Algis Budrys - Some Will Not Die

“Get out of that doorway!” he shouted. “Inside the building!”

The girl shook her head slightly, her eyes on the rooftop. Her lower lip was caught between the tips of her teeth, and her face was expressionless. There was no answering fire from the rooftop.

“I can’t see him anymore,” she said. “He must have jumped behind a chimney.”

Sweating Garvin squirmed his legs into position. “Try and keep him pinned down,” he shouted across the terrace, and, jumping to his feet, sprinted for the doorway in a straight line, trying to cover the distance as rapidly as possible. He threw one glance across the street, saw no movement on the roof, and pulled the girl to her feet with a scoop of his arm. He flung the lobby door open, and they stumbled through together, into shelter.

He slumped against the lobby wall, his ribs clammy with the perspiration streaming down the sides of his chest. He looked at the girl, his eyes shadowed by the darkness of the lobby, while his breathing slowed to normal.

Once again, she was neglecting to reload the gun. And yet she had squatted in that doorway and done exactly the right thing to keep them from being killed. Done it in her own characteristic way, of course, exposing herself as a sitting target not only to the attacker but to anyone else as well. Somewhere, she had learned the theory of covering fire, and had the courage to apply it in spite of her woeful ignorance of actual practice.

Thus far, he had simply thought of her as being completely out of place on the street. Now he found himself thinking that, with a little training, she might not be so helpless.

She looked up at him suddenly, catching his glance, and he had to say something rather than continue to stand silent.

“Thanks. You take your chances, but, thanks.”

“I couldn’t just let him…” She trailed the sentence away, and did not start another.

“Pretty dumb guy, whoever he was,” Garvin said.

“Yes.” She stared off at nothing, obviously merely filling time, and the thought suddenly struck Garvin that she was waiting for something.

“I can’t understand him,” she said abruptly.

“Neither can I,” Garvin said lamely. Perhaps she had not meant to let him in the apartment. It was quite possible—and logical—that she would ask him to help her get into the building, but would leave him then. Was she waiting for him to give her the supplies and leave? Or didn’t she know what to do now, with the sniper waiting outside? He cursed himself for not taking the initiative, one way or the other, but plunged on. “Exposing himself on a roof like that. Somebody’s sure to pick him off.”

“I didn’t mean… But you’re right. He is being foolish.”

No, of course she hadn’t meant what he meant. Garvin cursed himself again. To the girl, it was incomprehensible that anyone would want to kill someone else. He, to whom it was merely stupid to expose oneself to possible fire, had completely misunderstood her. He was a predator, weighing every move against the chance of becoming prey. She was a fledgling who had fallen out of her nest into his hungry world.

He caught himself sharply, derision in his mind. But, maudlin or not, he nevertheless did not want to leave her now, with no one to protect her.

She looked at him again, still waiting. He did not say anything, but kept his eyes away from her face, waiting in turn.

“You can’t go back out there now,” she said finally, hesitating.

“No—no, I can’t.” He tried to keep his voice noncommittal.

“Well, I… You can’t go out. You’ll have to stay here.”

“Yes.”

And there it was. His fingers twisted back into his damp palm and curled in a nervous fist. “Let’s get going,” he said harshly. “We have to see about your father.”

Her expression changed, as though some cryptic apprehension had drained away in her—as though she, in her turn, had been afraid that he would not do what she hoped he would. Her voice, too, was steadier, and her lips rose into a gentle smile.

“I’ll have to introduce you. What’s your name?”

He flushed, startling himself. A gentle, remembered voice chided him from the past. Matthew, you were impolite.

“Matth—Matt Garvin,” he blurted.

She smiled again. “I’m Margaret Cottrell. Hello.”

He took her extended hand and clasped it awkwardly, releasing it with abrupt clumsiness.

He wondered if he’d been right—if she had not wanted him to leave, and had not known what she could do to stop him if he tried. The thought was a disquieting one, because he could not resolve it, or reach a decision. He followed her warily as she turned toward the stairway behind the lifeless elevators. Just before she became no more than a darker shadow in the stairwell’s gloom, he caught the smile on her lips once more.

The apartment was on the third floor. When they came out of the stairway, she went to the nearest door, knocked, and unlocked it. She turned to Garvin, who had stopped a yard away.

“Please come in,” she said.

He started forward uneasily. He trusted the girl to some extent—more than he trusted anyone else, certainly—but for two and a half years, he had never opened any closed door before completely satisfying himself that nothing dangerous could be waiting behind it.

Yet, he could not let the girl know that he distrusted the apartment. To her, it would probably seem foolish, and he did not want her to think him a fool.

He stepped into the doorway, trying to hold his shotgun inconspicuously.

“Margaret?” The voice that came from inside the apartment was thin and strained. Worry flickered over the girl’s face.

“I’ll be right there, father. I’ve got someone with me.” She touched Garvin’s arm. “Please.”

The second invitation broke his uncertainty, and he stepped inside.

“He’s in the back bedroom,” she whispered, and he nodded.

To his surprise, he noticed that the place was heated. A kerosene range had replaced the gas stove in the kitchen, beside the front door, and there was a space heater in the living room. Both had their stovepipes carefully led into the apartment’s ventilation ducts, and the hall grille had been masked off to prevent a backdraft. Garvin pursed his lips. It was a better-organized place than he’d expected.

They reached the bedroom doorway, and Matt saw a thin man propped partially up in the bed, the intensity of the eyes heightened by the same fever that paled his lips. His chest was bandaged, and a wastebasket full of reddened facial tissues sat beside the bed. Garvin felt his mouth twitch into a grimace. The man was hemorrhaging.

“Father,” Margaret said, “This is Matt Garvin. Matt—my father, John Cottrell.”

“I’m glad to meet you, sir,” Garvin said.

“I rather suspect that I’m glad to see you, too,” Cottrell said, smiling ruefully. The pale eyes, sunken deep in their dark sockets, turned to Margaret. “Were you the cause of all that firing outside?”

“There’s a man up on the roof across the street,” she said. “He tried to kill Matt as he was bringing me home.”

“She pulled me out of a real mess,” Garvin put in.

“But Matt went back into the drugstore, after he met me and I told him you were hurt,” Margaret said.

Cottrell’s gaze shifted back and forth between them, his smile growing. “After he met you, eh?” He coughed for a moment, and wiped his mouth. “I’d like to hear about that, while Matt’s looking at this.” He gestured toward his bandaged chest, wincing at the pull on his muscles. “Meanwhile, Margaret, I think I’m getting hungry. Could you make some breakfast?”

The girl nodded and went out to the kitchen. Garvin slipped the pack off his back and took out the supplies from the drugstore. As he walked toward the bed, he caught Cottrell’s look. The man was too sick for hunger, and Matt had eaten, but neither of them wanted the girl in the room while they were appraising each other.