Was it possible that the State actually did
"dispose" of the very old and infirm in order to make room for new
applicants? The thought was fantastic, and yet the State people were so
deadly, impersonally efficient in so many ways....

That very afternoon she signed up for the next monthly tronicar
excursion. She had nearly two weeks to wait and she counted the days. One afternoon when she was sleeping in the foamease chair she had a new
nightmare. She dreamed that she became ill and pressed the Dispensary
button. In the prescribed three minutes two State hospital men
appeared. One of them winked at the other and they both smiled slyly at
her. Then she noticed that the one who had winked held something behind
his back. It was a big folded plastic bag. She awoke with a scream. On the morning set for the tronicar excursion, she stuffed some
personal items in a small kit and went outside to wait. The tronicar
driver was supposed to stop and touch her signal chime, but she was
taking no chances. She waited nearly an hour, afraid the car might come
early. When it finally swung into view down the street, she hurried to
the ramp. After the tronicar had picked up its cargo of State wards and left the
immediate prefab area, the driver began an oral travelogue, describing
new buildings, sites and developments as the car sped past. She
scarcely heard his monotonous speel droning over the speaker system. Her plans were made. When the car stopped in Newbridge, she would get
off on some pretext and simply keep on going. She knew the tronicar
excursions were tied to a rigid schedule. The driver would not wait for
her very long. Assuring him that she would return in five minutes, she got out in
Newbridge and scurried away in the crowds. Once out of sight, she
signaled for a cruisecab. As the cab slid smoothly through city traffic toward the highway which
skirted the dump, horrible doubts assailed her. Suppose Ralph had
left? Suppose all of them had left? What would she do? Where could
she go? The State owned the house. She did not possess any money. She
would have to go back to the prefab, back to the trugrass lawn and the
simulated maple tree, back to--_Death_. Once she had spoken it in her
mind, she kept on repeating it. Death, death, death. She would have to
go back to death. She would have to go back to death. It became a refrain, ringing in her head. The crisp voice of the driver
came through the partition tube, startling her. "This is the refuse
area, lady. Where did you want to go?" Her heart began to pound. She looked out the window, searching for
landmarks. "About a mile yet. There's an old empty warehouse and then
some catalpa trees. Right after that." In a minute or two the cruisecab glided to a stop. She paid the driver
and got out. Her heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe. "You want me to wait, lady?" The driver regarded her quizzically. She shook her head. "No--no thanks. I--I'm meeting someone here." The driver glanced at the smoky pall of the dump and shrugged. Seconds
later the cruisecab was disappearing down the highway. She walked past the clump of catalpa trees bordering the highway. There
were bushes and then set back a bit would be the house. She stopped,
staring, motionless. The house was gone. The State had torn it down and
filled in the cellar hole. As she looked across the littered back yard toward the clump of
cattails, she experienced a strange sense of unreality. Sea gulls cried
overhead and the sun filtered down through a pall of smoke, but the
familiar scene seemed eerily unfamiliar. Scowling, she closed her eyes momentarily and forced down the panic
crowding within her. The house was gone; that was what made everything
seem so strange, so unreal. Now she would take the little path that led
across the back yard into the cattails. She would find Ralph and the
others. Surely they were here somewhere. They would have shelter, at
least a substitute for a house. She was acting like a fool. She should
have expected the house to be gone; even if it hadn't been, it was no
longer hers. She would have no right to enter it, if it were still
standing. Crossing the yard, she hesitated at the edge of the cattails. She
imagined she could hear rats squeaking somewhere in the tangle ahead. Finally she picked up a heavy stick, took a deep breath and stepped
into the narrow path which twisted through the cattail marsh. She had thought the marsh covered only a small area; now she became
appalled at its size. The path twisted on and on, like some kind of
maze laid out to confuse the unwary. Every few yards her feet got
wet. At length she had to stop and sit down. There were squeaks and
twitterings around her. The eternal sea gulls flapped overhead. Smoke
drifted sluggishly skyward. She arose and went on. Noon found her sitting at the base of a great mound of ashes and trash. The sea gulls still squawked and the sun glared down. The cattail marsh
lay far away. She was tired, confused and fearful. The dump area seemed
enormous and she had not met a single human being. She had believed,
previously, that the dump was mostly a level plateau; now she found to
her dismay that it actually consisted of a great many mounds, gullies,
ridges and pits. Unless she climbed to the top of a mound, she could
not see very far. And even then she could not see down into distant
holes and depressions. She had called out until her voice broke. Now she sat silently. A huge
grey-brown rat scurried into sight. Her hand tightened on the stick
which she carried. The rat pretended it was nibbling on a paper shred
but she knew it was watching her. It did not dart away. She had a sudden horrible thought of night closing in, of rats by the
dozen, by the hundreds, watching her, waiting....

She arose so abruptly the rat took alarm and disappeared. She would
have to get out, she told herself. She would return to the marsh, take
the little path and go back to the highway. Once there, she would be
relatively safe. But she soon found that she was hopelessly lost. The cattail marsh had
vanished. She trudged on with growing apprehension, encountering bigger
mounds and deeper gullies. The blazing sun seemed reflected back from
every inch of the scorched sour earth. Her head began to ache; she
developed a raging, tormenting thirst. Rats watched her warily. Once a sea gull swung down, surveyed her with
its cruel eyes and flapped off silently. Finally her legs simply gave out. She collapsed weeping. Ralph had
gone; they had all gone. She was now convinced that she was alone in
the dump. Surely, by now, someone would have seen her, heard her. They
had all left; perhaps the State had driven them out. Shadows were beginning to slant across the gullies by the time she got
up. She was dry-eyed, but her legs ached, her eyes smarted and her
throat was so parched she could scarcely swallow. When she tried to
call out, her voice was only a whisper. Her first terror had passed.