Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/111

 and saliva was running down his jaw. When he was standing up, he moved towards the door; then out to the stairway.

"Oh my God," the desk clerk said, looking up at him. He watched the figure poised grotesquely at the top of the stairs, trying to make the first step down, trying with a certain determination, as if it must go someplace, must find something. The clerk wondered for a moment if the figure was trying to follow the other strange, ghoulish creature who had just run out the door a minute or so earlier. Then the figure lurched, and toppled headlong down the stairs, helplessly. The body banged and crashed its way down, knocking against the railing, until it reached the bottom. The clerk rushed over to it. It was lying quite still now. The head was twisted at an impossible angle on the neck, and the eyes, staring upwards, were lifeless.

"Oh God above," the clerk whispered. "It's Mr. Sadler. Dead."

Back at his apartment, Larry washed the make-up off his face. He was still chuckling to himself. When he had got the make-up off, he sat down at his desk—and after a moment or two he took out a piece of paper and a pen. He began writing sample signatures on the paper, trying now one style of writing, now another.

After a few minutes, he stopped and looked behind him, as if there were someone watching over his shoulder. Then he shrugged, and went back to his practicing.

A few seconds later, he stopped and looked around again. He peered around the room; yet everything was in order, everything was as it always was.

He kept very still, and listened. But there was no sound, except for his own breathing, and his own heartbeat.

He shrugged again, and turned back to the desk.

He signed the name "Phillip Evans." It looked good; and this would probably come in handy some time. Just below it, he signed, in a different handwriting, "James Sadler."

He shivered then, and got up to close the window. He found the window already closed. He whirled around, and looked very carefully at every detail of the room. Nothing was changed. Except, perhaps

Moonlight was streaming in through the window and it LAST LAUGHTER