Clifford Simak - Out of Their Minds

"I'd pay a good price for it," I offered.

She hesitated; then she said, "I could ask him. But we can talk about it out here in the kitchen. I'll hunt up the iodine. I can't let you walk out of here with your head in that condition."

The woman had said it would be a scorcher and it was. Heat waves shimmered off the pavement and came wavering to meet me. The sky was a brassy bowl and there was no breath of breeze to stir the scorching air.

I'd had some trouble with the bike to start with, but within a couple of miles or so my body had recaptured some of the data programmed into it during boyhood days and I began to get the hang of it again. It wasn't easy, however; a lot better than walking, of course, and that would have been my choice.

I had told the woman that I'd pay a good price for the bike and she'd taken me at my word. A hundred dollars, which had taken almost all the money that I had. A hundred for an ancient contraption tied together with baling wire and stove bolts, worth, at the most, ten bucks. But it was either pay the price or walk, and I'd been in a hurry. And, I told myself, if the situation which now existed should continue, perhaps the bike was not really overpriced. If I could only have kept the horse, I'd have had a piece of property that would have been worthwhile. Horses and bikes might be the coming thing.

The highway was littered with stalled cars and trucks, with here and there a bus, but there weren't any people. Everyone who'd been on the stalled vehicles had had plenty of time to get off the road. It was a depressing sight, as if all those vehicles had been living things that had been killed and just left lying there; as if the highway itself, had been a living thing full of sound and movement and now was lying dead.

I kept pedaling along, wiping the sweat out of my eyes with my shirtsleeve and wishing that I had a drink of water, and after a, time I saw that I was in the city's outskirts.

There were people, but no traffic was moving. Quite a lot of bicycles were on the street and I saw a few people who were using roller skates. There is nothing more ridiculous in the world than a man in a business suit, carrying an attaché case, and trying to be nonchalant as he proceeds down the street on a pair of roller skates. Everyone was either silently doing nothing—sitting on the curbs or on steps or out in their lawns and gardens—or going about their business in what seemed a rather desperate fashion.

I came to a little park, a typical Washington park, one-block square with a statue in its center, benches set beneath the trees, an old lady feeding pigeons, and a drinking fountain. It was the drinking fountain that attracted me. The hours of pedaling in the sun had made my tongue feel like a mass of cotton that filled my entire mouth.

I didn't waste much time. I had a drink and rested for a moment on one of the benches, then got on the bike and set out again.

As I neared the White House I saw that a crowd had gathered, standing in a semicircle, filling the sidewalk and spilling out into the avenue, standing silently and staring, apparently at someone who stood beside the fence.

Kathy! I thought. For that was the exact place against the fence where I had expected her. But why should they be staring at her? What was going on?

I pedaled frantically up to the edge of the crowd and leaped off the bike. Letting it fall upon the sidewalk, I charged into the crowd, pushing and shoving. People swore at me and some pushed back and others shouted angrily, but I plowed my way through and finally staggered through the inner rank of people and out onto the sidewalk.

And there he stood—not Kathy, but the one, if I'd had good sense. I'd have expected to be there, Old Nick, His Satanic Majesty, the Devil.

He was dressed as I last had seen him, with his obscene belly hanging down, over the dirty piece of cloth that afforded him a minimum of decency. He had his tail in his right hand and was using the barb of it as a toothpick to probe his mossy fangs. He leaned nonchalantly against the fence, with his cloven hoofs braced against a crack that ran along the concrete, and he was leering at the crowd in an infuriating manner. But at the sight of me, he dropped his tail forthwith and, advancing toward me, addressed me as a bosom pal for whom he had been waiting.

"Hail, the home-come hero!" he bugled, walking swiftly toward me with his arms outstretched. "Back from Gettysburg. I see that you got scotched. Where did you find the pretty baggage to tie up your head so becomingly?"

He went to throw his arms around me, but I jerked away. I was sore at him for being there when I'd expected to find Kathy."

"Where's Kathy?" I demanded. "I expected her." "Oh, the little wench," he said. "You can rest your apprehensions. She is safe. At the great white castle on the hill. Above the witch's house. I expect you saw it."

"You lied to me," I told him, furiously. "You told me…"

"So I lied to you," he said, spreading his arms to indicate that it was of no consequence. "It is one of my most minor vices. What is a little lie among good friends? Kathy is safe so long as you play ball with me." "Play ball with you!" I yelped, disgusted. "You want the pretty cars to run," he said. "You want the radios to blat. You want the phones to ring."

The crowd was getting restless. It was pressing closer and while the people in it might not know what was going on, they were all ears when the Devil spoke about the cars and radios.

But the Devil ignored them. "A hero you can be," he said. "You can bring about negotiations. You can play the big shot."

I didn't want to be a hero. The crowd, I sensed, was getting ugly.

"We'll go in," the Devil said, "and talk turkey with them." He made a thumb across his shoulder, pointing at the White House.

"We can't get in," I told him. "We can't just go walking in."

"Surely you have got a White House press card?"

"Yes, of course, I have. But that doesn't mean I can just walk in, anytime I wish. Especially with a bird like you in tow."

"You mean you can't get in?"

"Not the way you think."

"Look," he said, almost pleading with me, "you have to talk with them. You can shoot the proper lingo and you know the protocol. I can't do anything by myself. They would not listen to me."

I shook my head.

A couple of guards had left the gate and were walking down the sidewalk.

The Devil saw me looking at them.

"Trouble?" he demanded.

"I think it is," I said. "The guard probably has phoned the police—no, not phoned, I guess. But I imagine they have sent someone to tell the cops there might be trouble brewing."

He moved closer to me and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. "Trouble with cops I don't need," he said. He craned his neck to see the two guards. They still were walking toward us. He grabbed me by the arm. "Come on, let's go," he said.

The world went out from under me with a clap of thunder and in its place was darkness and the roar of heavy winds. Then we were in a large room with a long table running down the center of it and many men around the table. The man at the head of the table was the President.

Smoke was rising in tendrils from a scorched place in the carpet where I stood beside the Devil and the air was heavy with the smell of brimstone and of burning fabric. Someone was hammering frantically on the two doors that led into the room.

"Tell them, please," the Devil said, "that they can't get in. I'm afraid the doors are jammed."

A man with stars upon his shoulder leaped to his feet. His outraged bellow filled the room. "What is the meaning of this!"

"General," said the Devil, "please resume your seat and do your best to be at once an officer and a gentleman. No one will get hurt."