by Ray Bradbury
“Just looking,” said Lantry.
“Rather late at night,” said the Attendant.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
That was the wrong answer, too. Everybody slept in this world. Nobody had insomnia. If you did you simply turned on a hypnoray, and, sixty seconds later, you were snoring. Oh, he was just full of wrong answers. First he had made the fatal error of saying he had never been in the Incinerator before, when he knew that all children were brought here on tours, every year, from the time they were four, to instill the idea of the clean fire death and the Incinerator in their minds. Death was a bright fire, death was warmth and the sun. It was not a dark, shadowed thing. That was important in their education. And he, pale, thoughtless fool, had immediately gabbled out his ignorance.
And another thing, this paleness of his. He looked at his hands and realized with growing terror that a pale man also was nonexistent in this world. They would suspect his paleness. That was why the first attendant had asked, “Are you one of those men newly returned from Mars?” Here, now, this new Attendant was clean and bright as a copper penny, his cheeks red with health and energy. Lantry hid his pale hands in his pockets. But he was finally aware of the searching the Attendant did on his face.
“I mean to say,” said Lantry, “I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to think.”
“Was there a service held here a moment ago?” asked the Attendant, looking about.
“I don’t know, I just came in.”
“I thought I heard the fire lock open and shut.”
“I don’t know,” said Lantry.
The man pressed a wall button. “Anderson?”
A voice replied. “Yes.”
“Locate Saul for me, will you?”
“I’ll ring the corridors.” A pause. “Can’t find him.”
“Thanks.” The Attendant was puzzled. He was beginning to make little sniffing motions with his nose. “Do you—smell anything?”
Lantry sniffed. “No. Why?”
“I smell something.”
Lantry took hold of the knife in his pocket. He waited.
“I remember once when I was a kid,” said the man. “And we found a cow lying dead in the field. It had been there two days in the hot sun. That’s what this smell is. I wonder what it’s from?”
“Oh, I know what it is,” said Lantry quietly. He held out his hand. “Here.”
“What?”
“Me, of course.”
“You?”
“Dead several hundred years.”
“You’re an odd joker.” The Attendant was puzzled.
“Very.” Lantry took out the knife. “Do you know what this is?”
“A knife.”
“Do you ever use knives on people any more?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean—killing them, with knives or guns or poison?”
“You are an odd joker!” The man giggled awkwardly.
“I’m going to kill you,” said Lantry.
“Nobody kills anybody,” said the man.
“Not any more they don’t. But they used to, in the old days.”
“I know they did.”
“This will be the first murder in three hundred years. I just killed your friend. I just shoved him into the fire lock.”
That remark had the desired effect. It numbed the man so completely, it shocked him so thoroughly with its illogical aspects that Lantry had time to walk forward. He put the knife against the man’s chest. “I’m going to kill you.”
“That’s silly,” said the man, numbly. “People don’t do that.”
“Like this,” said Lantry. “You see?”
The knife slid into the chest. The man stared at it for a moment. Lantry caught the falling body.
III
The Salem flue exploded at six that morning. The great fire chimney shattered into ten thousand parts and flung itself into the earth and into the sky and into the houses of the sleeping people. There was fire and sound, more fire than autumn made burning in the hills.
William Lantry was five miles away at the time of the explosion. He saw the town ignited by the great spreading cremation of it. And he shook his head and laughed a little bit and clapped his hands smartly together.
Relatively simple. You walked around killing people who didn’t believe in murder, had only heard of it indirectly as some dim gone custom of the old barbarian races. You walked into the control room of the Incinerator and said, “How do you work this Incinerator?” and the control man told you, because everybody told the truth in this world of the future, nobody lied, there was no reason to lie, there was no danger to lie against. There was only one criminal in the world, and nobody knew HE existed yet.
Oh, it was an incredibly beautiful setup. The Control Man had told him just how the Incinerator worked, what pressure gauges controlled the flood of fire gases going up the flue, what levers were adjusted or readjusted. He and Lantry had had quite a talk. It was an easy, free world. People trusted people. A moment later Lantry had shoved a knife in the Control Man also and set the pressure gauges for an overload to occur half an hour later, and walked out of the Incinerator halls, whistling.
Now even the sky was palled with the vast black cloud of the explosion.
“This is only the first,” said Lantry, looking at the sky. “I’ll tear all the others down before they even suspect there’s an unethical man loose in their society. They can’t account for a variable like me. I’m beyond their understanding. I’m incomprehensible, impossible, therefore I do not exist. My God, I can kill hundreds of thousands of them before they even realize murder is out in the world again. I can make it look like an accident each time. Why, the idea is so huge, it’s unbelievable!”
The fire burned the town. He sat under a tree for a long time, until morning. Then, he found a cave in the hills, and went in, to sleep.
He awoke at sunset with a sudden dream of fire. He saw himself pushed into the flue, cut into sections by flame, burned away to nothing. He sat up on the cave floor, laughing at himself. He had an idea.
He walked down into the town and stepped into an audio booth. He dialed OPERATOR. “Give me the Police Department,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” said the operator.
He tried again. “The Law Force,” he said.
“I will connect you with the Peace Control,” she said, at last.
A little fear began ticking inside him like a tiny watch. Suppose the operator recognized the term Police Department as an anachronism, took his audio number, and sent someone out to investigate? No, she wouldn’t do that. Why should she suspect? Paranoids were nonexistent in this civilization.
“Yes, the Peace Control,” he said.
A buzz. A man’s voice answered. “Peace Control. Stephens speaking.”
“Give me the Homicide Detail,” said Lantry, smiling.
“The what?”
“Who investigates murders?”
“I beg your pardon, what are you talking about?”
“Wrong number.” Lantry hung up, chuckling. Ye gods, there was no such a thing as a Homicide Detail. There were no murders, therefore they needed no detectives. Perfect, perfect!
The audio rang back. Lantry hesitated, then answered.
“Say,” said the voice on the phone. “Who are you?”
“The man just left who called,” said Lantry, and hung up again.
He ran. They would recognize his voice and perhaps send someone out to check. People didn’t lie. He had just lied. They knew his voice. He had lied. Anybody who lied needed a psychiatrist. They would come to pick him up to see why he was lying. For no other reason. They suspected him of nothing else. Therefore—he must run.
Oh, how very carefully he must act from now on. He knew nothing of this world, this odd straight truthful ethical world. Simply by looking pale you were suspect. Simply by not sleeping nights you were suspect. Simply by not bathing, by smelling like a—dead cow?—you were suspect. Anything.
He must go to a library. But that was dangerous, too. What were libraries like today? Did they have books or did they have film spools which projected books on a screen? Or did people have libraries at home, thus eliminating the necessity of keeping large main libraries?
He decided to chance it. His use of archaic terms might well make him suspect again, but now it was very important he learn all that could be learned of this foul world into which he had come again. He stopped a man on the street. “Which way to the library?”
The man was not surprised. “Two blocks east, one block north.”
“Thank you.”
Simple as that.
He walked into the library a few minutes later.
“May I help you?”
He looked at the librarian. May I help you, may I help you. What a world of helpful people! “I’d like to ‘have’ Edgar Allan Poe.” His verb was carefully chosen. He didn’t say ‘read.’ He was too afraid that books were passé, that printing itself was a lost art. Maybe all ‘books’ today were in the form of fully delineated three-dimensional motion pictures. How in blazes could you make a motion picture out of Socrates, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Freud?
“What was that name again?”
“Edgar Allan Poe.”
“There is no such author listed in our files.”
“Will you please check?”
She checked. “Oh, yes. There’s a red mark on the file card. He was one of the authors in the Great Burning of 2265.
“How ignorant of me.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “Have you heard much of him?”
“He had some interesting barbarian ideas on death,” said Lantry.
“Horrible ones,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Ghastly.”
“Yes. Ghastly. Abominable, in fact. Good thing he was burned. Unclean. By the way, do you have any of Lovecraft?”
“Is that a sex book?”
Lantry exploded with laughter. “No, no. It’s a man.”
She riffled the file. “He was burned, too. Along with Poe.”
“I suppose that applies to Machen and a man named Derleth and one named Ambrose Bierce, also?”
“Yes.” She shut the file cabinet. “All burned. And good riddance.” She gave him an odd warm look of interest. “I bet you’ve just come back from Mars.”
“Why do you say that?”
“There was another explorer in here yesterday. He’d just made the Mars hop and return. He was interested in supernatural literature, also. It seems there are actually ‘tombs’ on Mars.”
“What are ‘tombs’?” Lantry was learning to keep his mouth closed.
“You know, those things they once buried people in.”
“Barbarian custom. Ghastly!”
“Isn’t it? Well, seeing the Martian tombs made this young explorer curious. He came and asked if we had any of those authors you mentioned. Of course we haven’t even a smitch of their stuff.” She looked at his pale face. “You are one of the Martian rocket men, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Got back on the ship the other day.”
“The other young man’s name was Burke.”
“Of course. Burke! Good friend of mine!”
“Sorry I can’t help you. You’d best get yourself some vitamin shots and some sun lamps. You look terrible, Mr.—?”
“Lantry. I’ll be good. Thanks ever so much. See you next Hallows’ Eve!”
“Aren’t you the clever one.” She laughed. “If there were a Hallows’ Eve, I’d make it a date.”
“But they burned that, too,” he said.
“Oh, they burned everything,” she said. “Good night.”
“Good night.” And he went on out.
Oh, how carefully he was balanced in this world! Like some kind of dark gyroscope, whirling with never a murmur, a very silent man. As he walked along the eight o’clock evening street he noticed with particular interest that there was not an unusual amount of lights about. There were the usual street lights at each corner, but the blocks themselves were only faintly illuminated. Could it be that these remarkable people were not afraid of the dark? Incredible nonsense! Every one was afraid of the dark. Even he himself had been afraid, as a child. It was as natural as eating.
A little boy ran by on pelting feet, followed by six others. They yelled and shouted and rolled on the dark cool October lawn, in the leaves. Lantry looked on for several minutes before addressing himself to one of the small boys who was for a moment taking a respite, gathering his breath into his small lungs, as a boy might blow to refill a punctured paper bag.
“Here, now,” said Lantry. “You’ll wear yourself out.”
“Sure,” said the boy.
“Could you tell me,” said the man, “why there are no street lights in the middle of the blocks?”
“Why?” asked the boy.
“I’m a teacher, I thought I’d test your knowledge,” said Lantry.
“Well,” said the boy, “you don’t need lights in the middle of the block, that’s why.”
“But it gets rather dark,” said Lantry.
“So?” said the boy.
“Aren’t you afraid?” asked Lantry.
“Of what?” asked the boy.
“The dark,” said Lantry.
“Ho ho,” said the boy. “Why should I be?”
“Well,” said Lantry. “It’s black, it’s dark. And after all, street lights were invented to take away the dark and take away fear.”
“That’s silly. Street lights were made so you could see where you were walking. Outside of that there’s nothing.”
“You miss the whole point—” said Lantry. “Do you mean to say you would sit in the middle of an empty lot all night and not be afraid?”
“Of what?”
“Of what, of what, of what, you little ninny! Of the dark!”
“Ho ho.”
“Would you go out in the hills and stay all night in the dark?”
“Sure.”
“Would you stay in a deserted house alone?”
“Sure.”
“And not be afraid?”
“Sure.”
“You’re a liar!”
“Don’t you call me nasty names!” shouted the boy. Liar was the improper noun, indeed. It seemed to be the worst thing you could call a person.
Lantry was completely furious with the little monster. “Look,” he insisted. “Look into my eyes …”
The boy looked.
Lantry bared his teeth slightly. He put out his hands, making a clawlike gesture. He leered and gesticulated and wrinkled his face into a terrible mask of horror.
“Ho ho,” said the boy. “You’re funny.”
“What did you say?”
“You’re funny. Do it again. Hey, gang, c’mere! This man does funny things!”
“Never mind.”
“Do it again, sir.”
“Never mind, never mind. Good night!” Lantry ran off.
“Good night, sir. And mind the dark, sir!” called the little boy.
Of all the stupidity, of all the rank, gross, crawling, jelly-mouthed stupidity! He had never seen the like of it in his life! Bringing the children up without so much as an ounce of imagination! Where was the fun in being children if you didn’t imagine things?
He stopped running. He slowed and for the first time began to appraise himself. He ran his hand over his face and bit his fingers and found that he himself was standing midway in the block and he felt uncomfortable. He moved up to the street corner where there was a glowing lantern. “That’s better,” he said, holding his hands out like a man to an open warm fire.
He listened. There was not a sound except the night breathing of the crickets. Finally there was a fire-hush as a rocket swept the sky. It was the sound a torch might make brandished gently on the dark air.
He listened to himself and for the first time he realized what there was so peculiar to himself. There was not a sound in him. The littl
e nostril and lung noises were absent. His lungs did not take nor give oxygen or carbon dioxide; they did not move. The hairs in his nostrils did not quiver with warm combing air. That faint purling whisper of breathing did not sound in his nose. Strange. Funny. A noise you never heard when you were alive, the breath that fed your body, and yet, once dead, oh how you missed it!
The only other time you ever heard it was on deep dreamless awake nights when you wakened and listened and heard first your nose taking and gently poking out the air, and then the dull deep dim red thunder of the blood in your temples, in your eardrums, in your throat, in your aching wrists, in your warm loins, in your chest. All of those little rhythms, gone. The wrist beat gone, the throat pulse gone, the chest vibration gone. The sound of the blood coming up down around and through, up down around and through. Now it was like listening to a statue.
And yet he lived. Or, rather, moved about. And how was this done, over and above scientific explanations, theories, doubts?
By one thing, and one thing alone.
Hatred.
Hatred was a blood in him, it went up down around and through, up down around and through. It was a heart in him, not beating, true, but warm. He was—what? Resentment. Envy. They said he could not lie any longer in his coffin in the cemetery. He had wanted to. He had never had any particular desire to get up and walk around. It had been enough, all these centuries, to lie in the deep box and feel but not feel the ticking of the million insect watches in the earth around, the moves of worms like so many deep thoughts in the soil.
But then they had come and said, “Out you go and into the furnace!” And that is the worst thing you can say to any man. You cannot tell him what to do. If you say you are dead, he will want not to be dead. If you say there are no such things as vampires, by God, that man will try to be one just for spite. If you say a dead man cannot walk, he will test his limbs. If you say murder is no longer occurring, he will make it occur. He was, in toto, all the impossible things. They had given birth to him with their practices and ignorances. Oh, how wrong they were. They needed to be shown. He would show them! Sun is good, so is night, there is nothing wrong with dark, they said.