Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalipse

Kromer knocked me out of the way and grabbed Gloria from behind. "Listen to me, girl. You’re hallucinating. You’re scape-happy. We see it all the time." He was talking quiet but hard. "Any more of this and you’re out of the show, you understand? Get in the back and lie down now and get some sleep. You need it."

"You bastard," said Gloria.

"Sure, I’m a bastard, but you’re seeing things." He held Gloria’s wrist and she sagged.

Mr. Warren got up and put his hat on. "I’ll see you tomorrow, darling. Don’t worry. I’m rooting for you." He went out. Gloria didn’t look at him.

Kromer took Gloria back to the rest area but suddenly I wasn’t paying much attention myself. I had been thinking Fearing wasn’t taking advantage of the free action by talking about it because there wasn’t anyone much in the place to impress at this hour. Then I looked around and I realized there were two people missing and that was Fearing and Lane.

I found Ed and I asked him if Lane had dropped out of the contest and he said no.

"Maybe there’s a way you could find out if Anne is really scaping or if she’s a cheat," I said to Mr. Sneeze.

"I don’t see how I could," he said. "I can’t visit her, she has to visit me. And nobody visits me except you." He hopped and jiggled in his five places. "I’d like it if I could meet Gloria and Lane."

"Let’s not talk about Lane," I said.

When I saw Fearing again I couldn’t look at him. He was out talking to the people who came by in the morning, not in the microphone but one at a time, shaking hands and taking compliments like it was him doing the scaping.

There were only eight people left in the contest. Lane was still in it but I didn’t care.

I knew if I tried to sleep I would just lie there thinking. So I went to rinse out under my suit, which was getting pretty rank. I hadn’t been out of that suit since the contest started. In the bathroom I looked out the little window at the daylight and I thought about how I hadn’t been out of that building for five days either, no matter how much I’d gone to Mars and elsewhere.

I went back in and saw Gloria asleep and I thought all of a sudden that I should try to win.

But maybe that was just the idea coming over me that Gloria wasn’t going to.

I didn’t notice it right away because I went to other places first. Mr. Sneeze had made me promise I’d always have something new to tell him about so I always opened a few drawers. I went to a tank game but it was boring. Then I found a place called the American History Blood and Wax Museum and I stopped President Lincoln from getting murdered a couple of times. I tried to stop President Kennedy from getting murdered but if I stopped it one way it always happened a different way. I don’t know why.

So then I was going to tell Mr. Sneeze about it and that’s when I found out. I went into his drawer and touched the right numbers but what I got wasn’t the usual five pictures of the snowman. It was pieces of him but chopped up and stretched into thin white strips, around the edge of the black space, like a band of white light.

I said, "Mr. Sneeze?"

There wasn’t any voice.

I went out and came back in but it was the same. He couldn’t talk. The band of white strips got narrower and wider, like it was trying to move or talk. It looked a bit like a hand waving open and shut. But if he was still there he couldn’t talk.

I would have taken my mask off then anyway, but the heat of my face and my tears forced me to.

I saw Fearing up front talking and I started for him without even getting my suit undipped, so I tore up a few of my wires. I didn’t care. I knew I was out now. I went right out and tackled Fearing from behind. He wasn’t so big, anyway. Only his voice was big. I got him down on the floor.

"You killed him," I said, and I punched him as hard as I could, but you know Kromer and Gilmartin were there holding my arms before I could hit him more than once. I just screamed at Fearing, "You killed him, you killed him."

Fearing was smiling at me and wiping his mouth. "Your snowman malfunctioned, kid."

"That’s a lie!"

"You were boring us to death with that snowman, you little punk. Give it a rest, for chrissake."

I kept kicking out even though they had me pulled away from him. "I’ll kill you!" I said.

"Right," said Fearing. "Throw him out of here."

He never stopped smiling. Everything suited his plans, that was what I hated.

Kromer the big ape and Gilmartin pulled me outside into the sunlight and it was like a knife in my eyes. I couldn’t believe how bright it was. They tossed me down in the street and when I got up Kromer punched me, hard.

Then Gloria came outside. I don’t know how she found out, if she heard me screaming or if Ed woke her. Anyway she gave Kromer a pretty good punch in the side and said, "Leave him alone!"