Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net FREEWAY BY BRYCE WALTON _The Morrisons didn't lose their freedom. They were merely sentenced to the highways for life, never stopping anywhere, going no place, just driving, driving, driving...._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Some people had disagreed with him. They were influential people. He was put on the road. * * * * * Stan wanted to scream at the big sixteen-cylinder Special to go faster. But Salt Lake City, where they would allow him to stop over for the maximum eight hours, was a long way off. And anyway, he couldn't go over a hundred. The Special had an automatic cut-off. He stared down the super ten-lane Freeway, down the glassy river, plunging straight across the early desert morning--into nowhere. That was Anna's trouble. His wife couldn't just keep travelling, knowing there was no place to go. No one could do that. I can't do it much longer either, Stan thought. The two of us with no place to go but back and forth, across and over, retracing the same throughways, highways, freeways, a thousand times round and round like mobile bugs caught in a gigantic concrete net. He kept watching his wife's white face in the rear-view mirror. Now there was this bitter veil of resignation painted on it. He didn't know when the hysteria would scream through again, what she would try next, or when. She had always been highly emotional, vital, active, a fighter. The Special kept moving, but it was still a suffocating cage. She needed to stop over somewhere, longer, much longer than the maximum eight hours. She needed treatment, a good long rest, a doctor's care-- She might need more than that. Complete freedom perhaps. She had always been an all-or-nothing gal. But he couldn't give her that. Shimmering up ahead he saw the shack about fifty feet off the Freeway, saw the fluttering of colorful hand-woven rugs and blankets covered with ancient Indian symbols. It wasn't an authorized stop, but he stopped. The car swayed slightly as he pressed the hydraulic. From the bluish haze of the desert's tranquil breath a jackrabbit hobbled onto the Freeway's fringe. It froze. Then with a squeal it scrambled back into the dust to escape the thing hurtling toward it out of the rising sun. * * * * * Stan jumped out. The dust burned. There was a flat heavy violence to the blast of morning sun on his face. He looked in through the rear window of the car. "You'll be okay, honey." Her face was feverish. Sweat stood out on her forehead. She didn't look at him.