The Best of Gene Wolfe

The barmaid handed him his large gin. The barmaid had Debbie’s dark hair, Debbie’s dark good looks. When he had paid her, she left the bar and took a seat at one of the tables. Two others sat there already, and there were cards and dice, money and drinks, before them. “Sit down,” she said, and he sat.

The blonde turned over a card, the jack of spades. “What are the spades in a deck of cards?” she asked.

“Swords,” he said. “From the Spanish word for a sword, espada. The jack of spades is really the jack of swords.”

“Correct.”

The other man said, “Knight to the White Chapel.”

The door opened, letting in the evening with a wisp of fog, and the black knight. She was tall and slender and dressed like a cavalryman, in high boots and riding breeches. A pewter miniature of a knight’s shield was pinned to her dark shirt.

The barmaid rattled the dice and threw.

“You’re still alive,” the black knight said. She strode to their table. Sergeant’s chevrons had been sewn to the sleeves of the shirt. “This neighborhood is being evacuated, folks.”

“Not by us,” the other man said.

“By you now, sir. On my orders. As an officer of the law, I must order you to leave. There’s a tank car derailed, leaking some kind of gas.”

“That’s fog,” Randolph Carter told her. “Fog and smoke.”

“Not just fog. I’m sorry, sir, but I must ask all of you to go. How long have you been here?”

“Sixteen years,” the blond woman said. “The neighborhood was a lot nicer when we came.”

“It’s some sort of chemical weapon, like LSD.”

He asked, “Don’t you want to sit down?” He stood, offering her his chair.

“My shot must be wearing off. The shot was supposed to protect me. I’m Sergeant . . . Sergeant . . .”

The other man said, “Very few of us are protected by shots, Sergeant Chapman. Shots usually kill people, particularly soldiers.”

Randolph Carter looked at her shirt. The name chapman was engraved on a stiff plastic plate there, the plate held out like a little shelf by the thrust of her left breast.

“Sergeant Anne Chapman of the United States Army. We think it’s the plants, sir. All the psychoactive drugs we know about come from plants—opium, cocaine, heroin.”

“You’re the heroine,” he told her gently. “Coming here like this to get us out.”

“All of them chemicals the plants have stumbled across to protect us from insects, really. And now they’ve found something to protect the insects from us.” She paused, staring at him. “That isn’t right, is it?”

Again he asked, “Don’t you want to sit down?”

“Gases from the comet. The comet’s tail has wrapped all Earth in poisonous gases.”

The blonde murmured, “ ‘What is the meaning of this name given Satan: Beelzebub.’ ”

A tiny voice from the ceiling answered.

“You, sir,” the black knight said, “won’t you come with me? We’ve got to get out of here.”

“You can’t get out of here,” the other man told them.

Randolph Carter nodded to the knight. “I’ll come with you, if you’ll love me.” He rose, pushing the sword up his coat sleeve, point first.

“Then come on.” She took him by the arm and pulled him through the door.

A hansom cab rattled past.

“What is this place?” She put both hands to her forehead. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I? This is a nightmare.” There was a fly on her shoulder, a blowfly gorged with carrion. She brushed it off; it settled again, unwilling to fly through the night and the yellow fog. “No, I’m hallucinating.”

He said, “I’d better take you to your room.” The bricks were wet and slippery underfoot. As they turned a corner, and another, he told her what she could do for him when they reached her room. A dead bitch lay in the gutter. Despite the night and the chill of autumn, the corpse was crawling with flies.

Sickly yellow gaslight escaped from under a door. She tore herself from him and pushed it open. He came after her, his arms outstretched. “Is this where you live?”

The three players still sat at their table. They had been joined by a fourth, a new Randolph Carter. As the door flew wide the fourth player turned to look, but he had no face.

She whispered, “This is Hell, isn’t it? I’m in Hell, for what I did. Because of what we did. We’re all in Hell. I always thought it was just something the Church made up, something to keep you in line, you know what I mean, sir?”

She was not talking to him, but he nodded sympathetically.

“Just a game in the pope’s head. But it’s real, it’s here, and here we are.”

“I’d better take you to your room,” he said again.

She shuddered. “In Hell you can’t pray, isn’t that right? But I can—Listen! I can pray! Dear G—