Psychological fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
Why had he delayed? Why hadn't he gone to the Hoffman Center, laid the
whole story before Dr. Webber and Dr. Manelli at the very first, told
them what he had found? True, they might have thought him insane, but
they wouldn't have put him to torture. They might even have believed him
enough to investigate what he told them, and then the cat would have
been out of the bag. The tale would have been incredible, but at least
his mind would have been safe.
He turned down another corridor and walked suddenly into waist-deep
water, so cold it numbed his legs. He stopped again to force back the
tendrils of unreasoning horror that brushed his mind. Nothing could
really harm him. He would merely wait until his mind finally reached a
balance again. There might be no end; it might be a ghastly trap, but he
would wait.
Strangely, the mist was becoming greenish in color as it swirled toward
him in the damp vaulted passageway. His eyes began watering a little and
the lining of his nose started to burn. He stopped short, newly alarmed,
and stared at the walls, rubbing the tears away to clear his vision. The
greenish-yellow haze grew thicker, catching his eyes and burning like a
thousand furies, ripping into his throat until he was choking and
coughing, as though great knives sliced through his lungs.
He tried to scream, and started running, blindly. Each gasping breath
was an agony as the blistering gas dug deeper and deeper into his lungs.
Reason departed from him; he was screaming incoherently as he stumbled
up a stony ramp, crashed into a wall, spun around and smashed blindly
into another. Then something caught at his shirt.
He felt the heavy planks and pounded iron scrollwork of a huge door, and
threw himself upon it, wrenching at the old latch until the door swung
open with a screech of rusty hinges. He fell forward on his face, and
the door swung shut behind him.
He lay face down, panting and sobbing in the stillness.
Coarse hands grasped his collar, jerking him rudely to his feet, and he
opened his eyes. Across the dim, vaulted room he could see the shadowy
form of a man, a big man, with a broad chest and powerful shoulders, a
man whose rich voice Harry almost recognized, but whose face was deep in
shadow. As Harry wiped the tears from his tortured eyes, he heard the
man's voice rumble out at him:
"Perhaps you've had enough now to change your mind about telling us the
truth."
Harry stared, not quite comprehending. "The--the truth?"
The man's voice was harsh, cutting across the room impatiently. "The
truth, I said. The problem, you fool, what you saw, what you learned;
you know perfectly well what I'm referring to. But we'll swallow no more
of this silly four-dimensional superman tale, so don't bother to start
it."
"I--I don't understand you. It's--it's true--" Again he tried to peer
across the room. "Why are you hunting me like this? What are you trying
to do to me?"
"We want the truth. We want to know what you saw."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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