The girl laughed harshly. "Do you think that makes any difference to
them? Look, Jack, let's face it: you're in a prison, understand? They
don't call it that, and there aren't any bars. But you're not going
anywhere, and the boys in gray are here to see that you don't. And they
hate us because we're not good enough for them, and we're in line for
the kind of money they don't dare go after. You're here for one thing:
to make money, big money, or to get your brains jolted loose, and
nothing else--" She looked up at him, her eyes narrowing. "Or are you?"
Jeff shook his head miserably. "No, nothing else. I'm waiting for
testing. This other thing is an old fight, that's all. You wouldn't
understand. You just looked so much like the girl--" He looked up at
her, studying her face more closely. She wasn't as young as he had
thought at first. There were little wrinkles around her eyes, a shade
too much make-up showing where her mouth crinkled when she talked. Her
lips were painted too full, and there was a tiredness in her eyes, a
beaten, hunted look that she couldn't quite hide.
She leaned back on the bed, and even relaxation didn't erase the
hardness. Only the jet black hair and the smooth black eyebrows looked
young and fresh.
Jeff shook his head and kept staring at her. "I don't get it," he said
helplessly. "I was assigned to this room--"
"So was I." The girl's eyes hardened.
"Are you one of the ... workers?"
She sneered bitterly. "You mean one of the experimental animals? That's
right. The Mercy Men. Full of mercy, that's me." She spat on the floor.
"But the mixed company--"
There was no humor in her laugh. "What did you think, they'd have
a separate boudoir for the ladies? How do they treat any kind of
experimental animal? Get off it, Jack. They don't care what we do
or how we live. All they want is good healthy human livestock when
they're ready for it. Nothing more. That means they have to feed us
and bunk us down. Period. And if you've got any wise ideas"--her
eyes widened with a look of open viciousness, shocking in its
intensity--"just try something. Just once. You'll find out a lot about
Blackie in a hell of a rush." She rolled over contemptuously, turning
her back to him. "You'll find out I don't like loonies for roommates,
for instance."
Jeff lit a cigarette, his hands trembling. The room seemed to be
spinning, and he felt his muscles sagging in pain and fatigue. He had
counted so much on information from the girl. But incredible as the
resemblance was, Blackie couldn't have been the girl he had seen in
the tavern. If she had recognized him, he would have spotted it. She
couldn't have hidden it completely.
Suddenly he felt terribly alone, almost beaten, helpless to go on.
Where could he go? What could he do? How could he follow a trail that
led straight into stone walls? He leaned back on the bed and yielded
to the fatigue that plagued him. His mind sank into a confusion of
hopelessness. Maybe, he thought wearily, maybe that plaguing doubt that
lay in the fringes of his mind was right. Maybe he'd never find Conroe.
He sighed as the darkness of utter exhaustion closed in on him, and his
head sank back to the pillow--
* * * * *
He knew he was dreaming. Some tiny corner of his mind stood aside,
prodding him, telling him he dare not sleep, that he must be up,
moving, hunting, that the danger was too grave for sleep. But he slept,
and the little corner of his mind prodded and cried out and watched....
He was walking along a brook, a walk he had taken once before, so very
many years ago. A cool breeze struck down from the meadow, rumpling
his hair. He heard the tinkle of the water as it sparkled across the
rock. And he was afraid, so desperately afraid. The voice in his mind
screamed out to him at every footstep, until he faltered and slowed and
stopped.
_Not here, Jeff, not here. Stop, stop now! If you go farther, you'll be
dead--_
Sweat broke out on his forehead. He tried to move forward, felt an iron
grip on his legs. _Stop, Jeff, stop, you'll die, Jeff--_An overpowering
wave of fear swept over him, and he turned. He ran like the wind,
with the voice following him, crying out in his ear, following him on
ghostly wings. In the dream he became a little boy again, running,
screaming in fear. A man stood in his pathway, arms outstretched, and
Jeff threw himself into his father's arms, sobbing as though his heart
would break, clutching at him with incredible relief, burying his face
in the strong, comforting chest. _Oh, daddy, daddy, you're safe. You're
here, daddy._
He looked up at his father's smiling face and he saw the strong,
sensitive lines around the big man's mouth, the power and wisdom in
the eyes. Nowhere else was there this sense of strength, of unlimited
power, of complete comfort. He buried his face again in old Jacob
Meyer's chest. A flood of deep peacefulness passed through his mind--
_Jeff, Jeff, watch out!_
He stiffened, his whole body going cold. The strong arms were no longer
around him, and he was suddenly afraid again--afraid with a terror
that bit deep into his mind. He looked up and screamed, a scream that
echoed and re-echoed. It came again and again--a scream of pure terror.
Because his father's face was no longer next to him. There was another
face, hanging bodiless and luminous above him. It was chalk white--a
face of pure ghoulish evil, staring at him.
It was Conroe's face. He screamed again, tried to cover his eyes, tried
to shrink down into nothing. But the hideous, twisted face followed
him. The horrible fear intensified, sweeping through him like a flame,
twisting into fiery hate in his heart, as he watched the evil, glowing
face.
_He killed your father, Jeff. He butchered your father, shot him down
like an animal, in cold blood--_
Jeff screamed and the evil face grinned and moved closer, until the
rank breath was hot on Jeff's neck.
_You must kill him, Jeff. He killed your father--_
But why? Why did he do it, why ... why ... _why_? There was no answer.
The voice trailed off into horrible laughter. Quite suddenly the face
was gone. In its place was a tiny, distant figure--running, running
like the wind, down the narrow, darkened hospital corridor. And Jeff
was running too, burning with hatred, fighting desperately to catch up
with the fleeing figure, to close the gap between them.
The walls were of gray stone. Conroe was running swiftly, unhindered.
But horrid objects swept out of the walls at Jeff. He tripped on a wet,
slimy thing on the floor and fell on his face. He scrambled up again
as the figure disappeared around a far corner. The walls were gray and
wet around him. He reached the Y, waiting, panting, screaming out his
hatred down the empty, re-echoing hallways.
Then suddenly he glimpsed the figure and started running again, but
they were no longer in the Hoffman Center. They were running down a
hillside, a horrible, barren hillside, studded with long knives and
spears and swords--shiny blades standing straight up from the ground,
gleaming in the bluish light.
Conroe was far ahead, moving nimbly through the gauntlet of swords. But
Jeff couldn't follow his path, for new knives sprang up before him,
cutting his ankles, ripping his clothes. He panted, near exhaustion, as
the figure vanished in the distance. Sinking down to the ground, Jeff
sobbed, his whole body shaking. And the voice screamed mockingly in his
ear: _You'll never get him, Jeff. No matter how hard you try, you'll
never get him ... never ... never ... never...._
_But I've got to, I've got to. I've got to find him and kill him. Daddy
told me to--_
He woke with a jolt, his screams still echoing in the still room, sweat
pouring from his forehead and body, soaking his clothes. He sat bolt
upright. He searched for his watch, but couldn't find it. _How long had
he slept?_
His eyes shot to the opposite bed, standing empty, and he rolled out
onto his feet. He had the horrible feeling that the world had passed
him by, that he had missed something critical while he slept.
He stared at his wrist. The watch was definitely gone. Then, with a
curse, he crossed the room and ripped open Blackie's foot locker.
Sure enough, the watch lay with the heap of gold jewelry on the dirty
clothes pile. He stared at it as he re-strapped it on his wrist. Then
he walked into the lavatory, splashed cold water into his face and
tried to quell the fierce painful throbbing in his head. The watch said
eight-thirty. He had slept for five hours--five precious hours for
Conroe to hide, cover his tracks, disappear deeper into this mire of
human trash.
Jeff stumbled to the door, glanced out to see two gray-clothed guards
passing in the corridor. Quietly he pulled the door shut. His stomach
was screaming from hunger and he searched the room restlessly. Finally,
he unearthed a box of crackers and a quarter pound of cheese in the
bottom of Blackie's locker. He ate ravenously and drank some water from
the lavatory tap. Then he sank down on the edge of the bed.
The dream again, the same horrible, frightening, desperate dream--the
dream that recurred and recurred; always different, yet always the
same. The same face that had haunted him all his life, the face that
had almost driven him insane that day, five years before, when he met
it face to face for the first time; the face of the man he had hunted
to the ends of the earth. But never had he caught the man, never had
he seen him but for brief glimpses. Conroe had slipped from every trap
before it was sprung. Yet finally he had become so desperate that he
was forced to retreat down a one-way road that led to hellish death.
Jeff shook his head hopelessly as he tried to piece together the
situation. He was in a half-world of avaricious men and women out to
sell themselves for incredible fees. It was a half-world that seemed
to Jeff only slightly more insane than the warped, intense world of
pressure and fear and insecurity that lay outside the Hoffman Center.
And in this half-world were a doctor who knew Jeff was a fraud, a
kleptomaniac girl who thought he was an addict, and somewhere--the
slender figure of the man he hunted.
Again he walked to the door. After peering out cautiously, he started
down the corridor. From the far end he heard a burst of laughter, the
sound of many voices. The smell of coffee floated down the corridor to
tantalize him. He followed the sounds and reached the large, long room
that served as a lounge and library for the Mercy Men in his unit.
The room was crowded. A dozen groups were huddled on the floor in a
buzz of frantic excitement. The room was blue with cigarette smoke, and
the lights glowed harshly from the walls. He saw the dice rolling in
the centers of the groups and he also saw half a dozen tables, crowded
with bright-eyed people. He heard the riffle of playing cards and the
harsh, tense laugh of a winner drawing in a pot. And then he spied the
Nasty Frenchman, his eyes bright with excitement, a cup of exceedingly
black coffee in one hand and a pile of white paper tags in the other.
He grinned at Jeff with undisguised malice and said, "Come on in, wise
guy. Things are just beginning to get hot."
Blinking, Jeff walked into the room.