The hand with Jim's picture grabbed Jim.
Shrieks and yells.
The Illustrated Man heaved.
Twisting, he fell-jumped to the floor.
The boys, kicking, yelling, fell with him. They landed on their feet, toppled, collapsed, to be held, reared, set right, fistfuls of their shirts in Mr. Dark's fists.
"Jim!" he said. "Will! What were you doing up there, boys? Surely not reading?"
"Dad!"
"Mr. Halloway!"
Will's father stepped from the dark.
The Illustrated Man rearranged the boys tenderly under one arm like kindling, then gazed with genteel curiosity at Charles Halloway and reached for him. Will's father struck one blow before his left hand was seized, held, squeezed. As the boys watched, shouting, they saw Charles Halloway gasp and fall to one knee.
Mr. Dark squeezed that left hand harder and, doing this, slowly, certainly, pressured the boys with his other arm, crushing their ribs so air gushed from their mouths.
Night spiraled in fiery who
rls like great thumbprints inside Will's eyes.
Will's father, groaning, sank to both knees, flailing his right arm.
"Damn you!"
"But," said the carnival owner quietly, "I am already."
"Damn you, damn you!"
"Not words, old man," said Mr. Dark. "Not words in books or words you say, but real thoughts, real actions, quick thought, quick action, win the day. So!"
He gave one last mighty clench of his fist.
The boys heard Charles Halloway's finger bones crack. He gave a last cry and fell senseless.
In one motion like a solemn pavane, the Illustrated Man rounded the stacks, the boys, kicking books from shelves, under his arms.
Will, feeling walls, books, floors fly by, foolishly thought, pressed close, Why, why, Mr. Dark smells like ... calliope steam!
Both boys were dropped suddenly. Before they could move or regain their breath, each was gripped by the hair on their head and roused marionettes-wise to face a window, a street.
"Boys, you read Dickens?" Mr. Dark whispered. "Critics hate his coincidences. But we know, don't we? life's all coincidence. Turn death and happenstance flakes off him like fleas from a killed ox. Look!"
Both boys writhed in the iron-maiden clutch of hungry saurians and bristly apes.
Will did not know whether to weep with joy or new despair.
Below, across the avenue, passing from church, going home, was his mother and Jim's mother.
Not on the carousel, not old, crazy, dead, in jail, but freshly out in the good October air. She had been not a hundred yards away in church during all the last five minutes!
Mom! screamed Will, against the hand which, anticipating his cry, clamped tight to his mouth.
"Mom," crooned Mr. Dark, mockingly. "Come save me!"