Amphiskios

Chapter II The Watching Boxes

Howard Loomis did not have, in his background or experience, any comparable sensation. One moment every fibre of his body was tensed in vain effort to withstand the smash which would tear soul from body.

And, without transition, he lay on a gentle slope, still curled in a seated position, and the air that was cold was warm the night that was dark was suddenly a new day.

He sat up, still dressed in gray conservative suit, snap-brim hat, buttoned topcoat. His trembling hands rested against the grass. Or was it grass? It was not a proper green, having a bluish cast mixed with it.

Seventy feet away a fairytale forest cast a heavy shadow — mammoth trunks, roots like broken fingers, crowns as high as redwoods, reaching up toward a sky that was too blue. It was a purple blue. The disk of the sun was wide and in its yellow-glare was a tinge of blood.

Breathing hard, he scrambled to his feet, turning, looking around him, seeing nothing but the expanse of grass, a ragged outcropping of rock that glinted silver, the side of a hill that restricted his horizon.

There was no sign of car, bridge or tracks. And, after the first few seconds, he did not look for any. This was alien, this world. The air was thin, as on a high mountain and to have seen in this place his car or any fragment of the world he knew would have been as grotesque an anachronism as his own presence.

He listened and heard the distant sound of birds. The air was sweet with the scent of sun-warmed grasses.

Howard Loomis dropped to his knees.

His hat rolled away, unheeded. He ran thin fingers through his thinning hair and thought about delirium, Valhalla and death.

He took off his topcoat and threw it aside. He fingered the fabric of his familiar suit, hoping to gain from the touch of the smooth weave a surer grasp on reality. He looked at his sleeve, saw the place where the weaver had fixed the cigarette burn in Baltimore.

He spun to his feet as she coughed.

She was a tall girl in a wine evening dress. Her blue eyes were wide with fear and she stood, her hands at her throat. She looked at something in the air in front of her which did not exist.

“Rick!” she gasped.

Howard Loomis began to laugh. He couldn’t control it. He fell onto his hands and knees and laughed until the tears dripped ridiculously from the end of his sharp nose.

“Too… too much,” he gasped. “Now bring on the — the golden harps.”

“Who are you calling a harp?” the girl snapped.

The sound of her angry voice snapped him out of it. He stared at her in silence. “Where is this place? Who are you?”

“Those are my lines, mister.”

“I car’t tell you where we are, but I’m Howard Loomis. I sell Briskies. I skidded off a railroad bridge but I don’t remember hitting the bottom. I ended up right here.”

“You don’t belong here?” she asked.

“Do I look it? In this decorator’s nightmare am I part of the decor?”

“No,” she said. “You’re the Junior Chamber of Commerce type. You and blue trees don’t mix. I’m Mary Callahan. I was starting my strip when a hoppie named Rick walked up and shot me right between the eyes. At least that was where he was aiming. I saw him pull the trigger but I didn’t feel it hit.”

She reached an unsteady hand up and touched her smooth forehead between her eyebrows with her fingertips.

He took out his cigarettes. She came over and sat down beside him. They smoked in silence.

“Oh, great!” Mary Callahan said.

“Meaning that it’s tougher on you than on the common people? Let’s take a hike around this glamour pasture and see where we are?”

“In these?” she asked, holding out a slim foot encased in a silver sandal with a four inch heel. “You walk. I’ll wait.”

He shrugged. When he was forty feet from her, walking toward the hill, she said, “Hey! Howie! Don’t look now but there’s something floating over you.”

He looked up quickly and his mouth sagged open. It was a little metal box about the size of a cigar box. A fat lense protruded from the bottom of it. It had no visible means of support. Howard stepped quickly to one side. So did the box.

In sudden anger he picked up a rock and threw it at the box.

The rock sailed up, passed through the space where the box had been and continued on.

He turned and looked with exasperation at Mary Callahan. He cocked his head on one side, said, “Hmmm. You have one too.”

Fear of the unknown drove them together. Mary Callahan, in her high heels, topped him by two inches, yet she clung to his arm as she stared upward. The two boxes were twenty feet over their heads, drifting quietly side by side.

“They… they’re watching us!” said Mary Callahan.

And he knew that she was right. The lenses were cool observant eyes.

“This I’m not going to like,” she said grimly. “In spite of my profession I’m a girl who rather likes her privacy. I don’t want to be watched, even by floating cameras.”

She waited while he went down the slope, struggled up the steep hill. Tough brush aided him as did the outcroppings or rock. At last he gained the summit. He looked out over wild country. There were more forests, a wide river in the distance and several semiflat expanses which he judged to be covered by grass at least ten feet high. He saw no sign of human habitation.

He turned and looked back. The wine dress was brilliant against the blue-green grass. He saw her wave up at him. He started down the hill. She met him at the foot of the hill.

“Howie, did you bring any of those Briskies? They sound as if you eat them. Or are they whiskbrooms? About this time of night — or is it day — I yonk on a steak sandwich.”

They both turned as a heavy weight crashed into the top of a small tree. The branches writhed and cracked and a powerful young man dressed in working clothes plummeted down, hitting on the slope, rolling almost to their feet.

He sat up, looked straight up in the air, said, “Heavenly Mary Jane! Where’s the building?”

“You lose a building?” Mary Callahan asked sweetly. “I lost a night club and Howie, my pal here, he lost a car and a railroad bridge.”

Joe Gresham stared at her, got slowly to his feet, testing arms and legs. He looked around at the landscape, glared at Howard Loomis, looked up again, recoiled as he saw the silver box with lense floating over his head.

“Whassat?” he gasped.

“Oh, we all wear them here. De riguer, you know,” Mary answered. “I assume that you fell off a building. You want the pitch?”

“Pitch? You mean you can tell me what happened?” Joe asked.

“Oh, it’s very simple,” Mary said. “The fall killed you.”

Joe Gresham sat down. He tilted his head on one side and peered at Howard. “Where’d you get this crazy dame?”

“Her name is Mary Callahan and I’m Howard Loomis and we both got here almost the same way you did. If she’s crazy, so am I. I haven’t said it out loud before but we’re all dead. Mary was shot through the head. I went off a bridge. What floor did you fall from?”

“About the forty-first. And my name is Joe Gresham.”

“Joe, how many people do you know that fell from the forty-first floor and didn’t break even a finger.”

Joe took out a bandanna and wiped his sunburned brow. He said softly, “Al Brunert fell off the top of the tool house and busted his arm and a pint of drinking liquor. You win, pal.”

“And what do I win? Joe, is this any part of earth you ever heard about?”

Joe took another look around. He stood up and said, “They got the wrong colors here. And that sun is too big and I never seen rocks that look like they’re all metal. I don’t want to sound like a dope, folks, but is this heaven?”

Mary said, “A — I haven’t been a very good girl. B — I don’t think you get hungry in heaven. C — This isn’t exactly a heavenly dress I’ve got on.”

“Then it’s hell,” Joe said firmly.

“Don’t be so dogmatic,” Mary said briskly. “Maybe they’ve got three deals.”

As she spoke Joe took hold of her arm so hard that she gasped. He spun her around and pointed with a big calloused hand. And he whistled softly. “Heaven it might be,” he said.

The girl was on the grass twenty feet away, gasping and choking. She was a slightly sallow blonde with a honey tan — all over. Her hair was soaked.

“She represents the ultimate in my profession,” Mary said.

The girl sat up, hugged herself and glared at them out of streaming eyes. “Well — do something!” she rasped between coughs.

Howard ran and got his discarded topcoat. Keeping his eyes carefully averted, he held it for the blonde. Mary watched her as she slipped into the coat, buttoned it around her. Mary said, appreciatively, “Sister, you ever want to change your line of work, I can give you the address of my agent.”

The blonde stamped her foot on the grass. As it was a bare foot and as she managed to stamp it on a pebble, the gesture was ineffectual. She yelped with pain and hopped on one foot, holding the other.

The three stood and watched her. Stacey Murdock said, “Get in touch with my father immediately. He’s T. Winton Murdock. I’m Stacey Murdock. The Stacey Murdock. He’ll be worried about me.”

They still stared.

She raised her foot to stamp it again, thought better of it. “Didn’t you cretins hear me? I insist that you get in touch with my father. He’ll be worried. He’ll pay you thugs whatever you ask.”

Mary nodded, said in an aside to Howard, “You ask me, I think she drowned. Swimming raw too.”

“This is no time for silly jokes,” Stacey said. “I passed out and you pulled me out of the water and brought me here. Daddy has the note you wrote him.”

Howard said tiredly, “I gather that you think we’ve kidnapped you. Look around, Miss Murdock. Take a good look.”

Stacey took a long look and swallowed hard. “This is — a funny place,” she said weakly.

“Ha, ha!” said Mary Callahan. “Funny.”

“I detest oversized women,” Stacey said briskly. She smiled at Joe. “Now you look like a good earthy type. Tell me where I can fined a phone.”

Joe pointed at his tree. “Lady, I just fell outa the topa that tree. I don’t know my way around.”

Stacey gave him a dazzling smile. “Now I get it,” she said. “They rescued me and I’m still delirious from the shock. You are all figments of my shocked imagination.”

Mary grinned tightly. “Figments, eh. Then we can’t hurt you a bit?”

“Of course not,” Stacey said.

Mary straightarmed Stacey in the forehead with the heel of her hand. Stacey sat down. “Just a love pat from an oversized woman, dearie.”

Howard and Joe had to combine forces to pry them apart.

When they had calmed Stacey down they pointed out the floating boxes. She made a tiny bubbling sound. Howard caught her as she fell. He carried her over to the shade of a tree. She was wonderfully light in his arms.

Mary said bleakly, “I’m still starving.”

“Could eat something myself,” Joe admitted.

Howard shaded his eyes and looked at the sun. “If that sun moves as fast as the one we’re used to, kids, we’ve got two hours to find food, water and a place to sleep.”

Mary took off her shoes and hurled them off into the brush. “Better sore feet than a busted ankle. Wake up your dreamboat and we’ll trudge.”