THE SLEEPER
by Roger Zelazny
I. The Long Walk Home
He was fourteen years old when sleep became his enemy, a dark and terrible thing he learned to fear as others feared death. It was not, however, a matter of neurosis in any of its more mysterious forms. A neurosis generally possesses irrational elements, while his fear proceeded from a specific cause and followed a course as logical as a geometrical theorem.
Not that there was no irrationality in his life. Quite the contrary. But this was a result, not the cause, of his condition. At least, this is what he told himself later.
Simply put, sleep was his bane, his nemesis. It was his hell on an installment plan.
Croyd Crenson had completed eight grades of school and didn’t make it through the ninth. This was not because of any fault of his own. While not at the top of his class he was not at the bottom either. He was an average kid of average build, freckly-faced, with blue eyes and straight brown hair. He had liked to play war games with his friends until the real war ended; then they played cops and robbers more and more often. When it was war he had waited-not too patiently–for his chance to be the ace fighter pilot, Jetboy; after the war, in cops and robbers, he was usually a robber.
He’d started ninth grade, but like many others he never got through the first month: September 1946….
“What are you looking at?”
He remembered Miss Marston’s question but not her expression, because he didn’t turn away from the spectacle. It was not uncommon for kids in his class to glance out the window with increasing frequency once three o’clock came within believable distance. It was uncommon for them not to turn away quickly, though, when addressed, feigning a final bout of attention while awaiting the dismissal bell.
Instead, he had replied, “The blimps.”
In that three other boys and two girls who also had a good line of sight were looking in the same direction, Miss Marston—her own curiosity aroused-crossed to the window. She halted there and stared.
They were quite high-five or six of them, it seemedtiny things at the end of an alleyway of cloud, moving as if linked together. And there was an airplane in the vicinity, making a rapid pass at them. Black-and-white memories of flashing newsreels, still fresh, came to mind. It actually looked as if the plane were attacking the silver minnows.
Miss Marston watched for several moments, then turned away.
“All right, class,” she began. “It’s only-“
Then the sirens sounded. Involuntarily, Miss Marston felt her shoulders rise and tighten.
“Air raid!” called a girl named Charlotte in the first row. “Is not,” said Jimmy Walker, teeth braces flashing. “They don’t have them anymore. The war’s over.”
“I know what they sound like,” Charlotte said. “Every time there was a blackout-“
“But there’s no more war,” Bobby Tremson stated. “That will be enough, class,” Miss Marston said. “Perhaps they’re testing them.”
But she looked back out the window and saw a small flash of fire in the sky before a reef of cloud blocked her view of the aerial conflict.
“Stay in your seats,” she said then, as several students had risen and were moving toward the window. “I’m going to check in the office and see whether there’s a drill that hadn’t been announced. I’ll be right back. You may talk if you do it quietly.” She departed, banging the door behind her. Croyd continued to stare at the cloud screen, waiting for it to part again.
“It’s Jetboy,” he said to Bobby Tremson, across the aisle. “Aw, c’mon,” Bobby said. “What would he be doing up there? The war’s over.”
“It’s a jet plane. I’ve seen it in newsreels, and that’s how it goes. And he’s got the best one.”
“You’re just making that up,” Liza called from the rear of the room.
Croyd shrugged.
“There’s somebody bad up there, and he’s fighting them,” he said. “I saw the fire. There’s shooting.”
The sirens continued to wail. From the street outside came the sound of screeching brakes, followed by the brief hoot of an auto horn and the dull thud of collision.
“Accident!” Bobby called, and everyone was getting up and moving to the window.
Croyd rose then, not wanting his view blocked; and because he was near he found a good spot. He did not look at the accident, however, but continued to stare upward.
“Caved in his trunk,” Joe Sarzanno said. “What?” a girl asked.
Croyd heard the distant booming sounds now. The plane was no longer in sight.
“What’s the noise?” Bobby asked. “Antiaircraft fire,” Croyd said. “You’re nutsl”
“They’re trying to shoot the things down, whatever they are.”
“Yeah. Sure. Just like in the movies.”
The clouds began to close again. But as they did, Croyd thought that he glimpsed the jet once more, sweeping in on a collision course with the blimps. His view was blocked then, before he could be sure.
“Damn!” he said. “Get ‘em, Jetboy!”
Bobby laughed and Croyd shoved him, hard. “Hey! Watch who you’re pushing!”
Croyd turned toward him, but Bobby did not seem to want to pursue the matter. He was looking out of the window again, pointing.
“Why are all those people running?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it the accident?”
“Nave”
“Look! There’s anotherl”
A blue Studebaker had swung rapidly about the corner, swerved to miss the two stopped vehicles, and clipped an oncoming Ford. Both cars were turned at an angle. Other vehicles braked and halted to avoid colliding with them.
Several horns began to sound. The muffled noises of antiaircraft fire continued within the wail of the sirens. People were rushing along the streets now, not even pausing to regard the accidents.
“Do you think the war started again?” Charlotte asked. “I don’t know,” Leo said.
The sound of a police siren was suddenly mixed with the other noises.
“Jeez!” Bobby said. “Here comes another!”
Before he finished speaking a Pontiac had run into the rear of one of the stopped vehicles. Three pairs of drivers confronted each other on foot; one couple angrily, the others simply talking and occasionally pointing upward. Shortly, they all departed and hurried off along the street.
“This is no drill,” Joe said.
“I know,” Croyd answered, staring at the area where a cloud had grown pink from the brightness it masked. “I think it’s something real bad.”
He moved back from the window. “I’m going home now,” he said.
“You’ll get in trouble,” Charlotte told him. He glanced at the clock.
“I’ll bet the bell rings before she gets back,” he answered. “If you don’t go now I don’t think they’ll let you go with whatever that is going on-and I want to go home.”
He turned away and crossed to the door. “I’m going, too,” Joe said.
“You’ll both get in trouble.”
They passed along the hallway. As they neared the front door an adult voice, masculine, called out from up the hall, “You two! Come back here!”
Croyd ran, shouldered open the big green door, and kept going. Joe was only a step behind him as he descended the steps. The street was full of stopped cars now, for as far as he could see in either direction. There were people on the tops of buildings and people at every window, most of them looking upward.
He rushed to the sidewalk and turned right. His home was six blocks to the south, in an anomalous group of row houses in the eighties. Joe’s route took him half that way, then off to the east.
Before they reached the corner they were halted as a stream of people flowed from the side street to the right, cutting into their line of pedestrian traffic, some turning north and trying to push through, others heading south. The boys heard cursing and the sound of a fistfight from up ahead. Joe reached out and tugged at a man’s sleeve. The man jerked his arm away, then looked down.
“What’s happening?” Joe shouted.
“Some kind of bomb,” the man answered. “Jetboy tried to stop the guys who had it. I think they were all blown up. The thing might go off any minute. Maybe atomic.”
“Where’d it fall?” Croyd yelled. The man gestured to the northwest. “That way.”
Then the man was gone, having seen an opening and pushed his way through.
“Croyd, we can get past on the street if we go over the hood of that car,” Joe said.
Croyd nodded and followed the other boy across the stillwarm hood of a gray Dodge. The driver swore at them, but his door was blocked by the press of bodies and the door on the passenger side could only open a few inches before hitting the fender of a taxi. They made their way around the cab and passed through the intersection at its middle, traversing two more cars on the way.
Pedestrian traffic eased near to the center of the next block, and it looked as if there was a large open area ahead. They sprinted toward it, then halted abruptly.
A man lay upon the pavement. He was having convulsions. His head and hands had swollen enormously, and they were dark red, almost purple in color. Just as they caught sight of him, blood began to rush from his nose and mouth; it trickled from his ears, it oozed from his eyes and about his fingernails.
“Holy Maryl” Joe said, crossing himself as he drew back. “What’s he got?”
“I don’t know,” Croyd answered. “Let’s not get too close. Let’s go over some more cars.”
It took them ten minutes to reach the next corner. Somewhere along the way they noticed that the guns had been silent for a long time, though the air-raid sirens, police sirens, and auto horns maintained a steady din.
“I smell smoke,” Croyd said.
“Me, too. If something’s burning no fire truck’s going to get to it.”
“Whole damn town could burn down.”
“Maybe it’s not all like this.”
“Bet it is.”
They pushed ahead, were caught in a press of bodies and swept about the corner.
“We’re not going this wayl” Croyd yelled.
But it did not matter, as the mass of people about them was halted seconds later.
“Think we can crawl through to the street and go over cars again?” Joe asked.
“Might as well try.”
They made it. Only this time, as they worked their way back toward the corner it was slower, as others were taking the same route. Croyd saw a reptilian face through a windshield then, and scaly hands clutching at a steering wheel that had been torn loose from its column as the driver slowly slumped to the side. Looking away, he saw a rising tower of smoke from beyond buildings to the northeast.
When they reached the corner there was no place to descend. People stood packed and swaying. There were occasional screams. He wanted to cry, but he knew it would do no good. He clenched his teeth and shuddered.
“What’re we going to do?” he called to Joe.
“If we’re stuck here overnight we can bust the window on an empty car and sleep in it, I guess.”
“I wart to go home!”
“Me, too. Let’s try and keep going as far as we can.” They inched their way down the street for the better part of an hour, but only made another block. Drivers howled and pounded on windows as they climbed over the roofs of their cars. Other cars were empty. A few others contained things they did not like to look at. Sidewalk traffic looked dangerous now. It was fast and loud, with brief fights, numerous screams, and a number of fallen bodies which had been pushed into doorways or off the curb into the street. There had been a few seconds’ hesitation and silence when the sirens had stopped. Then came the sound of someone speaking over a bullhorn. But it was too far away. The words were not distinguishable, except for “bridges.” The panic resumed.
He saw a woman fall from a building across the street and up ahead, and he looked away before she hit. The smell of smoke was still in the air, but there were yet no signs of fire in the vicinity. Ahead, he saw the crowd halt and draw back as a person-man or woman, he could not tell-burst into flames in its midst. He slid to the road between two cars and waited till his friend came up.
“Joe, I’m scared shitless,” he said. “Maybe we should just crawl under a car and wait till it’s all over.”
“I’ve been thinking of that,” the other boy replied. “But what if part of that burning building falls on a car and it catches fire?”
“What of it?”
“If it gets to the gas tank and it blows up they’ll all go, this close together, like a string of firecrackers.”
“Jesus!”
“We’ve got to keep going. You can come to my place if it seems easier.”
Croyd saw a man perform a series of dancelike movements, tearing at his clothing. Then he began to change shape. Someone back up the road started howling. There came sounds of breaking glass.
During the next half-hour the sidewalk traffic thinned to what might, under other circumstances, be called normal. The people seemed either to have achieved their destinations or to have advanced their congestion to some other part of town. Those who passed now picked their way among corpses. Faces had vanished from behind windows. No one was in sight atop the buildings. The sounds of auto horns had diminished to sporadic outbursts. The boys stood on a corner. They had covered three blocks and crossed the street since they had left school.
“I turn here,” Joe said. “You want to come with me or you going ahead?”
Croyd looked down the street.
“It looks better now. I think I can make it okay,” he said. “I’ll see you.”
“Okay “
Joe hurried off to the left. Croyd watched him for a moment, then moved ahead. Far up the street, a man raced from a doorway screaming. He seemed to grow larger and his movements more erratic as he moved to the center of the street. Then he exploded. Croyd pressed his back against the brick wall to his left and stared, heart pounding, but there was no new disturbance. He heard the bullhorn again, from somewhere to the west, and this time its words were more clear: “….he bridges are closed to both auto and foot traffic. Do not attempt to use the bridges. Return to your homes. The bridges are closed….”
He moved ahead again. A single siren wailed somewhere to the east. A low-flying airplane passed overhead. There was a crumpled body in a doorway to his left; he looked away and quickened his pace. He saw smoke across the street, and he looked for the flames and saw then that it rose from the body of a woman seated on a doorstep, her head in her hands. She seemed to shrink as he watched, then fell to her left with a rattling sound. He clenched his fists and kept going.
An Army truck rolled from the side street at the corner ahead of him. He ran to it. A helmeted face turned toward him from the passenger side.
“Why are you out, son?” the man asked.
“I’m going home,” he answered. “Where’s that?”
He pointed ahead. “Two blocks,” he said. “Go straight home,” the man told him. “What’s happening?”
“We’re under martial law. Everybody’s got to get indoors. Good idea to keep your windows closed, too.”
“why?”
“It seems that was some kind of germ bomb that went off. Nobody knows for sure.”
“Was is Jetboy that… ?”
“Jetboy’s dead. He tried to stop them.” Croyd’s eyes were suddenly brimming. “Go straight home.”
The truck crossed the street and continued on to the west. Croyd ran across and slowed when he reached the sidewalk. He began to shake. He was suddenly aware of the pain in his knees, where he had scraped them in crawling over vehicles. He wiped his eyes. He felt terribly cold. He halted near the middle of the block and yawned several times. Tired. He was incredibly tired. He began moving. His feet felt heavier than he ever remembered. He halted again beneath a tree. There came a moaning from overhead.
When he looked up he realized that it was not a tree. It was tall and brown, rooted and spindly, but there was an enormously elongated human face near its top and it was from there that the moaning came. As he moved away one of the limbs plucked at his shoulder, but it was a weak thing and a few more steps bore him out of its reach. He whimpered. The corner seemed miles away, and then there was another block….
He had long yawning spells now, and the remade world had lost its ability to surprise him. So what if a man flew through the skies unaided? Or if a human-faced puddle lay in the gutter to his right? More bodies….n overturned car…. pile of ashes….anging telephone lines. . He trudged on to the comer. He leaned against the lamppost, then slowly slid down and sat with his back to it. He wanted to close his eyes. But that was silly. He lived right over there. Just a bit more and he could sleep in his own bed.
He caught hold of the lamppost and dragged himself to his feet. One more crossing. .
He made it onto his block, his vision swimming. Just a little farther. He could see the door. .
He heard the sliding, grating sound of a window opening, heard his name called from overhead. He looked up. It was Ellen, the neighbors’ little girl, looking down at him.
“I’m sorry your daddy’s dead,” she called.
He wanted to cry but he couldn’t. The yawning took all of his strength. He leaned upon his door and rang the bell. The pocket with his key in it seemed so far away. .
When his brother Carl opened the door, he fell at his feet and found that he could not rise.
“I’m so tired,” he told him, and he closed his eyes.