Bradbury, Ray - SSC 13 (22 page)

 
          
Cynthia
glanced up from the paper.

 
          
“I
don’t understand. What does he mean?”

 
          
But
Fortnum was already at the telephone, dialing swiftly, once. “Operator? The
police, and hurry!”

 
          
At
ten-fifteen that night, the phone rang for the sixth time during the evening.
Fortnum got it, and immediately gasped. “Roger! Where are you?”

 
          
“Where
am I?” said Roger lightly, almost amused. “You know very well where I am.
You’re responsible for this. I should be angry!”

 
          
Cynthia,
at his nod, had hurried to take the extension phone in the kitchen. When he
heard the soft click, he went on.

 
          
“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 jerkwater,
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,
more bewildered than before.

 
          
“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. Good-by, Hugh.”

 
          
“Good—”

 
          
But
the lieutenant was on the line, 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 he 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 Fortnum’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 awhile, then cleared his throat and said,
“Dorothy, look. I know it sounds silly. Did any special delivery air mail packages
arrive at your house the last few days?”

 
          
Her
voice was faint. “No.” Then: “No, wait. Three days ago. But I thought you
knew!
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 cursing him by phone from downstate.
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?”

 
          
“
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 run 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. Not 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,” he admitted.

 
          
“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?