"Papa, what--"
Mr. Nielson giggled no louder than the other people in the tent.
"Ha ha! Look, boy, look at the woman!"
Lars saw the object that Father had called a woman. The product of mutant glands, a huge sitting thing with mountains of flesh. Flowering from the neck down the arms and looping over the elbows, dividing like a baby's skin at the hands; the thighs, cascading flesh and fat over the legs down to the feet. And over all this, a metallic costume with purple sequins attached and short black hair, cut like a boy's.
"Have you ever seen anything so big, Lars!"
Lars looked from his wheelchair into the eyes of the fat lady and then quickly away from them.
Over the ground. Stopping.
The sign reading The Frog Man, and four people staring.
"Look! Ohhh!"
Shriveled limbs with life sticking to them. Shriveled, dried-up, twisted legs, bent grotesquely. And the young man with the pimples on his face crouching on these legs, leering. Every few moments, the legs moving and the small body hopping upwards.
Lars tried to shake his head. The Feeling started from where it had left off, but it traveled elsewhere now. It traveled from his mind to his eyes and from his eyes outward.
"Come, it will be late. We must see everything. Oh, look, have you ever seen such a crazy thing!"
Lars leaned his head forward painfully and looked.
The face of a very old man, but smooth along the creases and over the wrinkles. Wrinkled hands, thin hair. An old man standing three feet from the ground. But not merely small. Everything dwarfed. The false beard and the gnome's cap and the stretched-gauze wings.
The Feeling went into the eyes of the midget.
"There, over there! There was no such last time!"
Over the ground slowly, past the man with the pictures on his skin, the black creeping thing, the boy with the breasts, slowly past these, slowly so the Feeling could be fed and gathered.
And now, the Feeling reaching across the tent to the other side, reaching into the woman with seventeen toes, the boy with the ugly face, the alligator girl, the human chicken, reaching and bringing back, nursing, feeding, identifying. Identifying.
Then ceasing.
"Lars, look. Never was there such a thing."
Mr. Nielson's voice was low and full of deep wonder as he craned his head over the people's shoulders.
Lars tried one last time to see the blue of the linoleum, the grey of his room, all the quiet things his mind had made so carefully. But his eyes moved.
It was large, made of wicker, padded and made to look like an egg basket on the outside. There was in front of it a square card with writing, which gave dates and facts, but the card was dirty and difficult to read. The thing in the basket lay still.
A knitted garment covered the midsection and lower part. Above, the pale flesh stretched over irregular bumps and lines, past the smooth armsockets on up to the finely combed black hair, newly barbered.
The face was handsome and young, clean-shaven and delicate.
When it lifted Mr. Nielson and the other staring people gasped.
In the mouth was a pencil and with this pencil, the thing in the basket began to write upon a special pad of paper. The lead was soft so that those nearby could make out the words, which were "My name is Jack Rennie. I am very happy".
Lars saw his father's hands about his side, lifting and pushing.
"Look, see what it does!"
Lars' body trembled, suspended above the basket, held in air. Everything trembled and shook, as teeth held a moving pencil and the pencil made words. The limbless man thought, it--he--thought . . .
The automobile came straight at Lars, and he saw it now. Saw it speeding over the trestle for him, bellowing its warning. The brakes screeched in his head and he saw the car swerve and careen in the wet road. And then floating down the trestle, below it, onto sharp hard things.
Lars looked from his wheelchair at the armless, legless man in the cheap basket and in one explosion, the thoughts sprang from the Feeling and scattered through his brain, moving, dancing, swinging arms, jumping on legs, moving, moving with all the ecstasy of a dead child brought suddenly to life.
"It shaves, sees, talks, it writes!"
Lars rode his bicycle in the sunlight down through the fields near the river and never stopped, for he was never tired. He rode past laughing people and waved his arms at children blurring in the distance. He pushed his young legs on the pedals and flew past all the things of the country and then of the world, all the things best seen from the eyes of a young boy on a bicycle.
The thing in the wicker basket ceased to exist. The grinning gasping people ceased to exist and Father was someone sitting in a chair, smoking his pipe.
Lars had reached the crest of Strawberry Hill and he lifted his feet, drifting and floating downward, letting the wind and rain and sunlight whirl past.
Mr. Nielson gently pulled Lars back in the wheelchair and rolled silently from the darkened tent into the afternoon.
The people were sparse. They straggled by hoarse vendors and still rides, yawning and shuffling.
Mr. Nielson forgot about the tent and began to talk.
"Well, we go home now. All day at the carnival, what, my son? Ah, Lars, I tell you, Mama should not have stayed home. Now you feel good, you will be a fine man and think, eh Lars?"
Mr. Nielson picked leaves from overhanging branches as he walked, feeling good and pleased.
When he got into the car, he looked at his son's eyes.
"Lars, there is nothing wrong? You don't look like you feel so good."
Lars was going too fast to hear Father, the wind was shrieking too wildly. The green hills turning golden, the leaves from orange to white, and all the boys and girls riding behind him, chasing, trying to catch him.
He turned, laughing. "Who's the sissy now, who's the sissy now!"
Mr. Nielson scowled.
"You'll never catch me, you'll never catch me!"
"What, what is that you say?"
Lars sang into the wind as the children's voices grew faint. He waved his arms and pedaled with his legs and saw the beautiful hill stretching beneath him.
"You just watch, you just watch!"
The beautiful hill sloping gracefully downward and without an end.
"Miss Gentilbelle", copyright 1955 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in The Hunger and Other Stories.
"The Vanishing American", copyright 1955 by Fantasy House, Inc. Originally appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction.
"Place of Meeting", copyright 1953 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Orbit Magazine.
"The Devil, You Say?", copyright 1963 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Amazing Stories.
"Free Dirt", copyright 1955 by Fantasy House, Inc. Originally appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction.
"Last Rites", copyright 1955 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in If Magazine.
"The Howling Man", copyright 1960 by Charles Beaumont, Originally appeared in Rogue Magazine.
"The Dark Music", copyright 1956 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Playboy.
"The Magic Man", copyright 1960 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Night Ride and Other Journeys.
"Fair Lady", copyright 1957 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in The Hunger and Other Stories.
"Song For a Lady", copyright 1960 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Night Ride and Other Journeys.
"A Point of Honor", copyright 1955 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Manhunt as "I'll Do Anything."
"The Hunger", copyright 1955 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Playboy.
"Black Country", copyright 1954 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Playboy.
"Gentlemen, Be Seated", copyright 1960 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Rogue Magazine.
"The Jungle", copyright 1954 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in If Magazine.
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"The New People", copyright 1958 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Rogue Magazine.
"Perchance to Dream", copyright 1958 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Playboy.
"The Crooked Man", copyright 1955 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Playboy.
"Blood Brother", copyright 1961 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Playboy.
"A Death in the Country", copyright 1957 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Playboy as "The Deadly Will to Win."
"The Music of the Yellow Brass", copyright 1958 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Playboy.
"Night Ride", copyright 1957 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Playboy.
"Mourning Song", copyright 1963 by Charles Beaumont. Originally appeared in Gamma Magazine.
"The Intruder", copyright 1959 by Charles Beaumont. (Novel excerpt of chapter 10), published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.
"To Hell with Claude", copyright 1987 by Chad Oliver (never published previously).
"Appointment with Eddie", copyright 1987 by Charles Beaumont (never published previously).
"The Crime of Willie Washington", copyright 1987 by Charles Beaumont (never published previously).
"The Man with the Crooked Nose", copyright 1987 by Charles Beaumont (never published previously).
"The Carnival", copyright 1987 by Charles Beaumont (never published previously).
Preface Copyright 1988 by Christopher Beaumont
Introduction to "Miss Gentilbelle" Copyright 1988 by Ray Bradbury
Introduction to "The Vanishing American" Copyright 1988 by John Tomerlin
Introduction to "The Devil, You Say?" Copyright 1988 by Howard Browne
Introduction to "Free Dirt" Copyright 1988 by Dennis Etchison
Introduction to "Last Rites" Copyright 1988 by Richard Matheson
Introduction to "The Howling Man" Copyright 1988 by Harlan Ellison
Introduction to 'The Magic Man" Copyright 1988 by Charles E. Fritch
Introduction to "Fair Lady" Copyright 1988 by George Clayton Johnson
Introduction to "The Hunger" Copyright 1988 by Richard Christian Matheson
Introduction to "Black Country" Copyright 1988 by Ray Russell
Introduction to "Gentlemen, Be Seated" Copyright 1988 by Frank M. Robinson
Introduction to "The New People" Copyright 1988 by Saul David
Introduction to "The Crooked Man" Copyright 1988 by Robert Bloch
Introduction to "A Death in the Country" Copyright 1988 by William F. Nolan
Introduction to The Intruder (Chapter 10)" Copyright 1988 by Roger Corman
Introduction to "Mourning Song" Copyright 1988 by Jerry Sohl
Introduction to "To Hell With Claude" Copyright 1988 by Chad Oliver
The Howling Man Page 52
