I tried the doorknob. It turned. I was half in when I stopped cold.
This I did not believe. Put it on a book jacket and label it Edd
Cartier and I'll buy it.
I blinked to make it go away but it wouldn't. I whimpered. So it
_was_--what my mind had been half-suspecting for months, and laughing
at itself even as it suspected--it was _true_!
* * * * *
The Thing at the machine was a giant insect. Ten feet high, at
least. It was brown-green and had lots of claw-like appendages. The
most terrible thing about it was its familiarity. I had surveyed it
critically on half a dozen of our cover originals.
I had quibbled with our artists about it. Not horrible enough, I had
said. Well, it was. It was horrible....
It was busy with that machine, making noises into a cone and twisting
dials and knobs with its many appendages. The noises it made were
carefully inflected. Speech, in fact. It was talking into the cone,
which absorbed the sounds, and transmitted them--where?
My shoes were glued to the floor.
The Thing finished talking, snapped off the machine, turned. It saw me.
It yelled and tried to duck out. It moved in a blur. Seven pairs of
claws flexed out and grabbed for me. Some of the weaving cilea touched
me. I screamed at the sting, like a dozen raking barbs, tearing my
clothes and me.