Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

And beyond, like a final backdrop, rose a titanic wall. It was from the erenelated parapets and battlements of that wall that Mr. Chambers felt the eyes peering at him, thousands of eyes glaring down with but a single purpose. As he continued to look, something else seemed to take form above that wall—a design this time, that swirled and writhed in the ribbons of radiance and rapidly coalesced into strange geometric features, without definite line or detail. A colossal face, a face of indescribable power ‘and evil, it was, staring down with malevolent composure. Then the city and the face slid out of focus; the vision faded like a dark- ened magic-lantern, and the grayness moved in again. Mr. Chambers pushed open the door of his house. But he did not lock it. There was no need of locks—not any more. A few coals of fire still smouldered in the grate and going there, he stirred them up, raked away the ash, piled on more wood. The flames leaped merrily, dancing in the chimney’s throat. Without removing his hat and coat, he sank exhausted-in his favorite chair, closed his eyes, then opened them again. He sighed with relief as he saw the room was unchanged. Everything in its accustomed place: the clock, the lamp, the elephant ash tray, the | marine print on the wall. Everything was as it should be. The clock meas- ured the silence with its measured ticking; it chimed abruptly and the vase sent up its usual sympathetic vibration. This was his room, he thought. Rooms acquire the peroushe of the person who lives in them, become a part of him. This was his world, his own private world, and as such it would be the last to go. But how long could he maintain its existence? Mr. Chambers stared at the marine print and for a moment a little breath of reassurance returned to him. They couldn’t take this away. The rest of the world might dissolve because there was insufficient power of thought to retain its outward form. But this room was his. He alone had furnished it. He alone, since he had first planned the house’s building, had lived here. This room would stay. It must stay on, it must... He crossed the room to the bookcase, and stood staring at the second shelf with its single volume. His eyes shifted to the top shelf and swift terror gripped him. For all the books were not there. A lot of books were not there! Only the most beloved, the most familiar ones. So the change already had started here! The unfamiliar books were gone and that fitted into the pattern—for it would be the least familiar things that would go first. Wheeling, he stared across the room. Was it his imagination, or did the lamp on the table blur and begin to fade away? But as he stared at % it became clear again, a solid, substantial thing. For a moment real fear reached out and touched him with chilly fame He understood that this room no longer was proof against the thing that had happened out there on the street. Or had it really happened? Might not all this exist within his own mind? Might not the street be as it always was, with laughing children and bark- : 3 #24 conn ElDOOKS2©