The Box: Uncanny Stories (17 page)

The old man sat tensely, staring at the keys. In his lap his hands wrung silently together. Then, as the Reverend finished reading, Mr. Moffat played the opening phrase of the hymn. The congregation rose and, following that instant’s silence, began to sing.

This time no one noticed but Mr. Moffat.

Organ tone possesses what is called “inertia,” an
impersonal character. The organist cannot change this tonal quality; it is inviolate.

Yet, Mr. Moffat clearly heard, reflected in the music, his own disquiet. Hearing it sent chills of prescience down his spine. For thirty years he had been organist here. He knew the workings of the organ better than any man. Its pressures and reactions were in the memory of his touch.

That morning, it was a strange machine he played on.

A machine whose motor, when the hymn was ended, would not stop.

“Switch it off again,” Wendall told him.

“I
did
,” the old man whispered frightenedly.

“
Try it again
.”

Mr. Moffat pushed the switch. The motor kept running. He pushed the switch again. The motor kept running. He clenched his teeth and pushed the switch a seventh time.

The motor stopped.

“
I don’t like it
,” said Mr. Moffat faintly.

“Listen, I’ve seen this before,” said Wendall. “When you push the switch across the slot, it pushes a copper contact across some porcelain. That’s what joins the wires so the current can flow.

“Well, you push that switch enough times, it’ll
leave a copper residue on the porcelain so’s the current can move across it. Even when the switch is off. I’ve seen it before.”

The old man shook his head.

“She
knows
,” he said.

T
hat’s
crazy
,” Wendall said.

“
Is it
?”

They were in the motor room. Below, the Reverend was delivering his sermon.

“Sure it is,” said Wendall. “She’s an organ, not a person.”

“I don’t know anymore,” said Mr. Moffat hollowly.

“Listen,” Wendall said, “you want to know what it probably is?”

“She knows they want her out of here,” the old man said. “That’s what it is.”

“Oh, come on,” said Wendall, twisting impatiently, “I’ll tell you what it is. This is an old church—and this old organ’s been shaking the walls for eighty years. Eighty years of that and walls are going to start warping, floors are going to start settling. And when the floor settles, this motor here starts tilting and wires go and there’s arcing.”

“Arcing?”

“Yes,” said Wendall. “Electricity jumping across gaps.”

“I don’t see,” said Mr. Moffat.

“All this here extra electricity gets into the motor,” Wendall said. “There’s electromagnets in these relay machines. Put more electricity into them, there’ll be more force. Enough to cause those things to happen maybe.”

“Even if it’s so,” said Mr. Moffat, “why is she fighting me?”

“Oh, stop talking like that,” said Wendall.

“But I know,” the old man said, “I
feel
.”

“It needs repairing is all,” said Wendall. “Come on, let’s go outside. It’s hot in here.”

Back on his bench, Mr. Moffat sat motionless, staring at the keyboard steps.

Was it true, he wondered, that everything was as Wendall had said—partly due to faulty mechanics, partly due to him? He mustn’t jump to rash conclusions if this were so. Certainly, Wendall’s explanations made sense.

Mr. Moffat felt a tingling in his head. He twisted slightly, grimacing.

Yet, there were these things which happened: the keys going down by themselves, the stop pushing out, the volume flaring, the sound of emotion in what
should be emotionless. Was this mechanical defect; or was this defect on his part? It seemed impossible.

The prickling stir did not abate. It mounted like a flame. A restless murmur fluttered in the old man’s throat. Beside him, on the bench, his fingers twitched.

Still, things might not be so simple, he thought. Who could say conclusively that the organ was nothing but inanimate machinery? Even if what Wendall had said were true, wasn’t it feasible that these very factors might have given strange comprehension to the organ? Tilting floors and ruptured wires and arcing and overcharged electromagnets—mightn’t these have bestowed cognizance?

Mr. Moffat sighed and straightened up. Instantly, his breath was stopped.

The nave was blurred before his eyes. It quivered like a gelatinous haze. The congregation had been melted, run together. They were welded substance in his sight. A cough he heard was a hollow detonation miles away. He tried to move but couldn’t. Paralyzed, he sat there.

And it came.

It was not thought in words so much as raw sensation. It pulsed and tremored in his mind electrically.
Fear—Dread—Hatred
—all cruelly unmistakable.

Mr. Moffat shuddered on the bench. Of himself,
there remained only enough to think, in horror—
She does know
! The rest was lost beneath overcoming power. It rose up higher, filling him with black contemplations. The church was gone, the congregation gone, the Reverend and Wendall gone. The old man pendulumed above a bottomless pit while fear and hatred, like dark winds, tore at him possessively.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Wendall’s urgent whisper jarred him back. Mr. Moffat blinked.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You were turning on the organ.”

“Turning on—?”

“And
smiling
,” Wendall said.

There was a trembling sound in Mr. Moffat’s throat. Suddenly, he was aware of the Reverend’s voice reading the words of the final hymn.

“
No
,” he murmured.

“What is it?” Wendall asked.

“
I can’t turn her on
.”

“What do you mean?”

“
I can’t
.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just—”

The old man felt his breath thinned as, below, the Reverend ceased to speak and looked up, waiting.
No, thought Mr. Moffat. No, I
mustn’t
. Premonition clamped a frozen hand on him. He felt a scream rising in his throat as he watched his hand reach forward and push the switch.

The motor started.

Mr. Moffat began to play. Rather, the organ seemed to play, pushing up or drawing down his fingers at its will. Amorphous panic churned the old man’s insides. He felt an overpowering urge to switch the organ off and flee.

He played on.

He started as the singing began. Below, armied in their pews, the people sang, elbow to elbow, the wine-red hymnals in their hands.

“
No
,” gasped Mr. Moffat.

Wendall didn’t hear him. The old man sat staring as the pressure rose. He watched the needle of the volume gauge move past
mezzo
toward
forte
. A dry whimper filled his throat. No, please, he thought,
please
.

Abruptly, the
swell to great
stop slid out like the head of some emerging serpent. Mr. Moffat thumbed it in desperately. The
swell unison
button stirred. The old man held it in; he felt it throbbing at his finger pad. A dew of sweat broke out across his brow. He glanced below and saw the people squinting up at
him. His eyes fled to the volume needle as it shook toward
grand crescendo
.

“Wendall, try to—!”

There was no time to finish. The
swell to great
stop slithered out again; the air ballooned with sound. Mr. Moffat jabbed it back. He felt keys and pedals dropping in their beds. Suddenly, the
swell unison
button was out. A peal of unchecked clamor filled the church. No time to speak.

The organ was alive.

He gasped as Wendall reached over to jab a hand across the switch. Nothing happened. Wendall cursed and worked the switch back and forth. The motor kept on running.

Now pressure found its peak, each pipe shuddering with storm winds. Tones and overtones flooded out in a paroxysm of sound. The hymn fell mangled underneath the weight of hostile chords.

“Hurry!” Mr. Moffat cried.

“It won’t go off!” Wendall shouted back.

Once more, the
swell to great
stop jumped forward. Coupled with the volume pedal, it clubbed the walls with dissonance. Mr. Moffat lunged for it. Freed, the
swell unison
button jerked out again. The raging sound grew thicker yet. It was a howling giant shouldering the church.

Grand crescendo
. Slow vibrations filled the floors and walls.

Suddenly, Wendall was leaping to the rail and shouting, “Out! Get out!”

Bound in panic, Mr. Moffat pressed at the switch again and again; but the loft still shook beneath him. The organ still galed out music that was no longer music but attacking sound.

“Get out!” Wendall shouted at the congregation. “
Hurry
!”

The windows went first.

They exploded from their frames as though cannon shells had pierced them. A hail of shattered rainbow showered on the congregation. Women shrieked, their voices pricking at the music’s vast ascension. People lurched from their pews. Sound flooded at the walls in tidelike waves, breaking and receding.

The chandeliers went off like crystal bombs.

“
Hurry
!” Wendall yelled.

Mr. Moffat couldn’t move. He sat staring blankly at the manual keys as they fell like toppling dominoes. He listened to the screaming of the organ.

Wendall grabbed his arm and pulled him off the bench. Above them, two last windows were disintegrated into clouds of glass. Beneath their feet, they felt the massive shudder of the church.

“
No
!” The old man’s voice was inaudible; but his intent was clear as he pulled his hand from Wendall’s and stumbled backward toward the railing.

“
Are you crazy
?” Wendall leaped forward and grabbed the old man brutally. They spun around in battle. Below, the aisles were swollen. The congregation was a fear-mad boil of exodus.

“Let me go!” screamed Mr. Moffat, his face a bloodless mask. “I have to stay!”

“No, you don’t!” Wendall shouted. He grabbed the old man bodily and dragged him from the loft. The storming dissonance rushed after them on the staircase, drowning out the old man’s voice.

“You don’t understand!” screamed Mr. Moffa. “
I have to stay
!”

Up in the trembling loft, the organ played alone, its stops all out, its volume pedals down, its motor spinning, its bellows shuddering, its pipe mouths bellowing and shrieking.

Suddenly, a wall cracked open. Arch frames twisted, grinding stone on stone. A jagged block of plaster crumbled off the dome, falling to the pews in a cloud of white dust. The floors vibrated.

Now the congregation flooded from the doors like water. Behind their screaming, shoving ranks, a window frame broke loose and somersaulted to the
floor. Another crack ran crazily down a wall. The air swam thick with plaster dust.

Bricks began to fall.

Out on the sidewalk, Mr. Moffat stood motionless staring at the church with empty eyes.

He was the one. How could he have failed to know it? His fear, his dread, his hatred. His fear of being also scrapped, replaced; his dread of being shut out from the things he loved and needed; his hatred of a world that had no use for aged things.

It had been he who turned the overcharged organ into a maniac machine.

Now, the last of the congregation was out. Inside the first wall collapsed.

It fell in a clamorous rain of brick and wood and plaster. Beams tottered like trees, then fell quickly, smashing down the pews like sledges. The chandeliers tore loose, adding their explosive crash to the din.

Then, up in the loft, the bass notes began.

The notes were so low they had no audible pitch. They were vibrations in the air. Mechanically, the pedals fell, piling up a mountainous chord. It was the roar of some titanic animal, the thundering of a hundred, storm-tossed oceans, the earth sprung open to swallow every life. Floors buckled, walls caved in
with crumbling roars. The dome hung for an instant, then rushed down and mangled half the nave. A monstrous cloud of plaster and mortar dust enveloped everything. Within its swimming opacity, the church, with a crackling, splintering, crashing, thundering explosion, went down.

Later, the old man stumbled dazedly across the sunlit ruins and heard the organ breathing like some unseen beast dying in an ancient forest.

I went
out on the terrace to get away from the gabbing cocktailers.

I sat down in a dark corner, stretched out my legs and sighed in complete boredom.

The terrace door opened again and a man reeled out of the noisome gaiety. He staggered to the railing and looked out over the city.

“Oh, my God,” he said, running a palsied hand through his thin hair. He shook his head wearily and gazed at the light on top of the Empire State Building.

Then he turned with a groan and stumbled toward me. He tripped on my shoes and almost fell on his face.