Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 Read Online Free

with the
     rigid package. "Foster," she said in a low voice. "What are we going to do
     when they—when they all go bad?"
    Foster smiled ambiguously. "Perhaps we'll live on love alone."
     
    Mardin dreamed:
    Briefly.
    A three-lobed solid with sharp corners and no straight lines. It had been
     a greenish yellow at the beginning, but the red crept across in bands,
     like a television screen when the plane flies over. It was somehow
     important to him, but progressively less so as it reddened. And then
     finally the crimson was total.
     
    One particularly lean day, Mardin attacked Connie in the kitchen. Neither
     Foster nor Connie ever knew Mardin's purpose—whether it was sex,
     food, both, or neither.
    Foster was wandering the halls, leafing idly through an ancient book of
     Gahan Wilson cartoons he had found in the visitor's lounge. Then he heard
     the commotion in the kitchen. He investigated and found Connie, clothes
     shredded, sprawled on her back on the breakfast table while Mardin weakly
     battered her head against the formica surface. Foster watched for a
     moment, then picked up the useless electric carving knife from the
     counter. He slammed the heavy handle against the back of Mardin's head,
     stunning the ex-file clerk. Quickly, Foster wound the long vinyl electric
     cord around Mardin's neck and garroted him—then unwound some slack
     and drew the serrated blade across Mardin's jugular.
    Connie moved weakly on top of the table. She gasped for air and moaned.
    Foster slowly stood and put the electric carving knife in the dirty sink.
     He stepped to the table and looked down at the girl. Connie opened her
     eyes and looked back at him.
     
    The final day came when the two survivors stood apart from each other.
     They watched without saying, almost as a tableau. Connie was at the top of
     the staircase to the observation level. Behind her was the pearl gray of
     early morning. The light from the open door made the girl's pale skin
     translucent; the outline of her form glowed—the rest of her body was
     in shadow. But she was smiling—Foster could see that; her teeth
     showed white. Her hands were together in front of her, and something
     gleamed there—a blade perhaps; or maybe a silver bracelet.
    Foster settled back in his chair, hardly breathing, and looked up the
     steps at Connie. On the floor beside him was the electric carving knife,
     within grasp-if he wanted to reach it.
    "Baby, where now?" The voice whispered from above him, soft. Connie
     started down the stairs and the perhaps-a-knife in her hands glittered
     again.
    "Wait," said Foster. "Listen."
    The girl stopped.
    "I hear something," said Foster. "Something distant and coming closer. A
     buzzing like maybe a rescue helicopter."
    "It's a hallucination," said Connie, again starting her descent.
    "Perhaps."
    "Or one of your rotten jokes."
    Outside the building, blackened trunks of pine shivered in the dry wind.
    The End
    © 1971 by Coronet Communications, Inc. Originally published in Quark. Reprinted with permission of the author.

A Crowd of Shadows
    Charles L. Grant
    Of all the means of relaxation that I have devised for myself over the
     years, most required nothing more strenuous than driving an automobile,
     and not one of them had anything remotely to do with murder. Yet there it
     was, and now here I am—alone, though not always alone, and
     wondering, though not always puzzled. I'm neither in jail nor exile,
     asylum nor hospital. Starburst is where I am, and, unless I can straighten
     a few things out, Starburst is where I'm probably going to stay.
    I had long ago come to the conclusion that every so often the world simply
     had to thumb its nose at me and wink obscenely as if it knew what the hell
     was making things tick and for spite wasn't about to let me in on the
     secret. When that happens, I succumb to the lure of Huck Finn's advice and
     light out for the territory: in my case, that turns out to be Starburst.
     Where the