Fredrick Brown - Night of the Jabberwock

In my dream I was standing in the middle of Oak Street and it was dark night. The street lights were off; only pale moonlight glinted on the huge sword that I swung in circles about my head as the Jabberwock crept closer. It bellied along the pavement, flexing its wings and tensing its muscles for the final rush; its claws clicked against the stones like the clicking of mats down the channels of a Linotype. Then, astonishingly, it spoke.

"Doc," it said. "Wake up, Doc."

A hand — not the hand of a Jabberwock — was shaking my shoulder.

And it was early dusk instead of black night and I was sitting in the swivel chair at my battered desk, looking over my shoulder at Pete. Pete was grinning at me.

"We're in, Doc," he said. "You'll have to cut two lines on this last take and we're in. Early, for once."

He put a galley proof down in front of me, only one stick of type long. I picked up a blue pencil and knocked off two lines and they happened to be an even sentence, so Pete wouldn't have to reset anything.

He went over to the Linotype and shut it off and it was suddenly very quiet in the place, so quiet that I could hear the drip of the faucet way in the far corner.

I stood up and stretched, feeling good, although a little groggy from having dozed off while Pete was setting that final take. For once, for one Thursday, the Carmel City Clarion was ready for the press early. Of course, there wasn't any real news in it, but then there never was.

And only half-past six and not yet dark outside. We were through hours earlier than usual. I decided that that called for a drink, here and now.

The bottle in my desk turned out to have enough whisky in it for one healthy drink or two short ones. I asked Pete if he wanted a snort and he said no, not yet, he'd wait till he got over to Smiley's, so I treated myself to a healthy drink, as I'd hoped to be able to do. And it had been fairly safe to ask Pete; he seldom took one before he was through for the day, and although my part of the job was done Pete still had almost an hour's work ahead of him on the mechanical end.

The drink made a warm spot under my belt as I walked over to the window by the Linotype and stood staring out into the quiet dusk. The lights of Oak Street flashed on while I stood there. I'd been dreaming — what had I been dreaming?

On the sidewalk across the street Miles Harrison hesitated in front of Smiley's Tavern as though the thought of a cool glass of beer tempted him. I could almost feel his mind working: "No, I'm a deputy sheriff of Carmel County and I have a job to do yet tonight and I don't drink while I'm on duty. The beer can wait."

Yes, his conscience must have won, because he walked on.

I wonder now — although of course I didn't wonder then — whether, if he had known that he would be dead before midnight, he wouldn't have stopped for that beer. I think he would have. I know I would have, but that doesn't prove anything because I'd have done it anyway; I've never had a conscience like Miles Harrison's.

Behind me, at the stone, Pete was putting the final stick of type into the chase of the front page. He said, "Okay, Doc, she fits. We're in."

"Let the presses roll," I told him.

Just a manner of speaking, of course. There was only one press and it didn't roll, because it was a Miehle vertical that shuttled up and down. And it wouldn't even do that until morning. The Clarion is a weekly paper that comes out on Friday; we put it to bed on Thursday evening and Pete runs it off the press Friday morning. And it's not much of a run.

Pete asked, "You going over to Smiley's?"

That was a silly question; I always go over to Smiley's on a Thursday evening and usually, when he's finished locking up the forms, Pete joins me, at least for a while. "Sure," I told him.

"I'll bring you a stone proof, then," Pete said.

Pete always does that, although I seldom do more than glance at it. Pete's too good a printer for me ever to catch any important errors on him and as for minor typographicals, Carmel City doesn't mind them.

I was free and Smiley's was waiting, but for some reason I wasn't in any hurry to leave. It was pleasant, after the hard work of a Thursday — and don't let that short nap fool you; I had been working — to stand there and watch the quiet street in the quiet twilight, and to contemplate an intensive campaign of doing nothing for the rest of the evening, with a few drinks to help me do it.

Miles Harrison, a dozen paces past Smiley's, stopped, turned, and headed back. Good, I thought, I'll have someone to drink with. I turned away from the window and put on my suit coat and hat.

I said, "Be seeing you, Pete," and I went down the stairs and out into the warm summer evening.

I'd misjudged Miles Harrison; he was coming out of Smiley's already, too soon even to have had a quick one, and he was opening a pack of cigarettes. He saw me and waved, waiting in front of Smiley's door to light a cigarette while I crossed the street.

"Have a drink with me, Miles," I suggested.

He shook his head regretfully. "Wish I could, Doc. But I got a job to do later. You know, go with Ralph Bonney over to Neilsville to get his pay roll."

Sure, I knew. In a small town everybody knows everything.

Ralph Bonney owned the Bonney Fireworks Company, just outside of Carmel City. They made fireworks, mostly big pieces for fairs and municipal displays, that were sold all over the country. And during the few months of each year up to about the first of July they worked a day and a night shift to meet the Fourth of July demand.

And Ralph Bonney had something against Clyde Andrews, president of the Carmel City Bank, and did his banking in Neilsville. He drove over to Neilsville late every Thursday night and they opened the bank there to give him the cash for his night shift pay roll. Miles Harrison, as deputy sheriff, always went along as guard.

Always seemed like a silly procedure to me, as the night side pay roll didn't amount to more than a few thousand dollars and Bonney could have got it along with the cash for his day side pay roll and held it at the office, but that was his way of doing things.

I said, "Sure, Miles, but that's not for hours yet. And one drink isn't going to hurt you."

He grinned. "I know it wouldn't, but I'd probably take another just because the first one didn't hurt me. So I stick to the rule that I don't have even one drink till I'm off duty for the day, and if I don't stick to it I'm sunk. But thanks just the same, Doc. I'll take a rain check."

He had a point, but I wish he hadn't made it. I wish he'd let me buy him that drink, or several of them, because that rain check wasn't worth the imaginary paper it was printed on to a man who was going to be murdered before midnight.

But I didn't know that, and I didn't insist. I said, "Sure, Miles," and asked him about his kids.

"Fine, both of 'em. Drop out and see us sometime."

"Sure," I said, and I went into Smiley's.

Big, bald Smiley Wheeler was alone. He smiled as I came in and said, "Hi, Doc. How's the editing business?" And then he laughed as though he'd said something excruciatingly funny. Smiley hasn't the ghost of a sense of humor and he has the mistaken idea that he disguises that fact by laughing at almost everything he says or hears said.

"Smiley, you give me a pain," I told him. It's always safe to tell Smiley a truth like that; no matter how seriously you say and mean it; he thinks you're joking. If he'd laughed I'd have told him where he gave me a pain, but for once he didn't laugh.