Perhaps this is one reason why the motion picture differs so vastly from the short dramatic tale by Paul Fairman. Although both movie and story deal with the concept of teenagers confronting alien beings, “The Cosmic Frame” is primarily concerned with stunning readers with its unexpected O’Henry-esque twist ending.
Saucermen’s producers also started out aiming for shocks, but veteran director Edward L. Cahn figured the kids would surely jeer at the ridiculous-looking monster makeups. Studio heads agreed, and the film went out as the first teenage SF send up.
It was far from the last—many more hideous creatures would threaten unsuspecting teenyboppers in the years to come. The Giant Gila Monster, released just months afterward, capitalized on a showdown between hot-rodding delinquents and a monstrous man-eating lizard.
Teenage CaVeman, a 1958 entry, starred TvS “Man from UNCLE” Robert Vaughn as a prehistoric James Dean-type searching for the meaning of life amid sinister proceedings. And, of course, the most exploitive picture of all had to be the infamous Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow, which included music, monsters, and lots of leather-jacketed mayhem.
Fortunately, none of these elements play a part in the following yarn
.
.
. a story that answers the intriguing question: How can there be a case of highway manslaughter when the unwary victim isn’t even human?
THE COSMIC FRAME
by Paul W. Fairman THE BLUE LIGHT flashed out beyond Pelham Woods. It was seen by several of the boys lounging in front of the barber shop on the main street of Kensington Corners. “Now what in the nation was that?” one of them asked.
“Low lightning. What else?”
“Didn’t look like lightning. Held too long. Besides, there’s no clouds over there.”
“Might be some low ones you can’t see for the trees.”
Sam Carter, fresh from a late-afternoon shave, came out of the barber shop and said, “What are you fellows arguing about?”
“Just saw a flying saucer.”
Sam grinned. “Only one? Nobody’s got a right to brag these days unless they see at least six. And they’ve all got to spout at least five colors.”
“This one was blue.”
“Always preferred the yellow ones myself.” The boys grinned lazily and Sam looked across the street and called, “Lee! Hold up. I’m walking your way.”
Lee Hayden, a big, sour-faced man, stopped and waited and when Sam Carter came abreast, asked, “What are those no-good loafers jabbering about today?”
“Flying saucers. A blue one this time.”
“Uh-huh. Good a way as any to kill valuable time.”
“Oh, they’re all right, Lee. Say—it looks as though things might be getting serious between our kids.”
Lee Hayden snorted. “Darn fool kids. Don’t know their own minds.
It’s a sign of the times.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. My Johnny’s pretty serious about life. I’ve got a hunch Joan will be good for him.”
Lee scowled. “Kids these days never have a thought about tomorrow—where the next dollar’s coming from. All they think about is getting hitched—making more trouble for themselves—going into debt.”
“It always seems to work out, though. Nothing wrong with either of them that marriage won’t cure.” Sam Carter was one of the few men in Kensington Corners who liked Lee Hayden. Most people resented his sour outlook on life and his money-grubbing instincts. Sam understood the man, however, and this was fortunate for the sake of Johnny and Joan.
Sam said, “Looks like their date tonight’s a pretty important one.
Johnny asked me for the Packard.
Doesn’t want to propose to his girl, I guess, in that stripped-down hot rod of his.”
“They’re too young to get married.”
“Well, maybe it won’t happen for a while,” Sam said, easily. “See you later, Lee.” Sam turned in at his gate and Lee Hayden went on down the street, scowling as usual.
While, out beyond Pelham Woods, the space ship with the blue exhaust settled on the surface of Nelson’s Pond and sank from sight.
Sam Carter’s phone rang sharply. He awoke and shook the sleep from his eyes. He snapped on the light and noted that it was one-thirty as he picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello—Dad! Are you awake? Listen to me. Please—“ “Johnny! What in the devil’s wrong? You in trouble?”
“Bad trouble, Dad!”
Sam’s feet were on the floor. “An accident? Anybody hurt? Damn it, boy!
You should have been home a long time ago.”
“Don’t lecture me, Dad. Just listen!”
“Where are you? Tell me about it.”
“I took Joan to the dance at Storm Lake and we were on the way home when—“ “When what? Talk, boy!”
“We hit—“ “You killed somebody?”
“Yes—well, no—we—“ “For heaven’s sake, Johnny! Calm down and tell me. Either you did or you didn’t. Don’t tell me you ran away from an accident ! “ “No—listen, Dad, will you just hang up and get out here as fast as you can? I need help. l need help bad. Just get out here!”
“Okay, son, I’ll try and make that hot rod of yours go—“ “It’s shot, Dad—it won’t run. Call Mr. Hayden. Use his car.”
“All right. Where are you?”
“I’m calling from a farmhouse on Garner Road—Frank Williams’ place.
He’s a farmer. You know that back road where--?”
“I know. Where did you have the trouble? Where’s the car?”
“At the bend about two miles from Storm Lake. That’s where it—it happened. Joan and I’ll go back there and wait.”
“Stay where you are—we’ll pick you up.”
“No Dad! I didn’t tell these people what happened. We’ll wait near the car.”
“All right, anything you say. I’ll make it as fast as I can.”
Ten minutes later, Sam Carter was sitting beside Lee Hayden as the latter pointed his Chevrolet toward Storm Lake. “Damn fool kids!” Lee muttered.
“Why didn’t you find out what happened? They may have killed somebody.
Probably did. The least he could have done was tell you.”
“Let’s just get there and find out,” Sam said with tightness in his voice.
They went into Garner Road from the south end and Lee drove slowly along the ruts and chuckholes. “Why in tarnation did they pick a road like this?”
“It probably looked pretty good to them.”
“I wonder how good it looks now?”
“Can’t you drive a little faster?”
“And break a spring? I’m doing the best I can.”
Sam held his impatience in check until the headlights picked out the
rear end of the Packard. It stood squarely in the middle of the road
.
“Doesn’t look as though there’s any damage,” Lee said.
“We can’t see the front end yet.”
Lee pulled up fifty feet back and the two men got out. There was a flash of white and the two young people appeared from some bushes by the roadside. Joan, a pretty little brunette, looked ethereal in her white party dress—out of place in spike-heel pumps on this lonely country road.
Johnny Carter’s handsome young face was drawn and pale.
“What were you two hiding from?” Lee demanded.
Sam asked, “What’s wrong here? There’s no other car.”
“It wasn’t a crackup, Dad. It’s around in front. Come on. Joany—you stay here.”
“I—I feel a little weak. I’ll get into the Chevy.”
Johnny helped her in and closed the door. Then he turned and said, “Come on.” As they walked around the Packard, he added, “Now brace yourselves.
You’re going to see something you never saw before in your lives.”
They rounded the car and stood for a moment. Then Johnny snapped on the Packard’s headlights and Lee Hayden croaked,
“Great God in heaven!
Is it real?”
Sam Carter felt a chill run both ways from the center of his spine, freezing his legs and rendering him mute.
Johnny said, “We were driving along and I wasn’t negligent—I swear it.
Maybe not too alert, but who’d expect anyone—anything—to appear on this road without lights? Anyhow, I saw a flash of it and hit the brakes, but it was too late. I thought it was a man at first and I got out and—and actually picked it up before I realized—“ He took an unconscious step backward and rubbed the sleeves of his coat as though they were covered with filth.
Still frozen, Sam Carter tried to find thoughts to describe the horrible thing. It was not more than four feet long and had a head far too large for the thin body. Its skin was green, the shades varying from deep to very pale. It had thin legs and two spiderlike arms ending in hands with thin delicate fingers and a thumb on either side.
Its eyes were lidless and sunk into bony pockets in the round, pale green skull. There was a network of dark veins all over the body and the feet were shapeless pads with neither toes nor heels.
There was a full minute of complete silence. Then Lee Hayden got out a few words. “Is—is it dead?”
“It’s dead all right,” Johnny said. “When I first came around the car—after I hit it—the big veins were pulsing—you could see its blood—or whatever’s in there, moving through. Then they got slower and stopped altogether.”
“That blue light the boys saw,” Sam muttered. “It was a space ship this time.”
Lee Hayden, though his face was still filled with loathing, seemed to have recovered somewhat. “This one must have wandered away. Never saw a car before. Didn’t know there was any danger.”
“Probably attracted by the headlights—held like a moth.”
Johnny said, “It’s ugly right enough, but it looks kind of pathetic, too—lying there dead. Never knew what hit it.”
Sam came out of his shock. “ne of us had better go for the sheriff.
You go, Johnny. Take the Chevy and drop Joan off at home.”
“Okay.” The boy turned away.
Lee Hayden had been staring at the hideous thing and a calculating light was now dawning in his eyes. “Wait a minute, Johnny.” Lee raised his eyes to Sam Carter. “You realize what this means?”
“I realize that—“ “This is something from outer space, man! An—an extraterrestrial, they call it, that came down to earth in a ship and—and here it is.”
Sam was puzzled. “I can see it.”
“Right. And you and I—the four of us—are the only ones on earth who know about it.”
“Joany doesn’t,” Johnny said. “I don’t think she saw it when we hit it, and after I looked I wouldn’t let her go near the front end. I was afraid it would make her sick.”
Lee Hayden’s eyes glowed. “Good. Smart boy! Then there’s just the three of us who know.”
Sam Carter frowned at his friend. “What are you driving at, Lee?”
“Just this—there’s money in this thing, Sam! Loads of money! If it’s handled right. But we can’t go off half-cocked.”
“I’m afraid I don’t get you—“ “Use your head! If we call the sheriff and everybody finds out, then we’ve lost it. There’ll be photographers and reporters and the knowledge will be public property.”
“You mean keep it quiet?” Johnny asked. “Unless we bury it somewhere and forget about it, the public’s bound to find out.”
“Of course—we want them to. But in the right way. Not until we’ve thought it over and figured the best way to exploit it. Get what I mean? How would a showman handle this? How would Barnum have done it?
Call in the police and give it to the public in exchange for a lot of publicity and no money?
Use your heads-both of you!”
Sam said, “No, Lee! We’ve got no right! This is serious. This may be an invasion of some kind. We’ve got to be public-spirited and the hell with the money.”
Johnny said, “If we knew Russia was going to attack us tomorrow would we have any right to sell the information to Washington?”
“The boy’s right, Lee. We can’t fool around with a thing as big as this.”
“The hell we can’t. This is no invasion and you both know it. It’s a chance to make more money than any of us ever saw.”
“It’s not right, Lee.”
“Why not? We aren’t going to withhold anything. I say, just take it easy and don’t rush into anything with our mouths wide open and spouting information. Twenty-four hours is all we’ll need. I’ll go to Sioux City and get the thing lined up right. Get a contract with the people who know how to exploit a thing like this if we can’t figure out how to do it ourselves.”
“But in the meantime, what if--?”
“Twenty-four hours won’t make any difference, I tell you! And in that length of time we can arrange a setup to make fortunes. Sam—don’t you want the kids to start out life with a real bankroll? Do you want them to struggle along the way you and I had to? In one day, we can set them up for life—and ourselves too—and without hurting a soul. It’s your obligation, Sam. Can’t you see it?”
Lee Hayden argued on. After a while, Johnny Carter stopped voicing objections and watched his father, evidently ready to go in either direction Sam decided. The father looked at the son and misinterpreted his manner and expression. He thought, will the boy hold it against me if I deprive him of this opportunity? Do I have a right to deprive him? Possibly Lee is right. Either way, the country will know—the government will be alerted. He turned to Lee Hayden and asked, “How do you think we should go about it?”
Hayden’s eyes brightened. “I knew you’d see it my way. Now, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. You and Johnny take the thing home and hide it in your basement. Yours is best because there are only the two of you. I couldn’t hide a fly speck in my place that my wife wouldn’t find.”
“What about Joan?” Johnny asked. “She didn’t see this thing but she knows something happened. She’ll ask questions.”
“You leave my daughter to me. Joan will do as I say—for a while at least.
Now, let’s get going.”
Johnny went back to Hayden’s Chevrolet, turned it laboriously around and headed for home with Joan beside him. Gripping the wheel, he grimly staved off her questions, stopping them finally, with, “Ask your father when he gets home. He’ll tell you about it.”
Joan Hayden crouched miserably in her seat. A fine end, this was, to a romantic date.
After the Chevrolet disappeared, Lee Hayden said, “Well, we might as well get it over with. You take the arms—I’ll grab the feet here, and we’ll drop it in the back seat.”
Sam Carter shuddered. “I’ll open the trunk. I wouldn’t Want to drive back with this thing in the seat behind me—even if it is dead.” He went back and opened the trunk and returned to lift his share of the burden. There was a loathsome, cold, damp softness to the skin that made him shudder as he gripped the arms. There was little weight, however, and they soon had the monstrosity locked in the trunk.
As Sam drove, quiet and sober, Lee Hayden sat staring ahead, leaning tensely forward, as though already reaching for the money that would soon be his. He said, “Look, Sam—this thing is big-real big.”
“You said that before.”
“But now I get to thinking and I realize the potential. The hell with stopping at Sioux City. I’ll head straight to Chicago. And we don’t have to ring anyone else in on it.”
“Letter be careful. We don’t know anything about exploitation.”
“The newspaper men take care of that after they see the thing. They’ll give us all the publicity we need. We’ll rent a theater in Chicago and do some advertising—“ “They’ll laugh at us. They’ll think it’s a racket.”
“Of course they will—until they see it. Until the newspaper men see it.
Then we’ll have to rent the stadium.”
“I hope we
don’t get into any trouble with the government over this thing.”
“How can we? We aren’t violating any law. And who can blame us for trying to make a dollar? When they ask us about it we’ll tell them.”
“They’ll nail us for not reporting an accident,” Sam said, smiling weakly.
Lee Hayden laughed and slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Good man!
I knew you’d be smart and see it my way. What right have we got to turn down money?”
Johnny was home and waiting when they got there. Sam drove straight into the garage. Johnny said, “I was trying to figure what we’d do with the thing, Dad, so I emptied the deep freeze in the basement. I put everything I could into the refrigerator in the kitchen and just left the rest of the stuff out.”
“Good boy,” Lee said heartily. “That’s using your head. What’s a little spoiled food when we’re on the cash end of a deal like this?”
They carried the feather-light, green body to the basement under cover of the darkness and laid it to rest in the freezer. Then they went up into the kitchen where Sam made coffee and they sat planning their strategy.
“Don’t think we ought to rush into this thing,” Lee Hayden said.
“We’ve got to be kind of careful.”
This surprised Sam Carter. “How come? You were in such an all-fired hurry—“ “But there’s angles. It’s practically morning, and if I go kiting off to Chicago after being out all night, the wife’s going to start wondering.
There’ll be rumors all over town. I’ve got to talk to that girl of mine, too. Keep her quiet until we get this thing rolling.”
Lee Hayden had changed. With something to get his teeth into, he’d assumed leadership in an impressive manner. Sam said, “All right.
Whatever you say, but I’m still a little nervous about—“ “Now take it easy! I tell you everything’s going to be all right. You two get some sleep and I’ll give you a ring.”
Sam Carter went to bed, but sleep would not come. He lay staring at the ceiling, thinking of the horror that rested in the deep freeze in the basement. The fact that the thing was dead brought little comfort.
They Came From Outer Space Page 27