Lights out for the devil and Mr. O.
It is later than you think.
Turn out your lights, now.
We bring you stories of the supernatural and the supernormal dramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown.
We tell you this frankly so that if you wish to avoid the excitement and tension of these imaginative plays, we urge you calmly but sincerely to turn off your radio now.
This is Mr. O. Archoviller. I've got a favor to ask of you. Listen to the story that I'm about to tell you historically.
I mean that, historically. Now this play was written when I was very young. I don't mean that I'm exactly history, but I do mean that this tale about a visitor from outer space was written long before motion pictures and television scoured the skies.
It began one night many years ago when I stood on my California ranch and looked up at the great dome of the sky and suddenly a shooting star burned in that night sky.
Larger and larger and larger, but that's the story of the hungry one that begins after a word from your station.
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And now, if you haven't already done so, turn off your lights now and listen to The Hungry One.
Furthermore, I might speak frankly, my dear Diane, the basic thing wrong with women is her nose. Let's cut it off.
Russell Adams.
Then there's the matter of her ears. Look at them.
Well?
They're too obvious. Cut them off too.
No nose, no ears. Fine art critic you turned out to be.
Oh, is this thing art?
Russell Adams, I hate you. I think it's the best piece of sculpture I've ever done.
Ego mania.
Oh, will you go away?
Not until I tell my wife how much I adore her.
About stopping the artistic endeavors for the night and romancing with the old man.
Any night.
Come on, out of the veranda, there's a moon.
Spoken as Professor Russell J. Adams, Instructor of Astronomy at our beloved university.
I don't know a single scientific fact about this moon. It's a special satellite built entirely for romance.
Then it's a date.
After you, fair Diane.
Why do you laugh?
Just thinking it's a good thing we haven't any neighbors or they'd think we were honeymooning.
Ten years and two more weeks.
Sweet.
Why?
For remembering.
Where is she?
It's such a lovely night.
Yes. You're very lovely with the moonlight in your hair.
Darling.
335 days out of the year, moonlight to me is just a reflected light of the sun.
A light interesting only that it may be analyzed spectroscopically.
But these 30 days of our vacation, Diane, what a magical change.
It's a soft lover's moon hanging in the heavens only to brighten your loveliness.
Spoken like a true professor.
Oh, Russell.
What's the matter?
I saw the brightest shooting a star.
Is that all?
The way you gasp, I thought you saw the angel of death himself galloping over those meadows.
There's another one.
Look, Russell.
My dear.
For 11 months out of the year, the heavens have my full and undivided attention.
Oh, but during this blessed month, let the heavens fall.
I can't be bothered.
I never saw such bright shooting stars.
Yes, and another thing, my dear.
As the wife of an accredited professor of astronomy,
I think it no more than fitting that you give the phenomena that you observed its proper name,
namely the fall of a meteor.
There's another one.
And another.
Oh, Russ, how bright and beautiful.
They travel at such a tremendous rate, the friction of our atmosphere burns them into a fiery vapor.
There's more of them.
Look, one after the other.
I never seen so many shooting stars.
Uh-huh.
I mean so many meteors in all my life.
Oh, so that's why you wanted me out here.
You knew about this meteor shower, didn't you?
It's one of heaven's free spectacles in this constellation.
Every three years, and this happens to be the third year.
How frightening.
Quite frightening.
Those great masses of stone and iron coming from who knows where in interstellar space,
traveling millions and millions of miles and then going up in such glorious flame,
just as they reach the end of their journey.
Not all goes to flame.
Hundreds of them strike the earth each year.
Oh, Russell, there's no danger.
Oh, no.
The probabilities of being struck on the head by that cosmic rubbish is about a thousand times more remote
than winning a sweepstake without buying a ticket.
Oh, look.
That one.
The brightest of all.
Wait, Diane.
What's that?
I don't know.
Something from the sky.
Look up.
It's shooting stars.
Look out, Diane.
Ross.
All right, dear.
Everything's all right.
What?
How?
A meteor must have landed out in the field there.
Here, let me help you up.
You all right, Dizit?
Yes, I'm all right.
Ross, where are you going?
Out there.
Where it must have buried itself.
Wait here.
I'll be right back.
No, no.
I'm going with you.
All right, if you want to.
Oh, Diane, what an experience we've had.
The one chance in a million I spoke about almost occurred to us.
But, but, Ross, was it really a shooting star?
That explosion like a bombshell?
A bombshell of the universe.
What will we find out there?
A fragment of the meteorite, I'd say.
But it'll burn.
No, no.
All of its heat will have been dissipated.
Then again, it may have exploded into a thousand minute pieces.
I pray to heaven that it hasn't.
I'm afraid.
No, no.
The dangers all over are here.
The moon so bright.
If any of the masts landed, I should be able to find the torn ground where it smashed through the turf.
Oh, please, darling, let's wait until morning.
No, no.
I must find the thing at once.
The moon gives plenty of light.
From the brightness of the flash, I'm positive that the meteor landed someplace right in here.
I'll tell you.
Look.
What?
The turf, all torn up.
This is the place.
Russell, are you mad?
Get up off the ground.
Right here.
It must have struck a glancing blow off the brow of the ridge.
I've got it.
What?
A fragment of it.
Still warm.
See?
No lodges, then a baseball.
All that was left of it.
That's a... that's a meteor.
A meteorite.
All that's left of the meteor that burned and exploded.
What a find.
Drop it, Russell.
What are you talking about?
Throw it away.
Come back to the house.
What... what are you going to do with it?
What's the matter with you?
Your face.
I... I don't know.
I... somehow I'm afraid for all of us.
Afraid?
Good heavens, my dear.
There's nothing dangerous about this.
A mass of metal that's 90% iron.
Why, it's as harmless as any inert piece of metal.
Come to the study.
I'll show you where the rush of air against the incandescent...
Russ, wait.
Huh?
Someone's crying.
Yes.
I'll go and see.
It's Helga.
Oh, Helga.
You poor thing.
We forgot all about you.
Mrs. Adams, it was exploding.
Now, now.
Everything's all right, Helga.
What's going on, Diane?
Poor Helga.
The explosion frightened her out of her wits.
Oh, Mr. Professor Adams, we die.
We all die.
Don't be a fool.
The fire, it comes from the sky.
It kill us.
It kill you and me and everybody.
We die.
Everybody die.
Stop it.
Stop it.
For heaven's sake, stop that.
I see the sky.
Take care of her, Diane.
Give her a hand.
I'll go and see.
I'll go and see.
I'll go and see.
I'll go and see.
I'll go and see.
I'll go and see.
I'll go and see.
I'll go and see.
I'll go and see.
I'll go and see.
I'm going to take care of Diane.
Give her a hand.
I'll give her some help.
All right, Rosalene.
All right, now, Helga.
Everything's all right.
You're frightened.
OK.
I'm going to get her at this meteorite.
So please quiet the dumb fool down as quickly as you can.
Superstitious idiot.
Simple phenomenon.
She thinks the world's ending.
Huh.
Simple little meteorite.
Iron, bit of nickel content.
Nothing particularly unusual.
Oh, dear.
Oh, Diane, quiet her down, will you?
Yeah. She'll be all right.
You look a little rocky yourself.
Here, sit here.
She's very frightened.
Yeah, and even you, Diane.
Well?
You acted so strangely, as if this inert piece of cosmic metal could cause some supernatural ability.
What are you going to do with it?
Nothing. Examine it.
Here, I'll take some of this nitric acid.
Where's that bottle?
Here we are.
Now watch closely, and I'll show you that this stone consists of ordinary elements.
Iron...
Russell!
What?
There's mark on it. How strange.
Funny I hadn't noticed it before.
Circles the entire stone.
I wouldn't be but surprised that a blow right here would break it in half.
Yes, I think I'll try to do that.
No, no, Russ. Leave it alone.
Good heavens, Diane.
Nothing but a stone.
All I'm going to do is try and break it along this fissure.
Get a hand on it, Charlie.
Ah, here.
I wonder if the stone will break.
Almost solid metal.
I'll try.
By George, it did clean in half.
Oh!
Look. What's inside?
Flesh.
Oh, Russell.
Negative ray protoplasmic.
No, it can't be.
It can't. This is a meteor.
It came from out there.
There is no flesh. Nothing could live.
Russ, look.
It's growing.
Growing?
We leave our The Devil and the Strowes story of The Hungry One for a short message.
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And now back to our The Devil and Mr. O's story of The Hungry One.
Faster and faster, gray flesh growing.
Oh, Ruth, I'm afraid.
No, Dianne, no. Wait, control yourself.
This is something we've got to see, both of us, calmly,
so we can tell others clearly what we saw.
I'll try, oh, Ruth, keep your arm around me.
Larger and larger. Listen to the noise as it grows.
I hear it. When will it stop? When?
Look, look.
I can't. That horrible gray flesh.
But you must see it. Look. It's forming into something.
What?
A head. It's forming into a head.
How can it be, Dianne, flesh in a meteor growing, growing into a head?
I see it. A head. Horrible head.
Dianne, you heard.
Yes.
A head with our body speaking.
Yes, speaking.
Ruth, you, you hear and, and understand me.
Hicklips laughing.
I laugh at the fear and wonder in your simple little faces.
Who, who, who are you? What are you?
If I told you, would your little earthbinds understand?
Earth? Ruth, what does it mean? What?
Yes, tell us. Whatever you are. Tell us what you are.
What you on earth will soon have for masters.
No, no, no, wait, Dianne. I must know.
You thing, what can I call you? Tell me what you mean, you masters.
Surely you simple little men do not think that in you creation has reached the ultimate.
No. Gray flesh talking. I'm getting out.
You will stay.
Ruth, I, I can't move.
Nor, nor I.
You cannot move.
Who are you? Tell us, who are you?
You saw how I came.
A tiny bit of protoplasm in that meteorite.
So I willed myself to be, to reach your earth.
You, you came here in that through, through space?
Through space beyond your furthest conception, earth sings.
Many of my people have tried. I am the first to succeed.
Then, then meteors are, are...
Are the means we have used to try and reach this haven of plenty.
I am the first. Now there will be others.
Now? You, you're from another planet?
An old world, old beyond your understanding.
A world grown cold in its age, empty with passing years.
We must escape to a young, fertile world.
This world.
But, but you're only heads. Heads without bodies.
Oh, Ruth, Ruth, I'm so afraid.
No, no, no, please. I must hear him speak.
This that is happening to us is a miracle of all times.
Tell me, you there, are you only heads in that world you speak of?
Heads, heads. You see what I will you to see.
But what are you?
A mind and a will beyond your feeble understanding.
As far above you as you are above the apes that still must crawl in your jungle.
But, but how can it be that you speak as I speak and understand what I say?
Your prattling wearies me.
But I tell you this, all that you say, I know.
The most profound thought any of you earth things have ever thought is to me as the babbling of children.
But now I am hungry.
You understand that little thing.
Hungry?
Hungry.
Hungry with a hunger that has driven me over space without ending.
Hunger that has brought me here.
But, but what do you eat?
You will know.
What do you, what do you mean?
What food could there be here to fill the hunger of such as I?
Hunger that would make me entomb myself in metal flung into space in the hope that chance would bring me through the fire of that air of yours.
What food earth thing?
I don't know. Tell, tell me.
Come closer earth thing.
Oh no.
And why oh no earth thing?
You don't, human?
Human.
You think you crawling worms are human to us.
But, but if you're men.
But we are not men.
You are the cattle and we are the keepers.
You raise the cattle for life and we for centuries have raised such as you on our world for life.
But now as I told you our world has grown too old and too cold.
The herds of you die and we grow hungry.
That is why I am here.
We need new cattle.
Here there are so many of you.
Earth woman.
Russell.
You spoke to me.
We've got to get out of here.
Earth woman.
No, no. Stop it.
Don't look at me. Stop it.
Come closer.
Don't listen to him Diane.
Closer.
No, no. Don't move Diane.
Stay where you are. Stay right there.
You hear only me earth woman.
Only you.
No Diane. No. Don't say that.
Don't look at that monster Diane.
Closer Diane.
Yes. Closer.
No Diane. Stand still.
Don't move toward it. Don't.
Closer Diane.
No, no.
Monster. Not Diane.
Diane I beg of you. Don't go closer to it.
Closer.
No. I'll kill you.
If I can only get to you.
Soon you will move to me as she is.
Closer.
Diane.
Closer.
If I can move.
Closer.
Diane.
Closer.
I've got to find a way.
Closer.
The strength to stop him.
Diane you're almost.
Closer.
Got to her.
That bottle.
Nitric acid.
The bottle.
Closer.
Got it.
Closer.
Yes.
Closer to me.
Yes. Close to you monster.
Take this.
A pool.
Of flesh.
Flesh.
That's all.
Diane.
Wake up.
Open your eyes.
I've killed the thing.
I killed it.
Diane it's all right.
I've killed it.
Diane look.
Outside it's still dark.
Yes.
The sky still streaked with the rush of meteorites.
And that thing.
Said more the monsters of his breed.
Are trying to reach this earth.
To fill the devil's hunger and him.
Another meteorite is just.
And in it.
Perhaps.
Oh Diane.
Diane.
Is that truly.
To be in for mankind.
This is Mr.
O.R.
Chobler.
Remember when we started this play.
I asked you to listen to it.
Historically.
In relation to other stories that you may have heard over the years about.
Little green men arriving and flying saucers.
So you see.
Thirty years ago some of us were.
Already very concerned about what might happen if.
Through sheer accident.
An entity with attitudes and philosophies unlike our own.
Should suddenly stumble across this very tasty juicy morsel of the earth.
Which brings us to the obvious question.
Do I believe in.
Flying saucers.
Well frankly I don't believe in that sort of supposedly super intelligent visitors.
Who would communicate only with one of our desert rat type of intelligences.
And completely ignore going to our men of science or our men of politics with their story.
But I do believe in the laws of probability.
I do believe that if we don't blow up our world with.
Fission and fusion.
Eventually.
Mind you I say eventually.
Some roving starship from another galaxy.
Wandering through space.
My chance upon our earth.
Land on it.
And if they don't eat us up or.
Exterminate us as a very undesirable tribe.
Might actually take pity on us and teach us.
As if we were very small children.
How to really live in peace and wonder on our revolving bit of dust.
Now.
That's much too serious so.
Let's talk about.
Three thousand dollars.
After a short word.
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This is Arch Oberler once again.
What would you do for $3,000?
Oh now please you're embarrassing me.
I mean that question.
Three thousand bucks.
Simoleons or call them what you will.
What would you do for them?
Now that's the theme of our story next time.
$3,000.
It is later than you think.