earth.
He began to struggle across the soft yet stiff barricade of bodies, stumbling, almost falling, clutching the railing, going on. His foot punched through into some dreadful sliminess and there was a gassy, putrid smell that he barely noticed. He went on, gasping.
Then, from behind him, a scream rose in the darkness, freezing him on the spot. It was a desperate, wretched sound, close to the limits of sanity: “
It was Rita Blakemoor.
He turned around. There was sobbing now, wild sobbing that filled the place with fresh echoes. For one wild moment he decided to go on anyway, to leave her. She would find her way out eventually, why burden himself with her again? Then he got hold of himself and shouted, “Rita! Stay where you are! Do you hear me?”
The sobbing continued.
He stumbled back across the bodies, trying not to breathe, his face twisted in an expression of grimacing disgust. Then he ran toward her, not sure how far he had to go because of the distorting quality of the echo. In the end he almost fell over her.
“Larry—” She threw herself against him and clutched his neck with a strangler’s force. He could feel her heart skidding along at a breakneck pace under her shirt. “Larry Larry don’t leave me alone here don’t leave me alone in the dark—”
“No.” He held her tightly. “Did I hurt you? Are… are you shot?”
“No… I felt the wind… one of them went by so close I felt the wind of it… and chips… tile-chips, I think… on my face… cut my face…”
“Oh Jesus, Rita, I didn’t know. I was freaking out in here. The dark. And I lost my lighter… you should have called. I could have killed you.” The truth of it came home to him. “
“I wasn’t sure it was you. I went into an apartment house when you went down the ramp. And you came back and called and I almost… but I couldn’t… and then two men came after the rain started… I think they were looking for us… or for me. So I stayed where I was and when they were gone I thought, maybe they’re not gone, maybe they’re hiding and looking for me and I didn’t dare go out until I started to think you’d get to the other side, and I’d never see you again… so I… I… Larry, you won’t leave me, will you? You won’t go away?”
“No,” he said.
“I was wrong, what I said, that was wrong, you were right, I should have told you about the sandals, I mean the shoes, I’ll eat when you tell me to… I… I…
“Shh,” he said, holding her. “It’s all right now. All right.” But in his mind he saw himself firing at her in a blind panic, and thought how easily one of those slugs could have smashed her arm or blown out her stomach. Suddenly he had to go to the bathroom very badly and his teeth wanted to chatter. “We’ll go when you feel like you can walk. Take your time.”
“There was a man… I think it was a man… I stepped on him, Larry.” She swallowed and her throat clicked. “Oh, I almost screamed then, but I didn’t because I thought it might be one of those men up ahead instead of you. And when you called out… the echo… I couldn’t tell if it was you… or…or…”
“There are more dead people up ahead. Can you stand that?”
“If you’re with me. Please… if you’re with me.”
“I will be.”
“Let’s go, then. I want to get out of here.” She shuddered convulsively against him. “I never wanted anything so badly in my life.”
He felt for her face and kissed her, first her nose, then each eye, then her mouth.
“Thank you,” he said humbly, having not the slightest idea what he meant. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” she repeated. “Oh dear Larry. You won’t leave me, will you?”
“No,” he said. “I won’t leave you. Just tell me when you feel like you can, Rita, and we’ll go together.”
When she felt she could, they did.
They got over the bodies, their arms slung about each other’s necks like drunken chums coming home from a neighborhood tavern. Beyond that they came to a blockage of some sort. It was impossible to see, but after running her hands over it, Rita said it might be a bed standing on end. Together they managed to tip it over the catwalk railing. It crashed onto a car below with a loud, echoing bang that made them both jump and clutch each other. Behind where it had been there were more sprawled bodies, three of them, and Larry guessed that these were the soldiers that had shot down the Jewish family. They got over them and went on, holding hands.
A short time later Rita stopped short.
“What’s the matter?” Larry asked. “Is there something in the way?”
“No. I can see, Larry! It’s the end of the tunnel!”
He blinked and realized that he could see, too. The glow was dim and it had come so gradually that he hadn’t been aware of it until Rita had spoken. He could make out a faint shine on the tiles, and the pale blur of Rita’s face closer by. Looking over to the left he could see the dead river of automobiles.
“Come on,” he said, jubilant.
Sixty paces farther along there were more bodies sprawled on the walkway, all soldiers. They stepped over them.
“Why would they only close off New York?” she asked. “Unless maybe… Larry, maybe it only happened in New York!”
“I don’t think so,” he said, but felt a touch of irrational hope anyway.
They walked faster. The mouth of the tunnel was ahead of them now. It was blocked by two huge army convoy trucks parked nose to nose. The trucks blotted out much of the daylight; if they hadn’t been there, Larry and Rita would have had some light much farther back in the tunnel. There was another sprawl of bodies where the catwalk descended to join the ramp leading outside. They squeezed between the convoy trucks, scrambling over the locked bumpers. Rita didn’t look inside, but Larry did. There was a half-assembled tripod machine gun, boxes of ammunition, and canisters of stuff that looked like teargas. Also, three dead men.
As they came outside, a rain-dampened breeze pressed against them, and its wonderfully fresh smell seemed to make it all worthwhile. He said so to Rita, and she nodded and put her head against his shoulder for a moment.
“I wouldn’t go through there again for a million dollars, though,” she said.
“In a few years you’ll be using money for toilet paper,” he said. “Please don’t squeeze the greenbacks.”
“But are you sure—”
“That it wasn’t just New York?” He pointed. “Look.”
The tollbooths were empty. The middle one stood in a heap of broken glass. Beyond them, the westbound lanes were empty for as far as they could see, but the eastbound lanes, the ones which fed into the tunnel and the city they had just left, were crowded with silent traffic. There was an untidy pile of bodies in the breakdown lane, and a number of seagulls stood watch over it.
“Oh dear God,” she said weakly.
“There were as many people trying to get into New York as there were trying to get out of it. I don’t know why they bothered blockading the tunnel on the Jersey end. Probably they didn’t know why, either. Just somebody’s bright idea, busywork—”
But she had sat down on the road and was crying.
“Don’t,” he said, kneeling beside her. The experience in the tunnel was still too fresh for him to feel angry with her. “It’s all right, Rita.”
“What is?” she sobbed. “What is? Just tell me one thing.”
“We’re out, anyway. That’s something. And there’s fresh air. In fact, New Jersey never smelled so good.”
That earned him a wan smile. Larry looked at the scratches on her cheek and temple where the shards of tile had cut her.
“We ought to get you to a drugstore and put some peroxide on those cuts,” he said. “Do you feel up to walking?”
“Yes.” She was looking at him with a dumb gratitude that made him feel uneasy. “And I’ll get some new shoes. Some sneakers. I’ll do just what you tell me, Larry. I want to.”
“I shouted at you because I was upset,” he said quietly. He brushed her hair back and kissed one of the
