Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown

Author:Fredric Brown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

Landscape with Martians

9.

“Catatonia, Doctor?” the interne asked.

The ambulance physician rubbed his lantern jaw for a moment, staring down at the still figure that lay on Luke's bed.

“Very strange,” he said. “Catatonic state at present, certainly, but it's probably only a phase, like the other phases.” He turned to Luke's landlady, who was standing in the doorway of the room. “You say you heard a scream first?”

“That's right. An' I thought it was from his room and I come out in the hall to listen, but there was his typewriter banging away so I thought he was aw right and went back. An' then, two-three minutes later, glass crashed and that time I opened his door and went in. And there was his window busted and him laying outside it on the fire escape. Good thing for him there was a fire escape, throwing hisself out the window thataway.”

“Strange,” the doctor said.

“You're gonna take him, ain't you, doctor? Especially him bleeding like that.”

“We'll take him all right. But don't worry about the bleeding. It's superficial.”

“Not on my bedclothes it ain't. Art' who's going to pay for that busted window?”

The doctor sighed. “That is not within my province, Madam. But we'd better stop the bleeding from those cuts before we move him. I wonder if you would be so kind as to boil us some water?”

“Sure, Doctor.”

When the landlady had left the interne glanced curiously at the doctor. “Did you really want her to boil water or — ?”

“Of course not, Pete. I wanted her to boil her head, but she wouldn't have agreed to that. Always ask women to boil water if you want to get rid of them.”

“It seems to work. Shall I clean up those cuts with alky here or should we take him in first?”

“Clean them up here, please, Pete. I want to look around a little. And there's a chance he might come out of it and be able to walk down those two flights under his own power.”

The doctor walled over to the table on which stood a typewriter with paper in it. He started to read and stopped a moment at the by-line. “By Luke Devers,” he said. “Sounds vaguely familiar, Pete. Where have I heard the name Luke Devers recently?”

“I don't know, Doc.”

“Start of a Western. A novel, I'd say, since he put down Chapter I. Reads all right for three paragraphs — and then here's a place where a key punched right through the paper. I'd say that's how far he got when something happened to him. A Martian, no doubt.”

“Is there any other reason why people go crazy, Doc?”

The doctor sighed. “There used to be other reasons. I guess they're not worth going crazy over, now. Well, that must have been when he screamed. And then — the landlady's right; he kept on typing for a few more lines. But come over and read them.”

“In a second, Doc. This is the last cut I'm working on.”

A minute later he went over to the typewriter.

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