The Enormous Room Part 2

The boy pushed his gla.s.ses up on his nose again, frowning. "I go to C.C.N.Y. Summers, I'm the Wild Man from Zululand in the sideshow, and I s.h.i.+ll for the coaster when I'm not on duty. It helps out my family some, for me to be making money in the summers."

"Are you taking subjects that might help us?" asked Full.

"I major in English. I'm going to teach it when I graduate. Then I take psych, biology, the usual courses."

"Hmm," said Watkins, looking at the end of the room through which the Mexican had been taken. "Psych and biology. Could be some use here."

"What we need is a locksmith," said Summersby. He felt himself unwillingly drawn into the group, sharing their problems that were not his, and it angered him. He fished out a bent pack of cigarettes, lit one and was about to put the rest away.

"Nothing but a torch would help. I know a little about locks myself."

Watkins grinned genially. "I'm out of smokes," he said, and Summersby gave him the pack. He took one and pa.s.sed it to Full, who declined. Adam took one. The boy reached up and pushed at his gla.s.ses again; a look of irritation appeared on his face. "Say," he muttered, "is this room a little wobbly, or is it my eyes?"

"Wobbly?"

"Wavy. See how those tree trunks are blurred?"

"You need your gla.s.ses changed, Adam," said Watkins.

"No, sir." Adam took them off and started to polish them on a handkerchief; then his brown eyes opened wide. "I can see!" he said. The others stared at him. "My astigmatism's gone! My gla.s.ses make everything blur, but I can see plain as noon without 'em. Look, I've had astigmatism since I was a kid!"

"What happened?" asked the woman, addressing her husband. "How could that be, Calvin?"

"Don't know, dear."

"My headache is gone," she said. "I never realized it till this boy mentioned his eyes."

"Mrs. Full has suffered from an almost constant headache for years,"

said Calvin, and sniffed twice. "My post-nasal drip is missing, too. Do you suppose my sinus trouble is cleared up?"

"That's what must have been happening those two days we were out," said Watkins, knocking ash from his cigarette. "We were put through a hospital or something. I feel good, even if I'm d.a.m.ned hungry."

Summersby looked from one to another, detesting them; against his will, against sanity and decency that fought for recognition, he detested them. He had a heart for which there was no help, a heart no two-day period of miraculous cures could touch. Their puny ailments had been relieved, but he was still at the slow, listless task of dying.

"Listen," said Watkins jubilantly, "whoever or whatever brought us here, it's a cinch they don't mean to harm us. They wouldn't mend us if they were going to hurt us, would they?"

"In two days," said Adam, nodding hard. "Two days! How could they do it?"

There was an air of near-gaiety about them that repelled Summersby. In a desperate rebellion against these boons handed out to everyone but himself, he tried to hurt them. "What do you do to a duck before you cook it? Clean it. Think that over."

Adam Pierce looked at him levelly. "No, sir. If that duck has sinus trouble or bad eyes, you don't have to fix that up before you eat it.

No, sir."

"What about the Mexican?" Summersby asked. "What's happened to him?"

Then the wall slid open again and they all started forward; Summersby looked after them bitterly, feeling the resentment drain out and leave only the old hopelessness, the apathetic disregard of everything but death.

II

Porfirio Villa had known from the first that this adventure of his was a mistake. His wife had told him to stay off the roller coaster, but he had sneered. What could happen? The people always got off again, laughing and wiping their brows. He had the bad burn on his left hand, caused by an accidental smacking of the steam table in a rage at his fool of a helper;--that idiot who now had had charge of the stand for two days! _lodo feo!_--and so, enforced to a vacation, he must step into the cars and go crawling up that terrible incline, giggling nervously, and then rush madly down the other side. Dreaming is better than doing; he should have stayed in his chili stand and dreamed of the ride.

_Por Dios!_ What a terror the rising, what a discomfort the drop, what a fearful thing the disappearance of the park and the awakening in this place ... this place a man could not believe in, though he stood upon its floor and gazed round-eyed, with sweating lips and shaking hands, upon its size, its devices for unknown purposes, its impossible inhabitant!

The thing was twelve feet tall. Was it a machine? He had seen machines in the _revistas_ and the cinema, looking much like this one, a clumsy copy of a man moving, speaking, tearing people to pieces. There was also King Kong, who resembled this thing.

If it was not alive, it moved very creditably. The gray-furred legs were long and thin, placed on the sides of the body at the waist; the arms, much thicker than the legs, swung very low, and must be fully eight feet long. It was backing from him slowly, holding out one hand--six fingers and two thumbs, _demonio!_--with the green stick. That stick stung like a bee when it touched you.

The monster was already a good distance away. Porfirio cast his eyes slyly to one side, the other. There was a complication of machinery so great that even a teacher of mechanics would be dismayed.

There! A hole between two pink walls. He glanced once at the thing, standing now with its impossible face turned down to him, and then he ran for the hole.

It was after him with a short cry, but he reached the hole and scuttled through. Four paths faced him. What a time for decisions! He took the left-hand path, went round several turns, came to two more openings. The pink walls were smooth and featureless, well over his head so that he could not tell where he was. He ran like the mouse in the game next to his chili stand, the game in which suckers bet on which escape--the red, green, blue or white--the mouse would choose. Paths opened and Porfirio plunged on, losing his sense of direction, becoming more terrified as he went. His famished guts dragged him down, made him a weak frightened mouse indeed.

He panted past two doorways and abruptly, like the flas.h.i.+ng of a pigeon's wing, the greenstick shot down before him, held in that monstrous gray hand!

The stick appeared and disappeared, herding him, chivvying him from place to place, all places looking alike, till finally the great room lay again before his eyes. Whimpering, he stepped out of the pink maze and leaned against the wall, his chest and belly heaving. He was done.

Let it murder him. A man could not run forever.

The brute stood over him. Cautiously it brought its face down to peer.

Its eyes were set in deep pits, there was a hole between them, and far below in the watermelon-shaped head, a mouth like a man's with lips the color of rust on iron.

Panting, he gazed at it, then flung up one arm in a futile blow that fell short by two feet. The thing was angering him. Let it watch out for itself!

A hand, unnoticed, had crept round behind him and now took him by the back of the s.h.i.+rt, belt, and trousers, and lifted him off the floor. He regretted the useless punch. Now he would be dead.

The monster inspected him, prodding aside his bedraggled collar points and digging gently at his belly with the rod, which did not sting him this time. It made a sound from its mouth like the last weak bellow of a dying _toro_--"Mmwaa gnaa!" then set him down once more with a thump that jolted his teeth, nearly fractured his ankles.

_Maria y Jose_, but it moved as fast as a lizard's tongue! Escape was beyond hope.

It backed away from him, stood by a huge box and gestured with the green stick. It wanted him to come. He walked toward it. The box was enormous, oblong, like a huge shoe box. Only when he had come to it did he realize it was the room in which he had awakened earlier.

In this hall it was lost. Untouched by the monster, he looked at the hall with seeing eyes for the first time. It had yellow walls and a gray roof, like the box. He clapped a hand to his head. Like a theater without seats! Over ten varas high, thirty broad and forty long: or he should say, being a man of the States now for many years, roughly thirty feet by seventy-five by a hundred. Scattered here and there in staggering confusion were the machines, the gadgets, the unknown things.

All colors he had ever seen were there. It was gaudy as the amus.e.m.e.nt park, but slicker and more fresh-looking.

The creature laid a hand on the box, and the wall began to slide open.

He looked up, and it gestured, telling him as plainly as words to go in.

He was to enter again. It seemed as happy a thing to him as the breaking of a Christmas pinata.

He braced himself now. _He_ had emerged, while _they_ had cowered behind, refusing him aid. Worms that they were, he would show them the bearing of a hero, one who had braved mysterious dangers while all others trembled. He sucked in his belly, threw forward his chest, placed his fists carefully on his hips and strutted into the strawed room, turning his head proudly from side to side. He heard the wall close behind him.

The worms came crowding to him.

"What is it? What happened?"

Porfirio Villa, adventurer, laughed. The relief that washed through him was making him shake, his empty stomach still heaved after the panic, but from somewhere in his soul he dredged up the casual laugh. "Very little happened," he said. "Truly very little of interest."