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+Project Gutenberg's The Last Place on Earth, by James Judson Harmon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Last Place on Earth
+
+Author: James Judson Harmon
+
+Release Date: November 9, 2007 [EBook #23426]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Jana Srna and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Naturally an undertaker will get the last word.
+But shouldn't he wait until his clients are dead?
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH
+
+
+By JIM HARMON
+
+Illustrated by Gaughan
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Sam Collins flashed the undertaker a healthy smile, hoping it wouldn't
+depress old Candle too much. He saluted. The skeletal figure in endless
+black nodded gravely, and took hold of Sam Collins' arm with a death
+grip.
+
+"I'm going to bury you, Sam Collins," the undertaker said.
+
+The tall false fronts of Main Street spilled out a lake of shadow, a
+canal of liquid heat that soaked through the iron weave of Collins'
+jeans and turned into black ink stains. The old window of the hardware
+store showed its age in soft wrinkles, ripples that had caught on fire
+in the sunset. Collins felt the twilight stealing under the arms of his
+tee-shirt. The overdue hair on the back of his rangy neck stood up in
+attention. It was a joke, but the first one Collins had ever known Doc
+Candle to make.
+
+"In time, I guess you'll bury me all right, Doc."
+
+"In my time, not yours, Earthling."
+
+"Earthling?" Collins repeated the last word.
+
+The old man frowned. His face was a collection of lines. When he
+frowned, all the lines pointed to hell, the grave, decay and damnation.
+
+"Earthling," the undertaker repeated. "Earthman? Terrestrial? Solarian?
+Space Ranger? _Homo sapiens?_"
+
+Collins decided Candle was sure in a jokey mood. "Kind of makes you
+think of it, don't it, Doc? The spaceport going right up outside of
+town. Rocketships are going to be out there taking off for the
+Satellite, the Moon, places like that. Reminds you that we _are_
+Earthlings, like they say in the funnies, all right."
+
+"Not outside town."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Inside. Inside town. Part of the spaceship administration building is
+going to go smack in the middle of where your house used to be."
+
+"My house _is_."
+
+"For less time than you will be yourself, Earthling."
+
+"Earthling yourself! What's wrong with you, Doc?"
+
+"No. I am not an Earthling. I am a superhuman alien from outer space. My
+mission on Earth is to destroy you."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Collins pulled away gently. When you lived in a town all your life and
+knew its people, it wasn't unusual to see some old person snap under the
+weight of years.
+
+"You have to destroy the rocketship station, huh, Doc, before it sends
+up spaceships?"
+
+"No. I want to kill _you_. That is my mission."
+
+"_Why?_"
+
+"Because," Candle said, "I am a basically evil entity."
+
+The undertaker turned away and went skittering down Main Street, his
+lopsided gait limping, sliding, hopping, skipping, at a refined
+leisurely pace. He was a collection of dancing, straight black lines.
+
+Collins stared after the old man, shook his head and forgot about him.
+
+He moved into the hardware store. The bell tinkled behind him. The store
+was cramped with shadows and the smell of wood and iron. It was lined
+off as precisely as a checkerboard, with counters, drawers,
+compartments.
+
+Ed Michaels sat behind the counter, smoking a pipe. He was a handsome
+man, looking young in the uncertain light, even at fifty.
+
+"Hi, Ed. You closed?"
+
+"Guess not, Sam. What are you looking for?"
+
+"A pound of tenpenny nails."
+
+Michaels stood up.
+
+Sarah Comstock waddled energetically out of the back. Her sweet, angelic
+face lit up with a smile. "Sam Collins. Well, I guess _you'll_ want to
+help us murder them."
+
+"Murder?" Collins repeated. "Who?"
+
+"Those Air Force men who want to come in here and cause all the
+trouble."
+
+"How are you going to murder them, Mrs. Comstock?"
+
+"When they see our petition in Washington, D.C., they'll call those men
+back pretty quick."
+
+"Oh," Collins said.
+
+Mrs. Comstock produced the scroll from her voluminous handbag. "You want
+to sign, don't you? They're going to put part of the airport on your
+place. They'll tear down your house."
+
+"They can't tear it down. I won't sell."
+
+"You know government men. They'll just _take_ it and give you some money
+for it. Sign right there at the top of the new column, Sam."
+
+Collins shook his head. "I don't believe in signing things. They can't
+take what's mine."
+
+"But Sam, dear, they _will_. They'll come in and push your house down
+with those big tractors of theirs. They'll bury it in concrete and set
+off those guided missiles of theirs right over it."
+
+"They can't make me get out," Sam said.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ed Michaels scooped up a pound, one ounce of nails and spilled them onto
+his scale. He pinched off the excess, then dropped it back in and fed
+the nails into a brown paper bag. He crumpled the top and set it on the
+counter. "That's twenty-nine plus one, Sam. Thirty cents."
+
+Collins laid out a quarter and a nickel and picked up the bag.
+"Appreciate you doing this after store hours, Ed."
+
+Michaels chuckled. "I wasn't exactly getting ready for the opera, Sam."
+
+Collins turned around and saw Sarah Comstock still waiting, the petition
+in her hand.
+
+"Now what's a pretty girl like you doing, wasting her time in politics?"
+Collins heard himself ask.
+
+Mrs. Comstock twittered. "I'm old enough to be your mother, Sam
+Collins."
+
+"I like mature women."
+
+Collins watched his hand in fascination as it reached out to touch one
+of Sarah Comstock's plump cheeks, then dropped to her shoulder and
+ripped away the strap-sleeve of her summer print dress.
+
+A plump, rosy shoulder was revealed, splattered with freckles.
+
+Sarah Comstock put her hands over her ears as if to keep from hearing
+her own shrill scream. It reached out into pure soprano range.
+
+Sarah Comstock backed away, into the shadows, and Sam Collins followed
+her, trying to explain, to apologize.
+
+"Sam! _Sam!_"
+
+The voice cut through to him and he looked up.
+
+Ed Michaels had a double-barreled shotgun aimed at him. Mrs. Michaels'
+face was looking over his shoulder in the door to the back, her face a
+sick white.
+
+"You get out of here, Sam," Michaels said. "You get out and don't you
+come back. Ever."
+
+Collins' hands moved emptily in air. He was always better with his hands
+than words, but this time even they seemed inexpressive.
+
+He crumpled the sack of nails in both fists, and turned and left the
+hardware store.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+His house was still there, sitting at the end of Elm Street, at the end
+of town, on the edge of the prairie. It was a very old house. It was
+decorated with gingerboard, a rusted-out tin rooster-comb running the
+peak of the roof and stained glass window transoms; and the top of the
+house was joined to the ground floor by lapped fishscales, as though it
+was a mermaid instead of a house. The house was a golden house. It had
+been painted brown against the dust, but the keening wind, the
+relentless sun, the savage rape of the thunderstorms, they had all
+bleached the brown paint into a shining pure gold.
+
+Sam stepped inside and leaned back against the front door, the door of
+full-length glass with a border of glass emeralds and rubies. He leaned
+back and breathed deep.
+
+The house didn't smell old. It smelled new. It smelled like sawdust and
+fresh-hewn lumber as bright and blond as a high school senior's
+crewcut.
+
+He walked across the flowered carpet. The carpet didn't mind footsteps
+or bright sun. It never became worn or faded. It grew brighter with the
+years, the roses turning redder, the sunflowers becoming yellower.
+
+The parlor looked the same as it always did, clean and waiting to be
+used. The cane-backed sofa and chairs eagerly waiting to be sat upon,
+the bead-shaded kerosene lamps ready to burst into light.
+
+Sam went into his workshop. This had once been the ground level master
+bedroom, but he had had to make the change. The work table held its
+share of radios, toasters, TV sets, an electric train, a spring-wind
+Victrola. Sam threw the nails onto the table and crossed the room,
+running his fingers along the silent keyboard of the player piano. He
+looked out the window. The bulldozers had made the ground rectangular,
+level and brown, turning it into a gigantic half-cent stamp. He
+remembered the mail and raised the window and reached down into the
+mailbox. It was on this side of the house, because only this side was
+technically within city limits.
+
+As he came up with the letters, Sam Collins saw a man sighting along a
+plumbline towards his house. He shut the window.
+
+Some of the letters didn't have any postage stamps, just a line of
+small print about a $300 fine. Government letters. He went over and
+forced them into the tightly packed coal stove. All the trash would be
+burned out in the cold weather.
+
+Collins sat down and looked through the rest of his mail. A new
+catalogue of electronic parts. A bulky envelope with two paperback
+novels by Richard S. Prather and Robert Bloch he had ordered. A couple
+of letters from hams. He tossed the mail on the table and leaned back.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+He thought about what had happened in the hardware store.
+
+It wasn't surprising it had happened to him. Things like that were bound
+to happen to him. He had just been lucky that Ed Michaels hadn't called
+the sheriff. What had got into him? He had never been a sex maniac
+before! But still ... it was hardly unexpected.
+
+Might as well wait to start on those rabbit cages until tomorrow, he
+decided. This evening he felt like exploring.
+
+The house was so big, and packed with so many things that he never found
+and examined them all. Or if he did, he forgot a lot about the things
+between times, so it was like reading a favorite book over again, always
+discovering new things in it.
+
+The parlor was red in the fading light, and the hall beyond the sliding
+doors was deeply shadowed. In the sewing room, he remembered, in the
+drawers of the treadle machine the radio was captured. The rings and
+secret manuals of the days when radio had been alive. He hadn't looked
+over those things in some little time.
+
+He looked up the shadowed stairway. He remembered the night, a few weeks
+before Christmas when he had been twelve and really too old to believe,
+his mother had said she was going up to see if Santa Claus had left any
+packages around a bit early. They often gave him his presents early,
+since they were never quite sure he would live until Christmas.
+
+But his mother had been playing a trick on him. She hadn't been going up
+after packages. She had gone up those stairs to murder his father.
+
+She had shot him in the back of the head with his Army Colt .45 from the
+first war. Collins never quite understood why the hole in back was so
+neat and the one in front where it came out was so messy.
+
+After he went to live with Aunt Amy and the house had been boarded up,
+he heard them talking, Aunt Amy and her boy friend, fat Uncle Ralph. And
+they had said his mother had murdered his father because he had gone
+ahead and made her get pregnant again and she was afraid it would be
+another one like Sam.
+
+Sam Collins knew she must have planned it a long time in advance. She
+had filled up the bathtub with milk, real milk, and she went in after
+she had done it and took a bath in the milk. Then she slit her wrists.
+
+When Sam Collins had run down the stairs, screaming, and barged into the
+bathroom, he had found the tub looking like a giant stick of peppermint
+candy.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Aunt Amy had been good to him.
+
+Because he didn't talk for about a year after he found the bodies, most
+people thought he was simple-minded. But Aunt Amy had always treated him
+just like a regular boy. That was embarrassing sometimes, but still it
+was better than what he got from the others.
+
+The doctor hadn't wanted to perform the operation on his clubfoot. He
+said it would be an unproductive waste of his time and talent, that he
+owed it to the world to use them to the very best advantage. Finally he
+agreed. The operation took about thirty seconds. He stuck a knife into
+Sam's foot and went _snick-snick_. A couple of weeks later, his foot was
+healed and it was just like anybody else's. Aunt Amy had paid him $500
+in payments, only he returned the money order for the last fifty
+dollars and wished them Merry Christmas.
+
+Sam Collins could work after that. When Aunty Amy and Uncle Ralph
+disappeared, he opened up the old house and started doing odd jobs for
+people who weren't very afraid of him any more.
+
+That first day had been quite a shock, when he discovered that not in
+all these years had anybody cleaned the bathtub.
+
+Sometimes, when he was taking his Saturday night soaker he still got
+kind of a funny feeling. But he knew it was only rust from the faucets.
+
+Collins sighed. It seemed like a long time since he had seen his mother
+coming down those stairs....
+
+He stopped, his throat aching with tightness.
+
+Something was very strange.
+
+His mother was coming down the stairs right now.
+
+She was walking down the stairs, one step, two steps, coming closer to
+him.
+
+Collins ran up the stairs, prepared to run through the phantom to prove
+it wasn't there.
+
+The figure raised a gun and pointed it at him.
+
+This time, she was going to shoot _him_.
+
+It figured.
+
+He always had bad luck.
+
+"Stop!" the woman on the stairs said. "Stop or I'll shoot, Mr.
+Collins!"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Collins stopped, catching to the bannister. He squinted hard, and as a
+stereoptic slide lost its depth when you shut one eye, the woman on the
+stairs was no longer his mother. She was young, pretty, brunette and
+sweet-faced, and the gun she held shrunk from an old Army Colt to a .22
+target pistol.
+
+"Who _are_ you?" Collins demanded.
+
+The girl took a grip on the gun with both hands and held it steady on
+him.
+
+"I'm Nancy Comstock," she said. "You tried to assault my mother a half
+hour ago."
+
+"Oh," he said. "I've never seen you before."
+
+"Yes, you have. I've been away to school a lot, but you've seen me
+around. I've had my eye on you. I know about men like you. I know what
+has to be done. I came looking for you in your house for this."
+
+The bore of the gun was level with his eye as he stood a few steps below
+her. Probably if she fired now, she would kill him. Or more likely he
+would only be blinded or paralyzed; that was about his luck.
+
+"Are you going to use that gun?" he asked.
+
+"Not unless I have to. I only brought it along for protection. I came
+to help you, Mr. Collins."
+
+"Help me?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Collins. You're sick. You need help."
+
+He looked the girl over. She was a half-dozen years younger than he was.
+In most states, she couldn't even vote yet. But still, maybe she could
+help, at that. He didn't know much about girls and their abilities.
+
+"Why don't we go into the kitchen and have some coffee?" Collins
+suggested.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Nancy sipped her coffee and kept her eyes on his. The gun lay in her
+lap. The big kitchen was a place for coffee, brown and black, wood
+ceiling and iron stove and pans. Collins sat across the twelve square
+feet of table from her, and nursed the smoking mug.
+
+"Sam, I want you to take whatever comfort you can from the fact that I
+don't think the same thing about you as the rest of Waraxe."
+
+"What does the rest of the town think about me?"
+
+"They think you are a pathological degenerate who should be lynched. But
+I don't believe that."
+
+"Thanks. That's a big comfort."
+
+"I know what you were after when you tore Mom's dress."
+
+In spite of himself, Collins felt his face warming in a blush.
+
+"You were only seeking the mother love you missed as a boy," the girl
+said.
+
+Collins chewed on his lip a moment, and considered the idea. Slowly he
+shook his head.
+
+"No," he said. "No. I don't think so."
+
+"Then what do you think?"
+
+"I think old Doc Candle _made_ me do it. He said he was going to bury
+me. Getting me lynched would be one good way to do it. Ed Michaels
+almost blew my head off with his shotgun. It was close. Doc Candle
+almost made it. He didn't miss by far with you and that target pistol
+either."
+
+"Sam--I may call you 'Sam'?--just try to think calmly and reasonably for
+a minute. How could Dr. Candle, the undertaker, possibly make you do a
+thing like you did in Mr. Michaels' hardware store?"
+
+"Well ... he _said_ he was a superhuman alien from outer space."
+
+"If he said that, do you believe him, Sam?"
+
+"_Something_ made me do that. It just wasn't my own idea."
+
+"It's easier that way, isn't it, Sam?" Nancy asked. "It's easy to say.
+'It wasn't me; some space monster made me do it.' But you really know
+better, don't you, Sam? Don't take the easy way out! You'll only get
+deeper and deeper into your makebelieve world. It will be like
+quicksand. Admit your mistakes--face up to them--_lick them_."
+
+Collins stood up, and came around the end of the table.
+
+"You're too pretty to be so serious all the time," he said.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Sam, I want to help you. Please don't spoil it by misinterpreting my
+intentions."
+
+"You should get a little fun out of life," Collins listened to himself
+say.
+
+He came on around the big table towards her.
+
+The first time he hadn't realized what was happening, but this time he
+knew. Somebody was pulling strings and making him jump. He had as much
+control as Charlie McCarthy.
+
+"Don't come any closer, Sam."
+
+Nancy managed to keep her voice steady, but he could tell she was
+frightened.
+
+He took another step.
+
+She threw her coffee in his face.
+
+The liquid was only lukewarm but the sudden dash had given him some
+awareness of his own body again, like the first sound of the alarm
+faintly pressing through deep layers of sleep.
+
+"Sam, Sam, _please_ don't make me do it! Please, Sam, _don't_!"
+
+Nancy had the gun in her hand, rising from her chair.
+
+His hands wanted to grab her clothes and _tear_.
+
+But that's _suicide_, he screamed at his body.
+
+As his hand went up with the intention of ripping, he deflected it just
+enough to shove the barrel of the gun away from him.
+
+The shot went off, but he knew instantly that it had not hit him.
+
+The gun fell to the floor, and with its fall, something else dropped
+away and he was in command of himself again.
+
+Nancy sighed, and slumped against him, the left side of her breast
+suddenly glossy with blood.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ed Michaels stared at him. Both eyes unblinking, just staring at _him_.
+He had only taken one look at the girl lying on the floor, blood all
+over her chest. He hadn't looked back.
+
+"I didn't know who else to call, Ed." Collins said. "Sheriff Thurston
+being out of town and all."
+
+"It's okay, Sam. Mike swore me in as a special deputy a couple years
+back. The badge is at the store."
+
+"They'll hang me for this, won't they, Ed?"
+
+Michaels put his hand on Collins' shoulder. "No, they won't do that to
+you, boy. We know you around here. They'll just put you away for a
+while."
+
+"The asylum at Hannah, huh?"
+
+"Damn it, yes! What did you expect? A marksman medal?"
+
+"Okay, Ed, okay. Did you call Doc Van der Lies like I told you when I
+phoned?"
+
+Michaels took a folded white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his
+square-jawed face. "You sure are taking this calm, Sam. I'm telling you,
+Sam, it would look better for you if you at least _acted_ like you were
+sorry.... Doc Van der Lies is up in Wisconsin with Mike. I called Doc
+Candle."
+
+"He's an undertaker," Collins whispered.
+
+"Don't you expect we need one?" Michaels asked. Then as if he wasn't
+sure of the answer to his own question, he said, "Did you examine her to
+see if she was dead? I--I don't know much about women. I wouldn't be
+able to tell."
+
+It didn't sound like a very good excuse to Collins.
+
+"I guess she's dead," Collins said. "That's the way he must have wanted
+it."
+
+"_He?_ Wait a minute, Sam. You mean you've got one of those split
+personalities like that girl on TV the other night? There's somebody
+else inside you that takes over and makes you do things?"
+
+"I never thought of it just like that before. I guess that's one way to
+look at it."
+
+The knock shook the back door before Michaels could say anything. The
+door opened and Doc Candle slithered in disjointedly, a rolled-up
+stretcher over his shoulder.
+
+"Hello, boys," Candle said. "A terrible accident, it brings sorrow to us
+all. Poor Nancy. Has the family been notified?"
+
+"Good gosh, I forgot about it," Michaels said. "But maybe we better wait
+until you get her--arranged, huh, Doc?"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Quite so." The old man laid the canvas stretcher out beside the girl on
+the floor and unrolled it. He flipped the body over expertly like a
+window demonstrator flipping a pancake over on a griddle.
+
+"Ed, if you'd just take the front, I'll carry the rear. My vehicle is in
+the alley."
+
+"Sam, you carry that end for Doc. You're a few years younger."
+
+Collins wanted to say that he couldn't, but he didn't have enough yet to
+argue with. He picked up the stretcher and looked down at the white feet
+in the Scotch plaid slippers.
+
+Candle opened the door and waited for them to go through.
+
+The girl on the stretcher parted her lips and rolled her head back and
+forth, a puzzled expression of pain on her face.
+
+Collins nearly dropped the stretcher, but he made himself hold on
+tight.
+
+"Ed! Doc! She moved! She's still _alive_."
+
+"Cut that out now, Sam," Ed Michaels snapped. "Just carry your end."
+
+"She's alive," Collins insisted. "She moved again. Just turn around and
+take a look, Ed. That's all I ask."
+
+"I hefted this thing once, and that's enough. You _move_, Sam. I've got
+a .38 in my belt, and I went to Rome, Italy, for the Olympics about the
+time you were getting yourself born, Sam. I ought to be able to hit a
+target as big as you. Just go ahead and do as you're told."
+
+Collins turned desperately towards Candle. Maybe Nancy had been right,
+maybe he had been imagining things.
+
+"Doc, you take a look at her," Collins begged.
+
+The old man vibrated over to the stretcher and looked down. The girl
+twisted in pain, throwing her head back, spilling her hair over the head
+of the stretcher.
+
+"Rigor mortis," Doc Candle diagnosed, with a wink to Collins.
+
+"No, Doc! She needs a doctor, blood transfusions...."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Nonsense," Candle snapped. "I'll take her in my black wagon up to my
+place, put her in the tiled basement. I'll pump out all her blood and
+flush it down the commode. Then I'll feed in Formaldi-Forever Number
+Zero. Formaldi-Forever, for the Blush of Death. 'When you think of a
+Pretty Girl, think of Formaldi-Forever, the Way to Preserve that
+Beauty.' Then I'll take a needle and some silk thread and just a few
+stitches on the eyelids and around the mouth...."
+
+"Doc, will you...?" Michaels said faintly.
+
+"Of course. I just wanted to show Sam how foolish he was in saying the
+Beloved was still alive."
+
+Nancy kicked one leg off the stretcher and Candle picked it up and
+tucked it back in.
+
+"Ed, if you'd just turn around and _look_." Collins said.
+
+"I don't want to have to look at your face, you murdering son. You make
+me, you say one more word, and I'll turn around and shoot you between
+the eyes."
+
+Doc Candle nodded. Collins knew then that Michaels really would shoot
+him in the head if he said anything more, so he kept quiet.
+
+Candle held the door. They managed to get the stretcher down the back
+steps, and right into the black panel truck. They fitted the stretcher
+into the special sockets for it, and Doc Candle closed the double doors
+and slapped his dry palm down on the sealing crevice.
+
+Instantly, there was an answering knock from inside the truck, a dull
+echo.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Didn't you hear that?" Collins asked.
+
+"Hear what?" Michaels said.
+
+"What are you hearing now, Sam?" Candle inquired solicitously.
+
+"Oh. Sure," Michaels said. "Kind of a _voice_, wasn't it, Sam? Didn't
+understand what it said. Wasn't listening too close, not like you."
+
+_Thud-thud-thump-thud._
+
+"No voice," Collins whispered. "That infernal sound, don't you hear it,
+Ed?"
+
+"I must hurry along," the undertaker said. "Must get ready to work on
+Nancy, get her ready for her parents to see."
+
+"All right, Doc. I'll take care of Sam."
+
+"Where you going to jail me, Ed?" Collins asked, his eyes on the closed
+truck doors. "In your storeroom like you did Hank Petrie?"
+
+Michaels' face suddenly began to work. "Jail? Jail you? Jail's too good
+for you. Doc, have you got a tow rope in that truck?"
+
+Ed Michaels was the best shot in town, probably one of the best marksmen
+in the world. He had been in the Olympics about thirty years ago. He was
+Waraxe's one claim to fame. But he wasn't a cowboy. He wasn't a fast
+draw.
+
+Collins put all of his weight behind his left fist and landed it on the
+point of Michaels' jaw, just the way he used to do when gangs of boys
+jumped onto him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Michaels sprawled out, spread-eagled.
+
+Then Collins wanted to take the revolver out of Ed's belt, and press it
+into Ed's hand, curling his fingers around the grip and over the
+trigger, and then he wanted to shake Ed awake, slap his face and shake
+him....
+
+Collins spun around, clawed open the door to the truck cab and threw
+himself behind the steering wheel.
+
+He stopped wanting to make Ed Michaels shoot him.
+
+He flipped the ignition switch, levered the floor shift and drove away.
+
+And he was going to drive on and on and on and on.
+
+And on and on and on.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Collins turned onto the old McHenty blacktop, his foot pressed to the
+floorboards. Ed Michaels didn't own a car; he would have to borrow one
+from somebody. That would take time. Maybe Candle would give him his
+hearse to use to follow the Black Rachel.
+
+Trees, fences, barns whizzed past the windows of the cab and then the
+steel link-mesh fence took up, the fence surrounding the New Kansas
+National Spaceport. Behind it, further from town, some of the concrete
+had been poured and the horizon was a remote, sterile gray sweep.
+
+The McHenty Road would soon be closed to civilian traffic. But right now
+the government wanted people to drive along and see that the spaceship
+was nothing terrible, nothing to fear.
+
+The girl, Nancy Comstock, was alive in the back. He knew that. But he
+couldn't stop to prove it or to help her. Candle would make them lynch
+him first.
+
+Why hadn't Candle stopped him from getting away?
+
+He had managed to break his control for a second. He had done that
+before when he deflected Nancy's aim. But he couldn't resist Candle for
+long. Why hadn't Candle made him turn around and come back?
+
+Candle's control of him had seemed to stop when he got inside the cab of
+the truck. Could it be that the metal shield of the cab could protect an
+Earthling from the strange mental powers of the creature from another
+planet which was inhabiting the body of Doc Candle?
+
+Collins shook his head.
+
+More likely Candle was doing this just to get his hopes up. He probably
+would seize control of him any time he wanted to. But Collins decided to
+go on playing it as if he did have some hope, as if a shield of metal
+could protect him from Candle's control. Otherwise ... there was no
+otherwise.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Collins suddenly saw an opening.
+
+The steel mesh fence was ruptured by a huge semitrailer truck turned on
+its side. Twenty feet of fence on either side was down. This was
+restricted government property, but of course spaceships were hardly
+prime military secrets any longer. Repairs in the fence had not been
+made instantaneously, and the wreckage was not guarded.
+
+Collins swerved the wheel and drove the old wagon across the
+waffle-plate obstruction, onto the smooth tarmac beyond.
+
+He raced, raced, raced through the falling night, not sure where he was
+headed.
+
+Up above he saw the shelter of shadows from a cluster of half-finished
+buildings. He drove into them and parked.
+
+Collins sat still for a moment, then threw open the door and ran around
+to the back of the truck, jerking open the handles.
+
+Nancy fell out into his arms.
+
+"What kind of ambulance is this?" she demanded. "It doesn't look like an
+ambulance. It doesn't smell like an ambulance. It looks like--looks
+like--"
+
+Collins said, "Shut up. Get out of there. We've got to hide."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They think I murdered you."
+
+"Murdered me? But I'm alive. Can't they see I'm alive?"
+
+Collins shook his head. "I doubt it. I don't know why, but I don't think
+it would be that simple. Come with me."
+
+The blood on her breast had dried, and he could see it was only a
+shallow groove dug by the bullet. But she flinched in pain as she began
+to walk, pulling the muscles.
+
+They stopped and leaned against a half-finished metallic shed.
+
+"Where are we? Where are you taking me?"
+
+"This is the spaceport. Now shut up."
+
+"Let me go."
+
+"No."
+
+"I'm not dead," Nancy insisted. "You know I'm not dead. I won't press
+charges against you--just let me go free."
+
+"I told you it wasn't that simple. He wants them to think you're dead,
+and that's what they'll think."
+
+Nancy passed fingers across her eyes. "Who? Who are you talking about?"
+
+"Doc Candle. He won't let them know you're alive."
+
+Nancy rubbed her forehead with both hands. "Sam, you don't know what
+you're doing. You don't--know what you're getting yourself into. Just
+let me show myself to someone. They'll know I'm not dead. Really they
+will."
+
+"Okay," he said. "Let's find somebody."
+
+He led her toward a more nearly completed building, showing rectangles
+of light. They looked through the windows to see several men in uniforms
+bending over blueprints on a desk jury-rigged of sawhorses and planks.
+
+"Sam," Nancy said, "one of those men is Terry Elston. He's a Waraxe boy.
+I went to school with him. He'll know me. Let's go in...."
+
+"No," Collins said. "We don't go in."
+
+"But--" Nancy started to protest, but stopped. "Wait. He's coming out."
+
+Collins slid along the wall and stood behind the door. "Tell him who you
+are when he comes out. I'll stay here."
+
+They waited. After a few seconds, the door opened.
+
+Nancy stepped into the rectangle of light thrown on the concrete from
+the window.
+
+"Terry," she said. "Terry, it's me--Nancy Comstock."
+
+The blue-jawed young man in uniform frowned. "Who did you say you were?
+Have you got clearance from this area?"
+
+"It's me, Terry. Nancy. Nancy Comstock."
+
+Terry Elston stepped front and center. "That's not a very good joke. I
+knew Nancy. Hell of a way to die, killed by some maniac."
+
+"Terry, _I'm_ Nancy. Don't you recognize me?"
+
+Elston squinted. "You look familiar. You look a little like Nancy. But
+you can't be her, because she's dead."
+
+"I'm here, and I tell you I'm _not_ dead."
+
+"Nancy's dead," Elston repeated mechanically. "Say, what are you trying
+to pull?"
+
+"Terry, behind you. A maniac!"
+
+"Sure," Elston said. "Sure. There's a maniac _behind_ me."
+
+Collins stepped forward and hit Elston behind the ear. He fell silently.
+
+Nancy stared down at him.
+
+"He refused to recognize me. He acted like I was crazy, pretending to be
+Nancy Comstock."
+
+"Come on along," Collins urged. "They'll probably shoot us on sight as
+trespassers."
+
+She looked around herself without comprehension.
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"_This way._"
+
+Collins did not say those words.
+
+They were said by the man with the gun in the uniform like the one worn
+by Elston. He motioned impatiently.
+
+"This way, this way."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"No priority," Colonel Smith-Boerke said as he paced back and forth, gun
+in hand.
+
+From time to time he waved it threateningly at Collins and Nancy who sat
+on the couch in Smith-Boerke's office. They had been sitting for close
+to two hours. Collins now knew the Colonel did not intend to turn him
+over to the authorities. They were being held for reasons of
+Smith-Boerke's own.
+
+"They sneak the ship in here, plan for an unscheduled hop from an
+uncompleted base--the strictest security we've used in ten or fifteen
+years--and now they cancel it. This is bound to get leaked by somebody!
+They'll call it off. It'll never fly now."
+
+Collins sat quietly. He had been listening to this all evening.
+Smith-Boerke had been drinking, although it wasn't very obvious.
+
+Smith-Boerke turned to Collins.
+
+"I've been waiting for somebody like you. Just waiting for you to come
+along. And here you are, a wanted fugitive, completely in my power!
+Perfect, _perfect_."
+
+Collins nodded to himself. Of course, Colonel Smith-Boerke had been
+waiting for him. And Doc Candle had driven him right to him. It was
+inescapable. He had been intended to escape and turn up right here all
+along.
+
+"What do you want with me?"
+
+Smith-Boerke's flushed face brightened. "You want to become a hero? A
+hero so big that all these trumped-up charges against you will be
+dropped? It'll be romantic. Back to Lindbergh-to-Paris. Tell me,
+Collins, how would you like to be the first man to travel faster than
+light?"
+
+Collins knew there was no way out.
+
+"All right," he said.
+
+Smith-Boerke wiped a hand across his dry mouth.
+
+"Project Silver _has_ to come off. My whole career depends on it. You
+don't have anything to do. Everything's cybernetic. Just ride along and
+prove a human being can survive. Nothing to it. No hyperdrives, none of
+that kind of stuff. We had an engine that could go half lightspeed and
+now we've made it twice as efficient and more. No superstitions about
+Einstein, I hope? No? Good."
+
+"I'll go," Collins said. "But what if I had said 'no'."
+
+Smith-Boerke put the gun away in a desk drawer.
+
+"Then you could have walked out of here, straight into the MP's."
+
+"Why didn't they come in here after me?"
+
+"They don't have security clearance for this building."
+
+"_Don't_ leave me alone," Nancy said urgently. "I don't understand
+what's happening. I feel so helpless. I need help."
+
+"You're asking the wrong man," Collins said briefly.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Collins felt safe when the airlock kissed shut its metal lips.
+
+It was not like the house, but yet he felt safe, surrounded by all the
+complicated, expensive electronic equipment. It was big, solid,
+sterilely gleaming.
+
+Another thing--he had reason to believe that Doc Candle's power could
+not reach him through metal.
+
+"But I'm not outside," Doc Candle said, "I'm in here, with you."
+
+Collins yelled and cursed, he tried to pull off the acceleration webbing
+and claw through the airlock. Nobody paid any attention to him. Count
+downs had been automated. Smith-Boerke was handling this one himself,
+and he cut off the Audio-In switch from the spaceship. Doc Candle said
+nothing else for a moment, and the spaceship, almost an entity itself,
+went on with its work.
+
+The faster-than-light spaceship took off.
+
+At first it was like any other rocket takeoff.
+
+The glow of its exhaust spread over the field of the spaceport, then
+over the hills and valleys, and then the town of Waraxe, spreading
+illumination even as far as Sam Collins' silent house.
+
+After a time of being sick, Collins lay back and accepted this too.
+
+"That's right, that's it," Doc Candle said. "Take it and die with it.
+That's the ticket."
+
+Collins' eyes settled on a gauge. Three quarters lightspeed. Climbing.
+
+Nothing strange, nothing untoward happened when you reached lightspeed.
+It was only an arbitrary number. All else was superstition. Forget it,
+forget it, forget it.
+
+_Something_ was telling him that. At first he thought it was Doc Candle
+but then he knew it was the ship.
+
+Collins sat back and took it, and what he was taking was death. It was
+creeping over him, seeping into his feet, filling him like liquid does a
+sponge.
+
+Not will, but curiosity, caused him to turn his head.
+
+He saw Doc Candle.
+
+The old body was dying. He was in the emergency seat, broken, a ribbon
+of blood lacing his chin. But Doc Candle continued to laugh triumphantly
+in Collins' head.
+
+"Why? Why do you have to kill me?" Collins asked.
+
+"Because I am evil."
+
+"How do you know you're evil?"
+
+"_They told me so!_" Candle shouted back in the thundering silence of
+Death's approach. "They were always saying I was bad."
+
+_They._
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Collins got a picture of something incredibly old and incredibly wise,
+but long unused to the young, clumsy gods. Something that could mar the
+molding of a godling and make it mortal.
+
+"But I'm not really so very bad," Doc Candle went on. "I had to
+destroy, but I picked someone who really didn't care if he were
+destroyed or not. An almost absolutely passive human being, Sam. You."
+
+Collins nodded.
+
+"And even then," said the superhuman alien from outer space, "I could
+not just destroy. I have created a work of art."
+
+"Work of art?"
+
+"Yes. I have taken your life and turned it into a horror story, Sam! A
+chilling, demonic, black-hearted horror!"
+
+Collins nodded again.
+
+_LIGHTSPEED._
+
+There was finally something human within Sam Collins that he could not
+deny. He wanted to live. It wasn't true. He did care what happened.
+
+You do? said somebody.
+
+He does? asked somebody else, surprised, and suddenly he again got the
+image of wiser, older creatures, a little ashamed because of what they
+had done to the creature named Doc Candle.
+
+He does, chorused several voices, and Sam Collins cried aloud: "I do! I
+want to live!" They were just touching lightspeed; he felt it.
+
+This time it was not just a biological response. He really wanted help.
+He wanted to stay alive.
+
+From the older, wiser voices he got help, though he never knew how; he
+felt the ship move slipwise under him, and then a crash.
+
+And Doc Candle got help too, the only help even the older, wiser ones
+could give him.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+They pulled him out of the combined wreckage of the spaceship and his
+house. Both were demolished.
+
+It was strange how the spaceship Sam Collins was on crashed right into
+his house. Ed Michaels recalled a time in a tornado when Sy Baxter's car
+was picked up, lifted across town and dropped into his living room.
+
+When the men from the spaceport lifted away tons of rubble, they found
+him and said, "He's dead."
+
+No, I'm not, Collins thought. I'm alive.
+
+And then they saw that he really was alive, that he had come through it
+alive somehow, and nobody remembered anything like it since the airliner
+crash in '59.
+
+A while later, after they found Doc Candle's body and court-martialed
+Smith-Boerke, who took drugs, Nancy was nuzzling him on his hospital
+bed. It was nice, but he wasn't paying much attention.
+
+I'm free, Collins thought as the girl hugged him. _Free!_ He kissed her.
+
+Well, he thought while she was kissing him back, as free as I want to
+be, anyway.
+
+                                                                     END
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note:
+
+This e-text was produced from Worlds of If January 1962. Extensive
+research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
+publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Last Place on Earth, by James Judson Harmon
+
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