Out of the Air

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

Back once more in his rooms, he did not light up. Instead he sat at the window and gazed out. Straight ahead, two lines of golden beads curving up the Avenue seemed to connect the Arch with the distant horizon. The deep azure of the sky was faintly powdered with stars. But for its occasional lights, of a purplish silver, the Square would have been a mere mystery of trees. But those lights seemed to anchor what was half vision to earth. And they threw interlaced leaf shadows on the ceiling above Lindsay’s head. It was as though he sat in some ghostly bower. Looking fixedly through the Arch, his face grew somber. Suddenly he jerked about and stared through the doorway which led into the back rooms.

Nothing appeared—

After a while he lighted one gas jet—after an instant’s hesitation another—

In the middle of the night, Lindsay suddenly found himself sitting upright. His mouth was wide open, parched; his eyes were wide open, staring.... A chilly prickling tingled along his scalp.... But the strangest phenomenon was his heart, which, though swelled to an incredible bulk, nimbly leaped, heavily pounded....

Lindsay recognized the motion which inundated him to be fear; overpowering, shameless, abject fear. But of what? In the instant in which he gave way to self-analysis, memory supplied him with a vague impression. Something had come to his bed and, leaning over, had stared into his face—

That something was not human.

Lindsay fought for control. By an initial feat of courage, his fumbling fingers lighted a candle which stood on the tiny Sheraton table at his bedside. On a second impulse, but only after an interval in which consciously but desperately he grasped at his vanishing manhood, he leaped out of bed; lighted the gas. Then carrying the lighted candle, he went from one to another of the four rooms of the apartment. In each room he lighted every gas jet until the place blazed. He searched it thoroughly: dark corners and darker closets; jetty strata of shadow under couches.

He was alone.

After a while he went back to bed. But his courage was not equal to darkness again. Though ultimately he fell asleep, the gas blazed all night.

Lindsay awoke rather jaded the next morning. He wandered from room to room submitting to one slash of his razor at this mirror and to another at that.