He reached the first opening. Pulling in the ropelike thread, he coiled it and tossed it across the gap. It landed heavily and he heard the metallic ring as the hook struck the wood.
The thundering of the oil burner caught him by surprise. He staggered with shock, his lips jerking back from his teeth. He jammed rigid hands over his ears and stood there trembling, eyes almost closed, feeling the thunderous shudder running through his frame.
When it finally stopped, he stood limply for a long while, staring ahead. Then, shaking his head, he took a running start and leaped across the opening between the slats.
It wasn’t as easy as he’d imagined. He barely made the other side, and the pain of landing sharply on the leg with the swollen knee made him gasp. He sat down quickly, face contorted.
“Good God,” he muttered. He’d better not do that again.
After a minute, he pushed up and limped down across the next wide slat, dragging the thread behind him.
At the next gap he tossed the rope thread across. Carefully he unslung the spear. He’d toss that across too, then follow without its dragging weight on him. He’d try to land on his good leg, too.
He threw the spear across the opening. Its point dug into the orange wood, then the pin flew over, the weight of it tearing the point loose. Scott was backing up to get his running start when he saw the pin start rolling down the slope.
It would fall through the next opening!
Thoughtlessly he ran to the edge of the slat and jumped into space. He landed on the bad leg again, lines of pain gashing across his face. He couldn’t stop; the pin was gaining momentum, heading for the gap. He lunged after it, loose sandals flapping on the wood. One of the sandals came off and the bottom of his lurching foot dragged up a splinter from the wood. He still kept running, trying to gain on the pin.
Frantic, he dived forward to catch it as it started over the edge of the slat. Pain exploded in his knee. He almost went over the edge himself. He missed the pin.
But the pin was not going over parallel to the opening, and its spinning movement was suddenly checked as its point stuck into the slat on the far side and the head held it up on the side where Scott sprawled.
Gasping, he pulled the pin back and dug its point into the wood, standing it like a spear in sand. Then he twisted his foot around and, teeth clenched, picked at the brown leatheryskinned sole until he’d drawn out the long wood sliver. Drops of blood followed it. He pressed them out angrily. Not going to be afraid, not going to be afraid, he thought. Oh, sure.
He started to rub his knee, then jerked back his hand with a gasp. In falling, he’d scraped his hand. He blew out a short, heavy breath as he looked at it. He felt water trickling down his chest and across the creases of his stomach. In falling he’d also pressed water from the sponge.
He closed his eyes again. Never mind, he thought, it’s all right.
He tore a strip of cloth from the hem of his robe and tied it around his hand. Better. He rubbed determinedly at the knee, biting down hard to fight the pain. There. That was better; much better.
Limping cautiously, he retrieved his sandal and tied extra knots in the strings to keep the sandal from slipping off again. Then he returned to the thread coil and carried it to the edge of the slat. This time he’d fasten the end of the thread to the spear. Then when he threw the spear over it would not only carry over the thread, but it would be prevented from rolling again.
It worked that way. He jumped over after the spear, landing on his good leg, then pulled in the thread and hook. Yes, that was much better. A little thought is all it takes, he told himself.
In this fashion he maneuvered across the sloping seat of the orange chair until he reached its back. There he rested, looking up the almost sheer back of the chair. Far up, he saw the croquet wicket sticking out in space. He could use that wicket now.
After he’d caught his breath and squeezed a couple more water drops into his mouth, he stood up and prepared to complete the next stage of the climb, to the arm of the top lawn chair.
It would not be too difficult. Spaced across the three boards that made up the back of the chair were bracing slats. He had only to throw up the hook, catch it over the first of these slats, climb up to it, throw the hook over the second slat, climb up to it, and so on.
He began throwing up the hook. On the fourth try it caught and, slinging the spear over his back, he climbed up to the first slat.
An hour later, when he reached the top slat, the pin hook was almost unbent. He tossed it up on the arm of the upsidedown chair, climbed up beside it, and lay down, breathing heavily. God, I’m tired, he thought, rolling over. He looked down the vast face he had just climbed, and he couldn’t help remembering that once his back could have covered that area completely. Once he could have carried this chair. He rolled on his back again. At least being exhausted cut down on thoughts. Ordinarily, he might have been thinking about the spider, about the past, about a good many purposeless things. Instead, he lay there almost stupefied, and that was good. . .
He stood up on shaky legs and looked around. He must have fallen asleep for a while; a black, peaceful sleep, unmarred by dreams.
He put the spear across his back, picked up the hook, and hiked across the long orange plain of the chair arm, the thread trailing behind him like a lazy serpent.
For some reason he found himself able to think about the spider. It disturbed him vaguely that he hadn’t seen any sign of it since he’d got up that morning. It was usually somewhere around when he was moving about. Night and day, it was never absent for long.
Was it possible it was dead?
For a second, an exultant feeling flooded through him. Maybe it had been killed somehow!
The excitement faded almost instantly. He just couldn’t believe it was dead. That spider was immortal. It was more than a spider. It was every unknown terror in the world fused into wriggling, poison-jawed horror. It was every anxiety, insecurity, and fear in his life given a hideous, night-black form.
Before he started up on the next stage of the climb, he’d have to bend that pin again. He didn’t like the way it was opening under his weight. What if it did that while he was hanging in space?
It won’t, he told himself, jamming the point of it under the joining place of chair arm and leg and bending it around again. There.
He flung the hook up and it caught over the croquet wicket. He tested it, then began the swaying climb up to the wicket. In two minutes he was clinging to the smooth metal surface.
It took a long time for him to climb its cool, curving length. The weight of thread, hook, and spear made it difficult; it was too far to throw those things without risking their loss.
Time and again he lost balance and spun around to the underside of the sapling-thick wicket and hung there desperately, heart pounding. Each time it took him longer to get back. Finally, toward the end of the climb, he stayed under, pulling himself up with legs and arms, the thread hanging down from his body and swinging wildly beneath him.
By the time he’d reached the shelf of the upper chair, his muscles were starting to cramp. He crawled onto the shelf and lay there gasping, his forehead pressed against the wood. It hurt to have the scraped skin of his forehead against the rough wood, but he was too tired to move. His feet stuck out over the seven-hundred-foot drop.
It was twenty minutes later when he pulled himself around and looked across the edge. The cellar world lay beneath him. Far below, the red hose was a serpent once again, still asleep, still open-mouthed and motionless. The cushion was a flowerstrewn plain again. He saw the well-like hole in the floor, the one he’d almost fallen into, then almost dived into when he’d heard the sound of water running deep in it. The hole was only a black dot now. The box top he slept under was only a small gray square, like a faded stamp.
He crawled over to the wide leg of the chair and leaned against it, discarding the hook, thread, and spear. Pulling the sponge and the last piece of cracker from his robe, he sa
t there eating and drinking, legs stretched out limply before him. He emptied about half the sponge. It didn’t matter. He’d be at the top soon. And if he got the bread without any trouble, he could climb down very quickly. If he was barred from reaching the bread, he would no longer be in any position to eat it, anyway.
His sandal bottoms touched the clifftop. He shook the hook loose from the lawn chair, dodged its cartwheeling fall, picked it up hastily, and dashed behind the glass base of a giant, bellshaped fuse. There he stood, panting, peering around its edge at the wide, shadowy desert.
In the pale shaft of light that transfixed the dust-filmed window he could see nearby details: the vast pipes and ropy wires fastened under the overhead supports, the great scraps of wood, stone, and cardboard strewn across the sands; to his left, the towering hulks of paint cans and jars; in front of him, the rolling desert wastes, as far as his eye could see.
Two hundred yards off stood the slice of bread.
He licked his lips. He almost started out immediately across the sand. Then he twitched back sharply, head jerking from side to side as he looked in all directions, even behind. Where was it? He was beginning to get nervous wondering where it was.
Stillness, only stillness. The light shaft angled down like a shimmering bar leaning on the window, a bar alive with moving dust. The huge wood scraps, the stones, the concrete pillar, the hanging wires and pipes, the cans and jars and sand hills—all were motionless and still, as if they waited. He shuddered and unslung his spear. He felt a little better holding it in his hand, its head resting on the cement, its razor tip wavering high overhead.
“Well . . .” he muttered, and, swallowing dread, he started across the sand.
The hook dragged in the sand. He dropped it. I won’t need it, he thought; I’ll leave it here. He walked a few paces, stopped. He didn’t like the idea of leaving it. Nothing could happen to it, and yet—what if something did? He’d be trapped, helpless.
Carefully he backed toward the hook, casting nervous glances over his shoulder to make sure nothing was behind him. He reached the hook and, hastily crouching, picked it up. If it came at him, he could drop the hook fast and grab the spear with both hands. Take it easy, he told himself. Nothing’s happened yet.
He started across the sand again, walking slowly and warily, eyes always moving and searching. There was no help for it, of course, but it didn’t help things much that the thread knots dragging in the sand behind him made a swishing, uneven sound that reminded him of—
He stopped and looked behind him in fright. There was nothing. Stop worrying, he ordered himself.
He looked around slowly, heartbeat still punching slowly at the walls of his chest. No, nothing. Just shadows and silence and waiting objects.
Maybe that was it. Maybe it was because none of the objects were straight up and down or straight across. Everything tilted, angled, leaned, sagged, beetled. Every line was restless and fluid. Something was going to happen. He knew it. The very silence seemed to whisper it.
Something was going to happen.
He drove the spear point into the sand and began drawing in the thread, looping it so he could carry it over his shoulder and do away with that dragging, whispering sound behind him. As he pulled in the dark, sand-dripping thread he kept looking around, searching.
At a breath of sound the coil thumped down and he snatched the spear from its place again, throwing it out before him. His arm and shoulder muscles shook, his legs stood tensely arched, his eyes were wide and staring.
Breath shook from his lips. He stood listening carefully. Maybe it was the settling of the house he heard. Maybe . .
A cracking sound, a thud, a roaring wave of sound.
With a flat cry, he jerked around, terror-stricken eyes searching; but, in the very same instant, he realized that it was the oil burner. Dropping the spear, he covered his ears with shaking hands.
Two minutes later the burner clicked off and silence fell across the shadow-pooled desert again.
Scott finished coiling the thread, picked up the heavy loops and the spear and started walking again, eyes still searching. Where was it. Where was it?
When he came to the first piece of wood he stopped. He dropped the coil of thread and extended the spear. It might be hiding behind that piece of wood. He licked dry lips, moving in a half crouch for the wood. It was becoming darker the farther he went into the dunes. It might be behind there; what if it’s behind there?
He jerked back his head suddenly as it occurred to him that it might be overhead, floating down on a gossamer cable.
He ground together his chattering teeth and looked down again. The fear was a cold, drawing knot in his stomach now. All right, God damn it! he thought. I’m not going to just stand here like a paralytic. On shaking but resolute legs, he walked to the edge of the wood scrap and looked around it. There was nothing.
Sighing, he went back to the thread and picked it up. It’s so heavy, he thought. He really ought to leave it behind. What could happen to it, anyway? He stood indecisively. Then it occurred to him that he’d need the hook to drag the slice of bread back to the cliff edge. That settled, he picked up the heavy coil and slung it over his shoulder again. He was glad he’d thought of a use for the thread. Now he had a definite reason to take it. Heavy as it was, he didn’t feel right about leaving it behind.
Every time he came to a scrap of wood, a boulder-high stone, a piece of cardboard, a brick, a high mound of sand, he had to do the same nerve-clutching thing—put down the thread, approach the obstacle carefully, pin spear extended rigidly, until he’d found out that the spider was not hiding there. Then, each time, a great swell of relief that was not quite relief made his body sag, made the spear point drop, and he would return to his thread and hook and go on to the next obstacle; never really relieved because he knew that each reprieve was at best, only temporary.
By the time he reached the bread he wasn’t even hungry.
He stood before the tall white square like a child standing beside a building. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but how could he possibly drag that slice by himself ?
Well, it didn’t matter, he thought bluntly. He wouldn’t need that much bread, anyway. It had to last only one day more.
He looked around carefully but saw nothing. Maybe the spider was dead. He couldn’t believe it, but he should have seen it by now. On all other occasions it had seemed to sense his presence. Certainly it remembered him, and probably it hated him. He knew he hated it.
He drove the spear into the sand and broke off a hard piece of bread, bit off a chunk, and started to chew. It tasted good. A few moments of chewing seemed to restore appetite, and a few minutes of eating brought it to a point of voraciousness. Although he couldn’t relax his tense caution, he found himself breaking off piece after piece of the bread and crunching rapidly on its crisp whiteness. He hadn’t realized it before, but he’d missed that bread. The crackers hadn’t been the same.
When he was filled as he hadn’t been filled for days, he finished off the water. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he flung away the piece of sponge. It had served its purpose. He picked up the spear and hacked out a piece of bread about twice his size. More than enough, stated his mind. He ignored it.
He plunged the hook into the piece of bread and dragged it slowly back to the cliff, scraping out a road behind him in the sand. At the edge of the cliff he drew out the hook and, propping up the huge chunk, pushed it over the brink.
It fluttered through the air, tiny crumbs flaking off as it fell, settling after it like snow. It hit the floor, breaking into three parts, which bounced once, rolled a little way, then flopped onto their respective sides. There. That was that. He’d made the hard climb, got the bread he was after, and it was done.
He turned to face the desert again.
Why then the tension continuing in his body? Why didn’t that knot of cold distress leave his stomach? He was safe. The spider was nowhere around; not behind the pieces of wood
or the stones or the cardboard scraps, not behind the paint cans or the jars. He was safe.
Then why wasn’t he starting down?
He stood there motionless, staring out across the dim-lit desert wastes, his heart beating faster and faster, as if it were grinding out a truth for him, sending it up and up the neural pathways to his brain, pounding at the doors and the walls of it, telling him that he hadn’t only gone up for the bread, he’d also gone to kill the spider.
The spear fell from his hand and clattered on the cement. He stood there shivering, knowing now what that tension in him was, knowing exactly what it was that was going to happen —that he was going to make happen.
Numbly he picked up the spear and walked into the desert. A few yards out his legs gave way and he slumped down heavily, cross-legged on the sand. The spear fell down across his lap and he sat there holding it, looking out across the silent sands, an unbelieving look on his face.
He waited.
Chapter Fourteen
“Life in a Dollhouse.” It had been the title of a chapter in his book; the last chapter. After he’d finished it, he’d realized that he couldn’t write any more. Even the smallest pencil was as big as a baseball bat. He decided to get a tape recorder, but before that was possible, he was beyond communication.
That was later, though. Now he was ten inches tall and Louise came in one day with a giant doll house.
He was resting on a cushion underneath the couch, where Beth couldn’t accidentally step on him. He watched Lou put down the big doll house and then he crawled out from under the couch and stood up.
Lou got on her knees and leaned forward to put her ear near his mouth.
“Why did you get it?” he asked.
She answered softly so the sound of her voice wouldn’t hurt his ears. “I thought you’d like it.”
He was going to say that he didn’t like it at all. He looked at her profile for a moment; then he said, “It’s very nice.”
American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1953-56 Page 82