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All of these things am I. And now these last things will be burned. While I lived they still lived. While I moved and hated and existed, they still existed. I am all that remembers them. I am all of them that still goes on, and will not go on after tonight. Tonight, all of us, Poe and Bierce and Hamlet’s father, we burn together. They will make a big heap of us and burn us like a bonfire, like things of Guy Fawkes’ day, gasoline, torches, cries, and all!
And what a wailing will we put up. The world will be clean of us, but in our going we shall say, oh what is the world like, clean of fear, where is the dark imagination from the dark time, the thrill and the anticipation, the suspense of old October, gone, never more to come again, flattened and smashed and burned by the rocket people, by the Incinerator people, destroyed and obliterated, to be replaced by doors that open and close and lights that go on and off without fear. If only you could remember how once we lived, what Halloween was to us, and what Poe was, and how we gloried in the dark morbidities. One more drink, dear friends, of Amontillado, before the burning. All of this, all, exists but in one last brain on earth. A whole world dying tonight. One more drink, pray.
“Here we are,” said McClure.
The Incinerator was brightly lighted. There was quiet music nearby. McClure got out of the beetle, came around to the other side. He opened the door. Lantry simply lay there. The talking and the logical talking had slowly drained him of life. He was no more than wax now, with a small glow in his eyes. This future world, how the men talked to you, how logically they reasoned away your life. They wouldn’t believe in him. The force of their disbelief froze him. He could not move his arms or his legs. He could only mumble senselessly, coldly, eyes flickering.
McClure and the two others helped him out of the car, put him in a golden box, and rolled him on a roller table into the warm glowing interior of the building.
I am Edgar Allan Poe, I am Ambrose Bierce, I am Halloween, I am a coffin, a shroud, a Monkey’s Paw, a Phantom, a Vampire …
“Yes, yes,” said McClure, quietly, over him. “I know. I know.”
The table glided. The walls swung over him and by him, the music played. You are dead, you are logically dead.
I am Usher, I am the Maelstrom, I am the MS Found In A Bottle, I am the Pit and I am the Pendulum, I am the Telltale Heart, I am the Raven nevermore, nevermore.
“Yes,” said McClure, as they walked softly. “I know.”
“I am in the catacomb,” cried Lantry.
“Yes, the catacomb,” said the walking man over him.
“I am being chained to a wall, and there is no bottle of Amontillado here!” cried Lantry weakly, eyes closed.
“Yes,” someone said.
There was movement. The flame door opened.
“Now someone is mortaring up the cell, closing me in!”
“Yes, I know.” A whisper.
The golden box slid into the flame lock.
“I’m being walled in! A very good joke indeed! Let us be gone!” A wild scream and much laughter.
“We know, we understand …”
The inner flame lock opened. The golden coffin shot forth into flame.
“For the love of God, Montresor! For the love of God!”
Zero Hour
Oh, it was to be so jolly! What a game! Such excitement they hadn’t known in years. The children catapulted this way and that across the green lawns, shouting at each other, holding hands, flying in circles, climbing trees, laughing. Overhead the rockets flew, and beetle cars whispered by on the streets, but the children played on. Such fun, such tremulous joy, such tumbling and hearty screaming.
Mink ran into the house, all dirt and sweat. For her seven years she was loud and strong and definite. Her mother, Mrs. Morris, hardly saw her as she yanked out drawers and rattled pans and tools into a large sack.
“Heavens, Mink, what’s going on?”
“The most exciting game ever!” gasped Mink, pink-faced.
“Stop and get your breath,” said the mother.
“No, I’m all right,” gasped Mink. “Okay I take these things, Mom?”
“But don’t dent them,” said Mrs. Morris.
