Robert F. Young by Revolution 20

Author:Revolution 20
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-01-17T20:28:04+00:00

It had been on the tip of my tongue to ask her if there was a res-taurant in the building, but both her words and the matter-of-fact way she had spoken them put my unspoken ones to rout. I am not in the least Pru-frockian, but I had always assumed that the sexual freedom rampant in my own time was a mere evolutionary phase, and that it would soon give way to a more civilized form of be-havior. The discovery that it still existed almost a millenium in my future had caught me completely off guard.

I do not know how many flights of stairs we ascended; I can only say all of them, for her room proved to be on the topmost floor. She led me down a dusty corridor to its door. The corridor had a musty smell. So, for that matter, did the entire building. All of the rooms we passed seemed to be occupied; at least I heard voices coming from within. Her room proved to be just that. I, who had expected to see at least a makeshift apartment, stared at the room’s mildewed walls, at the cob-webs hanging from its ceiling, at the three sad-looking pieces of furniture it contained: a straight-backed wood-en chair, a battered vanity with a cracked mirror, and a broken-down bed with only a mattress to its name. A single window in the wall opposite the door provided a view of the late afternoon sky.

She stepped to one side so that I could precede her through the doorway. She did not follow me.

Instead, she said, still standing in the corridor, “I’ll leave you here for now, and go and inform the members of the council of your presence. Tonight some of them will come back with me and examine you.”

“What in the world for?”

She smiled, revealing even rows of teeth so white they glowed, even in the gloom. “It has to be officially de-termined whether you are alive or dead.”

I remembered that she had said most of the dead had risen up from their graves in a single night.

Apparently, then, the process was still go-ing on. Good Lord! — did she think there was a possibility that I had just risen from mine? Shaken, I said, “I thought you’d already made the deter-mination.”

“Yes.” She smiled again. “And I’m certain I’m right. But the decision has to be made officially. So good-bye for now, Keith — I’ll see you later,” and before I could stop her, she closed the door and locked it behind her.

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