Free Bradbury, Ray - SSC 13 by S is for Space (v2.1) Page B

they
could convince themselves that such an illogical thing could happen.
                 He
lifted his hands. His lips moved. He said the words. He began in a chanting
whisper and then raised his voice, louder. He said the words again and again.
His eyes were closed tightly. His body swayed. He spoke faster and faster. He
began to move forward among the bodies. The dark words flowed from his mouth.
He was enchanted with his own formulae. He stooped and made further blue
symbols on the concrete, in the fashion of long-dead sorcerers, smiling,
confident. Any moment now the first tremor of the still bodies, any moment now
the rising, the leaping up of the cold ones!
                 His
hands lifted in the air. His head nodded. He spoke, he spoke, he spoke. He
gestured. He talked loudly over the bodies, his eyes flaring, his body tensed.
“Now!” he cried, violently. “Rise, all of you!”
                 Nothing
happened.
                 “Rise!”
he screamed, with a terrible torment in his voice.
                 The
sheets lay in white blue-shadow folds over the silent bodies.
                 “Hear
me, and act!” he shouted.
                 Far
away, on the street, a beetle hissed along.
                 Again,
again, again he shouted, pleaded. He got down by each body and asked of it his
particular violent favor. No reply. He strode wildly between the even white
rows, flinging his arms up, stooping again and again to make blue symbols!
                 Lantry
was very pale. He licked his lips. “Come on, get up,” he said. “They have, they
always have, for a thousand years. When you make a mark—so! and speak a
word—so! they always rise! Why not now, why not you! Come on, come on , before they come back!”
                 The
warehouse went up into shadow. There were steel beams across and down. In it,
under the roof, there was not a sound, except the raving of a lonely man.
                 Lantry
stopped.
                 Through
the wide doors of the warehouse he caught a glimpse of the last cold stars of
morning.
                 This
was the year 2349.
                 His
eyes grew cold and his hands fell to his sides. He did not move.
                  
     
                 Once
upon a time people shuddered when they heard the wind about the house, once
people raised crucifixes and wolfbane, and believed in walking dead and bats
and loping white wolves. And as long as they believed, then so long did the
dead, the bats, the loping wolves exist. The mind gave birth and reality to
them.
                 But
…
                 He
looked at the white sheeted bodies.
                 These people did not believe.
                 They
had never believed. They would never believe. They had never imagined that the
dead might walk. The dead went up flues in flame. They had never heard
superstition, never trembled or shuddered or doubted in the dark. Walking dead
people could not exist, they were illogical. This was the year 2349, man, after
all!
                 Therefore,
these people could not rise, could not walk again. They were dead and flat and
cold. Nothing, chalk, imprecation, superstition, could wind them up and set
them walking. They were dead and knew they were dead!
                 He
was alone.
                 There
were live people in the world who moved and drove beetles and drank quiet
drinks in little dimly illumined bars by country roads, and kissed women and
talked much good talk all day and every day.
                 But
he was not alive.
                 Friction
gave him what little warmth he possessed.
                 There
were two hundred dead people here in this warehouse now, cold upon the floor.
The first dead people in a hundred years who were allowed to be corpses