I Want to Go Home Read online

  “Keep going,” he said. “Keep going.”

  She pulled back and the pressure on her arm increased again. This time it increased cruelly, and she made a little sound of pain. She tried to twist so that she could see the man’s face, because it was lighter here than it had been below, on the dim, shadowy platform. He would not let her turn.

  “Keep going,” he said. “Don’t try anything. Just keep going.”

  “I—” she began, and her arm was twisted.

  “Don’t yell,” he said. “Don’t try anything. Just come along nice, and you won’t get hurt.”

  “Mr. Forrest,” she said, and the word came gasping. “Where—?”

  There was a sound from the man which was a little like a laugh.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Mr. Forrest. Sure, he’s waiting, lady.”

  But he did not try to make the words sound like the truth. He did not try to make it believable. He didn’t care now, she realized. It didn’t make any difference, now.

  They went down a wide corridor, with doors opening off on the left. It was wide and bright—and deserted. Through the doors, as they passed, walking very rapidly, she could see into a long waiting room, with wooden benches. There were people in there. Some of them were walking back and forth; most of them were sitting on the benches, with suitcases around their feet. On one bench, a soldier was stretched out, sleeping, his legs bent at the knees.

  Ahead of them the broad corridor ended, and there was a number of doors. Through the glass in the doors she could see what was apparently the main part of the station, and here there were other people, most of them moving, a few standing in front of a newspaper kiosk.

  “We go right through there,” the man said. “Just straight ahead. We don’t say anything. Get it? You don’t try to yell or anything. ’Cause if you do, you’ll get hurt. You’ll get hurt right bad.”

  He stopped her then, suddenly, and pulled her around and toward him, so that for a moment they were face to face, and close. His free right hand moved out of his coat pocket and an automatic lay flat in it. He held it in front of her, between them.

  “See?” he said. “It’ll hurt right bad.” He saw that she looked at the gun. “All right,” he said, and the pressure on her arm increased again. “Get going. Don’t get any ideas. Don’t try anything.” He pushed her on.

  I must be white, she thought. I must look strange—frightened. Somebody will notice. Somebody will make us stop.

  But, out in the main part of the station, nobody looked at them. Nobody seemed to find anything strange about her, or about the man who was holding her, pushing her along. Nobody paid any attention. Once she thought a man, looking at them idly, looked a second time more closely, but he did nothing. People don’t do anything, she thought; I wouldn’t do anything. Even if I wondered; even if I thought it was strange. Only afterward, later, I’d think, perhaps I ought to have done something. Only a policeman would do anything.

  But there were no policemen in the station. They went across the esplanade and out onto a sidewalk in front of the station. Roadways curved up to the station, and away from it, in an intricate pattern. Straight ahead, beyond the curving roadways, on the other side of a broad street, a hill rose up, and on top of the hill was a building which must be a monument of some sort. A high shaft rose from the building, and there was a light at the top of the shaft.

  A taxicab starter looked at them and raised his eyebrows, but the short man, who was still half a step behind her, must have shaken his head, because the starter looked away incuriously. The man who held her wrenched her around to the right, and they walked along the sidewalk in front of the station. There were very few people on the sidewalk; there were very few people in sight anywhere, now that they were outside the station. They passed another set of doors leading into the station and then came to an area where cars were parked. There were not many cars in it, and all of the cars were dark. The man led her up to one of the cars, and pulled the door open.

  “Get in,” he said. “Take you to your Mr. Forrest.” Then he laughed. He pushed her in, and then did not release her arm. He pushed her under the wheel.

  “Now we go for a little ride,” he said. “You drive, huh?”

  “No,” she said. “I can’t drive.”

  He released her arm for a moment and she tried to pull farther away, toward the door on the left. But then he had the automatic in his hand again and again he pushed it out in front of her.

  “I reckon you can drive,” he said. “How about it?”

  He patted the automatic with his left hand, as if he were fond of it.

  “Sure you can drive,” he told her. “Sure you can.”

  She did not answer. He pushed the key into the ignition lock and turned it, and waited. She pressed the starter button on the dash and the motor caught. She was shivering. She waggled the gear left, pulled it down into third, and let the clutch come up slowly. It was almost reflex, and she kept on shivering.

  “You drive nice, Mrs. Phillips,” the man said. He spoke, now, with a kind of drawl. “You drive right nice, I can see that.” His “I” was almost like “Ah.” “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Phillips.” His “missus” was almost like “miz.” The car rolled out onto one of the curving drives. “Better put your lights on,” he said. “We don’t want any trouble with cops, do we? Go right down there”—he pointed—“and when we get down to Broadway—that’s that street down there—turn left. We’ll go for a little ride in the park.”

  He held the automatic on his knees. As he spoke, he patted it again with his left hand.

  Her mind was numb, unbelieving. Now there was more bewilderment in her mind than fear, although she was very frightened. It was as if the car she was driving, south on Broadway now, had suddenly, causelessly, with all its mechanism still functioning perfectly, left her control—gone shooting off the roadway, over the sidewalk, to crash meaninglessly against a building. There would have been no meaning in that; it would have been a thing beyond belief, because it had no cause. What was happening to her was a thing of the same kind; a thing which was, in the deepest sense, unnatural. This became so clear to her that she half turned, still driving the car on along the black-paved roadway, and looked at the man beside her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, and was astonished at the simplicity, at the reasonableness, of her own words, even of her own voice. And yet it did not sound to her at all like her own voice. “There’s a mistake somewhere,” she said. “You’ve made a mistake.”

  “Watch it,” he said. “Watch it.”

  The car had swerved a little to the side. She straightened it out.

  “All of you,” she said, now not looking at him. “You’ve made some awful mistake. All of you.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure.” He was humoring her. He was not really listening to her. “Jog left here,” he said. “We’ll go through the park, like I said.” He paused a moment. “Mrs. Phillips,” he added, speaking the name clearly, using the “Miz,” making the words an answer to what she had said. She jogged left and now they were on a black road of gentle curves, dimly lighted, running through a park.

  “Too bad it’s so dark,” the man said. “This is Penn Valley Park, now. Mighty pretty park when you can see it. Right here in the middle of town.” He seemed to have turned slightly toward her, from his voice. She did not look at him. “We think we’ve got a pretty nice park system here in Kansacity. Too bad it’s so dark.”

  Her hands were tight on the wheel. They were so tight that the grip hurt them. It was a nightmare, then. The world was crazy; this man was crazy. She wanted to scream meaninglessly, to shriek out her terror, her knowledge that the world was crazy.

  “Left up ahead,” the man said. “Kind of confusing through here when you don’t know the town.”

  She kept left up ahead. They were still in the park. He’s going to kill me in the park, she thought. In something called Penn Valley Park, in a place called Kansacity, in the “park system.” Sh
e was cold, frozen, but her heart was pounding. Her whole body was shaking with the pounding of her heart. She tried to speak and for a moment could not, because her body was shaking so. Then she heard words. They were in a voice she had never heard before, which could not be her voice.

  “You’ve got to tell me first,” she said. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “That was the Liberty Memorial back there by the station,” he said. “Some people think it looks like a chimney. Everybody seems to think it looks like something. Just take it easy, Mrs. Phillips. You can’t do nothing.”

  There was a kind of slurring softness in his words and his voice. There was even, horribly, a kind of friendliness.

  “What is it?” she said again and her voice—this voice which was not hers—seemed to have a kind of agony in it. “I’m Jane Phillips. I’m going to New York.” There was a kind of mad insistence in the words. She wanted to go on saying them over and over. It seemed to her that she was saying them over and over.

  “When you get up here to the next corner, you turn left,” the man said. “You turn left on Linwood. Linwood Boulevard.”

  And then she realized they were no longer in the park. She did not know when they had come out of it; come out on a street from the curving drive of the park. There were very few other cars; almost no other cars. In the park, she thought, one had passed her, seeming to be going very rapidly, with bright headlights glaring. Now, as far as she could see, there was only one other car. It was far ahead, going south as they were, with two red lights marking it. It was drawing away. Not knowing she did it, she pressed down on the accelerator.

  “Just take it easy,” the man said. “You hear what I say? Take it easy. Turn left up here.”

  She turned.

  “This here’s Linwood,” he said. “Linwood Boulevard. We gotta real boulevard system here in Kansacity. Best anywhere, they say.”

  It was a wide street, again dimly lighted. Now there were no other cars.

  “Lotsa traffic in the daytime,” the man said. There was an odd, defensive note in his voice. “Wouldn’t think it now, would you? Hardly nobody around now.”

  “Don’t!” she said. “Don’t!” She did not know precisely what she meant.

  “Just take it easy,” he said. “Just take it easy, Miz Phillips.”

  Her thoughts were disjointed; they were moving, tangling, in her mind.

  “It wasn’t Ray,” she said. “He didn’t send it. I ought to have known he didn’t send it.”

  The man laughed.

  “No way I can see,” he said. “I guess anybody’d of fallen for it. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Why?” she said, in the voice which was not hers, could not be hers. Because I can’t be here, she thought. “Why?” The voice went up, it seemed about to break.

  “Take it easy, Miz Phillips,” the man said. “Just take it easy. That’s the best way. Like it’s just a little drive.”

  She had to look at him now. Perhaps if she could look at him she could understand. She half turned. The man’s face, which was like almost any face, had a slight smile on it. The smile faded. “Watch it,” the man said. “Watch the road, Miz Phillips.”

  “You’ve got it mixed up,” she said, and now again she was watching the road ahead of them. “It has to be that. You think I’m somebody else. Somebody who’s—done something. I’m Jane Phillips.” She emphasized her given name. “Jane Phillips.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure you are.”

  “I haven’t done anything,” she said. “You’ve got it mixed up. You can’t kill me if you’ve just got it mixed up.”

  “Just take it easy,” he said. “Like it’s just a little drive.”

  They started down a hill, toward an intersection which seemed more brightly lighted. A car passed along the intersecting road. Another car, with glaring headlights, came toward them beyond the intersection and then turned right at it.

  “Go straight through there,” the man said. He moved the automatic, so that she was conscious of the movement. “Just take it easy, and go right through. We’ll go out Forty a ways.”

  They went through the intersection. If there were other cars, she thought—if I could make a mistake and run into another car. But there were no cars at the intersection; the nearest was several blocks to their left, coming toward them. Beyond the intersection they went on a long curve, climbing a little. The headlights picked up numerals at the right of the road. “40.” The numerals were made to mirror their headlights.

  The highway was a big one, with two wide lanes, separated. On the other lane, coming toward them, were occasional cars, moving very fast, with headlights glaring.

  “You can speed up a little now,” the man said. “Everybody does on Forty.”

  He lighted a cigarette. There was the brief flare of a match, the scent of tobacco. The headlights of the car, spreading on the road, picked up the mirrored numerals. 40—40—40—40. She was driving in a dream, along a highway of nightmare. 40—40—40—40. Time seemed to have come to an end; she found she was nodding her head each time they passed a mirrored “40.” They would pass one more; they would pass one more; they would pass one more. I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive. 40—40—40.

  Four-oh was Navy for perfect. Four-oh was a perfect mark. I’m getting perfect marks, I’m getting perfect marks, I’m getting perfect marks. I’m still alive, I’m still alive, I’m—

  “Watch it,” the man said. “Sixty’s good enough. Take it easy.”

  She must have been pressing down harder, and still harder, on the accelerator. They had been going seventy. She let her foot ease away from the pedal. The needle on the dimly lighted dial fell back to sixty. She began to nod her head again each time they passed one of the road markers. 40—40—40.

  “Why are there so many?” she said, in that same strange voice. “Why are there so many?”

  “What d’y mean?” the man said. “Oh—the road numbers. Because we’re still close in. So people won’t get lost. You just follow them.”

  They bore a little to the left, after a time. The other lane—the lane for cars going toward Kansas City—drew in toward them. Now it was merely a wide, four-lane highway. Now there seemed to be a little more traffic, going in both directions. She passed a long trailer truck and, a little farther on, another. She passed them without thinking, without planning. Then there was another truck ahead, warning lights gaudily outlining it. If she cut in ahead, stopped, if the truck—

  Some movement, some wavering of the car, must have betrayed her.

  “Just take it easy,” the man said. “Don’t try anything. You’ll just get us hurt. Just keep going along, nice and easy.”

  She went around the truck, nice and easy.

  She did not know how long they drove so, steadily at sixty, the man beside her smoking, throwing the butts of cigarettes out the window beside him, saying nothing as she said nothing. The mirrored numerals were rare, now; they appeared just before, just beyond, intersections with other, smaller roads. She thought they drove for a long time, steadily, down a long white road. They had no destination, now; the drive had ceased to have meaning. Even her fear was numb, now; she could not think of any end of this drive through the night, toward nowhere. All her mind said was, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m still alive.

  Actually, it was after five o’clock in the morning when the man beside her spoke again.

  “Couple of miles ahead we turn off,” he said. “Off to the right. Just take it easy.”

  They went a little less than two miles and then, when she saw one of the road markers, she slowed.

  “That’s right,” he said, and he was approving. “Just ahead, there. Just take it easy, Miz Phillips. We’re about there, now.”

  She turned. They went down a graveled road, without markers. They went more slowly, away from Route 40. The road ran straight between fields; there was faint light and far ahead, beyond the reach of their headlights, she could see the little road going on,
straight, unchanging. They drove along it for fifteen minutes or so, going about forty miles an hour.

  “Up ahead, now,” the man said, “there’s a side road. I want you should pull into it and turn around. Head back this way. Get it?”

  She did not answer. When they reached a narrower, merely graded, road she pulled into it, backed out, headed the car toward Route 40.

  “O.K.,” the man said. “Stop it, Miz Phillips. All out. End of the line.”

  He got out first, and kept her covered with the automatic. She slid toward him, got out as he told her. I’m still alive, her mind said. It isn’t yet. That was all there was in her mind.

  “Now I want you should walk down that road,” the man said. “Just walk down the road. I’ll be right behind you with this.” He shook the automatic. “Now we’ll just take a little walk.”

  There was no use saying anything. She began to walk down the road.

  It’s now, her mind said. It’s now—it’s now—it—She found she was walking very straight, with her shoulders up. She found that her body was wincing, was rigid, with back muscles set, as if they could, by being tight, by being hard, turn aside the bullets that were coming. It’s now, her mind said. It’s now—it’s now. Her mind kept cadence, somehow, with her feet. I’m walking very straight, she thought suddenly. I’m walking very straight.

  It would be now—but it was not now. There was time for another step. One step—there was time for another step. One step—there was time. … I have to look back—I have to face him. I will take one more step and I will look back. Now I’ll take one more step—

  And then, only then, did she think of running. And then, desperately, frantically, she was running.

  She ran and there was a sound in her ears from behind, and she thought, you don’t hear the sound before the bullet hits you, and kept on running and only then, slowly, with a kind of terrifying awkwardness, did her mind understand the sound. Even then, for what seemed a strange, nightmarish time, she continued to run before she knew that what she had heard was not the report of the automatic, but the sound of a car starting up. And then, even while for an instant she continued to run, she turned and looked behind her, and was in time to see the car crossing the end of the road on which she ran, not coming after her—not coming down the road at all—going back on the graveled road toward the big highway they had left. …