The devil downstairs

This was the Devil's boast: "Without me, you mortals would be in trouble. Your whole world would go to hell!" And he proved his point. Before long the world was crying: "Come back, Lucifer! All is forgiven!"

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic January 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"Joe! There's a burglar in the house!"

Joe Emerald grunted and pulled the sheets over his head. "Lemme sleep," he muttered.

"Wake up, Joe!" This time his wife's fingers dug into his shoulder. "I tell you, somebody's in the house! For heaven's sake, wake up!"

"Let him," mumbled Joe again. "What d'ya want me to do, get up and make him a cup of coffee? Go to sleep, Pearl, there's nobody...." He began to snore.

Out in the living room, a lamp fell to the floor with a crash, Joe sat erect, startled, awake. "Whassat!" he exclaimed.

"I told you there was a burglar in the house," said Pearl.

"In a private dick's house?" asked Joe. "And what could he find here--except bills?"

"He could be a kidnapper!" said his wife in a frantic whisper. "Joe, please get your gun and go out there, before I do it myself!"

A door opened somewhere in the house.

"He's going into the children's bedroom!" gasped Pearl. "Oh, Joe...." She leaped from bed, fumbled for her bathrobe.

"Stay right here!" said Joe, almost savagely. He was out of bed now, and his fingers closed around his gun in its shoulder holster hanging over the chair. He opened the bedroom door, stepped out into the darkness of the living room beyond. A few quick steps took him to the door of the children's room, which was closed. He laid a hand on the knob, then whirled swiftly as a door shut softly somewhere at the rear of the house.

"Basement door," he muttered. "He's going down in the basement; must have heard Pearl yakking. Well, he won't get out that way!"

He made his way swiftly to the kitchen, halted an instant at the basement door. Beyond it he heard a queer scurrying, clicking noise. Then silence.

The basement had no outlet other than the door at which he stood, and the windows were merely glass blocks set into the concrete wall, and did not open, except for small ventilators built into them. Whoever was down there would have to come up this stairway if he intended to leave the house. But Joe did not intend to let him leave.

He opened the door, slid his hand inside in the darkness, flicked on the light switch. The basement was instantly flooded with brilliant light from the hundred-watt bulbs Joe had put in. Up at the head of the stairs it was less glaring to Joe's eyes than it must have been to the intruder. He had an advantage, and he followed it up quickly. He leaped down the stairway, halfway, and brandished his gun. "Put 'em up!" he snarled. "Don't make a move, or I'll put lead in your liver!"

There was no sound.

Slowly Joe advanced down the stairs, crouching to get as early a view as possible of the entire basement, until his head came below the floor joists. Nothing was in sight, but he heard a slight sound behind the oil burner, which was the only place in the basement beyond view.

"Okay," he said. "You're behind the oil burner. Just step out with your hands up, and don't make any false moves. And don't think you can pot me--I'm the best pistol shot in this state, bar none. When Joe Emerald shoots at something, he hits it."

There was no answer. Cautiously Joe stepped down the last two steps to the concrete floor, then walked toward the oil burner's square bulk. He approached it from the end that offered the widest passage between it and the wall, eyes alert for the slightest sign of a protruding gun. But there was nothing.

He took the last step that gave him a clear view of the space behind the burner and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Oh, my beer-guzzling aunt!"

"A commendable habit, if done to sufficient excess," said a deep, hoarse, almost animal-like voice.

Joe Emerald stared at the creature confronting him, and the creature stared back.

"The devil!" he gasped.

"Are you swearing, or simply making an observation?" asked the hairy creature, eyeing him intently with its slanted, lidless eyes.

Joe swallowed hard. "You are green!" he said, in startled tones.

"So you're observing," said the creature in disappointment. "Yes, I'm green. What of it?"

"I'd rather expected you to be red."

"And with a forked tail?"