Short Fiction, Ray Bradbury [finding audrey txt] 📗

I jump down and run away from the wrecked wagon, did the wagon roll over Berman, I hope not, a fence here, I’ll jump over it, another popcorn machine, very warm, very hot, all flame and red fire and burning metal knobs.⁠ ⁠…

Oops, I didn’t mean to strike the popcorn man down, hello, Berman, what’re you doing in my arms, how’d you get here, did I pick you up, and why? an obstacle race at the high-school? you’re heavy, I’m tired, dogs nipping at my heels, how far am I supposed to carry you? I hear the captain screaming me on, for why, for why? here comes the big bad truant officer with a club in his hand to take me back to school, he looks mean and broad.⁠ ⁠…

I kicked the truant officer’s shins and kicked him in the face⁠ ⁠… Mama won’t like that⁠ ⁠… yes, mommy⁠ ⁠… no mommy⁠ ⁠… that’s unfair⁠ ⁠… that’s not ethical fighting⁠ ⁠… something went squish⁠ ⁠… hmm⁠ ⁠… let’s forget about it, shall we?

Breathing hard. Here comes the gang after me, all the rough, bristly Irishmen and scarred Norwegians and stubborn Italians⁠ ⁠… hit, kick, wrestle⁠ ⁠… here comes a swift car, fast, fast! I hope I can duck, with you, Berman⁠ ⁠… here comes another car from the opposite way!⁠ ⁠… If I work things right⁠ ⁠… uh⁠ ⁠… stop screaming, Berman!

The cars crashed into each other.

The cars still roll, tumbling, like two animals tearing at each other’s throats.

Not far to go now, Berman, to the end of the alley. Just ahead. I’ll sleep for forty years when this is over⁠ ⁠… where’d I get this flashlight in my hand? from one of those guys I knocked down? from the popcorn man? I’ll poke it in front of me⁠ ⁠… people run away⁠ ⁠… maybe they don’t like its light in their eyes.⁠ ⁠… The end of the alley! There’s the green valley and my house, and there’s Mom and Pop waiting! Hey, let’s sing, let’s dance, we’re going home!

“Halloway, you so-and-so, you did it!”

Dark. Sleep. Wake up slow. Listen.

“⁠—and Halloway ran down that amphitheatre nonchalant as a high-school kid jumping hurdles. A big saffron Martian beast with a mouth so damn big it looked like the rear end of a delivery truck, lunged forward square at Halloway⁠—”

“What’d Halloway do?”

“Halloway jumped right inside the monster’s mouth⁠—right inside!”

“What happened then?”

“The animal looked dumbfounded. It tried to spit out. Then, to top it all, what did Halloway do, I ask you, I ask you, what did he do? He drew forth his boy-scout blade and went chikk-chikk-chikk all around the bloody interior, pretending like he’s holed up in an ice-wagon, chipping himself off pieces of ice.”

“No?”

“On my honor! The monster, after taking a bit of this chikk-chikk-chikk business, leaped around, cavorting, floundering, rocking, tossing, and then, with a spout of blood, out popped Halloway, grinning like a kid, and on he ran, dodging spears and pretending they were pebbles, leaping a line of crouched warriors and saying they’re a picket fence. Then he lifted Berman and trotted with him until he met a three hundred pound Martian wrestler. Halloway supposed that it was the truant officer and promptly kicked him in the face. Then he knocked down another guy working furiously at the buttons of a paralysis machine which looked, to Halloway, like a popcorn wagon! After which two gigantic black Martian leopards attacked, resembling to him nothing more than two very bad drivers in dark automobiles. Halloway sidestepped. The two ‘cars’ crashed and tore each other apart, fighting. Halloway pumped on, shooting people with his ‘flashlight’ which he retrieved from the ‘popcorn’ man. Pointing the flash at people, he was amazed when they vanished and⁠—oh, oh, Halloway’s waking up, I saw his eyelids flicker. Quiet, everyone. Halloway, you awake?”

Yeah. I been listening to you talk for five minutes. I still don’t understand. Nothing happened at all. How long I been asleep?

“Two days. Nothing happened, eh? Nothing, except you got the Martians kowtowing, that’s all, brother. Your spectacular performance impressed people. The enemy suddenly decided that if one earthman could do what you did, what would happen if a million more came?”

Everybody keeps on with this joking, this lying about Mars. Stop it. Where am I?

“Aboard the rocket, about to take off.”

Leave Earth? No, no, I don’t want to leave Earth, good green Earth! Let go! I’m afraid! Let go of me! Stop the ship!

“Halloway, this is Mars⁠—we’re going back to Earth.”

Liars, all of you! I don’t want to go to Mars, I want to stay here, on Earth!

“Holy cow, here we go again. Hold him down, Gus. Hey, doctor, on the double! Come help Halloway change his mind back, willya!”

Liars! You can’t do this! Liars! Liars!

The Creatures That Time Forgot2 I

During the night, Sim was born. He lay wailing upon the cold cave stones. His blood beat through him a thousand pulses each minute. He grew, steadily.

Into his mouth his mother with feverish hands put the food. The nightmare of living was begun. Almost instantly at birth his eyes grew alert, and then, without half understanding why, filled with bright, insistent terror. He gagged upon the food, choked and wailed. He looked about, blindly.

There was a thick fog. It cleared. The outlines of the cave appeared. And a man loomed up, insane and wild and terrible. A man with a dying face. Old, withered by winds, baked like adobe in the heat. The man was crouched in a far corner of the cave, his eyes whitening to one side of his face, listening to the far wind trumpeting up above on the frozen night planet.

Sim’s mother, trembling, now and again, staring at the man, fed Sim pebble-fruits, valley-grasses and ice-nipples broken from the cavern entrances, and eating, eliminating, eating again, he grew larger, larger.

The man in the corner of the cave was his father! The man’s eyes were all that was alive in his face. He held a crude stone dagger in his withered hands and his jaw hung loose