The recorder chattered: "I am sure the other is also somewhere in the
bed. It is harmless by itself, and I am glad we have it--it will help
me instruct a team of British physicists and engineers. But who is in
the other compartment? I hate to play chess with the same people over
and over."
"I'm afraid he doesn't play," said Brooks. "I think it's old Boney, who
had his throat cut because your friends thought he might get you some
help too soon."
The recorder punched out, "I would like to meet him," as Miss Knox
jumped from the bed, pulling Dr. Brooks by the arm. The machine
chattered again briefly and she stopped and read, "Do not neglect
me altogether," and ran on. She opened the door to the other bed
compartment.
Miss Erwin fell on her with a cuddly embrace, and then Dr. Brooks
reached over her shoulder to shake Miss Erwin's hand. "How's the
patient?" he asked.
Across the compartment, Boney's face expanded in a three-cornered smile.
"At least he slept," said Miss Erwin. "That poor Mr. Barger--all the
time we thought he was in coma, he was wide awake!"
Miss Knox said, "Oh, my God!"
* * * * *
"I hear more jets!" wailed Miss Erwin's voice from the other room.
"Why are they all flying home tonight, and we have to leave? Carl, are
we--are we a quarter of the way to England?"
"No," Big Carl answered.
Miss Knox called through the doorway, "This one won't let me open the
hatch!"
Hunched across the bed, his hair falling over his forehead, Dr. Brooks
played chess with Mr. Barger. "Not in here," he said. "You can open the
emergency hatch in back if you like night air. But don't expect to see
the bombers--or anything but our own landing gear."
She slid past him and shut herself into the small rear compartment and
turned out the light. She felt for the emergency lock and swung her
weight backward as the damp black air screamed in and tugged at her
face--the whirlybird showed its fat thigh with a _rackety-rackety-rack
groundhog_! Tears ran down her cheeks, distorting her first view of
darkness.
Beyond the machine's ungainly silhouette she peered and saw flashes of
yellow light on water--but nothing, nothing familiar. Thus, squinting
desperately toward home, she noticed it, marking the horizon. A glowing
mushroom. It must have been gigantic.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Don't Look Now, by Leonard Rubin
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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