Costigan's Needle

by Jerry Sohl

  Devan remembered the familiar face. “I should have known. I looked straight at him, too.”

  Orcutt was on his feet. “Listen, Blaine,” he said. “We realize you feel you’re doing right and we won’t say anything if you just get down quietly and leave the building.”

  “Otherwise,” Lieutenant Johnson said, “you’ll end up in the pokey and I’ll take pleasure in arranging it myself.”

  “Blaine,” Devan said, getting up and joining Johnson and Orcutt halfway across the floor. “If you let that pipe drop to those wires, you will be the cause of the death of five men because you will be cutting off their escape from the other side of the Needle’s Eye. They won’t have a way to get back if you put this Needle out of commission.”

  “Just tell that man not to go into the Eye, that’s all,” Blaine said. “Nobody more is supposed to go in there now.”

  “That’s enough,” Johnson said. “You’ve shot off your mouth enough, I think. Now just jump down and we’ll see that you get escorted to the door. You’re interrupting an important experiment.”

  “I’m warning you,” Blaine said, holding the pipe high in the air. “This goes in the wires if you don’t tell the man to get down off the tree.”

  “Blaine, I’m giving you your last chance. Either jump down right now or I’m coming up to get you.”

  Blaine stood uncertain, his eyes big, his tongue running over his lips.

  “We’ll put you away for a long time,” Orcutt said. “You’d better do what the lieutenant says. That wiring is worth a lot of money.”

  Lieutenant Johnson started for the panel, taking a nearby chair with him.

  “I’m coming up, Blaine. No funny stuff or you’ll be sorry.”

  “You stay back!” The man backed away, his mouth working, his face white.

  Suddenly, when Johnson was on the chair ready to boost himself to the top of the panel, Blaine yelled in a strident voice, “I told you!”

  Then he hurled the pipe downward with force.

  A shower of sparks flew up from the panel.

  Costigan’s Needle shuddered. At eight spots on the hull of the Needle appeared dull red, then bright red, then brilliant orange circles. Metal buckled and the lights went out.

  A few minutes later, when the metal cooled, it made crackling noises. As the metal contracted, it turned the tip a little to one side.

  The room was full of smoke.

  There was no sound. Nothing stirred.

  Everything living within a two-block radius of Costigan’s Needle had vanished. Bacteria, human beings, lice, alley cats, yeast, goldfish, grass—all these living things had gone where the five people had gone earlier: through the Eye. Only this time it was an incredibly enlarged Eye, a greatly magnified Eye because of an unprecedented and accidental surge of high-voltage electricity through certain of its solenoids.

  The things that remained behind were in little piles here and there wherever there had been people: dental fillings, bridge-work, dentures, glasses, glass eyes, wigs, false eyelashes, trusses, artificial accessories that had been obvious, others that had been hidden. Now they all lay in plain sight for everyone to see, from the neat rows of clothing of those persons who had been kneeling in prayer at Sudduth’s Rescue Mission to the paw prints of three dogs that had been engaged in a struggle in an alley a block away from the Needle.

  Cars that had been whizzing down the affected streets went on without drivers and crashed. All that remained inside the cars were piles of clothing where the drivers and passengers had been sitting.

  In all, three hundred and ninety-five persons had made the transition.

  Part Two: Displacement

  10

  The lights went out and his chair was pulled from beneath him. It was purely a reflex action, the gasp that Devan gave, but it served him well because before he expelled the breath he was surrounded by water. This was unexpected and frightening and he thrashed about wildly. The more he struggled, the more he needed new air and the more need there was for him to reach the surface, so he increased his efforts and still he did not emerge....

  Reason took over and he stopped working his arms and legs so frantically. Though the water was heavy against his eardrums and his lungs ached for air, he forced himself to remain calm. In a moment his face popped into cold air and he breathed huge chunks of wonderful air.

  After several gulps of fresh air he became aware of the commotion around him, the churning and splashing of many people, occasional bits of water spattering his face, the cries of men and women, the gurgling sounds as people went under. He kicked himself as high out of the water as he could, saw faintly a dark clump of something that looked as if it might be land to his left, started to swim toward it.

  A hand grasped his shoulder, fingernails cutting in deep. An arm circled his neck and threatened to cut off his air. He could hear hoarse breathing in his ear. With this added weight he sank beneath the waves, hearing a confusion of sounds as he went down. His assailant did not move but clung tighter instead.

  Using both hands and summoning all his strength, Devan pried the arm away from around his neck. He kicked for the surface just as the other arm went around his neck and the body moved to face him. They shot through the surface, gasping for breath. In the dim light of night as they bobbed on the water he could see the woman’s terrified, wild-eyed face. It belonged to Betty Peredge. She was looking through him.

  He slapped her hard. Recognition came into her eyes.

  “Let go, Betty!”

  “I—I can’t!” she sobbed, struggling closer, clinging frantically to him. They went under again. This time he pushed violently upward and as they emerged he struck at her head with his fist.

  She let go for a moment, would have grabbed him again if he hadn’t got hold of her long hair, held her away, her head dipping in and out of the water, her nails making shreds of the skin of his arm.

  “Stop it!” he yelled.

  Betty hung onto his arm, taking deep breaths and coughing.

  “I’ll take you to shore,” he said. “Relax.”

  He came up behind her and she did not resist. He cupped one hand under her chin and towed her on her back. She grabbed his hand occasionally, then remembered and let go. In a matter of moments they were making progress in one direction, but Devan was at a disadvantage because he could not lift himself out of the water to see where he was going. He thought he heard waves lapping at a shore to his left, once saw a dog paddle by bound that way, but he could not rely on his hearing because of the shouting and splashing that was still going on around them. Trusting the dog and what he hoped were his own unerring senses, he turned toward his left and struck off that way.

  Arm, exhale, legs, inhale. Reach, arm. Exhale. Scissor, legs. Inhale. Stretch, arm. Exhale. Work, legs. Inhale. Over and over, got to get to shore wherever that is, this way, don’t give up. God, don’t let me give up! Arm, exhale, legs, inhale, pull, exhale, push, inhale, over and over. Soon he became oblivious to the cold of the water and the feel that he was doing anything at all. It was like a dream. Arm, exhale, legs, inhale.

  How much later was it when his arm touched bottom, when his feet brushed bottom, smooth sand, welcome sand? He did not know. He pulled Betty by him until her head struck sand and then she rolled slowly over on her stomach, dug hands into the mushy sand, tried to move farther inshore, could not, lay there moaning. Then she was sick.

  Devan was too weak to do anything but watch through eyes that distorted and blurred and he wondered momentarily where he was and who this person near him was. He then became suddenly comfortable, tired and lazy. It was so pleasant, really, lying there, and he was going to sleep, he so needed sleep, beautiful sleep...

  No. He must not go to sleep. He forced himself up the shore, stood up, leaned over and pulled Betty up the beach a little.

  With a shock he saw that she was naked. Then he realized he was, too.

  The shock passed as quickly as it had come in the moonlight on the beach.
A warm breeze—it seemed warm after the cold water—brushed them dry in a few moments and they revived somewhat, sitting together on the sand, their breaths no longer labored.

  They still had no energy for talk. They looked around, saw that there were others on the beach, some lying on the sand, others sitting and several standing, from what they could make out in the moonlight. There was no sound except the faint whisper of the waves on the shore.

  “What happened?” Betty whispered.

  Devan grunted. “I wish I knew.”

  They stood up, unsteady on their feet. Betty put her arm around him for support and he put his arm around her waist and they managed to walk slowly down the beach, seeing that others were coming in on the waves, hugging the sand when they reached shore. One man was giving artificial respiration to another. Several persons lay face down in the waves, bobbing gently there.

  “Help, mister!” Devan felt someone grab his arm. “Help me, please! It’s Ma. We think she’s dead.” He looked around. It was a boy of about ten years of age standing there looking frightened and dismayed, pulling his arm.

  They followed the lad, walking among people groaning, moaning, sleeping or lying dazed on the beach. Finally they came to two children who were sobbing over an inert form on the cold sand.

  Devan remembered he had seen a new method of artificial respiration but could not recall the details of it. He decided to waste no time trying to figure it out, put the woman’s head on her hands in the old system, used his finger to draw the tongue out of her throat, then knelt and pressed the small of her back, releasing her, lifting her pelvis from the ground.... He knew from the beginning the woman and mother was probably dead. She was like ice.

  “I’ll spell you when,” Betty said, standing beside the boy in the moonlight, her arms around his shoulders, her body perfectly silhouetted in the moonlight.

  “I’ll let you know.” As he worked he looked at the two children, girls, who had stopped their sobbing, their eyes as big as saucers, watching, hoping for the first sign of life from their mother. Devan didn’t have the heart to quit, to tell them what he thought. He’d keep on until his arms fell off.

  Press and lift, press and lift. As he kept on he noticed a man sitting near by who was watching him in fascination, glancing now and then at Betty. Devan didn’t like the expression on the half face the moonlight presented. There was another man not ten feet behind him who had become aware of what was going on around him, too.

  Press and lift, press and lift. The man who had been watching rose to his feet, turned to them and walked slowly over. When he was within a few feet of Betty he swerved, grabbed the arm she had around the boy’s shoulders and pulled her toward him.

  Devan had no alternative. He reached the struggling couple at the same time as the second man. The second man reached out, yanked the first man’s head back by the hair, hit him in the face. The man dropped.

  “Thanks,” Devan said to the man standing over the fallen one. “Thanks a lot.” He came up to see what manner of man it was who lay on the sand, never saw the fist coming. It smashed into his face with sledgehammer force and he felt the beach hit his back.

  If it had not been for the fact that the hurtling body momentarily blocked out the moon, giving Devan warning of its coming, he might have been seriously hurt. The man was a fighter, no doubt of that. Devan rolled quickly to one side, jumped to his feet, turned in time to see a face beautifully unprotected as the man, surprised, started to his feet.

  It was easier hitting the face than he thought it would be. And once the lead was on Devan’s side, it was not too difficult following it up with similar devastating punches.

  When it was over, Devan’s knuckles were bleeding.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “What about the woman?”

  “Come on,” Devan said, guiding her across the beach. “We’ve just discovered this isn’t Main and Elm Streets. There are no police to call.”

  They walked unmolested across the sand which soon gave way to dry grass. The old grass was taller the farther they walked into it, ankle high at first, then knee high and almost waist high before they came to a grove of trees. They stopped. The only sound was the gentle soughing of the warm breeze through bare branches and bushes.

  Betty shivered.

  “Cold?”

  She nodded.

  “Lie down.”

  She looked at him with concern for a moment.

  “I’ll cover you with enough grass to keep you warm.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  She came over to him, her dark eyes frightened, her jet-black hair blowing first on the front side of her shoulder above her breast and then up and over her shoulder again. She pressed his arm with her hands. “Don’t leave me,” she said.

  “I won’t. I’ll be near by.”

  “I—I want you next to me,” she said. “I’d be afraid if I couldn’t touch you, if I didn’t know you were there, Devan.”

  Later, as they lay together, warmed by each other beneath a great heap of dry grass they had gathered, Devan envied Betty her sleep, though it gave him pleasure to think she trusted him enough, that she felt safe enough to sleep. She was exhausted and so was he. Her eyes closed almost at once when she lay down but he knew there could be no sleep for him because of what he had seen on the beach. The men there would soon come to life, if they had not already, and would wander about and... well, he wouldn’t be surprised again.

  To keep himself awake and still not move and disturb Betty and the blanket of grass, Devan kept every sense alert, listening for any sound above the distant murmur of the surf, the crackle of stepped-on grass or twigs, the sound of voices, the thud of footsteps on the earth.

  Where was this? From where he lay he could look over the smooth curve of Betty’s shoulder through a tangle of crosshatch grass to see stars. He had seen a moon before, too. It must be Earth, he reasoned. Where else could it be?

  It was obvious many people had, through some electrical fluke, gone through the Needle’s Eye, their transmigration a direct result of Blaine’s dropping a pipe into the wiring system behind the panel. That much was pretty plain.

  But if they had, then they had followed four policemen and Glenn Basher. Wasn’t that true? Well, where were Basher and Griffin, then? Perhaps they had not survived the fall into the water. But they were men, all young. If any could have made it, they should have.

  Was the Needle a time machine? When you dropped through the Eye, did you go back a thousand years or forward a thousand years? If it was a time machine, then what period of history was this? Certainly it could not be forward, otherwise there would be buildings and people—he hoped there would be people. Surely everybody didn’t get wiped out with the H-bomb.

  He brought his thoughts back into focus. Who were the people he had seen on the beach? How far had the area of the Needle’s influence carried? He had seen perhaps two hundred people all together. Where had they all come from? Had Dr. Costigan made it? Had the others who had been with him near the Needle come through?

  He snorted at the impossibility of answering these last questions while lying where he was and Betty moved a little in her sleep. He was quiet again.

  Where is this? What year is it? To answer that, of course, would mean he was assuming the Needle was a time machine and he felt loath to make that assumption simply because it was so fantastic. Yet what else was there to assume? He and others had dropped through the Needle’s Eye. They dropped through because where they were now was thousands of years before Chicago and the White Man and—but what about the Ice Age? No, the glaciers had built the ground up to the level of the Needle’s Eye and where they were now was before the glaciers came down from the north.

  Or was it? He was getting mixed up. Were the Great Lakes made by glaciers? Then this lake was really Lake Michigan, a Lake Michigan much nearer the glacier age, and it was bigger than it would be later on... The lake did get s
maller as the years went on, didn’t it? His mind reeled at the thoughts of receding glaciers and fresh-water lakes and he could see waves moving majestically toward the shore, the gleaming sun reflected from the ever-moving surface and a warm, comfortable feeling came over him as he drifted into sleep.

  11

  They awakened to a blazing sun and aching bones, the shock of reality staggering their sleepy minds, lying there and looking at each other with wide eyes, daylight filtering through the mound of grass. It wasn’t uncomfortable.

  Devan was surprised at the deep blue of her eyes because they were so much darker blue than he remembered. Much bluer than Beverly’s. And there was always a look of humor about Betty’s eyes, as if she were secretly amused at something or might be getting ready to tell you some diverting story. Steady eyes in an oval face, a face he had not seen as close before and he marveled at the smoothness of the skin, the soft appearance of the lips, the little pieces of grass about the face and in the black hair. As he looked at her, she smiled.

  “You are real, aren’t you?” she whispered.

  “I hope so. You thought it was a dream, too?”

  She nodded, then groaned. “Have you tried to move yet?”

  “Afraid to. Think I’ll just stay here like this. I can’t feel my extremities. I suppose they’re still there.”

  “Maybe we’d be safer if we did stay here. I’d rather, if it’s going to be like what was out there last night.” She blinked her eyes and they brightened. “I didn’t thank you for last night.”

  She was warm and as she looked at him her eyes widened and then he saw she was looking at his mouth. The grass rustled as she kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Just to let you know I appreciated it,” she said. Then she sat up and grass fell in on his face.

  His lips burned where she had kissed him. He brought his hand up, brushed the grass to one side and looked up at her.

  “Well, what’s it like?” The cold of the morning bit his face. He saw her shiver.