Books and reading -- Fiction; Nuclear warfare -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
"Mr. Carsville," he called. It was very quiet. Something had to be
done, of course. This was terrible, right in the middle of a Monday,
too. Mr. Carsville would know what to do. He called again, more
loudly, and his voice cracked hoarsely, "Mr. Carrrrsville!" And then
he saw an arm and shoulder extending out from under a huge fallen
block of marble ceiling. In the buttonhole was the white carnation Mr.
Carsville had worn to work that morning, and on the third finger of
that hand was a massive signet ring, also belonging to Mr. Carsville.
Numbly, Henry realized that the rest of Mr. Carsville was under that
block of marble.
Henry felt a pang of real sorrow. Mr. Carsville was gone, and so was
the rest of the staff--Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Emory and Mr. Prithard,
and the same with Pete and Ralph and Jenkins and Hunter and Pat the
guard and Willie the doorman. There was no one to say what was to be
done about the Eastside Bank & Trust except Henry Bemis, and Henry
wasn't worried about the bank, there was something he wanted to do.
He climbed carefully over piles of fallen masonry. Once he stepped
down into something that crunched and squashed beneath his feet and he
set his teeth on edge to keep from retching. The street was not much
different from the inside, bright sunlight and so much concrete to
crawl over, but the unpleasantness was much, much worse. Everywhere
there were strange, motionless lumps that Henry could not look at.
Suddenly, he remembered Agnes. He should be trying to get to Agnes,
shouldn't he? He remembered a poster he had seen that said, "In event
of emergency do not use the telephone, your loved ones are as safe as
you." He wondered about Agnes. He looked at the smashed automobiles,
some with their four wheels pointing skyward like the stiffened legs
of dead animals. He couldn't get to Agnes now anyway, if she was safe,
then, she was safe, otherwise ... of course, Henry knew Agnes wasn't
safe. He had a feeling that there wasn't anyone safe for a long, long
way, maybe not in the whole state or the whole country, or the whole
world. No, that was a thought Henry didn't want to think, he forced it
from his mind and turned his thoughts back to Agnes.
* * * * *
She had been a pretty good wife, now that it was all said and done. It
wasn't exactly her fault if people didn't have time to read nowadays.
It was just that there was the house, and the bank, and the yard.
There were the Jones' for bridge and the Graysons' for canasta and
charades with the Bryants. And the television, the television Agnes
loved to watch, but would never watch alone. He never had time to read
even a newspaper. He started thinking about last night, that business
about the newspaper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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