone on bone, made a whiplike sound and the man went down.

Vickers did not wait. He spun away and went racing for the gate. He almost tore the car door from its hinges getting in. He thumbed the starter savagely and trod down on the gas and the car leaped down the street, spraying the bushes with gravel thrown by its frightened wheels.

His arm was numb from the force of the blow he'd struck and when he held his hand down in front of the lighted dash panel, he saw that his knuckles were lacerated and slowly dripping blood.

He had a few minutes' start; the neighbor might take that long to shake himself into a realization of what had happened. But once he was on his feet, once he could reach a phone, they'd start hunting him, screaming through the night on whining tires, with shotgun and rope and rifle.

And he had to get away. Now he was on his own.

Eb was dead, attacked without warning, surely, without a chance to escape to the other earth. Eb had been shot down or strung up or kicked to death. And Eb had been his only contact.

Now there was no one but himself and Ann.

And Ann, God willing, didn't even know that she was a mutant.

He struck the main highway and swung down the valley, pouring on the gas.

There was an old abandoned road some ten miles down the highway, he remembered. A man could duck a car in there and wait until it was safe to double back again. Although doubling back probably wouldn't be too safe.

Maybe it would be better to take to the hills and hide out until the hunt blew over.

No, he told himself, there was nothing safe.

And he had no time to waste.

He had to get to Crawford, had to head Crawford off the best way that he could. And he had to do it alone.

The abandoned road was there, halfway up a long, steep hill. He wheeled the car into it and bumped along it for a hundred feet or so, then got out and walked back to the road.

Hidden behind a clump of trees, he watched cars go screaming past, but there was no way to know if any of them might be hunting him.

Then a rickety old truck came slowly up the hill, howling with the climb.

He watched it, an idea growing in his mind.

When it came abreast, he saw that it was closed in the back only with a high end gate.

He ran out into the traffic lane and raced after it, caught up with it and leaped. His fingers caught the top of the end gate and he heaved himself clear of the road, scrambled over the gate and clambered over the piled up boxes stacked inside the truck.

He huddled there, staring out at the road behind him. A hunted animal, he thought; hunted by men who once had been his friends.

Ten miles or so down the road someone stopped the truck. A voice asked: "You see anyone up the road a ways? Walking, maybe?"

"Hell, no," the truck driver said. "I ain't seen a soul."

"We're looking for a mutant. Figure he must have ditched his car."

"I thought we had all of them cleaned out," the driver said.

"Not all. Maybe he took to the hills. If he did, we've got him."

"You'll be stopped again," another voice said. "We phoned ahead both ways. They got road blocks set up."

"I'll keep my eyes peeled," the driver said.

"You got a gun?"

"No."

"Well, keep watching anyway."

When the truck rolled on, Vickers saw the two men standing in the road. The moonlight glinted on the rifles that they carried.

He set to work cautiously, moving some of the boxes, making himself a hideout.

He needn't have bothered.

The truck was stopped at three other road blocks. At none of them did anyone do more than flash a light inside the truck. They seemed half-hearted in their search, convinced that they wouldn't find a mutant that easily, perhaps thinking that this one had already vanished, as so many other forewarned mutants had done.

But Vickers could not allow himself to take that avenue of escape. He had a job to do on this Earth.