Immortality, Inc

by Robert Sheckley

  “Don't worry,” Jones said.

  Blaine watched, his rage ebbing as quickly as it had come. He had assumed that a battleaxe would be a clumsy weapon requiring a full backswing for each stroke. But Sammy Jones handled the short, heavy axe as though it were a baton. He took no backswing but let drive from any position, recovering instantly, his implacable weight and drive forcing Hull toward the cliff's sheer edge. There was no real comparison between the two men, Blaine realized. Hull was a gifted amateur, a dilettante murderer; Jones was a seasoned professional killer. It was like matching a ferocious house dog against a jungle tiger.

  The end came quickly in the blue twilight of the mountaintop. Sammy Jones parried a thrust and stamped forward, swinging his axe backhanded. The blade bit deep into Hull's left side. Hull fell screaming down the mountain's side. For seconds afterward they heard his body crash and turn.

  “Mark where he lies,” Sammy Jones said.

  “He's gotta be dead,” the saber man said.

  “He probably is. But it isn't a workmanlike job unless we make sure.”

  On the way down they found Hull's mangled and lifeless body. They marked the location for the burial party and walked on to the estate.

  18

  The hunters returned to the city in a group and threw a wild celebration. During the evening, Sammy Jones asked Blaine if he would join him on the next job.

  “I've got a nice deal lined up in Omsk,” Jones said. “A Russian nobleman wants to hold a couple of gladiatorial games. You'd have to use a spear, but it's the same as a rifle. I'd train you on the way. After Omsk, there's a really big hunt being organized in Manila. Five brothers want to suicide together. They want fifty hunters to cut them down. What do you say, Tom?”

  Blaine thought carefully before answering. The hunter's life was the most compatible he had found so far in this world. He liked the rough companionship of men like Sammy Jones, the straight, simple thinking, the life outdoors, the action that erased all doubts.

  On the other hand there was something terribly pointless about wandering around the world as a paid killer, a modern and approved version of the bully, the bravo, the thug. There was something futile about action just for action's sake, with no genuine intent or purpose behind it, no resolution or discovery. These considerations might not arise if he were truly what his body seemed; but he was not. The hiatus existed, and had to be faced.

  And finally there were other problems that this world presented, other challenges more apropos to his personality. And those had to be met. “Sorry, Sammy,” he said.

  Jones shook his head. “You’re making a mistake, Tom. You’re a natural-born killer. There's nothing else for you.”

  “Perhaps not,” Blaine said. “I have to find out.”

  “Well, good luck,” Sammy Jones said. “And take care of that body of yours. You picked a good one.”

  Blaine blinked involuntarily. “Is it so obvious?”

  Jones grinned. “I been around, Tom. I can tell when a man is wearing a host. If your mind had been born in that body, you'd be away and hunting with me. And if your mind had been born in a different body —”

  “Yes?”

  “You wouldn't have gone hunting in the first place. It's a bad splice, Tom. You'd better figure out which way you’re going.”

  “Thanks,” Blaine said. They shook hands and Blaine left for his hotel.

  He reached his room and flung himself, fully dressed, upon the bed. When he awoke he would call Marie. But first, he had to sleep. All plans, thoughts, problems, decisions, even dreams, would have to wait. He was tired down to the very bone.

  He snapped off the lights. Within seconds he was asleep.

  Several hours later he awoke with a sensation of something wrong. The room was dark. Everything was still, more silent and expectant than New York had any right to be.

  He sat upright in bed and heard a faint movement on the other side of the room, near the washbasin.

  Blaine reached out and snapped on the light. There was no one in the room. But as he watched, his enamelled washbasin rose in the air. Slowly it lifted, hovering impossibly without support. And at the same time he heard a thin shattering laugh.

  He knew at once he was being haunted, and by a poltergeist.

  Carefully he eased out of bed and moved toward the door. The suspended basin dipped suddenly and plunged toward his head. He ducked, and the basin shattered against the wall.

  His water pitcher levitated now, followed by two heavy tumblers. Twisting and turning erratically, they edged toward him.

  Blaine picked up a pillow as a shield and rushed to the door. He turned the lock as a tumbler shattered above his head. The door wouldn't open. The poltergeist was holding it shut.

  The pitcher struck him violently in the ribs. The remaining tumbler buzzed in an ominous circle around his head, and he was forced to retreat from the door.

  He remembered the fire escape outside his window. But the poltergeist thought of it as he started to move. The curtains suddenly burst into flame. At the same instant the pillow he was holding caught fire, and Blaine threw it from him;

  “Help!” he shouted. “Help!”

  He was being forced into a corner of the room. With a rumble the bed slid forward, blocking his retreat. A chair rose slowly into the air and poised itself for a blow at his head.

  And continually there was a thin and shattering laughter that Blaine could almost recognize.

  PART THREE

  19

  As the bed crept toward him Blaine shouted for help in a voice that made the window rattle. His only answer was the poltergeist's high-pitched laugh.

  Were they all deaf in the hotel? Why didn't someone answer?

  Then he realized that, by the very nature of things, no one would even consider helping him. Violence was a commonplace in this world, and a man's death was entirely his own business. There would be no inquiry. The janitor would simply clean up the mess in the morning, and the room would be marked vacant.

  His door was impassable. The only chance he could see was to jump over the bed and through the closed window. If he made the leap properly, he would fall against the waist-high fire escape railing outside. If he jumped too hard he would go right over the railing, and fall three stories to the street.

  The chair beat him over the shoulders, and the bed rumbled forward to pin him against the wall. Blaine made a quick calculation of angles and distances, drew himself together and flung himself at the window.

  He hit squarely; but he had reckoned without the advances of modern science. The window bent outward like a sheet of rubber, and snapped back into place. He was thrown against a wall, and fell dazed to the floor. Looking up, he saw a heavy bureau wobble toward him and slowly tilt.

  As the poltergeist threw his lunatic strength against the bureau, the unwatched door swung open. Smith entered the room, his thick-featured zombie face impassive, and deflected the falling bureau with his shoulder.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Blaine asked no questions. He scrambled to his feet and grabbed the edge of the closing door. With Smith's help he pulled it open again, and the two men slipped out. From within the room he heard a shriek of baffled rage.

  Smith hurried down the hall, one cold hand clasped around Blaine's wrist. They went downstairs, through the hotel lobby and into the street. The zombie's face was leaden white except for the purple bruise where Blaine had struck him. The bruise had spread across nearly half his face, pie-balding it into a Harlequin's grotesque mask.

  “Where are we going?” Blaine asked.

  “To a safe place.”

  They reached an ancient unused subway entrance, and descended. One flight down they came to a small iron door set in the cracked concrete door. Smith opened the door and beckoned Blaine to follow him.

  Blaine hesitated, and caught the hint of high-pitched laughter. The poltergeist was pursuing him, as the Eumenides had once pursued their victims through the streets of ancient Athe
ns. He could stay in the lighted upper world if he wished, hag-ridden by an insane spirit. Or he could descend with Smith, through the iron door and into the darkness beyond it, to some uncertain destiny in the underworld.

  The shrill laughter increased. Blaine hesitated no longer. He followed Smith through the iron door and closed it behind him.

  For the moment, the poltergeist had not chosen to pursue. They walked down a tunnel lighted by an occasional naked light bulb, past cracked masonry pipes and the looming gray corpse of a subway train, past rusted iron cables lying in giant serpent coils. The air was moist and rank, and a thin slime underfoot made walking treacherous.

  “Where are we going?” Blaine asked.

  “To where I can protect you,” Smith said.

  “Can you?”

  “Spirits aren't invulnerable. Exorcism is possible if the true identity of the ghost is known.”

  “Then you know who is haunting me?”

  “I think so. There's only one person it logically could be.”

  “Who?”

  Smith shook his head. “I'd rather not say his name yet. No sense calling him if he's not here.”

  They descended a series of crumbling shale steps into a wider chamber, and circled the edge of a small black pond whose surface looked as hard and still as jet. On the other side of the pond was a passageway. A man stood in front of it, blocking the way.

  He was a tall husky Negro, dressed in rags, armed with a length of iron pipe. From his look Blaine knew he was a zombie.

  “This is my friend,” Smith said. “May I bring him through?”

  “You sure he's no inspector?”

  “Absolutely sure.”

  “Wait here,” the Negro said. He disappeared into the passageway.

  “Where are we?” Blaine asked.

  “Underneath New York, in a series of unused subway tunnels, old sewer conduits, and some passageways we've fashioned for ourselves.”

  “But why did we come here?” Blaine asked.

  “Where else would we go?” Smith asked, surprised. “This is my home. Didn't you know? You’re in New York's zombie colony.”

  Blaine didn't consider a zombie colony much improvement over a ghost; but he didn't have time to think about it. The Negro returned. With him was a very old man who walked with the aid of a stick. The man's face was broken into a network of a thousand lines and wrinkles. His eyes barely showed through the fine scrollwork of sagging flesh, and even his lips were wrinkled.

  “This is the man you told me about?” he asked.

  “Yes sir,” said Smith. “This is the man. Blaine, let me introduce you to Mr. Kean, the leader of our colony. May I take him through, sir?”

  “You may,” the old man said. “And I will accompany you for a while.”

  They started down the passageway, Mr. Kean supporting himself heavily on the Negro's arm.

  “In the usual course of events,” Mr. Kean said, “only zombies are allowed in the colony. All others are barred. But it has been years since I spoke with a normal, and I thought the experience might be valuable. Therefore, at Smith's earnest request, I made an exception in your case.”

  “I'm very grateful,” Blaine said, hoping he had reason to be.

  “Don't misunderstand me. I am not averse to helping you. But first and foremost I am responsible for the safety of the eleven hundred zombies living beneath New York. For their sake, normals must be kept out. Exclusivity is our only hope in an ignorant world.” Mr. Kean paused. “But perhaps you can help us, Blaine.”

  “How?”

  “By listening and understanding, and passing on what you have learned. Education is our only hope. Tell me, what do you know about the problems of a zombie?”

  “Very little.”

  “I will instruct you. Zombieism, Mr. Blaine, is a disease which has long had a powerful aura of superstition surrounding it, comparable to the aura generated by such diseases as epilepsy, leprosy, or St. Vitus’ Dance. The spiritualizing tendency is a common one. Schizophrenia, you know, was once thought to mean possession by devils, and hydrocephalic idiots were considered peculiarly blessed. Similar fantasies attach to zombieism.”

  They walked in silence for a few moments. Mr. Kean said, “The superstition of the zombie is essentially Haitian; the disease of the zombie is worldwide, although rare. But the superstition and the disease have become hopelessly confused in the public mind. The zombie of superstition is an element of the Haitian Vodun cult; a human being whose soul has been stolen by magic. The zombie's body could be used as the magician wished, could even be slaughtered and sold for meat in the marketplace. If the zombie ate salt or beheld the sea, he realized that he was dead and returned to his grave. For all this, there is no basis in fact.

  “The superstition arose from the descriptively similar disease. Once it was exceedingly rare. But today, with the increase in mind-switching and reincarnation techniques, zombieism has become more common. The disease of the zombie occurs when a mind occupies a body that has been untenanted too long. Mind and body are not then one, as yours are, Mr. Blaine. They exist, instead, as quasi-independent entities engaged in an uneasy cooperation. Take our friend Smith as typical. He can control his body's gross physical actions, but fine coordination is impossible for him. His voice is incapable of discrete modulation, and his ears do not receive subtle differences in tone. His face is expressionless, for he has little or no control over surface musculature. He drives his body, but is not truly a part of it.”

  “And can't anything be done?” Blaine asked.

  “At the present time, nothing.”

  “I'm very sorry,” Blaine said uncomfortably.

  “This is not a plea for your sympathy,” Kean told him. “It is a request only for the most elementary understanding. I simply want you and everyone to know that zombieism is not a visitation of sins, but a disease, like mumps or cancer, and nothing more.”

  Mr. Kean leaned against the wall of the passageway to catch his breath. “To be sure, the zombie's appearance is unpleasant. He shambles, his wounds never heal, his body deteriorates rapidly. He mumbles like an idiot, staggers like a drunk, stares like a pervert. But is this any reason to make him the repository of all guilt and shame upon Earth, the leper of the 22nd century? They say that zombies attack people; yet his body is fragile in the extreme, and the average zombie couldn't resist a child's determined assault. They believe the disease is communicable; and this is obviously not so. They say that zombies are sexually perverted, and the truth is that a zombie experiences no sexual feelings whatsoever. But people refuse to learn, and zombies are outcasts fit only for the hangman's noose or the lyncher's burning stake.”

  “What about the authorities?” Blaine asked.

  Mr. Kean smiled bitterly. “They used to lock us up, as a kindness, in mental institutions. You see, they didn't want us hurt. Yet zombies are rarely insane, and the authorities knew it! So now, with their tacit approval, we occupy these abandoned subway tunnels and sewer lines.”

  “Couldn't you find a better place?” Blaine asked.

  “Frankly, the underground suits us. Sunlight is bad for unregenerative skins.”

  They began walking again. Blaine said, “What can I do?”

  “You can tell someone what you learned here. Write about it, perhaps. Widening ripples…”

  “I'll do what I can.”

  “Thank you,” Mr. Kean said gravely. “Education is our only hope. Education and the future. Surely people will be more enlightened in the future.”

  The future? Blaine felt suddenly dizzy. For this was the future, to which he had travelled from the idealistic and hopeful 20th century. Now was the future! But the promised enlightenment still had not come, and people were much the same as ever. For a second Blaine's centuries pressed heavily on him. He felt disoriented and old, older than Kean, older than the human race — a creature in a borrowed body standing in a place it did not know.

  “And now,” Mr. Kean said, “we have reached yo
ur destination.”

  Blaine blinked rapidly, and life came back into focus. The dim passageway had ended. In front of him was a rusted iron ladder fastened to the tunnel wall, leading upward into darkness.

  “Good luck,” Mr. Kean said. He left, supporting himself heavily on the Negro's arm. Blaine watched the old man go, then turned to Smith.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Up the ladder.”

  “But where does it lead?”

  Smith had already begun climbing. He stopped and looked down, his lead-colored lips drawn back into a grin. “We’re going to visit a friend of yours, Blaine. We’re going into his tomb, up to his coffin, and ask him to stop haunting you. Force him, maybe.”

  “Who is he?” Blaine asked.

  Smith only grinned and continued climbing. Blaine mounted the ladder behind him.

  20

  Above the passageway was a ventilation shaft, which led to another passageway. They came at last to a door, and entered.

  They were in a large, brilliantly lighted room. Upon the arched ceiling was a mural depicting a handsome, clear-eyed man entering a gauzy blue heaven in the company of angels. Blaine knew at once who had modeled for the painting.

  “Reilly!”

  Smith nodded. “We’re inside his Palace of Death.”

  “How did you know Reilly was haunting me?”

  “You should have thought of it yourself. Only two people connected with you have died recently. The ghost certainly was not Ray Melhill. It had to be Reilly.”

  “But why?”

  “I don't know,” Smith said. “Perhaps Reilly will tell you himself.”

  Blaine looked at the walls. They were inlaid with crosses, crescent moons, stars and swastikas, as well as Indian, African, Arabian, Chinese and Polynesian good-luck signs. On pedestals around the room were statues of ancient deities. Among the dozens Blaine recognized Zeus, Apollo, Dagon, Odin and Astarte. In front of each pedestal was an altar, and on each altar was a cut and polished jewel.