Make Room! Make Room!

awful lot of mosquitoes here. What should he do? Should he try to leave?

With a sudden start he realized that he had been asleep and that the sun was low in the west, coming almost directly in through the open doorway. He sat up in a scramble and looked around, but the cabin was empty. His side ached terribly.

The clattering, metallic sound came again, and he realized that this was what had wakened him. It came from outside. He went as quietly as he could to the doorway and looked down. The man was climbing toward him, and the length of pipe he carried was scratching on the metal making the noise that had disturbed him. Billy shrank back as the man threw the pipe up ahead of him, then hauled himself over the edge and onto the strip of deck.

“The water points did not open today,” he said, and held out an ancient and dented paint can that he had brought up with him. “But I found a place where there was still water from the rain yesterday. Would you like some?” Billy nodded, aware suddenly of his dry throat, and took the extended can. It was filled halfway with clear water through which the caked green paint could be seen. The water was very sweet. “Take more,” the man said. “I drank my fill when I was there.”

“What is your name?” he asked as he took the can back.

Was it a trap? This man must remember his name, he didn’t dare give him a different one. “Billy,” he said.

“You may call me Peter. You can stay here if you like.” He went inside with the can and seemed to have forgotten the piece of pipe. Billy looked at it suspiciously, not sure of his ground.

“You left your pipe here,” he called out.

“Bring it, if you please. I shouldn’t leave it lying around. Just put it there,” he said when Billy brought it in. “I think I have another piece like that around here someplace, you can take it with you when you leave these quarters. Some of our neighbors can be dangerous.”

“The guards?”

“No, they are of no importance. Their work is a sinecure, and they have no more wish to bother us than we have to bother them. As long as they do not see us we are not here, so just stay away from them. You’ll find that they don’t look very hard, they can collect their money without putting themselves in any danger — so why should they? Sensible men. Anything worth stealing or removing vanished years ago. The guards remain only because no one has ever decided what to do with this place and the easiest solution is just to forget about it. They are living symbols of the state of decay of our culture, just as this wasteland is a vastly more important symbol, that is why I am here.” He laced his hands about his shins and leaned forward, resting his bony chin on his knees. “Do you know how many entrances there are to this place?” Billy shook his head no, wondering what Peter was talking about.

“Then I will tell you. There are eight — and only one is unlocked and in use by the guards. The others are closed and sealed, seven seals. Does that mean something to you? Seven seals? No, I can see it does not. But there are other signs, some hidden, some clear for any eye to see. And more will come and be revealed to us one by one. Some have been written for centuries, such as the great harlot named Babylon which never was Rome as many falsely believed. Do you know the name of the city out there?”

“Here? You mean New York?”

“Yes, that is one name, but there is another that it is called and has been called and no one protests its use, that is Babylon-on-Hudson. So you see that this is the great harlot and Armageddon will be here, that is why I have come. I was a priest once, would you believe that?”

“Yes, sure,” Billy said and he yawned, looking around the walls and out the doorway.

“A priest of the Church should speak the truth and I did and they cast me out for it, and they are the same ones who tempt the Antichrist into their chambers. The college of cardinals has advised the Holy Father to withdraw his ban on the destruction of infant life, and he considers it, when the truth of God’s law is all about us. He said be fruitful and multiply and we have, and He gave us the intelligence to make the sick well and the weak strong, and that is where the truth lies. The millennium is here, now, upon us, a populous world of souls awaiting His call. This is the true millennium. False prophets said it was the year one thousand, but there are more people here in this single city than there were in the entire world at that time. Now is the hour, we can see it nearing, we can read the signs. The world can hold no more, it will crack asunder under the weight of the masses of people — but it will not crack until the seven trumpets blast, this New Year, Century Day. Then we will have the reckoning.”

When he stopped, the thin whine of mosquitoes was loud in the still air and Billy swatted his leg, killing one and leaving a thick splotch of blood that he brushed away with the heel of his hand. Peter’s arm was in the sun and Billy could see the welts and scabs of old bites that covered it.

“I’ve never seen so many mosquitoes as you got around here,” Billy said. “And in the daytime. I never got bitten in the daytime before.” He stood up and prowled about the refuse-filled chamber, walking to get away from the droning insects, kicking at dirt-stiffened rags and pieces of crumbling wood. In the center of the rear bulkhead was a heavy steel door, standing open a few inches. “What’s in here?” he asked.

Peter did not hear, or pretended not to hear, and Billy pushed against the door, but the hinges were rusted into position and it would not move. “Don’t you know what’s in here?” he asked again in a louder voice, and Peter stirred and turned.

“No,” he said, “I have never looked.”

“It’s been closed a long time, there might be stuff in there we could use, you never can tell. Let’s see if we can open it.”

Pushing together, and using the length of steel pipe as a lever, they managed to move it a few inches more until the opening was wide enough to slip through. Billy went first and his foot rattled against something on the deck; he picked it up.

“Look at that, I said we would find something. I can sell it or just hold on to it for a while.” It was a steel crowbar, over a yard long, abandoned here by some workman years before. It was coated with rust on the surface, but was still sound. He put the curved and sharpened end into the opening of the door next to the hinges and threw his weight onto the other end; the rusty hinges squealed and the door opened all the way. There was a small platform on the other side with metal steps falling away from it into the darkness. Billy started down slowly, holding the crowbar tightly in one hand, the railing in the other, and on the fifth step went up to his ankle in water. “It’s not just dark down there — it’s full of water,” he said.

Peter stepped in and looked, then pointed up at two bright patches above them. “Apparently the top deck catches the rain and it drains inside through those holes there. It must have been collecting for years down here.”

“That’s where your mosquitoes are coming from too.” The enclosed space was filled with their humming. “We can close that door and keep them out.”

“Very practical,” Peter agreed and looked at the dark surface below them. “It will also save our going to the water point on the other side of the fence. There is all the water we could possibly need here, more than we can ever use.”

15

“Hello, stranger,” Sol said.

Shirl could hear his voice clearly through the partition that divided the two rooms. She was sitting at the window doing her nails; she dropped her manicure set on the bed and ran to the door.

“Andy — is that you?” she called out and when she opened the door she saw him standing there, swaying a little with fatigue. She ran to him and kissed him, and he gave her a brief kiss in return, then released her and dropped into the car seat by the table.

“I’m wiped out,” he said. “No sleep since — when was it? — night before last. Did you get the water?”

“Filled both the tanks,” Sol said, “and got the jerry cans filled again before it got shut off. What’s going on with the water? I heard some fancy stories on the TV, but it was so much bushwa. What aren’t they telling?”

“You’re hurt!” Shirl called out, noticing for the first time the torn sleeve of his shirt with an edge of bandage