Books and reading -- Fiction; Nuclear warfare -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
When Henry came to, he knew that something was desperately wrong with
the Eastside Bank & Trust. The heavy steel door of the vault was
buckled and twisted and the floor tilted up at a dizzy angle, while
the ceiling dipped crazily toward it. Henry gingerly got to his feet,
moving arms and legs experimentally. Assured that nothing was broken,
he tenderly raised a hand to his eyes. His precious glasses were
intact, thank God! He would never have been able to find his way out
of the shattered vault without them.
He made a mental note to write Dr. Torrance to have a spare pair made
and mailed to him. Blasted nuisance not having his prescription on
file locally, but Henry trusted no-one but Dr. Torrance to grind those
thick lenses into his own complicated prescription. Henry removed the
heavy glasses from his face. Instantly the room dissolved into a
neutral blur. Henry saw a pink splash that he knew was his hand, and a
white blob come up to meet the pink as he withdrew his pocket
handkerchief and carefully dusted the lenses. As he replaced the
glasses, they slipped down on the bridge of his nose a little. He had
been meaning to have them tightened for some time.
He suddenly realized, without the realization actually entering his
conscious thoughts, that something momentous had happened, something
worse than the boiler blowing up, something worse than a gas main
exploding, something worse than anything that had ever happened
before. He felt that way because it was so quiet. There was no whine
of sirens, no shouting, no running, just an ominous and all pervading
silence.
* * * * *
Henry walked across the slanting floor. Slipping and stumbling on the
uneven surface, he made his way to the elevator. The car lay crumpled
at the foot of the shaft like a discarded accordian. There was
something inside of it that Henry could not look at, something that
had once been a person, or perhaps several people, it was impossible
to tell now.
Feeling sick, Henry staggered toward the stairway. The steps were
still there, but so jumbled and piled back upon one another that it
was more like climbing the side of a mountain than mounting a
stairway. It was quiet in the huge chamber that had been the lobby of
the bank. It looked strangely cheerful with the sunlight shining
through the girders where the ceiling had fallen. The dappled sunlight
glinted across the silent lobby, and everywhere there were huddled
lumps of unpleasantness that made Henry sick as he tried not to look
at them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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