Anti-Grav Unlimited

I spent the next two hours hitting every store that had any type of supplies I might be needing.

Soon my shopping spree had the van pretty well stuffed with loot. My final stop was at a hardware store where I picked up some carbonylon rope, managing to get out just before the place was held up. No sooner had I eased through the door than the store sealed itself up with the criminals, customers, and owner inside its structure to wait until the police finally got around to checking things out. Knowing it could be days before the law arrived, I left the van parked and carefully tied everything down inside the van so that things wouldn’t fly about if I should have to do a little impromptu flying. While I wasn’t anxious to do any flying (not after seeing the world government’s fighters in the air the last time I played birdie), I figured it might allow me to shake a hi-pee if I ran into any trouble on the road.

With the gear stored as securely as I could get it (Boy Scout knots never being one of my fortes since I was always interested in the Girl Scouts), I left the Kansas City Dome and the drizzle which was starting to fall as the moisture from the hot air collected on the dome’s cool metallic under surface to drip back down onto the city. The dirty drops of rain splattering against the windshield abruptly stopped as I left the protection of the dome and was again under the open sky.

As I ventured from the area guarded by the KC police, again heading for the route that would take me to New Denver, things became wilder and slummier. Finally I was in “Troll Country,” in the no-man’s land of the old interstate 70. The four-lane wasn’t much worse than when it had been put down in the middle of the last century, but traveling the open road is always a scary proposition. And at night, it’s downright treacherous because the Night Creeps were just as bad as I’d heard.

One plus was the speed I could get out of the van with the new power system I had created.

Since there weren’t any police eyes—in working condition—on the interstate and the hi-pees didn’t patrol at night because of the danger, I didn’t have to worry about attracting undue attention. So I kept the van at an even 100 kilometers per hour with occasional peaks of 150 when it looked like it would be good not to stay in an area too long. That was my top speed since I figured any faster and I would probably plow into one of the wrecked vehicles that littered the road; any slower, I chanced getting stopped by the Night Creeps. (And even with my speed, I was forced to clip a couple of them just after I got up on the highway; that’s hard on the body of a van and leaves a nasty dent.)

The Night Creeps were out in full force. The few new vehicles that I saw on the road had been stopped by the Night Creeps; stretches of darkness were broken by the red glow of fires along the way as the vehicles were slowly dismantled and bits of their plastic bodies burned. I didn’t see any victims and didn’t slow to look. I figured it was everyone for himself for those of us who were crazy enough to be out on the interstate at night. Each of us knew we risked being eaten.

After several hours of dodging and weaving and holding my gun in sweaty fingers from time to time, I was pretty well worn out. And that meant I was starting to be careless.

I just missed hitting a black truck that was all but invisible to my headlights. It was turned on its side and blocked all of the lane I was in and extended into the shadows of the ditch. I wove around it with a screech of rubber.

As I got up my nerve and speed again and had just started to relaxed, I discovered that a group of crazies had apparently removed the bridge ahead of me. Or maybe there had been some road work the day before… If so, the Night Creeps had removed the warning signs if there had ever been any.

All of a sudden, the road ahead of me was gone and my lights showed only an empty expanse between me and the roadway across a large, shadowed chasm.

I didn’t feel at all sleepy any more. Nothing like an unexpected plunge into empty space to wake a guy up. And at 100 clicks per hour, things happen quickly.

As my van hurtled toward the edge of the abyss, I slammed on the breaks. In a long skid, I could see that there was no way I could stop in time. A group of Night Creeps was standing at the side of the road croaking and cheering as I whizzed by.

Words of wisdom formed in my mouth. Repeat your favorite four-letter word five or six times and you’ll have the general idea of what I shouted in a very heroic manner as the space between me and the end of the road quickly vanished.

Then I realized that I did have one chance: Fly! Like a bat out of Hell. At this point, I would have flapped my arms but, fortunately, had a better idea: “Computer on,” I sputtered above the squeal of the rubber.

“Yes.”

“Anti-grav mode,” I said, wishing that I hadn’t made a code to keep other people out. The road sounds quit and we were suddenly falling, weightlessly.

“Code, 3… Uh… 4… 6,” I gasped with a dry mouth. I pushed the turn signal up—the direction I wanted to go. It started blinking crazily since the anti-grav units weren’t engaged yet.

The front of the van was now pointing down as I arched through the darkness. The headlights revealed the ground that raced up to smash me. All I could hear was the purring of the engine and the sound of the wind whistling outside the van as it plunged downward.

Suddenly, the turn signal stopped blinking; the anti-grav units were in operation. I was thrown against the seat harness and felt my eyes trying to bug out of their sockets as the earth continued to rush toward the front of the van. This ignoble situation resulted because I’d programmed the computer to avoid a crash at all costs—my greatest worry in flying—and it was now busy doing its job. At the moment I had to reflect as to whether crashing might have been a better option. As I pondered this weighty situation, the seat harness cut into my skin and my eyes continued to head for the ground in the rapid deceleration. Along with this active demonstration of inertia, a rain of small candies sprinkled onto the inside of the windshield, followed by a hail of small freeze-dried food containers as a plastic grocery sack behind me gave way. I steeled myself, preparing for some of the larger gear stored in the van to come loose and come smashing into me from the rear. A vision of my skull with a large screwdriver poking out of the back of it formed in my brain.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

Instead the van righted itself and hurtled upward; my eyes blacked out as the blood left my brain and headed for all points south. I struggled to lift my hand, placing the turn signal into its middle, hover position and the van slowed, my vision coming back as we decelerated.

I was in one piece! I sat there a moment, remembered to breathe, and listened to my hair turn gray.

As my anger replaced my fear, I was tempted to try out my rifle marksmanship on the Night Creeps I could hear hooting behind me.

It would just be a wasted effort, I decided. There were plenty more to take their places and I had neither the time nor ammunition to spare in venting my anger. Stones were starting to ding off the van, too. I pushed the accelerator down and flew to the other side of the overpass, hovered over the road a moment, and did a 360-degree turn to be sure the area was clear of Night Creeps on the side of the Great Divide I was on; then I set the vehicle down.

The howls of rage on the other side of the chasm continued. I wiped off my shaking, sweaty palms, and spoke with a quavery voice, “Anti-grav off.”

“What?” the computer replied.

I cleared my throat, “Anti-grav off.”

The signal started flashing a left turn (rather than its downward travel sign) and the van settled down with its full weight on the road. I floored the accelerator to put as much distance as I could between me and the monsters on the other side of the divide behind me, wondering how many people they’d catch before sunrise.

Fear is a great stimulant; it took several hours before I became sleepy again. At dawn, I turned off the roadway, floated the van over a stretch of burnt grass, and headed down a small gully toward a grove of Cottonwoods that glistened in the morning light. There I put the van into a hover at the top of one of the giant trees where I could be hidden and out of reach to anyone on foot. As the van was gently rocked by a low-moaning breeze, I reclined the driver’s chair and almost instantly fell asleep.

* * *

Several hours later, I awoke to the noise of traffic on the interstate. The sun shone through the cottonwood leaves, creating patterns of gold and green; the heavy leaves sounding as if drops of rain rattled through them as