BLEEDBACK
BY WINSTON MARKS
It was just a harmless, though amazing,
kid's toy that sold for less than a dollar.
Yet it plunged the entire nation into a
nightmare of mystery and chaos....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The thing is over now, but I can't see a Teddy bear or a set of blocks in a department store window without shuddering. I'm thankful I'm a bachelor and have no children around to remind me of the utterly insane nightmare that a child's toy plunged our country into—the millions of people who died in agony—the total disruption and near dissolution of our nation.
And yet, as the United States tottered on the verge of complete chaos, it was, ironically, another child's toy that saved us. A simple, ordinary, every-day toy for tots stopped the "fever", halted the carnage that was tearing our flesh and eyes and viscera into shreds. With most the scientists in the world working for an emergency solution, they could come up with no better answer than a toy that'd been around for generations before the "Mystery i-Gun" was even conceived.
Being a plain-clothesman, I have seen greed and impatience ruin many individual lives. If I could have guessed at the chain of events that would stem from my first contact with the younger Baxter brother, I would have put a bullet through his head in cold blood and cheerfully faced the gas chamber.
Instead I took off my hat and followed him through the substantial old house to a moderately large room in the rear where, I'd been told, we would find a body.