“Video killed the radio star,” or so the song lyrics have it. In this new story by Steffan B.

Aletti, radio almost kills a lot more than that. What if Orson Welles’s radio broadcast of
H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds had caught the attention of some real Martians who then
got the idea, “Wouldn’t this be the perfect time for a real invasion?” This is a rare and
wonderful saga of an age in which radio was powerful, maybe even too powerful. Had
things gone a different way, this tale suggests, radio might have deserved the praise it
once received, as the acme of human invention; it certainly would have been if the road
to technological advancement been suddenly cut off! But the main truth of this story is
the potent demonstration that truths are best conveyed in story form. Narrative can
invoke truths in so powerful a manner that all doubt and disbelief falls away before the
“truth” invoked by the ritual magic of a script and a stage.

Stay Tuned!

By

Steffan Aletti

“You can’t be serious,” Phil Kramer said. “You don’t mean to say you’ve…

you’ve …poisoned the wine!” His voice trembled with fear.

“You bet your life I did,” Annie Lewis hissed, and then snickered, “Literally you

bet your life, and now you’ve just lost that bet. How does it feel to be dying, Monty?” she

said, squeezing out his name like a lugie through clenched teeth.

“No! I...I...I don’t believe it,” Phil stammered, his voice thin and wavering. “You

love me too much, Portia. You couldn’t…you wouldn’t…dare! I don’t want to die, I

can’t die…” Phil began to cough and choke.

Annie expanded her snicker into a nasty, nasal laugh. “How do you like it,

Monty? How does it feel to have done to you what you’ve done to so many?”

Phil continued to make dyspeptic noises.

 2

“Well, Monty? You’ve never been at a loss for words before; don’t tell me you

have nothing clever to say with your dying breath?”

Phil went into extravagant paroxysms of coughing and gurgling. “Portia,

you’ve…killed…me…” He let out a final gasp and rattle as Lennie, off to the side,

picked up a heavy sack of sand and let it drop with a dull thump onto a few wooden

boards on the floor.

Annie’s laugh increased in volume and pitch, expanding into a maniacal cackle as

Ed Regan pointed a directorial finger from behind the control room window. Hilda,

seated at the small, two-rank electric organ wearing, as always, her neat little hat with the

blue ribbon, played a series of increasingly loud, throbbing diminished seventh chords.

Engineer Wes Stiller twirled a couple dials, and hundreds of thousands of people around

the country, hearts pounding as one, thrilled as Annie’s hollow, reverberating demonic

laughter was finally drowned out by the reedy vibrato of the organ.

Balding and sweating, Ed Regan now pointed at elderly James Baron, elegant as

usual, in his blue serge blazer with its jaunty white pocket handkerchief. James, known in

the radio business as the “Baron of the voice-over,” cupped his right hand over his ear as

he squinted at the script and said in practiced, round, sepulchral tones, “and, once again,

we return to the ‘regular’ world,” – a slight sneer crept into his voice – “the world where

you get up every morning and go to work, and come back every evening and find

everything in order. The world where we can trust in what we see…and feel.”

Lennie walked an empty pair of shoes over a slanted plywood board.

“But,” James lowered his voice until it was barely a whisper, his mouth nearly

touching the microphone, “beware” – he drew out the vowel like a strand of silly putty –
 3

“You’ll never know at what moment, at what turn of the corner, at what twist of the

doorknob” – Lennie turned the knob of a miniature door on the prop table – “you’ll once

again enter that…” he took a quick breath and his voice plummeted an octave “…

Dimension of Fear.”

Wes Stiller turned another knob and the name of the program, lifted and

magnified, threatened to reverberate endlessly into the ether. It took more than 30

seconds to die away.

“Be sure to tune in next Tuesday,’ James said, his words now rapid and his voice

lighter and much brighter, “same time, same station, when we again enter that” – his

voice dove again briefly – “Dimension of Fear. Join us for the terrifying drama ‘The

Doctor will See You Now,’ starring Bill Kramer, Jill West and Harvey Sutherland.

Tonight’s episode was directed by Edward Regan. Wesley Stiller was your engineer.

Dimension of Fear is produced by Graham Carmody. I’m James Baron, your host for

Dimension of Fear, thanking you for joining us this evening and inviting you to be with

us next week. This is KGN, the Blue Network.”

Regan pointed one more time, and Hilda began to play what nearly everyone in

the country would immediately recognize as the show’s creepy wholetone theme.

The three men and two women stood still at their microphones, scripts at their

sides, until the organist’s final chord finally died away.

“OK!” Regan’s voice boomed from the speaker. “That’s it, guys. Good show.”

Hilda flipped some levers and switches and the organ wheezed to sleep. The men

and women standing around the big double-button carbon mike folded their scripts and

threw them on the prop table next to the sound effects materials – the little door that
 4

swung in and out of a miniature frame, a can with nails, a can with BBs, drumsticks, a

metal tambourine rim, etc. Filing out the far door, they all began to talk at once.

“Good show, nuts”! Annie turned to Phil. “Your timing was off,” she said.

“What the hell was with that door?” Phil said testily to Lennie. He turned back

towards Annie. “I say ‘close the door’ and we get 30 seconds of dead air before Sluggo

here bothers to slam the door?”

“And what about that accent,” Annie continued. “Scots my ass. You sounded

more like a goddam Armenian rug merchant.”

“And I suppose that was your idea of a sexy voice?” Phil countered. “You

sounded like you needed a laxative, not a man.”

“There isn’t an actress in the world that could convince herself that she wanted

sex with you!” she purred. ”Garbo would sound constipated at the prospect.”

“Damn, I’m glad I’m on this side of the glass,” Wes said to Regan.

“Remember,” Ed said as he threw on his overcoat. “Script meeting tomorrow first

thing in the ayem. I’ll bring the coffee.”

II

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming in so early.” Graham Carmody, producer of

Dimension of Fear, sat at the head of the table. Tall and thin with wavy blonde hair and a

movie star moustache, the aroma of success clung to him like his expensive colognes.

Carmody lived in a Fifth Avenue penthouse that overlooked Central Park; he had a table

permanently on reserve at “21,” though he was often to be found up in Harlem at the

Cotton Club or the Apollo or Roane’s Place or whatever was the current hot spot;
 5

Winchell called him “Gra’am,” quipped that his tongue was as sharp as the crease in his

pants, and avidly documented the producer’s very public spat with Sherman Billingsley.

Dorothy Kilgallen regularly invited him to her very exclusive dinners. He was charming

and well-mannered, and women looked at him like he was candy, in part because of his

good looks, in part because he traveled in not only the best but the most visible of circles

– and in part because of his $500 suits and his Auburn roadster that could be found

parked in front of the best clubs and restaurants and the Fifth Avenue brownstones.

Carmody was also one of the top producers in what was then the gold mine of

radio drama. Over the previous three years he had produced twelve syndicated shows,

mostly serious evening dramas, but he had a few very profitable daytime soaps and game

shows as well.

On Carmody’s left sat director Ed Regan and his young assistant producer Bill

Grant. Regan, short and dark, pudgy and balding, was the hard-driving veteran director of

dozens of important radio shows. He had the best feel for timing in the business, an

uncanny sense of how to make every second, every word, every sound count. Any Regan

show was sure to be noted for its nearly perfect pace – crisp, smooth and elegant.

On Carmody’s right sat engineer Wes Stiller. A pioneer Hollywood sound man

before coming east, the lean, blonde, crewcutted Stiller was an electrical genius who

created many of the special effects that had helped to make the show such a success. Next

to him sat station manager Gene Houk and sales and advertising manager Ralph Bailey.

“Here are three scripts, all possibilities,” Carmody said, skimming the thick bound

copies across the table to them like he was dealing cards.

Each of the men at the table began to thumb through his copy.
 6

“First one,” Carmody began, “a lawyer takes on a client he knows is guilty of

multiple murders.” Carmody stood and began to walk around the room, gesturing. “Helps

this guy forge documents and screws around with the evidence so that he gets the guy off.

In the end, the guy kills him because he’s the only one who knows the truth. Pretty good

punchline at the end — he says to the lawyer he’s about to kill: ‘you knew I killed him

because he knew too much; what on earth made you think I wouldn’t kill you for the

same reason?’”

The assembled men mumbled and nodded; Stiller laughed.

“Second script,” Carmody continued. “A blackmailer is preying on a movie star

who’s currently in a movie – a movie where he’s playing a movie star who kills a

blackmailer. So in real life he kills the guy exactly the same way he kills him in the

movie, which hasn’t been released yet. The detective, who suspects him from the get-go

but can’t get enough evidence to nail him, sees the movie when it’s released a year later,

adds it up and nabs him. He goes to the chair, same as he does in the movie. Sort of a déjà

vu ending.”

The men at the table seemed less than enthusiastic.

Carmody, sitting back down at the conference table, seemed bored himself.

“Third one: a woman – not very pretty, not very young – falls in love with this

mysterious, wealthy guy who won’t pay any attention to her. She meets this devil-like

character who convinces her he’s got a potion that will make this rich guy fall in love

with her – but, he cautions her that she may regret it. She sells everything she has to buy

it. She uses it, and he does fall in love with her, but it turns out he’s a kind of Jack the

Ripper who kills women – and he tortures her and kills her.”
 7

“That’s a possibility,” said Regan. “I’d like to see us get back to some horror and

supernatural.”

Murmurs of approval went around the table.

“So, go over these scripts,” concluded Carmody, “and we’ll meet back here

tomorrow at 10AM to decide which we go with for the February 5 broadcast. I want

some solid casting ideas so we can wrap this up and get it into rehearsal by early January.

“Now let’s hear from Gene about our ratings. Then Ralph will tell us about some

new advertisers and a couple important prospects. I want to be out of here by lunch.”

III

That evening, Carmody finished the newspaper and threw it on his coffee table.

Just as he was getting up to get something to drink, his doorbell – the chimes type – rang.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Carmody?”

Carmody was startled to see standing in his doorway a very small, pudgy man

wrapped in what appeared to be several layers of clothes under a bulky raincoat. With his

exaggeratedly large, broad-brimmed hat, his muffler up around the lower portion of his

face and his thick gloves and bottle-bottom glasses, he looked more like a stuffed doll

than a person.

“I have taken the liberty of delivering this personally to you,” the strange little

man said in a distant, strangely indistinct voice. “It’s a script that will be perfect for

Dimension of Fear. He handed Carmody a thick manila envelope and turned to walk

away.
 8

“This is hardly the way to present a script, Mr….?”

The man ignored Carmody’s implicit question. “I understand that, but I wanted to

be sure that you yourself read the script. You will not regret it.” He turned and began to

walk away.

“Your name and address in here?” Carmody called after him as he shambled

stiffly down the hall towards the elevator.

“Of course, Mr. Carmody,” he said without turning back. His voice was a wooly

monotone. “I am a professional, as you will no doubt realize. I will be in touch with you

by phone at your office next week to discuss the script.”

“OK, thank you, Mr.?” The man continued to walk uncertainly down the hall

without response.

Carmody shrugged and closed his door. In his experience, very little of any value

came in over the transom. There was a good pool of radio writers in New York, as there

was in most other major cities; Carmody knew and had at one time or another worked

with most of them. Very, very little that was performed on the air didn’t come from either

New York or LA, or Chicago or, to a lesser extent, Boston. The chances for an unknown

writer to have his script performed on a nationally syndicated network show were next to

nil without years of apprenticeship, notable work and visibility in the business and, quite

frankly, without knowing the right people.

This weird little bundled-up guy hardly looked or acted like a pro, but on the other

hand Carmody knew that Dimension of Fear was getting stale: too many lawyer and

doctor stories. The series was veering off its initial focus on horror and fantasy and more
 9

into “crime with a twist” stories, which were far easier to come by. A little new blood –

possibly the stranger the better – might be just the thing.

Carmody walked to the kitchen, throwing the envelope onto his coffee table as he

passed. He popped the cap of a bottle of Moxie and returned to the living room, pausing

to turn on the big console radio. He flipped the dial; finding nothing of interest, he settled

on a band remote from the Pennsylvania Hotel. He lay down on his couch and tore open

the envelope as the big band chugged on with a thick, brassy sound and insistent pulsing

beat. Inside the envelope he found a neatly-typed script; the author’s name, “William

Smith,” and his address in the 600 block of East 50 th St. sat at the top of each

meticulously typed page. No question, it was a professional presentation. However, the

name William Smith, while possible, wouldn’t have passed muster with any reputable

hotel night clerk; and the address, Carmody knew, would have to be somewhere in the

East River around Welfare Island.

Still, Carmody skimmed down the first page. The story began on a boat some-

where out in the Maritimes. Carmody’s radio-trained mind immediately supplied the

cawing seagulls and ship’s bells and the whoosh of hot trade winds – an incorrect

conjunction of geography and climate, but a dramatic audio picture in Carmody’s mind.

Two men and a woman are adrift, their boat having been damaged by a storm.

The dialogue was crisp and pithy, and the tense sexual undercurrents among the two men

and the woman were nicely developed from the start. Another storm occurs – Carmody

could hear the blowing gale and the slapping waves as the men shout to each other about

the wheel and the sails and the jib and the spar and all that nautical crap – and the boat
 10

breaks up on a reef. More dead than alive, of course, they wade ashore onto a strange,

uncharted island.

The natives they find in this steamy jungle worship bizarre, “elder” gods whose

crude representations in volcanic stone suggest huge batrachian monsters – tentacled and,

by modern western standards, very antisympatico. After several skirmishes with the

natives and a good fight between the two men over the female, the woman is kidnapped

and, of course, offered up as a sacrifice to one of these horrible gods. The natives strip

her and lash her to the statue while they chant to “open the door to the primordial world

where the gods lay sleeping” so that the gods can materialize in this world and do

whatever it is disgusting elder gods do to helpless naked women.

“Good,” Carmody thought to himself. “Horror, sex, danger – this thing has it all!”

Naturally, the men put aside their differences, overpower their jailers, kill the high

priest and rescue the woman just as the gods begin to make their lumbering way into this

dimension to ravage the girl and repossess the world they lost aeons ago. The heroes

destroy the statue and scramble off the island on a makeshift raft. Bobbing on the tide

while pulling on the oars for all they’re worth, they turn to see huge, tentacled, slime-

dripping gods, caught between this world and whatever world they came from, shrieking

in fury and pain as the entire island explodes and sinks without a trace into the boiling

sea.

“Wow,” thought Carmody as he sipped the last of his Moxie, “it’s a hell of a

potboiler, but it’ll make a great radio play!” He had already thought out the basic outlines

– the four twelve-minute segments, the breakdown of the scenes, the number and types of
 11

voices, the accompanying sound effects, and the costs. He decided to push for this script

ahead of the three he put on the table that morning.

Mr. Smith might be a bit of a freak, but he had indeed delivered the goods.

IV

It wasn’t unanimous love at first sight. Houk and Bailey loved it, but they didn’t

have to make it happen. They immediately began thinking of arresting promos and

special sponsorships.

Lennie and Les Stiller had reservations about the number and variety of sound

effects that would have to be created and orchestrated around the action – and they would

have to figure out just what an outraged elder god sounds like – Les joked that it should

sound like Georgie Jessel. But both were looking forward to the challenge and to working

together and with Regan to create a complicated and groundbreakingly complex suite of

sounds.

Regan, while he was enthusiastic about the play, was worried about the difficult

logistics – four or five main voices, lots of extras – first for the crew during the storm,

then for the natives, and a chorus for a long, tongue-twisting nonsense chant. But while

he knew it would be difficult, he thought it could be a real hit, and an ideal showcase for

his expert timing and direction. The results could be worthwhile, and very healthy for the

ratings and advertising.

“The Elder Gods” was scheduled for February 5 and casting would begin

immediately.
 12

Rehearsals were underway. The new radio play was already far and away the

most expensive production Dimension of Fear had ever mounted. Five leads: two all-

American heroes and one heroine; a high priest – and a priestess for good measure – and

more than a dozen bits: various and sundry sailors who went down with the ship during

the storm, menacing natives, jailers, and the captain and his sailors who rescue the main

characters. Regan decided on six voices – mixed male and female – that would double

and even triple in roles, and then serve as a chorus.

On top of the heavy dialogue and the complicated chant, there were lots of sound

effects – a mix of pre-recorded and live sounds – to be crafted and orchestrated and

carefully rehearsed.

“OK,” Regan said to the grouped chorus of six. The men were dressed in suits and

ties, the women in dresses, high heels and hats; both had gloves. “You’re a bunch of

bare-assed savages! You worship terrible, vengeful gods whom you attempt to placate

with frequent human sacrifices. Now you’re offering your gods a special treat – a blonde,

white woman whom you’ve stripped and put on the altar. You’re giddy with excitement

and a combination of terror and anticipation: a mix of fear and the sexual excitement of

watching a naked woman get ripped apart, kind of like the shows the ancient Romans

used to put on at the Coliseum.”

Regan was walking around the studio, acting out bits of dialogue, offering word

pictures of the scenery – the bamboo jail, the natives’ skimpy costumes, the steamy

jungle, the ugly volcanic stone statue of this horrible god, the white woman stripped, her

breasts heaving as she screams while being lashed to the hideous statue.
 13

“You’re down on your knees in a steamy jungle,” he said, crouching and holding

onto the edge of the table. “Find that feeling of desperation and anticipation – start the

chant slooow and kind of quiet. I want to hear fear, but I also want to hear excitement. I

want it to gather steam” – he stopped to mop his glistening bald head – “I want it to get

louder and louder and faster and faster because while you’re chanting something is

happening and you’re all getting more and more terrified and more and more excited. The

last couple lines have to be hysterical – screamed, howled.”

“Yog Sothhoth? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” asked Russ Carpenter,

whose heroic voice once played an integral part in a half-dozen daytime shows and even

more major evening dramas, but whose drinking had finally earned him a place in the

virtually anonymous chorus. “How are you supposed to pronounce these words? Look at

this…” he drew his fingers along the page – “one, two, three, four, five – five words in a

row and not a single goddam vowel.”

“Yeah, we’ll worry about the pronunciation later,” Regan said. “And I know it

goes on a bit, but this chant is absolutely make or break here. If we do it with deadpan

seriousness – and with the right touch of desperation and horror – it can be hair-raising.

If we toss it off like we’re reading a menu or pussyfoot over it, it will simply sound

ridiculous. Anything less than total commitment and we’ll make laughingstocks of

ourselves! Do you understand? Total commitment!”

“I don’t know,” Carpenter whined, “it just seems like a waste or airtime.”

“Look,” Regan said, “it’s got sort of a rhythm to it. If we practice it and get it

right it will be very, very creepy.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Sure it’s gibberish, but

our job is to make it menacing and scary. It can be done. Let’s get started.”
 14

For the next two hours, they worked on it. The men took their jackets off. The

women removed their hats and gloves, and in two cases, their shoes. It was joked – with

partial seriousness – that undressing and painting their bodies might give the chant the

savage quality it needed – Joan McGinty laughed that they’d have to check with SAG as

to the union’s position on acting naked on the radio – and if, of course, acting naked

might warrant extra pay.

They broke up by 6 PM rather than go into time-and-a-half overtime.

Tired, Wes Stiller rubbed his eyes and began to flip the power switches on his

board.

Regan entered the control room from the studio, the sealed and gasketed door

making a whooshing sound as the cool studio air rushed into the hot control room. “You

know, they really were beginning to sound like savages,” he said.

“Yeah,” Stiller agreed, “once you got a real rhythm going and began to speed it

up, it sounded like they were getting into it, even having fun with it.”

“Did it sound scary?”

“Well, at first it just sounded weird. And silly. But you know, towards the end, as

they began to shout and their voices began to fray, it sounded pretty creepy and

menacing.”

“I thought so, too.” Regan threw his headphones onto the director’s chair.

“Another hour and I think we would have been able to scare the shit out the American

public.” He grabbed his coat off the wooden rack. “Call it a night?”

“Yeah, I’m done.” Stiller began winding a long woolen scarf around his neck.
 15

It was nearly 6:30PM when they left the control room. Most of the corridor lights

were out. As they entered the dimmed reception area, they were startled to encounter the

bizarre, bundled-up figure of William Smith sitting patiently on the visitors’ couch.

“Mr. Regan?”

“Yeah?” Stiller had also stopped at the sight of the tiny, nearly round figure. “Go

ahead, Wes,” Regan said. “ I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Mr. Regan, I am William Smith.” The voice, colorless and flat, was hard to peg

as either masculine or feminine.

Regan drew a blank for a moment, then remembered. “The writer? We’ve been

rehearsing your script.”

“It’s going well?

“Yeah, pretty good.” They walked together down the hall, Regan hoisting his

heavy winter coat over his shoulders while Smith hobbled along, trying to keep up with

the taller man’s loose gait. Arriving at the elevator doors at the end of the hall, Regan

pushed the button; the elevator was on its way down with Stiller.

“We were just working on the chant.”

“The chant is what I came to speak with you about. You have to add several lines,

one at the beginning, one at the end.”

Buttoning his coat, Regan looked down in surprise at the odd little man with the

stiff, expressionless eyes above his scarf.

“Why? It’s awfully long as it is. And what can you gain by adding another couple

lines of gibberish?” Regan laughed.

 16

Smith visibly stiffened even more. “It’s not gibberish…that is to say the chant has

a rhythm and a flow, a sort of …symmetry. It may not mean anything to you, but it has to

be complete. Several lines were left out of the typescript, and they simply have to be

restored or the chant won’t…work.”

“Well, I guess a couple extra lines wouldn’t be a problem, except that we’ve just

finished our last rehearsal. Tomorrow’s the show and most everyone has commitments

during the day, so we won’t be back together until shortly before airtime. It’s too late to

rehearse new lines.”

“You don’t need any extra rehearsals. The lines are repetitive.”

“Then why…”

“Again, it is a matter of symmetry. Trust me, you will understand when you do

the full chant. You will hear – and see – a tremendous difference between the rehearsals

and the performance. The world will see the difference.” He pressed the amended script

onto Regan. “The new lines have been added to this revised script: one to the beginning,

one to the end.”

“OK, I’ll have the lines inserted,” Regan said, less with conviction than to

appease and get rid of the bizarre little man. His had no intention of adding lines – the

show was timed down to the second and any additions or deletions at this point would

throw everything off.

Just the same, the next morning he would call Carmody to check.

“No, we’re not putting any extra lines in,” Carmody said.

“That weird little creep said it would ruin the symmetry of the chant, whatever

that means. We could fit them in.”

 17

“Were they two lines together?”

“No, one line at the beginning and one at the end.”

“OK,” Carmody sighed, “put the first line in. We’ve got the time but I don’t want

to have to hurry the pace. Forget the last line.”

“You got it.”

VI

It was the night of the performance of “The Elder Gods” on Dimension of Fear.

Smith stood at Carmody’s door. “I was in the area. I thought you’d probably be at the

station, but I decided to take a chance to see if you were at home.”

“Come in, Smith.” Carmody gestured towards his living room. “Unlike most

producers, I don’t like to attend the actual performance of my plays – a superstition, I

guess. I understand the Gilbert half of Gilbert and Sullivan was the same way.”

Smith remained standing stiffly by the door.

“Smith, come in. Sit down,” Carmody said as he walked down the three steps into

the living room towards the bar at the far corner. “Can I get you a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“I like your play and I think our listeners will like it too. If you have the time, I’d

like to discuss any other script ideas you may have.”

“I have no other ideas, Mr. Carmody. This will be my one and only script.”

Carmody laughed. “Well, you’re hardly the first writer I’ve met who’s run out of

ideas, but you’re the first I’ve met who admits it.”
 18

Smith walked with difficulty into the vestibule and, holding carefully onto the

railing, down the three steps. As he entered the living room he saw the glass balcony

doors and, beyond them and across Central Park, the glittering lights of Central Park

West and the brilliantly lit City behind it.

“I did not realize you had a balcony. The view must be splendid from this height.”

“Twenty stories overlooking the park,” Carmody said, proudly. “I doubt there’s a

better view of the City anywhere.”

“Mr. Carmody, you don’t realize it, but you stand at the threshold of a new and

exciting era. At this moment the world is changing, and you are one of the key architects

of that change. In a few minutes we will watch the world change from your balcony.”

Carmody wasn’t sure what he meant. “What are you talking about?”

“What did you think of the chant?”

“Good. Creepy. Too long, maybe, but I think it will come off well.”

“It is very real and very serious.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“The story is true. I mean the Elder Gods. They do exist. And they were expelled

from their world, which is what you presumptuously call your world. And they do intend

to get back in to restore the natural order. And when they do, Mr. Carmody, the

vengeance they wreak will be monumental.”

Carmody stared wide-eyed at Smith. “Yeah, well, I guess then we’d better not let

them back in. I think you do need a drink, Mr. Smith,” he added, walking over to the bar.

“Or perhaps you’ve already had a few too many.” He smiled at Smith. “Which is it?”
 19

“Laugh, Mr. Carmody. But my masters could never have gotten back in without

your help.”

“How’s that?” Carmody poured himself a whiskey into a highball glass and with a

siphon shot a dash of soda into it.

“The chant will bring them. It will open the temporal gates between the world in

which the Elder Gods have been exiled for so many countless millennia, and their

original home: here.”

Carmody laughed again. “Ah, Mr. Smith! I wouldn’t have guessed you’re a

comedian. Tell me, if the chant is what will bring them here, how come they didn’t drop

by during rehearsals? I could have given them a nice tour of the studio. People are

usually very impressed with radio stations. Well,” he amended it, “people are. I don’t

know about Elder Gods.”

“Be sardonic, Mr. Carmody. Very shortly it won’t matter, and neither will you.”

Smith just stood stiffly in the center of the living room, never moving a muscle. “The

original chant I gave you was lacking several lines. Without these lines, the chant is not

effective – it means nothing. I met briefly with Mr. Regan last night and gave him an

amended script with the key lines restored. The chant will work now.”

Carmody remembered now that Ed Regan had called him early in the morning to

see if he wanted extra lines put in. “You tried to get Regan to add lines without my

approval?” At first Carmody had been amused by this homunculus, but now Smith was

beginning to annoy him. “And what, Mr. Smith, makes you think that Ed Regan would

insert those or any other lines without my approval?”

 20

“Mr. Regan himself approved them. In a matter of moments the chant will be

heard in its entirety.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Carmody said, settling down onto his sofa, “why didn’t

you just read the chant yourself and bring your boys back from the woods? Why go

through all this huggermugger?”

“It takes an enormous amount of energy to open the temporal gates, Mr.

Carmody. It took a world of humans to eject my masters. It will take a world of humans

to bring them back. I cannot summon the power myself. Hundreds cannot create the

necessary energy, even, I daresay, thousands. We have little pockets of worshippers here

and there throughout the world, but we have never had the coordination or the numbers –

and consequently the power – to open the portals to bring back our masters.”

“But a chorus of six second-rate radio actors can summon up this power? I think

you give them rather more credit than they deserve, even if they are Equity.”

“You said the key word, Mr. Carmody. Radio. Hundreds, even thousands of

believers in the Elder Gods could not have summoned sufficient power. But your six

actors will read that chant, and that chant will be heard throughout this city and across

this country. Hundreds of thousands of homes – maybe even millions – will have their

radios tuned to your imbecile show, and that chant will reverberate throughout the land

and create such an energy, such a cosmic wind, that the gates, Mr. Carmody, will not just

swing open but will be blasted from their hinges for my masters to return to their rightful

place. And they will lay waste to your world and to humanity.”
 21

“Well, I guess they owe me a debt of gratitude for helping this to happen. I should

be in line for a pretty good position in the new order,” Carmody quipped. But he had

stopped laughing, now uncomfortable in the presence of such palpable insanity.

“I think not, Mr. Carmody. I think you will be ill treated indeed, as will all

humans.”

“Bad luck for you, too, I guess, Smith.”

“Again, I think not.”

“Well, my friend, let’s put an end to this nonsense right now.” Carmody sprawled

back on his couch, putting one foot on his coffee table. “Ed Regan works for me. He

wouldn’t insert or remove anything without my express say so. He called me this

morning to ask me about those extra lines. At first I told him no, no extra lines, but we

discussed it and I gave in and authorized the new opening line but not the last line. If both

lines are necessary, then whatever insanity you believe is going to happen… is not.”

“You must add that last line to the incantation!” Smith’s voice still sounded flat

and mechanical, but he began to shake. “The play must be done as I’ve amended it, or not

at all.”

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

Smith drew himself to his unimpressive full height of perhaps an inch or two over

five feet, pulled a gun clumsily from his raincoat pocket and pointed it shakily at

Carmody. “Call Mr. Regan and tell him to add those lines that I gave him.”

Carmody’s mouth dropped. “You are out of your mind!”

“Call him now!”

 22

“OK, OK, keep calm. Be careful with that thing.” Carmody kept his eyes on the

little man as he walked over to his phone, what they used to call a candlestick phone: a

cylindrical column with a dial at the base and a horn you spoke into at the top, while the

earpiece dangled from a cradle by the horn. Carmody picked up the phone. Holding the

phone and the earpiece in his left hand, he dialed the local time with his right. As Smith

approached him to make sure that he was doing as he was told, he shifted the phone to his

right hand and held the receiver up to his ear with his left.

“The time is now seven o’clock…twenty three minutes…and 45 seconds…Ding.”

Smith leaned closer to hear the conversation, and Carmody swung the stalk of the

phone in a wide arc. Its heavy base caught Smith just to the side of his left eye; the force

of the blow spun him around and his right leg folded under him.

Before he could topple, Carmody was on him, wielding the phone like a brickbat

while he grappled for the gun.

“Sonofabitch,” he yelled as he brought down the phone on Smith’s head again,

“pull a gun on me? You crazy asshole...”

Smith lay still, crumpled on the floor. Carmody, breathing heavily, straddled him

and easily pulled the gun from Smith’s limp, gloved hand – wait: there was no hand

inside the glove! The glove was pinned to the sleeve, and in place of a hand there was

some sort of claw and gear mechanism. Astonished, Carmody grabbed the arms of the

coat to find them stuffed with padding.

In shock, Carmody stared at the unconscious Smith. The side of his face was

nearly obliterated. Carmody had fought in the war. He knew what kinds of trauma did

what to flesh and bone; he also knew what blood looked like. Smith’s wound was way
 23

beyond the kind of damage you’d get from bopping somebody over the head with a

phone! And the blood: this wasn’t blood. It didn’t flow! It wasn’t red! This was more like

an ichor, the pale green blood of the Gods of mythology.

Carmody gingerly turned Smith’s head to get a better look at the wound, and part

of Smith’s broken face came off in his hand. It was a waxy mask that covered what

looked like a pulp made of papier mache.

Utterly nonplussed, Carmody ripped open Smith’s coat to find the “body” inside

was nothing more than a network of gears, a diaphragm and small microphone, and a

barrel-like gelatinous green rhomboid composed of some sort of viscous gel. It was soft

in places, but seemed to have a hard shell in others. The stink of rotting sea vegetation

filled the room.

Carmody jumped up in shock and backed away from the supine monstrosity. The

figure of what had masqueraded as a human being named Smith emitted a high-pitched

whimpering noise and sluggishly rolled out of the open raincoat. It half-crawled and half-

oozed a few feet, leaving behind it a glittering, sticky trail on the hardwood floor. With

something like a sigh, the gelatinous mass began to pulse, then rapidly melted into a

stinking, viscous green puddle which began gradually to shrink and disappear like a drop

of water boiling away in a pan.

Shaking and sick to his stomach at the sight, Carmody put his head in his hands

and attempted to marshal his thoughts. Why did that…thing…go to the trouble to

orchestrate all this? Somehow the thing produced a script, so there had to be a

performance, but it had to be a performance with those extra lines in the chant.

Apparently nothing could happen without those lines; could it be that something really
 24

would happen with those lines added? Carmody was a practical, hardheaded business

man disinclined to believe in things beyond the bottom line, but his confrontation with

the creature called Smith had just broadened his understanding and deepened his respect

for the dark pockets of the universe.

Jumping over to the radio, Carmody spun the dial to KGB. They had reached the

point where the men were imprisoned and the woman had been taken away.

VII

“The filthy savages have taken Lucy,” Harry Bailey cried breathlessly. “They’ve

taken her to that wretched statue!”

“We’ve got to rescue her,” Jack Lewis responded.. “Quick, break out the guns and

let’s get over there.”

In the studio, Lennie dropped the needle on a “night sounds” disk and carmody’s

living room immediately filled with crickets and owls and the noises of myriad creepy-

crawlies. Then Lennie shook bundles of straw and broke matchsticks as Harry and Jack

ran breathlessly through the underbrush to rescue Lucy.

“There they are!” Harry’s stentorian tenor rang out through sound layers of

drums, insanely piping reed instruments, monkey chattering, bird cawing, dancing,

running feet, etc.

“Look, they’ve tied her to that bloody statue,” Jack whispered, his voice knotted

with anxiety. .

In the distance, Gail Levine’s hair-raising wail carried over the oleo of

background noise: “Save me, please, somebody save me…for the love of God…”
 25

“Bloody savages,” Harry hissed under his breath.

Gathered around their radios like primitives seated around the village story teller,

people across the country could quite literally see Harry – grim and grimy, sweating in

his makeshift cell in the jungle heat, his shirt torn and greasy to reveal what must surely

be a splendid, muscular body glistening with manly sweat. In fact, a bit on the chubby

side, Harry was natty in a merino wool double-breasted blazer sporting a yacht club crest.

“Let’s charge them,” he growled.

“Wait,” cried Bill, and the collective mind’s eye of hundreds of thousands in the

radio audience could see Bill throw his arm out abruptly across Harry’s chest to stop him,

Harry his former rival for Gail’s love but now his comrade in the quest to save Gail’s life.

The chant was about to begin. Carmody grabbed the phone, still sticky with

Smith’s “blood” – or whatever his internal fluids were. He dialed the director’s private

line.

“Graham, what is it?” Regan said testily. His eyes were focused on the two groups

of actors on the other side of the control room glass.

“What did you do about those extra lines Smith gave you?”

“I did what you said. I added the first one to the script this morning and the chorus

has it. I’m a little nervous because we couldn’t rehearse it.”

“Listen, maybe we shouldn’t do the chant at all.”

“What? Why? The chant is only a few minutes away and we don’t have a

commercial break until it’s over. How the hell am I…”

 26

“Don’t ask questions. I don’t have time for the explanation and you wouldn’t

believe it if I did. If you can’t stop the chorus, then shut the chorus mike and cut the

power. Don’t let that chant go out over the air. I’ll be down there as soon as I can!”

It was too late. Regan was still staring at the phone when the actors in the chorus

began the chant, low and mournful, in a slow compound 7/4 (4/4+3/4) rhythm:

“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn…”

The rehearsals had paid off. The sound of the mixed voices was perfect: enervated

at first, thick – with Wes’ light reverb the eleven voices sounded like hundreds – but at

the same time the words were unsettlingly clear, each meaningless word crisp and

somehow menacing as the chant gained speed and intensity, moving towards a maniacal

exhilaration.

Pleased with the way all the elements of the play were coming together, Wes

Stiller looked up from the board with its dozen knobs and lit gauges with fluttering

needles and was startled to see that the studio seemed to be getting dark. The chant,

which was just beginning to speed up, required close coordination, and the six actors in

the chorus, huddled around their single overhead mike but casting alarmed glances

around them and up at the light, were beginning to have trouble reading the scripts in the

increasingly dim light. At the other floor mike a few feet away, the principal actors were

nervously looking around the room. Jim Baron put his tea down on the top of the organ

and began to back away towards the wall.

“Ed, there’s something wrong with the power, the lights are dimming.”

Regan had already seen it and, as it was too late to stop the chant, he was on the

phone with building maintenance. “I don’t care what you think,” he yelled, “the lights are
 27

going out…” He stopped mid-sentence as the light in the studio began to color a

putrescent green and he thought he saw shadowy shapes crouching behind the prop table

and the organ. Hilda was pulling her bench away from the console and looking wildly

around the room at gathering shadows which seemed to be amalgamating into terrifying

shapes.

Regan, the phone still in his hand, stared through the window at the darkening

studio. Something was very wrong. What was left of his hair was beginning to prickle.

“Wes,” he said nearly in a whisper, “cut the chorus mike. Cut both mikes.”

“What?” Stiller turned from his board to stare at him. “What? Cut the mikes while

we’re on? You can’t be serious,” he spluttered.

“I’m serious. Do it now. We have to stop the chant from going over the air.”

“Why would you want to stop it from going over the air?” Stiller asked,

incredulous.

“Do it!” Regan shouted. “Run a technical difficulty spot. I’m going into the

studio.”

Shaking his head, Stiller flipped a switch and turned down the pots with both

hands. As the needles on the dials fell lazily to zero, he jumped up to a wall shelf full of

spots and promos and air checks and ran his hand across a dozen of the long vertical slots

to find the 18-inch metal disk of announcements. He quickly cued it up on the turntable

and flipped a switch.

“We’re sorry.” James Baron’s baritone, recorded months earlier, apologized with

a smarmy sort of resonance. “We are experiencing unavoidable technical difficulties. We

 28

will return to Dimension of Fear as quickly as possible. Until then, please enjoy this

recital of organ music by our studio organist, Mrs. Hilda Wethers.”

A jaunty prerecorded version of “That’s Why the Lady is a Tramp” followed.

VIII

When he opened the door to the studio a wet, hot wind nearly blew Ed Regan off

his feet. Hilda, her eyes wide with fear, bolted past him and out into the corridor. The

room was hot and humid, and it stank of what seemed like rotting fish. Drawing his index

finger across his throat again and again to indicate “CUT,” Regan fought his way through

plumes of suffocating, sinuous green fog towards the chorus. His entrance from the

control room was hardly subtle, but nobody in the chorus seemed to notice it; in fact none

of them looked up or paid the least attention to him as he ran towards them, leaning into

the wind and holding onto first a desk, then the organ, then finally the prop table. The

hanging metal sheets that impersonated thunder were swinging violently in the gathering

wind, occasionally striking each other to add counterfeit thunderclaps to the general level

of noise and confusion. Lennie stood paralyzed at the prop table, staring at the chorus, a

drumstick in one hand, a wooden block in the other. The principals, moments earlier

arrayed around the floor mike, had backed away and were huddling in the far corner,

astonished and appalled to find the studio filling up with hot, slimy green water that

quickly rose to their ankles. Equipment began to spark and smoke as the water hit it, and

the mikes and their cables swung in what was now a howling wind.

But the chorus, seemingly rooted to the spot, mechanically continued the chant,

unaware that it was no longer going out over the air.

 29

Regan pushed toward them against the rising water. Clots of disorganized

darkness, like uncoagulated shadows, lurched in and out of his path.

“Stop the chant, shut up, shut up.” Regan screamed against the howling wind and

stinging spray of putrid water, but the chorus continued, unable to stop.

An oily green glow began to gather in the corner, and for a brief moment Regan

thought he could see some kind of nightmarish green face with tentacles peering from it

into the studio. Behind it he seemed to sense – more than actually see – weirdly shaped

opalescent cliffs hung with soggy green moss; above this surrealistic aerie, disjointed

vaguely avian forms careened and screeched against a livid, orange sky. The face,

enormous with shining malevolent eyes, bent close and tentacles flung out from

somewhere grabbed one of the chorus actresses and hoisted her shrieking into the air –

then there was a shockingly loud crash of glass as the control room window shattered

from the force of the wind.

But when the chorus reached the last line – not Smith’s added last line but the

original last line – there was a split second of profound silence and electric anticipation,

as if the universe suddenly held its breath. When nothing happened, the massive,

tentacled head toppled back into the rapidly diminishing aperture with a howl of outrage,

and a huge blue spark, followed by a loud crack and sizzle, filled the room. The studio

lights flickered briefly, then went out.

The darkness was complete and terrifying, but in moments snapping blue sparks

at various junctures of cables and outlets provided enough dim light for Regan to see that

while most of the principals and the actors in the chorus had scattered and were holding

fast to furniture or trying to make their way to the door, several had collapsed and were
 30

lying facedown in the rising water. Then, except for a woman’s whimpering, there was

nothing but silence and pitch black, broken by an occasional flicker from a lazily

stuttering short. In the fitful sparks Regan could make out Baron, incongruously still

holding his cup and saucer as if he were having afternoon tea at the Plaza, crouched –

more accurately slumped – against the back wall looking wildly around the devastated

room.

Regan knelt down and felt the floor. It was dry, though he was soaking wet.

“Wes?” Regan half-cried, half-whispered. “Are you there?”

“I’m trying to get the auxiliary lights on,” Stiller shouted breathlessly through

what had been the plate glass window that separated the studio from the control room.

A dull light flickered on. Regan stood shakily and looked around, jumping at the

occasional sputtering spark.

The room was in a shambles. The prop table was upended and lying on its side

against the opposite wall. Lenny was under it, the drumstick still in his outstretched hand.

Three of the principal actors and two of the chorus were huddled on their knees in the far

corner. In the center of the room, Harry Bailey, in his double-breasted yachting jacket,

was lying on his face; Gail Levine, her dress soaked and ripped, was sobbing and trying

to turn him over. “Harry, Harry. Oh God, Harry…”

One of the chorus actresses was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling with dull

swollen eyes. Her face and arms were burned and her dress was smoking. From under the

splintered organ console he could see the legs of another, one foot still shod, the other

bare.
 31

IX

During those few seconds, people across the country had begun to notice strange

things.

Sara Moore, sitting in her living room in Skokie, Illinois, was riveted by the

exciting drama, staring straight at the radio as if it were showing her pictures. After the

chanting began, she smelled something like rotting fish. She was reluctant to leave the

radio at such an exciting moment, but she rose and went into the kitchen to search for the

source of the increasingly offensive odor. As she left the room, a distinct, dark green

slime began to pour like oily fog from the speaker of her mahogany Zenith.

Roger Shor and his son Bobbie were seated in the basement den of their two-story

frame house in Saco, Maine. Bobbie, thoroughly caught up in the story and not a little

frightened, was breathing heavily and hanging on every word of the weird, scary chant;

neither noticed the room darken as something like a miasma of yellowish-green fog

began to collect in the corners and assume alarming shapes.

In Livermore, California, the Sellars family was walking home on the crisp winter

evening from a PTA potluck. As they walked past the house next to theirs, they could see

what appeared to be dark green smoke squeeze out from under the door and from the

open kitchen windows, while the house itself – indeed the very ground under them as

well – began to rumble and shake.

Charles W. Rice, walking his dog on the empty and frigid esplanade of John

Finley Walk in Manhattan’s Schurz Park, looked away from the East River and back at

the solid face of a bank of large apartment buildings on East End Avenue to see roughly

every fifth window begin to glow a strange translucent green. At the same time, a
 32

glowing mist seemed to rise above the myriad roofs. Suddenly, as the air got darker and

denser, a terrific crack of static electricity split the cold, dry sky, opening what seemed

like a hole in the cloud cover high above the East River. A huge, roiling green fog began

to pour through it. Wheeling to face it, he stood staring and uncomprehending as the hole

in the sky began to widen like a huge iris diaphragm. His jaw dropped, as first an

enormous eye appeared – a hard, cold and terrible eye, inhuman and unforgiving – then a

vicious beak opening and closing in fury, then a clot of immense writhing tentacles that

groped at the arctic night air. A sultry, damp and stinking wind poured through what

seemed now like a rent in the heavens. As it hit New York’s cold, dry February air, it

covered the chattering, huddled city, its buildings, its traffic and the few hardy citizens

out walking, with a thick, greasy fog. Rice’s dog Jamison, a sturdy, no-nonsense and

generally unimaginative Rhodesian Ridgeback, began to howl and snap at the plumes of

smoke swirling around its paws.

Just inland of the north beach of Monomoscoy Island, off the coast of

Massachusetts, a group of 13 – mostly aged but also a few odd-looking young people of

both sexes sat in a circle staring at the sky, their regular breaths exploding like clusters of

cotton candy in the half-light of the dim rising moon. A rudely dressed and grizzled

couple sat on a couple of ancient tree stumps, while the rest squatted on blankets on the

ground. The old man, clearly the leader of the group, wore a white stubble that matched

the hoarfrost on the trees and the small open patch of snow-dusted grass in the frigid little

copse; he was dressed in overalls, a heavy, worn plaid coat and a tattered black hat with a

ragged brim; the woman, impossibly wrinkled and stick-thin but freakishly padded out
 33

with layers of chemises, petticoats, several aprons and a heavy, dirty shawl and bonnet,

hugged herself against the cold.

“You sure about this?” the old man asked the small, bundled-up round figure next

to him.

“Wait and see, old man,” the odd figure replied in a dry, metallic voice, “It will be

your dream come true. All our dreams come true.”

At about 7:45, the strange little figure said “All right. Begin.”

The group stared at the opaque skies and began to chant. “Ph'nglui

mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn…”

After a few moments, the skies began to roil and snap and the moon began to

disappear behind a gathering green cloud.

“Lord almighty,” The old man yelled while the others continued chanting, his

wrinkled face breaking into a toothless grin, “He’s here! It’s our lord Yog Sothoth.”

He turned to his chanting brethren. “Get on yer knees and grovel, for our God has

returned to our stars to cleanse his home of the foulness we have made of it!” He

screamed in joy and pointed to the sky as an enormous, dull eye began to appear in place

of the hidden moon.

Some of the group continued the chanting, but a few of the younger people

screamed and fled as the old man, several old women and the remaining children fell on

their knees and raised their arms to the fierce eye now staring out of the heavens at them.

The strange small figure, adding his dry, mechanical-sounding voice to the chant, stood

and began to pull off his coat, revealing an impossible cylindrical form.
 34

And Graham Carmody, already nearly in shock, turned from his radio and caught

a glimpse through the French doors that led to his balcony of a huge green cloud whirling

together directly above the gem-like lights that traced the roads and pathways through

Central Park. He ran over and pressed his face against the icy glass to watch the cloud

grow into what looked like a huge window overlooking a bizarre, surrealistic landscape

with weirdly shaped cliffs of strange, shifting colors and crashing blood-red waves

topped with a glowing chartreuse spume.

From his expensive perch, he watched a horrifying face – of sorts – assemble

itself out of the oily green vapour. A giant, staring eye, flat and cold as a squid’s, seemed

to stare directly at him as he stood trembling, his hot breath condensing into jagged frost

on the icy glass of the balcony doors. Then a livid green head with a blood red beak

surrounded by long, slimy, groping tentacles, turned from side to side in what seemed

like outrage, its beak clacking like pistol shots, while a violent, roaring wind arose, and

the heavens seemed to explode.

Carmody could barely hear his radio, so he felt more than actually heard the chant

stop abruptly. At that moment, the still insubstantial but quickly gathering vision in the

sky whirled apart and disappeared, leaving a profound blackness and an even more

profound silence looming over the frozen park. After what seemed like an excruciatingly

long time – dead air was and remains radio’s greatest sin – Baron’s voice came on with

the prerecorded technical difficulties spot every station had for emergencies.

The whole horror couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds, but

Carmody, his heart pounding, was covered with sweat and shaking in terror.
 35

In the Midwest, Mrs. Moore could find nothing in her kitchen to account for the

wretched odour. She opened a window and saw her breath in the clean, cold air that

rushed in from the icy night. Returning to her living room she found everything perfectly

normal, though she was irritated to have left the room during an exciting radio show and

to have returned moments later to find organ music.

Roger Shor, alarmed by the dimming lights, had gotten up to check the fuse box.

“Aw dad,” Bobby called to him, “they’ve stopped the show and now they’re playing

music!”

The Sellarses, momentarily startled by what they saw and felt, convinced

themselves that the colored smoke they saw was their imagination; but tremours weren’t

taken lightly in the Bay area. Bill Sellars enquired many times after that evening, and was

told again and again that the local seismographs recorded nothing. Nonetheless, he would

always believe that he had felt an earthquake that night.

Charles W. Rice saw the giant iris in the sky abruptly wink closed. The terrible

eye and beak and tentacles disappeared behind it, and in a split second the sky was an

overcast grey, opaque and seemingly benign. He was too hardheaded to believe he had

imagined such a horrific vision, a belief the ridgeback corroborated by howling and

trembling for the rest of the night, even once they were warm and safe at Dorrian’s Red

Hand Pub – where Mr. Rice found welcome light, warmth, a tumbler of whisky and an

extremely skeptical audience.

Those that hadn’t fled the little group on Monomoscoy Island, just off the coast of

Massachusetts, continued chanting, their eyes and their hearts thundering with gathering

terror and anticipation. Suddenly, the earth itself seemed to convulse, and the great eye
 36

rapidly turned from a burning molten gold into an opaque puddle, growing dimmer and

dimmer until nothing was left in the night sky but a gunmetal moon and waves and waves

and waves of stars.

A few hours later, a disheveled Carmody sat in his accustomed spot at the head of

the station’s conference table. Usually neat and pressed with his hair lacquered in place,

he now looked like he had spent the night in an alley, sleeping in his clothes. He poured

several glasses of Jack Daniels, passing two of them over to Ed Regan and Wes Stiller.

“Chin chin,” Regan said glumly and downed his drink in a gulp. He was still wet

and running with perspiration.

“So what’s the bottom line?” Carmody sipped some of the brown liquid and

screwed up his face.

“Four dead,” Regan said, leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. His

pudgy face was oily and his bald head was streaked with perspiration and dirt. He looked

like he was battling to keep from crying. “Harry Bailey’s gone, as are Gracie Lewis,

Mona Stewart and Russ Carpenter from the chorus. Joan McGinty, also from the chorus,

is simply…” he shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hands “… gone. Disappeared. I saw

that…” he shook his head in disbelief, “thing pick her up just before everything went

black. She’s gone, where, God knows. Lennie’s in serious condition but they think he’ll

be OK – the prop table hit him in the head while everything was flying around. He’s

down at Bellevue. We thought Jimmy Baron had had a heart attack, but he seems all right

now. Everyone else is pretty much in shock. Gail’s still hysterical.”

 37

“The police are still getting statements and going over everything in the studio

and control room,” Wes added. He looked at Carmody. “I don’t have to tell you that they

don’t believe anything we’re saying, but we all saw basically the same thing – me, Ed,

the actors.”

“Plus,” added Regan, “I understand that while what happened – whatever that was

– took only a few seconds, there were scattered reports of bizarre sights and horrifying

visions around the country. The wire services are full of them. Both AP and UPI are

sending a ton of reports over the teletype. For a split second, apparently lots of people,

not just us, saw something they’d rather forget.”

“The police have no idea what happened,” Stiller said, “any more than we do. But

they do know that something very weird and frightening happened everywhere

simultaneously. Well, they can investigate all they want; I doubt that they’ll find anything

they can make sense out of.”

“They’re not going to find Joan,” said Regan, “and you can bet they’re not going

to find any comprehensible let alone logical reason for what happened last night.”

“Studio’s ruined,” added Stiller, nearly in tears. “Boards are shorted out.

Everything’s going to have to be rebuilt from the ground up.”

“Oh yes, and the FCC is launching an enquiry.” Regan added. “They immediately

called to find out why we went off the air. And it won’t be long before we hear from

SAG and Equity. Uh…what do you propose to tell them all?”

“What the hell can we tell them?” asked Carmody. “That we had some kind of a

monsoon in an inside room of a 16-room suite on the tenth floor of a 20-story building in

midtown Manhattan? That we had a flood and tornado that shorted out the equipment and
 38

electrocuted three people, that we had winds that tossed a twelve-foot oak table across the

studio and nearly crushed our sound effects man? That some kind of monster from

another dimension gobbled up a member of the chorus? I’m dying to see what the

insurance people say about that! Maybe we should just tell everyone frankly that we had

to pull the plug because we were about to open the door to another dimension and let in

demons that would destroy the world.”

“A perfect excuse, but they’d put us all away,” Regan snorted. “Let me have some

more of that Jack Daniels.”

“Lets face it, we’ve got to tell them that we went off the air because of a

cascading malfunction of the electrical equipment,” Carmody said as he shakily poured

another double shot into Regan’s glass.

“Me, too, I need another,” Stiller said, passing his glass to Carmody. “Well,

they’ll know there wasn’t any kind of equipment failure – that we weren’t shut down but

that we chose to shut down.”

“Let them prove it,” Carmody said. “Everything’s fried. I doubt they’ll able to

reconstruct anything.”

“Well, if we get into trouble it will be a hell of a way to thank us for saving the

goddam world,” Regan said as he downed his double in one gulp.

“Look, we’ve learned that there is something just on the other side of the

shadows,” said Carmody, looking deep into his glass as he swirled the brown liquid, “that

exists in that split second you take to blink. And if, somehow, it finds enough strength at

the right moment, it can return to the world that ejected it and humiliated it aeons ago.

And if that happens, God help you, God help me and God help all of us.
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“What’s clear,” Carmody concluded, “is that the power of radio nearly destroyed

the world. We can’t make what happened public knowledge, but we – you and I and the

people that run the radio business – have to see to it that this can never happen again. We

have to meet with our counterparts at the Red Network and all the major stations in the

major cities, not just here but around the world! We have to tell them bluntly what

happened – and what nearly happened. They won’t believe us, but we have to convince

them. Together we have to work out some way to protect ourselves from this kind of

thing. And we have to pass this information and this responsibility down to the next

generation of radio people. We must never be tricked again into letting the power of radio

be harnessed by infernal forces.”

Everyone at the table nodded.

“Radio has a terrific power,” said Regan. “And as technology increases it will get

even more and more powerful. Imagine, a decade ago we were using cat’s whiskers and

crystals. Now we can send a whisper from coast to coast. What do you suppose the future

holds? Do you think there will ever be a more powerful medium?”

“Who knows,” Carmody said. “Radio we can control. Whatever comes next,”

Carmody tossed his head back and swallowed the rest of his Jack Daniels, “is for another

generation to worry about.”

XI

Just inland of the north beach of Monomoscoy Island, off the coast of

Massachusetts, a small circle of shabbily dressed people had been sitting sullenly for

hours, rigid with a disappointment that clung to them like the odor of manure to a farmer.
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From time to time, one of the younger dull-faced children picked up a few thin sticks,

snapped them in two and threw them onto the sickly fire.

“What we waitin’ fer now?” The old man who seemed to be the leader asked

again. “Ain’t gonna happen,” he said. “The messenger was wrong. Son of a bitch, he was

so sure.” He looked down at the frozen ground. “I was so sure.” He kicked at a heavy

coat and greenish stain on the frost. “I thought it was gonna happen, and suddenly it was

gone and the messenger just sort of melted into the snow and we was alone.”

“Something did happen,” the old woman said, “I surely did see His great eye. I

felt His breath on my cheek.”

The old man pushed himself off the stump into a crouching position, letting his

legs and knees complain a bit before hauling his reluctant joints upright. The younger

people began sullenly walking away. “Nope, ain’t gonna happen now,” he said wearily.

He stood and briskly slapped the crust of frost from his legs and shoulders. He

pulled himself up to his full height, clapped and rubbed his hands and took a deep breath

of the frigid dawn air. “Yep, something’ happened alright. But somethin’ wasn’t right.

Maybe it just weren’t the right time. They won’t forget about us. They’ll keep tryin’.

They’re Gods. Next time, fer sure.”

The old man and the old woman hugged each other and walked stiffly towards the

woods.

###
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