Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction 11th Part 26

He walked toward what he took to be the business section.

As the shadowed houses gave way to the dusty panes of the store fronts, he came out on a street which was obviously the main one of the village, three blocks of brick arid clapboard buildings with high blank windows on the second story and square shop windows below. Under the baking sun, on this street no one stirred.

He looked about and turned at random to the nearest store, which had HARDWARE painted in faded yellow let-ters above the store front. He opened the windowless door and went in.

Above his head a bell chimed. A little man came to meet him between narrow counters piled high with metal goods and pieces of household equipment.

"Yes?" he said. "Yes, what do you want?"

"I'm looking for a George Monk," said Barin. "Do you know where I can find him?"The little man peered up at Barin through rimless, glint-ing gla.s.ses. His voice was dusty and crackled like old paper that shatters when crumpled.

"George Monk?"

"Yes."

The little man laughed like leaves rustling across concrete. "He's dead.

George Monk's dead."

"His wife-" Barin began.

"His wife!" The little man snorted thinly through his small nostrils. "You've been talking to his wife, have you?"

"Well, I didn't know," said Barin. "I wanted a real estate agent."

"Real estate?" The hardware man looked up and struck the palms of his hands together. "Good. Good! There'll be a boom yet, you wait and see.

Were you wanting to speculate?"

"No," said Barin. "I just wanted a place."

"Oh!" he chuckled. "A place. That's good. That's fine."

"I'm thinking of settling down here-" The words were a little hard, making their way past Barin's throat. "I might marry. People do, you know." He tried to give his last words a sly twist, as if joking. Instead they sounded ominous in his own ears. The little man did not seem to notice.

"Well now," he said. "Well, now, I have a place. A fine place just above the store here. That might be just the thing now, don't you think?"

Barin looked around the ancient dirtiness of the store. It was not attractive.

But upstairs it might be better, and beggars could not be choosers, and he wanted to rent some-thing to convince Dineen he was serious.

"All right," he said. "If you'd like to let me look at it-"

"Absolutely, absolutely. This way." The hardware man turned and led the way to the store's back, and up a dark staircase to a rickety landing and narrow door. He threw the door open and ushered Barin through it.

"A fine, big place," he said.

Barin walked away from him, through the bare, unfur-nished rooms and to the windows in front overlooking the main street. The sunlight slanted through the windows, throwing strong shadows on the floor but without lighting the inside clearly. Standing in the light-glare and breathing the dead, unmoving air, Barin felt coming on him once again the haziness that he had felt on the hill overlooking the town. The walls about him seemed to stretch away to infinity, but at the same time to close about him, so that he felt himself locked like a fly between two panes of gla.s.s, caught by theunseen, prisoned-in transparency.

"A fine, big room. An excellent room," the hardware man was chuckling at his elbow; and he, turning, sealed the bargain, paying his fee, whatever the little man asked; and so, not listening to the squeaks and mutterings of the other, turned and went down the stairs and away into the streets of the town. But all in a daze, all in a dream, all under the cloak of unreality.

How long this particular fit lasted, he found himself un-able to estimate, as he sat on the gra.s.s later in the day, opposite a boy perhaps seven or eight years old, perched on the pediment of a stone lion in a tiny park. Thin and close-hunched in khaki shorts and a striped T-shirt faded from much washing, the boy was coloring with crayons the faces of pictures in a coloring book. Barin watched, absorbed, as the boy worked.

"How long will it take?" Barin asked finally, breaking the silence.

"As many days as there are pictures in the book," said the boy. And he held it up to show Barin.

"You see," he said, "everything has to be done just right. Once I make a mistake, there's no fixing it. If the red happens to go just a bit over a line into the blue, the line gets spoiled. When I was just a baby, I used to spoil a lot of pictures. But now I know when you color one, it's for good, and I never make any mistakes."

"I like to color pictures," said Barin, dreamily.

"Then you got to find your own book," said the boy, seriously, without raising his eyes from the page on which he was working. "But remember, it has to be perfect."

He became completely absorbed in his coloring; and, after watching for a little while longer, Barin left him.

The day was fading when Barin came back at last to the hotel. It was the same hour of the afternoon on which he had driven into the town, two days before. The sun smouldered low on the pines of the western hill tops and the lobby of the hotel, when he entered it, was stifled in gloom. The feverish after-effects of his dream-fit were still on him; but in spite of it he felt strong now with the memory of his day's accom-plishment, and he strode straight to the desk.

In the dark depths behind it, Rosach stirred, a deeper shadow. "Yes?" his voice came grating.

"I just thought I'd tell you I'll be leaving tomorrow," Barin said. "I'm going to stay a while in town here. I thought I'd settle down and write. I've rented a place, above the hardware store."

Rosach grunted.

"I'll move early in the morning." Barin leaned a little for-ward over thecounter, trying to make out the expression of the hotel man's face. "I think I'll go to bed early, now. I'm not feeling so well. Would you mind sending Dineen up with a gla.s.s of hot milk for me?"

Again Rosach grunted, like some wild pig back in a thicket. It was impossible to tell whether he agreed or dis-agreed; and Barin, hesitating at repeating his question, turned slowly away and went up the stairs.

The hall above was shadowed darkness, but his room was filled with the clear dimness of the fading twilight seen through the window. Brian lay down on top of the covers of the made bed without even taking off his shoes. The mattress, felt through the sheets and blankets, pressed hard against his back; but he lay back gratefully drugged with tiredness that seemed to clot and impede the nervous mus-cles of his body. He felt that he did not want to move ever again, but to continue to lie as he was for time unending. Now, indeed, he did begin to feel hot and dizzy and a little out of his head as he might be with fever. He turned his face to the closed door of his room and waited.

After a little while, there was a knock at the door. "Come in," he said, looking away out the window. He heard footsteps in the cadence of Dineen's walk, ap-proaching his bed. But he kept his eyes on the glowing ob-long of window until he heard the gla.s.s of milk being set down on the table beside the head of his bed. Then he spoke. "Don't go," he said.

The sound of his own voice, bleating and strange, shocked him; and, turning his head at last, he was shocked even more by Dineen's appearance, for she had made no move to go, but stood with lowered head, hands limply at her side like one condemned before the executioner. For a second a thrill of pity cooled him; and then the buried heat of his desire beat up more fiercely. He took her by one still hand, swinging himself up into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. She neither stirred nor spoke. "Dineen-" he said.

She did not move. And at that he told himself that she had already heard the news of his day's action. Rosach had told her, no doubt. There could be no other interpretation.

"Now you know," he said.

"Yes." Her voice was calm and hopeless, so that he shud-dered at it while at the same time it increased his hunger and he tightened his grip on her hand, pulling her toward him. She came, neither helping nor resisting, and the weight of her body fell softly and heavily upon him, pushing him back down on the bed. The last rays of the sun through the window struck him full in the eyes, blinding him; and a surge of triumph like nothing he had ever felt before washed through and over him.

"Dineen!" he cried wildly, putting his arms around her.

He awoke gradually, fighting returning consciousness and a feeling of growing sickness that came with it, an abiding ugliness that hung just outside the limits of his knowledge and that increasing wakefulness didnothing to dispel.

He could not remember what had happened the night be-fore, beyond the moment of his calling Dineen's name. There was a vague feeling that nothing had happened, that after a little while she had left him with everything all inconclusive. Forcing himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, he dis-covered himself still fully clothed, on a bed still fully made. The memory of the evening grew more clear. No, they had done nothing, they had not even talked. She had lain in his arms like a life-size imitation of a woman, a cloth doll stuffed with sawdust-yet the memory of this, just this, was a par-ticular horror. And now, suddenly, he remembered why. It was because, even then, even with her just like that, he had not wanted to let her go.

Now, he wanted nothing but to leave.

At any cost he wanted to pack up and get away from this place. Leave Dineen with the lie of his love and prom-ise, leave the hardware owner with the rent money he had paid down. Leave all, leave everything, but get away before he should be tripped again, to sink once more into the par-ticular foulness he had gone down into the night before.

He thought of Ellen now with the intensity of a drown-ing man. The image of her was a light, natural and clean as the glimmer of day, far off at the end of this dank and underground tunnel in which he was now groping. He must get back to her, he must get out, at any cost he must get out.

Struggling against lethargy, spurred by the sickly fear that held him, he began to dress.

He did not have strength to pack his suitcase. He left it and went out into the hall. He came down the stairs, slowly and awkwardly, his body protesting against the dreamlike exhaustion that held him in its octopus coils. He walked heavily to the desk.

"Leaving?" said the deep, harsh voice from back in the shadows behind the desk.

"Leaving." He echoed the word wearily. There was the creak of the chair, the heavy footsteps moving forward and Rosach emerged into the dim patch of daylight behind the counter. He looked at Barm with a hint of obscure triumph on his heavy face. He stood there.

"Well?" said Barin, with a sigh. "How much?"

"Fifteen," said Rosach. He did not refer to the guest book or any ledger; and when Barin painfully laid the bills on the counter between them, he made no effort to pick them up.

"Well-goodby," said Barin.

"Goodby," answered Rosach, still watching him without moving or altering the expression on his face.

Away in the distance, an unfamiliar sound could be heard, the rattling roarof an ancient car breasting the height above the village and starting down the street Barin had followed before.

"Goodby," repeated Barin, almost inaudibly. He turned away from the desk, picked up his suitcase and trudged toward the door. Outside the sound of the car could be heard, coming close. It moved up and stopped in front of the hotel.

He was only a few feet from the door when a patch of shadow near the dusty front window stirred and took on outline. It was Dineen, saying nothing, standing white-faced in the shadows and waiting for him.

He stopped and half-turned to her, a stumbling apology on his lips. He stepped toward her, but she faded back into the gloom, and was lost.

Slowly he turned away.

Behind him, Rosach's heavy footsteps could be heard com-ing around the counter and toward him.

Barin's gaze went to the window and centered on the weathered convertible that had just pulled up, and on the couple, a young man and girl, who stood at the foot of the porch steps talking up to Mikkelson. For a second they struck welcomely upon Barin's eyes, like representatives of a wholesome world apart. And then it was as if the soft kindness of emotion was wiped away by the acid of a preju-diced and fouled appraisal. The gentle planes of the two young faces became blocky and ugly, the eyes seemed nar-row, the pallor unhealthy, the lips sagging and lush and lewd under the sharply seen hairs curling from the nostrils.

They were alien-alien!

Horror mounted in Barin, and repulsion. Against his will, like a strange thing which had ceased to obey orders, he could feel his body shrinking, drawing back from the win-dow, and his mouth opening and widening, stretching at the corners in preparation for letting out the droning, whining bleat that was mounting up from his lungs to his straining throat.

-Then a bear-like arm caught him from behind and Rosach's thick and grainy hand was over his mouth, throttling that madman's wail. He was dragged back from the win-dow and the scene dissolved into a confusion of low voices and the pressure of holding hands as he was dragged back-ward through obscure corridors and black ways until he felt earth under his feet and a stable smell came up in his nos-trils as the arms finally let him go-and he sank into yet greater blackness where his whirling and insane senses de-parted from him.

Some time afterwards, he came back to himself, lying in muck and dirt, and opened his eyes. Low voices were talk-ing in the darkness about him like voices in a nightmare. But the blackness was relieved, for here and there a c.h.i.n.k of light showed as through ill-fitted boards, filtering a grayness into the place. In one lighter portion of the dark, Dineen sat, on something unseen, her face half-turned to him. She sat mo-tionless, her profile a thing of patchwork shade and shadow, like a woodcut."Are you awake?" It was the voice of Rosach, above him.

"Yes," Barin whispered. But it seemed they had not heard him.

"It never happened before," clicked the voice of the hard-ware man. "Not like this."

"It was..." said Barin, and stopped.

"What?" demanded the crackling, high old voice.

"Nothing," said Barin. "Nothing-"

There were confused murmurs from above him, muted argument in which nothing was understandable.

"We have, after all, a duty," said the deep, sad voice of Mikkelson, louder than the rest.

"-And the others pa.s.sed through?" asked Rosach.

"Directions," said Mikkelson, "that was all they wanted."

"It was the others," said Barin, numbly, "those in the car ... it's the rest of the world that haunts here."

"Shut him up!" cried the crackling voice, angrily.

"This place is haunted by the rest of the world. Dineen!" cried Barin suddenly. "Dineen, this town is haunted by the real world, isn't it?"

"Yes," her voice came calmly through the darkness. She had riot moved.

"Shut her up too!" screeched the old voice. "How can we think with that gabbling?"

"What sin was it that-" Barin raised himself suddenly on one elbow.

"What's that smell?"

"It will be fall in a few months," said Mikkelson's voice, "and with the first snow, the roads-"

"It's goats!" screamed Barin suddenly, scrabbling to his feet. "It's a goat pen in here! You're not going to lock me up with goats-" He made a plunge into darkness, but the arms were around him again.

"There's no goats!" squawked the old voice.

"You can't fool me!" cried Barin, plunging and biting. "I won't be locked up to rot in a pen with goats. I tell you I can smell them!"

"He smells himself, now," said the voice of Rosach in Barin's ear. "Help me get the rope around him and tie him up."Barin felt the harsh, thick fiber winding around him, but it could hardly hold him. He twisted and plunged in the darkness, b.u.t.ting at anything he felt close to him and bleat-ing his terror, while his churning feet pounded and galloped to nowhere on the hard packed dirt of the ground, like hooves.