The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by William Sloane Stephen King

Author:William Sloane, Stephen King [William Sloane, Stephen King]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Cosmic Horror
ISBN: 9781590179079
Google: 7W8lBgAAQBAJ
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2015-10-05T23:00:00+00:00

3.

FOR THE second time I stooped to the handle of my suitcase. However unlikely Barsham Harbor might look, it was Julian’s address and my destination. I was impatient to finish my journey. Also, there was a hollow under my belt where no breakfast rested as yet and I wanted to fill that. I crossed the platform and halted beside the sedan.

“Good morning,” I said. No reply; the driver went on looking into space. “Is this a taxicab?”

He turned his head deliberately, then, and looked me over from head to foot without speaking. There was no expression on his narrow face or around the pale flatness of his eyes. When his inspection was completed he nodded once and said, “Ayuh.”

The man was disconcerting and, when I spoke again, it annoyed me to hear that my tone sounded apologetic. “I was expecting a friend to meet me, but he doesn’t seem to have showed up. I suppose I better go out to his place. It’s Mr. Blair. He lives in the old Talcott house.”

Something happened behind the flat eyes that were watching me, but I couldn’t tell what it was. After a minute he looked away and said indifferently, “Reckon I know where it is.” He thrust back a thin, brown arm and opened the tonneau door beside me. I slung in my bag and started to follow it. “It’ll be a dollar,” he said.

“That’s all right. Do you want me to pay you now?”

“Please yerself.”

I took a bill out of my pocket at once. Something in his manner made me want to put him in my debt. “Here,” I told him, “and if you’re not sure about the place, we can ask in town.”

He was putting the bill into a battered wallet with meticulous care and thoroughness. “I said I knew where it was.” After buttoning his wallet into a hip pocket he added, “Don’t have much occasion to go out that way lately.”

“I suppose not,” I said. “To tell you the truth I didn’t expect to find anyone who would know the way so easily. Mr. Blair’s letter wasn’t very clear on directions. I wasn’t sure anybody would know where he lived.”

He smiled temporarily, and his teeth were the yellow-brown of a tobacco chewer’s. Later I understood that smile. It was for my city man’s assumption that anyone could live in Barsham Harbor for more than a few days without being known to every living inhabitant. When he was through being amused, the same indifference, tinged with something stronger this time, returned to his manner. “Ever’body round here knows the Talcott place,” he remarked briefly and swung the car down the station drive.

I settled back in my seat with a grunt. “Oh,” I remembered suddenly, “I haven’t had any breakfast yet. Is there a place in town where I can get something?”

“Ee-lite’ll be open, I reckon,” he said and cut the car into the street. We went unhurriedly down along its rolling length with the high white houses on either side of us.

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