Lantry thrashed, hitting them across their faces, bringing
blood. "Hold him tight!" cried McClure. They held him. "A rough game, what?" one of them said. "What do we do _now_?" *       *       *       *       *

The beetle hissed along the shining road. Rain fell out of the sky and
a wind ripped at the dark green wet trees. In the beetle, his hands
on the half-wheel, McClure was talking. His voice was a susurrant, a
whispering, a hypnotic thing. The two other men sat in the back seat. Lantry sat, or rather lay, in the front seat, his head back, his eyes
faintly open, the glowing green light of the dash dials showing on his
cheeks. His mouth was relaxed. He did not speak. McClure talked quietly and logically, about life and moving, about
death and not moving, about the sun and the great sun Incinerator,
about the emptied tombyard, about hatred and how hate lived and made
a clay man live and move, and how illogical it all was, it all was,
it all was. One was dead, was dead, was dead, that was all, all, all. One did not try to be otherwise. The car whispered on the moving road. The rain spatted gently on the windshield. The men in the back seat
conversed quietly. Where were they going, going? To the Incinerator, of
course. Cigarette smoke moved slowly up on the air, curling and tying
into itself in grey loops and spirals. One was dead and must accept it. Lantry did not move. He was a marionette, the strings cut. There was
only a tiny hatred in his heart, in his eyes, like twin coals, feeble,
glowing, fading. I am Poe, he thought. I am all that is left of Edgar Allan Poe, and
I am all that is left of Ambrose Bierce and all that is left of a
man named Lovecraft. I am a grey night bat with sharp teeth, and I
am a square black monolith monster. I am Osiris and Baal and Set. I
am the Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead. I am the house of Usher,
falling into flame. I am the Red Death. I am the man mortared into
the catacomb with a cask of Amontillado.... I am a dancing skeleton. I am a coffin, a shroud, a lightning bolt reflected in an old house
window. I am an autumn-empty tree, I am a rapping, flinging shutter. I
am a yellowed volume turned by a claw hand. I am an organ played in an
attic at midnight. I am a mask, a skull mask behind an oak tree on the
last day of October. I am a poison apple bobbling in a water tub for
child noses to bump at, for child teeth to snap.... I am a black candle
lighted before an inverted cross. I am a coffin lid, a sheet with eyes,
a footstep on a black stairwell. I am Dunsany and Machen and I am the
Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I am The Monkey's Paw and I am The Phantom
Rickshaw. I am the Cat and the Canary, The Gorilla, the Bat. I am the
ghost of Hamlet's father on the castle wall. All of these things am I. And now these last things will be burned. While I lived _they_ still lived. While I moved and hated and existed,
_they_ still existed. I am _all_ that remembers them. I am all of them
that _still_ goes on, and will _not_ go on after tonight. Tonight, all
of us, Poe and Bierce and Hamlet's father, we burn together. They will
make a big heap of us and burn us like a bonfire, like things of Guy
Fawkes' day, gasoline, torch-light, cries and all! And what a wailing will we put up. The world will be clean of us, but
in our going we shall say, oh what is the world like, clean of fear,
where is the dark imagination from the dark time, the thrill and the
anticipation, the suspense of old October, gone, never more to come
again, flattened and smashed and burned by the rocket people, by the
Incinerator people, destroyed and obliterated, to be replaced by doors
that open and close and lights that go on or off without fear. If
only you could remember how once _we_ lived, what Hallowe'en was to
us, and what Poe was, and how we gloried in the dark morbidities. One
more drink, dear friends, of Amontillado, before the burning. All of
this, all, exists but in one last brain on earth. A whole world dying
tonight. One more drink, pray. "Here we are," said McClure. *       *       *       *       *

The Incinerator was brightly lighted. There was quiet music nearby. McClure got out of the beetle, came around to the other side. He opened
the door. Lantry simply lay there. The talking and the logical talking
had slowly drained him of life. He was no more than wax now, with a
small glow in his eyes. This future world, how the men _talked_ to you,
how logically they reasoned away your life. They wouldn't believe in
him. The force of their disbelief froze him. He could not move his arms
or his legs. He could only mumble senselessly, coldly, eyes flickering. McClure and the two others helped him out of the car, put him in a
golden box and rolled him on a roller table into the warm glowing
interior of the building. I am Edgar Allan Poe, I am Ambrose Bierce, I am Hallowe'en, I am a
coffin, a shroud, a Monkey's Paw, a Phantom, a Vampire....

"Yes, yes," said McClure, quietly, over him. "I know. I know." The table glided. The walls swung over him and by him, the music
played. You are dead, you are logically dead. I am Usher, I am the Maelstrom, I am the MS Found In A Bottle, I am
the Pit and I am the Pendulum, I am the Telltale Heart, I am the Raven
nevermore, nevermore. "Yes," said McClure, as they walked softly. "I know." "I am in the catacomb," cried Lantry. "Yes, the catacomb," said the walking man over him. "I am being chained to a wall, and there is no bottle of Amontillado
here!" cried Lantry weakly, eyes closed. "Yes," someone said. There was movement. The flame door opened. "Now someone is mortaring up the cell, closing me in!" "Yes, I _know_." A whisper. The golden box slid into the flame lock. "I'm being walled in! A very good joke indeed! Let us be gone!" A wild
scream and much laughter. "We know, we understand...."

The inner flame lock opened. The golden coffin shot forth into flame.