The Bachman Books

'Not any more?'

'I have left the mother church,' Drake said. He said it softly, but there was a kind of dreadful finality in his words. He could almost hear the clang of iron doors slammed shut forever.

'Why did you do that?'

Drake shrugged. 'It doesn't matter. What about you? How did you get the mesc?'

'I got it from a girl on her way to Las Vegas. A nice girl, I think. She called me on Christmas Day.'

'For help?'

'I think so.'

'Did you help her?'

'I don't know. ' He smiled craftily. 'Father, tell me about my immortal soul. '

Drake twitched. 'I'm not your father.'

'Never mind, then.'

'What do you want to know about your 'soul'?'

He looked down at his fingers. He could make bolts of light shoot from their tips whenever he wanted to. It gave him a drunken feeling of power. 'I want to know what will happen to it if I commit suicide.'

Drake stirred uneasily. 'You don't want to think about killing yourself while you're tripping. The dope talks, not you.'

'I talk,' he said. 'Answer me.'

'I can't. I don't know what will happen to your 'soul' if you commit suicide. I do, however, know what will happen to your body. It will rot.'

Startled by this idea, he looked down at his hands again. Obligingly, they seemed to crack and molder in front of his gaze, making him think of that Poe story, 'The Strange Case of M. Valdemar. ' Quite a night. Poe and Lovecraft. A. Gordon Pym, anyone? How about Abdul Allhazred, the Mad Arab? He looked up, a little disconcerted, but not really daunted.

'What's your body doing?' Drake asked.

'Huh?' He frowned, trying to parse sense from the question.

'There are two trips,' Drake said. 'A head trip and a body trip. Do you feel nauseated? Achey? Sick in any way?'

He consulted his body. 'No,' he said. 'I just feel . . . busy.' He laughed a little at the word, and Drake smiled. It was a good word to describe how he felt. His body seemed very active, even still. Rather (fight, but not ethereal. In fact, he had never felt so fleshy, so conscious of the way his mental processes and physical body were webbed together. There was no parting them. You couldn't peel one away from the other. You were stuck with it, baby. Integration. Entropy. The idea burst over him like a quick tropical sunrise. He sat chewing it over in light of his current situation, trying to make out the pattern, if there was one. But-

'But there's the soul,' he said aloud.

'What about the soul?' Drake asked pleasantly.

'If you kill the brain, you kill the body,' he said slowly. 'And vice versa. But what happens to your soul? There's the wild card, Fa . . . Mr. Drake.'

Drake said: 'In that sleep of death, what dreams may come? Hamlet, Mr. Dawes.'

'Do you think the soul lives on? Is there survival?'

Drake's eyes grayed. 'Yes,' he said. 'I think there is survival . . . in some form. '

'And do you think suicide is a mortal sin that condemns the soul to hell?'

Drake didn't speak for a long time. Then he said: 'Suicide is wrong. I believe that with all my heart.'

'That doesn't answer my question.'

Drake stood up. 'I have no intention of answering it. I don't deal in metaphysics anymore. I'm a civilian. Do you want to go back to the party?'

He thought of the noise and confusion, and shook his head.

'Home?'

'I couldn't drive. I'd be scared to drive.'

'I'll drive you.'

'Would you? How would you get back?'

'Call a cab from your house. New Year's Eve is a very good night for cabs.'

'That would be good,' he said gratefully. 'I'd like to be alone, I think. I'd like to watch TV.'

'Are you safe alone?' Drake asked somberly.

'Nobody is,' he replied with equal gravity, and they both laughed.

'Okay. Do you want to say good-bye to anyone?'