Page:Weird Tales Volume 46 Number 3 (1954-07).djvu/37

 gested a walk, and opened it a few pages past the place he had marked. Bronowski, "The Common Sense of Science." "There is not a fact and an observer," he read, "but a joining of the two in an observation." And then: "Event and observer are not separable."

But he, as observer, was now apparently separable from all events.

E SAT brooding until almost dawn, but he did not see or hear anything of Seaforth. At last, worn out, he undressed and went to bed. A moment later he was deep in sleep.

Hanrahan woke to a silent world. The only sound he could hear was the one he himself made by sitting up in bed. Instantly he remembered the night before. He put on slippers and a dressing-gown, and knocked on Seaforth's door. There was no answer. He turned the knob. The room was empty.

In the mirror over the chest of drawers he saw his worried face.

"Steady, you fool," he scolded himself. He glanced at the clock; it was ten minutes past ten. He grinned in relief. Monday mornings at ten Seaforth had a class in creative writing at State.

He wandered into the kitchen. Seaforth had been there, sure enough; the dishes from his breakfast were in the sink, and the pot was half full of cold coffee. Mrs. Beck would be in at eleven, to clean up; he'd better get himself shaved and dressed and have his own breakfast before she arrived. At 50, and with her face, she was still jittery about working in a bachelor apartment; it would never do to let her find him in his pajamas.

"Lord, what a nightmare that was!" he thought as he heated coffee and made toast. He tried to remember how much he had had to drink the night before.

By noon Mrs. Beck hadn't come, and this was her payday."To hell with it," he grunted, wrote out a check for her and left it on the sink-board, and got his hat. He had an appointment for lunch with Rathbone, and just time enough to get to the magazine office to pick him up.

Hanrahan let himself out and down in the elevator. At the corner where the bus stopped realization struck him like a blow on the solar plexus.

There were no autos, no buses, no pedestrians. The street was absolutely empty.

He stood staring, fighting panic. With an effort he choked his terror down.

There was a drugstore on the corner. He opened the door and went in. The place was deserted—no clerks, no customers, the goods piled unguarded on the