The Shrinking Man Read online

  He sped toward the big split carton under the tank, not knowing what he would do when he got there, only instinctively heading for shelter. There were clothes in the carton. Maybe he could burrow under them, out of the black widow's reach.

  He didn't look back now; there was no need to. He knew the great swollen body of the spider was wobbling erratically over the cement, carried by the long black legs. He knew that it was only because one of those legs was missing that he had any hope of reaching the carton first.

  He ran through viscid squares of light, sandals thudding, robe flapping about his body. Air scorched rawly down his throat, his legs pumped wildly. The fuel tank loomed over him.

  He darted into the vast shadow of it, the spider skimming the floor less than five yards behind. With a grunt Scott leaped off the cement and, grabbing hold of a hanging string, dragged himself up, then swung in feet first through the opening in the side of the carton.

  He landed in a limb-twisting heap on the soft pile of clothes. As he started up he heard the rasping of the spider's legs up the carton's side. He shoved to his feet but lost his balance on the yielding cloth and fell. Sprawling, he saw the black, leg-fluttering bulk of the spider appear in the V-shaped opening. It lunged through.

  With a sob, Scott pushed up, then fell again on the uneven hill of clothes. The hill gave twice; once under his weight, again under the impact of the spider's wriggling drop. It spurted through the shadows at him.

  There was no time to struggle to his feet. He shoved desperately with his legs and sent himself flailing backward. He flopped heavily again, hands clawing for an opening between the clothes. There was none. The spider was almost on him now.

  A high-pitched whining flooded in his throat. Scott flung himself back again as one of the spider's legs fell heavily across his ankle. He grunted in shock as he fell into the open sewing box, hands still groping. The huge spider jumped down and clambered over his legs. He screamed.

  Then his hand closed over cold metal. The pin! With a sucking gasp, he kicked back again, dragging up the pin with both hands. As the spider leaped, he drove the pin like a spear at its belly. He felt the pin shudder in his grip under the weight of the partially impaled creature.

  The spider leaped back off the point. It landed yards away on the clothes, then, after a second's hesitation, rushed at him again. Scott pushed up on his left knee, right leg back as a supporting brace, the pinhead cradled against his hip, his arms rigidly tensed for the second impact.

  Again the spider hit the pinpoint. Again it sprang back, one of its flailing spiny legs raking skin off Scott's left temple.

  "Die!" he heard himself scream suddenly. "Die! Die!"

  It did not die. It stirred restlessly on the clothes a few yards away as if it were trying to understand why it couldn't reach its prey. Then suddenly it leaped at him again.

  This time it had barely touched the pinpoint before it stopped and scuttled backward. Scott kept staring at it fixedly, his body remaining in its tense crouch, the heavy pin wavering a little in his grip, but always pointed at the spider. He could still feel the hideous clambering weight of it across his legs, the flesh-ripping slash of its leg. He squinted to distinguish its black form from the shadows.

  He didn't know how long he remained in that position. The transition was unnoticeable. Suddenly, magically, there were only the shadows.

  A confused sound stirred in his throat. He stood up on palsied legs and looked around. Across the cellar the oil burner roared into life and, heart pounding jaggedly, he twisted around in a panic, thinking that the spider was going to leap on him from behind.

  He kept circling there for a long time, the weight of the lance like pin dragging down his arms. Finally it dawned on him that the spider had gone away.

  A great wave of relief and exhaustion broke over him. The pin seemed made of lead, and it fell from his hands and clattered down on the wooden bottom of the box. His legs gave way and he slipped down into a twisted heap, head fallen back against the pin that had saved his life.

  For a while he lay there in limp, contended depletion. The spider was gone. He'd chased it away.

  It was not too long, however, before the knowledge that the spider was still alive dampened all contentment. It might be waiting outside for him, ready to spring as soon as he came out. It might be back under the water heater again, waiting for him there.

  He rolled over slowly on his stomach and pressed his face against his arms. What had he accomplished, after all? He was still virtually at the spider's mercy. He couldn't carry the pin every where he went, and in a day or so he might not be able to carry it at all.

  And even if (he didn't believe it for a second) the spider would be too frightened to attack him again, there was still the food that would be gone in two days, still the increasing difficulties in getting to the water, still the constant altering of his clothes to be made, still the impossibility of escaping the cellar, still, worst of all, always there, constantly nagging, the dread of what was going to happen to him between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

  He struggled to his feet and groped around until he found the hinged cover of the box. He pulled it over and lowered it into place, then sank back into the darkness. What if I smother? he thought. He didn't care.

  He'd been running since it had all started. Running physically, from the man and the boys and the cat and the bird and the spider, and a far worse kind of flight, running mentally. Running from life, from his problems and his fears; retreating, backtracking, facing nothing, yielding, giving in, surrendering.

  He still lived, but was his living considered, or only an instinctive survival? Yes, he still struggled for food and water, but wasn't that inevitable if he chose to go on living. What he wanted to know was this: Was he a separate, meaningful person; was he an individual? Did he matter? Was it enough just to survive?

  He didn't know; he didn't know. It might be that he was a man and trying to face reality. It might also be that he was a pathetic fraction of a shadow, living only out of habit, impulse driven, moved but never moving, fought but never fighting.

  He didn't know. He slept, curled up and shivering, no bigger than a pearl, and he didn't know.

  Chapter Seven

  He stood up and listened carefully. The cellar was still. The spider must have gone. Surely, if it were still intent on killing him, it would have ventured into the carton again. He must have been asleep for hours.

  He grimaced, swallowed, as he realized that his throat hurt again. He was thirsty, hungry. Did he dare go back to the water heater? He blew out a hissing breath. There was no question. It had to be done.

  He felt around until his hands closed over the thick, icy shaft of the pin. He picked it up. It was heavy. Amazing that he had been able to handle it so well. Fright, probably. He lifted the pin in both hands, then shifted it to his right side and held it there. It dragged at his arm muscles as he climbed out of the sewing box and moved up the shifting hill of clothes toward the opening in the side of the carton. If the spider appeared, he could easily grab the pin with both hands and use it as he had before. It gave him the first definite sense of physical security he had had in weeks.

  At the opening, he leaned out cautiously, looking up first, then sideways, and finally down. The spider was not to be seen. His breathing eased a little. He slid the pin out through the opening, then, after letting it dangle a moment, dropped it. It clanged on the floor and rolled a few feet before stopping. Hastily he slid out of the carton and let himself drop. As he landed, the water pump began its chugging wheeze, making him jump to the pin, grab it up, and hold it poised as if to ward off attack.

  There was no attack. He lowered the gleaming spear and shifted it to his side again, then began walking across the floor toward the water heater.

  He moved out from beneath the mountainous shadow of the fuel tank into the greyish light of late afternoon. The rain had stopped. Out beyond the filmed windows was utter stillness. He walked by the vast lawn
-mower wheels, glancing up warily to see if the spider were crouching up there.

  Now he was on the open floor. He began the short hike to the water heater. His eyes went to the refrigerator, and in his mind he saw the newspaper up there, and he endured again the agony of the photographer's invasion of his home. They had posed him in his old shoes, which were five sizes too large, and Berg said, "Look like ya was rememberin' when ya could wear 'em, Scotty." Then they posed him beside Beth, beside Lou, beside a hanging suit of his old clothes; standing beside the tape measure, Hammer's big, disembodied hand sticking out from the edge of the photograph, pointing at the proper mark; being examined by the doctors appointed by the Globe-Post. His case history had been rehashed for a million readers, while he suffered a new mental torture each day, thrashing in bed at night, telling himself that he was going to break the contract he'd signed whether they needed the money or not, whether Lou hated him for it or not.

  He had gone on with it anyway.

  And the offers came in. Offers for radio and television and stage and night-club appearances, for articles in all kinds of magazines except the better ones, for syndication of the Globe-Post series. People started to gather outside the apartment, staring at him, even asking for his autograph. Religious fanatics exhorted him, in person and by mail, to join their saving cults. Obscene letters arrived from weirdly frustrated women and men.

  His face was blank and unmoving as he reached the concrete block. He stood there a moment, still thinking of the past. Then he refocused his eyes and started, realizing that the spider might be up there waiting to spring.

  Slowly he climbed the block, pin always ready for use if necessary. He peered over the edge of the block. His sleeping place was empty.

  With a sigh, he slung the pin over the edge and watched it roll to a stop against his bed. Then he climbed down again for the crackers.

  After three trips he had all the cracker bits in a pile beside his bed. He sat there crunching on a fist-sized piece, wishing he had some water. He didn't dare go down to the pump, though; it was getting dark, and even the pin was not enough assurance in the dark.

  When he'd finished eating, he dragged the box top over his bed, then sank back on the sponge with a soft groan. He was still exhausted. The nap in the carton had done little to refresh him.

  He remembered and, reaching around, he searched for the wood and charcoal. Finding them, he scratched a careless stroke. It would probably cross another stroke, but that hardly mattered. Chronology became less of a concern each day. There was Wednesday and there was Thursday, there were Friday and Saturday.

  Then nothing.

  He shuddered in the darkness. Like death, his fate was impossible to conceive. No, even worse than death. Death, at least, was a concept; it was a part of life, however strangely unknown. But who had ever shrunk into nothingness?

  He rolled on his side and propped his head on an arm. If only he could tell someone what he felt. If only he could be with Lou; see her, touch her. Yes, even if she didn't know it, it would be a comfort. But he was alone.

  He thought again of the newspaper stories, and of how sick it had made him to become a spectacle, how it had driven him into nerve-screaming wrath, making him maniacal with fury against his plight.

  Until, at the peak of that fury, he had sped to the city and told the paper he was breaking his contract, and stormed away in a palsy of hatred.

  42"

  Two miles beyond Baldwin, a tire blew out with a crack like the blast of a shotgun.

  Gasping, Scott froze to the wheel as the Ford lurched off balance, scouring wide tire marks across the pavement. It took all the strength in his arms to keep the car from ramming the centre wall. The steering wheel shuddered in his grip, he guided the car off the highway.

  Fifty yards farther on, he braked the car and twisted off the ignition. He sat there for a moment, wordless, glaring straight ahead with baleful eyes. His hands were white-ridged fists quivering in his lap.

  At last he spoke. "Oh, you son-of-a-" Fury sent a jolting shudder down his back.

  "Go ahead," he said, rage crouching behind the patience of his tone. "Go ahead, pour it on. Sure. Go ahead; why not?" His teeth clicked together. "Don't just stop with a flat tire, though," he said, words thumping at the closed gates of his teeth. "Kill the generator. Tear out the spark plugs. Split the radiator. Blow up the whole goddamn son-of-a-bitch car!" Apoplectic rage sprayed across the windshield.

  He thudded back against the seat, spent, his eyes shut.

  After a few minutes, he pulled up the door handle and pushed the door open. Cold air rushed over him. Drawing up the collar of his topcoat, he shifted his legs and slid down off the raised seat.

  He landed on gravel, spilling forward, hands out for support. He got up quickly, cursing, and fired a stone across the highway. With my luck it'll break a car window and put out an old lady's eye! he thought furiously. With my luck.

  He stood shivering, looking at his car, hunched blackly over the collapsed tire. Great, he thought, just great. How in the hell was he supposed to change it? His teeth gritted. He wasn't even strong enough for that. And, of course, Terry couldn't watch the children today and Lou had to stay home. It figured.

  A spasm shook him beneath the topcoat. It was cold. Cold on a May night. Even that figured. Even the weather was against him. He closed his eyes. I'm ready for a padded cell, he thought.

  Well, he couldn't just stand there. He had to get to a phone and call a garage.

  He didn't move. He stared at the road. And after I call the garage, he thought, the mechanic will come and he'll talk to me and look at me and recognize me; and there'll be guarded stares, or maybe even open ones, the kind Berg always gave him blunt, insulting stares that seemed to say, Jesus, you are a creep. And there would be talk, questions, the kind of withdrawn camaraderie a normal man offers to a freak.

  His throat muscles drew in slowly as he swallowed. Even rage was preferable to this; this complete negation of spirit. Rage, at least, was struggle, it was a moving forward against something. This was defeat, static and heavy on him.

  Weary breath emptied from him. Well, there was no other way. He had to get home. He might have called Marty under any other circumstances; but he felt awkward about Marty now.

  He slid his hands into the slash pockets of his coat and started trudging along the roadside gravel.

  I don't care, he kept telling himself as he walked. I don't care if I did sign a contract. I'm tired of playing guinea pig for a million readers.

  He walked on quickly in his little-boy clothes.

  Moments later, headlight beams bleached across him and he stepped farther away from the road and kept on walking. He certainly wasn't going to try to get a ride.

  The dark car hulk rolled past him. Then there was a slowing of the tires on the pavement and, looking up, Scott saw that the car was stopping. His mouth tightened. I'd rather walk. He formed the words with his lips, getting them ready.

  The door shoved open and a fedora-topped head appeared.

  "You alone, my boy?" the man asked huskily. The words came out from one side of his mouth. The other side was plugged with a half-smoked cigar.

  Scott trudged toward the car. Maybe it was all right; the man thought he was a boy. He might have expected it. Hadn't they refused to let him in the movie one afternoon because he wasn't accompanied by an adult? Hadn't he been forced to show his identification before that bartender would serve him a drink?

  "You alone, young fellow?" the man asked again.

  "Just walking home," Scott said.

  "Have you far to go?" An intelligent voice, somewhat thickened. Scott saw the man's head bobbing. So much the better, he thought.

  "Just to the next town," he said. "Could you give me a ride, mister?" Deliberately he raised the already raised pitch of his voice.

  "Certainly, my boy, certainly," the man said. "Just climb aboard and it's bon-voy-age for you and me and Plymouth, vintage fifty-five." His head drew in
like that of a startled turtle. It disappeared into the shell of his car.

  "Thanks, mister." It was a form of masochism, Scott knew, this playing the role of boy to its very hilt. He stood outside the car until the heavy-set man had pushed up awkwardly and was sitting behind the steering wheel again. Then he slid onto the seat.

  "Just sit right here, my boy, just Caution!"

  Scott jumped up as he sat on the man's thick hand. The man drew it away, held it before his eyes.

  "You have injured the member, my boy," he said. "Wreaked havoc to the knuckles. Eh?" the man's chuckle was liquid, as if it came up through a throatful of water.

  Scott's smile was nervously automatic as he sat down again. The car reeked of whisky and cigar smoke. He coughed into his hand.

  "Anchors, so be it, Od's blood, aweigh," the man declared. He tapped down the shift to drive position and the car jerked a little, then rolled forward. "Fermez la porte, dear boy, fermez la goddam porte."

  "I have," Scott told him.

  The man looked over as if he were delighted. "You understand French, my boy. An excellent boy, a most seemly boy. Your health, sir."

  Scott smiled thinly to himself. He wished he were drunk too. But a whole afternoon drinking in a darkened barroom booth had done nothing to him at all.

  "You reside in this humid land, my boy?" the heavy man asked. He began slapping himself about the chest.

  "In the next town," Scott said.

  "In the next town, the following city," the man said, still slapping at himself. "In the adjacent village, the juxtaposed hamlet. Ah, Hamlet. To be or not to be, that is the, God damn it's a match. My kingdom for a match!" He belched. It was like a drawn-out leopard growl.

  "Use the dashboard lighter," Scott said, hoping to get both of the man's unsteady hands back on the wheel.

  The man looked over, apparently astounded. "A brilliant boy," he said. "An analytic fellow. By God, I love an analytic fellow." His bubbly chuckle rippled in the stale smelling car. "Mon dieu…"