He crawled. Elbows, knee, elbows, knee— And then Hallmyer was crawling alongside and making a great game of it. He chortled and plunged in the cinders like a happy sea lion.
Crane said: “But why do we have to get to the sea?” Hallmyer blew a spume of ashes.
“Ask her,” he said, pointing to Crane’s other side.
Evelyn was there, crawling seriously, intently; mimicking Crane’s smallest action.
“It’s because of our house,” she said. “You remember our house, darling? High on the cliff. We were going to live there forever and ever, breathing the ozone and taking morning dips. I was there when you left. Now you’re coming back to the house at the edge of the sea. Your beautiful flight is over, dear, and you’re coming back to me. We’ll live together, just we two, like Adam and Eve—”
Crane said: “That’s nice.”
Then Evelyn turned her head and screamed: “Oh, Stephen! Watch out!” and Crane felt the menace closing in on him again. Still crawling, he stared back at the vast gray plains of ash, and saw nothing. When he looked at Evelyn again he saw only his shadow, sharp and black. Presently, it, too, faded away as the marching shaft of sunlight passed.
But the dread remained. Evelyn had warned him twice, and she was always right. Crane stopped and turned, and settled himself to watch. If he was really being followed, he would see whatever it was, coming along his tracks.
There was a painful moment of lucidity. It cleaved through his fever and bewilderment, bringing with it the sharpness and strength of a knife.
I’m going mad, he thought. The corruption in my leg has spread to my brain. There is no Evelyn, no Hallmyer, no menace. In all this land there is no life but mine—and even ghosts and spirits of the underworld must have perished in the inferno that girdled the planet. No—there is nothing but me and my sickness. I’m dying—and when I perish, everything will perish. Only a mass of lifeless cinders will go on.