"Jack Finney - I'm Scared" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

I'M SCARED
by Jack Finney

I'm very badly scared, not so much for myself—I'm a gray-haired man of sixty-six, after all—bu
for you and everyone else who has not yet lived out his life. For I believe that certain dangerous
things have recently begun to happen in the world. They are noticed here and there, idly
discussed, then dismissed and forgotten. Yet I am convinced that unless these occurrences are
rec-ognized for what they are, the world will be plunged into a nightmare. Judge for yourself.
One evening last winter I came home from a chess club to which I belong. I'm a widower; I live
alone in a small but comfortable three-room apartment overlook-ing Fifth Avenue. It was still fair
early, and I switched on a lamp beside my leather easy chair, picked up a murder mystery I'd bee
reading, and turned on the radio; I did not, I'm sorry to say, notice which station it was tuned to.
The tubes warmed, and the music of an accordion—faint at first, then louder—came from the
loud-speaker. Since it was good music for reading, I adjusted the volume control and began to
read.
Now I want to be absolutely factual and accurate about this, and I do not claim that I paid close
attention to the radio. But I do know that presently the music stopped and an audience applaude
Then a man's voice, chuckling and pleased with the applause, said, "All right, all right," but the
applause continued for several more seconds. During that time the voice once more chuckled
appreciatively, then firmly repeated, "All right," and the applause died down. "That was Alec
Somebody-or-other," the radio voice said, and I went back to my book.
But I soon became aware of this middle-aged voice again; perhaps a change of tone as he turned
to a new subject caught my attention. "And now, Miss Ruth Greeley," he was saying, "of
Trenton, New Jersey. Miss Greeley is a pianist; that right?" A girl's voice, timid and barely
audible, said, "That's right, Major Bowes." The man's voice—and now I recognized his familiar
singsong delivery—said, "And what are you going to play?"
The girl replied, " 'La Paloma.' " The man repeated it after her, as an announcement: " 'La
Paloma.' " There was a pause, then an introductory chord sounded from a piano, and I resumed
my reading.
As the girl played, I was half aware that her style was mechanical, her rhythm defective; perhaps
she was ner-vous. Then my attention was fully aroused once more by a gong which sounded
suddenly. For a few notes more the girl continued to play falteringly, not sure what to do. The
gong sounded jarringly again, the playing abruptly stopped and there was a restless mur-mur from
the audience. "All right, all right," said the familiar voice, and I realized I'd been expecting this,
knowing it would say just that. The audience quieted, and the voice began, "Now—"
The radio went dead. For the smallest fraction of a second no sound issued from it but its own
mechanical hum. Then a completely different program came from the loudspeaker; the recorded
voices of Bing Crosby and his son were singing the concluding bars of "Sam's Song," a favorite
of mine. So I returned once more to my reading, wondering vaguely what had happened to the
other program, but not actually thinking about it until I finished my book and began to get ready
for bed.
Then, undressing in my bedroom, I remembered that Major Bowes was dead. Years had passed
half a decade, since that dry chuckle and familiar, "All right, all right," had been heard in the
nation's living rooms.
Well, what does one do when the apparently im-possible occurs? It simply made a good story to
tell friends, and more than once I was asked if I'd recently heard Moran and Mack, a pair of radi
comedians popular some twenty-five years ago, or Floyd Gibbons, an old-time news broadcaste
And there were other joking references to my crystal radio set.
But one man—this was at a lodge meeting the following Thursday—listened to my story with utt
seriousness, and when I had finished he told me a queer little story of his own. He is a thoughtful