SYSK's 2025 Shocktober Halloween Spooktacular

24:32Let's see, so he's terrified. No, I don't know it, I said. But it looks rather unwholesome. What are you going to do with it? Oh, I shall keep it. Oh, said Inglis. It has begun to spin. I want to see what sort of moth it turns into. I opened the box again and saw these hurrying movements were indeed the beginning of spinning of the web of its cocoon. Then Inglis spoke again. It has got funny feet, too. He said. They're like crab's pincers. What's the Latin for crab? Oh, yes, cancer. So in case it is unique, let's christen it. Cancer inglesensis. I love how inevitably all of your voices end up being an old witch.

25:21It's every time, and it's a great voice, too, so I'm always very satisfied when that starts to happen. I love it. He names this thing after himself. What a jerk. I know he is. Oh, I continue on, right? Yeah. Then something happened in my brain, some momentary piecing together of all that I had seen or dreamed. Something in his words seemed to me to throw light on it all, and my own intense horror at the experience of the night before linked itself onto what he had just said. In effect, I took the box and threw it, Caterpillar and all, out of the window. This must have been fairly surprising in the middle of the conversation.

26:01He just picks up the box and throws it out the window. There was a gravel path just outside, and beyond it, a fountain playing into a basin. The box fell on to the middle of this. Inglis laughed. So the students of the occult don't like solid facts, he said. My poor caterpillar. The talk went off again at once to other subjects. I can imagine everybody's a little embarrassed that all this just... Yeah, like, so anyway, uh... How about them Yankees? Right. And I have only given in detail as they happen these trivialities in order to be sure myself that I have recorded everything that could have borne on occult subjects or on the subject of caterpillars.

26:44He really wants you to know, like, I'm giving you all the stuff here. I'm surprised he didn't say what he had for lunch and breakfast. Agreed. But at the moment when I threw the pillbox into the fountain, I lost my head. My only excuse is that, as is probably plain, the tenet of it was, in miniature, exactly what I had seen crowded onto the bed in the unoccupied room. I think that was an unnecessary thing to point out. Yeah. And though this translation of those phantoms into flesh and blood, or whatever it is the caterpillars are made of, ought perhaps to have relieved some of the horror of the night.

27:20As a matter of fact, it did nothing of the kind. It only made the crawling pyramid that covered the bed in the unoccupied room more hideously real. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, I wouldn't see this thing that was the actual simulacrum of what had scared the bejesus out of me the night before. Why would that make you feel any better? No. Agreed. You want me to keep going? It seems like you could do this now. All right, I'll take over. Okay. After lunch, we spent a lazy hour or two strolling about the garden or sitting in the Robert Loggia, and it must have been about four o 'clock when Stanley and I started off to bathe down the path that led by the fountain into which I had thrown the pillbox.

28:04The water was shallow and clear, and at the bottom of it, I saw its white remains. The water had disintegrated the cardboard, and it had become no more than a few strips and shreds of sodden paper. The center of the fountain was a marble Italian cupid, which squirted the water out of a wine skin held under his arm. That's not where I was expecting him to say it was squirting from. Nope. A lot of times it comes right out of a little marble peepee. It's a tinkle. It's a tinkle, exactly. And crawling up its leg was the caterpillar. Strange and scarcely credible as it seemed, it must have survived the falling to bits of its prison and made its way to shore.

28:42And there it was, out of arm's reach, weaving and waving this way and that as it evolved its cocoon. Then as I looked at it, it seemed to me again that, like the caterpillar I'd seen last night, it saw me and breaking out of the threads that surrounded it, crawled down the marble leg of the Cupid and began swimming like a snake across the water of the fountain towards me. Oh my God. It came with extraordinary speed. The fact of a caterpillar being able to swim was new to me. That's in parentheses, of course. and in another moment was crawling up the marble lip of the basin. Just then, Inglis joined us.

29:19Why, if it isn't old cancer Inglisensis again, he said, catching the sight of the beast. What a tearing hurry it is in. We were standing side by side on the path, and when the caterpillar had advanced to within about a yard of us, it stopped and began waving again, as if in doubt as to the direction in which it should go. Then it appeared to make up its mind and crawled onto Inglis' shoe. It likes me best, he said, but I don't really know that I like it. And as it won't drown, I think, perhaps, he shook it off his shoe onto the gravel path and trod on it. Nice. Man, this Inglis guy just stomps this thing.

30:01Yeah, well, he's the pith helmet type and they do those kind of things. They don't have a huge value on bug life. Agreed They didn't even like the movie A Bug's Life No Am I starting again? Yeah, it feels like you Okay All afternoon the air got heavier and heavier With the Sirocco that was without doubt Coming up from the south Would you say that is Sirocco or Sirocho? I mean Chuck would say Sirocho Well VW always called it Sirocco Oh yeah, those are great cars Yeah they are And that night again I went to bed feeling very sleepy, but below my drowsiness, so to speak, there was the consciousness, stronger than before, that there was something wrong in the house, that something dangerous was close at hand.

30:53Breaking for water? Gulp gulp. But I fell asleep at once, and, how long after I do not know, either woke or dreamed I awoke, feeling that I must get up at once, or I should be too late. That was in italics this time. Then, dreaming or awake, parentheses, I lay and fought this fear, telling myself that I was but the prey of my own nerves, disordered by Sirocco or whatnot, and at the same time, quite clearly knowing in another part of my mind, so to speak, that every moment's delay added to the danger. At last, the second feeling became irresistible, and I put on my coat and trousers and went out of my room onto the landing.

31:36And then I saw that I had already delayed too long and that I was now too late. The whole of the landing of the first floor below was invisible under the swarm of caterpillars that crawled there. The folding doors into the sitting room from which opened the bedroom where I had seen them last night were shut, but they were squeezing through the cracks of it and dropping one by one through the keyhole, elongating themselves into mere string as they passed and growing fat and lumpy again on emerging. Some, as if exploring, were nosing about the steps into the passage at the end of which were Inglis' room.

32:17Others were crawling on the lowest steps of the staircase that led up to where I stood. The landing, however, was completely covered with them. I was cut off, and of the frozen horror that seized me when I saw that, I can give no idea in words. I bet he could if you tried. Okay, continuing on, Chuck. Then at last a general movement began to take place, and they grew thicker on the steps that led to Inglis' room. Gradually, like some hideous tide of flesh, they advanced along the passage, and I saw the foremost visible by the pale gray luminousness that came from them reach his door. He's like, better you than me, Inglis.

32:56Yeah. Again and again, I tried to shout and warn him in terror all the time that they would turn at the sound of my voice and mount my stare instead. But for all my efforts, I felt no sound came from my throat. They crawled along the hinge crack of his door, passing through as they had done before. And still I stood there making impotent efforts to shout to him, to bid him escape while there was time. This is getting serious. At last, the passage was completely empty. They had all gone, and at that moment, I was conscious for the first time of the cold of the marble landing on which I stood barefooted.

33:33The dawn was just beginning to break in the eastern sky.

33:41Sunrise, always a good sign. Yeah, that seems to chase away the nasties. Yeah. All right, I'm bringing it home? Yeah, bring us home, Chuck. Six months later, I met Mrs. Stanley in a country house in England. We talked on many subjects, and at last she said, Oh, uh, oh, that's me? I'm her? Oh, yeah. I don't think I've seen you since I got the dreadful news about Arthur Inglis a month ago. And this guy's still scared, so he says, I haven't heard, said I. No, he's got cancer. They don't even advise an operation, for there is no hope of a cure. He is riddled with it, the doctors say. Now, during all these six months, I do not think a day has passed on which I had not had in my mind the dreams, parentheses, or whatever you like to call them, which I had not seen in the Villa Cascana.

34:34It is awful, is it not? She continued. And I feel, I can't help feeling that he may have caught it at the villa. What's a villa? Caught it at the villa? I asked. She looked at me in blank surprise. Why did you say that? She asked. How did you do? Then she told me. In the unoccupied bedroom a year before, there had been a fatal case of cancer. She had, of course, taken the best advice and had been told that the utmost dictates of prudence would be obeyed so long that she did not put anybody to sleep in the room, which had also been thoroughly disinfected and newly whitewashed and painted. But...

35:25That's it. Yeah, that's it. But ellipses. I even went back and double-checked that I had copied and pasted everything. I did, too. That was it. Yeah, it just ends with, you know, that room had cancer in it, it seems like. Yeah, and those things transferred cancer, which explains why they were lumpy. Sure. They were tumorous, I guess you'd say. And then also when he said that Arthur Inglis called them Cancer Inglisensis, I think. Yeah, Inglisensis. That that kind of tripped something in his mind. So, yeah. Was it a dream? So maybe it's a vanity tale, morality tale. Was it a dream, Chuck, or did he really experience all this?

36:09I think it's all real. I do too. Let's go with that since it's a good horror story. All right. moving on then uh we come to my pick which is uh it's called the deep brows and it is uh what i say brows the deep drows and it's uh this is taken from uh weird tales uh which volume was this september 1949 the great pulp rag weird tales and uh this is sort of a mysterious case because allison b harding is listed as the writer but um allison b harding is a bit of a mystery right Yeah, the closest I've seen is someone I'm master is Gene Milligan, but that's pretty far from being proven without a doubt.

36:54Yeah, I think so. I've seen various things. I've seen Gene Milligan or Lamont Buchanan or maybe a husband-wife team, but it was a nom de plume. and this is someone who didn't want to be recognized because they wrote, whoever it was, like 10 or 15 stories, most of which were in weird tales in like the 1940s and 50s and then just sort of stopped writing and disappeared. Yeah, pretty neat. Really interesting. I think that they were so adamant about their pseudonym because they were being paid under the table. Oh, maybe so. Or maybe they had some, I think one of them was an attorney or something, so maybe they didn't, Like sometimes they have like a proper job and writing for a pulp rag wouldn't be looked upon favorably.

37:37It would be today because they turned out to be one of the great overlooked horror writers of all time. Yeah, agreed. All right. So without any further ado, maybe I'll start this one out. Does that sound good? I think that's a great idea. This is The Deep Browse by pen name Alison B. Harding. Did you say browse again? I think I did. The Deep Drowse. What is my deal? A donut. The beep drills. Wow. All right, here we go.

38:11Arthur Hodges had very bad hay fever. He and his wife Frances lived in a cheerful white painted wood house with a big stone chimney and a tastefully designed stone terrace out back. That they lived in this house in the country was one of the factors that made the Hodges' place in the history of this world secure for whatever stretch of time there is ahead for this universe. Everything, of course, had to dovetail perfectly. Have you ever thought about an accident? For instance, a man who was hit on the head by a flower pot or a brick. The man is, say, 40 years old, and yet the months and days and hours and seconds of those 40 years have to be perfectly synchronized to bring him to that spot on the sidewalk precisely at the time that the brick is unloosened by the wind and sent plummeting on its mission of death.

38:57It's very P.T. Anderson Magnolia set up. For sure. So it was with the Hodges. Then you see, Arthur Hodges was a writer. That's important. If everything else had been perfect, but he hadn't been a writer, there would have been no record for the incredible events that follow. Likewise, everything else would have been upset if Arthur Hodges just hadn't been a successful writer. Just being a writer wouldn't have been enough because his junk, as he called it, in his deprecating fashion, was turned out with sufficient facility and talent to have made his name a headliner on many of the nation's biggest magazines.

39:32He had more than enough money. All this is important, I think, is what Alison B. Harding is saying. That's right. Money meant two new autos in the two-car garage out back. His pretty redhead wife, Fran, dressed inconspicuously, but in the good taste which signals expensive clothes. And this is, of course, the most important part. he had what he jokingly confided to his neighbors was a hermetically sealed study and bedroom for those summer months when ragweed, Timothy, and other such deadly pollens would have made his life in the country quite terrible. They had a joke, Fran and Arthur did, from July through September.

40:08He'd take some manuscripts down to the post office to mail and also provide himself with a few other errands in town to keep him away a couple of hours. By the time he got home, depending on the length of his mission, Fran could predict almost exactly how red his eyes would be, how uncomfortable his nose. It's quite a joke. All right. So these are a wealthy or at least a well-to-do author living in the country, but he has very bad allergies. So he has a safe room. Yes. A hermetically sealed one, too. That's right. You can pick it up from there, my friend. All right. Arthur had a habit of coming in with whatever packages he collected in the village, banging the summer screen door of the porch and saying, Funny thing, darling, I feel fine.

40:51I guess we'll turn off the damn air conditioning unit and save on our electric bill. But this was always announced in a deeply nasal voice. Oh, let me try that again. Funny thing, darling, I felt fine. I guess we'll turn off the damn air conditioning unit and save on our electric bill. Oh, man. Going for it. And he would almost immediately subside into a frenzy of sneezing and wheezing, whereupon his wife would push him into the study bedroom part of the house where the engineers who'd installed the expensive but efficient unit swore not a breath of outside air could penetrate. Arthur worked in here most of the day, except for periods of never more than a few hours, when he'd play tennis at the club or use the swimming pool there with Fran and his other friends.

41:42If there was a bridge game scheduled, it always took place in Arthur's study. He's got some bad, bad allergies. Yeah. The whole business, in other words, was accepted by the neighbors and nobody thought anything about it. If he'd been poor, Arthur obviously would have had to suffer or live in the city as far away as possible from growing things. But his three months of travail had now been neatly gotten around by the Acme Air Conditioning Unit's company, Detroit, Michigan. Of course, it had taken extra airproofing of the windows so that all cracks of the two rooms could be perfectly sealed and that, in addition to the conditioning machines themselves, was expensive.

42:23But it kept them both out in the country, which they liked, and had become as much a part of their lives to be taken for granted as the dishwasher in the kitchen or the electric door on the garage. Fancy. Yeah. So now it is easy to see the component parts of the whole affair. Arthur had very bad hay fever, but he liked the country, lived in the country, and got around his July through September agonies because he had the money to purchase for himself a hermetically sealed refuge. And he was a writer. Don't forget that! It's actually written in there. Yeah, with an exclamation point. Yeah, it's a nice little summation.

43:01Shall I take over? You shall. All right. It was a late afternoon of August 14th. Fran came back from the village in the convertible to find Arthur out on the lawn practicing with a putter. She forgot to upbraid him for his running nose and swollen eyes because of the important-looking envelope in her hand. A writer's wife gets to sense these things. Open it up, she ordered. The registered letter was from a movie company. Hodges had been dickering with them on his latest cereal for one of the big magazines. The letter was good news. They were offering to buy and at the kind of fabulous price that movies deal in.

43:38Whoa. Said Arthur, holding the open letter in one hand and clutching for his pocket handkerchief with the other. Well, that's pretty good. He tried as always to appear unconcerned, but Fran threw her arms around his neck and gave him a big kiss. You're wonderful, darling, she cried gaily. He sighed, trying not to show how pleased he was with the news at her attentions. At least this will pay for the air conditioner for another summer. Man, how does she tolerate this guy? I don't know, but she is pretty kind to him, it seems. Then Fran took him by the elbow and steered him inside. You get back into the cave, she ordered him.

44:16It was their pet name for their sanctified haven of pure, manufactured, pollen-free air. The breeze died down, and with the wind gone, it grew very hot. Fran prepared a cold supper and brought it into Arthur's den. She thought it was actually much nicer here than outside where the humidity had become oppressive. She looked out across the green country from the window of the study and noticed in the failing light the pockets of fog clinging to the lower lies of land. Art, she said, turning away from her contemplation of the window scene and spooning up some of her potato salad. Nice detail. She said, I think we ought to celebrate your latest triumph.

44:53She went back to American, by the way. Okay. She forgot where she was from for a moment. He made a deprecating gesture with his hand. No, I really mean it. We haven't seen some of the old gang for a while. Jack and Cynthia, for instance. We ought to really have them out. And then there's Tim and Mary. Let's have quite a party. He warmed to the idea, thinking about it as she went. She took some plates into the other part of the house and got some ice cream out of the freezer to bring it back to the study. She noticed then how warm the rest of the house was after the clean, cool air of the cave.

45:25As an afterthought, she decided first to bring a deck chair in that they'd left on the terrace where she'd been sunning herself in shorts earlier that day. When Fran went outside, she noticed again the oppressive heaviness of the air. It made it hard to breathe. It made her sleepy. With evening approaching, the darkening sky was burned with purple and orange. She thought it probably meant another blisterer tomorrow. She went back into the cave with the ice cream in the plates, slammed the special door, which her medically sealed it, and they started talking about their plans again. This was the night of August 14th, the night which would initiate Arthur Hodges to the part he would play, which, in its way, would make him as famous in the sweep of history as the names of Darwin or Columbus, or, or...

46:07Fran, aside from being pretty, was a methodical girl. She was self-appointed watchdog of the budget. No, darling, Fran insisted. It would be a lot of fun to have a celebration. Next weekend would be fine, and she mentioned his very best friends, the Fisks and the Barnes. She's pulling out the big guns. I'm going to call them, she said resolutely. No, he's trying, Tim. Arthur suggested. He's one of those office wretches and you'd simply remind Barry that he wasn't home yet. It's nearly eight o 'clock, said Fran, reproachfully with a new look at the small desk clock getting ready to tinkle the news.

46:45I'll try Jack and Cynthia. Doodling with a phone pad, she noted the time, 8 p.m., just as the clock chimed out musically. She asked the operator for the Fisk's number and waited for three rings. Cynthia, she helloed to the feminine voice that answered. It's Fran Hodges. Take it away. I will, but first I want to point out happily that Tinkle has made an appearance in both stories now. Oh, that's right. Two Tinkles. Arthur could hear the other girl squeal with delight over the phone. Fran began to explain the invitation, and from his wife's expression and the noises from the earpiece, Arthur, from the other side of the room, could tell that the invitation had gone over well, and the girls were about to get on all sorts of other subjects.

47:29He came over. Say hello to Cynthia on foreman. Let me speak to that shyster husband of hers. Fran wrinkled up her nose in mock anger at this interruption of their gossip. But after all, it was his night. Cynthia, where's Jack? She relayed over the phone. Oh, so early. Well, throw some water on him or something. Art wants to speak to him. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. Old age has crept up on the barrister since as he's sleeping on the living room sofa. Probably had one too many out the way home, Art put in irreverently. Oh, Jack. Fran's attention was called back to the phone. Don't make your excuses to me.

48:10If I were your wife, I'd make you do the dishes. That would keep you awake. Here's my genius husband with a momentous word for you. It's probably a lie, Jack, about his latest golf score. Don't believe it. Fran handed the receiver over to her husband. Hello, counselor, said Art into the phone. They talked and joked, and then Jack relayed through Art to Fran. Some thought about a big case he had coming up at the end of next week. If it broke in a certain way, he'd probably not be able to make it, or at least it would be difficult. He was hearing from the client involved as a matter of fact later that evening.

48:44Friend made another face and took the phone away from Art. Jack, put Cynthia back on. You men always louse everything up. Look, Sen, after Jack has heard from this old client, you call us back tonight, will you? Oh, we'll be up to well after midnight. How is it in there? Hot? I bet it is. We're in the cave now to cure Art's sniffles. I stepped outside for a minute after supper and there wasn't a breath of air even here in the country. You be sure and do that, Sen. We'll wait for you. We're going to call Tim and Mary Barnes. We thought we'd get them because you and Jack can always beat them at bridge.

49:18And Art loves Mr. Barnes because he once took him in a golf match. Hear from you later, baby. Fran hung up. It was 8.30. Fran's a real pistol. We really shouldn't have talked so long. She reproached. But I guess we can afford it now, can't we, genius? Art ruffled her hair and kissed an auburn curl on the top of her head. Night rates, he murmured. That's what I'm counting on. Try Tim and Mary. Old Matt Barnes ought to be home from his vulgar money-making pursuit by now. Gee, I'm glad I don't commute to the city every day and then come back to some suburban neighborhood house that looks so much like the neighbors on either side.

50:00You have to be careful you don't go in the wrong door and catch someone else's wife. You skirted very closely to Homer Simpson there for a second. I did. That was a complete accident. I've never been able to do Homer, but now I know the secret. That's amazing. Yes, agreed. I just amazed myself. Should I continue? Uh, sure. Fran gave the suburban number that belonged to the Barnes, and Art stole the phone from her hand. The study window showed that it was completely dark outside now. Mrs. Barnes, Arthur boomed. These are your long-lost country cousins, the Hodges. He frowned a bit and after a moment passed the phone back to his wife.

50:40His mouth formed the words, Think we'd disturb them. Fran carried on nobly. Tim wasn't back from the city yet? Was it beastly hot there? Couldn't be much worse off in the city. Oh yes, Fran nodded to reassure Mary. She'd just talked to the Fisks and they said the city was simply unbearable. Poor Tim, what was keeping him? Well, anyway, you two need a vacation in the country. How about next weekend? Look, we'll call again a bit later after Tim's home. She hung up. Funny! Fran said it. What? Well, I mean, we lead this bucolic life of solitary splendor where you can't see your next-door neighbor's house without a telescope.

51:17We're supposed to be lazy and going to weed while our city friends and their first cousins, the suburbanites, are still supposed to be in there swinging with their eyes on the main chance. What's the point? Arthur asked. Well, nothing exactly, replied Fran. Except when we call these live wires, Jack sounds asleep at the end of a big career-punching day, and Mary, well, I kind of had the sneaky feeling we woke her up. Art nodded. I think you're right. Well, I always said this was the racket out here in the real country. Aren't you glad that I agree with you? Fran came over to his side and rumpled his hair.

51:53You wouldn't like it so much out here without me. Honey, he said and kissed her. Mwah. Then he had a thought. You didn't put the garage door down, did you? No, but silly, don't bother about it. It's not going to rain or snow tonight. Might as well, said Arch. Principle of the thing and all that, you know. Silly, silly, said Fran. And you might get sneezing again. I hope I do, so I can come back here and really appreciate what this setup has cost to me. Homer. Was it again? Yeah, just a little tinge. A Homeric tinge. This also has just evolved into a John Cheever story Where a couple in the country Trying to get their city friends to come out for a night of bridge Totally You want to take it?

52:40Good call Uh, sure He went out and into the un-air-conditioned part of the house It was very warm and almost immediately he began to sweat God, how it must be in the city He started out the back door And found he couldn't see a thing in the starless night He came back and got the torch that hung in the coat closet Followed its rays to the garage He thumbed the down switch that controlled the electric doors, and they rumbled into place. Because he got pleasure out of the accoutrement that science had designed for easier living, he thumbed the up switch and watched the doors rise again. Door goes up, door goes down.

53:13It was neat, the whole operation. He let them descend and then stood there with the flash turned off, trying to see if his eyes would grow accustomed to the gloom. Somewhere out towards where the birdbath stood, a firefly pricked the wall of blackness momentarily. He shone the light and picked up the marble path. Oh, more marble. You know what's good for that? A poultice made of baking soda and some water. That's right. Arthur walked a few steps away from the house in the garage, past the birdbath, towards the field, enjoying the freedom of these few steps as someone does who has even the relatively inoffensive restriction that he did.

53:47Things always look different at night, he reminded himself as he torched the yellow beam of the flashlight here and there. The trees and shrubbery had a particular lifeless aspect, as though they were prop scenery. From the ridge that crowned the southern horizon of his property, the faraway lights of a speeding car shoveled the gloom back for a few instants, and then, with the vehicle gone on its dark errand, there was nothing but the little light in his hand and the occasional, very seldom, pinprick of a firefly off to the left or perhaps over to the right. Anyway. Just not in front of him. Right.

54:19The ground underneath his moccasins had its fine sheen of night dew. He could feel the taller blades of grass swish damply against his ankles as he walked. From out of the endless blackness that stretched away from where he stood across the universe, something came that blinked green and red in the sky. It was the mail plane heading for the state capitol 100 miles north, and idly he turned his flash upward and pinched the switch in a staccato series, then, thinking foolishly of the action, flicked it off. To them, if anything, it would be as a firefly was to him, a tiny and distinct something for an instant against the pall of darkness that covered the earth.

54:57I just want to add here, Chuck, that if you, listener like me, thought that that was going to become something later on, it doesn't. No. Well, it sort of does, the plane. Yeah. Well, him flashing the plane, I thought something bad was going to come of it. Nothing does whatsoever. Yeah, you're right. But, you know, if a plane flies over in Act 1... It may not fly over in Act 3. That's true. It's a spoiler. Yeah. The plane fled from him into the northern night, fled as though afraid, and a feeling of momentous loneliness welled up inside of him, making him turn abruptly so he could see the lights of the house, their house, Fran's and his.

55:34You know, their house, the one they live in, just right there, where he just came from. Sometimes off to the left, sometimes off to the right. He walked rapidly back and this time secured the front and back doors and windows for the night before rejoining Fran in the cave. You can pick it up, but I believe I'm Fran. You are. Nobody's called, she said petulantly. Have you been outside all this time, fussing with that old garage door that tickles you so? He nodded. How many sneezes? Not one, he avowed, surprised at the realization himself. She squinted at him dubiously. Upon my honor, he put a hand on his heart and raised the other.

56:12I don't think there's enough air out there to blow the old pollen around. Mighty stuffy. and sank down in a chair and enjoyed the cool, pure oxygen of the room. I tell you, Fran, this thing's worth it. I mean, even if you didn't have an allergy or ghastly hay fever or anything. I'm picturing Dennis Hopper now in blue velvet. Sucking off that mask. Yeah, I was trying for Dennis Miller. Kukukwap. This is silly, Fran said after a while longer. I'm going to call the Fisks. They promised to call and they haven't. Fran picked up the receiver and it was just past 1030. Arthur went over and sat beside her, held his head close to hers.

56:57Eavesdropper, she whispered. Eavesdropper. They both had the same reaction when the voice answered. As they said afterward and as Arthur wrote it, it was, don't forget, he was a writer and he's wealthy. It was Cynthia's voice and yet it wasn't. Arthur's first thought was that she'd been drinking. Fran, more charitably, thought that she was ill. Darling, you were going to call. Where's Jack? You sound a little funny. Cynthia talked, and as she talked, her voice got stronger. It was so terribly hot there in town, she apologized. Finally, Jack came to the phone, groggy in voice too. Yes, his client had called up quite a long time ago.

57:35It had been kind of unsatisfactory, but hang it all, they'd come out the next weekend. I guess that should be Cynthia. Am I going to Monty Python this whole thing? Mm-hmm. All right. All right. Who is Cynthia? Who is Cynthia? What's her motivation? Yeah, exactly. Well, she's not sounding well, too, though, right? No, she sounds very tired. Okay. Gee, I think we need to get away. Cynthia confided. Jack's just worn out, and I feel pretty bushed, too. Then Frank couldn't get Cynthia's attention for a few minutes. And when the other girl came back on the phone, she had an edge of excitement in her voice, Chuck.

58:16Can you hear that, Fran? I mean, over the phone? Listen as I hold the mouthpiece this way. Can you hear it? Fran listened intently, and Arthur pressed his ear as close to the receiver as he could. There was something like a hissing, a radiator, or a boiler letting off steam. Cynthia came back on. I don't know. I think the heat's got us. We just love to come out to the country and stay. Before they rang up, which means hang up, hung up, Cynthia dropped the phone once and had to pick it up. Fran hung up, worried. Drunk, said Arthur. His hate fever had come back. Don't be silly. His wife, is it remonstrated?

58:59I think remonstrated. Okay. Or, I don't know, remonstrated sounds right too. But also, it looks a lot like demonstrated, but the D and the R were switched at birth. That's right. Don't be silly. Oh, his wife remonstrated? Remonstrated? She doesn't drink, Jack. Maybe once in a while, but she doesn't. I'm worried. I think they're both sick, like food poisoning or something. So now his hay fever is coming in and out by the second. Well, as long as it's over by next weekend, Arthur put in. Go ahead, try the barns. My little technique didn't work as well as I thought, but I was ramming the sides of my nose trying to come in and out of a nasally quality, and I can tell you from experience it doesn't work.

59:46Okay. Don't try it at home. Fran gave the number and waited. The connection took quite a while, and when it was made, Arthur saw his wife's face tighten. I can hardly hear you, Mary. What is it? Yes, it's Fran Hodges. We're calling up about next weekend. What? Mary, it's awfully hard to understand you. Must be a bad connection. What's wrong with Tim? Arthur was watching her expression from the lounge chair. Yes, he's probably been working too hard. You don't sound too spry yourself, my chicken. Hey, listen. You both need a rest. What? Hear what? Fran's face blanched a bit then, and her eyes saw Arthur's.

1:00:28Now, you just pack yourself into bed, young lady, and make your plans tomorrow morning with that overworked, money-making husband of yours. Come out before the weekend. Have Tim knock off. Come out Wednesday or Thursday. We'd love to have you anytime. Fran hung up slowly. I think our friends are all giving out. She sounded awfully funny and said, Oh, you men are terrible. She said she couldn't seem to wake Tim up. That he got back from the station and just sort of collapsed. Apparently it's good to. Arthur commented, The barns and the fish separated by, what, 50 or 60 miles? And your theory is that they both got food poisoning from the same bad oysters?

1:01:11We might need subs for you. Can you understand what he's saying, essentially? So this is what I'll do. I'll read it like that, unintelligibly, and then I'll explain what he just said. It's sort of like Gary Oldman and Slow Horses. You really need to turn those subs on. Okay. I don't know the reference, but I will do what you say. Oh, you don't watch Little Horses? I thought you watched that. No, is it a TV show? Yeah. Is it a limited series? No, I think it's in season five or so. It's great. I tried Tulsa King last night and was like, I'm just not in the mood for any mean bullying right now. So I didn't go any further than the first 15 minutes.

1:01:48No, I have not seen that. But a friend of the show, Kevin Pollack, is in the new season. He sure is. Yeah, they're shooting here in Atlanta. Oh, I didn't know that. It looks a lot like Tulsa. I think they do some exteriors here. I see. all right anyway uh is this me uh yeah all right fran smiled it's funny though art about one thing she said something about hissing too just like sin fran's hand came up to her mouth and her eyes got bigger darn you don't suppose you don't suppose it's any sort of enemy attack you know that article we read about you know the way when war came this time arthur laughed heartily Oh, okay.

1:02:29So by a quick instant poll on social media, we've decided that Arthur's hay fever nose should go away. Oh, no. Snap poll? Yeah. Now wait a minute. I'm supposed to be the one with the imagination. I make money out of it, and you're doing it for free. She relaxed, but he saw the puzzlement was still in her face. To reassure her, he switched the radio on and the sounds of a jazzy record filled a study. The emcee came on sounding sleepy, but then they all do and have for ages. There was certainly no momentous, We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin. The president has just announced that this country has been attacked by...

1:03:09and so forth. Nothing like that. He sounded like Pee Wee Herman. Beijing Mr. Herman. That's right. That's one of my favorite parts of that movie. It is great. He saw that Fran's fright had passed, but then she said resolutely, Turn that thing down, Art, will you? I'm going to call Jack and Cynthia again. So we did another snap poll, and it turns out people did like the nasally voice after all. Oh, great. It's back. Now look, this time you really are going to wake them up. It's getting hot towards midnight. But Art knew his wife, and when she was determined to do something, she did it. Luckily, he reflected many times in the past that usually it turned out to be the right thing.

1:03:46He shrugged his shoulders and said half-jokingly, Well, I warned you. After this, they'll never even think of accepting our invitation next weekend. We'll be at their doghouse for weeks. Fran dialed the operator, gave the number, and in the interim before the connection was made, the quiet of the country seemed to press from the black out of doors around them in this lit oasis of the night. Takes that operator an awfully long time, said Fran aloud. Finally, the ringing commenced. It seemed interminable to Art sitting on the other side of the room. At last there was an answer, for Fran said, Hello, Cynthia.

1:04:19But all was not well, Art knew, from the way his wife's hand tightened to whiteness around the receiver. Fran seemed to be explaining, pleading, and finally Arthur came to her side and spoke down to her upturned face. What's the matter? She shook her head. He took the phone and a sloth's voice assailed him, droning on. Fran was sitting on the edge of her chair, terrified. Cynthia! He called sharply. What's wrong? Are you ill? Where's Jack? Put him on. He could barely make sense out of this thing. Cynthia was saying slowly, laboriously, as though drugged her sick, that Jack had passed out, and that, funny, she couldn't seem to get any help.

1:05:00He listened for a moment more and then hung up quickly. He dialed for the operator, and after long seconds, she came on. I'm going to call Dr. McCollum in town. You remember him. Fran nodded approval. So something really weird is going on with everybody. Yeah. This is no John Cheever. No. I think, I suspect it has something to do with the shrubbery looking like movie props. Yeah. Oh, I'm going to start up again. You ready? I'm ready. He was a physician they'd known. This is Dr. McCollum, who Art's calling. He was a physician they'd known when they lived not many blocks away from the Fisks. The McCollum connection seemed to take an eternity, and then there was a voice at the other end.

1:05:43Arthur asked for the doctor, and the voice said slowly, Dr. McCollum speaking. Hodges identified himself and told what he thought, that the Fisks, good friends of his, were apparently unable to get aid. Could Dr. McCollum go himself or get someone? There was a long pause. Then the voice answered, Funny, Hodges. Damn funny. Something strange. There was a noise and an interruption. Arthur's hellos brought no new response. He kept his back to Fran as he hung up for fear she would find fuel for her fright in his expression. He would try the barns. The minutes ticked away. Their village operator was apparently, no, here she was.

1:06:30He gave the number, and there was another long wait, and then the sound of ringing in the city suburb. He waited no usual time, but allowed fully five minutes. Finally, he pictured the scene. The phone was dragged from its cradle. It was Tim, a lethargic Tim, who slurred his words. Arthur asked Tim if Mary was all right. Asleep, was the mumbled answer. You know what's happening. What? The deep drowse. The beep drowse. The beep drowse is happening. Okay, Arthur spoke quickly then. I want you to listen to me carefully. Call a doctor, Tim, or your local police. Do it immediately. Do you hear me? Hear you.

1:07:12echoed the voice weakly. Tell them how you feel and ask for help. Do that, Tim. Do it right away. The voice at the other end gurgled something unintelligibly.

1:07:25Arthur cradled the phone. He turned squarely to face Fran. Something's happened, darling. I don't know what. See what you can get on the radio. She jumped at his bidding. He was at the phone again, dialing, dialing. Finally, the operator, sounding like Cynthia, like Dr. McCollum, like Tim. The police, he said distinctly. Great band. Give me the police. The operator's fumblings were audible. He heard her mouth the word police as a drunk would, but at last her instinctive reflexes taking over, he guessed, the connection was made. A gruff male voice mumbled what might have been police headquarters, and then subsided into a deep, long yawn before Arthur had a chance to say anything.

1:08:11Look, this is Arthur Hodges, he persevered. I've been calling some friends of mine around the country, and I don't know what it is, but everybody acts kind of drugged. The policeman's gruff voice mumbled something about just drunks, yawned again, and became quiet. Hello! Hello! shouted Arthur. There was no response. He hung up finally. Darling! Fran called in a small, frightened voice. Darling! From the other side of the room. There seems to be an awful lot of silences on the air, even for past one. But even as she spoke, a cacophony of jazz broke into the still room. And they both brightened with the noise of a saxophone being strangled over and over again.

1:09:02Can't knock the jarves down, he said in an attempt at lightness. They sat and waited. For what? Neither knew. Frank kept looking at the telephone, and they both had their ears glued to the radio. It was a typical all-night disc jockey show, the record set up in a series beforehand and automatically playing one after another, but without the MC's comments between each. That was Arthur's fear, but he did not give words to it. He knew Fran, and he knew what she was thinking. He was thinking himself. Somehow, something had happened. The record on now was something by Andre Postolenitz. It had a noisome, crashing crescendo at the end.

1:09:44The silence following it was, by contrast, even heavier. No other record, no voice making between-disc comments. They both waited, smiled bravely inside their heads, thinking the next minute, the next second, there are silences on the air. Suppose you had to go to the washroom. Even disc jockeys are human. Somebody will come on. But there was nothing. Finally, they knew it. They looked at each other, and Arthur managed another smile. Franz answering grin like the radio lacked life. To keep busy and to keep from saying anything, Arthur picked up the phone again. He held it free for 15 minutes, dialing at intervals, but there was no operator and the telephone was as dead as if he must wait till tomorrow for it to be invented.

1:10:33All right, should I pick it up? Mm-hmm. All right, here we go. There were still the dial numbers left to him, and one after another, Arthur methodically dialed the numbers of friends and acquaintances hereabouts. The phones would ring, each with their different timber, but there were no answers. Across the dark brow of the town, with its mantle of night, from this valley and this ridge on across the black shrouded lanes and bales and hills, the phones chimed and vibrated and rang and shrilled. But they stopped only when he admitted defeat by hanging up. Across this town and further, much further as he knew, there seemed no one.

1:11:05A peculiar theory was forming in Arthur's mind. After all, they were all right. Unaffected, apparently. There was a Mr. Hoskins, a small bent man who was caretaker at the movie house. He took tickets and often worked in the projection room and slept in the barn-like building at night. for he, like Arthur, was a hay fever sufferer. The building was air-conditioned, even though not with the scientific perfection of the cave. Anyway, Hoskins swore it helped. So Arthur called the theater, knowing that the late movie would have been out now for about an hour. The phone was downstairs. He could picture it from his and Fran's excursions there by a window in the lobby.

1:11:40Hoskins' room was above. The phone rang and rang. It was like those others. As he was about to give up, a click made it suddenly, importantly different. And there was Hoskins. His old man's quavering voice, sleepy and querulous. But it made sense as he understood when Arthur identified himself. Listen, Mr. Hoskins, listen very carefully. Your life may depend on it. The other man made some protest about, was this a joke? But Arthur went on. Whatever you do, whatever you do, Mr. Hoskins, don't go. But the caretaker broke in. I think you're the caretaker, if anybody. You were born to play that part.

1:12:18That's right. Wait up, Mr. Hodges. Mr. Hodges, through the window here, I can see into the street. There's really some people lying there, Mr. Hodges. Think there must have been an accident. I'll have to go out and see. See? That was wonderful. I could not have come up with that one. Uh, take it over. Oh. Even as Arthur screamed at the man, screamed, No! No! Whatever you do, don't go out. He knew it was too late. The phone clicked and Hoskins was off on his errand. There must be others like that, Arthur reasoned, in the country, in the state, the nation. But who knew how broad this was or what it was?

1:12:58But had those others any chance without knowing, suspecting, Arthur made up his mind. Brad, I'm going out of bed. She was on her feet, her arms around him, tears very close to the surface. No, Art, please don't. Please, please. Something's terribly wrong. Don't leave me. He held her gently and caressed her red hair. Only for a second, friend. Honey, I'm trying to dope this thing out. It's war, isn't it, Art? Some kind of poison gas. I don't know, honey, but it's the best that I can take a turn around outside. I won't go far, but we've got to know what's going on. You mean... She said hopefully.

1:13:36We might be in some sort of pocket here on the ridge that doesn't get the gas? Could be, he said. But it was a forlorn hope. He took the flashlight, and she walked him to the door of the cave, her fingers entwined tightly in his. If you're not back in ten minutes, I'm coming out. Don't worry, Fran. He opened the door abruptly and shut it as quickly, walking rapidly through the other part of the house. The air impressed him immediately. It was flat and had a peculiar stale quality, although some of this he discounted as being the result of having just come from the pure oxygen of the cave. They left that part out there breathing pure oxygen in the cave.

1:14:16Seems foolish. He didn't bother to turn on the other house lights, but used his flash instead. The bright wallpaper and the cheerful chintz on the chairs looked strangely forlorn and unreal. Outside, the black world was very quiet, as quiet as any 2 a.m. As he stood on the terrace, he first noticed lightheadedness. A feeling of illness touched the pit of his stomach, and the palms of his hands began to sweat unduly. He fought it back as best he could, listening, looking for any other sound or sign in the night around of human movement. A car light from the state highway up the ridge, a plane in the heavens, a train whistle in the distance.

1:14:55There was nothing. There might not have been in this chosen space of time at this hour anyway, but it was peculiarly disturbing. His brain was suddenly dull and very lonely. He wanted to sit there and then on the terrace, to recline, to put the flashlight down, loosen his belt and his collar. He turned and sped for the door of the house, his heart pounding, lights within his head. Despite himself and the chiding that it was purely psychological, he yawned and knew the yawn was real. Fatigue and sleepiness had struck suddenly like a heavy dose of sedative. Still going? Yeah. All right. He found the knob and jerked it open, walked through the dark corridors of the unlit part of the house, and thankfully reached the door of the cave, yanked it open, and went in.

1:15:45His face showed more than he wanted it to, for Fran came over to him, and there were tears in her eyes. Are you all right, Arthur? He nodded his head and tried to smile, but the heaviness was still on him. He turned his head away so she wouldn't see his yawn, and sat down very suddenly. His wristwatch told him that he'd been gone but eight minutes, A very short time, so that if Fran's hunch about the poison gas was right, it must be a fairly potent one to strike so fast. In the oxygen of the cave, Hodges soon felt better. As the small hours of the morning wore on, he made trips into other parts of the house.

1:16:21Quick trips, for his tolerance to the outside seemed to grow less and less. The almost incredible drowsiness became stronger, and he could stay away less long each time. All right. But in those trips, he brought every bit of food and the house back to the cave. Some sternocans and whatever odds and ends he decided they might need. At 5 a.m., they held what he called a council of war. There was, Arthur admitted, something going on. What it was, he didn't know and couldn't guess. But they were particularly lucky for their hermetically sealed quarters and the oxygen supply. They ran the radio dial up and down at intervals and found only silence.

1:17:00Arthur tried Hoskins again on a forlorn chance. There was no answer. No operator answered when he dialed the zero. We seem to be alone right now. He admitted. The first threads of gray were streaking the eastern view when Arthur packed Fran onto the couch with a blanket around her and saw her drift off for a little nap. He sat at the desk and calculated the two most important items of their lives now, food and oxygen. We need water. That's really the most important. He forgot that part. Of these, the latter was of prime significance. The canned goods, he felt, could be rationed to last almost indefinitely.

1:17:36They'd had quite a stock in the kitchen cabinets, but the oxygen, he toted up the number of fresh cylinders available. I was like, that should be totaled, but whatever. With continuous use, usually they turned the mechanism off to save on the precious stuff. That's the spirit of E.F. Benson. That's right. Their supply would last at the most seven or eight days. It was unthinkable that by then some explanation or solution to this whole business would not be found. At the worst, in that time, an enemy would take possession, but they would at least be free from their present dilemma. It was daylight when Fran woke up, and the sun was a molten gold burning a hole through the hazy sky.

1:18:10As on the previous evening, the trees stood silent, almost too tired to hold up their limbs. The breath of the air stirred. It was though the outside, all outside, was a vacuum. They opened some cans and ate, and then Arthur went into the adjacent bedroom and slept till noon. When he awoke and rejoined Fran in the study, her fright had surged upward again. He found out why almost immediately. She'd admitted she'd gone out. There was some small thing she wanted to get. The feeling, Art, it was so terrible. I couldn't fight against it. It was like when you take ether at the hospital and you begin to float.

1:18:45You fight and fight, but it's stronger than you are. I just got back here. I almost fell outside the door, but I got back. It angered him a little, for he had been asleep, and if she failed to get back, he wouldn't have known until probably too late. They swore not to leave the cave hereafter at all, unless absolutely necessary, and then only while the others stood by inside to perform rescue work if need be. They spent hours talking, wondering, speculating. They coaxed and wheedled the radio for sounds that would not come. Commercials and soap operas and five-piece bands became precious by their very absence.

1:19:19And then, as a writer will, under almost any circumstances, Arthur found his way to the typewriter and began tapping the keys. Fran said with mock pestilence, My God, you're not going to do a story now. Darling, you've forgotten, but we don't know if you have any audience left anywhere. The joke fell flat, perhaps too frightfully true for all they knew to be funny. We took another snap poll, and everyone agrees that I should do Arthur as euphoric. Oh, wow. No, Fran. Arthur replied seriously. I just want to put the dope down on this thing since last night. Sort of a chronology, you know. You can fuss with those tin cans and sew.

1:19:59I like to keep busy. I might as well be this. And he began to bang away at the typewriter. Take it away. At first, time passed very slowly, as though the weight of doubt that clouded their minds clung to the hands of the clock, slowed them so that one wondered if time too had become affected by the lethargy of the outside world. Occasionally, Arthur or Fran, one or the other of them, would go to the phone, dial the operator or some familiar or unfamiliar number series. There was ringing, showing that the inanimate sinews of wire and electricity and mechanical appliances were still alive, but nothing else.

1:20:37And the radio hummed. The small needle that moved across the dial from low to high kilocycles, touching the familiar stations that customarily fed so much noise, both human and instrument, into a nation's ear, found nothing on its course. They spent much time at the windows of the study and bedroom off of it, They looked out at the countryside so green with August, so familiar with things they had done. Why, there, see from the window, was a divot dug in the lawn, where Arthur had practiced his golf swing. Now, in the late afternoon, there was still some haze across the land, but the sun had burned part of it away.

1:21:14Still, though, there was no wind, and all of the outside had the flat, motionless appearance of scenery. Weird. Without giving voice to their reason, both Arthur and Fran took themselves to the window at 6 p.m. A four-motored commercial passenger plane always shot over just southward at the time. It was a twilight flight that impressed itself on them with the roar of its high-speed, heavy motors. Arthur had joked once that he could even feel the vibration sitting in his bathtub. Six came and went, as did 6.15, a quarter of an hour later, which is appropriate. Towards 6.30, Fran said matter-of-factly, I guess there's no plane either.

1:21:55Arthur turned from the window and translated that fact onto paper. It was after supper out of cans that Fran, sitting cross-legged on the floor, asked suddenly, What are we going to do? We can stay here only so long. Suppose we're the only people. She left the sentence unfinished, and her fingers went to her temples. He boshed and poo-pooed, but much later, after she was asleep in the bedroom, he examined the oxygen supply, computed the number of full cylinders left, and adjusted the flow of the precious air downward. The days went a little faster then, as though for spite. Arthur worked some of the time at his typewriter, and Fran stood looking over his shoulder, not once again saying what she'd said first.

1:22:37But darling, who's going to read this? If it had been a joke then, it was not now. The telephone? It might as well be that the wires were cut. Radio, likewise. It was like a detective play, Cat in the Canary, or People Marooned on an Island. And the most important people in their lives were the long, gray, oblong cylinders with the silver, diamond-shaped labels that said, Oxygen. Dangerous. Inflammable. Which means flammable. They were people. They lived. Or at least they contributed life. And their two lives would last just so long. Darling, I've got an awful headache. I feel funny. And Arthur would have to turn up the oxygen supply a bit more, for it was quite suddenly seven days now, the length of time their air supply would last them.

1:23:27But he had husbanded it. Never heard that term. I think this is you, buddy. They talked less now. A few times, Art came upon Fran in the bedroom crying, but she always tried to hide it and found him a smile on short notice. That's a great sentence. Toward the end of their allotted time, as Arthur could figure it, As the last cylinder hissed out its oxygen, he wondered whether it would be better to stay here in the cave and let the stale air slowly, ever so slowly, sap their strength and their senses, or whether they should open the door and go outside into whatever there was waiting out there.

1:23:59But Fran, to whom he had not wanted to bring up the subject, had thought of it too, spoke of it, and together they decided that the known, capital K, was better than the unknown, capital U. Besides, they'd had experience out there, and the memory of that sudden melancholy and pathological drowsiness was not all pleasant. They started on what must be the last day. Arthur announced somewhat weakly, for there wasn't much air left, that they'd stretched the oxygen out five days more than he'd figured. The twelfth day, murmured Fran. It reminded her of something biblical. Arthur had finished whatever he had to finish at the typewriter earlier with nearly the last of the strength in his fingers.

1:24:37The page merely gave the facts of their predicament, The supreme fact of which was that their fresh oxygen had been gone since early morning. Nobody had worried about opening a can of food this day. Instead, they found themselves arm in arm in the setive by the window. He gave Fran an affectionate squeeze and noted with a terrible sadness that must be controlled for her sake how pale she looked. He knew that he likewise must look a fright. They'd lean their heads together, their foreheads rested against the window pane. It was another warm day from the feel of the thick glass and Already the temperature of the room without its fresh mechanically cooled oxygen had risen noticeably.

1:25:12It was no day to die, Arthur thought, as men have thought of every day so marked by destiny. Capital D. He looked at the greenness outside, the sameness. So funny that all this had happened, that all this could have happened. He felt very tired. His breath was shallow and unsatisfying. Fran pressed against him and he'd managed to turn his head. She was crying and he kissed her. Their mouths dry, except for where a tear ran down and touched their lips in union. This would be at least their way to die. As completely together as two people could be. Eh, not quite. And that had compensation. He was going to tell her after the kiss how much he loved her.

1:25:52When her head moved away from his, her eyes slid from his eyes to peer out. They widened and a little gasp came from her mouth. He turned. It was an effort. He looked where she was looking, through the window, into the outside, the lawn. Dun, dun, dun. Take it away. Yeah, before I do, I should say to all of the listeners who are used to our episodes for Halloween and are like, wow, this one's going really long. We don't practice these and we had no idea how long this one was going to be. So we're finding out with you. I read this in 20 minutes myself, but, you know, it's different. Did you speed read it?

1:26:29No, you know. Well, I added some time with all of my jokes and quips and stupid stuff in the first one. Oh, that's right. Let's get on with it. Oh, okay. The lifeless stage scenery had become alive, for there, hopping nonchalantly across the grass, was a plump brown rabbit. It seemed to eye their window for a moment as though it knew of the two people there. And then a hippity-hopped unconcernedly on toward the terrace. The two overwhelmed people turned from their window, uttered small, meaningless noises. They made their way to the door of the cave as best they could. Fran reached it first, but they pulled it open and went out together, arm in arm, leaving behind the manuscript neatly clipped and piled on the typewriter table, memorandum of the twelve days, that eternity that had yet been so short.

1:27:18The rest of the house burst upon their senses, the familiar furniture, the bright wallpaper. Fran was sobbing unashamedly, and Arthur, with a surge of new strength, helped her forward. After the stale, nearly airless atmosphere of the cave, even the hot stuffiness of out here was welcome. They made the terrace door, and their weakness was a joke to be laughed at now. They went out. They staggered out onto the lawn and the sod beneath their feet, hard and dry for lack of rain, still was a treat for their footsteps. They had not walked far when Arthur realized, with the stabbing shock of a knife in the heart that all was not well.

1:27:56The same feelings as before. Not the weakness and suffocation of the cave a few moments earlier, but the before when they'd been outside since this terrible thing had happened. He turned abruptly and almost fell, and they reached for each other for mutual support. He saw that Fran was so affected too. They had not walked far, but it was too far. The stretch of lawn to the terrace, to the back door, was impossible leagues uphill, dragging weight beyond measure. They fell together and lay close, panting into one another's face. There was simply an overwhelming desire to sleep, to rest now. Arthur saw it in Fran's face, and he had not the heart to hold up her bedtime, nor the strength to stay sleeping himself.

1:28:42The grass was home in a mattress, and as his head came down to it, the greenness unfolded and engulfed him. The rabbit, meantime, hopped unconcerned around the corner of the house and perhaps wondered at the strange antics of these humans as he took his plump brown body across the lawn and into the field beyond. All right. This is about to get scooby-dooed. it is but also I just want to say I triumphantly finished Arthur's parts well done same to you my friend you did a great sin a great Fran a great Mr. Hoskins all of them nice work alright I'll take this part and then you can take it home at the next here we go the conclusion of the beep drowse The Institute of Hieroglyphics had made an intensive study of all such data, particularly with an eye to evaluating and discovering new facts concerning that momentous change in the solar system whose influences it caused would come to be known in future eons as the suspension.

1:29:54Amazingly enough, one of the clearest records found, for in the beginning it did not seem possible that this species could be wiped out universally and so abruptly, was one made by a biped who confessed ability in existence was the making of hieroglyphics. It had taken much time, of course, for the Institute and other such institutes to understand these record symbols of another age. But this biped, whose name was A. Hodges, this is art, with his companion biped F. Hodges, good old Fran, had written of the 12 days, a day being a measure of time commonly used by biped science. it was, in its way, a classic, the sudden, far more sudden than could be imagined by, the most sanguine thinking of that time, suspension of biped civilization.

1:30:41This A. Hodges had told well of it in his marks, and the Institute of Hieroglyphics, along with the other learned of the age, were inclined to accept the detail set down as an accurate picture of what had taken place, at least in the first 12 days of the suspension. From the start of this event, which Bifed thinking would have unquestionably accepted and labeled a catastrophe to the end of the record, there was, interestingly enough, no accurate guesses on the part of the one identified as A. Hodges as to the real significance of what was happening. Those who had studied tribal customs and actions of the Bifed world averred that in that faraway period the chief concern of any segment was that some other faction would make war upon them.

1:31:25A word which had vanished from the now, capital N, but meant the violent attack with intent to destroy as much in the way of living organisms and material as possible. Message. Biped Hodges had concerned himself with markings referring to atom bomb and poison gas. It took some time before present eon scientists could correctly evaluate precisely what these terms meant, but both were eventually tied in by semanticists, which the tribal factionalism, and the obvious intent of Biped to destroy Biped. It was the most interesting report, this hieroglyphic of Hodges, for at first it was quite difficult for these enlightened of the now, capital N, to appreciate fully what had gone on then, capital T.

1:32:08An examination of the universe and the earth does not reveal everything, for after all, meanings and values themselves change. Oh boy. So this is taking place way into the future, right? Yeah, and they found his writings and don't even know what war is, and interesting to see what happens here. Right. For instance, much of the lore of those misshouded dark ages had been handed on from generation to generation of the enlightened by what in the vernacular of the then would have been called informers in those unions called households of the biped age. Even the use of the word biped must be qualified, for there are, as any student knows, bipeds today.

1:32:51But not uniquely so, whereas in the then, the biped was supreme and reigned over all, including the other forms of life that inhabited the planet, whose mores, abilities, and true eventual place were neither understood nor even considered by the biped. Painstakingly, information from that forgotten biped species was gathered, and of the catastrophe that had removed them from the rule of the Earth, it seemed apparent now that some cosmic force whose mechanization had been set in motion by the shifting of great astral bodies had altered not only the oxygen belt which surrounds this globe but more subtly, altered its ingredients.

1:33:31Of all living things, only the biped species which then ruled the world had been unable to adjust to it because of certain structural peculiarities of the cortex the race had been stupefied, made unconscious by the withdrawal from others' atmospheres of an ingredient necessary for the retention by the species of consciousness. The Hodges report and other hard-win indications proved this beyond a doubt, and it was accepted by historians. Contrary, of course, to the hieroglyphics manuscript, there had been no poison gas as such. There had been, instead, a closing of that conscious, and the biped species went into a state of suspension through sleep.

1:34:14Though it was, in the last analysis, starvation that caused the wiping out of that civilization. Later, these atmospheric alterations had righted themselves. So people fell into a drowse and slept such that they didn't eat and starve to death in their sleep. Pretty gnarly. Geez. Another day of considerable moment in this present eon had occurred not too long ago when outriders had brought from some remote, far cave place a biped, who as the last of his species had survived. It seemed that somewhere else in the world, at the time of the Great Suspension, two bipeds, one of each sex, had survived through some quirk of fate in nature.

1:34:54They had passed on what was left of their age, through children and children's children and so on and so forth, through the years, but conditions were now too adverse for them to multiply and take back the earth, as they would indubitably try to, present historians surmised, had they been able. For centuries, this spark from another age had rekindled itself with new progeny reared in a cave high in a ridge of desolate mountains at the loneliest spot in the world. Atmospheric conditions in that spot, because of natural phenomena, maintained a vacuum which allowed the retention of an ozone form not antagonistic to the biped.

1:35:32But the day of greatest moment was when the last biped was brought to the administration building. Nature, semanticists decided, had robbed this one of his last chance to prolong himself in flesh and blood image. I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad. He came then to their administration halls, a strange creature on two legs making strange, angry sounds that until the wisest were summoned could not be interpreted. As the bipeds stood in front of their councils, they urged a tablet on him and a writing device, and this being, thinking that perhaps his message would reach those of his kind somewhere, someday, made markings feverishly.

1:36:14Then the biped was led away. Despite his violence and ravings, orders were given to care for him well, feed him, and give attention to his every need. Afterward, wise and aged scholars were brought to study the tablet. This then had been a member, the last member, of that race which had called itself human. The human had written angrily and self-chiding that he had been captured by jackals and wolves and brought before a jury composed of a lynx, a giraffe, two squirrels, a bear, and other creatures. His hieroglyphic markings had trailed off at the end, but there were words of obscure meaning which, the wise men decided, stood for anger markings.

1:36:56So Chuck, that's the big reveal, eh? Yeah. We'll talk about it in a second. Okay. Despite the best of care, the biped died not long afterward. Still, according to records of the event, making loud noises at his caretakers. In reviewings of the whole affair at Animal Institute, it was decided that this fact, far more clearly than any markings or other dead evidence that had been found, illustrated the basic unfitness of the biped civilization, which it so proudly called itself human. It is obvious, was the finding, that the shortcomings of the biped were many. Likewise, it was inevitable, even many centuries before it happened, at the time of the suspension, that the biped human would vanish, and that animals, these enlightened of the present eon, would inherit the Earth.

1:38:04So, uh, sort of Planet of the Apes? Yeah, kind of, but with giraffes this time and squirrels. Yeah, you know, this is a good one. I will say it's a 15-pager that could have been nine. Easily. I mean, the whole, like, boondoggle about trying to get the neighbors to come out seven times? It was a bit much. But it was still good, and you can see why Gene Milligan was the best. Yeah, agreed. And that's the spooktacular 2025 style. Yeah, and I'm pretty happy with it, Chuck. Yeah, I can't wait to see what Ben and Jerry do with this thing. Yeah, same here. And to all of you while we're waiting for Ben and Jerry to whip this thing into good shape, happy Halloween to you.

1:38:46Enjoy lots of candy. Look out for razor blades and apples and all that stuff. And we'll see you back in regular time after Halloween.

1:39:13Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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