cellar,
and his fingers played them. In ecstasy, he relaxed and played as he had never
played a clarinet. Again, as when Otto had played, he was struck by the purity and
richness of the tone, so like the chalumeau register of his own clarinet, but
extending even to the highest notes.
He played, and a thousand sounds blended into one. Again the
sweet melody of paradoxes, black and white blending into a beautiful radiant
gray of haunting music.
And then, seemingly without transition, he found himself
playing a strange tune, one he ' d never heard before. But one that he
knew instinctively belonged to this wonderful instrument. A calling, beckoning
tune, as had been the music Otto had played when the girls, real or imaginary,
had click-clicked their way to him, but different this—was it a sinister
instead of a sensual feeling underlying it?
But it was beautiful and he couldn ' t have stopped
the dance of his fingers or stopped giving it life with his breath if he ' d
tried.
And then, over or under the music, he heard another sound.
Not this time a click-click of high heels but a scraping, scrabbling sound, as
of thousands of tiny clawed feet. And he saw them as they spilled suddenly out
of many holes in the wood-work that he had not before noticed, and ran to the
bed and jumped upon it. And with paralyzing suddenness the bits and pieces fell
into place and by an effort that was to be the last of his life Dooley tore the
accursed instrument from his mouth, and opened his mouth to scream. But they
were all around him now, all over him: great ones, tawny ones, small ones, lean
ones, black ones . . . And before he could scream out of his opened mouth the
largest black rat, the one who led them, leaped up and closed its sharp teeth
in the end of his tongue and held on, and the scream aborning gurgled into
silence.
And the sound of feasting lasted far into the night in Hamelin
town.
PUPPET SHOW
Horror came to Cherrybell at a little after noon on a
blistering hot day in August.
Perhaps that is redundant; any August day in
Cherrybell, Arizona, is blistering hot. It is on Highway 89 about forty miles
south of Tucson and about thirty miles north of the Mexican border. It consists
of two filling stations, one on each side of the road to catch travelers going
in both directions, a general store, a beer-and-wine-license-only tavern, a
tourist-trap type trading post for tourists who can ' t wait until
they reach the border to start buying serapes and huaraches, a deserted
hamburger stand, and a few ' dobe houses inhabited by
Mexican-Americans who work in Nogales, the border town to the south, and who,
for God knows what reason, prefer to live in Cherrybell and commute, some of
them in Model T Fords. The sign on the highway says, " Cherrybell,
Pop. 42," but the sign exaggerates; Pop died last year—Pop Anders, who ran
the now-deserted hamburger stand—and the correct figure is 41.
Horror came to Cherrybell mounted on a burro led by an ancient,
dirty and gray-bearded desert rat of a prospector who later —nobody got around
to asking his name for a while—gave the name of Dade Grant. Horror's name was
Garth. He was approximately nine feet tall but so thin, almost a stick man,
that he could not have weighed over a hundred pounds. Old Dade ' s
burro carried him easily, despite the fact that his feet dragged in the sand on
either side. Being dragged through the sand for, as it later turned out, well
over five miles hadn't caused the slightest wear on the shoes—more like
buskins, they were—which constituted all that he wore except for a pair of
what could have been swimming trunks, in robin ' s-egg blue. But it
wasn ' t his dimensions that made him horrible to look upon; it was
his skin. It looked red, raw. It looked as though he had been skinned
alive, and the skin replaced upside down, raw side out. His skull, his face,
were equally narrow or elongated; otherwise in every visible way he appeared
human—or at least
and his fingers played them. In ecstasy, he relaxed and played as he had never
played a clarinet. Again, as when Otto had played, he was struck by the purity and
richness of the tone, so like the chalumeau register of his own clarinet, but
extending even to the highest notes.
He played, and a thousand sounds blended into one. Again the
sweet melody of paradoxes, black and white blending into a beautiful radiant
gray of haunting music.
And then, seemingly without transition, he found himself
playing a strange tune, one he ' d never heard before. But one that he
knew instinctively belonged to this wonderful instrument. A calling, beckoning
tune, as had been the music Otto had played when the girls, real or imaginary,
had click-clicked their way to him, but different this—was it a sinister
instead of a sensual feeling underlying it?
But it was beautiful and he couldn ' t have stopped
the dance of his fingers or stopped giving it life with his breath if he ' d
tried.
And then, over or under the music, he heard another sound.
Not this time a click-click of high heels but a scraping, scrabbling sound, as
of thousands of tiny clawed feet. And he saw them as they spilled suddenly out
of many holes in the wood-work that he had not before noticed, and ran to the
bed and jumped upon it. And with paralyzing suddenness the bits and pieces fell
into place and by an effort that was to be the last of his life Dooley tore the
accursed instrument from his mouth, and opened his mouth to scream. But they
were all around him now, all over him: great ones, tawny ones, small ones, lean
ones, black ones . . . And before he could scream out of his opened mouth the
largest black rat, the one who led them, leaped up and closed its sharp teeth
in the end of his tongue and held on, and the scream aborning gurgled into
silence.
And the sound of feasting lasted far into the night in Hamelin
town.
PUPPET SHOW
Horror came to Cherrybell at a little after noon on a
blistering hot day in August.
Perhaps that is redundant; any August day in
Cherrybell, Arizona, is blistering hot. It is on Highway 89 about forty miles
south of Tucson and about thirty miles north of the Mexican border. It consists
of two filling stations, one on each side of the road to catch travelers going
in both directions, a general store, a beer-and-wine-license-only tavern, a
tourist-trap type trading post for tourists who can ' t wait until
they reach the border to start buying serapes and huaraches, a deserted
hamburger stand, and a few ' dobe houses inhabited by
Mexican-Americans who work in Nogales, the border town to the south, and who,
for God knows what reason, prefer to live in Cherrybell and commute, some of
them in Model T Fords. The sign on the highway says, " Cherrybell,
Pop. 42," but the sign exaggerates; Pop died last year—Pop Anders, who ran
the now-deserted hamburger stand—and the correct figure is 41.
Horror came to Cherrybell mounted on a burro led by an ancient,
dirty and gray-bearded desert rat of a prospector who later —nobody got around
to asking his name for a while—gave the name of Dade Grant. Horror's name was
Garth. He was approximately nine feet tall but so thin, almost a stick man,
that he could not have weighed over a hundred pounds. Old Dade ' s
burro carried him easily, despite the fact that his feet dragged in the sand on
either side. Being dragged through the sand for, as it later turned out, well
over five miles hadn't caused the slightest wear on the shoes—more like
buskins, they were—which constituted all that he wore except for a pair of
what could have been swimming trunks, in robin ' s-egg blue. But it
wasn ' t his dimensions that made him horrible to look upon; it was
his skin. It looked red, raw. It looked as though he had been skinned
alive, and the skin replaced upside down, raw side out. His skull, his face,
were equally narrow or elongated; otherwise in every visible way he appeared
human—or at least
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