by Bob Leman
“I’ll be all right,” Stanley finally croaked. “I’d better get to the shop.” There was no explanation he could offer.
For many weeks stories about the new industry were on the front page every day, and the coming prosperity was an important topic of conversation in the town. Every mention of it tore at Stanley with awful claws, and by the time it was no longer front-page news, he had lost weight and developed a hunted look. He went mechanically through the motions of his daily routine, moving in a trance of fear. He kept a very tight grip on himself, however; he knew that if he did not, he might crawl into bed and never come out again, or run naked down the street baying like an animal. So strong was his control that after a time he was able to force the terror to retreat into a corner of his mind, where it squatted menacingly, but left him the capacity to function. And to think.
He thought about it endlessly, resentfully contemplating his condition and seeking an escape. He was afraid; paralyzingly afraid. He did not know what he feared and indeed could discover nothing to be afraid of. Yet there had to be something, or he would not be afraid. He had to find out what it was. He had to find out who was doing this to him. And then he had to do something about it.
Any reference to Consolidated Pipe and Tube caused the squatting fear to swell ominously in its corner; it followed, then, that the enemy was either the company, or the company’s Wallboro plant, a conspiratorial group at the plant, or — very likely — G.G. Scranton himself.
At that point he always found himself unable to carry the train of thought any further; his mind simply took that for a stopping place, and declined to operate. If he persisted he was visited by an unbearable sensation of slow- motion dissolution and disintegration; bits and pieces of his mind seemed to detach themselves and, in an unhurried and stately manner, spiral away into space.
It was thus something of a relief when at last he came face-to-face with one of the enemy. He was never certain whether the confrontation was deliberate and designed to intimidate him, or whether he made the discovery against their wishes, as a consequence of his new-found ability to see through appearances and perceive even cunningly hidden reality.
She came into the shop carrying a toaster and an iron, which she thumped onto the counter. “Can you fix these?” she said. She was a small woman, perhaps in her middle forties, unobtrusively well- dressed and with an air of assurance. She spoke with a slight Southern accent.
“Well, let’s see,” Stanley said. He removed screws, lifted off plates, and examined interiors. He felt somewhat better when he was working. “Don’t think you’ve been in before,” he said.
“No, I haven’t. We’re new here. My neighbor Mrs. Duff told me to bring these to you, said you were the best in town.”
“I’ll have to thank her,” Stanley said. “You’ve bought a house in Rolling Knoll, then.”
“On Prospect Lane, next door to the Duffs. We love it.”
“It’s nice over there. How do you like Wallboro so far?”
“I think we’re going to be very happy here. It’s such a nice little city. My husband used to have to travel two hours to and from the office. Now he’ll only be fifteen minutes from the plant.”
Stanley felt a premonitory twinge. “Who’s he with?” he asked.
“Consolidated Pipe and Tube. He’s chief engineer. Of course the office will be downtown until they finish building the plant, but, even so, everything here is so much simpler and easier. Why just this morning —”
She continued to talk briskly, but Stanley was not listening. The great fear was upon him and he was wholly absorbed by the effort of maintaining some sort of control. When at last he shifted his gaze from the bowels of the iron to her face, she was still rattling along. Stanley heard none of it. He was feeling, somewhere behind his fear or commingled with it, a certain satisfaction: here at last was one of them, a tangible manifestation of the enemy. The knowledge was tonic, nourishing to his manhood. It gave him enough confidence to observe her with wary intensity as she talked.
He could see it then: the flat malign emptiness of the eyes, the cruel droop at the comers of the mouth, the clawing movements of the hands. This was, beyond any doubt, an agent of the conspiracy. She was admirably disguised, to be sure, but obvious enough when you knew what to watch for. And from now on he was going to be watching everyone very carefully, very carefully indeed.
“— away at college, so at least we don’t have that worry,” she was saying. She was very good.
“These shouldn’t be too much trouble,” Stanley said. He didn’t think his voice revealed anything. “May I have your name, please?” “Biddle,” she said. “Mrs. Jason Biddle.” Stanley wrote the name on two tags. He said, “About two weeks, Mrs. Biddle. You might call and check.”
“I will,” she said, and went out. The sweating Stanley sat down.
That evening when his wife said
— as she did nearly every evening now — “Stanley, I wish you’d tell me what’s the matter,” he thought he had a sort of answer for her at last. It was a long way from complete answer, but at least there was now something concrete, in the person of Mrs. Biddle, to talk about. He began to explain it all.
As he talked she said, “But what makes you think—?” and, “But why should they—?” and, “But they haven’t done anyth—” and, finally, “Oh, Stanley, that’s just crazy.”
Stanley had of course already carefully considered that possibility and had rejected it. But it would be difficult to trace for her the reasoning that established that his head was perfectly sound and the danger real. And in any case, he was no longer sure that she was entirely to be trusted. She would not consciously do anything to harm him, he was reasonably certain of that; but the enemy was infinitely guileful and might find ways to use her without her knowledge.
In the event, that appeared to be what took place. Stanley’s doctor called him at work one day, suggesting that Stanley drop in for a visit. Stanley, who was developing a certain guile of his own, agreed. It was quite clear that his only hope lay in maintaining some sort of surveillance of the others, and that could best be done by pretending to be unaware of their probing. He could visualize what had led to the doctor’s call: his wife, over coffee ns at the kitchen table, unburdening herself to her mother and sister; Mom and Sis gleefully spreading the word to every gossip-pit in town; and then the swift dissemination of the story until it reached an ear that knew what it meant. Perhaps the ear of G.G. Scranton.
A suggestion would have come trickling back, then, culminating in an urgent recommendation by Mom and Sis (probably over the same cups at the same table) that Dr. Heinz be consulted without delay. And Dr. Heinz, already alerted through other channels, would have called Stanley immediately after he talked to Nora.
The doctor was getting on in years and had never wasted time on a bedside manner. He said, “Stanley, what’s this Nora tells me about you thinking spooks are after you?”
Stanley’s first act upon entering the office had been to subject the doctor to The Test. The Test was an infallible method of unmasking members of the conspiracy which Stanley had discovered more or less by accident at the time of his encounter with Mrs. Biddle. It consisted in staring fixedly at the suspect for a few moments while maintaining a certain rigid, complex, and wholly indescribable mental posture. If the subject was indeed one of the enemy, the stigmata became visible to Stanley; it was as if a veneer dissolved, giving him a view of the true creature beneath, a glimpse of the physiognomy of evil. Those who did not change under his piercing scrutiny were uncontaminated.
The doctor did not change; to Stanley’s amazement and relief he remained the old Dr. Heinz. Stanley was almost overcome by gratitude and thanksgiving. At last —at long last— there was someone he could talk to, someone with the intelligence to grasp the magnitude of the conspiracy, someone who could be depended upon to offer good, common-sense advice. Someone who might even be enlisted to aid in a possible counterattack.
“Don�
��t joke about it, Doc,” he said. “When I tell you, you won’t think it’s a joking matter.”
“Tell me, then, Stanley,” the doctor said.
Stanley tried. After the fiasco of the explanation to his wife he had carefully organized all the facts, constructing a seamless chain of logic that established beyond argument that he was sorely bedeviled and hideously endangered; but now, as he laid the matter before Dr. Heinz, a number of the steps in his reasoning seemed to have fled his memory. He became increasingly aware that Heinz was not finding his exposition wholly persuasive and that his replies to the doctor’s questions were beginning to sound somewhat shrill and desperate. “No, but, Doc, listen to what’s happening now. They’ve got Dorothy Barr, Dorothy’s Kard Shoppe, you know her. The first one was the Mrs. Biddle, she tipped me off. Then that red-haired cook at the diner. Now it’s Dorothy. I spotted it a couple of weeks ago. They’re really watching me now. And I don’t know why. But I’ll tell you one thing: I don’t think they’re even human. They don’t even look human when you know what to look for. But why are they doing it? I’ve got to find out what they’re doing out at that plant, Doc.” “Why, I think you know what they’re doing, Stanley. They’re putting up a steel mill. Going to produce seamless pipe. Bringing a lot of money into the county.” “But what about that dome, Doc? I’ve talked to half a dozen men who work for different contractors out there, and nobody knows what the dome is for. Nothing to do with making pipes, I can tell you that. Full of computers or something. Twenty electricians worked for a month in there, and none of them knows what it was they were wiring. There’s something bad going on, Doc. They know I know it, too; that’s why they’re watching me this way. Watching and tapping my phone, why, my God, Doc —”
“All right, Stanley,” Heinz said. “Stop it now. Stop. That’s better.”
“OK. All right. I’m all right. But I’m really scared, Doc. Scared all the time. Jesus. Those eyes. Always watching, watching —” “There’s a man I want you to see, Stanley,” Heinz said. “I’m going to make an appointment for you. You need more help here than I’m equipped to give. This really isn’t my line.”
“A headshrinker!” shouted Stanley, betrayed and horrified. “You think I’m crazy, too!”
“I think you’re in need of some help, like all of us at one time or another. You’ve got to be relieved of this fear, Stanley, and I think Spector’s just the man who can —” But Stanley was gone, out the door and into the street, running. The doctor’s office had become a trap. Heinz — Heinz! — was one of them. Or, no. No, he probably wasn’t. Just by practicing his profession he would be serving their ends. Stanley had given a simple and straightforward recital of the facts, and it had sounded like raving. Stanley knew that very well. The doctor was a conscientious man of medicine; he would be bound to set in motion machinery that in the end would effect Stanley’s imprisonment in an asylum, probably as asylum where the keepers belonged to the enemy. A dangerous trap, a close call.
Stanley pounded up to his car, scrambled into it, and drove off with a squeal of tires. He careened recklessly through the town, fleeing his Furies, knowing in his heart that there was no escape. The beast had too many tentacles, all in innocent disguise; any stranger, any acquaintance, any friend might be a limb of the enemy. Even if he fought back he had no hope of destroying that kind of creature. Suppose he eliminated every agent that The Test revealed, what then? How much does an anthill miss an ant — or a hundred ants?
He skidded to a stop in his usual parking place in front the The Appliance Clinic, quite unaware of how he had come to be there. His mind was still furiously busy with the train of thought he had begun as he ran from the doctor’s office. Tentacles were what they were. Tentacles a better metaphor then ants. Chop tentacles, not step on ants. A creature with tentacles had a head. Chop off the head.
Chop off the head.
And suddenly there was a great hush, and peace came to Stanley. He sat quite still behind the wheel as a healing calm lapped and enveloped him, leaching away the tension and the terror and bringing to him a mindless contentment. There was, after all, something he could do. He could end all this. He could and he would. When the head is killed, the tentacles die.
He never knew how long he sat there; after the first enormous euphoria had subsided, he began to think again. He was pleased to discover that his mental processes had received great benefit from his terrible ordeal; his mind moved with cool and well-oiled precision toward the goal that he had somehow failed to see until now. For the first time in many months he had a feeling of confidence and assurance. The direction of his life was once more in his own hands.
It was a new Stanley who finally emerged from the car, a man with a purpose, a man determined to conquer his demons at whatever cost. He walked briskly to the hardware store across the mall, made the purchase of a butcher knife of the best quality, and returned to The Appliance Clinic, where he competently applied a whetstone until the knife had a scalpel edge. Then, with the knife in his hand, he went out of his door and into the door of Dorothy’s Kard Shoppe. Dorothy rose from the chair at her little desk and said, “Hello, Stanley.”
“This has gone far enough,” Stanley said. “You’re going to answer some questions.” He held up the knife.
“Stanley?” she said.
“Don’t stall me, Goddammit, I want an answer. Right now! Who’s behind all this?”
“Stanley, I — Stanley, what are you talking about?”
“You don’t think you were fooling me, do you? I’ve been on to you for a long time. Now you give me the name.” The knife flashed near her eyes.
“Oh, my God. Please, Stanley, what do you want?”
Her voice and her face were utterly terrified, utterly sincere. For a moment a wisp of doubt sullied the purity of Stanley’s resolution. Was it possible that he’d made a mistake? Then he looked into her eyes, and saw in them only scorn and derision. He laid the edge against her throat.
“Tell me now. It’s Scranton, isn’t it? G.G. Scranton.”
She opened her mouth, but only a croak emerged; a croak and a drool of spittle leaking down her chin. But he could see that the eyes still jeered at him, and he sliced powerfully.
At moderate speed it was about a twenty-minute drive from the Kard Shoppe to the new factory, and Stanley drove at moderate speed. There was no need now for frantic haste. He knew precisely what had to be done, and he knew precisely how he would do it. He had suspected Scranton almost from the first, but there hadn’t been proof. Now he had that. Dorothy had —
He would not think about Dorothy just now.
He would think about what he was going to say to Scranton. Or need he say anything at all? The knife would say it. The knife would make the speech for him: Scranton, you monster, you’ve kept me in hell, and that’s where I’m going to send you. You are an utter horror, beyond anything the mind can conceive, and I am going to dispose of you as you deserve. I will cut your throat. Cut your throat. I will —
The premises of Consolidated Pipe and Tube came into view, two enormous buildings standing parallel to each other, their ends to the road. Between them was the dome, a concrete hemisphere perhaps fifty feet high, its surface irregularly pocked with enigmatic metal-lined depressions. Across the road was the office building. Stanley parked carefully in a slot marked “Visitors.”
The front wall of the lobby was an enormous sheet of glass two stories high, its perfection interrupted only by the steel framework of the door. The glass had been tinted against glare, and the light it admitted was of a curious reddish- brown color. There was no one at the reception desk or elsewhere in the great room as Stanley crossed it, a small figure holding a knife that reflected the autumnal light. He entered the corridor on the left and walked unhurriedly to its end, past many closed doors. The end of the corridor was also a door; it opened into the reception room for an executive suite, uninhabited. Three doors led from it. Stanley went without hesitation to the center door and entered.<
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Entered, and came face-to-face with G.G. Scranton.
G.G. Scranton was tall, slim, elegant, gray at the temples, and beautifully tailored. He said, “Here you are, then, Stanley. Have a seat.” He turned and walked without haste to the chair behind the broad desk; he sat, leaned back, crossed his legs, laced his fingers across his chest, and said, “Crazy Stanley Scott. I’m a little surprised that you’re still at large. You ought to be in a padded cell by now.”
Stanley remained in the doorway, the knife in his hand. His single-minded drive toward the immediate dispatch of Scranton had suddenly and inexplicably vanished, and he was afraid again, and confused. He looked at the knife and then at Scranton. “I killed Dorothy Barr,” he said.
“I know you did, Stanley. It wasn’t at all necessary, but I don’t suppose it matters greatly at this point. Sit down, please.”
Stanley sat. Scranton stared across the desk at the knife. Stanley laid it carefully on the floor and said, “You’ve got to tell me why.” “Yes, I suppose I do. You’re entitled to that. Will you have a cigar?” He pushed a polished humidor toward Stanley, who mutely shook his head. Scranton selected a cigar and made a small ceremony of lighting it with a wooden match, while Stanley watched him with a fixed and fascinated stare. As Scranton waved the fire off the match, Stanley blurted, “You’re not human, are you?”
“That’s very perspicacious of you, Stanley,” Scranton said. “No, I’m not.”
“What —” Stanley had to swallow. “What are you, then?” “That’s a little hard to answer. If I gave you the name of my kind, it would only be a meaningless word. I am — like you, I am an intelligent being with a protoplasmic body. My proper and original form is quite different from my present appearance, as you’ve guessed. I have the useful ability to assume whatever shape I like, within limits. And I have the capacity to perform any number of amazing tricks by direct force of mind. I can, for example, sit here at this desk and keep watch on potential hazards by assuming control of the minds of conveniently located innocent bystanders and using their senses to do my spying.” He smiled sardonically, and Stanley thought of Dorothy and Mrs. Biddle and the red-haired man at the diner.