by Robert Bloch
His hand emerged grasping a vial of colorless fluid, stoppered by a cork.
"The needles are on a tray," he said. "I'll take one and we'll sneak back downstairs."
"Good," Clyde muttered. "Quickly, now!"
Roger moved quickly --then halted.
A sound rumbled from below.
A sound crashed through the corridor, to shatter the tiny eardrums of the imprisoned humans with the knell of death.
"He's coming !" gasped the boy.
"Hide us!" Clyde commanded.
"But where?"
"Set us down on the table."
Roger lifted them free. They landed on one of the big laboratory tables.
"Where shall we go?" Gwen panted.
Clyde gazed around, quickly calculating. He grasped her arm.
"Over here," he beckoned. "Climb inside that skull."
To their left the grisly object loomed --a yellowed skull, big as a house contrasted to their present size.
The great hollow eye-sockets stared their eternal eyeless stare. The grinning, fanged jaws leered their eternal mirthless leer.
"Through the jaw," Clyde panted. "Hurry!"
Crawling inside a human skull--the journey was a nightmare. But it meant escape from a more hideous reality outside.
For Simon Mallot entered the room. The giant wore black, and black was his frown, black the glitter in his piercing eyes as he recognized Roger's presence in the room.
"What are you doing up here?" he demanded, scowling at the boy.
"Just playing," Roger answered slowly, mastering with an effort the urge to tremble.
Clyde and Gwen, peering through the eye-sockets of the skull trembled freely.
"Playing, eh?" The tall man stared down at the little boy with a kindly smile.
"I thought you didn't like it here in the laboratory," he observed.
"I--I guess I've changed my mind."
"That is gratifying news." The wizard shook his gray-maned head. His unlined face was bland. "But tell me, Roger --how did you leave your little playmates downstairs?"
"Why, all right, I guess. I hung them back on the tree."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"That's odd." Simon Mallot grinned. "You see, I've just been inspecting the Christmas tree. And they seem to have disappeared."
"Really?" The boy's self-possession was remarkable. He'd learned a lot from his monstrous teacher --but not enough.
For Simon Mallott's grin broadened unpleasantly.
"You don’t seem to be very upset about their absence," he purred. "Perhaps you don't like them anymore. Perhaps you're tired of them."
"No --no, I think they're wonderful gifts. I want to keep them always."
"And yet when I tell you they've disappeared, you show no surprise. Can it be, Roger, that you are not surprised? Can it be that you know where they are? Can it be that they are here --right now --in this room?"
Simon Mallot towered above the child, his great hands clenched. "Of course not," gasped the boy. "No—“ his hands fumbled nervously at his jacket. A bulge in the pocket caught the wizard's eye.
One great paw darted forward convulsively. There was a ripping sound as the huge fingers tore away part of the jacket, pocket and all.
Simon Mallot held up the vial of reduction-antidote.
"This is not a plaything," he murmured. "Why did you take it? "
Roger was silent.
The giant nodded. "Shall I tell you why?" he whispered. "I think I know. You have been talking to your toys. They have given you bad advice. They have corrupted you, Roger --corrupted you with stupid, human chatter. Isn't that true?"
The child did not answer.
"They asked you to steal this and restore them to normal size, didn't they?"
Still Roger kept silence.
"I'm disappointed in you," observed Simon Mallot. "Haven't I trained you? Haven't I taught you to be calm, unemotional, scientifically detached? They're stupid little pawns, filled with petty human desires, Roger. Not worth noticing. Fit only to be toys. That's what people are, Roger. Toys. Puppets.”
"I've given you tiny ones to play with now. But as you grow older, I'll show you how to play with humans without the necessity of reducing their size. I can turn the whole earth into a play- thing for you, Roger.
"You have failed me, and I must teach you once again. But I'm willing to start over anew. I will put this vial away, you will tell me where your toys are hidden, and we'll just forget this little incident. Is it a bargain?"
The giant beamed benevolently.
And for the first time, the boy spoke.
"No!" said Roger. "No--I won't tell you! You'll kill them, that's what you'll do. I won't listen to you --you're a monster, an ogre--"
Simon Mallot laughed, but his eyes blazed.
"I see," he muttered. "Yes, I see. They have corrupted you, indeed. Already their stupid viewpoints have changed your childish outlook. Now I'm an ogre, am I? You're talking like a character in a fairy tale.”
"Very well, Roger. You're not going to be of any use to me in the future. I can see that. My work has been wasted. And so --if your fairy tale imagery is to be carried out, I'm willing.
"From now on, I'm what you called me. An ogre. And you're just a little boy. A little boy in an ogre's castle. Remember your fairy tales, Roger. Do you know what ogres do to little boys?"
The last words ended suddenly as the massive arms encircled the child's body. Roger screamed once, then subsided as Simon Mallot bore him to the table and began to strap him down efficiently with strips of gauze.
"I'm going to let you join your new friends," he whispered, bending close to the child's face. "You can go back into the miniature universe where petty humans belong, since you're not fit to be a titan, either physically or mentally. Maybe you'll learn something. At least," he chuckled, "at least, I can keep you under my thumb this way."
The giant turned from the bound boy."Where's the needle?" he grumbled. "It should be next to the formula powder here, in the tray."
Clyde could have answered that question easily.
For midway in the conversation between the tall man and the child, Clyde slipped carefully through the left eye- socket of his hiding place and tiptoed cautiously along the table. He moved from beaker to retort unobserved, until at least he reached the spot where the jar of yellowish powder lay --the jar Roger had pointed out as containing the reduction formula.
"Only a few grains of the powder on the end of a needle," Clyde remembered.
And there, in the glass tray, was a needle.
As the wizard bound the boy, Clyde tugged the needle free. In his arms it was a heavy four-foot spear. But he raised it, drove the point into the yellowish powder until a few granules clung to the end.
Then he was ready. He staggered under the burden of the heavy needle as he made his way from behind one object to another. Gwen watched his progress with fascinated horror, but Simon Mallot did not see him.
Closer and closer he came --stealing along to the edge of the table.
Now Mallot turned and groped in the tray for his tiny needle.
"Where is the cursed thing?" he growled.
Clyde, poised behind a retort on the edge of the table, stared up, up to the incalculable height where the wizard's pale white face loomed and leered.
The great globed eyes burned down. The red lips writhed. And a groping finger swept along the table.
Clyde braced himself, held the needle pointed out, and then he ran. His running plunge carried him toward the wizard's white, spatulate finger.
Clyde charged with his spear --and then Simon Mallot saw, stared down at the incredibly tiny figure racing towards his hand with outthrust needle.
"So!" he roared.
His hand swept forward, a wall of flesh to sweep Clyde's puny body into oblivion.
But Clyde didn't falter. He held the needle up, felt it strike home as the hand came down. Then the white and bony horror of the h
and closed over him, to smother and crush, and Clyde's world fell away. . . .
CHAPTER VIII
Reductio Ad Absurdum
"Clyde! Wake up, darling!"
Gwen's voice came somewhere through the mists. Clyde tried to locate it. He succeeded, with an effort, and blinked his way to consciousness. Clyde looked up at Gwen, who pillowed his head in her lap as she bent over him on the table's edge.
"Are you all right?" the girl murmured.
"Guess so." Clyde sat up and rubbed his aching shoulder. Abruptly he stiffened, pushed her away.
"Mallot!" he snapped. "Where is he?"
"Down there."
Gwen's tiny finger indicated the floor far below.
"You jabbed him with the needle," she said. "He tried to knock you off the table, but the drug took hold. He begin to shrink immediately."
Clyde peered over the table edge. On the floor, far below, lay a tangled heap of clothing. Mallot's garments. Lying across the bottom of Mallot's robe lay a tiny white figure, scarcely three inches long. It represented all that remained of the giant's seven-foot bulk.
"He's still unconscious," Gwen said.
"Good. Now, our first job is to get Roger free."
Clyde rose and began walking across the table. Gwen followed. Roger lay strapped to another table a few feet away --but a shelf stretched in a natural bridge between.
"Roger, are you all right?" called the redheaded man.
"Yes --but get me loose,”' said the boy, through trembling lips. "Quick, before he wakes up."
"He can't harm you," Gwen reminded the child. "After all, he's only three inches tall. Just a little bigger than we are."
The crossed along the shelf and soon descended to the table beside Roger's bound body. Clyde had lugged a needle with him.
"You--you aren't going to inject anything into me?" the boy asked.
"Certainly not; But this may help to pry away the knots. He's got the gauze around you pretty tightly."
Indeed, Roger's body was swathed in cloth ropes, and the knots would tax the ingenuity of any number of two-inch high Boy Scouts.
Nevertheless, Clyde and Gwen set to work, tugging away at the recalcitrant cloth, shredding bit by bit with the needle. It was a laborious task. They had scarcely managed to sever a single strand in a full fifteen minutes of effort.
"Maybe we'd better get the growth formula first," Clyde sighed. "He left the bottle of autitoxin on the table over there, I think. If we could use that and regain our normal size once more, the rest would be easy."
It was a good idea --but Clyde wasn't the only one who thought so. For at that moment, Gwen tugged frantically at his arm.
"Look!" she gasped. "He's come to!"
Simon Mallot had indeed recovered consciousness. Clyde turned to stare at the tiny figure --a little white- skinned mouse, cautiously clambering up the rungs of a chair. Mallot was climbing to the table top where the antidote rested. Even as they stared, he gained the seat of the chair, ran swiftly across it, and started to crawl up the wicker back, hand over hand. In just a minute or so he would reach the vial of the precious fluid, and then
"No you don't!" Clyde shouted.
Turning, he headed back across the shelf-bridge to the other table. He bore the heavy needle as a weapon. Gwen followed more cautiously.
Clyde clattered down the shelf, overturning a jar that stood in the path of his flying feet.
He reached the table-top --and so did the wizard.
Simon Mallot's shrunken visage had lost none of its malignancy. The powerful body of the sorcerer still towered --comparatively --over Clyde's frame.
With swift strides, the miniature giant made for the vital vial.
Leveling his needle as a spear, Clyde bore down upon him.
Mallot looked up and scowled his dismay. He backed away from the small bottle!
Clyde pursued him. If he could pin that tiny monster to the table, destroy the evil that animated him.
Mallot scurried away. Clyde gained on him, poised for the throat.
And then Mallot spun to his left, caromed against a small glass beaker.
The beaker swayed, tipped, and suddenly fell forward. Directly in Clyde's path a stream of bubbling acid poured forth, smoking and hissing as it churned towards his ankles.
Clyde swerved to one side as the deadly stream sizzled its way across the table-top.
Mallot had stopped ahead of him--stopped and stooped. He had picked up a needle of his own from a tray, and now he brandished it above his head.
A needle in Clyde's hands was a spear. Mallot, a larger figure, could use it as a sword.
And use it he did. With a roar he charged down upon the young man.
It was Clyde's turn to back away --back and parry the deadly thrusts of the glittering blade. The giant was a fencer, and he flourished the needle with fatal precision.
Clyde retreated, bringing his needle up and down to take the blows of Mallot's weapon. But Mallot stabbed and struck. The needle whistled past Clyde's left ear, then whizzed under his armpit.
And as he went back, Clyde's feet struck a solid base. Something hot and hissing roared behind him. Parrying desperately, he turned.
Mallot was forcing him --forcing him back against the glowing blue flame of a Bunsen burner!
The wizard laughed and his sword- blade swirled down. Clyde ducked. He tried to dodge around the flame, but Mallot pressed his advantage. The needle flicked out, inexorable, relentless.
Suddenly Mallot raised his weapon and brought it down. Clyde felt the impact of the blow shiver against his own needle. And then it fell from his grasp, and rolled to one side.
He was weaponless !
Mallot bounded in for the kill. Clyde crouched against the base of the Bunsen burner, felt the searing flame just above his neck. He dodged, ran around to the further edge of the table. A portable sink unit was beyond. He hurtled across a chasm fully five inches in extent and landed on the sink.
But the wizard was at his heels. He jumped, brandishing his needle.
Clyde turned, ran along the moist sink, and then slipped.
Too late, he realized his error when he saw what looomed before him in the sink. Too late to move, he heard the roar of mighty waters. A waterfall cascaded across his path.
Mallot thundered behind him. His blade swept out in an arc of shining death.
Clyde jumped, jumped straight at the waterfall.
And went down under the thundering avalanche, down to the bottom of the sink, gasping and drowning --drowning in the flow from a turned-on water faucet!
Mallot's laugh rose in his ears, and then Clyde went under. The white wall of water enveloped him. He gulped, choked, felt his lungs burn and fill. He rose, fighting for breath. The water churned around him. His hands gasped at a non-existent hold.
Clyde went down again. The water at the bottom of the sink swirled fiercely, carrying him in its circling eddy until he felt himself battered and scraped against the bottom of the porcelain.
He rose to his knees, groping his way from under the direct impact of the faucet flow above. For a moment he stood there, then fell again.
Once more he gained his feet, and this time he managed to blunder blindly to one side.
He stood in water up to his waist, but he was clear of the main stream. He looked up, expecting to see Mallot waiting with poised blade.
The wizard was gone!
Clyde wasted no time. His arms went up, clawing for a hold against the top of the shallow sink. He found it, lifted himself, hung for a straining instant, and pulled himself over the rounded rim.
He lay panting on top of the sink for a moment, utterly exhausted.
When he looked up once more, he was revivified with a thrill of horror.
Simon Mallot stood on the adjacent table top. Gwen crouched at his feet. The wizard's sword's sword was menacing, forcing her back --back into the gaping mouth of an empty test-tube that lay on its side!
Even as Clyde watched, the g
irl was lowering her body and wriggling back- wards into the tube. Mallot was forcing her with the sword, grinning in hellish anticipation.
Gwen's body, oddly elongated through the glass walls of the test tube, now lay inside the round glass. Mallot turned, stooped.
Clyde realized what he was doing. He was going to roll the test-tube over the edge of the table!
Gwen, dropped to the floor below--the glass prison shattering about her
The tube rolled. And Clyde darted forward. Again he hurtled the chasm between sink and table. He paused only long enough to retrieve his needle weapon.
Then, with a shout, he bore down up-on the wizard from the rear.
Mallot looked up, wheeled. Abruptly he halted. The tube rocked on the table edge, rested there.
Mallot looked at his own needle, resting at his feet. There was no time to pick it up. Clyde was almost upon him. And now the pursuer became the pursued as Mallot ran back along the table towards the vial of antidote.
What did he intend to do--make a last stand beside the bottle? Clyde followed, puzzled by the action.
But Mallot halted only for an instant. He stooped and grasped something in his hand, then ran forward once more to the edge of the table and clambered down the back of the chair towards the floor below.
Clyde didn't hesitate. He meant to follow --but what about his needle? It was too heavy to carry. For an instant he pondered. Then he dropped it over the edge to the floor below.
Perhaps Mallot would reach it first --but he had to take that chance.
Clyde reached the chair, crawled down the back. Mallot was below him. Clyde almost slid part-way, in a desperate attempt to narrow the distance between himself and the wizard.
But Clyde was still on the lower rungs as Mallot reached the floor. And then, from his perch, Clyde saw what it was the tiny giant had stooped to pick up.
It was a thread --a simple length of white thread. Simon Mallot held it in his hand, and Clyde saw that the skein rose above his head. The other end was attached to something on top of the table.
What was it?
The answer came. Mallot tugged on the end of the white thread. And from above, with a hurtling crash, dropped--the bottle containing the growth reduction antidote!
