Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 44 — page 125: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION eyes became accustomed to a single faint beam from a crack in the room’s boarded-up window. He scanned the floor and saw a dark shape. “No,” he said, backing out of the doorway. “There’s somebody in there.” “*Is he dead ?” “IT. ..I1 don’t know,” he said, somewhat horrified. “Let’s see,”’ the girl said, entering the room silently. He followed. She approached the shadowy corner and bent down. “Help me move it outside.” “What ?”’ shuddered George Three. *““He’s dead—freshly dead, I think. Otherwise a cadaver | team from the medical school would have got him. He doesn’t need this room any more, so it’s ours!” He helped her move the emaciated old carcase outside the door. It might have weighed seventy-five pounds. “Leave it here. That will tell anyone else that we’ve just moved in and are prob- ably alive.” “Good Lord!’ exclaimed George Three. She smiled and wrapped her arm affectionately around his. “You have a lot to learn of the world we live in, George. But bad as it is,” she added seriously, “‘this isn’t the worst of it. What you just left behind is! Now you take off his clothes.” George Three stared at her, motionless. “Unless you want me to,” she added, smiling gently. George Three forced himself to pull the dismal rags from the dead man. *““We’ll need the clothes for disguises,’ the girl explained, before entering the room. “Besides, a fully dressed corpse in this place would attract attention. They would think we were rich!” The dead man had been old, very old. He reeked of alcohol. George Three had constantly smelled the odour since they had entered the old house. Alcohol, that an- cient depressive! he thought bitterly. That refuge for the jaded and the dispossessed. Not even Tab, he reflected morosely, could fortify a man | against the long, slow pull of age and lost self-esteem. 124 Commchooks.com, A ow . a? ean t Di atte ag tops - ' §