The Bum's Rush by G. M. Ford Page B

everything blows up like this, Leo?" he asked as he again pulled back the trapdoor.
    "How come?"
    "Because it's a closed system. Once the gas buildup
begins, it has no external outlet. Once rigor closes the anus, the gas
just moves from organ to organ, blowing them up like a bunch of circus
balloons linked in series."
    Balloons. I knew it! That's precisely what they
are. They must have painted them all those ghastly earth tones. Surely
they don't come in those hues.
    "Until--" He let it hang.
    "Until what?"
    "Until they find some outlet."
    With the swipe of a scalpel, he sliced away the
corner of the uppermost purple balloon. A great wet whoosh burst from
the corpse. The air was suddenly filled with the smell of primordial
swamp gas, of putrefying organic matter, of human compost and dark,
rank water. The corpse began slowly to deflate and flatten on the
table. It's just--just-- Arrrrgh. I began to backpedal.
    I reeled back, slapping at the air around me as if
it were alive with bees. I could feel the spores boring into my skin.
The ginger chicken I'd had for lunch was packing its bags for the trip
north. Clamping both hands over my mouth, I stumbled to the door, out
of the room, and out into the reception area.
    Tyann Cummings, the college girl who personed the reception desk, opened her mouth as if to greet me
and then closed it again. A pair of white-frocked interns pulled their
heads apart and looked my way. I kept jogging, right out the door and
up the steps. Arrrrrgh.
    The cold air washed over me like a welcome shower.
I scrubbed myself in it. Brushing my clothes, tousling my hair. I must
have looked autistic. So what? Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I pressed my
forehead to the cool corrugated metal of the construction shed, closed
my eyes, and stood still. After a while, a massive orange frontloader,
its scoop dripping pea gravel, came roaring by in a cloud of cleansing
dust. The driver eyed me hard. I managed a small wave. He rolled on by.
I stood and listened to the sounds of fading hydraulics.
    Reluctantly I pushed myself off the shed and headed
out toward Ninth Avenue. I was walking on rented legs. My knees were
asleep. I crossed Ninth and started up Alder on the shady side, keeping
the concrete retaining wall hard by my left shoulder just in case these
foreign legs should turn out to be defective. Halfway up, satisfied
that I was up to the task, I slipped between cars and started across
the street.
    Had it been one of those new Japanese models so
popular with PTA members, one of those silent-gliding, rearengined,
thirty-thousand-dollar minivans, I would surely have been road pizza.
As it was, I heard it long before I was otherwise aware of its presence.
    The throaty roar of an American engine turned my
head to the left. A windowless, primer-gray Chevy van, its windshield
tinted impossibly dark, was roaring up the street in my direction.
Leaving the pedal to the metal, the driver speed-shifted into second
gear. "Kids," I thought, and hustled to get out of the way.
    I was two-thirds of the way across the street when
the van began to veer from the right-hand lane, angling toward me. Very
funny.
    Just a few years ago I might have stood my ground
and given the asshole the one-finger salute. No more. Nowadays the
cretin probably had a rocket launcher or something, so I began to move
along the line of cars, looking for a break where I could slip up onto
the sidewalk and end this silly game. The van was so close now that I
could hear the squealing of a worn fan belt. The sound of water moving
through the system. Any second now, I expected the stupid son of a
bitch to turn away and have a good laugh at my expense.
    When the driver held his line and jammed it into
third gear, my central nervous system suddenly knew that he was past
the point of no return. The crazy bastard was going to hit me. I took
three long strides, pushed off on my left foot, and dove up onto the
hood of the nearest car. My ears filled with the sound of a