The Search by Dyer Geoff

Author:Dyer, Geoff [Dyer, Geoff]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780857863416
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Sweetwater was a dismal town. Walker stayed there only long enough to discover that Carver was heading for Eagle City. He was numb from driving but had to keep going, had to keep Carver in range or run the risk of losing track of him for good. It was a long haul and by the outskirts of Attica, a vast sprawling city, barely a hundred miles from Sweetwater, both Walker and the car were coming apart under the strain. Second gear was only intermittently available; fourth had given up completely so he whined along in third, keeping to sixty despite the roar of complaints from the engine. Walker was exhausted. He missed the turn-off for the Attica orbital and was being sucked into the city. One highway fed into another until he found himself on a six-lane freeway that curved and arched, dipped over other larger freeways. The volume of traffic, the speed and the size of the roads, all filled him with a surge of indifferent excitement: just keeping up with the flow of traffic made you feel like you were racing ahead. Cars slipped back and forth between lanes, moving over all six lanes in the space of half a mile and then making their way back. The road signs – bright blue, huge white letters inscribed on an idl sky – showed no destinations, only the names of other smaller or larger freeways which in turn led to other freeways. To Walker, frazzled by tiredness, caught up in this relentless flow, the idea of houses began to seem quaint, ridiculous. He passed over another coil of roads and felt as if he and the other drivers were electrons in a huge laboratory model, flying particles of energy. Arrival or departure meant nothing, all that mattered was to keep hurtling along with everyone else. Even the idea of pulling off for gas contradicted the fundamental principle at work here: keep moving.

The freeway had now increased to eight lanes which were splitting in two like a long grey zipper coming undone. Walker kept his foot planted to the floor and pulled away to the left, the car shaking and buffeting around him. Soon the freeway fed into another even faster one. Cars swerved and slalomed across the road. Ten lanes of traffic howled and roared along.

Initially Walker had intended keeping to the left, but two and then three lanes of traffic had somehow squeezed between him and the hard shoulder and now he was engulfed in a white-water torrent of cars. He caught glimpses of other drivers, ashen and pale as if they had surrendered themselves to an activity over which they had no control. Nose to tail at sixty miles an hour. Walker’s engine was screaming and rattling; he was sure he could smell burning. He tried fourth gear, thought for a moment he had it and then realized he was freewheeling. Tried to slip the stick back into third but third had locked like a gate.

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