A Touch of the Creature

by Charles Beaumont

  And how she’d then taken Jodi’s right hand, and said darkly:

  Your right hand shows what’s actually going to happen to you—your future life and all. Now, here’s your love-line, see? Well, well. I see you’ve had two loves.

  Now how in the world had the old harridan guessed that?

  The first: fiery, wonderful, but it cooled. The second, more stable, quieter. You will love him very much. But—something will happen. Yes, I see a tragedy, a loss. A black loss.

  Crazy woman, didn’t she have any sense? Even though Jodi hadn’t experienced any of the sensations you’re supposed to when you’re pregnant, even so, it might have seriously upset her. Crazy woman. Going around frightening people with her cheap bridge-party magic . . .

  She was in a cluster of people now, at a curb, waiting for the light to change. She shook the memory of the woman on the train, Mother Hilton, swept it all from her mind and concentrated on being a young girl in a big city. But there was a voice, strident and harsh, twangy with dialect, coming from the mid-twenties fur-piece in front of her:

  “—not another one, really! Oh, I mean, how awful. I mean, after losing two already!”

  And from the second wide back, the second waiting woman:

  “Well, you know Margaret. Rolls right off her. I give my pity to poor Mr. Scott.”

  “You mark my words: She’ll keep this up and kill herself as well as all them babies.”

  “Swear, you’d think folks’d learn, wouldn’t you? I mean, after all, I mean there’s some women that just weren’t meant to have children.”

  Shut up, Jodi thought. Please shut up. I’m not sick, I’m not crazy, I’m perfectly healthy and my baby will be perfectly healthy, and I refuse to listen to you. There’s always people like you, trying to make it hard, trying to scare us, make it as miserable as it possibly can be.

  “A’course, the first ’un is always the hardest. Lordy! I like to just about died with my Billy, it was so bad.”

  That’s right. Keep it up, you witches. Tell us about how your children were all Mongoloid idiots. They probably were; I hope so, anyway. No I don’t. Oh—light, please change, please change . . .

  The two women with the coarse voices did not seem to see Jodi, and they chattered along as their feet carried them with a rush across the street.

  Jodi lingered at the curb, feeling the small panic touch her. She thought about a lot of things, now, but all unclearly: the row with Jim last night, Mother Hilton and her only-married-once-and-to-a-fine-old-family eyes that seemed to say, “Really, child, are you asking us to believe that you are going to be a mother and take up a mother’s responsibilities?” She thought of Jim’s eyes, big, amber, and how they’d widened full of great wonder when she’d told him.

  Well, it’s about time I started feeling dizzy, she laughed to herself, then, and stepped off the curb. A shriek ripped loud and a car bobbled on its chassis a few feet from her. The driver wore a look of exasperation which lasted until he’d taken in Jodi’s profile. Then he smiled sheepishly. She jumped back onto the curb and breathed deeply. The light had been red.

  Stupid women. Stupid silly women. They’d frightened her with their idiotic talk. “—there’s some women that just weren’t meant to have children . . .”

  Having a baby wasn’t such a big thing, was it, for Heaven’s sake! Millions of women had them, every day. What was it—two hundred every minute, everywhere in the world?

  But how very strange that she hadn’t actually thought about it until just now, now at this second, here on the curb of a street she’d crossed ten thousand times . . .

  She was going to be a mother!

  “Oops lady, I’m awful sorry.” A man smiled at her and took off down the canyon full of people again.

  Jodi stamped her foot so no one could see. What in the world was this that had hold of her? It was normal, wasn’t it? All right, if you’re not a child, not a scared little girl, wait for the light and go across the damned street!

  The light went to green again. And cars came around to make left turns, and she saw how hard the cars were—steel and metal and hard sharp corners and tons of weight—and she thought of how soft, how very soft that large and gentle rise in her stomach was . . .

  The brakes shrieked again and a terrible picture exploded in her mind.

  So she turned and didn’t cross the street. No need to anyway, really: she was just walking, just killing time.

  The department store loomed big and green and cool in the hot afternoon and, fighting down the sudden sick feeling, Jodi went inside. The terror seemed to stay out in the bright sun. She felt good once more, and the thoughts melted in the air-­conditioned comfort.

  Wonderful. She could pick up that tie Jim had decided not to buy. “Got to conserve now, honey . . .”

  Let’s see. Ties: Men’s Wear: Fourth Floor.

  The elevator doors whirred open and the car disgorged its magpie women passengers and meek embarrassed uncomfortable men and Jodi went inside and it filled up again. A click of castanets and the doors whirred closed another time.

  The car moved up with a sudden sickening lurch. It was so crowded. Lots of people. Lots of—sharp elbows, carefully avoiding her. How many people? Twelve? That made twenty-four elbows. She was in a car with twenty-four elbows!

  It lurched up and someone said: “Second floor. Out, anyone?” and more people got in, though none got out. How many elbows now? Not to mention hundreds of toes. And counting toes and fingers, that came to—

  It wasn’t any use. She had to think about it. The car was full and it was heavy, and maybe it was too heavy. What if the cables that held the car and pulled it so many dizzy feet up the cold damp shaft, what if these slender threads should—break? Even here, on the second floor? What if they should break?

  “Third floor. Lingerie, hosiery, baby clothes—”

  “Let me out,” Jodi heard herself cry. “This is my floor. Let me out, please.”

  The crowd parted with surprising ease, leaving her standing foolish and frightened in front of the elevator with all the people inside looking at her curiously.

  Jodi turned and walked away quickly. No use. She’d have to get out of the store and back in the streets. Out of the store, anyway. It was stifling now, full of human sweat and no air, not cool anymore.

  She heard the elevator go up and watched the arrow point to the number, Four. Five; Six; Seven; then, down again, stopping, pausing, and she watched until the arrow pointed at One.

  Jodi sighed. But, somehow, it didn’t make her feel any better. She couldn’t go inside that little cage a second time, because—well, she couldn’t. She fought the picture of the elevator plummeting down floor after floor like a rock dropped into a clear pool, falling, falling, and crashing on the hard cement below.

  “May I help you?”

  “No. No, thank you, I was only—”

  Of course, there was the escalator. What could be simpler and safer?

  But it was like peering into the wrong end of a telescope, and it made her clutch the rail. The rail moved under her fingers, pulling her arm along, trying to throw her off balance. She pulled back and watched.

  Alice fell a long way, she thought. Down, down, down; curiouser and curiouser . . .

  Jodi gave a little cry as someone jostled her and she found her feet on the spined and shiny surface of the moving stairs. The baby! Oh, she thought, she should have left it at home, with Mother Hilton. Why should it terrify her so when she didn’t even know its name—not really. It—not a boy, not a girl, not even a human being yet. A formless blob of softness that she had with her, something that would probably scare her to death if she’d meet it in a dark alley some night . . . And yet, she shielded that part of her that carried this strange thing, and was quite prepared to fight with her life for its safety.

  Why? Why was this so?

  The stairs collapsed one into another, like accordion pleats, like a Chinese puzzle; hard sharp stairs this second, flat pieces of
steel the next.

  They were going to kill her. The thought arrived fully dressed. It was what everyone expected. They’d not wanted her to marry Jim: she a secretary and a divorcee, and he the most eligible—That man behind her. Of course! Mother Hilton had hired him. Mother Hilton knew what would happen between him and her if anything happened to the baby—or she thought she knew. So she hired someone to follow her and push her down the stairs.

  The stairs collapsed again into themselves, and she found herself on the ground floor. And the man behind her was walking with another woman, walking away, whistling some tune.

  Jodi looked around her and everything began to swim before her eyes, as goldfish swim in a bowl when the water has been clouded by their movement. The killers were around her everywhere, now. They were sharp elbows jabbing her—one a little too hard, and then . . . There were corners and fingers and canes. They all wanted to kill her, and take Jim away from her and take away her love. That’s what they all wanted!

  Jodi stumbled a little and half-walked, half-ran across the blurred roomful of people, past them all and into the glinting bright, hot, white street.

  It was almost time. Jim was always so punctual, he’d be there, waiting. But where was it? Where was she now?

  Suddenly the black satin woman came up into her mind and floated there, like a trick movie effect. The camera moved into the woman’s face, then into her black dark eyes, the eyes of a witch with mystic powers. Moon in Gemini—she’d said that. Oh yes. I see a tragedy, a loss . . . something will happen . . .

  The light changed. Across the street with the people. Don’t look at them, don’t notice them. The other side: now, the long block, down the long block. Only a little distance now. They don’t see me. I’m going too fast for them. Mark. Little Mark, help me, help me run!

  Jodi ran and heard her heels click on the pavement. Heels—she shouldn’t have worn them. Flat shoes, they’d told her, and her six months along. The heels would turn and she’d pitch into the street and the people would walk over her with their heavy crushing weight, kill her, kill Mark . . . no, Mark would be saved, and Mother Hilton would get him too.

  It was already past twelve. The clock said so and the clock was always right. Past twelve. She wrapped her hands about the front of her dress and felt the breath flood in painfully slow, like small knives cutting at her insides, cutting a little deeper every time, trying to get deeper and deeper.

  And then, with the flickering white and red turning to black in her mind, with her feeling the movement and the life seep from her, there, there ahead a few feet, was the door.

  Through the door, into the sudden coolness and the sounds of sharp things. Rattling dishes, trays, glasses. People, hushed, looking at her, moving toward her to cut off the air.

  Jodi fell into the booth, moved into the corner and let the tears come.

  She didn’t even feel the gentle hand on her shoulder, or hear the soft troubled voice.

  “Jodi, honey. Jodi. Is anything the matter?”

  The Indian Piper

  First the heat took his courage. It went into his body not as it had gone into the ash bricks and soiled cement, but as a chill along his spine; coursing coldly to his heart, making his heart beat faster. The heat in the darkened room was the first to take his courage.

  Then the smells came to make him tremble. The stale cookies, the bubbling fish-oils and the human odors suspended in the aqueous exhaust of nearby candy factories and held rigid in the air. The sound of feet upon carpetless floors, the buzz of a fly darting in quick circles; and the phalanx in the street below, dancing and shouting in muffled monotony. All the sounds and feelings of the living world, come suddenly to stop him.

  And now, the Pipes. The mellow reedy notes issuing down the hallways and coming through Clayton’s door, pulsing in the room and seeming almost to come from the room.

  He turned his eyes from the red and yellow Saint and pulled back the safety catch of the revolver, deliberately. The steel against his temple was reassuring for a moment, but then it became cold, turning things over rapidly in his mind. The feel of the muzzle brought sudden images to Clayton, never shutting out the other, never stilling the Pipes, but clearly drawn. The jaded squib in the newspaper: ONE-TIME FABULOUS BIG-BUSINESS TYCOON, HARRY CLAYTON, COMMITS SUICIDE IN SHABBY EAST SIDE FLAT. And, of course, the photograph to go with it: the grotesquely crumpled body lying in a pool of gore and filth.

  He smiled at the thoughts. Who could tell? They might even run a three-installment story on his career. That would sell papers, provided anyone remembered Harry Clayton after so many years. Though he knew a dozen people who would pay seven cents an issue for the story—at least a dozen. Even federal prisoners get to read . . .

  Clayton shook his head and tried to concentrate. He remembered his boast of “pulling the shutters” on unwelcome reflections and tried the trick now. But the heat and the smells remained and the music of the Pipes was getting louder.

  Squeeze the trigger, boy, never pull it; you lose control when you pull it.

  The thin reedy notes on the treble register squealed into the room, vibrating the glass and the pieces of steel. He could feel the note in the revolver, shaking the metal, making it hard to hold. He clenched his finger about the curved trigger and pulled slightly; the trigger moved a fraction of an inch but did not trip the hammer. The gun was still cold on his temple and sweaty in his hand, and now it became heavy and his arm was tired in its awkward angle.

  He sighed, tossed the gun into a damp mess of bedclothes and walked to the closed window.

  People danced in the street, men and women with bodies pressed together, moving jerkily in the street and shouting. A frail bandbox stood at the corner, supported by wood scraps; men sat upon it with musical instruments to their mouths and in their laps. A large man in a grey suit stood waving his hands in front of the orchestra and looking tired. And in front of every other store was posted a gaudily painted Saint with a benign expression­.

  Clayton could hear the discordant melodies above the sounds of voices and above the Pipes—harsh, unwelcome melodies that reminded him of the past years, of the loneliness and the hate and the bitterness he knew.

  He slid back into the chair and closed his eyes. Sleep would quiet it all and perhaps tomorrow he would find courage.

  The Pipes exploded in his consciousness. The single notes, unadorned, jumping or sliding from tone to tone, weaving complex fugues and simple airs, tearing even sleep from him. And suddenly he became aware of them. Prison hadn’t stopped his logic and he began to wonder about the Pipes, why they bothered him so, why they made him feel as he did. He lit a cigarette, walked to the sink to draw a glass of water and settled back in the chair.

  He would have gone through with it if it hadn’t been for that crazy flute. He would have squeezed the trigger, the fragment of lead would have ripped through his skull and through the tender tissues of his brain and it would all have been over. But somehow, they had stopped him; they had caused him to be alert so he could not focus his attention on what he was doing. The sounds, he realized, meant something, something special, that got beneath his skin and rashed. It was almost, he thought, like the old feeling. But without logic, for they were just noises from a stick played by an old fool four doors down the hall.

  The orchestra in the street had adjourned slowly, trailing off instrument by instrument until only the far-away voices remained. The other things left also; Clayton lit another cigarette and realized he was thinking now only of the Pipes.

  All right. Tomorrow he would put the bullet through his head. But now, for a moment, he could summon Harry Clayton vestigially and figure the proposition. He could still do that, he could still be annoyed at things he didn’t understand; and this was all he didn’t understand, all in the world.

  All right.

  The brown man had come at night like a thief, quietly, while the hotel slept. No one knew where he had come from or what he did, or how he lived, for the room ha
d been unfurnished and no one had heard the sound of trunks rumbling up the stale, decaying staircases. And that’s all there was to it, until the following night when the music of the Pipes first began to fill the dirty halls. The single note, low, soft, and then from behind the door, other notes, slowly put one upon another and woven finally­ into lines of melody and harmony.

  He looked like an Indian because of the beard and the immense turban on his head, but that didn’t have to be true. He could be a man in paint or even a Negro from the Village, a musician, a mentalist, a screwball or a fake.

  So, there’s a brown man without any furniture sitting in a dingy room playing a flute till all hours.

  Clayton rose and looked at himself in the mirror, grinned at the pale reflection. He thought of other brown men and certain­ promises he had made; but the memory was crushed in an instant­, as pain is crushed by death.

  The Indian, alone with his flute. The brown man who smiled at everybody but did not speak, who filled the rooms with music and drained the courage from suicidal fingers.

  Clayton listened. The note this time was in the bass, wavering, fragile, like a china saucer or a woman’s hair. It vibrated, then spiraled upwards to a clear constant tone and held to silence.

  The brown man whom people feared and loved. He remembered—or thought he remembered, for nothing was clear now—that they were going to evict him because of the noise, then they didn’t. The old woman in the room by the laundry closet had told him once that she had begun to like the music. They all did. They all loved the Piper.

  They did; he could almost hear their words and see their faces. They did.

  Clayton grinned and picked the revolver off the bed. He unlocked the door, eased the safety catch of the revolver back into place and walked into the hall.

  The doors were all alike, with the exception of one; an artist had lived in that room, so the landlord said, and had one night painted the door bright colors. But the colors were faded now and were beginning to peel away to the rot beneath.

  Clayton walked past the doors, past the room with the porcelain sign which read BATH and on to the end of the hallway. He stopped at the open window and looked over his shoulder. The straight walkway was empty; below, far distant in the street came the sounds of life, and from behind the doors muted voices. But he was alone.