“Hi,” Kelly called. “Are you alone?”
“Wes stayed at the lab.”
“I should have known. If he had come, Ichabod would have deserted me. He’s a loyal little devil.”
“How did you get in?” Linc asked.
“Wes gave me a key.”
Linc cleared his throat meaningfully, softening it with a grin.
“No,” Kelly laughed. “It was just that I was afraid, and so he gave me the key. My apartment seems spookier than this house. Maybe because Ichabod’s here; or maybe because there are people so close to me there. Isn’t it funny? It used to be that I felt secure knowing there were people in the rooms below me. Now I’m more afraid of the people than I am of the Eyes.”
“That will soon change.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m on the list for evacuation in five days. I can’t wait to get out. When are you scheduled?”
“Never. No one’s getting away. The Eyes are capturing every evacuee.”
“Oh, no!” Kelly’s reaction was more than he had expected. She went pale, and clutched the sink. “Then we just have to stay here and hide from each other forever?”
“Not that either. Pour that coffee you’re brewing and I’ll tell you about it.”
She did as he said silently. When she was seated across from him, and the coffee was creamed and cooling, he laid the plan out. She listened, but didn’t comprehend the good of it, only the danger.
“Which one of you is going?” she asked.
“I am.”
“No. It shouldn’t be you. Wes wants to go—let him.”
“I can’t, Kelly. He’s not as well prepared.”
“That’s just your egotism showing. You never think anyone else can do the job as well as you. I don’t think I could stand it, Linc—if you didn’t come back.”
“Come on, Kelly,” he scoffed. “This concern isn’t flattering to you. You haven’t made a choice between Wes and me. It couldn’t matter to you which of us went.”
“You never give me credit, do you? Maybe the last days have changed things for me. Maybe I have made a choice. This danger, Linc, changes a woman. She suddenly finds that she does need someone, and things come into focus, and she knows who that someone is.”
“Just by the magic formula of how well he can protect her?”
“Is that wrong? Does it matter what yardstick I used, just so long as I used it and you were the one to measure up?”
There was the ring of dishonesty about what she said, and Linc hated himself for hearing it. Kelly was beautiful at this moment, with her green eyes worried, her hand pleading with him. Two weeks before, he could have asked for nothing else from her. Now he wondered.
“Linc, you love me. You’ve never said it, but I know. I’ve been a fool to keep you distant—a fool to resist. I’m not resisting any more.” She came around to his side of the table, and she was tall and slim as he looked up at her. “Or,” she murmured, “are you just a man who likes the chase, and who backs off after he has won?”
He saw through her game. She was turning on the sex. She had never used it on him before, except teasingly; and although he knew this entire sequence was deliberate, he didn’t care.
He stood and drew her against him, and she didn’t pull away. She came into his arms, pliant and past flirtation. He kissed her, and she answered it, and it was sweet—as sweet as he imagined it would be in the days when he had waited for her to answer him and not simply allow his kisses.
“Let Wes go,” she whispered. “Don’t tear yourself away from me, now that we’ve found each other.”
“But, Kelly—”
Her fingers came up to quiver against his lips and halt the protest. “Wes wants to go, Linc. He’s just as capable as you are. If you’d be honest with yourself, you’d know it. Let him do this, if it means so much to him. And you stay here with me, if I mean anything to you.”
She was making sense. Even over the emotions the touch of her raised in him, he knew she was making sense. Wes was just about as capable as he was. And Wes had a mission. A man with a mission always had the better chance of winning. If he himself went, he would be torn—part of him staying with Kelly. Wes had nothing to hinder him—only a humanitarian mission to push him forward.
There was no room for conscience with Kelly in his arms. He had waited too long for her to be there. When he let himself realize it, he rode high on the crest of victory. Wes was a rival no longer, but a man who wanted with all his soul to undertake the zombie trip into the lair of the Eyes and rescue humanity. He couldn’t deny Wes what Wes wanted most in the world. Not when what he wanted most is the world was just now being given to him. He would let Wes decide. If Wes still wanted to go, Wes would go.
“I hope,” he whispered to her, “you haven’t discovered my weak spot, and are playing on it.”
“You don’t have a weak spot, darling.”
Ichabod was snuffing around their feet, but Linc stopped hearing, as Kelly’s mouth tilted upward, waiting for his again. He met her mouth with his own, and the decision was made.
* * * *
At three-thirty, a car pulled into the drive. Wes got out of it. He was anxious, his nerves rawly showing for the first time since Linc had known him. “I simply couldn’t wait any longer,” he explained, stemming the eager yaps of Ichabod. “We can’t put this action off, Linc. All the time we spend choosing up sides allows more people to be taken into that hole—put more there for Collins to destroy.”
“I know,” Linc answered. “That’s been on my mind, too.”
“Then what have you decided? Which one of us is going?”
Kelly’s eyes flashed to Linc, and he shifted. “It’s not my decision alone, you know, Wes. It’s up to both of us.”
“But, knowing you, you’ll make it,” Wes grinned.
“And you? Have you thought about it further? Have you really thought it out?”
“All afternoon. But I couldn’t do much thinking through my impatience. We’ve got to get moving. I still want to go, if that’s what you’re getting at. After you left the lab, I went up against the Eye all by myself. I fought it for thirty-five minutes before I had to quit—and then I quit of my own accord. That was intense concentration, face to face. This job won’t be that way. It will be an evasion tactic.”
“It won’t be any picnic.” Linc couldn’t bring himself to voice his decision yet.
“Who expects a picnic?” Wes came forward two steps. “Please Linc. Don’t waste any more time. Who is it to be?” Kelly’s taut gaze was on him again, and he answered, “If you want it this badly, Wes, what can I say?”
“You mean you’ll let me be the first to go?”
Linc nodded, strongly aware that he might be making the wrong choice. “You can go. I’ll play backstop this time.” Wes grasped his arms, smiling and flushed. “I never once believed you’d agree. Now that it’s settled, I’m going to get started right away—before dark. I can’t wait through another night. By the way, I didn’t mention a word to Iverson or anybody else. Should we notify them?”
“No. If we ask for permission, we’ll only get more arguments. We’ll go this one alone.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Well—” Wes swiveled awkwardly in the center of the floor—“I may as well get going.”
“Right now?” Kelly was startled.
“I want to reach the hole before dark.”
“Not yet.” Linc felt a sudden need to hold his friend back. “We have to plan this out first. Set some action.”
“We did all that this morning. There’s nothing to plan. I drive out, pose as a zombie, go to the hole, and from there on, planning won’t help me anyway. Besides, there isn’t time. Iverson may call off the slow evacuation and speed things up, since the Eyes are getting the people anyway.”
“Where did you hear t
hat news?”
“At the lab. It’s all confusion out there. Rumors are flying thicker than the Eyes. So I’m going, and going now. No more arguments. Okay?”
Kelly crossed to Wes and hugged him close. “I didn’t realize it would be so soon. Take care, and don’t throw yourself away in the name of heroism. Turn back if you see you can’t make it.”
Wes kissed her lightly on the cheek, then took Linc’s hand in a strong clasp. “Let’s leave it like this—I’ll be back, if I can get back, by tomorrow night. That gives me plenty of leeway. So, tomorrow night, by dusk—or never. All clear?”
“Take it easy. And bring back what we need—friend.”
Wes walked to the door. “Take care of Ichabod for me, won’t you? I’m entrusting him to you. And don’t worry. I’ll see you tomorrow for supper.”
He went out, the car door slammed, and he was gone.
Linc was numb. It had happened so quickly. There had been no hesitation, no lingering farewell. It was over already, and it had barely begun. But Wes hadn’t wanted to wait. He had made up his mind to do it, and he was doing it.
Linc looked to Kelly, and she echoed his numbness. “He could at least have had dinner,” she said. There was fear in her eyes, and a doubt that hadn’t been there before. But Wes was gone, and there was nothing either of them could do about it except wait.
* * * *
They waited in the house, together, but alone, too tense to take sympathy from each other. The joy Linc had known a few hours before was submerged in worry.
Night passed and in the morning the sun was hidden behind a heavy overcast. Outside the windows, Colt Street was in full glory as the trees outlined themselves and their fiery colors against the dark sky. But there was no word.
Linc went to the lab after breakfast to check on his caged Eye. He stopped to see no one, and when Iverson shot a question at him from down the hall, he mumbled words he knew would be incoherent, but would sound like an answer, and hurried out. He didn’t want to be questioned. When Wes returned, successful, that would be soon enough for revelation.
When he reached home again, Kelly was in the living room with the vacuum cleaner, dumping ashtray debris and rubbish into a paper bag.
“I’ve never seen such a mess. Remind me never to include a man in my housekeeping.”
“I thought that was just about settled yesterday.”
“Only on the condition that you promise more consideration than this. For instance, when you get mail, dump the envelopes in the wastebasket, not on the coffee table. And cigarette packages, and match books, and newspapers. In two weeks, you wouldn’t be able to climb over the mountain of papers you’d have in here.”
Linc watched her work, trying to drain contentment from it. It was a good moment. Kelly’s new relationship with him made it good. And yet he couldn’t relish it. There was too much on his mind to let contentment in: the Eyes, the one Eye imprisoned in the cage, and Wes. Most of all Wes. He kept imagining what Wes was doing at any given moment. He mentally placed him deep inside the hole, but the background of the picture was so uncertain, so nebulous, that he could go no further. Only Wes could fill in that background. It wouldn’t be too many hours before Wes would be home.
“I’m cooking tonight,” Kelly interrupted his thoughts. “Fried chicken and candied sweet potatoes.”
“Wes’ favorites?”
“Yes. He’ll deserve anything he’ wants after today.” Caught up again in his own thoughts, it didn’t seem long before Kelly had finished the housework and was in the kitchen, banging pots and pans about. He looked out of the windows, and Colt Street was darkening. The street lamps were on, and the trees were shadowed. Dusk. He listened for the sound of the car—but there was nothing.
“Give him time,” Linc told himself. “It’s still early. Give the man time.”
And the time went by. Kelly’s special dinner was ready, then held in the warming oven, then dried out and cold. They didn’t even nibble at it. At ten o’clock, Linc picked up the phone and dialed the number of the lab.
“Is Wes there, by any chance?” he asked.
The reply was loud in his ear, but Kelly was straining to hear. Linc put the phone back in its cradle and turned to her.
She read the answer in his eyes, and quickly lit a cigarette. “A lot of things could have delayed him,” she said.
“Just one thing would have been enough.”
“Don’t believe that, Linc. No Eye in the world could defeat Wes, not in the state he was in. He had the courage of twenty men.”
“He went too fast. He was overanxious. I should have known better than to let him go that way. I was a fool.”
Kelly snuffed the cigarette out. “Is it all right if I stay the night? Or would you rather—”
“It makes no difference to me. I’m not going to bed anyway. I’m going to stay right here in this chair until Wes comes. And he’d better come! He’d damn well better.”
Kelly stood up at his desperate, angry tone. “I’ll make some more coffee—in case it’s a long wait.”
She left the room and Linc was alone with only the sleepy eyes of Wes’ little spotted dog. He refused to look at Ichabod. There was only one thing important in Ichabod’s world—Wes. And he couldn’t stand to think that perhaps Ichabod’s world was now empty.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The deadline was two days gone; Wes was three days late; but still Linc waited. He stayed alone in the house, and waited. Logically, he knew it was useless, but there was nothing else to do. A nagging thought reminded him of what Wes had said—that if he was lost, he would at least be lost knowing that Linc was alive and able to try something else. He supposed he should be trying something else. But he hadn’t the heart.
The radio news reported the evacuation still going on. Stanley had worked out a new method, sending larger groups of people and using all the roads, paved and unpaved, to baffle the Eyes. With so many out at once, the Eyes couldn’t get them all. Some got through. Many didn’t, but following Collins’ rule of the loss of the few for the good of the many, Stanley went ahead with the evacuating-bombing plan.
Twice during the three days, there were footsteps in the driveway, and the back door rattled as someone tested it for entrance. Peering out, he saw a man one time, a woman and boy the next time, all of them dirty and disheveled. The man carried a shotgun, the boy had a crowbar. When the doorknob failed to turn, they prepared to break the lock, but in both cases Ichabod’s barking—such a deep bark for a small dog—sent them away.
At noon, the phone rang and he answered it fast. Iverson’s voice spewed out of the earpiece. “Where in the devil have you been, Hosier? I’ve been making excuses for you until I’m blue in the face. What do you and Wes think you’re doing, running out in the middle of the fight?”
“We haven’t run out,” Linc said.
“Then where have you been?” Iverson had barely asked it when he interrupted himself. “Well, never mind—there’s something big happening, and I want you and Wes here to cover it.”
“Wes isn’t with me.”
“Then find him and bring him. But make it in fifteen minutes, understand? This is urgent.”
Iverson hung up and Linc stood undecided. Then he dialed Kelly’s number and asked her to come, to take over the waiting while he was gone. He scribbled a note for Wes, in case he got back before Kelly arrived, and went out, locking the door behind him. Whatever Iverson wanted, he had to find out. He had sat by long enough. It was time he dove into work again.
When he went through the gate into the parking lot, a station wagon was waiting, its motor running, and Iverson waved at him to hurry. As he climbed in beside the driver, he glanced back to find Stanley and Collins in the rear.
“What’s this all about?” he asked, as the driver revved the car forward, in the direction of open country.
“We don’t know much about it ourselves,” Iverson said. “Stanley got a call from the National Guard post out by the hole, and—the people are coming out. Great crowds of them, coming up out of the hole.”
Coming out? Was this some of Wes’ doing? Was that why Wes was so late?
“Where are they going from the hole?” he asked.
“The report said they were just walking away—no Eyes with them, or leading them. We’ll soon see.”
“I don’t like it.” Stanley was glowering in the back seat. “It’s a new move—probably something to counter our evacuation. They’re not simply going to surrender those people. That wouldn’t make sense. I tell you, it’s a new move, and until we know where it’s leading, we’re on dangerous ground.”
“We should have gotten in there sooner with the bomb,” Collins said. “We may have lost our chance. If the people are going, the Eyes may leave, too. We should have acted sooner.”
“Thank God we didn’t,” Iverson sighed. “All those people—I was nearly convinced that they were not in the hole any more. We would have blown them all into ashes.”
The driver turned onto the highway that passed near the game preserve, and the car suddenly stopped. “Look ahead,” the driver said, and it was half-whisper, half-scream.
There was no road ahead of them. Only a sea of moving forms.
For, coming out of the woods half a mile down, and spilling onto the cement, into the ditches, and halfway across the fields, was a great mass of people. Thousands of them; staggering along, stumbling, holding their hands before them to grope like blind men. They were tattered and filthy, and their stench preceded them on the highway.
They came straight for the car, and the driver backed it around the corner he had taken a moment before. Linc got out, and went to the road. Iverson was beside him, and he heard Stanley’s intake of breath. The people were coming straight toward them, fanning out, covering the pavement and field alike. They were pale, and queerly not like people. But Linc walked to meet them—thousands of eyewitnesses to the conditions inside the hole.
The Flying Eyes Page 9