You're All Alone (illustrated)

by Fritz Leiber

  Jerry eBooks

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  July, 1950

  Volume 12, Number 7

  Custom eBook created by

  Jerry eBooks

  June, 2014

  You’re All Alone

  Fritz Leiber

  (custom book cover)

  Jerry eBooks

  Title Page

  Original Publication Information

  Note

  Teaser

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  According to “Author’s Afterword” in the October 1980 Pocket edition, Leiber began writing this, his third, novel in January 1943. He expected that it would be about 40,000 words long and that it would be sold to John W. Campbell Jr. for publication in Unknown. However, when he sent the first four chapters to Campbell, Campbell informed him that Unknown was to be discontinued shortly. Since there was no other viable market for novel length pulp fantasy at the time, Leiber stopped working on the novel.

  After WWII, William Sloan Associates began publishing novel length fantasy in book form and Leiber resumed work on the novel, hoping to sell it to them. However, by the time he expanded it to 75,000 words four years later, William Sloan Associates had discontinued publishing fantasy due to poor sales.

  Shortly thereafter, Leiber sent the finished novel to the editors of Fantastic Adventures, who agreed to buy it if Leiber could cut it to 40,000 words. Instead Leiber set the 75,000 word manuscript aside, went back to his original 1943 plan for a 40,000 word short novel and recreated it as a parallel text. It was published by Fantastic Adventures in July 1950 as You’re All Alone.

  The 75,000 word version was eventually purchased by Universal Publishers and Distributors in 1953 for publication as one half of a paperback double. Because of the way the contract was worded, the publisher could make any changes it wanted without Leiber’s consent. The result was that the text was slightly changed and the title was changed to The Sinful Ones. In addition, the publisher added “sexed up” chapter titles like “The Strip Tease” and “Bleached Prostitute” and “sexed up” a few love scenes in the book.

  In 1972, Ace reprinted the 40,000 word version and two other novelettes in a collection also titled You’re All Alone.

  Sometime in the late 1970s, Leiber repurchased the rights to the 75,000 word version and it was reprinted by Pocket in October 1980. Leiber left the 1953 titles, but restored the mangled text from memory since the original manuscript had been lost. He also rewrote the sex scenes to bring the language up to date. The Gregg Press edition, which came out in December 1980, reprinted the Pocket version.

  Do you think that you’re the master of your own destiny? If so, live on in your fool’s paradise—you’re safer that way . . .

  CHAPTER I

  JUST BEFORE Carr Mackay caught sight of the frightened girl, the world went dead on him. You’ve all had the experience. Suddenly the life drains out of everything. Familiar faces become pink patterns. Commonplace objects look weird. All sounds are loud and unnatural. Of course it lasts only a few moments, but it can be pretty disturbing.

  It was pretty disturbing to Carr. Outwardly nothing in the big employment office had changed. The other interviewers were mostly busy with their share of the job-hunters who trickled into the Loop, converged on General Employment, and then went their ways again. There was the usual rat-ta-tat-tat of typing, the click of slides from the curtained cubicle where someone was getting an eye-test, and in the background Chicago’s unceasing mutter, rising and falling with the passing el trains.

  But to Carr Mackay it was all meaningless., The job-hunters seemed like ants trailing into and out of a hole. Big Tom Elvested at the next desk nodded at him, but that didn’t break the spell. It was as if an invisible hand had been laid on his shoulder and a cold voice had said, “You think it all adds up to something, brother. It doesn’t.”

  It was then that the frightened girl came into the waiting room and sat down in one of the high-backed wooden benches. Carr watched her through the huge glass panel that made everything in the waiting room silent and slightly unreal. Just a slim girl in a cardigan. College type, with dark hair falling untidily to her shoulders. And nervous—in fact, frightened. Still, just another girl. Nothing tremendously striking about her.

  And yet . . . the life flooded back into Carr’s world as he watched her.

  Suddenly she sat very still, looking straight ahead. Another woman had come into the waiting room. A big blonde, handsome in a posterish way, with a stunningly perfect hair-do. Yet her tailored suit gave her a mannish look and there was something queer about her eyes. She stood looking around. She saw the frightened girl. She started toward her.

  The phone on Carr’s desk buzzed.

  As he picked it up, he noticed that the big blonde had stopped in front of the frightened girl and was looking down at her. The frightened girl seemed to be trying to ignore her.

  “That you, Carr?” came over the phone.

  He felt a rush of pleasure. “Hello, Marcia dear,” he said quickly.

  The voice over the phone sank to an exciting whisper. “Forgotten our date tonight?”

  “Of course not, dear,” Carr assured her.

  There was a faint laugh and then the phone voice purred, “That’s right, darling. If anybody starts forgetting dates, it will be me. I like to agonize my men.”

  Carr felt his heart go from happy to uneasy. As he tried to figure out how to take Marcia’s spur-scratch lightly, his gaze went back to the little drama beyond the glass wall. The big blonde had sat down beside the frightened girl and seemed to be stroking her hand. The frightened girl was still staring straight ahead—-desperately, Carr thought.

  “Did I hurt your feelings, Carr?” the phone voice inquired innocently.

  “Of course not, dear.”

  “Because there aren’t any other men—now—and I’m looking forward to tonight as something very special.”

  “I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said.

  “That’s right. Remember to look nice.”

  “I will.” Then he asked in a lower voice, “Look, do you really mean it about tonight being something very special.”

  But his question was cut off by a “ ’By now, darling,” and a click. Carr prepared to feel agonized as well as bored by the tail end of the afternoon—(If only Marcia weren’t so beautiful, or so tormenting!)—when a flurry of footsteps made him look up.

  The frightened girl was approaching his desk.

  The big blonde had followed her as far as the door in the glass wall and was watching her from it.

  THE FRIGHTENED girl sat down in the applicant’s chair, but she didn’t look him in the eye. She nervously gathered her wool jacket at the throat.

  He twitched her a smile. “I don’t believe I have your application folder yet, Miss . . .?”

  The frightened girl did not answer. To put her at ease, Carr rattled on, “Not that it matters. We can talk over things while we wait for the clerk to bring it.”

  Still she didn’t look at him.

  “I suppose you did fill out a folder and that
you were sent to me?”

  Then he saw that she was trembling and once again the life seemed to drain out of everything—except her. It was as if the whole office—Chicago—the world—had become mere background for a chalk-faced girl in a sloppy cardigan, arms huddled tight around her, hands gripping her thin elbows, staring at him horrorstruck.

  For some incredible reason, she seemed to be frightened of him.

  She shrank down in the chair, her white-circled eyes fixed on his. As they followed her movements, another shudder went through her. The tip of her tongue licked her upper lip. Then she said in a small, terrified voice, “All right, you’ve got me. But don’t draw it out. Don’t play with me. Get it over with.”

  Carr checked the impulse to grimace incredulously. He chuckled and said, “I know how you feel. Coming into a big employment office does seem an awful plunge. But we won’t chain you to a rivet gun,” he went on, with a wild attempt at humor, “or sell you to the white slavers. It’s still a free country. You can do as you please.” She did not react. He looked away uneasily. The big blonde was still watching from the doorway, her manner implying that she owned the place. Her eyes looked whiter than they should be and they didn’t seem quite to focus.

  He looked back at the frightened girl. Her hands still gripped her elbows, but she was leaning forward now and studying his face, as if everything in the world depended on what she saw there.

  “You’re not one of them?” she asked.

  He frowned puzzledly. “Them? Who?”

  “You’re not?” she repeated, still watching his eyes.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Don’t you know what you are?” she asked with sudden fierceness. “Don’t you know whether you’re one of them or not?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he assured her, “and I haven’t the faintest idea of whom you mean by ‘them.’”

  Slowly her hands loosened their hold on her elbows and trailed into her lap. “No,” she said, “I guess you’re not. You haven’t their filthy look.”

  “You’d better explain things from the beginning,” Carr told her.

  “Please, not now,” she begged. “Who’s that woman following you?” he pressed. “Is she one of ‘them?’” The terror returned to her face. “I can’t tell you that. Please don’t ask me. And please don’t look at her. It’s terribly important that she doesn’t think I’ve seen her.”

  “But how could she possibly think otherwise after the way she planked herself down beside you?”

  “Please, oh please.” She was almost whimpering. “I can’t tell you why. It’s just terribly important that we act naturally, that we seem to be doing whatever we’re supposed to be doing. Can we?”

  Carr studied her. She was obviously close to hysteria. “Sure,” he said. He leaned back in his chair, smiled at her, and raised his voice a trifle. “Just what sort of a job do you feel would make the best use of your abilities, Miss . . .?”

  “Job? Oh yes, that’s why I’d have come here, isn’t it?”

  For a moment she stared at him helplessly. Then, the words tumbling over each other, she began to talk. “Let’s see, I can play the piano. Not very well. Mostly classical. I’ve studied it a lot, though. I once wanted to be a concert pianist. And I’ve done some amateur acting. And I used to play a mediocre game of tennis—” Her grotesquely animated expression froze. “But that isn’t the sort of thing you want to know, is it?”

  CARR shrugged. “Helps give me a picture. Did some amateur acting myself once, in college.” He kept his voice casual. “Have you had any regular jobs?”

  “Once I worked for a little while is an architect’s office.”

  “Did you learn to read blueprints?” he asked.

  “Blueprints?” The girl shivered. “Not much, I’m afraid. I hate patterns. Patterns are traps. If you live according to a pattern, other people know how to get control of you.” She leaned forward confidingly, her fingers touching the edge of the desk. “Oh, and I’m a good judge of people. I have to be. I suppose you have to be too.” She looked at him strangely. “Don’t you really know what you are?” she asked softly. “Haven’t you found out yet? Why, you must be almost forty. Surely in that time . . . Oh, you must know.”

  “I still haven’t the ghost of an idea what you’re talking about,” Carr said. “What am I?”

  The girl hesitated.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She shook her head. “If you honestly don’t know, I don’t think I should tell you. As long as you don’t know, you’re relatively safe.”

  “From what? Please stop being mysterious,” Carr said. “Just what is it about me that’s so important?”

  “But if I don’t tell you,” she went on, disregarding his question, “then I’m letting you run a blind risk. Not a big one, but very horrible. And with them so close and perhaps suspecting . . . Oh, it’s hard to decide.”

  A clerk dropped an application folder in the wire basket on Carr’s desk. He looked at it. It wasn’t for a girl at all. It started, “Jimmie Kozacs. Male. Age 43.”

  He realized that the frightened girl was studying his face again.

  “Maybe you weren’t what I think you are, until today,” she was saying, more to herself than him. “Maybe my bursting in here was what did it. Maybe I was the one who awakened you.” She clenched her hands, torturing the palms with the long, untapering fingers. “To think that I would ever do that to anyone! To think that I would ever cause anyone the agony that he caused me!”

  The bleak misery in her voice caught at Carr. “What is the matter?” He pleaded. “Now we’ve got a ‘he’ as well as a ‘they.’ And what is this business about ‘awakening?’ Please tell me everything.”

  The girl looked shocked. “Now?” Her glance half-circled the room, strayed toward the glass wall. “No, not here. I can’t.” Her right hand suddenly dived into the pocket of her cardigan and came out with a stubby, chewed pencil. She ripped a sheet from Carr’s scratch pad and began to scribble hurriedly.

  Carr started to lean forward, but just then a big area of serge suit swam into view. Big Tom Elvested had ambled over from the next desk. The girl gave him an odd look, then went on scribbling. Tom ignored her.

  “Say, Carr,” he boomed amiably, “remember the girl Midge and I wanted you to go on a double date with? I’ve told you about her—Jane Gregg. Well, she’s going to be dropping in here a little later and I want you to meet her. Midge had an idea the four of us might be able to go out together tonight.”

  “Sorry, I’ve got a date,” Carr told him sharply. It annoyed Carr that Tom should discuss private matters so loudly in front of an applicant.

  “Okay, okay,” Tom retorted a bit huffily. “I’m not asking you to do social service work. This girl’s darn good-looking.”

  “That’s swell,” Carr told him.

  TOM LOOKED at him skeptically.

  “Anyway,” he warned, “I’ll be bringing her over when she comes in.” And he faded back toward his desk. As he did so, the frightened girl shot him an even odder look, but her pencil kept on scribbling. The scratch of it seemed to Carr the only real sound in the whole office. He glanced guardedly down the aisle. The big blonde with the queer eyes was still at the door, but she had moved ungraciously aside to make way for a dumpy man in blue jeans, who was looking around uncertainly.

  The dumpy man veered toward one of the typists. Her head bobbed up and she said something to him. He gave her an “I gotcha, pal” nod and headed for Carr’s desk.

  The frightened girl noticed him coming, shoved aside paper and pencil in a flurry of haste, and stood up.

  “Sit down,” Carr said. “That fellow can wait. Incidently, do you know Tom Elvested?”

  She disregarded the question and quickly moved into the aisle.

  Carr followed her. “I really want to talk with you,” he said.

  “No,” she breathed, edging away from him.

  “But we haven’t
got anywhere yet,” he objected.

  Suddenly she smiled like a toothpaste ad. “Thank you for being so helpful,” she said in a loud voice. “I’ll think over what you’ve told me, though I don’t think the job is one which would appeal to me.” She poked out her hand. Automatically Carr took it. It was icy.

  “Don’t follow me,” she whispered. “And if you care the least bit for me or my safety, don’t do anything, whatever happens.”

  “But I don’t even know your name . . .” His voice trailed off. She was striding rapidly down the aisle. The big blonde was standing squarely in her path. The girl did not swerve an inch. Then, just as they were about to collide, the big blonde lifted her hand and gave the girl a stinging slap across the cheek.

  Carr started, winced, took a forward step, froze.

  The big blonde stepped aside, smiling sardonically.

  The girl rocked, wavered for a step or two, then walked on without turning her head.

  No one said anything, no one did anything, no one even looked up, at least not obviously, though everyone in the office must have heard the slap if they hadn’t seen it. But with the universal middle-class reluctance, Carr thought, to recognize that nasty things happened in the world, they pretended not to notice.

  The big blonde flicked into place a shellacked curl, glancing around her as if at so much dirt. Leisurely she turned and stalked out.

  CHAPTER II

  The most terrible secret in the world? Here’s a hint. Think about the people closest to you. What do you know about what’s really going on inside their heads? Nothing, brother, nothing at all . . .

  CARR walked back to his desk.

  His face felt hot, his mind turbulent, the office sinister. The dumpy man in blue jeans had already taken the girl’s place, but Carr ignored him. He didn’t sit down. The scrap of paper on which the girl had scribbled caught his eye. He picked it up.

  Watch out for the wall-eyed blonde, the young man without a hand, and the affable-seeming older man. But the small dark man with glasses may be your friend.