The Third Level

by Jack Finney

  Several moments passed. Cautiously, Annie turned her head slightly to peer out at the station floor; then her head shot up and she turned to stare openly at the handsome, young Ensign, who stood now, smiling, the crowd dividing and flowing around them, holding both hands of a willowy blonde who held a large green purse under her arm.

  Charley stared, too. He watched the tall, handsome, young couple kiss — gaily, casually — watched them talk for a moment, then saw them turn and walk, her arm under his, into the crowd. He stood completely still, watching them disappear, his thin chest unmoving under his blouse. As they vanished, his chest heaved and he released his pent-up breath in an unhappy sigh of discouraged relief.

  Some twenty feet away where Annie stood, this sound, though lost in the hollow roar of Pennsylvania Station, was duplicated.

  Now these two, the small, thin sailor and the tiny, thin girl, began to stroll, slowly, wearily, looking up at the clocks frequently and glancing worriedly, frowning at the faces of approaching people. For several moments they walked, sauntering aimlessly, glancing at the clocks again, turning and coming back to the escalators.

  Then, in the midst of a step, Charley stopped dead still and his face puckered into an expression very close to horror, while above his head there appeared what seemed to be a puff of steam, then several more. These thickened, grew larger, and then, rapidly, like a movie in reverse, joined and formed a neat cloud again. But the tail, this time, appeared in the shape of a lightning bolt, the sharp point of which seemed to stab down into Charley's skull. Within the cloud, almost filling it like a movie close-up, a face appeared.

  It seemed to be a female face; at least the dank, tangled hair above it was long. The face itself was round, pudgy and doughlike, the nose a fat blob, the eyes tiny and piglike, and it smiled — leered, rather — two jagged teeth protruding over the lower lip at each corner of the wide foolish mouth. Charley? it seemed to say, in an ugly rasp, Charley Blaine? and it grinned in gleeful, bestial welcome. Charley winced and shuddered, squeezing his eyes tight shut in horror.

  Next to this gibbering, drooling monster, in a sickly white mist over Annie's head, stood a sailor four feet high with a face like a demented horse. He was, like earlier occupants of Annie's cloud, three feet wide, but in the hips, not the shoulders; he had no shoulders. Yellow flecks of egg clung to his pasty face next to the liverlike lips; above his eyes, so close they nearly merged, there were no eyebrows. There was no room for eyebrows, for his hair began immediately over the eyes, a thick mass of jutelike hair that ran up the narrowing sides of his head to the point that formed its top. Below this eager, maniacal figure, Annie stood cringing, her eyes on the floor, as she battled with nausea.

  Then the twin clouds faded and disappeared, and the two figures below them opened their eyes, white-faced and shaken. Once again they began to pace, looking up at the clocks, and glancing at the faces of passers-by, but this time with stark apprehension.

  They walked and they stood, they waited and watched, and presently, again, their eyes met and moved apart; but this time they became aware of each other. Their eyes swung back again, their gazes met, and now they held momentarily, then separated again. Charley and Annie both turned away. But almost at once their heads swung back, their eyes met once more, and this time they held the gaze.

  Now Charley looked at the neat girl in the green cloth coat. She did not resemble even the least of the wonderful creatures who had moved through the clouds over his head, but on the other hand … Some of the fear and apprehension left his face. She was a good three inches shorter than Charley, and for the first time since he'd seen the girl with the big green purse, Charley's shoulders began to straighten. This girl was no model, she would never be a showgirl, but she was neat, Charley saw, she was young and fresh, and as he continued to watch her, the last remnants of horror faded from his face and his wilted spirit began to revive. With practically no justification at all, Charley began to feel rather stalwart again. He straightened his spine, cocked his hat to a jaunty angle, and smiled, he was pleasantly aware, not up but down at her face.

  Annie-the-Dreamer looked at this sailor, but there was no pink mist over her head any more. Her eyes, still a little anxious and worried, were practical, realistic now. He was, she saw, no Commander, and there were no gold wings on his chest. But, on the other hand, he was alive, three-dimensional and real. He was here now, in the present, and he was smiling at her. And when he smiled, Annie noticed, his face was — rather nice. Annie smiled back and stepped forward toward him.

  They greeted each other a little shyly, began to talk a little too rapidly, and each of them continued to study the other. Annie's voice was her own, now, with no trace of Hepburn, Novak, or Garbo. When they had confirmed their tentative recognition, she looked up at him, tossing her head a little defiantly, and said, I bet you thought I'd look like Grace Kelly or somebody like that in the movies.

  Of course not, said Charley chivalrously, and his voice, too, now belonged to him. I mean — of course not. You look fine. You look swell. He hesitated a moment, then added, You prob'ly thought I'd be Marlon Brando or something.

  No, said Annie scornfully. You look like I thought, and in a way she believed this now. You look — cute, she said, and she smiled.

  They talked for a time, chattering anxiously, laughing a good deal, and presently decided on a place for dinner, near Broadway and the movies, and turned to walk out of the station. As they did, the two clouds, for the last time, formed once more over their heads. The figure in Annie's cloud resembled Charley almost exactly, almost but not quite. As she looked up at Charley, the figure in her cloud grew a little; as she watched his face, smiling and laughing, the figure over her head, though still very like Charley, gradually became just a little more handsome. And it seemed a bit taller, more debonair.

  While as Charley looked down at the smiling, animated face at his shoulder, he began to perceive its best features; the rather nice curve of her brows, the firm, young line of her chin. The figure in the mist over his head, though wearing Annie's green coat, became rather prettier, and presently, somehow, considerably more voluptuous. Charley was pleased with what he saw.

  Arm in arm they walked toward the station exit, their faces turned to each other; overhead, the two clouds, trailing like captive balloons, bumped together, recoiling gently like colliding soap bubbles, then bumped once more, joining and merging into one. In this single, large cloud, the two figures, arm in arm now like the couple below, walked along, too, still resembling Annie and Charley in a way, but growing taller and more handsome, lovelier and more curvaceous, with every step. Presently the trailing cloud entered a puff of drifting smoke above a big, fat man smoking a cigar, and it did not emerge again.

  On the sidewalk outside the station, they passed the young Ensign and the girl with the green purse stepping into a cab. Charley and Annie glanced at them briefly, but it was a look of mild interest only, a look of complete and friendly equality.

  There is a Tide...

  I'll say this for myself, and it's something that gripes me: if I had any other story to tell — if I said I'd seen a blue horse, a wild antelope or a three-toed sloth in my apartment — I'd finally be believed by the people who know me, when they saw I wasn't kidding, because I'm simply not the kind of guy to pull a pointless hoax. And I'm not a pathological liar.

  I'm normal, I'm average, I even look like most people. I'm sound in body and limb, if not in wind; I'm married; twenty-eight years old; and I don't “imagine” or “dream” things that aren't so — a particularly exasperating explanation a number of people have offered me. I'll admit that at least once a week I imagine I'm president of McCreedy & Cluett, the big candy and cough-sirup company I work for, and once I even dreamed I was. But believe me, I don't sit down in the president's office and start giving orders. In the daytime, anyway, I have no trouble remembering that I'm actually assistant sales manager; no trouble distinguishing reality from dreams.

  The point
I'm beating you over the head with is that if I say I saw a ghost, people who know me ought to remember these things. I don't mind a few snickers at first; this sounds ridiculous, and I know it. In a modern, seventeen-story New York apartment building on East Sixty-eighth Street, I saw a plump, middle-aged ghost wearing rimless glasses. So snicker if you want, but at least consider the evidence before you laugh out loud.

  I saw the ghost in my own living room, alone, between 3 and 4 in the morning, and I was there, wide awake, for a perfectly sound reason: I was worrying. The candy we make is doing pretty well, but the cough sirup isn't. It only sells by the carloads, that is, and the company would naturally prefer to measure sales in trainloads — big, long trains with two engines. That wasn't my problem as much as Ted Haymes, the sales manager's. But I did see a chance in the whole situation, to put it bluntly, of beating him out of his job, and I worried about it, at the office, at home, at the movies, while kissing Louisa hello, good-by or what's new. Also while awake or asleep.

  On this particular night, my conscience and I woke up around 3, all set for some wrestling. I didn't want to disturb Louisa; so I grabbed the spare blanket and bundled up on the davenport in the living room. I did not sleep; I want to make that plain. I was full of my problem and wide awake. The street outside was dead; there'd be minutes at a time when not a car went by, and once, when a pedestrian passed, I could distinctly hear his footsteps three stories below. The room was dark, except for the windows outlined by the street lamp, and with no distractions the battle of ambition versus conscience began. I reminded myself of the spectacular variety of ways in which Ted Haymes was a heel; you could hardly ask for a more deserving victim. Besides, I wouldn't be knifing him in the back, or anything.

  I rationalized, I explained, I hunted for a way of talking myself into doing what I wanted to do, and maybe half an hour went by. I guess I'd been staring through the darkness down at the davenport, or the floor, or the cigarette in my hand, or something. Anyway, I happened to glance up, and there, clearly silhouetted against the street light, a man stood at the livingroom windows with his back to me, staring down at the street.

  My first quick thought was burglar or prowler, but in that same instant I knew it wasn't. His whole attitude and posture were wrong for it, because he simply stood there, motionless, staring down through the window. Oh, of course he moved a little; shifting his weight slightly, altering the position of his head a little. But in every way it was the attitude of a man up in the middle of the night over some problem.

  Then he turned back into the room, and for an instant the street light caught his face from the side, and I saw it clearly. It was the face of a man around 60; round, plump, undistinguished. He was quite bald and wore glasses, the eyes behind them wide in thought, and in that pale, harsh light I saw he was wearing a bathrobe, and I knew it was no prowler; I knew it was a ghost.

  How did you know? some of my wiseacre friends have asked. Was he transparent, yak, yak, yak? No, he wasn't. No long white sheet with holes for the eyes? several dozen people with rare, rich senses of humor have asked. No, this figure moving in the faint light looked ordinary, harmless and real. And I knew it wasn't, that's all. I just knew.

  How did you feel? people have asked, trying to keep their faces straight. I was terrified. The figure turned absently into the room, and he began to walk toward the hall leading to the bedroom and bathroom, and I could feel the thousands of separate little follicles on my head prickle and swell.

  He did a strange thing. From the windows to the hall, the path is clear, yet he altered his direction for several steps, exactly as though he were walking around some piece of furniture that was no longer there.

  And all up and down the middle of my back, the skin turned suddenly cold. I was horribly frightened, and I don't like the memory of it. Yet I wasn't worried. I felt no threat, that is, toward Louisa or me. I had the idea — the certainty, in fact — that for him I wasn't there at all, just as that invisible object was still there for him. And I knew, as he turned into the hall, out of my sight, that he wasn't going into the bedroom where Louisa lay, or into the bathroom, or anywhere else in that apartment. I knew he was going back into whatever time and place he had momentarily appeared from.

  Our apartment is small, with just about adequate closet and cupboard space for a large family of mice. It took only a few minutes to search every last place a man might be hiding, and he was gone, as I'd known he would be. Some ghost, eh? A chubby, middle-aged ghost in a ratty old bathrobe; and not a moan, groan or peep out of him.

  You know what occurred to me later, lying in bed wondering when I'd be able to sleep again? It just shows what silly thoughts you can have in the dark, especially when you've seen a ghost. He'd looked like a man who was fighting his conscience, and I suddenly wondered if it were the ghost of myself, half a lifetime later, still troubled by guilt, still talking myself into one more thing I knew I shouldn't do. My hair is thinning a little at the crown; I suppose I'll be bald someday. And if you added rimless glasses, 40 pounds and 30 years … I was actually a little frightened, and, lying there in the darkness, I decided that next morning I was going to stop Ted Haymes from taking the step that would probably get me his job.

  At breakfast, I couldn't quite bring myself to tell Louisa about my decision or what had happened; it was just too silly in the daylight. Louisa talked, though — about cough sirup and sales plans, promotions and more money, and bigger apartments, with a shrewd, intelligent, fur-coat look in her eyes. I mumbled some answers, feeling depressed. Then I put on my Homburg and left for the office, looking like a rising young executive and wishing I were dead.

  Right after I got there, Ted strolled into my office and sat down on the corner of my desk, pushing my papers aside — a remarkably annoying and absolutely typical thing for him to do. He started yapping about his big new cough-sirup sales plan, of course; it was simple, direct, inexpensive, and would sound good to the boss — I knew that. He had it all dressed up, but basically his play was distributing samples, in miniature bottles, during nice, brisk, pneumonia weather. He'd gotten cost figures, and he was about ready to present the plan and wanted to know if I agreed.

  For a minute I just sat there, knowing his plan would flop, and him along with it. Then I just shrugged and said, Yeah, I guessed he was ready. I was astonished; but at the same time I knew why I'd changed my mind. You've known someone like Ted if you ever worked in an office; they're standard equipment, like filing cabinets. He happens to be tall and skinny, though they come in all shapes, a bumptious sort of guy with a hideous, mocking horse laugh. He's a know-it-all, a pincher of stenographers, a credit hog — I've got to watch him all the time to see that I get any recognition for the work our department does — and even when he's patting you on the back, there's a sneer in his eyes.

  Sitting at my desk after he'd left, I was perfectly willing again to give him the business. Then, unaccountably, the image of the ghost at my livingroom windows flashed up in my mind. It made me suddenly furious — I didn't know why — and I knew I wanted that ghost explained and exorcised. Somehow I knew I had to get him out of my apartment and out of my mind.

  Now, the building I live in is no ancient, crumbling castle with a history hopelessly shrouded in the mists of time. It was built in 1939 and is managed by Thomas L. Persons Company, a big realty firm. So I reached for the Manhattan telephone book, looked up their number and called them.

  A girl answered in a brisk, bitter voice, and I explained that I was a rent-paying customer and wanted to know if she could tell me the names of previous tenants of my apartment. From the way she said, Certainly not! you'd think I'd made an indecent proposal. I persisted, spoke to three more people and finally reached a man who grudgingly consented to open the archives and get me what I wanted.

  A woman and her mother — no men in the family — had occupied my apartment from 1940 till 1949, when we moved in. In 1939, and for a few months after, the apartment's first tenants had lived there:
a Mr. Harris L. Gruener — pronounced Greener — and his wife. The ghost was Gruener, I insisted to myself, and if it could possibly be done, I was going to prove that it was, and that it had nothing to do with me.

  That night, around 3, I woke up again, took the blanket from the foot of the bed and settled down on the davenport to settle Ted's hash. Deliberately I worked myself into a tough, ruthless frame of mind. Business is business, I said to myself, lying there smoking in the dark. All's fair, et cetera, and Ted Haymes would certainly do it to me, if the situation were reversed.

  The nice thing was that I didn't actually have to do anything. I'd worked for a much smaller candy and cough-sirup company, before McCreedy & Cluett; and they had once tried what was virtually Ted's plan. It had looked good, sounded good — and it had failed completely. We figured out why. Except for the tiny fraction of people who happened to have coughs at the moment we gave out our samples, most of them dropped our little bottles into overcoat pockets, where they stayed for days. Presently they may have reached the shelves of medicine cabinets; and maybe eventually they were used, and even resulted in sales. But the immediate sales results of the plan were zero. And it was dropped, just as fast as we could let go.

  I knew it would happen again. All I had to do was say nothing and look doubtful. When it failed, I'd be the man with the sales instinct who'd been pretty doubtful about the plan from the start, and — not right away, of course, but presently — I'd have Ted's job, and he'd be out. It wasn't surefire, but I had nothing to lose, and I lay there working out the best way of subtly getting my doubts on record with the boss.

  Yet that wasn't all I was doing, and I knew it. It was the dead of night, utterly silent outside and in, and I knew I was also waiting for a ghost, and that I was actually afraid to light another cigarette.