Chapter II: Part 2

Nearly two months passed before I returned to the settlement on my way back to Cuyaba. I had separated from the government party several days before and I arrived with my own Indian guides.

I immediately crossed to Cecil Hubbers' shack. He was not on the veranda. I went up the three steps and rapped on the screen door. A short swarthy man who looked part Indian and part Portuguese got up from a cot inside and came to the screen. I asked for Mr. Hubbers.

"He's dead," the dark man said in good English.

Somehow I had expected it, but still I was startled.

"What happened?" I inquired bluntly.

The man rolled his thick shoulders as if explanations were distasteful to him. "The little bat took too much blood," he said. "One morning they found him dead on his bed."

"How horrible! I'm very sorry," I said. And I meant it.

There was something more I wanted to know. "Did they ever find out how the bat got in?" I asked.

The man rolled his shoulders again. "It didn't get in," he said. "It _was_ in--all the time. It was living in his hat."

I stared at him and I suspect my mouth fell open.

He nodded. "The bat clung by day in the top of Mr. Hubbers' funny big hat. He never took his hat off except at bedtime; it was always dark inside. At night the vampire came out and fed on him. After he was dead, we found the bat asleep in the top of his hat, on the shelf. It was a very fat bat and we killed it."

I stood there on the porch remembering Cecil Hubbers' huge high-crowned, cone-shaped straw hat--the hat that left his head only just before he crawled under his mosquito net at night.

In spite of the close moist warmth of that clearing, I felt myself enveloped by an eerie chill.

"It's--unbelievable!" I murmured, half to myself.

The dark man turned from the door with a shrug. "He's dead!" he grumbled.

THE SEVENTH INCANTATION

"Of these black prayers or incantations there be seven, three for ordinarie charmes and aides, and the like numbere for the unholie and compleat destruction of alle enemie. But of the seventh the curious in alle these partes are warned. Let not the last incantation be recited, unlesse ye desire the sight of moste aweful deamon. Although it be said the deamon shews not unlesse the wordes be spake by the bloodie altar of the Olde Ones, yet it were well to beware. For it be knowne that the Saracen sorcerer, Mal Lazal, dide wantonlie chante the dire wordes and the deamon dide come--and not finding a bloodie offering did rage at the wizard and rende him exceedinglie. The life bloode of a childe or chaste maid be best, yet a beaste, a goode ox or sheep, is said sufficient. But beware lest the beaste be dead when the bloode be taken, for then shall the deamon's rage be dire. If the offering be well, the deamon shall give unholie power, so that the servant grow riche and reache above alle his neighbors."

For the third time, and with growing excitement, Emmet Telquist read the faded words. They were contained in a crumbling and curious and probably unique bound manuscript book which he had discovered quite by accident some days before while shuffling through the dust-laden packing crates which held his deceased uncle's library.

The book was entitled simply "True Magik", and the writer signed himself "Theophilis Wenn." Quite possibly the name was a pseudonym; certainly, judging by the contents, the rash author must have had reason to keep secret his real identity.

The book was a veritable encyclopedia of devils' lore. There was everywhere manifest a genuine and erudite scholarship which had been lavished on a vast variety of esoteric and forbidden subjects. There were detailed discussions on enchantments and possession, paragraphs on vampirism and ghoul legend, pages devoted to demonology, witch worship, and eldrich idols, notes on holocaust rites, unspeakable maculations and fearsome full-moon sacrifices to the powers of pristine darkness.

Evidently the writer had been a necromancer of note. The style in general was arbitrary and assured, betraying egoism and not a little arrogance. There was no faint note of humor. Theophilis Wenn--or whoever it was that disguised his true identity under that name--had written in dire earnest. Of that there could be no doubt.

Emmet Telquist, the village outcast, the bitter misanthropic issue of an infamous father and a mother who had died insane, regarded the book as a sudden treasure, a secret storehouse of knowledge and power which would enable him to compete with his more successful neighbors.

He had always been an outsider, a misfit, the subject of vindictive local gossip and criticism. He had always felt himself more or less allied to inhuman laws and agencies.

His uncle, the only relative he ever remembered, had been a sour, black-hearted brooding old man who tolerated him only because of the chores and errands which he performed. He never had had the slightest doubt that his uncle would have disowned him utterly had he not been a useful drudge. The bond of blood would have been meaningless to the old man.

As a matter of fact, had it not been for his sudden and somewhat mysterious death, the scoundrel probably would have seen to it that his nephew inherited only black memories. But since no will had been located, Emmet Telquist had gained possession of his uncle's rambling farm house and such meager chattels as it contained.

But as he squinted eagerly at the quaint faded hand-writing of the necromancer, Theophilis Wenn, Telquist began to believe that the manuscript book was by far the most valuable item which his evil relative had unintentionally put into his hands.

Furthermore, a number of matters which had always puzzled him in the past became less baffling. He had often wondered about the peculiar behavior of his uncle--his long absences from the house, especially at night, the muttering and mumbling which frequently came from his room, his unexplained sources of income.

With a sense of mounting suspense and expectation, he turned the pages whereon the seventh incantation was inscribed. It was written in a peculiar bluish-grey ink which seemed faintly phosphorescent. He did not dare to read the words; he merely glanced at them, ascertaining that they were what appeared to be merely a jumble of meaningless vowel sounds frequently interspersed with the name "Nyogtha."

Grinning slyly to himself, he turned back the pages and reread the paragraph which served as an introduction and explanation of the incantations. Well he knew what Theophilis Wenn had in mind when he referred to the "bloodie altar of the Old Ones"! He, Emmet Telquist, had seen such an altar.

Although that had been years before when the swamp was not as nearly impassable as it had since become, he had no doubt that he could locate the accursed sacrificial cromlech. How well he remembered crawling along the faint raised pathway which wound through the swamp! The sudden, unexpected knoll, dark, somehow, even in the mid-day sunlight, the circle of huge monoliths, the mound in the center, the enormous flat slab on its top, rusty red with an unspeakable eldrich stain which even the rains and winds of centuries could not blot out!

He had never spoken of his discovery to anyone. The swamp was a forbidden place--ostensibly because of rumored quicksands and poisonous serpents. But on more than one occasion he had seen old-time villagers cross themselves when mention was made of the area. And it was said that even hunting dogs would abandon the pursuit of game which fled into its fastnesses.

Already anticipating the power which would ultimately be his, Emmet Telquist began to formulate plans. He would not make the mistake of the unfortunate Saracen sorcerer, Mal Lazal. Although he did not quite dare to take the necessary steps to secure a human sacrifice, "a childe or chaste maid", a sheep should be relatively easy to obtain. He could steal one at night from any of the several village flocks. He knew all the woods and lanes and would be safely away with his prize long before the loss was discovered.

The night before the advent of the full moon, he slipped into a nearby pasture where sheep were grazed and made away with a fine fat ewe, shoving and dragging it over a stone wall and then leading it off along circuitous back roads and grass-grown lanes.

The next day he paid a stealthy visit to the environs of the forbidden swamp, exploring the rank underbrush until he discovered the start of the faint trail down which he had stolen years before. Although it was partially obliterated by a thick growth of sedges, vines and lush swamp grass, there were indications that deer used it occasionally. Probably patience would be required to force a way through, but at least the path should not be impassable.

Carefully noting its location, he returned home and completed his preparations for the evening.

Shortly before eleven o'clock he crept into the shed where he had tethered the ewe and led it forth into the moonlight.

The countryside was steeped in a bewitching silver light. He experienced no difficulties in reaching the swamp and after some little searching located the narrow trail.

But as he plunged into the shoulder-high grass, the tether tightened in his hand. The ewe strained against the rope, its eyes suddenly wild with fright.

Cursing, he scrambled around and kicked it brutally. It bolted forward a few yards and stopped. Grimly determined, he tightened the tether until it cut through the ewe's wool into its hide.

He made progress by the foot and by the inch. The ewe had to be dragged and shoved at regular intervals. And as he penetrated toward the heart of the swamp, the increasing height and thickness of the lush undergrowth made passage more difficult.

Moonlight filtered down eerily among the trees and on all sides treacherous pools gleamed silver-black in the shadowy darkness. Occasionally hidden watchers stared at him out of the depths and quite often enormous toads hopped into the path and regarded him with their amber eyes. They seemed to be devoid of fear, almost as if they considered the swamp their special domain and deemed him incapable of harming them. He began to imagine there was something vaguely malignant about them. He had never seen them so large before, nor in such numbers. But probably that was merely because they were left unmolested in the swamp to breed and develop without encountering the artificial obstacles which would inevitably prevail in any less shunned area.

As he pushed into the heart of the swamp, the gathering silence became oppressive. The ordinary night sounds ceased altogether and only his own strained breathing broke the silence. The ewe became more obstinate than ever; all his strength was required to drag it along. It appeared, he imagined, to sense the fate which awaited it.

Suddenly, so suddenly that he nearly cried aloud in astonishment, the underbrush ended and he was standing at the base of the unhallowed knoll.

It was just as he had remembered it--huge menhirs standing in a rough circle about a central mound upon which lay a large flat slab of a dark hue which did not match the color of the surrounding monoliths. Over all a shadow seemed to fall, and yet when he glanced upward he saw that the full moon stood directly overhead.

Shaking off the sense of dread which closed upon him, he started up the lichen-covered slope. But now the ewe sank upon its forelegs and he was obliged to drag it inch by inch toward the circle of megaliths. He rather welcomed the exertion however, for it freed his mind of the nameless fear which the cromlech aroused in him.

By the time he had dragged the sheep alongside the ring of boulders, he was nearly exhausted, but he dared not pause to rest, for he knew that delay would be his undoing. He already had a wild desire to leave the ewe and rush back through the toad-infested swamp to the familiar outer world.

Quickly slipping off the sheep's tether, he bound its legs firmly together and with a tremendous heave shoved it onto the rust-colored sacrificial slab.

Rejecting an almost uncontrollable impulse to flee, he unsheathed the hunting knife which he carried and drew from his pocket the curious bound manuscript book, "True Magik" by Theophilis Wenn.

He had no difficulty in locating the strangely sinister seventh incantation, for in the bright moonlight the unusual bluish-grey ink in which the characters were inscribed seemed actually luminous.

Holding the book in one hand and the knife ready in the other, he began to repeat the jumble of unintelligible sounds.

As he read, the syllables appeared to exert some unearthly influence upon him, so that his voice rose to a savage howl, a high-pitched inhuman ululation which penetrated to the farthest depths of the swamp. At intervals his voice sank to low gutturals or a thin sibilant hiss.

And then, at the last enunciation of the oft-repeated word, "Nyogtha", there reached his ears as from a vast distance a sound like the rushing of a mighty wind, although not even a leaf stirred on the surrounding trees.

The book suddenly darkened in his hand and he saw that a shadow had fallen across the page.

He glanced up--and madness reeled in his brain.

Squatting on the edge of the slab was a shape which lived in nightmare, a squamous taloned thing like a monstrous gargoyle or a malformed toad which stared at him out of questing red eyes.

He froze in horror and a sudden rage flamed in the thing's eyes. It thrust out its neck and an angry hiss issued from its mottled beak.

Emmet Telquist was galvanized into action. He knew what the thing wanted--life blood.

Raising the knife, he advanced and was about to plunge it downward into the sheep when a new horror seized him.

The ewe was already dead. The unspeakable presence which squatted beside it had already claimed it. It had died of fright. Its eyes were glazed and there was no indication that it still breathed.

Remembering Theophilis Wenn's warning, "beware lest the beaste be dead", Emmet Telquist stood like a stone statue with the knife still upraised in his hand.

Then he dropped it and ran.

Darting between two menhirs, he plunged down the knoll and raced toward the swamp trail.

Lifting its scaly neck, the presence on the slab looked after him and finally, hissing in fury, bounded off the stone and leaped in pursuit.

One terrible shriek rang out and presently the thing hopped back onto the slab, holding in its bloody beak a dangling lifeless form, a fitting sacrifice.

KILLER CAT

It had occurred to him quite suddenly and he had acted on the impulse before there was time to ponder the matter.

He had the little paper open and was slipping the barbital powder into a glass when the idea first came to him. For a half minute he just stood there while his heart beat faster. Then he dumped in three more of the powders and walked to the bedroom where his Aunt Martha lay softly moaning. She swallowed the drug without even opening her eyes and one hour later she was dead. It was as simple as that.

Dr. Myerbron assured him that her heart had given out, showed no surprise and even hinted that he had expected her demise long before.

Dennis Stonegate was no calloused murderer. Far from it. After the funeral when he had finally moved into his aunt's house for good, he assured himself on that point.

He had, he told himself, acted through mercy. His aunt was suffering; Dr. Myerbron had tacitly admitted more than once that she would not recover; and certainly a few weeks or even months could make little difference to the semi-conscious invalid. Better to relieve her of suffering rather than permit her to linger and perhaps undergo worse tortures later on when her last powers of resistance were spent.

He repeated this to himself so often he finally came to believe it. But secretly he knew otherwise. Some small insistent chamber in his brain kept whispering the truth. The truth was he had grown tired of waiting.

At first all seemed to go well. Now that he was relieved of a certain measure of responsibility, he began to enjoy life. Of course, for a time, he had to put on a sober countenance when he left the house in the morning. And he had to act properly subdued on certain occasions. But that was easy enough. He even prided himself a little on his acting ability. Sometimes he played the part so well he could feel himself becoming melancholy. And then he would laugh, struck by the irony of the situation. His Aunt Martha had never meant very much to him. She had merely been an obstacle to be removed.

The first time the cat annoyed him he dismissed the incident without further thought. It was a big black Persian with a silky plume of a tail and luminous yellow eyes and it had been his aunt's favorite pet for years.

One night after he had mashed some sardines in its dish, he became irritated when, instead of running up to eat, it drew back and spit at him. But he merely shrugged and went back to the paper.

The next day it again refused to eat. He speculated, idly, assumed that it was undergoing a disorder, or distemper, or whatever it was that cats undergo, and forgot the matter.

A week or so later however, the cat's actions began to annoy him. He remembered then that so far as he could recall it had eaten almost nothing he had set out for it since his aunt's death.

Even then, the affair did not really bother him much. It was just an irritant in the back of his mind.

Nevertheless, some time later he had an experience which definitely upset him. There was certainly nothing very unusual about it--and he felt a little like a fool at times when he realized how he permitted the incident to prey on him.

He had gone to bed late and had had a vague but unpleasant dream. It seemed that he was lying somewhere in the darkness unable to move, pinned down by a deadly paralysis, a smothering weight. He awoke suddenly drenched with sweat and saw two yellow eyes staring into his own. For just a moment he was on the verge of a scream; then he remembered the cat and felt at once relieved and rather angry. The beast was lying flat on his chest and made no move until he swung his arms and swept it roughly to the floor. It sprang toward the door, turned once and scurried down the hall.

The next morning he laughed at himself. The cat had often slept on his aunt's bed and had happened to climb up on his for a cozy place to spend the night.

He felt uneasy though, when he recalled how wide-awake the cat had been when he opened his eyes.

For well over a week nothing further happened to upset him. The cat skulked out of sight most of the time.

Then he had an experience which thoroughly frightened him and he determined to get rid of his aunt's old pet.

Again he had a dream. Again he was in darkness. And this time he was being smothered. He was rigid, unable to stir, struggling to breathe, and there was no air to be had. He awoke as before, suddenly, cold with sweat, and felt his spine tingle when he realized that something soft and black was pressed firmly against his face. He sat up violently and groped wildly for the switch. Something plopped on the floor just as light flooded the room and then the cat paused at the door as before, turned its yellow eyes on him and disappeared.

He sat still for some minutes, while his head whirled. He was frightened and shocked at the things which he dared not admit to himself and now a determined rage took possession of him.

The next day did not shake his determination. He brooded about the cat and purposely planned his work so that he could leave early.

He let himself in quietly, entered the kitchen and picked up the iron poker, and then softly started down the cellar stairs. It was here the cat usually hid itself when it sensed his approach.

Pressing the light switch at the bottom, he quickly crossed toward the coal bins. He had left some wooden crates piled near a window in one of the bins and now in the light he saw the cat's yellow eyes shining behind the bottom slats.

Springing toward the crates, he swung the poker viciously. The bottom crate collapsed with a rending of brittle wood and the whole pile lurched off balance. As he stepped back to avoid being struck, the cat shot past.

Cursing, he started after it, but his foot caught on a crate and he fell headlong. He jumped up, white with rage, and rushed into the open cellar. Dust billowed out from the bin and he could not see the cat. He stood back, glaring around the cellar, and waited for the dust to settle. His foot felt hot however, and glancing down he was shocked to see his shoe wet with blood. A nail must have penetrated his ankle and cut a vein. Thoroughly unnerved now, he dropped the poker and hurried upstairs.

He bathed his foot, dressed it and at length sat back, weak with nervous exhaustion. But now he was more determined than ever. Before another day had passed he would kill the cat.

Although his foot grew sore, his wound was not really serious, and the next day he went to work as usual. A black mood seemed to settle on him however, and finally he found it impossible to concentrate on the various details which required his attention. He felt that until the cat was destroyed, his peace of mind would never be regained.

Towards mid-day he complained of a violent headache, excused himself, and hurried homeward.

Making sure that all the windows were closed and all the doors locked, he began a slow and systematic search of the house. He started in the garret and worked downward.

By the time he descended to the cellar a half hour had passed and his patience was nearly exhausted. He poked through the coal bins, inwardly cursing the elusive beast, and then smashed each crate in turn to eliminate every possible hiding place.

As he mounted to the garret a second time some portion of his anger gave way to a feeling of faint but persistent dread. He was positive that the cat had been locked in the day before.

He began the search again, ferreting in every conceivable corner, overturning baskets, scouring the closets, even jabbing the poker in amongst his aunt's clothing hung in a dusty hall store room.

Another hour passed before he gave up. He slumped in a chair, weary and possessed by a nameless fear, and tried to think. One moment he told himself he was a superstitious fool, and the next he pictured the cat as an incarnation of calculated evil and malice. He had heard stories of the dead entering the bodies of animals in order to wreak their unholy revenge. Tales of werewolves and vampires had haunted the race since the misty beginnings of recorded time. Why not a cat? especially one that had been so closely allied to the dead? one that had, perhaps, with that strange insight sometimes possessed by high-bred animals, read his very thoughts?

He sprang up, cursing himself for a childish fool, and determined to put the entire matter out of his mind. He prepared a warm bath, soaked at leisure, refreshed himself with a highball and sat down to read the paper.

By evening his spirits had improved. He ate a light but well-selected dinner--since the death of his aunt he no longer denied himself expensive articles of food--left a note for the woman who would come to clean in the morning, and settled down to an evening of relaxation with his books.

As he read however, he again found his mind wandering. He glanced up sharply on a number of occasions, sure that he had seen a shadow move against the wall. Once he heard, or imagined he heard, a cry just outside the window. It sounded like the wail of a cat, but there was an unearthly note mixed in it which lifted the hairs on the nape of his neck. He sat rigid, bathed with perspiration, and waited for the cry to be repeated, but the silence flowed on and at last he lay back in his chair, weak with the strain of expectation. He told himself that his nerves were on edge; certainly there was no reason to become upset about a cat prowling outside. Cats prowled, especially at night. Why, what a fool he had become!

He stirred from his chair, mixed himself a stiff drink, and resumed his book, riveting his attention on every page. He was congratulating himself on his success when chancing to glance up to momentarily rest his eyes, he was terrified to see a shape of darkness dart quickly away from the window.

For a second he sat frozen in his chair; then he hurled down the book, rushed to the door and literally flung himself outside.

The long lawn in front of the house lay bathed in soft moonlight and not even a wind rustled the maple leaves. The lawn and the stone walk and the garden space against the house were entirely empty. Not a shadow was out of place.

He stood a long time, pondering, listening, peering into the misty veil of moonlight. Once a moth swooped into the light, causing him an inordinate fright. At last he closed the door.

He assured himself again that his nerves were on edge; he did not feel too well. He was beginning to imagine things. There was really nothing to be afraid of--certainly not of a mere cat! Perhaps he needed a vacation, a trip to the mountains, a change of scenery.

He continued to reason with himself, meanwhile occupying himself with various tasks about the house. At length, after a careful scrutiny of every dark corner, he retreated to his room, bolted the door, looked under the bed and made a detailed inspection of the mesh screen on his window. It appeared quite substantial--certainly no cat could ever penetrate it.

Soothed by weariness and the elaborate precautions which he had observed, he at last slid into bed and switched off the light.

He was asleep within a half hour and for some time slept soundly. Then he began to dream. It appeared that he was hiding somewhere when a shadowy shape of evil, an indefinable manifestation of overpowering hate, appeared suddenly on the scene and immediately sought out his hiding place, glaring down at him with baleful yellow eyes. He awoke with a scream, sat up in bed, half turned toward the window--and found himself staring straight into the luminous yellow eyes of the cat.

The beast did not offer to move. It squatted on the window ledge and fixed its eyes on his own with unmoving intensity. For a long moment he sat paralyzed with horror. The beast hated him; it had waited until he was asleep, helpless, and only the wire screen had kept it from the room. He shuddered when he thought what might have happened.

At length he managed to switch on the light, but the cat did not move an inch. It crouched motionless on the sill outside, watching him with cold hate in its tawny eyes.

He began to dress, slowly, keeping one eye on the cat. Further sleep would be impossible.

When he had dressed, slipped on a warm jacket and regained full possession of his faculties, his courage began to assert itself. He searched the room for a weapon, finally selecting a knotty laurel-wood cane.

The cat remained on the window ledge, watching his every move.

Taking a firm grip on the cane, he slid the bolt and stepped into the outer hall. It did not appear at all fantastic to him that he should dress in the middle of the night, arm himself, and creep outside to destroy a cat.

He unlatched the rear door, slipped quickly outside, and made a run for his bedroom window.

The cat leaped off the sill an instant ahead of his arrival, dodged the downward sweep of the cane and ran toward the open field in the rear of the house.

He cursed, regained his balance and whirled after it.

A low mist had risen over the meadow; it was like a curtain of grey-white shadow in the moonlight. Momentarily he lost sight of the beast; then he glimpsed it again, bellying its way slowly through the wet grass. It crawled with a queer dragging of its hindquarters, as if it had been injured, and frequently it looked back.

He took a firmer grip on the cane and rushed forward with a feeling of exultation. His first swing of the cane must have struck it after all! He would catch it now! He would be upon it in an instant! The sneaking, murderous black devil--he'd pound it to a pulp! Ah, now he had it!

He swung the heavy cane with all his strength. The cat leaped nimbly aside, ran a few yards, then stopped and turned its head, fixing its eerie yellow eyes on him.

The sweep of his arm had caused him to lose his balance and now as he lunged in pursuit again he lost his footing entirely; his feet shot sideways on the slippery grass and he crashed to the ground.

He was up in an instant, cursing, frantic with rage, and sprang toward the motionless cat.

The animal waited until he was almost upon it, then quickly dodged aside and ran in another direction.

He was out of breath now, but it never occurred to him to abandon the chase. He rushed after the hated black beast which ran ever ahead of him in the swirling mist, now scarcely crawling, now darting out of reach with the suddenness of a whiplash, now pausing and turning its flat head to make sure he was following behind.

He leaped forward like a madman, striking out savagely with the cane, sliding to his hands and knees, a wild frenzied figure in the moonlight. He was possessed by the one idea; he had lost all sense of proportion, of direction; he did not even know into which part of the meadow he had ventured.

Suddenly the cat made a long leap. It landed heavily and appeared to go limp. It looked back but did not move as he lunged forward.

Without warning the ground vanished beneath his feet and he plunged downward like a stone. Even as he fell he understood the trap to which he had been led. With demoniac cunning, the cat had caused him to run directly over the shaft of a deep abandoned well which was located in the rear unused portion of the meadow.

He screamed once before the black water closed over his head, sending him straight down a pool of freezing darkness. He kicked and clawed and at last came to the surface, but already the icy water was working its paralysis in him.

He stared up and screamed again, but the steep walls of the well smothered his cry; it was little more than a weak moan above the surface of the ground.

As his wildly clutching fingers scraped in vain against the smooth moss-slick sides of the well, he looked up with a last desperate hope and there silhouetted above him, like a fiend from hell, was the remorseless shape of the cat, gazing steadily downward with a glow of triumph in its yellow eyes.

He started to scream again, but his fingers lost their frail grip on the mossy stones and he sank out of sight beneath the surface of green scum.

THE DUMP

Pulling aside the dingy kitchen curtain, she looked out. "It's starting again," she said tensely.

To the north, a scant mile from the house, a great greasy billow of black smoke rolled skyward. Squealing sea gulls flapped over huge mounds of smouldering trash. Although she couldn't see them from the window, the woman knew that the reeking wasteland literally crawled with an army of voracious rats.

Somehow, the omniscient, all-encompassing State had overlooked the dump. In its dynamic zeal to provide prefabs, food capsules and carefully edited newstapes for all citizens, the State may have bypassed the dump temporarily.

There was a rumor to the effect, however, that the wasteland had been deliberately preserved as a sort of monstrous museum area, a "See-how-things-used-to-be" tourist attraction.

In any event, in the very midst of marvels of efficiency, exactitude and unending impersonal energy, there it remained, a sour, rat-sluiced tract carefully shunned by the average State citizen.

If people still existed in the dump itself, or even in its immediate environs, it was generally conceded that it was their own fault. The State always stood ready to house and feed the indigent.

Broken springs groaned as the man arose from a cot. He shook his head. "Wish you'd relax, Lucy. Little smoke ain't hurtin' you none."

She turned, eyes bright with anger. "_Little smoke!_" she repeated. "Smoke that seeps right through the shingles into the house! Smoke that gets in your lungs, in your hair, in your food, in your clothes--even in your skin! I tell you I've had enough of smoke and cinders and rats--and sea gulls! Sea gulls! Hah! Those dirty birds screeching like hungry cats all the time. They're dump gulls. Garbage gulls! I'd like to wring their filthy necks!"

Slipping into a threadbare jacket, the man started toward the kitchen door. "You sure get worked up over nothin'. Sea gulls got to live, like everything else."

The woman's voice rose in fury. "I suppose you'd say the rats have got to live too! You'd even defend the rats!"

The man paused, his hand on the door knob. He looked aggrieved. "Why that ain't fair, Lucy. We fight the rats. You know that."

"You fight them!" she mocked. "Well, let me tell you something! You're losing the fight! The rats are winning! They're taking over! There must be a million out there!"

The man rubbed his chin reflectively. He looked thoughtful. "They're tough, all right. But they're under control. We club a couple hundred to death, most every night." He opened the kitchen door.

As he stepped out, the woman's fury seemed suddenly to vanish. Her voice was no longer shrill; it was flat, listless. "When will you be back, Ralph?"

He shrugged. "Can't say, exactly. We might go on a rat kill. Take a couple hours. Maybe we'll poke around for stuff till dark. Maybe just gab over a can of mulligan." He closed the door.

From the window, she watched him cross the littered back yard and disappear in the adjacent cattails.

Supper time came and went and he had not returned. She had a cup of tea and a biscuit and then sat up, trying to read, but found herself unable to concentrate. Finally she crossed to the kitchen window.

Darkness had fallen, but the Enemy was still visible, revealed in the lurid flickering light of towering trash fires. At night the dump seemed even more forbidding. You never knew what that flame-riven darkness might conceal.

As she stood at the window, she imagined that the approaches to Hell itself might resemble the scene before her--fires circling the night and beyond in the deeper darkness terrors and frights unspeakable.

At last, wearily, she undressed for bed. But she did not sleep peacefully. This evening the nightmare came swiftly. There were variations, but the essential outline was nearly always the same.

From the outside darkness, from above and below and from all sides, came subdued but ominous whispers of sound--gnawing, scraping, squeaking, scuttling. And then the house began to settle, literally to sink, like a ship in the sea. The busy rats had eaten away its foundations and now it was being engulfed in great tides of trash. The dump was closing in on it, like a monstrous growth. Soon it would disappear out of sight in the slimy darkness. As it slipped into the sour earth, the rats broke through. They poured through the windows, the doors, down the chimney--huge, hairy creatures with red eyes and yellow flashing fangs. They leaped upon the bed, lunged for her throat.

She was sitting up in bed, screaming, bathed in sweat, when she finally awoke.

Ralph had not yet returned. She got up, drank tea, and went back to bed for a few minutes' fitful sleep in the hour or two before dawn.

She was sitting in the kitchen when Ralph returned. Grey light was filtering over the cattails. In the distance a sea gull squealed.

Ralph yawned, stretched, sat down. "Quite a night. We musta clubbed a hundred rats. Maybe more. Jim Tavey got nipped, but not bad. When we got back, Fred Morgee's woman had a pail of the best damned mulligan I ever ate. Hot and spicy! Jeepers, that was good!"

She glared at him. "That filthy woman! Living in the dump! Bad enough to live next to it."

He spread his hands. "Why Lucy, it ain't bad. Morgee's rigged up a shack with a real tin roof. Got a floor and a potbelly. Got bunks. Sheila Morgee's the happiest female I ever did see."

She slammed her fist on the table top. "Well she can have her filthy shack in the dump! _I'm_ through! Living here right on the edge is getting just as bad as being inside. Cinders, smoke, smells, sea gulls--and rats, rats, rats!" Her voice rose hysterically.

He spoke soothingly. "What can we do, Lucy? Twenty years ago we paid ten thousand for this place. Now the State wouldn't give us over three. How long would that last? In a year or so we'd be wards. Broke. The State would take us."

"What's so bad about that?" she countered. "We'd have two rooms in a plastic prefab. Plenty of food capsules. An entertaintime screen. Now they even give you the choice of a permajade juniper bush or a simulated maple tree for the lawn."

He snorted. "Lawn! Artificial grass you spray green in the spring and brown in the autumn!"

Her voice rose again. "That's better than looking out at those dingy cattails all day long--watching them shake as the rats swim around the roots!"

He was silent.

She continued, her voice weary but resolute. "I'm through, Ralph. I can't stand those nightmares no more. If you won't sell to the State, I'll bring suit for my share and I'll leave anyway. I'm not going on living like this."

He shook his head, frowning. "I won't fight, Lucy, if you really want to go. You can keep what the State gives for the house. But I'm telling you, it's a mistake. We ain't got much here, but at least we're alive."

Her voice was bitter. "I've had enough. I'm selling. If you won't come, go and live with the rats in the dump!"

He went to bed. He knew that further argument would be futile. A few weeks later the man from the State came. Ralph had already signed the papers, waiving his share of the proceeds from the sale of the house. The State had agreed to pay twenty-seven hundred.

Sitting down in the one stable armchair remaining in the living room, the State man--a Mr. Feckwith--opened his document case. "All that remains," he explained to Mrs. Leeson, "is for you to sign these papers." He passed them over to her.

As she read, a look of consternation spread on her careworn face. "What does this mean? Don't I get the twenty-seven hundred?"

Mr. Feckwith coughed politely. "Well, you see, Mrs. Leeson, before you can become a State ward and qualify for a prefab, plus furnishings and food, you have to turn all assets over to the State. Otherwise you are not considered, ah, dependent."

She hesitated. "But I--I won't have a penny!"

Mr. Feckwith smiled reassuringly. His chubby face beamed. "You won't _require_ a penny, Mrs. Leeson! All needs are taken care of. Shelter, food, clothes, medicine. And you'll have all the extras--an entertaintime screen, the news tape delivered every day, the monthly excursion. Think of it!"

She thought of it. She thought of it while black soot drifted past the windows, while the sea gulls squealed and the dump fires flared. She thought of it and she signed.

Three days later the State sent a tronicar to pick her up. She was glad that Ralph was away. It made things easier.

As the car sped off, she turned for a last sight of the dump. A huge pall of thick smoke hung over the area. Tireless sea gulls flapped above the refuse heaps, screeching raucously. Sighing with relief, she looked away, concentrating on the tronicar's gleaming interior. Within seconds the dump was far behind her.

Her new life was like a dream. She had two private rooms in a plastic prefab, complete with entertaintime screen, newstape projector and remote music disc. Food, mostly in capsule form, was delivered daily. The trugrass lawn, freshly sprayed, boasted a simulated maple tree over eight feet high.

If she felt ill, all she needed to do was press the button marked "Dispensary." A State doctor would arrive in three minutes.

Sitting in her foamease chair, in front of the entertaintime screen, she reveled in her new luxury. No dump smoke seeped into these rooms. No soot drifted past the windows. When she looked out, instead of dingy cattails she saw the bright green simulated maple tree and the sparkling trugrass lawn. No more rats scampering across her back yard. No noisy sea gulls circling overhead.

She felt sorry for Ralph. He would probably die in the dump. He'd end his days in some dirty shack, slurping up mulligan stew. He'd die alone, some dismal night, while the dump fires flickered and the filthy rats squealed and scuttled in the darkness.

After the first week she got to know some of her new neighbors. There were twenty-nine other units on her block, each with its own trugrass lawn. Some, like hers, boasted a simulated maple tree. Others were graced with one of the permajade juniper bushes. She was welcomed warmly. They were all very friendly, all very polite. She never mentioned the dump. They talked about the past as if it were life on another planet. They talked about their favorite programs on the entertaintime screen, about where they had gone on the monthly tronicar excursions sponsored by the State. They talked about their illnesses.

And yet, it seemed to Lucy Leeson, they did not actually talk very much. Perhaps it was too much effort. Mostly they just sat in front of their entertaintime screens and watched. Most of their meals they could swallow in capsule form without even moving from their foamease chairs.

The weeks came and went and finally a man appeared one morning and sprayed the trugrass lawn a uniform brown. A week or so later he came back, worked a mechanism at the base of the simulated maple tree and all the bright green leaves curled up tight and invisible against the limbs. It was autumn.

The man told her they had tried leaving everything green all year round, but in the long run the people didn't approve of it. They liked to look out, some fine spring morning, and see the trugrass lawn and the maple trees unexpectedly green again. The service men came just before dawn to spray the lawns and unfold the maple leaves.

It was a landscaping marvel. The grass never had to be cut and Lucy knew that the simulated maple tree would never be over eight feet tall. No pruning, no troublesome roots, no falling leaves to rake.

Her only criticism was that the birds seemed to avoid both lawn and tree. She looked out, rather wistfully, in hopes of seeing a bird. But she rarely saw one. She remembered with a pang of nostalgia the red-winged blackbirds which descended on the cattails bordering the dump every spring. They were such bright, frolicsome, saucy creatures! But they never flew over the trugrass lawns.

After a while, Lucy stopped visiting her neighbors. For some reason which she could not specifically name, they depressed her. They were old and listless and often ill, but it was more than that.

At length she knew the reason. They were dead; they were corpses waiting for interment. They would be transferred from the plastic prefabs to State permaplastic coffins with scarcely a groan of protest. They were just waiting for death, day after day. Consciously, they swallowed their capsules, read their daily newstapes and sat with their eyes riveted on the screens. But subconsciously they had stopped living. Subconsciously they longed for death to release them from the bondage of State security, State brainwashing, the bland and eternal aura of State assurance and reassurance.

She began to feel that she was being smothered to death in the plastic prefab. She grew to loathe the food capsules. The endless entertaintime programs finally filled her with boredom. The newstapes were some diversion but she resented them because she sensed that all the news had been too carefully sifted and predigested beforehand.

She stared out at the meek leafless tree and hated it. Sometimes she sat on the floor because she was so tired of the foamease chair. Once she pressed the "Dispensary" button just to see what would happen, but she never tried it again because she was subjected to a tedious two-hour examination which left her exhausted and taut with irritation. The examination was thorough but so impersonal she was left feeling like an inanimate object.

She no longer had nightmares about the dump rats but now a new and even more terrifying dream haunted her sleep. She dreamed that the State, unable to supply prefabs fast enough to meet the thousands of new applicants, secretly filled some of the food capsules with sleeping powders. The sleeping victims, chosen at random, were then carried out of their quarters, slipped into State permaplastic coffins and quietly buried. In her dream the plastic prefab became a permaplastic coffin. Doped with sleeping powder, she was buried alive. She would wake up, night after night, screaming, throwing her arms in the air to claw her way out.

At length she began to sit up most of the night; during the day she would sleep at frequent intervals in the foamease chair. This routine effectively ended the dream of being buried alive, but she still dreaded the nights.

She would sit for hours thinking about the dump--the sea gulls squealing, the trash fires flaring, soot flying past the windows and finally Ralph tramping in with his crazy stories about the rats or the mulligan stew or the fortune someone had found in a discarded fruit jar.

She had hated it all before but now she wasn't sure she hated it very much. Maybe she no longer hated it at all. What was it Ralph had said? How did it go? Oh yes: "We ain't got much here, _but at least we're alive_."

The words echoed in her mind. She thought of them a hundred times a day.

It was a small thing that decided her. One morning she was standing at the window, looking out across the trugrass lawn, when a State dispensary ambucar drove up. Two hospital men entered the prefab across the road. In a few minutes they came out carrying old Miss Quinsonby in a plastic bag.

Lucy Leeson felt sick. Although she was perfectly aware that Miss Quinsonby had been ailing for months, the memory of her nightmare came back to torment her. Was it possible that the State actually did "dispose" of the very old and infirm in order to make room for new applicants? The thought was fantastic, and yet the State people were so deadly, impersonally efficient in so many ways....

That very afternoon she signed up for the next monthly tronicar excursion. She had nearly two weeks to wait and she counted the days. One afternoon when she was sleeping in the foamease chair she had a new nightmare. She dreamed that she became ill and pressed the Dispensary button. In the prescribed three minutes two State hospital men appeared. One of them winked at the other and they both smiled slyly at her. Then she noticed that the one who had winked held something behind his back. It was a big folded plastic bag. She awoke with a scream.

On the morning set for the tronicar excursion, she stuffed some personal items in a small kit and went outside to wait. The tronicar driver was supposed to stop and touch her signal chime, but she was taking no chances. She waited nearly an hour, afraid the car might come early. When it finally swung into view down the street, she hurried to the ramp.

After the tronicar had picked up its cargo of State wards and left the immediate prefab area, the driver began an oral travelogue, describing new buildings, sites and developments as the car sped past. She scarcely heard his monotonous speel droning over the speaker system.

Her plans were made. When the car stopped in Newbridge, she would get off on some pretext and simply keep on going. She knew the tronicar excursions were tied to a rigid schedule. The driver would not wait for her very long.

Assuring him that she would return in five minutes, she got out in Newbridge and scurried away in the crowds. Once out of sight, she signaled for a cruisecab.

As the cab slid smoothly through city traffic toward the highway which skirted the dump, horrible doubts assailed her. Suppose Ralph had left? Suppose all of them had left? What would she do? Where could she go? The State owned the house. She did not possess any money. She would have to go back to the prefab, back to the trugrass lawn and the simulated maple tree, back to--_Death_. Once she had spoken it in her mind, she kept on repeating it. Death, death, death. She would have to go back to death. She would have to go back to death.

It became a refrain, ringing in her head. The crisp voice of the driver came through the partition tube, startling her. "This is the refuse area, lady. Where did you want to go?"

Her heart began to pound. She looked out the window, searching for landmarks. "About a mile yet. There's an old empty warehouse and then some catalpa trees. Right after that."

In a minute or two the cruisecab glided to a stop. She paid the driver and got out. Her heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe.

"You want me to wait, lady?" The driver regarded her quizzically.

She shook her head. "No--no thanks. I--I'm meeting someone here."

The driver glanced at the smoky pall of the dump and shrugged. Seconds later the cruisecab was disappearing down the highway.

She walked past the clump of catalpa trees bordering the highway. There were bushes and then set back a bit would be the house. She stopped, staring, motionless. The house was gone. The State had torn it down and filled in the cellar hole.

As she looked across the littered back yard toward the clump of cattails, she experienced a strange sense of unreality. Sea gulls cried overhead and the sun filtered down through a pall of smoke, but the familiar scene seemed eerily unfamiliar.

Scowling, she closed her eyes momentarily and forced down the panic crowding within her. The house was gone; that was what made everything seem so strange, so unreal. Now she would take the little path that led across the back yard into the cattails. She would find Ralph and the others. Surely they were here somewhere. They would have shelter, at least a substitute for a house. She was acting like a fool. She should have expected the house to be gone; even if it hadn't been, it was no longer hers. She would have no right to enter it, if it were still standing.

Crossing the yard, she hesitated at the edge of the cattails. She imagined she could hear rats squeaking somewhere in the tangle ahead. Finally she picked up a heavy stick, took a deep breath and stepped into the narrow path which twisted through the cattail marsh.

She had thought the marsh covered only a small area; now she became appalled at its size. The path twisted on and on, like some kind of maze laid out to confuse the unwary. Every few yards her feet got wet. At length she had to stop and sit down. There were squeaks and twitterings around her. The eternal sea gulls flapped overhead. Smoke drifted sluggishly skyward. She arose and went on.