She came out of the shadows and stepped up beside him.
How would you boys feel if you were looking at a poster of the Girl and suddenly she was there beside you, her arm linked with yours?
This fellow’s reaction showed plain as day. A crazy dream had come to life for him.
They talked for a moment. Then he waved a taxi to the kerb. They got in and drove off.
I got drunk that night. It was almost as if she’d known I was following her and had picked that way to hurt me. Maybe she had. Maybe this was the finish.
But the next morning she turned up at the usual time and I was back in the delirium, only now with some new angles added.
That night when I followed her she picked a spot under a street lamp, opposite one of the Munsch Girl billboards.
Now it frightens me to think of her lurking that way.
After about twenty minutes a convertible slowed down going past her, backed up, swung in to the kerb.
I was closer this time. I got a good look at the fellow’s face. He was a little younger, about my age.
Next morning the same face looked up at me from the front page of the paper. The convertible had been found parked on a side street He had been in it. As in the other maybe-murders, the cause of death was uncertain.
All kinds of thoughts were spinning in my head that day, but there were only two things I knew for sure. That I’d got the first real offer from a national advertiser, and that I was going to take the Girl’s arm and walk down the stairs with her when we quit work.
She didn’t seem surprised. ‘You know what you’re doing?’ she said.
‘I know.’
She smiled. ‘I was wondering when you’d get around to it.’
I began to feel good. I was kissing everything good-bye, but I had my arm around hers.
It was another of those warm fall evenings. We cut across into Ardleigh Park. It was dark there, but all around the sky was a sallow pink from the advertising signs.
We walked for a long time in the park. She didn’t say anything and she didn’t look at me, but I could see her lips twitching and after a while her hand tightened on my arm.
We stopped. We’d been walking across the grass. She dropped down and pulled me after her. She put her hands on my shoulders. I was looking down at her face. It was the faintest sallow pink from the glow in the sky. The hungry eyes were dark smudges.
I was fumbling with her blouse. She took my hand away, not like she had in the studio. ‘I don’t want that,’ she said.
First I’ll tell you what I did afterwards. Then I’ll tell you why I did it. Then I’ll tell you what she said.
What I did was run away. I don’t remember all of that because I was dizzy, and the pink sky was swinging against the dark trees. But after a while I staggered into the lights of the street. The next day I closed up the studio. The telephone was ringing when I locked the door and there were unopened letters on the floor. I never saw the Girl again in the flesh, if that’s the right word.
I did it because I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want the life drawn out of me. There are vampires and vampires, and the ones that suck blood aren’t the worst. If it hadn’t been for the warning of those dizzy flashes, and Papa Munsch and the face in the morning paper, I’d have gone the way the others did. But I realized what I was up against while there was still time to tear myself away. I realized that wherever she came from, whatever shaped her, she’s the quintessence of the horror behind the bright billboard. She’s the smile that tricks you into throwing away your money and your life. She’s the eyes that lead you on and on, and then show you death. She’s the creature you give everything for and never really get. She’s the being that takes everything you’ve got and gives nothing in return. When you yearn towards her face on the billboards, remember that. She’s the lure. She’s the bait. She’s the Girl.
And this is what she said, ‘I want you. I want your high spots. I want everything that’s made you happy and everything that’s hurt you bad. I want your first girl. I want that shiny bicycle. I want that licking. I want that pinhole camera. I want Betty’s legs. I want the blue sky filled with stars. I want your mother’s death. I want your blood on the cobblestones. I want Mildred’s mouth. I want the first picture you sold. I want the lights of Chicago. I want the gin. I want Gwen’s hands. I want your wanting me. I want your life. Feed me, baby, feed me.’
WHILE SET FLED
After centuries of fear and rumor, the Hyborean tribes were streaming southward in a holocaust of destruction and conquest. The northern marches of Set had been breached and the broken armies of Tuthothomes XX were in full flight, nor would they be rallied until they reached the Styx and ancient Khemi—that great stand which saved the old Southern Kingdom was yet to be made. Meanwhile, the rich northern provinces of Set were doomed.
Nuthmekri was a craftsman of little fame, yet he chose to stay behind while greater artists fled. All yesterday the castle had been frantically a-bustle as the servitors of his patron Megshastes prepared for the flight southward too long delayed. Hurried footsteps, stumblings, strained puffings of slaves seeking to carry too much too swiftly, impatient, shinny and stomp in the courtyard of horses harnessed and hitched too soon, creaking of overladen wagons, now and then a hallow snap as lashings parted that had been drawn too tight over loads too high—shouts, curses, wailings, and commands. Now all was delightfully quiet.
It was only a small statuette that Nuthmekri was preparing to cast, yet its form seemed to him perfect. The sand mold was ready, the little furnace was aglow, and now Nuthmekri reached for an ingot of bronze. But there disappointment awaited him. His chest of metals was empty. Some slave must have looted it last night while he strolled in the meadows. Perhaps the fellow had heard the Hyboreans coveted bronze beyond all else and would sometimes show mercy to a man who gave it to them.
Nuthmekri’s eyes roved questingly about his small tower room. There were a few statuettes and pleasingly shaped implements and utensils. These he passed over. High on one bare wall hung an ancient sword of bronze, dusty, cobwebbed fast, almost black. Putting stool on table, Nuthmekri was enabled to climb up and detach it.
Holding the antique weapon in his hand, Nuthmekri moved to the window. Through the narrow embrasure he could make out a nearby hilltop in the hot sunlight and a road crossing it. Suddenly there puffed up a cloud of dust, and horsemen burst from it—ragged fellows on small bony mounts, with bows and circular shields and spears on whose barbed blades Nuthmekri fancied he could discern the lust of blood. There came to his ears a faint eager shouting.
Nuthmekri stiffened and for a moment he gripped the old sword like a fencer. Then he smiled bitterly and shook his head and while the horde continued to pour across the hilltop, turned away from the window to the furnace and sheathed the sword in the narrow, glowing crucible. The slim, unbroken object was a long time melting. Again noise filled the castle—wild laughter, stampings, treadings, smashings and breakings, snarling curses of disappointment as signs of the previous looting were uncovered (an owner’s self-looting—unforgivably mean and cheap—and in this Nuthmekri agreed with them) yells as edibles and potables came to light, ludicrous and unintelligible howlings the emotional significance of which only a barbarian mind could hope to comprehend.
By jerky stages the sword descended into the crucible. Then the guard rested against the rosy lip, Nuthmekri took up the tongs and prepared to pour.
There was a heavy tramping on the tower stairs and a jabbering that increased in volume, then a jerking and pounding at the door, which was unlocked and only failed to open because it was being tried the wrong way—pushed instead of pulled. In the center of the shadowy room the crucible made a little sun. From it there jetted into the mold a slim perfect stream, blindingly white.