Back to the Future, Part II: A Novel by Craig Shaw Gardner

Author:Craig Shaw Gardner [Gardner, Craig Shaw]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780425118757
Amazon: 0425118754
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 1989-11-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Marty ran all the way to Courthouse Square. He had to go this way to get to Doc’s lab anyway, if Doc’s lab was still there - and Marty could make it that far without getting shot. In the meantime, maybe he could find somebody here to tell him what was going on.

He walked past the ‘Hill Valley - A Nice Place to Live’ sign. It was riddled with bullet holes.

The Courthouse had changed, too. Someone had turned it into a hotel - and what a hotel! It looked like something straight out of Las Vegas, full of neon and glaring lights.

Marty couldn’t believe it when he read the sign:

BIFF TANNEN’S PLEASURE PARADISE

Biff Tannen? Marty thought? The Biff Tannen?

But there was more to the sign, below the name, flashing one after another:

HOTEL

RESORT

CASINO

GIRLS

And that wasn’t all! Right in the middle of the sign was a huge portrait of Biff, lighting a cigar with a hundred dollar bill.

It was bright! It was garish! It had absolutely no taste! It had to be the same Biff Tannen!

Marty was overwhelmed. It was the middle of the night, and the place was doing a fantastic business! People streamed in and out of the door marked CASINO - most of them fat, middle-aged men in business suits, each one with a much younger woman -sometimes two - on one or both of his arms, and all of them talking and laughing.

Whatever they were saying, though, was completely lost in the roar of motorcycles. The grass and hedges of the square were gone, paved over with asphalt, and filled now with a hundred bikers, drag racing and revving their engines.

As Marty looked around, he realised the whole square was different. The aerobics place and family stores had disappeared, replaced by adult book stores, bars, pawn shops, bail bondsmen, and porno theatres - and all of those were open for business, too. The whole town seemed to be open all night!

And behind it all, on every side of the square, even towering over the Pleasure Palace, were row after row of tall industrial smokestacks, all spewing thick smoke into the darkness.

Hill Valley certainly had changed.

The front door of the Biff Tannen Pleasure Palace slammed open, and three men emerged, halfdragging, half-carrying a fourth. It looked like three bouncers getting rid of a drunk. At least, Marty reflected, that sort of thing hadn’t changed.

Marty could have sworn he knew those bouncers.

They were older than the last time he had seen them, but those three bouncers looked an awful lot like those guys that used to hang around with Biff back in the fifties - Match, Skinhead and 3-D. All of them wore suits now. Match now wore a cowboy hat, while Skinhead’s crewcut was a lot greyer than before. And 3-D’s glasses were a lot fancier. The way they gleamed under the neon, they almost looked like they had jewels embedded in the rims. But all three were the same bullies they’d been back in 1955.

‘And don’t ever come beggin’ for drinks in here again!’ 3-D yelled.

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