The Street That Wasnt There | Page 4

Something tied up with the fragments of talk he
had heard on the drugstore corner, bits of news broadcasts he had heard
as he walked along the street, the shrieking of the newsboy calling his
papers. Something to do with the happenings in the world from which
he had excluded himself.
* * * * *
He brought them back to mind now and lingered over the one central
theme of the talk he overheard: the wars and plagues. Hints of a Europe
and Asia swept almost clean of human life, of the plague ravaging
Africa, of its appearance in South America, of the frantic efforts of the
United States to prevent its spread into that nation's boundaries.
Millions of people were dead in Europe and Asia, Africa and South
America. Billions, perhaps.
And somehow those gruesome statistics seemed tied up with his own
experience. Something, somewhere, some part of his earlier life,
seemed to hold an explanation. But try as he would his befuddled brain
failed to find the answer.
The pendulum clock struck slowly, its every other chime as usual
setting up a sympathetic vibration in the pewter vase that stood upon
the mantel.

Mr. Chambers got to his feet, strode to the door, opened it and looked
out.
Moonlight tesselated the street in black and silver, etching the
chimneys and trees against a silvered sky.
But the house directly across the street was not the same. It was
strangely lop-sided, its dimensions out of proportion, like a house that
suddenly had gone mad.
He stared at it in amazement, trying to determine what was wrong with
it. He recalled how it had always stood, foursquare, a solid piece of
mid-Victorian architecture.
Then, before his eyes, the house righted itself again. Slowly it drew
together, ironed out its queer angles, readjusted its dimensions, became
once again the stodgy house he knew it had to be.
With a sigh of relief, Mr. Chambers turned back into the hall.
But before he closed the door, he looked again. The house was
lop-sided ... as bad, perhaps worse than before!
Gulping in fright, Mr. Chambers slammed the door shut, locked it and
double bolted it. Then he went to his bedroom and took two sleeping
powders.
His dreams that night were the same as on the night before. Again there
was the islet in mid-ocean. Again he was alone upon it. Again the
squirming hydrophinnae were eating his foothold piece by piece.
He awoke, body drenched with perspiration. Vague light of early dawn
filtered through the window. The clock on the bedside table showed
7:30. For a long time he lay there motionless.
Again the fantastic happenings of the night before came back to haunt
him and as he lay there, staring at the windows, he remembered them,
one by one. But his mind, still fogged by sleep and astonishment, took

the happenings in its stride, mulled over them, lost the keen edge of
fantastic terror that lurked around them.
The light through the windows slowly grew brighter. Mr. Chambers
slid out of bed, slowly crossed to the window, the cold of the floor
biting into his bare feet. He forced himself to look out.
There was nothing outside the window. No shadows. As if there might
be a fog. But no fog, however, thick, could hide the apple tree that grew
close against the house.
But the tree was there ... shadowy, indistinct in the gray, with a few
withered apples still clinging to its boughs, a few shriveled leaves
reluctant to leave the parent branch.
The tree was there now. But it hadn't been when he first had looked. Mr.
Chambers was sure of that.
* * * * *
And now he saw the faint outlines of his neighbor's house ... but those
outlines were all wrong. They didn't jibe and fit together ... they were
out of plumb. As if some giant hand had grasped the house and
wrenched it out of true. Like the house he had seen across the street the
night before, the house that had painfully righted itself when he thought
of how it should look.
Perhaps if he thought of how his neighbor's house should look, it too
might right itself. But Mr. Chambers was very weary. Too weary to
think about the house.
He turned from the window and dressed slowly. In the living room he
slumped into his chair, put his feet on the old cracked ottoman. For a
long time he sat, trying to think.
And then, abruptly, something like an electric shock ran through him.
Rigid, he sat there, limp inside at the thought. Minutes later he arose
and almost ran across the room to the old mahogany bookcase that

stood against the wall.
There were many volumes in the case: