The October Country: Stories by Ray Bradbury (English) Mass Market Paperback Boo

Description: The October Country by Ray Bradbury Haunting, harrowing, and downright horrifying, this classic collection from the modern master of the fantastic features:THE SMALL ASSASSIN: a fine, healthy baby boy was the new mother's dream come true — or her nightmare . . .THE EMISSARY: the faithful dog was the sick boy's only connectioin with the world outside — and beyond . . .THE WONDERFUL DEATH OF DUDLEY STONE: a most remarkable case of murder — the deceased was delighted!And more! FORMAT Mass Market Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Haunting, harrowing, and downright horrifying, this classic collection from the modern master of the fantastic features:THE SMALL ASSASSIN: a fine, healthy baby boy was the new mother's dream come true — or her nightmare . . . THE EMISSARY: the faithful dog was the sick boy's only connectioin with the world outside — and beyond . . .THE WONDERFUL DEATH OF DUDLEY STONE: a most remarkable case of murder — the deceased was delighted And more Author Biography Ray Bradbury is the author of dozens of books and hundre Ray Bradbury is the author of dozens of books and hundreds of stories. Among his best-known works are "Fahrenheit 45ds of stories. Among his best-known works are "Fahrenheit 451", "Dandelion Wine", and "Something Wicked This Way Comes".1", "Dandelion Wine", and "Something Wicked This Way Comes". An Emmy Award winner for his teleplay "The Halloween Tree" An Emmy Award winner for his teleplay "The Halloween Tree" and an Academy Award nominee, Mr. Bradbury was also honored and an Academy Award nominee, Mr. Bradbury was also honored by Excerpt from Book THE DWARF Aimee watched the sky, quietly. Tonight was one of those motionless hot summer nights. The concrete pier empty, the strung red, white, yellow bulbs burning like insects in the air above the wooden emptiness. The managers of the various carnival pitches stood, like melting wax dummies, eyes staring blindly, not talking, all down the line. Two customers had passed through an hour before. Those two lonely people were now in the roller coaster, screaming murderously as it plummeted down the blazing night, around one emptiness after another. Aimee moved slowly across the strand, a few worn wooden hoopla rings sticking to her wet hands. She stopped behind the ticket booth that fronted the MIRROR MAZE. She saw herself grossly misrepresented in three rippled mirrors outside the Maze. A thousand tired replicas of herself dissolved in the corridor beyond, hot images among so much clear coolness. She stepped inside the ticket booth and stood looking a long while at Ralph Bangharts thin neck. He clenched an unlit cigar between his long uneven yellow teeth as he laid out a battered game of solitaire on the ticket shelf. When the roller coaster wailed and fell in its terrible avalanche again, she was reminded to speak. "What kind of people go up in roller coasters?" Ralph Banghart worked his cigar a full thirty seconds. "People wanna die. That rollie coasters the handiest thing to dying there is." He sat listening to the faint sound of rifle shots from the shooting gallery. "This whole damn carny businesss crazy. For instance, that dwarf. You seen him? Every night, pays his dime, runs in the Mirror Maze all the way back through to Screwy Louies Room. You should see this little runt head back there. My God!" "Oh, yes," said Aimee, remembering. "I always wonder what its like to be a dwarf. I always feel sorry when I see him." "I could play him like an accordion." "Dont say that!" "My Lord." Ralph patted her thigh with a free hand. "The way you carry on about guys you never even met." He shook his head and chuckled. "Him and his secret. Only he dont know I know, see? Boy howdy!" "Its a hot night." She twitched the large wooden hoops nervously on her damp fingers. "Dont change the subject. Hell be here, rain or shine." Aimee shifted her weight. Ralph seized her elbow. "Hey! You aint mad? You wanna see that dwarf, dont you? Sh!" Ralph turned. "Here he comes now!" The Dwarfs hand, hairy and dark, appeared all by itself reaching up into the booth window with a silver dime. An invisible person called, "One!" in a high, childs voice. Involuntarily, Aimee bent forward. The Dwarf looked up at her, resembling nothing more than a dark-eyed, dark-haired, ugly man who has been locked in a winepress, squeezed and wadded down and down, fold on fold, agony on agony, until a bleached, outraged mass is left, the face bloated shapelessly, a face you know must stare wide-eyed and awake at two and three and four oclock in the morning, lying flat in bed, only the body asleep. Ralph tore a yellow ticket in half. "One!" The Dwarf, as if frightened by an approaching storm, pulled his black coat-lapels tightly about his throat and waddled swiftly. A moment later, ten thousand lost and wandering dwarfs wriggled between the mirror flats, like frantic dark beetles, and vanished. "Quick!" Ralph squeezed Aimee along a dark passage behind the mirrors. She felt him pat her all the way back through the tunnel to a thin partition with a peekhole. "This is rich," he chuckled. "Go on--look." Aimee hesitated, then put her face to the partition. "You see him?" Ralph whispered. Aimee felt her heart beating. A full minute passed. There stood the Dwarf in the middle of the small blue room. His eyes were shut. He wasnt ready to open them yet. Now, now he opened his eyelids and looked at a large mirror set before him. And what he saw in the mirror made him smile. He winked, he pirouetted, he stood sidewise, he waved, he bowed, he did a little clumsy dance. And the mirror repeated each motion with long, thin arms, with a tall, tall body, with a huge wink and an enormous repetition of the dance, ending in a gigantic bow! "Every night the same thing," whispered Ralph in Aimees ear. "Aint that rich?" Aimee turned her head and looked at Ralph steadily out of her motionless face, for a long time, and she said nothing. Then, as if she could not help herself, she moved her head slowly and very slowly back to stare once more through the opening. She held her breath. She felt her eyes begin to water. Ralph nudged her, whispering. "Hey, whats the little gink doin now?" They were drinking coffee and not looking at each other in the ticket booth half an hour later, when the Dwarf came out of the mirrors. He took his hat off and started to approach the booth, when he saw Aimee and hurried away. "He wanted something," said Aimee. "Yeah." Ralph squashed out his cigarette, idly. "I know what, too. But he hasnt got the nerve to ask. One night in this squeaky little voice he says, I bet those mirrors are expensive. Well, I played dumb. I said yeah they were. He sort of looked at me, waiting, and when I didnt say any more, he went home, but next night he said, I bet those mirrors cost fifty, a hundred bucks. I bet they do, I said. I laid me out a hand of solitaire." "Ralph," she said. He glanced up. "Why you look at me that way?" "Ralph," she said, "why dont you sell him one of your extra ones?" "Look, Aimee, do I tell you how to run your hoop circus?" "How much do those mirrors cost?" "I can get em secondhand for thirty-five bucks." "Why dont you tell him where he can buy one, then?" "Aimee, youre not smart." He laid his hand on her knee. She moved her knee away. "Even if I told him where to go, you think hed buy one? Not on your life. And why? Hes self-conscious. Why, if he even knew I knew he was flirtin around in front of that mirror in Screwy Louies Room, hed never come back. He plays like hes goin through the Maze to get lost, like everybody else. Pretends like he dont care about that special room. Always waits for business to turn bad, late nights, so he has that room to himself. What he does for entertainment on nights when business is good, God knows. No, sir, he wouldnt dare go buy a mirror anywhere. He aint got no friends, and even if he did he couldnt ask them to buy him a thing like that. Pride, by God, pride. Only reason he even mentioned it to me is Im practically the only guy he knows. Besides, look at him--he aint got enough to buy a mirror like those. He might be savin up, but where in hell in the world today can a dwarf work? Dime a dozen, drug on the market, outside of circuses." "I feel awful. I feel sad." Aimee sat staring at the empty boardwalk. "Where does he live?" "Flytrap down on the waterfront. The Ganghes Arms. Why?" "Im madly in love with him, if you must know." He grinned around his cigar. "Aimee," he said. "You and your very funny jokes. A warm night, a hot morning, and a blazing noon. The sea was a sheet of burning tinsel and glass. Aimee came walking, in the locked-up carnival alleys out over the warm sea, keeping in the shade, half a dozen sun-bleached magazines under her arm. She opened a flaking door and called into hot darkness. "Ralph?" She picked her way through the black hall behind the mirrors, her heels tacking the wooden floor. "Ralph?" Someone stirred sluggishly on the canvas cot. "Aimee?" He sat up and screwed a dim light bulb into the dressing table socket. He squinted at her, half blinded. "Hey, you look like the cat swallowed a canary." "Ralph, I came about the midget!" "Dwarf, Aimee honey, dwarf. A midget is in the cells, born that way. A dwarf is in the glands. . . ." "Ralph! I just found out the most wonderful thing about him!" "Honest to God," he said to his hands, holding them out as witnesses to his disbelief. "This woman! Who in hell gives two cents for some ugly little--" "Ralph!" She held out the magazines, her eyes shining. "Hes a writer! Think of that!" "Its a pretty hot day for thinking." He lay back and examined her, smiling faintly. "I just happened to pass the Ganghes Arms, and saw Mr. Greeley, the manager. He says the typewriter runs all night in Mr. Bigs room!" "Is that his name?" Ralph began to roar with laughter. "Writes just enough pulp detective stories to live. I found one of his stories in the secondhand magazine place, and, Ralph, guess what?" "Im tired, Aimee." "This little guys got a soul as big as all outdoors; hes got everything in his head!" "Why aint he writin for the big magazines, then, I ask you?" "Because maybe hes afraid--maybe he doesnt know he can do it. That happens. People dont believe in themselves. But if he only tried, I bet he could sell stories anywhere in the world." "Why aint he rich, I wonder?" "Maybe because ideas come slow because hes down in the dumps. Who wouldnt be? So small that way? I bet its hard to think of anything except being so small and living in a one-room cheap apartment." "Hell!" sno Details ISBN034532448X Author Ray Bradbury Short Title OCTOBER COUNTRY Pages 306 Publisher Del Rey Books Language English Illustrator Joe Mugnaini ISBN-10 034532448X ISBN-13 9780345324481 Media Book Format Mass Market Paperback DEWEY FIC Year 1985 Publication Date 1985-04-30 Residence Los Angeles Waukegan, CA, US Birth 1920 Imprint Ballantine Books Inc. Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States Illustrations illustrations DOI 10.1604/9780345324481 Audience General/Trade Subtitle Stories We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:43654383;

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