The Old South Yard.
By the time he reaches the Ansford gravesite the rain is pelting down. Forked lightning stitches the sky. Ben stops suddenly, dropping to one knee and snapping off the flash.
A dark figure busily shovels the last of the rain-soft earth away from Charles Ansford’s coffin, then leans over to pry aside the lid.
Ben moves forward, to the lip of the grave, looks down, snapping on the flash.
Arly Stubbs shades his eyes in the sudden glare of light. Fear is etched into the sagging lines of his face.
“Get up here, Stubbs!”
Arly climbs out, attempts a smile. “I was just checkin to see that everythin’ was all tidy like—what with the rain an’ all.”
Ben chuckles. “Reason you’re here couldn’t have anything to do with that fancy gold watch you saw him buried with, could it? The one he’s still wearing?”
Arly shakes his head, the rain running down his face like tears. “God’s truth, mister—I don’t know nothin about no gold watch.”
“You lie, Stubbs.”
“May the good Lord strike me dead if I—”
“I’ll just give Him a little help!”
And Carrick swings the heavy iron shovel in a hard arc. It smashes into Arly’s skull with a flat, thudding sound—driving the caretaker violently back into the open grave. He falls across the coffin, arms splayed, his head crushed like the body of a stepped-on insect.
Ben drops down into the damp trench, wrestles the corpse of Arly Stubbs aside, pries open the lid of the coffin. Shines the light inside.
Ben’s eyes widen. He gasps.
The coffin is full of rats.
They have eaten through one Conner of the oak, and are busily devouring the remains of Charles Ansford. Now their red-flecked eyes shine wickedly up at Carrick in the beam of light.
“Get away from him, damn you!” And Ben grabs the shovel to club at them. Squealing angrily, they retreat through the coffin hole.
Carrick puts the shovel aside, opens the dead man’s rat-savaged coat, feels for the watch. Not there! Is it on Stubbs?
Frantically, Ben searches the lifeless caretaker, probing roughly through the rain-sodden clothing. Finds nothing.
A faint yellow glint at the bottom of the coffin catches his eye. He aims the flash beam at the rat-gnawed corner—in time to see the edge of the round gold pocket watch disappear through the hole. A rat is dragging it into the tunnels!
With a strangled cry of rage and frustration, Carrick thrusts his right arm through the hole, fingers scrabbling for the watch. He snags the gold chain.
“Got it!” As he starts to withdraw his prize he feels sharp teeth close on his wrist. Carrick jerks his arm free in a spray of blood, dropping the watch the floor of the coffin.
A plump gray rat clings obscenely to his wrist, its needled teeth still buried in Carrick’s flesh!
Cursing wildly, Ben uses his free hand to smash at the fetid creature with the heavy metal flashlight, pinning it against the cold wood of the coffin and crushing its head. As the dead rat falls away from him, Carrick bends to scoop up the watch. The gold face gleams in the light of Ben’s flash as he claws open the hinged lid. Yes, yes! Victory!
He delicately removes the thin strip of microfilm, holds it in front of the beam. The coded numbers are there.
“Rich! By God, I’m rich!”
A sound above him. He looks up. Into the raw, percussive burst of a .45, fired point-blank at his chest.
Ben Carrick does not feel the grave dirt as it covers his body—covering, also, the bodies of Arly Stubbs and Charles Ansford.
Within the grave, a final darkness.
At the far edge of the coffin, several ugly, whiskered snouts probe the blackness. The rats are very fortunate.
They scurry forward in an excited, chittering tide.
To enjoy a triple feast.
Blue sky. Sunlight on a field of clouds, white and serene, stretching to a false horizon below the massive jetliner.
Laura Ansford sits by a port window, looking relaxed, sleek, and liberated. She picks up her purse, unsnaps it, takes out an envelope. Reaches inside, removing the thin strip of microfilm. Holds it up against the glare from the window. Smiles as she reviews the coded numbers.
Too bad about Ben. He had been amusing. She had enjoyed guiding his hand in murder. And she owed him so much. She’d been horribly depressed when she had learned that Charles had burned the codebook. But then dear Ben had worked out the microfilm solution. How clever he’d been! Shooting him was an unpleasant necessity, since he had planned on keeping the money for himself. But she could certainly understand that. She’d never liked sharing things. Particularly money. Poor Ben would have had to be eliminated in any case, at a later date. But now at least it was over.
The voice of the air hostess breaks into Laura’s thoughts. She is leaning toward her from the aisle. “Pardon, but I’m checking passenger destinations. Will you be leaving the aircraft in Paris?”
“No,” Laura tells her, “I’m flying straight through.” A bright smile. “To Zürich.”
00:16
ONE OF THOSE DAYS
Several of my stories deal with the shock effect of mental breakdown—and surely the inescapable horrors of the mind are more fearsome than any outside force. What we imagine is usually far worse than what we actually encounter This story is deceptive. On a surface level, “One of Those Days” is light and humorous. A brisk note of cheer is maintained throughout. But, in truth, what we see through the main character’s eyes is anything but funny. He is madness personified. His jaunty walk takes him into the unsettling territory of bedlam. And, by the story’s end, we know he will never leave it.
Responding to this tale’s below-surface level, Judith Merril chose “One of Those Days” for her 8th Annual Year’s Best SF—and it was also anthologized in Charles Beaumont’s The Fiend in You.
And that’s who it’s for—the fiend in all of us.
ONE OF THOSE DAYS
I knew it was going to be one of those days when I heard a blue-and-yellow butterfly humming Si, mi chiamano Mi mi, my favorite aria from La Bohème. I was weeding the garden when the papery insect fluttered by, humming beautifully.
I got up, put aside my garden tools, and went into the house to dress. Better see my psychoanalyst at once.
Neglecting my cane and spats, I snapped an old homburg on my head and aimed for Dr. Mellowthin’s office in downtown Los Angeles. Several disturbing things happened to me on the way...
First of all, a large stippled tomcat darted out of an alley immediately after I’d stepped from the bus. The cat was walking on its hind legs and carried a bundle of frothy pink blanketing in its front paws. It looked desperate.
“Gangway!” shouted the cat. “Baby! Live baby here! Clear back. BACK for the baby!”
Then it was gone, having dipped cat-quick across the street, losing itself in heavy traffic. Drawing in a deep lungful of air, smog-laden but steadying, I resumed my brisk pace toward Dr. Mellowthin’s office.
As I passed a familiar apartment house a third-story window opened and Wally Jenks popped his head over the sill and called down to me. “Hi,” yelled Wally. “C’mon up for a little drinkie. Chop, chop.”
I shaded my eyes to get a clearer look at him, and yelled back: “On my way to Mellowthin’s.”
“Appointment?” he queried.
“Spur of the moment,” I replied.
“Then time’s no problem. Up you come, old dads, or I shan’t forgive you.”
I sighed and entered the building. Jenks was 3G, and I decided to use the stairs. Elevators trap you. As I reached the second-floor landing I obeyed an irresistible urge to bend down and place my ear close to the base of the wall near the floor.
“You mice still in there?” I shouted.
To which a thousand tiny musical Disney-voices shot back: “Damned right we are!”
I shrugged, adjusted my homburg, and continued the upward climb.
Jenks met me at the door with a dry martini.
“Thanks,” I said, sipping. As usual, it was superb. Old Wally sure knew his martinis.
“Well,” he said,“How goes.’”
“Badsville,” I answered. “Care to hear?”
“By all means. Unburden.”
We sat down, facing one another across the tastefully furnished room. I sipped the martini and told Wally about things. “This morning, ‘bout forty minutes ago, I heard a butterfly humming Puccini. Then I saw a cat carrying what I can only suppose was a live baby.”
“Human?”
“Don’t know. Could have been a cat-baby.”
“Cat say anything?”
“He shouted ‘Gangway!’”
“Proceed.”
“Then, on the way up here, I had a brief conversational exchange with at least a thousand mice.”
“In the walls?”
“Where else?”
“Finish your drinkie,” said Jenks, finishing his. I did so.
“Nother?” he asked.
“Nope. Got to be trotting. I’m in for a mental purge.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much,” he assured me. “Humming insects, talking felines and oddball answering mice are admittedly unsettling. But... there are stranger things in this world.”
I looked at him. And knew he was correct—for old Wally Jenks had turned into a loose-pelted brown camel with twin humps, all stained and worn looking at the tops. I swallowed.
“See you,” I said.
Wally grinned, or rather the camel did, and it was awful. Long, cracked yellow teeth like old carnival dishes inside his black gums. I gave a nervous little half-wave and moved for the door. One final glance over my shoulder at old Jenks verified the fact that he was still grinning at me with those big wet desert-red eyes of his.
Back on the street I quickened my stride, anxious now to reach Mellowthin and render a full account of the day’s events. Only a halfblock to go.
Then a policeman stopped me. He was all sweaty inside his tight uniform, and his face was dark with hatred.
“Thought you was the wise one, eh Mugger?” he rasped, his voice venom-filled. “Thought you could give John Law the finger!”
“But officer, I don’t—”
“Come right along, Mugger. We got special cages for the likes a you.”
He was about to snap a pair of silver cuffs over my wrists when I put a quick knee to his vitals and rabbit-punched him on the way down. Then I grabbed his service revolver.
“Here!” I shouted to several passers-by. “This man is a fraud. Killed a cop to get this rig. He’s a swine of the worst sort. Record as long as your arm. Blackmail, rape, arson, auto-theft, kidnapping, grand larceny, wife-beating, and petty pilfering. You name it, he has done it.”
I thrust the revolver at a wide-eyed, trembling woman. “Take this weapon, lady. And if he makes a funny move, shoot to kill!”
She aimed the gun at the stunned policeman, who was only now getting his breath. He attempted to rise.
“OOPS!” I yelled, “he’s going for a knife. Let him have it! Quick!”
The trembling woman shut her eyes and pulled the trigger. The cop pitched forward on his face.
“May heaven forgive you!” I moaned, backing away. “You’ve killed an officer of the law, a defender of the public morals. May heaven be merciful!”
The woman flapped off. She had turned into a heavy-billed pelican. The policeman had become a fat-bellied seal with flippers, but he was still dead.
Hurrying, and somewhat depressed, I entered Dr. Mellowthin’s office and told the girl at the desk it was an emergency.
“You may go right in,” she told me. “The doctor will see you at oncer In another moment I was pumping Mellowthin’s hand.
“Sit down, boy,” he told me. “So—we’ve got our little complications again today, have we?”
“Sure have,” I said, pocketing one of his cigars. I noted that it was stale.
“Care to essay the couch?”
I slid onto the dark rich leather and closed my eyes.
“Now tell us all about it.”
“First, a butterfly sang La Bohème, or hummed it rather. Then a tom-cat ran out of an alley with a baby in its paws. Then some mice in an apartment house yelled at me. Then one of my oldest and dearest friends turned into a camel.”
“One hump or two?” asked Mellowthin.
“Two,” I said. “Large and scruffy and all worn at the tops.”
“Anything else?”
“Then a big pseudo-Irish cop stopped me. His dialogue was fantastic. Called me Mugger. Said I was fit for a cage. Started to put cuffs on me. I kneed him in the kishkas and gave his gun to a nice trembly lady who shot him. Then she turned into a pelican and flapped off and he turned into a seal with flippers. Then I came here.”
I opened my eyes and stared at Dr. Mellowthin. “What’s the matter?” he asked, somewhat uneasily. “Well,” I said, “to begin with, you have large brown, sad-looking liquidy eyes.”
“And...”
“And I bet your nose is cold!” I grinned.
“Anything else?”
“Not really.”
“What about my overall appearance?”
“Well, of course, you’re covered with long black shaggy hair, even down to the tips of your big floppy ears.” A moment of strained silence. “Can you do tricks?” I asked.
“A few,” Mellowthin replied, shifting in his chair.
“Roll over!” I commanded.
He did.
“Play dead!”
His liquidy eyes rolled up white and his long pink tongue lolled loosely from his jaws.
“Good doggie,” I said. “Nice doggie.”
“Woof,” barked Dr. Mellowthin softly, wagging his tail.
Putting on my homburg, I tossed him a bone I’d saved from the garden and left his office.
There was no getting around it.
This was simply one of those days.
00:17
DARK WINNER
To some degree, as we move through life, there is a conflict in all of us—between the child we were and the adult we have become. They belong in different worlds. I know that the boy in me, Billy Nolan, is not career oriented and doesn’t give a damn for money or new cars or fine houses. He thinks that William F. Nolan is something of a bore. Billy would rather loaf than work, prefers daydreams to reality, and has absolutely no goals relating to material or creative success.
Most of the time I ignore him. For months at a stretch I forget about him entirely. But Billy is still in there, down deep, and is likely to pop up at odd times in a attempt to assert himself. In his selfish boyhood way, he’d like to see me fail as an adult.
“Dark Winner” deals with Billy, and is based on a trip back to Missouri when I took my wife on a tour of my old neighborhood, now fallen into ruin. Our trip inspired this story. It has no snap ending, no twists, no surprises. It is just a quietly-told little tale of evil drawn from the twiltght zone of my inner self. I’m not even sure I like it.
But I know Billy does.
DARK WINNER
NOTE: The following is an edited transcript of a taped conversation between Mrs. Franklin Evans, resident of Woodland Hills, California, and Lt. Harry W. Lyle of the Kansas City Police Department.
Transcript is dated 12 July. K.C. Missouri.
LYLE:... and if you want us to help you we’ll have to know everything. When did you arrive here, Mrs. Evans?
MRS.EVANS: We just got in this morning. A stopover on our trip from New York back to California. We were at the airport when Frank suddenly got this idea about his past.
LYLE: What idea?
MRS. E: About visiting his old neighborhood... the school he went to... the house where he grew up... He hadn’t been back here in twenty-five years.
LYLE: So you and your husband planned this... nostalgic tour?
MRS. E: Not planned. It was very abrupt... Fra
nk seemed... suddenly... possessed by the idea.
LYLE: So what happened?
MRS. E: We took a cab out to Flora Avenue... to 31st... and we visited his old grade school. St. Vincent’s Academy. The neighborhood is... well, I guess you know it’s a slum area now... and the school is closed down, locked. But Frank found an open window... climbed inside...
LYLE: While you waited?
MRS. E: Yes—in the cab. When Frank came out he was all... upset... Said that he... Well, this sounds...
LYLE: Go on, please.
MRS. E: He said he felt... very close to his childhood while he was in there. He was ashen-faced... his hands were trembling.
LYLE: What did you do then?
MRS. E: We had the cab take us up 31st to the Isis Theatre. The movie house at 31st and Troost where Frank used to attend those Saturday horror shows they had for kids. Each week a new one... Frankenstein... Dracula... you know the kind I mean.
LYLE: I know.
MRS. E: It’s a porno place now... but Frank bought a ticket anyway... went inside alone. Said he wanted to go into the balcony, find his old seat... see if things had changed...
LYLE: And?
MRS. E: He came out looking very shaken... saying it had happened again.
LYLE: What had happened again?
MRS. E: The feeling about being close to his past... to his childhood... As if he could—
LYLE: Could what, Mrs. Evans?
MRS. E:... step over the line dividing past and present... step back into his childhood. That’s the feeling he said he had.
LYLE: Where did you go from the Isis?
MRS. E: Frank paid off the cab... said he wanted to walk to his old block... the one he grew up on... 33rd and Forest. So we walked down Troost to 33rd... past strip joints and hamburger stands... I was nervous... we didn’t... belong here... Anyway, we got to 33rd and walked down the hill from Troost to Forest... and on the way Frank told me how much he’d hated being small, being a child... that he could hardly wait to grow up... that to him childhood was a nightmare...
LYLE: Then why all the nostalgia?
Things Beyond Midnight Page 19