“I told you. If I can, I’ll get you out.”
“No,” Burbridge said stubbornly. “You’ll get me out either way. The Golden Sphere. Want me to tell you where it is?”
“Fine, tell me.”
Burbridge moaned and shifted. “My legs…” he groaned. “Can you feel them?”
Redrick stretched out his arm and, examining, ran his hand along the leg below the knee.
“Bones…” wheezed Burbridge. “Are there still bones?”
“Yes, yes,” lied Redrick. “Don’t worry.”
Actually, he could only feel the kneecap. Below there, all the way down to the heel, the leg felt like a rubber stick—you could tie it in knots.
“You’re lying,” said Burbridge. “Why are you lying? What, you think I don’t know, you think I’ve never seen this before?”
“The knees are OK,” said Redrick.
“You’re probably lying again,” Burbridge said miserably. “Forget it. Just get me out of here. I’ll give you everything. The Golden Sphere. Draw you a map. Show you all the traps. Tell you everything.”
He kept talking and promising things, but Redrick was no longer listening. He was looking toward the road. The searchlights had stopped darting through the bushes; they had frozen, converging on that same marble obelisk, and in the bright blue fog Redrick distinctly saw a hunched figure wandering between the crosses. The figure seemed to be moving blindly, heading right toward the searchlights. Redrick saw it crash into a huge cross, stagger back, bump into the cross again, and only then go around it and keep going, stretching long arms with fingers spread wide in front of it. Then it suddenly disappeared, as if falling through the ground, and in a few seconds appeared again, farther and to the right, walking with an absurd, inhuman persistence, like a windup toy.
And the searchlights abruptly went off. The clutch started grinding, the motor roared to life, red and blue signal lights flashed through the bushes, and the patrol car took off. It sped up furiously, flew toward town, and disappeared behind the wall. Redrick swallowed hard and unzipped his jumpsuit.
“They left…” Burbridge muttered feverishly. “Let’s go, Red. Hurry up!” He fidgeted, groped around him, grabbed the bag of swag, and tried to sit up. “Come on, what are you waiting for?”
Redrick kept looking toward the road. It was now dark and he couldn’t see a thing, but that one was out there somewhere—marching like a windup toy, stumbling, falling, crashing into crosses, getting tangled in bushes. “All right,” Redrick said aloud. “Let’s go.”
He picked Burbridge up. The old man clutched his neck with a pincerlike grip, and Redrick, unable to get up, dragged him on all fours through the gap in the wall, gripping the wet grass with his hands. “Keep going, keep going…” Burbridge pleaded. “Don’t worry, I got the swag, I won’t let go. Keep going!”
He knew the way, but the wet grass was slippery, the branches whipped his face, and the corpulent old man was impossibly heavy, like a corpse; and then there was the bag of swag, which, knocking and clanging, kept getting caught, and he was terrified of stumbling on that one, who might be roaming here in the dark.
When they came out onto the road, it was still completely dark, but dawn was palpably near. In the grove across the highway, the birds were beginning to chirp sleepily; the night sky over the distant black houses and sparse yellow streetlights of the outskirts had already turned blue, and there was a damp chilly breeze. Redrick lay Burbridge down on the side of the road, glanced around, and, looking like a gigantic black spider, ran across it. He quickly found their Jeep, swept the masking branches off the hood and trunk, got behind the wheel, and carefully, without turning on the headlights, drove onto the pavement. Burbridge was sitting up, holding the bag with one hand, and with the other feeling his legs. “Hurry up!” he rasped. “Hurry up and go! My knees, I still have my knees… If I could save my knees!”
Redrick picked him up and, gritting his teeth from the effort, threw him into the car. Burbridge collapsed onto the backseat with a thud and moaned. He still hadn’t let go of the bag. Redrick picked the lead-lined jacket up off the ground and threw it over him. Burbridge had even managed to drag the jacket along.
Redrick took out a flashlight and went back and forth along the side of the road, looking for tracks. There were almost none. As it rolled onto the road, the Jeep had flattened the tall, thick grass, but in a couple of hours this grass would stand up. The area around the spot where the patrol car had been was littered with cigarette butts. Redrick remembered that he’d long wanted a smoke, took out a cigarette, and lit up, even though what he most wanted right now was to jump in the car and speed away. But he couldn’t do that yet. Everything had to be carefully thought through.
“What’s going on?” whined Burbridge from the car. “You haven’t poured out the water, the fishing gear is dry… Why are you standing there? Hide the swag!”
“Shut up!” said Redrick. “Get off my back.” He took a drag on his cigarette. “We’ll drive through the southern outskirts,” he said.
“The outskirts? Are you nuts? You’ll ruin my knees, asshole! My knees!”
Redrick took a last drag and stuffed the butt into a matchbox. “Calm down, Vulture,” he said. “We can’t go through town. There are three checkpoints on the way, we’ll get stopped at one of them, at least.”
“So what?”
“So they’ll take one look at your legs—and we’re finished.”
“What about my legs? We were fishing with dynamite, my legs got blasted, that’s all!”
“And if someone touches them?”
“Touches them… I’ll scream so loud, they’ll never touch a leg again.”
But Redrick had already decided. He turned on the flashlight, lifted the driver’s seat, opened the secret hatch, and said, “Give me the swag.”
The spare fuel tank under the seat was fake. Redrick took the bag and shoved it inside, listening to the clanging, rolling sounds coming from within.
“I can’t risk it,” he mumbled. “Got no right.”
He closed the hatch, sprinkled some garbage on top, threw some rags over it, and lowered the seat. Burbridge was grunting, moaning, plaintively demanding he hurry up; then he was again promising the Golden Sphere, the entire time fidgeting in his seat, staring anxiously into the lightening sky. Redrick paid no attention. He ripped open the plastic bag of water with the fish, poured out the water onto the fishing gear piled on the bottom of the trunk, and threw the wriggling fish into a canvas bag. After that, he folded the plastic bag and stuffed it into his pocket. Now everything was in order: two fishermen were returning from a moderately successful expedition. He got behind the wheel and started the car.
He drove all the way to the turn without switching on his headlights. To their left stretched the immense nine-foot wall that guarded the Zone, while to their right were bushes, thin groves, and the occasional abandoned cottage with boarded-up windows and peeling paint. Redrick had good night vision, and in any case, the darkness was no longer that thick; besides, he knew what was coming, so when the steadily walking, bent figure appeared ahead, he didn’t even slow down. He only hunched over the wheel. That one was marching right in the middle of the road—like the rest of them, he was walking to town. Redrick passed him, driving on the shoulder, and then pressed hard on the gas.
“My God!” mumbled Burbridge from the back. “Red, did you see that?”
“Yeah,” said Redrick.
“Jesus. That’s all we need…” Burbridge muttered, and then immediately began reciting a loud prayer.
“Shut up!” snapped Redrick.
The turn had to be here somewhere. Redrick slowed down, examining the row of lopsided houses and fences stretching to their right. An old transformer booth… an electric pole… a rotting bridge over a ditch. Redrick turned the wheel. The car bounced over a pothole.