“What do you mean?” said Christ.
“When was the last time that thing worked?”
“It works,” said Christ.
“Pull off and go through the gate up on your right,” said the Devil. “We’ve got to take her out or she’ll dog us for eternity.”
“I don’t like this at all,” said Christ.
After passing the gate, I drove on a winding gravel road that led to the local landfill. There were endless moonlit hills of junk and garbage. I parked the car and we got out.
“We’ve got to get to the top of that hill before she gets here,” said Christ, pointing to a huge mound of garbage.
I scrabbled up the hill, clutching at old car seats and stepping on dead appliances. Startled rats scurried through the debris. When I reached the top I was sweating and panting. Christ beat me, but I had to reach down and help the Devil up the last few steps.
“It’s the hooves,” he said, “they’re worse than high heels.”
“There’s some cool stuff here,” said Christ.
“I saw a whole carton of National Geographics I want to snag on the way out,” said the Devil.
Off in the distance, I saw the shadow of something passing in front of the stars. It was too big to be a bird. “Here she comes,” I yelled and pointed. They both spun around to look. “What do I do?” I asked.
“Stay behind us,” said Christ. “If she gets you, it’s going to hurt.”
The next thing I knew, Mrs. Lumley had landed and we three were backed against the edge of the hill with a steep drop behind us. Her blue skin shone in the moonlight like armor, but there were tufts of hair growing from it. She had this amazing aqua body and an eight-foot wingspan, but with the exception of the gills and fangs, she still had the face of a sixty-five-year-old woman. She moved slowly toward us, burping out words that made no sense.
When she came within a few feet of us, Christ said, “Smoke ’em if you got ’em,” and the Devil stepped forward. Tentacles began to grow from her body toward him. One managed to wrap itself around his left horn when he opened his mouth to assault her with a minute of fire. The flame discharged like a blowtorch and stopped her cold. When she was completely engulfed in the blaze, the tentacles retracted, but she would not melt.
As soon as the evil one finished, coughing out great clouds of gray smoke, Mrs. Lumley opened her eyes and the tentacles began to grow again from her sides. I looked over and saw that Christ was holding something in his right hand. It appeared to be a remote control, and he was furiously pushing its buttons.
The Devil had jumped back beside me, his hand clutching my arm. He had real fear in his serpent eyes, yet he could not help but laugh at Christ messing around with the Machine of Eden.
“What’s with the cosmic garage door opener,” he shouted.
“It works,” said Christ, as he continued to nervously press buttons. I felt one of the tentacles wrap itself around my ankle. Mrs. Lumley opened her mouth and crowed like a rooster. Another of the blue snake appendages entwined itself around the Devil’s midsection. We both screamed as she pulled us toward her.
“Three,” Christ yelled, and a beam of light shot out of the end of the Machine. I then heard the sound of celestial voices singing in unison. Mrs. Lumley took the blast full in the chest and began instantly to shrivel. Before my eyes, like the special effects in a crappy science fiction movie, she turned into a tree. Leaves sprouted, pink blossoms grew, and as the singing faded, pure white fruit appeared on the lower branches.
“Not fun,” said the Devil.
“I thought she was going to suck your face off,” said Christ.
“What exactly was she,” I asked, “an alien?”
Christ shook his head. “Nah,” he said, “just a fucked-up old woman.”
“Is she still a saint?” I asked.
“No, she’s a tree,” he said.
“You and your saints,” said the Devil and plucked a piece of fruit. “Take one of these,” he said to me. “It’s called the Still Point of the Turning World. Only eat it when you need it.”
I picked one of the white pears off the tree and put it in my pocket before we started down the junk hill. The Devil found the box of magazines and Christ came up with a lamp made out of seashells. We piled into the car and I started it up.
I heard Christ say, “Holy shit, it’s 8:00!”
The next thing I knew I was on my usual road back in Jersey. The car was empty but for me, and I was just leaving New Egypt.
That Hell-Bound Train by Robert Bloch
When Martin was a little boy, his daddy was a Railroad Man. Daddy never rode the high iron, but he walked the tracks for the CB &Q, and he was proud of his job. And every night when he got drunk, he sang this old song about That Hell-Bound Train.
Martin didn’t quite remember any of the words, but he couldn’t forget the way his Daddy sang them out. And when Daddy made the mistake of getting drunk in the afternoon and got squeezed between a Pennsy tank-car and an AT &SF gondola, Martin sort of wondered why the Brotherhood didn’t sing the song at his funeral.
After that, things didn’t go so good for Martin, but somehow he always recalled Daddy’s song. When Mom up and ran off with a traveling salesman from Keokuk (Daddy must have turned over in his grave, knowing she’d done such a thing, and with a passenger, too!) Martin hummed the tune to himself every night in the Orphan Home. And after Martin himself ran away, he used to whistle the song softly at night in the jungles, after the other bindlestiffs were asleep.
Martin was on the road for four-five years before he realized he wasn’t getting anyplace. Of course he’d tried his hand at a lot of things-picking fruit in Oregon, washing dishes in a Montana hash-house, stealing hubcaps in Denver and tires in Oklahoma City-but by the time he’d put in six months on the chain gang down in Alabama he knew he had no future drifting around this way on his own.
So he tried to get on the railroad like his daddy had and they told him that times were bad. But Martin couldn’t keep away from the railroads. Wherever he traveled, he rode the rods; he’d rather hop a freight heading north in sub-zero weather than lift his thumb to hitch a ride with a Cadillac headed for Florida. Whenever he managed to get hold of a can of Sterno, he’d sit there under a nice warm culvert, think about the old days, and often as not he’d hum the song about That Hell-Bound Train. That was the train the drunks and the sinners rode-the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt-chasers, and all the jolly crew. It would be really fine to take a trip in such good company, but Martin didn’t like to think of what happened when that train finally pulled into the Depot Way Down Yonder. He didn’t figure on spending eternity stoking boilers in Hell, without even a Company Union to protect him. Still, it would be a lovely ride. If there was such a thing as a Hell-Bound Train. Which, of course, there wasn’t.
At least Martin didn’t think there was, until that evening when he found himself walking the tracks heading south, just outside of Appleton Junction. The night was cold and dark, the way November nights are in the Fox River Valley, and he knew he’d have to work his way down to New Orleans for the winter, or maybe even Texas. Somehow he didn’t much feel like going, even though he’d heard tell that a lot of those Texas automobiles had solid gold hubcaps.
No sir, he just wasn’t cut out for petty larceny. It was worse than a sin-it was unprofitable, too. Bad enough to do the Devil’s work, but then to get such miserable pay on top of it! Maybe he’d better let the Salvation Army convert him.
Martin trudged along humming Daddy’s song, waiting for a rattler to pull out of the Junction behind him. He’d have to catch it-there was nothing else for him to do.
But the first train to come along came from the other direction, roaring toward him along the track from the south.
Martin peered ahead, but his eyes couldn’t match his ears, and so far all he could recognize was the sound. It was a train, though; he felt the steel shudder and sing beneath his feet.