DARK WINDOWS

BY BRYCE WALTON

Sooner or later it would happen, and after that he wouldn't ever have to worry again. He'd be dead, or worse, one of the silent living dead.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

I was suddenly wide awake and listening. A gray light the color of wet charcoal lay over the chilled room. There it was again. Plain and sharp through the thin wall separating my room from that of old man Donnicker, the shoe-maker.

Maybe he was sick. No, that wasn't it. Another muted cry of pain, then a choking sound, and the unmistakable thud of a falling body. An odd whirring sound clicked off. Then a voice said, "Grab the verminous legs of this subversive, Marty. Let's get him in the wagon."

"You gave him too much bip. He looks deader than Einstein."

"I said grab his legs."

A door shut. I went to the window. I was shivering in the morning chill. A black car moved away down the broken pavement. It swerved to miss a large mudhole in the middle of the street and an old woman with burlap wrapped around her feet didn't move fast enough. She flew across the sidewalk like a ragged dummy and lay in a heap.

Goodbye, Donnicker. I had seen the black car before. Donnicker was dead. But it didn't bother me. I never had anything to do with neighbors, anybody I didn't know had a top clearance. I was clear and intended to stay that way.

You just never knew. Donnicker had seemed like a true patriot. My carefully distant and casual observations of him had led me to believe he was as happily stupid as I was. But he had been hiding something.

I turned from the window and started the day's routine that had been the same for as long as I could remember. I warmed up some mush on the gas burner. At seven, as always, the Tevee warmed up, and Miss Info with the lacquered lips smiled at me. "... and so don't worry, citizens. The past is dead. The future is assured, and tomorrow will only be another today. And today we are safe and care-free."

Amen. She said it every morning, but it was nice hearing it again. Then the news came on. 

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