He could smell her, too. There were different smells on her. He could smell her hair and
her perfume. He liked the way Aunt Mary smelled. His Aunt Cora sometimes smelled of cooking and his Uncle Mort didn’t seem to have a smell, but Aunt Mary smelled like sweet flowers. He tried to remember if his mom had smelled like sweet flowers but he couldn’t remember. Maybe old ladies like Aunt Cora smelled of cooking and other ladies like Aunt Mary smelled like sweet flowers. Arlie thought that
he would grow up and marry a lady someday and he could smell her whenever he wanted to, not just when she came and put her cheek next to his.
Aunt Mary stood up and went out of the room and Arlie could hear her voice and Aunt Cora’s together. Uncle Mort came over and sat on Arlie’s bed. That was nice. Uncle Mort was still wearing his overcoat and Arlie could see a few specks of snow on the shoulders
of Uncle Mort’s coat. There were big pockets in Uncle Mort’s coat. He reached into one and pulled out a folded newspaper. He unfolded the newspaper and took something out and handed it to Arlie.
It looked a lot like a comic book but it was thicker than any comic book Arlie had ever seen. Arlie looked at the cover. There was a picture of a castle on the front, with a full moon shining behind it.
In front of the castle a big white animal sat with its head thrown back and its mouth wide open. It looked like a giant dog but Arlie knew that it was really a wolf, maybe even a werewolf.
Arlie smiled. He liked the picture.
Uncle Mort asked if he could read the name of the magazine.
Arlie was annoyed. He was a good reader. He’d learned to read even before he started school, and he was one
of the best readers in his class before he got sick and had to stop going to school. He looked at the name of the magazine. It was printed in big yellow letters right over the dark sky in the picture. Arlie made a face. “It says
Haunted Adventures
. January 1945. In this issue Hounds from the Hills by Eduardo del Lobo, Marcus Billingham, Joseph Lester, Clarissa Norman, twenty five cents.”
Uncle
Mort grinned. “You’re right, Arlie. You’re a terrific reader. You want to keep
Haunted Adventures
?”
Arlie opened
Haunted Adventures
. Unlike his comic books it was printed all in black words on white pages. There were some pictures but they were in black, too. He liked comics a lot and he wasn’t sure that he liked
Haunted Adventures
but he could tell that Uncle Mort
wanted him to say that he liked
it and he wanted to please his uncle.
“It looks great, Uncle Mort.”
“Think you can read the whole magazine, Arlie?”
Arlie wasn’t sure about that so he didn’t say anything.
“Well, you try one story and see how you do. You might want to try that Billingham. He’s a good writer. Don’t worry, Arlie, if you don’t like it we’ll go back to comics tomorrow.”
Uncle Mort ruffled Arlie’s hair and walked
out of the room.
That night after dinner of spaghetti and meatballs Arlie sat in his chair with the lamp over it. He could see the dark place on the wall, but the funny thing was, the lighter the room was the less he could see of the dark place. He wasn’t sure he could see the opening or the tunnel at all, and certainly not Homicide Sergeant Jack Martin or the lovely Marguerite Moran or the Crimson
Wizard.
But he was able to read the story that Uncle Mort said he would enjoy. It was called “Orchids for the Bride of the Spectre.” Arlie didn’t know what a
Spectre
was but clearly it was something scary. In fact the whole story was scary but still Arlie liked it and he was proud of himself for reading the whole story.
It was better than anything he’d ever read in school books, and in a way
it was better than stories on the radio or in the comics. That was strange, because the comic books had bright, exciting pictures in them and the radio stories had real voices and sounds like spaceships blasting off or gunshots or the hoof beats of magnificent stallions. The stories in
Haunted Adventures
magazine only had words. Why were they so good, then?
Suddenly Arlie understood. The stories
in the comic books or on the radio happened outside your head and you only saw them or heard them, but the stories in
Haunted Adventures
happened
inside
your head.
Arlie realized that he liked the idea that Marcus Billingham wrote the story, too. He’d never thought about that before. Comic book stories and radio stories were just
there
, somehow. The stories were there and the pictures were there,
the way the sky was just there and the world was just there. You didn’t think about it, or if you did some grownup would say, “God made the sky,” or “God made the world.”
But Arlie didn’t think that God made
Haunted Adventures
and wrote
the stories in it. Arlie realized with a shock that it wasn’t that way at all. Eduardo del Lobo, Marcus Billingham, Joseph Lester, and Clarissa Norman wrote the
stories in
Haunted Adventures
. Somebody drew the pictures in the magazine, too, and somebody made the wonderful picture of the wolf on the cover, and somebody wrote the stories in Arlie’s comic books and drew the pictures there, too, and somebody wrote the stories about Ace Larson Space Explorer and Homicide Sergeant Jack Martin and even the Crimson Wizard that Arlie heard on the radio.
Suddenly
Arlie felt something inside his chest, something that he had never felt before. It was warm and it seemed to be filling him up and almost pushing out of him. He knew something that he hadn’t known before. He didn’t know where it came from but he knew it with all his heart. He blinked and told himself that when he grew up he would not only marry a lady who wore lipstick and smelled like flowers
like his Aunt Mary, he would write stories for
Haunted Adventures
magazine.
He closed the magazine and waited for his Uncle Mort to come and carry him to the bathroom and then put him in his bed. He waited for a train to come but he didn’t hear a distant whistle or the click of the wheels on the tracks.
That night he woke up when a train went past. He listened for its whistle and the click of
its wheels. He could tell the exact moment that the locomotive rushed past the apartment house. He imagined himself sitting in the train as it rushed past his house and carried him to the land that the picture on the cover of
Haunted Adventures
showed. He was running through the woods. The big castle rose up, he could see its towers against the bright full moon, and he could hear the rustle of
creatures in the dark woods and the distant howling of wolves.
He wondered where the dark woods were. Maybe they were part of the Black Forest and he would hear the sounds of battle. There would be American tanks with big white stars painted on them and Nazi tanks with ugly swastikas and he would see his dad.
He pushed himself up in his bed.
The clock said it was after three o’clock in the
morning. It must have been cloudy outside. Arlie could see just a little bit around the edges of the window shade and he could see that it was snowing. Inside Arlie’s room it was the darkest he could ever remember.
He looked at the dark place on his wall and the tunnel was there
and the entrance to it was wide open. Arlie leaned forward and looked into the tunnel as hard as he could.
He could
see different colored lights inside. There was a bright yellow light and he could see Tex Wilson and his mighty stallion Pharaoh. There was a dark purple light and he could see Ace Larson Space Explorer and his companion Betty Blanton standing on the surface of the poison planetoid next to their spaceship the
Isis
. There was a blue light and he could see Homicide Detective Jack Martin and the
lovely Marguerite Moran; Detective Martin was wounded and he was leaning on the lovely Marguerite Moran who had a gun in her hand and was shooting at a crook. And there was a crimson light, the strongest light of all, a beautiful crimson light and there was the Crimson Wizard and Arlie could see a little under the edge of the Crimson Wizard’s hat and he was almost sure that the Crimson Wizard’s face
was his father’s face.
The Crimson Wizard was looking right at Arlie. He spoke to Arlie and his voice was a lot like Arlie’s dad’s voice, but it was also a lot like your announcer Larry Thorson. He was gesturing to Arlie, too, and he was telling him that he could come into the tunnel and they would have an adventure together. The insidious Dr. Mephisto was up to his old tricks again and Arlie
could help the Crimson Wizard defeat the Demon Horde of Hades.
Arlie couldn’t get out of bed to go to the tunnel. He couldn’t get out of bed at all without somebody picking him up, his Aunt Cora or his Uncle Mort or some other grownup. He tried, though, and all of a sudden he could move. His arms and legs didn’t exactly work right, it felt more as if he was leaving his body right in the bed,
right under the comforter, and he could kind of float toward the tunnel.
The Crimson Wizard was gesturing to him and Arlie was moving slowly toward the tunnel. He was near the end of his bed now, and then even though his room was really dark he could see the copy of
Haunted Adventures
there, with the picture of the wolf and the castle on the cover and the stories inside it by Eduardo del Lobo,
Marcus Billingham, Joseph Lester, and Clarissa Norman. Somehow Arlie knew that if he went into the tunnel with the Crimson Wizard and his other heroes he would never come back. He would never get to grow up and marry a lady who smelled like flowers or write a story that they would print in
Haunted Adventures
.
He said, “I can’t come with you, Crimson Wizard.”
He turned around and he saw himself
lying in bed, his head on the pillow, the comforter over him. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving. It felt almost as if he was swimming through the air. He got back to his body and got back inside it. He pushed himself upright against the pillow and reached over and turned on the radio on his night table.
When the light behind the radio dial came on the tunnel in Arlie’s wall disappeared.
They were playing music on the radio. In a minute Arlie’s Aunt Cora came into his room. She was wearing a nightgown and her hair wasn’t in a bun, it was in a braid. He’d never seen Aunt Cora’s hair like that before. Uncle Mort and Aunt Mary were behind her. They were both wearing bathrobes.
Aunt Cora ran over to Arlie and put her arms around him and he put his arms around her and hugged her and
she started to cry. Uncle Mort and Aunt Mary started talking in the Old Country language. Uncle Mort went out of Arlie’s room and in a minute Arlie could hear his voice, he was talking on the telephone in a voice that he always used to talk on the telephone.
Without letting go of Arlie, Aunt Cora said something to Aunt Mary in the Old Country language and Aunt Mary went out of the room and soon
she came back with a tray and a glass for Arlie. Aunt Cora held it for him and he sipped at it. It was hot milk with honey mixed in it. It tasted good, Aunt Cora had made it for him before when he felt cold or couldn’t sleep and he always liked it.
When Aunt Cora finally let Arlie go, he crawled to the end of his bed for his copy of
Haunted Adventures
and brought it back with him and got back
under the comforter. Aunt Cora and Aunt Mary talked to each other very fast in the Old Country language.
Arlie heard the doorbell ring and heard Uncle Mort go and open it. There was more talking in the Old Country language and Arlie recognized Uncle Mort’s and Dr. Goldsmith’s voices. Dr. Goldsmith came into Arlie’s room wearing a hat with snow on the brim and an overcoat with snow on the shoulders.
He was carrying his black doctor bag.
He took off his coat and put it on Arlie’s chair, then his hat and put it on top of the coat. He opened his doctor bag and took out his
stethoscope
and put the tips in his ears and the round part on Arlie’s chest. It was colder than anything Arlie had ever felt, even ice cream or even snow.
Dr. Goldsmith leaned back. He looked surprised.
He took a thermometer
out of his doctor bag and shook it and took Arlie’s temperature.
He got one of his flat wooden things and looked around inside Arlie’s mouth. He took his little flashlight and looked inside Arlie’s ears. He looked puzzled but he didn’t seem unhappy. He gestured to the grownups in the room and they all went out of Arlie’s room but they left the door open and they took turns looking back at him.
Dr. Goldsmith stayed in the house for a long time. Arlie wondered if Aunt Cora minded Dr. Goldsmith seeing her in her nightgown with her hair in a braid but she didn’t seem to.
Finally Dr. Goldsmith came back into Arlie’s room and sat on the bed and looked at him again. He held his hands and looked at them, picked up Arlie’s pajama shirt and looked at his tummy and his chest.
He stood up and
put on his overcoat and his hat and picked up his doctor bag. He went out of the room and Arlie could hear Dr. Goldsmith and the other grownups talking again. They talked for a long time. Dr. Goldsmith came back still again and peered at Arlie.
He turned around and went to the front door. Arlie heard Dr. Goldsmith open the front door and he heard him whistling that song that Arlie liked until
he heard the front door close.
The Central Railroad Tower in the very heart of the world’s greatest city rises forty-two stories into the air. It houses the offices of more than three thousand companies, lawyers, dentists, and physicians. And one mysterious organization, the frosted glass of whose doorway is marked, simply,
C. W. Enterprises—by Appointment Only
.
The Seacoast City
telephone directory contains no entry for C. W. Enterprises, and a call to the information operator elicits only a terse, “I am
sor
-ree, I have no
lis
-ting for that
par
-tee.”
Any curiosity seeker who knocks at the door of C. W. Enterprises will be met only by silence; if he tries the knob, he will find the door securely locked.