Eye in the Sky (1957) (24 page)

Pulling
her close against him, Hamilton said, “Look at that sea gull flapping
around out there.”

“It’s
looking for fish,” Miss Reiss commented.

“Evil-minded
bird,” Hamilton declared. “Killing help
less fish.”

The gull vanished.

“But
fish deserve it,” Miss Reiss pointed out thoughtfully. “They prey on
small water life; simple, one-celled
protozoa.”

“Vicious, filthy-minded fish,” Hamilton said spiritedly.
A faint ripple seemed to stir the water. Fish, as a
category, had ceased to exist. In the middle of the picnic cloth, their small
wad of smoked herring faded out.

“Oh
dear,” Marsha said. “That was imported from
Norway.”

“Must have cost quite a bit,” McFeyffe muttered sickly.
“All that imported stuff costs.”

“Who wants money?” Hamilton demanded. Getting out
a handful of change, he scattered it down the hillside. The
bits of bright metal lay sparkling in the early-afternoon sun. “Dirty
stuff.”

The
glowing dots vanished. In his pocket, his wallet gave a queer thump; the paper
bills had left it.

“This
is charming, “Mrs. Pritchet giggled. “It’s so
sweet of you all to help me. I run out of things, now and
then.”

Far down the slope a cow was visible, making its way
slowly along. As they watched, the cow did something
unmentionable. “Abolish cows!” Miss
Reiss cried, but it
was unnecessary. Edith Pritchet had already felt displeasure;
the cow was gone.

And so, Hamilton noted, was his belt. And his wife’s
shoes. And Miss Reiss’ purse. All
were made from hide.
And
on the picnic cloth, the yogurt and cream cheese had left, too.

Leaning over, Miss Reiss tugged at an annoying clump of dry, ragged
weeds. “What offensive plants,” she com
plained. “One of them stuck
me.”

The weeds
vanished. So did most of the dry grass on the fields where the former cows had
grazed. Instead,
only barren rock and dirt
were visible.

Racing around in an hysterical circle, David shouted,
“I found some poison oak! Poison
oak!”

“The
woods are full of it,” Hamilton revealed. “And
nettles. And treacherous vines.”

To their right, the grove of trees shuddered. All
around them the forest gave a faint, almost invisible
twitch. A thinness of vegetation became evident

Gravely,
Marsha removed the remnants of her shoes.
Only
the cloth stitching and the metal staples remained. “Isn’t this sad?”
she said mournfully to Hamilton.

“Banish shoes,” Hamilton suggested.

“That
would be a good idea,” Mrs. Pritchet agreed,
bright-eyed with enthusiasm. “Shoes cramp the feet” The
remnants
in Marsha’s hands disappeared, along with the various shoes of the group.
McFeyffe’s great loud socks waggled starkly in the sunlight Embarrassed, he
dragged them under him and out of sight.

On the horizon, the smoke of an ocean tramp steamer
was faintly visible. “Crass
commercial freighter,” Hamil
ton stated. “Wipe it off the map.”

The haze of dark smoke vanished. Commercial ship
ping had come to an end.

“A much cleaner world,” Miss Reiss commented.
Along the highway, a car moved. Its radio blared up
tinnily. “Abolish radios,” Hamilton
said. The noise ceased.
“And TV
sets and movies.” No visible change occurred, but it had been consummated,
nevertheless. “And cheap
musical
instruments—accordions and harmonicas and
banjos and vibraharps.”

All over the world, those instruments were gone.
“Advertisements,” Miss Reiss cried, as a heavy
oval
truck moved along the highway, its
painted sides gleam
ing with words. The words disappeared. “Trucks,
too.”
The truck itself disappeared,
hurtling the driver into the
drainage ditch at the edge of the pavement.

“He’s hurt,” Marsha said feebly. The struggling driver
was immediately gone.

“Gasoline,” Hamilton said. “That’s what the truck was
carrying.”

All over the world, gasoline vanished.

“Oil
and turpentine,” Miss Reiss added.

“Beer, rubbing alcohol and tea,” Hamilton said.

“Pancake syrup, honey and cider,” Miss Reiss said.

“Apples, oranges, lemons, apricots and pears,” Marsha
said faintly.

“Raisins and peaches,” McFeyffe muttered grumpily.

“Nuts, yams and sweet potatoes,” Hamilton said.

Obligingly, Mrs. Pritchet abolished those various cate
gories from the face of the earth. Their cups of tea be
came empty. The supply of picnic food markedly
dwindled.

“Eggs
and frankfurters,” Miss Reiss cried, leaping
to her feet.

“Cheese, doorknobs and coat hangers,” Hamilton add
ed, joining her.

Giggling, Mrs. Pritchet added the
categories.
“Really,”
the gasped, heaving with
merriment, “aren’t we going too far?”

“Onions,
electric toasters and toothbrushes,” Marsha s
aid clearly.

“Sulphur, pencils, tomatoes and flour,” David chimed
in, getting into the swing of it

“Herbs, automobiles, and plows,” Miss Reiss shouted.
Behind them, the Ford
coupe
quietly vanished. On the
rolling hills and slopes of Big Sur Park, the vegetation
again thinned.

“Sidewalks,” Hamilton suggested.

“Drinking fountains and clocks,” Marsha added.

“Furniture
polish,” David screamed, dancing up and
down.

“Hairbrushes,” Miss Reiss said.

“Comic
books,” McFeyffe mentioned. “And that gooey pastry with all the
writing on it. That French stuff.”

“Chairs,”
Hamilton said suddenly, dazed by his daring.
“And
couches.”

“Couches
are immoral,” Miss Reiss agreed, stepping on the thermos bottle in her
excitement. “Away with them. And glass. Everything glass.”

Obligingly,
Mrs. Pritchet abolished her spectacles, and all related items throughout the
universe.

“Metal,”
Hamilton cried in a weak, astonished voice.

The zipper
of his trousers disappeared. What was left of the thermos bottle—a metal husk—vanished.
Marsha’s tiny wrist watch, the fillings in their teeth; the staves and hooks of
the women’s underclothing, ceased to be.

In a frenzy, David scampered off, screaming, “Clothes!”
Instantly, they were all mother-naked. But it scarcely
mattered; sex had long ago disappeared.

“Vegetation,”
Marsha said, scrambling up to stand fearfully beside her husband. This time,
the change was startling. The hills, the vast expanse of mountain, became as
bald as a slab of stone. Nothing remained but the brown earth of autumn, baking
under the cold, pale
sun.

“Clouds,”
Miss Reiss said, face twitching. The few puffs of delicate white that drifted
overhead were gone. “And haze!” Instantly, the sun blazed furiously.

“Oceans,”
Hamilton said. The pastel green expanse winked out abruptly; all that remained
was an incredibly deep pit of dry sand that extended as far as the eye could
see. Appalled, he hesitated for an instant, giving Miss Reiss time to cry:

“Sand!”

The
titanic pit deepened. The bottom was lost from sight. A low, ominous rumble
shook the ground under them; the basic balance of the earth had been shifted.

“Hurry,”
Miss Reiss panted, her face distorted with passion. “What next? What’s
left?”

“Cities,”
David suggested.

Impatiently,
Hamilton waved him aside. “Gullies,” he bellowed. At once, they were
standing on a uniform plain; all depressions had been ironed out. Six naked,
pale figures of assorted weights and shapes, they stood gazing fervently around
them.

“All animals but man,” Miss Reiss gasped breathlessly.

It was
done.

“All
life
forms
but man,” Hamilton topped her.

“Acids!”
Miss Reiss shouted, and instantly sank down to her knees, face contorted with
pain. All of them writhed in an ecstasy of discomfort; basic body chemistry
had been radically altered.

“Certain
metallic salts!” Hamilton screamed. Again, they were convulsed by internal
agony.

“Specific
nitrates!” Miss Reiss added shrilly.

“Phosphorus!”

“Sodium chloride!”

“Iodine!”

“Calcium!”
Miss Reiss sank semi-conscious onto her elbows; all of them lay strewn about in
postures of helpless suffering. The bloated, palpitating body of Edith
Pritchet wriggled in spasms; saliva dribbled from her slack lips as she fought
to concentrate on the enumerated categories.

“Helium!”
Hamilton croaked.

“Carbon dioxide!” Miss Reiss whispered faintly.

“Neon,”
Hamilton managed. Everything around him wavered and faded; he was spinning in a
chaos of in
finite, gloomy darkness.
“Freon. Gleon.”

“Hydrogen,”
Miss Reiss’ pale lips formed, swimming in the shadows close by.

“Nitrogen,”
Hamilton summoned, as the swirl of non-being closed around him.

In a last
feeble burst of energy, Miss Reiss raised herself up and quavered,
“Air!”

The world’s layer of atmosphere swept out of existence.
His lungs totally empty, Hamilton descended into a crashing
blur of death. As the universe ebbed away, he saw the inert form of Edith
Pritchet roll over in a reflexive spasm: her consciousness and personality had
fled.

They had
won. Her grip on them was gone. They had put an end to her—they were finally,
agonizingly free… .

He lived. He lay outstretched, too drained of energy to
stir, his chest rising and falling, his fingers clutching
at the ground. But where the hell was he?

With tremendous effort, he managed to open his eyes.

He was not in Mrs. Pritchet’s world. Around him, the
dull pulse of darkness pounded and throbbed. An ugly
undercurrent that drifted and swelled and pressed
omin
ously against him. But dimly, he could make out other
shapes, other bodies sprawled here and there.

Marsha,
inert and silent, lay not far off. Beyond her lay the hulk of Charley McFeyffe,
mouth open, eyes
glazed. And, vaguely, in
the swirl of drifting gloom, he
could
identify Arthur Silvester, David Pritchet, the limp
form of Bill Laws,
and the vast, clumsy shape of Edith
Pritchet,
still unconscious.

Were they
back in the Bevatron? A brief, thrilling
flicker
of joy touched him … and then it slipped away.
No. This was not the Bevatron. In his throat, a
slow bub
bling wail formed, forcing its way up and out of his mouth.
Desperately, feebly, he struggled to creep away
from the thing that loomed over him, the slender, bone-like shell of
life that gradually crumpled into itself
until it was bending down close to him.

In his
ear, its dry, plucking whisper began. Vibrating dully, the sound drummed and
echoed at him, coming again and again until he had stopped trying to scream it
down, had stopped his futile effort to push it away.

“Thank
you,” it breathed metallically. “You did your part very well. It
happened just as I planned.”

“Get away!” he shrieked.

“I’ll
get away,” the voice promised. “I want you to
get up and go about your business. I want to watch you.
All of
you are very interesting. I’ve been watching you
a long time, but not the way I want. I want to watch you
close
up. I want to watch you every minute. I want to see everything you do. I want
to be around you, right inside you, where I can get at you when I need to. I
want to be able to touch you. I want to be able
to make
you do things. I want to see how you react. I want. I want
…”

Now he
knew where he was; he knew whose world
they
were in. He recognized the calm, metallic whisper
that beat relentlessly into his ears and brain.

It was the voice of Joan Reiss.

XII

“
THANK HEAVEN
,”
a voice was saying, slowly and me
thodically. A woman’s crisp voice. “We’re back. We’re
back in the real world.”

The pools of gloom were gone. The familiar scene of
forest and ocean lay spread out everywhere; the green
expanse of Big Sur Park and the ribbon of highway
at the
foot of Cone Peak had seeped
back into existence.