"It's a Small World"

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:14 am

With all of the reading that I do, I've found a couple of professional stories involving SW and GTS themes. Enjoy please and thank you!

"IT'S A SMALL WORLD"
Written: March 1944
A novella in 9 parts
Rates PG-13 or so (pulp adventure; SM; SW; Shrinkees in peril; mad sorcerer; killer kitty; naughty kid; Christmas toy-fu)
Word Length: about 17,140

For the detailed background on the writer Robert Bloch, see the short story called "Picture", threaded six weeks ago:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2337&p=14003&hilit=bloch#p14003

It's Christmas time, so it's time for SW Christmas fiction! One of Robert Bloch's most famous non-SW stories involved Christmas, and the final line gave a whole new meaning to the protagonist's wife "decorating the Christmas tree."

This novella is not so bloody -- it's essentially Tiny Christmas with more pulp adventure/violence/peril and without the Disney park earworm song (see, you're thinking the lyrics now. Sorry...).

It's a Small World was written by Robert Bloch when he was 27 years old. It was printed in the March 1944 issue of Amazing Stories. Cover and inner illustrations by J. Allen St. John.

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Mon Dec 14, 2020 2:33 am

For two tiny, bewildered people, it was a struggle for survival in a world of toys.

CHAPTER I

It was Christmas Eve. Family men in their cozy bungalows hummed cheerfully as they put the finishing touches on Christmas trees. Men of affairs slapped each other affably on the back and toasted the season in the lounges of exclusive clubs. Merrymakers crowded the public streets and filled the taverns to overflowing. Children caroled gayly in church services. Mothers smiled their secret smiles as they wrapped presents.

And Clyde Hilton worked like a lousy dog in Propper’s toyshop.

The funny part of it was, Clyde didn’t care. He was as happy as the rest. Twelve hours on his feet today -- facing mobs of customers gone frantic with the necessity of making last-minute purchases -- that was Clyde’s lot, but he was still smiling.

From time to time the redheaded young man grinned and patted the left-hand pocket of his suit coat. Deep down inside reposed a little plush-covered box. The box contained an engagement ring.

Clyde fingered it and grinned -– grinned at the girl behind the counter across the aisle.

Gwen Thomas was worth grinning at. A pert, trim, dark-haired girl with milk-white skin and perfectly modeled features -- she had the delicacy of a china doll. “Exquisite” is a somewhat precious word, and yet it exactly described Gwen’s miniature-like beauty.

Clyde waited for the moment that he would slip the ring on her dainty finger. This would be a Christmas they’d both remember. To top it off, Old Man Propper had promised Clyde a raise. He’d winked indulgently at this romance between his two clerks, and the holiday spirit had him in its grip. They’d have a little party after closing time, and then Clyde would give Gwen the ring and Old Man Propper would say, “Bless you, my children.” Just a slice out of Dickens.

Meanwhile, Clyde scribbled furiously in his order book, wrestled with the wrappings of a hundred packages, tangled himself in yards of twine and ribbon, punched the cash-register until his fingers were blistered, and kept up a running fire of sales chatter.

He had just sold a toy train to the fat lady and her husband when he saw the man.

It had been a job, selling this expensive model, but Clyde was something of an expert in the train field and he rejoiced in the opportunity of turning on high-pressure tactics. So he was quite elated, and finished his wrapping with deft fingers.

But he almost dropped the twine when the man came in.

The door opened. The toyshop was crowded, and ordinarily an entering customer couldn’t be detected in the throng -- but this man was plainly visible.

Clyde stared.

The man wore a black overcoat with a turned-up collar that reached his chin. He was hatless, and his wiry gray hair stood up in a bushy mop upon his skull.

The man had a great beaked nose, and a curiously red mouth. Despite gray hair, his face was absolutely unlined. Not a wrinkle disturbed the pristine pallor of his long face. It was a perfectly blank background for the blazing intensity of his eyes.

If his hair denoted age and his unlined face indicated youth, then his eyes were -- eternal.

They were black, but shining –- shining radiantly with a penetrating fire. Two fountains of strength. Clyde saw the eyes before he saw anything else, and the rest of his scrutiny was just incidental. He gaped, fascinated. For some reason a strange fancy occurred to him. During his lifetime, he mused, he must have seen a million pairs of eyes -- but never until now had he realized what power the eye could contain. Black, blazing fountains.

There was one other slight excuse for Clyde’s interest in the stranger.

The man was seven feet tall.

He was not a giant, in the ordinary sense of the word -- not one of those tall, thin glandular monstrosities. The man was adequately proportioned to his height. His shoulders spanned the doorway. The chest bulging under the overcoat was massive. Clyde saw the man reach up and adjust his collar -- and his hand was the size of a dinner plate.

Clyde watched the massive figure move through the milling crowd towards his counter. It was only as the gigantic bulk loomed directly before him that Clyde realized he was leading a small boy.

The child was an insignificant midge, contrasted to his huge companion. His tousled head scarcely reached the big man’s knees, although he was large for a boy of seven.

Abruptly, Clyde tore his attention away from the ponderous stranger and concentrated on the boy. That was sensible sales psychology -- experience had taught him that a clerk must study the child and try to anticipate his wants.

Clyde got another shock when he scrutinized the boy. Here, in miniature, was as strange a creature as the giant.

For one thing, the boy’s clothing was adult. Not a smart boy’s shop imitation of “grown-up” attire -– but adult. His little topcoat was an authentic replica of his immense companion’s garb. The boy’s hands were buried deep in the pockets, and he walked with truly adult nonchalance. His carriage and demeanor were adult.

But the boy’s face presented the strangest paradox.

Clyde couldn’t remember seeing a child whose face didn’t light up immediately upon entering the toyshop. Even the children of the rich would squeal and giggle, their eyes would roll, and they would gesture with frantic excitement.

This boy was different. His stare was cold, unemotional. His pale face was as unwrinkled as the curious face of the huge man beside him.

And -- his eyes were the same! Deep, black, disturbing eyes; the eyes of an adult in the face of youth.

Now giant and infant faced the counter before Clyde. He quickly mastered his curiosity and assumed his professional poise.

“Good evening,” said Clyde. “Can I help you?”

“I wonder,” said the tall man. His voice had a curious depth; it rolled sonorously down upon Clyde’s ears. Clyde stared up into the white face and the glittering eyes.

But the big man had turned to the child.

“What would you like, son?” he asked.

The child shrugged. It was a strangely sophisticated shrug, a shrug of boredom.

“There is nothing here that interests me,” he lisped in a childish treble.

Clyde did his best to hide his strange irritation at the child’s nonchalance. He smiled down.

“Isn’t there anything you’d like Santa Claus to bring you?” he asked.

“Santa Claus?” said the boy. He gazed at Clyde. And then he laughed.

The laugh did something to Clyde. Perhaps he was tired. Perhaps he was overwrought. Perhaps his imagination was playing tricks.

But the laugh was adult. Sardonic. More than sardonic. It was -- evil.

An evil, knowing chuckle from the lips of a child…

No. It couldn’t be. Clyde knew he was weary, confused. He fought down the feeling of frustration.

“How about an electric train?” he coaxed.

“I’ve got one, thank you.”

“A sled?”

“Hardly.”

“We have some wonderful new chemistry sets --”

“I think not.”

Curiously, the boy and the old man exchanged glances. The boy didn’t laugh but his eyes twinkled mockingly.

Clyde stood there with obvious bafflement written on his face. The giant stranger seemed to sense it.

“Perhaps we’d better not detain this young man, Roger,” he said. “We’ll look around for ourselves, sir. We might find something we fancy.”

“Very well.”

Clyde moved down the counter.

The crowd had thinned out in one of those temporary lulls that inexplicably occur in any shop. Clyde saw that Gwen was unoccupied at the moment. He stepped around the side of the other counter and joined her. Her tiny hand found his under the concealing counter and they stood together, smiling.

Then Gwen gestured at the curious pair on the other side of the shop. Her eyes clouded, and she repressed a hasty gasp.

“There he is again!”

“Who?”

“The giant -- the tall man.”

“You’ve seen him before?”

“Yes. He came in several days ago, when you were out on a delivery.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know. I watched Mr. Propper wait on him. He said he didn’t want anything -- he was just looking around. And then he stared at me.”

“Stared at you?”

“Yes. Did you notice his eyes? They’re awful, Clyde. Like the eyes of a statue. His eyelids don’t blink, did you notice?”

“Maybe he takes drugs,” Clyde grinned. But he didn’t feel any amusement. Gwen had noticed the eyes, too…

“Oh! There it is again -- that stare --"

It was true.

Turning, Clyde saw that the tall man was peering across the room. His gaze fastened upon the girl at Clyde’s side. Intense, penetrating, beating down like a palpable weight, his stare consumed the girl.

And the tiny eyes of the boy added to the barrage of scrutiny. The two of them were smiling -- giant and dwarf, smiling alike, as they stared. And now, unobtrusively, the giant bent his massive head and listened as the boy whispered something to him. His stubby finger gestured their way. The man smiled, shook his gray mane.

“Clyde, I don’t like that man,” whispered the girl.

“Never mind, darling. He’s just a screwball. I’ll get rid of him now.” Clyde patted Gwen’s shoulder and stepped briskly around the counter. He marched over and confronted his unusual customers.

“Did you find anything?” he asked. It was hard to keep his voice from quivering, strangely difficult to keep his face from betraying the repulsion he felt.

The tall man bent his great head and smiled benevolently at Clyde. That is, his face smiled. His eyes merely flamed.

“Not for Roger, here,” he said. “But there’s another little boy I’d like to select a gift for. I think I’ll take that tricycle over there.”

A finger the size of a wax taper stabbed suddenly in the direction of a tricycle.

“Yes,” piped Roger. “We’ll take that.” The child’s face was suddenly animated, purposeful.

“Good. That will be $10.95. Shall I wrap it up for delivery?”

“If you will please. I notice you have facilities for gift-wrapping in the back room. Would you mind?”

“Not at all.”

Clyde grasped the tricycle and lugged it back to the room behind the curtains. As he passed Gwen he flashed her a smile. Her responding glance held a nuance of peculiar entreaty.

Nerves. Clyde pondered on the question as he wrapped the gift. Long hours and grueling work took their toll. He’d reached the point where he was imagining things. Just because an unusually tall man had a bored brat of a son, he had let his fancy run riot.

Maybe the old boy did take drugs. Perhaps the kid was a prodigy, or at least precocious. What was so unusual in that? Much ado about nothing.

Well, in an hour the toyshop would close and he’d give the ring to Gwen, and they’d go somewhere and have a quiet holiday drink together -- forget all this nonsense about giant’s eyes.

There!

Deftly, Clyde completed the gift-wrapping, his red hair hanging over his forehead as he frowned in concentration. Brushing back the loose strands, he grasped the package and marched back into the shop.

The crowd was thicker now. But as his eyes moved over the confines of the toyshop, Clyde realized that the old man and his son were gone.

They had disappeared!

A curious tingling crept along his spine. Hastily, he glanced behind the counters on either side of the toyshop. Where was Gwen?

The tingling merged into a lurching shudder.

Gwen had vanished!

Mustering his confidence, Clyde strode down the counter. Old Propper’s bald head gleamed as he bent over a tray of toy soldiers.

“Pardon me, Mr. Propper,” Clyde murmured. “Have you seen Gwen?”

“Gwen? She was over there just a minute ago. Talking to the big man.”

“But he’s gone.”

“I know, Clyde. I saw him go out with the little boy.”

“Gwen didn’t leave with them, did she?”

Clyde felt foolish as he asked the question, but he couldn’t hold it back.

Propper stared at him. “Of course she didn’t,” he snapped. “She must be in the back room. Where else?”

Clyde didn’t answer. He knew Gwen wasn’t in the back room. Still, he stepped through the curtains once more.

The room he had just quieted was still empty. And over on the wall were the hangers. Hangers that held Gwen’s fur coat and perky little green hat.

She couldn’t have run out into the snow without putting them on.

Heart pounding, Clyde retraced his steps. He surveyed the toyshop quickly. He tried to recollect his movements.

He had gone in to wrap the tricycle. He had left the giant standing there, behind that counter near the corner. And Gwen had been across the aisle.

All very simple. And what did it matter? The giant wasn’t an ogre, or a demon. He couldn’t have whisked Gwen through the walls. Besides, Mr. Propper had seen the tall man and the little boy go out of the shop -- alone.

Still, Gwen was gone.

And the tall man and the child had whispered together and pointed at her…

Clyde knew he was behaving like a fool as he rounded the counter in the corner. Here was an alcove hidden from the rest of the shop. A little recess in the wall.

The giant had stood near here. If he beckoned Gwen over, they’d be standing unobserved.

Still, what good would that do? What did it mean --?

Then Clyde’s moving left foot encountered a soft, tangling encumbrance. He almost stumbled over the pile. Hastily he glanced down. Glanced down and saw the disheveled bundle on the floor.

Gwen’s clothes!

There was her black dress. Yes, and beneath it her stockings, still in her shoes! And beneath that, a brassiere, a slip.

Clyde knelt and fingered the garments.

They were still warm, still bore the imprint of Gwen’s body.

Gwen’s clothes, in a tangled heap on the toyshop floor.

And where was Gwen? Clyde’s groping fingers encountered a small, hard length lying against the counter. He grasped a hidden object, held it up.

A pencil stub. A pencil stub from Gwen’s order book.

He ran his right hand in swift exploration across the floor near the pile of garments.

In a moment he found Gwen’s order book, raised it.

The top sheet was covered with a sprawling scrawl -- not the neat lettering of Gwen’s precise handwriting on an order -- just an awkward scribble. But as Clyde read it, his senses spun. Merely a name, and an address. But somehow, Clyde know there was a connection. He deciphered the wobbly lettering:

“Simon Mallot. 4954 Archmore Court. Clyde --”

Just that, and nothing more. “Clyde,” was the last word. The end of the “e” had been abruptly drawn out in a jagged slash across the page. As though Gwen had been interrupted in her message.

As though Gwen had shrieked for help just as a hand closed over her mouth. A hand like a dinner plate. The hand of a giant!

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Tue Dec 15, 2020 2:39 am

CHAPTER II: The Giant's Castle

The streets of Manhattan were thronged with holiday revelers. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since Clyde had read the peculiar scrawl on Gwen's order book, and yet swift strides had already carried him far uptown, towards Archmore Court.

Old Man Propper had accepted his hastily-worded excuse and let him go with a curt nod of his bald head. Now, his overcoat wrapped tightly around him as a shield against the fine-spun snow, Clyde forced his way through the mob with flailing arms.

It was impossible to find a cab, and his impatience brooked no delay. His pace increased, his stride lengthened.

Curious thoughts churned through his head.

Christmas Eve!

Bells tolled their rejoicing in his ear, and yet Clyde heard only the resonance of a funereal note -- a note of doom.

Holiday merrymakers called their cheery greetings -- Clyde listened to a voice within himself: the voice of Gwen, screaming his name.

Christmas time… festival time! Clyde thought of older, pagan festivals. Festivals dedicated not to a kindly Christ-child, but to older, darker gods. Gods of blood and sacrifice. Gods that granted black booms -- and took a grisly toll. Gods that were worshipped by pale-faced men with set and staring eyes. Deep-set, fanatical eyes… like the eyes of the giant Simon Mallot.

That was his name. But who was he, really? And what was he?

4954 Archmore Court.

Where was it, and what was it?

Clyde clutched the order book in his pocket and hurried along.

His way led him now through quieter side streets. Streets where no Yuletide lights shone in the windows. Streets given over to winter wind and midnight shadow. Streets that coiled and twisted their snowy surfaces beckoning down to darker depths.

Clyde felt like a pigmy running along on the back of some fabulously enormous serpent. A snow-serpent wound around between the looming buildings. Soon he would reach the serpent's head, the serpent's fangs, the serpent's blazing eyes.

Blazing eyes…

Clyde saw the lights before him. He knew, instantly, that this was the place. The great house stood set back from the street. A stone wall guarded the tree-girdled grounds. But the huge structure loomed above it on a little eminence of land. From a block away, Clyde could see the glittering lights in the lower windows.

Fantastically enough, the brightest cluster radiated from a rainbow-hued Christmas tree set fully visible against broad French windows on the ground floor.

Clyde paused before the outer gate long enough to read the numerals. 5954. This was it!

He marched up to the steps, faced the outer door. Then, and only then, did he pause.

What would he do?

Clyde knew how to gain admittance. He had Gwen's scrawled order slip with Simon Mallot's name on it. And he'd hastily wrapped a small package. He was there to "deliver" it.

But after that…

Clyde didn't know. Would he accuse Mallot of murder? Kidnapping? Forcing Gwen to do a strip-tease?

It didn't make sense. Only his hideous hunch made him persist. It might all be a hysterical fantasy, a delusion. But he had to find out. He had to get inside this house and see Mallot. Maybe there'd be a clue -- or, on the other hand, a perfectly sensible and obvious explanation. Maybe he end up in jail for creating a scene and making ridiculous accusations.

He had to take the chance.

His fingers numb with cold, reached out and groped for a bell buzzer.

The great oaken door was smooth.

Stabbing pain lanced his finger-tips. Pain? Cold. Icy coldness, as he felt a round object under his palm.

A door-knocker.

Clyde raised it, let it fall. A hollow clang resounded.

The wind drowned all sound of approaching footsteps from within. But suddenly the door swung open, a fan of light poured forth.

Clyde looked up automatically, anticipating the seven-foot bulk of the giant.

But it was a small man who answered his summons. A small man dressed in discreet evening clothes. A butler.

"Yes sir?"

"I'm from Propper's toyshop," Clyde explained. "I've this package for Mr. Mallot." He extended his slip and revealed the brown parcel in his pocket.

"Very good." The butler took it and prepared to turn away.

"It -- it isn't paid for," Clyde mumbled. "I was told to wait."

The butler frowned. "This is rather unusual," he said. "Mr. Mallot left no instructions." He coughed. "I'll call him."

The door began to close.

Clyde stepped forward hastily. His foot wedged in the doorway with all the dexterity expected of a Fuller Brush man.

"Could I wait inside?" he asked. "It's rather brisk out here."

The butler hesitated, shrugged.

"Very well," he said. "You may wait in the hall if you like."

Clyde entered the spacious hallway.

Burdened by suspicion, Clyde was prepared for almost anything. He expected a long, dimly-lighted corridor; gloomy, paneled walls, ancient tapestries.

Instead, he stood in a completely modern hallway, brilliantly illuminated to highlight cream-colored walls. Silver mirrors added a cheerful touch.

The butler faded from view. Clyde stood there, fidgeting and gazing down at the French blue of the carpeting.

There was a sliding door open at one side. A still greater brilliance coruscated from the room beyond. Clyde stepped to the doorway.

He stared into a spacious side parlor. The room was immense, with high walls running up to an adroitly domed ceiling. One side only was graced with long French windows. Against the windows reared the dazzling ornamentation of a tremendous Christmas tree.

The tree cast glowing benediction over the room. Sparkling lights were strung through the pine boughs. Great globular and pendant ornaments flashed and shone on the branches. Icicles and tinsels festooned each twig.

There was something soothing and reassuring in the sight of this holiday emblem. Clyde's unformulated fears fell away. Surely there was some mistake. There was nothing but Christmas in this house.

As if to confirm this judgment, the rest of the room offered mute testimony in corroboration. Clyde saw that the floor was covered with gift packages and parcels in gay wrappings. Toys were scattered about in abundance. Blocks, tin soldiers, roller skates -– he recognized the familiar offerings of the Yuletide. Around the entire room ran a border of steel in the form of tracks for a toy railroad train.

This must be Roger's playroom. The typical playroom of a rich man's son. Now it was cheery and homelike, in keeping with the Christmas spirit.

Clyde sighed. There must be some mistake! Could it be that the giant had given the wrong name and address? Could he have been clever enough to know that Gwen might leave it as a clue?

It was probably so. Clyde had been sent off on a wild-goose chase. He must retrace his steps to the shop, start all over again. For surely there was no evil here.

He'd only be making a fool of himself if he stayed. When a stranger came down to pay him, he'd be in a mess. He could sneak out right now. No one would notice. Perhaps –-

Then Clyde heard the voice.

It was like the voice of Conscience -– faint and far away. High and shrill, from inside his brain.

"Clyde!" the voice wailed. "Clyde. I'm here. Save me!"

Nerves. He was tired. Hallucinations must be shaken off, ignored.

"Clyde!"

No! The voice was not illusion. He did hear it; a tiny wailing from far away. Heard and recognized the thin cry.

"Clyde! Look at me here -– here I am!”

He whirled around, startled. His eyes searched the room. Of course there was no one visible.

Could it be coming through the floor, the ceiling, the walls? No. It wasn't muffled. The sound, however faint, was clear and unblurred.

"Over here! Hurry!"

The voice came from near the windows. Clyde moved closer to the tree. The brilliant light threw every inch of the room there into high relief. He saw nothing.

Clyde stared dully at the tree, and the voice wailed higher and higher.

"Here I am, darling! Here," the voice implored. "Here I am -- on the tree!"

Suddenly the world exploded. Through the mist came a crimson flash of comprehension. Clyde stared at the Christmas tree and saw.

Hanging from an upper branch of the Christmas tree, midway between an ornament and a candy cane, was a cellophane envelope. It dangled by a length of blue ribbon and swung to and fro.

Within that envelope, neatly wrapped in cellophane, was the writhing figure of Gwen.

Gwen -– shrunken to two inches in height!

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Wed Dec 16, 2020 2:19 am

CHAPTER III

The Tall Man Again

"Clyde, I knew you'd come! Thank heaven you found me in time!"

Clyde struggled to control his voice and features as he stared at the incredibly tiny figure on the tree. "What happened?" he muttered hoarsely.

"It was the tall man," answered the girl. Her voice came faintly through the cellophane. Clyde bent closer and scowled.

"I knew it!" he sighed.

“He sent you into the back to wrap a package. That was a trick. He must have planned it that way. Because he beckoned for me to come over.

"He and the boy were standing next to the alcove in the far corner. He had a toy in his hands and he asked me how much it cost.

"All the while he kept staring at me with those eyes of his. Those eyes! I told you how I remembered them from the time he'd come in before. Deep, burning eyes.

"But as I stood there, I realized he had never really looked at me until now. He gazed at me… and through me… and then into me.

"I could feel it! His eyes reached inside of me and plucked out my consciousness. I knew it. Knew he was hypnotizing. But all the while another part of me knew that he was going right on talking, smiling, behaving normally in case anyone happened to look into the alcove. Only his eyes held me, and gloated and stared.

"I couldn't look away. I swear it -– I’d have given my soul to look away, but I could not. And once he looked at me, I no longer had a soul to give. He was drawing it into his eyes. Into those deep, dark glowing pools, as he stood there with his red lips smiling in his huge white face... I felt the world swim around me…

"His long, slim hands reached into his pocket and pulled out something. I couldn't see what it was.

"I managed to choke out something. I had to speak, pretend I didn't know what we both knew -– that his eyes held me so.

"I asked him for his name and address and if he wanted this toy delivered.

"He answered, and my hand wrote it down on the pad. You see, I knew already that I must warn you. Of what, I couldn't guess. But those eyes had me and I knew they wouldn't let me go.

"So I scrawled it off, but he only grinned, and I know the child was grinning too. And then his eyes seemed to get larger, like two burning moons. They rocketed up towards my face and I know my order book dropped out of my hands and then he ran his long fingers across my arm.

"I felt something pinch me. There was a tingling sensation near my elbow and then -– I fell into those two burning moons. They rushed up and became one solid lake of orange fire, and I -– I drowned.”

"When I came to, I was here -- on the tree."

Clyde stared at that tiny, incredible body. It couldn't be true, and yet it was. The girl was Gwen. Cellophane-wrapped, yet nude save for the blue ribbon fastened about her hips. She looked exactly the way Clyde had always teased her about -– like a doll. A human, living doll!

How had it happened? And why?

No time to consider that now. For Gwen's diminutive face puckered in utter panic.

"What can we do?" she whispered.

Clyde straightened up. The scowl seemed a permanent part of his features now.

"The first thing to do is get you out of here," he declared. "Quickly, before Simon Mallot comes back."

He stretched out his left hand cautiously and unfastened the cord of blue ribbon from the tree-branch. He lifted down the cellophane pouch containing the tiny living girl.

Gently, he eased it into his coat pocket.

"Plenty of air for you," he murmured. "Just be still and don't worry. I'll get you out of here and then -– we’ll see."

Clyde turned on tiptoe and headed for the open door. He moved swiftly, silently.

Something swifter and more silent slithered through the doorway and ran across his path.

A black cat melted into the room. Clyde glanced down at it, startled: glanced into the cat's great, green, glowing eyes.

Then Clyde looked up -– and stared into the great, glowing eyes of Simon Mallot!

The giant towered in the doorway. He stood there quietly and smiled.

Clyde returned no answering smile as he surveyed the gigantic figure of the tall man. Simon Mallot was wearing a long white lounging robe, blending uncannily with his pale skin. But his lips shone redly and his eyes glared blackly as he stooped and clasped his elongated fingers about the body of the cat.

He lifted the black cat to a perch on his shoulders, but all the while he riveted his glance on Clyde. The cat added its baleful stare. Both cat and man wore a smirk of feline malice.

"Were you leaving?" asked the giant. The deep voice droned mockingly.

"Yes -- I must get back to the shop." Clyde essayed a smile.

"Not so hastily, I hope," said Simon Mallot. "Won't you stay and share our holiday hospitality?"

"Sorry, but I haven't time," Clyde muttered. "I must do my own celebrating later."

"Very well -– if you insist."

To his surprise, Clyde saw the giant step aside from the doorway. A huge arm swooped outward in a gesture of polite dismissal.

Clyde walked from the room.

He'd made it!

"One moment."

His voice was even, but there was a sardonic undertone.

Clyde turned.

"Before you leave," said Mallot, smoothly, "you might return my property to me."

"Property?"

"Exactly." Mallot smiled.

"What might that be?"

"Just a little thing -– a mere toy -– an ornament from my Christmas tree."

Clyde couldn't control his voice, any more than he could control the gooseflesh on his neck.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he gasped.

"Ah. Then perhaps -- this -– will stimulate your memory."

"This" proved to be a gun. Mallot pulled it from the pocket of his white robe. It was a big Luger, but it looked like a child's cap-pistol in the great hand of the giant. Still, it was large enough for Clyde. And it did impress him -– particularly when Mallot pointed the muzzle at his heart. Mallot's grin was as cold as the steel of the gun-barrel.

"You know I'll kill you instantly if you don't obey," said Mallot.

Clyde knew.

There was nothing else to do. Hand trembling, he griped in his overcoat pocket and drew out the cellophane package -– the little package that (grotesque thought!) contained all that he loved in the world.

Gwen's fear-filled face stared up at him in a perfect miniature of horror.

Then the great hand extended and swept the cellophane from Clyde's palm. Fingers thick as dynamite sticks squeezed the tiny body of the girl. She squirmed helplessly in the giant's grasp.

Mallot grinned, baring tusk-like teeth in a smile that held only gloating mirth.

"My little boy would be so disappointed if he found his new toy missing. He had his heart set on Miss Thomas for a plaything."

"Plaything?" Clyde choked out the word.

"Yes." Casually, the Luger moved forward, forcing Clyde back into the great room. Mallot closed the door and then turned to the Christmas tree. Three enormous strides took him over to the window. Carefully, genially, he hung Gwen's cellophane pouch back on the branches. Then he turned to the young man once more.

"Roger is a most unusual child, as you will discover. He has quite eccentric tastes -– and it is my pleasure to encourage them."

Clyde couldn't hold it back any longer. Forgetting the Luger, forgetting all caution or diplomacy, he burst out in frantic rage.

"You monster! I don't know how you did this, or what you intend, but you can't get away with it!"

Mallot laughed. The windows rattled.

"A rather melodramatic speech," he observed. "It might sound more convincing if you had this to emphasize your sentiments." He glanced at his Luger significantly. He began to come closer, and Clyde saw the outthrust muzzle of the weapon level at his heart once more.

"Naturally, now that you have been so -– frank -– I would be foolish to allow you to depart," said the giant, suavely. "So perhaps I had better --"

The great eyes flickered. Mallot halted. "No," he purred. "Perhaps I'm just a sentimental fool. The season, you know -– holiday spirit and all that sort of thing. But I won't kill you. Besides, it might spoil Roger's Christmas if he knew."

He stared at Clyde. Again, the gloating smile.

"You have red hair," he commented. "Roger should find you amusing."

The giant stalked closer. "Yes," he said. "It would be a surprise, too."

Clyde watched and waited. He tried to look at the black cat perched on Mallot's shoulder. But out of the corner of his eye, he watched the approaching muzzle of the gun. It was so small, compared to the vast bulk of the giant. But there was a chance. If he could leap forward, grab the gun, turn it on Mallot, now –-

Clyde waited. He stared at the cat's glaring eyes. The gun came close. The giant smiled. Clyde stood poised, ready. He tensed to spring –-

More quickly than the eye could follow, Mallot's free hand darted forward. Clyde went for the gun, but as he moved he felt the giant's great paw brush his elbow. There was a faint prickling sensation in his arm.

The sensation rose, magnified with incredible acceleration. For an instant Clyde felt his sweaty palms close about the Luger's muzzle. For a fraction of a second he knew he was struggling forward. Then everything whirled and there was nothing but the eyes of the cat on Mallot's shoulder -– eyes looming up larger and larger. Great, green liquid eyes.

Clyde fell forward, fell into the eyes, drowned deep in an emerald lake.

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Thu Dec 17, 2020 2:19 am

CHAPTER IV

The Enormous Room

It’s hard to awaken from a nightmare. The darkness has tentacles, and the inky strands are imbedded deep in your brain, trying to pull you back -- trying to pull you down once more into the screaming depths.

Clyde fought the tentacles, fought the clutching filaments of fear, struggled into consciousness.

He blinked, opened his eyes fully.

It was morning.

He couldn’t see clearly, but he recognized daylight around him. He turned his head, shook away the confusion. Now his body tingled with awareness once more. He could feel a constriction under his armpits, a tension.

Clyde looked down. A great bolt of yellow cloth swathed his body. The ends of the bolt were drawn under his arms, passed up somewhere behind his head. He was hanging suspended by the bolt of cloth. No wonder there was pressure!

Yes, he was hanging -- but from what?

Clyde glanced down. And then he knew.

He was hanging from the Christmas tree -- hanging from the tree as Gwen had hung there the night before!

With a thrill of horrified recognition he stared dawn -– down past a million swirling constellations -– down past the glacial splinters of a thousand icicles -- down through a forest of bristling spears -- down at the far-away floor of the enormous room.

Miles away he discerned the gleaming tracks of a railroad line and the huge cluster of yards and terminals. Columns of soldiers marched across the great plateau in the center of the open area, marched towards the rearing towers of a mighty city.

Of course! The city was made of building blocks. The soldiers were lead and tin. The railroad was a toy train and the tracks against the wall were net miles away, but a mere fifty feet.

The sky so far above was just the domed ceiling. But if that was so -- why did the sun hurt his eyes?

It blazed with fiendish intensity as he squinted off into the distance.

Then Clyde realized that the brilliance came from the lights on the Christmas tree from which he hung. The swirling constellations were glittering ornaments. The glacial icicles were merely tinfoil decorations. The forest of bristling spears was made up of pine needles on the branches of the tree.

He had suffered Gwen’s fate. He was a mannikin, two inches high. A doll, hanging by a yellow ribbon, on a Christmas tree. The way Gwen had hung…

Gwen!

He turned. The ribbon swayed gently as he moved his neck.

Gwen hung there, almost at his side. She was sleeping -- her head hung in utter exhaustion as he gazed at her through her protective wrapper of cellophane.

“Gwen!” he whispered. She did not stir.

Then he realized that the volume of his tiny voice no longer mattered.

“Gwen!” he shouted.

Her blue eyes opened. She stared, recognized him.

“Clyde, darling! I saw him do it to you -- he had a needle in his hand. A very tiny needle. He jabbed it into your elbow -- you fell, and then --”

“Yes?”

Her faint voice trembled and she turned away. He could hear her murmuring faintly.

“Oh, it was horrible! It happened so suddenly, so quickly! You just seemed to shrivel up inside your clothes. One minute you were standing there, and the next -– you were gone. Your clothes just fell to the floor. Stockings still in the shoes, shirtsleeves still tucked into your trousers, and the overcoat still covering your suit.

“Mallot reached down and plucked you out of your own trouser-cuff! You lay there like a tiny doll, and he wrapped you in the yellow ribbon and hung you on the tree here.

“He must have used the needle on me, too -- after hypnotizing me in the shop. It just takes an instant. No wonder nobody noticed, and he could walk out so easily --with me in his pocket! And now he’s done it to you. Oh, darling, what can we do? What can we do?”

Clyde would gladly have given his life for the answer, but it was not forthcoming. And as he groped for words, for consolation and reassurance, there was an interruption.

A wind swept through the tree. And then, ponderously from below, the tremor of an earthquake rocked and vibrated.

It took Clyde a moment to realize that the wind came from the opening of the door, and the earthquake tremor was the thud of footsteps.

A giant thundered into the room.

A giant? Clyde recognized the boy, Roger.

Last night he had been a little child. This morning he was a huge creature, massive as a mountain.

He ran into the room, uttering a boyish whoop that smote Clyde’s tiny eardrums like the drums of death.

“Where is it?” he yelled. “Where’s the surprise?”

A face like a billboard illustration loomed before the figures on the tree.

Clyde stared at the great ridged nose, the flaming open-hearth furnace of the mouth, and the great bloated globes of Roger’s rolling eyes. They were huge white balloons with dark centers. A network of red veins crawled like serpents across the milky white portions.

Clyde stared into the pupils as though viewing the reflecting mirrors on a gigantic telescope. Stared at his own image.

“Look! They’re alive!” yelled Roger.

His gigantic paws reached out. His hand almost brushed Clyde’s body, but reached past it as the boy took Gwen from the tree. His clumsy fingers tore away the cellophane. Clyde writhed in fury as her body wriggled in the pudgy palm of the boy.

Then the world reeled as Clyde felt himself lifted from the tree by his yellow ribbon. He heard booming laughter from above, then sickened as his body took a roller-coaster dip through space. He had been deposited on the floor.

His bare feet sank into the carpet. Fringes rose like grass about his ankles.

A few feet away -- inches, really -- Gwen was tottering along. Circulation was slowly being restored to her numbed limbs. Clyde moved towards her, thankful as he felt the blood surge painfully to the soles of his feet.

“Gwen. Are you all right?”

Suddenly something red blocked his path. Clyde turned and a heavy weight struck him behind the knees. He fell.

The boy had tripped him with his finger.

Booming laughter came from blocks above them in empty air.

“I’ll build you a house,” roared Roger’s voice.

The hand scooped down, grasped them both, and took them for a dizzying elevator ride. Up and down again on another portion of the carpet. They tumbled out, gasping.

The hand came down once more, depositing a six-foot wooden wall at their backs. Clyde turned. Wall? It was merely a 2-inch building block with the letter B raised on its surface.

“A house,” echoed the voice.

Another block appeared before them. And another. In a few seconds, a score of blocks were solidly piled on all four sides of the tiny figures. The light was blotted out and they crouched in the gloom. The second and third tiers of blocks trembled.

So did Clyde.

If that crazy kid made a mistake and one of the blocks wasn’t properly balanced -- it would slip down and kill them both!

What a fate… to be crushed to death by an alphabet block!

A voice boomed from above them -- a voice with echoes that reverberated more deeply than Roger’s tones.

“Breakfast, Master Roger.”

It was the voice of the butler. Clyde recognized it, distorted as it was, and magnified a hundred-fold.

He heard Roger grumble from outside the block-house.

“All right,” he said. “I’m coming. Just as soon as I put a roof on this house.”

A block appeared in the opening above their heads and wedged itself down tightly, balancing on three sides of the walls. A faint crevice of light remained on the fourth side which the roof-block didn’t touch.

The roof-block trembled as Roger’s footsteps thudded across the room. Then, silence.

“He’s gone,” whispered Gwen. “Now what?”

“Watch me.” Clyde almost grinned. This was his chance and he was ready.

“You can’t possible push these heavy blocks aside,” Gwen sighed, anticipating a move on his part.

“I don’t intend to,” Clyde answered. “But the letters on these blocks are raised. I can climb up on the lettering. If I get to the top, I can topple that roof-block off. It’s resting pretty loosely.”

“But it’s twenty feet to the top -- you’ll fall!” Gwen objected.

“Worth trying,” Clyde grunted.

The redheaded young man glanced around in the gloom. The letter B loomed at his left.

“Here goes,” he announced.

Hands found a lodging, toes a foothold, and Clyde wriggled his way up the side of the block.

L was the next step, and Clyde managed to literally “shinny” his way up the angular six-foot letter. The O above it was much easier to follow. Clyde hung to the upper rim and slowly forced his head and shoulders through the crevice open at the roof.

“Gwen!” he called. “Stand back against the wall. I’m going to rock this block off by its own momentum -- but it may fall inside. Look out!”

Bracing his legs against the upper loop of O, Clyde grasped the rough, splintered edges of the roof-block and tugged. It gave perceptibly. He swayed back and forth. Soon the block teetered on a widening arc. He felt it tremble, sway outwards –

“Here goes!” he shouted.

With a thunderous crash, the block hurtled down to the carpet below.

Clyde trembled. That noise!

Then he realized that the noise was proportionately inaudible to normal human ears. He grinned.

“Now we’re clear, darling,” he called. “Climb up the letters. I’ll reach down and pull you up.”

Gwen joined him, gasping for breath. Her lovely black curls hung in bewitching disarray across her bared shoulders. Clyde pulled her up to the top of the block-heap and took her in his arms.

There was a single blissful moment -- but that was all.

“Now, down the sides,” Clyde commanded. “Hurry!” He slid down C, clambered down an H, and finally stood on the topmost loop of an R as be assisted Gwen in her descent. At last they stood safely outside the block-house once again.

“Now where?” asked the girl.

Clyde bit his lip. Her words merely echoed his own confusion. They were free of the wooden prison -- but how to attain greater freedom?

The vast green expanse of the carpet stretched endlessly before them. The white door was a mile away. And as they walked, their tiny feet sank deeply into the nap of the carpet. Sharp ends bit into their heels.

“Clyde -- I can’t go any further --”

Panic and desperation made the girl blurt out the words.

Panic and desperation gave Clyde his inspiration.

His eye had caught the gleam of metal against the wall, where the carpet ended. A huge contrivance rested there -- a great metal cart on gleaming wheels, ponderous as a juggernaut.

“A roller-skate!” Clyde murmured. “Come on.”

Grabbing Gwen’s hand, he dashed toward the edge of the carpet.

“Climb aboard,” he directed. “You see how the floor slants here a bit down to the door? I’ll just give this skate a shove, climb on behind, and we’ll coast down to the door in a jiffy.”

It was a struggle for Gwen to mount the skate, and her blue ribbon was shredded before she reached the top. By that time Clyde was bracing his shoulder against the left rear wheel of the skate, wisely gauging it as the one most likely to be set in motion.

Straining, his muscles bulging with effort, Clyde pushed. The skate moved slowly… then gathered speed. It began to roll down the incline.

Clyde clambered aboard at a trot, swinging up just as the skate gathered momentum. They whirled down toward the open door.

“We’ll go right through,” Clyde exulted. “Right down the hall outside! And then -- “

The black shape loomed before them even as he spoke. The black sabre-tooth, twenty feet tall -- eyes glaring green fire, jowls slavering for the kill, yellow fangs gaping, claws raised to rend and destroy… It was the cat!

A single bound carried it through the doorway. It paused, hissed, and then bore down upon the two figures crouching on the flat top of the moving roller-skate.

“Quick!” yelled Clyde. “Jump off!”

Gwen obeyed. Clyde didn’t move. The skate rolled directly towards the oncoming cat. Clyde saw it raise a paw, ready to rake him off as the skate passed. He crouched low as the paw swooped down.

He felt the shaggy blanket of fur brush his back and twisted to one side.

The cat had missed!

And now the skate had carried him beyond. He had almost reached the door. The black cat whirled. A single bound brought it forward. Another leap and it would be upon him.

Clyde slipped from the moving skate, eyes roving frantically around the enormous room.

Then he spied it, scarcely three inches away -- a long green blade with a sharp point.

A fallen needle from the Christmas tree!

But it was a weapon. Clyde grasped it and rose to face the charging cat. The gigantic head rose above him, and the huge jaws yawned. A paw swept out.

Clyde thrust the sharp point of the pine-needle upwards. It pricked the cat’s paw. The feline yowled and withdrew its claws. Then it leaped.

Clyde felt, rather than saw it soar over his head. The wind grazed his hair. And now, in a single instant, the great cat was behind him. The black bulk of its body moved down on him. A ranking claw thrust out. Clyde jabbed with his weapon.

Quick as lightning, the other paw came down. The pine-needle was brushed from his hand, and a numbing shock traveled up his arm.

Clyde stooped to pick up the needle. It was broken -- he was weaponless! Now he was ready prey, and so was Gwen.

And the cat charged.

There was no escape this time. Clyde darted to one side, dodged. The cat landed on its forepaws a good foot away. But as it landed, its long black tail coiled out in a lashing blow.

Clyde felt it strike his knees from behind, felt it coil around his waist as he fell. Trapped, he waited as the cat turned, without-flexed paws, and launched itself at his throat --

The blackness bore down upon him and he felt the hot breath of the gaping mouth as the fangs ripped towards his head.

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Fri Dec 18, 2020 2:19 am

CHAPTER V

The Wreck of the Number Nine

The fangs never reached their goal.

As Clyde prepared himself for that final stab of blinding pain, the darkness seemed to lift from before him.

It did lift — for a hand came out of the air and grasped the black cat by the scruff of the neck.

“Scat!” thundered a voice.

Clyde lay there looking up as Roger picked up the feline and carried it from the room. Roger closed the door and returned.

“Tried to hurt my playthings,” mumbled the boy. He stared down at Clyde.

“But how did you two get out of the block-house?” he asked.

Clyde shrugged his tiny shoulders in reply.

“You were trying to get away, weren’t you?” Roger accused. “You tried to hide from me! Maybe I’d better hang you up for safe-keeping while I finish breakfast.”

Roger suited his actions to the words. He stooped down and Clyde rose on his palm. A stride carried the boy over to where Gwen lay. She tumbled into the moist, slippery surface of Roger’s hand and clung to Clyde as they swayed towards the tree.

Roger adjusted the ends of the blue ribbon and the yellow ribbon. Once more the two mannikins dangled like ornaments on the great Christmas tree.

Clyde groaned inwardly as he found himself right back where he had started. Once more the door — escape — freedom — all were miles away.

Roger smiled down on the two hanging figures.

“Be quiet, now,” he said. “I’ll come back as soon as I finish eating.”

His footsteps thundered from the room. Once again there was silence.

Clyde turned his head. Gwen smiled at him bravely. His heart wrenched as he realized the effort she was making to appear cheerful.

But suddenly her assumed optimism faded. “Oh, darling,” she sighed. “I guess it’s hopeless. We’ll be here forever. And -- “

Her dainty little body shook in a sudden spasm of sobbing.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Clyde whispered.

“Oh— it’s so terrible! And I’m all scratched and bruised, and I’m practically starving.”

Clyde forced a smile. “Good for you to go without food,” he told her. “You always said you wanted to reduce.”

“Reduce!” A fresh burst of tears coursed down her doll-like cheeks.

Clyde frowned as he realized the ironic cruelty of his remark. She was reduced indeed!

Then his eyes lighted on a vast object hanging directly before him.

“Cheer up, small fry,” he called. “I think I can get you a bite to eat, anyway.”

He began to pump his legs outward, swinging his body forward and back. The movement caused the
ribbon by which he was suspended to swing in a slow arc. Clyde, at the bottom of this pendulum, swung forward with increasing speed. Soon he was approaching the great white object with every swing.

It hung there, like a ten-foot snowball, right in his path. His tiny fingers clawed at its rough, corrugated surface. Nothing happened. On the next swing he dug into it deeply. There was a crackling sound, and a huge lump of the white substance broke off in his hands. He swung back and ceased his movements.

Slowly, he broke the white lump and extended a section of it to Gwen. She could just reach out and grab it.

“Go ahead and eat,” Clyde told her. “Lucky for us there’s a popcorn ball on the tree.”

The popcorn was nourishing. Clyde had never thought two people could make a satisfying meal out of a single kernel from a popcorn ball, but this was ample to still his hunger. It didn’t take much to fill a tiny stomach. A little condensed milk, now —

As Gwen nibbled her popcorn, Clyde abandoned his fancies and concentrated on another train of thought.

He had swung outward and back to reach the popcorn ball. Then he had stopped. Suppose he kept it up? Suppose he swung in wider arcs until the ribbon on the branch above him loosened?

He might fall, plunge to his death on the jagged pine-splinters below. Still, it was a chance. And it was his only chance.

Thankful that Gwen was occupied only with her food, he began to rock cautiously once more. Soon he swung out to the popcorn ball again; then beyond it. He swooped forward and back. His head reeled, he grew dizzy, but he could feel a movement on the ribbon over his head.

He plummeted up and down, up and down. Now Gwen saw him, and she screamed as he rocketed past. Clyde was giddy, breathless. The world spun around him – the glittering constellation of tree ornaments whirled.

And then — the ribbon came free!

With a gasp, Clyde took the fall. He plunged down, down — shooting through interstices between the bristling branches. Far below him he saw the huge, shining bulk of a crystal globe.

An ornament — he was heading straight towards it! In an instant he would crash, the ornament would shatter, its jagged splinter pierce his body and hurl his bleeding carcass to the floor below.

Clyde’s arms flailed wildly. The deadly polished surface rushed up to meet him, and then his right hand found a hold.

With an arm-wrenching lurch, his descent halted. Clyde clung desperately to the strand of tinsel that sustained his weight. For a long moment he could only pant and wheeze. Slowly he drew himself up to a perch on the tinsel.

“Clyde, are you all right?”

Gwen’s voice came from above. She hung about forty feet higher — in reality, about fifteen inches over his head.

“Of course I am,” Clyde answered. “Hold on and I’ll climb up and get you loose.”

Now it was easy to mount the branches, picking footholds and hanging on to tinsel strands arid candy- cane lengths. In a very few minutes Clyde had crawled to a niche above Gwen’s head and slowly loosened the strand of blue ribbon.

“Grab that branch tip,” he directed. “I’ll get you free in a moment.”

The operation was swiftly accomplished.

“Now what?” Gwen voiced the question as Clyde joined her on the branch. “You aren’t going to make me climb down to the floor, are you? I get dizzy just locking at it.”

Clyde shook his head.

“No sense in trying the floor again,” he said. “Too dangerous, and it’s too far to the door. Besides, once in the hall, we’d need to get the outer door open as well.”

“Could we get to a telephone?”

“Not likely,” Clyde decided. “Besides, how’d we ever get the receiver off the hook? It would be an engineering problem to dial a number, and I doubt if our voices would carry. Too much danger of detection, anyway. No — that’s out.”

“Then what can we do?”

“Just keep calm. Look, we have French windows right in back of us. And I’ve a hunch the one on our left is open a bit. I’ve felt a breeze for some time. If that window is ajar, we can slip directly outside. All we need do is climb around the side of the tree here and slide down to the window ledge. Can you crawl?”

“I can do anything if it means getting out of here,” Gwen declared. Her eyes flashed. Clyde gave her a grin. The girl had spirit and courage.

“All right. Better not waste time, then. The brat is likely to show up at any minute. Suppose we swing down this light-cord?”

Clyde pointed at one of the green strands linking a string of tree lights.

“Just swing across it and move down,” he said. “But watch out for the lights. They’re hot.”

The tiny figures began their journey. Time and time again they clambered across branches to avoid the burning incandescence of a Christmas tree bulb.

“Swing across that tinsel,” Clyde grunted. “We’re making progress.”

Gwen, despite cruelly-smarting hands – giggled.

“What is it?” Clyde turned his head.

“I can’t help it! You look so cute in your blue ribbon, swinging along the branches. Just like Tarzan of the Apes.”

“He does, does he?”

The voice came from behind them.

Both Gwen and Clyde turned their heads quickly back towards the room.

Standing before the tree, still on tip-toe from his stealthy entrance, was Roger. The boy wore a frown of displeasure.

“At it again?” he said. “Trying to get away!”

There was no hiding-place, no escape.

Advancing quickly, Roger reached forward and plucked Gwen from the tree.

“Let her alone!” Clyde yelled.

“Huh!” grunted the child. “I ought to throw her away.” He made a gesture as if to hurl Gwen’s body to the ground, and Clyde groaned.

But the gesture was not completed. A smile appeared on the vast bulk of Roger’s face.

“I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “I’ll really punish you both.”

He turned his back and swiftly carried Gwen across the room. Clyde clambered up a branch and strained his eyes, trying to follow the boy’s movements.

Roger stooped down on the far side of the room. His hands groped and fumbled before him, but his back hid Gwen from view.

What was he doing to her?

Abruptly, Roger rose. His body still blocking the view on the far side, he approached Clyde with empty hands. Clyde couldn’t dodge the searching fingers.

His ribs were crushed between thumb and forefinger as Roger carried him down to the floor.

“In you go,” said Roger.

Clyde felt himself being lifted to an iron stand. He glanced down.

Roger had placed him on the cab of his toy train’s locomotive!

The locomotive rested on the wide track that ran the full square bordering the room against the walls.

Clyde stood in the iron cab of the engine. It was a Lionel special model – the “New York Central” to be exact, with a Hudson-type locomotive. Clyde knew. He had sold them in the toy-shop.

He gazed at the shining track stretching ahead, and at the curve near the wall.

Why had Roger put him here?

“I’m going to punish you,” said the boy. “The way they did it in the old movies.”

“What do you mean?” Clyde shouted.

“Look and see.”

Far above, the child’s arm extended across the room.

Clyde stared.

Half-way around the circle, on the track directly opposite, lay Gwen’s writhing body.

Roger had tied her to the track.

“Notice how I did it?” asked the precocious little monster. “I’ve tied her to only one of the rails. Only her head extends between. If I laid her directly across she’d be electrocuted when I switch on the transformer.

“As it is, we’ll do it like the movies. I’ll start the train and you’ll run over her.”

Roger laughed. It was a cruel laugh, not at all boyish. Clyde shook his head. How could he appeal to this heartless, inhuman creature?

“But you don’t want to kill her,” he stammered. “A helpless girl --”

“You’re my toys,” Roger snapped. “I can play with you any way I want.”

Abruptly the boy turned. He squatted in the corner, next to the black bulk of the transformer.

There was a whirring hum. And suddenly, Clyde felt the train-wheels turn. The engine was moving beneath his feet!

Slowly, the locomotive gathered speed. Clyde stared out of the cab. He was rushing down the rails, heading for the bend. In miniature time-scale, he was plunging forward at about sixty miles an hour. The engine would take this curve, take the next, go down the straightaway, and in the middle — decapitate Gwen!

The locomotive lurched as it whizzed around the first curve. Clyde braced himself. He couldn’t jump. The second curve loomed ahead. The Hudson type was speedy. A few seconds more, now —

Roger was at the transformer, generating power. Power!

Clyde saw Gwen’s body far down the tracks. The locomotive rushed with deadly swiftness.

Clyde gulped. He had the clue, if there was still time. He turned to the cab. Yes, this was the Hudson type. A miniature poker stood in the tender, and next to it was the fire-box door. If that door was opened —

He tore a strand from the blue ribbon about his waist and yanked the tiny poker free. He wrapped the handle of the poker with the ribbon and jerked at the fire-box door.

Peering out the window of the cab he saw Gwen only a little way ahead. The train rumbled on.

Gasping, Clyde jammed the poker through the open door. The end caught. It had to catch, make contact.

It did.

Clyde knew his locomotives. The poker would short on one of the motor terminals against the frame.

The result was spectacular.

The locomotive halted with a lurch, just a few inches from Gwen’s tiny form.

At the same moment came a puff of smoke from the transformer, and Roger fell backwards in a cloud of acrid fumes.

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Sat Dec 19, 2020 2:19 am

CHAPTER VI

Out of the Mouths of Babes

It was the work of an instant to jump down and release Gwen. Clyde yanked the twine free and helped her to her feet.

“Come on,” he whispered.

Over in the corner, Roger’s coughing spasm had subsided, and now tears came in a surprising cascade. The boy was crying. The sheer, unexpected shock of the short-circuit had frightened him. Gwen turned and stared at him across the room.

“Gwen — let’s go!” Clyde tugged at her shoulder.

Gwen tossed her black curls. “No,” she said. “I’m going to talk to Roger.”

“Are you crazy?” stormed the red-headed young man.

For answer, Gwen began to stride towards the looming bulk of the boy in the corner.

“Gwen — come back!”

She neither turned nor paused. In sheer amazement, Clyde watched her as she reached the crying child and deliberately tugged at his sleeve. In a moment she was crawling up his arm.

Clyde shuddered.

She sat there, perched on the boy’s shoulder!

Roger looked up. Abruptly, his tears ceased falling. Gwen sat on her strange perch and gently patted his neck with one tiny hand.

Roger stared at her. He smiled.

“Blow your nose,” said Gwen. “You’re a sight!”

Roger blushed, fumbled in his pocket.

“Use your other hand,” the girl commanded. “You’re likely to shake me off.”

Roger obeyed without hesitation.

“There, that’s better,” she commented. “Now, young man, I’d like to have a talk with you. First of all, you’d better apologize for what you just did.”

Roger stared down at her. His blush deepened. Then he looked away at the wall.

“All right,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry I tried to kill you. I guess I didn’t understand that you are human, too.”

Gwen shook her head.

“Don’t you know any better?” she chided. “You’re a pretty bright-looking boy, it seems to me. Hasn’t your mother ever told you not to do such things?”

Roger stared at the wall more intently than ever.

“I — I have no mother.”

“Well, what about your father, then?”

“My father’s dead, too. I’m an orphan.”

Gwen frowned. “But that man who brought you to the toyshop — Simon Mallot. Isn’t he your father?”

“No. He adopted me when I was a baby.”

“When you were a baby?”

“Yes. After he killed my mother and father.”

Roger’s voice did not tremble or alter as he spoke the words. His tone was unemotional.

“Simon Mallot killed your parents?’” There was horror enough in Gwen’s voice.

“Yes. He was in love with my mother many years ago. She wouldn’t marry him, because of his size. So after I was born, he killed her.”

Gwen was silent, but only for a moment. To Clyde, she seemed to be driving at something. She had taken psychological advantage of the boy, and now she was cleverly pressing that advantage. She sat there maternally, possessively — the eternal woman engaged in her eternal problem of mastering man.

“How did Mallot kill her?” asked Gwen.

Roger did not hesitate over an answer. The words came quickly.

“He did it with the dolls. He made dolls and baptized them and then drove pins into their hearts. He’s promised to show me how, soon. He’s a wizard, you know.”

“I didn’t know.” Gwen was striving to keep calm.

“That’s why he adopted me. He’s going to make me his apprentice. He’ll teach me all he has learned about sorcery. He says that since my appearance is normal, I can be a greater wizard than he is, if I’m properly trained.”

The boy spoke as though becoming a sorcerer’s apprentice was the most natural course in the world. Gwen tried to match his nonchalance.

“Do you like that idea?” he asked.

Roger frowned. “No — not exactly,” he confessed. “There are some things he wants me to do that give me nightmares, and I won’t do them.

“I like to play with my toys here, but he is always making me take lessons in his laboratory. And when he finally lets me play, he gives me toys I don’t like. I won’t keep them here.”

“No?”

“There’s a book he has… and the pictures in it move. They move like people, and they do strange things. It makes your head ache to watch them, but he wants me to study it.

“Then we play games, sometimes. Not with marbles or anything like that, but with little houses and boats and things made out of wax. And he makes me recite pieces in Latin. I get all crawly inside sometimes at the way they sound. When I say them right, the shadows change on the wall, and once I saw the walls move.

“Next year he’s going to take me to a meeting. They call it a coven, and I must meet someone there and sign a book in blood. Does it hurt when they prick your finger and take blood?

“I hope it doesn’t. Because I don’t want to go anyway. I wish he wouldn’t make me do those things.”

Gwen was white-faced, shaken. The picture she had formed from these childish revelations was ghastly in its implications.

“He won’t let me play with other kids,” said the boy. “He keeps me locked up here all the time. Once in a while, for a special treat, he lets me play with my regular really-and-truly toys in this room.

“I studied hard last month, so he promised to give me a present. Anything I wanted. And last night, in the toyshop, I asked for you. That’s how I got you.”

Clyde had approached Roger’s feet. Now he spoke.

“How did you know that Simon Mallot could — give — us to you?” he asked.

“He can do anything,” said the boy, gravely. “Much more than this. He’s a sorcerer. And I’ll be one too.” The boy sighed. “But I don’t want to be, really. Besides, I’m afraid when I grow up I might get too big like he is, too.”

“How did he get to be so big?” asked Gwen.

“Just glandular abnormality, he says,” the boys answered.

It was fantastic to hear such words from the lips of a seven-year-old child. But then, the whole affair was unearthly.

“He’s working on hormone extracts now,” Roger confided. “That’s how I knew he would be able to shrink you. When I asked to have Gwen for a doll, he knew what I meant. And he did it. Because that hormone formula is wonderful.”

“Yes,” said Clyde, eagerly. “Can you explain it a little more than that, Roger?”

“Well, I don’t know. He started years ago, trying to experiment on something to use on himself — somethings that might bring him down to a normal size. Then he must have hit on something off the trail with his reduction formula. Because the drug he perfected overdoes the job. Things get very tiny if you aren’t careful.”

The boy spoke gravely, but Clyde hung on to every word.

“There are lots of specimens upstairs in his laboratory,” Roger volunteered. “But I guess he’s never used it on human beings until last night. I just begged him to give me Gwen for a toy, and he’d promised me, so he had to do it. But I’m sorry I tried to kill you,” he concluded.

Clyde took over. “You should be,” he scolded. “And what do you think it feels like to be two inches tall? How would you like it?”

Roger hung his head.

“We don’t want to be this way all our lives,” Gwen sighed. “How can we get out of this?”

“You two are in love with each other?” Roger’s eyes sparkled. “Gee, it’s like a story, isn’t it? And you’re trapped here and everything?”

“You needn’t be so enthusiastic about it,” observed Clyde, bitterly.

“But it’s exciting. And maybe I can help you.”

That was the opening Gwen was waiting for. “Yes,” she said, quickly. “By all means. You could phone for the police --”

“No good!” Clyde interrupted. “If Simon Mallot found the boy phoning, he’d know. He’d hide us away and punish Roger. Besides, we’ve got to do something about our size.”

“Yes,” said the child, eagerly. “That’s what I mean. I can find the antidote for you, perhaps.”

“Antidote?” Clyde seized upon the word. “There is an antidote?”

“Yes. A sort of by-product or anti-toxin you get when you distill the formula. He keeps a bottle of it in the laboratory.”

“Could — could you get it for us, do you think?”

Roger’s face clouded. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“What do you mean? It’s a matter of life or death.”

“I know. But— honest, I’m afraid to go up there, though. It’s a horrible place.”

Gwen patted his shoulder.

“There, now. Don’t be afraid. I’ll come along with you.”

Surprisingly enough, the suggestion did the trick. Roger beamed.

“Well, if you two will come along -–”

“Sure we will. It’s safe, isn’t it?” Clyde answered.

“Yes. He’s asleep now, in the left wing. I can get the bottle. Just a few drops on the end of a pin will work, I think. But you’ll come with me?”

“Right.” Clyde took command. “Just slip us into your jacket now. Then head for those stairs. We’re going to the laboratory.”

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Sun Dec 20, 2020 2:19 am

CHAPTER VII

The Devil’s Toyshop

Up the dark stairs, down the long hall, and through the outer chambers – Roger tiptoed cautiously into the weird world beyond the laboratory doors.

Gwen and Clyde clung to the edge of his jacket pocket and peered out into the realms of nightmare.

Here in the vast, sky-lighted room, science and sorcery had met and mated – to produce a hellish amalgam.

Gleaming white laboratory tables, modern as tomorrow, bore a host of ghastly objects straight from medieval myths.

Bell-jars filled with the root of fabled mandrake; trays of herbs and powdered distillates ground from the bones of animals and corpses; all the paraphernalia of mantic mummery was here.

On the shelves the black books mouldered, iron-hasped tomes with crumbling yellow pages illumined with Gothic lettering of another day. Clyde read exotic titles in Latin— De Vermis Mysteriis, and the unspeakable Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred.

Glass cabinets guarded instruments and laboratory machines; a switchboard towered incongruously beside a mummy-case; a zodiacal chart lettered in Greek stood next to the latest model of an X-ray unit.

Bunsen burners and powdered bat’s blood, test tubes and the hearts of toads, hypodermic needles and corpse-fat candles — all in a gargantuan jumble before the eyes of Gwen and Clyde.

The room was filled with evidences of thaumaturgy. A blue chalk tracing of a pentagon still covered a part of the floor. A pile of smouldering incense fumed sullenly in a covered brazier near the further wall.

But all this was as nothing to the sights Roger pointed out.

The child, with his terrifying mixture of normal boyishness and hideous familiarity with forbidden things, wasted no time in directing the attention of his tiny guests to a strange spectacle.

A tier of glass cubicles stood along one of the big tables. At first glance they appeared to be a row of rectangular aquariums — but there was no water inside, and no fish.

Still, the glass prisons contained living forms.

“Look!” prompted Roger, moving closer. The two little humans gazed down at an incredible spectacle.

In one glass compartment, a rat padded ceaselessly to and fro, red eyes glaring through the transparent walls of its prison.

“Why, it’s the right size!” Gwen exclaimed. Suddenly a hand went to her mouth in a gesture of horrified realization.

For the rat was the right size in proportion to her present state. But in reality, the rat was a shrunken creature – a living rat the size of an ant!

In the next compartment a guinea pig squatted; a common laboratory guinea pig, no bigger than a human finger!

Beside it, on the left, was a tiny black object that mewed piteously and clawed at the glass as they approached.

“A black cat,” whimpered Clyde. ‘A black cat the size of a baby mouse.”

“He injected them with the reduction formula,” Roger told the two. “These were his first successes. That cat is the mother of the black cat downstairs. At first, when it was just a kitten, it seemed to know what he had done and clawed and spit at him. Now the cat is grown and doesn’t remember. He calls it his ‘familiar’. He says all wizards have familiars.”

Gwen shuddered. “I don’t like it here,” she murmured. “Let’s get out.”

Clyde nudged the boy’s chest with a diminutive fist. “Yes,” he urged. “Where’s the antidote? Let’s get it and leave before he wakes up.”

“All right.” Roger moved quickly. The shrunken humans tumbled back into his pocket.

“Here,” he said, reaching into a cabinet set next to a microscope. “Here’s where he keeps the bottle.”

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 any more. 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 plaything 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 hand closed over him, to smother and crush, and Clyde’s world fell away…

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Mon Dec 21, 2020 2:20 am

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 began 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.”

They 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 antitoxin 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.

Levelling 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 bis 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 loomed 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 girl was lowering her body and wriggling backwards 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 upon 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 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!

It dropped past Clyde’s head and fell with a shattering thump.

But it did not break.

Mallot looked up at his enemy as Clyde clung to the rung of the chair. Then he grinned. Carefully he stooped and untied the thread from around the vial.

Clyde panted as he turned to continue his descent. He had to reach the floor and find the needle before Simon Mallot realized one was there.

He knew Mallot had another scheme, but he didn’t dare stop to gaze. A few more movements and he’d reach the floor. He climbed on –-

Then it happened.

The white noose coiled out, sailed in an arc around Clyde’s shining head, and dropped in a hangman’s knot around his neck.

Clyde’s hands rose to tear at the rope — for that was what the thread amounted to.

As he released his hold, he fell. And the rope tightened, the wizard tugged, Clyde felt the red haze rise around him as he gasped for breath.

Floundering helplessly, Clyde saw Simon Mallot run towards him with a grin of evil triumphant. In one brawny hand he held the glittering needle. The wizard had found it, then!

This was the end. Bruised, battered, a strangling victim of the sorcerer’s cunning, Clyde stared up at the descending point of the needle.

Simon Mallot’s white face loomed. The eyes flamed, the red lips parted. And the silver death slashed towards Clyde’s breast.

The growl rose with startling swiftness. The deep, purring moan of menace caused both wizard and victim to turn their heads.

It was the black cat. It had slipped into the room quite stealthily — but stealth turned to lightning speed.

All in an instant Mallot turned, stared at the great black body before him, then shrieked and tried to dodge.

But the razored claw raked out, the sleek head bent forward.

One dreadful, gurgling scream — one indescribable gulping sound — and then the black beast was slinking from the room.

Clyde stared, then looked away. A tiny leg dangled limply from the black cat’s jaws… like the paw of a white mouse…

jeffrey-dallas · Post by **jeffrey-dallas** » Tue Dec 22, 2020 2:19 am

(The finale!)

CHAPTER IX

A Sizeable Problem

The noose was gone from Clyde's neck. Gwen, shaken but smiling, had joined him on the floor. Now, together again, they tugged at the end of the needle. Its point was imbedded in the cork stopper of the vial.

"Once more," Clyde urged. "We'll yank it out."

They did. The cork gave, and the precious fluid flowed across the floor. Swiftly Clyde loosened the needle.

"Wonderful thing," he commented grimly. "A weapon, then a corkscrew, and now a hypodermic needle."

"Clyde." Owen's eyes clouded.

"Yes, darling?"

"Aren't you afraid to use that stuff? After all, you don't know if it will work — and the needle is so big –- “

Clyde smiled and shrugged.

"What else can I do?" he said. "It's a chance I must take." He dipped the needle point in the pool of fluid on the floor.

"Oh, Clyde!"

She ran to him then, and they clung together — two grotesque tiny little figures, ragged and bruised and infinitesimal.

But there was reality in their embrace — perhaps the last reality in a fantastic world.

"All right, darling," Clyde whispered. He stepped back. One hand held the needle forward, tipped the point in. He placed his arm against the point, forced it down. The point was wet.

A trickle of crimson — a groan –-

Clyde fell. But even as he fell, he felt himself shoot upwards.

This time there was no drowning sensation; only a surprising feeling of expansion. It was as though he flew upwards instead of dropping — as though he soared to meet the room about him.

And then he was standing on his feet once more, standing and leaning against the laboratory table.

But he was alive again — alive, and fully-grown to his natural size!

The rest was easy.

The requirements of modesty were easily fulfilled with the aid of the wizard's discarded garments. And then Clyde was cradling the tiny figure of Gwen between his fingers, pressing the needle gently home –-

Within a few moments a normal girl lay in his arms.

There was another embrace. An embrace, this time, of joyous reunion in a properly proportioned world.

"Hey — what about me?"

Clyde whirled.

"It's Roger!" he grinned. "We almost forgot about him."

Stepping to the table, Clyde untied the child. The gauze knots were no problem to his fingers now.

"Thanks," said the boy.

"Save it," Clyde advised. "Let's get our things and get out of here. Gwen, slip on Mallot's robe. My own clothes must be downstairs."

"What about the butler?" Gwen asked.

"Mallot sent him out for the day," Roger informed her. "After all, it's Christmas."

"So it is," Clyde grinned. "Though I'd hardly say we've had much of a holiday."

He turned and guided Gwen out of the laboratory. Roger lingered behind the doors for a moment, then joined them on the stairway.

In the hall, Clyde dressed once more. Gwen wrapped the robe around her, a smile on her doll-like cheeks. Suddenly her pert nose wrinkled.

"Don't I smell smoke?" she asked.

Roger nodded. "Yes," he whispered. "I — I started a fire in the laboratory upstairs. Such things should be destroyed."

Clyde looked at the boy, but there was wisdom beyond youth in his eyes.

He nodded. "Yes," he agreed. "Perhaps it's for the best."

He bent his red head down as Gwen whispered in his ear. The girl pointed at Roger and smiled.

"What are you whispering about?" the boy demanded.

Clyde smiled. "Nothing much," he declared. "It's just that we're going to be married, and Gwen suggested that she'd like to adopt you as our boy."

Roger glowed and shuffled his feet. "Good enough," he agreed, as they left the house.

Gwen sighed. "Of course it's going to be an awful job to change some of those weird ideas Mallot has given you. But we'll bring you up properly."

"Bet we will," said Clyde grimly. He grasped Roger's arm grimly. "The first step in your education starts now," he told the boy. He glanced at the smoke pouring from the roof of the house behind them.

"I'll have to teach you not to play with matches," he muttered.

"What are you going to do?" Gwen cried.

Clyde grinned as he slowly bent the boy forward in an ageless gesture. "Nothing at all," he said. "Nothing at all. I'm just going to give the kid a good, old fashioned spanking!"

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