Philip Dick - Mary And The Giant

"Up!" Coombs's voice sounded in her ear. Startled, Mary Anne opened her eyes to find him leering at her from the doorway; he was trying to take her picture. She grabbed a plate from the drainboard and hurled it at him; the plate burst against the wall above his head. He blinked and withdrew.

Shaking, she buried her face in her hands and took a labored breath. Now she wished she had gone; she shouldn't have stayed. In the living room, Lemming had swept Beth up from the piano; the two of them were leaping about the room, chanting meaninglessly, incoherent in their abandon. For Tweany it was still "John Henry"; the piano had ceased but he roared on. Around and around went the dancing couple; halting, Beth tore off her shoes, kicked them out of the way, and hurried on. Mary Anne closed her eyes and leaned wearily against the sink.

She was there, rubbing her eyes and trying to last, when she heard the crash in the bathroom.

Fully awake, she jumped randomly forward and stood in the center of the kitchen, listening, trying to hear above the din. There was no further sound; the bathroom, at the end of the hall, was silent. With a gasp of intuition she ran to the closed door, seized the knob, and rattled it. The bathroom door was locked.

"Paul!" she called.

There was no response. She kicked at the door with her toe; the sound echoed back to her, but still there was nothing from inside. Letting go of the knob, she turned and raced up the hallway to the living room.

"Tweany, for God's sake," she grated, catching hold of him as he stood leaning happily on the piano. No one paid any attention. Coombs was reloading his camera, his face blank with excitement; Lemming and Beth had whirled their way over to the corner and Lemming was now pushing her away and grabbing up his guitar.

Beating on Tweany's unresponsive shoulder, Mary Anne screamed: "Something's happened to Paul Nitz! He's killed himself!" Tweany stirred a little under the pressure of her fists; she caught hold of his shirt and tugged at him. "Tweany!" she wailed. "Help me!"

Gradually, with massive reluctance, Tweany awoke from his trance. "What?" he mumbled, blinking and focusing. "Where? The bathroom?"

Then she was scampering back down the hall; behind her Tweany strode along, collecting his wits. The door was still locked. She stepped aside as Tweany reached for the knob, turned it, and then hammered.

"Come on, Nitz," he bellowed, his cheek against the wood. There was no answer.

"He's dead," Mary Anne said.

"Christ," Tweany muttered, glancing around him. He made his way to the kitchen and returned with a key. The lock responded and the door fell open.

Stretched out on the bathroom floor lay Paul Nitz, but he was not dead. He had passed out and hit his head on the side of the toilet. There he lay, his eyes closed, arms outstretched, a puddle of vomit around him. He had been sitting on the rim of the bathtub, being sick into the toilet; the white porcelain was still streaked where he had clung to it.

Bending down, Tweany lifted the man and inspected the welt on his forehead. A drizzle of saliva and stomach juices leaked down Nitz's chin; he stirred and groaned.

"Go in the living room," Tweany instructed, "and phone a doctor."

"Yes," Mary Anne said, and hurried down the hall. At the entrance to the living room she halted; there was the telephone, resting on the small wooden table by the chair. But she could not go in.

In the rapture of the dance, Beth had given herself completely. She had pulled off her clothes, flung them in a heap on the floor, and gone on to greater heights without them. Naked, perspiring, she was lunging about the room, large and pale and gleaming, her breasts wiggling mightily, her bulging hips palpitating with delight. Lemming sat curled up on the carpet, his guitar in his lap, eyes glued happily on the instrument, strumming a weird cacophony that slithered and shimmered in time to the woman's orgy.

Coombs, still giggling, crept after the fluttering body of his wife, photographing her again and again, dead flashbulbs flying from his camera. None of the three noticed Mary Anne; each was involved in his own world. She remained in the doorway, unable to enter, unable to back out, until, finally, Tweany appeared beside her to find out what was wrong.

"Christ," Tweany said. He stood behind the girl, moved by what he saw, gazing until Coombs became aware of him and stopped his wary pursuit of his wife's hams.

An ugly discoloration fled up into Coombs's cheeks. He squinted, struggled to his feet, advanced a few uneven steps toward Tweany, and said in a thick, hoarse voice: "You nigger, what are you doing? You nigger-get out of here!"

Tweany said nothing.

The sound of Lemming's guitar dimmed into stillness. Shaking his head, Lemming turned, pulled his horn-rimmed glasses from his pocket, put them on, and peered around him. Beth, unwinding like a tardy mechanical device, came slowly to rest, mouth open, body shaking with fatigue and cold.

"Nigger!" Coombs squealed, trying to scuttle between Tweany and the sweating nakedness of his wife. "Get out! Get out or I'll kill you!" All of the man's hatreds rose to the surface; he tottered toward Tweany, peering blindly, circling in a crippled, jerky step that first took him closer and then farther away from the Negro.

"This is my house," Tweany murmured. His confidence began to seep back into him; pulling himself up he said almost sternly: "Don't talk to me like that in my house. I do what I want in my house."

From the stairs outside came a dull drumming; at the same time the whirr of sirens lapsed into a blur in the street below. Before any of them could move, there was a loud banging on the door of the apartment.

Mary Anne whirled to race down the hallway to the door. She twisted the lock back; the door was thrust in her face and she was thrown to one side. Three policemen pushed inside and thundered down the hall toward the living room, leaving her alone.

Without hesitation, she plunged out into the darkness of the porch and down the stairs. Gripping the invisible railing, she descended to the ground and, half-falling, half-rolling, shoved her way into the moist wall of shrubs that grew along the path.

Upstairs, in the darkness, sounded the rattle of voices. More police appeared, flashing lights and muttering commands. In a few minutes-astonishingly few-the first group plodded drearily down the flight of steps: Tweany and Beth Coombs. After them came Danny Coombs and the shivering individual that was Chad Lemming. The four of them were herded into a patrol car; the car came to life and shot away. Porch lights winked on here and there as neighbors, aroused from sleep, appeared.

"That's them?" one of the policemen was asking. From his patrol car came the enlarged mutter of his radio; he stalked over to it, slid in behind the wheel, and addressed the police operator at the station.

They were leaving. One by one the police assembled, spoke a few words to each other, and climbed back into their cars. In a doorway on the bottom floor of the building stood a dignified Negro man; he watched with righteous solemnity as the police departed. One of them halted long enough to speak to him; the Negro nodded in satisfaction and closed his door.

After a long wait Mary Anne stirred. She was shivering with cold; damp night mist clung to her hair and bits of gravel cut into the palms of her hands as she crawled forward and out of the shrubbery. Her coat was torn and fragments of leaves were embedded in her hair. Shuddering, she stood up, hesitated, and then began ascending the stairs to the third floor.

The living room was a shambles. The lights, still on, blazed impotently. From the open door a chill gust of wind billowed in; Mary Anne closed the door, locked it, and passed on inside. Beth's clothing lay where she had shed it; she had been hustled down the stairs in Tweany's overcoat. There, in the corner, was Coombs's camera, a dead flashbulb still in the holder. The floor was strewn with broken bulbs; drops of blood glinted where Beth's naked feet had dripped, cut by the particles of glass.