He still didn't notice the cessation of sound, did not realize that incredible death was creeping closer to him every second.
Even when the energetic tick of the alarm clock sitting on a mummy case was no longer audible, Morton did not sense that death was near. He was lost in his work.
But when he could no longer hear the scratch of his pen on the paper, he realized that something was happening. He looked up.
Morton was a solidly built, craggy giant. His face burned a deep brown by the sun of the Arabian desert, a shock of white hair that for days was undisturbed by brush or comb, he sat in his chair, every sense suddenly alert. His eyes raced over the room, seeking the cause of the uncanny silence.
He saw nothing.
But he recognized the presence of danger and reached for the telephone. It was the last move he ever made. As his fingers closed around the instrument, the silence hit him.
It had the effect of a physical blow. The smack of a prizefighter's fist would not have rocked him more. As he gasped one word into the telephone, his body seemed to be lifted clear out of the chair. His muscles, tensing involuntarily, hurled him upward, like a grotesque jack-in-the-box that has been suddenly released. He hit the chair as he fell, crashing it to the floor with him.
His body writhed, a slow, tortuous twisting. Muscles swelled in his throat as he screamed in pain. But no sound came.
The threshing of his heavy body on the concrete floor produced no sound. The scream was blotted into utter silence.
Before the muscular writhing had ceased, his flesh began to change color. The tan of his face, stamped with lines of torture, became a reddish pink. Thousands of microscopic pinpoints of color spread in a creeping tide over his body.