by Tim Sullivan
He felt his own heart beating.
He felt his own lungs breathing.
He felt the electric charge fire along the optic nerve, and he saw once again.
The asphalt was hard against his buttocks. His back ached from sitting in the same position all night.
He was drooling. He closed his slack jaw and wiped away the spittle. Above him stood the mindless body of Tony Chang. Somewhere, hidden inside it, was a remnant of Tony as he had been, but would never be again.
Alex lifted his weary, sore body off the pavement and stumbled past the colloid master under whose weight Tony's body was bent.
One last sensation of the dying colloid that had tormented Alex passed fleetingly through his consciousness, guttered, and then was snuffed out. Its dark light was no longer within his body or mind.
Alex walked out onto the empty highway and watched the sun rise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The wind whistled along the highway.
It took several minutes for Alex to remember where he was. And even then he didn't know how far he had walked. All he knew was that he was in the suburbs somewhere north of the city, and he had a long way to go back home. He felt very weak, though his spirits were high indeed.
He turned around, seeing Tony standing by the side of the road. The kid's spine was cruelly curved by the weight of the colloid, and he looked more dead than alive.
Still, Alex didn't shoot him. The colloid would have nowhere to go if its host died, and consequently would have no recourse but to attack Alex. If he just left it alone, perhaps he could walk away from it and return to the armory. It was also possible that the colloid would force Tony to attack him, of course. Alex thought it best to move away warily.
But Tony turned slowly toward the north and began to walk stiffly. Apparently there was more important business afoot than dealing with Alex.
Had the colloids written Alex off as a freak? Surely there were others besides him who had resisted them. He might never know the reason, but he suspected that the colloids considered him beyond the pale. If he were truly untouchable, then he would be able to strike at them in ways that they might never suspect. It was something to think about.
Just now, however, he could only think of food and shelter. His joints ached from exposure, and his hunger seemed to course through his entire body. He had never felt so frail and weak in his life.
He started the long walk home, the activity gradually warming him a little against the morning air. But after an hour or two walking on the deserted interstate, it occurred to him that he might be better off going cross country. He might even find something to eat in the ruins of northeast Philadelphia, though it was not likely. The scavengers had picked the city clean a long time ago.
Alex stepped over a guard rail and stumbled down the embankment, into the abandoned streets with their rows of tract houses. Most of the two storey buildings were still standing, miles from Center City, where the action had really gotten hot during the war.
Alex entered a house, finding it almost empty. The wooden floors had been eaten away by the weather, since the windows were all broken. The kitchen shelves were empty.
He left the house and continued in a general southwesterly direction. Every now and then he stopped to look in another house, or neighborhood store, and each time he was disappointed to find nothing to sustain him.
As the morning wore on, the sun warmed the streets somewhat. An occasional breeze chilled Alex. Most of the time, he was uncomfortable but all right. If he hadn't been so weak and hungry, he could have made good time. He estimated that it would take days for him to get back to the armory at this rate. He was very thirsty; if he didn't get a drink soon, he would keel over. But it hadn't rained in several days, and there was no sign of water anywhere. Alex didn't know how much longer he could keep going.
The wind picked up, snapping at Alex's face, but he thought he heard something between the gusts. A buzzing, droning sound . . . quite distant but coming closer all the time. It seemed familiar, but it had been so long since he had heard such a sound that it took him a moment or two to realize what it was.
A motorcycle!
Alex started toward it as quickly as he could. He crossed the street and walked behind some deserted rowhouses, and there it was, a chopped-down Harley-Davidson with a girl riding it.
Without hesitation, she barreled toward him and stopped not five feet in front of him. She lifted her goggles and let her raven hair stream behind her. She could not have been more than fifteen years old.
"Got any water?" Alex asked, the words coming more easily than he expected after his ordeal.
"Sure." She pulled out a bottle fastened to one of the chopper's struts and tossed it to him.
Alex managed to catch it. Lifting it in a toast, he drank long and deeply.
"You can drink the whole thing, if you want," the girl said. "I got plenty more back at my place."
"Thanks." Alex took another long draft.
"They're all gone, huh?" the girl said, glancing toward the east.
"Yeah," replied Alex, wiping his chin. "I watched the last one go."
"Shoulda shot the motherfucker."
"Like shooting the ocean."
"My name's Ronnie Carilli," she said. "What's yours?"
"Alex." He eyed the bike. "Where'd you get the gasoline to run that thing, Ronnie?"
"Down in South Philly. Scavengers raided the refineries, but they were too dumb to get the tanks the executives used to fill up their own cars. There's still a lot of gas down there."
Alex smiled.
"I don't know why I told you that."
"Don't worry. It'll be our secret."
Ronnie frowned. "Where'd you come from anyway?"
"I was . . . following them."
"Where'd they all go?"
"North. That's all I know."
"Maybe they'll go to Alaska."
"Maybe."
"Think they'll come back?"
"Not for a while." Alex finished the water, and said, "Do you know where I can get some food, Ronnie? I'm starving."
"Jump on, and I'll take you back to my place."
Alex nodded, and got on the back of the motorcycle. He held onto the strap as Ronnie revved up the engine with obvious relish and roared off to the south. She drove like a maniac, but that was all right. There wasn't any traffic to worry about.
Alex had assumed that Ronnie lived somewhere nearby. By the time they had crossed Market Street and were headed down 9th toward the old Italian Market, however, he realized that she was a South Philly kid, through and through. This girl had grown up in the neighborhood where her parents and grandparents had grown up, probably from the time that her ancestors had found their way here from Ellis Island. She had only been twelve when the colloids came, and had watched all of her loved ones die. Perhaps she had been a problem child, the victim of a disorder which had been her salvation while all those around her succumbed to the terrible disease from the stars.
Ronnie took him to a narrow street, little more than an alley off Passyunk. Alex was relieved when she cut the Harley's engine. He blew on his numb fingers and tried to hear what she was saying, deafened as he was by the wind and the cycle's powerful motor.
"This way." She led him up a flight of marble steps to an apartment house. The door was unlocked, and they walked into a spacious lobby. "Posh, huh Alex?"
She took him upstairs to an enormous apartment with boarded up windows. There was one chair, and there were cushions on the floor for sleeping. Next to the fireplace was a pile of cardboard and wood. Ronnie put some boards in the fireplace and lit a match to a bit of the cardboard, which she stuffed into the hearth until she got a blaze going.
"Cook you some beans?" she said.
"That would be great."
Ronnie used a pair of tongs to hold the can of beans over the fire, after opening the can with an old fashioned can-opener, running it around the top of the can with surprising speed.
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"Had to get used to this thing," she said. "Mama always used an electric can-opener."
Alex nodded. And as soon as the beans were heated, he accepted them gratefully. Ronnie handed him a Swiss Army knife with the fork extended, and he began to eat.
She watched him in silence. She was a pretty girl, in an appealing Mediterranean way. There was a toughness about her that was belied by her youth and soft features. She made Alex wish that he were twenty-odd years younger.
"It's great now that the colloids are gone, you know," she said. "I mean, I just ride my bike wherever I want. Hardly ever see anybody. When I do, I stop and talk to them, but they usually don't make any sense. You talked just like a normal person."
Alex grinned. "Don't let that fool you, Ronnie. I'm just as crazy as anybody else."
She looked at him warily.
He spoke quickly to reassure her. "Harmless, though."
"Yeah." Ronnie used the tongs to heat up a can of beans for herself. As she leaned forward over the fire, a scapular fell out of her fatigue jacket and dangled over the hearthstones. "I guess it doesn't make much difference anymore if you're crazy or not," she said. "It's enough to just be human."
"Ronnie, how did you survive all this time?"
"My Papa hid us first one place and then another, until he got infected. Then my Mama and I ran away from him so he wouldn't kill us. Mama got infected last summer. I been on my own ever since she died."
"I'm sorry." Alex hoped that she would never learn that her parents weren't dead, not completely. It was better to believe that they were in heaven, or even in hell.
"That's okay." Ronnie removed the can of beans. "I guess you must have lost somebody too."
"Yeah." He handed her the knife. "I lost everybody."
Ronnie sat cross-legged on the floor, eating. She stared at the fire, remembering.
"Look," said Alex, after a while, "I know where there are people who are putting together something. A family, kind of. Would you like to go and live there?"
She looked at him strangely. "It's not some kind of cult, or anything like that?"
"No, just a bunch of people who got tired of being alone, that's all."
"Are they hiding out in the underground? I almost got raped down there once, and never went back."
"No, there's nobody in the underground anymore. My people are in West Philly."
"Is that where you were headed when I found you? To join up with them?"
"Yeah. I left there yesterday . . . at least I think it was yesterday. Or it might have been the day before. I'm not really sure."
"What happened? Get hit on the head?"
Alex laughed. "Something like that."
"These people you're talking about," Ronnie asked. "Want me to drive you to them on my bike?"
"I'd appreciate it, Ronnie. But right now I think I ought to get some sleep."
"Just curl up over there." She gestured toward the cushions.
Alex set the Ingram on the floor, laid down on the cushions next to it, and closed his eyes. His entire body was so aching and tired that he could not get comfortable. He should have been able to fall asleep, but it wasn't working. He closed his eyes and tried to drift off, to no avail.
After a half hour of this or more, he rolled onto his side, and felt a gentle touch on his shoulder.
"Alex," Ronnie whispered. "Wake up."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Had she heard intruders? Had the infected returned? He detected no urgency in the girl's tone, be he heard nothing himself. What, then, was the trouble?
"Anything wrong?" he asked, reaching for the Ingram.
"I need to know something," Ronnie said. "That's all."
Alex's heart resumed beating at a nearly normal rate. There didn't seem to be any imminent danger.
"Will you hold me?" Ronnie asked in a child's voice. "It's been a long time since anybody's done that."
"Sure." Alex put his arms around her and her warm face pressed against his shoulder.
"My mom would of said this is a mortal sin, but I gotta tell you . . . "
Alex waited.
"See, I never knew what it was like to . . . I mean, I had a boyfriend, but we were only twelve, see. And he got sick. And then it was like just trying to survive. People were dying, and you couldn't get food and water, and colloids were everywhere. So I never learned about . . . you know."
Alex thought he knew what she was driving at. "And you want me to teach you? Is that it, Ronnie?"
She raised her little face so that she could look directly into his eyes. "Yeah, that's it."
He hugged her tightly. "You don't want an old fart like me."
"You said you lost everybody." There was distress in her voice. "Don't you like me?"
"Of course I like you. It's just that I'm old enough to be your father. My son would be almost your age now, if he had lived. It wouldn't be right, Ronnie."
He felt her hot tears soaking through his clothes. "I'll probably die before anybody makes love to me," she bawled.
"No, no. There are lots of young people around. I met one the other day who was only five or six years older than you, Ronnie. A lot more will come out of hiding now that the colloids are gone."
That seemed to calm Ronnie a little. "What happened to him? The guy you ran into, I mean?"
Alex shook his head. "He didn't make it."
"Young people never make it. I must be the only one left in the whole world." She started crying all over again.
"Oh, come on." It seemed to Alex that she was right, though. There did seem to be a preponderance of middle-aged and even elderly people still surviving. Perhaps it was simply because they had learned to be more cautious during their longer lives, or perhaps it was because the brains of the young tended to be healthier.
"Come back with me to my friends, and soon there'll be other young people joining us, I'm sure of it."
"Really?"
"Cross my heart."
Ronnie seemed to brighten a little. "Think maybe if I come back with you, I'll get a boyfriend, huh?"
"I know you will, Ronnie. Look, right now I've gotta get some sleep, though. I know it's early in the day, but I haven't had any rest for quite a while."
"I know. Sorry." Ronnie, her virginity still intact, extricated herself and left Alex to his dreams.
His dreams were not pleasant. He spiralled down to a shadowy place where armies of the infected marched endlessly through the night. In each of them was a thing that had come from a distant world, a thing that had no intention of letting him go until he was consumed.
Alex remembered a dream he had had while Jo was recovering from infection. He had been a viral cell, dormant, drifting through space. He had come to earth with billions of other cells, seeking the most advanced nervous systems on the planet.
He knew now that this had not been a mere dream. He had already been infected, the colloid driven from Jo's body into his. Even then, in the earliest stage of infection, its memories and his had become entwined. It had not shown itself while he was conscious, but while he was asleep . . .
But was he dreaming all this now? He was asleep, wasn't he? Strange images flickered across the insides of his eyelids, making him wonder what the vanquished colloid had left behind.
Was it possible that he still retained some vestige of the parasite's memory? Was he, in some indefinable way, still infected?
He fell through space, a long drifting descent through the cloudy atmosphere. This world's gases were almost ideal, and the sun's rays provided an adequate actinic exposure for the active seeking of sophisticated neurology. He felt himself awakening, already hunting, tumbling toward an unwary, bipedal creature who had never dreamed that such things could be . . . .
The biped's resistance was futile, and a new home was found amid the heat of its firing synapses. Its thought processes were complex enough to provide food, though much of it was ill suited to the purpose of its nervous system's invader. Social impulses were short-cir
cuited, except for a rough herd instinct. The infected were easily programmed to attack the healthy.
Alex dreamed these things not as incidents, but as ideas, colored by the memories he had shared with the colloid. His own memories surfaced from time to time.
He entered a door and found a man being eaten by a colloid. The man resisted, half his face gone. He resisted until Alex shot him dead. Victor, and then Flash had resisted, and Alex had killed them. Jo was a Janus-faced entity who aided him on the one hand and worked against him on the other.