Robert Sheckley - Immortality, Inc

“What do you want with me?” Blaine asked.

“I don't know.”

“Then leave me alone.”

“I can't do that,” Smith said apologetically.

“Do you want to kill me?” Blaine asked, his throat dry.

“I don't know! I can't remember! Kill you, protect you, maim you, love you — I don't know yet! But I'll remember soon, Blaine, I promise!”

“Leave me alone,” Blaine said, his muscles tensing.

“I can't,” Smith said. “Don't you understand? I know nothing except you. Literally nothing! I don't know this world or any other, no person, face, mind or memory. You’re my only landmark, the center of my existence, my only reason for living.”

“Stop it!”

“But it's true! Do you think I enjoy dragging this structure of flesh through the streets? What good is life with no hope before me and no memory behind me? Death is better! Life means filthy decaying flesh, and death is pure spirit! I've thought about it, dreamed about it, beautiful fleshless death! But one thing stops me. I have you , Blaine, to keep me going!”

“Get out of here,” Blaine said, nausea bitter in his mouth.

“ You , my sun and moon, my stars, my Earth, my total universe, my life, my reason, my friend, enemy, lover, murderer, wife, father, child, husband —”

Blaine's fist shot out, striking Smith high on the cheekbone. The zombie was flung back in the booth. His expression did not change, but a great purple bruise appeared on his lead-colored cheekbone.

“ Your mark!” Smith murmured.

Blame's fist, poised for another blow, dropped.

Smith stood up. “I'm going. Take care of yourself, Blaine. Don't die yet! I need you. Soon I'll remember, and I'll come to you.”

Smith, his sullen, slack, bruised face impassive, left the bar.

Blaine ordered a double whiskey and sat for a long time over it, trying to still the shaking in his hands.

Blaine arrived at the Hull estate by rural jet-bus, an hour before dawn. He was dressed in a traditional hunter's uniform — khaki shirt and slacks, rubber-soled shoes and wide-brimmed hat. Slung over one shoulder was his field pack; over the other he carried his rifle and bayonet in a plastic bag.

A servant met him at the outer gate and led him to the low, rambling mansion. Blaine learned that the Hull estate consisted of ninety wooded acres in the Adirondack Mountains between Keene and Elizabethtown. Here, the servant told him, Hull's father had suicided at the age of fifty-one, taking the lives of six hunters with him before a saber man slashed his head off. Glorious death! Hull's uncle, on the other hand, had chosen to berserk in San Francisco, a city he had always loved. The police had to beam him twelve times before he dropped., and he took seven bystanders with him.

The newspapers made much of the exploit, and accounts of it were preserved in the family scrapbook.

It just went to show, the garrulous old retainer pointed out, the difference in temperaments. Some, like the uncle, were friendly, fun-loving men who wanted to die in a crowd, attracting a certain amount of attention. Others, like the present Mr. Hull, were more given to the love of solitude and nature.

Blaine nodded politely to all this and was taken to a large, rustic room where the hunters were assembled, drinking coffee and honing a last razor edge to their weapons. Light flashed from the blued-steel broadsword and silvery battle-axe, wavered along the polished spearhead and glinted frostily from the diamond-points of the mace and morning star. At first glance, Blaine thought it looked like a scene from medieval times. But on second thought he decided it was more like a movie set.

“Pull up a chair, pal,” the axeman called. “Welcome to the Benevolent Protective Society of Butchers, Slaughterhouse Men, and Killers-at-Large. I'm Sammy Jones, finest axeman in the Americas and probably Europe, too.”

Blaine sat down and was introduced to the other hunters. They represented half a dozen nationalities, although English was their common tongue.

Sammy Jones was a squat, black-haired, bull-shouldered man, dressed in patched and faded khakis, with several old hunting scars across his craggy, thick-browed face.

“First hunt?” he asked, glancing at Blaine's neatly pressed khakis.

Blaine nodded, removed his rifle from its plastic bag and fitted the bayonet to its end. He tested the locking mechanism, tightened the rifle's strap, and removed the bayonet again.

“Can you really use that thing?” Jones asked.

“Sure,” Blaine said, more confidently than he felt.

“Hope so. Guys like Hull have a nose for the weak sisters. They try to cut ‘em out of the pack early.”

“How long does a hunt usually last?” Blaine asked.

“Well,” Jones said, “longest I was ever on took eight days. That was Asturias, where my partner Sligo got his. Generally a good pack can pin down a Quarry in a day or two. Depends on how he wants to die. Some try to hang on as long as they can. They run to cover. They hide in caves and ravines, the dirty treacherous dogs, and you have to go in for them and chance a thrust in the face. That's how Sligo got it. But I don't think Hull's that way. He wants to die like a great big fire-eating he-man hero. So he'll stalk around and take chances, looking to see how many of us he can knock off with his pigsticker.”

“You sound as if you don't approve,” Blaine said.

Sammy Jones raised his busy eyebrows. “I don't hold with making a big fuss about dying. Here comes the hero himself.”

Hull entered the room, lean and elegant in khaki-colored silk, with a white silk bandanna knotted loosely around his neck. He carried a light pack, and strapped to one shoulder was a thin, wicked-looking rapier.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “Weapons all honed, packs straight, shoelaces firmly tied? Excellent!”

Hull walked to a window and drew the curtains aside.

“Behold the first crack of dawn, a glorious streak in our eastern skies, harbinger of our fierce Lord Sun who rules the chase. I shall leave now. A servant will inform you when my half hour grace is done. Then you may pursue, and kill me upon sight. If you are able! The estate is fenced. I will remain within its confines, and so shall you.”

Hull bowed, then walked quickly and gracefully out of the room.

“God, I hate these fancy birds!” Sammy Jones shouted, after the door was closed. “They’re all alike, every one of them. Acting so cool and casual, so goddamned heroic . If they only knew how bloody silly I think they are — me that's been on twenty-eight of these things.”

“Why do you hunt?” Blaine asked.

Sammy Jones shrugged. “My father was an axeman, and he taught me the business. It's the only thing I know.”

“You could learn a different trade,” Blaine said.

“I suppose I could. The fact is, I like killing these aristocratic gentlemen. I hate every rich bastard among them with their lousy hereafter a poor man can't afford. I take pleasure in killing them, and if I had money I'd pay for the privilege.”

“And Hull enjoys killing poor men like you,” Blaine said. “It's a sad world.”

“No, just an honest one,” Sammy Jones told him. “Stand up, I'll fasten your pack on right.”

When that was done, Sammy Jones said, “Look Tom, why don't you and me stick together on this hunt? Mutual protection, like?”

“ My protection, you mean,” Blaine said.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Jones told him. “Every skilled trade must be learned before it can be practiced. And what better man to learn from than myself, the finest of the fine?”

“Thanks,” Blaine said. “I'll try to hold up my end, Sammy.”