Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

Mr. Chambers loved that picture. It had depth, he always said. It showed an old sailing ship in the foreground on a placid sea. Far in the distance, almost on the horizon line, was the vague outline of a larger vessel. There were other pictures, too. The forest scene above the fireplace, the old English prints in the corner where he sat, the Currier and Ives above the radio. But the ship print was directly in his line of vision. He could see it without turning his head. He had put it there because he liked it best. Further reverie became an effort as Mr. Chambers felt himself succumb- ing to weariness. He undressed and went to bed. For an hour he lay awake, assailed by vague fears he could neither define nor understand. When finally he dozed off it was to lose himself in a series of horrific dreams. He dreamed first that he was a castaway on a tiny islet in mid- ocean, that the waters around the island teemed with huge poisonous sea snakes, hydrophinnae, and that steadily those serpents were devouring the island. : In another dream he was pursued by a horror which he could neither see nor hear, but only could imagine. And as he sought to flee he stayed in the one place. His legs worked frantically, pumping like pistons, but he could make no progress. It was as if he ran upon a treadway. Then again the terror descended on him, a black, unimagined thing and he tried to scream and could not. He opened his mouth and strained his _ vocal cords and filled his lungs to bursting with the urge to shriek, but » not a sound came from his lips. | : All next day he was uneasy and, as he left the house that evening at precisely seven o'clock, he kept saying to himself: “I must not forget to- night! I must remember to stop and get my cigar!” The street light at the corner of Jefferson was still out and in front of 816 the cemented driveway was still boarded off. Everything was the same as the night before. And now, he told himself, the Red Star confectionery is in the next block. I must not forget tonight. To forget twice in a row would be just too much. He grasped that thought firmly in his mind, strode just a bit more rapidly down the street. But at the corner he stopped in consternation, and stared down the next block. There was no neon sign, no splash of friendly light upon the side- walk to mark the little store tucked away in this residential section. He stared at the street marker and read the word slowly: GRANT. He read it again, unbelieving, for this should not be Grant Street, but Mar- shall. He had walked two blocks and the confectionery was between Marshall and Grant. He hadn’t come to Marshall yet—and here was Grant. Or had he, absent-mindedly, come one block farther than he thought, passed the store as on the night before? | For the first time in twenty years, Mr. Chambers retraced his steps. He walked back to Jefferson, then turned around and went back to Grant again and on to Lexington. Then back to Grant again, where he stood astounded while a single, incredible fact grew slowly in his brain: There was no confectionery! The block from Marshall to Grant had disappeared! | 119 aa | — Conmichooks.con