The Shrinking Man (23 page)

Something was going to happen.

He drove the spear point into the sand and began drawing in the thread, looping it so he could carry it over his shoulder and do away
with that dragging, whispering sound behind him. As he pulled in the dark, sand-dripping thread he kept looking around, searching.

At a breath of sound the coil thumped down and he snatched the spear from its place again, throwing it out before him. His arm and shoulder muscles shook, his legs stood tensely arched, his eyes were wide and staring.

Breath shook from his lips. He stood listening carefully. Maybe it was the settling of the house he heard. Maybe…

A cracking sound, a thud, a roaring wave of sound.

With a flat cry, he jerked around, terror-stricken eyes searching; but, in the very same instant, he realized that it was the oil burner. Dropping the spear, he covered his ears with shaking hands.

Two minutes later the burner clicked off and silence fell across the shadow-pooled desert again.

Scott finished coiling the thread, picked up the heavy loops and the spear and started walking again, eyes still searching. Where was it. Where was it?

When he came to the first piece of wood he stopped. He dropped the coil and thread and extended the spear. It might be hiding behind that piece of wood. He licked dry lips, moving in a half crouch for the wood. It was becoming darker the farther he went into the dunes. It might be behind there; what if it’s behind there?

He jerked back his head suddenly as it occurred to him that it might be overhead, floating down on a gossamer cable.

He ground together his chattering teeth and looked down again. The fear was a cold, drawing knot in his stomach now. All right, God damn it! he thought. I’m not going to just stand here like a paralytic. On shaking but resolute legs, he walked to the edge of the wood scrap and looked around it. There was nothing.

Sighing, he went back to the thread and picked it up. It’s so heavy, he thought. He really ought to leave it behind. What could happen to it, anyway? He stood indecisively. Then it occurred to him that he’d need the hook to drag the slice of bread back to the cliff edge. That settled, he picked up the heavy coil and slung it over his shoulder again. He was glad he’d thought of a use for the thread. Now he had a definite reason to take it. Heavy as it was, he didn’t feel right about leaving it behind.

Every time he came to a scrap of wood, a boulder-high stone, a
piece of cardboard, a brick, a high mound of sand, he had to do the same nerve-clutching thing—put down the thread, approach the obstacle carefully, pin spear extended rigidly, until he’d found out that the spider was not hiding there. Then, each time, a great swell of relief that was not quite relief made his body sag, made the spear point drop, and he would return to his thread and hook and go on to the next obstacle; never really relieved because he knew that each reprieve was at best, only temporary.

By the time he reached the bread he wasn’t even hungry.

He stood before the tall white square like a child standing beside a building. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but how could he possibly drag that slice by himself?

Well, it didn’t matter, he thought bluntly. He wouldn’t need that much bread, anyway. It had to last only one day more.

He looked around carefully but saw nothing. Maybe the spider
was
dead. He couldn’t believe it, but he should have seen it by now. On all other occasions it had seemed to sense his presence. Certainly it remembered him, and probably it hated him. He knew he hated it.

He drove the spear into the sand and broke off a hard piece of bread, bit off a chunk, and started to chew. It tasted good. A few moments of chewing seemed to restore appetite, and a few minutes of eating brought it to a point of voraciousness. Although he couldn’t relax his tense caution, he found himself breaking off piece after piece of the bread and crunching rapidly on its crisp whiteness. He hadn’t realized it before, but he’d missed that bread. The crackers hadn’t been the same.

When he was filled as he hadn’t been filled for days, he finished off the water. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he flung away the piece of sponge. It had served its purpose. He picked up the spear and hacked out a piece of bread about twice his size. More than enough, stated his mind. He ignored it.

He plunged the hook into the piece of bread and dragged it slowly back to the cliff, scraping out a road behind him in the sand. At the edge of the cliff he drew out the hook and, propping up the huge chunk, pushed it over the brink.

It fluttered through the air, tiny crumbs flaking off as it fell. Settling after it like snow. It hit the floor, breaking into three parts, which bounced once, rolled a little way, then flopped onto their respective
sides. There. That was that. He’d made the hard climb, got the bread he was after, and it was done.

He turned to face the desert again.

Why then the tension continuing in his body? Why didn’t that knot of cold distress leave his stomach? He was safe. The spider was nowhere around; not behind the pieces of wood or the stones or the cardboard scraps, not behind the paint cans or the jars. He was safe.

Then why wasn’t he starting down?

He stood there motionless, staring out across the dim-lit desert wastes, his heart beating faster and faster, as if it were grinding out a truth for him, sending it up and up the neural pathways to his brain, pounding at the doors and the walls of it, telling him that he hadn’t only gone up for the bread, he’d also gone to kill the spider.

The spear fell from his hand and clattered on the cement. He stood there shivering, knowing now what that tension in him was, knowing exactly what it was that was going to happen—that he was going to
make
happen.

Numbly he picked up the spear and walked into the desert. A few yards out his legs gave way and he slumped down heavily, cross-legged on the sand. The spear fell down across his lap and he sat there holding it, looking out across the silent sands, an unbelieving look on his face.

He waited.

“Life in a Dollhouse.” It had been the title of a chapter in his book; the last chapter. After he’d finished it, he’d realized that he couldn’t write any more. Even the smallest pencil was as big as a baseball bat. He decided to get a tape recorder, but before that was possible, he was beyond communication.

That was later, though. Now he was ten inches tall and Louise came in one day with a giant doll house.

He was resting on a cushion underneath the couch, where Beth couldn’t accidentally step on him. He watched Lou put down the big doll house and then he crawled out from under the couch and stood up.

Lou got on her knees and leaned forward to put her ear near his mouth.

“Why did you get it?” he asked.

She answered softly so the sound of her voice wouldn’t hurt his ears. “I thought you’d like it.”

He was going to say that he didn’t like it at all. He looked at her profile for a moment; then he said, “It’s very nice.”

It was a deluxe doll house; they could afford it now, with the sales and resales of his book. He walked over to it and went up on the porch. It gave him an odd feeling to stand there, his hand on the tiny wrought-iron railing; the feeling he’d had the night he’d stood on the steps of Clarice’s trailer.

Pushing open the front door, he went into the house and closed the door behind him. He was standing in the large living room. Except for fluffy white curtains, it was unfurnished. There was a fireplace of false bricks, hardwood floors and a window seat, candle brackets. It
was an attractive room, except for one thing: One of its walls was missing.

Now he saw Lou on that open side, peering in at him, a gentle half-smile on her face.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

He walked across the living room and stood where the missing wall should have been.

“Is there furniture?” he asked.

“It’s in—” she began, then stopped seeing him wince at the loudness of her voice. “It’s in the car,” she said, more softly.

“Oh.” He turned back to the room.

“I’ll get it,” she said. “You look at the house.”

She was gone. He heard and felt her move across the floor of the big living room, the tremble reflected through the floor. Then the other front door thudded shut and he looked around his new house.

By noon, all the furniture was in place. He’d had Lou push the house against the wall behind the couch so he could have the privacy as well as the protection of four walls. Beth, on strict orders, did not approach him, but occasionally the cat got into the house, and then there was danger.

He’d also had Lou put an extension cord into the house so he could have a small Christmas-tree bulb for light. In her enthusiasm, Lou had forgotten that he would need light. He would have liked plumbing too, but that, of course, was impossible.

He moved into the doll house, but doll furniture was not designed for comfort. The chairs, even the living room chairs, were straight-backed and uncomfortable because they had no cushions. The bed was without springs or mattress. Lou had to sew some cotton padding into a piece of sheet so he could sleep on the hard bed.

Life in the doll house was not truly life. He might have felt inclined to fiddle on the keyboard of the glossy grand piano, but the keys were painted on and the insides were hollow. He might wander into the kitchen and yank at the refrigerator door in search of a snack, but the refrigerator was all in one piece. The knobs on the stove moved, but that was all. It would take eternity to heat a pot of water on it. He could twist the tiny sink faucets until his hands fell off, but not the smallest drop of water would ever appear. He could put clothes in the little washer, but they would remain dirty and dry. He could put wood
scraps in the fireplace, but if he lit them, he’d only smoke himself out of the house because there was no chimney.

One night he took off his wedding ring.

He’d been wearing it on a string around his neck, but now it was too heavy. It was like carrying a great gold loop around. He carried it up the stairs to his bedroom. There he pulled out the bottom drawer of the little dresser and put in the ring and shut the drawer again.

Then he sat on the edge of the bed looking at the bureau, thinking about the ring; thinking that it was as if he’d been carrying the roots of his marriage all these months, but now the roots had been pulled up finally and were lying still and dead in the little dresser drawer. And the marriage, by that act, was formally ended.

Beth had brought him a doll that afternoon. She’d put it on his porch and left it there. He’d ignored it all day; but now, on an impulse, he went downstairs and got the doll, which was sitting on the top step in a blue sun suit.

“Cold?” he asked her as he picked her up. She had nothing to say.

He carried her upstairs and put her down on the bed. Her eyes fell shut.

“No, don’t go to sleep,” he said. He sat her up by bending her at the joining of her body and her long, hard, inflexible legs. “There,” he said. She sat looking at him with stark, jewel-like eyes that never blinked.

“That’s a nice sun suit,” he said. He reached out and brushed back her flaxen hair. “Who does your hair?” he asked. She sat there stiffly, legs spread apart, arms half raised, as though she contemplated a possible embrace.

He poked her in her hard little chest. Her halter fell off. “What do you wear a halter for?” he asked, justifiably. She stared at him glassily, withdrawn. “Your eyelashes are celluloid,” he said tactlessly. “You have no ears,” he said. She stared. “You’re flat-chested,” he told her.

Then he apologized to her for being so rude, and he followed that by telling her the story of his life. She sat patiently in the half-lit bedroom, staring at him with blue, crystalline eyes that did not blink and a little red cupid’s bow mouth that stayed perpetually half-puckered, as if anticipating a kiss that never came.

Later on, he laid her down on the bed and stretched out beside her. She was asleep instantly. He turned her on her side and her blue eyes
clicked open and stared at him. He turned her on her back again and they clicked shut.

“Go to sleep,” he said. He put his arm around her and snuggled close to her cool plaster leg. Her hip stuck into him. He turned her on her other side, so she was looking away from him. Then he pressed close to her and slipped his arm around her body.

In the middle of the night, he woke up with a start and stared dazedly at the smooth, naked back beside him, the yellow hair tied with a red ribbon. His heartbeats thundered.

“Who
are
you?” he whispered.

Then he touched her hard, cool flesh and remembered.

A sob broke in his chest. “Why aren’t you real?” he asked her, but she wouldn’t tell him. He pressed his face into her soft flaxen hair and held her tight, and after a while he went to sleep again.

He sat on the cool sand, staring blankly at the doll arm sticking up out of the huge cardboard box across the way from him. It had reminded him.

He blinked and looked around. How long ago had that been? He couldn’t remember. More importantly, how long had he been daydreaming here? There was no way of telling. The shaft of sunlight still pierced the window.

He blinked, looked around. He hadn’t much longer. If it started to get dark, he could never—

There;
there
—wasn’t that indicative? That failure to finish the thought. In the dark he could never kill the spider; he wouldn’t have a chance. That was the thought. Why hadn’t his mind finished it?

Because the thought terrified him.

Why was he remaining, then? He didn’t have to. He had to think about it; understand it. All right. He pressed his lips together, holding on to the spear with white-knuckled hands.

For some reason, the spider had come to symbolize something to him; something he hated, something he couldn’t coexist with. And, since he was going to die anyway, he wanted to take a chance at killing that something.

No, it wasn’t that simple. There was something else mixed in with it. Maybe it was that he didn’t really think he was going to disappear
tomorrow. But wasn’t it the same way with death? What young, normal person could ever really believe he was going to die? Normal? he thought. Who’s normal? He closed his eyes.