Bradbury, Ray - SSC 11 (10 page)

 
          
 
"Roger, I swear I don't know. I got that
telegram from you—"

 
          
 
"What telegram?" said Roger
jovially. "I sent no telegram. Now, of a sudden, the police come pouring
onto the southbound train, pull me off in some jerk-water, and I'm calling you
to get them off my neck. Hugh, if this is some joke—"

 
          
 
"But, Roger, you just vanished!"

 
          
 
"On a business trip, if you can call that
vanishing. I told Dorothy about this, and Joe.”

 
          
 
"This is all very confusing, Roger.
You're in no danger? Nobody's blackmailing you, forcing you into this
speech?"

 
          
 
"I'm fine, healthy, free and
unafraid."

 
          
 
"But, Roger, your premonitions?"

 
          
 
"Poppycock! Now, look, I'm being very
good about this, aren't I?"

 
          
 
"Sure, Roger—"

 
          
 
"Then play the good father and give me
permission to go. Call Dorothy and tell her I'll be back in five days. How
could she have forgotten?"

 
          
 
"She did, Roger. See you in five days,
then?'*

 
          
 
"Five days, I swear.”

 
          
 
The voice was indeed winning and warm, the old
Roger again. Fortnum shook his head.

 
          
 
"Roger," he said, "this is the
craziest day I've ever spent. You're not running off from Dorothy? Good Lord,
you can tell me."

 
          
 
"I love her with all my heart. Now here's
Lieutenant Parker of the Ridgetown police. Goodbye, Hugh."

 
          
 
"Good—"

 
          
 
But the lieutenant was on the line, talking,
talking angrily. What had Fortnum meant putting them to this trouble? What was
going on? Who did he think he was? Did or didn't he want this so-called friend
held or released?

 
          
 
"Released," Fortnum managed to say
somewhere along the way, and hung up the phone and imagined he heard a voice
call all aboard and the massive thunder of the train leaving the station two
hundred miles south in the somehow increasingly dark night

 
          
 
Cynthia walked very slowly into the parlor.

 
          
 
"I feel so foolish," she said.

           
 
"How do you think I feel?"

 
          
 
"Who could have sent that telegram, and
why?"

 
          
 
He poured himself some Scotch and stood in the
middle of the room looking at it.

 
          
 
"I'm glad Roger is all right," his
wife said at last.

 
          
 
"He isn't," said Fortnum.

 
          
 
"But you just said—"

 
          
 
"I said nothing. After all, we couldn't
very well drag him off that train and truss him up and send him home, could we,
if he insisted he was okay? No. He sent that telegram, but changed his mind
after sending it. Why, why, why?” Fortnum paced the room, sipping the drink.
"Why warn us against special-delivery packages? The only package we've got
this year which fits that description is the one Tom got this morning. . .
." His voice trailed off.

 
          
 
Before he could move, Cynthia was at the
wastepaper basket taking out the crumpled wrapping paper with the
special-delivery stamps on it.

 
          
 
The postmark read:
new
Orleans
, la.

 
          
 
Cynthia looked up from it. "New Orleans.
Isn't that where Roger is heading right now?"

 
          
 
A doorknob rattled, a door opened and closed
in Fort-num's mind. Another doorknob rattled, another door swung wide and then
shut. There was a smell of damp earth.

 
          
 
He found his hand dialing the phone. After a
long while Dorothy Willis answered at the other end. He could imagine her
sitting alone in a house with too many lights on. He talked quietly with her a
while, then cleared his throat and said, "Dorothy, look. I know it sounds
silly. Did any special-delivery packages arrive at your house the last few
days?"

 
          
 
Her voice was faint. "No." Then:
"No, wait. Three days ago. But I thought you knewl All the boys on the
block are going in for it."

 
          
 
Fortnum measured his words carefully.

 
          
 
"Going in for what?"

 
          
 
"But why ask?" she said.
"There's nothing wrong with raising mushrooms, is there?'*

 
          
 
Fortnum closed his eyes.

 
          
 
"Hugh? Are you still there?" asked Dorothy.
"I said there's nothing wrong with—“

 
          
 
"Raising mushrooms?" said Fortnum at
last. "No. Nothing wrong. Nothing wrong.”

           
 
And slowly he put down the phone.

 
          
 
The curtains blew like veils of moonlight. The
clock ticked. The after-midnight world flowed into and filled the bedroom. He
heard Mrs. Goodbody's clear voice on this morning's air, a million years gone
now. He heard Roger putting a cloud over the sun at noon. He heard the police
damning him by phone from down state.
Then Roger's voice
again, with the locomotive thunder hurrying him away and away, fading.
And, finally, Mrs. Goodbody's voice behind the hedge:

 
          
 
"Lord, it grows fast!"

 
          
 
"What does?"

 
          
 
"The Marasmius oreades!"

 
          
 
He snapped his eyes open. He sat up.

 
          
 
Downstairs, a moment later, he flicked through
the unabridged dictionary.

 
          
 
His forefinger underlined the words:

 
          
 
"Marasmius oreades; a mushroom commonly
found on lawns in summer and early autumn . . ."

 
          
 
He let the book fall shut.

 
          
 
Outside, in the deep summer night, he lit a
cigarette and smoked quietly.

 
          
 
A meteor fell across space, burning itself out
quickly. The trees rustled softly.

 
          
 
The front door tapped shut.

 
          
 
Cynthia moved toward him in her robe.

 
          
 
"Can't sleep?"

 
          
 
"Too warm, I guess."

 
          
 
"It's not warm."

 
          
 
"No," he said, feeling his arms.
"In fact, it's cold." He sucked on the cigarette twice, then, not
looking at her, said, "Cynthia, what if . . ." He snorted and had to
stop. "Well, what if Roger was right this morning. Mrs. Goodbody, what if
she's right, too? Something terrible is happening. Like, well,” —he nodded at
the sky and the million stars— "Earth being invaded by things from other
worlds, maybe."

 
          
 
"Hugh—"

 
          
 
"No, let me nm wild."

 
          
 
"It's quite obvious we're not being
invaded, or we'd notice."

 
          
 
"Let's say we've only half noticed,
become uneasy about something. What? How could we be invaded? By what means
would creatures invade?"

           
 
Cynthia looked at the sky and was about to try
something when he interrupted.

 
          
 
"No, not meteors or flying saucers, things
we can see. What about bacteria? That comes from outer space, too, doesn't
it?"

 
          
 
"I read once, yes."

 
          
 
"Spores, seeds, pollens, viruses probably
bombard our atmosphere by the billions every second and have done so for
millions of years. Right now we're sitting out under an invisible rain. It
falls all over the country, the cities, the towns, and right now, our
lawn."

 
          
 
"Our lawn?"

 
          
 
''And Mrs. Goodbody's. But people like her are
always pulling weeds, spraying poison, kicking toadstools off their grass. It
would be hard for any strange life form to survive in cities. Weather's a
problem, too. Best climate might be
South
:
Alabama
,
Georgia
,
Louisiana
.
Back in the damp bayous they could grow to a fine size."

 
          
 
But Cynthia was beginning to laugh now.

 
          
 
"Oh, really, you don't believe, do you,
that this Great Bayou or Whatever Greenhouse Novelty Company that sent Tom his
package is owned and operated by six-foot-tall mushrooms from another
planet?"

 
          
 
"If you put it that way, it sounds
funny."

 
          
 
"Funny! It's hilarious!" She threw
her head back, deliciously.

 
          
 
"Good grief!" he cried, suddenly
irritated. "Something's going on! Mrs. Goodbody is rooting out and killing
Marasmius oreades. What is Marasmius oreades? A certain kind of mushroom.
Simultaneously, and I suppose you'll call it coincidence, by special delivery,
what arrives the same day? Mushrooms for Tom! What else happens? Roger fears he
may soon cease to be! Within hours, he vanishes, then telegraphs us, warning us
not to accept what? The special-delivery mushrooms for Tom! Has Roger's son got
a similar package in the last few days? He has! Where do the packages come
from? New Orleans! And where is Roger going when he vanishes? New Orleans! Do
you see, Cynthia, do you see? I wouldn't be upset if all these separate things
didn't lock together!
Roger, Tom, Joe, mushrooms, Mrs.
Goodbody, packages, destinations, everything in one pattern!"

 
          
 
She was watching his face now, quieter, but
still amused. "Don't get angry."

           
 
“I’m not!" Fortnum almost shouted. And
then he simply could not go on. He was afraid that if he did he would find
himself shouting with laughter too, and somehow he did not want that. He stared
at the surrounding houses up and down the block and thought of the dark cellars
and the neighbor boys who read Popular Mechanics and sent their money in by the
millions to raise the mushrooms hidden away. Just as he, when a boy, had mailed
off for chemicals, seeds, turtles, numberless salves and sickish ointments. In
how many million American homes tonight were billions of mushrooms rousing up
under the ministrations of the innocent?

 
          
 
"Hugh?" His wife was touching his
arm now. "Mushrooms, even big ones, can't think, can't move, don't have
arms and legs. How could they run a mail-order service and 'take over' the
world? Come on, now, let's look at your terrible fiends and monsters!"

 
          
 
She pulled him toward the door. Inside, she
headed for the cellar, but he stopped, shaking his head, a foolish smile
shaping itself somehow to his mouth. "No, no, I know what we'll find. You
win. The whole thing's silly. Roger will be back next week and we'll all get
drunk together. Go on up to bed now and I'll drink a glass of warm milk and be
with you in a minute.”