Sleepside: The Collected Fantasies by Greg Bear

Author:Greg Bear [Bear, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: E-Reads, Ltd.
Published: 2010-07-01T07:00:00+00:00

The next time out, I thought about the incredible thing that Charlie Frick had told me. Halfway to Hell, on the part of the run that he had once driven, I pulled the truck onto the gravel shoulder and walked back, hands in pockets, squinting at the faces. Young and old. Mostly old, or in their teens or twenties. Some were clearly bad news…But I was looking more closely this time, trying to discriminate. And sure enough, I saw a few that didn’t seem to belong.

The dead hung by the slats, sticking their arms through, beseeching. I ignored as much of that as I could. “You,” I said, pointing to a pale, thin fellow with a listless expression. “Why are you here?”

They wouldn’t lie to me. I’d learned that inside the City. The dead don’t lie.

“I kill people,” the man said in a high whisper. “I kill children.”

That confirmed my theory. I had known there was something wrong with him. I pointed to an old woman, plump and white-haired, lacking any of the signs. “You. Why are you going to Hell?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Because I’m bad, I suppose.”

“What did you do that was bad?”

“I don’t know!” she said, flinging her hands up. “I really don’t know. I was a librarian. When all those horrible people tried to take books out of my library, I fought them. I tried to reason with them…They wanted to remove Salinger and Twain and Baum…”

I picked out another young man. “What about you?”

“I didn’t think it was possible,” he said. “I didn’t believe that God hated me, too.”

“What did you do?” These people didn’t need to confess.

“I loved God. I loved Jesus. But, dear Lord, I couldn’t help it. I’m gay. I never had a choice. God wouldn’t send me here just for being gay, would he?”

I spoke to a few more, until I was sure I had found all I had in this load. “You, you, you and you, out,” I said, swinging open the rear gate. I closed the gate after them and led them away from the truck. Then I told them what Charlie Frick had told me, what he had learned on the road and in the big offices.

“Nobody’s really sure where it goes,” I said. “But it doesn’t go to Hell, and it doesn’t go back to Earth.”

“Where, then?” the old woman asked plaintively. The hope in her eyes made me want to cry, because I just wasn’t sure.

“Maybe it’s the High Road,” I said. “At least it’s a chance. You light out across this stretch, go back of that hill, and I think there’s some sort of trail. It’s not easy to find, but if you look carefully, it’s there. Follow it.”

The young man who was gay took my hand. I felt like pulling away, because I’ve never been fond of homos. But he held on and he said, “Thank you. You must be taking a big risk.”

“Yes, thank you,” the librarian said. “Why are you doing it?”

I had hoped they wouldn’t ask.

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