Cold Fire

Townfolk stopped in just to say hello, not only when they needed something, and his genuine interest in people served his commerce. He had been working at the pharmacy for thirty-three years and had been the owner since his father's death twenty-seven years ago.

Handahl was the least threatening of men, yet Jim suddenly felt threatened by him. He wanted to get out of the pharmacy before.

Before what? Before Handahl said the wrong thing, revealed too much.

But what could he reveal? "I'm Jim's fiancee," Holly said, somewhat to Jim's surprise.

"Congratulations, Jim," Handahl said. "You're a lucky man. Young lady, I just hope you know, the family changed its name from Ironhead, which was more descriptive. Stubborn group." He winked and laughed.

Holly said, "Jim's taking me around town, showing me favorite places Sentimental journey, I suppose you'd call it.”

Frowning at Jim, Handahl said, "Didn't think you ever liked this town well enough to feel sentimental about it.”

Jim shrugged. "Attitudes change.”

"Glad to hear it." Handahl turned to Holly again. "He started coming in here soon after he moved in with his grandfolks, every Tuesday and Friday when new books and magazines arrived from the distributor in Santa Barbara." He had put aside the Windex. He was arranging counter displays of chewing gum, breath mints, disposable lighters, and pocket combs. "Jim was a real reader then. You still a real reader?" "Still am," Jim said with growing uneasiness, terrified of what Handahl might say next. Yet for the life of him, he did not know what the man could say that would matter so much.

"Your tastes were kinda narrow, I remember." To Holly: "Used to spend his allowance buying most every science fiction or spook-'em paperback that came in the door. Course, in those days, a two-dollar-a-week allowance went pretty far, if you remember that a book was about forty-five or fifty cents.”

Claustrophobia settled over Jim, thick as a heavy shroud. The pharmacy began to seem frighteningly small, crowded with merchandise, and he wanted to get out of there.

It's coming, he thought, with a sudden quickening of anxiety. It's coming.

Handahl said, "I suppose maybe he got his interest in weird fiction from his mom and dad.”

Frowning, Holly said, "How's that?" "I didn't know Jamie, Jim's dad, all that well, but I was only one year behind him at county high school. No offense, Jim, but your dad had some exotic interests-though the way the world's changed, they probably wouldn't seem as exotic now as back in the early fifties.”

"Exotic interests?" Holly prodded.

Jim looked around the pharmacy, wondering where it would come from, which route of escape might be blocked and which might remain open. He was swinging between tentative acceptance of Holly's theory and rejection of it, and right now, he was sure she had to be wrong. It wasn't a force inside him. It was entirely a separate being, just as The Friend was. It was an evil alien, just as The Friend was good, and it could go anywhere, come out of anything, at any second, and it was coming, he knew it was coming, it wanted to kill them all.

"Well," Handahl said, "when he was a kid, Jamie used to come in here — it was my dad's store then-and buy those old pulp magazines with robots, monsters, and scanty-clad women on the covers. He used to talk a lot about how we'd put men on the moon someday, and everyone thought he was a little strange for that, but I guess he was right after all.

Didn't surprise me when I heard he'd given up being an accountant, found a showhiz wife, and was making his living doing a mentalist act.”

"Mentalist act?" Holly said, glancing at Jim. "I thought your dad was an accountant, your mom was an actress.”

"They were," he said thinly. "That's what they were-before they put together the act.”

He had almost forgotten about the act, which surprised him. How could he have forgotten the act? He had all the photographs from the tours, so many of them on his walls; he looked at them everyday, yet he'd pretty much forgotten that they had been taken during travels between performances.

It was coming very fast now.

Close. It was very close.

He wanted to warn Holly. He couldn't speak.

Something seemed to have stolen his tongue, locked his jaws.

It was coming.

It didn't want him to warn her. It wanted to take her by surprise.

Arranging the last of the counter displays, Handahl said, "It was a tragedy, what happened to them, all right. Jim, when you first came to town to stay with your grandfolks, you were so withdrawn, nobody could get two words out of you.”

Holly was watching Jim rather than Handahl.

She seemed to sense that he was in grave distress.