The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  wick gave reluctant respect to his intelligence and his education .

  Baker was quick-witted . His head was stuffed full of accurate scien-

  tific information from diversified fields.

  But he refused to be jarred loose from his fixed position that

  scientific breakthroughs could come from any source but the Es-

  tablished Authority . The possibility that the crackpot fringe could

  produce such a break-through panicked him . It had panicked him .

  He was fleeing dangerously now through the night, driven by a fear

  he did not know was in him .

  Inflexibility. This seemed to be the characteristic that marked

  Baker and his kind . Defender of the Fixed Position might well have

  been his title . With all his might and power, Bill Baker defended the

  Fixed Position he had chosen, the Fixed Position behind the wall of

  Established Authority .

  A blind spot, perhaps? But it seemed more than mere blindness

  that kept Baker so hotly defending his Fixed Position . It seemed as

  if, somehow, he was aware of its vulnerability and was determined

  to fight off any and all attacks, regardless of consequences.

  Fenwick didn’t know . He felt as if it was less than hopeless, how-

  ever, to attempt to change Bill Baker . Any change would have to be

  brought about by Baker himself . And that, at the moment, seemed

  far less likely than the well-known snowball in Hades .

  Fenwick knew he must have dozed off to sleep with the light still

  on in the room and Ellerbee’s unread book opened over his chest .

  He did not know what time it was when he awoke . He was aware

  only of a suffocating sensation as if some ghostly aura were within

  the room, filling it, pressing down upon him. A wailing of agony

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  and despair seemed to scratch at his senses although he was certain

  there was no audible sound . And a depression clutched at his soul as

  if death itself had suddenly walked unseen through the closed door .

  Fenwick sat up, shivering in the sudden coolness of the room, but

  clammy with sweat over his whole body . He had never experienced

  such sensations before in his life . His stomach turned to a hard ball

  under the flow of panic that surged through all his nerves.

  He forced himself to sit quietly for a moment, trying to release

  his fear-tightened muscles . He relaxed the panic in his stomach and

  looked slowly about the room . He could recall no stimulus in his

  sleep that had produced such a reaction . He hadn’t even been dream-

  ing, as far as he could tell . There was no recollection of any sound or

  movement within the house or outside .

  He was calmer after a moment, but that sensation of death close

  at hand would not go away . He would have been unable to describe

  it if asked, but it was there. It filled the atmosphere of the room. It

  seemed to emanate from—

  Fenwick turned his head about . It was almost as if there was

  some definite source from which the ghastly sensation was pouring

  over him . The walls—the air of the room—

  His eyes caught the crystal on the table by the bed .

  He could feel the force of death pouring from it .

  His first impulse was to pick up the thing and hurl it as far as he

  could . Then in saner desperation he leaped from the bed and threw

  on his clothes . He grabbed the crystal in his hand and ran out through

  the door and down the stairs .

  Jim Ellerbee was already there in the living room . He was seated

  by the old-fashioned library table, his hand outstretched upon it . In

  his hand lay the counterpart of the crystal Fenwick carried .

  “Ellerbee!” Fenwick cried . “What’s going on? What in Heaven’s

  name is coming out of these things?”

  “Baker,” said Ellerbee . “He smashed up on the road somewhere .

  He’s out there dying .”

  “Can you be sure? Then don’t sit there, man! Let’s get on our

  way!”

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  Ellerbee shook his head . “He’ll be dead before we can get there .”

  “How do you know he cracked up, anyway? Can you read that

  out of the crystal?”

  Ellerbee nodded . “He kept it in his pocket . It’s close enough to

  him to transmit the frantic messages of his dying mind .”

  “Then we’ve got to go! No matter if we get there in time or not .”

  Ellerbee shook his head again . “Sam is on his way over here .

  He’s in touch with Baker . He says he thinks he can talk Baker back .”

  “Talk him back? What do you mean by that?”

  Ellerbee hesitated . “I’m not sure . In some ways Sam understands

  a lot more about these things than I do . He can do things with the

  crystals that I don’t understand . If he says he can talk Dr . Baker

  back, I think maybe he can .”

  “But we can’t depend on that!” Fenwick said frantically . “Can’t

  we get on our way in the car and let Sam do what he thinks he can

  while we drive? Maybe he can get Baker to hold on until we get him

  to a doctor .”

  “You don’t understand,” said Ellerbee . “Dr . Baker has gone over

  the edge . He’s dying . I know what it’s like . I looked into a dying

  mind once before . There is nothing whatever that a doctor can do

  after an organism starts dying. It’s a definite process. Once started,

  it’s irreversible .”

  “Then what does Sam—?”

  “Sam thinks he knows how to reverse it .”

  There wasn’t much pain . Not as much as he would have sup-

  posed . He felt sure there was terrible damage inside . He could feel

  the warmth of blood welling up inside his throat . But the pain was

  not there . That was good .

  In place of pain, there was a kind of infinite satisfaction and a

  growing peace . The ultimate magnitude of this peace, which he

  could sense, was so great that it loomed like some blinding glory .

  This was death . The commitment and the decision had been

  made . But this was better than any alternative . He could not see how

  there could have been any question about it .

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  He was lying on his back in the wet clay of a bank below the

  road . It was raining, softly now, and he rather liked the gentle drop

  of it on his face . Somewhere below him the hulk of his wrecked car

  lay on its side . He could smell the unpleasant odor of gasoline . But

  all of this was less than nothing in importance to him now . Some-

  where in the back of his mind was a remnant of memory of what he

  had been doing this day . He remembered the name of John Fenwick,

  and the memory brought a faint amusement to his bloody lips . There

  had been some differences between him and John Fenwick . Those

  differences were also less than nothing, now . All differences were

  wiped out . He gave himself up to the pleasure of being borne along

  on that great current that seemed to be carrying him swiftly to a

  quiet place .

  After a time, he remembered two other names, also . James Eller-

  bee and Sam Atkins . He remembered a cryst
al, and it meant nothing .

  He remembered that it was in his pocket and that for some time he

  had felt a warmth from it, that was both pleasant and unpleasant . It

  was of no importance . He might have reached for it and thrown it

  farther from him, but his arm on that side was broken .

  He was glad that there was nothing—nothing whatever—that

  had any magnitude of importance . Even his family—they were like

  fragments of a long-ago dream .

  He lay waiting quietly and patiently for the swiftly approaching

  destination of ultimate peace . He did not know how long it would

  take, but he knew it could not be long, and even the journey was

  sweet .

  It was while he waited, letting his mind drift, that he became

  aware of the intruder . In that moment, the pain boiled up in shriek-

  ing agony .

  He had thought himself alone . He wanted above all else to be

  alone . But there was someone with him . He wasn’t sure how he

  knew . He could simply feel the unwanted presence . He strained to

  see in the wet darkness . He listened for muted sounds . There was

  nothing . Only the presence .

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  “Go away!” he whispered hoarsely . “Go away, and leave me

  alone—whoever you are .”

  “No . Let me take you by the hand, William Baker . I have come to

  show you the way back . I have come to lead you back .”

  “Leave me alone! Whoever you are, leave me alone!” Baker was

  conscious of his own voice screaming in the black night . And it was

  not only terror of the unknown presence that made him scream, but

  the physical pain of crushed bones and torn flesh was sweeping like

  a torrent through him .

  “Don’t be afraid of me . You know me . You remember, we met

  this afternoon . Sam Atkins . You remember, Dr . Baker?”

  “I remember .” Baker’s voice was a painful gasp . “I remember .

  Now go away and leave me alone . You can do nothing for me . I

  don’t want you to do anything for me .”

  Sam Atkins . The crystal . Baker wished he could reach the cursed

  thing and hurl it away from him . That must be how Atkins was com-

  municating with him . Yes, somehow it was possible . He had found

  no trick, no gimmick . Somehow, the miserable things worked .

  But what did Sam Atkins want? He had broken in on a moment

  that was as private as a dream . There was nothing he could do .

  Baker was dying . He knew he was dying . There was no medicine

  that could heal the battering his body had taken . He had been slip-

  ping away into peace and release of pain . He had no desire to have

  it interrupted .

  There was no more evidence of Sam Atkins’ presence . It was

  there—and Baker wished furiously that Atkins would let his death

  be a private thing—but he was not interfering now .

  There was the faint suggestion of other presences, too . Baker

  thought he could pick them out, Fenwick and Ellerbee . They were

  all gathered to watch him die through the crystals . It was unkind of

  them to so intrude—but it didn’t really matter very much . He began

  drifting pleasantly again .

  “William Baker .” The soft voice of Sam Atkins shattered the

  peaceable realm once more . “We must do some healing before we

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  start back, Dr . Baker . Give me your hand, and come with me, Dr .

  Baker, while we touch these tissues and heal their breaks . Stay close

  to me and the pain will not be more than you can endure .”

  The night remained dark and there was no sound, but Baker’s

  body arched and twisted in panic as he fought against invisible hands

  that seemed to touch with fleeting, exploratory passes over him.

  “I don’t want to be healed,” he whispered . “There is nothing that

  can be done . I’m dying . I want to die! Can’t you understand that? I

  want to die! I don’t want your help!”

  He had said it . And the shock of it jolted even him in the depths

  of his half-conscious mind . Could a man really want to die?

  Yes .

  He had forgotten what terror he had left so far behind . He knew

  only that he wanted to move forever in the direction of the flowing

  peace .

  Like probing fingers, Sam Atkins’ mind continued to touch him.

  It scanned the broken organs of his body, and, in some kind of de-

  tached way, Baker felt that he was accompanying Atkins on that

  journey of exploration, even as Sam had asked .

  They searched the skeleton and found the splintered bones . They

  examined the muscle structure and found the torn and shattered tis-

  sue . They searched the dark recesses of his vital organs and came to

  injury that Baker knew was hopeless .

  “You built this once,” Sam Atkins’ voice whispered . “You can

  build it again . The materials are all here . The blood stream is still

  moving . The nerve tissue will carry your instructions . I’ll supply the

  scaffolding—while you build—”

  He remembered . Baker examined the long-untouched record of

  when he had done this before . He remembered the construction of

  cells, the building of organs, the interconnection of nerve tissue . He

  felt an infinite sadness at the present ruin. Yes—he could build again.

  Sam Atkins’ face was like that of a dead man . Across the table

  from him, Jim Ellerbee and John Fenwick watched silently . Faintly,

  between them was the crystal-projected image of Baker’s body .

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  Fenwick felt the cold touch of some mysterious unknown prickle

  his scalp . Sam Atkins seemed remote and alien, like the practitioner

  of ancient and forbidden arts . Fenwick found the question tumbling

  over and over in his mind, who is this man? He felt as if the very

  life energy of Sam Atkins was somehow flowing out through the

  crystal, across space, to the distant broken body of Bill Baker and

  was supporting it while Baker’s own feeble energy was consumed

  in the rebuilding of his shattered organs .

  Though Fenwick and Ellerbee held their own crystals, Sam had

  somehow shut them out . They were in faint contact with Baker, but

  they could not follow the fierce contact that Sam’s mind held with

  him .Ellerbee’s face showed worry and a trace of panic . He hesitantly

  reached out to touch the immobile figure of Sam Atkins, who sat

  with closed eyes and imperceptible breath . Fenwick sensed disaster .

  He arrested the motion of Ellerbee’s hand .

  “I think you could kill them both,” he whispered . The life force

  of one man, divided between two—it was not sufficient to cope with

  unexpected shocks to either, now .

  Ellerbee desisted . “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he

  said . “I don’t know what Sam’s doing—I don’t know how he’s do-

  ing it—”

  Fenwick looked sharply at Ellerbee . Ellerbee had discovered the

  crystals, so he and Sam said . Yet Sam was able to do things with

  them that Ellerbee could not conceive . Fenwick wondered just who

&nbs
p; was responsible for the crystals . And he resolved that some day,

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  when and if Baker pulled out of this, he would learn something more

  about Sam Atkins .

  Time moved beyond midnight and into the early morning hours

  of the day, but this meant nothing to William Baker . He was in the

  midst of eternity . Because the old pattern was there, and the ancient

  memories were clear, his reconstruction moved at a pace that was

  limited only by the materials available . When these grew scarce, Sam

  Atkins showed him how to break down and utilize other structures

  that could be rebuilt leisurely at a later time . There was remembered

  joy in the building and, once started, Baker gave only idle wonder to

  the question of whether this was more desirable than death . He did

  not know . This seemed the right thing to do .

  In the presence of Sam Atkins everything he was doing seemed

  right, and a lifetime of doubts, and errors, and fears seemed distant

  and vague .

  But Sam said suddenly, “It is almost finished. Just a little farther

  and you’ll have to go the rest of the way alone .”

  Terror struck at Baker . He had reached a point where he was

  absolutely sure he could not go on alone without Sam’s support-

  ing presence . “You tricked me!” Baker cried . “You tricked me! You

  didn’t tell me I would have to be reborn alone!”

  “Doesn’t every man?” said Sam . “Is there any way to be born,

  except alone?”

  Slowly, the world closed in about Baker .

  Light . Sounds .

  Wet . Cold .

  The impact of a million idiot minds . The coursing of cosmic-

  ray particles . The wrenching of Earth’s magnetic and gravitational

  fields. Old and sluggish memories were renewed, memories meant

  to be buried for all of his life .

  Baker felt as if he were suddenly running down a dark and im-

  mense corridor . Behind were all the terrors spawned since the begin-

  ning of time . Ahead were a thousand openings of light and safety .

  He raced for the nearest and brightest and most familiar .

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  “No,” said Sam Atkins . “You cannot go that way again . It is the

  way you went before—and it led to this—to a search for death . For

  you, it will lead only to the same goal again .”