Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/44

 I should have thought about that a little more.

I should have thought about what might have happened when Dr. Carl Wagram died; Dr. Carl Wagram, whose personal control over the psychotic psyches of his patients plunged them into trance, so that they slept in the room beyond. I should have wondered if, perhaps, that control might end when Wagram's own life ended.

And I should have remembered that the rooms were completely and utterly soundproof

But the police came, and they chose to arrive by the entrance on this side of the house, and by the time I told a portion of my story and opened the door through which Roxie had made her escape, it was too late.

I could only stare into the room beyond and listen to the screaming people—the screaming people who had awakened when Wagram died, awakened in all their ravening madness, and waited there when Roxie had retreated into their midst.

I could only stare at what was still in their midst, there on the floor—what had once been Roxie and was now only a torn and tattered mass over which the screaming people fought and clawed and bit and tore.

And the sound was deafening, so that the captain of detectives had to shout at me as I pushed him away and entered the room.

"Don't, man!" he cried. "Where do you think you're going? What's the matter with you?"

There was only one answer left to me now, of course, and I gave it to him.

I opened my mouth.

And began to scream—

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