“They were running the Earth pretty well, about a billion years ago. You see, men came from some other planet. Which one? I don’t know. They landed and found the Earth quite well cultivated by them. There was a war.”
“So we’re the invaders,” the man murmured.
“Sure. The war reduced both sides to barbarism, them and yourselves. You forgot how to attack, and they degenerated into closed social factions, ants, termites --”
“I see.”
“The last group of you that knew the full story started us going. We were bred” -- the spider chuckled in its own fashion -- “bred some place for this
worthwhile purpose. We keep them down very well. You know what they call us? The Eaters. Unpleasant, isn’t it?”
Two more spiders came drifting down on their webstrands, alighting on the desk. The three spiders went into a huddle.
“More serious than I thought,” the Cruncher said easily. “Didn’t know the whole dope. The Stinger here --”
The black widow came to the edge of the desk. “Giant,” she piped, metallically. “I’d like to talk with you.”
“Go ahead,” the man said.
“There’s going to be some trouble here. They’re moving, coming here, a lot of them. We thought we’d stay with you awhile. Get in on it.”
“I see.” The man nodded. He licked his lips, running his fingers shakily through his hair. “Do you think -- that is, what are the chances --”
“Chances?” The Stinger undulated thoughtfully. “Well, we’ve been in this work a long time. Almost a million years. I think that we have the edge over them, in spite of the drawbacks. Our arrangements with the birds, and of course, with the toads --”
“I think we can save you,” the Cruncher put in cheerfully. “As a matter of fact, we look forward to events like this.”
From under the floorboards came a distant scratching sound, the noise of a multitude of tiny claws and wings, vibrating faintly, remotely. The man heard. His body sagged all over.
“You’re really certain? You think you can do it?” He wiped the perspiration from his lips and picked up the spray gun, still listening.
The sound was growing, swelling beneath them, under the floor, under their feet. Outside the house bushes rustled and a few moths flew up against the window. Louder and louder the sound grew, beyond and below, everywhere, a rising hum of anger and determination. The man looked from side to side.
“You’re sure you can do it?” he murmured. “You can really save me?”
“Oh,” the Stinger said, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean that. I meant the species, the race. . . not you as an individual.”
The man gaped at him and the three Eaters shifted uneasily. More moths burst against the window. Under them the floor stirred and heaved.
“I see,” the man said. “I’m sorry I misunderstood you.”
<
* * * *
mantage
richard matheson
Fadeout.
The old man had succumbed. From its movie heaven, an ethereal choir paeaned. Amid rolling pink clouds they sang. A Moment or Forever. It was the title of the picture. Lights blinked on. The voices stopped abruptly, the curtain was lowered, the theater boomed with P.A. resonance; a quartet singing “A Moment or Forever” on the Decca label. Eight hundred thousand copies in a month.
Owen Crowley sat slumped in his seat, legs crossed, arms slackly folded. He stared at the curtain. Around him, people stood and stretched, yawned, chatted, laughed. Owen sat there, staring. Next to him, Carole rose and drew on her suede jacket. Softly, she was singing with the record, “Your mind is the clock that ticks away/a moment or forever.”
She stopped. “Honey?”
Owen grunted. “Are you coming?” she asked.
He sighed. “I suppose.” He dragged up his jacket and followed her as she edged toward the aisle, shoes crunching over pale popcorn buds and candy wrappers. They reached the aisle and Carole took his arm.
“Well?” she asked. “What did you think?”
Owen had the burdening impression that she had asked him that question a million times; that their relationship consisted of an infinitude of movie-going and scant more. Was it only two years since they’d met; five months since their engagement? It seemed, momentarily, like the dreariest of eons.
“What’s there to think?” he said. “It’s just another movie.”
“I thought you’d like it,” Carole said, “being a writer yourself.”
He trudged across the lobby with her. They were the last ones out. The snack counter was darkened, the soda machine stilled of Technicolored bubblings. The only sound was the whisper of their shoes across the carpeting, then the click of them as they hit the outer lobby.
“What is it, Owen?” Carole asked when he’d gone a block without saying a word.
“They make me mad,” he said.
“Who does?” Carole asked.
“The damn stupid people who make those damn stupid movies,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because of the way they gloss over everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“This writer the picture was about,” said Owen, “he was a lot like I am; talented and with plenty of drive. But it took him almost ten years to get things going. Ten years. So what does the stupid picture do? Gloss over them in a few minutes. A couple of scenes of him sitting at his desk looking broody, a couple of clock shots, a few trays of mashed-out butts, some empty coffee cups, a pile of manuscripts. Some bald-headed publishers with cigars shaking their heads no at him, some feet walking on the sidewalk; and that’s it. Ten years of hard labor. It makes me mad.”
“But they have to do that, Owen,” Carole said. “That’s the only way they have of showing it.”
“Then life should be like that too,” he said.
“Ho, you wouldn’t like that,” she said.
“You’re wrong. I would,” he said. “Why should I struggle ten years - or more - on my writing? Why not get it all over with in a couple of minutes?”
“It wouldn’t be the same,” she said.
“That’s for sure,” he said.
An hour and forty minutes later, Owen sat on the cot in his furnished room staring at the table on which sat his typewriter and the half-completed manuscript of his third novel, And Now Gomorrah.
Why not indeed? The idea had definite appeal. He knew that, someday, he’d succeed. It had to be that way. Otherwise, what was he working so hard for? But that transition — that was the thing. That indefinite transition between struggle and success. How wonderful if that part could be condensed, abbreviated.
Glossed over.
“You know what I wish?” he asked the intent young man in the mirror. “No, what?” asked the man.
“I wish,” said Owen Crowley, “that life could be as simple as a movie. All the drudgery set aside in a few flashes of weary looks, disappointments, coffee cups and midnight oil, trays of butts, noes and walking feet. Why not?”
On the bureau, something clicked. Owen looked down at his clock. It was 2:43 A.M.
Oh well. He shrugged and went to bed. Tomorrow, another five pages, another night’s work at the toy factory.
* * * *
A year and seven months went by and nothing happened. Then, one morning, Owen woke up, went down to the mailbox, and there it was.
We are happy to inform you that we want to publish your novelDream Within a Dream.
“Carole! Carole!” He pounded on her apartment door, heart drumming from the half-mile sprint from the subway, the leaping ascent of the stairs. “Carole!”
She jerked open the door, face stricken. “Owen, what—?” she began, then cried out, startled, as he swept her from the floor and whirled her around, the hem of her nightgown whipping silkenly. “Owen, what is it?” she gasped.
“Look! Look!” He put her down on the couch and, kneeling, held out the crumpled letter to her.
“Oh, Owen!”
<
br /> They clung to each other and she laughed, she cried. He felt the unbound softness of her pressing at him through the filming silk, the moist cushioning of her lips against his cheek, her warm tears trickling down his face. “Oh, Owen. Darling.”
She cupped his face with trembling hands and kissed him; then whispered, “And you were worried.”
“No more,” he said. “No more!”
The publisher’s office stood aloofly regal above the city; draped, paneled, still. “If you’ll sign here, Mr. Crowley,” said the editor. Owen took the pen.
“Hurray! Harroo!” He polkaed amid a debris of cocktail glasses, red-eyed olives, squashed hors d’oeuvres, and guests. Who clapped and stamped and shouted and erected monumental furies in the neighbors’ hearts. Who flowed and broke apart like noisy quicksilver through the rooms and halls of Carole’s apartment. Who devoured regimental rations. Who flushed away Niagaras of converted alcohol. Who nuzzled in a fog of nicotine. Who gambled on the future census in the dark and fur-coat-smelling bedroom.
Owen sprang. He howled. “An Indian I am!” He grabbed the laughing Carole by her spilling hair. “An Indian I am, I’ll scalp you! No, I won’t, I’ll kiss you!” He did to wild applause and whistles. She clung to him, their bodies molding. The clapping was like rapid fire. “And for an encore!” he announced.
Laughter. Cheers. Music pounded. A graveyard of bottles on the sink. Sound and movement. Community singing. Bedlam. A policeman at the door. “Come in, come in, defender of the weal!” “Now, let’s be having a little order here, there’s people want to sleep.”
Silence in the shambles. They sat together on the couch, watching dawn creep in across the sills, a nightgowned Carole clinging to him, half asleep; Owen pressing his lips to her warm throat and feeling, beneath the satin skin, the pulsing of her blood.
“I love you,” whispered Carole. Her lips, on his, wanted, took. The electric rustle of her gown made him shudder. He brushed the straps and watched them slither from the pale curving of her shoulders. “Carole,Carole.” Her hands were cat claws on his back.
The telephone rang, rang. He opened an eye. There was a heated pitchfork fastened to the lid. As the lid moved up it plunged the pitchfork into his brain. “Ooh!” He winced his eyes shut and the room was gone. “Go away,” he muttered to the ringing, ringing; to the cleat-shoed, square-dancing goblins in his head.
Across the void, a door opened and the ringing stopped. Owen sighed.
“Hello?” said Carole. “Oh. Yes, he’s here.”
He heard the crackle of her gown, the nudging of her fingers on his shoulder. “Owen,” she said, “wake up, darling.”
The deep fall of pink-tipped flesh against transparent silk was what he saw. He reached but she was gone. Her hand closed over his and drew him up. “The phone,” she said.
“More,” he said, pulling her against himself.
“The phone.”
“Can wait,” he said. His voice came muffled from her nape. “I’m breakfasting.”
“Darling, the phone”
“Hello?” he said into the black receiver.
“This is Arthur Means, Mr. Crowley,” said the voice,
“Yes!” There was an explosion in his brain but he kept on smiling anyway because it was the agent he’d called the day before.
“Can you make it for lunch?” asked Arthur Means.
Owen came back into the living room from showering. From the kitchen came the sound of Carole’s slippers on linoleum, the sizzle of bacon, the dark odor of percolating coffee.
Owen stopped. He frowned at the couch where he’d been sleeping. How had he ended there? He’d been in bed with Carole.
The streets, by early morning, were a mystic lot. Manhattan after midnight was an island of intriguing silences, a vast acropolis of crouching steel and stone. He walked between the silent citadels, his footsteps like the ticking of a bomb.
“Which will explode!” he cried.“Explode!” cried back the streets of shadowed walls. “Which will explode and throw my shrapnel words through all the world!”
Owen Crowley stopped. He flung out his arms and held the universe. “You’re mine!” he yelled.
“Mine” the echo came.
The room was silent as he shed his clothes. He settled on the cot with a happy sigh, crossing his legs, and undid lace knots. What time was it? He looked over at the clock: 2:58 A.M.
Fifteen minutes since he’d made his wish.
He grunted in amusement as he dropped his shoe. Weird fancy, that. Yes, it was exactly fifteen minutes if you chose to ignore the one year, seven months and two days since he’d stood over there in his pajamas, fooling with a wish. Granted that, in thinking back, those nineteen months seemed quickly past; but not that quickly. If he wished to, he could tally up a reasonable itemization of every miserable day of them,
Owen Crowley chuckled. Weird fancy indeed. Well, it was the mind, The mind was a droll mechanism,
“Carole, let’s get married!”
He might have struck her. She stood there, looking dazed.
“What?” she asked.
“Married!”
She stared at him. “You mean it?” He slid his arms around her tightly. “Try me,” he said.
“Oh, Owen.” She clung to him a moment, then, abruptly, drew back her head and grinned.
“This,” she said, “is not so sudden.”
It was a white house, lost in summer foliage. The living room was large and cool and they stood together on the walnut floor, holding hands. Outside, leaves were rustling.
“Then by the authority vested in me,” said Justice of the Peace Weaver, “by the sovereign state of Connecticut, I now pronounce you man and wife.” He smiled. “You may kiss the bride,” he said.
Their lips parted and he saw the tears glistening in her eyes.
“How do, Miz Crowley,” he whispered.
The Buick hummed along the quiet country road. Inside, Carole leaned against her husband while the radio played“A Moment or Forever,” arranged for strings. “Remember that?” he asked.
“Mmmm-hmmm.” She kissed his cheek.
“Now where,” he wondered, “is that motel the old man recommended?”
“Isn’t that it up ahead?” she asked.
The tires crackled on the gravel path, then stopped. “Owen, look,” she said. He laughed. Aldo Weaver, Manager, read the bottom line of the rust-streaked wooden sign.
“Yes, brother George, he marries all the young folks round about,” said Aldo Weaver as he led them to their cabin and unlocked the door. Then Aldo crunched away and Carole leaned her back against the door until the lock clicked. In the quiet room, dim from tree shade, Carole whispered, “Now you’re mine.”
* * * *
They were walking through the empty, echoing rooms of a little house in Northport. “Oh,yes,” said Carole, happily. They stood before the living-room window, looking out into the shadow-dark woods beyond. Her hand slipped into his. “Home,” she said, “sweet home.”
They were moving in and it was furnished. A second novel sold, a third. John was born when winds whipped powdery snow across the sloping lawn, Linda on a sultry, cricket-rasping summer night. Years cranked by, a moving backdrop on which events were painted.
He sat there in the stillness of his tiny den. He’d stayed up late correcting the galleys on his forthcoming novel, One Foot in the Sea. Now, almost nodding, he twisted together his fountain pen and set it down. “My God, my God,” he murmured, stretching. He was tired.
Across the room, standing on the mantel of the tiny fireplace, the clock buzzed once. Owen looked at it: 3:15 A.M. It was well past his—
He found himself staring at the clock and, like a slow-tapped tympani, his heart was felt. Seventeen minutes later than the last time, the thought persisted; thirty-two minutes in all.
Owen Crowley shivered and rubbed his hands as if at some imaginary flame. Well, this is idiotic, he thought; idiotic to dredge up this fantasy every year or
so. It was the sort of nonsense that could well become obsession.
He lowered his gaze and looked around the room. The sight of time-won comforts and arrangements made him smile. This house, its disposition, that shelf of manuscripts at his left. These were measurable. The children alone were eighteen months of slow transition just in the making.
He clucked disgustedly at himself. This was absurd; rationalizing to himself as if the fancy merited rebuttal. Clearing his throat, he tidied up the surface of his desk with energetic movements. There. And there.
Kornbluth, Mary (Ed) Page 22