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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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They came to a U-turn road between the westbound and eastbound lanes about four miles down the road. OFFICIAL VEHICLES ONLY, a stern sign warned. Stu managed to manipulate the clutch well enough to get them around and into the eastbound lanes, having only one bad moment when the old car hitched and bucked and threatene...
“Bye-bye!” Tom called in high good humor. “Bye-bye, we’re going to Boulder, laws, yes!”
I’ll be content with Green River tonight, Stu thought.
They got there just after dark, Stu moving the Plymouth carefully in low gear through the dark streets, which were dotted with abandoned cars. He parked on the main drag, in front of a building that announced itself as the Utah Hotel. It was a dismal frame building three stories high, and Stu didn’t think the Waldorf-A...
Tired. Had he ever been so tired?
“In there,” he muttered. “We gotta stay the night, Nicky. I’m done up.”
“It’s Tom, Stu. Tom Cullen. Laws, yes.”
“Tom, yeah. We got to stop. Can you help me in?”
“Sure. Getting this old car to run, that was great.”
“I’ll have another beer,” Stu told him. “And ain’t you got a cigarette? I’m dying for a smoke.” He fell forward over the wheel.
Tom got out and carried him into the hotel. The lobby was damp and dark, but there was a fireplace and a half-filled woodbox beside it. Tom set Stu down on a threadbare sofa below a great stuffed moosehead and then set about building a fire while Kojak padded around, sniffing at things. Stu’s breath came slow and raspy...
He kindled a monster blaze, and then went looking around. He found pillows and blankets for himself and Stu. He pushed the sofa Stu was on a little closer to the fire and then Tom bedded down next to him. Kojak lay on the other side, so that they bracketed the sick man with their heat.
Tom lay looking at the ceiling, which was scrolled tin and laced with cobwebs at the corners. Stu was very sick. It was a worrisome thing. If he woke up again, Tom would ask him what to do about the sickness.
But suppose… suppose he didn’t wake up?
Outside the wind had picked up and went howling past the hotel. Rain lashed at the windows. By midnight, after Tom had gone to sleep, the temperature had dropped another four degrees, and the sound turned to the gritty slap of sleet. Far away to the west, the storm’s outer edges were urging a vast cloud of radioactive ...
At some time after two in the morning, Kojak raised his head and whined uneasily. Tom Cullen was getting up. His eyes were wide and blank. Kojak whined again, but Tom took no notice of him. He went to the door and let himself out into the screaming night. Kojak went to the hotel lobby window and put his paws up, lookin...
Outside, the wind howled and screeched.
Chapter 75
“I almost died, you know,” Nick said. He and Tom were walking up the empty sidewalk together. The wind howled steadily, an endless ghost-train highballing through the black sky. It made odd low hooting noises in the alleyways. Ha’ants, Tom would have said awake, and run away. But he wasn’t awake—not exactly—and Nick wa...
“You did?” Tom asked. “My laws!”
Nick laughed. His voice was low and musical, a good voice. Tom loved to listen to him talk.
“I sure did. That’s a big laws yes. The flu didn’t get me, but a little scratch along the leg almost did. Here, look at this.”
Seemingly oblivious of the cold, Nick unbuckled his jeans and pushed them down. Tom bent forward curiously, no different from any small boy who has been offered a glimpse of a wart with hair growing out of it or an interesting wound or puncture. Running down Nick’s leg was an ugly scar, barely healed. It started just b...
“And that almost killed you?”
Nick pulled up his jeans and belted them. “It wasn’t deep, but it got infected. Infection means that the bad germs got into it. Infection’s the most dangerous thing there is, Tom. Infection was what made the superflu germ kill all the people. And infection is what made people want to make the germ in the first place. A...
“Infection,” Tom whispered, fascinated. They were walking again, almost floating along the sidewalk.
“Tom, Stu’s got an infection now.”
“No… no, don’t say that, Nick… you’re scaring Tom Cullen, laws, yes, you are!”
“I know I am, Tom, and I’m sorry. But you have to know. He has pneumonia in both lungs. He’s been sleeping outside for nearly two weeks. There are things you have to do for him. And still, he’ll almost certainly die. You have to be prepared for that.”
“No, don’t—”
“Tom.” Nick put his hand on Tom’s shoulder, but Tom felt nothing… it was as if Nick’s hand was nothing but smoke. “If he dies, you and Kojak have to go on. You have to get back to Boulder and tell them that you saw the hand of God in the desert. If it’s God’s will, Stu will go with you… in time. If it’s God’s will that...
“Nick,” Tom begged. “Please—”
“I showed you my leg for a reason. There are pills for infections. In places like this.”
Tom looked around and was surprised to see that they were no longer on the street. They were in a dark store. A drugstore. A wheelchair was suspended on piano wire from the ceiling like a ghostly mechanical corpse. A sign on Tom’s right advertised: CONTINENCE SUPPLIES.
“Yes, sir? May I help you?”
Tom whirled around. Nick was behind the counter, in a white coat.
“Nick?”
“Yes, sir.” Nick began to put small bottles of pills in front of Tom. “This is penicillin. Very good for pneumonia. This is ampicillin, and this one’s amoxicillin. Also good stuff. And this is V-cillin, most commonly given to children, and it may work if the others don’t. He’s to drink lots of water, and he should have...
“I can’t remember all of that! ” Tom wailed.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to. Because there is no one else. You’re on your own.”
Tom began to cry.
Nick leaned forward. His arm swung. There was no slap—again there was only that feeling that Nick was smoke which had passed around him and possibly through him—but Tom felt his head rock back all the same. Something in his head seemed to snap.
“Stop that! You can’t be a baby now, Tom! Be a man! For God’s sake, be a man!”
Tom stared at Nick, his hand on his cheek, his eyes wide.
“Walk him,” Nick said. “Get him on his good leg. Drag him, if you have to. But get him off his back or he’ll drown.”
“He isn’t himself,” Tom said. “He shouts… he shouts to people who aren’t there.”
“He’s delirious. Walk him anyway. All you can. Make him take the penicillin, one pill at a time. Give him aspirin. Keep him warm. Pray. Those are all the things you can do.”
“All right, Nick. All right, I’ll try to be a man. I’ll try to remember. But I wish you was here, laws, yes, I do!”
“You do your best, Tom. That’s all.”