"The body!" Loyce screamed, struggling to get past them. Hands caught at
him. He tore loose. "Let me go! The police! Get the police!"
"Ed--"
"Better get a doctor!"
"He must be sick."
"Or drunk."
Loyce fought his way through the people. He stumbled and half fell.
Through a blur he saw rows of faces, curious, concerned, anxious. Men
and women halting to see what the disturbance was. He fought past them
toward his store. He could see Fergusson inside talking to a man,
showing him an Emerson TV set. Pete Foley in the back at the service
counter, setting up a new Philco. Loyce shouted at them frantically.
His voice was lost in the roar of traffic and the murmur around him.
"Do something!" he screamed. "Don't stand there! Do something!
Something's wrong! Something's happened! Things are going on!"
The crowd melted respectfully for the two heavy-set cops moving
efficiently toward Loyce.
* * * * *
"Name?" the cop with the notebook murmured.
"Loyce." He mopped his forehead wearily. "Edward C. Loyce. Listen to me.
Back there--"
"Address?" the cop demanded. The police car moved swiftly through
traffic, shooting among the cars and buses. Loyce sagged against the
seat, exhausted and confused. He took a deep shuddering breath.
"1368 Hurst Road."
"That's here in Pikeville?"
"That's right." Loyce pulled himself up with a violent effort. "Listen
to me. Back there. In the square. Hanging from the lamppost--"
"Where were you today?" the cop behind the wheel demanded.
"Where?" Loyce echoed.
"You weren't in your shop, were you?"
"No." He shook his head. "No, I was home. Down in the basement."
"In the _basement_?"
"Digging. A new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame.
Why? What has that to do with--"
"Was anybody else down there with you?"
"No. My wife was downtown. My kids were at school." Loyce looked from
one heavy-set cop to the other. Hope flicked across his face, wild hope.
"You mean because I was down there I missed--the explanation? I didn't
get in on it? Like everybody else?"
After a pause the cop with the notebook said: "That's right. You missed
the explanation."
"Then it's official? The body--it's _supposed_ to be hanging there?"
"It's supposed to be hanging there. For everybody to see."
Ed Loyce grinned weakly. "Good Lord. I guess I sort of went off the deep
end. I thought maybe something had happened. You know, something like
the Ku Klux Klan. Some kind of violence. Communists or Fascists taking
over." He wiped his face with his breast-pocket handkerchief, his hands
shaking. "I'm glad to know it's on the level."
"It's on the level." The police car was getting near the Hall of
Justice. The sun had set. The streets were gloomy and dark. The lights
had not yet come on.
"I feel better," Loyce said. "I was pretty excited there, for a minute.
I guess I got all stirred up. Now that I understand, there's no need to
take me in, is there?"
The two cops said nothing.
"I should be back at my store. The boys haven't had dinner. I'm all
right, now. No more trouble. Is there any need of--"
"This won't take long," the cop behind the wheel interrupted. "A short
process. Only a few minutes."
"I hope it's short," Loyce muttered. The car slowed down for a
stoplight. "I guess I sort of disturbed the peace. Funny, getting
excited like that and--"
Loyce yanked the door open. He sprawled out into the street and rolled
to his feet. Cars were moving all around him, gaining speed as the light
changed. Loyce leaped onto the curb and raced among the people,
burrowing into the swarming crowds. Behind him he heard sounds, shouts,
people running.
They weren't cops. He had realized that right away. He knew every cop in
Pikeville. A man couldn't own a store, operate a business in a small
town for twenty-five years without getting to know all the cops.
They weren't cops--and there hadn't been any explanation. Potter,
Fergusson, Jenkins, none of them knew why it was there. They didn't
know--and they didn't care. _That_ was the strange part.
Loyce ducked into a hardware store. He raced toward the back, past the
startled clerks and customers, into the shipping room and through the
back door. He tripped over a garbage can and ran up a flight of concrete
steps. He climbed over a fence and jumped down on the other side,
gasping and panting.
There was no sound behind him. He had got away.
He was at the entrance of an alley, dark and strewn with boards and
ruined boxes and tires. He could see the street at the far end. A street
light wavered and came on. Men and women. Stores. Neon signs. Cars.
And to his right--the police station.
He was close, terribly close. Past the loading platform of a grocery
store rose the white concrete side of the Hall of Justice. Barred
windows. The police antenna. A great concrete wall rising up in the
darkness. A bad place for him to be near. He was too close. He had to
keep moving, get farther away from them.
_Them?_
Loyce moved cautiously down the alley. Beyond the police station was the
City Hall, the old-fashioned yellow structure of wood and gilded brass
and broad cement steps. He could see the endless rows of offices, dark
windows, the cedars and beds of flowers on each side of the entrance.
And--something else.
Above the City Hall was a patch of darkness, a cone of gloom denser than
the surrounding night. A prism of black that spread out and was lost
into the sky.
He listened. Good God, he could hear something. Something that made him
struggle frantically to close his ears, his mind, to shut out the sound.
A buzzing. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees.
Loyce gazed up, rigid with horror. The splotch of darkness, hanging over
the City Hall. Darkness so thick it seemed almost solid. _In the vortex
something moved._ Flickering shapes. Things, descending from the sky,
pausing momentarily above the City Hall, fluttering over it in a dense
swarm and then dropping silently onto the roof.
Shapes. Fluttering shapes from the sky. From the crack of darkness that
hung above him.
He was seeing--them.
* * * * *
For a long time Loyce watched, crouched behind a sagging fence in a pool
of scummy water.
They were landing. Coming down in groups, landing on the roof of the
City Hall and disappearing inside. They had wings. Like giant insects of
some kind. They flew and fluttered and came to rest--and then crawled
crab-fashion, sideways, across the roof and into the building.
He was sickened. And fascinated. Cold night wind blew around him and he
shuddered. He was tired, dazed with shock. On the front steps of the
City Hall were men, standing here and there. Groups of men coming out of
the building and halting for a moment before going on.
Were there more of them?
It didn't seem possible. What he saw descending from the black chasm
weren't men. They were alien--from some other world, some other
dimension. Sliding through this slit, this break in the shell of the
universe. Entering through this gap, winged insects from another realm
of being.
On the steps of the City Hall a group of men broke up. A few moved
toward a waiting car. One of the remaining shapes started to re-enter
the City Hall. It changed its mind and turned to follow the others.
Loyce closed his eyes in horror. His senses reeled. He hung on tight,
clutching at the sagging fence. The shape, the man-shape, had abruptly
fluttered up and flapped after the others. It flew to the sidewalk and
came to rest among them.
Pseudo-men. Imitation men. Insects with ability to disguise themselves
as men. Like other insects familiar to Earth. Protective coloration.
Mimicry.
Loyce pulled himself away. He got slowly to his feet. It was night. The
alley was totally dark. But maybe they could see in the dark. Maybe
darkness made no difference to them.
He left the alley cautiously and moved out onto the street. Men and
women flowed past, but not so many, now. At the bus-stops stood waiting
groups. A huge bus lumbered along the street, its lights flashing in the
evening gloom.
Loyce moved forward. He pushed his way among those waiting and when the
bus halted he boarded it and took a seat in the rear, by the door. A
moment later the bus moved into life and rumbled down the street.
* * * * *
Loyce relaxed a little. He studied the people around him. Dulled, tired
faces. People going home from work. Quite ordinary faces. None of them
paid any attention to him. All sat quietly, sunk down in their seats,
jiggling with the motion of the bus.
The man sitting next to him unfolded a newspaper. He began to read the
sports section, his lips moving. An ordinary man. Blue suit. Tie. A
businessman, or a salesman. On his way home to his wife and family.
Across the aisle a young woman, perhaps twenty. Dark eyes and hair, a
package on her lap. Nylons and heels. Red coat and white angora sweater.
Gazing absently ahead of her.
A high school boy in jeans and black jacket.
A great triple-chinned woman with an immense shopping bag loaded with
packages and parcels. Her thick face dim with weariness.
Ordinary people. The kind that rode the bus every evening. Going home to
their families. To dinner.
Going home--with their minds dead. Controlled, filmed over with the mask
of an alien being that had appeared and taken possession of them, their
town, their lives. Himself, too. Except that he happened to be deep in
his cellar instead of in the store. Somehow, he had been overlooked.
They had missed him. Their control wasn't perfect, foolproof.
Maybe there were others.
Hope flickered in Loyce. They weren't omnipotent. They had made a
mistake, not got control of him. Their net, their field of control, had
passed over him. He had emerged from his cellar as he had gone down.
Apparently their power-zone was limited.
A few seats down the aisle a man was watching him. Loyce broke off his
chain of thought. A slender man, with dark hair and a small mustache.
Well-dressed, brown suit and shiny shoes. A book between his small
hands. He was watching Loyce, studying him intently. He turned quickly
away.
Loyce tensed. One of _them_? Or--another they had missed?
The man was watching him again. Small dark eyes, alive and clever.
Shrewd. A man too shrewd for them--or one of the things itself, an alien
insect from beyond.
The bus halted. An elderly man got on slowly and dropped his token into
the box. He moved down the aisle and took a seat opposite Loyce.
The elderly man caught the sharp-eyed man's gaze. For a split second
something passed between them.
A look rich with meaning.
Loyce got to his feet. The bus was moving. He ran to the door. One step
down into the well. He yanked the emergency door release. The rubber
door swung open.
"Hey!" the driver shouted, jamming on the brakes. "What the hell--"
Loyce squirmed through. The bus was slowing down. Houses on all sides. A
residential district, lawns and tall apartment buildings. Behind him,
the bright-eyed man had leaped up. The elderly man was also on his feet.
They were coming after him.
Loyce leaped. He hit the pavement with terrific force and rolled against
the curb. Pain lapped over him. Pain and a vast tide of blackness.
Desperately, he fought it off. He struggled to his knees and then slid
down again. The bus had stopped. People were getting off.
Loyce groped around. His fingers closed over something. A rock, lying in
the gutter. He crawled to his feet, grunting with pain. A shape loomed
before him. A man, the bright-eyed man with the book.
Loyce kicked. The man gasped and fell. Loyce brought the rock down. The
man screamed and tried to roll away. "_Stop!_ For God's sake listen--"
He struck again. A hideous crunching sound. The man's voice cut off and
dissolved in a bubbling wail. Loyce scrambled up and back. The others
were there, now. All around him. He ran, awkwardly, down the sidewalk,
up a driveway. None of them followed him. They had stopped and were
bending over the inert body of the man with the book, the bright-eyed
man who had come after him.
Had he made a mistake?
But it was too late to worry about that. He had to get out--away from
them. Out of Pikeville, beyond the crack of darkness, the rent between
their world and his.
* * * * *
"Ed!" Janet Loyce backed away nervously. "What is it? What--"
Ed Loyce slammed the door behind him and came into the living room.
"Pull down the shades. Quick."