The Shrinking Man (25 page)

The spear point pierced its body and the spider fell into a shuddering heap, its poison-dripping jaws clamping shut inches from Scott’s body. Then it was dead, its body lying still and gigantic on the bloody sands.

Scott staggered away from it and pitched across the sand, unconscious. The last sound he remembered was the slow and awful scratching of the spider’s legs—dead, but not at rest.

He stirred feebly, hands drawing in slowly, clutching at the sand. A groan wavered in his chest; he rolled over onto his back. His eyes opened.

Had it been a dream? He lay breathing carefully for a minute; then, with a grunt, he sat up.

No dream. Yards away from him the spider lay, its body like a great, dead stone, its legs like motionless spars bent in every direction. The stillness of death hung over it.

It was almost night. He had to get down the cliff before dark. Exhaling wearily, he struggled to his feet and walked across to the
spider. It made him ill to stand beside its bloody hulk, but he had to have the hook.

When it was finally done, he stumbled across the desert, dragging the hook behind him so the sands would clean it.

Well, it’s done, he thought. The nights of horror were ended. He could sleep without the box top now, sleep free and at peace. A tired smile eased his stark expression. Yes, it was worth it. Everything seemed worth it now.

At the cliff’s edge, he flung out the hook until it bit into wood. Then slowly, wearily, he pulled himself up, drew in the thread, and started across the lawn chair’s arm. A long descent yet. He smiled again. It didn’t matter; he’d make it.

As he was swinging down to the lower chair, hanging in space, the hook broke.

In an instant he was plummeting through the air, turning in slow, arm-waving cartwheels. It was such an absolute shock to him that he couldn’t make a sound. His brain was stricken and taut. The only emotion he felt was one of complete, dumbfounded astonishment.

Then he landed on the flower-patterned cushion, bounced once, and lay still.

After a while he stood up and felt over his body. He didn’t understand it. Even if he had landed on the cushion, he’d fallen many hundreds of feet. How could he still be alive, much less unhurt?

He stood a long time, feeling ceaselessly at himself, almost unable to believe that no bones were broken, that he was only bruised a trifle.

Then it came to him: his weight. He’d been wrong all the time. He’d thought that in a fall he’d suffer the same effects as he might have when he had his full size and weight. He was wrong. It should have been obvious to him. Couldn’t an ant be dropped almost any distance and still walk away from the fall?

Shaking his head wonderingly, he walked to one of the pieces of bread and carried a big hunk of it back to the sponge. Then, after he’d got a long drink from the hose, he climbed to the top of the sponge with his bread and ate supper.

That night he slept in utter peace.

He reared up with a cry, suddenly awake. A carpet of sunlight glared across the cement floor; there was a drum-like jarring on the steps. Breath froze in him. Cutting off the sunlight, a giant appeared.

Scott flung himself across the yielding sponge, scrambling for its edge, then toppling over it. The giant stopped and looked around, its head almost touching the ceiling, far above. Scott dropped lightly to the cement, pushing to his feet, then pitching forward, tripping on the oversized robe. He jumped up a second time, eyes staring at the giant, who stood motionless, vast arms on hips. Grabbing up handfuls of his dragging robe, Scott raced barefoot across the cold floor, his sandals left behind.

After five yards, the folds of robe slipped from his hands and he went sprawling again. The giant moved. Scott gasped, recoiling, flinging up an arm. There was no chance to flee. The floor shook with the giant’s coming. Horrified, Scott saw the Gargantuan shoes crash down on the cement. His gaze leaped up. The giant’s body seemed to totter over him like a falling mountain. Scott threw the other arm across his face. The end! his mind screamed.

The thunder stopped and Scott drew down his arms.

Miraculously, the giant had stopped beside the red metal table. Why hadn’t it gone on to the water heater? What was it doing?

A gasp tore back his lips as the giant reached across the plateau of the table, pulled over a carton bigger than an apartment house, and tossed it to the floor. The noise it made in landing drove an aural spear through Scott’s brain. He clamped both hands over his ears and, struggling to his feet, backed off hastily. What was it doing? Another vast carton was flung across the cellar, landing deafeningly. Scott’s frightened
gaze followed its rocking descent, then jumped back to where the giant stood.

Now it was pulling something even larger from the pile between the fuel tank and the refrigerator. Something blue. It was Lou’s suitcase.

Suddenly he knew it wasn’t the same giant that had been there Wednesday. His eyes fled up the cliff walls of its trousers. That blue-gray pattern of squares and lines, what was it? He stared at it. Glen plaid! The giant was a man in a glenplaid suit, wearing black shoes that seemed a block long. Where had he seen that glen-plaid suit before?

It came to him an instant before a second, smaller giant jumped down the steps and, in a piercing voice, said, “Can I help you, Uncle Marty?”

Scott stood rigid, only his eyes moving—from the immense form of his daughter to the even more immense form of his brother, then back again.

“I don’t think so, sweetheart,” Marty said. “I think they’re too heavy.” His voice rang out in Scott’s ears with such a resonant volume that he could barely make out the words.

“I could carry the small one,” answered Beth.

“Well, maybe you could, at that,” said Marty. Cartons still flew through the air, bounced on the floor. Now two canvas chairs went flying. “There. And there,” said Marty. They crashed against the lawn chairs and were still. “And
there,”
said Marty. A net pole like a two-thousand-foot tree flashed across the floor and fell against the cliff, leaning there, its bottom end braced by the moonlike metal rim to which the net was fastened.

Now Scott was back against the cement block, head back, and he was gaping at the towering shape of his brother. He watched Marty’s elephantine hand close over the handle of the second suitcase and drag it raspingly across the metal table, then drop it on the floor. What was Marty taking down the suitcases for?

The answer came. They were moving.

“No,” he muttered running forward impulsively. He saw Beth’s gigantic form lurch across the floor in three strides, then bend over to grab the second suitcase.

“No!” His face was drawn with panic. “Marty!” He screamed,
racing toward his brother. He tripped across the dragging hem of his robe again, pitched forward. He stood up, crying his brother’s name again. She couldn’t leave!

“Marty, it’s me!” he shrieked. “Marty!”

With palsied fingers, he jerked the robe over his shoulders and head and flung it down. He ran berserkly at his brother’s shoes.

“Marty!”

At the steps, he heard the sawing, teeth-setting din of Beth dragging the smaller suitcase over rough cement edges. He ignored it, still running toward his brother. He had to make him hear.

“Marty! Marty!”

With a sigh, Marty started for the steps.

“No! Don’t go!” Scott yelled as loudly as he could. Like a pale white insect, he sprinted over the cold cement toward his brother’s rapidly moving form.

“Marty!”

At the steps, Marty turned. Scott’s eyes widened suddenly with excitement.

“Here, Marty!
Here!”
he shouted, thinking his brother had heard. He waved his thread-thin arms wildly. “I’m here, Marty! Here!”

Marty turned his giant head. “Beth?” he said.

“Yes, Uncle Marty.” Her voice drifted down the steps.

“Does your mother have anything else down here?”

“Some things,” Beth replied.

“Oh. Well, we’ll come back, then.”

By then Scott had reached the giant shoe and leaped up clawing at the high ridge of its sole. He caught at the hard leather and held on.

“Marty!” He screamed again and dragged himself up onto the shelf. Standing hurriedly, he began to beat his fists against the shoe. It was like hitting a stone wall.

“Marty, please!” he begged. “Please! Oh, Please!”

Abruptly the shelf lurched and swung around in an immense, brain-whirling circle. Scott lost his balance and fell back with a cry, arms flailing for balance.

He landed heavily on the cement and lay breathless, watching his brother move up the steps with Lou’s suitcase.

Then Marty was gone and sunlight poured blindingly across him.
Scott flung an arm across his eyes and twisted away. A sob tore through his chest. It wasn’t fair! Why were all his triumphs undone so quickly, all his victories negated in the very next instant?

He lurched to his feet and stood trembling, his back to the blazing sunlight. She was moving; Louise was moving away. She thought he was dead and she was leaving him.

His teeth grated together. He had to let her know he was still alive.

He looked sideways, shading his eyes with a cupped hand. The door was still open. He ran to the edge of the bottom step and looked up its sheer rise. Even if he made himself another hook, he couldn’t throw it that high. He walked restlessly along the base of the step, muttering to himself.

What about the cracks between the cement blocks? Could he climb them now as he’d planned to do on Wednesday? He started toward the nearest one, then stopped, realizing that he had to have some clothes and food, some water.

It was then that the impossibility of the climb fell over him like a splash of molten lead.

He fell against the cold cement of the step and stood shivering, staring with dead eyes at the floor. His head shook slowly back and forth. It was no use trying. He’d never make the top. Not now; not at one seventh of an inch.

He’d stumbled halfway back to the sponge when the idea dispersed his despair. Marty had said he was coming back down.

With a gasp, he started running for the step again, then halted once more. Wait, wait, he cautioned, you have to prepare first. He couldn’t just jump at the shoe again; there was no secure hold. Somehow he had to grab Marty’s trouser leg, maybe even crawl inside the cuff, and cling there until he was carried into the house. Then he could get out, climb up on a table or a chair, anything, wave a piece of cloth, catch Lou’s attention. Just to have her know that he was still alive, he thought excitedly. Just to have her know that.

All right, then. Quickly, quickly. He clapped his hands together with a nervous movement. What came first?

First came eating, drinking; a good meal under his—he laughed nervously—his belt? He glanced down at his white, goose-fleshed nakedness. Yes, that was first; but what could he wear? The robe was too big and its material too strong to tear up. Maybe…

He ran to the sponge and, after a wild tugging and jerking and gnawing of teeth, managed to tear away a big piece of it. This he thinned as much as he could and pulled around himself, sticking his arms and then his legs through its pores. It pressed against him, rubberlike, and did not cover him very well; it kept springing open in the front. Well, it would have to do. There was no time to make anything better.

Food next. He jogged across the floor and broke a chunk of bread from one of the pieces by the cliff. He carried it quickly to the hose and sat there eating it, perched on the metal lip of the opening, legs dangling. His feet should have something on them, too; but what?

When he’d finished eating and made the long, cold trek through the black hose passage, he went back to the sponge and pulled off two small pieces for his feet. He ripped out the centers of them and jammed his feet in. The sponge didn’t hold very well. He’d have to fasten them with thread.

Suddenly it occurred to him that the thread not only would fasten his improvised clothing to himself, but could also get into Marty’s cuff. If he could get another pin and bend it, and tie it to a length of thread, he could hook the pin into the trousers and hang on until he was upstairs in the house.

He started to run for the carton under the fuel tank. He stopped and whirled, remembering the piece of thread he’d had when he’d fallen the night before. It must still have a piece of pin fastened to it. He ran to find it.

It did; what was more, the piece of pin was still bent enough to hook onto Marty’s trouser leg.

Scott ran on the pile of stones and wood by the bottom step, waiting for his brother to come down again.

Upstairs, he could hear restless, hurried footsteps moving through the rooms, and he visualized Lou moving about, preparing to leave. His lips pressed together until they hurt. If it was the last thing he did, he’d let her know he was alive.

He looked at the cellar. It was hard to believe that, after all this time, he might be getting out. The cellar had become the world to him. Maybe he’d be like a prisoner released after long confinement, frightened and insecure. No, that couldn’t be true. The cellar had been no
womb of comfort to him. Life on the outside could hardly be more onerous than it had been down here.

He ran his fingers lightly over his bad knee. The swelling had gone down considerably; it ached only a little. He touched at the cuts and abrasions on his face. He unwrapped the bandage on his hand, tugged it off and dropped it to the floor. He swallowed experimentally. His throat felt sore, but that didn’t matter. He was ready for the world.

Upstairs, he heard the back door shut and footsteps on the porch. He jumped from the boulder and shook loose the length of thread. Then, picking up the hook, he pressed back against the wall of the step, waiting, his chest wall thudding with heavy heartbeats. Up in the yard, he heard a crunch of shoes on the sandy ground, then a voice saying, “I’m not sure exactly what we have down there.”

His face grew tautly blank, his eyes were like frozen pools. He felt as if his legs were rubber columns under him.