The Coffin Cure Read online

pharmaceutical houses descended like vultures with productionplans, cost-estimates, colorful graphs demonstrating proposed yield anddistribution programs. Coffin was flown to Washington, where conferenceslabored far into the night as demands pounded their doors like a tidalwave.

  One laboratory promised the vaccine in ten days; another said a week.The first actually appeared in three weeks and two days, to be soaked upin the space of three hours by the thirsty sponge of cold-wearyhumanity. Express planes were dispatched to Europe, to Asia, to Africawith the precious cargo, a million needles pierced a million hides, andwith a huge, convulsive sneeze mankind stepped forth into a new era.

  * * * * *

  There were abstainers, of course. There always are.

  "It doesn't bake eddy differets how much you talk," Ellie Dawson criedhoarsely, shaking her blonde curls. "I dod't wadt eddy cold shots."

  "You're being totally unreasonable," Phillip said, glowering at his wifein annoyance. She wasn't the sweet young thing he had married, not thisevening. Her eyes were puffy, her nose red and dripping. "You've hadthis cold for two solid months now, and there just isn't any sense toit. It's making you miserable. You can't eat, you can't breathe, youcan't sleep."

  "I dod't wadt eddy cold shots," she repeated stubbornly.

  "But why not? Just one little needle, you'd hardly feel it."

  "But I dod't like deedles!" she cried, bursting into tears. "Why dod'tyou leave be alode? Go take your dasty old deedles ad stick theb idpeople that wadt theb."

  "Aw, Ellie--"

  "I dod't care, _I dod't like deedles_!" she wailed, burying her face inhis shirt.

  He held her close, making comforting little noises. It was no use, hereflected sadly. Science just wasn't Ellie's long suit; she didn't knowa cold vaccine from a case of smallpox, and no appeal to logic or commonsense could surmount her irrational fear of hypodermics. "All right,nobody's going to make you do anything you don't want to," he said.

  "Ad eddyway, thik of the poor tissue badufacturers," she sniffled,wiping her nose with a pink facial tissue. "All their little childredstarvig to death."

  "Say, you _have_ got a cold," said Phillip, sniffing. "You've got onenough perfume to fell an ox." He wiped away tears and grinned at her."Come on now, fix your face. Dinner at the Driftwood? I hear they havemarvelous lamb chops."

  It was a mellow evening. The lamb chops were delectable--the tastiestlamb chops he had ever eaten, he thought, even being blessed with asgood a cook as Ellie for a spouse. Ellie dripped and blew continuously,but refused to go home until they had taken in a movie, and stopped byto dance a while. "I hardly ever gedt to see you eddy bore," she said."All because of that dasty bedicide you're givig people."

  It was true, of course. The work at the lab was endless. They danced,but came home early nevertheless. Phillip needed all the sleep he couldget.

  He awoke once during the night to a parade of sneezes from his wife, androlled over, frowning sleepily to himself. It was ignominious, in away--his own wife refusing the fruit of all those months of work.

  And cold or no cold, she surely was using a whale of a lot of perfume.

  * * * * *

  He awoke, suddenly, began to stretch, and sat bolt upright in bed,staring wildly about the room. Pale morning sunlight drifted in thewindow. Downstairs he heard Ellie stirring in the kitchen.

  For a moment he thought he was suffocating. He leaped out of bed, staredat the vanity table across the room. "_Somebody's spilled the wholedamned bottle--_"

  The heavy sick-sweet miasma hung like a cloud around him, drenching theroom. With every breath it grew thicker. He searched the table topfrantically, but there were no empty bottles. His head began to spinfrom the sickening effluvium.

  He blinked in confusion, his hand trembling as he lit a cigarette. Noneed to panic, he thought. She probably knocked a bottle over when shewas dressing. He took a deep puff, and burst into a paroxysm of coughingas acrid fumes burned down his throat to his lungs.

  "Ellie!" He rushed into the hall, still coughing. The match smell hadgiven way to the harsh, caustic stench of burning weeds. He stared athis cigarette in horror and threw it into the sink. The smell grewworse. He threw open the hall closet, expecting smoke to come billowingout. "Ellie! Somebody's burning down the house!"

  "Whadtever are you talking about?" Ellie's voice came from the stairwell. "It's just the toast I burned, silly."

  He rushed down the stairs two at a time--and nearly gagged as he reachedthe bottom. The smell of hot, rancid grease struck him like a solidwall. It was intermingled with an oily smell of boiled and parboiledcoffee, overpowering in its intensity. By the time he reached thekitchen he was holding his nose, tears pouring from his eyes. "_Ellie,what are you doing in here?_"

  She stared at him. "I'b baking breakfast."

  "But don't you _smell_ it?"

  "Sbell whadt?" said Ellie.

  On the stove the automatic percolator was making small, promisingnoises. In the frying pan four sunnyside eggs were sizzling; half adozen strips of bacon drained on a paper towel on the sideboard. Itcouldn't have looked more innocent.

  Cautiously, Phillip released his nose, sniffed. The stench nearly chokedhim. "You mean you don't smell anything _strange_?"

  "I did't sbell eddythig, period," said Ellie defensively.

  "The coffee, the bacon--_come here a minute_."

  She reeked--of bacon, of coffee, of burned toast, but mostly of perfume."Did you put on any fresh perfume this morning?"

  "Before breakfast? Dod't be ridiculous."

  "Not even a drop?" Phillip was turning very white.

  "Dot a drop."

  He shook his head. "Now, wait a minute. This must be all in my mind.I'm--just imagining things, that's all. Working too hard, hystericalreaction. In a minute it'll all go away." He poured a cup of coffee,added cream and sugar.

  But he couldn't get it close enough to taste it. It smelled as if it hadbeen boiling three weeks in a rancid pot. It was the smell of coffee,all right, but a smell that was fiendishly distorted, overpoweringly,nauseatingly magnified. It pervaded the room and burned his throat andbrought tears gushing to his eyes.

  Slowly, realization began to dawn. He spilled the coffee as he set thecup down. The perfume. The coffee. The cigarette....

  "My hat," he choked. "Get me my hat. I've got to get to the laboratory."

  * * * * *

  It got worse all the way downtown. He fought down waves of nausea as thesmell of damp, rotting earth rose from his front yard in a gray cloud.The neighbor's dog dashed out to greet him, exuding thegreat-grandfather of all doggy odors. As Phillip waited for the bus,every passing car fouled the air with noxious fumes, gagging him,doubling him up with coughing as he dabbed at his streaming eyes.

  Nobody else seemed to notice anything wrong at all.

  The bus ride was a nightmare. It was a damp, rainy day; the inside ofthe bus smelled like the men's locker room after a big game. Ableary-eyed man with three-days' stubble on his chin flopped down in theseat next to him, and Phillip reeled back with a jolt to the job he hadheld in his student days, cleaning vats in the brewery.

  "It'sh a great morning," Bleary-eyes breathed at him, "huh, Doc?"Phillip blanched. To top it, the man had had a breakfast of salami. Inthe seat ahead, a fat man held a dead cigar clamped in his mouth like arank growth. Phillip's stomach began rolling; he sank his face into hishand, trying unobtrusively to clamp his nostrils. With a groan ofdeliverance he lurched off the bus at the laboratory gate.

  He met Jake Miles coming up the steps. Jake looked pale, too pale.

  "Morning," Phillip said weakly. "Nice day. Looks like the sun might comethrough."

  "Yeah," said Jake. "Nice day. You--uh--feel all right this morning?"

  "Fine, fine." Phillip tossed his hat in the closet, opened the incubatoron his culture tubes, trying to look busy. He slammed the door after onewhiff and gripped the edge of the work ta
ble with whitening knuckles."Why?"

  "Oh, nothing. Thought you looked a little peaked, was all."

  They stared at each other in silence. Then, as though by signal, theireyes turned to the office at the end of the lab.

  "Coffin come in yet?"

  Jake nodded. "He's in there. He's got the door locked."

  "I think he's going to have to open it," said Phillip.

  A gray-faced Dr. Coffin unlocked the door, backed quickly toward thewall. The room reeked of kitchen deodorant. "Stay right where you