Backteria and Other Improbable Tales

  The following morning, when the guards brought breakfast to prisoner Freef, they found him unclothed on all fours, attempting to climb the wall of his cell and baying.

  The prison psychiatrist was notified and, for several days, observed Milton with a suspicious eye, being an old hand at this sort of thing.

  It wasn’t until Milton began butting his head against walls that the psychiatrist decided that something was genuinely wrong. Where upon, after lengthy investigation, during which the lie detector revealed that prisoner Freef was telling the truth when he said he was Cosmo de Medici, the psychiatrist, reluctantly, pronounced him insane and, regretfully, recommended his removal to the state insane asylum.

  At last! Milton Freef rejoiced within at the thought that he would be together with his beloved Gladys again. He put up only token resistance as they swathed him in straight jacket and led him away.

  When he reached the asylum, however, he learned that, two days previous, Gladys had finally proved, to the satisfaction of the staff, that she was not insane after all. She had left the asylum early that morning, singing happily because she believed she was going to join her dear husband.

  Milton, upon discovering this, fell into such a violent state that his protestations of sanity went unregarded. He was put into a special cell, padded, to brood.

  There, cannily, he evolved a plan for escape. He knew he could not bear to live without Gladys. Therefore, he would break out of the asylum, go to the prison on the day of her execution, demand entrance, be shot down, and thus join Gladys in the bourne beyond.

  Two weeks and a day later, a docile Milton Freef was allowed to walk the grounds with his keeper. While strolling behind a hydrangia bush, Milton, who had read of such things in his youth, pressed a vital nerve on the burly keeper’s neck and rendered him unconscious. Then, scaling the high brick wall, Milton ran quickly down the highway.

  In a farmhouse a few miles down the road, Milton stole a raincoat and returned to the highway. There, in answer to his beckoning thumb, a car stopped.

  “You would like a ride?” said the kind old lady in the car.

  “I would like your car,” said Milton and, as gently as he could, dragged her off the front seat and threw her in a ditch.

  He then began the long drive to the state penitentiary. He did eighty all afternoon long, his heart singing a happy song about returning to his love.

  About ten that night, however, Milton Freed began to get sleepy. Several times, his head nodded, each time jerking up with enforced alertness, dark eyes shining angrily. He would get back to Gladys!

  But, at eleven, his head slumped over fatally, and the car rode across the center line.

  Just before the black limousine came roaring out of the night, Milton looked up in confounded horror, blinded by the glaring headlights.

  “Oh no!” he cried.

  Then the crash. An awful crash.

  Milton Freef crawled, dying, from the rubble of the old lady’s car which was, luckily for the old lady, insured.

  “Gladys,” he moaned horribly, “Gladys.”

  “Milton.”

  He thought he dreamed or was losing his mind.

  “What?” he murmured, “What?”

  But then, crawling from the twisted wreckage of the limousine came Gladys.

  They inched toward each other, glazed eyes shining with love.

  “Gladys. Is it really you, my precious?”

  “Yes, lover! I…convinced them…I was insane—again. They were taking me back.”

  They met. Their hands touched.

  “Together,” sighed Gladys in happy agony. “Oh, dearest.”

  “At last,” sobbed Milton. “My sweet.”

  Whereupon they kissed, both of them expiring in glorious expiration.

  The tall man looked at them with sympathy. He sighed. I’m afraid my hands are tied,” he said. “After all—murder.” He clucked and shook his head. “We’ll have to keep you separated. Perhaps, after a century or two, we might reconsider.” Shrugging, he scratched his right horn. “Mal chance,” he said.

  He smiled. “Good try, though,” he added.

  Person to Person

  The ringing telephone stirred Millman from his sleep. His eyelids fluttered as he drifted up toward consciousness. The telephone kept ringing and he groaned. “All right, all right.”

  Sliding his left arm from beneath the covers, he reached to the bedside table, feeling for the handset. His fingers closed around it and he carried the receiver to his ear. “Yes?” he mumbled.

  He listened to the dial tone for a few seconds before grimacing irritably and reaching out to thump the handset back on its cradle.

  His eyes opened wide as he looked toward the bedside table.

  The telephone was still ringing.

  He stretched out his arm and fumbled for the lamp switch. Twisting it, he averted his face from the glare, then picked up the handset again and pressed the receiver to his ear.

  There was only the dial tone.

  Millman stared, bewildered, at the handset. He could still hear the sound of a telephone ringing.

  Several moments passed before it came to him that the ringing was inside his head.

  “I have the test results,” Dr. Vance told him.

  Millman waited anxiously. “My immediate assumption was that it was tinnitus,” Dr. Vance continued. “There’s no sign of middle-ear infection, though, no symptoms such as earache, fever, a sensation of pressure in your ears.”

  “What is it then?” Millman asked.

  “You know for a fact it doesn’t ring all the time.”

  “Only at night,” Millman answered. “It wakes me up.”

  “That wouldn’t be the case if it was tinnitus,” Dr. Vance said. “The ringing would be constant.”

  Millman looked at him in worried silence.

  “Don’t tell anyone I said this,” Dr. Vance went on, “but you might try getting a chiropractic adjustment on your neck. I had a friend who suffered from what appeared to be tinnitus. After he got a neck adjustment, it went away.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?” Millman asked.

  “Try it first,” the doctor said.

  Millman twisted on the bed with an angry groan.

  The telephone was ringing again.

  He reached out quickly with his left hand and grabbed the handset, carrying the earpiece to his head.

  Then he slammed the handset down on its cradle. “Damn!” he cried.

  He lay on his back, a look of apprehension on his face as he listened to the sound of the ringing telephone inside his head.

  “Everything’s been tried?” Dr. Palmer asked.

  “Yes,” Millman said despairingly. “There’s no sign of a fracture or a concussion. Nothing wrong with my spine. No sign of any foreign body. No growths, no tumors, nothing. I even had a neck adjustment. It made no difference.”

  “The ringing happens every night?” Dr. Palmer asked.

  “Yes.”

  “At the same time?”

  “Three in morning,” Millman answered. “I can’t sleep any more. I just lie in bed waiting for it to start.”

  “And you’re positive it sounds like a telephone ringing.”

  “It is a telephone ringing,” Millman said impatiently

  “Try answering it then,” suggested Dr. Palmer.

  Millman lay on his back in the darkness, listening to the ringing sound inside his head. He wanted desperately to make it stop. But Dr. Palmer’s suggestion disturbed him. It seemed a bizarre thing for a therapist to say.

  Still…

  The telephone kept ringing. Millman’s left hand twitched as though about to reach for the telephone on the bedside table. But he knew that wasn’t where the ringing was coming from.

  Impulsively, he visualized a telephone inside his head. He visualized his left hand picking up the handset. “Hel-lo,” he said aloud.

  “Well, finally,” said the voice.

  Millman felt himself
recoil into the mattress, heartbeat pounding suddenly. “My God,” he said.

  “Take it easy now,” the voice responded, that of a man. “Don’t get yourself in an uproar. There’s a simple explanation.”

  Millman couldn’t seem to breathe.

  “Still there?” the man’s voice asked.

  Millman swallowed. He sucked in a wheezing breath and muttered, “Yes.”

  The voice said, “Good.”

  Millman had to ask, although he knew it was insane.

  “Who is this?” he said.

  “The name’s not important,” the man’s voice replied. “I’m not allowed to tell you anyway.”

  “What are you talking about?” Millman’s voice strained.

  “Take it easy,” the man’s voice said. “You’re getting yourself upset for nothing. I told you there’s a simple explanation.”

  “What?” demanded Millman.

  “Okay,” the man’s voice answered. “Here’s what’s going on. It’s a government project; a secret project, it goes without saying. You’ll have to keep it quiet. It’s a matter of national security.”

  Millman’s mouth slipped open. National Security?

  “I won’t go into background,” the man’s voice continued. “You know the situation in the world. Our government maintains a constant policy of espionage. We have to know what’s happening on the other side.”

  “But—” Millman started.

  “Just listen,” the man’s voice interrupted. “We have agents all around the globe, sending us information. The transmission of their messages has always been a risk. Any device they use can be detected sooner or later. Which is why we’re experimenting with inner-brain communication.”

  “Inner-brain—?”

  “Yes.” The man’s voice cut Millman off. “A method by which agents can transmit information with no risk whatever of being intercepted. I don’t mean telepathy or anything like that. I’m talking about a microscopic insert.”

  Millman tightened. “What?”

  “Relax,” the man’s voice told him. “If it’s so minute it never even showed up on your medical tests, it’s certainly too small to bother you.”

  Millman tried to speak but couldn’t.

  “You’re probably wondering why you were chosen for this experiment,” the man’s voice continued. “Actually, you’re not the only one. I can’t tell you how many there are, but the number is considerable. As to how you were chosen, it was mathematical; a random generator.”

  “I don’t understand,” Millman said.

  “To be perfectly candid,” the man’s voice went on, “only a few of you have reached the stage of answering our call. The rest are still fixated at the point of thinking it’s a physical affliction, making endless rounds of doctor visits. Congratulations on being imaginative enough to answer the ringing—it is that of an actual telephone, by the way.”

  Millman braced himself. “But—” he began.

  “—we never asked,” the man’s voice finished Millman’s thought. “True. And we’re sorry it disturbed you. Still—under the circumstances, we couldn’t very well have asked for your permission.

  “At any rate,” he added, “we won’t be bothering you as much now. The connection’s been made.”

  “For how long?” Millman asked.

  “I’m sorry,” the man’s voice responded. “That’s not my decision to make.”

  Inside his head, Millman heard the distinct sound of a telephone handset being placed on its cradle.

  He fell back on the pillow; he’d been unaware that he was leaning on his right elbow throughout his conversation with the man. In spite of his distress, he felt relieved that the ringing noise had stopped.

  In seconds, he was heavily asleep.

  The ringing of the telephone inside his head jarred Millman awake. His eyes sprang open and he twitched on the mattress. “No,” he said. It had been five days since he’d spoken with the man. He’d begun to hope it was over; that either the calls would not continue or that he’d imagined everything.

  Grimacing, he snatched up the unseen handset. “Yes,” he said.

  The ringing continued.

  Millman looked confused. He visualized the telephone as clearly as he could, lifted the handset and brought it to his ear. “Hel-lo,” he said.

  The telephone kept ringing. Was it because he hadn’t heard it for the past five nights that it sounded so painfully shrill to him?

  In his mind, he visualized his hand grabbing at the handset. “Hello!” he said.

  The ringing didn’t stop. Millman made a pained noise. The sound seemed to pulse in stabbing waves against the tissues of his brain. He clenched his teeth, face contorted.

  The telephone kept ringing. Millman kept snatching up the handset in his imagination, crying out, “Hel-lo!”

  Abruptly, then, the man’s voice answered. “You don’t have to shout.”

  “For God’s sake!” Millman cried.

  “Take it easy,” the man’s voice told him.

  “Easy?” Millman said. “The phone’s been ringing in my head for ten minutes straight!”

  “Five,” the man corrected.

  “Well, why?” demanded Millman.

  “I’ve been busy.” The man’s voice had an edge to it. “You’re not the only line I have to deal with, you know.”

  “I’m sorry,” Millman said in a shaking voice. “But you —” He broke off, frowning. “Why did you keep ringing me then?”

  “Oh, was I ringing you? I didn’t realize,” the man’s voice said.

  Millman looked astonished as he heard a handset click down in his head, breaking the connection.

  Seconds later, the telephone began to ring again.

  No matter how often he answered it, there was no response.

  The ringing continued almost until dawn, Millman lying wide-eyed on his bed, teeth clenched, hands like talons clutching at the sheets.

  “I was wondering what happened to you,” Dr. Palmer said.

  Millman drew in labored breath. “I thought I knew what it was,” he said. “I thought I had to keep it quiet.”

  “Keep what quiet?” Dr. Palmer asked.

  When Millman had finished telling him what happened, Dr. Palmer gazed at him without acknowledgment.

  Millman swallowed nervously. “I’m still not sure I’m not making a mistake in telling you,” he said, unable to endure the silence. “But he’s driving me crazy, ringing me every night from three a.m. to six and never answering.”

  Dr. Palmer began to speak, hesitated, then finally said, “You believe this?”

  Millman regarded him blankly.

  “You believe it’s a secret government project?” the therapist asked.

  “Well—” Millman broke off in confusion. “That’s what he said. He—”

  The expression on Dr. Palmer’s face stopped him.

  “David,” the therapist said. “Does it really make sense to you?”

  Millman struggled for an answer. “I—” He stopped; braced himself. “I hear the telephone ringing,” he said. “I answer it. The man’s voice speaks to me. I’m not imagining it.”

  Dr. Palmer sighed. “David, think about it,” he said. “A secret government project? Citizens picked at random? Microscopic telephones implanted in their brains without them knowing it? Espionage agents of the United States government transmitting information this way?” He looked at Millman challengingly.

  Millman stared back, feeling a heavy weight on his back. Dear God, he thought.

  He fought against the feeling. “But I hear the ringing,” he insisted. “I hear the man’s voice.”

  “David, not to alarm you,” Dr. Palmer replied, “but hearing voices in one’s head has been in the symptomatology tradition for a long time.”

  Millman drank black coffee with supper that evening. He wanted to remain alert.

  Lying on his bed in the dark, propped on pillows leaned against the headboard, he waited for the ringing of the t
elephone to start.

  And thought about what Dr. Palmer had said.

  He’d gotten angry at the therapist’s remark about hearing voices in one’s head. Was Dr. Palmer implying that he’d gone insane?

  “Not at all,” the therapist had reassured him. “What I’m saying is that you’re undergoing some kind of mental constraint. That your mind is seeking out a method of redressing it.”

  “By dreaming up a phone call from some secret government project?” Millman had responded tensely.

  “The means by which the human mind attempts to deal with hidden problems can be infinite,” Dr. Palmer had told him.

  The room was still. Millman heard the whirring of the electric alarm clock on the bedside table.

  Was Palmer right? he wondered.

  True, it did seem awfully farfetched that the national government would go to such lengths to conduct a project so outlandish.

  Still, the alternative.…

  Millman bared his teeth in anger. It was all irrelevant anyway. If the man’s voice didn’t answer any more—and it hadn’t in a week—what difference did it make? Palmer might be convinced that presently the voice would speak to him again because it needed to, but he was certainly not—

  Millman caught his breath, jerking back against the headboard as the telephone began to ring. His gaze jumped to the clock. It was three.

  He let the ringing go on for thirty seconds before mentally picking up the handset and saying, “Yes?”

  “We’re very displeased with you,” the man’s voice said; Millman tensed at the tone of it. “You were asked not to say anything about the project, weren’t you?”

  Millman swallowed nervously.

  “Weren’t you?” the man’s voice snapped.

  “Yes, but—”

  “You were told it was a matter of national security,” the man’s voice cut him off. “Yet still you told your therapist.”

  Millman couldn’t seem to fill his lungs with air. He made a wheezing sound. “How do you know?” he asked, his voice frail and breathless.

  “Figure it out,” the man’s voice said. “If we can hear your voice when you speak to us.…”