Clifford Simak - Out of Their Minds

The canoe now was floating gently on the river and I reached down and picked up the paddle. The moon was rising and the sky glow of its rising made the river glisten like a road of flowing silver. I sat quietly with the paddle in my hand and wondered what to do. The instinctive thing was to get off the river before another monster came heaving from the depths, to get busy with the paddle and head in for shore. But I felt sure, on second thought, that there'd not be another monster—for the business of the monster could only be explained if it were considered in the same frame of reference as the den of rattlesnakes and Justin Ballard's death. My old friend's other world had tried another gambit and had failed again, and it was not in the nature of their operation, I was sure, to repeat a scheme that failed. And if that reasoning was valid, for the moment at least the river probably was the safest place in all the world for me to be.

A sharp, shrill piping broke my line of thought and I swung my head around to try to identify the origin of the piping. Squatted on the gunwale, eight feet or so away, perched a little monstrosity. It was grotesquely humanoid and covered by a heavy coat of hair and it clung to its perch with a pair of feet that resembled the talons of an owl. Its head rose to a point and the hair grew from the top of this point to fall about the head in such a manner as to provide a hat resembling those worn by natives in certain Asian countries. Projecting from the side of its head were juglike, pointed ears and its eyes glared redly at me from behind the hanging mat of hair.

Now that I saw it, its piping began to make some sense. "Three times is a charm!" it was saying, gleefully, in its high, shrill piping. "Three times is a charm! Three times is a charm!"

Gorge rising in my throat, I swung the paddle hard. The flat side of the blade caught the little monstrosity sharply and popped it off the gunwale, high into the air, as a high fly might be hit by a baseball bat. The piping changed into a feeble scream and I watched it in some fascination as it_ sailed high above the river, finally reaching the top of its parabola and starting to come down. Halfway down it blinked out, like the bursting of a soap bubble—one moment there, the next moment gone.

I got down to work with the paddle. I was looking for a town and there was no use fooling myself any longer. The quicker I reached a phone and put in a call to Philip, the better it would be.

My old friend might not have been entirely right in all that he had written, but there was something damn funny going on.

The town was small and I could find no phone booth. Nor was I absolutely sure what town it was, although, if my memory did not play me false, it was a place called Woodman. I tried to summon up in my head a map of the locality, but the town and the country were too far in the past and I could not be sure of it. But the name of the town, I told myself, was not important; the important thing was to place that phone call. Philip was in Washington and he'd know what was best to do—and even if he didn't know what to do, he at least should know what was going on. I owed him that much for sending me the copy of his uncle's notes. Although I knew that if he had not sent them to me, I might not be in this mess.

The only place in the block-long business district that still was open was a bar. Yellow light shone dimly through its dirt-grimed windows and a slight breeze blowing up the street set a beer sign to creaking back and forth upon its iron bracket suspended above the sidewalk.

I stood across the street, trying to screw up my courage to go in the bar. There was no guarantee, of course, that the place would have a phone, although it seemed likely that it would. I knew that in stepping across the threshold of the place I'd be running a certain amount of risk, for it was almost certain that by now the sheriff would have put out an alarm concerning me. The alarm might not have reached this place, of course, but it still was a chance to take.

The canoe was down at the river landing, tied to a tottery post, and all I had to do was to go back and get into it and push out into the stream. No one would be the wiser, for no one had seen me. Except for the place across the street, the town was positively dead.

But I had to make that phone call; I simply had to make it. Philip should be warned, and I might already be too late. Once warned, he might have some suggestion of something we could do. It was apparent now that anyone who read what my old dead friend had written faced the same danger that he had faced in writing it.

I stood in an agony of indecision and finally, scarcely realizing I was doing it, I started walking across the street. When I reached the sidewalk, I stopped and looked up at the creaking sign and the creaking seemed to wake me up to what I had been about to do. I was a hunted man and there was no sense in walking in there and asking for the kind of trouble that I was apt to get. I walked on past the bar, but halfway down the street I turned about and started back again and when I did that, I knew it was no use. I could go on like that, walking back and forth all night, not knowing what to do.

So I climbed the steps and pushed open the door. A man was hunched over the bar at the far end of the room and a bartender was leaning on the bar, facing the door, looking as if he'd been waiting there all night for customers to come in. The rest of the place was empty, with the chairs pushed in close against the tables.

The bartender didn't move. It was as if he didn't see me. I stepped in and closed the door, then walked over to the bar.

"Whatll it be, mister?" the bartender asked me.

"Bourbon," I said. I didn't ask for ice; it looked like the sort of place where it might be a breach of etiquette to ask for a piece of ice. "And some change—'that is, if you have a phone."

The man jerked his thumb toward a comer of the room. "Over there," he said. I looked and the booth was there, jammed into the corner.

"That's quite an eye you have," he said.

"Yes, isn't it," I told him.

He set a glass out on the bar and poured.

"Traveling late," he said.

"Sort of," I told him. Glancing at my wristwatch, I saw that it was eleven thirty.

"Didn't hear no car."

"Left it up the street a ways. I thought the town was all shut up. Then I saw your light."

It wasn't much of a story, but he didn't question it. He didn't care. He was just making conversation.

"I'm about ready to close up," he said. "Have to close at midnight. But there's no one here tonight. Except old Joe over there. He is always here. Every night, at closing time, I put him out. Just like a goddamn cat."

The liquor wasn't too good, but I needed it. It put some warmth inside of me and helped to cut the phlegm of fear that was clogging up my throat

I handed him a bill.

"Want all of this in change?"

"If you can manage it."

"I can manage it, all right. You must be figuring on making quite a call."

"Washington," I said. I saw no reason not to tell him.

He. gave me the change and I walked to the phone booth with it and put in the call. I didn't know Phil's number and it took a little while. Then I heard the ringing and a moment later someone was answering.

"Mr. Philip Freeman, please," the operator said. "Long distance calling."

A gasp came from the other end of the line, then a silence. Finally, the voice said, "He's not here."

"Do you know when he'll be in?" asked the operator.

"He won't be in," said the strangled voice. "I don't know, operator. Is this some sort of joke? Philip Freeman's dead."

"Your party can't come to the phone," the operator told me in her computer voice. "I am informed…"