Fredric Brown - The Second Fredric Brown Megapack

He carried them back to the adobe hut he called his studio before bothering to open them. He tossed his disreputable hat onto the two-burner kerosene stove. He sat down and twisted his legs around the legs of the kitchen chair before the rickety table which doubled as a place to eat and his drawing board.

It had been a long time since the last sale and he hoped, even though he didn’t dare expect, that there’d be a really salable gag in this lot. Miracles do happen.

He tore open the first envelope. Six gags from some guy up in Oregon, sent to him on the usual basis; if he liked any of them he’d draw them up and if they sold the guy got a percentage. Bill Garrigan looked at the first one. It read:

GUY AND GAL DRIVE UP TO RESTAURANT. SlGN ON CAR READS “HERMAN THE FIRE EATER.” THROUGH WINDOWS OF RESTAURANT PEOPLE EATING BY CANDLE LIGHT.

GUY! “OH, BOY, THIS LOOKS LIKE A GOOD PLACE TO EAT!”

Bill Garrigan groaned and looked at the next card. And the next. And the next. He opened the next envelope. And the next.

This was getting really bad. Cartooning is a tough racket to make a living in, even when you live in a little town in the Southwest where living doesn’t cost you much. And once you start slipping—well, the thing was a vicious circle. As your stuff was seen less and less often in the big markets, the best gagmen started sending their material elsewhere. You wound up with the leftovers, which, of course, put the skids under you that much worse.

He pulled the last gag from the final envelope. It read:

SCENE ON SOME OTHER PLANET. EMPEROR OF SNOOK, A HIDEOUS MONSTER, IS TALKING TO SOME OF HIS SCIENTISTS.

EMPEROR: “YES, I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU’VE DEVISED A METHOD OF VISITING EARTH, BUT WHO WOULD WANT TO WITH ALL THOSE HORRIBLE HUMANS LIVING THERE?”

Bill Garrigan scratched the end of his nose thoughtfully. It had possibilities. After all, the science-fiction market was growing like mad. And if he could draw these extra-terrestrial creatures hideous enough to bring out the gag—

He reached for a pencil and a piece of paper and started to sketch out a rough. The first version of the Emperor and his scientists didn’t look quite ugly enough. He crumpled up the paper and reached for another piece.

Let’s see. He could give each one of the monsters three heads, each head with six protruding, goggling eyes. Half-a-dozen stubby arms. Hmmm, not bad. Very long torsos, very short legs. Four apiece, front ones bending one way, back ones the other. Splay feet. Now how about the face, outside of the six eyes? Leave ’em blank below the eyes. A mouth, a big one, in the middle of the chest. That way a monster wouldn’t get to arguing with himself as to which head should do the eating.

He added a few quick lines for the background; he looked upon his work and it was good. Maybe too good; maybe editors would think their readers too squeamish to look upon such terrible monstrosities. And yet, unless he made them as horrible as he could, the gag would be lost.

In fact, maybe he could make them even a little more hideous. He tried, and found that he could.

He worked on the rough until he was sure he’d got as much as could be drawn out of the gag, found an envelope and addressed it to his best market—or what had been his best market up to several months ago when he’d started slipping. He’d made his last sale there fully two months ago. But maybe they’d take this one; Rod Corey, the editor, liked his cartoons a bit on the bizarre side.

Bill Garrigan had almost forgotten the submission by the time it came back almost six weeks later.

He tore open the envelope. The rough was there with a big red “ O.K. Let’s have a finish, ” scrawled to one side of it and with the initials “R. C.” beneath.

He’d eat again!

Bill made it back from the post office in double time, brushed the odds and ends of food, books, and clothing from the table top and reached for paper, pencil, pen, and ink.

He wedged the rough between a milk can and a dirty saucer to work from it, and he stared at it until he got himself back in the frame of mind he’d been in when he’d first roughed out the idea.

He did a job of it, because Rod Corey’s market was in there with the best; the only one that gave him a hundred bucks a crack. Of course some of the really top markets paid higher than that to name-cartoonists, but Bill Garrigan had lost any delusions of his own grandeur. Sure, he’d give his right arm to hit the top, but it didn’t seem likely to happen. And right now he’d settle for selling enough to keep him eating.

He took almost two hours to complete the finish, did it up carefully with cardboard and made his way back to the post office. He mailed it and rubbed his hands with satisfaction. Money in the bank. He’d be able to get the broken transmission fixed on his jalopy and be on wheels again, and he’d be able to catch up fractionally on his grocery and rent bills to boot. Only it was a shame that old R.C. wasn’t quicker pay.

As a matter of fact the check didn’t come until the day the issue containing the cartoon hit the stands. But in the meantime he’d made a couple of small sales to trade magazines and hadn’t actually gone hungry. Still in all the check looked wonderful when it came.

He cashed it at the bank on his way from the post office and stopped off at the Sagebrush Tap for a couple of quick ones. And they tasted so good and made him feel so cheerful that he stopped at the liquor store and picked up a bottle of Metaxa. He couldn’t afford Metaxa, of course—who can?—but somewhere along the line a man has to do a reasonable amount of celebrating.

Once home, he opened the bottle of precious Greek brandy, had a couple of slugs of it and then settled his long body into the chair, propped his scuffed shoes on the rickety table and let out a sigh of pure contentment. Tomorrow he’d regret the money he’d spent and he’d probably have a hangover to boot, but tomorrow was manana.

Reaching out a hand he picked the least dirty of the glasses within his reach and poured a stiff shot into it. Maybe, he thought, fame is the food of the soul and he’d never be a famous cartoonist, but this afternoon at least cartooning was giving with the liquor of the gods.

He raised the glass toward his lips, but he didn’t quite make it. His eyes widened.

Before him, the adobe wall seemed to shimmer, quiver, shake. Then, slowly, a small aperture appeared. It enlarged, grew, widened; suddenly it was the size of a doorway.

Bill darted a reproachful look at the brandy. Hell, he told himself, I’ve hardly touched it. His unbelieving eyes went back to the doorway in the wall. It could be an earthquake. In fact, it must be. What else—

Two six-armed creatures emerged. Each had three heads and each head had six goggling eyes. Four legs, a mouth in the middle of—

“Oh, no,” Bill said.

Each of the creatures held an awesome, respect-inspiring gunlike object. Each pointed it at Bill Garrigan.

“Gentlemen,” Bill said, “I realize that this is one of the most potent drinks on Earth, but, so help me, two jiggers couldn’t do this .”

The monsters stared at him and shuddered, and each one closed all but one of its eighteen eyes.

“Hideous indeed,” said the first one to have come through the aperture. “The most hideous specimen in the solar system, is he not, Agol?”

“Me?” said Bill Garrigan faintly.

“You. But do not be afraid. We have come not to harm you but to take you into the mighty presence of Bon Whir III, Emperor Snook, where you will be suitably rewarded.”

“How? For what? Where’s—Snook?”