Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 (67 page)

"Get out of my way, you idiot, I know which direction!" He shoved Wilson
aside, and strode up the steps and into the building.

"It started about an hour ago … didn't know what was happ—"

"And you didn't call me immediately? Ass!"

"We just thought, we just thought it was another one of his stages,
you
know how he is …"

Tedrow snorted in disgust and threw off his topcoat as he made his way
rapidly down the corridor to the section of the sanitarium that housed the
restraining rooms.

As they came into the annex, through the heavy glass-portaled door, he
heard the scream for the first time.

In that scream, in that tormented, pleading, demanding and hopelessly lost
tremor there were all the sounds of fear he had ever heard. In that voice
he heard even his own voice, his own soul, crying out for something.

For an unnamable something, as the scream came again.

"Give me some light!"

Another world, another voice, another life. Some evil empty beseeching
from a corner of a dust-strewn universe. Hanging there timelessly, vibrant
in colorless agony. A million tired and blind stolen voices all wrapped
into that one howl, all the eternal sadnesses and losses and pains ever
known to man. It was all there, as the good in the world was sliced open
and left to bleed its golden fluid away in the dirt. It was a lone animal
being eaten by a bird of prey. It was a hundred children crushed beneath
iron treads. It was one good man with his entrails in his blood-soaked
hands. It was the soul and the pain and the very vital fiber of life,
draining away, without light, without hope, without succor.

"Give me some light!"

Tedrow flung himself at the door and threw back the bolt on the
observation window. He stared for a long and silent moment as the scream
trembled once more on the air, weightlessly, transparently, tingling off
into emptiness. He stared, and felt the impact of a massive horror stifle
his own cry of disbelief and terror.

Then he spun away from the window and hung there, sweat-drenched back flat
to the wall, with the last sight of Richard Becker he would ever hope to
see, burned forever behind his eyes.

The sound of his sobs in the corridor held the others back. They stared
silently, still hearing that never-spoken echo reverberating down and down
and down the corridors of their minds:

Give me some light!

Fumbling beside him, Tedrow slammed the observation window shut, and then
his arm sank back to his side.

Inside room 16, lying up against the far wall, his back against the soft
passive padding, Richard Becker looked out at the door, at the corridor,
at the world, forever.

Looked out as he had in his first moment of life: purely and simply.

Without a face. From his hairline to his chin, a blank, empty, featureless
expanse. Empty. Silent. Devoid of sight or smell or sound. Blank and
faceless, a creature God had never deigned to bless with a mirror to the
world. His Method now was gone.

Richard Becker, actor, had played his last part, and had gone away, taking
with him Richard Becker, a man who had known all the sights, all the
sounds, all the life of fear.

The End

Copyright © 1962 by Harlan Ellison. Revised, copyright © 1977 by
Harlan Ellison. Renewed,1990, 2005 by Harlan Ellison. Reprinted by
arrangement with, and permission of, the Author and the Author's Agent,
Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., New York. All rights reserved. Harlan
Ellison is a registered trademark of The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

Robert Bloch

When Jimmie Hartnett came back to Highland Springs he was twenty-five
years old, and there was some argument as to just how he looked.

According to the matronly friends of his late mother, he resembled a Greek
god. Their daughters, on the other hand, were more apt to describe him as
a "living doll." But everyone agreed that he was an extremely handsome
young man.

Since Jimmie Hartnett was a lieutenant (j.g.) on terminal leave, it was
quite proper for him to wear his dress uniform on formal occasions—and
there were formal occasions aplenty, once the matrons and their daughters
got a glimpse of him. The uniform did things for his curly brown crewcut,
his deep tan, his blue eyes. In a month or so he'd probably have to
content himself with the gray flannel suit which is the normal attire of
young men in even so prosperous a suburb as Highland Springs, but
meanwhile he cut an impressive figure at the country club.

And it was there, during the third set of a Saturday night dance, that he
met Millicent Tavish.

Somebody—it doesn't really matter who, and Jimmie never remembered—led
him over and introduced him to the tall, slim blonde wearing the diamond
earrings. Jimmie acknowledged the introduction with his standard boyish
grin and offered the standard invitation for the next dance, with his
standard warning that he was not a very good dancer. This was nonsense, of
course, for Jimmie was an excellent performer both on and off the dance
floor, and nobody was more aware of it than himself.

But genuine blondes wearing genuine diamond earrings are a rarity indeed,
and Jimmie was quite determined to make an impression. He was all set to
lead off with a few opening remarks—perhaps something about how
unusual it was to discover a wild orchid in suburbia—when Millicent
Tavish took the play away from him.

"You don't remember me, do you?" she asked.

Jimmie stared down at the upturned face. Pale complexion, flushed cheeks,
downcast eyes told him nothing, except that the girl was inwardly excited
by his presence. A good thing, but no clue. Nose slightly snub, firm chin,
even teeth, high cheekbones, straight hair—Jimmie catalogued her
features, thinking what a pity it was he seldom retained a memory of
faces. He was much better on bodies. When it came to a matter of breasts
and thighs (as it so frequently did), his memory was encyclopedic. But
this was neither the time nor the place, unfortunately, and besides he was
quite certain he had never been closer to this particular female than he
was at present. All he could do was grin and stall for time.

"Think hard, now," she was saying. "It's over six years since you went
away to college and the navy, and you'll have to go further back than
that. I used to live on Williams Street. Millie Tavish. Does that help
any?"

Jimmie blinked at her and came to a standstill over in a corner of the
dance floor.

"Millie," he said. "Now I remember. Millie the—" He stopped quickly,
conscious that his ears were reddening, but she gave a little laugh and
pressed his hand with a moist palm.

"Go ahead and say it," she told him. "Millie the Mule. After all, you're
the one who christened me, aren't you? You must have called me that a
thousand times."

"No," said Jimmie.

"But you did. And you used to pull my hair—"

"That isn't what I meant. I meant, 'No, it can't be.' Come out here and
let me get a good look at you."

"On the terrace? There isn't much light there." But she came willingly
enough, and when he tilted her face she bore his scrutiny with a soft
smile.

"I can't believe it," he muttered. "Millie Tavish. You were just a scrawny
little kid with freckles and buck teeth." He flushed. "Sounds like the
dialogue in one of those corny movies, doesn't it?"

Her smile broadened. "Yes. And then I remind you that I was seventeen when
you left town, and a girl grows up in six years."

"Yes, but—"

"I know what you're thinking," she murmured. "I didn't just grow up, did
I? You want to know what became of the teeth that stuck out, and the big
nose, and the long chin. You want to know what happened to Millie the
Mule."

"Please."

"Don't worry, I want to tell you. You, more than anyone else. Because you
did it."

Her palm was very wet now, but she gripped his hand tightly. "This isn't a
movie, Jimmie. This isn't the scene where the hero comes back and finds
the ugly duckling transformed into a lovely swan. I was an ugly duckling,
but there was no chance I'd ever just outgrow it. I could have been Millie
the Mule all my life, the way you thought of me."

"Kids are kind of cruel, I guess," Jimmie said.

"'Kind of cruel'? They're monsters." Her voice faltered, then went on.
"You'll never know how bad it was, Jimmie. But I might have stood it, if
it hadn't been for you. Even then I was sure you'd be coming back some
day. So that's why I had myself changed."

"Had yourself—?"

"Three years ago, after Dad and Mommy died, in the crash on the turnpike.
But you didn't hear about that, did you?"

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not. Maybe it's a dreadful thing to say, but I'm almost glad. Dad
never paid any attention to me; he'd always wanted a boy. And Mom was
ashamed of the way I looked. She used to nag me and worry out loud about
what would happen after she was gone and I'd be all alone in the world. I
think she hated me, really."

"Millie, you mustn't talk about it."

"But I must. It's important. I want to tell you what happened. When the
folks died, and I came into the estate, I didn't go back to college. I
went into the hospital instead. Dr. Madison worked on me. Everybody says
he's the best plastic surgeon in this part of the country. Do you think he
did a good job?"

"You're beautiful."

"Do you really mean that?"

"You're a beautiful woman, Millie."

"It took a long time, Jimmie. And it hurt, quite a lot. But it was worth
it, to hear you say that."

Jimmie smiled down at her. She
was
beautiful; the doctor had done
his work so well that you couldn't even see the scars. And he could see
the way her eyes were shining, and he could see the diamond earrings
sparkling too, and this made him remember that old man Tavish had been
loaded. He must have left his only daughter a fortune. All at once Jimmie
wasn't worried about exchanging his uniform for a gray flannel suit. Why
not a yachting outfit, for example? Besides, there comes a time when a man
ought to think about settling down.

He put his hands on Millie's bare shoulders, conscious that she was
trembling.

"Would you like me to tell you more, darling?" he murmured …

It was a big wedding in the big church, with the biggest crowd, the
biggest reception, and just about the biggest spread on the society page.
And the honeymoon was big, too.

They went to Bermuda, and they were very happy together. Jimmie was
accustomed to being happy, of course, but it seemed an almost overwhelming
experience for Millie. He couldn't quite understand it when, after making
love, she would whisper to him, "Darling, that was like the tolling of
great bells."

But Millie often talked that way. Apparently she'd been a great one for
reading during her lonely adolescence, and even now she spent a lot of
time with her nose buried in a book.

Jimmie didn't go for that; he'd read his share of books in college, but
even then it had come hard. He'd been grateful for the help of chicks like
whatever her name was; some little redhead he'd shacked up with all during
his senior year.

The point was, no sense wasting time on reading now. He'd cracked his last
exam, and he wouldn't be boning up for any job, either. Not with all the
loot Millie had. Be enough of a nuisance just keeping track of the income
from the estate and running the big house back in Highland Springs.

He wasn't anxious to go back, and even talked to Millie about buying a
yacht, but she didn't go for the idea. Then he suggested they hop a plane
to Jamaica and hook up with a luxury cruise through the Caribbean. They'd
met another young couple in Nassau, the Wilsons, and they could travel
together.

Millie rejected that notion, too. Maybe she had some sneaking idea about
Mrs. Wilson. A lush little number, no doubt about it, and she did wave her
eyelashes and other things when Jimmie was around, but Millie should have
known better. A guy doesn't step out of line when he's on his honeymoon.
Anyway, he had his hands full the way it was.

But Millie wanted to go home, so they returned to Highland Springs and
opened the big house. There was a lot of excitement about redecorating and
refurnishing, and Jimmie let her handle everything.

What got him excited was the new four-car garage and its contents: the big
Lincoln, the Caddy station wagon, Millie's convertible and the loaded Jag
she bought him on their first month's anniversary. When he got the Jag he
insisted on putting in a fancy selection of tools and equipment; there was
plenty of room in the garage, and he liked to putter around with engines.

Not that he had much time for it, because the minute the house was ready,
Millie began to throw parties. She'd hire a caterer and a big staff and
invite a gang over, and she really had herself a ball playing hostess and
introducing Jimmie to all the big wheels and their wives. You could see
she got a large charge out of showing him off.

Jimmie didn't get such a big bang out of it. Oh, it was nice at first, but
the novelty wore off. And the people were cubes. Every once in a while
some fluff turned up, only there was no chance to do anything about it.
Jimmie watched his step, and he was almost glad when Millie decided she'd
had enough of parties for a while.

Then it was just sitting around, mostly; Millie liked to read, and he'd go
out and putter with the Jag. They didn't talk very much about plans. Once
or twice she brought up the subject of kids, but Jimmie thought it would
be better if they waited a while and enjoyed life while they were still
young. He tried to interest her in another trip, and she said not now,
next year perhaps, and didn't he like it here?

Of course there was only one answer to that. Only one answer she seemed to
want. And since they were alone together so much, he had no choice. Millie
just couldn't seem to realize that there comes a time when the honeymoon
is over.