Damnation Alley

Roger Zelazny

1968

Damnation Alley. The name given to Continental USA by the small pockets of humanity that still survived at the edges. For three days, the bombs had gone up, to come down, delivering their deadly payloads of heat and light.

The Three Days were a generation in the past, but still the continent burnt, with volcanoes spewing their own deadly smoke into the tortured atmosphere and quakes rocking the ground as Nature fought to regain a new balance. Strange creatures; huge bats, giant snakes and the Gila Lizards, have evolved out there in the tortured landscape.

Of the Great Cities that had once graced the continent, only Los Angeles in the west and Boston in the East remained centres of civilisation.

The air was forbidden territory, filled with all sorts of junk as massive hurricanes tore up the planet’s surface, Water and Earth being mixed in an unholy trinity with Air. Violent slashes of lightening were Fire’s contribution to this New Alchemy.

Hell Tanner was leader of the meanest bunch of Hells Angles terrorising the roads of California until the authorities had had enough and decided he should be pulled in.

Once in custody, Hell’s given an option; rot in jail for as long as the Californian authorities were willing to keep him. Or join an expedition taking a load of vaccine all the way across the continent. With three cars and six people, five of who had orders to gun Hell down if he looked as if he were going to back out.

Taking Point, Hell’s vehicle leads the way out into the devastated lands to find the perilous route to Boston.

An unlikely Hero was Hell, not known for his better feelings towards his fellow men. On the long journey, though, Hell was determined that nothing, not the Eastern Chapters of the Hells Angels, not the atrociously violent weather, nor the hostile wildlife were going to stop him getting to Boston.

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