"NEXT STOP, NOWHERE!"
By Dick Purcell
It's logical to assume that an elevator
only travels from one floor to another; yet if
you think about it—what's between the floors?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
August 1956
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Four persons disappearing from an elevator should have caused concern—even excitement. Especially when the elevator was stuck between two floors. But the thing was handled quite casually. And with good reason. After all, when a thing is not understood the best defense against acknowledging ignorance is to insist that nothing extraordinary happened.
In this case, four persons, a girl and three men, stepped into an elevator in the Kendall Building. They were all headed for the same suite—offices occupied by several medical men. The elevator jammed between the sixth and seventh floors and refused to budge.
The operator, a salty little Brooklynite, swore quietly to himself and pushed the emergency signal. It rang but nothing happened. The operator waited for a few minutes, then spoke in a carefully casual voice, "The blessed engineer is out to supper. Now ain't that the way things always happen? When the blessed engineer goes out to supper the blessed elevator does a blessed sit-down between two floors."
"What—what are we going to do?" This from the very pretty female passenger named Peggy Wilson who was afraid of almost everything and was going to a psychiatrist who was trying to root a dominating mother out of the poor girl's subconscious and put the old lady back in her grave where she belonged.
"We aren't in any danger, miss. We could wait for the engineer but it might be quite a while."