Free Backteria and Other Improbable Tales by Richard Matheson Page B

lowered his head and shuffled mutely between the guards. The priest followed, hands folded, head lowered, his lips moving in silent prayer.
    Later, when Mac and Charlie were playing cards the lights went out. They sat there waiting. They heard the other prisoners in death row stirring restlessly.
    Then the lights went on.
    “You deal,” said Charlie.

The Last Blah in the ETC
    You are awake, pale thing, your muddy eyes perusing. There the ceiling, there the walls; security in plaster and paint, in parchment jiggled with coordinate lilies. Primo:
Lousigoddam wallpaper
. It is, has been and never more will be your opening reflection. Secundo:
Mildred isajerk
. This thought may continue.
    Slumber-fogged, your gaze seeks out the clock. It has not clarioned the dawn. It is, indeed, not even cognizant of dawn’s most rosy rise, its black arms pointing frozenly to midnight’s XII—
    —or
noon
! You start, eyes bugged and marbleized, mouth a precipitate sanctuary for some indigent gnat.
Wotnth’ell
!. And—
snap
! Body parallel with mattress becomes body squared. You are—presto! —ninety degrees of male American athrob; a sitting inflammation. With a crunch of the cervix, a crackle of the clavicle, you look around the room, you look around the—
    Silence. All and only silence
. (Pallid thing)
    “Mil!” you call. What, no sibilance of frizzling bacon, no scent of coffee? “Millie!” No savor of charred toast, no lilt of nagging on the air?
    “Mildred!”
Wot’nth’blublazinghellis
—
    Silence. Oh so silence.
    Your brow is rill-eroded now. A curious dismay guerillas in your craw. Too silent this.
Too—deadly silent
. Yes?
    “
MILDRED
!”
    Ah, no reply, blanched thing. Your corn-cobbed toes compress the rug, your torso goes aloft, you find erection. “What’s goin’ on?” mumble you. You thump across the room, shanks athwart, terror tapping tunes along your spine. You reach the hall. “Mil!” you cry. No Mil. The hallway is your racetrack. You are Mercury and Ariel. You are Puck in pink pajamas. “Millie!” No Millie. You blunder like a village-razing mammoth through the chambers of your home. “Mildred!”
    No—need I append?—Mildred.
    In fact, nothing. Whether sign of exodus, Goinghometomother note or hint of counternatural removal. Pale thing, you are aghast. Panic rings the tocsin in your wooly brain. Where—eh?—is Mildred? Why—ask you—at noon, are you alone, self-wakened?
    Noon? But see, the black arms still point alike.
    The clock has stopped.
    Pulsing with alarm, you seek the phone,
le pachyderme en difficulté
. Digits clutch receiver, receiver cups ear. Hark; you listen. Your mouth is cavernized anew. Why?
    Dead as the doornail. (proverbial) That’s why.
    “Hello,” you state, regardless. You tap distress rhythms. “Hello! Hello!
Hey
!”
    No answer. (Achromatic you) You drop the dumb Bell and worry a channel to the windows. You yank the cord and up goes the shade, flapping in maniacal orbits around its roller and through this paneful frame you view the picture of your street.
    Empty
.
    “Huh?” Your very word. “
Wot the—
”
    Strange tides rise darkly. Terror is a blankness. It is cessation, emptiness; figures, fog-licked, hardly heard, vaguely seen. “Mil?” you mutter.
    No Mil.
    Dress! Probe! Nose out! Get to bottom! Resolution hammers manly nails; your framework bolsters. Up—you vow—and at them. There’s an explanation for everything. (Of course) You are the captain of your shape, the master of your soles. Once more into the britches! Onward!
    Etiolated thing
.
    Bones garbed
vitement
, feet ensconced in Thom McCann’s, you plunge through bedroom, hall, living room, kitchen, out through doorway and—
    The neighbors!
The crossthehallwhydon’ttheymindtheirowndambusiness
neighbors!
    You arc the gap to their door, heartbeat a cardiac ragtime. Manifest really. (Sez you to you) Mil, Millie, Mildred, MILDRED has gone to pirate a dole of flour, a driblet of sugar. She