The Anything Box

by Зенна Гендерсон

  "Go on, Dubby. Get back on the couch like a nice child. We've played long

  enough."

  "You take me."

  June herded him ahead of her, her knees bumping his reluctant back at every

  step until he got a good look at the whole front room. Then he sighed and

  relaxed.

  "He's gone," he said normally.

  "Sure he is," replied June. "Play-like stuff always goes away." She tucked

  him under his covers. Then, as if hoping to brush his fears—and hers—away, by

  calmly discussing it, "What did he look like?"

  "Well, he had a body like Mother's vacuum cleaner —the one that lies down

  on the floor—and his legs were like my sled, so he could slide on the floor,

  and had a nose like the hose on the cleaner only he was able to make it long

  or short when he wanted to."

  Dubby, overstrained, leaned back against his pillows.

  The mantel clock began to boom the hour deliberately.

  "And he had little eyes like the light inside the refrigerator—"

  June heard a choonk at the hall door and glanced up. Then with

  fear-stiffened lips, she continued for him, "And ears like TV antennae because

  he needs good ears to find the noises." And watched, stunned, as the round

  metallic body glided across the floor on shiny runners and paused in front of

  the clock that was deliberating on the sixth stroke.

  The long, wrinkly trunk-like nose on the front of the thing flashed upward.

  The end of it shimmered, then melted into the case of the clock. And the

  seventh stroke never began. There was a soft sucking sound and the nose

  dropped free. On the mantel, the hands of the clock dropped soundlessly to the

  bottom of the dial.

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  In the tight circle of June's arms, Dubby whimpered. June clapped her handover his mouth. But his shoulders began to shake and he rolled franticimploring eyes at her as another coughing spell began. He couldn't control it.

  June tried to muffle the sound with her shoulder, but over the deep,hawking convulsions, she heard the choonk and slither of the creature andscreamed as she felt it nudge her knee. Then the long snout nuzzled againsther shoulder and she heard a soft hiss as it touched the straining throat ofthe coughing child. She grabbed the horribly vibrating thing and tried to pullit away, but Dubby's cough cut off in mid-spasm.

  In the sudden quiet that followed she heard a gurgle like a straw in thebottom of a soda glass and Dubby folded into himself like an empty laundrybag. June tried to straighten him against the pillows, but he slid laxly down.

  June stood up slowly. Her dazed eyes wandered trance-like to the clock,then to the couch, then to the horrible thing that lay beside it. Its glowingeyes were blinking and its ears shifting planes—probably to locate sound.

  Her mouth opened to let out the terror that was constricting her lungs, andher frantic scream coincided with the shrill clamor of the telephone. TheEater hesitated, then slid swiftly toward the repeated ring. In the pauseafter the party line's four identifying rings, it stopped and June clappedboth hands over her mouth, her eyes dilated with paralyzed terror.

  The ring began again. June caught Dubby up into her arms and backed slowlytoward the front door. The Eater's snout darted out to the telephone and thering stilled without even an after-resonance.

  The latch of the front door gave a rasping click under June's tremblinghand. Behind her, she heard the choonk and horrible slither as the Eater lostinterest in the silenced telephone. She whirled away from the door, staggeringoff balance under the limp load of Dubby's body. She slipped to one knee,spilling the child to the floor with a thump. The Eater slid toward her,pausing at the hall door, its ears tilting and moving.

  June crouched on her knees, staring, one hand caught under Dubby. Sheswallowed convulsively, then cautiously withdrew her hand. She touched Dubby'sbony little chest. There was no movement. She hesitated indecisively, thenbacked away, eyes intent on the Eater.

  Her heart drummed in her burning throat. Her blood roared in her ears. Thestarchy krunkle of her wide skirt rattled in the stillness. The fibers of therug murmured under her knees and toes. She circled wider, wider, the noiseonly loud enough to hold the Eater's attention—not to attract him to her. Shebacked guardedly into the corner by the radio. Calculatingly, she reached overand clicked it on, turning the volume dial as far as it would go.

  The Eater slid tentatively toward her at the click of the switch. Junebacked slowly away, eyes intent on the creature. The sudden insane blare ofthe radio hit her an almost physical blow. The Eater glided up close againstthe vibrating cabinet, its snout lifting and drinking in the horriblecacophony of sound.

  June lurched for the front door, wrenching frantically at the door knob.She stumbled outside, slamming the door behind her. Trembling, she sank to thetop step, wiping the cold sweat from her face with the under side of herskirt. She shivered in the sharp cold, listening to the raucous outpouringfrom the radio that boomed so loud it was no longer intelligible.

  She dragged herself to her feet, pausing irresolutely, looking around atthe huddled houses, each set on its own acre of weeds and lawn. They were alldark in the early winter evening.

  June gave a little moan and sank on the step again, hugging herselfdesperately against the penetrating chill. It seemed an eternity that shecrouched there before the radio cut off in mid-note.

  Fearfully, she roused and pressed her face to one of the door panes. Dimlythrough the glass curtains she could see the Eater, sluggish and swollen,lying quietly by the radio. Hysteria was rising for a moment, but sheresolutely knuckled the tears from her eyes.

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  The headlights scythed around the corner, glittering swiftly across the

  blank windows next door as the car crunched into the Warrens' driveway and

  came to a gravel-skittering stop.

  June pressed her hands to her mouth, sure that even through the closed door

  she could hear the choonk and slither of the thing inside as it slid to and

  fro, seeking sound.

  The car door slammed and hurried footsteps echoed along the path. June made

  wild shushing motions with her hands as Mrs. Warren scurried around the corner

  of the house.

  "June!" Mrs. Warren's voice was ragged with worry. "Is Dubby all right?

  What are you doing out here? What's wrong with the phone?" She fumbled for the

  door knob.

  "No, no!" June shouldered her roughly aside. "Don't go in! It'll get you,

  too!"

  She heard a thud just inside the door. Dimly through the glass she saw the

  flicker of movement as the snout of the Eater raised and wavered toward them.

  "June!" Mrs. Warren jerked her away from the door. "Let me in! What's the

  matter? Have you gone crazy?" Mrs. Warren stopped suddenly, her face

  whitening. "What have you done to Dubby, June?"

  The girl gulped with the shock of the accusation. "I haven't done anything,

  Mrs. Warren. He made a Noise-eater and it—it—" June winced away from the

  sudden blaze of Mrs. Warren's eyes.

  "Get away from that door!" Mrs. Warren's face was that of a stranger, her

  words icy and clipped. "I trusted you with my child. If anything has happened

  to him—"

  "Don't go in—oh, don't go in!" June grabbed at her coat hysterically.

  "Please, please wait! Let's get—"

  "Let go!" Mrs. Warren's voice grated between her tightly clenched teeth.

  "Let me go, you—you—" Her hand flashed out and the crack of her palm against

  June's cheek was echoed by a choonk inside the house. June was stagger
ed by

  the blow, but she clung to the coat until Mrs. Warren pushed her sprawling

  down the front steps and fumbled at the knob, crying, "Dubby! Dubby!"

  June, scrambling up the steps on hands and knees, caught a glimpse of a

  hovering something that lifted and swayed like a waiting cobra. It was slapped

  aside by the violent opening of the door as Mrs. Warren stumbled into the

  house, her cries suddenly stilling on her slack lips as she saw her crumpled

  son by the couch.

  She gasped and whispered, "Dubby!" She lifted him into her arms. His head

  rolled loosely against her shoulder. Her protesting, "No, no, no!" merged into

  half-articulate screams as she hugged him to her.

  And from behind the front door there was a choonk and a slither.

  June lunged forward and grabbed the reaching thing that was homing in on

  Mrs. Warren's hysterical grief. Her hands closed around it convulsively, her

  whole weight dragging backward, but it had a strength she couldn't match.

  Desperately then, her fists clenched, her eyes tight shut, she screamed and

  screamed and screamed.

  The snout looped almost lazily around her straining throat, but she fought

  her way almost to the front door before the thing held her, feet on the floor,

  body at an impossible angle and stilled her frantic screams, quieted her

  straining lungs and sipped the last of her heartbeats, and let her drop.

  Mrs. Warren stared incredulously at June's crumpled body and the horrible

  creature that blinked its lights and shifted its antennae questingly. With a

  muffled gasp, she sagged, knees and waist and neck, and fell soundlessly to

  the floor.

  The refrigerator in the kitchen cleared its throat and the Eater turned

  from June with a choonk and slid away, crossing to the kitchen.

  The Eater retracted its snout and slid back from the refrigerator. It lay

  quietly, its ears shifting from quarter to quarter.

  The thermostat in the dining room clicked and the hot air furnace began to

  hum. The Eater slid to the wall under the register that was set just below the

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  ceiling. Its snout extended and lifted and narrowed until the end of itslipped through one of the register openings. The furnace hum choked offabruptly and the snout end flipped back into sight.

  Then there was quiet, deep and unbroken until the Eater tilted its ears andslid up to Mrs. Warren.

  In such silence, even a pulse was noise.

  There was a sound like a straw in the bottom of a soda glass.

  A stillness was broken by the shrilling of a siren on the main highway fourblocks away.

  A choonk and a slither and the metallic bump of runners down the threefront steps.

  And a quiet, quiet house on a quiet side street.

  Hush.

  Food to All Flesh

  O give thanks unto the LORD . . . who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercyendureth for ever. Psalm 136

  Padre Manuel sighed with pleasure as he stepped into the heavy shade of thesalt cedars. It was a welcome relief from the downpouring sun that drenchedthe whole valley and seemed today to press down especially hard on the littleadobe church and its cluster of smaller buildings. Padre Manuel sighed againwith regret that they could manage so little greenery around the church, butit was above the irrigation canal, huddled against the foot of the bleakEstrellas.

  But it was pleasant here in the shade at the foot of the alfalfa field, andacross the pasture was the old fig tree with the mourning dove nest that PadreManuel had been watching.

  Well! Padre Manuel let the leaves conceal the nest again. Two eggs now! Andsoon the little birds—little live things. How long did it take? He sat down inthe grass at the foot of the hill, grateful for this leisure time. He openedhis breviary, his lips moving silently as the pages turned.

  And so it was that Padre Manuel was in the south pasture when the thingcame down. It sagged and rippled as if it were made of something soft insteadof metal as you'd expect a spaceship to be. Because that's what Padre Manuel,after his first blank amazement, figured it must be.

  It didn't act like a spaceship, though. At least not like the ones thatwere in the comics that Sor Concepciуn brought, clucking disapprovingly, tohim when she confiscated them from the big boys who found them so much moreinteresting than the catechism class on drowsy summer afternoons. There was noburned grass, no big noise, none of the signs of radiation that made the comicpages so vivid that, most regrettably, Padre Manuel usually managed a quickread-through before restoring them at the day's end. The thing just flutteredon the grass and scooted ahead of a gust of wind until it came up against atree.

  Padre Manuel waited to see what would happen. That was his way. If anythingnew came along, he'd sit for a while, figuring it all out—but slowly,carefully— and usually he came out right. This time, when he had finishedthinking it over, he got a thrill up and down his back, knowing that God hadseen fit to let him be the first man on earth to see a spaceship land. Atleast the first to land in this quiet oasis of cottonwood and salt cedar heldin a fold of the desert.

  Well, after nothing happened for a long time, he decided he'd go over andget a closer look at the ship. Apparently it wasn't going to do anything moreat the moment.

  There weren't any doors or windows or peepholes. The thing was bigger thanyou'd think, standing back from it. Padre Manuel figured it might be thirty

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  feet through, and it looked rather like a wine-colored balloon except that itflattened where it touched the ground, like a low tire. He leaned a handagainst it and it had a give to it and a feeling that was like nothing he everfelt before. It even had a smell—a pretty good smell—and Padre Manuel wasabout to lick it to see if it tasted as good as it smelled, when it opened ahole. One minute no hole. Next minute a little tiny hole, opening bigger andbigger like a round mouth without lips. Nothing swung back or folded up. Theball just opened a hole, about a yard across.

  Padre Manuel's heart jumped and he crossed himself swiftly, but whennothing else happened, he edged over to the hole, wondering if he dared stickhis head in and take a look. But then he had a sort of vision of the hole shutting again with his head in there and all at once his Adam's apple felttoo tight and he swallowed hard.

  Then a head stuck out through the hole and Padre Manuel got almost dizzy,thinking about being the first man on earth to see something alive fromanother world. Then he blinked and squared his shoulders and took stock ofwhat it was that he was seeing for the first time.

  It was a head all right, about as big as his, only with the hair tight andfuzzy. It looked as if it had been shaved into patterns though it could havegrown that way. And there were two eyes that looked like nice round gray eyesuntil they blinked, and then—Madre de Dios! —the lids slid over from theoutside edges toward the nose and flipped back again like a sliding door. Andthe nose was a nose, only with stuff growing in the nostrils that was tightand fuzzy like the hair. It was hard to see how the thing could breathethrough it.

  Then the mouth. Padre Manuel felt creepy when he looked at the mouth. Therewas no particular reason why, though. It was just a mouth with the eyeteethlapped sharply over the bottom lip. He'd seen people like that in his time,though maybe not quite so long in the tooth.

  Padre Manuel smiled at the creature and almost dodged when it smiled back,because those teeth looked as if they jumped right out at him, white andshiny.

  "Buenos dias," said Padre Manuel.

  "Buenos dias," said the creature, like an echo.

  "Hello," said Padre Manuel, almost exhausting his English.

  "Hello," said the creature, like an echo.

  Then the conversatio
n lagged. After a while Padre Manuel said, "Won't youget out and stay for a while?" He waved his hand and stepped back.

  Well, the space man slid his eyelids a couple of times, then the hole gotbigger downwards and he got out and got out and got out.

  Padre Manuel backed away pretty fast when all that long longness crawledout of the hole, but he came back wide-eyed when the space creature began topush himself together, shorter and shorter and ended up about a head tallerthan Padre Manuel and about twice as big around. He was almost man-lookingexcept that his hands were round pad things with a row of fingers clear aroundthem that he could put out or pull in when he wanted to. His hide was stretchylooking and beautifully striped, silver and black. All tight together the wayhe was now, it was mostly black with silver flashing when he moved and he hadfunny looking knobs hanging along his ribs, but all in all he wasn't anythingto put fear into anyone.

  Padre Manuel wished he could talk with the creature, to make him welcome tothis world, but words seemed to make only echoes. He fingered his breviary,then on impulse, handed it to the creature. The creature turned it over in hissilvery tipped hands. It flared open at one of the well-worn pages and thecreature ran a finger over the print. Then he flipped the book shut. He ranhis finger over the cross on the cover and then he reached over and lifted theheavy crucifix that swung from Padre Manuel's waist. He traced its shape withhis fingertip and then the cross on the book. He smiled at Padre Manuel andgave the book back to him.

  Padre Manuel was as pleased as if he'd spoken to him. The creature was a

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  noticing thing anyway. He ran his own hand over the book, feeling with a warmglow (which he hoped was not too much of pride) that he had the only breviaryin the whole world that had been handled by someone from another world.

  The space creature had reached inside the ship and now he handed PadreManuel a stack of metallic disks, fastened together near the top. Each diskwas covered with raised marks that tried to speak to Padre Manuel's fingertipslike writing for the blind. And some of the disks had raised pictures ofstrange wheels and machinery-looking things.

  Padre Manuel found one that looked like the ship. He touched the ship andthen the disk. He smiled at the creature and pushed the plates back togetherand returned them to the creature. He was a noticing thing too.