Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes

‘Mama!’ said the child.

The Dwarf stopped and looked at the boy no bigger than himself. Their eyes met.

Will flung himself back, tried to gum his body into the concrete. He felt Jim do the same, not moving but moving his mind, his soul, thrusting it into darkness to hide from the little drama above.

‘Come on, Junior!’ A woman’s voice.

The boy was puffed up and away.

Too late.

For the Dwarf was looking down.

And in his eyes were the lost bits and fitful pieces of a man named Fury who had sold lightning-rods how many days how many years ago in the long, the easy, the safe and wondrous time before this fright was born.

Oh, Mr Fury, thought Will, what they’ve done to you. Threw you under a pile-driver, squashed you in a steel press, squeezed the tears and screams out of you, trapped you in a jack-in-a-box all pressed down until there’s nothing left of you, Mr Fury. . .nothing left but this. . .

Dwarf. And the Dwarf’s face was less human, more machine now; in fact, a camera.

The shuttering eyes flexed, sightless, opening upon darkness. Tick. Two lenses expanded-contracted with liquid swiftness: a picture-snap of the grille.

A snap, also, of what lay beneath?

Is he staring at the metal, thought Will, or the spaces between the metal?

For a long moment, the ruined-squashed clay doll Dwarf squatted while standing tall. His flash-camera eyes were bulged wide, perhaps still taking pictures?

Will, Jim, were not seen really at all, only their shape, their colour and size were borrowed by these dwarf camera eyes. They were clapped away in the box-Brownie skull. Later how much later?—the picture would be developed by the wild, the tiny, the forgetful., the wandering and lost lightning-rod mind. What lay under the grille would then be really seen. And after that? Revelation! Revenge! Destruction!

Click-snap-tick.

Children ran laughing by.

The Dwarf-child, drawn by their running joy, was swept along with them. Madly, he skipped off, remembered himself, and went looking for something, he knew not what.

The cloudy sun poured fight through all the sky.

The two boys, boxed in light-slotted pit, hisstled their breath softly out through gritted teeth.

Jim squeezed Will’s hand, tight, tight.

Both waited for more eyes to stride along and rake the steel grille.

The blue-red-green tattooed eyes, all five of them, fell away from the counter top.

Charles Halloway, sipping his third coffee, turned slightly on the revolving stool.

The Illustrated Man was watching him.

Charles Halloway nodded.

The Illustrated Man did not nod or blink, but stared until the janitor wanted to turn away, but did not, and simply gazed as calmly as possible at the impertinent intruder.

‘What’ll it be?’ asked the cafe proprietor.

‘Nothing.’ Mr Dark watched Will’s father. ‘I’m looking for two boys.’

Who isn’t? Charles Halloway rose, paid, walked off. ‘Thanks, Ned.’ In passing, he saw the man with the tattoos hold his hands out, palms up toward Ned.

‘Boys?’ said Ned. ‘How old?’

The door slammed.

Mr Dark watched Charles Halloway walk off outside the window.

Ned talked.

But the Illustrated Man did not hear.

Outside, Will’s father moved toward the library, stopped, moved toward the courthouse, stopped, waited for some better sense to direct him, felt his pocket, missed his smokes, and turned toward the United Cigar Store.

Jim looked up, saw familiar feet, pale faces salt and pepper hair. ‘Will! Your dad! Call to him. He’ll help us!’ Will could not speak.

‘I’ll call to him!’

Will bit Jim’s arm., shook his head violently, No!

Why not? mouthed Jim.

Because, said Will’s lips.

Because. . .he gazed up. . .Dad looked even smaller up there than he had last night, seen from the side of the house. It would be like calling to one more boy passing. They didn’t need one more boy, they needed a general, no, a major general! He tried to see Dad’s face at the cigar counter window, and discover whether it looked really older, firmer, stronger, than it did last night washed with all the milk colours of the moon. But all he saw was Dad’s fingers twitching nervously, his mouth working, as if he didn’t dare ask his needs from Mr Tetley. . . .

‘One. . .that is. . .one twenty-five cent cigar.’

‘My God,’ said Mr Tetley, above. ‘The man’s rich!’

Charles Halloway took his time removing the cellophane, waiting for some hint, some move on the part of the universe to show him where he was going, why he had come back this way for a cigar he did not really want. He thought he heard himself called, twice, glanced swiftly at the crowds, saw clowns passing with handbills, then lit the cigar he did not want from the eternal blue-gas flame that burned in a small silver jet pipe on the counter, and puffing smoke, dropped the cigar band with his free hand, saw the band bounce on the metal grille, and vanish, his eyes following it farther down to where. . .

It lit at the feet of Will Halloway, his son.

Charles Halloway choked on cigar smoke.

Two shadows there, yes! And the eyes, terror gazing up out of the dark well under the street. He almost bent to seize the grate, yelling.

Instead, incredulous, he only blurted softly., with the crowd around, and the weather clearing:

‘Jim? Will! What the hell’s going on?’

At which moment, one hundred feet away, the Illustrated Man came out of Ned’s Night Spot.

‘Mr Halloway—’ said Jim.

‘Come up out of there,’ said Charles Halloway.

The Illustrated Man, a crowd among crowds, pivoted slowly, then walked toward the cigar store.

‘Dad, we can’t! Don’t look at us down here!’

The Illustrated Man was some eighty feet away.

‘Boys,’ said Charles Halloway. ‘The police—’

‘Mr Halloway,’ said Jim hoarsely., ‘we’re dead if you don’t look up! The Illustrated Man, if he—’

‘The what?’ asked Mr Halloway.

‘The man with the tattoos!’

From the cafe counter, five electric blue-inked eyes fixed Mr Halloway’s memory.

‘Dad, look over at the courthouse clock, while we tell you what happened—’

Mr Halloway straightened up.

And the Illustrated Man arrived.

He stood studying Charles Halloway.

‘Sir,’ said the Illustrated Man.

‘Eleven-fifteen.’ Charles Halloway judged the courthouse clock, adjusted his wrist watch, cigar in mouth. ‘One minute slow.’

‘Sir,’ said the Illustrated Man.

Will held Jim, Jim held Will fast in the gum-wrapper, tobacco-littered pit, as the four shoes rocked, shuffled, tilted above.

‘Sir,’ said the man named Dark, probing Charles Halloway’s face for the bones there to compare to other bones in other half-similar people, ‘the Cooger-Dark Combined Shows have picked two local boys, two! to be our special guests during our celebratory visit!’

‘Well, I—’ Will’s father tried not to glance at the sidewalk.

‘These two boys—’

Will watched the tooth-sharp shoe-nails of the Illustrated Man flash, sparking the grille.

‘—these boys will ride all rides see each show, shake hands with every performer, go home with magic kits, baseball bats—’

‘Who,’ interrupted Mr Halloway, ‘are these lucky boys?’

‘Two selected from photos snapped on our midway yesterday. Identify them, sir, and you will share their fortune. There are the boys!’

He sees us down here! thought Will. Oh, God!

The Illustrated Man thrust out his hands.

Will’s father lurched.

Tattooed in bright blue ink, Will’s face gazed up at him from the palm of the right hand.

Ink-sewn to the left palm, Jim’s face was indelible and natural as life.