VOICE:
Lights Out, everybody!
CHIMES, ETC.
GONG
JOHN:
(SLOWLY - INFINITE WEARINESS IN HIS VOICE) Yes, Mary - I hear you in the wind...I hear you always.....
MARY:
(FAR BACK - THRU WIND - EERILY CALLING) John, help me! John, help me! (FADE OUT) John, help me!
JOHN:
(WEARILY) Yes...I hear you...Always hear you... Endless wandering in infinite darkness - loneliness and a pain that goes beyond all understanding...This isn't the kindness of death. I know it isn't....
I speak my story.. yet who can hear it...There is no understanding here in this darkness - only the pain of endless searching, searching for the unknowable...Confusion in my mind - yet once I was a man who knew a world cf reality - a world of sun and brightness - (THERE IS A LONGING NOTE IN HIS VOICE AS HE RECOUNTS THE THINGS HE ONCE KNEW) - a world of city streets and people and quickly moving autos, and women, and theatres, and laughing children - a world - a living world! (VOICE DEADENS) But suddenly, somehow, that world has gone from me and I was doomed to this...Let me tell you just what happened....
I came home from the office that day - as I'd come home many days before. It was earlier than usual - it had been a bright cheery day and I was feeling well and happy. I - I remember I whistled as I came down the walk - it was good to come home from work to Irene and the children. I put the key in the door (FADE) and opened it...
SOUND OF DOOR OPENING AND CLOSING
JOHN:
(THERE IS A BRIGHT FRESHNESS IN HIS VOICE FAR DIFFERENT FROM THE WEARY DESPONDENCY IN HIS MONOLOGUE EPISODE) Irene! Irene, are you home?
IRENE:
(FADE IN FAST - SHE IS A PLEASANT ORDINARY HOUSEWIFE IN HER EARLY THIRTIES) Why, John! This is nice! Home so early!
JOHN:
Well, I went up to C. L. today, and I said "C. L., I've worked for you for the last ten years, and it's a bright sunny day and I just don't feel like working, so fare-thee-well and I'll see you in the morning.
IRENE:
(LAUGHING) John! You didn't!
JOHN:
(CHUCKLES) I didn't...
IRENE:
(CHUCKLES) What really did happen?
JOHN:
Oh, Mr. Harrington got generous and said I could go home early. I suppose that means I work late tomorrow night.
IRENE:
(LAUGHINGLY) Cynic!
JOHN:
Where are the children?
IRENE:
Oh, Billy's out playing ball and Helen's at the library. Here - let me have your hat.
JOHN:
(SIGHS) Ah, seems strange coming home so early. Everything's so bright outside.
IRENE:
(CHUCKLING) Yes...Hungry?
JOHN:
A little. I'll go out and raid the ice-box myself. (FADES) Get some fruit, or something...
BEGIN TO FADE IN RUMBLE OF KETTLE-DRUM FAR BACK BEHIND
JOHN:
(IN CLOSE) I opened the door to the kitchen - I stepped through! Suddenly things went black! (WITH INCREASING TEMPO) I couldn't see! I was falling! The dark all around me! I was falling - falling - faster and faster!
WIND SOUND AT "I COULDN'T SEE" IN ABOVE - CONTINUING BEHIND
JOHN:
Deeper and deeper - into some horrible abyss! I didn't know where - what - just falling, falling into darkness!
WIND AND DRUM EFFECT OUT KNIFE-CLEAN AT "DARKNESS" IN ABOVE
JOHN:
Suddenly...I was falling no more...There was a dark warmth...a thick heavy, oppressiveness around me...I - I was on my feet - I didn't know where but I knew I was alive, breathing, feeling...So dark around me - and yet my eyes - I knew I wasn't blind - it was the blackness of a night I'd never known. I stood there - how could it be - a moment before I was in my own home - talking to my wife - stepping through a door I'd opened a thousand times before! Where had I fallen? What had happened to me? (UP INTENSELY)
What had happened to me?
WIND SOFTLY, FAR BACK
JOHN:
A wind touched my face...I was alive - I knew the dead couldn't feel the touch of wind...And yet so dark - I put my hands out - nothing around me - a warm darkness - (TEARS IN VOICE) Mother in heaven, where was I? What had happened to me?...And then suddenly in the blackness above me long grey fingers of light! And then I saw - it was the moon streaming through strange grey clouds! I was alive! This was the moon above me - the earth below me! (EXULTANTLY) I was alive!.... Yet where was I - and once again, what had happened to me? I had been in daylight - I had stepped thru a door - and now I was here in this strange night! In the name of all sanity, where was I? Forest - trees all around me - I couldn't quite make out! My home - my wife - my children - where were they? I began to run! I heard my own voice ringing in my ears crying - shouting - (BACK - USE ECHO CHAMBER TO GET EERIE EFFECT - CALLING MADLY) Irene! Irene! where are you! (FADE) Irene! Irene!..
WIND SIGHING FAR BACK AS TRANSITION
JOHN:
How far I ran and where I ran I'll never know...On and on - the branches of trees tearing at me - ripping across my face - on and on until I could run no more! I fell to the ground... and then blackness...
WIND SIGHS AS TRANSITION
JOHN:
When I awoke - there was the brightness of day around me! I jumped to my feet! At last I'd know where I was! This mad dream of the night - it was a dream - it must have been a dream! I looked about me. I was in an open clearing of a forest - a green meadow -- Yes - yes, I had dreamt - and I had walked in that sleep out to this strange place! I looked at my watch - nine o'clock! My job - I had to hurry - I'd be late - Mr. Harrington didn't like us to be late! I looked around me! Which was the way to go? I - I didn't quite know - my head - it was all so confusing! (IN CLOSE - TENSELY) And then - then I saw It! It was standing at the edge of the clearing as quietly as a thing made of stone, the sunlight glistening green upon it.....I stood there...My eyes - I couldn't believe them...And yet...there it was. Its eyes fixed on my throat!
How long I stood there looking at that thing I don't know - my mind said "No, it cannot be! A thing like this does not exist!" And yet I saw the lift and fall as the creature breathed the air - saw the flesh - that long thin tongue that darted in and out like a thing of hell! A man with the long green head of a snake! (UP MADLY) You hear me - the head of a snake!
WIND SIGHS
JOHN:
Suddenly - he was gone! A flash of green - gone into the deeper green of the forest! And then - suddenly - I knew that something was standing behind me. I - I didn't want to turn! I wanted to run! And yet - I couldn't - I stood rooted. The thing behind me came closer and closer. I could hear the rustle of the grass. And then - I could endure it no more! I whirled around! A woman! There stood a woman! A glorious woman! (PAUSE) I remember her first words - (FADE) her very first words...
WOMAN:
(WITH SOME DIFFICULTY AS IF SHE HADN'T SPOKEN FOR A LONG TIME - THERE IS MINGLED HOPE AND FEAR IN HER VOICE) Who - who are you? You - you can speak?
JOHN:
Yes, yes, of course I speak!
WOMAN:
(BREAKS INTO TEARS) (CONTINUES TO CRY)
JOHN:
Please - don't do that - I mean - what is it - what's the matter?
WOMAN:
(WEEPILY) I prayed! I prayed so long!
JOHN:
(CONFUSED) Please! W-what's the matter? I don't understand!
WOMAN:
(STILL CRYING) Day after day - hoping and praying! I've been so afraid! So afraid!
JOHN:
Now - now come - please - control yourself! I - I don't know what it's all about! Who are you? What is your name?
WOMAN:
Name - name? I - I don't remember! It's been so long!
JOHN:
You are in a state, aren't you? Come on - I'll get you out of here!
WOMAN:
(HOPELESSLY) Out of here....
JOHN:
Why do you say it that way?
WOMAN:
Where is there to go?
JOHN:
The city - I - I don't quite know how I got here - but we'll go back!
WOMAN:
The city...
JOHN:
Yes, of course! I - I must have walked in my sleep! I - I just don't know exactly - I guess I must be asleep even now!
WOMAN:
There's no dream as horrible as this...
JOHN:
Don't talk like that!
WOMAN:
You think you walk in a dream...
JOHN:
It - it must be! I just saw a horrible something that - that couldn't exist outside of a dream! And you - you're too - too lovely to be outside of a dream!
WOMAN:
(PITYINGLY) Oh, man, man, you don't realize what's happened to you, do you?
JOHN:
What...do you mean?
WOMAN:
It must have happened to you - as it did to me...
JOHN:
What are you saying?
WOMAN:
Think back - what is the last thing you remember back there?
JOHN:
Back there?
WOMAN:
The last thing you remember before you woke up in this place of nightmares?
JOHN:
Why - why I remember clearly! I opened the kitchen door and stepped through -
WOMAN:
Yes! So it was with me! I stepped through a door!
JOHN:
What are you talking about?
WOMAN:
Understand what's happened to you, man! You stepped through a door - and now you're here!
JOHN:
Well?
WOMAN:
Can't you understand? This isn't the world you knew - this is another world! (FADE) Another world!
THE WIND SOUND AS TRANSITION
JOHN:
(IN CLOSE - HIS MONOLOGUE TONE OF VOICE) Another world - as she said that it seemed as if the ground beneath me swayed!.....Another world...terrible words...and yet somehow I knew they were true words...Dead, and yet not dead...What had happened to me had happened to her weeks before! She explained everything to me - (FADE) everything...
WIND EFFECT AS TRANSITION
WOMAN:
(FADE IN FAST) And that's the way it was - I opened the door to step outside and felt myself falling just the way you did - and just as you did, I found myself here!
JOHN:
But where are we? You say another world! Where are we?
WOMAN:
Come along this path....
JOHN:
Where - where are you leading me? What's ahead?
WOMAN:
You look down on a valley...you see the meaning of it all...
JOHN:
What are you saying? We - we must be only a short distance from a town of some sort!
WOMAN:
This is far enough - look down there.
JOHN:
(HOARSELY) No!
WOMAN:
Could there be creatures such as those if this was your world?
JOHN:
(DAZEDLY) Elephants...
WOMAN:
Not elephants...
JOHN:
No - not elephants. Curved tusks - (SHARPLY) Mastodons!
WOMAN:
Yes.
JOHN:
How could that be? The mastodons - they're dead for thousands of years!
WOMAN:
In the world we came from, yes! But not on this world!
JOHN:
Why do you say this world? Where are we? If you know, tell me. Where are we?
WOMAN:
I've thought about it so much...
JOHN:
Well? Speak!
WOMAN:
We've fallen back in time...
JOHN:
(DAZEDLY) Fallen back in time?
WOMAN:
Why not?
JOHN:
Time goes on. It doesn't move back!
WOMAN:
But you've seen - with your own eyes!
JOHN:
I tell you it can't be!
WOMAN:
I think that time flows like a river - forward and backward. You can go up stream - or down stream.
JOHN:
And we've gone down stream?...
WOMAN:
Yes...
JOHN:
But how could that be?
WOMAN:
When I opened the door - somehow - I fell back thru time.
JOHN:
And that's what happened to me?...
WOMAN:
Yes...and perhaps to many others....
JOHN:
Never heard about it...
WOMAN:
(TENSELY) Because - what happened to us - is like death - you never come back to tell.....
JOHN:
Don't say that!
WOMAN:
It's true!
JOHN:
(UP) Don't say that, I tell you! I've got to get back! My wife - my children! I've got to go back!
WOMAN:
(HOPELESSLY) Never go back...
JOHN:
I will! I tell you I will!
WOMAN:
I screamed that too for days after I found myself here! (HOPELESSLY) But now I know...Doomed....
JOHN:
If we've gone back in time, we can go forward again!
WOMAN:
No, because what's happened to us happens as rarely as a new world being born in the sky. We'll never get back - never (FADE) never - never...
WIND TRANSITION
JOHN:
(IN CLOSE - NARRATIVE VOICE) Never, she said - never! But she was wrong - she had to be wrong! I had to get back! How, I didn't know - but I had to! My wife - my children - my job! This madness of being in another time - it couldn't be true! I tell you, it couldn't!....(VOICE DEADENS) And yet it was - with each passing moment I realized how true it really was! The trees - there never were such trees in my world! Horrible green waving things - and through the thickness of them, horrible glittering insects - huge - monstrous beyond belief! Yes, I'd fallen back in time - this was a world before men - and I and this poor woman were in it. We walked on - talking, talking as if by talk alone we could keep our sanity! (PAUSE) And then we came to a place - a strange place -
WIND EFFECT AS TRANSITION - THEN FADE IN THE ROARING OF MANY ANIMALS FAR, FAR BACK CONTINUING BEHIND
JOHN:
What - what is that?
WOMAN:
I - I don't know!
JOHN:
Animals - in pain!
WOMAN:
No, no, be careful!
JOHN:
Look! Down there in the valley! I tell you, look!
BRING ROAR OF ANIMALS IN A LITTLE CLOSER
WOMAN:
(GREAT AWE IN VOICE) What - is - this?
JOHN:
Animals - fighting --
WOMAN:
No! Not fighting! - They're trapped!
JOHN:
Yes! I see! Trapped in those pits!
WOMAN:
But - but what's trapped them?
JOHN:
Mud - oil - tar - it's hard to see from here! Look at them struggling! It's like a horrible black quicksand!
WOMAN:
And others are eating them!
JOHN:
What creatures are they? I've never seen --
WOMAN:
Now you will believe! Look at them - prehistoric monsters! Now you will believe we're gone backwards in time! They're trapped just as we're trapped! They're trapped in tar and we're trapped in time! And we're like them - we'll never get free! Never - never!
JOHN:
Stop saying that! Stop saying that, I tell you! (FADE FAST) Stop saying that!
WIND AS TRANSITION
JOHN:
Yes - I remember I screamed to her to stop saying that!.. And yet with each passing moment I knew she was right. A trick of time had trapped us both - how could we ever get away from there?....We stood there watching that horrible sight of those creatures struggling in those oil pits below! Great beasts of a forgotten past - screaming and filling the air with the noise of their suffering as they tried to escape from the clinging ooze. Monstrous wolves tearing at their helplessness - great tigers with saber teeth quarreling over red quivering masses of flesh - monstrous vultures circling above - I tell you it was like a hellish inferno of a dim nightmare! We stood there watching - fascinated by a sight men's eyes should never have seen - watching, watching until we could stand it no longer, until we ran away, hands over ears to shut out those animals' screams of suffering!....
Then at last we were too tired to go on - we sat down on the soft flower-sprinkled grass where it was quiet with a strange silence. For a long time we lay there gasping for breath - and then at last she spoke again - (FADE) I remember her words.....
WIND TRANSITION
WOMAN:
John...
JOHN:
Yes....
WOMAN:
I - I remember my name now...
JOHN:
Yes?
WOMAN:
Mary...
JOHN:
Mary.....
WOMAN:
That's it....
JOHN:
Mary, what shall we do?
WOMAN:
What is there to do? Can we fight against...time?
JOHN:
I'll go mad....
WOMAN:
It was horrible...being alone...
JOHN:
Why should it have happened to - to us?
WOMAN:
Who can tell? - it may happen oftener than we think!
JOHN:
Eh?
WOMAN:
People often disappear - no one knows what happens to them.
JOHN:
Yes.
WOMAN:
Why couldn't this have happened to them - falling back into time?
JOHN:
I never thought of that before...
WOMAN:
Once there was a girl who lived in the apartment above mine - one day she left the house and just disappeared. They thought maybe she'd committed suicide but I never believed she did. They never did find her body - perhaps she too went through the darkness back into space....
JOHN:
But why does it have to happen to me? I've got a wife! I've got children! I was happy in my work! (BUILDING) Why did it happen to me? It isn't fair! I tell you it isn't fair! {CRIES) (SLOWLY RECOVERING) You - you must think me a terrible weakling....
WOMAN:
A man wants to live in the world he was born in...not in a world like this where no man should be....
JOHN:
You - you're an unusual woman.
WOMAN:
Why do you say that?
JOHN:
No tears...
WOMAN:
I haven't any tears left...
JOHN:
Mary....
WOMAN:
Yes.
JOHN:
You know, I was just thinking - if this is - uh - prehistoric times -
WOMAN:
(INTERRUPTING TENSELY)-(SOTTO) Wait!
JOHN:
Wha--
WOMAN:
(TENSELY) There's - something - coming up - behind us...
JOHN:
Wha--
WOMAN:
I - I don't know - it's crawling through the grass --
JOHN:
Ahh...
WOMAN:
I - I can see the grass tops moving...
JOHN:
Should...I turn around?...
WOMAN:
Sit still! It's standing up! It - (SCREAMS SUDDENLY IN GREAT HORROR - SCREAMING FADING BACK BEHIND:
WIND SOUND UP AS TRANSITION
JOHN:
(HIS NARRATIVE SEMI-MONOTONE) And with her screams I looked! The skin on my back crawled like a living thing! (TENSELY) It was It! That horrible Thing! Half man--half snake! I tell you it was It! Standing there so closely I could see the glisten of It's hell-red eyes! I ask you this - how frightened have you been in your life? Have you felt your hair bristle on end - have you felt the heart in you pound, pound until your throat is tight and you cannot breathe? Have you felt the mind in you turn and twist with a horror beyond endurance until you felt madness crawling over you? Then you know what I mean when I tell you how I felt when this creature was standing there before us. The snake is a frightening thing! Small as it is, as it turns and squirms and glistens in the sunlight you feel fright - you must feel fright!
Then think of the horror of that moment to Mary and me. There it was - like a tall man - the form of a man I tell you (IN DISGUST) and yet over it those horrible green glistening scales - and its head - oh, mother in heaven, its head! Like the king of all snakes! It stood there quietly for a moment - and then we saw a long quivering red tongue move out - we heard the sound of it - (FADE) the horrible sound of it...
WIND AS TRANSITION
WOMAN:
(BROKENLY) Oh, John! What is it?
JOHN:
(GREAT TERROR IN HIS VOICE) I - I saw it before....
HISSING FAR BACK
WOMAN:
Listen to it!
JOHN:
Can - can it be human?
WOMAN:
(IN GREAT HORROR AND DISGUST) Human? That Thing!
HISS A LITTLE CLOSER
WOMAN:
John! It's moving toward us!
JOHN:
Come on, Mary! Run! (FADE) Run! Run!
WIND AS TRANSITION
JOHN:
I took her hand - we turned - we began to run! Where, we didn't care - we didn't know! Any place - any where - to get away from that thing out of hell! We could hear it following behind us - running easily - that horrible hissing close behind us - it was taunting us to run faster and faster to escape the horror it had for us. On and on - until the want of breath tore at the lungs of us - on and on - until the legs of us moved like things running in sleep - on and on - and all the time the thing behind us taunting us with that snake hiss of his - (FADE) that snake hiss of his....
WIND TRANSITION
WOMAN:
(TREMENDOUSLY TIRED AND OUT OF BREATH) I - I can't, John!
JOHN:
(HE TOO IS BADLY WINDED) You've got to keep going, Mary! You - you've got to!
THE HISS OF SNAKE IS HEARD, BACK
WOMAN:
(WEEPINGLY) I can't! I can't!
JOHN:
Got to keep moving! Keep moving! Don't you hear it! It's close behind us!
WOMAN:
It's getting so dark - maybe it's gone - maybe --
JOHN:
No, I tell you, no! Keep moving, Mary, as you love your life! I tell you it's still behind us! It's waiting until we fall, I tell you! We've got to go on! We've got to go on! (FADE) We've got to go on....
WIND TRANSITION
JOHN:
(NARRATIVE) We did go on - stumbling - falling - but on we went! Darker and darker every moment! Things of the night began flying through the air - brushing our faces with their horrible slime - chattering madly in our ears as we ran on! Mary begging, crying that we stop but I pushed her on and on! We had to go on - I knew it somehow! I knew it! I - I can't explain it - but I knew - if we stopped it would mean death! A death beyond imagination just as that snake thing was beyond understanding! On and on - on and on - stumbling - crawling....until at last we could crawl no more. We had no strength (FADE) no strength...
WIND TRANSITION
WOMAN:
(WEEPING HEAVILY)
JOHN:
Mary...
WOMAN:
Kill me, John! Kill me!
JOHN:
Mary.....
WOMAN: (GOING ON WEEPING HEAVILY) Don't let that thing get me! Not that thing!
JOHN:
It - it isn't here!
WOMAN:
What --
JOHN:
It isn't here! A moment ago it was close behind us but now - look - I tell you it isn't here!
WOMAN:
(BURSTS INTO TEARS OF GRATITUDE) John! John!
JOHN:
Don't be afraid, Mary! It's gone, I tell you (FADE) it's gone - gone --
WIND TRANSITION
JOHN:
(NARRATIVE) And yet, even while I reassured her, I knew that the Thing was not gone. It was waiting - waiting somewhere in that circle of darkness around us. And all we could do was wait - yes, sit there and wait for our doom. Oh, running away with It close behind was horrible enough, but this now, was even more horrible. This waiting, waiting there in the darkness for It to spring upon us, that horrible snake-mouth wide, the venom dripping from it in terrible anticipation. Yes, I tell you the waiting in the dark was the most horrible of all! Have you ever sat in the dark waiting for your doom as we sat there? Around you darkness - thick darkness. You know - yes, you feel somehow that something horrible beyond all understanding is there at the edge of that darkness and yet you can't quite see it. You hear a sound behind you! You want to sit there and not turn, and yet, in strange fascination, you turn! And there is nothing there, and you wonder, is there nothing? Someplace in the darkness another sound, and you think to yourself, oh, this time it's true! It's coming for me! This time it's true! Your heart begins to pound and your head begins to throb and you feel cold with a coldness that nothing can warm but the brightness of day. But it's dark - and there is no day - and you're waiting, waiting there for that horrible doom that's coming closer....
That's the way it was with us that night - waiting, waiting - each hour a horrible eternity. And then at last, the gray of dawn. We looked around us. We were in a circle of grass, around us strange tall ferns that swayed in the morning breeze. But the Thing was gone. We looked at each other with unbelievable happiness and we sprang to our feet. We started to speak - happy silly things - and then (FADE) and then....
WIND AS TRANSITION
WOMAN:
Oh, John, John, it's gone! It didn't -- (SCREAMS SHORTLY)
JOHN:
Mary, what?
WOMAN:
(SPACING THE WORDS IN HORROR) What's - that - moving - thru the - grass?
JOHN:
Ahhh! It's come back!
WOMAN:
John! There's something - moving - to the right!
JOHN:
And to the left...
WOMAN:
And behind us! Oh, John, it isn't - it can't be --
WIND TRANSITION
JOHN:
(NARRATIVE) And as she said those words, suddenly the Things in the grass moved and stood erect and we saw - oh, mother in heaven, we saw! There were a dozen of them now - a dozen of those Snake things! A circle of them around us - huge - monstrous - bloated! A circle of them around us, I tell you! Red tongues quivering - eyes glistening - taloned hands outstretched as they began to move closer - closer - closing in on us! (FADE) Closer... Closer....
WIND TRANSITION
WOMAN:
(TENSELY) Kill me, John - kill me first!..
FADE IN HISSING AT VARYING LEVELS OF CREATURES, CONTINUING BEHIND:
JOHN:
No! They won't hurt us! They can't hurt us! We're not of their world! We're not of their time! (UP) Things, you! I know what you are now! You're the link - the missing link like they always talked about - between man and the reptiles! You're a mistake - a horrible mistake nature made - and she dropped you off and time swallowed up your bones! You hear me - there is no record of you in my world! Stay, things - stay back! (SCREAMS - SCREAM FADING QUICKLY)
WIND TRANSITION
JOHN:
Yes, then I screamed! I turned - I ran! You hear me - I ran! I left her behind! I heard her scream far back as they closed in on her!
WOMAN'S SCREAM FAR, FAR BACK CALLING "John, help me! John! (FADE) John, help me!
JOHN:
You hear me, I deserted her! Left her to those things! Ran away and left her! Her scream of help ringing in my ears! I ran blindly - her scream following me, but the yellow fear in me louder and louder making me run, driving me on! I didn't know where I was going - it didn't matter - anyplace away from those things! On and on! Suddenly a roaring around me - my feet caught in something! I fell! Mother in heaven, I had blundered into those tar-pits!
ROARING SOUNDS, CONTINUING BEHIND:
JOHN:
You hear me - the tar pits! I struggled to get loose! The more I struggled the deeper I went! The tar sucking up at me! Deeper and deeper - I yelled - I screamed - that black stuff coming up higher and higher! Up to my waist - my arms - I couldn't move - my shoulders - (UP MADLY) Help me! Somebody help me! Up along my neck - higher and higher - inch by inch - I felt the crawling thickness of it along my chin - I strained my head backwards - deeper and deeper I went - my mouth - it was in my mouth - (CHOKING GIBBERISH AS STUFF ENTERS MOUTH - HORRIBLE STRANGLING SOUNDS CONTINUING LONG ENOUGH TO ESTABLISH THE HORROR COMPLETELY, THEN FADE OUT)
ROARING SOUNDS FADE OUT WITH ABOVE FADE
JOHN:
(BROKENLY)....And so I died - in those prehistoric tar-pits - died thousands upon thousands of years before my time in a dawning world where nature's experimental things that were to become men as I was man still crawled in reptilian horror...
I say I died...but did I die? I ask it again - did I die? - For in death there is peace -- and I have no peace. Endless darkness - infinite blackness - and no peace, for wherever I wander in this infinity, I hear her voice - the voice of the woman I deserted in my yellow cowardice - I hear her voice calling - calling -
MARY:
(FAR BACK - EERILY) John, help me! Help me! (FADE) Help me!...
JOHN:
(WEARILY) Yes, I'll help you, Mary...I'll help you!.... If I can only find you in this darkness I'll help you. And if I do, then, maybe...I'll find...blessed peace...and rest....
GONG
ANNOUNCER:
Lights Out, written especially for radio by Arch Oboler, comes to you each Wednesday from our Chicago Studios.