The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK

by Chester S. Geier

  He decided to make some coffee while waiting for Vickie to return. Emptying out the glass coffee maker in the sink, he noticed the brown rim that had formed on the inside, near the bottom. Queer—looked as though it hadn’t been used for some time.

  Something began to stir in a dark, dank corner of Doug’s mind as other little discordances jarred upon him. Looking into the refrigerator for cold cuts with which to make a sandwich, he saw that the interior was very bare. If Vickie had done her Saturday shopping, it would have been filled with things to eat.

  Then Doug remembered that the bed had not been made when he had glanced into the bedroom. It wasn’t like Vickie, for she kept the apartment almost painfully neat.

  Little things—a ring of sediment on the inside of a coffee maker, a refrigerator that had not been stocked, a bed that had not been made. But they assumed a terrible importance to Doug Crandall. And suddenly the old fear was back, whispering in his mind, gnawing at his heart.

  Doug began to smoke cigarettes, glancing continuously at his watch. When the coffee was done, he drank it black. And then, unable longer to remain seated, he rose and began to pace the floor.

  He kept glancing at his watch. Ten-thirty. Then eleven o’clock. Anxiety mounted within him as the minutes passed.

  Once he turned on the television set in the living room, but he was unable to find an interest in any of the programs, and shortly he switched it off. He resumed his nervous pacing.

  A little after eleven-thirty, Doug heard a car draw up in the front of the house. That would be the Masons, returning home. Doug listened eagerly. There was the sound of footsteps, the creak of an opening door. Then there was silence.

  Doug strained with the intensity of his listening. If Vickie had gone out with the Masons, she would now be coming up the stairs. There would be the sharp sound of her small heels in the hall, the click of her key in the lock. But as the tense seconds passed, they did not come.

  At eleven forty-five, Doug was unable to bear longer the silence and the fruitless waiting. He descended the stairs, knocked on the Masons’ door.

  Ted Mason opened the door, clutching a bathrobe about him. The sleepiness left his eyes as he became aware of the strained whiteness of Doug’s face.

  “Why, Doug, you look…say, anything wrong? Come on in.”

  “It’s Vickie!” Doug burst out a moment later, as he confronted Ted and Paula Mason in their living room. “She’s gone. I…I’m afraid something happened to her.” The words spilling out erratically, he told of his coming home from the fishing trip and finding the house strangely neglected. “I thought maybe she had gone out with you,” he finished.

  Paula Mason shook her blond curls. “No, Doug, she didn’t. The last time I saw Vickie was yesterday…Saturday…in the morning. Ted was taking me shopping in the car, and I came up to ask if Vickie wanted to go along. But she wasn’t feeling well. She said she’d get some things, later, from one of the neighborhood grocery stores. I came up again, in the afternoon, but there was no answer to my knocks, and I thought Vickie had gone out somewhere.”

  Doug was staring into space. “Didn’t feel well—” he muttered. “She had a headache Friday night, when I left. It didn’t seem important, then. But if Vickie had taken sick, why hadn’t she stayed home?”

  Ted and Paula Mason returned Doug’s anxiously questioning gaze helplessly. Some of the alarm which he felt was beginning to show in their faces.

  “Maybe Vickie went out to do a little shopping, and maybe she got sick, and—”

  Ted Mason’s hesitant voice broke off, as though he feared to continue.

  “That might be it,” Doug whispered. “She went out to do some shopping, probably fainted, was taken to a hospital—”

  Abruptly, he shook his head and sat down in a nearby chair. He looked at something beyond the Masons, beyond the room, still shaking his head. There was an intent blankness in his eyes.

  He could not ignore the old fear any longer. Vickie’s disappearance was not so easily to be explained. He’d had what he felt certain all along was the answer, but he hadn’t wanted to admit it, not even to himself. Now he realized, with a flooding of despair, that he had to face the facts.

  Doug spoke slowly, haltingly. “Ted, Paula…I’m afraid there’s more to this than it would seem. I…I’m afraid I’ll never see Vickie again.” He took a deep breath. “You’ve heard of the Alderdale disappearances?”

  “Why, yes,” Ted Mason admitted. “It’s still something of a sensation. But, Doug, what on Earth has that got to do with Vickie?”

  “Vickie and I are from Aiderdale,” Doug replied simply. “We left like a great many others, when the disappearances started. Vickie and I had just been married. It had seemed so important that nothing should happen to us. We came here, to the city, and I got another job.”

  Doug looked at his nervously twisting hands, and for a moment he did not voice the thoughts that leaped and flickered within his mind, like shadows thrown on a wall by a fitful flame. Alderdale—just a little Illinois town, not much different from all the other little towns scattered the length and breadth of the country. He and Vickie had been born in Alderdale. They had grown up together, gone to the same schools. They had gone to parties together, picnics, dances. It was only natural and logical that they should have married in the end.

  Life in Alderdale had been good, flowing gently, easily, like a lazy, little stream. Then, a little over two years ago, the disappearances had started. Girls and young men, just having reached maturity, began to vanish into thin air. They were never heard from again. Investigations of the most exhaustive and authoritative kind had gotten nowhere.

  People had begun to leave Alderdale. Doug and Vickie had eventually joined the exodus. Leaving had been hard, but the danger had been real and very near.

  Doug looked up from his hands. His ravaged face was bitter.

  “Leaving Alderdale didn’t do any good,” he went on. “Whatever happened to all those others, it caught up with us even here.”

  “But how can you be sure?” Paula Mason demanded protestingly. “The disappearances were highly localized—and you’re a great distance from Alderdale now. Vickie had a headache. Perhaps it was the first stage of some illness. She might have gone out to do a little shopping, fainted from the effort, and was taken to a hospital.”

  “The police, Doug,” Ted Mason put in with clumsy gentleness. “The police would have been notified in that event. Your name and address would have been found among the contents of Vickie’s purse. Maybe the police called here while we all were away.”

  Doug rose from the chair in abrupt, desperate eagerness. “I’ll try them. There might be a chance.”

  “I’ll take you in my car,” Ted Mason offered.

  “No, Ted. I’d hate to bother you with this any more than I have already.”

  Ted Mason began pulling his bathrobe off. “I’ll be ready in a minute,” he said with firm finality.

  Ted Mason, when he had dressed, paused only long enough to give Paula a hug that brought a gasp of surprise and pleasure from her lips. It was as though he had suddenly discovered something of great value in a possession hitherto regarded a commonplace. Then he threw an arm in rough masculine sympathy over Doug’s shoulder, steered quickly for the door.

  * * * *

  The police sergeant was conscientiously thorough. He checked station records, inquired at headquarters for precinct reports, called the county hospital and all the others to which Vickie might have been taken. But in every case he drew a blank.

  “Doesn’t look as though your wife had taken sick while out shopping,” the sergeant said, his voice gruff with an awkward sympathy at the anxiety in Doug’s face. “There must be some other explanation. I’ll check on possibilities, and have a look-out order for her issued. In the meantime, you’d better return home and get some rest. I’ll call you as soon as a
nything turns up.”

  Doug nodded dully, and with Ted Mason a silent figure of commiseration beside him, left the station. He stopped outside, on the sidewalk, his face forlornly resigned.

  “I expected that,” he told Ted Mason. “Vickie’s gone—just as all those others from Alderdale are gone.”

  Ted Mason said with restrained impatience, “But Pete’s sake, Doug, this is the city. Just because Vickie’s from Alderdale, it doesn’t mean the disappearances caught up with her here.”

  “Then what other explanation is there?” Doug demanded.

  Ted Mason shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know. But I do know that jumping to conclusions isn’t going to help you any.”

  “I’m not jumping to conclusions,” Doug insisted. “I’m right, Ted. I know I’m right. I can feel it all the way down deep inside me.”

  “You’re taking this too hard, Doug.” Ted Mason reached out an encircling arm. “Try to get a grip on yourself. Maybe this will come out all right. We’ll go back to the house now. A little rest will do you good.”

  Doug shook his head. Thought of returning to the apartment, so silent and empty now without Vickie, was somewhat revolting.

  “But it’s late!” Ted Mason pointed out protestingly. “Where else can you go!”

  “I’ll just walk around a while. I feel like walking. I feel like doing a lot of walking.”

  “For Pete’s sake!” Ted Mason gripped Doug’s arms hard. “Stop it! Hear me? Now look—we’re going back to the house. A call might come in, and you’d better be there if it does. Suppose someone called while you were out walking?” It was this that won Doug over. He sighed, nodded wearily, allowed himself to be led to the car.

  Back at the apartment, Doug went quickly from room to room, impelled by the wild hope that Vickie might somehow miraculously have returned. But each room was still as barren of her presence as the last.

  He began pacing the floor and smoking cigarettes. It was as though he hoped, by the mere act of walking and smoking, to keep at bay the fear that stalked within him. He kept glancing at the phone in an alcove near the door, holding his breath, then releasing it as he looked away.

  Vickie—The thought whispered urgently, pleadingly, in his mind. Vickie—what happened? Vickie—what was it that took you away?

  Alderdale, an answering whisper came. Alderdale, where girls and young men just over the borderline of maturity vanished into air. The thing behind those disappearances—the thing which might have reached across the miles between the city and the town, reached and struck, even here.

  Doug tried to shut that other whisper out of his mind, but it persisted, became overbearing in its triumph over the futile efforts of his will. It mocked him with its presence, taunted him with dark suggestions, hideous insinuations.

  The night wore on. Weariness became a weight in Doug’s legs. His throat was raw from smoking. Sheer exhaustion finally pulled him to the sofa. He decided to rest a while. Just a while.

  The sofa was soft. It was a cloud bearing him weightlessly through space. The weight spread from his legs, reached his eyelids, pulled them down. The whispering was stilled.

  Doug opened his eyes to the dazzle of sunlight. He blinked frowningly, dimly aware that an insistent sound had awakened him. The sound was repeated. Someone was knocking at the door.

  It was Paula Mason, bearing a tray laden with dishes. She said almost shyly, “Just thought I’d bring up something to eat.” She didn’t wait for his reaction, but brushed quickly past him, set the tray down on the kitchen table, and began to bustle about with an energy that clearly would brook no objections.

  Doug cleared his throat. “This is swell of you, Paula. Really swell.”

  “You sit down and eat,” Paula Mason said briskly. “Men never talk sense until they’re fed.”

  It wasn’t until Doug started on the food that he realized how hungry he was. Then he had to restrain himself from wolfing it down.

  “You’ve made the place a mess,” Paula Mason said, her voice still brisk. “Coffee grounds all over the sink, cigarette stubs everywhere.” She began to tidy the kitchen, not glancing at him. Her energy seemed boundless.

  Doug felt a glow of gratitude. He knew Paula’s briskness was merely a pretense made in an effort to put him at ease.

  Finally he was finished. He found his cigarettes, lighted one.

  Paula Mason finished straightening the apartment, and began to gather up the dishes. The briskness had gone from her. The concern which it had hidden now showed clearly on her face.

  “Doug, what are you going to do?” she asked, when the contents of the tray had been replaced.

  Doug lifted his hands helplessly. “I wish I knew. It all seems to depend on the police. They said they’d call me up if they learned anything. The city is still pretty much of a puzzle to me, and I don’t know where else I can turn.”

  “Don’t you have any friends from Alderdale living here in the city? One of them might know something about Vickie.”

  “I know of several. But, Paula, I don’t think there’s any hope in that direction.”

  “You could find out,” Paula insisted.

  Doug hesitated in aching indecision. “But if someone should call while I was out—”

  “I’ll leave the doors open, up here and downstairs, so that I’ll be able to hear the phone or the doorbell if they should ring. Don’t worry about that, Doug.”

  He decided to act on the possibility, futile as it seemed. He washed, changed his clothing, and armed with addresses copied on a sheet of paper, set out.

  * * * *

  Doug took a deep breath and pressed the first doorbell. Now that he was actually about it, a wistful eagerness filled him.

  The door opened to reveal the wary face of a young woman. At sight of Doug, the wariness vanished to be replaced by a smile of surprise. “Why, Doug Crandall! Of all people. Aren’t you working? Where’s Vickie?”

  “That’s what I came to find out, Ruth. You see, Vickie… Vickie has disappeared.”

  A gasp of shocked dismay left Ruth’s lips. “Doug—no! Not Vickie?” Her hand flew to her face as though the horror which flooded it was a sudden stab of pain. There was something personal about her reaction, called out not so much by Doug’s misfortune as by its effect upon some deep-rooted fear of her own.

  “Alderdale,” Ruth breathed, “Doug—Alderdale.”

  Doug nodded somberly. “That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t see what else could have taken Vickie away.”

  “Oh, Doug, is there no escape?” Ruth’s voice was almost a tearful wail. “We…we come here to the city to get away from it—the disappearances—and it’s no use. All the boys and girls we knew and went to school with—gone. And now…now Vickie.”

  Escape. Doug wondered if there actually was no escape. He remained a while in an effort to calm the disturbance his visit had created. Then he continued on his quest, apprehensive now as to how the others would receive his news. He determined to be more subtle in his approach. Just a casual question. Seen Vickie? Oh, nothing important. Got the day off, but Vickie wasn’t home. Thought she might have dropped over.

  He repeated the question many times, gave the same explanation many times again. None had seen Vickie. There were many invitations for him and Vickie to come and visit. Other than that, Doug got no results.

  From one address to another, from one side of the city to another. Not all were married and home, like Ruth, to answer his call. Many were employed. But he was supplied with telephone numbers and he put in calls to offices and shops. He varied his approach in such cases, always careful not to cause alarm.

  Results at one address brought an abrupt end to his quest. It was late afternoon by then. He had come to a furnished apartment building, in which two girls from Alderdale lived. The woman who answered Doug’s ring explained that the girls did no
t live there any more.

  “One of them disappeared, you see. Just vanished. It was all very strange. The other girl went all to pieces over it. She mentioned Alderdale, that town where so many people disappeared. That’s why it seemed so strange. I’ve often wondered if there were any connection. I told my husband—”

  “The other girl—what became of her?” Doug broke in.

  “Oh, she packed her things and went away. Said she wanted to put as much distance between herself and Alderdale as possible.”

  “I see,” Doug muttered. “Thanks.” He turned away with unconscious curtness, his entire being engulfed by what he had learned. It was not only Vickie, then. There were others. Many people had come to the city from Alderdale. Of these he and Vickie had known only a comparative few. How many of these, too, had vanished.

  Doug did not waste any thought in speculation. His only concern was that with the bleak, terrible certainty that all further search for Vickie was hopeless. Out of the dead ashes of this knowledge, a new purpose rose. Grimly, he set a new and sterner task for himself—to find the cause of the disappearances.

  * * * *

  “A one-way ticket to Alderdale, please,” Doug told the ticket agent.

  The man nodded and turned to the ticket racks behind him. He did not complete the movement. Halfway around, something seemed to halt him; he turned abruptly back to Doug.

  “Did you say Alderdale?” His voice was almost a whisper, intense, a little breathless. His eyes sharpened with a kind of awed interest upon Doug’s face.

  “Why, yes,” Doug replied warily, a little disconcerted by the other’s sudden change of manner. “I want a one-way ticket to Alderdale.”

  The ticket agent placed his hands on the counter and leaned toward the grille which separated him from Doug. There was something ponderously confiding about his attitude, as if impelled by a consuming urge to make known something of the most tremendous importance.

  “Look, young fellow, that’s a dangerous town to go to. If I were you, I’d stay away. Too much of a risk. Lots of people have been disappearing there.”