Dhalgren

D-t and me splashed into it, watching the high brick walls, and the billowing clouds between them, shatter below our feet.

Ten yards in it was up to my knees and I couldn't really run. We slushed on. Glass, arms swinging wide in a wildly swaying stagger, moved ahead of me, dragging fans of ripples from the backs of his soaked pants. Then the street started sloping up. I splashed toward the edge.

What it felt like was something immense dropped into the street a block away. Everything shook. I looked back at the' others — Fireball and Dragon Lady were still splashing forward — when, in the center, was a swell of what looked like detergent bubbles. Then steam shot straight up. The water's edge rolled back from Fireball's dripping cuffs, leaving his wet feet slapping the glistening pavement.

Glass back-tracked to grab Dragon Lady's hand, like he thought she (or he) might fall.

The geyser spit and hissed and the water bubbled into it

We went around the next corner together.

I could see the bridge all the way to the second stanchion. Here and there clouds had torn away from the black sky. Something was burning down between the waterfront buildings. We rushed across fifty feet of pavement. Just before the bridge mouth, it looked like someone had grenaded the road. A slab of asphalt practically fifteen feet high jutted up. Down the crack around it, you could see wet pipes, and below that, flickering water. Above, that amazing, loud lightning formed its searing nodes among the cloud canyons.

'Come on,' I said. 'This way!'

Metal steps lead up to the bridge's pedestrian walk. The first half dozen were covered with broken masonry. Glass and Dragon Lady charged right up. Plaster dust puffed out between the railing struts. Fireball stepped carefully on the first three steps, then grabbed both railings and vaulted up three more. His feet were caked with junk and he was bleeding from one ankle.

'Get goin'!' D-t crowded behind. 'Get goin'!'

Spider and me went up the narrow steps practically side by side.

At the top, Spider got ahead and we ran along the clanging plates maybe fifty yards when something… hit the bridge!

We swayed back and forth a dozen feet! Metal ground against old metal. Cables danced in the dark.

I grabbed the rail, staring down at the blacktop fifteen feet below, expecting it to split over the water a hundred feet below that.

Beside me, Fireball just dropped on his knees, his cheek against the bars. Spider put his arms around the dead lamppost, bent his head and went, 'Ahhhhhhhhh…' like he was crying with his mouth open — which, five seconds later, when the shaking and the creaking died, was the only sound. Dragon Lady swallowed, let go the rail, and took a gasping breath.

My ears were ringing.

Everything was quiet.

'Jesus God,' D-t whispered, 'let's get off o'—' which was when everybody, including D-t, realized how quiet

Holding the rail tight, I turned to look back.

On the waterfront, flames flickered in smoke. A breeze came to brush my forehead. Here and there smoke was moving off the wind-runneled water. And there was nobody else on the bridge.

'Let's go…' I stepped around Fireball, passed by Dragon Lady.

A few seconds later, I heard Glass repeat: 'Well, let's go!' Their footsteps started.

Dragon Lady caught up. 'Jesus…' she said softly beside me. But that was all.

We kept walking.

Girders wheeled on either side. About twenty feet beyond the first stanchion, I looked back again:

The burning city squatted on weak, inverted images of its fires.

Finally D-t touched my shoulder and made a little gesture with his head. So I came on.

The double, thigh-thick suspensors swung even lower than our walkway; a few yards later they sloped up toward the top of the next stanchion.

'Who is…?' Glass asked softly.

Down on the black-top, She was walking slowly toward us.

Running my hand along the rail, I watched. Then I called: 'Hey, you!'

Behind me there was a flare; then another; then another. The others had flicked on their lights — which meant I was in silhouette before a clutch of dragons, hawks, and mantises.

She squinted up at us: a dark Oriental, with hair down in front of her shirt (like two black, inverted flames); red bandanas were stuffed under the shoulder straps of her knapsack for padding. Her shirttails were out of her jeans. 'Huh…?' She was trying to smile.

'You going into Bellona?'

'That's right.' She squinted harder to see me. 'You leaving?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'You know, it's dangerous in there!'

She nodded. 'I'd heard they had the national guard and soldiers and stuff posted. Hitch-hiking down, though, I didn't see anybody.'

'How were the rides?'

'All I saw was a pickup and a Willy's station wagon. The pickup gave me a lift.'

'What about traffic going out?'

She shrugged. 'I guess if somebody passes you, they'll give you a ride. Sometimes the truckers will stop for a guy to spell them on driving. I mean, guys shouldn't have too tough a time. Where're you heading?'

Over my shoulder, Glass said: 'I want to get to Toronto. Two of us are heading for Alabama, though.'

'I just wanted to get someplace!' Fireball said. 'I don't feel right, you know? I ain't really felt right for two days…!'

'You got a long way to go, either direction,' she said.

I wondered what she made of the luminous light-shapes that flanked me and threw pastel shadows behind her on the gridded black-top.

Glass asked: 'Everything is still all right in Canada—?'

'— and Alabama?' asked Spider.

'Sure. Everything's all right in the rest of the country. Is anything still happening here?'

When nobody answered, she said:

'It's just the closer you get, the funnier… everybody acts. What's it like inside?'

D-t said: 'Pretty rough.'

The others laughed.

She laughed.

'But like you say,' Dragon Lady said, 'guys have a pretty easy time,' which I don't think she got, because unless you listen hard, Dragon Lady's voice sounds like a man's.

'Is there anything you can tell me? I mean that might be helpful? Since I'm going in?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'Sometimes men'll come around and tear up the place you live in. Sometimes people shoot at you from the roof — that is, if the roof itself doesn't decide to fall on you. Or you're not the person on top of it, doing the shooting—'

'He wrote these poems,' Fireball said at my other shoulder. 'He wrote these poems and they published them in a book and everything! They got it all over the city. But then he wrote some more, only they came and burned them all up—' His voice shook on the fevered lip of hysteria.

'You want a weapon,' I asked, 'to take in with you?'

'Wow!' she said. 'Is it like that?'

Glass gave a short, sharp laugh.

'Yeah,' I said. 'We have it easy.'

Spider said: 'You gonna tell her about… the Father? You gonna tell her about June?'

'She'll learn about those.'

Glass laughed again.

D-t said: 'What can you say?'

She ran her thumbs down her knapsack straps and settled her weight on one hip. She wore heavy, hiking