“Shit,” he said again. And then again, just for effect, “Shit”
“Where’re we going?” Plissken asked, pulling out of the alley and heading down a wide avenue.
“Well, ah… it’s a ways from here,” Hellman stammered.
“You’re in this,” Plissken said through clenched teeth. “All the way, Harold.” He stared intently at the man, reminding him of the fire that burned out of control within. “We’re like Siamese twins.”
“Grand Central Station,” Hellman said quietly. “They’ve got him at the station.”
“Which way?”
Hellman pointed straight on. “This is okay for now… no, wait” He was wiggling his hand. “Turn left here.”
Plissken squealed the brakes and took the quick turn. It was a big street, a huge street.
“Wait a minute, Brain,” Maggie said. “This is Broadway.”
“I know,” Hellman answered grimly. “The Duke’ll take Seventh Avenue. Broadway’s got five minutes on him.”
Plissken turned to the woman. Fear was molded on her face. He had never seen that emotion from her. “Brain, come on,” she said.
Hellman set his face. “Keep driving,” he said. “If we’re going to do this thing, we may as well do it.”
“What’s wrong with Broadway?” Plissken asked.
“Just go.”
He turned to the woman again. “What’s wrong with Broadway?”
“Hoodoo,” she answered, slumping back in her seat. And she wouldn’t say anything more.
Plissken kept moving his eye, watching. It was all right at first, but then they began seeing the fires, small fires, single fires burning here and there. They heard the drums, then the chanting, the deathly moan of the chanting.
“What the hell…”
The fires became more frequent and had been somehow treated with chemicals to make their smoke rise different colors: yellows and pinks and fine powdery blues, filling the street with drifting multicolored clouds. The stench of burning rubber drifted with the clouds.
Figures darted wraithlike through puffs of smoke-flitting, ethereal, always in motion, impossible to discern. The drums were loud, throbbing Plissken’s eye, making him rock physically in the seat. And the chanting was a siren song, indefinable, magnetic. The parking meters lined the smoky streets in long rows, metal display poles topped- with heads. Human heads with open screaming mouths. Then the people were everywhere, smoke people, moaning. They moved slowly toward the car.
Plissken felt his stomach muscles tighten. “Come on, Sweetheart,” he said and gave it as much gas as he possibly could on the smoke-filled street. They picked up speed, moving through the ever-growing street throngs.
Bang!
A rock hit the roof, then another.
“Oh God,” Hellman said softly.
Then a barrage of rocks pelted the car from all sides, like a hailstorm. One made it through the bars on Plissken’s window and hit him on the face. The car swerved as he fought for control. Glass broke out of the back window. Screams came from Maggie. More rocks, bigger. Fire came at the car. A torch flew up to hit the windshield, then rolled onto the hood. Plissken jerked some more, knocking it off.
The street in front of them was filled with people shaking rocks and clubs, black people with painted faces, wailing softly, not speaking. Plissken grabbed the pistol from his holster.
“Here,” he said, handing it over to Hellman.
He was slowing into the crowd. The rocks stopped coming.
Brain Hellman just stared at the weapon in his hands, lips working.
“You got the wrong man for the job,” Maggie said.
Plissken grabbed the gun away from Hellman and handed it back to her. “Here we go,” he said.
He plowed into the mob, moving through it. They were all over the car, grabbing, hanging on, pressing blank silent faces through the window slats. They were banging, banging, hands and clubs. They were squirming up the hood, the roof, dancing on the roof, rocking the car, tearing it up.
Plissken couldn’t see out of the windshield. Grabbing up the rifle, he aimed it out the front. He fired quickly, blasting off the lip-snarling head of a wildly painted man who lay on the windshield. The body jumped and rolled off the car. More people scrambled on the hood. Plissken squeezed them off, blasting spider web holes through the windshield. Exploding bullets flared the night clearing bodies off the car.
Maggie yelled from behind. One of them had jumped on the back of the wagon, reaching for her through the shattered back window. Bringing up the automatic, she fired point blank, and the explosion hurled the man back to the street.
They were getting through the mob, clearing it.
“Not bad, baby,” Plissken called back to her.
“Nothing to it,” she returned.
“Snake!” Hellman yelled, pointing back out the bullet-cracked windshield. Plissken turned. The headlight was catching something, something massive just ahead. They closed on it. A barricade, five feet high, blocked the entire street ahead. A congealed mass of cars, mailboxes, telephone booths and street lights. Plissken slammed on the brakes, gauging the thing.
“They’re coming!” Maggie called from the back seat, and he didn’t have to look to appreciate her words. There was only one way to go-over the top, just like in the army.
“Hold on!” he yelled and hit the gas.
He had thoughts of smashing through the mess, but it was too strong. They slammed the wall, full speed; the car cried with rending metal on the tooth-jarring impact. Plissken was back full in the seat, bracing the wheel stiff- armed. And they were airborne, their speed careening them over the wall.
The flying sensation lasted only a second, then they came down, they came down hard, crashing, metal shrieking, sparks flying, and Plissken thinking his spine would pop out the top of his head.
Then there was quiet.
They looked at each other. Plissken shrugged and turned off the key, then on. The engine complained, but started back up. He shrugged again, and eased the thing into gear. It moved, shaking and crying the whole time, but it did move.
“Son of a bitch,” Hellman said.
Plissken seconded that motion.
XVII
15:53:39, 38, 37…
The Station had been old for a long time. It had started being old when Mister Ford invented his assembly line and aircraft began to get large and quietly menacing. Then there were wars, terrible wars, and it got even older. It was a large, airy place, delicately toned, reflecting the simple-minded philosophies of the nineteenth- century technocrats. The Station became old as soon as technology became a dark and twisted thing, a thing to fear, a controller.
And now it was very old, indeed.
The car wasn’t doing too well. It was terminally ill, dying quickly of a compound fracture of the oil pan. It wobbled badly down the dirt road that led up to the rear of Grand Central Station. Gray-black smoke oozed thickly out from underneath.
The gullied road was choked with high weeds. It ran beside the tracks that had once moved people and commerce down its veins and arteries, pumping the lifeblood of the city to the whole nation. Now the city was
