by Jack Finney
A patient was waiting when I got upstairs; she had no appointment, but I was a little early, so I worked her in. She was a Mrs. Seeley, the quiet little woman of forty who had sat in this same chair a week before telling me that her husband wasn't her husband at all. Now she was smiling, actually squirming with relief and pleasure, as she told me her delusion was gone. She'd talked to Dr. Kaufman last week as I'd suggested, she told me; he hadn't seemed to help her much, but last evening, unexplainedly, she'd "come to her senses."
"I was sitting in the living-room reading," she said eagerly, clasping her hands nervously on her purse, "when suddenly I looked up at Al across the room; he was watching the fights on television." She shook her head in happy bewilderment. "And I knew it was him. Really him, I mean – Al, my husband. Dr. Bennell" – she stared at me wonderingly across the desk – "I just don't know what happened last week; I really don't know, and I feel so foolish. Of course" – she sat back in her chair – "I had heard of another case like mine. A lady in my club told me about it; said there'd been several such cases in town. And Dr. Kaufman explained to me that hearing about those cases… "
When she'd told me, finally, what Dr. Kaufman had said, and what she had said, and I'd listened, and nodded, and smiled, I got her out of the office – still talking – in a fairly reasonable time. She'd have stayed all afternoon, bubbling over, if I'd let her.
My nurse had come in while Mrs. Seeley was talking, and brought in my appointment list. I glanced down it, now, and – sure enough – there was the name of one of the three mothers of high-school girls who had called on me so frantically the week before. She was down for three-thirty, and later that afternoon, when my nurse ushered her in, she was smiling, and before she even sat down, began telling me what I knew I'd hear. The girls were all right, and fonder than ever of their English instructor. The teacher had accepted their apologies gracefully, showing some understanding of what had happened; and she'd made the sensible suggestion that the girls simply explain to their schoolmates that it had all been a joke, a schoolgirl hoax. They'd done this, and successfully. Their friends, the mother in my office assured me, actually admired the girls' skill as pranksters, and now she, the mother, wasn't worried a bit. Dr. Kaufman had explained to her how easily such a delusion can affect a person, particularly adolescent girls.
The moment the happy mother had left, I picked up my phone, called Wilma Lentz at her shop, and when she answered, I asked her casually how she was feeling these days. There was a pause before she replied, then she said, "I've been meaning to step in and see you about – what happened." She laughed, not very successfully, then said, "Mannie helped me, all right, Miles, just the way you said. The delusion, or whatever it was, is gone, and – Miles, I've been so embarrassed. I don't quite know what happened, or how in the world to explain to you, but – "
I interrupted to tell her I understood what had happened, that she wasn't to worry or feel badly, but to just forget it, and that I'd be seeing her.
I sat there for maybe a full minute after I hung up, my hand still on the phone, trying to think coolly and sensibly. Everything Mannie had predicted had come true. And – the temptation to believe was very strong – if he was right about all that had happened, I could simply let the fear in my mind fade away, now. And Becky could go home tonight.
Almost angrily, I asked myself this: was I going to let nothing more than the absence of fingerprints on that body in Jack's basement keep all my problems and fears alive and unresolved? A picture rose up in my mind, and existed for a moment, sharp and clear; once more I could see those smudged fingerprints, horribly, impossibly, yet undeniably smooth as a baby's cheek. Then the clarity of that mental image broke and faded, and I told myself irritably that there were a dozen perfectly possible and natural explanations, if I wanted to bother taking the trouble to think of them.
I said it aloud. "Mannie is right. Mannie's explained – " Mannie, Mannie, Mannie, I thought to myself suddenly. That's all I seemed to be hearing and thinking lately. He'd explained our delusion last night, and now this morning every patient I talked to seemed to mention his name ecstatically and gratefully; he'd solved everything in no time, and singlehanded. For a moment I thought of the Mannie Kaufman I'd always known, and it seemed to me he'd always been more cautious, slow to form final opinions. Then the notion roared up in my mind full-blown; this wasn't the Mannie I'd always known; it wasn't Mannie at all, but only looked, talked, and acted like -
I actually shook my head to clear it; then I smiled, a little ruefully. This in itself was more proof of how right he had been, fingerprints or not; proof of just what he'd explained – the incredible strength of the weird delusion that had swept Santa Mira. I lifted my hand from the telephone on my desk. The late-afternoon summer sunlight was slanting in through my office windows, and from the street below I heard all the little sounds of a normal world moving through its daily routine. And now what had happened last night lost its strength, in the routine, activity, and bright sunlight all around me. Mentally tipping my hat to Mannie Kaufman, eminent head-doctor, I told myself – insisted to myself – that he was exactly what he'd always been, an extremely intelligent, perceptive guy. He was right, we'd acted foolishly and hysterically, and there wasn't a sensible reason why Becky Driscoll shouldn't be back home where she belonged tonight, in her own house and bed.
I pulled into my driveway around eight that evening, after my round of house calls, and I saw that they'd waited supper for me. It was still light, and Theodora and Becky were out on the porch, wearing aprons they'd found in the house somewhere, and setting out supper on the wide wooden porch rails. They waved at me, smiling, and upstairs from an open window, as I slammed the car door, I could hear Jack's typewriter, and the house seemed alive once again with people I liked, and I felt wonderful.
Jack came down, and we had supper on the porch. It had been a clear, blue-sky summer day, pretty hot, but now – no longer full daylight – it was just exactly right. There was a tiny, very balmy breeze, and you could hear the leaves of the big old trees that lined the street stirring and sighing with pleasure. The locusts were droning, and from down the block you could hear the far-off rackety clatter of a lawnmower, one of the most summery sounds there is. We sat there on the wide old porch in the comfortably battered wicker furniture, or the porch swing, eating bacon-and-tomato sandwiches on toast, sipping iced tea, talking about nothing much, with frequent easy silences, and I knew this was one of those occasional wonderful moments you remember always.
Becky had gone home and gotten some clothes, apparently; she was wearing one of those smart, cool-looking summer dresses that turn good-looking girls into beautiful girls, and I smiled at her; she was sitting near me on the swing. "Would you care to come upstairs;" I said politely, "and be seduced?"
"Love to," she murmured, and took a sip of her tea, "but I'm too hungry just now."
"So sweet," Theodora said. "Jack, why didn't you say nice things like that when you were courting me?"
"I didn't dare," he said, and took a bite of his sandwich, "or you'd have trapped me into marriage."
I felt my face flush at that, but it was dark enough so I was sure no one had noticed. I could have told them, now, what had happened today at my office; but Becky might have wanted to go home right away, and I told myself I at least deserved a date for the evening. There was no danger in that, since I'd be taking her home soon.
Presently Theodora finished her iced tea, and stood up. "I'm dead," she said. "Exhausted. And I'm going to bed." She looked down at Jack. "How about you, Jack? I think you should," she added firmly.
He glanced up at her, then nodded. "Yeah," he said, "I guess I ought to." He swallowed the last of his drink, tossed the ice to the lawn, and got up from the porch rail. "See you in the morning," he said to Becky and me. " 'Night."
I didn't say anything to stop them. Becky and I said good night, and watched the Belicecs walk on into the house, then heard them walking toward the stairs, talking
quietly. I wasn't sure whether Theodora was actually tired or just up to a little match-making – it seemed to me she'd urged Jack to leave just a little pointedly. But whichever it was, I didn't care, and what I had to tell them could wait till morning. Because I was a little tired at the moment of being a noble citizen; I didn't in the least feel like a monk, and now I told myself that I'd earned a little time alone with Becky; that I'd tell her after a while what had happened today at my office.
We heard footsteps reach the top landing, then I turned to Becky. "Would you mind moving? And sit at my left, instead of my right?"
"No." She stood up, smiling puzzledly. "But why?" She sat down on the swing again, at my left.
I leaned across her for a moment to set my glass on the porch rail. "Because" – I smiled at her – "I kiss left-handed, if you know what I mean."
"No, I don't." She smiled back.
"Well, a girl at my right" – I demonstrated, curving my arm around empty space at my right side – "is uncomfortable for me. It just doesn't feel right somehow; it's something like trying to write with the wrong hand. I just don't kiss well, except to my left."
I lifted an arm to the back of the swing then, touching her shoulders, and Becky smiled a little, and turned toward me. Then I held her to me, bending toward her a little, shifting my position a bit, getting my arms around her just right, till we were both comfortable. I wanted this kiss, very much. My heart was suddenly pounding away, and I could feel the tightness of blood in my temples. I kissed Becky then, slowly and very gently, taking my time; then harder, tightening my arms around her, bending her backward, and suddenly it was more than pleasant, it was a silent explosion in my mind, and through every nerve and vein in my body. I felt her lips, soft and strong, felt my hands pressed hard on her back and side, and the terrible thrill of her body against me. My head yanked back – I couldn't breathe. Then I was kissing her again, and suddenly, instantly I didn't care what happened. I'd never in my life experienced anything like this, and my hand dropped down, tight on her thigh, and I knew I was going to take this girl upstairs with me if I could, that I'd marry her tomorrow, marry her this moment, marry her a thousand times over, I just didn't care.
"Miles!"… I heard the sound, a man's harsh whisper coming from I didn't know where; I couldn't seem to think. "Miles!" It came louder, and I was looking stupidly around the porch. "Over here, Miles, quick!" It was Jack, standing just inside the closed screen door, and now I saw him beckoning.
It was Theodora – I knew it – something had happened to her, and I was hurrying, crossing the porch, then following Jack across the living-room toward the staircase. But Jack was walking on past the stairs into the hallway, then he was opening the basement door, and as he snapped on the flashlight in his hand, I walked down the stairs after him.
We crossed the basement, the leather of our soles gritting the hard dust on the floor; then Jack twisted the wood latch of the coal-bin door. The bin was in a corner of the basement, walled off from the rest of the room by ceiling-high planking, and it stood empty and unused now, washed out and hosed down since I'd installed gas heat. Jack opened the door, and the beam of his flashlight moved across the floor, then steadied, an oval of light on the coal-bin floor.
I couldn't get clear in my mind what I was seeing, lying there on the concrete. Staring, I had to describe to myself, a bit at a time, just what I was looking at, trying to puzzle out what it was. There lay, I finally decided, what looked like four giant seed pods. They had been round in shape, maybe three feet in diameter, and now they had burst open in places, and from the inside of the great pods, a greyish substance, a heavy fluff in appearance, had partly spilled out onto the floor.
That was a part of what I saw, my mind still busy trying to sort out impressions. In a way – at a glance – these giant pods reminded me of tumbleweed, those puffballs of dry, tangled vegetable matter, light as air, designed by nature to roll with the wind across the desert. But these pods were enclosed. I saw that their surfaces were made up of a network of tough-looking yellowish fibres, and stretching between these fibres, to completely enclose these pod-like balls, were great patches of brownish, dry-looking membrane, resembling a dead oak leaf in colour and texture.
"Seed pods," Jack said softly, his voice astonished. "Miles… the seed pods in the clipping."
I just stared at him.
"The clipping you showed me this morning," he said impatiently, "quoting some college professor. It mentioned seed pods, Miles, giant seed pods, found on a farm west of town last spring." For a moment longer he stood staring at me, till I nodded. Then Jack pushed the coal-bin door open wider, and in the moving, searching beam of his flashlight we saw something more, and stepped inside the bin to squat beside the things on the floor for a closer look. Each pod had burst open in four or five places, a part of the grey substance that filled them spilling out onto the floor. And now, in the closer beam of Jack's light, we saw a curious thing. At the outer edges, farthest away from the pods, the grey fluff was turning white, almost as though contact with the air was robbing it of colour. And – there was no denying this; we could see it – the tangled fluffy substance was compressing itself, and achieving a form.
I once saw a doll made by a primitive South American people. It was made from flexible reeds, crudely plaited, and tied off in places, to form a head and body, arms and legs protruding stiffly from it. The tangled masses of what looked like greyish horsehair at our feet were slowly spilling out of the membranous pods, lightening in colour at their outer edges, and – crudely but definitely – had begun forming themselves, the fibres straightening and aligning, into the rough approximation, each of them, of a head, a body, and miniature arms and legs. They were as crude as the doll I had seen – and just as unmistakable.
It's hard to say how long we squatted there, staring in stunned wonder at what we were seeing. But it was long enough to see the grey substance continue to exude, slowly as moving lava, from the great pods out onto the concrete floor. It was long enough to see the grey substance lighten and whiten after it reached the air. And it was long enough to see the crude head- and limb-shaped masses grow in size as the grey stuff spilled out – and to become less crude.
We watched, motionless, our mouths open, and occasionally the brown membranous surfaces of the huge pods cracked audibly – the sound of a brittle leaf snapping in two – and the pods crumpled steadily, slowly collapsing a little at a time, as the lava-like flow of the substance they were filled with continued to flow out, like a heavy, infinitely slow-moving fog. And just as a motionless cloud in a windless sky imperceptibly changes in shape as you watch, the doll-like forms on the floor became – no longer dolls. They were, presently, as large as infants; and the pods that had held the substance forming them were crumbling to brittle fragments. The nearly motionless weaving and aligning of whitening fibre had continued; and now the heads were indented in a vague approximation of eye sockets, a ridge of a nose had formed on each, a crease of a mouth, and at the ends of the arms, bent now at the elbows, the starlike shapes of tiny, stiff fingered hands were forming themselves.
Jack's head and mine turned together, and we stared into each other's eyes, knowing what, presently, we would see. "The blanks," he whispered, his voice rusty, "that's where they come from – they grow!"
We could no longer watch it. We stood suddenly, our legs stiff from crouching, and stumbled out into the basement, our eyes darting, frantically hunting normality. Then we stopped at nothing more than a pile of old newspapers, staring numbly down, in the light of Jack's flash, at the front page of an old San Francisco Chronicle, and the headlines and captions, the murder, violence, and corruption of a city, were understandable, and normal, and good to see. We lighted cigarettes, then, and wandered the basement, smoking, saying nothing, pacing and waiting, thinking what stunned, confused thoughts we were able to. Then we walked back to the open coal-bin door.
The impossible process inside was nearly finished. The great shattered
pods lay on the floor now in tiny broken fragments, an almost unnoticeable dust. And where they had been, four figures now lay, large as adults, and the thick skins of sticky fibre that composed them were united at all edges now, the surfaces unbroken, rough as corduroy still, but smoothing out steadily, and entirely white. Four blanks, the faces bland, smooth, and unmarked, lay almost ready to receive the final impressions. And they lay there, one for each of us; we knew: one for me, one for Jack, one each for Theodora and Becky. "Their weight," Jack murmured, fighting to hold onto sanity with words. "They absorb water from the air. The human body is eighty per cent water. They absorb it; that's how it works."
Squatting beside the nearest, I lifted the hand to stare numbly at the smooth, rounded absence of fingerprints, and two thoughts filled my mind simultaneously: They're going to get us, I thought, lifting my head to stare at Jack, and at the same time – Now, Becky has to stay here.
Chapter ten
The time was 2.21 in the morning; I'd just glanced at my watch and there were nine minutes to go before I woke Jack for his shift. I was patrolling the house, walking soundlessly along the upstairs hallway in my stocking feet; and now I stopped at the door of Becky's room. Noiselessly I opened it, walked in, and then, for the third time since midnight, I explored every inch of that room with my flashlight, just as I had every other room in the house. Stooping, I swept the beam under her bed; then I opened the closet and examined it.