THE VENGEANCE OF TOFFEE
By Charles F. Myers
The world was on the brink of atomic war and
nothing, it seemed, could prevent it. But
Toffee had a plan--and a little magic to boot!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
February 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The bombs ticked--in remote places--behind locked and guarded doors.
The bombs ticked, and the terrible sound was distinct in the farthest
corners of the world--wherever a man picked up a newspaper, turned on a
radio--or paused to listen to the beating of his own heart. A Bomb ...
H Bomb ... X Bomb--the bombs ticked louder and louder with the growing
hours--and each man dwelt alone now with the dark spectre of his own
trembling fear.
"_Yesterday we perfected a new kind of totalitarian death...._" (It
was difficult to remember the pleasant, relaxed voice which had once
given the announcer his popularity, for now it seemed that his breath
passed over taut nerves rather than vocal cords. But no one noticed; it
was only what he said that mattered now, not how he said it. Fear fed
on fear with an avid, indiscriminate appetite--and flourished from the
diet.)
"_Today we can only be certain that the foreign powers will have caught
up with us within the next few hours._
"_Can you remember the Atomic Age, ladies and gentlemen? How long ago
that was! And yet how swiftly we have progressed from that to the Age
of Human Terror._
"_The X Bomb--the incomprehensible unit of power and destruction which
dwarfs the human soul and reduces it to a negligible fraction of
quivering fright--just one small fraction contributing to the monstrous
organism of terror which has lately become our modern civilization.
How wretched we are to be living in a civilization in which the word
'city' has been rendered obsolete by the word 'target.' The New York
Target ... the Chicago Target ... the Salt Lake and San Francisco
Targets. How wretched we are._
"_And is it strange that these targets which were once cities are being
deserted? Is it strange that men have begun to run from the bombs even
before they have begun to fall? That is the nature of terror._
"_For the first time in its history the nation looks upon a
nomadic society--largely that group of the working people who have
ceased working to wander aimlessly, seeking safety within our own
borders--living by thievery and lawlessness. Crime has increased so
rapidly of late that a comparative estimate is impossible. That, too,
is the nature of terror._
"_Today the government would force these erstwhile workers back to
the hearts of the targets--force them by law back to the factories to
engage again in the production of death and destruction._
"_'Necessary,' the statesmen say. 'Necessary to national safety.' But
with the statesmen's words comes the obvious question: Is there still
any national safety left for any nation? Does it exist anywhere, to be
preserved? Haven't the fleeing nomads asked themselves this question
already, turning their frightened eyes to the unprotecting skies?_
"_But the statesman must speak--and he must speak logic, even now
when logic has deserted us, and words can no longer save us. Every
man--statesman or otherwise--knows that it is no longer a question of
whether the bombs will drop--but when they will drop--and who will drop
them--we or they?_
"_It is true that no nation has declared war, but terror declares its
own war. Can we wait another day to take the initiative? Can they? The
undeclared enemy may destroy us tomorrow--or tonight--even within the
next few minutes. I may not live to finish this broadcast--and you may
not live to hear it...._"
* * * * *
Suddenly there was a sharp click, and the voice stopped, silenced as
effectively as though a wire had been knotted about the speaker's
throat. Marc Pillsworth, startled at the sudden silence, snapped
forward in his chair and looked up. Julie, the lamp light slanting
sharply across her face, glared down at him with tense irritation. She
removed her hand significantly from the radio switch.
"I'm telling you, Marcus Pillsworth," she said menacingly, "I can't
stand any more of it. If you turn on that bloody instrument again--if
you so much as twitch your bony finger in its direction--one of us is
going to die of unnatural causes, and you may have read that the female
is notoriously more long-lived than the male."
Marc stared at her incredulously through the chill dimness of the
living room. Then he sighed heavily. This also was the nature of human
terror: every man was married to a shrew these days. Women simply
weren't up to it.
But Julie had been better than most--until now. He looked at the
tightly drawn lips, the circled eyes and tried to remember his wife's
cool blonde beauty as it had been only a month ago. The contrast was
disquieting. Well, these were harrowing times for her.
But they were just as harrowing for everyone else--for him. She ought
to realize that. Suddenly, unaccountably, Marc felt his self-control
slipping away from him with all the sleazy inevitability of a pair of
silk shorts with rotten elastic. Suddenly the distorted face across the
room was not at all the face of his wife, but the face of a vindictive
stranger who had invaded his rights and his privacy with definite
malice in mind. Reason left him, and, with a black sucking feeling in
the pit of his stomach, he felt the last measure of his reserve trickle
down the drain. Gripping the arms of his chair, he jutted his face out
into the light and deliberately leered.
"With the world coming down around our ears," he snarled, "I suppose
you expect me to sit here complacently simpering and snickering and
snapping my gum like an addled adolescent? Don't you care that we may
all go to blazes in the next few minutes?"
"No!" Julie screamed, fitting a direct answer to a direct question.
"No, I don't care. I'm tired of caring. I'm tired through with caring.
And I'm tired of you sitting there with those great elephantine ears of
yours hinged to that radio. You've been at it day in, day out, day in,
day out, day in...!"
"Stop repeating yourself like some idiot tropical bird," Marc snapped.
"Why don't you ever go down to the office any more?" Julie asked with
womanly logic. "Why don't you get out of here and leave me alone?"
* * * * *
In heavy martyrdom Marc lifted his eyes to the ceiling. What was the
use? Why go through it all again? He'd explained to her a million
times that he no longer had any _reason_ to go to the office. The
advertising business had been one of the first to suffer. Who cared
what the advertising industry had to say at a time like this? Who
wanted to be beautiful or healthy or envied when there wasn't any
future in it?
"Turn the radio on," he said steadily.
Julie's eyes actually sparked flame. "_What?_ Do you really have the
grassy green gall to ask me to turn that thing on again? I don't
believe my ears!"
"I'm not asking," Marc said slowly, "I'm _instructing_ you to."
"Hah!" Julie snorted to some invisible spectator. "Listen to him!" She
eyed him nastily. "Ask me to shinny up the doorsill and do a swan dive
into my cocktail. I'll do that sooner."
Marc met her gaze for a moment and momentarily declined the challenge.
"I suppose you just want to sit here and never know what hit you?"
"Exactly," Julie said. "For heaven's sake what does it matter what hits
us after we're dead? At least I don't want to sit here chewing my nails
while some morbid-minded deficient drives me into a state of complete
nervous collapse."
Marc disengaged himself from his chair. She had a point there, though
he'd rot before he admitted it. With considerable unconcern he moseyed
across the room and glanced out the window. Then he stopped and leaned
closer to the pane. Across the street the world was already ablaze. The
night sky glowed red with flame.
"My God!" he cried. "The Fredericks are on fire!"
Julie moved to his side and stared out the window.
"Who are those people?" she asked. "The ones sitting on the lawn there?"
Marc directed his gaze to the right. He should have seen them sooner,
except that one's sense of logic, when one is witnessing a fire, does
not readily encompass a group of people lounging on blankets in the
glowing radiance--especially when those people are concerned more with
food, drink and cards than with the fire--and more especially when the
owners of the flaming dwelling are prominent among those present....
"Aren't those the Fredericks?" Julie asked.
"Do you suppose they've noticed the house?" Marc asked. "But I suppose
they must."
"Maybe not," Julie said. "They've been drunk for days. It started out
as a house warming party. Do you suppose this is their idea of a joke?"
* * * * *
Marc turned away. "The papers are full of this sort of thing. The
anxiety has driven people mad." Then suddenly he stiffened. "Maybe
they've heard something! Maybe they've decided to burn their home
rather than let the enemy do it for them." He ran to the radio and
snapped the switch.
"_Beside every man stalks the black shadow of doom...!_" the announcer
groaned.
At the window Julie instantly snapped to a position of rigid erectness.
With cold fury she turned and regarded Marc's lank figure bent
attentively to the radio speaker. Her eyes rested on her husband's
impassive posterior, and glittering, unbridled madness flickered in
their depths.
"_When will the attack fall?_" the announcer inquired, and Julie
answered him without hesitation. "Now, brother," she murmured. "Right
now!"
Unaware of the declaration of hostilities from the rear, Marc hung on
the words of the announcer: "_We can only brace ourselves and hope...._"
It was a pity he did not have the foresight--or perhaps hindsight--to
follow the announcer's advice. In the next moment Julie's foot,
propelled so as to accomplish the same work as an iron sledge,
completed an arc that terminated in what might crudely be called a
bull's eye.
With a scream of mortal agony, Marc started forward, and jutted his
head forthwith into the speaker of the radio. There was a dreadful
splintering sound, and then with a squeal, not unlike Marc's, the
announcer fell silent.
Marc was unaware of this latter development; both his soul and body
were too consumed with throbbing pain to be concerned any longer with
such trivialities as the X Bomb and the demise of the world. The world
could go to hell in beach sandals and it would be as nothing to the
awful thing which had befallen him. Thrusting his hands forcibly to the
seat of his anguish, he dislodged his head from the radio and regarded
Julie from a crouching position. Clutching himself in a most unmindful
way he stared up at his mate with almost animal loathing.
"What a rotten thing to do!" he rasped. "And what a fiendish place to
do it! You ... you're ... you're _inhuman_!"
Julie laughed evilly. "I warned you, you reptile! I told you I couldn't
stand any more!"
* * * * *
Marc grimaced as a new wave of pain surged upward through his body. "I
just hope you're proud, waiting until a man's got his back turned and
then kicking him in the...!"
"There's no need to be crude about it," Julie cut in quickly.
"That's funny, that is!" Marc snapped, baring his teeth. "_Me_--crude!
What about you? I suppose you've been the perfect little lady in this
affair? I'm not surprised you can't bear to face your crime!"
"Vulgar!" Julie yelled. "Vulgar, skinny man!"
Marc glanced at the radio. "You've ruined it!"
"You ruined it yourself. Though I will say that if you hadn't, I had
every intention of taking a meat axe to it."
"And to me, too, I dare say. A nice way for a wife to go on to a
husband who has cherished and protected her."
"Oh, stop it, you ninny," Julie said. "Stop carrying on as though I'd
murdered you."
"I'd have preferred to be murdered," Marc said, shuddering with pain.
"Stop crouching like that," Julie said. "And stop holding yourself
in that suggestive way. You look like a child with uncertain habits.
Straighten up."
Marc considered the matter of straightening up; never had he felt so
strongly the need to rise to his full height. He relinquished his
grip on himself and tried to unbend. Instantly he fell back into the
crouching position with a cry of pain.
"I can't!" he cried. "I can't straighten up!"
Julie's expression swiftly undertook a series of transformations
ranging from suspicion to chagrin to abject contrition.
"Of course you can," she said anxiously. "Try."
"I can't, I tell you!" Marc gritted. "And it serves you right. As a
matter of fact I hope I stay this way, and you have to spend the rest
of your days explaining to everyone how it happened. You've dislocated
my sacroiliac, that's what you've done, you brutish female!"
"Oh, no!" Julie gasped. "Oh, Marc!" She ran toward him.
"Get away from me!" Marc snarled. "Don't you touch me, you Judith
Iscariot!"
"Oh, dear!" Julie wailed. She held our a hand. "I'll get a doctor, the
one down the block. Don't do anything. I'll be right back." She started
toward the door.
"Tell him how it happened!" Marc called after her spitefully. "Tell him
how you kicked your own husband in the...!"
But the door slammed as Julie hurried out of the house and down the
steps.
Marc returned his hands gingerly to his pulsing bottom and stared
gloomily at the floor.
"Damn!" he said. "Damn, damn, damn!"
* * * * *
The doctor strapped a final length of adhesive across Marc's back and
helped him into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.
"It may be tender for a day or two," he said. He helped Marc into his
pajama coat. "You'll be all right, though. You can have Mrs. Pillsworth
take that tape off for you at the end of the week."
"I'll wear it to my grave," Marc snapped, "before I'll permit that
woman to touch me again."
"Now, now, Mr. Pillsworth," the doctor temporized. "You'll feel better
in the morning." He turned and picked up his case. "I imagine those
sedatives will take care of everything for tonight."
"Thank you, doctor," Marc said gratefully, and sank back rigidly on the
bed. Lying down, held stiffly by the tape, he was forced to watch the
doctor from the corner of his eye.
"Goodnight, doctor."
"Goodnight." The doctor nodded from across the room and opened the door
to leave. Julie was revealed wringing her hands in the hallway. She
stepped forward.
"How is he, doctor?" she asked. "May I see him now?"
"Keep her out!" Marc growled from his pillow. "If she so much as sticks
a hand in here I'll bite it!"
The doctor took Julie's arm. "Don't worry," he said. "Everyone's a
little neurotic these days." He guided her back into the hall and
closed the door.
Marc shifted his gaze from the door to the ceiling. The laughter of
the Fredericks and their guests drifted in through the open window,
and he reflected on its quality: it was the laughter of desperation,
not abandoned. Then the scream of a fire siren sounded faintly in the
distance, and a woman echoed the cry weirdly from somewhere down the
block--another patient for the good doctor.
Marc closed his eyes and waited for the sedatives to work. An echo of
pain throbbed along his spine. He tried to shift a bit, but the tape
held him in place, and the pain was only worse for the effort. He
looked at the ceiling again and noted its singular blankness without
pleasure. Finally he decided to turn his mind to other things--to
the past and happier circumstances. Instantly, without any conscious
cooperation, Toffee's pert face stirred in his memory. The ghost of a
smile played at the corners of his mouth.
Not that the thought of Toffee was undilutedly pleasant. The gamin
creature of his mind had a strong predisposition for trouble as well as
pleasure--a sort of special magnetism that drew calamity to herself as
well as the hapless souls around her. And yet the basic feeling, when
thinking of Toffee, was one of distinct cheer. If trouble came to her
it was never altogether unmixed with a certain element of hilarity.
There was always a dash of excitement at least.
* * * * *
Naturally Toffee had not been in Marc's mind at all these last few
months. For one thing he had been much too concerned with the perilous
state of the world, and Toffee, not a consistent inhabitant of this
world, or much of any other, was difficult to picture in conjunction
with truly worldly matters.
If it could be said that Toffee lived at all, it would have to be the
Valley of Marc's mind. Not that she wasn't quite real; it was just that
she did not exist materially unless she was projected into the material
world through Marc's imagination. After that she was as flesh and blood
as anyone--indeed, to an almost overwhelming degree at times.
If Marc had grown used to this strange circumstance--that his mind
could actually create a living, breathing perfect hellion of a
redhead--it was only by virtue of repetition. The human mind can adjust
to the wildest of impossibilities in time, if it is only subjected to
them often enough.
The smile grew on Marc's lips as he considered the provocative form and
features of Toffee. It was a vision to prod the sternest lips into a
smile.
Then the smile vanished as Julie's footsteps sounded outside in the
hallway. Marc listened to their approach, turning his eyes toward the
door.
He could almost see her standing there in the hallway beyond the closed
door. Desolated with remorse, she would be, undecided. A trickle of
compassion gullied the surface of Marc's resentment. After all, she
had really meant to hurt him. He would have called out to her, but the
footsteps sounded anew and retreated down the hall. A moment later a
door opened and closed. Marc sighed; tomorrow would be time enough to
make it up to her.
He closed his eyes as a slow drowsiness began to seep through his lean
body--probably the sedatives going to work. His mind wandered aimlessly
for a moment, then collided, quite forcibly, with a sudden realization;
during the last hour--for the first time in weeks--his thoughts had
turned away from the dismal state of the world and centered on himself.
For a whole hour his interest had been entirely absorbed in a simple
domestic crisis--a little thing like a fight over the radio!
Marc's mind spun with the thought. In the last few months things--the
matters of men's lives--had somehow gotten themselves all turned around
backwards. People had ceased to concern themselves with the really
important things--fighting over a radio, for instance--and had turned
to the childish business of blowing up the world.
Marc paused to sum up these thoughts. Somewhere they contained a very
great and very simple truth, though they were all snarled up. Somehow
his dislocated sacroiliac and the troubles of the world were subtly
related....
The drowsiness washed over his mind again, and the thought was carried
away on the crest. He reached after them, but couldn't quite make it.
There was but one last glimmer:
"What this world needs," Marc murmured, "is a good five ton kick in
the...."
His eyes closed, and instantly his chest began to rise and fall with
the deep, regular breathing of complete sleep.
* * * * *
A warm breeze dusted the edge of the curtain and set it rippling.
Somewhere in the night, in the distance across the city, a siren wailed
with inconsolable melancholy. A cat stalked the intersection, as silent
and intense as his leopard-long shadow. In his narcotic slumbers Marc
rolled a bit to one side and made a small whimpering sound as the
adhesive pulled at his back. He lay back and was still.
But Marc had dismissed all conscious memory of his injury some time
hence. In the same moment when he had fallen asleep he had left the
room of the rippling curtain and unhappy echoes and had passed into the
untroubled, all-black world of unconsciousness.
Now, however, he stirred again, and with that almost indiscernible
movement, leaped from the darkness into lighter regions; into the
secret, all-things-are-possible world of his subconscious--into the
world where dreams can become more real than reality itself. Marc
paused on the brink of this world for one tremulous moment, then
plunged forward....
Brilliant light shot up to meet him so that he had to close his eyes
against the glare. Then, slowly, he opened them again. Much like the
sensation of stepping onto cool lawn after having walked barefoot on
scorching concrete, pain was swiftly followed by almost unbearable
pleasure.
Before Marc's gaze a soft greenness stretched away from him into
graceful rising slopes and cool shadowed hollows--artfully like a
display of green velvet in a shop window. On the rise of the most
distant knoll stretched a forest of strange trees which held at once a
cathedral of stateliness and a feathery pliability. Weaving slightly
with the breeze they were mindful of nothing so much as a handful of
royal plumes stuck into the earth at the whim of a bemused child. The
Valley of The Subconscious Mind....
Marc knew instantly where he was; he'd been there often enough before.
He glanced around in search of some movement, some flash of animated
color. But there was nothing. He started up the rise, stretching his
long legs purposefully before him. Surely she would be there, probably
among the trees.
But she was not. Nor was there any sign of her. Marc moved to the crest
of the knoll where the trees were the thickest, but the far horizon
proved to be obscured by a blue mist that swirled and disported itself
in the way of something alive. He stood there for a long moment,
turning slowly, watching anxiously for any sign, but there was none.
Finally he sat down, braced his elbows on his knees and rested his
chin in his hand. Disappointment welled inside him--and hurt too;
always before she had been right there to meet him at the moment of his
arrival.
* * * * *
He stiffened with a sudden, dreadful thought: what if Toffee wasn't
there at all? What if she had ceased to exist? Wasn't it possible
since she was only a product of his imagination? He stood up and again
scanned the horizon. He bent down to peer into the shifting frontiers
of the mists.
And then it happened. It was low and mean and sharply reminiscent of a
similar agony which had befallen him in another time and place that he
couldn't rightly remember. Grabbing himself uninhibitedly he doubled
forward and sat down heavily on the ground.
Then it was over as swiftly and surprisingly as it had begun. The air
rippled with musical, feminine laughter, somewhere behind him. Marc
swung around.
Lovely as ever, her mist-textured tunic only served to cast a cool
greenish tint on the flesh of the outrageously perfect body beneath
it. As she moved from beneath the trees, her flaming hair fell loose
about her shoulders, as free and wild as the spirit it adorned. Though
her full red lips quivered with laughter, the real laughter was in the
depths of her green eyes. She paused for a moment, then ran forward and
sat down lightly at his side. She eyed him with mischievous amusement.
"You dilapidated old despot," she smiled. "It's about time you showed
that simpering old face of yours around here again."
Marc, mindful of his recent discomfiture, returned her gaze with chilly
suspicion. But if Toffee noticed she pretended not to. With a quick
maneuver which was executed with the skill and precision obtainable
only through long and diligent practice, she twined her arms about his
neck and kissed him full upon the mouth. Marc received the kiss with
unblinking aloofness. His gaze remained hostile even as she leaned back
from him.
"You kicked me," he said injuredly.
Toffee's eyes widened with enormous innocence. "You've got it wrong. I
kissed you, that's all."
"Kicked," Marc said stubbornly. "You kicked me."
"Where?"
"Never mind."
"I was yards away from you at the time," Toffee said. "You saw me,
yourself."
* * * * *
Marc reflected. It was true; she hadn't even been in sight. Still,
experience had taught him that she was capable of anything, perhaps
even a long-distance boot in the bottom.
"Well, somebody did it," he said sullenly.
"I swear it wasn't me," Toffee said stoutly. "I swear it on the old
bald head of my maternal grandfather."
"You haven't got a maternal grandfather," Marc said shortly. "Don't
talk nonsense."
"If I had a maternal grandfather," Toffee amended smoothly, "and he had
an old bald head, I would unhesitatingly swear on it."
"You would just as unhesitatingly lop it off with an axe, too," Marc
said, "if it served your purpose."
"Who wouldn't?" Toffee said. "Who wants an old bald head around all the
time? Even a maternal grandfather's?"
"You haven't got a grandfather," Marc reminded her sharply, "maternal
or otherwise."
"Certainly, I have," Toffee said stoutly. "I just swore on his old bald
head, didn't I? Or did I swear _at_ his old bald head? I wouldn't be
surprised. He's always whining around about how maternal he is, and I
know darned well he's never been a mother in his life. It's disgusting."
"Sometimes I wonder why I even listen to you," Marc said. "I only get
dizzy."
"Well, it's no wonder I'm flighty with that nasty old man under foot
all the time," Toffee said. "If you'd just speak to this maternal
grandfather of mine and tell him to stop sticking his old bald head
into everything...."
"Stop!" Marc cried. "If you go on any more about it I'll start foaming
at the mouth!"
Toffee lay back on the grass and stretched her arms thoughtfully above
her head.
"Anyway," she said. "I swear my foot has not so much as brushed the
seat of your pants." But even as she said it a smile played fleetingly
at the corners of her mouth.
Marc turned to her, prepared to the last inflection to inform her that
he would trust her only a little less farther than he could hurl a
steam shovel with his bare teeth, but he did not speak. His gaze went
to her left hand and remained there.
* * * * *
In all the time he had known her Marc had never seen Toffee wear even
a single piece of jewelry: it was taken for granted that her charms
were sufficient unto themselves without any superficial ornamentation.
One might be silly enough to apply gilt to a lily, but never to a gold
piece. Therefore, he was surprised now to glance down and see quite a
large ring on her finger.
And the ring itself was quite as remarkable as the fact of Toffee's
wearing it. Marc had never seen anything like it before and was willing
to bet a tidy sum that no one else had either.
The metal part of the ring was neither silver nor gold, yet faintly
resembled both--with a strange translucent quality that seemed
altogether unreal. It had been fashioned into a design that was both
simple and beautiful. But it was really the stone which caught and held
Marc's eye.
Such a stone was simply not possible! It resembled an emerald of the
largest, rarest and most beautiful kind, and yet it was not an emerald.
No mere emerald, no natural chemical fluke, could possibly have the
life--the almost living vitality--of this stone. It gave off a light
that met the eye with something like an electrical shock. But that
wasn't all. It was the _feeling_ you got just from looking at it--that
the stone both absorbed from and contributed to the living atmosphere
around it. The thing actually assumed a personality as you stared at
it. Marc felt a shiver of apprehension.
"Where did you get that ring?" he asked.
"Oh, that," Toffee said negligently. "Just something I dreamed up out
of my head--the way you dream me up."
"You mean...?"
"Sure," Toffee nodded. "You aren't the only one around here who can do
cerebral somersaults. After all, I'm right here at the source. As a
matter of fact it was something you said that gave me the idea."
"What do you mean?" Marc asked. "What did I say?"
"Oh, I forget just how it went right now," Toffee said. "Besides
there'll be lots of time for all this dull conversation later. Right
now...."
"Are you trying to hold something back from me?" Marc asked
suspiciously.
"Nothing," Toffee said. She pulled herself closer, brushed her lips
playfully across his cheek. "Absolutely nothing." She slipped her arm
around his neck.
* * * * *
The next few seconds were characterized with quiet struggle as Marc
disengaged himself from her determined embrace.
"Next time hold something back," he said confusedly. "There's just so
much that human flesh and blood can stand, you know."
"And you have so little of either," Toffee said. She gazed at him
reflectively. "Kissing you is like tying on your bib over a plate of
bleached bones."
"Leave it to you to paint a disgusting picture," Marc shuddered.
"Give me a good heaping plate of bleached bones any time," Toffee said.
"I'd prefer it."
"May I remind you," Marc said coolly, "that it was you who hurled
yourself into my arms? You seemed to be all for it at the time."
"Merely the touch of the artist," Toffee said archly. "Just fitting
myself into a part."
"Have I ever thought to tell you," Marc said, "that you are the most
unprincipled, low-minded...?"
Then suddenly his voice dried in his throat. His gaze darted away from
Toffee's face and swept frightenedly across the horizon.
"Oh, my gosh!" he cried.
Suddenly, like a slow dissolve in a movie, the little valley was simply
melting away into black nothingness. Already the distant trees had
disappeared. Marc jumped to his feet.
"Look!" he yelled. "Look!"
Toffee was instantly beside him. For a moment she gazed on the
horrifying spectacle, then tugged imperatively at his sleeve.
"Come on!" she cried. "Let's run!"
But as they turned in the other direction the blackness only rushed at
them anew; it was coming all around them. They stopped short.
"Will we drop away into nothing?" Toffee wailed, "or just melt away
with everything else?"
"We'll find out soon enough," Marc moaned.
And perhaps a bit sooner, it seemed, for even as Marc spoke, the
darkness swooped to within yards of them.
Toffee drew close to Marc, trembling a bit, and he placed his arm about
her shoulders. They stood in expectant silence for a moment, watching
the greenness disappear around them. Then, all at once, it was gone
beneath them.
It was just as they plunged downward into the darkness that Toffee
threw her arms about Marc's neck and held tight....
* * * * *
The world reeled drunkenly through space ... whirled away with
egg-shaped lopsidedness ... and then there was nothing left anywhere
but the original dough from which everything had been made in the first
place ... messy, clammy stuff ... and you sank deeper and deeper into
it no matter how hard you struggled. Marc tried to cry out....
And then there was an answer, a scraping of metal on metal. A light
showed ahead, dulled and heavily diffused, but it came suddenly. A
voice spoke encouragement....
"Just a minute, and I'll dig you out. How you ever managed to get
snarled up like that flat on your back...."
The voice continued scolding him with affection, and a minute later the
doughy mass was pulled aside, and he could see that it was only the
perspiration-covered sheets. He looked at them, then beyond them to
Julie's gently smiling face. Morning was crowding into the room through
the windows behind her.
"'Morning," he said sheepishly. "Thanks."
In silence Julie handed him a glass of orange juice, and he boosted
himself forward to drink it.
"How's your ... your back?" she asked tentatively. "Is it better?"
Marc returned the glass to her, tried a few movements involving his
mummified spine. There was no definite pain, only a suggestion of
stiffness.
"Brand new," he said, and smiled.
"Oh, I'm so relieved!" Julie breathed. She sat down close beside him on
the bed. "I'm sorry, Marc."
For a moment they only looked at each other. Then, suddenly breaking
into laughter, they fell into each other's arms.
"Oh, Marc!" Julie cried. "I haven't been so happy in months. I don't
know why. Nothing's changed; everything's in the same old mess, and
considering what I did to you last night I ought to feel just awful.
But I don't, and I just can't explain it."
"Maybe I can," Marc said slowly. "I think ... just before I fell asleep
last night ... I think something very important occurred to me. I
think...!"
Suddenly his voice degenerated into a thin wheeze as the air rushed out
of his lungs. He looked as though nothing of even minor importance had
passed through his mind from the day of his birth. Julie looked up at
him with anxious surprise.
"What is it, dear?" she asked. "What's wrong?"
Marc didn't answer; he only stared--into the mirror across the room.
Even as he watched, the horrifying thing he had witnessed a moment
before repeated itself.
Across the room, almost exactly opposite the mirror was a small alcove,
just big enough to accommodate his desk and filing cabinet. When the
compartment was not in use a set of curtains concealed its existence.
It was the reflection of these curtains and their sudden curious
behavior which had set Marc's hair on end.
* * * * *
For curtains which were meant only to hang blissfully on metal rods
and behave themselves, these were weaving about in a most distressing
fashion. In fact they were carrying on in such a loose-minded way that
it was a wonder Marc did not return his head to the cover of the soggy
sheets and leave it there just to be spared the sight.
As it was, Marc peered wildly into the mirror as the curtains suddenly
parted themselves, took on individual lives of their own, and began to
twist about in the air in a way that defied all reason. This continued
for several seconds, then matters got worse.
The curtain on the left retreated from the performance and hung
limp. Marc sighed a sigh of relief, only to catch his breath in a
new convulsion of horror. The curtain on the right, not content with
behaving like something human, had decided to look like something human
as well. Actually, in the manner of a close fitting dress, the thing
began to assume bumps and hollows of an extremely feminine and alarming
nature. It was then, and only a moment before a flash of red hair
showed around the edge of the curtain, that Marc realized the awful
truth of the situation; Toffee had materialized. She had materialized
in his bedroom, without any clothes, and was trying to fashion a dress
for herself from the draperies.
"Darling!" Julie cried. "Why are you looking like that? What's the
matter?"
Julie's voice suddenly reminded Marc of the real danger in the
situation. He glanced up, reached out and gripped Julie's shoulders
just in time to prevent her turning about to see what he was staring at.
"There's nothing wrong!" He laughed falsely. "Everything's wonderful!
Wonderful! Go get me some breakfast!"
"What?" Julie asked confusedly.
But Marc's gaze had again been captured by a movement in the mirror. As
he looked up Toffee's reflection smiled brightly at him and waved.
"Stay where you are!" Marc gibbered. "Go back!"
"What?" Julie asked.
Marc looked at her unhappily. "I'm starving!" he gibbered. "Get me
something to eat! I may start gnawing on the bedpost in a minute!"
"But you just said for me to stay where I was. Why?"
"Yes, yes, I know," Marc said. He smiled feebly. "What I mean is that
I'm hungry and want breakfast, but I hate to see you leave to get it
because ... because it's so nice to see you this morning...."
* * * * *
Julie smiled uncertainly and patted his head. "I'll get you something
right away," she said. "But I'll hurry."
"Oh, don't!" Marc said. "Take all the time you want!"
Julie looked at him quizzically and started to rise from the bed.
Unfortunately for everyone's peace of mind Toffee chose that moment to
stick one shapely leg around the edge of the curtain.
"Don't!" Marc yelled.
Julie sat down quickly and reached a hand to Marc's brow. "But how can
I get breakfast if I don't leave?" she asked patiently.
Marc turned to her with an harrassed expression. "You can't!" he cried.
"That's just it! So leave! Go on! Go 'way!"
"What!" An expression of utter hopelessness came over Julie's face.
"Go!" Marc said desperately. "Hurry!"
Julie stared at him for a long moment. "Are you sure you aren't
harboring some sort of terrible grudge against me for what I did last
night?" she asked slowly. "I'll understand perfectly if...."
"No, no, no!" Marc broke in. "I was never more fond of you than I am
right at this minute. Go away."
"All right," Julie said. "I'm going. But don't call me back this time
the minute I make a move for the door."
"I won't," Marc said. "I'll be silent as the grave."
Julie leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the forehead, then started
across the room toward the door. "I'll be back practically instantly."
Quickly, Marc whirled around and stared in the direction of the alcove.
As he did so the blood in his veins was sorely put to it whether to
run hot or cold; Toffee, curve-some as a serpent and twice as fleshy,
had stepped from behind the curtains and, at the moment, had arranged
herself into a posture of highly seductive nature. This, judging by her
expression, she considered humorous in the extreme. Not so, Marc.
"No!" he cried. "Stop!"
Julie did not bother to turn around; she merely stopped where she was
in the doorway and placed her hands carefully on her hips. "Oh, no!"
she groaned. "I've married a man who fancies himself a traffic signal!"
"No!" Marc yelled. "Not you!"
"Then who?" Julie asked with threadbare patience. "The twenty-seven
little men with pointed heads sitting on the bureau? Is that who you
mean, dearest?"
"Just go!" Marc implored her. "Go!"
"Stop, go, stop, go, stop go!" Julie shrilled. "I am not operated
electrically. More's the pity!" Slowly she started to turn around to
face her ever-changing spouse and--eventually--the nakedest redhead
any wife ever had the sheer horror of discovering in her husband's bed
chamber.
* * * * *
Marc felt fate bearing down on him in a way that made him understand
the feelings of a deeply rooted daisy looking up at an approaching
steam roller. He turned away and closed his eyes in the cowering aspect
of one who expects to receive a load of brickbats on the nape of the
neck. He stood, his nerves alerted against Julie's cry. There was a
beat of silence--then it came.
But it was not the cry that Marc had braced himself against. This cry
was sharply out of character, not at all the triumphant cawe of a
wronged wife laying hand to definite proof of her husband's perfidy.
This was sheerly, unmistakably a cry of basic, physical pain.
Marc opened his eyes and turned around, then started back with a gasp
of surprise. Julie, the beauty who always walked in regal stateliness,
whose every move and gesture was a masterpiece of living poetry, was
suddenly squatting in the doorway, clutching at herself in a way which
was not only ungainly but downright repellent.
For a long moment surprise rendered Marc totally incapable of action.
Then with a burst of logic and simultaneous realization, he whirled in
Toffee's direction. Suddenly, this whole shuddering situation was all
too clear to him.
Toffee, now completely emerged from her place of hiding, turned and
smiled at him in a conspiratorial and knowing way. Marc noticed that
her left hand was raised significantly in Julie's direction, while the
right was held over the face of the curious ring, as though shading it.
He stared at her in horror; he couldn't imagine exactly what part the
unearthly ring was playing in Julie's unlovely predicament, but he was
absolutely certain that it was responsible to some degree or another.
He was stunned beyond caution.
"Stop that," he demanded angrily. "Stop that instantly!"
Julie, still crouching in the doorway, her back to the room, trembled
violently and turned her eyes to the ceiling.
"Do you think I'm doing this because I like it?" she gritted between
clenched teeth. "Do you actually imagine I wouldn't stop it if I could,
you beast?"
"Now, Julie...!" Marc turned about, held out an imploring hand to her
arched back.
"You shut up, you vindictive vermin!" Julie hissed, announcing her
sentiments through the length of the outer hallway. "So you bear no
grudge, huh? Hah! I'm only surprised you didn't break your back under
the load!"
"Julie...!" Marc pleaded. "You don't under...!"
"No!" Julie broke in. "Oh, no! Don't you dare say I don't understand!
And don't tell me I don't know when I've been brutally, wantonly and
vengefully kicked from and in the rear!"
"_Julie!_" Marc gasped. "I didn't kick you. I know it's hard to
believe, but...."
"You're darned tootin' it's hard to believe!" Julie sneered. "In fact
it's impossible to believe, you liar!"
"But...!"
"Well, aren't you at least going to call the doctor? As inhuman as we
both now know you to be, there must be some slim thread of decency
somewhere in the tacky fabric of that character of yours."
Marc turned beseechingly to Toffee.
"Please," he implored her. "_Please!_ You're not helping matters, you
know, in taking that attitude."
"Ohhh!" Julie groaned. "I didn't take this attitude, I was kicked into
it!"
* * * * *
With a bland smile Toffee nodded to Marc. Then carefully she removed
her hand from the ring, and there was a bright glitter from its
surface. Toffee winked broadly and stepped back into the alcove. In
the doorway Julie straightened instantly and turned around, her hands
clenched tightly at her sides. She stretched her back tentatively.
"Well, I'm all right again," she announced heavily. "No thanks to you,
Mr. Wife Kicker!"
"Julie ..." Marc began, "you've got to listen to me!"
"Oh, no, I don't!" Julie corrected him emphatically. "I don't have to
listen to you. All I have to do is convince myself that I like that
lamp over there too well to shatter it on your skull." Calming herself
with an effort, she eyed him with controlled malevolence. She breathed
deeply. "I think I can trust myself now not to run to the kitchen for
the ice pick." She turned away. "Goodbye, Mr. Marcus Pillsworth!"
"Julie...!"
"And may your soul blister in everlasting hell!" Julie added as she
swept out of the room and into the hallway.
Marc stood undecided for a moment. He started toward the hall, then
checked himself and spun around in the direction of the alcove. Two
striding steps brought him to the drapes, and with a single sweeping
gesture of outrage, raked them aside. Toffee was disclosed sitting on
the edge of the desk, one leg crossed casually over the other, blowing
on her nails. She glanced up and smiled innocently.
"Lo," she said.
"Why you slithering little reptile!" Marc barked. "Of all the witless
stunts...!"
Toffee waggled a slender finger at his costume. "Has anyone ever told
you how cunning you look in those pajamas?" she murmured. "Are they
ripped that way on purpose for ventilation?"
With a seizure of modesty Marc snatched at the curtains and clutched
them around him. He looked rather like a Roman senator with his toga
slipping. Toffee laughed.
"I thought that would put the muzzle on you, you old Puritan," she
said.
* * * * *
Marc drew himself up to his full six feet and two inches, and eyed her
with lofty disdain. "You're in a nice position to talk," he observed
frigidly.
"I'm in a nice position for a lot of things," Toffee sighed, "but you'd
never notice."
Marc cleared his throat and averted his eyes. "Don't be brazen," he
said. "I would offer you these curtains if I didn't need them so
desperately myself."
"Always the perfect host," Toffee commented.
"Never mind me," Marc said. "What about you? Whatever possessed you to
do a thing like that?"
"Like what?"
"Oh, stop it," Marc said wearily. "It was perfectly evident that you
were at the bottom of that little demonstration."
"At the bottom?" Toffee laughed. "You put it so well. Unless you wanted
to say I was at the seat of things."
"There you go. Just give you a simple statement and you squeeze enough
dirt out of it to start a truck farm." Marc agitated his drapes.
"Either you tell me what you're up to or I'll stop projecting you if I
have to belt myself over the head with a sledge hammer."
Toffee smiled slowly. "I might as well make a clean breast of it," she
said. "If the anatomical reference doesn't strike you as too racy?"
"Never mind," Marc said shortly. "You wouldn't recognize a moral
scruple if it were presented to you in a glass jar."
"Very well," Toffee said. "Apparently you've guessed the function of
my ring." She held up her hand and the fearsome ornament glittered
brightly. "Actually the stone projects a ray which, in effect,
sensitizes the bones and tissues of the human body, separates them
slightly according to how long you time the concentration, and holds
them apart. Maybe you noticed that Julie, just before her accident, was
slightly taller than usual. Anyway, once you have the subject focused,
it's only a matter of breaking the ray quickly with the other hand.
Things, drawn apart and out of line snap back with such a force that
the subject might just as well be struck with a hammer." She looked at
Marc. "See what I mean?"
* * * * *
"I think so." Marc said slowly. "In other words you focused the
radiation on the base of Julie's spine, drew ... uh ... things out
of line, broke the suspending force suddenly, so that they jarred
together with such momentum that they were thrown out of place ... the
sacroiliac, in this case."
"Exactly," Toffee said. "In effect, I simply gave your wife a good
rousing kick in the...."
"Croup," Marc supplied quickly.
"In the croup," Toffee agreed. "And when I wanted her to get over it I
merely pulled the ... things ... apart again, then released them more
gently so as to return them to their proper adjustment."
"But what I want to know," Marc said evenly, "is just what possessed
you to demonstrate this diabolical little gadget on Julie?"
"Two reasons," Toffee explained. "First to make sure the ring works the
way I planned it, second to get Julie out of the way."
"Get her out of the way?" Marc repeated apprehensively. "Now look
here if you have any sordid notions about a dalliance on a divan, for
instance...."
"I always have those notions," Toffee said. "However at the moment I'm
having them in conjunction with other notions." She smiled prettily.
"I've come to straighten out the world."
"You _what_?" Marc asked incredulously.
"You will admit it needs straightening out?" Toffee asked complacently.
"Well, yes," Marc said. "But believe me the one thing it doesn't need
is your ministrations. It couldn't take it. And I wish you'd get rid of
that filthy ring."
"Why should I?" Toffee asked. "After all it was just as much your idea
as mine."
"My idea?" Marc said. "How do you figure that?"
"You said it plain as anything," Toffee said, "last night, just before
you went to sleep. You said the world needed a good swift kick."
"Oh, my gosh!" Marc said. "And so you've...!" He pointed at the ring.
Toffee nodded proudly. "I'm the girl that's right in there with the
goods. Everything will be just dandy in no time."
* * * * *
"Oh, Lord!" Marc groaned. "Of all the things I've said in my life, you
would have to pick on that!" He stopped, sighed heavily, looked at her
long and wearily. "Well, you can just pack up your ring and your sex
appeal and trot right back to where you came from. Of all the idiotic
notions...!"
"Huh-uh," Toffee shook her head. "It's an idea that appeals to me.
Besides, if enough of the right people get kicked in the right
places ... well, what have we got to lose?"
"Also," Marc said coolly, "I don't believe I thanked you yet for
wrecking my home. I take it that is a sample of your methods for
establishing unity and good will?"
"Good will?" Toffee smiled. "I have other methods for that." She slid
off the edge of the desk and moved purposefully toward him.
"You lay a hand on these drapes," Marc said nervously, "and I'll
scream. I mean it! Julie is still here, you know."
Just then, as though to deliberately make a liar of him, the front door
slammed downstairs.
"We are quite, quite alone," Toffee murmured significantly.
"Go away!" Marc said, trembling in his draperies. "Go back where you
came from. Heaven knows things are bad enough already...."
"Oh, stop it," Toffee said. "We have business to attend to."
"Business?"
"Yes. As long as I've gotten myself all materialized to save the world
I suppose I might just as well pitch in and get it over with. Business
before pleasure, as they say. I figure I can have these world affairs
you've been brooding over set ship-shape in less time than it takes
a flat-chested girl to shuck on her girdle. Then I'll be free to
concentrate on you without interruption."