A Different Alchemy Read Online Free PDF

He envisioned an oversized Oldsmobile elevated on motorized tracks. What he saw was more like a fortress traveling on a conveyor belt. He tapped the metal body with his knuckles. There was barely a sound at all.
    At first he thought he might jump up to the tracks, then to the hull. Instead, his knuckles ached as he pulled himself up the side of the tread, his knees scraping over the nuts and bolts as he righted himself. In basic training he had been able to climb a thirty-foot rope without using his legs. Now, he grunted as he hoisted himself up the side of the machine.
    His shoes clacked against the metal as he walked to the turret and the hatch. He looked down inside of what was, essentially, a moveable cave. He could climb down into the dark, climb back out to see the daylight whenever he wanted, but this cave could also transport him across the broken roads. This armored rock could move him anywhere he wanted.
    And with that thought, he lowered himself inside. Unsure of what to expect, he partly assumed it would look like a jet’s cockpit. But the controls in front of him didn’t seem that complicated: a steering lever, a speed lever, a brake pedal, a clutch. Nothing he couldn’t handle.
    The engine came alive on the first try. Part of him had expected the tank not to start up at all as if sensing he wasn’t the type of person who should be driving it. Another misconception was that he expected it to be as loud as a jet, that he would need industrial strength headphones to block out the noise, but it was similar in volume to a riding lawn mower—if the riding lawn mower could crush cars and go through brick walls.
    He pulled a lever, pushed a pedal, and took a deep breath. The machine lurched backwards. He kept the turret door open as the tank made its way out of the hangar.
    The black sky was spreading. The infection now covered every part of the city’s outline and was continuing to the surrounding parks and suburbs. And more smoke was still pouring up into the sky, the sickness spreading as far as the eye could see. Surely, given time, it would spread all the way to the ocean before enveloping the entire world.
    Griggs was staring out the window at him as the tank rumbled by. The two men looked at each other for a moment, but neither waved goodbye or smiled. Two days later, Griggs would get in his SUV with his wife and his brother and his brother’s wife and they would all head to Washington together, trapped by the silence of not being able to discuss why their children weren’t with them.
    The tank rumbled past the front gate. No longer was there base security checking your ID on the way on and off the government grounds. Years earlier, when the base was fully functional, they had even had speed traps set up around the roads. Anyone going faster than fifteen miles per hour would have gotten pulled over by the unsmiling pseudo police.
    Instead of turning west to go back to the city, toward the flames, the tank turned east, toward the ocean. Jeffrey was aware of his actions enough to know he was driving away from the city, but he never really gave thought to the fact that he was actually leaving it. He didn’t think about his son’s dead body because, somewhere in his head, he still envisioned his son at home on the porch, enjoying the silence. Before long, the tank approached the Garden State Parkway. Instead of heading south toward Washington, where everyone else would be going in two more days, he took the ramp north. Fort Dix got smaller and smaller as he drove away.
    The newness of driving a tank made him feel like he was flying down the road on a go-cart. In reality, he was only going twenty miles per hour. He kept it that speed until he felt like there was no way the black cloud could descend on him. If it rained, he was sure that black liquid would pour down on him and suffocate him too.
    The entire first day of driving, he looked back at the cloud of smoke as though expecting it to catch up to him,