A Pleasure to Burn Read online

  Today they had arrived at his coffin. But—late. They had dug down to within an inch of the lid. Five o’clock bell, time for quitting. Home to supper. The workers had gone off. Tomorrow they would finish the job, they said, shrugging into their coats.

  Silence had come to the emptied tombyard.

  Carefully, quietly, with a soft rattling of sod, the coffin lid had lifted.

  William Lantry stood trembling now, in the last cemetery on Earth.

  “Remember?” he asked himself, looking at the raw earth. “Remember those stories of the last man on Earth? Those stories of men wandering in ruins, alone? Well, you, William Lantry, are a switch on the old story. Do you know that? You are the last dead man in the whole damned world!”

  There were no more dead people. Nowhere in any land was there a dead person. Impossible? Lantry did not smile at this. No, not impossible at all in this foolish, sterile, unimaginative, antiseptic age of cleansings and scientific methods! People died, oh my god, yes. But—dead people? Corpses? They didn’t exist!

  What happened to dead people?

  The graveyard was on a hill. William Lantry walked through the dark burning night until he reached the edge of the graveyard and looked down upon the new town of Salem. It was all illumination, all color. Rocket ships cut fire above it, crossing the sky to all the far ports of Earth.

  In his grave the new violence of this future world had driven down and seeped into William Lantry. He had been bathed in it for years. He knew all about it, with a hating dead man’s knowledge of such things.

  Most important of all, he knew what these fools did with dead men.

  He lifted his eyes. In the center of the town a massive stone finger pointed at the stars. It was three hundred feet high and fifty feet across. There was a wide entrance and a drive in front of it.

  In the town, theoretically, thought William Lantry, say you have a dying man. In a moment he will be dead. What happens? No sooner is his pulse cold when a certificate is flourished, made out, his relatives pack him into a car-beetle and drive him swiftly to—

  The Incinerator!

  That functional finger, that Pillar of Fire pointing at the stars. Incinerator. A functional, terrible name. But truth is truth in this future world.

  Like a stick of kindling your Mr. Dead Man is shot into the furnace.

  Flume!

  William Lantry looked at the top of the gigantic pistol shoving at the stars. A small pennant of smoke issued from the top.

  There’s where your dead people go.

  “Take care of yourself, William Lantry,” he murmured. “You’re the last one, the rare item, the last dead man. All the other graveyards of Earth have been blasted up. This is the last graveyard and you’re the last dead man from the centuries. These people don’t believe in having dead people about, much less walking dead people. Everything that can’t be used goes up like a matchstick. Superstitions right along with it!”

  He looked at the town. All right, he thought, quietly, I hate you. You hate me, or you would if you knew I existed. You don’t believe in such things as vampires or ghosts. Labels without referents, you cry! You snort. All right, snort! Frankly, I don’t believe in you, either! I don’t like you! You and your Incinerators.

  He trembled. How very close it had been. Day after day they had hauled out the other dead ones, burned them like so much kindling. An edict had been broadcast around the world. He had heard the digging men talk as they worked!

  “I guess it’s a good idea, this cleaning up the graveyards,” said one of the men.

  “Guess so,” said another. “Grisly custom. Can you imagine?

  “Being buried, I mean! Unhealthy! All them germs!”

  “Sort of a shame. Romantic, kind of. I mean, leaving just this one graveyard untouched all these centuries. The other graveyards were cleaned out, what year was it, Jim?”

  “About 2260, I think. Yeah, that was it, 2260, almost a hundred years ago. But some Salem Committee they got on their high horse and they said, ‘Look here, let’s have just ONE graveyard left, to remind us of the customs of the barbarians.’ And the gover’ment scratched its head, thunk it over, and said, ‘Okay. Salem it is. But all other graveyards go, you understand, all!”

  “And away they went,” said Jim.

  “Sure, they sucked out ’em with fire and steam shovels and rocket-cleaners. If they knew a man was buried in a cow-pasture, they fixed him! Evacuated them, they did. Sort of cruel, I say.”

  “I hate to sound old-fashioned, but still there were a lot of tourists came here every year, just to see what a real graveyard was like.”

  “Right. We had nearly a million people in the last three years visiting. A good revenue. But—a government order is an order. The government says no more morbidity, so flush her out we do! Here we go. Hand me that spade, Bill.”

  William Lantry stood in the autumn wind, on the hill. It was good to walk again, to feel the wind and to hear the leaves scuttling like mice on the road ahead of him. It was good to see the bitter cold stars almost blown away by the wind.

  It was even good to know fear again.

  For fear rose in him now, and he could not put it away. The very fact that he was walking made him an enemy. And there was not another friend, another dead man, in all of the world, to whom one could turn for help or consolation. It was the whole melodramatic living world against one William Lantry. It was the whole vampire-disbelieving, body-burning, graveyard-annihilating world against a man in a dark suit on a dark autumn hill. He put out his pale cold hands into the city illumination. You have pulled the tombstones, like teeth, from the yard, he thought. Now I will find some way to push your damnable Incinerators down into rubble. I will make dead people again, and I will make friends in so doing. I cannot be alone and lonely. I must start manufacturing friends very soon. Tonight.

  “War is declared,” he said, and laughed. It was pretty silly, one man declaring war on an entire world.

  The world did not answer back. A rocket crossed the sky on a rush of flame, like an Incinerator taking wing.

  Footsteps. Lantry hastened to the edge of the cemetery. The diggers, coming back to finish up their work? No. Just someone, a man, walking by.

  As the man came abreast the cemetery gate, Lantry stepped swiftly out. “Good evening,” said the man, smiling.

  Lantry struck the man in the face. The man fell. Lantry bent quietly down and hit the man a killing blow across the neck with the side of his hand.

  Dragging the body back into shadow, he stripped it, changed clothes with it. It wouldn’t do for a fellow to go wandering about this future world with ancient clothing on. He found a small pocket knife in the man’s coat; not much of a knife, but enough if you knew how to handle it properly. He knew how.

  He rolled the body down into one of the already opened and exhumed graves. In a minute he had shoveled dirt down upon it, just enough to hide it. There was little chance of it being found. They wouldn’t dig the same grave twice.

  He adjusted himself in his new loose-fitting metallic suit. Fine, fine.

  Hating, William Lantry walked down into town, to do battle with the Earth.

  THE INCINERATOR WAS OPEN. IT NEVER CLOSED. THERE was a wide entrance, all lighted up with hidden illumination, there was a helicopter landing table and a beetle drive. The town itself was dying down after another day of the dynamo. The lights were going dim, and the only quiet, lighted spot in the town now was the Incinerator. God, what a practical name, what an unromantic name.

  William Lantry entered the wide, well-lighted door. It was an entrance, really; there were no doors to open or shut. People could go in and out, summer or winter, the inside was always warm. Warm from the fire that rushed whispering up the high round flue to where the whirlers, the propellers, the air-jets pushed the leafy grey ashes on away for a ten mile ride down the sky.

  There was the warmth of the bakery here. The halls were floored with rubber parquet. You couldn’t make a noise if you wanted
to. Music played in hidden throats somewhere. Not music of death at all, but music of life and the way the sun lived inside the Incinerator; or the sun’s brother, anyway. You could hear the flame floating inside the heavy brick wall.

  William Lantry descended a ramp. Behind him he heard a whisper and turned in time to see a beetle stop before the entrance way. A bell rang. The music, as if at a signal, rose to ecstatic heights. There was joy in it.

  From the beetle, which opened from the rear, some attendants stepped carrying a golden box. It was six feet long and there were sun symbols on it. From another beetle the relatives of the man in the box stepped and followed as the attendants took the golden box down a ramp to a kind of altar. On the side of the altar were the words, “WE WHO WERE BORN OF THE SUN RETURN TO THE SUN.” The golden box was deposited upon the altar, the music leaped upward, the Guardian of this place spoke only a few words, then the attendants picked up the golden box, walked to a transparent wall, a safety lock, also transparent, and opened it. The box was shoved into the glass slot. A moment later an inner lock opened, the box was injected into the interior of the flue and vanished instantly in quick flame.

  The attendants walked away. The relatives without a word turned and walked out. The music played.

  William Lantry approached the glass fire lock. He peered through the wall at the vast, glowing, never-ceasing heart of the Incinerator. It burned steadily, without a flicker, singing to itself peacefully. It was so solid it was like a golden river flowing up out of the earth toward the sky. Anything you put into the river was borne upward, vanished.

  Lantry felt again his unreasoning hatred of this thing, this monster, cleansing fire.

  A man stood at his elbow. “May I help you, sir?”

  “What?” Lantry turned abruptly. “What did you say?”

  “May I be of service?”

  “I—that is—” Lantry looked quickly at the ramp and the door. His hands trembled at his sides. “I’ve never been in here before.”

  “Never?” The Attendant was surprised.

  That had been the wrong thing to say, Lantry realized. But it was said, nevertheless. “I mean,” he said. “Not really. I mean, when you’re a child, somehow, you don’t pay attention. I suddenly realized tonight that I didn’t really know the Incinerator.”

  The Attendant smiled. “We never know anything, do we, really? I’ll be glad to show you around.”

  “Oh, no. Never mind. It—it’s a wonderful place.”

  “Yes, it is.” The Attendant took pride in it. “One of the finest in the world, I think.”

  “I—” Lantry felt he must explain further. “I haven’t had many relatives die on me since I was a child. In fact, none. So, you see I haven’t been here for many years.”

  “I see.” The Attendant’s face seemed to darken somewhat.

  What’ve I said now, thought Lantry. What in God’s name is wrong? What’ve I done? If I’m not careful I’ll get myself shoved right into that damnable firetrap. What’s wrong with this fellow’s face? He seems to be giving me more than the usual going over.

  “You wouldn’t be one of the men who’ve just returned from Mars, would you?” asked the Attendant.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “No matter.” The Attendant began to walk off. “If you want to know anything, just ask me.”

  “Just one thing,” said Lantry

  “What’s that?”

  “This.”

  Lantry dealt him a stunning blow across the neck.

  He had watched the fire-trap operator with expert eyes. Now, with the sagging body in his arms, he touched the button that opened the warm outer lock, placed the body in, heard the music rise, and saw the inner lock open. The body shot out into the river of fire. The music softened.

  “Well done, Lantry, well done.”

  BARELY AN INSTANT LATER another Attendant entered the room. Lantry was caught with an expression of pleased excitement on his face. The Attendant looked around as if expecting to find someone, then he walked toward Lantry. “May I help you?”

  “Just looking,” said Lantry.

  “Rather late at night,” said the Attendant.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  That was the wrong answer, too. Everybody slept in this world. Nobody had insomnia. If you did you simply turned on a hypno-ray, and, sixty seconds later, you were snoring. Oh, he was just full of wrong answers. First he had made the fatal error of saying he had never been in the Incinerator before, when he knew damned well that all children were brought here on tours, every year, from the time they were four, to instill the idea of the clean fire death and the Incinerator in their minds. Death was a bright fire, death was warmth and the sun. It was not a dark, shadowed thing. That was important in their education. And he, pale thoughtless fool, had immediately gabbled out his ignorance.

  And another thing, this paleness of his. He looked at his hands and realized with growing terror that a pale man also was non-existent in this world. They would suspect his paleness. That was why the first attendant had asked, “Are you one of those men newly returned from Mars?” Here, now, this new Attendant was clean and bright as a copper penny, his cheeks red with health and energy. Lantry hid his pale hands in his pockets. But he was fully aware of the searching the Attendant did on his face.

  “I mean to say,” said Lantry. “I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to think.”

  “Was there a service held here a moment ago?” asked the Attendant, looking about.

  “I don’t know, I just came in.”

  “I thought I heard the fire lock open and shut.”

  “I don’t know,” said Lantry.

  The man pressed a wall button. “Anderson?”

  A voice replied. “Yes.”

  “Locate Saul for me, will you?”

  “I’ll ring the corridors.” A pause. “Can’t find him.”

  “Thanks.” The Attendant was puzzled. He was beginning to make little sniffing motions with his nose. “Do you—smell anything?”

  Lantry sniffed. “No. Why?”

  “I smell something.”

  Lantry took hold of the knife in his pocket. He waited.

  “I remember once when I was a kid,” said the man. “And we found a cow lying dead in the field. It had been there two days in the hot sun. That’s what this smell is. I wonder what it’s from?”

  “Oh, I know what it is,” said Lantry quietly. He held out his hand. “Here.”

  “What?”

  “Me, of course.”

  “You?”

  “Dead several hundred years.”

  “You’re an odd joker.” The Attendant was puzzled.

  “Very.” Lantry took out the knife. “Do you know what this is?”

  “A knife.”

  “Do you ever use knives on people anymore?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean—killing them, with knives or guns or poison?”

  “You are an odd joker!” The man giggled awkwardly.

  “I’m going to kill you,” said Lantry.

  “Nobody kills anybody,” said the man.

  “Not any more they don’t. But they used to, in the old days.”

  “I know they did.”

  “This will be the first murder in three hundred years. I just killed your friend. I just shoved him into the fire lock.”

  That remark had the desired effect. It numbed the man so completely, locked him so thoroughly with its illogical aspects that Lantry had time to walk forward. He put the knife against the man’s chest. “I’m going to kill you.”

  “That’s silly,” said the man, numbly. “People don’t do that.”

  “Like this,” said Lantry. “You see?”

  The knife slid into the chest. The man stared at it for a moment. Lantry caught the falling body.

  THE SALEM FLUE EXPLODED AT SIX THAT MORNING. THE great fire chimney shattered into ten thousand parts and flung itself into the earth and into the sky and into the houses
of the sleeping people. There was fire and sound, more fire than autumn made burning in the hills.

  William Lantry was five miles away at the time of the explosion. He saw the town ignited by the great spreading cremation of it. And he shook his head and laughed a little bit and clapped his hands smartly together.

  Relatively simple. You walked around killing people who didn’t believe in murder, had only heard of it indirectly as some dim gone custom of the old barbarian races. You walked into the control room of the Incinerator and said, “How do you work this Incinerator?” and the control man told you, because everybody told the truth in this world of the future, nobody lied, there was no reason to lie, there was no danger to lie against. There was only one criminal in the world, and nobody knew HE existed yet.

  Oh, it was an incredibly beautiful setup. The Control Man had told him just how the Incinerator worked, what pressure gauges controlled the flood of fire gasses going up the flue, what levers were adjusted or readjusted. He and Lantry had had quite a talk. It was an easy free world. People trusted people. A moment later Lantry had shoved a knife in the Control Man also and set the pressure gauges for an overload to occur half an hour later, and walked out of the Incinerator halls, whistling.

  Now even the sky was palled with the vast black cloud of the explosion.

  “This is only the first,” said Lantry, looking at the sky. “I’ll tear all the others down before they even suspect there’s an unethical man loose in their society. They can’t account for a variable like me. I’m beyond their understanding. I’m incomprehensible, impossible, therefore I do not exist. My God, I can kill hundreds of thousands of them before they even realize murder is out in the world again. I can make it look like an accident each time. Why, the idea is so huge, it’s unbelievable!”