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//-->InterworldIsidore HalblumA portion of this work first appeared in Swank Magazine.Copyright © 1977 by Isidore HaiblumDell ® TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc.ISBN: 0440122856Printed in the United States of AmericaFirst printing—April 1977PART ONEHAPPY CITYCHAPTER ONEHELP! DISORIENTATION HAS SET IN. I MUST GET MY BEARINGS. HERETHERE IS NOTHING. I TURN OFF ALL MY SENSES. NOW I AM NOTHING TOO.I WAIT.I’d been driving close to an hour when my headlights caught the sign: Cozy Rest Home.Swinging left, I followed the crooked arrow onto a narrow, twisting gravel road.All hell was busy pelting the car. Trees on either side of the roadway strained againsttheir roots as if trying to take off for friendlier climes; wind wailed and the rain lashedout like some mad, lost thing caught in a trap. A hateful scene if ever there was one.I rounded a bend, came to a clearing. The gravel underneath turned to soft, soupy mud. Ipeered into the darkness like a drunk hunting a light switch. Lightning crackled andflared; in the sudden glare, I saw an old, weather-beaten mansion—a four-story job ofwood and shingles, looking as chummy as the corner mortuary. The sight was gone in aroar of thunder.Parking my heap in a large, disorderly puddle, I got out, started for the house. A rowboatwould’ve helped plenty.Three stone steps took me up to the front door. I banged on it. Nothing happened.I did some more pounding. There should’ve been a bell somewhere, only I couldn’t findit. All this racket was murder on the knuckles, but if I stayed out here much longer I’dneed a life belt.Sounds finally from inside. Bolts were being undone.Bolts? In a rest home?The door slid open.A startled-faced lady—somewhere in her mid-thirties—stood there, dressed in a nurse’sstarched white uniform; she stared at me as if one of the trees had hobbled over to askfor shelter. I took that for an invite—the only one I was apt to get—and brushed past herinto the house. “Yes?” she asked coldly. Her lips, I saw, were bright with lipstick, archedeyebrows were penciled in. She looked as trim and spiffy as a dimestore dummy.“I’d like to see Joe Rankin,” I told her. “Tom Dunjer’s the name; I’m his brother-in-law.”I lowered my voice, “It’s a family matter.”“Wait here,” the nurse told me and hurried away.I was in a large hallway. Lumpy yellow wallpaper crawled up the walls, a maroon carpetstretched itself along the floor. Any second I expected the black window drapes to slitherover and fang me. At the hall’s end, stairs—tame and ordinary by comparison—led tothe second floor. The only sound was the rain outside.A door squeaked down hall; the nurse was back, a large, stout, brown-jacketed party intow. Cocking a bushy eyebrow my way, he waddled over with outstretched hand like ahuge seal. Head bald, shiny. Lips, large and pouting. Three chins danced as he walked.He wore the perfect smile of a man whose teeth came from the dimestore.“My name, sir,” he said, “is Dr. Spelville.”“Dunjer,” I told him.The sweetheart in nurse’s uniform shot us both a look of dark disapproval and wentaway. Spelville pumped my hand as though trying to dredge up water from a very deepwell, led me into his office, folded himself into a wide chair behind a clutteredmahogany desk and gave me a bright smile. “A visitor on a night such as this—adelightful surprise, I assure you. How may I be of service?”I told him. I explained I wanted a brief chat with my in-law, who was—reportedly—taking the cure here. It seemed a simple matter.“So—” Spelville sighed, as if he’d just learned I’d towed a small mountain to hisdoorstep and expected him to climb it. “I fear I can be of little help,” he sighed again.“Your brother-in-law is gone.”“Gone?” I said. “Where to?”The doctor shrugged, shook his head, pulled on an earlobe with a fat thumb andforefinger. He didn’t get up and tango, but that was probably next on the agenda. “Thethings that happen, sir—you have no idea. Mr. Rankin packed his bag and departed thisafternoon. I believe a car picked him up at our door. A sick man, sir.” The doctorwiggled a finger at me. “A very sick man. Certainly in need of rest. High-strung,nervous—” his voice became confidential, “possibly deranged. But what could I do?What indeed? Mr. Rankin was a free agent, so to speak.” The doctor spread his palms asif he were going to sing a very long and complicated aria. “Perhaps you would like tosee his room?”It was my turn to shrug.“Splendid,” Spelville said. He pressed a button on his desk. A door to my left openedsoundlessly. An attendant or something came shuffling through. He was a short, broadgent with stooped shoulders, long, dangling arms and a face that looked like a rock pile.I’d figured this day couldn’t get much worse, but I was wrong.“Waldorf,” Dr. Sperville said, “take this gentleman to the room Mr. Rankin used tooccupy.” Waldorf nodded at me, led the way. I followed him down a series of white-walled deserted corridors, smelling disinfectant, floor wax, the odors of damp wood. Wetook a lot of turns, came to an elevator, got in and rode up to the second floor. Waldorfhadn’t said a word yet. Maybe he didn’t know how.Rankin’s room, when I finally got there, was as empty as a railbird’s wallet.We went back the way we’d come, a bland, uneventful trip. What I’d learned couldn’texactly be called a windfall. The doctor hadn’t moved an inch from behind his desk, asif he’d become fixed in an invisible block of ice during my short jaunt. The ice thawed.“Satisfied, Mr. Dunjer?” I wagged my head. Not quite the word I’d‘ve chosen, but anyone would do now. We traded our goodbyes solemnly. The fat man remained seated.The sourpuss nurse let me back into the rain.I waded to the car, climbed in, started the motor, splashed through a number of puddles,hit a bend in the gravel road and pulled over. Getting a flash and gun from the glovecompartment, I put up my coat collar, slid into the wet. In an instant the car wasswallowed by the dark. I was running back through the rain toward the Cozy RestHome. If Rankin was holed-up in that place, I aimed to flush him out. Twenty years ofsleuthing should’ve stood me in good stead for this kind of workout. But three years ashead of Security Plus had got me out of practice. I hoped I still remembered what to do.I HAVE NO NAME. AS YET I AM MERELY A VOICE. THERE ARE WORLDS ANDWORLDS. NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS. BE VIGILANT. WATCH FOR SUBTLESHIFTS, GRADATIONS. EVEN MIRROR IMAGES MUST ULTIMATELYDIVERGE. THIS IS, OF COURSE, NOTHING MORE THAN A HINT, AN IDLEDIGRESSION, BUT ONE WHICH HELPS TO PASS THE TIME. YET, WHERE I AMTHERE IS NO TIME—ONLY EMPTINESS. THIS TOO IS TEMPORARY. ALREADYI CAN FEEL THE FIRST TREMORS OF CHANGE. SOON I SHALL, NO DOUBT,APPEAR SOMEWHERE. BE PATIENT. I AM WORTH WAITING FOR.CHAPTER TWOThe house was dark and still. No light escaped from the shuttered windows. It was anold, ugly mansion and it reeked of decay.This time I circled the joint, and came up behind it, slipping in the mud. Moss grew upthe walls, along with a couple of dozen parasites I couldn’t name. A great spot for aweed garden, if the weeds could stand it.I flicked the beam of my flash up the back wall. No windows on the first floor—they’dbeen cemented over; those on the second floor were shuttered tight. I’d‘ve needed a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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