The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories (73 page)

He heard footsteps cross the road over to him and he looked up. It was a tall man in a loose-fitting garment, but the figure was hazy and indistinct; and Farwell could not get his swollen tongue or cracked lips to function. He felt terror as he realized that no words were coming from him. But then, from deep inside him, came a voice. It was like the sound of a record player slowly running down. The words were grotesque and almost unformed, but they came out.

“Mister...mister...this is gold here. This is real gold. I’ll give it to you if you’ll drive me into town. If you’ll give me water. I must have water.” He forced one hand to move across the sand where it pointed to that last bar of gold a few feet from him. “Gold,” the voice came again. “It’s real gold. And you can have it. I’ll give it to you. I’ll give it to you...” The fingers clutched convulsively, and suddenly the hand opened. There was a spasmodic jerk, and then there was no movement at all.

The man knelt down to listen for Farwell’s heartbeat. When he rose to his feet he shook his head. “Poor old guy,” he said. “I wonder where
he
came from.”

The woman in the vehicle rose from her seat to look across the road. “Who is it, George?” she asked. “What’s the matter with him?” The man walked back to the vehicle and got into the driver’s seat. “Some old tramp,” he said, “that’s who it
was
. He’s dead now.” The woman looked at the gold bar in her husband’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Gold. That’s what he said it was. Wanted to give it to me in exchange for a ride into town.”

“Gold?” The woman wrinkled her nose. “What in the world was he doing with gold?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know. Off his rocker, I guess. Anybody walking in this desert at this time of day
would
be off his rocker.” He shook his head and held up the bar of gold. “Can you imagine that? Offered that as if it was worth something.”

“Well, it was worth something once, wasn’t it? Didn’t people use gold as money?”

The man opened the door. “Sure—a hundred years ago or so, before they found a way of manufacturing it.” He looked at the heavy dull metal in his hand and then threw it onto the shoulder of the road. He closed the door. “When we get back into town we’ll have the police come back and pick him up.” He pushed a button on the dashboard, setting the automatic driver control, then looked over his shoulder at the figure of Farwell, who lay in the sand like a scarecrow blown down by the wind. “Poor old guy,” he said thoughtfully, as the vehicle started to move slowly forward. “I wonder where he came from.” He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

The woman pushed another button and a glass top slid forward, shutting off the heat. The vehicle started down the highway, and after a moment disappeared.

Fifteen minutes later a police helicopter arrived, hovered over the scene, and landed. Two uniformed men walked over to the aircraft. The officer in charge noted down on a small pad the particulars. “Unidentified man. Age approximately sixty. Death from overexposure and exhaustion.” Three scrawled lines on a policeman’s pad, and it comprised the obituary for one Mr. Farwell, a Doctor of Chemistry and Physics.

Weeks later they found DeCruz’s body, almost decomposed; and not long after, the body of Brooks and the skeleton of Erbe.

All four men were minor mysteries, and their bodies were consigned to the earth without mourning and without identity. The gold was left where it lay—stretched across the desert and piled up in the back seat of a disintegrating ancient car. It soon became imbedded in the landscape, joined the sage, saltbrush, pearlweed and the imperishable cacti. Like Messrs. Farwell, Erbe, Brooks, and DeCruz, it had no value. No value at all.

About the Author

Rod Serling, the noted producer, director, and award-winning author, is one of the legendary figures of the Golden Age of Television. His television scripts included such classics as
Requiem for a Heavyweight
and
Patterns
. In 1959, Serling became the creator, producer, host, and narrator of the landmark television series
The Twilight Zone
. One hundred and fifty-six episodes of the series aired over the next five years. Ninety-two of those episodes were written by Serling, winning him two of his six Emmy awards. After
The Twilight Zone
went off the air, Serling continued to write for film and television. He died in 1975 of complications arising from a cornorary bypass operation.