The Darrell Schweitzer MEGAPACK ®. Darrell Schweitzer

aside. I made to step past him, into the house.

      “Jesus, Joe, you pick the damndest nights—”

      His hand slammed into my chest, cigarette and all.

      “Just one moment, buddy. Where do you think you’re going?”

      “What?”

      I was so flabbergasted I didn’t know what to say. I just let him push me back through the doorway.

      “I said, what do you want here, mister?”

      “But—but—”

      “Look, whoever you are, I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but I’ll just have to ask you to leave or—”

      The dog jumped up, trying to lick my face. Joe shoved it aside with his foot, and said, “Sit!” very firmly. Woof sat, looking up at me longingly.

      “If this is some kind of joke,” I managed to say, “I don’t get it, Joe. Please stop.”

      “I don’t get it either,” he said, pushing me back into the rain. I could tell by his voice and his face that this was not a joke, that he was on the edge of being scared and trying not to show it. And in his eyes, there was no recognition at all.

      “Joe—”

      “You must have come to the wrong house. This must be a mistake,” he said.

      He slammed the door in my face.

      I stood there in the rain, looking no doubt as lost as the old man I’d seen in front of my own house. What had happened was so contrary to all expectations that I didn’t feel anything just yet. My mind tried to shut it all out while my body went on auto-pilot, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting in my car, staring up at a streetlight through the rain as it rippled down the windshield.

      I sat there—I don’t know how long—just numb, trying to cling to the feeble excuse that it was all an extraordinarily tasteless joke, for all Joe Meese had never been one to play stupid jokes, and, in any case, he wasn’t that good an actor; or that somehow, inexplicably, I had lost my way in the dark and the rain (or maybe bratty kids had turned the street signs around) and found myself on a very similar street, but not the right street, and by one of those incredible coincidences which would be rejected by Ripley’s Believe It Or Not for implausibility, there just happened to be a total stranger living there who looked exactly like my long-time office buddy, Joe Meese.

      * * * *

      There was a lighted window at the end of the street. I leaned forward, peering through the rain, and recognized the grocery store at the corner. Often, during Joe’s parties, someone had been sent to that store to pick up extra dip or ice or whatever.

      Almost before I realized I was doing it, I got out of the car again and ran to the grocery store. I burst through its door, and stood there, panting for breath, surveying the familiar shelves and counters.

      “Nasty one out there tonight,” the clerk said.

      “Yeah,” I said, and hurried over to the pay phone, which was in the back by the store’s single video-game machine.

      I hesitated for a moment, as if before some irrevocable decision, and then dialed Joe’s number. Luck was with me. He was the one who answered the phone.

      “Very funny,” I said.

      “What? What’s funny?”

      “Joe, this is Alan Summers.”

      “Alan! I hope Martina told you about the party. Come on over, old pal, old buddy! Fred’s here, and Roger, and Bob Steele. You know how hard it is to make them wait on a good poker game.”

      “Look,” I said as slowly and deliberately as I could. “I’m at the grocery down the street. I have already been to your house, but you turned me away like I was a complete stranger barging in uninvited. Now would you mind telling me why?”

      There was a pause.

      “Joe?”

      “Alan…I don’t get what you’re saying. I have been here all along, with the others, and no one has come to the door since half an hour ago, when Roger arrived. I think you are the one who needs to explain.”

      “I can’t,” I said. “I’ll be right over, okay? Then maybe this’ll make some sort of sense.”

      “Okay.” His voice was cold, uncertain.

      I hung up and leaned against the wall by the phone, swaying, both hands pressed against my temples. I wondered if I had gone completely mad. But that was a feeble excuse, too. I knew perfectly well I hadn’t. Nobody who is crazy thinks he is crazy. The complete raving loony thinks he is the only sane person in the world, surrounded by nut cases too stupid to understand him. I was beginning to be genuinely afraid.

      “You all right?” the clerk at the counter asked. “Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

      I hurried from the store.

      When I got back to Joe’s house, my gut-level instinct told me that the most sensible thing to do, the safest thing, the way to escape, was to just get into my car and drive home and tell myself lies over and over until I was convinced this had never happened.

      But it had happened, and I knew it had, and something else inside me drove me to walk up to that door and ring the bell again. I rang it. Once more the dog enthusiastically announced my arrival.

      The door opened, and there was Joe again, holding the dog by the collar. I stared, sure I was seeing things.

      It wasn’t the same dog. It wasn’t Woof at all, but a large, purebred, yellow-and-white collie which also, somehow, seemed to know me.

      “Why have you come back?”

      I pushed my way past him, into the living room. He had his hands full trying to restrain the dog, which was still trying to lick my face, yelping excitedly all the while.

      “Joe,” I said, turning to him. “I don’t know if I’ve done something wrong, but if I have, I’m sorry. Still, no matter what it was, you don’t have to treat me like I’m some bum in off the street. What the hell is going on?”

      I felt the fear again, the cords of the elevator cable snapping one by one, faster now, the plunge beginning.

      He was obviously afraid too.

      “I don’t know how you know my name,” he said, “and maybe this is a mistake of some sort, but I still don’t know who you are, mister, or why you are here or what you want, but I want you out of my house right now!”

      “Joe! It’s me, Alan Summers, your friend! What is this?”

      “Joe? Who’s at the door?” a woman called from the next room. I knew the voice, of course. It belonged to Alice, Joe’s wife. I’d known her as long as I’d known Joe, eight or nine years. She was my one hope.

      “Alice!” I yelled. “Alice, come here please.” She came, saw me, and stopped.

      “Joe, who is this man? Some friend of yours?”

      “I swear to God,” he said. “I’ve never seen him before in my life. Only he was here five minutes ago, trying to get in like he owned the place.”

      She began to back away, one hand over her mouth, staring at me wide-eyed. “Do you want me to call the police?” she said.

      “No,” I said softly. “You don’t have to do that. It’s all a mistake. I’ll go. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

      A minute later I was on the sidewalk, making my way slowly back to the grocery store, running my hand along the wooden fence in the front of my friend’s yard. I wanted to go back to the store, to call him on the phone again and plead with him, but I couldn’t. I just stood there, cold and wet and afraid. I must have stood still for five or ten minutes. Then I was in my car, completely drenched, my teeth chattering, crying like