Roadside Picnic

Redrick got the flask silently. I didn't agree right away, he thought. Twenty times I told Buzzard to get lost, and on the twenty-first I agreed, after all. I couldn't take it any more. Our last conversation turned out to be brief and businesslike. “Hi, Red. I brought the map. Maybe you'll take a look at it, after all?” And I looked into his eyes, and they were like sores—yellow with black dots—and I said “Let me have it.” And that was it. I remember that I was drunk then, I had been drinking all week, I felt really low. Ah, the hell with it. Does it matter? I went. So here I am. Why am I worrying about it? What am I, afraid?

He shuddered. He could hear a long sad sound through the fog. He jumped up and Arthur jumped up too. But it was quiet again, and the only sound was the gravel tumbling down the incline under their feet.

"Must be the ore settling,” Arthur whispered unsurely, barely able to get the words out. “The ore cars have a history—they've been here a long time."

Redrick looked straight ahead and saw nothing. He remembered. It was at night. He woke up from the same sound, sad and long, his heart stopping, like in a dream. Only it hadn't been a dream. It was Monkey screaming in her bed by the window. Guta woke up, too, and took Redrick's hand. He could feel the sweat break out on her shoulder against his. They lay there and listened, and when Monkey stopped crying and went back to sleep, he waited a little longer, then got up, went down to the kitchen, and greedily drank a half-bottle of cognac, That was the night he started drinking.

"It's the ore,” Arthur said. “You know, it settled with time. The dampness, erosion, all kinds of things like that."

Redrick looked at his pale face and sat down again. His cigarette had disappeared somewhere from his fingers, and he lit another one. Arthur stood a little longer, looking around anxiously, then he also sat down.

"I've heard that there's life in the Zone. People. Not visitors, but people. It seems the Visitation caught them here, and they mutated … they've acclimated to the new conditions. Have you heard that, too, Mr. Schuhart?"

"Yes,” Redrick said. “But not here. In the mountains in the northwest. Some shepherds."

That's what he's infected me with, he thought. His madness. That's why I've come here. That's what I want here. A strange and very new feeling overwhelmed him. He was aware that the feeling was really not new at all, that it had been hidden in him for a long time, but that he was acknowledging it only now, and everything was falling into place. And everything that had seemed like nonsense and the delirious ravings of a crazy old man turned out to be his only hope, the only meaning of his life. Because he finally understood: the only thing he had left in the world, the only thing he lived for in the last few months was the hope of a miracle. Fool that he was, he kept pushing hope away, trampling on it, mocking it, trying to drink it away, because that was the way he was used to living. Since childhood he had relied on nothing but himself. And since childhood this self-reliance had been measured in the amount of money he could snatch, grab, or bite away from the indifferent chaos that surrounded him. It had always been that way, and it would have continued, if he had not ended up in a hole that no amount of money could get him out of and in which it was absolutely useless to rely on himself. And now this hope—no longer a hope, but confidence in a miracle—filled him to the brim, and he was amazed at how he could have lived for so long in the impenetrable, exitless gloom. He laughed and gave Arthur a poke in the shoulder.

"Well, stalker, think we'll live through this, eh?"

Arthur looked at him in surprise and smiled uncertainly. Redrick crumpled up the waxed paper from the sandwiches, tossed it under the ore car, and lay down, his elbow on the backpack.

"All right,” he said. “Let's say that the Golden Ball really—what would you wish?"

"You mean, you do believe?” Arthur asked quickly.

"That's not important whether or not I believe. You answer my question."

He really was interested in what such a young boy, a schoolboy just yesterday, could ask of the Golden Ball. He enjoyed watching Arthur frown, tug at his mustache, and look up at him and look away.

"Well, dad's legs, of course. And for everything to be all right at home."

"You're lying,” Redrick said pleasantly. “Keep this in mind, brother. The Golden Ball only grants your deepest, innermost wishes, the kind that if they're not granted, it's all over for you!"

Arthur Burbridge blushed, looked up at Redrick once more, and became even redder. His eyes filled with tears. Redrick grinned.

"I understand,” he said almost gently. “All right, it's none of my business. Keep your secrets to yourself.” He suddenly remembered the gun and thought that while he had the time he should take care of whatever could be taken care of. “What's that in your back pocket?” he asked casually.

"A gun."

"What do you need it for?"