Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 7, No. 9, September 1962

Then it came! The great sledgehammer blow of steel against steel. He thought at first it was the neighbors trying to break down the door. Then he realized in sudden elation that it was merely the metallic click of the time lock shattering the silence. The steel door was ajar! It had swayed inward a scant half inch!

The neighbors should rush in now. It was part of the plan. They should rush in just in the nick of time to witness the frightful scene.

But there was no babble of voices beyond the door, not a scrape of a foot on the stone steps, not a sound.

Halsey grasped the edge of the door with his finger tips and pulled. The heavy door was adamant. His fingernails splintered and broke. Gasping, he clutched the edge with the fingers of both hands. It gave an inch. Sunlight and fresh air rushed through the opening. Even as his lungs gasped in the air eagerly, his eyes quickly told him that the stair well was empty.

Bewildered, he struggled to his feet, flung the door open, and staggered up the short flight of steps, his eyes squinting against the raw sunlight.

The voice of the siren reached him then. It began with a low moan, rose rapidly higher in pitch to split the skies, and reached out across the land with undulations of warning. He turned in its direction and saw the pall of smoke that cloaked Midville, a scant mile away across the lake. And even as he watched, a great column of flame spread upward from just beyond the town, its livid crest spreading rapidly outward.

Halsey’s brain warned him of the shock blast that came from atomic mushrooms to level everything in its path above the ground, and through no volition of his own he went spinning back down the stairs and into the comparative darkness of the shelter.

Something in the shadows clutched his feet to engulf them in a strong tangle of mesh. Something bit deeply into his ankle. As he bent to free himself, the knitted mesh tightened as if pulled by unseen hands, and Halsey stumbled backwards against the steel door.

The time lock clanged deafeningly in the small room — and echoed and echoed and echoed.

Outside, the siren continued to wail in desperation as the people of Midville watched the flames leap ever closer to the second large storage tank of gasoline. It was the largest fire the townspeople had witnessed for more than thirty years.

IQ-184 by Fletcher Flora

Children whose intelligence quotient is way above normal, often seem to have adult characteristics out of all proportion to their immature bodies, but in keeping with their brilliant minds. Monstrous, some call it.

* * *

Rena Holly was in the living room with the policeman when Charles Holly went downstairs to join them. Rena was sitting in a high-backed chair of polished walnut upholstered in dark red velvet. She was sitting there quietly, very erect, her knees together and her feet flat upon the floor and her.hands folded in her lap. Her face was pale and still, perfectly composed, and she was even now, even in the violation of her grief by police procedure, so incredibly lovely that Charles felt in his heart the familiar sweet anguish that was his normal response to her. Only her eyes moved ever so slightly in his direction when he entered the room.

“Charles,” she said, “this is Lieutenant Casey of the police. He is inquiring about Richard’s death.”

Lieutenant Casey arose from the chair in which he had been sitting opposite Rena. He was a stocky man with broad shoulders and a deep chest and thin gray hair brushed neatly across his skull from a low side part. His face was deeply lined and weathered looking, as if he spent much time in the wind and sun, and the hand he extended toward Charles had pads of callous on fingers and palm, although its touch was surprisingly gentle. He seemed awkward in his gray suit, which was actually of good cut and quality, and the impression he gave generally was one of regret, almost of apology, that he had been forced by his position to intrude.

“Good-afternoon, Lieutenant,” Charles said. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Sorry,” Casey said. “It’s a routine matter, of course. I regret that I’m compelled to disturb you at this time.”

“Not at all. We must tell you whatever is necessary.” Charles sat down and placed his hands on his knees in an attitude of attention, while Casey resumed his place in the chair from which he had risen. “Please ask me anything you wish.”

“I think that Lieutenant Casey wishes you to tell him exactly how Richard died,” Rena said.