He had thundered at us: “Are you two trying to make a fool of me? Are you proposing that soldiers of the United States Army undergo a three-month training course in sticking out their tongues and thumbing their noses?” He was quivering with elevated blood pressure. Two M.P. lieutenants collared us under his personal orders and tossed us down the Pentagon steps when we were unable to deny that he had stated our proposal more or less correctly.
And so squads, platoons, companies, battalions and regiments marched into the Plague Area and never marched out again.
Some soldiers stumbled out as zombies. After a few days spent at a sufficient distance from the Plague Area their minds cleared and they told their confused stories,. Something came over them, they said. A mental fuzziness almost impossible to describe. They liked it where they were, for instance; they left the Plague Area only by accident. They were wrapped hi a vague, silly contentment even when they were hungry, which was usually. What was life like in the Plague Area? Well, not much happened. You wandered around looking for food. A lot of people looked sick but seemed to be contented. Farmers in the area gave you food with the universal silly smile, but their crops were very poor. Animal pests got most of them. Nobody seemed to eat meat. Nobody quarreled or fought or ever said a harsh word in the Plague Area. And it was hell on earth. Nothing conceivable could induce any of them to return.
The Duchess of Carbondale? Yes, sometimes she came driving by in her chariot wearing fluttery robes and a golden crown. Everybody bowed down to her. She was a
big, fat middle-aged woman with rimless glasses and a pinched look of righteous triumph on her face.
The recovered zombies at first were quarantined and doctors made their wills before going to examine them. This proved to be unnecessary and the examinations proved to be fruitless. No bacteria, no rickettsia, no viruses. Nothing. Which didn’t stop them from continuing in the assumption embodied hi the official name of the affected counties.
Professor Leuten and I knew better, of course. For knowing better we were thrown out of offices, declined interviews and once almost locked up as lunatics. That was when we tried to get through to the President direct. The Secret Service, I am able to testify, guards our Chief Executive with a zeal that borders on ferocity.
“How goes the book?” Professor Leuten asked abruptly.
“Third hundred-thousand. Why? Want an advance?”
I don’t understand German, but I can recognize deep, heartfelt profanity in any language. He spluttered and crackled for almost a full minute before he snarled in English: “Idiots! Dolts! Out of almost one-third of a million readers, exactly one has read the book!”
I wanted to defer comment on that. “There’s a car,” I said.
“Obviously it stalled and was abandoned by a refugee from Scranton.”
“Let’s have a look anyway.” It was a battered old Ford sedan halfway off the pavement. The rear was full of canned goods and liquor. Somebody had been looting. I pushed the starter and cranked for a while; the motor didn’t catch.
“Useless,” said the professor. I ignored him, yanked the dashboard hood button and got out to inspect the guts. There was air showing on top of the gas hi the sediment cup.
“We ride, professor,” I told him. “I know these babies and their fuel pumps. The car quit on the upgrade there and he let it roll back.” I unscrewed the clamp of the carburetor air filter, twisted the filter off and heaved it into
the roadside bushes. The professor, of course was a “mere-machinery” boy with the true European intellectual’s contempt for greasy hands. He stood by haughtily while I poured a bottle of gin empty, found a wrench in the toolbox that fit the gas tank drain plug and refilled the gin bottle with gasoline. He condescended to sit behind the wheel and crank the motor from time to time while I sprinkled gas into the carburetor. Each time the motor coughed there was less air showing in the sediment cup; finally the motor caught for good. I moved him over, tucked my briefcase in beside me, U-turned on the broad, empty highway and we chugged North into Scranton.