Then the light died, the face shifted once again, and the physician was staring once more at the empty face of a gutter-bred derelict.
He sent the old man back to room 16. Later that day, he had one of his male nurses take in an 89-cent bottle of muscatel.
"Speak up, man! What in the name of God is going on out there?"
"I—I can't explain it, Dr. Tedrow, but you'd better—you'd better get out here right away. It's—it's, oh, Jee-zus!"
"What is it? Stop crying, Wilson, and tell me what the hell is wrong!"
"It's, it's number 16 … it's …"
"I'll be there in twenty minutes. Keep everyone away from that room. Do you understand? Wilson? Do you understand me?"
"Yessir, yessir. I'll—oh Christ-hurry up, Doc …"
He could feel his pajama pants bunched around his knees, under his slacks, as he floored the pedal of the ranch wagon. The midnight roads were jerky in the windshield and the murk that he raced through was almost too grotesque to be a fact of nature.
When he slewed the car into the drive, the gatekeeper threw the iron barrier back almost spastically. The ranch wagon chewed gravel, sending debris back in a wide fan, as Tedrow plunged ahead. When he screeched to a halt before the sanitarium, the doors burst open and the senior attendant, Wilson, raced down the steps.
"This way, th-this way, Doctor Te—"
"Get out of my way, you idiot, I know which direction!" He shoved Wilson aside, and strode up the steps and into the building.
"It started about an hour ago … didn't know what was happ—"
"And you didn't call me immediately? Ass!"
"We just thought, we just thought it was another one of his stages, you know how he is …"
Tedrow snorted in disgust and threw off his topcoat as he made his way rapidly down the corridor to the section of the sanitarium that housed the restraining rooms.
As they came into the annex, through the heavy glass-portaled door, he heard the scream for the first time.
In that scream, in that tormented, pleading, demanding and hopelessly lost tremor there were all the sounds of fear he had ever heard. In that voice he heard even his own voice, his own soul, crying out for something.
For an unnamable something, as the scream came again.
"Give me some light!"
Another world, another voice, another life. Some evil empty beseeching from a corner of a dust-strewn universe. Hanging there timelessly, vibrant in colorless agony. A million tired and blind stolen voices all wrapped into that one howl, all the eternal sadnesses and losses and pains ever known to man. It was all there, as the good in the world was sliced open and left to bleed its golden fluid away in the dirt. It was a lone animal being eaten by a bird of prey. It was a hundred children crushed beneath iron treads. It was one good man with his entrails in his blood-soaked hands. It was the soul and the pain and the very vital fiber of life, draining away, without light, without hope, without succor.
"Give me some light!"
Tedrow flung himself at the door and threw back the bolt on the observation window. He stared for a long and silent moment as the scream trembled once more on the air, weightlessly, transparently, tingling off into emptiness. He stared, and felt the impact of a massive horror stifle his own cry of disbelief and terror.
Then he spun away from the window and hung there, sweat-drenched back flat to the wall, with the last sight of Richard Becker he would ever hope to see, burned forever behind his eyes.
The sound of his sobs in the corridor held the others back. They stared silently, still hearing that never-spoken echo reverberating down and down and down the corridors of their minds:
Give me some light!
Fumbling beside him, Tedrow slammed the observation window shut, and then his arm sank back to his side.
Inside room 16, lying up against the far wall, his back against the soft passive padding, Richard Becker looked out at the door, at the corridor, at the world, forever.
Looked out as he had in his first moment of life: purely and simply.
Without a face. From his hairline to his chin, a blank, empty, featureless expanse. Empty. Silent. Devoid of sight or smell or sound. Blank and faceless, a creature God had never deigned to bless with a mirror to the world. His Method now was gone.
Richard Becker, actor, had played his last part, and had gone away, taking with him Richard Becker, a man who had known all the sights, all the sounds, all the life of fear.
The End
Copyright © 1962 by Harlan Ellison. Revised, copyright © 1977 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed,1990, 2005 by Harlan Ellison. Reprinted by arrangement with, and permission of, the Author and the Author's Agent, Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., New York. All rights reserved. Harlan Ellison is a registered trademark of The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
The Beautiful People
Robert Bloch
When Jimmie Hartnett came back to Highland Springs he was twenty-five years old, and there was some argument as to just how he looked.
According to the matronly friends of his late mother, he resembled a Greek god. Their daughters, on the other hand, were more apt to describe him as a "living doll." But everyone agreed that he was an extremely handsome young man.
Since Jimmie Hartnett was a lieutenant (j.g.) on terminal leave, it was quite proper for him to wear his dress uniform on formal occasions—and there were formal occasions aplenty, once the matrons and their daughters got a glimpse of him. The uniform did things for his curly brown crewcut, his deep tan, his blue eyes. In a month or so he'd probably have to content himself with the gray flannel suit which is the normal attire of young men in even so prosperous a suburb as Highland Springs, but meanwhile he cut an impressive figure at the country club.
And it was there, during the third set of a Saturday night dance, that he met Millicent Tavish.
Somebody—it doesn't really matter who, and Jimmie never remembered—led him over and introduced him to the tall, slim blonde wearing the diamond earrings. Jimmie acknowledged the introduction with his standard boyish grin and offered the standard invitation for the next dance, with his standard warning that he was not a very good dancer. This was nonsense, of course, for Jimmie was an excellent performer both on and off the dance floor, and nobody was more aware of it than himself.
But genuine blondes wearing genuine diamond earrings are a rarity indeed, and Jimmie was quite determined to make an impression. He was all set to lead off with a few opening remarks—perhaps something about how unusual it was to discover a wild orchid in suburbia—when Millicent Tavish took the play away from him.
"You don't remember me, do you?" she asked.
Jimmie stared down at the upturned face. Pale complexion, flushed cheeks, downcast eyes told him nothing, except that the girl was inwardly excited by his presence. A good thing, but no clue. Nose slightly snub, firm chin, even teeth, high cheekbones, straight hair—Jimmie catalogued her features, thinking what a pity it was he seldom retained a memory of faces. He was much better on bodies. When it came to a matter of breasts and thighs (as it so frequently did), his memory was encyclopedic. But this was neither the time nor the place, unfortunately, and besides he was quite certain he had never been closer to this particular female than he was at present. All he could do was grin and stall for time.
"Think hard, now," she was saying. "It's over six years since you went away to college and the navy, and you'll have to go further back than that. I used to live on Williams Street. Millie Tavish. Does that help any?"
Jimmie blinked at her and came to a standstill over in a corner of the dance floor.
"Millie," he said. "Now I remember. Millie the—" He stopped quickly, conscious that his ears were reddening, but she gave a little laugh and pressed his hand with a moist palm.
"Go ahead and say it," she told him. "Millie the Mule. After all, you're the one who christened me, aren't you? You must have called me that a thousand times."
"No," said Jimmie.
"But you did. And you
used to pull my hair—"
"That isn't what I meant. I meant, 'No, it can't be.' Come out here and let me get a good look at you."
"On the terrace? There isn't much light there." But she came willingly enough, and when he tilted her face she bore his scrutiny with a soft smile.
"I can't believe it," he muttered. "Millie Tavish. You were just a scrawny little kid with freckles and buck teeth." He flushed. "Sounds like the dialogue in one of those corny movies, doesn't it?"
Her smile broadened. "Yes. And then I remind you that I was seventeen when you left town, and a girl grows up in six years."
"Yes, but—"
"I know what you're thinking," she murmured. "I didn't just grow up, did I? You want to know what became of the teeth that stuck out, and the big nose, and the long chin. You want to know what happened to Millie the Mule."
"Please."
"Don't worry, I want to tell you. You, more than anyone else. Because you did it."
Her palm was very wet now, but she gripped his hand tightly. "This isn't a movie, Jimmie. This isn't the scene where the hero comes back and finds the ugly duckling transformed into a lovely swan. I was an ugly duckling, but there was no chance I'd ever just outgrow it. I could have been Millie the Mule all my life, the way you thought of me."
"Kids are kind of cruel, I guess," Jimmie said.
"'Kind of cruel'? They're monsters." Her voice faltered, then went on. "You'll never know how bad it was, Jimmie. But I might have stood it, if it hadn't been for you. Even then I was sure you'd be coming back some day. So that's why I had myself changed."
"Had yourself—?"
"Three years ago, after Dad and Mommy died, in the crash on the turnpike. But you didn't hear about that, did you?"
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not. Maybe it's a dreadful thing to say, but I'm almost glad. Dad never paid any attention to me; he'd always wanted a boy. And Mom was ashamed of the way I looked. She used to nag me and worry out loud about what would happen after she was gone and I'd be all alone in the world. I think she hated me, really."
"Millie, you mustn't talk about it."
"But I must. It's important. I want to tell you what happened. When the folks died, and I came into the estate, I didn't go back to college. I went into the hospital instead. Dr. Madison worked on me. Everybody says he's the best plastic surgeon in this part of the country. Do you think he did a good job?"
"You're beautiful."
"Do you really mean that?"
"You're a beautiful woman, Millie."
"It took a long time, Jimmie. And it hurt, quite a lot. But it was worth it, to hear you say that."
Jimmie smiled down at her. She was beautiful; the doctor had done his work so well that you couldn't even see the scars. And he could see the way her eyes were shining, and he could see the diamond earrings sparkling too, and this made him remember that old man Tavish had been loaded. He must have left his only daughter a fortune. All at once Jimmie wasn't worried about exchanging his uniform for a gray flannel suit. Why not a yachting outfit, for example? Besides, there comes a time when a man ought to think about settling down.
He put his hands on Millie's bare shoulders, conscious that she was trembling.
"Would you like me to tell you more, darling?" he murmured …
It was a big wedding in the big church, with the biggest crowd, the biggest reception, and just about the biggest spread on the society page. And the honeymoon was big, too.
They went to Bermuda, and they were very happy together. Jimmie was accustomed to being happy, of course, but it seemed an almost overwhelming experience for Millie. He couldn't quite understand it when, after making love, she would whisper to him, "Darling, that was like the tolling of great bells."
But Millie often talked that way. Apparently she'd been a great one for reading during her lonely adolescence, and even now she spent a lot of time with her nose buried in a book.
Jimmie didn't go for that; he'd read his share of books in college, but even then it had come hard. He'd been grateful for the help of chicks like whatever her name was; some little redhead he'd shacked up with all during his senior year.
The point was, no sense wasting time on reading now. He'd cracked his last exam, and he wouldn't be boning up for any job, either. Not with all the loot Millie had. Be enough of a nuisance just keeping track of the income from the estate and running the big house back in Highland Springs.
He wasn't anxious to go back, and even talked to Millie about buying a yacht, but she didn't go for the idea. Then he suggested they hop a plane to Jamaica and hook up with a luxury cruise through the Caribbean. They'd met another young couple in Nassau, the Wilsons, and they could travel together.
Millie rejected that notion, too. Maybe she had some sneaking idea about Mrs. Wilson. A lush little number, no doubt about it, and she did wave her eyelashes and other things when Jimmie was around, but Millie should have known better. A guy doesn't step out of line when he's on his honeymoon. Anyway, he had his hands full the way it was.
But Millie wanted to go home, so they returned to Highland Springs and opened the big house. There was a lot of excitement about redecorating and refurnishing, and Jimmie let her handle everything.
What got him excited was the new four-car garage and its contents: the big Lincoln, the Caddy station wagon, Millie's convertible and the loaded Jag she bought him on their first month's anniversary. When he got the Jag he insisted on putting in a fancy selection of tools and equipment; there was plenty of room in the garage, and he liked to putter around with engines.
Not that he had much time for it, because the minute the house was ready, Millie began to throw parties. She'd hire a caterer and a big staff and invite a gang over, and she really had herself a ball playing hostess and introducing Jimmie to all the big wheels and their wives. You could see she got a large charge out of showing him off.
Jimmie didn't get such a big bang out of it. Oh, it was nice at first, but the novelty wore off. And the people were cubes. Every once in a while some fluff turned up, only there was no chance to do anything about it. Jimmie watched his step, and he was almost glad when Millie decided she'd had enough of parties for a while.
Then it was just sitting around, mostly; Millie liked to read, and he'd go out and putter with the Jag. They didn't talk very much about plans. Once or twice she brought up the subject of kids, but Jimmie thought it would be better if they waited a while and enjoyed life while they were still young. He tried to interest her in another trip, and she said not now, next year perhaps, and didn't he like it here?
Of course there was only one answer to that. Only one answer she seemed to want. And since they were alone together so much, he had no choice. Millie just couldn't seem to realize that there comes a time when the honeymoon is over.
That's why she wouldn't hire any permanent servants. This was ridiculous, with all their dough, but she said she liked to cook for him and take care of him all by herself. At first it seemed kind of flattering, the way she fussed over him, even picking out the clothes he wore, but when he realized she was often in the habit of just sitting there and watching his face as he slept, Jimmie began to feel like a damned fool.
Finally, along about the fourth month, he faced up to the truth like a man. Millie was beginning to give him a distinct pain. Might as well be honest about it—there were a lot of things about the woman which disappointed him.
For instance, that doctor's job hadn't been one hundred percent perfect. True, he'd left no scars, but when Millie was out in the harsh sunlight or felt particularly dragged, you could see her face wasn't quite natural. Her nose and chin looked too waxy, and when she smiled her lips went crooked. Maybe he was just being self-conscious, because he could remember Millie the Mule. But whatever it was, it bothered him. Especially when he had to kiss her, which was frequently. That was the real reason for his gripe; she just couldn't let him alone. At first he'd been surprised at the way she responded, but in a way it had been
sort of a tribute to his personality and good looks. Jimmie was used to that. But now there was more than response—there was demand.
Jimmie knew that any virile male like himself wants to be the aggressor; that was the man's job, to get his kicks from the challenge, the chase, the conquest. But here there was no challenge, no chase, and he was beginning to suspect that the real conquest was Millie's.
Of course, there was nothing he could do about it. He was a married man, and a married man just doesn't walk off and leave his wife just because she loves him. That would be a sneaky thing to do. And as for walking away from a million bucks—that would be downright crazy.
A smart guy plays the game. He may stall a little, encourage his wife to get interested in bridge parties and trips with "the girls," and try to spend more time himself out in the garage or with the car.
At first this didn't seem to work, because Millie wanted to come along when he took the Jag out for a spin. But she had a sort of a thing about high speeds, and when he found that out it was easy to discourage her. Then, when he told her about joining the Sports Car Club, she wasn't interested at all. By this time she was up to her neck in suburban social life; she got her satisfaction out of visiting with all the old school friends around town—girls who had probably snubbed her but good back in the days when she was Millie the Mule.
Jimmie wondered if she lorded it over them now, particularly the ones who'd married potbellied little junior execs or guys with horn-rims who had to lug their briefcases onto the 8:10 every morning. If so, he could understand that; under similar circumstances, he'd give them a hard time.
But it didn't matter, as long as she was interested and kept out of his way. Because he was finding his satisfaction, too.
Her name was Peggy. Peggy Allen.
He'd met her through the club, and she had a Porsche, but she preferred a Jag. She was only a kid, nineteen or so, and she had some dumb ape of a boyfriend who was crazy about drag races; it was very convenient when he went off to school in September.
To be perfectly frank about it, maybe she really wasn't any goddess, but she knew how to keep a guy interested. Half the club was after her, and she played the field, but she was no pushover. When it came to wrestling, she knew all the holds. But the more she stalled him, the more Jimmie wanted her. And she couldn't fool him: he knew damned good and well it was mutual. All he needed was the time and place. Meanwhile, Jimmie was beginning to feel more like himself again. He was having a few laughs, a little excitement. At the same time, there was the big thing of knowing it wasn't really serious. Just a little fun on the side. Hell, at twenty-five, a man is just hitting his stride. He doesn't want to curl up in a corner and die. And since there was no question about ever leaving Millie, he had nothing to worry about. No reason why he couldn't enjoy himself. All he needed now was opportunity.
Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 Page 50