Marihuana Read Free

crying———"
     
    Then came the thought of her. Then she herself. She was crouched down, trying to hide herself there behind the console, so that he wouldn't catch her in such a place. She peeped over at him, then ducked her head down. It wasn't just a private hallucination of his own brought on by the reefers, either; the others saw her too, he could tell by the way they spoke. Evans called over to him: "Hey, Turner, isn't that your wife across the room there? Better find out what she's doing here."
     
    She stood up and came forward when she saw that they'd spotted her. She was trying to keep her face covered with a gauzy sort of handkerchief, and get over to the hall door and out, before they could stop her.
     
    Turner jolted to his feet, headed her off, got in front of her. He caught her by the shoulders, tried to turn her toward him. "Eleanor! Who brought you to such a place? I'll punch them in the jaw!"
     
    She writhed in stubborn silence, trying to get away from him.
     
    "You got no right being here! You'll get yourself talked about. Come on, let me get you out, before somebody recognizes you———"
     
    She wrenched herself free, turned and ran back to the opposite end of the room, away from him. He went after her.
     
    It must have seemed funny to those other fools. They were laughing their heads off around him, instead of trying to help him. He heard Evans call out to him: "You'll never catch her that way. Here, pin her down with this." And then a muffled cry of alarm from Vinnie, the other girl, "Don't! Don't give him that, you fool!"
     
    It came too late. Something went wrong. She turned midway in full flight, when he wasn't expecting her to, and they collided front to front. The recoil sent him back a step. She stood there perfectly still, only wavering to and fro a little as though the current of the electric fan on the floor was too strong for her. She was holding her hands clasped at one side of her bosom, as though something there hurt her a little———
     
    Then as he stood there facing her, a hideous thing happened. Red peered through the crevices of her intertwined fingers. His eyes dilated and he held her hands protestingly toward her, as if to warn her of her danger———
     
    Suddenly she was gone and the blank wall across the room was all that met his uncomprehending gaze. He looked down, and she was flat upon the floor, almost at his feet. Her hands had separated now, and on the place they'd clasped there was a blotch of red that kept on growing———
     
    But more than that happened to her. In the fall, she seemed to have disintegrated into a flux of light-particles. Then they cohered again, into her face and form, but she wasn't Eleanor any more, she was — Vinnie, that girl that had come here with them.
     
    He glanced behind him, to make sure, and all he met were Gordon's and Evan's frightened faces, livid with paralyzed horror.
     
    One of them jumped forward, crouched over her, said in a choked voice: "Help me get her on the sofa."
     
    Turner missed seeing what they did next; he was staring in dazed consternation down his own arm, at the knife-blade protruding from his folded-over fingers. No longer glistening cleanly but ruddied now. "How'd it get there?" he groaned, mystified. He opened his fingers and it popped on the floor.
     
    They both had their backs to him, they were bending over her on the sofa, in frantic, furtive attempts at first aid. Evans had pulled the tail of his shirt out from under his belt, was trying to do something to her with it. "Gotta find some way to stop the bleeding———"
     
    "That's no good. Hurry up, we better send out for a doctor!"
     
    "They wouldn't let one in here; they're afraid of being reported."
     
    "What'll we do? We can't just let her lie here bleeding to death———"
     
    One of them glanced around remorsefully at him, then turned back again. "She shouldn't have teased him. I told her to lay off that