Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/11

 can dress in the dark, quickly and quietly. The Voice anticipates everything.

But where's the door? If I could only open my eyes—

"Very well. Open your eyes."

That's better. I can go now. But where?

"Hexler's. Hexler's house."

So it's a house.

"James P. Hezler. 100 North Azure Drive."

The Voice will guide me; the Voice will never fail, because it knows. I can trust it, I must trust it. There's something familiar about the Voice. "His Master's Voice." Funny, that should come into my head. Records. I'm in the transcription game myself.

Mustn't think about that, though. Must concentrate on what the Voice is telling me. I'm getting instructions now.

"Walk quietly."

I open the door, tiptoe into the hall, close the door behind me. The Voice anticipates every movement.

And then I'm out on the street, alone in the night. Alone, yet not alone. Because the Voice is with me.

"Turn west."

The wind angers the grass. I gaze up at the ancient, evil world of the moon. It radiates an orange aura of corruption.

"North, into the canyon."

On steeply-sloping hills, the trees bow and beckon before me. Huddled behind them, strange houses squat, blinded by night.

"Enter the fifth driveway."

The hill is high, the path uncertain.

"Climb."

Why couldn't I have come around the front, where the walk leads to a gate?

"Climb!"

I climb the hill, and then the wall is before me; the high stone wall ringing the hilltop. I pause, uncertain.

"Climb!"

My fingers claw, my knees lock, my back arches. But somehow there is no pain. The Voice protects and directs. My forehead is wet and an engine throbs in my chest. But I'm straddling the top of the wall, gazing down through the trees at the dark house on the hilltop.

"Jump!"

I float on the wind. The falling dream. My ankles are wrapped in cotton batting as I land. No, that's illusion. I must remember to be careful of illusions. I must remember that the Voice alone is real. There is nothing but the Voice and the will to obey it.

Now I must walk towards the house, approaching it THE SCREAMING PEOPLE