Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 08 (1942-11).djvu/39

38 I— Oh, I guess it must have pushed out through the other door.”

He did not tell her that the other door was bolted.

"I suppose a customer brought it in,” she rattled on, nervously. "Some of them can’t seem to shop unless they’ve got a pair of Russian wolfhounds. Though that kind usually keeps out of the bargain basement. I suppose we ought to find it before we eat lunch. It looked dangerous—”

But he hardly heard her. He had just noticed that his locker was open, and his overcoat dragged down on the floor. The brown paper bag containing his lunch had been torn open, and the contents rummaged through, as if an animal had been nosing at it. As he stooped, he saw that there were greasy, black stains on the sandwiches, and a familiar stale stench rose to his nostrils.

That night he found Tom Goodsell in a nervously elated mood. The latter had been called up and would start for camp in a week. As they sipped coffee in the empty little restaurant, Tom poured out a flood of talk about old times. David would have been able to listen better, had not the uncertain shadowy shapes outside the window been continually distracting his attention. Eventually he found an opportunity to turn the conversation down the channels which absorbed his mind.

"The supernatural beings of a modern city?” Tom answered, seeming to find nothing out of the way in the question. "Sure, they’d be different from the ghosts of yesterday. Each culture creates its own demons. Look, the Middle Ages built cathedrals, and pretty soon there were little gray shapes gliding around at night to talk with the gargoyles. Same thing ought to happen to us, with our skyscrapers and factories.” He spoke eagerly, with all his old poetic flare, as if he’d just been meaning to discuss this very matter. He would talk about anything tonight. "I’ll tell you how it works out, Dave. We begin by denying all the old haunts and superstitions. Why shouldn’t we? They belong to the era of cottage and castle. They can’t take root in the new environment. Science goes materialistic, proving that there isn’t anything in the universe except tiny bundles of energy. As if, for that matter, a tiny bundle of energy mightn’t mean—anything.”

"But wait, that’s just the beginning. We go on inventing and discovering and organizing. We cover the earth with huge structures. We pile them together in great heaps that make old Rome and Alexandria and Babylon seem almost toy-towns by comparison. The new environment, you see, is forming.”

AVID stared at him with incredulous fascination, profoundly disturbed. This was not at all what he had expected or hoped for—this almost telepathic prying into his most hidden fears. He had wanted to talk about these things—yes—but in a skeptical reassuring way. Instead, Tom sounded almost serious—mocking, but serious. David started to speak, but Tom held up his finger for silence, aping the gesture of a schoolteacher.

"Meanwhile, what’s happening inside each one of us? I’ll tell you. All sorts of inhibited emotions are accumulating. Fear is accumulating. Horror is accumulating. A new kind of awe at the mysteries of the universe is accumulating. A pyschological environment is forming, along with the physical one. Wait, let me finish. Our culture becomes ripe for infection. From somewhere. It’s just like a bacteriologist’s culture—I didn’t intend the pun—when it gets to the right temperature and consistency for supporting a colony of germs. Similarly, our culture suddenly spawns a horde of demons. And, like germs, they have a peculiar affinity to our culture. They’re unique. They fit in. You wouldn’t