Eye in the Sky (1957) (26 page)

Miss Reiss
had never liked cats. She had been afraid of cats. Cats were her enemies.

The thing
on the floor was Ninny Numbcat. He had been turned inside out. But he was still
alive; the tangled mess was a still-functioning organism. Miss Reiss had seen
to that; she was not going to let the animal
get
away.

Quivering, palpitating, the moistly-shining blob of
bones and tissue was undulating sightlessly across the
kitchen floor. Its slow, steady progress had been going
on for some time, probably since Miss Reiss’ world had
come into
existence. The grotesque mass, in three and a half hours, had managed to drag
itself in a kind of peristaltic wave, halfway across the kitchen.

“It can’t,” Marsha wailed. “It
can’t
be
alive.”

Getting a shovel from the back yard, Hamilton
scooped the mess up and carried it
outside. Praying that it could be killed, he filled a zinc bucket with water
and
slid the quivering heap of organs, bones
and tissue into it For a time the remnants lay half-swimming, oozing
and clinging, seeking to find some way out of the
bucket.
Then, gradually, with a final shudder of animation, the
thing sank under and died.

He burned
the remains, dug a hasty grave, and buried it. Washing his hands and putting
away the shovel, he returned to the house. It had taken only a few minutes
…
it seemed longer.

Marsha was
sitting quietly in the living room, her hands pressed together, gazing steadily
ahead of her.
She didn’t look up as he
entered the room. “Darling,” he
said.

“Is it over?”

“All
over. He’s dead. We can be glad of that. She can’t do anything more to
him.”

“I
envy him. She hasn’t even begun on us.”

“But
she hated cats. She doesn’t hate us.”

Marsha
turned slightly. “Remember what you said to her that night? You scared
her. And she remembers it.”

“Yes,”
he admitted. “She probably does. She probably doesn’t forget
anything.” Returning to the kitchen, he began fixing the coffee. He was
pouring it into the cups when Marsha came quietly in and began getting out the
cream and sugar.

“Well,”
she said, “that’s our answer.”

“To
what question?”

“To
the question, can we live? The answer is no. Worse than no.”

“There’s
nothing worse than no,” he said, but even to his own ears his voice lacked
conviction. “She’s insane, isn’t she?”

“Apparently.
A paranoiac, with delusions of conspiracy and persecution. Everything she sees
has some significance, part of the plot directed against her.”

“And
now,” Marsha said, “she doesn’t have to worry. Because, for the first
time in her life, she’s in a position to combat it.”

As he
sipped the scalding black coffee, Hamilton said, “I think she really
believes this is a replica of the real world. Of
her
real world, at
least. Good God, her real world will be so far beyond any of the fantasies of
the rest of us—” He was silent a moment and then finished: “That
thing she made Ninny into. She probably imagines that’s what we would do to
her. She probably thinks that goes on all the time.”

Getting to
his feet, Hamilton began moving around the house, pulling down the blinds. It
was evening; the sun had sunk into oblivion. Outside the house, the streets
were dark and chill.

From the
locked desk drawer, he got his .45 caliber automatic and began fitting shells
into the chamber.

“Just because she runs this world,” he said to his
tensely-watching wife, “doesn’t mean she’s omnipotent.”

He pushed
the gun away in his inside coat pocket. There it made a lumpy, conspicuous
bulge. Marsha
smiled wanly. “You look
like a criminal.”

“I’m
a private eye.”

“Where’s
your bosomy secretary?”

“That’s
you,” Hamilton said, smiling back at her.

Self-consciously, Marsha raised her hands. “I won
dered if you’d notice that I’m—back again.”

“I do
notice.”

“Is
it all right?” she asked shyly.

“I’m
willing to tolerate you. For old time’s sake.”

“Such
a strange thing
…
I feel almost
gross. So sort of non-ascetic.” Lips pressed tight together, she wandered
around in a little circle. “Don’t you think I’ll get used to it again? But
it does feel odd
…
I must still be
under Edith Pritchet’s influence.”

Ironically,
Hamilton said, “That was the last place. We’re on a different treadmill,
now.”

In her shy
pleasure, Marsha chose not to hear him.
“Let’s
go downstairs, Jack. Down in the audiophile room.
Where we can sort of—relax
and listen to music.” Coming toward him, she lifted her small hands to
his shoul
ders. “Can we? Please?”

Pulling
roughly away, he said, “Some other time.”

Dismayed,
Marsha stood hurt and surprised. “What’s
the
matter?”

“You
don’t remember?”

“Oh.” She nodded. “That girl, that waitress. She disap
peared, didn’t she? While you and she were down
there.”

“She
wasn’t a waitress.”

“I guess not.” Marsha brightened. “Anyhow, she’s
back now. So it’s all right. Isn’t it? And”—she gazed
hope
fully up into his face—”I don’t
mind about her. I under
stand.”

He wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or amused. “You
understand about what?”

“How you felt. I mean, it didn’t really have anything to
do with her; she was just a way for you to assert your
self. You were
protesting
.”

Putting
his arms around her, he pulled her close to
him.
“You’re an incredibly broad-minded person.”

“I
believe in looking at things in a modern way,”
Marsha said stoutly.

“Glad
to hear it.”

Disengaging
herself, Marsha rugged coaxingly at his shirt collar. “Could we? You
haven’t played records for me in months … not like you used to. I was so
jealous when you two went down there. I’d like to hear some
of our old favorites.”

“You
mean Tchaikowsky? That’s what you usually want when you talk about ‘our old
favorites.’”

“Go
turn on the light and the heater. Get it all nice, all lit up and inviting. So
it’ll be that way when I come
down.”

Bending
forward, he kissed her on the mouth. “I’ll have it radiating
eroticism.”

Marsha
wrinkled her nose at him. “You scientists.”

The stairs
were dark and cold. Feeling his way with care, Hamilton descended into the
gloom, one step at a
time. A measure of
good feeling returned to him, brought
by
the familiar routine of love. Soundlessly humming to
himself, he
advanced farther into the shadowy depths of the basement, making his way with
the automatic reflex of long experience.
…

Something coarse and slimy brushed his leg and stuck
there. A heavy, ropy strand, sticky
with damp ooze. Vio
lently, he jerked his leg
away. And beneath him, at the bottom of the steps, something hairy and
ponderous scuttled off into the audiophile room and became still.

Not moving his body, Hamilton clung to the wall of the s
tairwell. Extending his arm, he groped for the light switch
below. His probing fingers touched it; with a
sweeping
surge, he flicked it on and straightened himself out. The light winked fitfully
into existence, a sputtering
yellow
puddle in the murkiness.

Across the
basement stairs hung a crude bundle of s
trands,
some of them broken, many of them wound to
gether in a shapeless cable
of gray. A web, a clumsy and brutal job of spinning, done hurriedly, without
fines
se, by something immense and squat and
bestial. Un
derfoot, the steps were
coated with dust. The ceiling was s
tained with vast streaks of filth, as
if the web spinner
had crawled and crept
everywhere, exploring each c
orner
and crack.

Drained of strength, Hamilton sank down on the step. He could sense her
there, below him, waiting in the au
diophile room, in the fetid darkness. He had, by blunder
ing into her half-completed web,
frightened her off. The web was not strong enough to hold him; he was still
free
to struggle—to pull
himself loose.

He did so,
slowly, with painstaking care, disturbing
the
web as little as possible. The strands came away and
his leg was free.
His trouser was coated with a thick
blob of
gummy substance, as if a giant slug had squirmed
across him. Shuddering,
Hamilton grasped the railing and began to climb back upstairs.

He had
gone only two steps when his legs, of their
own
volition, refused to carry him farther. His body com
prehended what his
mind refused to accept. He was
going back
down. Down, toward the audiophile room.

Dazed, terrified, he spun around and scrambled in the opposite
direction. And again the monstrous thing hap
pened—the ragged, clinging nightmare. Still he was going
down … beneath him the dark shadows
stretched out,
the strewn filth and debris.

He was trapped.

As he
crouched staring in hypnotized fascination at the descent below him, there was
a sound. Above and behind him, at the top of the stairs, Marsha had ap
peared.

“Jack?” she called hesitantly.

“Don’t
come down,” he snarled, turning his head slightly, until he could dimly
make out the illuminated
shape of her body.
“Keep off the stairs.”

“But
—
”

“Stay
where you are.” Breathing heavily, he clung to the step, his fingers
wrapped tightly around the railing, trying to collect his wits. He had to
proceed slowly; he
had to keep from leaping
up and scrambling mindlessly
toward the bright doorway above him, and
the slender
image of his wife.

“Tell me what it is,” Marsha said sharply.

“I
can’t.”

“Tell
me, or I’ll come down.” She meant it; the decision was there in her voice.

“Darling,”
he said huskily, “I can’t seem to get back
upstairs.”

“Are you hurt? Did you fall?”

“I’m
not hurt Something’s happened. When I try to come back up
…”
He took a deep, shuddering
breath. “I find myself going down.”

“Is—there
anything I can do? Won’t you turn to
ward
me? Must you have your back to me?”

Hamilton laughed wildly. “Sure I’ll turn toward you.”

Gripping
the railing, he made a cautious about-face— and found himself still facing the
gloomy cave of dust
and shadows.

“Please,” Marsha begged. “Please turn and look at
me.”

Anger surged up in him … impotent fury that
could not be expressed. With a baffled curse, he slid to
his feet “The hell with you,” he snapped. “The hell with-“

From a long way off came the peal of the door chimes.

“Somebody’s
at the door,” Marsha said frantically.

“Well,
go let them in.” He was past caring; he had
given up.

For a
moment Marsha struggled. Then, with a swirl
of
her skirts, she was gone. The hall light flooded starkly
down behind
him, casting a long, foreboding shadow into the stairwell His own shadow,
elongated and immense …

“Good
God,” a voice said, a man’s voice. “What are
you doing down there, Jack?”

Peering
over his shoulder, he made out the grim, upright figure of Bill Laws.
“Help me,” Hamilton said
quietly.

“Certainly.”
Promptly, Laws turned to Marsha, who had come up beside him. “Stay up
here,” he ordered her. “Hold onto something so you won’t fall.”
Grabbing her hand, he fastened her fingers around the corner of the wall. “Can
you hang on?”

Mutely,
Marsha nodded. “I—think so.”

Taking the woman’s other hand, Laws stepped ginger
ly onto the stairs. Step by step he descended, still holding
onto Marsha’s hand. When he had gone as far as
possible, he squatted down and reached for Hamilton.

“Can
you get hold?” he grunted.

Hamilton,
without turning around, held his arm back and stretched with all his strength.
He could not see Bill Laws, but he could sense him there, could hear the harsh,
rapid breathing of the Negro as he sat perched
above him, trying to get hold of his groping fingers.