Mr. Caxton draws a Martian bird

by Frank Belknap Long

Susan was the first to drowse off. Peter watched her for a moment, inwardly congratulating himself on his superior reserves of strength.

It seemed tragic to him that his sister had been born a girl. She was terribly clever, of course, even at play. But she never woke up planning a full day of exploring, never wanted to lie awake in the darkness dreaming of campfires in the desert, and the echoing tramp of strange beasts going on and on in the blackness like a peal of thunder, now loud and terrifying, and now muffled, but never quite dying out.

She was content to play hop-scotch with the other children, build doll houses out of the soft red mud that lined the canal beds, and get sticky smears of jam on her cheeks.

It was perhaps fortunate for Peter that his sister could not tune in on his thoughts. Before falling asleep he sometimes experienced moments of twilight meditation when his mind became crystal clear, its memory-conjured visions flooded with the nightmare brilliance of an actual dream.

Now, suddenly, he saw the strange clawmarks again, four-toed, and pointing in the direction of the camp. Why hadn't Mr. Caxton believed him? He asked the question without realizing that sleep was already hovering over him, with a black curtain of oblivion to impose silence on his thoughts.

Whether Peter slept five minutes or five hours would not have in any way altered the depth and completeness of that sudden falling away of consciousness. It was therefore of no importance.

Only Peter's terror on awakening was important. It was a terror so cruelly sharp, sudden and overwhelming that it brought him to his knees with a scream. No sooner was he on his knees than he began to shake, to clutch at his sister's arm in a sort of boyish agony, as if the panic he felt was being made worse by her refusal to awake, and share it with him.

It was not a brave way to act at all. Despite his terrible fear of being alone he should have controlled himself, he should have tried to protect and spare his sister. He realized that almost instantly, with the coldness still coursing up his spine.

But he was afraid to keep silent lest the thing he saw should come out of the night toward him.

He could see it very clearly. It was framed in the doorway, and it was staring straight at him, its owlish face half in shadows. He could see its narrowly slitted eyes burning brightly, and the wicked gleam of its teeth as its feathered jaws opened and closed.