Simak, Cliffard D - Death in the House, A - Notisblokk

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Simak, Cliffard D - Death in the House, A

Title : A Death in the House

Author : Clifford D. Simak

Original copyright year: 1959

Genre : science fiction

Comments : to my knowledge, this is the only available e-text of this book

Source : scanned and OCR-read from a paperback edition with Xerox

TextBridge Pro 9.0, proofread in MS Word 2000.

Date of e-text : January 3, 2000

Prepared by : Anada Sucka

======================================================================

A Death in the House

Clifford D. Simak

Old Mose Abrams was out hunting cows when he found the alien. He didn't know

it was an alien, but it was alive and it was in a lot of trouble and Old Mose,

despite everything the neighbors said about him, was not the kind of man who

could bear to leave a sick thing out there in the woods.

It was a horrid-looking thing, green and shiny, with some purple spots on

it, and it was repulsive even twenty feet away. And it stank.

It had crawled, or tried to crawl, into a clump of hazel brush, but hadn't

made it. The head part was in the brush and the rest lay out there naked in the

open. Every now and then the parts that seemed to be arms and hands clawed

feebly at the ground, trying to force itself deeper in the brush, but it was too

weak; it never moved an inch.

It was groaning, too, but not too loud - just the kind of keening sound a

lonesome wind might make around a wide, deep eave. But there was more in it than

just the sound of winter wind: there was a frightened, desperate note that made

the hair stand up on Old Mose's nape.

Old Mose stood there for quite a spell, making up his mind what he ought to

do about it, and a while longer after that working up his courage, although most

folks offhand would have said that he had plenty. But this was the sort of

situation that took more than just ordinary screwed-up courage. It took a lot of

foolhardiness.

But this was a wild, hurt thing and he couldn't leave it there, so he walked

up to it, and knelt down, and it was pretty hard to look at, though there was a

sort of fascination in its repulsiveness that was hard to figure out - as if it

were so horrible that it dragged one to it. And it stank in a way that no one

had ever smelled before.

Mose, however, was not finicky. In the neighborhood, he was not well known

for fastidity. Ever since his wife had died almost ten years before, he had

lived alone on his untidy farm and the housekeeping that he did was the scandal

of all the neighbor women. Once a year, if he got around to it, he sort of

shoveled out the house, but the rest of the year he just let things accumulate.

So he wasn't as upset as some might have been with the way the creature

smelled. But the sight of it upset him, and it took him quite a while before he

could bring himself to touch it. and when he finally did, he was considerably

surprised. He had been prepared for it to be either cold or slimy, or maybe even

both. But it was neither. It was warm and hard and it had a clean feel to it,

and he was reminded of the way a green corn stalk would feel.

He slid his hand beneath the hurt thing and pulled it gently from the clump

of hazel brush and turned it over so he could see its face. It hadn't any face.

It had an enlargement at the top of it, like a flower on top of a stalk,

although its body wasn't any stalk, and there was a fringe around this

Side 1

Simak, Cliffard D - Death in the House, A

enlargement that wiggled like a can of worms, and it was then that Mose almost

turned around and ran.

But he stuck it out.

He squatted there, staring at the no-face with the fringe of worms, and he

got cold all over and his stomach doubled up on him and he was stiff with fright

- and the fright got worse when it seemed to him that the keening of the thing

was coming from the worms.

Mose was a stubborn man. One had to be stubborn to run a runty farm like

this. Stubborn and insensitive in a lot of ways. But not insensitive, of course,

to a thing in pain.

Finally he was able to pick it up and hold it in his arms and there was

nothing to it, for it didn't weigh much. Less that a half-grown shoat, he

figured.

He went up the woods path with it, heading back for home, and it seemed to

him the smell of it was less. He was hardly scared at all and he was warm again

and not cold all over.

For the thing was quieter now and keening just a little. And although he

could not be sure of it, there were times when it seemed as if the thing were

snuggling up to him, the way a scared and hungry baby will snuggle to any grown

person that comes and picks it up.

Old Mose reached the buildings and he stood out in the yard a minute,

wondering whether he should take it to the barn or house. The barn, of course,

was the natural place for it, for it wasn't human - it wasn't even as close to

human as a dog or cat or sick lamb would be.

He didn't hesitate too long, however. He took it into the house and laid it

on what he called a bed, next to the kitchen stove. He got it straightened out

all neat and orderly and pulled a dirty blanket over it, and then went to the

stove and stirred up the fire until there was some flame.

Then he pulled up a chair beside the bed and had a good, hard, wondering

look at this thing he had brought home. It had quieted down a lot and seemed

more comfortable than it had out in the woods. He tucked the blanket snug around

it with a tenderness that surprised himself. He wondered what he had that it

might eat, and even if he knew, how he'd manage feeding it, for it seemed to

have no mouth.

'But you don't need to worry none,' he told it. 'Now that I got you under a

roof, you'll be all right. I don't know too much about it, but I'll take care of

you the best I can.'

By now it was getting on toward evening, and he looked out the window and

saw that the cows he had been hunting had come home by themselves.

'I got to go get the milking done and other chores,' he told the thing lying

on the bed, 'but it won't take me long. I'll be right back.'

Old Mose loaded up the stove so the kitchen would stay warm and he tucked

the thing in once again, then got his milk pails and went down to the barn.

He fed the sheep and pigs and horses and he milked the cows. He hunted eggs

and shut the chicken house. He pumped a tank of water.

Then he went back to the house.

It was dark now and he lit the oil lamp on the table, for he was against

electricity. He'd refused to sign up when REA had run out the line and a lot of

the neighbors had gotten sore at him for being uncooperative. Not that he cared,

of course.

He had a look at the thing upon the bed. It didn't seem to be any better, or

Side 2

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Simak, Cliffard D - Death in the House, A - Notisblokk

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