THE TERROR TREAT OF THE YEAR

Fourteen of the finest vintage, chilled to the last drop!

"Is it not better to do the deed before rather than after birth? We can—we must—stem the tide of surplus human beings who threaten to engulf the rapidly diminishing spaces of this earth!"

What strange eyes you have, what bandaged wrists, what a lopsided left-handed look! What has become of Paul, or rather, what have you done with Paul? What lies under the bandages and behind that crooked look, which try as I may, I cannot get into proper perspective—except as an image in a plate-glass door?

"My friend, you have searched in vain. For Cimmeria, or that which remains of it, encompasses all of that northeastern part of England which is your homeland. Is it not ironic? In order to find home . . . you have left it!"

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DOUBLE WHAMMY © Robert Bloch, 1970. First published in FANTASTIC and reproduced by arrangement with the author's agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency.

THE SISTER CITY © Brian Lumley, 1970. First published in TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS (Arkham House, 1970) and reproduced by arrangement with the author.

WHEN MORNING COMES © Elizabeth Fancett, 1969. First published in THE FIFTH GHOST BOOK, edited by Rosemary Timperley (Barrie & Jenkins 1969) and reproduced by arrangement with the publishers.

PREY © Richard Matheson, 1969. First published in PLAYBOY and reproduced by arrangement with the author's agents, A. D. Peters & Co. Ltd.

WINTER © Kit Reed, 1970. First published in ARGOSY and reproduced by arrangement with the author's agents, A. P. Watt & Sons.

LUCIFER © E. C. Tubb, 1969. First published in VISION OF TOMORROW and reproduced by arrangement with the author's agents, Cosmos Literary Agency, Wallsend-on-Tyne.

I WONDER WHAT HE WANTED © Eddy C. Bertin, 1970. First published in Spanish in LAS MEJORES HISTORIAS DE FANTASMAS (Editorial Bruguera, 1970) translated by the author and reproduced by arrangement with him.

PROBLEM CHILD © Peter Oldale, 1970. First published in VISION OF TOMORROW and reproduced by arrangement with the author's agents, Cosmos Literary Agency, Wallsend-on-Tyne.

THE SCAR © Ramsey Campbell, 1969. First published in STARTLING MYSTERY, STORIES and reproduced by arrangement with the author.

WARP © Ralph Norton, 1968. First published in MAYFAIR and reproduced by arrangement with the author's agents, Kay Routledge Associates.

THE HATE © Terri Pinckard, 1971. First published in WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY (formerly COVEN 13) and reproduced by arrangement with the author's agents, the Ackerman Agency, Los Angeles.

A QUIET GAME © Celia Fremlin, 1970. First published in ARGOSY and reproduced by arrangement with the author's agents, Anthony Sheil Associates Ltd.

AFTER NIGHTFALL © David Riley, 1970. First published in WEIRD WINDOW 1970, edited by David Sutton. Reproduced by arrangement with the author.

DEATH'S DOOR © Robert McNear, 1969. First published in PLAYBOY and reproduced by arrangement with the author.

Copyright ©, 1971, by Sphere Books Ltd.

DAW Books edition by special arrangement.

All rights reserved.

Any similarity or apparent connection between the characters in these stories and actual persons, whether alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover art by Karel Thole.

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

Wickerman eBooks

DOUBLE WHAMMY by Robert Bloch

Rod pulled the chicken out of the burlap bag and threw it down into the pit.

The chicken squawked and fluttered, and Rod glanced away quickly. The gaping crowd gathered around the canvas walls of the pit ignored him; now all the eyes were focussed on what was happening down below. There was a cackling, a scrabbling sound, and then a sudden sharp simultaneous intake of breath from the spectators.

Rod didn't have to look. He knew that the geek had caught the chicken.

Then the crowd began to roar. It was a strange noise, compounded of women's screams, high harsh laughter teetering on the edge of hysteria, and deep hoarse masculine murmurs of shocked dismay.

Rod knew what that sound meant, too.

The geek was biting off the chicken's head.

Rod stumbled out of the little tent, not looking back, grateful for the cool night air that fanned his sweating face. His shirt was soaked through under the cheap blazer. He'd have to change again before he went up on the outside platform to make his next pitch.

The pitch itself didn't bother him. Being a talker was his job and he was good at it; he liked conning the marks and turning the tip. Standing up there in front of the bloody banners and spieling about the Strange People always gave him his kicks, even if he was only working for a lousy mudshow that never played anywhere north of Tennessee. For three seasons straight he'd been with it, he was a pro, a real carny.

But now, all of a sudden, something was spooking him. No use kidding himself, he had to face it.

Rod was afraid of the geek.

He crossed behind the ten-in-one tent and moved in the direction of his little trailer, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping his forehead. That helped a little, but he couldn't wipe away what was inside his head. The cold, clammy fear was always there now, night and day.

Hell of it was, it didn't make sense. The Monarch of Mirth Shows had always worked "strong"—out here in the old boondocks and you could still get away with murder, particularly if you were only killing chickens. And who gives a damn about chickens, anyway? The butchers chop off a million heads a day. A chicken is just a lousy bird, and a geek is just a lousy wino. A rumdum who hooks up with a carny, puts on a phoney wild-man outfit and hops around in the bottom of a canvas enclosure while the talker gives the crowd a line about this ferocious monster, half man and half beast. Then the talker throws in the chicken and the geek does his thing.

Rod shook his head, but what was inside it didn't move. It stayed there, cold and clammy and coiled up in a ball. It had been there almost ever since the beginning of this season, and now Rod was conscious that it was growing. The fear was getting bigger.

But why? He'd worked with half a dozen lushes over the past three years. Maybe biting the head off a live chicken wasn't exactly the greatest way to make a living, but if the geeks didn't mind, why should he care? And Rod knew that a geek wasn't really a monster, just a poor old futz who was down on his luck and hooked on the sauce—willing to do anything, as long as he got his daily ration of popskull.

This season the geek they took on was named Mike. A quiet guy who kept out of everybody's way when he wasn't working; under the burnt-cork makeup he had the sad, wrinkled face of a man of fifty. Fifty hard years, perhaps thirty of them years of hard drinking. He never talked, just took his pint and curled up in the canvas on one of the trucks. Looking at him then, Rod was never spooked; if anything, he felt kind of sorry for the poor bastard.

It was only when the geek was in the pit that Rod felt that ball of fear uncoil. When he saw the wooly wig and the black face, the painted hands that clutched and clawed—yes, and when he saw the grinning mouth open to reveal the rotting yellow teeth, ready to bite—

Oh, it was getting to him all right, he was really up tight now. But nobody else knew. And nobody would know. Rod wasn't about to spill his guts to anyone here on the lot, and how would it look if he ran off to some head-shrinker and said, "Hey, Doc, help me—I'm afraid I'm gonna turn into a geek." He knew better than that. No shrinker could help him, and come what may he'd never end up geeking for a living. He'd lick this thing himself; he had to, and he would just as long as no one else caught on and bugged him about it.

Rod climbed the steps, removing his jacket and unbuttoning his wet shirt as he moved up into the darkness of the trailer.

And then he felt the hands sliding across his bare chest, moving up over his shoulders to embrace him, and he smelt the fragrance, felt the warmth and the pressure even as he heard the whispered words. "Rod—darling—are you surprised?"

Truth to tell, Rod wasn't surprised. But he was pleased that she'd been waiting for him. He took her in his arms and glued his mouth to hers as they sank down on the cot.

"Cora," he murmured. "Cora—"

"Shhhh! No time to talk."

She was right. There wasn't time, because he had to be back on the bally platform in fifteen minutes. And it wasn't a smart idea to talk anyway, not with Madame Sylvia sneaking around and popping up out of nowhere just when you least expected her. Why in hell did a swinging bird like Cora have to have an old buzzard like Madame Sylvia for a grandmother?

But Rod wasn't thinking about grandmothers now, and he wasn't thinking about geeks, either. That was what Cora did to him, that was what Cora did for him, dissolving the cold fear in warm, writhing, wanting flesh. At times like these Rod knew why he couldn't cut out, why he stayed with it. Staying with it meant staying with her, and this was enough; this was everything, with ribbons on it.

It was only later, struggling into his shirt, hearing her whisper, "Please, honey, hurry and let's get out of here before she comes looking for me," that he wondered if it was really worth it. All this horsing around for a fast grope in the dark with a teen-age spick who practically creamed her jeans every time the old lady looked cross-eyed at her.

Sure Cora was a beautiful job, custom-made for him. But when you got right down to it she was still a kid and nobody would ever mistake her brain for a computer. Besides, she was a spick—well, maybe not exactly, but she was a gypsy and that added up to the same thing.

Walking back to the bally platform for the last pitch of the evening, Rod decided it was time to cool it. From now on the chill was in.

That night the show folded and trucked to Mazoo County Fair Grounds for a ten-day stand. They were all day setting up and then the crowds surged in, rednecks from the toolies up in the hills; must have been a couple of thousand coming in night after night, and all craving action.

For almost a week Rod managed to keep out of Cora's way without making it too obvious. Her grandmother was running the mitt camp concession on the other end of the Midway and Cora was supposed to shall for her; usually she was too busy to sneak off. A couple of times Rod caught sight of her signalling to him from down in the crowd around the bally platform, but he always looked the other way, pretending he didn't see her. And once he heard her scratching on the trailer door in the middle of the night, only he made out that he was asleep, even when she called out to him, and after about ten minutes she went away.

The trouble was, Rod didn't sleep anywhere near that good; seemed like every time he closed his eyes now he could see the pit, see the black geek and the white chicken.

So the next time Cora came scratching on the door he let her in, and for a little while he was out of the pit, safe in her arms. And instead of the geek growling and the chicken cackling he heard her voice in the darkness, her warm, soft voice, murmuring. "You do love me, don't you, Rod?"

The answer came easy, the way it always did. "Course I do. You know that."

Her fingers tightened on his arm. "Then it's all right. We can get married and I'll have the baby—"

"Baby?"

He sat up, fast.

"I wasn't going to tell you, honey, not until I was sure, but I am now." Her voice was vibrant. "Just think, darling—"

He was thinking. And when he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

"Your grandmother—Madame Sylvia—does she know?"

"Not yet. I wanted you to come with me when I tell her—"

"Tell her nothing."

"Rod?"

"Tell her nothing. Get rid of it."

"Honey—"

"You heard me."

She tried to hold him then but he wrenched himself free, stood up, reached for his shirt. She was crying now, but the louder she sobbed the more he hurried dressing, just as if she wasn't there. Just as if she wasn't stuttering and stammering all that jazz about what did he mean, he couldn't do this, he had to listen, and if the old lady found out she'd kill her.

Rod wanted to yell at her to shut up, he wanted to crack her one across the mouth and make her shut up, but he managed to control himself. And when he did speak his voice was soft.

"Take it easy, sweetheart," he said. "Let's not get ourselves all excited here. There's no problem."

"But I told you—"

He patted her arm in the darkness.

"Relax, will you? You got nothing to worry about. You told me yourself the old lady doesn't know. Get rid of it now and she never will."

Christ, it was so simple you'd think even a lame-brain like Cora would understand. But instead she was crying again, louder than ever, and beating on him with her fists.

"No, no you can't make me! We've got to get married, the first time I let you, you promised we would, just as soon as the season was over—"

"As far as I'm concerned, the season's over right now." Rod tried to keep his voice down, but when she came at him again, clinging, somehow it was worse than feeling her fists. He couldn't stand this any more; not the clinging, not the wet whimpering.

"Listen to me, Cora. I'm sorry about what happened, you know that. But you can scrub the marriage bit."

The way she blew then you'd have thought the world was coming to an end, and he had to slap her to keep the whole damn lot from hearing her screech. He felt kind of lousy, belting her one like that, but it quieted her down enough so's he could hustle her out. She went away still crying, but very quietly. And at least she got the message.

Rod didn't see her around the next day, or the one after. But in order to keep her from bugging him again, he spent both nights over at Boots Donahue's wagon, playing a little stud with the boys. He figured that if there was any trouble and he had to peel off fast, maybe he could turn a few extra bucks for the old grouchbag.

Only it didn't exactly work out that way. Usually he was pretty lucky with the pasteboards, but he had a bad run both evenings and ended up in hock for his next three paychecks. That was bad enough, but the next day was worse.

Basket Case gave him the word.

Rod was just heading for the cook tent for breakfast when Basket Case called him over. He was laying on an old army cot outside his trailer with a cigarette in his mouth.

"How's for a light?" he asked.

Rod cupped a match for him, then stuck around, knowing he'd have to flick the ashes while Basket Case had his smoke. And a guy born without arms or legs has a little trouble getting rid of a butt, too.

Funny thing, the Strange People never got to Rod, no matter how peculiar they looked. Even Basket Case, who was just a living head attached to a shapeless bundle of torso, didn't give him the creeps. Maybe it was because old Basket Case himself didn't seem to mind; he just took it for granted that he was a freak. And he always acted and sounded normal, not like that rumdum geek who put on a fright wig and blacked up and made noises like a crazy animal when he went after a chicken—

Rod tried to push away the thought and pulled out a cigarette for himself. He was just getting a match when Basket Case looked up at him.

"Heard the news?" he asked.

"What news?"

"Cora's dead."

Rod burned his fingers and the match dropped away.

"Dead?"

Basket Case nodded. "Last night. Madame Sylvia found her in the trailer after the last show—"

"What happened?"

Basket Case just looked at him. "Thought maybe you could tell me that."

Rod had to choke out the words. "What's that crack supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." Basket Case shrugged. "Madame Sylvia told Donahue the kid died of a ruptured appendix."

Rod took a deep breath. He forced himself to look sorry, but all at once he felt good, very good. Until he heard Basket Case saying, "Only thing is, I never heard of anyone rupturing their appendix with a knitting-needle."

Rod reached out and took the cigarette from Basket Case to dump his ashes. The way his hand was trembling, he didn't have to do anything but let them fall.

"The appendix story is just a cover—Madame Sylvia doesn't want the fuzz nosing around." Basket Case nodded as Rod struck the cigarette back between his lips. "But if you ask me, she knows."

"Now look, if you're saying what I think you're saying, you'd better forget it—"

"Sure, I'll forget it. But she won't." Basket Case lowered his voice. "Funeral's this afternoon, over at the county cemetery. You better show you face along with the rest of us, just so it doesn't look funny. After that, my advice to you is cut and run."

"Now wait a minute—" Rod was all set to go on, but what was the use? Basket Case knew, and there was no sense putting on an act with him. "I can't run," he said. "I'm into Boots Donahue for three weeks' advance. If I cop out, he'll spread the word around and I won't work carny again, not in these parts."

Basket Case spat the cigarette out. It landed on the ground beside the cot and Rod stamped it out. Basket Case shook his head. "Never mind the money," he said. "If you don't run, you won't be working anywhere." He glanced around cautiously and when he spoke again his voice was just a whisper. "Don't you understand? This is the crunch—I tell you, Madame Sylvia knows what happened."

Rod wasn't about to whisper. "That old bat? You said yourself she doesn't want any truck with the fuzz, and even if she did, she couldn't prove anything. So what's to be afraid of?"

"The double whammy," said Basket Case.

Rod blinked at him.

"Want me to spell it out for you? Three seasons ago, just before you came with the show, fella name of Richey was boss canvasman. Mighty nice guy, but he had a problem—he was scared of snakes. Babe Flynn was working them, had a bunch of constrictors, all standards for her act and harmless as they come. But Richey had such a thing about snakes he wouldn't even go near her wagon.

"Where he went wrong was, he went near Madame Sylvia's Wagon. Cora was pretty young then, just budding out you might say, but that didn't stop Richey from making his move. Nothing serious, only conversation. How the old lady found out about it I don't know and how she found out he was spooked on snakes I don't know either, because he always tried to hide it, of course.

"But one afternoon, last day of our stand in Red Clay it was, Madame Sylvia took a little walk over to Richey's trailer. He was standing outside, shaving, with a mirror hung up on the door.

"She didn't say anything to him, didn't even look at him—just stared at his reflection in the mirror. Then she made a couple of passes and mumbled something under her breath and walked away. That's all there was to it.

"Next morning, Richey didn't show up. They found him lying on the floor inside his trailer, deader'n a mackerel. Half his bones were broken and the way the body was crushed you'd swear a dozen constrictors had been squeezing his guts. I saw his face and believe me it wasn't pretty."

Rod's voice was husky. "You mean the old lady set those snakes on him?"

Basket Case shook his head. "Babe Flynn kept her snakes locked up tight as a drum in her own trailer. She swore up and down nobody'd even come near them the night before, let alone turned 'em loose. But Richey was dead. And that's what I mean about the double whammy."

"Look." Rod was talking to Basket Case, but he wanted to hear it himself, too. "Madame Sylvia's just another mitt reader, peddling phoney fortunes to the suckers. All this malarkey about gypsy curses—"

"Okay, okay." Basket Case shrugged. "But if I were you I'd cut out of here, fast. And until I did, I wouldn't let that old lady catch me standing in front of a mirror."

"Thanks for the tip," Rod said.

As he walked away, Basket Case called after him. "See you at the funeral."

But Rod didn't go to the funeral.

It wasn't as if he was afraid or anything; he just didn't like the idea of standing at Cora's grave with everybody looking at him as if they knew. And they damned well did by now, all of them. Maybe it would be smart to ease out of here like Basket Case said, but not now. Not until he could pay off what he owed to Donahue. For the next three weeks he'd just sweat it out.

Meanwhile, he'd watch his step. Not that he believed that crazy story about the double whammy—Basket Case was just putting him on, it had to be a gag. But it never hurt to be careful.

Which is why Rod shaved for the evening performance that afternoon. He knew the old lady was at the funeral like everybody else; she wouldn't be creeping up behind him to capture his soul from his reflection in the mirror—

Damned right, she wouldn't!

Rod made a face at himself in the glass. What the hell was the matter with him, anyway? He didn't buy that bit about the curse.

But there was something wrong. Because for a moment when Rod looked into the mirror he didn't see himself. Instead he was staring into a black, grinning face, with bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes and a twisted mouth opening to show the yellow fangs.

Rod blinked and the face went away; it was his own reflection peering back at him. But his hand was shaking so that he had to put the razor down.

His hand was still shaking when he reached for the bottle on the top shelf, and he must have spilled more of the whiskey than he managed to get into the glass. So he took a slug straight from the bottle instead. And then another, until his hands were steady again. Good for the nerves, a little snort now and then. Only you had to watch that stuff, not let it run away with you. Because if you didn't pretty soon you got hooked and some day before you knew what was happening, you wound up in the wooly wig and the blackface, down there in the pit waiting for the white chicken—

The hell with that noise. It wasn't going to happen. Just a couple of weeks and he'd be out of here, no more carny, nothing to bug him ever again. All he had to do now was keep his cool and watch his step.

Rod watched his step very carefully that evening when he walked up to the bally platform and adjusted his mike for the pitch. Standing before the bloody banners he felt good, very good indeed, and the couple of extra belts he'd taken from the bottle just for luck seemed to have unwound that ball of fear inside his head. It was easy to make his pitch about the Strange People—"All there on the inside, folks, on the inside"—and watch the marks flocking around down below. The marks—they were the real freaks, only they didn't know it. Shelling out their dough to gawk at poor devils like Basket Case, then paying extra for the Special Added Attraction, Adults Only, in the canvas pit behind the ten-in-one tent. What kind of a pervert would pay money to see a geek? What was the matter with people like that?

And what was the matter with him? Standing there beside the pit, holding the burlap bag and feeling the chicken fluttering helplessly inside, Rod felt the fear returning to flutter within himself. He didn't want to look down into the pit and see the geek crouching there, growling and grimacing like a real wild man. So he looked at the crowd instead, and that was better. The crowd didn't know he was afraid. Nobody knew he was spooked, let alone what scared him.

Rod talked to the crowd, building his pitch, and his hands started to fumble with the cord around the neck of the burlap bag, getting ready to open it and dump the chicken into the pit.

And that's when he saw her.

She was standing over to one side, right up against the edge of the canvas; just a little old woman dressed in black, with a black shawl draped over her head. Her face was pinched, her skin was brown and leathery, wrinkled into a permanent scowl. An old lady, nobody gave her a second glance, but Rod saw her.

And she saw him.

Funny, he'd never noticed Madame Sylvia's eyes before. They were big and brown and staring—they stared right at him now, stared right through him.

Rod wrenched his gaze away, forced his fingers to open the sack. All the while, mechanically, he was talking, finishing the buildup as he reached for the chicken, pulled it out, flung the clucking creature down to that other creature in the pit—the creature that growled and grabbed and oh my God it was biting now—

He couldn't watch and he had to turn his head away, seeing the crowd again as they shrieked and shuddered, getting their kicks. And she was still standing there, still staring at him.

But now her clawlike hand moved over the rim of the canvas to extend a pointing forefinger. Rod knew what she was pointing at; she was pointing at the geek-pit. And the wrinkled face could change its expression, because she was smiling now.

Rod turned and groped his way out into the night.

She knew.

Not just about him and Cora, but about everything. Those eyes that stared at him and through him had also stared inside him—stared inside and found his fear. That's why she'd pointed and smiled; she knew what he was afraid of.

The Midway lights were bright, but it was darker behind the canvas sidewalls except where a patch of moonlight shone on the big water-barrel setting next to the cook-tent.

Rod's face was damp with sweat; he headed for the barrel and soaked his handkerchief in the water to wipe his forehead. Time for another pitch pretty soon, and the next show. He had to pull himself together.

The cool water helped to clear his head, and he dipped his handkerchief again. That was better. No sense flipping just because a nutty old dame gave him a dirty look. This business about gypsies and the evil eye and the double whammy was all a crock. And even if there was something to it, he wouldn't let her get to him. He wasn't about to stand in front of any mirrors—

Then he glanced down at the water in the barrel, saw his features reflected in the moonlight shining there. And he saw her face, standing right behind him. Her eyes were staring and her mouth was mumbling, and now her hands were coming up, making passes in the air. Making passes like an old witch, she was going to turn him into a geek with the double whammy—

Rod turned, and that's the last thing he remembered. He must have passed out, fallen, because when he came to he was still on the ground.

But the ground was somehow different than the earth outside the tent; it was covered with sawdust. And the light was stronger, it was shining straight down between the canvas walls of the pit.

He was in the pit.

The realization came, and Rod looked up, knowing it was too late, she'd caught him, he was in the geek's body now.

But something else was wrong, too; the pit was deeper, the canvas walls much higher. Everything seemed bigger, even the blur of faces crowded around the sides of the pit way up above. Way up above—why was he so small?

Then his eyes shifted as he heard the growling. Rod turned and looked up again just in time to see the black grinning face looming over him, the giant mouth opening to reveal the rotting yellow teeth. It was only then that Rod knew what she had really done to him, as the huge hands grabbed out, pulling him close. For a moment he squawked and fluttered his wings.

Then the geek bit off his head.

THE SISTER CITY by Brian Lumley

This manuscript attached at "Annex 'A' " to report number M-Y-127/52, dated 7th Aug. 1952

Towards the end of the war, when our London home was bombed and both my parents were killed, I was hospitalized through my own injuries and forced to spend the better part of two years on my back. It was during this period of my youth—I was only seventeen when I left the hospital—that I formed, in the main, the enthusiasm which in later years developed into a craving for travel, adventure and knowledge of Earth's elder antiquities. I had always had a wanderer's nature but was so restricted during those two, dreary years that when my chance for adventure eventually came I made up for wasted time by letting that nature hold full sway.

Not that those long, painful months were totally devoid of pleasures. Between operations, when my health would allow it, I read avidly in the hospital's library, primarily to forget my bereavement, eventually to be carried along to those worlds of elder wonder created by Walter Scott in his enchanting Arabian Nights.

Apart from delighting me tremendously, the book helped to take my mind off the things I had heard said about me in the wards. It had been put about that I was different; allegedly the doctors had found something strange in my physical make-up. There were whispers about the peculiar qualities of my skin and the slightly extending horny cartilege at the base of my spine. There was talk about the fact that my fingers and toes were ever so slightly webbed; and being, as I was, so totally devoid of hair, I became the recipient of many queer glances.

These things plus my name, Robert Krug, did nothing to increase my popularity at the hospital. In fact, at a time when Hitler was still occasionally devastating London with his bombs, a surname like Krug, with its implications of Germanic ancestry, was probably more a hindrance to friendship than all my other peculiarities put together.

With the end of the war I found myself rich; the only heir to my father's wealth, and still not out of my teens. I had left Scott's Djinns, Ghouls and Efreets far behind me but was returned to the same type of thrill I had known with the Arabian Nights by the popular publication of Lloyd's Excavations on Sumerian Sites. In the main it was that book which was responsible for the subsequent awe in which I ever held those magical words: "Lost Cities."

In the months that followed, indeed through all my remaining—formative—years, Lloyd's work remained a landmark, followed as it was by many more volumes in a like vein. I read avidly of Layard's Nineveh and Babylon and Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia. I dwelled long over such works as Budge's Rise and Progress of Assyriology and Burckhardt's Travels in Syria and the Holy Land.

Nor were the fabled lands of Mesopotamia the only places of interest to me. Fictional Shangri-La and Ephiroth ranked equally beside the reality of Mycenae, Knossos, Palmyra and Thebes. I read excitedly of Atlantis and Chichen-Itza, never bothering to separate fact from fancy, and dreamed equally longingly of the Palace of Minos in Crete and Unknown Kadath in the Cold Waste.

What I read of Sir Amery Wendy-Smith's African expedition in search of dead G'harne confirmed my belief that certain myths and legends are not far removed from historical fact. If no less a person than that eminent antiquarian and archaeologist had equipped an expedition to search for a jungle city considered by most reputable authorities to be purely mythological . . . Why! His failure meant nothing compared to the fact that he had tried . . .

While others, before my time, had ridiculed the broken figure of the demented explorer who returned alone from the jungles of the Dark Continent I tended to emulate his 'deranged fancies'—as his theories have been considered—re-examining the evidence for Chyria and G'harne and delving ever deeper into the fragmentary antiquities of legendary cities and lands with such unlikely names as R'lyeh, Ephiroth, Mnar and Hyperborea.

As the years passed my body healed completely and I grew from a fascinated youth into a dedicated man. Not that I ever guessed what drove me to explore the ill-lit passages of history and fantasy. I only knew that there was something spellbinding for me in the re-discovery of those ancient worlds of dream and legend.

Before I began those far-flung travels which were destined to occupy me on and off for four years, I bought a house in Marske, at the very edge of the Yorkshire Moors. This was the region in which I had spent my childhood and there had always been about the brooding moors a strong feeling of affinity which was hard for me to define. I felt closer to home there somehow—and infinitely closer to the beckoning past. It was with a genuine reluctance that I left my moors but the inexplicable lure of distant places and foreign names called me away, across the seas.

First I visited those lands that were within easy reach, ignoring the places of dreams and fancies but promising myself that later—later! ! !

Egypt, with all its mystery! Djoser's step-pyramid at Saggara, Imhotep's Masterpiece; the ancient mastabas, tombs of centuries-dead Kings; the inscrutably smiling Sphinx; the Sneferu pyramid at Meidum and those of Chephren and Cheops at Giza; the mummies, the brooding Gods . . .

Yet in spite of all its wonder Egypt could not hold me for long. The sand and heat were damaging to my skin which tanned quickly and roughened almost overnight.

. . . Crete, the Nymph of the beautiful Mediterranean . . . Theseus and the Minotaur; the Palace of Minos at Knossos . . . All wonderful—but that which I sought was not there.

Salamis and Cyprus, with all their ruins of ancient civilizations . . . each held me but a month or so. Yet it was in Cyprus that I learned of yet another peculiarity of my personality; my queer abilities in water . . .

I became friendly with a party of divers at Famagusta. Daily they were diving for amphorae and other relics of the past off-shore from the ruins at Salenica on the south-east coast. At first the fact that I could remain beneath the water three times as long as the best of them, and swim further without aid of fins or snorkel, was only a source of amazement to my friends; but after a few days I noticed that they were having less and less to do with me. They did not care for the hairlessness of my body or the webbing, which seemed to have lengthened, between my toes and fingers. They did not like the bump low at the rear of my bathing-costume or the way I could converse with them in their own tongue when I had never studied Greek in my life.

It was time to move on. My travels took me all over the world and I became an authority on those dead civilizations which were my one joy in life. Then, in Phetri, I heard of the Nameless City.

Remote in the Desert of Araby lies the Nameless City, crumbling and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the sands of uncounted ages. It was of this place that Abdul Alhazred the mad poet dreamed on the night before he sang his inexplicable couplet:

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."

My Arab guides thought I, too, was mad when I ignored their warnings and continued in search of that City of Devils. Their fleet-footed camels took them off in more than necessary haste for they had noticed my skin's scaly strangeness and certain other unspoken things which made them uneasy in my presence. Also, they had been nonplussed, as I had been myself, at the strange fluency with which I used their tongue . . .

Of what I saw and did in Kara-Shehr I will not write. It must suffice to say that I learned of things which struck chords in my subconscious; things which sent me off again on my travels—this time to seek Sarnath the Doomed in what was once the land of Mnar.

No man knows the whereabouts of Sarnath . . . and it is better that this remain so. Of my travels in search of the place and the difficulties which I encountered at every phase of my journey I will therefore recount nothing. Yet my discovery of the slime-sunken city, and of the incredibly aged ruins of nearby Ib, were major links forged in the lengthening chain of knowledge which was slowly bridging the awesome gap between this world and my ultimate destination. And I, bewildered, did not even know where or what that destination was!

For three weeks I wandered the slimy shores of the still lake which hides Sarnath and at the end of that time, driven by a fearful compulsion, I once again used those unnatural aquatic powers of mine and began exploring beneath the surface of that hideous morass.

That night I slept with a small figurine, rescued from the sunken ruins, pressed to my bosom. In my dreams I saw my mother and father—but dimly, as if through a mist—and they beckoned to me . . .

The next day I went again to stand in the centuried ruins of Ib, and as I was making ready to leave I saw the inscribed stone which gave me my first real clue. The wonder is that I could read what was written on that weathered, aeon-old pillar; for it was written in a curious cuneiform older even than the inscriptions on Geph's broken columns, and it had been pitted by the ravages of time.

It told nothing of the beings who once lived in Ib, nor anything of the long-dead inhabitants of Sarnath. It spoke only of the destruction which the men of Sarnath had brought to the beings of Ib—and of the resulting DOOM that came to Sarnath. This doom was wrought by the Gods of the beings of Ib, but of those Gods I could learn not a thing. I only knew that reading that stone and being in Ib had stirred long-hidden memories, perhaps even ancestral memories, in my mind. Again that feeling of closeness to home, that feeling I always felt so strongly on the moors in Yorkshire, flooded over me. Then, as I idly moved the rushes at the base of the pillar with my foot, yet more chiselled inscriptions appeared. I cleared away the slime and read on. There remained only a few lines—but those lines contained my clue:

"Ib is gone but the Gods live on. Across the world is the Sister City, hidden in the earth, in the barbarous lands of Zimmeria. There The People flourish yet, and there will the Gods ever be worshipped; even unto the coming of Cthulhu . . ."

Many months later in Cairo, I sought out a man steeped in elder-lore, a widely acknowledged authority on forbidden antiquities and prehistoric lands and legends. This sage had never heard of Zimmeria, but he did know of a land which had once had a name much similar. "And where did this Cimmeria lie?" I asked.

"Unfortunately," my erudite advisor answered, consulting a chart, "most of Cimmeria now lies beneath the sea, but originally it lay between Vanaheim and Nemedia in ancient Hyborea."

"You say most of it is sunken?" I queried. "But what of the land which lies above the sea?" Perhaps it was the eagerness in my voice that caused him to glance at me the way he did. Again, perhaps it was my queer aspect; for the hot suns of many lands had hardened my hairless skin most peculiarly and a strong web now showed between my fingers.

"Why do you wish to know?" he asked. "What is it you are seeking?"

"Home—" I answered instinctively, not knowing what prompted me to say it.

"Yes . . ." He said, studying me closely. "That might well be . . ." He smiled strangely. "You are an Englishman, are you not? May I enquire from which part?"

"From the North-East," I answered, reminded suddenly of my moors. "Why do you want to know?"

"My friend, you have searched in vain," he smiled. "For Cimmeria, or that which remains of it, encompasses all of that north-eastern part of England which is your homeland. Is it not ironic? In order to find your home . . . you have left it . . .!"

That night fate dealt me a card which I could not ignore. In the lobby of my hotel was a table devoted solely to the reading habits of the English-speaking residents. Upon it was a wide variety of books, paperbacks, newspapers and journals, ranging from The Reader's Digest to The News of the World, and to pass a few hours in relative coolness I sat beneath a soothing fan with a glass of iced water and idly glanced through one of the newspapers.

Abruptly, on turning a page, I came upon a picture and an article which, when I had scanned the thing through, caused me to book a seat on the next flight to London.

The picture was poorly reproduced but was still clear enough for me to see that it depicted a small, green figurine—the duplicate of that which I had salvaged from the ruins of Sarnath beneath the still pool . . .

The article, as best I can remember, read like this:

"Mr. Samuel Davies, of 17 Heddington Crescent, Radcar, found the beautiful relic of bygone ages pictured above in a stream whose only known source is the cliff-face at Sarby-on-the-Moors. The figurine is now in Radcar Museum, having been donated by Mr. Davies, and is being studied by the curator, Prof. Gordon Walmsley of Goole. So far Prof. Walmsley has been unable to throw any light on the figurine's origin but the Wendy-Smith Test, a scientific means of checking the age of archaeological fragments, has shown it to be over ten thousand years old. The green figurine does not appear to have any connection with any of the better known civilizations of ancient England and is thought to be a find of rare importance. Unfortunately, expert pot-holers have given unanimous opinions that the stream where it springs from the cliff at Sarby, is totally untraversable."

The next day, during the flight, I slept for an hour or so and again, in my dreams, I saw my parents. As before they appeared to me in a mist—but their beckonings were stronger than in that previous dream and in the blanketing vapours around them were strange figures, bowed in seeming obeisance, while a chant of teasing familiarity rang from hidden and nameless throats . . .

I had wired my housekeeper from Cairo, informing her of my returning, and when I arrived at my house in Marske I found a solicitor waiting for me. This gentleman introduced himself as being Mr. Harvey, of the Radcar firm of Harvey, Johnson and Harvey, and presented me with a large sealed envelope. It was addressed to me in my father's hand, and Mr. Harvey informed me his instructions had been to deliver the envelope into my hands on the attainment of my twenty-first birthday. Unfortunately I had been out of the country at the time, almost a year earlier, but the firm had kept in touch with my housekeeper so that on my return the agreement made nearly seven years earlier between my father and Mr. Harvey's firm might be kept.

After Mr. Harvey left I dismissed my woman and opened the envelope. The manuscript within was not in any script I had ever learned at school. This was the language I had seen written on that aeon-old pillar in ancient Ib; nonetheless I knew instinctively that it had been my father's hand which had written the thing. And of course, I could read it as easily as if it were in English. The many and diverse contents of the letter made it, as I have said, more akin to a manuscript in its length and it is not my purpose to completely reproduce it. That would take too long and the speed with which The First Change is taking place does not permit it. I will merely set down the specially significant points which the letter brought to my attention.

In disbelief I read the first paragraph—but, as I read on, that initial disbelief became a weird amazement which in turn became a savage joy at the fantastic disclosures revealed by those timeless hieroglyphs of Ib.

My parents were not dead! They had merely . . . gone away . . . gone home . . .

That time nearly seven years ago, when I had returned home from a school reduced to ruins by the bombing, our London home had been purposely sabotaged by my father. A powerful explosive had been rigged, primed to be set off by the first air-raid siren, and then my parents had gone off in secrecy back to the moors. They had not known, I realized, that I was on my way home from the ruined school where I boarded. Even now they were unaware that I had arrived at the house just as the radar defences of England's military services had picked out those hostile dots in the sky. That plan which had been so carefully laid to fool men into believing that my parents were dead had worked well; but it had also nearly destroyed me. And all this time I, too, had believed them killed. But why had they gone to such extremes? What was that secret which it was so necessary to hide from our fellow men—and where were my parents now? I read on . . .

Slowly all was revealed. We were not—indigenous—to England, my parents and I, and they had brought me here as an infant from our homeland, a land quite near yet paradoxically far away. The letter went on to explain how all the children of our race are brought here as infants, for the atmosphere of our homeland is not conducive to health in the young and unformed. The difference in my case had been that my mother was unable to part with me. That was the awful thing! Though all the children of our race must wax and grow up away from their homeland, the elders can only rarely depart from their native clime. This fact is determined by their physical appearance throughout the greater period of their life-spans. For they are not, for the better part of their lives, either the physical or mental counterparts of ordinary men!

This means that children have to be left on doorsteps, at the entrances of orphanages, in churches and in other places where they will be found and cared for; for in extreme youth there is little difference between my race and the race of men. As I read I was reminded of those tales of fantasy I had once loved; of ghouls and fairies and other creatures who left their young to be reared by human beings and who stole human children to be brought up in their own likenesses.

Was that then my destiny? Was I to be a ghoul? I read on. I learned that the people of my race can only leave our native country twice in their lives; once in youth—when, as I have explained, they are brought here of necessity to be left until they attain the approximate age of twenty-one years—and once in later life, when changes in their appearances make them compatible to outside conditions. My parents had just reached this latter stage of their—development—when I was born. Because of my mother's devotion they had forsaken their duties in our own land and had brought me personally to England where, ignoring The Laws, they stayed with me. My father had brought certain treasures with him to ensure an easy life for himself and my mother until that time should come when they would be forced to leave me, the Time of The Second Change, when to stay would be to alert Mankind to our existence.

That time had eventually arrived and they had covered up their departure back to our own, secret land by blowing up our London home; letting the authorities and I (though it must have broken my mother's heart) believe them dead of a German bomb raid.

And how could they have done otherwise? They dared not take the chance of telling me what I really was; for who can say what effect such a disclosure would have had on me, I who had barely begun to show my difference? They had to hope I would discover the secret myself, or at least the greater part of it, which I have done! But to be doubly sure my father left his letter.

The letter also told how not many foundlings find their way back to their own land. Accidents claim some and others go mad. At this point I was reminded of something I had read somewhere of two inmates of Oakdeene Sanatorium near Glasgow who are horribly mad and so unnatural in aspect that they are not even allowed to be seen and even their nurses cannot abide to stay near them for long. Yet others become hermits in wild and inaccessible places and, worst of all, still others suffer more hideous fates—and I shuddered as I read what those fates were.

But there were those few who did manage to get back. These were the lucky ones, those who returned to claim their rights; and while some of them were guided back—by adults of the race during second visits—others made it by instinct or luck. Yet horrible though this overall plan of existence seemed to be, the letter explained its logic. For my homeland could not support many of my kind and those perils of lunacy brought on by inexplicable physical changes, of accidents, and of those other fates I have mentioned acted as a system of selection whereby only the fittest in mind and body returned to the land of their birth.

But there; I have just finished reading the letter through a second time—and already I begin to feel a stiffening of my limbs. The receipt of my father's manuscript came barely in time. I have long been worried by my growing differences. The webbing on my hands now extends almost to the small, first knuckles and my skin is fantastically thick, rough and ichthyic. The short tail which protrudes from the base of my spine is now not so much an oddity as an addition; an extra limb which, in the light of what I now know, is not an oddity at all but the most natural thing in the world! My hairlessness, with the discovery of my destiny, has also ceased to be an embarrassment to me. I am different to men, true, but is that not as it should be? For I am not a man . . .

Ah, the lucky fates which caused me to pick up that newspaper in Cairo! Had I not seen that picture or read that article I might not have returned so soon to my moors and I shudder to think what might have become of me then! What would I have done after The First Change had altered me? Would I have hurried, disguised and wrapped in smothering clothes, to some distant land—there to live the life of a hermit? Perhaps I would have returned to Ib or the Nameless City, to dwell in ruins and solitude until my appearance was again capable of sustaining my existence among men. And what after that—after The Second Change?

Perhaps I would have gone mad at such inexplicable alterations in my person. Who knows but there might have been another inmate at Oakdeene? On the other hand my fate might have been worse than all these; for I may have been drawn to dwell in the depths, to be one with the Deep Ones in the worship of Dagon and Great Cthulhu, as have others before me.

But no! By good fortune, by the learning gained on my far journeys and by the help given me by my father's document, I have been spared all those terrors which others of my kind have known. I will return to Ib's Sister City, to Lh-yib, in that land of my birth beneath these Yorkshire Moors; that land from which was washed the green figurine which is the duplicate of the one I raised from beneath the pool at Sarnath. I will return to be worshipped by those whose ancestral brothers died at Ib on the spears of the men of Sarnath; those who are so aptly described on the Brick Cylinders of Kadatheron; those who chant voicelessly in the abyss. I will return to Lh-yib!

For even now I hear my mother's voice, calling me as she did when I was a child and used to wander these very moors: "Bob! Little Bo! Where are you?"

Bo, she used to call me, and would only laugh when I asked her why. But why not? Was Bo not a fitting name? Robert—Bob—Bo? What odds? Blind fool that I have been! I never really pondered the fact that my parents were never quite like other people; not even towards the end . . .

Were not my ancestors worshipped in grey stone Ib before the coming of men, in the earliest days of Earth's evolution? I should have guessed my identity when first I brought that figurine up out of the slime; for the features of the thing were as my own features will be after The First Change, and engraved upon its base in the ancient letters of Ib—letters I could read because they were part of my native language, the precursor of all languages—was my own name!

. . . Bokrug: Water-Lizard God of the people of Ib and Lh-yib, the Sister City!

Note:

Sir,

Attached to this manuscript, "Annex 'A' " to my report, was a brief note of explanation addressed to the NECB in Newcastle and reproduced as follows:

Robert Krug,

Marske,

Yorks.,

Evening—19 July '52.

Secretary and Members,

NECB, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Gentlemen of the North-East Coal-Board:

My discovery lately, in the pages of a popular science magazine, of your Yorkshire Moors Project, scheduled to commence next summer, determined me, upon the culmination of some recent travels of mine, to write you this letter. You will see that my letter is a protest against your proposals to drill deep into the moors in order to set off underground explosions in the hope of creating pockets of gas to be tapped as part of the country's natural resources. It is quite possible that the undertaking envisioned by your scientific advisors would mean the destruction of two ancient races of sentient life! The prevention of such destruction is that which causes me to break the laws of my race and thus announce the existence of them and their servitors. In order to explain my protest more fully I think it necessary that I tell my whole story. Perhaps upon reading the enclosed manuscript you will suspend indefinitely your projected operations . . .

Robert Krug . . .

POLICE REPORT M-Y-127/52

Alleged Suicide

Sir,

I have to report that at Dilham, on the 20th July 1952, at about four-thirty p.m., I was on duty at the Police Station when three children (statements attached at Annex 'B') reported to the Desk Sgt. that they had seen a "funny man" climb the fence at Devil's Pool, ignoring the warning notices, and throw himself into the stream where it vanishes into the hillside. Accompanied by the eldest of the children I went to the scene of the alleged occurrence, about three-quarters of a mile over the moors from Dilham, where the spot that the "funny man" allegedly climbed the fence was pointed out to me. There were signs that someone had recently gone over the fence; trampled grass and grass-stains on the timbers. With slight difficulty I climbed the fence myself but was unable to decide whether or not the children had told the truth. There was no evidence in or around the pool to suggest that anyone had thrown himself in—but this is hardly surprising as at that point, where the stream enters the hillside, the water rushes steeply downwards into the earth. Once in the water only an extremely strong swimmer would be able to get back out. Three experienced pot-holers were lost at this same spot in August last year when they attempted a partial reconnoitre of the stream's underground course.

When I further questioned the boy I had taken with me, I was told that a second man had been on the scene prior to the incident. This other man had been seen to limp as though he was hurt, and he had gone into a nearby cave. This had occurred shortly before the "funny man"—described as being green and having a short, flexible tail—came out of the same cave, went over the fence and threw himself into the pool.

On inspecting the said cave I found what appeared to be an animal-hide of some sort, split down the arms and legs and up the belly, in the manner of the trophies of big-game hunters. This object was rolled up neatly in one corner of the cave and is now in the Found-Property Room at the Police Station in Dilham. Near this hide was a hat and a complete set of good-quality gent's clothing, neatly folded and laid down. In the inside pocket of the jacket I found a wallet containing, along with fourteen pounds in one-pound notes, a card bearing the address of a house in Marske; namely, 11 Sunderland Crescent. These articles of clothing, plus the wallet, are also now in the Found-Property Room.

At about six-thirty p.m., I went to the above address in Marske and interviewed the housekeeper, one Mrs. White, who provided me with a statement (attached at Annex 'C') in respect of her partial employer, Robert Krug. Mrs. White also gave me two envelopes, one of which contained the manuscript attached to this report at Annex 'A'. Mrs. White had found this envelope, sealed, with a note asking her to deliver it, when she went to the house on the afternoon of the 20th about half an hour before I arrived. In view of the enquiries I was making and because of their nature, i.e—an investigation into the possible suicide of Mr. Krug, Mrs. White thought it was best that the envelope be given to the police. Apart from this she was at a loss what to do with it because Krug had forgotten to address it. As there was the possibility of the envelope containing a suicide note or dying declaration I accepted it.

The other envelope, which was unsealed, contained a manuscript in a foreign language and is now in the Property Room at Dilham.

In the two weeks since the alleged suicide, despite all my efforts to trace Robert Krug, no evidence has come to light to support the hope that he may still be alive. This, plus the fact that the clothing found in the cave has since been identified by Mrs. White as being that which Krug was wearing the night before his disappearance, has determined me to request that my report be placed in the "unsolved" file and that Robert Krug be listed as missing.

Sgt. J. T. Miller,

Dilham,

York.

7 Aug., 1952

Note:

Sir,

Do you wish me to send a copy of the manuscript at Annex 'A'—as requested of Mrs. White by Krug—to the Secretary of the North-East Coal-Board?

Inspector I. L. Ianson,

Yorkshire County Constabulary,

Radcar, YORKS.

Dear Sgt. Miller,

In answer to your note of the 7th.

Take no further action on the Krug case. As you suggest, I have had the man posted as missing, believed a suicide. As for his document; well, the man was either mentally unbalanced or a monumental hoaxer; possibly a combination of both! Regardless of the fact that certain things in his story are matters of indisputable fact, the majority of the thing appears to be the product of a diseased mind.

Meanwhile I await your progress-report on that other case. I refer to the baby found in the church pews at Eely-on-the-Moor last June. How are you going about tracing the mother?

WHEN MORNING COMES by Elizabeth Fancett

The Right Honourable Sir William Wellborn smiles to himself as he rifles through his papers. They rustle softly in the darkness. He looks around the empty House—home of the law-makers, society's protectors, the orderers of good. He is proud to be their leader. But then, it was his birthright. All the Wellborns had been law-makers, leaders, men of vision.

He had been particularly pleased with today. The House had been more than usually impressed with his oratory, his qualities of leadership had been never more apparent or appreciated. There were still the old die-hards, of course, clinging to their decrepit ideas of democracy. But things were changing rapidly. He was changing them. Life was changing, the old orders passing. And his Bill would go through. He was sure of that.

He frowns, remembering something, shrugs it away. He switches off the small light over his desk. The shadows crawl close, night deepens. He listens to the dark silence.

What? For a moment then . . . he'd thought . . . Just so! He'd thought—imagined—as he'd imagined it before. He was tired, he would go home. He hesitates. Or should he stay and think it out; now, while it was still fresh in his mind, and then forget it? He switches on the light again.

Let's see now, what had he been saying when he'd heard—thought he'd heard—something? It had been somewhere towards the end of his speech—he couldn't exactly remember where. Was it before or after his summing up? Or had it been—

He sits down, trying to remember . . .

The House had been hushed, tense, hanging on his words . . .

"We all know that the Abortion Act is not working as it should. And, as it stands, it never will! Most of the medical profession, and the Church—though, thank God, the Church carries little weight these days—continue to oppose and obstruct it in every way. My Bill is designed precisely to overcome this opposition. Abortion should be made legally binding on all doctors; not only to ensure abortions for all who wish them, but also, where circumstances justify it, to enforce in cases where those forbidden to procreate insist on breaking the compulsory contraception law!"

There had been a general murmur in the House, a stirring of uneasiness.

Had it been then? No. It had come later, when the House was hushed again, all eyes and minds fastened on him as he concluded his speech.

"We must prevent irresponsible and selfish parents from bringing into our world the unfit and the surplus human beings who can contribute nothing to our society except further problems and disasters. Mankind must be thinned out before the best are crowded out, like weeds crowd out the good plants. Is that what we want—a world of weeds?"

It had been then that he'd heard it—no, thought he'd heard it. Like a ripple in his brain, a shadow moving across his mind—a voice, a word, repeated once . . . twice . . . softly: "Herod," it had said. "Herod. Herod."

He had looked over to where his only strong opponent sat, the Bishop Duval. Duval was the only churchman left in the Common House of Law Makers, tolerated chiefly for his age and his long standing as a member. But he still had power in the Church. Duval, he remembered, had called him that very word in the early stages of the Bill.

"Herod!" he had thundered out at him. "Slaughterer of innocents! Slayer of the unborn!"

But today, Duval had been strangely silent. As if he'd given up the fight, or as if—

A slight breeze murmurs through the high window. The great curtains flap. A small sound, but startling. Wellborn is startled, then angry with himself. He was a fool to stay here, remembering! And yet . . .

He remembers the Grey Man, sitting alone in the visitors' gallery, as he had every day throughout the debate. An old man, grey-suited, grey-haired, grey-faced. He knew him? No. And yet something familiar about the old man . . . his face . . .

He sits in the darkness.

Remembering.

Remembering the Grey Man.

Duval groans softly as he recalls the day—the dreadful day.

He should have spoken up, tried once more to stem this terrible tide of power. But he had been silent throughout the day's proceedings. Today, with this infamous Bill nearing its final stages, he had been voiceless, letting evil be done, while that arrogant Wellborn rushed through yet another Bill of murder!

He groans aloud. He was an old man, worn out. He was a broken voice crying in the terrible wilderness, an ancient reed bent low by the icy winds of change.

But yesterday, he had tried . . .

"The House well knows my views on abortion!" he had thundered. "And on every other law this glorified social welfare worker has forced—or tried to force—upon this House and our nation! I have sat heartsick, helpless, despairing, while he has put before you evil upon evil. Selective marriage, wedlock forbidden to the unfit—you baulked at that—but what did he offer in its place? Compulsory contraception for the so-called unfit! And you passed that. You allowed abortion by consent, because he pushed it. You refused its abolition, because he pleaded for it—despite irrefutable evidence that the medical profession and the country as a whole were against it and considered it evil. Now—compulsory abortion! State murder! Are you going to allow that?"

He had looked around the silent House.

"How many of us," he had asked, "here in this House, in this world, would be alive if abortion had prevailed in our parents' day? We were allowed to be born, conceived in love, permitted to live, to grow. Will you deny to others what we ourselves were given—the precious gift of life—the gift to be?"

He might have swayed them then, if he'd remained calm. But for a moment his eyes had met Wellborn's, saw the contempt in them, for himself and for all he represented.

"Can't you see"—he had thundered out at them "can't any of you see the way this man's power is growing? What next will he ask for? I'll tell you what next—euthanasia! First, death by relatives' consent, then death by compulsion. He won't be content with saying who shall come into this world, he'll want to say when we shall go out of it. When to kill off the old, the feeble, like sick dogs, regardless of their right to live out their God-given span. And it won't stop there! He'll despatch anyone—anyone—who doesn't fit in with social or world requirements, who makes a mess of his blueprint for that mythical, marvellous world his mind envisages.

"In the plain speaking words of which the Right Honourable Sir William Wellborn is so fond—if he had been aborted over forty years ago this world would have gone a long way to becoming the finer place he wishes it to be!"

He had turned then on Wellborn.

"In the Name of God and all creation, who—what—do you think you are? You're not God! You're not even a man!"

There had been uproar then in the House, voices protesting, a few approving.

"Order! Order!" cried the Speaker. "I will have order!"

Instantly, the House had quietened. Not because of the Speaker, but for Wellborn, who stood there, magnificently unperturbed by the fracas, quietly smiling.

Duval shudders at the memory, sees again that striking figure, so sure, so confident in his power. He hears his voice, calm, cool, ignoring Duval's outburst, ignoring him.

"Pass the law to fit the circumstances," he had said in his firm clear voice. "This you have always done. Now we need this law. We might never have to enforce it, but we need it. Yes, it is hard. But what is our alternative? Is it not better to do the deed before rather than after birth? We can—we must—prevent more illegal births to those forbidden to procreate. We can—we must—prevent births of the unfit; the malformed, the idiots, the uneducable. We can—we must—stem the tide of surplus human beings who threaten to engulf the rapidly dwindling spaces of this earth.

"This is mankind's sole remedy, his long-term defense, and ultimately his glory!"

Wellborn's hated voice bites deep into his mind. How to stop him? How to—?

He hears a light rapping on his door. Who would call so late?

"Come!" he says.

The door opens. Duval stares at his visitor, trying to place him. Then as old eyes meet, gnarled hands grip in greeting. Duval has remembered.

"Morney! It is Morney! Sit down, old friend, sit down! There is much to be said between us."

The Grey Man sits.

Impatiently, Wellborn puts the papers in his case, closes it. He would go home. Another hard day tomorrow. Anyway, this was ridiculous. He hadn't heard a thing—not a whisper, not a sound—but the echo of his own voice when he had finished speaking.

He frowns, not liking the thought engendered. His own voice? His—conscience? Nonsense! Heart and mind, he is for this Bill. It is his baby. He smiles at the apt phase. It had been he who had pushed through the original Bill. He had always advocated it, fought for it, upheld it whenever it seemed threatened with abolition.

He grins suddenly in the darkness. Was he not known by the press as 'Abortion Bill'? He was pleased with the tag. And he was keeping up with the family tradition. Yes, no doubt about it—he was a born leader, and the House knew it. His grin deepens. Not bad for a man of his years, for one who—

He tenses, listening. Then . . . just then . . .? He shakes himself angrily. He had heard nothing—neither then, nor before! It had been—well—an echo of Duval's outburst perhaps, lingering somewhere in the chambers of his own mind. He mustn't let that confounded churchman get him—

His thoughts cease suddenly. Distinctly, clearly, he hears it. It is the same voice, it whispers out to him from the crawling shadows, from the thick blackness of the vast, empty House. Now, as before, a word—repeated once . . . twice . . . softly . . .

"Herod," it says. "Herod. Herod."

"And that's the story of the Wellborns to date," says Duval grimly. "True to pattern, eh?"

"How did he get such power?" Morney's grey eyes are grave, troubled. "One man—how does one man like him get such power? And in so short a time!"

"God knows!" groans Duval. "It just seemed to happen, that's all. Six years ago there was no Wellborn on the political scene. Suddenly, there he was. And soon, a good many people who would have been—were not!"

"Where did he come from?" asks Morney.

"Tasmania, I presume. Soon after he was born, his mother took him there. I wish to God he'd stayed there, died there!" Duval looks curiously at Morney. "But you know more about him than I do. You brought him into the world."

Morney's face becomes greyer, his eyes avoid Duval's. He says slowly: "That's why I've come to see you." He pauses, forcing himself to look at Duval.

"What if I were to tell you—" Morney's voice thickens—"that the Right Honourable Sir William Wellborn—does not exist?"

The small light is a comfortless speck in the enveloping gloom. But he is glad of it. He can barely see the great doors through which he must pass to leave the Chamber. They seem a long way from him.

He is not afraid. Merely curious. But he is glad of the light. It helps him to think, to reason this out. He hadn't heard it—not really, not consciously . . .

Again the voice: "Herod."

And again: "Herod. Herod."

A rush of rage overcomes him. He wheels angrily, calling out to the darkness.

"Duval, is that you?"

Silence. Nothing.

"How's it fixed, Duval? Hidden microphones . . . in the rafters, behind the curtains . . . the visitors' gallery?" He laughs harshly, mockingly. "A little old, aren't you, for such damn silly tricks! How did you get them up there, for God's sake? Or perhaps your angels helped you! Trying to make me believe it's heavenly voices—voices of vengeance, eh? Eh, Duval?"

He feels better, now that he knows. Of course it was Duval—though how he worked it God knows!—playing a senile trick, a last desperate measure to scare him. Scare him—Wellborn! A ludicrous ruse, the old fool! When the House heard about this, Duval would be finished.

But a thought still nags at him. How was it worked? A recording, timed for periodic 'haunting'? Or was Duval here, in the House . . . somewhere . . . in the darkness?

His voice—raw, harsh, tears at the silence.

"It won't work, churchman! This is Wellborn you're dealing with . . . 'Abortion Bill' . . . remember? To hell with you and your damned tricks! To hell with you and your damned morals!"

Silence. Nothing.

"That's my voice, Duval, my voice! Do you hear? This House is filled with my voice, with my laws! With me!"

He stops abruptly, appalled at his own screeching. He listens. Nothing. Not even his own breathing can he hear. The air is dead, the darkness dead.

For the first time in his life, he is suddenly, icily afraid.

He begins to walk—unsteadily, gropingly, towards the doors, holding on to the seat edges as he goes.

Quarter of the way . . . slowly . . . slowly . . . Now by the Speaker's rostrum . . . a little further . . . He pauses. The visitors' gallery is high above him—where the Grey Man sat today . . . and yesterday . . .

The grey face moves across his mind, like a half-formed vision, as seen through eyes that sleep—but do not sleep. His thoughts race ahead of his heartbeat, until his heart knocks louder on his mind. Not far from the doors . . . Now! He reaches out to touch them. He stops. Is stopped. A barrier before and around him. Nothing that he can see or feel or know—but it's there, in the darkness.

The fear grows in him. He stands stricken, in a limbo of terror, in a black void, in a cage of nothingness that is a steel trap around him.

He is cold, yet sweat pours from him like rivulets from a rain-drenched tree. He is a tree—not a man—a living being capable of rational thought, self-governed, moved by his own will! He, the maker of laws, was subject now to other laws to which he gave no credence. His mind struggles, fighting to surface, until gradually conscious thought returns.

"Wait!" his mind says. "This will pass . . . just a while . . . Wait!"

It was something in him, he decides. He alone was responsible for this temporary paralysis. Self-hypnosis—something like that. It was nothing he could not control. If he gave it thought, he could countermand it. He would!

His will says: Move! Walk! His mind demands it. But his body does not obey.

Move! Screams his mind. He tries to echo the scream in his throat, but his mouth will not move either. He sweats, struggles, and while he struggles, his mind and will straining against alien forces, the silence breaks in a wave of whispered sounds. From the great doomed ceiling, from the high corners of the vast chamber, growing louder, nearer—one voice, one cry: "Herod! Herod! Herod!"

The great doors are flung open. Light from the outer chamber rushes in upon him. Instantly, he feels that he is free. He stumbles towards the open doors, almost into the arms of the astonished caretaker.

"Sir William! I heard shouting . . . I thought—Sir William, what is it? Are you ill?"

He brushes the man aside, hurries from the gloomy Chamber, through the reassuringly lighted outer room, into the fresh, clear, open wideness of the night.

Morney quails before Duval's grave, shocked eyes.

"I know it was wrong," he says, "but she begged me to do it. She was afraid how her husband would react if his son, his heir, were deformed."

"Deformed?"

"The chances were high. She'd been taking certain drugs, without my knowledge."

"So you refused it life because it might be deformed?" Duval's voice is stern, uncompromising. He studies Morney's sad, grey face. Then, more gently, he asks: "And was it?"

"No . . . at least . . . not very much." Morney's voice is unsteady. "The left foot had just three toes."

"Dear God!" groans Duval. "To lose one's life—for so little!"

"A small defect, yes," says Morney. "But it was too much for a Wellborn—the high born! She considered the abortion was justified."

"And you?"

"No. But—she was a wealthy and influential woman. Had I refused, she could have ruined me."

"Supposing," asks Duval slowly, "the child had been born malformed—would you have destroyed it?"

"God! No!" cries Morney, shocked.

Ah, such indignation! thinks Duval sadly. But what is the difference? Before or after birth—it was still a living child. It was still murder! But he does not say these things. He knows that Morney has divined his thoughts.

"But why," asked Duval, "the pretence of birth?"

"Without an heir, the Wellborn estate would have been forfeit to the government."

"But there could have been other children!"

"No. The abortion put paid to that."

"And Lord Wellborn—how did you explain to him?"

"A miscarriage."

"And the false registration of birth—did he know of that?"

"No. He died soon after the child . . . died. Lady Wellborn kept to the house until the time when the child would have been born. Then I registered the birth and helped in other ways to establish belief in her son's existence. I set up the management of the estate, then she closed the house and left for Tasmania, ostensibly taking the child with her."

"So," says Duval grimly, "for thirty-four years she lived out a lie, on money that was not rightfully hers."

"It was a penal law," protests Morney, "that left a childless widow penniless when her husband died! Morally, the money was hers, the estate hers!"

"Morally?" Duval's mouth twists in an ironic smile.

Morney takes his meaning. He sighs heavily. "She died," he says softly, "regretting it. I lived regretting it."

Duval looks at him curiously. "Where did you live? As I remember, you yourself left the country soon after Lady Wellborn."

Morney nods. "She paid me well for my services. I—put every penny into a Home for the malformed in—well, it doesn't matter where. It was a grim, lonely place, but I did what I could for them . . . a kind of atonement for—" he stumbles—"for murder."

The word is out. It lies between them in heavy silence. Morney's grey face becomes greyer, older. Duval's heart twists with compassion for this man.

"What's done is done!" he says briskly. "But it is not too late to do something about this impostor." He frowns. "How could he have known about the abortion, that there was no heir to the Wellborn estate? None but yourself and Lady Wellborn knew about it, yet immediately she died he took over the estate and entered politics—just as the real Wellborn would have done—if he had lived."

Morney turns desperately towards him. "Tell me, Duval, have I—could I—have altered destiny? If the real Wellborn had been allowed to live—might things have been different? I mean . . . all those who were killed before birth because of this impostor's law . . . all those who were not even conceived—would these have known life—if I had let him live?"

Duval hesitates, seeing the grey tortured face, the haunted eyes.

He says: "I doubt it—I doubt it very much. You know as well as I do that it is a tradition with the Wellborns to ensure a good world—for their kind! Their family motto is 'Who cannot be well born shall not he born!' . . . and 'The unfit shall not conceive!' . . . and 'The useless shall die!' " He laughs, without humour, dryly, harshly. "The motto gets longer with each succeeding Wellborn. No—alive or dead—born or aborted—the Right Honourable Sir William Wellborn would have been true to the faith of his fathers!"

He is quiet for a moment, appalled by his own words. He didn't really believe that. The laws of heredity were not that rigid. Men's souls were not necessarily patterns of the past, a man's spirit was not the blueprint of his ancestors. Maybe—who knows—if the real Wellborn had lived—so many would not have died!

But he is glad that he has said it. Some of the greyness departs from Morney's face. The load has been lightened, the guilt does not cut so cruel, so deep.

"What shall we do?" he asks.

Duval's eyes hardened. "Tomorrow, in the height of his power, in his moment of triumph, we'll strike him down! By the time we've finished with him, he'll wish he'd never been born!" He hesitates, looks at Morney. "I will need you. Will you come?"

"I will come," says Morney. "It is time—my time . . . and his!"

"We can do this quietly, Morney. Not for his sake . . . but for yours."

Morney's eyes are grateful with relief.

Duval looks at the clock. "Stay here tonight. Tomorrow, we'll get to the House early . . . he's always there first. We'll face him with it. He'll get out of politics . . . and the country . . . faster than he came in! Once again, the Right Honourable Sir William Wellborn is due for a disappearance—and this time he won't be coming back!"

He stands uncertainly beside his car. His legs tremble still. He decides to walk, give himself time to explain the inexplicable—for explanation there must be.

His steps make lonely echoes on the night pavements. He casts no shadow, for the quiet streets are dark. He walks alone in a silent world . . . thinking . . . thinking . . .

Gradually his heartbeat steadies in the crisp sweetness of the air, his legs feel part of him once more. He is almost himself again.

He turns suddenly, and wonders why. He had heard nothing. He sees nothing. He walks on, angry with himself.

He has reached a decision. Tomorrow, when the Bill was Law, he would take a holiday—it was all he needed. He was fit—always had been—as far back as he could remember . . . He frowns. There had been those periods when his memory played him up . . . and there had been dreams . . . disturbing dreams . . . Signs of strain, he could see that now. He should have heeded the warning. Well, he would now.

Meanwhile . . . a good night's sleep . . . that's all he wanted to see him through the following day. His mind turns to Duval. Have to do something about that damned churchman! It would be tricky, for he had quite a following in high places—heaven, mostly! He grins delightedly at his joke. The old fool had been right though—euthanasia was his next move. And Duval would be one of the first to go!

He walks on . . . thinking . . . planning . . .

It felt good, the night—the clear air, the crisp lonely streets. Felt good to walk alone, as if he owned it all—the street, the houses, the people, the city. They were his, in a way. He had made them what they were, and many cities like this one. He had improved people's lives. And his influence was spreading, his laws, his ideas, were being adopted by other countries. There was more food, more work, more leisure, more room—because there were less people. It was the Wellborn answer—always had been. But it had taken him to get things this far.

He breathes deeply, drinking in the night. Yes, it was good to be alive!

He comes to a row of mean, tightly packed little houses. They would go soon, he'd see to that! At least his compulsory contraception law had considerably lessened overcrowding in this area, raised the general level of living. Take this place, for instance. It would be swarming with poor, underfed children—imbeciles some of them—uneducable most of them. Misfits, drains on the community.

He draws level with the first house. Its grubby-curtained windows reflect dully in the cold starlight. He passes it . . . and the next . . . before the sound reaches him.

A soft sighing, a low lamenting, riffles through the silence. He stops, listens, straining to catch it, so faint it is. As he listens, it loudens, rises in pitch, grows in volume, a collective cry of mourning, of human misery, of grief and despair. It strikes at his heart, chilling it, stopping it. Would no one hear it . . . waken . . . come out of their houses? Surely they must hear it—such wailing, such . . .

He remembers suddenly that the houses are empty, their owners evicted months ago. A sullen, low-class group, all of them subject to the compulsory contraception laws which none had dared to break.

A memory forces itself into his mind—something Duval had said in one of his diatribes. Something about Rachel . . . a voice . . .? 'A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and sweet mourning; Rachel bewailing her children and would not be comforted because they are not.' BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT!

He moves away from the houses, striding swiftly, as if he would walk away from his thoughts, from the sound. He walks desperately, blindly, forcing his mind into blankness, until the row of houses is far behind him. But the sound follows—the moaning, the crying, the . . . lamentation . . . He is almost running now, running without thought, except one—to be home.

He stops. The last wail has died away. Silence all about him. Deep silence. The streets are void. Blackness. Everywhere blackness.

Then a sound.

A footfall. Soft as a flake of snow upon snow. But he hears it clearly in the empty soundless night. He turns. No one.

He urges on. Nearing home now. He sees the iron gates, his driveway, the distant light in the house porch.

Again the sound. He turns. Something small, something grey . . . no, not grey . . . no colour at all, really. No form either. It was nothing! He reaches for the gates, opens them, slips inside. His feet scrunch on gravel—a heartening, homely sound. He begins to walk. Stops. Is stopped. A barrier before and around him. Nothing that he can see or feel or know. But it is there, as before. Like a steel trap.

"Who is it? Who is it?" He calls out, but he cannot hear his voice—only the silence, sees only the blackness, the empty soundless blackness. He tastes the panic in his mouth, does desperate battle with it. He will keep calm, sane . . . he will!

Suddenly the darkness is full of shadows—grey shadows . . . no . . . no colour at all, really . . . and no form that he can recognise. They are coming out at him from the blackness, a throng of moving, gliding nebulous shapes that are shadows, shadows that are shapes.

Something detaches itself from the greyish mass . . . something small, very small . . . so very small.

His heart beats in his dried up throat. Something speaks, yet does not speak. But he hears.

"Come! Come! Come!"

He thinks he is running, but he is not running. He is borne through dark streets like a rush of wind in the still air, past silent, sleeping houses, by the black waters of the river, in a scurry of time that has no part with time.

A huge dark shape stabs the sky above him. He stands before the House. He is alone. All is darkness. Nothing but quiet darkness.

He waits . . .

And something that is very small moves in the darkness, and a voice that is not a voice says: "Come!" And he has no time for thought . . . no time for terror . . . no time . . .

Now he has time for terror. He is aware of himself, of where he is. He stands within the House! How? How? How? And why?

Pale moonlight shafts through the high windows. He looks about him, at the emptiness, the silence. Yet he is conscious of movement, of life . . . somewhere . . . all around him, close-packed in vast emptiness, filling every speck of space with life . . . crowding him . . . suffocating . . .

He tries to fling himself to the floor, but a force unseen, unfelt, holds him upright.

"Who are you? Why am I here?" he wants to shout, but he does not. Anger, pride, assert themselves, smothering his fear. He would not speak with ghosts, with non-existent things! He'd be damned if he would! But then . . . His fear returns. Might he not be damned if he didn't?

Anger again overcomes him. That he, Sir William Wellborn, should even think of damnation and ghosts! He'd had dreams before. They passed. Morning brought its relief and release. Patience. This dream will pass. Like the others . . .

Sound breaking silence. A voice . . . a familiar word: "Herod."

He shouts then: "Let me see you! Let me see you!"

Silence. An eternity of moment, then:—"You see us! You see us!" A clear voice, ringing, echoing . . . and another . . . and another . . . voice upon voice, from every part of the great House.

His head spins this way . . . that way . . . up . . . down . . . around, as each voice takes up the cry: "You see us! You see us!"

And he sees!

His trembling hand goes to his forehead, as if he would brush this nightmare from his sleeping eyes. But his eyes do not sleep. They look . . . see . . .

They hang suspended in air, like tiny curled clouds floating in a void. They drift lower, nearer . . . to him. They pass before him, above and behind him, until they are a cage about him. And he sees into the transparent, tiny curled clouds.

Yet still his mind says: Wait! It will pass . . . fade away with the night. Soon be over . . . when morning comes!

Then he hears the voice that is not a voice, that speaks yet does not speak, and it is as the sound of many whispers, saying: "These are the womb-dwellers, the unborn. These are they who were and are not, who lived, but had no chance to live! Look well on these who are slain in the womb!"

"Slain in the womb! Slain in the womb!" The sound fills his ears, his head, as from the mass of clouds about him the phantom foetuses take up the cry. Then the voices cease. They drift away from him, melting into the shadows.

Revulsion mingles with his terror as others take their place—tiny, grotesque parodies of human form that swirl in clouds around him.

Again, the voice that is not a voice: "These are the malformed, the cripples, the idiots. These are the unfit, who wanted to live, but are not. Look well on these who wanted to live!"

There is a violence upon him. "To live?" he mocks. "You're dead, you're dead, you're dead! You don't exist because you're not fit to live!"

"Not fit to live! Not fit to live!" The wailing chills the anger in him. He stands, like a stone, waiting for it to cease, for them to pass.

And, as before, in silence they fade, and the darkness is filled with larger shadows and from the mass something moves forward, stands before him. Light shines through it, yet it has shape—perfect human shape, full-grown—and it is beautiful and he cannot look upon it. Its voice, too, is beautiful, clear-toned, ringing: "We are the unconceived—who never were and will never be. Among us are the great ones, whom the world never knew and never will know. They are the world's lost heritage, her glory that never was and will not be. Among us too are the souls that wait to be conceived, but do not know if they await in vain."

He laughs: high, cracked, desperate laughter. He cannot hear his laughter, and he is glad. That proves it is a dream! He would cheat them—yes, even in his dreams he could, would prove himself the master!

"Wait then—wait forever!" he screams. "Wait for bodies that will never come, because I won't let them come! Mourn then for bodies lost, because I killed them—I, Herod . . ." He chokes. No, not Herod, he hadn't meant to say that . . . not even in a dream! "I, Wellborn, will go on preventing them, preventing you, from peopling our world! There'll be others never born—many others! This world is not for you! Not for the freaks, the idiots, the cripples, the fools! You can't come into it as you like, taking our food, our jobs, cramming our country, sharing our wealth, stealing our happiness! There's no room for you! No room, no room!"

"No room, no room!" they chorus in echoing cry.

He shouts above them lashing out in savage oratory: "Who cares what—or how many—great men may be lost!"

"Who cares? Who cares?" they echo.

"We have to take that chance—we take that chance—we will always take that chance!" Familiar words—words which formed some of his answers to Duval—Of course! All this was his doing!

"Duval!" he cries. "He sent you, didn't he! Sent you into my dreams to torment me, to curse me, to cause me to waken sweating, trembling, conscience-stricken! Well, I'll waken all right—but not sweating, trembling, conscience-stricken! I'll waken tomorrow and come to this House, and you'll be gone, and I'll get my way and they'll pass my Law and there's nothing—nothing—that you or that meddling churchman can do about it! And it won't be a dream! When morning comes—you'll see, you'll see! My word stays, my Law stays—because I live! You don't! Do you hear me, ghosts of the unborn? YOU DON'T EXIST! YOU NEVER WERE! Just figures in my dream . . . ghosts in a living man's dream!"

His voice fades, trailing in the still air. He is alone. He is exultant. He had banished them from his dream—Dream? He had heard his own voice! He fights his panic. So what? One could actually talk—shout—in a dream, especially a vivid dream, such as this. Patience! he tells himself. All he had to do was wait until morning . . . wait until morning . . .

The House lies hushed, empty, in the deep night. He waits for the dream to end, that he may drift in quiet sleep towards the inevitable dawn.

Something in the shadows moves. He groans, shudders. The dream is not yet over. A voice calls out of the shadows: "You are nothing! You never were! Like us, you are nothing!"

Ice grips his heart as he breathes in the cry.

"One of us! One of us! One of us!"

His head spins this way, that way, all around, as the clamour and the crying grows. He flings wide his arms, flaying the dark emptiness around him.

"No! No! I am! I live! It is you who are nothing!"

His voice thunders out, filling the House with its sound and its fury. Abruptly, the clamour and the crying ceases. Not an echo remains. He is alone. In silence. In darkness. Even the moon has bowed before the night.

And the darkness and the nothingness move in upon him. He is seized by a mighty force that lifts and sweeps him upwards . . .

He stands on the edge of the visitors' gallery, high above the House. Aware of himself and yet not aware, alive and yet not alive. He waits as if before Creation, when all was nothing and earth a void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

Then moonlight trembles through the windows and they come and fill the House before him. Host upon host of them—shapes that are shadows, shadows that are shapes, formless yet having form. And the womb-clouds, transparent in moonlight, fill the air above them and hang, unmoving, in the stillness.

Now he no longer sees them. For there is a wall around him—soft, yielding but impenetrable; a wall he has no desire to break or reach beyond, so safe is he in its warm and gentle bounds. A calmness dwells within him, and a peace, that has no part with sleep.

And he is not ready for the tearing, rushing sound that breaks him from the soft warm darkness and rips him into terror.

Sudden light spills in upon him, and in its centre—a face—the face of the Grey Man. There is steel in the moonlight . . . terror . . . death . . .

Grey eyes, grey face, looming larger, nearer . . . moonlight on steel . . . grey face . . . grey eyes . . .

Steel.

Moonlight.

Steel.

"Come!" says the voice that is not a voice.

He cannot hear it.

But he comes.

They stand in the outer chamber of the House, in the early morning quietness.

Morney glances uncertainly at Duval.

"He will be there?"

"Sure to be. This is his great day!" Duval's voice is grim, but he is uneasy. He does not want to feel triumph over a foe about to fall.

"Duval." Morney speaks softly, divining his feelings, his thoughts. "Let me see him! After all, it was my guilt that made it possible."

Duval hesitates. "What will you tell him?"

"The truth."

"Very well." His voice is gruff with relief. "I'll wait here."

Morney pushes open one of the great doors, closes it quickly behind him.

Duval waits, his eyes fastened on the closed doors. A thought disturbs him. What if the man is violent? What if the doctor—His unease grows. He pushes open the door, enters the Chamber.

He stops. Morney is kneeling beside something on the floor beneath the visitors' gallery—something crumpled, sprawled . . .

"Morney!"

The doctor looks up. He is trembling violently.

"Is he—dead?" asks Duval quietly.

Morney does not answer.

"In the Name of God, man—what is it?"

Morney shakes his head. "Not in the Name of God, Duval! Not in His Name!"

Duval does not know the doctor's voice. It is thick, strange—as though he were someone else. It spurs Duval to his side.

"Have you examined him?"

Morney gets up quickly as Duval approaches, stands between him and the crumpled heap on the floor.

"Yes . . . yes, he's—dead!"

"Don't blame yourself for this, Morney! He couldn't have known that you were about to end his masquerade."

"No. He couldn't have known."

Duval looks at him closely, curiously. It was still not Morney's voice. And his face was as if death had touched him also. He tries to move past him, but Morney puts out a pleading hand.

"No, Duval! Don't touch him! He's—been dead a long time . . . the soul has surely gone!"

Duval is gently reproachful. "We cannot say that. No one knows how long the soul remains with the body. I must give him conditional absolution."

"Absolution?" Morney laughs, and—like his voice—the laughter is not his. "The innocent need no absolution!"

"The innocent!" Duval stares at him. "Hardly that, Morney! Penitent, perhaps, in those last few seconds before he—" He glances briefly up at the visitors' gallery then gently but firmly sets the trembling doctor aside.

Duval is kneeling now, pulling apart the coat that Wellborn had worn yesterday in the House. A crushed and twisted body, a battered, bloody head stove in by the violent fall—these he had been prepared to see, and the soul that might be in them to forgive.

But these things he does not see. Just bands of linen, yellow-aged, incongruous in the midst of the crumpled, empty clothing.

Duval is very still. The blessing of heaven is in his hands and his heart, but in his mind in his soul—a strange and awful knowledge of the living powers of hell.

His fingers touch the linen bands. Slowly, and with dread, he sets them aside. Morney scarcely breathes beside him, so still is he. Then:—

"A long time," says Morney. "Dead . . . a long, long time . . ."

Duval looks down at what his trembling hands have uncovered.

Something small, so very small—so very, very small.

And on the little left foot of the tiny withered body—just three toes.

Just three toes.

PREY by Richard Matheson

Amelia arrived at her apartment at six-fourteen. Hanging her coat in the hall closet, she carried the small package into the living room and sat on the sofa. She nudged off her shoes while she unwrapped the package on her lap. The wooden box resembled a casket. Amelia raised its lid and smiled. It was the ugliest doll she'd ever seen. Seven inches long and carved from wood, it had a skeletal body and an oversize head. Its expression was maniacally fierce, its pointed teeth completely bared, its glaring eyes protuberant. It clutched an eight-inch spear in its right hand. A length of fine, gold chain was wrapped around its body from the shoulders to the knees. A tiny scroll was wedged between the doll and the inside wall of its box. Amelia picked it up and unrolled it. There was handwriting on it. This is He Who Kills, it began. He is a deadly hunter. Amelia smiled as she read the rest of the words. Arthur would be pleased.

The thought of Arthur made her turn to look at the telephone on the table beside her. After a while, she sighed and set the wooden box on the sofa. Lifting the telephone to her lap, she picked up the receiver and dialed a number.

Her mother answered.

"Hello, Mom," Amelia said.

"Haven't you left yet?" her mother asked.

Amelia steeled herself. "Mom, I know it's Friday night . . ." she started.

She couldn't finish. There was silence on the line. Amelia closed her eyes. Mom, please, she thought. She swallowed. "There's this man," she said. "His name is Arthur Breslow. He's a high school teacher."

"You aren't coming," her mother said.

Amelia shivered. "It's his birthday," she said. She opened her eyes and looked at the doll. "I sort of promised him we'd . . . spend the evening together."

Her mother was silent. There aren't any good movies playing tonight, anyway, Amelia's mind continued. "We could go tomorrow night," she said.

Her mother was silent.

"Mom?"

"Now even Friday night's too much for you."

"Mom, I see you two, three nights a week."

"To visit," said her mother. "When you have your own room here."

"Mom, let's not start on that again," Amelia said. I'm not a child, she thought. Stop treating me as though I were a child!

"How long have you been seeing him?" her mother asked.

"A month or so."

"Without telling me," her mother said.

"I had every intention of telling you." Amelia's head was starting to throb. I will not get a headache, she told herself. She looked at the doll. It seemed to be glaring at her. "He's a nice man, Mom," she said.

Her mother didn't speak. Amelia felt her stomach muscles drawing taut. I won't be able to eat tonight, she thought.

She was conscious suddenly of huddling over the telephone. She forced herself to sit erect. I'm 33 years old, she thought. Reaching out, she lifted the doll from its box. "You should see what I'm giving him for his birthday," she said. "I found it in a curio shop on Third Avenue. It's a genuine Zuni fetish doll, extremely rare. Arthur is a buff on anthropology. That's why I got it for him."

There was silence on the line. All right, don't talk, Amelia thought. "It's a hunting fetish," she continued, trying hard to sound untroubled. "It's supposed to have the spirit of a Zuni hunter trapped inside it. There's a golden chain around it to prevent the spirit from" (She couldn't think of the word. She ran a shaking finger over the chain.) "escaping, I guess," she said. "His name is He Who Kills. You should see his face." She felt warm tears trickling down her cheeks.

"Have a good time," said her mother, hanging up.

Amelia stared at the receiver, listening to the dial tone. Why is it always like this? she thought. She dropped the receiver onto its cradle and set aside the telephone. The darkening room looked blurred to her. She stood the doll on the coffee-table edge and pushed to her feet. I'll take my bath now, she told herself. I'll meet him and we'll have a lovely time. She walked across the living room. A lovely time, her mind repeated emptily. She knew it wasn't possible. Oh, Mom! she thought. She clenched her fist in helpless fury as she went into the bedroom.

In the living room, the doll fell off the table edge. It landed head down and the spear point, sticking into the carpet, braced the doll's legs in the air.

The fine, gold chain began to slither downward.

It was almost dark when Amelia came back into the living room. She had taken off her clothes and was wearing her terrycloth robe. In the bathroom, water was running into the tub.

She sat on the sofa and placed the telephone on her lap. For several minutes, she stared at it. At last, with a heavy sigh, she lifted the receiver and dialed a number.

"Arthur?" she said when he answered.

"Yes?" Amelia knew the tone; pleasant but suspecting. She couldn't speak.

"Your mother," Arthur finally said.

That cold, heavy sinking in her stomach. "It's our night together," she explained. "Every Friday—" She stopped and waited. Arthur didn't speak. "I've mentioned it before," she said.

"I know you've mentioned it," he said.

Amelia rubbed at her temple.

"She's still running your life, isn't she?" he said.

Amelia tensed. "I just don't want to hurt her feelings anymore," she said. "My moving out was hard enough on her."

"I don't want to hurt her feelings either," Arthur said. "But how many birthdays a year do I have? We planned on this."

"I know." She felt her stomach muscles tightening again.

"Are you really going to let her do this to you?" Arthur asked. "One Friday night out of the whole year?"

Amelia closed her eyes. Her lips moved soundlessly. I just can't hurt her feelings anymore, she thought. She swallowed. "She's my mother," she said.

"Very well," he said. "I'm sorry. I was looking forward to it, but—" He paused. "I'm sorry," he said. He hung up quietly.

Amelia sat in silence for a long time, listening to the dial tone. She started when the recorded voice said, loudly, "Please hang up." Putting the receiver down, she replaced the telephone on its table. So much for my birthday present, she thought. It would be pointless to give it to Arthur now. She reached out, switching on the table lamp. She'd take the doll back tomorrow.

The doll was not on the coffee table. Looking down, Amelia saw the gold chain lying on the carpet. She eased off the sofa edge onto her knees and picked it up, dropping it into the wooden box. The doll was not beneath the coffee table. Bending over, Amelia felt around underneath the sofa.

She cried out, jerking back her hand. Straightening up, she turned to the lamp and looked at her hand. There was something wedged beneath the index fingernail. She shivered as she plucked it out. It was the head of the doll's spear. She dropped it into the box and put the finger in her mouth. Bending over again, she felt around more cautiously beneath the sofa.

She couldn't find the doll. Standing with a weary groan, she started pulling one end of the sofa from the wall. It was terribly heavy. She recalled the night that she and her mother had shopped for furniture. She'd wanted to furnish the apartment in Danish modern. Mother had insisted on this heavy, maple sofa; it had been on sale. Amelia grunted as she dragged it from the wall. She was conscious of the water running in the bathroom. She'd better turn it off soon.

She looked at the section of the carpet she'd cleared, catching sight of the spear shaft. The doll was not beside it. Amelia picked it up and set it on the coffee table. The doll was caught beneath the sofa, she decided; when she'd moved the sofa, she had moved the doll as well.

She thought she heard a sound behind her—fragile, skittering. Amelia turned. The sound had stopped. She felt a chill move up the backs of her legs. "It's He Who Kills," she said with a smile. "He's taken off his chain and gone—"

She broke off suddenly. There had definitely been a noise inside the kitchen; a metallic, rasping sound. Amelia swallowed nervously. What's going on? she thought. She walked across the living room and reached into the kitchen, switching on the light. She peered inside. Everything looked normal. Her gaze moved falteringly across the stove, the pan of water on it, the table and chair, the drawers and cabinet doors all shut, the electric clock, the small refrigerator with the cookbook lying on top of it, the picture on the wall, the knife rack fastened to the cabinet side—its small knife missing.

Amelia stared at the knife rack. Don't be silly, she told herself. She'd put the knife in the drawer, that's all. Stepping into the kitchen, she pulled out the silverware drawer. The knife was not inside it.

Another sound made her look down quickly at the floor. She gasped in shock. For several moments, she could not react; then, stepping to the doorway, she looked into the living room, her heart-beat thudding. Had it been imagination? She was sure she'd seen a movement.

"Oh, come on," she said. She made a disparaging sound. She hadn't seen a thing.

Across the room, the lamp went out.

Amelia jumped so startledly, she rammed her right elbow against the door-jamb. Crying out, she clutched the elbow with her left hand, eyes closed momentarily, her face a mask of pain.

She opened her eyes and looked into the darkened living room. "Come on," she told herself in aggravation. Three sounds plus a burned-out bulb did not add up to anything as idiotic as—

She willed away the thought. She had to turn the water off. Leaving the kitchen, she started for the hall. She rubbed her elbow, grimacing.

There was another sound. Amelia froze. Something was coming across the carpet toward her. She looked down dumbly. No, she thought.

She saw it then: a rapid movement near the floor. There was a glint of metal; instantly, a stabbling pain in her right calf. Amelia gasped. She kicked out blindly. Pain again. She felt warm blood running down her skin. She turned and lunged into the hall. The throw rug slipped beneath her and she fell against the wall, hot pain lancing through her right ankle. She clutched at the wall to keep from falling, then went sprawling on her side. She thrashed around with a sob of fear.

More movement, dark on dark. Pain in her left calf, then her right again. Amelia cried out. Something brushed along her thigh. She scrabbled back, then lurched up blindly, almost falling again. She fought for balance, reaching out convulsively. The heel of her left hand rammed against the wall, supporting her. She twisted around and rushed into the darkened bedroom. Slamming the door, she fell against it, panting. Something banged against it on the other side; something small and near the floor.

Amelia listened, trying not to breathe so loudly. She pulled carefully at the knob to make sure the latch had caught. When there were no further sounds outside the door, she backed toward the bed. She started as she bumped against the mattress edge. Slumping down, she grabbed at the extension phone and pulled it to her lap. Whom could she call? The police? They'd think her mad. Mother? She was too far off.

She was dialing Arthur's number by the light from the bathroom when the doorknob started turning. Suddenly, her fingers couldn't move. She stared across the darkened room. The door latch clicked. The telephone slipped off her lap. She heard it thudding onto the carpet as the door swung open. Something dropped from the outside knob.

Amelia jerked back, pulling up her legs. A shadowy form was scurrying across the carpet toward the bed. She gaped at it. It isn't true, she thought. She stiffened at the tugging on her bedspread. It was climbing up to get her. No, she thought; it isn't true. She couldn't move. She stared at the edge of the mattress.

Something that looked like a tiny head appeared. Amelia twisted around with a cry of shock, flung herself across the bed and jumped to the floor. Plunging into the bathroom, she spun around and slammed the door, gasping at the pain in her ankle. She had barely thumbed in the button on the doorknob when something banged against the bottom of the door. Amelia heard a noise like the scratching of a rat. Then it was still.

She turned and leaned across the tub. The level of the water was almost to the overflow drain. As she twisted shut the faucets, she saw drops of blood falling into the water. Straightening up, she turned to the medicine-cabinet mirror above the sink.

She caught her breath in horror as she saw the gash across her neck. She pressed a shaking hand against it. Abruptly, she became aware of pain in her legs and looked down. She'd been slashed along the calves of both legs. Blood was running down her ankles, dripping off the edges of her feet. Amelia started crying. Blood ran between the fingers of the hand against her neck. It trickled down her wrist. She looked at her reflection through a glaze of tears.

Something in her face aroused her: a wretchedness, a look of terrified surrender. No, she thought. She reached out for the medicine-cabinet door. Opening it, she pulled out iodine, gauze and tape. She dropped the cover of the toilet seat and sank down gingerly. It was a struggle to remove the stopper of the iodine bottle. She had to rap it hard against the sink three times before it opened.

The burning of the antiseptic on her calves made her gasp. Amelia clenched her teeth as she wrapped gauze around her right leg.

A sound made her twist toward the door. She saw the knife blade being jabbed beneath it. It's trying to stab my feet, she thought; it thinks I'm standing there. She felt unreal to be considering its thoughts. This is He Who Kills; the scroll flashed suddenly across her mind. He is a deadly hunter. Amelia stared at the poking knife blade. God, she thought.

Hastily, she bandaged both her legs, then stood and, looking into the mirror, cleaned the blood from her neck with a washrag. She swabbed some iodine along the edges of the gash, hissing at the fiery pain.

She whirled at the new sound, heart-beat leaping. Stepping to the door, she leaned down, listening hard. There was a faint, metallic noise inside the knob.

The doll was trying to unlock it.

Amelia backed off slowly, staring at the knob. She tried to visualize the doll. Was it hanging from the knob by one arm, using the other to probe inside the knob lock with the knife? The vision was insane. She felt an icy prickling on the back of her neck. I mustn't let it in, she thought.

A hoarse cry pulled her lips back as the doorknob button popped out. Reaching out impulsively, she dragged a bath towel off its rack. The doorknob turned, the latch clicked free. The door began to open.

Suddenly, the doll came darting in. It moved so quickly that its figure blurred before Amelia's eyes. She swung the towel down hard, as though it were a huge bug rushing at her. The doll was knocked against the wall. Amelia heaved the towel on top of it and lurched across the floor, gasping at the pain in her ankle. Flinging open the door, she lunged into the bedroom.

She was almost to the hall door when her ankle gave. She pitched across the carpet with a cry of shock. There was a noise behind her. Twisting around, she saw the doll come through the bathroom doorway like a jumping spider. She saw the knife blade glinting in the light. Then the doll was in the shadows, coming at her fast. Amelia scrabbled back. She glanced over her shoulder, saw the closet and backed into its darkness, clawing for the doorknob.

Pain again; an icy slashing at her foot. Amelia screamed and heaved back. Reaching up, she yanked a topcoat down. It fell across the doll. She jerked down everything in reach. The doll was buried underneath a mound of blouses, skirts and dresses. Amelia pitched across the moving pile of clothes. She forced herself to stand and limped into the hall as quickly as she could. The sound of thrashing underneath the clothes faded from her hearing. She hobbled to the door. Unlocking it, she pulled the knob.

The door was held. Amelia reached up quickly to the bolt. It had been shot. She tried to pull it free. It wouldn't budge. She clawed at it with sudden terror. It was twisted out of shape. "No," she muttered. She was trapped. "Oh, God." She started pounding on the door. "Please help me! Help me!"

Sound in the bedroom. Amelia whirled and lurched across the living room. She dropped to her knees beside the sofa, feeling for the telephone, but her fingers trembled so much that she couldn't dial the numbers. She began to sob, then twisted around with a strangled cry. The doll was rushing at her from the hallway.

Amelia grabbed an ashtray from the coffee table and hurled it at the doll. She threw a vase, a wooden box, a figurine. She couldn't hit the doll. It reached her, started jabbing at her legs. Amelia reared up blindly and fell across the coffee table. Rolling to her knees, she stood again. She staggered toward the hall, shoving over furniture to stop the doll. She toppled a chair, a table. Picking up a lamp, she hurled it at the floor. She backed into the hall, and spinning, rushed into the closet, slammed the door shut.

She held the knob with rigid fingers. Waves of hot breath pulsed against her face. She cried out as the knife was jabbed beneath the door, its sharp point sticking into one of her toes. She shuffled back, shifting her grip on the knob. Her robe hung open. She could feel a trickle of blood between her breasts. Her legs felt numb with pain. She closed her eyes. Please, someone help, she thought.

She stiffened as the doorknob started turning in her grasp. Her flesh went cold. It couldn't be stronger than she; it couldn't be. Amelia tightened her grip. Please, she thought. The side of her head bumped against the front edge of her suitcase on the shelf.

The thought exploded in her mind. Holding the knob with her right hand, she reached up, fumbling, with her left. The suitcase clasps were open. With a sudden wrench, she turned the door-knob, shoving at the door as hard as possible. It rushed away from her. She heard it bang against the wall. The doll thumped down.

Amelia reached up, hauling down her suitcase. Yanking open the lid, she fell to her knees in the closet doorway, holding the suitcase like an open book. She braced herself, eyes wide, teeth clenched together. She felt the doll's weight as it banged against the suitcase bottom. Instantly, she slammed the lid and threw the suitcase flat. Falling across it, she held it shut until her shaking hands could fasten the clasps. The sound of them clicking into place made her sob with relief. She shoved away the suitcase. It slid across the hall and bumped against the wall. Amelia struggled to her feet, trying not to listen to the frenzied kicking and scratching inside the suitcase.

She switched on the hall light and tried to open the bolt. It was hopelessly wedged. She turned and limped across the living room, glancing at her legs. The bandages were hanging loose. Both legs were streaked with caking blood, some of the gashes still bleeding. She felt at her throat. The cut was still wet. Amelia pressed her shaking lips together. She'd get to a doctor soon now.

Removing the ice pick from its kitchen drawer, she returned to the hall. A cutting sound made her look toward the suitcase. She caught her breath. The knife blade was protruding from the suitcase wall, moving up and down with a sawing motion. Amelia stared at it. She felt as though her body had been turned to stone.

She limped to the suitcase and knelt beside it, looking, with revulsion, at the sawing blade. It was smeared with blood. She tried to pinch it with the fingers of her left hand, pull it out. The blade was twisted, jerked down, and she cried out, snatching back her hand. There was a deep slice in her thumb. Blood ran down across her palm. Amelia pressed the finger to her robe. She felt as though her mind were going blank.

Pushing to her feet, she limped back to the door and started prying at the bolt. She couldn't get it loose. Her thumb began to ache. She pushed the ice pick underneath the bolt socket and tried to force it off the wall. The ice pick point broke off. Amelia slipped and almost fell. She pushed up, whimpering. There was no time, no time. She looked around in desperation.

The window! She could throw the suitcase out! She visualized it tumbling through the darkness. Hastily, she dropped the ice pick, turning toward the suitcase.

She froze. The doll had forced its head and shoulders through the rent in the suitcase wall. Amelia watched it struggling to get out. She felt paralyzed. The twisting doll was staring at her. No, she thought; it isn't true. The doll jerked free its legs and jumped to the floor.

Amelia jerked around and ran into the living room. Her right foot landed on a shard of broken crockery. She felt it cutting deep into her heel and lost her balance. Landing on her side, she thrashed around. The doll came leaping at her. She could see the knife blade glint. She kicked out wildly, knocking back the doll. Lunging to her feet, she reeled into the kitchen, whirled and started pushing shut the door.

Something kept it from closing. Amelia thought she heard a screaming in her mind. Looking down, she saw the knife and a tiny wooden hand. The doll's arm was wedged between the door and the jamb! Amelia shoved against the door with all her might, aghast at the strength with which the door was pushed the other way. There was a cracking noise. A fierce smile pulled her lips back and she pushed berserkly at the door. The screaming in her mind grew louder, drowning out the sound of splintering wood.

The knife blade sagged. Amelia dropped to her knees and tugged at it. She pulled the knife into the kitchen, seeing the wooden hand and wrist fall from the handle of the knife. With a gagging noise, she struggled to her feet and dropped the knife into the sink. The door slammed hard against her side; the doll rushed in.

Amelia jerked away from it. Picking up the chair, she slung it toward the doll. It jumped aside, then ran around the fallen chair. Amelia snatched the pan of water off the stove and hurled it down. The pan clanged loudly off the floor, spraying water on the doll.

She stared at the doll. It wasn't coming after her. It was trying to climb the sink, leaping up and clutching at the counter with one hand. It wants the knife, she thought. It has to have its weapon.

She knew abruptly what to do. Stepping over to the stove, she pulled down the broiler door and twisted the knob on all the way. She heard the puffing detonation of the gas as she turned to grab the doll.

She cried out as the doll began to kick and twist, its maddened thrashing flinging her from one side of the kitchen to the other. The screaming filled her mind again and suddenly she knew it was the spirit in the doll that screamed. She slid and crashed against the table, wrenched herself around and, dropping to her knees before the stove, flung the doll inside. She slammed the door and fell against it.

The door was almost driven out. Amelia pressed her shoulder, then her back against it, turning to brace her legs against the wall. She tried to ignore the pounding scrabble of the doll inside the broiler. She watched the red blood pulsing from her heel. The smell of burning wood began to reach her and she closed her eyes. The door was getting hot. She shifted carefully. The kicking and pounding filled her ears. The screaming flooded through her mind. She knew her back would get burned, but she didn't dare to move. The smell of burning wood grew worse. Her foot ached terribly.

Amelia looked up at the electric clock on the wall. It was four minutes to seven. She watched the red second hand revolving slowly. A minute passed. The screaming in her mind was fading now. She shifted uncomfortably, gritting her teeth against the burning heat on her back.

Another minute passed. The kicking and the pounding stopped. The screaming faded more and more. The smell of burning wood had filled the kitchen. There was a pall of gray smoke in the air. That they'll see, Amelia thought. Now that it's over, they'll come and help. That's the way it always is.

She started to ease herself away from the broiler door, ready to throw her weight back against it if she had to. She turned around and got on her knees. The reek of charred wood made her nauseated. She had to know, though. Reaching out, she pulled down the door.

Something dark and stifling rushed across her and she heard the screaming in her mind once more as hotness flooded over her and into her. It was a scream of victory now.

Amelia stood and turned off the broiler. She took a pair of ice tongs from its drawer and lifted out the blackened twist of wood. She dropped it into the sink and ran water over it until the smoke had stopped. Then she went into the bedroom, picked up the telephone and depressed its cradle. After a moment, she released the cradle and dialed her mother's number.

"This is Amelia, Mom," she said. "I'm sorry I acted the way I did. I want us to spend the evening together. It's a little late, though. Can you come by my place and we'll go from here?" She listened. "Good," she said. "I'll wait for you."

Hanging up, she walked into the kitchen, where she slid the longest carving knife from its place in the rack. She went to the front door and pushed back its bolt, which now moved freely. She carried the knife into the living room, took off her bathrobe and danced a dance of hunting, of the joy of hunting, of the joy of the impending kill.

Then she sat down, cross-legged, in the corner. He Who Kills sat, cross-legged, in the corner, in the darkness, waiting for the prey to come.

WINTER by Kit Reed

It was late fall when he come to us, there was a scum of ice on all the puddles and I could feel the winter cold and fearsome in my bones, the hunger inside me was already uncurling, it would pace through the first of the year but by spring it would be raging like a tiger, consuming me until the thaw when Maude could hunt again and we would get the truck down the road to town. I was done canning but I got the tomatoes we had hanging in the cellar and I canned some more; Maude went out and brought back every piece of meat she could shoot and all the grain and flour and powdered milk she could bring in one truckload, we had to lay in everything we could before the snow could come and seal us in. The week he come Maude found a jack-rabbit stone dead in the road, it was frozen with its feet sticking straight up, and all the meat hanging in the cold-room had frozen. Friday there was rime on the grass and when I looked out I seen footprints in the rime, I said Maude, someone is in the playhouse and we went out and there he was. He was asleep in the mess of clothes we always dressed up in, he had his head on the velvet gown my mother wore to the Exposition and his feet on the satin gown she married Father in, he had pulled her feather boa around his neck and her fox fur was wrapped around his loins.

Before he come, Maude and me would pass the winter talking about how it used to be, we would call up the past between us and look at it and Maude would end by blaming me. I could of married either Lister Hoffman or Harry Mead and left this place for good if it hadn't been for you, Lizzie. I'd tell her, Hell, I never needed you. You didn't marry them because you didn't marry them, you was scared of it and you would use me for an excuse. She would get mad then. It's a lie. Have it your way, I would tell her, just to keep the peace.

We both knew I would of married the first man that asked me, but nobody would, not even with all my money, nobody would ask me because of the taint. If nobody had of known then some man might of married me, but I went down to the field with Miles Harrison once while Father was still alive, and Miles and me, we almost, except that the blackness took me, right there in front of him, and so I never did. Nobody needed to know, but then Miles saw me fall down in the field. I guess it was him that put something between my teeth, but when I come to myself he was gone. Next time I went to town they all looked at me funny, some of them would try and face up to me and be polite but they was all jumpy, thinking would I do it right there in front of them, would I froth much, would they be hurt, as soon as was decent they would say Excuse me, I got to, anything to get out of there fast. When I run into Miles that day he wouldn't look at me and there hasn't been a man near me since then, not in more than fifty years, but Miles and me, we almost, and I have never stopped thinking about that.

Now Father is gone and my mother is gone and even Lister Hoffman and Miles Harrison and half the town kids that used to laugh at me, they are all gone, but Maude still reproaches me, we sit after supper and she says If it hadn't been for you I would have grandchildren now and I tell her I would have had them before ever she did because she never liked men, she would only suffer them to get children and that would be too much trouble, it would hurt. That's a lie, Lizzie, she would say, Harry and me used to . . . and I would tell her You never, but Miles and me . . . Then we would both think about being young and having people's hands on us but memory turns Maude bitter and she can never leave it at that, she says, It's all your fault, but I know in my heart that people make their lives what they want them, and all she ever wanted was to be locked in here with nobody to make demands on her, she wanted to stay in this house with me, her dried-up sister, cold and safe, and if the hunger is on her, it has come on her late.

After a while we would start to make up stuff: Once I went with a boy all the way to Portland . . . Once I danced all night and half the morning, he wanted to kiss me on the place where my elbow bends . . . We would try to spin out the winter but even that was not enough and so we would always be left with the hunger; no matter how much we laid in, the meat was always gone before the thaw and I suppose it was really our lives we was judging but we would decide nothing in the cans looked good to us and so we would sit and dream and hunger and wonder if we would die of it, but finally the thaw would come and Maude would look at me and sigh: If only we had another chance.

Well now perhaps we will.

We found him in the playhouse, maybe it was seeing him asleep in the middle of my mother's clothes or maybe it was being in the playhouse, where we pretended so many times, but there was this boy, or man, and something about him called up our best memories, there was promise wrote all over him. I am too old, I am all dried out, but I have never stopped thinking about that one time and seeing that boy there, I could pretend he was Miles and I was still young. I guess he sensed us, he woke up fast and went into a crouch, maybe he had a knife, and then I guess he saw it was just two big old ladies in Army boots, he said, I run away from the Marines, I needed a place to sleep.

Maude said, I don't care what you need, you got to get out of here, but when he stood up he wobbled. His hair fell across his head like the hair on a boy I used to know and I said, Maude, why don't you say yes to something just this once.

He had on this denim shirt and pants like no uniform I ever seen and he was saying, Two things happened, I found out I might have to shoot somebody in the war and then I made a mistake and they beat me so I cut out of there. He smiled and he looked open. I stared hard at Maude and Maude finally looked at me and said, All right, come up to the house and get something to eat.

He said his name was Arnold but when we asked him Arnold what, he said Never mind. He was in the kitchen by then, he had his head bent over a bowl of oatmeal and some biscuits I had made, and when I looked at Maude she was watching the way the light slid across his hair. When we told him our names he said, You are both beautiful ladies, I could see Maude's hands go up to her face and she went into her room and when she come back I saw she had put color on her cheeks. While we was alone he said how good the biscuits was and wasn't that beautiful silver, did I keep it polished all myself and I said well yes, Maude brings in supplies but I am in charge of the house and making all the food. She come back then and saw us with our heads together and said to Arnold, I guess you'll be leaving soon.

I don't know, he said, they'll be out looking for me with guns and dogs.

That's no never mind of ours.

I never done nothing bad in the Marines, we just had different ideas. We both figured it was something worse but he looked so sad and tired and besides, it was nice to have him to talk to, he said, I just need a place to hole up for a while.

Maude said, You could always go back to your family.

He said, They never wanted me. They was always mean-hearted, not like you.

I took her aside and said, It wouldn't kill you to let him stay on, Maude, it's time we had a little life around here.

There won't be enough food for three.

He won't stay long. Besides, he can help you with the chores.

She was looking at his bright hair again, she said, like it was all my doing, If you want to let him stay I guess we can let him stay.

He was saying, I could work for my keep.

All right, I said, you can stay on until you get your strength.

My heart jumped. A man, I thought. A man. How can I explain it? It was like being young, having him around. I looked at Maude and saw some of the same things in her eyes, hunger and hope, and I thought, You are ours now, Arnold, you are all ours. We will feed you and take care of you and when you want to wander we will let you wander, but we will never let you go.

Just until things die down a little, he was saying.

Maude had a funny grin. Just until things die down.

Well it must of started snowing right after dark that afternoon, because when we all waked up the house was surrounded. I said, Good thing you got the meat in, Maude and she looked out, it was still blowing snow and it showed no signs of stopping, she looked out and said, I guess it is.

He was still asleep, he slept the day through except he stumbled down at dusk and dreamed over a bowl of my rabbit stew, I turned to the sink and when I looked back the stew was gone and the biscuits was gone and all the extra in the pot was gone, I had a little flash of fright, it was all disappearing too fast. Then Maude come over to me and hissed. The food, he's eating all the food and I looked at his brown hands and his tender neck and I said, It don't matter, Maude, he's young and strong and if we run short he can go out into the snow and hunt. When we looked around next time he was gone, he had dreamed his way through half a pie and gone right back to bed.

Next morning he was up before the light, we sat together around the kitchen table and I thought how nice it was to have a man in the house, I could look at him and imagine anything I wanted. Then he got up and said, Look, I want to thank you for everything, I got to get along now and I said, You can't, and he said, I got things to do, I been here long enough, but I told him You can't, and took him over to the window. The sun was up by then and there it was, snow almost to the window ledges, like we have every winter, and all the trees was shrouded, we could watch the sun take the snow and make it sparkle and I said, Beautiful snow, beautiful, and he only shrugged and said, I guess I'll have to wait till it clears off some. I touched his shoulder. I guess it will. I knew not to tell him it would never clear off, not until late spring; maybe he guessed, anyway he looked so sad I gave him Father's silver snuffbox to cheer him up.

He would divide his time between Maude and me, he played Rook with her and made her laugh so hard she gave him her pearl earrings and the brooch Father brought her back from Quebec. I gave him Grandfather's diamond stickpin because he admired it, and for Christmas we gave him the cameos and Father's gold-headed cane. Maude got the flu over New Year and Arnold and me spent New Year's Eve together, I mulled some wine and he hung up some of Mama's jewellery from the centre light, and touched it and made it twirl. We lit the candles and played the radio, New Year's Eve in Times Square and somebody's Make-believe Ballroom, I went to pour another cup of wine and his hand was on mine on the bottle, I knew my lips was red for once and next day I gave him Papa's fur-lined coat.

I guess Maude suspected there was something between us, she looked pinched and mean when I went in with her broth at lunch, she said, Where were you at breakfast and I said, Maude it's New Year's Day, I thought I would like to sleep in for once. She was quick and spiteful. You were with him. I thought, If she wants to think that about me, let her, and I let my eyes go sleepy and I said, We had to see the New Year in, didn't we? She was out of bed in two days, I have never seen anybody get up so fast after the flu. I think she couldn't stand us being where she couldn't see what we was up to every living minute. Then I got sick and I knew what torture it must have been for her, just laying there, I would call Maude and I would call her, and sometimes she would come and sometimes she wouldn't come and when she finally did look in on me I would say, Maude, where have you been and she would only giggle and not answer. There was meat cooking all the time, roasts and chops and chicken fricassee, when I said Maude, you're going to use it up, she would only smile and say, I just had to show him who's who in the kitchen, he tells me I'm a better cook than you ever was. After a while I got up, I had to even if I was dizzy and like to throw up, I had to get downstairs where I could keep an eye on them. As soon as I was up to it I made a roast of venison that would put hair on an egg and after that we would vie with each other in the kitchen, Maude and me. Once I had my hand on the skillet handle and she come over and tried to take it away, she was saying, Let me serve it up for him. I said, you're a fool, Maude, I cooked this and she hissed at me, through the steam, it won't do you no good, Lizzie, it's me he loves, and I just pushed her away and said, you goddam fool, he loves me, and I give him my amethysts just to prove it. A couple of days later I couldn't find neither of them nowhere, I thought I heard noises up in the back room and I went up there and if they was in there they wouldn't answer, the door was locked and they wouldn't say nothing, not even when I knocked and knocked and knocked. So the next day I took him up in my room and we locked the door and I told him a story about every piece in my jewel box, even the cheap ones, when Maude tapped and whined outside the door we would just shush, and when we did come out and she said, All right, Lizzie, what was you doing in there, I only giggled and wouldn't tell.

She shouldn't of done it, we was all sitting around the table after dinner and she looked at me hard and said, You know something, Arnold, I wouldn't get too close to Lizzie, she has fits. Arnold only tried to look like it didn't matter, but after Maude went to bed I went down to make sure it was all right. He was still in the kitchen, whittling, and when I tried to touch his hand he pulled away.

I said, Don't be scared, I only throw one in a blue moon.

He said, That don't matter.

Then what's the matter?

I don't know, Miss Lizzie, I just don't think you trust me.

Course I trust you, Arnold, don't I give you everything?

He just looked sad. Everything but trust.

I owe you so much, Arnold, you make me feel so young.

He just smiled for me then. You look younger, Miss Lizzie, you been getting younger every day I been here.

You did it.

If you let me, I could make you really young.

Yes, Arnold, yes.

But I have to know you trust me.

Yes, Arnold.

So I showed him where the money was. By then it was past midnight and we was both tired, he said, Tomorrow, and I let him go off to his rest.

I don't know what roused us both and brought us out into the hall but I bumped into Maude at dawn, we was both standing in our nightgowns like two ghosts. We crept downstairs together and there was light in the kitchen, the place where we kept the money was open, empty, and there was a crack of light in the door to the cold-room. I remember looking through and thinking. The meat is almost gone. Then we opened the door a crack wider and there he was, he had made a sledge, he must of sneaked down there and worked on it every night. It was piled with stuff, our stuff, and now he had the door to the outside open, he had dug himself a ramp out of the snow and he was lashing some home-made snowshoes on his feet, in another minute he would cut out of there.

When he heard us he turned.

I had the shotgun and Maude had the axe.

He said, You can have all you stuff.

We said, We don't care about the stuff, Arnold. How could we tell him it was our youth he was taking away?

He looked at us, wall-eyed. You can have it all, just let me out.

You said you loved us, Arnold.

He was scrabbling up the snow ramp. Never mind what I told you, let me out of here.

He was going to get away in another minute, so Maude let him have it with the axe.

Afterwards we closed the way to the outside and stood there and looked at each other, I couldn't say what was in my heart so I only looked at Maude, we was both sad, sad, I said, The food is almost gone.

Maude said, Everything is gone. We'll never make it to spring.

I said, We have to make it to spring.

Maude looked at him laying there. You know what he told me? He said, I can make you young.

Me too, I said. There was something in his eyes that made me believe it.

Maude's eyes was aglitter, she said, The food is almost gone.

I knew what she meant, he was going to make us young. I don't know how it will work in us, but he is going to make us young, it will be as if the fits had never took me, never in all them years. Maude was looking at me, waiting, and after a minute I looked square at her and said, I know.

So we et him.

LUCIFER by E. C. Tubb

It was a device of great social convenience and everyone used it. Everyone, in this case, meaning the Special People all of whom were rich, charming and socially successful. Those who had dropped in to study an amusing primitive culture and those who, for personal reasons, preferred to remain on a world where they could be very large fish in a very small sea.

The Special People, dilettantes of the Intergalactic Set, protected and cosseted by their science, playing their games with the local natives and careful always to preserve their anonymity. But accidents can happen even to the superhuman. Stupid things which, because of their low order of probability, were statistically impossible.

Like a steel cable snapping when the safe it was supporting hung twenty feet above the ground. The safe fell, smashing the sidewalk but doing no other damage. The cable, suddenly released from strain, snapped like a whip, the end jerking in a random motion impossible to predict. The odds against it hitting any one particular place were astronomical. The odds against one of the Special People being in just that spot at that exact time were so high as to negate normal probability. But it happened. The frayed end of the cable hit a skull, shredding bone, brain and tissue in an ungodly mess. A surgically implanted mechanism sent out a distress call. The man's friends received the signal. Frank Weston got the body.

Frank Weston, anachronism. In a modern age no man should have to drag a twisted foot through 28 years of his life. Especially when he has the face of a Renaissance angel. But if he looked like an angel he was a fallen one. The dead couldn't be hurt but their relatives could. Tell a suicide's father that his dead girl was pregnant. A doting mother that the apple of her eye was loathsomely diseased. They didn't bother to check, why should they? And, even if they did, so what? Anyone could make a mistake and he was a morgue attendant not a doctor.

Dispassionately he examined the new delivery. The cable had done a good job of ruining the face—visual identification was impossible. Blood had ruined the suit but enough remained to show the wearer had brought pricey material. The wallet contained few bills but a lot of credit cards. There was some loose change, a cigarette case, a cigarette lighter, keys, wrist-watch, tiepin . . . They made little rustling noises as Frank fed them into an envelope. He paused when he saw the ring.

Sometimes, in his job, an unscrupulous man could make a little on the side. Frank had no scruples only defensive caution. The ring could have been lost before the stiff arrived in his care. The hand was caked with blood and maybe no one had noticed it. Even if they had it would be his word against theirs. If he could get it off, wash the hand free of blood, stash it away and act innocent the ring could be his. And he would get it off if he had to smash the hand to do it. Accidents sometimes made strange injuries.

An hour later they arrived to claim the body. Quiet men, two of them, neatly dressed and calmly determined. The dead man was their business associate. They gave his name and address, the description of the suit he was wearing, other information. There was no question of crime and no reason to hold the body.

One of them looked sharply at Frank. "Is this all he had on him?"

"That's right," said Frank. "You've got it all. Sign here and he's yours."

"One moment." The two men looked at each other then the one who had spoken turned to Frank. "Our friend wore a ring. It was something like this." He extended his hand. "The ring had a stone and a wide band. Could we have it please."

Frank was stubborn. "I haven't got it. I haven't even seen it. He wasn't wearing it when he came in here."

Again the silent conference. "The ring has no intrinsic value but it does have sentimental worth. I would be prepared to pay one hundred dollars for it and no questions will be asked."

"Why tell me?" said Frank coldly. Inside he felt the growing warmth that stemmed from sadistic pleasure. How he didn't know but he was hurting this man. "You gonna sign or what?" He turned the knife. "You think I stole something you call the cops. Either way get out of here!"

In the dog hours he examined what he had stolen. Sitting hunched in his usual corner of the canteen, masked by a newspaper, to the others in the place just another part of the furniture. Slowly he turned the ring. The band was thick and wide, raised in one part, a prominence which could be flattened by the pressure of a finger. The stone was flat, dull, probably a poorly ground specimen of the semi-precious group. The metal could have been plated alloy. If it was a hundred dollars could buy any of a dozen like it.

But—would a man dressed as the stiff had been dressed wear such a ring?

The corpse had reeked of money. The cigarette case and lighter had been of jewelled platinum—too hot to think of stealing. The credit cards would have taken him around the world and first class all the way. Would a man like that wear a lousy hundred-dollar ring?

Blankly he stared across the canteen. Facing his table three men sat over their coffee. One of them straightened, rose, stretched and headed towards the door.

Scowling Frank dropped his eyes to the ring. Had he thrown away a hundred dollars for the sake of some junk? His fingernail touched the protuberance. It sank a little and, impatiently, he pressed it flush.

Nothing happened.

Nothing aside from the fact that the man who had risen from the facing table and who had walked towards the door was suddenly sitting at the table again. As Frank watched he rose, stretched and walked towards the door. Frank pressed the stud. Nothing happened.

Literally nothing.

He frowned and tried again. Abruptly the man was back at his table. He rose, stretched, headed towards the door. Frank pressed the stud and held it down, counting. Fifty-seven seconds and suddenly the man was back at his table again. He rose, stretched, headed towards the door. This time Frank let him go.

He knew now what it was he had.

He leaned back filled with the wonder of it. Of the Special People he knew nothing but his own race had bred scientists and, even though a sadist, Frank was no fool. A man would want to keep something like this to himself. He would need to have it close to hand at all times. It would need to be in a form where he could use it quickly. So what better than in a ring? Compact. Ornamental. Probably everlasting.

A one-way time machine.

Luck, the fortuitous combination of favourable circumstances, but who needs luck when they know what is going to happen fifty-seven seconds in advance? Call it a minute. Not long?

Try holding your breath that long. Try resting your hand on a red-hot stove for even half that time. In a minute you can walk a hundred yards, run a quarter of a mile, fall three. You can conceive, die, get married. Fifty-seven seconds is enough for a lot of things.

For a card to turn, a ball to settle, a pair of dice tumble to rest. Frank was a sure-fire winner and in more ways than one.

He stretched, enjoying the shower, the impact of hot water driven at high pressure. He turned a control, and gasped as the water turned to ice and made goose pimples rise on his skin. A cold bath in winter is hardship when you've no choice, a pleasant titivation when you have. He jerked the control back to hot, waited, then cut the spray and stepped from the shower drying himself on a fluffy towel.

"Frank, darling, are you going to be much longer?"

A female voice with the peculiar intonation of the inbred upper classes; a member of the aristocracy by marriage and birth. The Lady Jane Smyth-Connors was rich, curious, bored and impatient.

"A moment, honey," he called and dropped the towel. Smiling he looked down at himself. Money had taken care of the twisted foot. Money had taken care of a lot of other things, his clothes, his accent, the education of his tastes. He was still a fallen angel but there was bright new gilt on his broken wings.

"Frank, darling!"

"Coming!" His jaws tightened until the muscles ached. The high-toned, high-stepping bitch! She'd fallen for his face and reputation and was going to pay for her curiosity. But that could wait. First the spider had to get the fly well and truly in his web.

A silk robe to cover his nakedness. Brushes to tidy his hair. A spray gave insurance against halitosis. The stallion was almost ready to perform.

The bathroom had a window. He drew the curtains and looked at the night. Way down low a scatter of lights carpeted the misty ground. London was a nice city, England a nice place. Very nice, especially to gamblers—they paid no tax on winnings. And here, more than anywhere, high prizes were to be won. Not just for cash, that was for plebians, but make the right connections and every day would be Christmas.

London. A city the Special People held in high regard.

"Frank!"

Impatience. Irritation. Arrogance. The woman waited to be served.

She was tall with a peculiar angularity, an overgrown schoolgirl who should be wearing tweeds and carrying a hockey stick. But the appearance was deceptive. Generations of inbreeding had done more than fashion the distribution of flesh and bone. It had developed a ripe decadence and created a mass of seething frustrations. She was clinically insane but in her class people were never insane only "eccentric," never stupid only "thoughtless," never spiteful or cruel only "amusing."

He reached out, took her in his arms, pressed the ball of each thumb against her eyes. She strained back from the sudden pain. He pressed harder and she screamed from agony and the stomach-wrenching fear of blindness. In his mind a mental clock counted seconds. Fifty-one . . . fifty-two . . .

His fingers clamped down on the ring.

"Frank!"

He reached out and took her in his arms, heart still pounding from the pleasure of having inflicted pain. He kissed her with practised skill, nibbling her gently with his teeth. He ran his hands over her body, thin material rustling as it fell from her shoulders. He bit a little harder and felt her tense.

"Don't do that!" she said abruptly. "I hate anyone doing that!"

One bad mark. Frank counted seconds as he reached for the light switch. With darkness she squirmed, pushed herself free of his arms.

"I hate the dark! Must you be like all the others?"

Two bad marks. Twenty seconds to go. Time for one more quick exploration. His hands groped, made contact, moved with educated determination. She sighed with pleasure.

He activated the ring.

"Frank!"

He reached out and took her in his arms, this time making no attempt to either nibble or bite. Her clothing rustled to the floor and the skin gleamed like pearl in the light. He looked at her, boldly admiring, and his hands moved in the way which gave her pleasure.

She closed her eyes, fingernails into his back. "Talk to me," she demanded. "Talk to me!"

He began counting seconds.

Later, as she lay in satiated sleep, he rested, smoking, thinking, oddly amused. He had been the perfect lover. He had said and done the exact things she wanted in the exact order she wanted them and, more important than anything else, had said and done them without her prompting him at any time. He had been a reflection of herself. An echo of her needs—and why not? He had worked hard to map the blueprint of her desires. Exploring, investigating, erasing all false starts and mistakes. What else could he have been but perfect?

He turned, looking down at the woman, seeing her not as flesh and blood but as the rung of a ladder leading to acceptance. Frank Weston had come a long way. He intended to keep climbing.

She sighed, opened her eyes, looked at the classical beauty of his face. "Darling!"

He said what she wanted him to say.

She sighed again, same sound different meaning. "I'll see you tonight?"

"No."

"Frank!" Jealousy reared her upright. "Why not? You said—"

"I know what I said and I meant every word of it," he interrupted. "But I have to fly to New York. Business," he added. "After all I do have to make a living."

She caught the bait "You don't have to worry about that. I'll speak to Daddy and—"

He closed her lips with his own. "I still have to go," he insisted. Beneath the covers his hands did what she wanted them to do. "And when I return—"

"I'll get a divorce," she said. "We'll be married."

Christmas, he thought, as dawn paled the sky.

Come fly with me! Said the song, me being a gleaming new Comet, two stewardesses all legs and eyes and silken hair with a "you may look at me because I'm beautiful but you must never, ever touch" attitude, a flight crew and seventy-three other passengers only eighteen of which were travelling first class. Room for everyone and Frank was glad of it.

He felt tired. The night had been hectic and the morning no better. It was good to sit and relax neatly strapped in a form-fitting chair as the jets gulped air and spewed it behind in a man-made hurricane which sent the plane down the runway and up into the sky. London fell away to one side, the clouds dropped like tufts of dirty cotton and then there was only the sun, a watchful eye in an immense iris of blue.

Go West, young man, he thought smugly. Why? For no reason other than he liked to travel and a little absence could make a heart grow fonder. And there was a kick in flying. He liked to look down and think of all the emptiness between him and the ground. Feel his stomach tighten with acrophobia, the delicious sensation of fear experienced in perfect safety. Height had no meaning in a plane. All you had to do was to look straight ahead and you could be in a Pullman.

He unstrapped, stretched his legs, glanced through a window as the captain's voice came over the speakers telling him that they were flying at a height of 34,000 feet at a speed of 536 miles per hour.

Through the window he could see very little. The sky, the clouds below, the tip of a quivering sheet of metal which was a wing. Old stuff. The blonde stewardess was far from that. She swayed down the aisle, caught his eyes, responded with instant attention. Was he quite comfortable? Would he like a pillow? A newspaper? A magazine? Something to drink?

"Brandy," he said. "With ice and soda."

He sat on the inner seat close to the wall of the cabin so that she had to step from the aisle in order to lower the flap and set out his drink. He lifted his left hand and touched her knee, slid the hand up the inside of her thigh, felt her stiffen, saw the expression on her face. It was a compound of incredulity, outrage, interest and speculation. It didn't last long. His right hand reached out and dug fingers into her throat. Congested blood purpled her cheeks, eyes popped, the discarded tray made a mess as her hands fluttered in helpless anguish.

Within his mind the automatic clock counted off the seconds. Fifty-two . . . fifty-three . . . fifty-four . . .

He pressed the stud on his ring.

The flap made a little thudding sound as it came to rest, the brandy a liquid gurgling as it gushed from the miniature bottle over the ice. She smiled, poising the punctured can of soda. "All of it, sir?"

He nodded, watching as she poured, remembering the soft warmth of her thigh, the touch of her flesh. Did she know that he had almost killed her? Could she possibly guess?

No, he decided as she moved away. How could she? To her nothing had happened. She had served him a drink and that was all. That was all, but—?

Brooding he stared at the ring. You activated it and went back fifty-seven seconds in time. All you had done during that period was erased. You could kill, rob, commit mayhem and none of it mattered because none of it had happened. But it had happened. It could be remembered. Could you remember what had never taken place?

That girl, for example. He had felt her thigh, the warm place between her legs, the yielding softness of her throat. He could have poked out her eyes, doubled her screaming, mutilated her face. He had done that and more to others, pandering to his sadism, his love of inflicting pain. And he had killed. But what was killing when you could undo the inconvenience of your crime. When you could watch the body smile and walk away?

The plane rocked a little. The voice from the speaker was calm, unhurried. "Will all passengers please fasten their safety belts. We are heading into an area of minor disturbance. You may see a little lightning but there is absolutely nothing to worry about. We are, of course, flying well above the area of storm."

Frank ignored the instruction, still engrossed with the ring. The unpolished stone looked like a dead eye, suddenly malevolent, somehow threatening. Irritably he finished his drink. The ring was nothing but a machine.

The blonde passed down the aisle, tutted when she saw his unfastened belt, made to tighten it. He waved her away, fumbled with the straps, let the belt fall open. He didn't need it and didn't like it. Frowning he settled back, thinking.

Time. Was it a single line or one with many branches? Could it be that each time he activated the ring an alternate universe was created? That somewhere was a world in which he had attacked the stewardess and had to pay for the crime? But he had only attacked her because he'd known he could erase the incident. Without the ring he wouldn't have touched her. With the ring he could do as he liked because he could always go back and escape the consequences. Therefore the alternate universe theory couldn't apply. What did?

He didn't know and it didn't matter. He had the ring and that was enough. The ring they had offered a lousy hundred dollars for.

Something hit the roof of the Cabin. There was a ripping sound, a blast of air, an irresistible force which tore him from his seat and flung him into space. Air gushed from his lungs as he began to fall. He gulped, trying to breathe, to understand. Arctic cold numbed his flesh. He twisted, saw through streaming eyes the plane with one wing torn loose, then metal tearing free as he watched, the plane accompanying his fall to the sea five miles below.

An accident, he thought wildly. A fireball, a meteor, metal fatigue even. A crack in the cabin wall and internal pressure would do the rest. And now he was falling. Falling!

His fingers squeezed in frenzied reaction.

"Please, Mr. Weston." The blonde stewardess came forward as he reared from his seat. "You must remain seated and with your safety belt fastened. Unless—?" Diplomatically she looked towards the toilets at the rear of the cabin.

"Listen!" He grabbed her by both arms. "Tell the pilot to change course. Tell him now. Hurry!"

A fireball or a meteor could be dodged that way. They could find safety if the course was changed fast enough. But it had to be fast! Fast!

"Quick." He ran towards the flight deck, the girl at his heels. Damn the stupid bitch! Couldn't she understand? "This is an emergency!" he shouted. "The pilot must alter course immediately!"

Something hit the roof of the cabin. The compartment popped open, metal coiling like the peeled skin of a banana. The blonde vanished. The shriek of tearing metal was lost in the explosive gusting of escaping air. Desperately Frank clung to a seat, felt his hands being torn from the fabric, his body sucked towards the opening. Once again he was ejected into space to begin the long, stomach-twisting five mile fall.

"No!" he screamed, frantic with terror. "Dear God, no!"

He activated.

"Mr. Weston, I really must insist. If you do not want to go to the toilet you must allow me to fasten your safety belt."

He was standing by his seat and the blonde was showing signs of getting annoyed. Annoyed!

"This is important," he said, fighting to remain calm. "In less than a minute this place is going to fall apart. Do you understand? We are all going to die unless the pilot changes course immediately."

Why did she have to stand there looking so dumb? He had told her all this before!

"You stupid cow! Get out of my way!" He pushed her to one side and lunged again towards the flight deck. He tripped, fell, came raging to his feet. "Change course!" he yelled. "For God's sake listen and—"

Something hit the roof. Again the roar, the blast, the irresistible force. Something struck his head and he was well below the clouds before he managed to regain full control. He activated and found himself still in space, gulping at rarified air and shivering with savage cold. To one side the shattered plane hung as though suspended, a mass of disintegrating debris as it fell. Tiny fragments hung around it; one of them perhaps the blonde.

The clouds passed. Below the sea spread in a shimmer of light and water. His stomach constricted with overwhelming terror as he stared at the waves, his lurking acrophobia aroused and tearing at every cell. Hitting the sea would be like smashing into a floor of solid concrete and he would be conscious to the very end. Spasmodically he activated and immediately was high in the air again with almost a minute of grace in which to fall.

Fifty-seven seconds of undiluted hell.

Repeated.

Repeated.

Repeated over and over because the alternative was to smash into the waiting sea.

I WONDER WHAT HE WANTED . . . by Eddy C. Bertin

Selected fragments from the diary of Miss Francie Denvar, former teacher at Cornoudghe College, found among the possessions of the late inhabitant of Number Nine, Nowhill Street.

June 2nd:

Wonderful! The rest, the peace! At last I'm finished with the school turmoil, the endless mountains and mountains of examination copies to be corrected, the exhausting interrogations of uninteresting and uninterested youngsters who really couldn't care less, the reports in X duplicates to be made, and all the rest! College has fallen from my shoulders like a badly-smelling dusty cloak, and I feel as if I'm arisen like a phoenix. The restfulness is like a soft wine, it reanimates me, thrills through my whole body. A real pity Georges couldn't be here with me now for the whole vacation. But it was impossible, he said. Within the next week he has to leave for France, for some special article or other which he has to do for his paper. He thinks he'll be away for at least three weeks, or maybe even more. Well, I'll manage by myself, I suppose.

June 3rd:

Poor diary, I'm sorry but I'm much too happy to spend much time in writing today! It is now half past eleven, and Georges has just left. I'm dreaming on my old, worn seat, and I'd rather go on doing nothing, but it would be unfair to you, my old companion, not to record this evening for the future. Georges has just asked me to marry him. Oh, the way he did it, so simple and straightforward, like everything he does, in fact not so very romantic. He just put his arm around me, and said, "Darling, when do we get married?" It seems so awfully down-to-earth and practical, when I see it written down; he should have done it with a kiss and a bunch of flowers (he knows I love roses—every young girl does . . .) but that's just not HIS way of doing things. He caught me completely off guard, I didn't know what to say. I just nodded. He'll buy me an engagement ring tomorrow, first thing he'll do in the morning before he goes to the office, he said. A very pretty one in platinum gold, with a sparkling diamond in its heart. But only a small one, he added as an afterthought. A small diamond, but a big heart. Georges can be romantic, if he wants to. As soon as he gets back from his Parisian assignment, we'll announce our engagement officially. The wedding will be in October, we can't make it sooner. Georges has too many things to do, and he won't be able to get a vacation from the paper until that time. It doesn't matter. I'm so happy, so happy!

June 8th:

I have taken Georges to the train. He kissed me and said, "I'll be back soon darling. Don't run too far." I cried a bit, after the train had left, but I still feel so happy I could sing the whole day through. I'll be married in October! Of course I knew he'd ask me one day but he waited so long . . .

June 10th:

I've found a marvel of a little house with a pretty though neglected garden, just what I've wanted all my life. It all came about accidentally. I was lonely and took a bus out of town, and then started walking . . . and I really stumbled upon it. A very small villa house, a bit old and rather isolated, but I'm sure it will be beautiful once I've finished with it. It's almost the only house left in an old street, all the others on both sides have been torn down a long time ago. I liked it at first sight—what a cliche—and out of curiosity went into the garden to have a good look at it. Imagine, it was for rent! I immediately went to the address mentioned on the sign (you know how impulsive I am) and see! Now I already have the keys and the signed contract in my purse. Maybe I have been rather hurried with it, but after all I only rented it for one year to start with. I must phone the removal company, so that they can bring my few bits of furniture from the studio. I already phoned my landlord, Miss Esphalton, and she's probably only too glad to be rid of me, though she didn't say it in so many words. She never liked me anyway, and she has already got several people on her waiting list. I must send the great news to Georges immediately, and give him my new address.

June 13th:

Today they have brought the furniture. The fools broke the legs of one of my best chairs, and I didn't tip them. That'll show them, though they said that I will be refunded by their insurance company. I doubt that, but it hasn't spoilt my good humour. The house simply is a jewel. Dusty and in need of painting, but a gem all the same. It has a kitchen, a living room and a library room downstairs, two big bedrooms and a work-room upstairs, and a big attic above. I brought someone to fix a few small holes in the walls, and one broken window. I'll need other windows, though, as the glass is murky and soiled. There are no cellars, and even in the attic there is hardly a trace of real decay. No holes in the roof either, I checked that but I didn't stay long. I don't like attics. In the living-room there is a big fireplace with antique Flemish brickwork, and beside it a colossal mirror, with only a few small spots. I think I'll go into town and choose a suitable wallpaper. I must pick up some of my savings from the bank too, after having paid a guarantee deposit and two months' rent in advance.

June 17th:

Georges just wrote me a long and lovely letter. He's doing fine, and hopes to finish his "reportage du coeur de Paris" much sooner than he thought. He's very excited about our house, and can't wait to see it, though he writes that he would have preferred to inspect it himself first before I moved in. I should really start giving the house a good cleaning now, but I don't feel like it. That's not like me, but I think it's the heat which makes me feel so listless and tired. These last days, the sun seems almost to have burned a blazing hole in the cloudless sky, and the heat is lying over the house and me like some enormous suffocating hand. I hope it'll rain soon. It usually does in this country. Just try taking a really long walk when the sun is so hot, and you're very likely to return completely soaked by the rain.

June 19th:

I took a short walk this morning to get some supplies from the grocer. When I got back, I thought at first there was somebody there, waiting for me. But I was wrong, there was nobody. Still, the whole day I have had the impression that somebody is in the house, somebody always watching me, spying on me. I couldn't shake that impression off, and I'm usually not a nervous woman. I've taken the big mirror away from beside the fireplace because it frightened me nearly to death this morning. I had just got up, and went downstairs, and somebody else came suddenly walking up to me. Of course I was still partly asleep, like I always am before I've had my first cup of coffee, but I should have known that it was only my reflection in that mirror. Well I do feel better, more at ease now that it's gone, though the place where it hung shows clearly now against the discoloured wallpaper.

June 20th:

I can't write much, I'm nervous, the slightest sound outside makes me jump as if the earth is opening under me. I can't get rid of that weird feeling that somebody or something is looking over my shoulder, following me wherever I go. Another letter came from Georges this morning, a short hurried note. Something unforeseen happened, and he won't be back till the end of August.

June 22nd:

I made a horrible discovery today. There must be rats in the house. I heard them, scrambling around in the attic. I went up, and when I threw the door open, something small and dark ran away. I stood there for a while, all the time feeling its eyes locked on me, watching, waiting for me to do something. I locked the door, and tomorrow I'm going to buy a dose of rat poison and a big cat.

June 23rd:

I put the cat in the attic, and I left the door ajar, so she could come and go whenever she felt like it. Later in the evening, I heard the door of the attic creak. I went upstairs with a strong flashlight, and something small hurried away from the beacon. When I came down, the cat was at the front door, frantically trying to get out. Every one of my attempts to catch her failed, and she acted as if she'd gone mad. The only results of my chase are some severe scratches on my hands from her claws.

June 24th:

This morning as I came down, I found the blasted cat in the living-room. The beast was dead, but there were no marks on her body. The eyes were bulging horribly, and the jaws wide open. Saliva and a bit of blood had dripped on to the floor. The cat must have been sick when I bought her. At first I wanted to go and complain to the pet shop where I got her, but I decided to leave it at that. I went upstairs again and searched the whole attic, but I found nothing living there, and no holes in the walls either. I have locked the attic. I don't think I'll bother buying another cat, though it is getting rather lonesome in the house.

Late afternoon. Another discovery, and a creepy one this time. While I was walking through the garden, I suddenly stumbled over something. When I pushed the high growing grass away, I found a stone under it, the biggest part buried under the ground. Then when I looked closely I spotted the marks on it. They turned out to be letters, forming a name, which I could decipher after cleaning the stone a bit: Francesca Denverra. There were dates too, but I couldn't make them out. I was only able to discover that they were sometime in the late 19th Century. It must be an old tombstone. I don't want that thing lying around in my garden. First thing tomorrow morning I'll complain to the landlord to get it taken away.

June 25th:

The landlord wasn't home, so I left a note, and I'll see him tomorrow. I want a garden with my house, not a miniature graveyard. Every day seems to bring new discoveries. As I had again heard the scurrying in the attic, I decided to try the rat poison. While I was laying it down, I found heaps of yellowed paper and old writing material in one of the cabinets. There were several notebooks, full of a spidery handwriting, definitely female, all notes for novels or short stories, apparently. I took them down with me to have a good look at them. They seem strange stories for a woman to write: fictional notes on witchcraft, mandragores, the occult, ghostly appearances, vampirism, lycanthropy, satanism, and other weird things. The titles alone seem sufficient: "The Creature from the Tomb," "Hands of Decay," "The Whispering Thing," "A Taste of Rain and Darkneses" . . . Once I started reading them, I had to finish them, though their contents often disgusted me. The horribly realistic way she wrote about those things, as if she really believed in them herself, had even experienced them! But then, once there was an eighteen-year-old girl who wrote "Frankenstein," and many other female writers have gone in for horror stories. I'll ask the landlord also about these things tomorrow. Maybe the manuscripts, even if many seem unfinished, might have a certain bibliographical value. Who knows, I might even make some money out of them!

June 26th:

I had a long talk with the proprietor this morning. I was dead right—what a choice of words! The thing in the garden is indeed a gravestone. Fortunately there's nothing under it. Miss Denverra, born in 1834, died in 1917, seems to have had a certain reputation as an author. The landlord said that she had written several novels, but that of course was before his time, he hadn't read them, but probably they were in the local library. When she died, he had bought the house from a distant cousin who had inherited it. In her will, she had requested that her grave in the garden shouldn't be disturbed. The queer woman had bought the tombstone several years before her death, and had it placed where I'd seen it, but of course she was buried in the cemetery—though the landlord had kept the stone in the garden. "Rather picturesque," he said, "it makes the house something a bit special you know." He refused to remove the stone—"It doesn't hurt you, does it?" he said—and as I don't want to give up my lovely house, I'll have to put up with it, at least till Georges arrives and finds a solution.

I still have that idea of someone watching over my shoulder. It gives me the creeps.

June 27th:

I went to the library and borrowed a few books by Francesca Denverra. They didn't have all her works the librarian said, but they did have all her best and most important novels. He told me that she died at the top of her creative power. He seemed quite an expert in the field, and told me many details he knew about Denverra, how she sometimes worked for several years on one book, refusing to use a typewriter, living only on her savings and the irregular income her books brought her. He gave me "Scream from the Cellar," "All the Shadows of Fear" and "Eye of the Vampire," and said that if I wanted some others he had many by Machen, James and Poe, and even a few scarce titles by Lovecraft and Hodgson. But I have enough with Denverra. Besides, I never liked horror stories, and these only interest me because the woman has lived in the house. I leafed through some of the books. Horrible. How could a woman in her sane mind ever write those accursed blasphemous things? The books themselves seem filled with their evil, overflowing with decay and corruption. They disgust me . . . and yet, in a strange way, they fascinate by their horror.

June 29th:

I still feel listless. The heat keeps on, the earth feels dry and hot, the air stale and strangling, trees give almost no shade. The world outside seems dead, burned, and only the house gives peace and shadow. The damned tombstone is giving me nightmares now. Tonight I dreamed that I saw Francesca Denverra, sitting in one of my chairs, now in the attic, with the notes of her novel. "The Smell of Blood" in her lap. She was making corrections in the notebook, and I could read everything she wrote, and it made me feel sick. When I awoke I was soaked in sweat.

July 3rd:

At last another letter from dear Georges. Good news this time! He thinks he'll be back very soon now, no date fixed but much earlier than expected. Thank God! I just can't wait till he gets here, though the feeling of being watched has gone away now. I sleep much better too, untroubled by the weird nightmares I was having up till a few nights ago. It's almost as if finally I've been accepted by this house as its new inhabitant, and now it gives me peace.

July 4th:

I have read "Scream from the Cellar" a second time through. I had wanted to go to the library to pick up some love stories and historical romances, but the heat was just too much; it engulfed me in a suffocating grip as soon as I left the house. When will it ever rain? So there's nothing left in the house but Denverra's books. It doesn't seem so horrible anymore upon a second reading, mainly I guess because now I know in advance what is going to happen. The shock elements have lost their power, and now I can spend more time on the literary qualities, and ignore the plot. In a way there is a weird beauty in her books, a beauty which is evil and yet absorbing. It is like the nightmarish quality of a Bosch painting, or a Dali, or the shrieking yet hilarious madness of a Topor or a Gahan Wilson cartoon, and sometimes even the weird and unreal fascination of a Matisse.

July 6th:

This afternoon, I slept a bit in a chair in the garden. When I walked back into the house I felt strange, as if something had been very subtly changed while I was away; as if something was really out of place. Only after a while did I realise what it was. It's my furniture, my own modern furniture, which doesn't fit the rooms. I had thought at first to change the rooms completely into something modern, but you can't do that with these old houses and their high ceilings and their building structure. But I must do something about it, maybe rearranging the furniture will make it look better, more homely.

July 7th:

I re-read Denverra's notes, her unfinished manuscript. The librarian was right, the manuscripts are grotesque, horrible, almost the work of a deranged mind, and yet they are powerful, much better written than any of the published books, much more meaningful in content and researched details. Literature really lost something with her. There were even a few parts I must have skipped over the first time, they seem to have been added later, all in her small spidery handwriting.

July 8:

Today I had all the modern furniture removed. I tried to make it look better, but it kept on degrading the atmosphere of the rooms. Now it looks much better. I only kept my chairs, and brought down the old cabinets from the attic and dusted them off. It looks now like it must have looked before, so easy, solemn, and peaceful. I even put the big mirror back in its place. I couldn't stand looking at the awful mark on the wallpaper where it had hung.

July 9:

The weather is beautiful. I have been sitting idly in the garden through the whole day, without bothering to do anything. A lot of sun is good for me, the doctor once said, and I have always kept that in mind. Come to think of it, it's really been a long time since I saw him. Not that I need him for anything, I feel better than I ever felt before, perfectly healthy.

July 12:

I think I'll have to start working again one of these days. No doubt my publisher will be severely angry with me yet again, though he should know my habits by now! I'm very surprised he hasn't written already, asking for my first draft, or at least for some working notes on my latest novel. I have re-read my draft notes for the plot structure, and they're good. A complete synopsis already, with detailed notes on all the central characters. Now only a few researches on the background, and I can begin with writing in earnest. "Metempsychosis" will be my best novel so far.

July 14:

Something very strange happened this morning. A young man called, a certain Georges Vaarberg, who had come direct from Paris. He was very surprised when I opened the door, and mumbled something about a probable mistake. He asked me if I knew a young teacher, a certain Miss Frances Denvar, who used to live here. I answered him that no-one lived here except me. He excused himself, and went away. At the entrance he turned and looked back, a baffled expression on his face. I didn't see him again.

I wonder what he wanted from an old woman like me?

PROBLEM CHILD by Peter Oldale

The first occasion was when Mrs. Roberts was getting Rosie a fresh nappy ready. The job was delaying a game that they had been playing with teaspoons on the kitchen table, and Rosie was annoyed. She cried and later shrieked in frustration and then Mrs. Roberts saw one of the spoons slide across the table top into Rosie's hand.

Apart from a startled glance and a quick look under the table, where she thought Buster, their dog, might have rubbed against the legs, she thought and did nothing about the moving spoon.

A week later, when Rosie's food was delayed by a parcel being delivered, Mrs. Roberts was returning to pick up the already filled bottle when it moved firmly away from her hand towards the yelling baby.

There was simply no mistake this time, though it was true that Rosie had been bouncing about, enough perhaps to shake the bottle a little. But not enough to move it.

That evening, Mrs. Roberts told George, her husband.

She had anticipated correctly his reactions.

"You're imagining things again, Shirley," he snapped irritably. "You and your mothercare books. What the kid wants is less 'psychology' and a bit more ordinary affection."

Mrs. Roberts flushed angrily.

"Just because you give Rosie everything she cries for. Anything for peace and quiet, that's you!"

She said no more. It was just possible that the bottle had somehow slid with the vibration of her tread on the wooden kitchen floor. And the spoon moving could certainly have been Buster.

But the third time was more positive.

They were both, mother and baby, in their small living room. Mrs. Roberts was reading the daily paper in a chair by the fire. Rosie was inside her play pen absorbed with her toys.

After some minutes, Rosie started to yell, pointing out of the pen across the room. Unable to see what was wrong, Mrs. Roberts fussed and played with the baby, who continued to scream.

A small plastic doll had fallen out of the play pen and rolled out of sight under the sideboard. Rosie's cries became even more fierce and hysterical as Mrs. Roberts tried to comfort her. Finally, Rosie gave a particular violent shriek and held out both arms in the direction of the sideboard. As Mrs. Roberts turned to look that way, to see what was the matter, she saw the missing doll slide steadily though slowly out from under the sideboard, across the carpet, up to the play pen frame and, as she stared motionless with astonishment, the doll gave a heave and lifted over the frame and into Rosie's outstretched hand.

The next few minutes were crowded. With a swift smack Mrs. Roberts knocked the doll from her baby's hand, swept her into her arms and ran from the room. Once in the kitchen, she sat Rosie roughly in her high chair by the table.

She was not without courage. Crossing the room, avoiding the pen, she took the decorative pair of fire tongs from the hearth, then approached the doll. It took some time to grip this securely. Then she lifted it and carried it to the open fire. There, she dropped it amongst the glowing coals, where its plastic coating shrivelled and melted, curling unpleasantly, and exposing a wiry skeleton that slide down red hot into the grate. Hours later, after she had let the fire die right out, Mrs. Roberts found the wire remains and took them down the garden, which backed on to a garage, and flung them over the wall into a heap of wreckage.

The same day, she took Rosie to the doctor's surgery.

Dr. Paisley heard her out thoughtfully, eyeing professionally the slight tremor of her hands, the dry lips.

"Well, Mr. Roberts, what you say is certainly remarkable. But you know, there may yet be natural explanations."

"It did move, Doctor. I saw it. Across the carpet. The other times I wasn't sure, but this . . ."

"But you say there was metal in the doll," said Dr. Paisley reasonably. "Now there's always magnetism you know. Queer things happen when there's electricity about."

"Yes . . . but we haven't got many electric things. Only the garage does have those welding things. Those that spark. Do you think they could have done it, Doctor?"

"Well, I'm no engineer, Mrs. Roberts, but it may well be so. And how are you yourself. Sleeping well? No dizziness or fainting? You look just a bit peaky."

After a while, Dr. Paisley wrote out a prescription of a particular kind and saw Mrs. Roberts out.

It was three weeks before Dr. Paisley looked up to see Mrs. Roberts entering his surgery again, carrying a protesting Rosie. He mentally sighed, but motioned her to a chair. Over the increasing cries of the irritated Rosie, who was late for feeding and wanted her milk, which was already made up in her mother's basket, he listened.

"I waited for three times," Mrs. Roberts burst out. "I could see you never believed me, you're just like George and in any case she never does it when he's there because he lets her have everything she wants so she never gets into a temper and it's only then that she does it at all . . ."

Between the broken streams of words and the yells of Rosie, Dr. Paisley gathered that more things had been "moved" by Rosie when she was in a temper.

"So I came now, Doctor, so you could see, she's not had her milk and she's getting all worked up and you see, she'll do it like I said."

Rosie's cries were certainly getting fiercer, and the noise was distracting. Paisley winced as the shrieks reached a higher pitch when Mrs. Roberts took out the bottle, but held it away from the baby. She tantalisingly waved it in the air, Rosie's red eyes following it as she yelled, tears of frustration running on the plump cheeks.

"Come on, baby," Mrs. Roberts mouthed, sweat gleaming on her forehead. "Get your milky . . ."

Paisley frowned and half rose from his chair as Mrs. Roberts placed the bottle deliberately on a cabinet, just out of reach of Rosie, whose screams reached a crescendo of violence that he could hardly credit. Hysteria shone in the child's eyes and suddenly the doctor leaped up and took the bottle himself, passing it to the baby, who at once settled to satisfied sucking.

The silence was sudden and deafening. Standing, Paisley and Mrs. Roberts faced each other.

"Please sit down, Mrs. Roberts. I think we'd better have a little talk." Paisley forced a soothing smile.

After a second of more or less silence, Mrs. Roberts collapsed on to the chair, and leaned heavily forward over the doctor's desk. Her head lowered and she began to weep softly.

Paisley picked up the phone.

"Nurse? Would you come in, please. I'm going to examine Mrs. Roberts. And try to get Baxter from the General on the line." For Baxter was a psychiatrist.

After two private sessions, Baxter was of the opinion that Mrs. Roberts would respond to treatment without entering hospital. Unlike Dr. Paisley, he had made no bones about his beliefs to his patient.

"Many of us see things that never happen, Mrs. Roberts. In fact, between you and me, I'd go so far as to say that we all do from time to time. You have been run down, and your mind has been playing tricks."

"I do understand, Mr. Baxter. But why? I mean, why should I—imagine things like this about Rosie?"

"I frankly don't know, Mrs. Roberts. If I were to say I did, I'd be deceiving you. But we shall find out, if you will cooperate, and then we can put things right.

"For the time being, avoid any situation where the baby gets frustrated. Keep her happy and satisfied, if you can. Obviously, these—appearances—have something to do with the baby crying. It affects all mothers, you know. I know you feel that your husband is too soft with Rosie, but for the time being, follow his example."

In Baxter's letter to Dr. Paisley, he was less certain and cheerful.

". . . and it is difficult to detect the real motive behind these attacks. The basic theme is that the child gets what it wants without the mother's help. This may be significant. Perhaps a concealed rejection symptom. I don't anticipate danger at this stage, especially since the patient is so amenable to treatment. But I'd look in occasionally, if I were you. We don't want any . . . accidents . . ."

Five weeks of peace followed. Rosie found life considerably easier. Food and playthings were provided on demand, even before demand. Mrs. Roberts, at first on edge to prevent the outbursts that had started the whole thing, found that the easier path was not always so unpleasant.

Disaster came because of the cold weather.

A sharp nip caused Mrs. Roberts to light fires more frequently, and make them up larger. Coal ran short and she ordered more. The blaze had the usual fascination for Rosie that it has for all children, and with bigger fires, the flames became brighter, more desirable. Rosie crept to the fireguard and thrust her small arms through at the flames.

At once her mother drew her back, in spite of kicks.

"Burny, dear," she said soothingly.

But the attraction of the fire was great, and Rosie, now unused to opposition at all, began to cry in earnest. She fought to escape her mother's imprisoning arms. Mrs. Roberts placed the baby beside the guard, but kept her hands firmly gripped.

"Pretty fire, but burny," she cooed to the squirming Rosie. "Mustn't touch!"

Rosie's face became suffused with dark pink as she wrestled to get her hands free. She started to shriek, dragged one hand from her mother's and thrust it through the guard. Mrs. Roberts snatched it back, grazing the soft skin on the metal. Rosie screamed louder and arched her back in a desperate struggle to be free. Rage glared from her small face. Mrs. Roberts held on firmly and at that moment the doorbell rang.

It was the coal delivery.

With due forethought, Mrs. Roberts hastily swung the child over into her play pen that stood in the middle of the room, well away from the fire.

"Mummy won't be long," she said to the screaming child. "You stop there just a minute. Then Mummy play."

There were six bags of coal to be shot into the outhouse, and the money to be found in the kitchen cupboard. As she went outside to the waiting man, Rosie's yells echoed even louder.

The coalman grinned.

"Sounds as if you got trouble in there!"

"She wants to play with the fire," said Mrs. Roberts. "You know what they are."

"All kids are the same," agreed the man amiably. "By God, though, she's got some lungs!"

And indeed, Rosie, was excelling herself with piercing screams. Screams of a different, subtly altered, tone.

When Mrs. Roberts, followed by the curious coalman, ran into the living room this was full of smoke. In the play pen was a pile of flaming coals, and clinging screaming to the bars, Rosie tried to keep her legs up away from the flames. Her dress was smoking . . .

They took Mrs. Roberts away that afternoon, as soon as her husband could be found to take charge of the shocked but almost uninjured Rosie.

She went without resistance. In that smoky room the coalman had saved the baby. She had done nothing but stare and scream and stare again at the coals.

Dr. Paisley was able to deal with the police, and put them in touch with Baxter, who at once arranged for a bed in the General. By evening, Mrs. Roberts was under light sedation, and a conference had been held with Baxter, Paisley and George Roberts present.

"I knew she was nervy, of course," Roberts was saying. "But I never thought she'd harm the kid."

"She didn't," put in Baxter quickly. "Notice how she arranges these things. There was a man actually there, at the time, and she positively encouraged him to come in to help. If she had intended real harm, she would have done it when nobody was about."

"But why, Mr. Baxter? And whatever are we going to do now?"

"Have you anyone who could look after the child. Just for a week or two?" Baxter asked, frowning.

"Oh, yes. Our Frances. She always wanted kids of her own. She's got Rosie now. There's no problem."

"Well, Mr. Roberts, let's leave it there, for the moment. I'm confident that this—trouble of your wife's is something temporary. I admit I never expected such . . . an unusual and dangerous demonstration as this with the fire. Let's see in a week's time."

"Shall I bring the kid, Doctor? I mean, will she . . ."

"I should leave Rosie at home for a few days, Mr. Roberts. Then we'll see . . ."

It was three weeks before Rosie saw her mother again.

Not that they were days of unhappiness. Aunt Frances was easy going, kindly and had central heating. Moreover, she had brought large supplies of the small sweets that Rosie favoured.

But after three weeks Mrs. Roberts herself was becoming anxious. In her sedative-confused mind she became harassed by fears that Rosie might, after all, have been burned in the fire and was being kept from her. Baxter felt that a meeting was necessary, and might be interesting. He authorised George Roberts to bring Rosie for half an hour, and arranged to be present.

The meeting was unexpectedly touching.

At first Rosie was too interested in the great white hospital building, the long, glittering corridors, the lift that swept her and Mr. Roberts up to the fifth floor, the white clad nurses and the small room with its sterile bed. She hardly noticed her mother.

But then, Mrs. Roberts raised herself and held out her hands. Rosie's face lit up and with a gurgle of delight she strained in her father's arms to try to reach the bed . . .

Baxter watched for ten minutes, then left, thoughtfully. There was no trace of the problem that he had feared; rejection through fear of the mother by the child. Obviously, Rosie remembered her mother only with pleasure, the old frustrations forgotten, and the fire with its terrors.

He had Roberts called from the private room into the corridor.

". . . not quite yet, Mr. Roberts, but fairly soon. It's obvious that Mrs. Roberts is much better. And Rosie seems quite—er—normal with her."

Roberts nodded.

"I did wonder whether the kid'd remember, like. Be feared of her own mum. But she isn't and that's a fact."

"All the same, Mr. Roberts, I'd like to take a few precautions. Perhaps your sister could stay with Mrs. Roberts a few days, after she comes home. Just until she settles in."

"Easy, Mr. Baxter. Just as long as you say."

They both re-entered the room, to see a happy Rosie trying to reach the glass apparatus that a smiling nurse was placing just out of her reach. A trace of a scowl crossed Rosie's face, but the sight of her mother once again distracted her.

"Time to go, Mrs. Roberts, I'm afraid," smiled Baxter. "But good news. Another week or so and I think it's home for you, for good!"

As her father lifted her from Mrs. Roberts' arms, Rosie began to wail. As Baxter, the nurse and Mr. Roberts paused in the doorway to smile farewell, the wail grew to a cry. As the room door closed the cry became a yell. Rosie squirmed in her father's grip and he smiled wryly at the nurse.

"She's a right handful when she gets mad."

Rosie's screams became louder as they entered the lift and slid downwards. Tears of rage and frustration gathered in her eyes and ran down her soft, rounded cheeks. As Roberts crossed the wide, pale hall of the hospital entrance other visitors turned curiously to stare at the raging, shrieking baby, fighting in his arms.

He hastened out to his car, mercifully parked immediately outside below the tall white walls of the ward block.

As he fumbled awkwardly for his keys, clamping the baby beneath one arm, Rosie's suffused face turned upwards, staring desperately up at the vast rows of steel framed windows behind one of which her mother lay.

Rosie shrieked again, agonisingly, demandingly, raising her free arms towards the high, motionless walls. Her eyes glared with effort.

From the fifth floor, about sixty feet above, came a crash of glass as a body smashed through a window.

Mrs. Roberts fell screaming, writhing, hurtling to the pavement. Her body swept Rosie from her father's arms and smashed her to the concrete.

George Roberts was uninjured, but mother and child were both dead on examination.

The window glass was supposed to be unbreakable, but it is common knowledge that insane people have unusual strength. There was no other explanation.

THE SCAR by Ramsey Campbell

"It was most odd on the bus today," Lindsay Rice said.

Jack Rossiter threw his cigarette into the fire and lit another. His wife Harriet glanced at him uneasily; she could see he was in no mood for her brother's circumlocutions.

"Most odd," said Lindsay. "Rather upsetting, in fact. It reminded me, the Germans—now was it the Germans? Yes, I think it was the Germans—used to have this thing about dopplegangers, the idea being that if you saw your double it meant you were going to die. But of course you didn't see him. That's right, of course, I should explain."

Jack moved in his armchair. "I'm sorry, Lindsay," he interrupted, "I just don't see where you're heading. I'm sorry."

"It's all right, Lindsay," Harriet said. "Jack's been a bit tired lately. Go on."

But at that moment the children tumbled into the room like Pierrots, their striped pyjamas bold against the pastel lines of wallpaper. "Douglas tried to throw me into the bath, and he hasn't brushed his teeth!" Elaine shouted triumphantly.

"There'll be spankings for two in a minute," Jack threatened, but he smiled. "Good night, darling. Good night, darling. No, you've had a hard day, darling, I'll put them to bed."

"Not so hard as you," Harriet said, standing up. "You stay and talk to Lindsay."

Jack grimaced inwardly; he had wanted Harriet to rest, but somehow it now appeared as if he'd been trying to escape Lindsay. "Sorry, Lindsay, you were saying?" he prompted as the thumping on the staircase ceased.

"Oh, yes, on the bus. Well, it was this morning, I saw someone who looked like you. I was going to speak to him until I realized." Rice glanced round the room; although his weekly invitation was of some years' standing, he could never remember exactly where everything was. Not that it mattered: the whole was solid. Armchairs, television, bookcase full of Penguins and book-club editions and Shorrock's Valuer's Manual—there it was, on top of the bookcase, the wedding photograph which Jack had carefully framed for Harriet. "Yes, he was as thin as you've been getting, but he had a scar from here to here." Rice encompassed his left temple and jawbone with finger and thumb like dividers.

"So he wasn't really my double. My time hasn't run out after all."

"Well, I hope not!" Rice laughed a little too long; Jack felt his mouth stretching as he forced it to be sociable. "We've been slackening off at the office," Rice said. "How are things at the jeweller's? Nothing stolen yet, I hope?"

"No, everything's under control," Jack replied. Feet ran across the floor above. "Hang on, Lindsay," he said, "sounds like Harriet's having trouble."

Harriet had quelled the rebellion when he arrived; she closed the door of the children's room and regarded him. "Christ, the man's tact!" he exploded.

"Shh, Jack, he'll hear you." She put her arms round him. "Don't be cruel to Lindsay," she pleaded. "You know I always had the best of everything and Lindsay never did—unhappy at school, always being put down by my father, never daring to open his mouth—darling, you know he finds it difficult to talk to people. Now I've got you. Surely we can spare him kindness at least."

"Of course we can." He stroked her hair. "It's just that—damn it, not only does he say I'm losing weight as though I'm being underfed or something, but he asks me if the shop has been broken into yet!"

"Poor darling, don't worry. I'm sure the police will catch them before they raid the shop. And if not, there's always insurance."

"Yes, there's insurance, but it won't rebuild my display! Can't you understand I take as much pride in the shop as you take in the house? Probably some jumped-up little skinheads who throw the loot away once their tarty little teeny-boppers have played with it!"

"That doesn't sound like you at all, Jack," Harriet said.

"I'm sorry, love. You know I'm really here. Come on, I'd better fix up tomorrow night with Lindsay."

"If you feel like a rest we could have him round here."

"No, he opens out a bit when he's in a pub. Besides, I like the walk to Lower Brichester."

"Just so long as you come back in one piece, my love."

Rice heard them on the stairs. He hurried back to his chair from the bookcase where he had been inspecting the titles. One of these days he must offer to lend them some books—anything to make them like him more. He knew he'd driven Jack upstairs. Why couldn't he be direct instead of circling the point like a wobbling whirligig? But every time he tried to grasp an intention or a statement it slid out of reach. Even if he hung a sign on his bedroom wall—he'd once thought of one: "I shall act directly"—he would forget it before he left the flat. Even as he forgot his musings when Jack and Harriet entered the room.

"I'd better be off," he said. "You never can tell with the last bus round here."

"I'll see you tomorrow night, then," Jack told him, patting his shoulder. "I'll call round and pick you up."

But he never had the courage to invite them to his flat, Lindsay thought; he knew it wasn't good enough for them. Not that they would show it—rather would they do everything to hide their feelings out of kindness, which would be worse. Tomorrow night as usual he would be downstairs early to wait for Jack in the doorway. He waved to them as they stood linked in the bright frame, then struck off down the empty road. The fields were grey and silent, and above the semi-detached roofs the moon was set in a plush ring of cold November mist. At the bus-stop he thought: I wish I could do something for them so they'd be grateful to me.

Harriet was bending over the cooker; she heard no footsteps—she had no chance to turn before the newspaper was over her face.

"I see the old Jack's back with us," she said, fighting off the Brichester Herald.

"You haven't seen it?" He guided her hand to the headline: Youths Arrested—Admit to Jewel Thefts. He was beaming; he read the report again with Harriet, the three boys who'd hoped to stockpile jewellery but had been unable to market it without attracting the police. "Maybe now we can all get some sleep," he said. "Maybe I can give up smoking."

"Don't give it up for me, Jack, I know you need it. But if you did give it up I'd be very happy."

Douglas and Elaine appeared, pummelling towards their tea. "Now just you sit down and wait," Jack told them, "or we'll eat it for you."

After tea he lit a cigarette, then glanced at Harriet. "Don't worry, darling," she advised. "Take things easy for a while. Come on, monsters, you can help clear up." She knew the signs—spilled sugar, dropped knife: Jack would hypertense with relief if he didn't rest.

But ten minutes later he was in the kitchen. "Must go," he said. "Give myself time for a stroll before I meet Lindsay. Anyway, the news ought to give the conversation a lift."

"Come back whole, darling," Harriet said, not knowing.

Yes, he liked to walk through Lower Brichester. He'd made the walk, with variations, for almost two years; ever since his night out drinking with Rice had settled into habit. It had been his suggestion, primarily to please Harriet, for he knew she liked to think he and Lindsay were friends; but by now he met Lindsay out of a sense of duty, which was rarely proof against annoyance as the evening wore on. Never mind, there was the walk. If he felt insecure, as he often did when walking—the night, Harriet elsewhere—he gained a paradoxical sense of security from Lower Brichester; the bleared fish-and-chip shop windows, the crowds outside pubs, a drunk punching someone's face with a soft moist sound—it reassured him to think that here was a level to which he could never be reduced.

Headlights blazed down a side-street, billowing with mist and motor-cycle fumes. They spotlighted a broken wall across the streets from Rossiter; a group of girls huddled on the shattered bricks, laughing forth fog as the motorcycle gang fondled them roughly with words. Rossiter gazed at them; no doubt the jewel thieves had been of the same mould. He felt a little guilty as he watched the girls, embracing to keep out the cold; but he had his answer ready—nothing would change them, they were fixed; if he had money, it was because he could use it properly. He turned onward; he would have to use the alley on the right if he were not to keep Rice waiting.

Suddenly the shrieks of laughter behind the roaring engines were cut off. A headlight felt its way along the walls, finding one house protruding part of some ruined frontage like a piece of jigsaw, the next shuttered with corrugated tin which had been torn down from the doorway, its neighbour dismally curtained. Briefly the beam followed a figure: a man in a long black coat swaying along the pavement, a grey woolen sock pulled down over his face. The girls huddled closer, silently. Jack shuddered; the exploratory progress of the figure seemed unformed, undirected. Then the light was gone; the girls giggled in the darkness, and beyond a streetlamp the figure fumbled into the tin-shuttered house. Jack turned up his coat collar and hurried into the alley. The engines roared louder.

He was halfway up the alley when he heard the footsteps. The walls were narrow; there was barely room for the other, who seemed in a hurry, to pass. Jack pressed against the wall; it was cold and rough beneath his hand. Behind him the footsteps stopped.

He looked back. The entrance to the alley whirled with fumes, against which a figure moved towards him, vaguely outlined. It held something in its hand. Jack felt automatically for his lighter. Then the figure spoke.

"You're Jack Rossiter." The voice was soft and anonymous yet somehow penetrated the crescendo of the motorcycles. "I'll be visiting your shop soon."

For a moment Jack thought he must know the man, though his face was merely a black egg in the shadows; but something in the figure's slow approach warned him. Suddenly he knew what that remark implied. Cold rushed into his stomach, and metal glinted in the figure's hand. Jack retreated along the wall, his fingers searching frantically for a door. His feet tangled with an abandoned tin; he kicked it towards the figure and ran.

The fog boiled round him; metal clattered; a foot hooked his ankle and tripped him. The engines were screaming; as Jack raised his head a car's beam thrust into his eyes. He scrabbled at potato peelings and sardine tins and struggled to his knees. A foot between his shoulders ground him down. The car's light dimmed and vanished. He struggled on to his back, cold peel sticking to his cheek, and the foot pressed on his heart. The metal closed in the figure's palm. Above him hands displayed the tin which he had kicked. The insidious voice said something. Rossiter tore at the leg in horror and fury. The black egg bent nearer. The foot pressed harder, and the rusty lid of the tin came down towards Jack's face.

Though the bandage was off he could still feel the cut, blazing now and then from his temple to his jawbone. He forced himself to forget; he banked the living-room fire and opened his book. But it failed to soothe him. Don't brood, he told himself savagely, worse is probably happening in Lower Brichester at this moment. If only Harriet hadn't seen him unbandaged at the hospital! He could feel her pain more keenly than his own since he'd come home. He kept thinking of her letting the kettle scream so he wouldn't hear her sobbing in the kitchen. Then she'd brought his coffee, her face still wet beneath her hair from water to wash away the tears. Why had he told her at the hospital—"It's not what he did to me, it's what he said he'd do to Douglas and Elaine?" He cursed himself for spreading more suffering than he himself had had to stand. Even Rice had seemed to feel himself obscurely to blame, although Jack had insisted that it was his own fault for walking through that area.

"Go and say goodnight to Daddy," Harriet called.

The children padded in. "Daddy's face is getting better," Elaine said.

He saw the black egg bearing down on them. God, he swore, if he should lay one finger—! "Daddy's surviving his accident," he told them. "Good night, children."

Presently he heard Harriet slowly descending the stairs, each step a thought. Suddenly she rushed into the room and hid her face on his chest. "Oh, please, please, darling, what did he say about the children?" she cried.

"I won't have you disturbed, my love," he said, holding her as she trembled. "I can worry enough for both of us. And as long as you take them there and back to school, it doesn't matter what the sod said."

"And what about your shop?" she asked through her tears.

"Never mind the shop!" He tried not to think of his dream of the smashed window, of the foul disorder he might find one morning. "The police will find him, don't you worry."

"But you couldn't even describe—" The doorbell rang. "Oh, God, it's Lindsay," she said. "Could you go, darling? I can't let him see me like this."

"Oh, that's good—I mean I'm glad you've got the bandage off," said Lindsay. Behind him fog swallowed the bedraggled trees and blotted out the fields. He stared at Jack, then muttered: "Sorry, better let you close the door."

"Come in and get some fire," Jack said. "Harriet will have the coffee ready in a minute."

Rice plodded round the room, then sat down opposite Jack. He stared at the wedding photograph. He rubbed his hands and gazed at them. He looked up at the ceiling. At last he turned to Jack: "What—" he glanced around wildly—"what's that you're reading?"

"The Heart of the Matter. Second time, in fact. You should try it sometime."

Harriet looked in, dabbing at one eye. "Think I rubbed in some soap, she explained. "Hello, Lindsay. If we're talking about books, Jack, you said you'd read The Lord of the Rings."

"Well, I can't now, darling, since I'm working tomorrow. Back to work at last, Lindsay. Heaven knows what sort of a state the shop will be in with Phillips in charge."

"You always said you could rely on him in an emergency," Harriet protested.

"Well, this is the test. Yes, white as usual for me, please, darling."

Harriet withdrew to the kitchen. "I read a book this week," Rice caught at the conversation, "about a man—what's his name, no, I forget—whose friend is in danger from someone, he finds out—and he finally pulls this someone off a cliff and gets killed himself." He was about to add: "At least he did something with himself. I don't like books about people failing," but Jack took the cue:

"A little unrealistic for me," he said, "after what happened."

"Oh, I never asked," Rice's hands gripped each other, "where did it?"

"Just off the street parallel to yours, the next but two. In the alley."

"But that's where—" he lost something again—"where there's all sorts of violence."

"You shouldn't live so near it, Lindsay," Harriet said above a tray. "Make the effort. Move soon."

"Depressing night," Jack remarked as he helped Rice don his coat. "Drop that book in sometime, Lindsay. I'd like to read it."

Of course he wouldn't, Rice thought as he breathed in the curling fog and met the trees forming in the murk; he was trying to be kind. Rice had failed again. Why had he been unable to speak, to tell Jack that he had seen his double leave the bus and enter an abandoned house opposite that alley? The night of the mutilation Rice had waited in his doorway, feeling forsaken, sure that Jack had decided not to come; ashamed now, he blamed himself—Jack would be whole now if Rice hadn't made him feel it was his duty to meet him. Something was going to happen; he sensed it looming. If he could only warn them, prevent it—but prevent what? He saw the figures falling from the cliff-top against the azure sky, the seagulls screaming round them—but the mist hung about him miserably, stilling his intentions. He began to hurry to the bus-stop.

The week unfolded wearily. It was as formless in Rice's mind as the fields when he walked up the Rossiters' street again, his book collecting droplets in his hand. He rang the bell and waited, shivering; the windows were blurred by mist.

"Oh, Lindsay," said Harriet. She had run to the door; it was clear she had been crying. "I don't know whether—"

Jack appeared in the hall, one hand possessively gripping the living-room doorframe, the cigarette upon his lip flaking down his shirt. "Well, look who's here," he said harshly. "Did we invite you for tonight? I thought it'd be early to bed for us. Come in for God's sake, don't freeze us to death."

Harriet threw Lindsay a pleading look which he could not interpret. "Sorry," he apologized. "I didn't know you were tired."

"Who said tired? Come on, man, start thinking! God, I give up." Jack threw up his hands and whirled into the living-room.

"Lindsay, Jack's been having a terrible time. The shop was broken into last night."

"What's all that whispering?" a voice shouted. "Aren't I one of the family any more?"

"Jack, don't be illogical. Surely Lindsay and I can talk." But she motioned Lindsay into the living-room.

"Treating me like a stranger in my own house!" Jack shouted.

Lindsay dropped the book. Suddenly he realized what he'd seen: Jack's face was paler, thinner than last week; the scar looked older than seemed possible. He bent for the book. No, what he was thinking was incredible; Harriet would have noticed. Jack was simply worried. It must be worry.

"Brought me a book, have you? Come on, let's see it. Oh, for God's sake, Lindsay, I can't waste my time with this sort of thing!"

"Jack!" cried Harriet. "Lindsay brought it specially."

"Don't pity Lindsay, he won't thank you for it. You think we're patronizing you, don't you, Lindsay? Inviting you up the posh end of town?"

This couldn't be, Rice thought; not in this pastel living-room, not with the wedding photograph fixed forever; their lives were solid, not ephemeral like his own. "I—I don't know what you mean," he faltered.

"Jack, I won't have you speaking to Lindsay like that," Harriet said. "Lindsay, would you help me make the coffee?"

"Siding with your brother now," Jack accused. "I don't need him at a time like this, I need you. You've forgotten the shop already, but I haven't. I suppose I needn't expect any comfort tonight."

"Oh, Jack, try and get a grip on yourself," but now her voice was softer. Don't! Lindsay warned her frantically, That's exactly what he wants!

"Take your book, Lindsay," Jack said through his fingers, "and make sure you're invited in future." Harriet glanced at him in anguish and ushered Lindsay out.

"I'm sorry you've been hurt, Lindsay," she said. "Of course you're always welcome here. You know we love you. Jack didn't mean it. I knew something would happen when I heard about the shop. Jack just ran out of it and didn't come back for hours. But I didn't know it would be like this—" Her voice broke. "Maybe you'd better not come again until Jack's more stable. I'll tell you when it's over. You do understand, don't you?"

"Of course, it doesn't matter," Lindsay said, trembling with formless thoughts. On the hall table a newspaper had been crumpled furiously; he saw the headline—Jeweller's Raided—Displays Destroyed. "Can I have the paper?" he asked.

"Take it, please. I'll get in touch with you, I promise. Don't lose heart."

As the door closed Rice heard Jack call "Harriet!" in what sounded like despair. Above, the children were silhouetted on their bedroom window; as Rice trudged away the fog engulfed them. At the bus-stop he read the report: a window broken, destruction everywhere. He gazed ahead blindly. Shafts of bilious yellow pierced the fog, then the grey returned. "Start thinking," was it? Oh yes, he could think—think how easy it would be to fake a raid, knowing the insurance would rebuild what had been destroyed—but he didn't want the implications; the idea was insane, anyway. Who would destroy simply in order to have an excuse for appearing emaciated, unstable? But his thoughts returned to Harriet; he avoided thinking what might be happening in that house. You're jealous! he tried to tell himself. He's her husband! He has the right! Rice became aware that he was holding the book which he had brought for Jack. He stared at the tangled figures falling through blue drops of mist, then thrust the book into the litter-bin between empty tins and a sherry bottle. He stood waiting in the fog.

The fog trickled through Rice's kitchen window. He leaned his weight on the sash, but again it refused to shut. He shrugged helplessly and tipped the beans into the saucepan. The tap dripped once; he gripped it and screwed it down. Below the window someone came out coughing and shattered something in the dustbin. The tap dripped. He moved towards it, and the bell rang.

It was Harriet in a headscarf. "Oh, don't come in," he said. "It's not fit, I mean—"

"Don't be silly, Lindsay," she told him edgily. "Let me in." Her eyes gathered details: the twig-like crack in one corner of the ceiling, the alarm-clock whose hand had been amputated, the cobweb supporting the lamp-flex from the ceiling like a bracket. "But this is so depressing," she said. "Don't stay here, Lindsay. You must escape."

"It doesn't look too good because the bed's not made," he tried to explain, but he could see her despairing. He had to turn the subject. "Jack all right?" he asked, then remembered, but too late.

She pulled off her headscarf. "Lindsay, he hasn't been himself since they wrecked the shop," she said with determined calm. "Rows all the time, breaking things—he broke our photograph. He goes out and gets drunk half the evenings. I've never seen him so irrational." Her voice faded. "And there are other things—that I can't tell you about—"

"That's awful. That's terrible." He couldn't bear to see Harriet like this; she was the only one he had ever loved. "Couldn't you get him to see someone, I mean—"

"We've already had a row about that. That was when he broke our photograph."

"How about the children? How's he been to them?" Instantly two pieces fitted together; he waited, chill with horror, for her answer.

"He tells them off for playing, but I can protect them."

How could she be so blind? "Suppose he should do something to them," he said. "You'll have to get out."

"That's one thing I won't do," she told him. "He's my husband, Lindsay. It's up to me to look after him."

She can't believe that! Lindsay cried. He tottered on the edge of revelation, and fought with his tongue. "Don't you think he's acting as if he was a different person?" He could not be more explicit.

"After what happened that's not so surprising." She drew her headscarf through her fingers and pulled it back, drew and pulled, drew and pulled; Lindsay looked away. "He's left all the displays in Phillips' hands. He's breaking down, Lindsay. I've got to nurse him back. He'll survive, I know he will."

Survive! Lindsay thought with bitterness and horror. And suddenly he remembered that Harriet had been upstairs when he'd described his encounter on the bus; she would never realize, and his tongue would never move to tell her. Behind her compassion he sensed a terrible devotion to Jack which he could not break. She was as trapped as he was in this flat. Yet if he could not speak, he must act. The plan against him was clear: he'd been banished from the Rossiters' home, he was unable to protest, Harriet would be alone. There was only one false assumption in the plan, and it concerned himself. It must be false. He gazed at Harriet; she would never understand, but perhaps she needn't suspect.

The beans sputtered and smouldered in the pan. "Oh, Lindsay, I'm awfully sorry," Harriet said. "You must have your tea. I've got to get back before he comes home. I only called to tell you not to come round for a while. Please don't, I'll be all right."

"I'll stay away until you tell me," Lindsay lied. As she reached the hall he called out; he felt bound to make what would happen as easy as he could for her. "If anything should happen—" he fumbled—"you know, while Jack's—disturbed—I can always help to look after the children."

Rice could hear the children screaming from the end of the street. He began to walk towards the cries. He hadn't meant to go near the house; if his plan were to succeed, Harriet must not see him. Harriet—why wasn't she protecting the children? It couldn't be the Rossiters' house, he argued desperately; sounds couldn't reach the length of the street. But the cries continued, piercing with terror and pain; they dragged his footsteps nearer. He reached the house and could no longer doubt. The bedrooms were curtained, the house was impossibly impassive, reflecting no part of the horror within; fog clung greyly to the grass like scum on reeds. He could hear Elaine sobbing something and then screaming. Rice wanted to break in, to stop the sounds, to discover what was holding Harriet back; but if he went in his plan would be destroyed. His palms prickled; he wavered miserably, and the silver pavement slithered beneath him.

The front door of the next house opened and a man—portly, red-faced, bespectacled, grey hair, black overcoat, valise clenched in his hand like a weapon—strode down the path, grinning at the screams. He passed Rice and turned at his aghast expression: "What's the matter, friend," he asked with amusement in his voice, "never have your behind tanned when you were a kid?"

"But listen to them!" Rice said unevenly. "They're screaming!"

"And I should damn well think so, too," the other retorted. "You know Jack Rossiter? Decent chap. About as much of a sadist as I am, and his kids ran in just now when we were having breakfast with some nonsense about their father doing something dreadful to them. I grabbed them by the scruff of their necks and dragged them back. One thing wrong with Rossiter—he was too soft with those kids, and I'm glad he seems to have learned some sense. Listen, you know who taught kids to tell tales on their parents? The bloody Nazis, that's who. There'll be no kids turning into bloody Nazis in this country if I can help it!"

He moved away, glancing back at Rice as if suspicious of him. The cries had faded; perhaps a door had closed. Stunned, Rice realized that he had been seen near the house; his plan was in danger. "Well, I can't wait," he called, trying to sound casual, and hurried after the man. "I've got to catch my bus."

At the bus-stop, next to the man who was scanning the headlines and swearing, Rice watched the street for the figure he awaited, shivering with cold and indecision, his nostrils smarting with the faint stench of wet smoke. A bus arrived; his companion boarded. Rice stamped his feet and stared into the distance as if awaiting another; his observer told him that he was over-acting. When the bus had darkened and merged into the fog, he retraced his steps. At the corner of the street he saw the fog solidify into a striding shape, the figure he expected. His chill intensified.

"Oh, Jack, can you spare a few minutes?" he said.

"Why, it's my prodigal brother-in-law!" came in a mist steaming from the mouth beside the scar. "I thought Harriet had warned you off? I'm in a hurry."

Again Rice was caught by a compulsion to rush into the house, to discover what had happened to Harriet. But there were the children to protect; he must make sure they would never scream again. "I thought I saw you—I mean, I did see you in Lower Brichester a few weeks ago," he said, feeling the fog obscuring security. "You were going into a ruined house."

"Who, me? It must have been my—" But the voice stopped; breath hung before the face.

Rice let his hatred drive out the words. "Your double? But then where did he go? Come on, I'll show you the house."

For a moment Rice doubted; perhaps the figure would laugh and stride into the mist. Ice sliced through his toes; he tottered and then plunged. "How did you manage to get rid of him?" he forced through swollen lips. "Was it at the shop or walking home?"

The eyes flickered; the scar shifted. "Who, Phillips? God, man, I never did know what you meant half the time. He'll be wondering where I am—I'll have to think up a story to satisfy him."

"I think you'll be able to do that." Cold with fear as he was, Rice was still warmed by fulfilment as he sensed that he had the upper hand, that he was able to taunt as had the man on the cliff-top before the plunge. He plunged into the fog, knowing that now he would be followed.

The grey fields were abruptly blocked by a more solid anonymity, the streets of Lower Brichester, suffocating individuality, erasing it through lifetimes. Whenever he'd walked through these streets with Jack on the short route to the pub each glance of Jack's had reminded him that he was part of this anonymity, this inertia. But no longer, he told himself. Signs of life were sparse; a postman cycled creaking by; beyond a window an announcer laughed; a cat curled among milk-bottles. The door was rolled down on a pinball arcade, and a girl in a cheap fur coat was leaping about in the doorway of a boutique to keep herself warm until the keys arrived. Rice felt eyes finger the girl, then revert to him; they had watched him since the beginning of the journey, although the figure seemed to face always forward. Rice glanced at the other; he was gazing in the direction of his stride, and the scar wrinkled with a faint sneer. Soon now, Rice thought, and a block of ice grew in his stomach while the glazing of the pavement cracked beneath his feet.

They passed a square foundation enshrining a rusty pram; here a bomb had blown a house asunder. The next street, Rice realized, and dug his nails into the rubber of the torch in his pocket. The blitz had almost bypassed Brichester; here and there one passed from curtained windows to a gaping building, eventually rebuilt if in the town, neglected in Lower Brichester. Was this the key? Had someone been driven underground by blitz conditions, or had something been released by bombing? In either case, what form of camouflage would they have to adopt to live? Rice thought he knew, but he didn't want to think it through; he wanted to put an end to it. And round a corner the abandoned house focused into view.

A car purred somewhere; the pavement was faintly numbered for hopscotch. Rice gazed about covertly; there must be nobody in sight. And at his side the figure did the same. Terrified, Rice yet had to repress a nervous giggle. "There's the house," he said. "I suppose you'll want to go in."

"If you've got something to show me." The scar wrinkled again.

Bricks were heaped in what had been the garden; ice glistened in their pores. Rice could see nothing through the windows, which were shuttered with tin. A grey corrugated sheet had been peeled back from the doorway; it scraped painfully at Rice's ankle as he entered.

The light was dim; he gripped his torch. Above him a shattered skylight illuminated a staircase full of holes through which moist dust fell. To his right a door, one panel gouged out, still hung from a hinge. He hurried into the room, kicking a stray brick.

The fireplace gaped, half curtained by a hanging strip of wallpaper. Otherwise the room was bare, deserted probably for years. Of course the people of the neighbourhood didn't have to know exactly what was here to be afraid. In the hall tin rasped. Rice ran into the kitchen, ahead on the left. Fog had penetrated through a broken window; it filled his mouth as he panted. Opposite the cloven sink he saw a door. He wrenched it open, and in the other room the brick clattered. Rice's hands were gloved in frozen iron; his nails were shards of ice thrust into his fingertips, melting into his blood. One hand clutched towards the back door. He tottered forward and heard the children scream, thought once of Harriet, saw the figures on the cliff. I'm not a hero! he mouthed. How in God's name did I get here? And the answer came: because he'd never really believed what he'd suspected. But the torch was shining, and he swung it down the steps beyond the door.

They led into a cellar; bricks were scattered on the floor, bent knives and forks, soiled plates leading the torch-beam to tattered blankets huddled against the walls, others hinted in the shadows. And in one corner lay a man, surrounded by tins and a strip of the corrugated metal. The body glistened. Trembling, his mouth gaping at the stench which thickened the air, Rice descended, and the torch's circle shrank. The man in the corner was dressed in red. Rice moved nearer. With a shock he realized that the man was naked, shining with red paint which also marked the tins and strip of metal. Suddenly he wrenched away and retched.

For a moment he was engulfed by nausea; then he heard footsteps in the kitchen. His fingers burned like wax and blushed at their clumsiness, but he caught up a brick. "You've found what you expected, have you?" the voice called. Rice reached the steps, and a figure loomed above him, blotting out the light. With studied calm it felt round in the kitchen and produced a strip of corrugated tin. "I'm only sorry that you couldn't have had another talk with Harriet," it said. "You see, I take my wife everywhere." Rice had no time to think; focusing his horror, fear and disgust with his lifetime of inaction, he threw the brick.

Rice was shaking by the time he had finished. He picked up the torch from the bottom step and as if compelled turned its beam on the two corpses. Yes, they were of the same stature—they would have been identical, except that the face of the first was an abstract crimson oval. Rice shuddered away from his fascination. He must see Harriet—it didn't matter what excuse he gave, illness or anything, so long as he saw her. He shone the beam towards the steps to light his way, and the torch was wrested from his hand.

He didn't think; he threw himself up the steps and into the kitchen. The lock and bolts on the back door had been rusted shut for years. Footsteps padded up the steps. He fell into the other room. Outside an ambulance howled its way to hospital. Almost tripping on the brick, he reached the hall. The ambulance's blue light flashed in the doorway and passed, and a figure with a grey sock covering its face blocked the doorway.

Rice backed away. No, he thought in despair, he couldn't fail now; the fall from the cliff had ended the menace. But already he knew. He backed into something soft, and a hand closed over his mouth. The figure plodded towards him; the grey wool sucked in and out. The figure was his height, his build. He heard himself saying: "I can always help to look after the children." And as the figure grasped a brick he knew what face waited beneath the wool.

WARP by Ralph Norton

I did not murder Paul Ledderman. I'm not quite sure what I did to him, but it was not murder. Self-defence maybe, but not murder.

If I had to prove it, I should produce a leather gauntlet turned inside out; a newspaper cutting now rather yellowed but still readable enough to be startling; and a spiral sea-shell called Turritella communis (not that I know one end of a clam from the other, but I had it looked over by Peterson, the marine biologist, and he's paid to know). But I shall not have to prove it. Ledderman's body was not found and never will be, which is perhaps as well for the sanity of the doctors who would have been required to certify death.

I went down to Ledderman's place last autumn at his request. It was an astonishing request. I had not seen him for five years; no-one had except perhaps the postman and an occasional delivery-man bringing up supplies from the whistle-stop at Spring Bottom, twenty miles off down the valley. He lived in a self-designed servo-house at Spring Top, a lonely spot with a view in four directions. I don't know how much that house cost him: half-a-crown for the plot, maybe, and half a million pounds for the stuff on top. It was more than real-estate, it was a one-man community with plate-glass trimmings; a rib-cage of steel and concrete, all space and light; a machine for living in—and for working in. Enough power to feed a factory was piped up from a hydro-head a quarter of a mile away; outbuildings housed a mass of electronics; and the house itself ran Ledderman's daily life like a mother. It conditioned his air, cooked his food (mostly canned, and stocked up about once a quarter), washed his clothes, made his bed, extracted dust from its polished insides twice a day by suction and electrostatics, ran his bath and disposed of garbage. It fell short of a wife in only two respects (one being the habit of giving advice). Ledderman had decided to dispense with both.

He had disappeared to this monastery with modern conveniences in 1964. The house was about as far ahead of its time in those days as Ledderman was (to say nothing of his lab equipment) and he had some difficulty at first in keeping out the technical press on the one hand and the women's journals on the other. But persistent silence and electric fences eventually discouraged even the female journalists, and by 1966 or so only the occasional playboy in a 'copter, pointing out the Ledderman place to the latest playgirl, disturbed his solitary confinement.

He dropped his friends one by one, though a few continued to see him occasionally until as late as the spring of 1966, myself included. After that some of us got Christmas cards (if you care to call a few words scribbled on the back of a file-slip a Christmas card) and I continued to get a letter or two. But they said little and I sometimes wondered whether, among other things, Paul hadn't designed himself an automatic letter-writer with a built-in gadget for losing friends and failing to influence people. I was sore, but there it was. I had other things on my mind at the time (of which two have now reached an age of alleged discretion and the other does most of the things which Ledderman had fixed for himself by electronics and some which I, personally, think he made a mistake in omitting).

The letter which reached me in September, 1967, came therefore as a shock. For one thing, it was hand-written, which was unusual in itself. For another, it was very curiously worded: rambling, stilted and containing a very pressing invitation to go down and see him which was nevertheless made to sound about as attractive—and unavoidable—as a drafting notice. But the most curious thing of all was the way the letter was set out. Each line by itself made some sort of sense, though incomplete; but the sense did not follow on from line to line. I lost that letter when Ledderman was killed and I can't quote from it, but the sort of mess it was in shows up something like this:

of a fix, but also on the verge of something

see you without delay. I'm in a kind

long silence stand in the way. I must

For God's Sake, Steve, don't let our

There was no 'Dear Steve' and there was no signature or I might have worked it out sooner. It looked mad and sounded worse. I felt the back of my scalp creep a little as I read over that long collection of urgent phrases, each of which rose out of nowhere from the left-hand margin and stopped dead on the brink of a precipice on the right. They read like cries for help, coming in by VHF across half the world and getting cut off at intervals by something odd going on in the ionosphere—or at the transmitting end. I wasn't all that much relieved when I figured out that the way it read was from the bottom up. I've seen automatic translators do this kind of thing, but men don't. Not unless they're pretty sick men—or Leonardo da Vinci.

And Leonardo wrote his left hand backwards. It makes sense to read certain pages of the Notebooks with a mirror placed at the top of the page. The whole thing inverts: left becomes right and top bottom at the same time. But to write forwards while setting out the lines from the bottom up seemed to make no sense at all.

Unless Paul had written that letter with his left hand not only back to front but also from bottom to top (which seems to come naturally to the really devoted left-hander if he lets himself go, as the Old Master sometimes did). And then—? Well then—he turns the page over and miraculously causes the writing to rise through the surface and appear on the new side: left to right, of course, but still bottom to top. But why do a thing like that to an old friend; and how the hell, anyway? Especially if, like Paul, you happen to be right-handed.

It took me forty-eight hours to persuade Judy that I should go and see Paul—I thought it best not to show her the letter and she was inclined to think that Paul had a nerve after all these years, especially with Jimmy running a temperature, and so on—and another twenty hours to get down there.

It was already dark by the time I turned the car up the valley from Spring Bottom. It was also very lonely and bad going. The dirt road led nowhere except to the Ledderman place and I doubt that it carried more than a dozen trips a year by Johnson's delivery van bringing provisions off the train or the local postman. Paul himself kept a car but I heard later that it was a good eighteen months since his last rare visit to the bottom of the valley. He was rumoured, in the village, to have one or two curious qualities (a piercing look and a habit of talking to himself, for example), and the kids were sometimes kept in order by a few soft words, after sundown, about the Man at Spring Top. But Spring Bottom is the sort of place which clings to superstition and outdoor sanitation, and will probably have both till the next century or the one after that.

About a quarter of a mile from the Ledderman place I came to the ring-fence. My headlights picked out one of the "DANGER" signs that hung at intervals of twenty yards or so along its whole length. (They had more psychological value than real significance: Ledderman's voltage was well within regulations and about calculated to stun a rabbit. But the effect was good.)

The house itself was screened by the trees which Paul had imported some time back and I could not make out much in the darkness. In the old days Paul had used to greet his visitors at the gate, but this time there was no-one around—except one of his electronic minions. As I edged the car forward a part of the electric fence swung inwards leaving an entrance, though not a very inviting one. I don't like gates that open themselves by night.

I drove in and edged up the drive. I didn't feel too happy at the way that gate clanged to behind me. It was a decisive noise. I was tempted to back up the car and see if the electronic butler worked from the inside as well; but I have my pride, and I drove on.

I came round the screen of trees and pulled up. The house was much as I remembered it: a lovely thing; a delicate platform of steel and concrete, floating in the darkness, one-storied and sparkling with light. Every room along the front and also along the one side I could see was illuminated from within, as though the lights had been left on by someone who preferred not to be without them. Yet they intensified the darkness. The brilliant illumination, punctuated by the steel uprights, cast a kind of frontier along the edge of the gravel path. It made the blackness look blacker, if you know what I mean. Ahead of me, and off to one side of the house, the car-port slid back its metal doors. "Thanks, chum," I thought, without much gratitude. I drove in. The doors shut behind me, politely but firmly. I revved up the engine for a second or two and switched off. In the intense silence which followed I saw that a man was waiting for me at another exit from the carport which joined the house by a covered way.

A man can change a bit in three years. He can grow to look older, more lined, more mature. Paul had changed more than that, though. There was an oddness about his look which is not easy to describe. If I had passed him in the street, I think I would have "known that I knew him" without being able to put a name to the memory. He looked ill and tired; the eyes were deeper set than I remembered and showing a little too much of the whites. But there were other changes—which I could not analyse—in the contours of the face and the set of the body. There was a kind of family likeness to the Paul Ledderman I remembered, but I would not have been prepared to stand in a witness-box and swear to the identity. And I must admit that he seemed to find me about as unfamiliar.

"Steve Kassner," he said softly. It was almost a question, half way to being a cautious guess—as though at that famous meeting in the African wilderness Livingstone had said, Mr. Stanley—I presume?" It was perhaps the first time in fifteen years that he had used my second name.

I felt a sense almost of something uncanny in that greeting, and I was shocked by the oddness of his stare. I held out my hand a little self-consciously. There was a curious pause. He looked down uncertainly at his own hands and seemed to make a conscious choice between them. After a moment's hesitation he took my arm in his left hand and drew me towards the house. Under the brilliant illumination of the covered way I noted the flash of a white bandage encircling each wrist; also that he was limping slightly. The sense of shock strengthened. Something at the back of my mind whispered, "Who is this man?" and "What has become of Paul?"

Looking back on that evening, I'd say now that Paul Ledderman was already dead at that moment, had in fact died at some uncertain time between 1964 and 1967. And I don't say this just to pretend that what followed doesn't matter.

Maybe the last time I ever really saw Paul Ledderman was in 1964, three years before that evening. And yet who can say? Maybe the last time was in the small hours of September 10th, 1967, the morning which followed. It would take a smarter person than I am to work out the philosophical niceties of that problem. I still get to brooding about it at night, when there is no moon, and the blackness outside my house looks like a frontier and the great windows in their steel frames throw up a memory of the glass door opening into Paul's house off the covered way. As we came up to that door, two faces looked out from it: mine and Paul's. And Paul's face was suddenly the face I knew, thrown back into proper shape, with some of the illness and all of the strangeness wiped out of it. Two thoughts rattled through my head. The first went with an impulse to turn round and shout, "Paul!" and to clap him on the shoulder and to say something bawdy and friendly. The second thought was that if the man in the glass was Paul—the real Paul, trapped in another dimension behind that transparent barrier—the man beside me was not.

Maybe, after all, the last time I saw Paul was on the other side of a sheet of quarter-inch glass on the evening of September 9th, 1967. Who can say?

We pushed open the door, the image in the glass swept away into whatever void is inhabited by such things, and I was left alone with a stranger called Paul Ledderman.

He led me along a corridor into the spacious room, part library, part study, which, as I remembered, looked out by day across the valley to the plains country beyond Spring Bottom. He began mixing a drink but his arms seemed to be giving him trouble and he handed me the shaker.

"Steve," he said after a while, "I think I owe you an explanation."

"I guess you do—Paul." It was an effort to use his first name. I kept telling myself that this was Paul Ledderman, the man who had been perhaps my closest friend until he shut himself up in this glass cage on a mountain-top; that the sense of oddness, almost of danger, was something thrown up by the lapse of five years; that presently we should get back onto the old footing; that the image in the glass door, if it meant anything at all except a trick of the light, meant that it really was Paul Ledderman who sat opposite me, holding a tall glass in his left hand. But all the time I felt like Little Red Ridinghood. What strange eyes you have, Ledderman, what bandaged wrists, what a lopsided, left-handed look! Are you a wolf in Paul's clothing, Ledderman? What has become of Paul; or, rather, what have you done with Paul, Ledderman? What lies under the bandages and behind that crooked look, which try as I may, I cannot quite get into proper perspective—except as an image in a plate-glass door?

"I want you to see something I've been doing, Steve." He frowned at the glass in his left hand and seemed to be making up his mind how to tell me—or how much.

"It had better be good, Paul."

"It's better than good," he said, smiling on the left side of his face, "it's revolutionary!" This seemed to strike him as funny. He laughed quietly to himself and muttered "revolutionary" several times, twisting the glass between his hands. "It's not only revolutionary, it's sinister," he added. I was ready to go along with that.

"Sinister," he repeated. "Sinister means left, you know." (I did, but allowed him to go on.) "Why has the left-handed man been feared or despised in so many societies? Why is it good to be dextrous, or right-handed? Why is it clumsy to be 'gauche'; why is adroit a word of praise?"

"Leonardo was left-handed," I said lightly.

"All soldiers everywhere kick off on the left foot. The respectable British drive on the left. Some think the left wing is progressive.

"I'm not asking you to agree that leftness is bad," said Ledderman. "I'm asking you why so many peoples have thought it bad."

"Search me," I said.

"Because it's the reverse of normal!" He brought this out with a decisive air of triumph. It sounded to me like a platitude. He surprised me at this point by fumbling in his pocket (wincing a little as his bandaged wrist rubbed against the lining) and brought out a cardboard letter of the kind you gave the kids to learn the alphabet with. It was a letter F. He placed it on the low table by the side of his chair.

"An F," he said very solemnly. "And there are millions like it." If he had been looking less ill, if the light in his eye had given me a less uncomfortable feeling down the back of my neck, perhaps even if it had been broad daylight, I should have laughed at this glimpse of the obvious. But something warned me to look impressed.

"Millions like it," he said emphatically. "But just once in a while the sinister oddity turns up from nowhere." He cupped his left hand round the cardboard letter, did something with his right, and then lifted his hands to expose not an F but a backward F. "The reverse of the normal," he said, looking intently at me.

"You've turned it over," I said.

"I've rotated it through a third dimension," he corrected. "To the two-dimensional creatures inhabiting that tabletop something sinister has happened: among a million F's suddenly one leftward-looking monster, a work of darkness, a thing to be burned at the stake."

There are some remarks which stick in the mind because they sum up a whole experience. I remembered that remark of Paul's as we stood, three hours later, in one of the strangest buildings I've ever been in. From the outside it was a squat cylinder of concrete, twenty feet high by twenty across. There was only one entrance, a small, steel-clad door, eight feet from the ground and reached by an iron ladder. As we stooped to go through it, Paul pushing me ahead of him, I saw that it was not so much a door as a massive plug of concrete, at least three feet thick, with lead cladding on the inner side. We came onto a narrow catwalk circling the inside of the tower and I found myself on the edge of a well with nothing except a frail hand-rail between me and the floor of the building, eight feet below. The well was not more than six or seven across and I reckon the walls of the tower must have been at least as thick as that plug of a door.

Above and below the cat-walk the well was enclosed by a lattice-work of thin girders—perhaps the lattice that Paul had mentioned as we sat, earlier, over a cheerless meal, looking out from the library on to the brilliantly lit gravel path with nothing but blackness beyond it. "A lattice," he had said, "which focuses the whole of the field inwards and sets up a strong current. There's something of anti-gravity about that current, Steve. You drop something into it and it floats down."

"Where does it go to?" I said.

He was silent for a long time. "To Hell," he said, "and back again."

Looking down into the narrow well, I could see nothing infernal in it. It ended on the floor of the building eight feet below, and it was bounded by the flat ceiling of the tower, five or six feet above our heads. The only thing remarkable about it was that anyone should have gone to the trouble and expense of putting a lattice of girders around it, not to mention three feet of concrete clad with lead on the inner side.

"It takes half a megawatt," said Paul, standing at my elbow on the dimly lit cat-walk. "I burned out three transformers the first time. It set me back eighteen months." I could feel rather than see that he was watching me intently.

"What does it do?" I said.

He had dropped some curious hints during that dispiriting meal, but they hadn't meant much to me: nothing at all as physics and not even very much as a basis for the psychological guess-work I liked to think I was good at. They didn't explain, for example, why he served the two of us from separate dishes, why he held his glass in his left hand, or why his wrists were bandaged. Above all, they failed to explain the oddest thing that happened during that meal, the one which nearly sent me running back to Spring Bottom—except that I have my pride and, as Judy knows, I am also inquisitive (not to mention the fact that by this time it was clear that Paul—or whoever it was—badly needed help). He was saying something about "fields of force" and "envelopes" and "plasma flow" and wanted to make a point by writing down some formula or other. Taking a piece of paper from his pocket, he began to scribble rapidly—with his left hand, from the right side of the sheet to the left, and beginning at the bottom of the page.

"What does the darn thing actually do?" I asked him again.

"Watch," he said.

Reaching behind my shoulder in the gloom, he threw a switch. A shrill whine rose up through the well, screaming until my teeth buzzed in resonance. The building shuddered and I was tugged towards the hand-rail. The lattice surrounding the well glowed a pale green which brightened rapidly as the whine rose to shriller and shriller heights, climbing away into the ultrasonic until, after perhaps half a minute, it was out of ear-shot and a vibrant silence took its place. I leaned a little over the rail and looked into the brightly glowing well—and was at once overcome with a sick sense of vertigo.

The floor of the building had vanished. The well had become a narrow shaft running down a great distance into the earth, uniformly lit by an encircling wall of green light. About sixteen feet down I saw the back of a man's head and two hands gripping a hand-rail. Beyond him the shaft could be seen to curve slightly outwards and away from me, bringing into view the back of a man's head and two hands gripping a hand-rail, beyond which I could see the back of a man's head and two hands . . .

I was looking down into a great curved shaft, peopled by cat-walks, each with a man gripping the hand-rail. I counted twenty of them before they became too dim and too close together to be distinguished. Perhaps there were a hundred of them before they were cut off from sight by the relentless curve of the shaft. I raised a shocked hand to my head, and a forest of hands were lifted all the way down the tunnel. I looked up, and saw that the tunnel extended as far upwards as down, curving away on the same radius of curvature and inhabited by the same sequence of ghosts, looking idiotically upwards and gripping the same sequence of hand-rails.

"The shafts join up," said Paul's voice behind me. "Somewhere 'out there.' They form a closed loop."

"But the men—?"

"A couple of hundred Steve Kassners, a train-load of Oxford graduates in psychology," said Paul with the first (and the last) return I heard that night of anything resembling his old style. "The floor and the ceiling of the tower seem to act partly like two mirrors face to face: you get a reflection, and a reflection of a reflection, and a reflection of a reflection of a reflection, and so on. But there is a real shaft all the same; it goes round in a loop. I know."

"But what does it do?" I insisted.

"It produces monsters," he said.

A work of darkness, a thing to be burned at the stake.

"Look," he said. He pulled off one of the leather gloves he had put on before we came to this sinister place and startled me by throwing it over the hand-rail into the well. My muscles jumped in a kind of self-protecting sympathy as this leather parody of a hand fell into the shaft.

But it did not fall as things fall in a normal world. It partly floated. Certainly it sank, but it sank slowly at a steady rate, seeming to be borne along by a current rather than hurried downwards by the normal acceleration of gravity. It would have upset Galileo. And it seemed, to my imagination, to give a slight tilt to Paul's strange building: I felt as the Grand Old Man must have felt on the edge of that tower in Pisa. I watched the glove as it floated downwards, passing my hundred reflecting heads until it grew too dim to see. A minute passed. Two minutes. Glancing at Paul, I saw that he was looking up. I followed his gaze. No bigger than a man's hand, the glove came floating into sight down the curving shaft which lay above us. As it passed the cat-walk, Paul reached behind me and switched off the power. Instantly, the green glow went out, the building shuddered, the floor and ceiling of the tower came back abruptly into view, the shafts vanished and the glove dropped like a stone onto the concrete base eight feet below us.

Paul ducked under the railing and climbed down an iron ladder which I now saw for the first time. In a moment he was back, carrying the glove. He handed it to me. "Well?" he said.

"An ordinary leather glove," I said with a sense of anticlimax. "An ordinary left-hand glove."

"Exactly!" said Paul. "A monster." He pulled the glove from his other hand and gave it to me. I saw that I was holding two left-hand gloves, and suddenly a great deal became clear.

"It inverts anything which passes through it," said Paul. "It turns them over through some other dimension beyond the third."

I looked at the sea-shell I was holding, a common enough thing picked up on the beach by one of my kids that summer and stuffed with a dozen others into my coat pocket. I had quietly got rid of most of them on my way back from the beach but this one had remained, forgotten, until ten minutes ago. A common, spiral shell, with the spiral winding clockwise when seen from above—and therefore an extremely uncommon shell. "One in a million," said Peterson, the marine man, when I showed it to him a couple of months later. "Almost all of them run anti-clockwise." So had mine till I sent it round Ledderman's damned loop.

I read—or tried to read—a newspaper cutting, clipped from the "Tribune" of two days before. I could have done with a mirror; the letters ran from right to left.

"And you, Paul—?" I said gently.

He took my hand and laid it on the right side of his chest. I felt the murmur of his heart where no heart should have been.

"Monstrous," he said. "One in a thousand million. It sometimes happens in nature, but the poor devil always dies. It starves to death. It cannot live on the dextrose sugars which the rest of you live on. It needs the laevulose sugars, the ones which twist a ray of polarised light the other way. They cannot be synthesised in large enough quantities."

"Then you—?"

"I live by passing everything I eat round the loop. It was a dexter meal you had last evening, Steve; mine was sinister. Do you see what that means? I can never leave this place. I am as alone as any man has ever been. I am stuck with solitary confinement for the rest of my life. I can't marry; God knows what would happen. I'm a sinister Adam with no Eve. Even the apples on the Tree of Knowledge are useless to me, Steve: dextrose apples they must be, and my blood is laevulose."

"Then travel the loop again."

He gripped my arm until I winced and glared into my face. I thought he was going to hit me. "I nearly did," he said, "I very nearly did!" He glanced at the bandaged wrists: wrists which must, at some time not long past, have struck against the edge of a cat-walk or an iron railing as Ledderman, the left-handed, had come floating down the upper shaft and grabbed for safety to avoid that second journey. "Do you want to see what the other trip means?" he said. He threw the switch. The well screamed and then became silent. The great shafts reappeared above and below us. Taking the glove which had already made one circuit of the loop, he threw it into the well with angry violence. One minute passed. Two. He caught the glove as it came level with the cat-walk and handed it to me. It was turned inside out.

"It goes on inverting," he said, "but across another plane of inversion."

"What happens the third time?"

"It doesn't come back."

"So you're stuck," I said. "For God's sake, Paul, what made you do it?"

"Curiosity," he said, "the passion of the true scientist."

There was a long pause. He had left the power running and the great shafts glowed green above and below us. The silence was vibrant with unheard, unhearable, sound-waves.

"But there is a solution," he said at last very quietly. He turned to peer at me in the green light and took my arm in a soft, firm grip. "You Steve," he said, "are on the other side of the looking-glass. For God's sake, come through it onto my side."

I saw what he meant to do and took a step back.

"Judy can join you," he said pleadingly.

"And the kids. You can write to them."

"They wouldn't come," I said, buying time.

The tower door was on the other side of the well and he was taller and heavier than I was. I began to edge slowly backwards round the cat-walk.

"They wouldn't come," I said. "I guess you put that letter of yours round the loop; it turned the damn thing from left to right but it left it reading from the bottom up. Who would come for a crazy note like that?"

"You did," said Paul with a crooked, affectionate smile. And then he was suddenly upon me, thrusting me back across the rail and kicking at my feet. We grappled savagely on the edge of the pit, shoulders heaving, muscles crackling with strain. I lost my footing and toppled backwards, pulling him with me. It was like a trick of judo. The energy of the struggle was converted suddenly to a single force which flung him screaming across my shoulder. I could do nothing except grab the rail to save myself as he sailed head downwards into the shaft. He screamed as he went the single word "Steve, Steve, Steve" again and again as the current of energy carried him out of sight.

I lay on the cat-walk, sobbing with effort.

A great time passed. Perhaps two minutes. Something came floating down the shaft from above me, softly, majestically, horribly. It bore no resemblance to anything I had ever seen or ever wish to see again: a ganglion of rubbery tubes, an exo-skeleton, a slippery mass of viscera, an inside-out man, a thing to be burned at the stake.

It sank out of sight and hours seemed to pass. I waited, retching and weeping, but nothing returned. Nothing visible, that is. But there was a sound. I don't know what happens to a sound-wave when it gets turned over on the kind of damned warp-path that Ledderman had made, but it doesn't sound good. A long time after the body (if you can call it that) had gone a scream came down the shaft, a kind of gibbering reversal of "Steve," a bat-scream out of the pit which went on and on until, with a sudden strangled plop, it ceased. In the silence which followed I listened, as though from a great distance, to my own voice, cursing and blaspheming.

I did not murder Paul Ledderman. I'm not quite sure what I did to him, but it was not murder. Self-defence maybe, but not murder. I have nothing to prove it except a leather glove, a sea-shell and a newspaper cutting.

THE HATE by Terri E. Pinckard

Nadine first felt the cold touch of the thing creeping, pawing at her as a dog paws at a bone. She was alone in the house at the time, doing those unimportant household chores all women must do to make a house a home when—it reached out to touch her. She didn't know what it was then. She only knew a chill ran through her, and that the thing was directed. It knew who she was, and it knew she was aware of its being there. At first it stayed for only a short time. It didn't have much strength then.

It came again. On days when she was alone, the thing would strike at her. As Fear began to grow in her, the other's strength grew, too. Each time it left her drained and more afraid. It knew her well now. It knew just when its coming would have the most effect on her. It knew just when she would be rooted to the floor with fear of it and how she could be so used, the perspiration of her fear would be icy cold upon her forehead and lip. As the months passed It began to come back more often, just being there, quiescent, waiting. Every once in a while its coldness reached out to her, and then withdrew to sit and wait again.

Then, one day, she was out shopping for a new dress for the Country Club dance. She found a perfect one, a pale green chiffon that clung to her figure as though it had been made just for her. Funny, she was feeling so proud at the time, knowing that Jeff, her husband, was proud of her figure being the same as it was when he first married her.—IT found her! Maybe it was because she was feeling a little smug, self-satisfied and pleased as she looked at her reflection in the long mirror. She had been imagining Jeff's eyes appraising her as he looked her up and down with that "Look what's mine" proud look of his when—IT HIT HER! AS THOUGH IT HELD A WHIP, IT SLAPPED AT HER FACE, WHIPPING HER LEGS AND HER ARMS IN SHORT, SHARP TIRADES OF ANGRY LASHES. She tried to protect herself with her arms; covering first her face, then her legs with them; trying, trying—trying to keep it from lashing at her. She screamed a long, high shrill scream and the saleswoman grabbed her and held her arms and in a pit of despair she fought the thing back with all the mental strength in her. That was the moment she knew the thing for what it was . . . HATE, strong and demoniac. She continued to fight back and she felt the Hate receding then and in its place came a short burst of mocking laughter that she heard deep inside her. It left her shamed and cringing. Just as suddenly It was gone.

She straightened and smoothed the dress down and her mirrored reflection no longer looked inviting and smug, but humiliated and degraded. The saleswoman was chattering over her, and she murmured an apology and almost ran into the dressing room, her moments of happiness over for the day.

It kept coming to her, daily. And now, today, It had been stronger than ever before. She felt ravaged, brutally so, and still it was not over. Their anniversary party was tonight, their first, and she had been trying to prepare for it.

The Hate danced around the kitchen as she prepared the food, picking up everyday items in its whirlwind path and turning them into monstrous creations with a will of their own. Eggs broke as she picked them up; the lettuce withered as she touched it; the wine turned to vinegar as she added it to the cream sauce. It was everywhere and everything. It was becoming stronger with every passing minute. She stood there crying, fighting it with all within her, stolidly keeping her hands moving with the miniscule details of the party. She swore she would not let It have this night.

"Everything is done now," she screamed at It. "You can't undo what is done!" She ran out of the kitchen and ran upstairs to ready herself for the party.

In the shower the Hate joined her, crowding her into a corner, pushing, shoving. It turned off the cold water and she screamed again as she felt the scalding hot water pouring onto her body. She tried to reach the faucets, but It was there between her and the wall, fencing her in with its attempt to prevent her reaching them. Finally she succeeded, and she leaned against the wall, moaning with the agony of the light and the pain.

She dressed slowly, as the Hate sat on the bed and laughed. Its hostility was all around her, there was an oppressive weight of it in the air. She could sense it, taste it, smell it; yet she could not make it take substance. All day it had been building, building until now she gasped for air with the heaviness of it.

She seated herself at the dressing table. Her powder puff, already dipped in powder, was in her hand, but the Hate held it motionless; stopped as a movie is stopped into a still life picture, complete, yet not complete in its tale.

She gazed at the mirror, her eyes searching the turnabout reflection as though hoping to see the Hate in form. A shiver went through her, for there was nothing, nothing but her own reflection, yet she sat looking, searching.

The door opened and Jeff stuck his head into the room.

"Almost ready? Everyone will be here soon. Come down and have a drink with me, Okay?"

Nadine's eyes slowly turned to Jeff. She had kept him unaware of what had been happening all these months. Her eyes remained clouded for a moment and then cleared.

"I'll be right down," she answered. Turning back to the mirror she raised the puff—and was able to pat her nose with it. She stood up, putting the puff slowly down. She drew a deep breath and left the room, closing the door to keep the Hate inside, although she knew it wouldn't help.

She could hear the guests arriving as she crossed the vestibule.

"Damn, I won't even have time for a drink first," she thought as she turned back to the door to let them in.

Sally and Bill were the first ones to arrive. Breathless as always, Sally came in going directly to the living room without pausing to take off her coat. Marching herself to the table with the hors d'oeuvres she Oohed and Aahed over it, taking a nibble here and there as proof of its appetizing looks.

By the time Nadine had retrieved Sally's coat, and hung it in the closet the next guests had arrived. For a few minutes she was kept busy and so was Jeff, hanging coats and murmuring the words of greeting that come automatically without thought.

Her mind was not on her guests. She could not get the heavy feeling of fear to leave her. As soon as she could, she escaped from the room to the kitchen where she leaned weakly against the counter. Waves of sickness kept rising in her, flooding through her.

"Oh, God," she thought. "What is the matter with me? I feel as though I am going to die."

She stood there a moment more gathering her strength for the night's ordeal. Then taking another platter of canapes, she pushed through the swinging door to face her guests.

No sooner had she entered the room when—IT HIT HER FULL FORCE. Panic stricken she stood there, the tray held precariously tipped in her hands. It came in wave after wave, strong, stronger than ever.

"Tonight's the night." The thought drummed into her head. "It is going to be tonight."

The Hate swept across the room smothering her with gale-like force. It lifted the tray of canapes from her with a quick surge of power.

They fell to the floor. Everyone turned to look and she quickly bent to hide the whiteness that masked her face. In the confusion of hands trying to help her pick up the food and bits, she felt the Hate break and little chills of silent laughter took its place. The laughter was almost as bad as the Hate for it mocked and derided her. As she stood up her eyes quickly searched the room over the heads of those still helping her. Who had come in while she was in the kitchen? She kept searching the faces of the guests as they sauntered about the room, looking for some sign of the mockery, something that might show the Hate that pursued her with such malice.

Pat and Cheri had come in. Cheri had been Jeff's girl before the quick summer romance that ended in Nadine and Jeff's marriage. Linda and Gus? Gus was Jeff's partner. Florence and Stan, her in-laws, had arrived too. Florence came over and hugged her. Stan handed her their gift. As she opened it, she thought to herself, "Funny, I'm like two different people . . . I never knew a person could carry on a normal conversation while her mind was on other things." The gift was a beautifully matched string of pearls for her and a matching set of pearl cuff links for Jeff. She turned around automatically as Florence hooked the clasp on them and kissed her saying, ". . . these are for the girl my son loves."

Nowhere was there a sign of the Hate. It had left the room quietly as though it had never existed. But Nadine knew better. She knew it was waiting, somewhere.

". . . so there I was in the middle of Main Street and the light had already turned red so I couldn't go back, and there you were holding onto a lamppost, crying, Nadine. Whatever was wrong, anyway? . . ." the words took form to her mind and she looked up to see Linda standing beside her with a cocktail glass in her hand, expectant—waiting for an answer. The room had grown silent. Evidently the words she had returned to awareness on had not been the first ones describing yesterday's episode with the Hate. Even Jeff had come to stand beside her, looking at her strangely.

"Hey, sweet? How come you never mentioned it?" he asked concernedly.

"Oh, it wasn't very important," she answered. "I just got a little dizzy all of a sudden."

She felt the Hate sweep back into the room again, laughing. It was mocking her, laughing at her excuse.

She turned to Jeff and smiled up at him.

"Darling, let's have some champagne now," she whispered.

Jeff grinned and put his arm around her saying, dramatically,

"I guess this is the moment we have all been waiting for."

Her father-in-law, Stan, walked over to them. In his hand was a bottle of champagne Florence had saved from that they served at the wedding. He popped the cork, and poured a silver goblet full. Taking the goblet from his father, Jack turned to her. The guests were all around them, smiling, smiling.

"Darling, this champagne was saved for today, remember?"

"Yes, I remember. I love you more now than I ever did then," she quietly said.

"That's the way it should be. Me, too."

He held the goblet out to her. "You first. Then I will drink from it just as we did one year ago, to show how we'll always share things in life."

Not everything. Not the horror, her mind whispered. But she took the goblet and drank deeply of it. And then the Hate was there and it was maniacal in its strength.

She felt the Hate tear into her, twisting her insides and tearing, tearing at her, and the necklace seemed to tighten—tighten unbearably. She gagged and choked as the liquid burned a path down her spasmed throat and she knew it wasn't a love cup—it was a Hate cup. As the room swam around her, she fell and Jeff crouched over her, his tears falling on her tortured face and then—she saw the Hate, saw it unmasked.

In a way, it was almost good to have it over with, to know finally whose Hate was that strong. It was a relief to see the look that could kill and as the darkness closed in the last thing that she heard came like a shadowy whisper over the mocking laughter ringing in her ears, saying . . . "Now my son is mine again!"

A QUIET GAME by Celia Fremlin

It was not Hilda who first talked of being driven mad up there in the high flats, far above the noise of the traffic and the bustle of the crowds. On the contrary, it was her neighbours who complained to her about the stresses. "It's driving me up the wall!" said her neighbour on the right: and "I can't stand it any longer!" said her neighbour on the left: and "I'll go out of my mind!" said the woman in the flat below.

But not Hilda. Hilda was the young one, the busy one. From the point of view of the neighbours it was she who was the cause and origin of all the stresses. She wasn't the one who was being driven mad, Oh no! That's what they would all have told you.

But madness has a rhythm of its own up there so near to the clouds; a rhythm that at first you would not recognize, so near is it, in the beginning, to the rhythms of ordinary, cheerful life . . .

"What's the time, Mr. Wolf? What's the time, Mr. Wolf?" Thumpty-thump-thump-thump. Thumpty-thump-thump-thump . . . The twins' shrill little voices, the thud of their firm sandalled feet reverberated through the door of the kitchenette and brought Hilda to a sudden halt in the midst of the morning's wash. Her arms elbow-deep in warm detergent, she just stood there, while the familiar, helpless anger rose slowly from the pit of her stomach.

She would have to stop them, of course; the innocent, happy little game would have to be brought once more to a halt by yet another "No!" And quickly too, before Mrs. Walters in the flat below came up to protest; before Mr. Peters on the right tapped on the wall; before Miss Rice on the left leaned across the balcony to complain of her head and to tell Hilda how well children were brought up in her young days.

Miss Rice's young days were all very well; in those days children had space for play and romping. If they were rich they had fields and lawns and nurseries and schoolrooms; if they were poor, they had at least the streets and the alleyways. But today's children, the sky-dwellers of the affluent twentieth century, where could they go to run, to shout, to fulfil their childhood?

All day long, up here in the blue emptiness of the sky, Hilda had to deprive her children, minute by minute, of everything that matters in childhood. They must not run, or jump, or laugh, or sing, or dance. They must not play hide-and-seek, or cowboys and Indians, or fling themselves with shrieks of joy into piles of cushions. Except when she could find time to take them to the distant park, they must sit still, like chronic invalids, growing dull and pale over television and picture books.

"What's the time, Mr. Wolf? . . . One o'clock . . . two o'clock . . . three o'clock." Thumpty-thump-thump-thump. Hilda had a vision of the sturdy little thighs in identical navy shorts, stamping purposefully round and round the room, little faces alight with the intoxication of rhythm and with the mounting excitement of the approaching climax.—

Before this climax—before the wild shriek of "Dinnertime, Mr. Wolf!" rent the silence of the flats, Hilda would have to go in and spoil it all. "Martin! Sally!" she would have to say, "You really must be quieter. Why don't you get out your colouring books, and come and sit quietly? Come along, now, over here at the table." And she would have to watch the bright little faces grow tearful, hear the merry chanting voices take on the whine of boredom; watch the firm, taut little muscles relinquish their needed exercise and grow flaccid as they sat . . . and sat . . . and sat. It was wicked, it was cruel . . .

"Mrs. Meredith? Could I speak to you for a minute, Mrs. Meredith?"

So. Already she had left it too late. Here was Miss Rice out on her balcony, hand on brow, headache poised like a weapon, and already sure of her victory.

"It's not that I want to complain," she began, as she began every morning, "and if it was just for myself, I suppose I'd try to put up with it, but it's Mrs. Walters, she hasn't been too well either, and it's driving her up the wall, it really is, all this hammer, hammer, hammer. She's just phoned through to me, asked if I could have a word with you, save her coming up the stairs with her bad knee."

Bad knees. Headaches. Not-too-well-ness. These were the weapons by which happy little four-year-olds could be crushed and broken; there was no defence against them.

"I'm sorry," said Hilda despairingly; and again, "I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . ."

The twins had been settled at their colouring books for nearly an hour before Mrs. Walters below rang up to inquire if Hilda couldn't somehow stop that boom-boom noise? "Boom-boom-boom," the clipped voice mimicked explanatorily down the wire. "It goes right through my nerves, Mrs. Meredith, it really does. I can't think what they can be doing, little kiddies like that, I can't think what they can be doing."

Firing cannon? Riding roller-coasters round the room? No, it turned out to be Sally's energetic rubbing-out of her drawing of a cat. It wobbled the table, it set the floor vibrating.

"No, Sally, don't use the rubber any more, just colour it as it is, there's a good girl."

"No, Martin you must keep your dinky-car on the rug. Mrs. Walters will hear it on the linoleum."

"No, Sally, leave that chair where it is, we don't want Mr. Peters knocking on the wall again."

No . . . No . . . No . . . Two lively little creatures reduced to tears and tempers, to sobbing, hopeless boredom.

Nevertheless, it wasn't Hilda saying, "I can't stand it!" It was Miss Rice. And Mr. Peters. And Mrs. Walters.

Autumn passed into winter, and it was less and less often possible to take the twins to the park. Their bounding morning spirits had to be crushed earlier and earlier in the day. The search for a quiet game, for something that wouldn't annoy the neighbours, became a day-long preoccupation for Hilda; but in spite of all her efforts nothing, nothing seemed quiet enough; for still, without respite, came the voices, from above, below, on every side: "Really, Mrs. Meredith, if you could keep them a little quieter . . ."

"Mrs. Meredith, I don't want to complain, but . . ."

"Mrs. Meredith, sometimes I think it's a herd of elephants you've got up there . . ."

"It's not that I don't love kiddies, Mrs. Meredith, but that's not the same as letting them grow up little hooligans, is it, Mrs. Meredith?"

"It's my head, Mrs. Meredith."

"It's my nerves, Mrs. Meredith."

"I've not been feeling too well, Mrs. Meredith."

So No, No, No, all through the grey November days. No, Martin. Stop it, Sally. No. No! No! No! The twins grew whiney and quarrelsome; their sturdy little legs looked thinner, their faces paler.

And still it wasn't Hilda who said "I can't stand it!" It was Miss Rice. And Mr. Peters. And Mrs. Walters.

It was the new carpet that gave her the idea; the new square of carpet brought to deaden the sound of footsteps in the hallway. It was not really new, it was second-hand and somewhat worn, but the twins were enchanted by it. They had never seen a Persian carpet before, and for a whole afternoon there was silence so absolute that not a word of complaint came from above or from below or from either side. From lunchtime till dusk, Martin and Sally crouched on the carpet examining every brown and crimson flower, every purple scroll and every pinkish coil of leaves. Hilda felt quite light-headed with happiness; a whole afternoon with the twins truly enjoying themselves and the neighbours not complaining!

"It's a magic carpet," she told them, hopefully, when she saw that their interest was beginning to flag. "Why don't you sit on it and shut your eyes, and it'll take you to wonderful places! See? Off it goes! You're flying off above the rooftops now, you're looking down, and you can see all the houses, and the streets, and the trains . . ."

"And the Zoo!" chimed in Sally. "I can see the Zoo and all the animals in it. I can see tigers and lions . . ."

"And now we're over the sea!" squealed Martin. "I can see the whales and the submarines and—and—Oh, Look! Look Sally, I can see an island! Let's stop at that island, let's go and live there!"

The game took hold. The perfect quiet game had been found at last. Hour after hour the twins would sit on the carpet travelling from land to land, and seeing strange and wonderful sights as they went. They would land in Siberia, or at the South Pole, or on a South Sea Island, where wild adventures would befall them, and they only escaped in time to fly home for tea.

But their favourite destination of all was Inkoo Land. In Inkoo Land there were tiny elephants just big enough to ride on; there were twisty, knobbly trees, wonderful for climbing; trees from which you could pick every kind of fruit in the world. There were wide spaces of grass to run on, there was a jungle to play hide-and-seek in, there were monkeys who talked monkey-language, and Sally and Martin learned it too, with fantastic speed and ease; and then they played with the monkeys, swinging from branch to branch through the green, sun-spangled forests.

But always, in the end, they had to come home; they grew tired of sitting even on a magic carpet; and the moment they disembarked and set foot on the floor, the voices would start again, from all round:—

"It's my head, Mrs. Meredith."

"It's my nerves, Mrs. Meredith."

"It's not what I'm used to, Mrs. Meredith, it's making me ill, it really is!"

If only they could stay in Inkoo Land all day! Such a lovely game it was—there were moments when Hilda caught herself thinking how good it was for them, on the grey winter afternoons, to have all that exercise, rushing through the sunny glades, and clambering about in the forest trees. So much better for them than the steely winter park, with its asphalt paths and "Keep Off the Grass" notices.

Then she would recollect herself, smile a little wryly at her own childishness in getting so caught up in her children's fantasies, and set herself to preparing tea ready for their "return."

But at last, inevitably, the novelty of the game began to wear off: the "return" became earlier and earlier; and one day, a grey, hopeless day of fog and cold, the twins refused to go to Inkoo Land at all.

Hilda was conscious of a sickening, overmastering despair. They must get to Inkoo Land. In vain she pleaded, bribed, even scolded. Go to Inkoo Land they would not.

"We've got nothing to do, Mummy," the old cry began again; and as if at a pre-arranged signal the voices returned:

"It's my nerves, Mrs. Meredith."

"It's my head, Mrs. Meredith."

"I don't want to complain, Mrs. Meredith."

"The doctor says I need rest, Mrs. Meredith."

The voices seemed to go on and on, whispering in the air, sighing in through the window, seeping in under the doors, and suddenly Hilda knew what she must do.

"I'll come with you to Inkoo Land," she declared. "You must show it to me—I've never seen it, you know."

The twins' interest was at once revived; they scrambled eagerly on to the carpet.

"Mummy come too! Mummy come too!" they chanted; and when they were all seated on the carpet, Martin gave his orders in a clear little treble. "Inkoo Land, please!" he told the carpet; and they all clutched each other tight against the tipping and rocking to be expected as the carpet lifted itself off the floor.

But what had gone wrong? The carpet didn't move at all! Hilda stared stupidly round the walls that still enclosed them.

"Say it again, Martin!" she urged him; and, a little surprised, the child obeyed.

Still nothing happened. Hilda felt her heart beating strangely. Was it too heavy for the carpet, having to carry an adult as well as the two children? Or—why, that was it! They should be near a window! How could they expect the carpet to fly if there was no window to fly out of? Jumping up, she hurried into the living room and opened the window wide to the foggy winter air.

"Bring the carpet in here!" she called, and hurried out to help the twins drag it in from the hall.

She was surprised to see them both looking a little frightened. Sally's lips were quivering. "Play properly, Mummy!" and:—"Oooo—it's cold in here!" complained Martin, as they laid out the carpet in the sitting room, now slowly filling with swirls of icy fog.

"Never mind. We'll soon be in Inkoo Land," Hilda encouraged them. "On the carpet, both of you. We'll soon be in the lovely warm forest now, with the sun shining, and all the monkeys and the elephants. Say the words, Martin; say them again."

And still the carpet didn't move. The three of them together must definitely be too heavy, decided Hilda; they would have to help the carpet. One could see how hard it must be to lift the whole lot of them bodily off the floor; but if they were to give it a start by launching it off the window sill, then it would be able to glide along easily above the roof tops.

But why were the twins crying? Backing, hand in hand, away from the window, refusing to help as she dragged the unwieldy thing on to the ledge of the open window?

What a floppy sort of magic carpet it was! How it hung limply, half in and half out of the window, dangling down on either side! But of course it would stiffen up when it began to fly. She clambered awkwardly on to the ledge and sat, as well as she could, balancing, on the carpet-covered sill. She began to feel excited. In a minute now she would be in Inkoo Land. Instead of this chilling fog, there would be a tropic sun beating down upon her; leaves on the great trees would shimmer in the golden light; bright tropical flowers would be there, and luxuriant creepers; and she would see her little twins romping joyously at last; running, shouting, jumping in the sunshine, far, far from the complaining voices.

"Mrs. Meredith!" came, for the last time, the shocked voice of Miss Rice, leaning out of her window: but already it seemed far, far away, a little thread of sound from the world of fog and chill which Hilda was leaving. "To Inkoo Land!" she cried to the carpet, and together they launched forth from the High Flats into the swirling, silver emptiness of the sky.

It was warm in Inkoo Land, just as she had known it would be; and there was grass, and great forest trees, and the sun shone. The grass was like great sweeps of lawn, and once or twice the twins had come, to run about on it, and laugh, and shout, and turn head-over-heels, just as she had imagined. But mostly it was people like herself, wandering slowly among the trees; and other people, in white coats, moving more briskly. And several times Miss Rice had mysteriously appeared, a quite changed Miss Rice, crying, and saying, "If only we had known!" and "When you come back dear, everything will be different!"

Miss Rice, it seemed, had saved her "in the nick of time"; but somehow Hilda couldn't think about that just yet, nor about the long, long problem that lay behind. Enough, for the moment to be in Inkoo Land, and to know that, sooner or later, she would return, just as the twins had always returned, in time for tea.

AFTER NIGHTFALL by David Riley

1

Eliot Wilderman never struck anyone as a person possessing that necessary instability of character which makes men in a sudden fit of despair commit suicide. Even Mrs. Jowitt, his landlady, never had even the vaguest suspicions that he would ever do anything like this. Why should she? Indeed, Wilderman was certainly not poor, he was in good health, was amiable and well liked in the old fashioned village of Heron. And in such an isolated hamlet as this it took a singularly easy going and pleasant type of person to be able to get on with its definitely backward, and in many cases decadent, population.

Civilisation had barely made an impression here for the past two hundred years. Elsewhere such houses as were common here and lived in by those not fully sunken into depraved bestiality were thought of as the slums, ancient edifices supporting overhangs, gables, high peaked roofs, bizarrely raised pavements three feet above the streets and tottering chimneys that towered like warped fingers into the eternally bleak sky.

Despite the repellant aspect of the village Wilderman had been enthusiastic enough when he arrived early in September. Taking a previously reserved room on the third floor of the solitary inn he soon settled down and became a familiar sight wandering about the wind-ravaged hills which emerged from the woods in barren immensities of bracken and hardy grass, or visiting various people, asking them in his tactful and unobtrusive manner about their local folklore. In no way was he disappointed and the volume he was writing on anthropology soon had an abundance of facts and information. And yet in some strangely elusive way he felt the shadow of dissatisfaction. It was not severe enough to worry him or even impede his creative abilities and cheerfulness, but all the same it was there. Like some "imp of the perverse" it nagged at him, hinting that something was wrong.

After having been here a month his steadily growing horde of data had almost achieved saturation point and little more was really needed. Having done far better than he had expected prior to his arrival he decided that he could now afford to relax more, investigating the harsh but strangely attractive countryside and the curious dwellings about it, something he had only been able to do on a few brief occasions before.

As he had heard from many of his antiquarian friends Heron itself was a veritable store of seventeenth and early eighteenth century buildings, with only a few from later periods. Except for the ramshackle huts. Even these, though, were perversely fascinating. None exhibited any features suggesting comfort; sanitation and ventilation were blatantly disregarded and hampered to an unbelievable extent. Roughly constructed from wood veneered with mould, with murky insides infested with the humid and sickening stench of sweat, they were merely dwellings to sleep and shelter in, nothing more.

In fact the only feature which he noticed in common with the other buildings was that each had heavy wooden doors reinforced from outside with rusted strips of iron, barred by bolts or fastened with old Yale locks from within. Apart from the plainly obvious fact that there was nothing inside them to steal Wilderman was puzzled at such troublesome if not expensive precautions against intruders.

Finally when an opportunity presented itself Wilderman asked Abel Wilton, one of the degenerates inhabiting these huts, a thick set man with a matted beard and cunningly suspicious eyes, why such precautions were taken. But, despite his fairly close acquaintance with this man, for whom he had previously bought liquor and shared tobacco with for information about local legends, all the response he got was a flustered reply that they were to keep out the wild animals that "run 'n' 'ide in th' 'ills where none but those pohzessed go, where they wait for us, comin' down 'ere at night, a 'untin' "; or so Wilton claimed. But his suddenly narrowed eyes and obvious dislike of the subject belied him, though Wilderman tactfully decided to accept this explanation for the moment. After all it would do him no good, he reasoned, to go around accusing people of being liars. It could only result in his drawing onto himself the animosity of Wilton's kinfolk who, ignorant though they were, were extremely susceptible to insult.

However, after having noticed this point about the clustered huts on the outskirts of Heron, Wilderman realised that all the other houses that he had entered also had unusually sturdy locks. Not only on their doors; most had padlocks or bolts across the shutters on their windows, too, though they were already protected by bars. But, when he questioned someone about this, he again received a muttered reply about wild beasts, as well as the danger of thieves, and again he did not believe it. He could have been convinced of the possibility of thieves, even in the worthless huts, but how could he accept the wild animals, when he had never seen a sign of them during his now frequent rambles across the hills? Certainly none that were of any danger at all to man. And so, realising then that any further approaches on this subject would probably only bring similar results he did not pursue it any further, though he fully intended to keep it in mind. Perhaps, he thought, this was what had been troubling him all along.

It was at this time in late October, when he was beginning to pay closer attention to his surroundings, that he first realised that no one ever left their houses after dusk. Even he himself had never gone out after nightfall since he had first arrived. He had not been particularly conscious of this before since it had kept light until late, but as the nights became longer, creeping remorselessly into the dwindling days, this universal peculiarity in Heron became apparent to him, adding yet another mystery to be solved.

The first time he had this brought to his attention was one evening when he tried to leave the inn and failed, both the front and back doors being locked. Irritably he strode up to Mrs. Jowitt, an elderly woman, grey of face and hair with needle-like fingers and brown teeth that seemed to blend in with the gloom of the sitting-room where she sat knitting a shawl. Without preamble he asked why the inn had been locked at so early an hour.

For a moment she seemed to have been stunned into silence by his outburst and immediately stopped her work to turn towards him. In that brief instant her face had paled into a waxen mask, her eyes, like Wilton's, narrowing menacingly—or were they, Wilderman conjectured in surprise, hooded to hide the barely concealed fear he felt he could glimpse between the quivering lids?

"We always lock up at night, Mr. Wilderman," she drawled at length. "Always 'ave an' always will do. It's one of our ways. P'raps it's foolish—you might think so—but that's our custom. Any'ow, there's no reason to go out when it's dark, is there? There's nowt 'ere i' the way entertainment. Besides, can't be too careful. More goes on than you'd suspect, or want to. Not only is there animals that'd kill us in our sleep, but some o' them in the 'uts—I'm not sayin' who, mind you—wouldn't think twice o' breakin' in an' takin' all I've got if I didn't lock 'em out."

Her reply left little with which Wilderman could legitimately argue, without seeming to do so solely for the sake of argument: and he was loath to antagonise her. Always he was aware that he was here only on the townspeople's toleration; they could very easily snub him or even do him physical damage and get away with it. Justice, a dubious word here, was at best rudimentary, depending for a large part on family connections and as good as open bribery; or at its worst and most frequent on personal revenge, reminding Wilderman distastefully of the outdated duelling system of latter day Europe, though with less notice here taken of honour.

Convinced that fear of wild animals was not the reason for Mrs. Jowitt's locking of the doors after dusk Wilderman became determined to delve further into this aggravating mystery.

The next morning, rising deliberately at dawn, he hurried noiselessly down the staircase to find his landlady busy unlocking the front door. So engrossed was she in the seemingly arduous task that she did not notice his presence.

Finally succeeding in turning the last of the keys she cautiously prised the door open and peered uneasily outside. Evidently seeing nothing to alarm her she threw the door open and knelt down to pick up an enamel dish from the worn doorstep outside. Filled with curiosity Wilderman tried to see what was on it but could only glimpse a faint red smear that might have been a reflection of the sun now rising liquescently above the hills.

Before Mrs. Jowitt could turn and see him he retraced his steps to the second floor, walking back down again loudly and calling a greeting to her. After a few brief but necessary comments about the weather he left, stepping out into the cold but refreshing early morning air to see the narrow streets still half obscured by mists through which beams of sunlight shone against the newly unshuttered windows like drops of molten gold.

As he slowly made his way down the winding street he could not help but notice the plates and dishes left on many of the doorsteps. Some others had been shattered and left on the stagnant gutter that ran down the centre of the street to a mud-clogged grate at the end.

It was immediately obvious to Wilderman that these dishes had contained meat, raw meat, as shown by the watery stains of blood still on them. But why should the villagers leave food out like this, he asked himself, every one of them, including those in the fetid huts, though they themselves had little enough to eat at the best of times? Such behaviour as was evident here seemed ludicrous to him. Why, indeed, should they have left food out like this, presumably for animals, when they dared not go out after nightfall for fear of those very creatures which the meat would only attract? It didn't make sense! That people in Heron were not exceptionally kind and generous to animals he knew; quite the opposite, in fact. Already he had seen what remained of one dog—a wolf hound with Alsatian blood in its savage veins—that made a nuisance of itself one Saturday on Market Street. Its mangled carcass, gory and flayed to the bone, had almost defied description after some ten or so heavy boots backed by resentful legs had crushed it writhing into the cobbles. Then why, if they had no other feelings but contempt for their own animals, should they be so unnaturally benevolent to dangerous and anonymous beasts?

Obviously, though, no one would tell him why they did this. Already he had tried questioning them about their heavily locked doors with only the barest of results. There was, he knew, only one way in which he would have the slightest chance of finding out anything more, and that was to see for himself what came for the food.

Preparing himself for the nocturnal vigil he returned to his room and spent the rest of the day re-reading several of his notes and continuing his treatise from where he had left off the previous day.

Nightfall soon came, and with it an all-penetrating fog that tainted even the inside of his room with an obscuring mist. Sitting on a high backed chair by the window he cursed it, but was adamant that the fulfilment of his malign curiosity would not be foiled by a mist.

Almost as soon as the sun had disappeared beneath the fog-hidden mountains Wilderman heard several doors nearby being opened, though no one called out. The only sound was the indistinct clatter of plates being placed on the pavements, before the doors were hastily slammed shut and locked. Following this came an absolute silence in which nothing stirred on the fog-shrouded street. It was as though all life and movement had come to an end, disturbed only by the clock atop the hearth within his room as it slowly ticked out the laboured seconds and minutes. Then something caught his attention.

Looking out over the worn windowsill he stared down at the street, trying to penetrate the myopic mist. Some thing or things were coming down the street. But the noises were strange and disturbing, not the anticipated padded footfalls of wild cats or dogs gone ferile from neglect or cruelty. No, the sounds that reached his ears were far from expected, like a sibilant slithering sound, as of something possessed by an iron determination dragging itself sluggishly across the cobbles.

A tin plate was noisily up-ended and went clattering down the street, coming to a halt at the raised pavement beneath his window. As he leaned out further to look he saw a darkish, shadowy thing, a hulking shape, appear. For several moments following this intrusion he heard no more until the creature found its food and began to devour it.

Pulling himself together Wilderman shouted to scare whatever was beneath him away; but as his cry echoed dismally down the street to the clock tower in the square at the end, sounding even more hysterical at each dinning repetition, more forlorn and pathetic, there was only an instant's pause before he heard the other milling creatures on the street begin to drag themselves across and along it, deserting their food to make their way to the inn.

And with them came a fiendish tittering, ghoulish in its overtly inhuman form, devoid of all but the foulest of feelings: hatred, lust, and surprising Wilderman in his interpretation of it, an almost insatiable greed. So clear was it in the vague sounds shuddering below that he felt the tremors of panic growing inside him, sweat streaming down his face. Again, after an inner struggle, he called out, his voice rasping with fear.

In answer came a scratching at the base of the inn beneath his window as though something sought to surmount the decaying barrier.

More shapes were gathering on the street, slithering towards the inn and scratching at it. Trembling fiercely he realised why the villagers took such precautions as they did, and why none spoke or left their houses at night, leaving the village as though deserted. But the facade had been broken. They knew he was here, they had heard him!

Picking up a heavy fore-edged book he hurled it down at the creatures below. As it struck them there was the sound as of a large stone falling into mud, and then a series of cracks like breaking bones, thin, brittle ones shattered by the copper-bound book. At this the horrid sounds increased into a crescendo of fiendish glee. A shriek as inhuman as the others, yet still possessing the wretched qualities of agony and terror, echoed down the street. But loud and terrible though this was no one in any of the neighbouring houses appeared to see what was happening. All shutters and doors remained closed.

As a sudden breeze that died almost as soon as it came sent the fog floundering from the street in scattering wisps Wilderman saw the shapes more clearly though blurred even now by the gloom. For a time he had thought them to be animals, hybrids of some sort, but what he now saw was neither wholly bestial nor human, but possessed, or seemed to be possesed, in the shadow world they inhabited, of the worst features of each. Hunched, with massive backs above stunted heads that hung low upon their chests, they dragged themselves along with skeletal arms which, when outstretched above their shoulders into the diffused light from his room, proved white and leprous, crumbling as though riddled with decay. Tapering to gangrenous stumps their fingers opened slowly, painfully, and closed again before the mist returned and resealed them in a spectral haze.

When once more half hidden in the fog Wilderman saw that the shadows were converging upon one spot which then became progressively clearer, more distinct. And suddenly with the self-consuming quick-lime of fear he realised why; slowly, inevitably they were climbing upon each to form a hillock, a living hillock to his window.

Again he threw a book at them, and then another and another, each one more savagely than the last, but though they seemed to crash into and through the skulking bodies, the mound still continued to grow. And from the nethermost extremes of the mist-filled street he could make out others slithering and shuffling towards the inn.

In alarm Wilderman threw himself back from the window, slamming and fastening its shutters as he did so. Then in a fit of nausea he staggered to a basin on his dresser and was violently sick. Outside the tittering was continuing to grow louder, nearer. Awful in its surfeit of abhorrence it filled Wilderman with increasingly more dread at every passing instant. With movements strained from forcing himself to resist the panic he felt growing in him, he crept behind the writing desk in the centre of the room until, with his hand clenched tightly on it, he faced the shuttered window, his face shivering uncontrollably as his eyes stared harder and harder at the window . . . waiting, dreading the end of his wait, fearing the expected arrival.

And still from outside, the gibbering, the hellish inhuman giggling increased in volume until suddenly it ended and a scratching of claws on wood took its place. The shutters shook and rattled on their creaking hinges so violently that they threatened to give way at any moment. And then they did.

A myriad shrieks of fiendish glee flooded Wilderman's room, shrieks that mingled with and then utterly overpowered and drowned the tortured screams of anguish, terror and then agony that were human, and which ended as the slobbering tearing sounds of eating took their place.

2

The next day as a reluctant sun reared itself in a blood-red crescent above the pale pine forests to the east the locked door to Wilderman's room was forced open by two of Mrs. Jowitt's permanent guests after her unsuccessful attempt to rouse him earlier. As the men pushed and beat at the old oak panels she waited behind them, shivering as she remembered the cries of the night when she lay locked in her room down the passageway, wide eyed in fear and dread. So had, as she could tell by their red-rimmed eyes and fearful expressions, the two men.

With a mournful rending of wood the door fell inwards. As the men were contorted with disgust and nausea she looked into the room, and screamed. Inside, the room was cluttered with shattered and overturned furniture, scratched till the wood was bare, sheets torn into shreds, and a skeletal thing that lay amidst a bloody upheaval of tattered books, manuscripts, pens and cloth, bones scattered to every corner of the room.

3

Though the circumstances surrounding Wilderman's death did not show even the vaguest trace of suicide this was the verdict solemnly reached by the coroner, a native of Heron, four days later in the poorly lit village hall.

All through the hastily completed inquest Wilderman's various relatives from Pire were refused permission to view his remains before they were interred in the cemetery on the outskirts of the village, the coroner saying that his mode of self destruction—drowning himself in a nearby river—and the fact that it had taken nearly a week to find him, had left him in a state that was most definitely not wise to be seen.

"It would be better to remember him as he was," said the wrinkled old man, nervously cleaning his wire-framed bifocals, "than like he is now."

While outside, unnoticed by the visitors, the church warden completed his daily task of beating down the disrupted earth on the graves in the wild and tawny burial ground, whispering a useless prayer to himself before returning to his home for supper.

DEATH'S DOOR by Robert McNear

I read from the oil-company travel guide: "Blackrock is the northernmost community on the peninsula. Here you get the feeling of a true fishing center among the anchored fishing boats and nets reeled out to dry. Off Blackrock lies the Porte des Morts, a strait six miles wide separating mainland Wisconsin and Nicolet Island. In 1679, about 300 Potawatomi Indians drowned in a sudden storm while crossing the water to engage the Winnebago. The tragedy was witnessed by explorers La Salle and De Tonti, who named the strait Porte des Morts, or Death's Door. Today it is said the strait contains more shipwrecks per square mile than any other area in the Great Lakes."

I folded the travel guide and put it in the glove compartment. Sitting there in my car, on the last leg of my journey, my immediate impression was that the waters were a lure for the local chamber of commerce to attract visitors, a thrill for these station-wagon travelers at seeing so sinister a place, a pool for skin divers in which to explore old wrecks. Porte des Morts: Death's Door. It seemed very commonplace this late afternoon: a desolate little landing deep in the snow, a weather-beaten smokehouse whose door moved open and shut with the wind, a timber dock where a veteran ferryboat—the R. L. Ostenson, Nicolet Island, Wisconsin—creaked patiently on its hawsers. Beyond that was the bleak strait—sky the color of worn steel and bay the same, hinged by the horizon line and identical except for the dark channel of water out through the ice. I like forgotten, half-populated places, almost-deserted cubbyholes of the world. I suppose that's one of the reasons I stay on as a reporter for a small-town newspaper instead of going to Chicago and becoming a well-known journalist.

I'd been waiting in the car for about five minutes when the hunchback deck hand turned up. He came half skipping from the dock, thumb up, to motion me out of the car. I got out in the ankle-deep snow, saying, unnecessarily, "You'll take her on?" He swung into the driver's seat and slammed the door for an answer.

Great! I liked every bit of it. Only in some out-of-the-way place like this would you find a hunchback deck hand who—I had got a good look at him—had fine golden hair and an almost perfect Botticelli face. He took the car carefully across the planking and onto the deck while I, bothered by the usual curiosity, had to walk across the road to the smokehouse and look inside. No fire had burned there for months, but the ghost of smoke and fish possessed the place completely. It was so dark that I could see little except the small drift of snow that had come in through the door. Now, one of my itches is about doors—I can't stand to see them open when they should be shut, or idly swinging, like this one; so I closed it tight, for this winter, at least.

Then I took myself aboard the ferryboat, climbed the stairs and came to the door of the passenger saloon. I'd felt almost alone until now, but there were about ten people sitting around in the cabin, smoking, drinking coffee, waiting. It looked like a roadside diner, with plywood booths along the walls and a couple of scarred tables in the center. It looked stifling in there, so I turned away from the door and made my way along the railing to the pilothouse door.

Inside the pilothouse, leaning on the wheel and smoking a cigarette as he gazed at the car deck below, was a youngish, long-jawed man with pepper-and-salt hair, who, in spite of the ordinary windbreaker and dungarees he wore, was obviously the captain. On his head he had an old-fashioned officer's cap with a brass plate above the bill. It read: CAPTAIN. I watched him douse the cigarette, straighten up and signal down to the hunchback on the deck. A floodlight went on down there. The hunchback and a teen-age boy moved around quickly to cast off. The captain tugged twice at a cord on the compressed-air horn, bouncing two blasts off the snow-shrouded face of Blackrock. Then he pulled the engine telegraph to reverse and I could feel the deck plates vibrate as the ferry backed away from the wharf. The skin of ice crushed under the black-steel hull as we moved out to swing around slowly into the channel. Bon voyage, R. L. Ostenson.

In those few minutes, the pale daylight had gone completely; and now, looking out across the strait, I saw an early moon laying a yellow path almost directly alongside the channel through the ice of the Porte des Morts. At the end of the double line, I could see the low fishback of Nicolet Island. "Strange place, the island," Ed Kinney had said back in Green Bay. "Isolated, ingrown, maybe two hundred people, fifty families. Swedes, Icelanders, Germans. They don't warm much to strangers. Lots of superstition." Kinney has been a feature editor for a long time and he can't help talking like that. Still, he used to summer on the island and I didn't doubt the truth of what he said. "Trouble is," he'd added, "there's nothing to be superstitious about. In winter, the island's about as exciting as the lobby of the Northland Hotel at two o'clock of a Sunday morning. You'll see 'em all come out of hibernation for that basketball game. Then they go back into it for the rest of the winter."

Blackrock had slowly receded into the distance and the last lonely peninsula pine had faded astern. I realized that the sharp wind had got through my overcoat and that I was beginning to shiver. Just then, the wheelhouse door opened and the nasal voice of the captain said, "So softhearted I can't stand to see even a damn fool freeze to death. C'mon in, friend."

I stepped inside. "Thanks, Captain. It was like the fresh and gentle breeze of May. You are speaking to a man who has covered the Packers Sunday in and Sunday out for four winters."

"Hey, a reporter!" he said, smiling. We shook hands. "I'm Axel Ostenson."

"Now, why d'you figure Vince had to go and retire?" he asked. "Those boys ain't been the same since."

"Even the iron men wear out in time," I said. At this point, the radio squawked and he went over to say something into a microphone about position and time of arrival. I looked around.

All was neat and newly painted—up front near the window, the wheel and the engine telegraph, the captain's high stool. A padded bench ran the length of the pilothouse. Framed on the walls were some Great Lakes shipping charts, a safety-inspection certificate and a plaque informing me that the Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding Company had created this noble vessel. Ostenson finished with the radio.

"You remember Ed Kinney?" I asked. "He's my editor in the News down in Green Bay."

"Sure do. Used to have a summer place on the island. I taught his boy Gene how to sail."

"Ed thought I ought to cover the Door County championship game this year. First one on Nicolet Island since 1947. Ed thought there might be a good feature story in it, along with the play-by-play. I thought maybe you could help me, and so I thought I'd ask you a few questions—"

"Nuremberg, Germany," he said.

"What's that?"

"Missed it. I was in Nuremberg, Germany, with the Tenth Division in 1947."

"But you must have heard a lot of talk Since about—"

"I'm sorry, mister, but you know the Great Lakes maritime regulations say that I'm not supposed to have anybody who don't belong in the pilothouse. I'm gonna have to ask you to go along to the saloon. You get yourself a Coke or a cuppa coffee." He didn't look at me, but kept staring straight ahead as I went out.

Queer how suddenly the Great Lakes maritime regulations got enforced.

I moved along the rail to about midship. The wind was like a cold blade on my face, but I wanted to give myself just a few more minutes before I had to go into the stuffy, smoke-filled cabin, where I knew that, in spite of myself, I'd drink at least three or four cups of bad coffee to pass the time. So I'd cut the taste of that with something better. I groped in the inside pocket of my overcoat and found the oblong shape of my flask. The bourbon built a comfortable small fire in my throat and my innards.

I stared down at the black edge of water alongside the hull and the thick shelf of ice. In the moonlight, the strait was one vast skating rink. Every now and then, a chunky little berg came scraping along the hull as we passed. I wondered what might happen if the R. L. Ostenson didn't go back and forth from Blackrock to the island twice a day. How long would it take before the channel froze over solid? But, I supposed, even at that, the island could hardly be cut off. With this kind of freeze, the iceboats—those craft with runners and sails or a motor—could make it back and forth without the slightest trouble.

Speak of the Devil, I thought. It was just about then that I heard the motor. I took another sip and peered ahead into the dark. Funny that somebody would be running one of those things this time of evening. There was more spray now than there had been and it stung my forehead and fogged my glasses. There seemed to be an area of low-lying mist on the ice ahead. I took the glasses off and gave them a good wipe with my handkerchief. The motor noise got no louder; it was still a low chugga-chugga-chugga, like something I remember out of my boyhood. I leaned over the rail and strained my eyes toward the sound and I saw one red eye in the gray cotton fog.

Then, gradually, as we overtook it, the thing took shape just at the far reach of glimmer from our deck lights. No iceboat, by God, but a black, sign-bedecked Model-A Ford, bumping along at maybe ten or fifteen miles an hour. Running boards, spare tire on the rear, dim yellow headlights on the ice. It looked just like the one my dad used to own back when. Only Dad would never have let anybody violate the glassy black finish with signs like, HOLD ME TIGHT, BABY and THERE AIN'T NO FLIES ON THE N.I.S. Bent backward in the wind was a radio aerial from which flew a green pennant that read in block letters, NICOLET ISLAND.

I leaned as far over the rail as I could and, as the old car came abreast of me then gradually began to drop astern, I tried to make out the faces of the kids inside. It was too dark for much more than silhouettes. However, I did raise my arm and wave to them. And I swear that I saw somebody waving back from the rear seat. Then the yellow headlight beams grew dimmer, the chugga-chugga dropped back out of earshot and we'd lost them.

Funny, I thought. I'd hate to have any kids of mine out on the ice on a freezing night like this one. But I supposed that people up here had different ideas. They probably drove over to Blackrock—when the ice was thick enough—as casually as we'd go down to the drugstore in Green Bay.

Anyway, it was an interesting little incident, probably not the usual thing to the average Wisconsin newspaper reader. I thought I'd pin it down a little more and use it some place in the feature. "Up around Nicolet Island, some strange things are taken as a matter of course," my lead might go. "As I was crossing over on the ferryboat last night, I saw . . ." I made my way along the railing until I'd come back to the pilothouse door. Ostenson was still at the wheel, as if he hadn't moved since I'd left. I went on in. He glanced at me.

"Captain, I guess you saw those kids out on the ice in the old car back there just a bit. Heading over to the island. Is that a fairly common thing up here? Couldn't the kids get into trouble?"

He didn't reply. He swung his whole head around toward me, his face perfectly immobile and his gray fish-scale eyes staring. Then he looked back at his course and was silent for nearly a minute.

At last he said quietly, "It happens." Then, in a louder voice, he commanded, "Come here!" I walked over. "Open your mouth and breathe out," he said. He waited a moment. Then he said, "Liquor drinking on this ship is against the law. I could file a complaint against you and get you fined. You hear that?"

"Come off it, Cap," I said. "It's just a drop to keep the old blood flowing."

"Maybe," he said in a cold voice. "But I could testify that you barged into my pilothouse once and I had to order you out. Then you spent some time drinking liquor somewhere. Then you came back into the pilothouse against my orders. Mister, this may be just a dinky little Great Lakes ferryboat, but the captain is still the law on it. Now, you go back and sit down in the passenger cabin and shut up."

I made my disconsolate way back to the cabin. What in the world had gone wrong with that moron in the pilothouse? He'd seemed perfectly friendly until . . . I couldn't figure out what came after the "until." I sat down at one of the tables in the middle of the cabin. A burly man with a blond mustache and wearing a thick mackinaw looked up from across the table. He pointed at a half-full bottle of Seagram's and a paper cup. "Drink?" he asked.

I looked around. Just about every table had a pint or a fifth on it. Obviously, not a temperance ship. Just when I was going to ask mackinaw-mustache about the captain, I decided better. If Kinney's two paragraphs were any guide to the island, this chap was probably the captain's older brother, or at least a first cousin. Probably just Ostenson's quirk; he must have suddenly decided that he didn't like my face.

I was on deck again to observe our landing. The dark form of the island was very close now and I could see lights farther up the channel. They seemed to outline the dock. We passed a channel buoy frozen in the ice at a drunken tilt and wearing a snowy beard. The wind swept in from the lake, even harsher and stronger than before, then calmed a little as we came in. The engine went half speed, then silent, and came on loud again in reverse. I saw the wooden pilings of the dock, illuminated by a hanging string of yellow bulbs. I heard a shoe scrape on the stairway behind me and I turned.

It was the hunchback, just starting down to the deck. "I seen 'em, too," he said in a low voice.

"The kids in the car?" I said. "Yeah, what about it?"

"It's the old team," he whispered. "It's the old team still tryin' to make it." He was suddenly scuttling down the stairs to his duty with the ropes.

Clannish, inbred—but Ed Kinney had forgotten to tell me that I might run into some slightly loony ones, too.

Comfortable, warm, old-fashioned and presumably by the side of the lake, Lakeside Cottages struck me as a good omen. I was the only guest, yet a neat path had been shoveled from the lodge down to my small cabin (number nine) and a boy named Roger Nelson carried my bags. He turned the lights on and showed me where the radio was.

"Are you visiting up here?" he asked. "I wouldn't want to be nosy, but we almost never get an overnight guest in the winter."

"No. I'm a reporter. I came up a day early, but I'm really here to cover the big game tomorrow night."

"That's great," he said, smiling. "You from Life?"

"No, just from Green Bay, I'm afraid." He handed me my key.

"I'm one of the assistant basketball managers," he said. "Means I carry stuff around a lot—though you'd never guess it from the important-sounding title."

"I won't tell a single soul in Green Bay what you really do," I said. He started to leave. "Well, good luck against Fish Creek," I said.

He smiled and shook his head. "It's Ephraim," he said. "The game's against Ephraim. Fish Creek wasn't even in the running this year."

"Of course. How could I be so forgetful? Good luck against Ephraim," I said. He smiled again and closed the door behind him.

Sure, it was Ephraim Bay. We'd even had a feature story on Kevin O'Hara, their six-foot-six, high-scoring center. Why had I said Fish Creek? I lay on the bed with a couple of fingers of whiskey in the bathroom tumbler, blowing fancy smoke rings. Then it came back to me. Simple.

The kids crossing the ice in the old car had BEAT FISH CREEK painted on its side. The slogan was probably a leftover from the baseball or football season.

After a while, I stirred myself and got the notebook from my jacket pocket. First I'd get something to eat, then I'd get in a little work on the background for the feature story. I found the page with my notes on the briefing Ed Kinney had given me. On the second page, with a star beside it, was the name "Edward Maier."

"Ed coach fr abt ten yrs. Now retired. One of best small-school coaches in state. Runner-up three, four years in row, then champion team around 1947. Small town wild abt basketball. Maybe 60 kids in the high school, 59 of 'em b. b. players. Tall Swedes. Local disaster sometimes in 40s or 50s. School fire? Anyway, several children died, including team members. Quick check in our files draws blank, but ask Ed, who will know all abt it." There were several other entries but I decided to try Maier first.

There were all of four pages in the phone book. Edward Maier's number was a quaint 32-B. Then I had to turn a crank on the phone to ring the operator. I was back in the 1920s. "Please give me 32-B," I said.

"There's somebody staying at Lakeside," I heard the operator say to somebody with her. "He's calling Ed Maier." Then I heard her say, "How should I know why he wants to talk to Ed?"

"Operator, honey," I said in my coziest voice. "My name is Charley Pope. I'm a sports reporter on The Green Bay News. I get a hundred and thirty dollars a week. I'm forty years old, six-foot-one, 185 pounds, married and the father of two. I'm here to cover the game tomorrow night. And now, operator, honey, please ring Ed Maier for me."

"Well, it's nice meeting you, Mr. Pope," she said. "We don't get many visitors in the wintertime." I heard a whispered aside to her friend, "Newspaperman, and he sounds real nice. No, I don't know why he's calling Ed Maier."

When she finally did get the call through, there was an answer almost immediately at the other end. It sounded like a hiccup.

"Is this Mr. Ed Maier? I'm up here to cover . . ." and I went on through my introduction. There was silence for almost a minute.

I knew that Ed Maier was still conscious, though, because I could hear a deep and regular breathing over the line. "Listen, Mr. Maier," I finally said, "if it's more convenient, I can come over to see you tomorrow. But I'd rather make a short call this evening, if it's OK."

More deep breathing. Then he spoke one word in a hoarse voice. "Hurry!" And then he had hung up.

Thumbtacked to the wall of my cottage was a postcard-sized map of the island. I studied it until I thought I'd worked out my route from Lakeside to Town Line Road, where Maier lived. It was now almost seven. I'd talk with the old boy for about an hour and try to get back to get some dinner around eight. I went out to my car.

The map was probably OK, but the snow and the scarcity of signs tricked me, because the next one I saw read GUNNAUGSSON ROAD, which was a dirt road that didn't appear on the map at all. I wandered from that onto another road that turned out to be Detroit Harbor Road. This did appear on the map running the length of the island south to north. My only trouble was that I didn't know which way was north. After a couple of miles of rough going through the snow, a red neon savior gleamed out of the dark. God bless Gus' Bar. Eats, Beer, Mixed Drinks.

And there they both were, just as advertised. The one, massive old-fashioned dark wood; and the other, behind it—massive old-fashioned barkeep. A jukebox was sobbing at the top of its voice when I went in.

"Ed Maier?" said the bartender, shaking his head slowly, as if this were just too much. He mopped the bar for a while, "Ed Maier," he finally said reluctantly, "you mean coach Ed Maier?"

"Yes, I mean coach Ed Maier on Town Line Road. Can you tell me how to get there?"

"Guess I could," he said. He started to polish some glass beer steins. "What do you want with him?"

"I want to offer him a job in the movies," I said. "Now, where do I find him?"

"Well," said Gus reflectively, "when you go out the door, point yourself right. Go about twenty-five yards. Then go left on Town Line right down to the very end. That's where Coach lives."

As I was going out the door, he said, "If you're a reporter on the Green Bay paper and you get a hundred and thirty dollars a week, how come you tell people you can get them in the movies?"

"How come you sell poisoned beer?" I asked and left.

But the directions were right, anyway. I found Maier's ramshackle little cottage in a winter-bare birch grove. There was a pile of firewood outside the front door, a little drift of smoke from the chimney and a dim light inside the window. The door was opened even before I could get out of the car.

Ed Maier was one of those people who look about 30 from a distance of 20 yards. Blond hair combed straight back, very fair skin, athletic build and no pot. At half the distance, he had added 10 years, maybe 15. He wore high boots, heavy pants and a plaid windbreaker. You began to see the creases in his face, the jowls, the round-shouldered middle age in his stance.

When you got right up there to shake hands, you saw, by the lamplight in the doorway, the undertaker's next. Or at least that was the way he struck me at the moment. The blue eyes were glazed. The face was a Rand McNally of varicose veins. The flesh looked like puff paste. Ed Maier seemed to be the victim of one of those diseases that age a man too rapidly.

He invited me in and offered me coffee. He had two cups ready and one of those old conical coffeepots steaming on one of the hot flagstones of the hearth. On the littered table there was a plate with some thick slices of bread and cheese. I made myself a sandwich and sat across from him in a rocker near the fire. I meant to ask him why he'd said "Hurry!" that way, but I didn't quite know how to put it.

He began, "Well, you can quote me as saying we've had a great season. No, sir, I won't be coy about that. The boys have marvelous spirit and we've been getting near onto seventy percent of the rebounds. Thank Red Hockstader for that. Six-four and a natural for all-state. Best center I've ever coached."

"But, Coach," I said gently, "I never heard of Red Hockstader. The Nicolet Island center is a kid named Kris Holmsund."

"Think I don't know that?" said the old man. "I thought you said you wanted to talk about the championship team. That was 1947." I would have sworn that the brew in his coffee cup came more from Kentucky than from Brazil. He took a long swig.

"They really had her fixed up," he said. "The old American Legion Hall. Flags, bunting, more smorgasbord than you ever seen in your life. Couple barrels of beer. Band all in new uniforms. Vee for victory. Big sign read, WELCOME TO OUR CHAMPS. Broke my heart." He drifted off into silence. "They were all my boys, you know. Just like sons."

I wasn't getting anywhere. We were drifting pretty aimlessly in the old man's memory, though we seemed to be skirting the edge of that disaster—school fire or whatever it was—Kinney had told me to check on. I made a guess and tried again.

"So they never showed up at the American Legion Hall for the victory celebration? Is that the way it was, Coach? Remind me just how it happened, will you?" I poured myself some more coffee and made another cheese sandwich. The fire burned hot in the fireplace, but so many of the windowpanes were broken and patched with cardboard that I kept feeling an intermittent draft.

"My wife Julia was alive then. The whole thing broke her up terrible. And Sally run off to Milwaukee and married a bum. Drunken bum, I heard. Not that I've ever thought of her for twenty years."

Now we were really lost in the fog. Might as well give it up for tonight, I thought—but I decided to try once more. "Coach, tell me how it all came about. What happened first that led up to . . .?"

He nodded. "Well, you know," he said patiently, as if repeating an oft-told tale. "You know we won by four points in the overtime. And when we got back to Blackrock, the ferryboat was late. No sign of her. And all the boys crazy mad to get back to the celebration. And me half out of my head myself, I guess . . .

"Well, anyhow, I said wait, by God. Red said no. He was going to drive it alone. I said he was a damn fool. He said it wasn't snowing. I said it was going to any minute and, though the ice was thick enough, still, there were probably weak spots in it here and there. So I took him out back of the smokehouse, where the others couldn't hear, and I talked Red out of it. Thought so. Then I went down the road to a house to use the telephone. When I came back, the whole damn team had left. It was beginning to snow then . . ."

I suddenly understood the old tragedy of Nicolet Island. The champions were all dead, the triumphant team wiped out. But, of course, it was a lot more than that. Everybody on the island was related to one or more of the seven or eight boys on the team. But something was bothering me and I had to explode.

"Why in God's name, then, do the people of this place still let their kids toot around on the ice in old cars? You'd think they'd learn something from what happened. Why, just tonight, coming over, I saw another bunch in a car, chugging along across the strait."

As the old coach stared at me, the merciful potion from his coffee cup began to take hold. The lids seemed to fall over his eyes like the lids of dolls' eyes, pulled down by gravity. His head slowly sank to his forearm and he was silent.

"Coach?" I said experimentally. He didn't move. I debated whether to haul him off to his bed, but then I guessed that he probably spent a good many winter nights in the old easy chair in front of the dying fire—and the ancient phrase was a perfect literal description—in his cups.

I got into bed early and opened my book. I'd brought along Alan Moorehead's The White Nile, which I'd been saving to read and which now seemed to me a good faraway kind of thing to dissipate all the nonsense I'd encountered that afternoon. Because now, in a quiet moment, it seemed to me that the whole business was nonsensical. And, by the time I got sleepy enough to turn out the light, I'd succeeded. I was deep in Tanganyika with Livingstone.

I was shaving the next morning when I heard a knock at the cabin door. "Come in," I yelled, and Roger Nelson pushed open the door. Hearty good mornings on either side. I was feeling refreshed and hungry. "How are the pancakes up there at the lodge?" I asked.

"Great," he said. "But you've got an invitation to breakfast—out. Mr. Ostenson sent me down to ask you."

"Him?" I said to the mirror. "On the ferry on the way over, he took an intense dislike to my looks. Just about threw me in irons. What does he want now?"

"Oh, Axel," Roger said. "He was probably just in a bad mood because he was dying for a drink. Gets that way late in the afternoon. No, this is Nels Ostenson. He's the mayor here. Businessman. Rents out cottages and deals in real estate. He's a very nice guy, you'll see. I think he probably wants to make friends with the press. And you couldn't get better pancakes than they make at the Ostensons."

"Seduced!" I said. "Be out in a minute."

Roger showed me the way. The sun was so brilliant that it almost hurt; and under the bright sky, Nicolet Island looked as I'd hoped it would—the little street, snow-covered fields, sedate stone fences and plain white farmhouses off in the distance. The snow squeaked under our boots.

"Did you ever meet Paul Hornung? What's Willie Davis like in person? Boy, and that Bart Starr! Did you interview him after that game with the Cowboys? How many counts does he take in the pocket when he sees his primary receiver is covered?" Roger kept asking me questions faster than I could answer them. We'd covered a fair amount of the Packer offensive game by the time we got to a frame office building with a sign reading, N. OSTENSON, BUILDERS, REAL ESTATE, PLUMBING & HEATING. Down the side of this, there was a cleared cement walk, between hedges, that led to a pleasant white clapboard house.

Nels Ostenson was a big, gray-haired man with a Kriss Kringle face and a ringing laugh. I liked him immediately. "By damn," he said, one hand on my shoulder, "my favorite author in person. I even read your tragedies—such as 'Colts Nose Out Packers Twenty-four to Twenty.' But we won't talk about that. I'm sure everybody you meet talks Packers until you're sick of it."

He showed me into a pleasant room, where the sun shone through the front windows and bookcases lined the walls. A table with a white tablecloth was set up and, almost as soon as we sat down, a teen-age girl brought in some orange juice ("Daughter Karen, Mr. Pope").

And the pancakes were good—big and light and golden. After a decent pause to make a serious start on them, he said, "I'm going to apologize all over the place, Charley. I think you had a bad introduction to our little town out here, and I'm sorry. Wish I'd known you were coming. First of all, Axel was snotty to you on the ferryboat, I understand. Well, you've got to know Axel to know why. He's a good boy, but he's kind of on edge these days—family trouble. Wife had an operation last summer and she's never really recovered. One kid just about in college and lots of money worries. So I think you ought to forgive him for blowing his stack. He didn't know who you were. I guess he got into one of his moods." Nels said all of this with a sort of grandfatherly grin and some wide waves of his fork. He had a snowy-white napkin tucked in his shirt collar, under his chin.

"I'd already forgotten. I shouldn't have gone poking around the pilothouse, anyway."

"Good! Good! Now that's settled," he said. "Too bad you had to run onto two of our worst pieces of hard luck just when you arrived. I'm sorry about Ed Maier. I should say straight off that poor Ed is in terrible shape. You know, one of the things about a little community like ours is that we probably make a big mistake by being too charitable. Now, someplace else, Ed would have been put in a home long ago. But folks around here just can't stand the idea of shutting a man up if he's harmless—even if it would be for his own good. Ed's been more or less off his rocker ever since his wife died.

"Trouble is, everybody who knew Ed in the old days loves him. Why, he was practically the local hero for nearly ten years. Nobody kinder than Ed; nobody better at handling the kids. And in a basketball-crazy place like this, somebody who puts out winning teams year after year just about owns the town. Sure, nowadays, he holes up in that shack of his, has the d.t.'s, is full of crazy persecution delusions—but still it seems like nobody had the heart to commit him. Probably my responsibility, but I'm just as weak-kneed as all the rest."

"I gathered something like that," I said. "He gave me a disconnected story about his daughter running away . . ."

"And about the team?" Nels asked. He paused for a minute, looking directly at me.

"Something about the old championship team he coached, yes."

Nels sighed. "It's his worst bugaboo. He had a real crack-up back about Forty-seven, just after we won the championship. Pardon me if you've heard all this—but you have to understand something about that freak accident to understand what happened to him. You'll hear some crazy superstitious stories, but the truth is that we had one of those terrible, foolish accidents that winter and a lot of stupid rumors got started.

"What really happened is this. The team was coming back one night from the championship game at Fish Creek. Bad weather and Ed knew it was going to be worse. They got to Blackrock and the ferry was late coming over for them. We had a kid on the team at that tune, Red Hockstader—great player but a big-headstrong German kid. At Blackrock, he talked the rest of the team into driving over the ice in his old car. You know, cross the strait and surprise everybody by sailing into the welcome party on their own wheels.

"Now, Ed did his damnedest to talk them out of it—and he thought he had. But he didn't figure on Red's being so stubborn. So, when Ed went up the road for a few minutes, the kids set out. Ordinarily, it might be quite possible to drive right across the strait, if you did it in daylight and watched out sharp for rotten spots in the ice. It's different at night. Well, the sad story is that they must have hit a rotten spot and the whole team went right down to the bottom of the strait. Not a trace." He stared out of the window for a minute or two. "Anything else people say is pure baloney."

I hesitated. Finally, I said, "I believe you. But there is one thing that bothers me."

He put down his fork and untucked his napkin. "What's that?"

"Well, since I've been here, I've heard some of these rumors, and one of them is pretty weird. People say that once in a while, somebody sees an old Ford out on the ice, trying to make it across to Nicolet Island. Wrapped in mist, chugging along. All that. The old team trying to get home."

Nels threw his napkin on the floor and stood up. "Those damn kids!" he said. "Those damn jokers. I'll have the law on them one of these days, even if I have to get Madison to send the state police up!" His face was red and he kicked at a doorstop as he walked up and down.

"Charley, I don't know what's got into this generation. You know about sick jokes and black humor and all. I suppose most of that's harmless, but it does turn my stomach. Anyway, it's awful ghoulish when a practical joke is played on people who've really had members of their family killed or drowned, don't you think? So, there's this bunch of smart-ass kids in Blackrock who thought it was funny to buy an old car someplace, paint it up with signs like the ones on Hockstader's old jalopy and give the ferry passengers a scare on dark nights by chugging out onto the ice and letting themselves be seen."

"Do you know who they are?" I asked. "Can't you catch them?"

"I will someday," he said. "Just wait. I had the whole of Blackrock searched last time, but they must have had the thing hidden pretty carefully. Not a soul in the vicinity lets on that he knows a thing. But we'll catch them!

"Crudest thing is that old Ed really believes the car is out there. He swears that he hears it chugging along the shore by his house. Used to be he thought that only when he was drunk. Now he believes it all the time."

Before I left, Nels had calmed down a little and we talked about other subjects. Inevitably, we got onto the Packers, and I had to give him my personal impressions of Vince Lombardi.

Silence. Free throw. The Nicolet Island guard leaned forward, feet placed in the middle of the circle, body straight. Up on the toes, leaning more, then the calculated throw, a graceful arc and the ball dropped through the basket, leaving in its wake a dancing net, a howling gym. Before the referee could place the ball back in action, the timekeeper sounded the buzzer. End of third quarter. Score: Nicolet Island 51, Ephraim 51.

Ed Kinney thought the island's population to be approximately 200, and my educated crowd estimate placed the local rooters at nearly that number. Most had arrived early, well before gametime, and had invaded the gray-wooden bleachers, leaving cramped space for the half-hundred Ephraim fans who had crossed over on the midafternoon ferry.

Captain Axel Ostenson was there. So was Nels. I scanned the faces. Roger, carrying a bucket, gave me a big wave. Only Ed Maier was missing.

I'd spent the day poking around the island, picking up bits of local lore and tramping over some snow-covered but attractive landscape. My ideas for a feature story with just a touch of the supernatural as a come-on had to be junked (OLD LEGEND OF A LOST TEAM STILL HAUNTS NICOLET ISLAND). Everybody had heard the tale, of course, and everybody had then said, "Poor Ed Maier," alcoholism was a terrible thing, and one of these days poor old Ed would probably have to be put away in an institution.

Only one thing stuck in the back of my mind and bothered me. When I'd seen Ed, he'd been garrulous and probably drunk. He'd rambled on about lots of things he seemed to want to get off his mind. But he'd never mentioned the "ghost-car" story.

The timekeeper's buzzer announced the fourth quarter. Both sides scored repeatedly, though the game remained close. Then, with two minutes remaining, the Ephraim center, six-foot-five and full of aggression, committed his fifth personal foul and was returned to the bench, giving the Nicolet Island five both home-court advantage and control of the boards. The game ended in a thunderous glory. Nicolet Island 71, Ephraim Bay 68. Door County champions again.

At that exact moment, the whole population of the island went slam-bang out of their Scandinavian heads with one great, hoarse, endless yell of victory. Now I know what the berserk Vikings must have sounded like. The siren on top of the volunteer firehouse began to blast the air. I made it down to the locker room holding my ears.

They were still yelling up there as I tried to interview a totally incoherent coach Ostberg and a bunch of soaking-wet lunatic kids. Never mind. I've been in this business a long time and I've got a whole notebook full of the cliches. "It was a team effort. I never could have done it without the whole team in there fighting all the way. A great bunch of boys," etc. I keep wishing somebody would say something different one day.

The American Legion Hall had just about all the red, white and blue you could possibly put in without going blind. From the rafters was hung a huge sign—obviously put into place that afternoon—NICOLET ISLAND BASKETBALL TEAM, DOOR COUNTY CHAMPS. The island's German band, in splendid befrogged blue uniforms, boomed out victory marches. The ladies of the American Legion Auxiliary doled out mugs of—not the watery punch you might expect but a hot, spicy and potent—glogg. The smorgasbord was delicious. Every kid in town was dancing.

Scenes of great hilarity and joy in which I don't share and large amounts of glogg, which I cherish but which affects me like a lullaby, sooner or later drive me homeward. I came out into the bitter cold of the parking lot to the strains—for the tenth time—of Hail to the Victors Valiant, swiped from across the lake, and hoped my car would start without any fuss.

It took a little effort, but at last the engine turned over. Suddenly, I heard a noise, a sort of choking cough, from the back seat. I turned around. Huddled there, passed out, apparently, was old Ed Maier. He'd come to hear the sound of victory, it seemed, but he just couldn't force himself to go inside. Lucky I'd come out early, or he'd probably have frozen to death.

So I drove him to his house. I hauled him out and dragged him into the house—he was stiff in more ways than one, but he was still breathing and seemed in no danger. I put him to bed on the studio couch in his front room and coaxed his fire into a blaze. Under the old Army blanket, he breathed hoarsely. I guessed he was safe enough, but he'd have quite a headache in about 24 hours when he woke up.

I switched off the lamp and went to the door. Just as I got it halfway open, I heard Ed Maier's voice loud and clear in the darkness, "Now hear the truth, by God."

"Ed?" I said. "Are you all right? It's Charley Pope." I eased the door shut.

He seemed not to have heard me. He started to speak again in that clear, deliberate, unslurred voice, not like a drunk but like a man dictating a statement.

"Witness before God. Last night, before we went to Fish Creek, I made Sally tell me the story. Knocked up; at first, I thought, well, hell, it does happen and this isn't the first shotgun match on the island. And then something funny about her and the way she was acting and crying and refusing to name the boy; and I guess I did slap her around a little, first time in her life since she was a small kid and had a spanking. But Julia hysterical down there and I guess I'm strung tight because of the big game, and so I did hit her. And so she did tell, did tell, did tell. Horrible dirty thing; how could they do it? In Holmgren's barn. Sally there buck in the hay and the whole team, the whole goddamn team, my boys, and I thought of them all as my boys, every one of them there with Sally, and she didn't care.

"And awful hard for me not to let on I knew. At Blackrock, by the smokehouse, Red didn't specially want to try the trip; they'd been joking about it and some said what a big sensation it'd be; but Red, no, he wasn't foolish. Was only after I gave him a big drink from my hip flask and called the whole bunch cowards. Cowards, cowards. 'You guys can beat Fish Creek, but you're scared to get out on the ice; I drove it myself a dozen times, once in a snowstorm. Cowards.'

"No, they weren't. When I got back, they'd gone . . ."

I waited for a long time. "Ed?" I asked. "You awake?" He was beginning to snore. He was out cold, as drunk as I'd ever seen a man, but the strange thing was that I believed every word of his story.

I woke the next morning to a semi-blizzard. It wasn't a really serious, driving Wisconsin storm; it was more like a boy blizzard having a snowball fight. It howled as if laughing and threw snow on the town. Momentarily, it would clear and there would be a faint haze of sunshine overhead; then it would rush in as if to smother us with a heavy blast of new snow. At those times, it made a kind of snow twilight. It was like that when I drove up to the landing—so dark that the lights of the R. L. Ostenson were shining.

Axel met me as I came on board. He had been waiting especially for my arrival, and he shook my hand. "Please feel welcome to ride either in the pilothouse or in the saloon, Mr. Pope," he said. "But please don't stay out on the deck in this gusty weather. The deck is slippery and you could have a bad fall."

"I won't bother you, Axel," I said. "I appreciate your invitation, but I think I'll just hole up in the cabin and read my book this trip." We smiled and he slapped me on the shoulder, then turned to go along the deck.

The hunchback drove my car aboard—that made only the third one. There seemed to be no more than half a dozen passengers this time. I settled down in an empty booth in the cabin and tried to translate my mind to the shores of Lake Victoria and the upper reaches of the White Nile.

Successfully, too. When I next looked up, I realized that the engines were throbbing and that we had been under way for some minutes. I put down the book and walked over to look out the window.

The snow and wind were still playing their fitful games—nothing but whiteness all around us for one minute, then a sudden clear space, when you could see the dark channel and maybe even 100 yards or so out across the expanse of ice. I stood there, lost in a kind of meditation, for some time.

Chugga-chugga-chugga. I couldn't believe it. I opened the door and went out onto the deck. Not near, not far, stubbornly paralleling our course somewhere out there on the ice.

I was suddenly furious. Nels was absolutely right. It was the most senseless, ghoulish, idiotic kind of practical joke in the world. Those high school kids from Blackrock ought to be caught, have their car confiscated, get thrown in jail—even get a good whipping. Not only were they harassing the Nicolet Islanders in this stupid way but they were risking their own lives every time—look what had happened once before.

I went down to the car deck, full of this kind of resentment, hoping to get a glimpse of the old jalopy. Apparently, nobody else had heard the sound, because I was all alone in the wind. I leaned over the rail and peered forward into the white confusion. The chugga-chugga seemed just a few yards away.

Then, suddenly, the breeze dropped; there was a clearing in the storm and I saw it. I saw every detail. The old car was painted black, but the body had a lot of rust on it. One running board sagged. The left-rear fender had been crumpled. A light trail of snow streamed off the layer of white on top of the roof. The battered old license plate was, sure enough, WISCONSIN, 1947. But it wasn't any of this that made me jump off the ferryboat.

I still don't know quite how I did it. I remember taking hold of a rope and swinging over the side. It was probably lucky for me that no more than a yard or so of black channel showed between the boat's side and the ice shelf, and I swung across easily.

A puff of snowy wind came up again and the car was only a dim form ahead of me. I ran. I seemed to hear some kind of shout from behind me, from the boat, but nothing was going to stop me now.

Ten yards, fifteen yards; I thought I'd never catch up. It was hard running, because the ice gave good footing one second and none at all the next.

When the snow suddenly cleared, I saw that the old Ford had stopped. They were waiting for me, heads in stocking caps poked out of the windows, faces of the boys grinning with mischief. The driver's red hair poked out from beneath his cap. They loved my startled reaction.

Ed Maier's body lay at the end of a ten-foot rope that had been tied to the rear axle. The rope was under his armpits, not around his neck, but I knew that he was dead, anyway. His face was partly covered with ice dust, partly bloody scrapes, but I knew him. I do not think that there was the least bit of astonishment in his expression.

I didn't hear the ferryboat's engine stop. The first thing I knew was that the hunchback was scrambling across the ice, yelling at me. It was he who had seen me jump overboard.

When he came up to me, he found me standing all alone, staring into the snowfall that was now coming down thick and steady over the wide, desolate ice expanse of the Porte des Morts.

Table of Contents

DOUBLE WHAMMY by Robert Bloch

THE SISTER CITY by Brian Lumley

WHEN MORNING COMES by Elizabeth Fancett

PREY by Richard Matheson

WINTER by Kit Reed

LUCIFER by E. C. Tubb

I WONDER WHAT HE WANTED . . . by Eddy C. Bertin

PROBLEM CHILD by Peter Oldale

THE SCAR by Ramsey Campbell

WARP by Ralph Norton

THE HATE by Terri E. Pinckard

A QUIET GAME by Celia Fremlin

AFTER NIGHTFALL by David Riley

DEATH'S DOOR by Robert McNear