The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories (59 page)

Less than five minutes later, they were back in front of Stockton’s house. They had found a long board and six men were carrying it. They took it into the garage, breaking a window in the door as they entered. Then they used it to smash the door into the basement. They carried it through the basement over to the shelter door and began to pound against it. The shelter door was thick—but not thick enough. The weight of the board, with six big men at it, first dented and then punctured the metal. And once the first rip appeared, others followed it, until, within moments, the top hinge had been smashed away and the door began to buckle.

Inside, Bill Stockton tried to pile cots, a chair, other furniture, and finally the generator, against it. But with each smashing, resounding blow, the barricade was pushed back.

The door finally gave—and crashed into the shelter. The impetus of the final blow carried board and men into the room, and the side of the board grazed Stockton’s head, tearing out a chunk of flesh.

Suddenly everyone was silent, and over this sudden silence came the sound of the siren—a long, piercing blast which gradually died away—and then the voice of the radio announcer came on again.

“This is Conelrad,” the announcer’s voice said. “This is Conelrad. Remain tuned for an important message. Remain tuned for an important message.”

There was a silence for a moment, and then the voice continued. “The President of the United States has just announced that the previously unidentified objects have now been definitely identified as being satellites. Repeat. There are no enemy missiles approaching. Repeat. There are no enemy missiles approaching. The objects have been identified as satellites. They are harmless, and we are in no danger. Repeat. We are in no danger. The state of Yellow Alert has been cancelled. The state of Yellow Alert has been cancelled. We are in no danger. Repeat. There is no enemy attack. There is no enemy attack.”

His voice continued, the words at first having no sense to the listeners, then gradually taking on form and meaning.

And then men turned to look at their wives and slowly took them in their arms. Small children buried their faces against trousered and skirted legs. There were some sobs, some murmured prayers. The lights came on again in the streets and houses and the men and women stared at one another.

“Thank God.” Rebecca Weiss’s voice was a prayer for them all. “Oh, thank God.” She leaned against Marty, only vaguely aware that his lip was tom and bleeding.

“Amen,” said Marty. “Amen”

Henderson kept staring at his big hands as if they were something he had never seen. Then he swallowed and turned to Weiss.

“Hey, Marty,” he said, softly, with a thin smile. “Marty . . .I went off my rocker. You understand that, don’t you? I just went off my rocker. I didn’t mean all the things I said.” His voice shook. “We were all of us...we were so scared. We were so confused.”

He waved his hands helplessly. “Well, it’s no wonder really, is it? I mean...well...you can understand why we blew our tops a little.”

There was a murmur of voices, a few perfunctory nods, but the state of shock was still on them.

Jerry Harlowe left the basement steps and walked to the center of the cellar. “I don’t think Marty’s gonna hold it against you.” He turned toward Stockton, who stood motionless at the entrance to the shelter. “Just as I hope Bill won’t hold this against us,” Harlowe continued, pointing to the wreckage and rubble around him. “We’ll pay for the damage, Bill. We’ll take up a collection right away.”

Marty Weiss wiped the blood off his mouth. “Why don’t we have some kind of a block party or something tomorrow night?” he said. “A big celebration! How about that? Just like old times.”

The people stared at him.

“So we can all of us get back to normal,” he continued. “How about it, Bill?”

Every eye turned to Stockton, who stood there silently looking at them.

Harlowe dredged up a laugh. “Hey, Bill...I told you we’d pay for the damages. I’ll put that in writing if you want.”

The silence persisted as Stockton stepped over the broken door and walked into the basement area. He looked around him as if trying to find someone in particular. He felt the throbbing at the side of his head as he walked past the faces of neighbors. Their eyes followed him as he went on over to the cellar steps.

“Bill,” Harlowe whispered. “Hey, Bill—”

Stockton turned to him. “That’s all it takes,” he said. “That’s all it takes, huh?” he said. He looked at Marty Weiss. “Marty,” he said, “you want a block party and you want things back to normal. And Frank Henderson, over there—he wants us all to forget all about it. Chalk it up to a bad scare. And, Jerry—you’ll pay for the damages, huh? You’ll even put it in writing. You’ll pay for the damages...”

Harlowe nodded silently.

Stockton looked slowly around the room. “Do any of you have any remote idea just what the ‘damages’ are?” He paused. “Let me tell you something. They’re more than that broken door there. And they’re a lot deeper than the bruises on Marty Weiss’s face. And you don’t wipe them out by throwing a block party or a hundred block parties, every night of the year.”

He saw his wife step out of the shelter, and then his son Paul. They were staring at him with the others. The same questioning look. The same beaten and somehow haunted look. Stockton put his hand on the railing.

“The damages I’m talking about,” he said, “are the pieces of ourselves that we’ve pulled apart tonight. The veneer—the thin veneer that we ripped aside with our own hands. The hatred that came to the surface that we didn’t even realize we had. But, oh Jesus—how quick it came out! And how quickly we became animals! All of us.”

He pointed to himself. “Me, too—maybe I was the worst of the bunch. I don’t know.”

He paused for a moment and looked around. “I don’t think it’ll be normal again. At least, not in our lifetime. And if, God forgive, that bomb does fall—I hope we’ve made our peace
before
we suffer it. I hope that if it has to kill and destroy and maim, the victims will be human beings—not naked, wild beasts who put such a premium on staying alive that they claw their neighbors to death just for the privilege.”

He shook his head and then, very slowly, turned to look up toward the kitchen. “That’s what the damage has been,” he said, and he started up the steps. “It’s having to look at ourselves in a mirror and see what’s underneath the skin, and suddenly realizing that underneath...we’re an ugly race of people.”

He went up the steps, and after a moment, Grace, holding tight to Paul’s hand, moved through the silent people and followed him.

The silence stretched to a long moment, and then gradually, by two’s and three’s, the neighbors started out of the basement, through the garage and onto the street.

The street lights were bright, and the moon was up and high and full. A radio that had been left on blared out dance-band music. A television set once again uttered the canned laughter of a manufactured audience. A child cried, but was crooned to and hushed. It was any summer night again. There was the sound of the cicadas. There was the croaking rumble of distant bullfrogs. There was a gentle wind that touched the broad leaves with a rustling sound and sent patches of shadow crisscrossing on the sidewalks.

Bill Stockton stood in the dining room. At his feet was the remnant of the birthday cake lying on its side. A few broken candles, snuffed out, lay in a crumble of frosting. And he thought that for humanity to survive...the human race must remain civilized.

Funny, he thought, as he walked past the smashed, overturned furniture—really quite funny, how a simple thing like that could have eluded him.

He took his wife’s hand, and then Paul’s, and the three of them started up the stairs to their beds.

The night had ended.

Showdown With Rance McGrew

The two cowboys walked out of the saloon down the three steps of the front porch and stood there peering down the length of the dusty main street. One of them spat out a blob of brown liquid, then wiped his beard-stubbled chin.

“He ain’t here yet,” he announced.

His companion took out a pocket watch and snapped it open.

“He will be. He knows what’s waitin’ for him!”

He snapped the watch shut and put it back into his leather vest.

The first cowboy squinted into the sun. “He’s gonna get shot this mornin’,” he announced laconically. “There ain’t no doubt about that.”

The second cowboy grunted in assent, then watched his friend stick another chunk of brown stuff into his mouth. “What is that?” he inquired.

“Hershey bar,” his companion said, “but the damn thing is stale and it don’t have no nuts in it neither.”

There came the sound of a roar. It was at first distant, like a far-off growl, then it built up until it was a full-throated shriek—and around the corner came a red Jaguar, chrome-spoked wheels churning their way through the dust, and screaming their protest as the car turned more sharply and headed down the main street. It threw up tons of dust as once again the driver jerked it abruptly to the right and slammed on the brakes. The car plowed to a stop a foot from the porch of the saloon, squatting there like some low-slung red animal. A horse tethered next to it stared at the driver, snorted, and looked away.

Rance McGrew climbed carefully out of the front seat, swiped the dust off his cream-colored whipcord pants and white silk shirt, straightened the black and yellow ascot around his neck, and carefully tilted the brim of his white Stetson. He kicked the car door shut and started up the steps of the saloon.

“Howdy, Mr. McGrew,” one of the cowboys said.

“Howdy,” Rance answered, clutching at the post at the top of the steps as one of his boots turned inward, and he teetered momentarily.

Rance wore the only elevator boots in the business, with two-inch lifts inside and three-inch heels on the bottom. This shot him up to five feet seven.

The door to the saloon opened and Sy Blattsburg came out. He was a bald, dapper little man in a sport shirt. The shirt was soaked with perspiration. He looked worriedly at his wristwatch and then at Rance.

“You’re an hour and fifteen minutes late, Rance,” he announced with suppressed anger. “We should’ve had this scene all shot by now.”

Rance shrugged his shoulders under their padding, and swaggered past him through the swinging doors into the make-believe saloon, where a camera crew and a party of extras sat around looking relieved and bored at the same time.

Sy Blattsburg, who had spent twenty years directing all kinds of phony-balonies, followed this particular phony-baloney into the saloon. “Makeup,” he called, as he padded after the star.

The makeup man hurried onto the scene. Forcing a beatific smile at the “cowboy,” he pointed to the wooden stool in front of the makeup mirror.

“Right over here, Mr. McGrew,” he said pleasantly.

Rance sat down on the stool and surveyed his reflection.

“Make it kind of quick, will you?” the director said, his lips twitching ever so slightly. “We’re quite a bit behind, Rance—”

Rance turned, knocking the powder puff out of the makeup man’s hand. “Don’t bug me, Sy,” he said with a fast burn. “You know what emotional scenes do to me just before we shoot!”

The director smiled and closed his eyes, then patted the star on his padded shoulders. “Don’t get upset, Rance baby. We’ll try to knock this one out in a hurry. What do you say we get started—huh? Okay, baby? This is scene seventy-one.”

He snapped his fingers and the script girl handed him the manuscript. “Here it is, right here,” he said, pointing to one of the pages.

Rance languidly held out his hand and Blattsburg gave him the script. Rance looked at it briefly, then gave it back. “Read it to me,” he said.