"What on earth!" I exclaimed, disengaging myself. The man was looking
from one to the other of us, mutely.
"I'm Summer Storm and this is my husband, Wyn Storm, and we live at 138
March Street," she said, all in a rush. "Oh, Don, I'm sorry you don't
know us any more, but I should have known from the way Wyn was acting
and everything that's going to happen...."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" I interrupted. "I don't know you. How
did you know my name?"
She didn't answer, but just stood there, looking at me intently. I
averted my eyes. I was beginning to recover from shock enough to be
embarrassed.
"How about this?" I asked the man. "Why should I know you, and where do
you come from?"
"I'm afraid I don't know," he replied, sounding perfectly honest about
it. "I'm afraid I don't remember anything. Do you suppose I have
amnesia?"
"That's possible," I said. "But your wife seems not to be bothered with
it. All right. Summer Storm and Wyn Storm it is--but the names are too
trite in these circumstances not to be false. Both of you had better
get back in the shrubbery while I get some help."
I found the policeman on the Main Street beat. As I thought, it was my
old friend, Gus Adams. He accompanied me back to the park, the rain
gleaming on his slicker.
"They picked a good address to lie about," he said, when I had
explained the situation to him on the way. "The house at 138 March
Street is vacant."
"They're probably spooners who got caught by that lightning bolt and
are too ashamed to give their right names," I said. "If they had any
clothes, I don't know what happened to them. I didn't see any in those
bushes."
"What do you figure I ought to do with them, Mr. Gracey?" he asked.
"They look like decent youngsters," I said. "If it's all right with
you, we'll take them out to my house until they're ready to let me help
them get back where they came from."
"You're taking a chance," he grunted. But we wrapped the woman in his
slicker and tied my best suit coat around the man's waist. Gus called
the town's only patrol car and had them drive us out to my house.
I suppose nudists and doctors eventually reach the point where they
look on nakedness as normal. But, to me, my "orphans of the storm"
looked a lot more like human beings when I had them clothed in a couple
of my old sweaters and some slacks.
They might have been twins. For all I knew, they were, in spite of the
woman's claim that they were man and wife. Their eyes were an identical
sky-blue, their hair an identical pale, wavy gold. Her hair was cut
short, his needed cutting, so they were a good match. I judged their
ages to be about 23, although I've been over-estimating young women's
ages since I passed 30.
"Now, suppose you tell me where you're from and what this is all
about," I said sternly, when they had finished eating the meal I had
rustled up for them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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