“I’m sorry I was so rough on you, Willy.” Joe sounded tired. “You’d better come in and have something to eat.”
“I don’t want nothing,” Willy replied.
“Look, I said I was sorry…” Joe’s voice trailed away as he noticed the scurf of trampled paper around the outhouse door. Then his gaze reached the object Willy had spent all day building, and his jaw dropped. “What the hell?”
“Stay away!”
Willy felt a pang of alarm as he assessed Joe’s reaction to what he had seen, and knew that the way ahead was not going to be easy. He brushed Joe aside and ran towards his creation. Joe grappled with him but Willy, filled with divine anger, hurled him aside with one arm. From the corner of his eye he saw Joe tumble into the pile of lumber, and he felt a surge of triumphant conviction. He lifted the flimsy structure, placed it over his shoulders and strode purposefully into the house. Women shoppers screamed as he burst out into the store on his way to the street. Willy was only dimly aware of the screams, or of the startled gray faces of his sisters behind the counter. For the first time in his life, he had a real place in the world, with something important to do, and nothing was going to stop him.
He was also only dimly aware of the futile sound of brakes as he thrust his way out onto the street, of the automobile’s slewing rush, of the bone-crushing impact. And a few seconds later he was aware of nothing at all.
People rushing to view the accident trampled unseeingly over the boards which Willy had so laboriously constructed. None of them read the crudely printed words:
THE END IS NIGH — PREPARE TO MEET THY DOOM.
“. . but,” General Abram was saying, “if all this is true it means…”
Dr. Rasch nodded dreamily. “That is correct, General. It means the end of the world.”
XII
As soon as he had reached his decision, Breton locked up the house and hurried to the car.
He had no real idea how long Kate would stay with the Palfreys, but it was vital for him to get back first if she was to believe that John had walked out. The fishing lodge was nearly forty miles to the north. It was not far for the big Turbo-Lincoln, but there were arrangements to be made once he got there and he would not be able to drive too fast in case he attracted the attention of the highway patrol. He could be unlucky enough to encounter the mobile equivalent of Lieutenant Convery.
The car quivered gently as he pushed the turbine spin-up button, then it settled into a kind of alert silence. Only the position of indicator needles showed the engine was turning. Breton slid the car out onto the street, pointed it north and brought his foot down on the throttle. The resultant surge of acceleration snapped his head back and he eased his foot up again, suddenly respectful of the power he was controlling.
He drove carefully, working north by west, until he had reached the main Silverstream highway, where a small movement of his right foot brought the speed up to sixty without any perceptible increase in engine note. A good machine, he thought appreciatively. The complementary thought that the car was already his flickered in the back of his mind, but he kept it there.
As he reached the outskirts of the city Breton distracted himself by looking for visible differences between the Time B world and his memory of the same area in Time A. But things appeared no different — there was the same penumbra of lumber yards, used-car lots, lonely little banks stranded far away from their parent organizations, knots of bravely-lit stores, diners, and occasional incongruous groups of houses. The same straggling slob-land he had always known and detested, exactly repeated. Altering a few human lives had left the city untouched, he realized.
When the car had shaken off the city and was arrowing through the Montana prairie, Breton increased speed, and insects began to splatter the windshield. A coppery sun was setting to his left, withdrawing its light from a peacock-green sky. Far off to the east something flickered above the horizon and he instinctively covered his right eye, expecting to find the teichopsia that usually preceded one of his attacks. But this time there were no prismatic fortifications, and when he took his hand away he knew the glimmer in the sky had been a meteor. So the showers are still going on, he thought. And what else is happening?
Some people are becoming telepathic, satellites are drifting out of place, the solar radiation is affecting radio communication, religious cranks are predicting the end of the world…
Something moved at the rear of the car. Breton, who had been reaching for the radio to see if he could pick up a newscast, froze and listened intently, but the faint sound was not repeated. John Breton must have been stirring in his sleep, he decided. He switched the radio on.
“. . of NASA has recommended that all airlines operating supersonic transports should restrict their operational ceiling to fifty thousand feet until further notified. This limitation has been imposed by the reported sharp increase in cosmic radiation which scientists regard as a health-hazard for passengers on long-distance, high-altitude flights. In Washington D.C. this morning…”
Breton switched off quickly, feeling that somehow his future with Kate was being threatened. The need for her was stirring in his body again, and tonight they would be alone in the house. Memories of that first open- mouthed kiss, visions of Kate’s breasts suddenly alive and free in their escape from the nylon harness, of ivory- textured thighs — a sensual montage filled Breton’s mind, making it impossible for him to think about anything other than the all-important miracle of Kate’s existence.
He forced himself to concentrate on immediate necessities, keeping the tracer-stream of white road markers accurately below the car’s left wing, occasionally washing the shattered insects from the windshield. But she was there before him, all the while, and he knew he would never again let go of her.
The sun had dropped below the horizon by the time he reached the shores of Lake Pasco and angled off the highway along the narrower road which dipped through a stand of pines. Dusk closed in, ambushing the car as soon as he got down among the trees. Breton negotiated two minor crossroads, anxiously aware that it was at least twelve years since he had been in the area. There was an ivy-covered fishing lodge on the south shore which he had always admired, even though it had been far beyond his income in those days. He
Cursing himself for not having pinned down the location of the lodge exactly, while he had the chance, Breton steered the car down a deserted, half-remembered track and reached a cleared space at the water’s edge. He swung around on the pebbly surface and parked between the single-storied lodge and a green-painted boathouse. The cold, moist air from the lake insinuated itself under his clothing as soon as he got out of the car. Shivering slightly, he took the keys from his pocket and went to the door of the dark-windowed lodge.
The third key he tried turned the lock. He pushed the door open and went back to the car and lifted the lid of the trunk. John Breton was lying curled on his side. He looked ill, and the choking, biscuity smell of urine rose up around him, making Jack flinch guiltily. His other self had been left with nothing, not even dignity, and Jack too felt sullied. He dragged the unconscious man from the metallic cave of the trunk and, holding him under the arms, trailed him to the lodge. As they were going up the three steps at the door, John mumbled something and began to struggle feebly.
“You’ll be all right,” Jack whispered inanely. “Just relax.”
The lodge’s central room was furnished with deep, tweed-covered chairs. A neo-rustic dining table and wooden chairs were clustered at the window which overlooked the lake. Four doors opened off the room. Jack chose the one which looked as though it would lead to the basement, and his guess proved correct. He left John lying on the floor and flipped the light switch at the head of the wooden stairs, but the darkness below remained. A quick search of the room revealed a main switch hidden in a cupboard. He threw the lever and saw yellow brilliance spill from the basement door.
As he was being eased downstairs, John Breton began to struggle again. Jack tried to restrain him and keep
