Philip Wylie - Tomorrow!

“I don’t know who we could send,” Alice Groves murmured. “Could you tell the nurses where her car is and what it looks like?”

“Oh, yes. It’s a green Buick sedan and it’s just this side of St. Angelica Street, a little on the right.”

One of the nurses said, “Let her die there, the old rip!”

Alice Groves shook her head. “She—her husband—built us this place. And she maintained it. And she was coming to us for help.”

“She didn’t know she was coming,” Nora said honestly. “She was brought.”

Alice smiled. “Miss Elman, see if Dr. Symes will come off a ward and take a bag and try to reach her. He used to play football, and if anybody could get through….”

Another doctor, a colored man, in white, white clothes bloodier than any butcher’s, leaned from the operating room doorway. “Miss Groves, could you please! We’ve got a bad head wound here…”

Alice nodded. “In a sec!” She addressed the nurse again. “Have we got a bed anywhere—crib—cradle—mattress…?”

“Yours is still empty….”

As the superintendent went back to work, she said, “Take her up. Give her a shot-she’s out on her feet.”

On the phone, Henry Conner said sharply to the Presbyterian minister, “Well, if it’s starting to freeze people on the north side of the Lake, move them where they get some warmth!”

“There’s no more space on the banks, Henry.”

“Great God! Beg your pardon. You mean…?”

“I mean, Henry, we’ve got the church full and Jenkins Memorial and every house that’s safety-inspected and all the terraces around Crystal Lake—you can’t walk fast without stepping on a hand! And the thermometer’s down to thirty now, and we’ve run out of blankets!”

“Build fires. Bonfires.”

“Where? With what?”

“Good God—beg your pardon—that’s Jerome’s lookout. Where is he?”

“A side wall fell and killed Jerome, Henry.”

The sector chief sat a moment, drumming on his desk. “Look. See about this. There must be five… six gas stations above the lake on Windmere. Build your fires by using fences, porches, houses-if you need to. Take the manse apart. And pour on the gasoline. Siphon it down—garden hoses…!”

The minister’s voice was steady. “Will do, Henry.”

Kit looked back. You could see the light of the fire still but not the flame itself. He didn’t know where he was, just someplace well to the west. He didn’t know the make of the car he drove—

and recalled only dimly that he’d hit a fellow on the head to get it. He’d done that after seeing the wreck of Gordon Field and giving up the hope of flying. He was about at the end of his rope, he felt; bushed. When he hit a stretch where he couldn’t see a car ahead, or car lights in his rearview mirror, he watched along the side road and spotted a big, white farmhouse. He turned in the drive, switching his lights off. There were cattle in the barns, he could hear them. There were ducks in the trees, white ducks. And light leaked around the front window blinds, so someone was in the place. He knocked.

The door opened a couple of inches. “I need help,” Kit said. “Penicillin,” he added, eagerly.

A gruff, not inimical voice replied. “You alone?”

“Yes.”

“Come from the city?”

“Yes.’’

“I’m sorry, mister. We don’t dare let no one in. The radio tells us folks out here not to open doors or even show a light.”

“I saw your light.”

“Not from the road, you didn’t! I looked.”

“I’m Kit Sloan, maybe you’ve heard the name. I’ve got to rest a minute. Bathe! Eat something, get a drink of water….”

“You mean—old lady—Mrs. Minerva Sloan’s son?”

“Yes.” Kit shivered. Bubonic, maybe, cholera. Musn’t let them know he was infected.

Chain rattled. The door opened.

Kit’s red eyes fell first upon a tall, rufous farmer with a shotgun across his arm. In the parlor behind him were four pretty girls and a plump, middle-aged woman who looked something like all four. Only one lamp was lighted and the radio was talking like firecrackers, but turned down low. The girls were young—perhaps twelve to seventeen or eighteen. Kit said,

“Thank you, sir,” to the farmer.

“Guess it’s all right,” the man answered. “You ain’t armed even. Couple of fellows stopped by a minute ago—they were. I was kind of nervous, but they tried the door and then beat it. Your mother’s bank holds our mortgage, Mr. Sloan.”

The smiles of the frightened girls, the sturdy look of their mother, the composed tone of their towering father brought Kit part way back to his senses. He looked down at his clothes, repressing horror. Some Asiatic disease, probably, that the sulfas and antibiotics wouldn’t touch.

They all looked.

“Marylou,” said the bearded man, “run up and get something from Chet’s closet. Mr.

Sloan, here, is kind of dirtied up.” He set the shotgun in the corner and turned to his unwanted guest. “My name’s Simpson. Alhert Simpson”—He jerked his head—“The missus—my daughters, Mr. Sloan. The bank.”

Kit said, “This is very kind of you.”

“I’ll get you something,” Mrs. Simpson put a workbasket aside. Kit realized, with a kind of feverish resentment, that she had been listening to everything the radio must have been saying—and darning. “We have fresh milk…?”

“If you have anything stronger…?” he ventured.

“I’m afraid that—”

“There’s brandy—in the medicine chest,” Mr. Simpson said. “Brandy would be fine.”

“Sarah, go get it.”

They stared while he poured all their brandy into a tumbler, which it half filled, and then drank it like water.

“We’re prohibitionists here,” Mr. Simpson smiled. “More or less. I don’t suppose you’d care to say anything about—where you came from?” He saw Kit’s immense shudder. “Likely not. What’s that, now!”

He rose, grabbed the shotgun and went to the door. The sound of a big truck grinding up the driveway grew louder and louder. Then it stopped on shrill brakes and many men’s voices filled the night.

The door knocked.

The farmer unlocked it, on the chain. “Who’s there?”

They shot him through the head.

The front windows kicked in.

In a trance of horror, Kit watched the men enter. Two—then four or five—then a dozen.

They were grinning a little. They were drunk. They were the kind of men who wear caps and work in alleys. They eyed the girls with joy.

On the staircase, Marylou stopped—a clean shirt and washed jeans folded over one arm.

She started to back up the stairs.

Her mother and sisters said nothing, nothing at all. “Come on downstairs, baby!” one of the men called, smirking.

Marylou backed another step. The man aimed a pistol and fired. The railing chipped.

Marylou came on down then, still holding her brother Chet’s clean clothes.

The women looked hopefully at Kit. He said, in a thin squeal, “You men move on.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“This is a private home. You’ve just done murder !”

Kit threw himself on the floor. It was his idea to get out—nothing else. His powerful muscles sent him slithering toward the dark hall. He didn’t even try to pick up the shotgun. He heard their shots and vaguely felt referred impact, from the floorboards. He reached the hall. He half stood, unchained the door, ran out.

Somebody bellowed through the smashed windows, “Hey, Red! Get that jerk!”

Kit saw the trees against the luminous sky line, the square silhouette of the truck, the palely white porch bannister. Flame squirted from the truck and his body was seared. He fell down the steps and lay without moving on his back.