Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/39

 must obey. You know that, don't you? You must always obey. Unless you listen to me, you'll go back. Back to the pain, forever. Do you understand? Back to the pain, forever. I can do that, you know. I can send you there forever—send you to the time when you were crushed under the car, screaming your life away. You don't want to scream again, do you, Steve? You don't want to scream always and always, the way you feel like screaming now it's more than anyone can bear, isn't it, the agony inside your skull  you're lying under the car, you can't move, you can't possibly move or get away from the pain  it's crushing you, Steve, you've got to make it stop. . ."

And it was crushing me, and I couldn't see Wagram any more. I couldn't see the room, because it was dark here on the desert and I was trapped, trapped under two tons of steel, and the pain was all around me and I wanted to scream, had to scream.

"Don't," said the Voice. "There's another way. The only way. Just hold out your hand. There, hold it out. Give me the gun, Steve. You don't need the gun, do you? That's right just give me the gun. It's the gun that is hurting you. Once you get rid of it you won't feel the pain. There will be no more pain. Just darkness  darkness and peace. You will rest then. Rest and forget. Forget that any of this ever happened. It was just a bad dream. A bad dream. Give me the gun—"

And I was out there in the darkness on the desert, but a million miles away was the end of my hand, and I was holding it out to him and he was taking the gun and I could feel the pain flowing down my arm (how slowly the pain flows when it has a million miles to go) and into the gun that he was taking and in a moment I would be free and the pain would be gone and the Voice would be gone and there would be nothing but the rapture of release.

The Voice told me that, I believed the Voice, I obeyed the Voice, and then—the Voice stopped.

The Voice stopped, and I opened my eyes.

I was back in Wagram's study and I was staring at him wondering what had happened to the Voice.

Wagram stood there, the gun dangling between his fingers. He let it fall and raised his hand to his throat, fumbling at the shiny object THE SCREAMING PEOPLE