Lights out for the devil and Mr. Old. 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. Arch Obler. Tell me, what is your attitude about worms? Yes, worms, those strange, slimy little creatures who come out in the dark and till your garden and sometimes die an unfortunate death on a fishhook. You really don't have any opinion about them? Well, perhaps you will after you hear my play, Revolta the Worms. The action begins after a short message. Inner sanctum mystery. Hello, this is your host, welcoming you through the squeaking door. Not for a half hour of terror, but to tell you about Radio Nostalgia Magazine. Radio Nostalgia Magazine is a must for old time radio fans. It's the magazine with many photos and stories of old time radio and its stars. Our current issue features a 16 page article on the Shadow. All subscribers will get a free Captain Midnight decoder badge, a Captain Midnight flight patrol membership, and a flight commander certificate from the Secret Squadron. To get your copy, send $1.50 in check or money order to Radio Nostalgia, Box 8007R, Union City, New Jersey, 07087. That's Radio Nostalgia, Box 8007R, Union City, New Jersey, Zip 07087. Send now and get a free 8x10 photo of the Lone Ranger in Tonto, boys and girls. And now, if you haven't already done so, turn off your lights, now. And listen to Revolt of the Worms. All I can do is sit and think and wait. Wait for the floors to lift and the walls to crash. Facts. Think of facts. Yes, a journal of facts. Think how it began, why it's happening. Journal of facts until the walls crash in the thick flesh. Charles Prentice. There's a fact. Chemist and fool. Fool. Run away. Run away. Run away. Run away from reality. War. War. War. Run away. You mean we're going to live in this godforsaken place, Charles? Yes, Claire, I remember. You did say that. And I said, of course we're going to live here. It's ideal for my work. But we're so far away from everything, Charles. So far away from what? Your friends, my friends? My friends, my friends. All right, Charles. Whatever you say, Charles. You never disagreed with me, did you, Claire? Why, it's so quiet up here. It's almost as if we were out of this world. Yes, I remember. Young Jackson, you did say that. I like working with this, sir. Why, up here, it's almost as if we were out of this world. Out of the world. I wanted to be out of the world. Hide. Until it's over. Yes, why not? Why not? What are you going all the way up there for, Prentice? To do my work, of course. But who cares about propagating new varieties of roses at a time like this? The times have nothing to do with it. I'll do what I please. I'll do what I please. But, Prentice, to leave suddenly like this, it doesn't make sense. Roses are fine in normal times, but a chemist of your ability, in times like these, certainly there's more productive work that you could do. I'm not interested in your opinions. I'll do what I please. You hear me? Do what I please. Do what I please. Yes, sir. Everything's ready, sir. Greenhouse, all ready for you, sir. One week ago, Wednesday. Does the wind always blow up here, Charles? Eh? I said the wind. Does it always blow like that? Why? Frightening. Might be less frightening than the things that are happening back in the city. I suppose so. I know so. Where's that boy? Jackson? Yes, sir? The phosphates, are they ready yet? Not quite, sir. Well, get them ready. Every one of the plants. We work late tonight. Very late. Work late and hard. That was the answer to everything. Chemist of your ability, in times like these, there certainly must be more important work than propagating roses that you could do. A chemist of your ability, in times like these, there certainly must be more important work. No, no, no. I wouldn't think of that, I told myself. Wouldn't think of that. Roses. Yes, develop the greatest rose in the world. That would be my answer to them. While they bombed and burned, I'd develop the largest rose the world had ever known. And when the world would settle down again, I'd come back and bring the rose to them. And they wouldn't care if I had run away. My plan. Why did it go wrong? Claire, why did it go wrong? Claire? No. Dead. You're dead. They killed you. Dead, as I'll be dead. If I could only think, why did it go wrong? Well, I put the solution that's left over, Mr. Prentice. Yes. I do remember. That was it. Oh gosh, Mr. Prentice, I'm trying to understand, but I'm so tired. You must keep working. The only salvation is to work. What salvation got to do with roses? Don't be impertinent. Do your work. Yes, sir. Two cc for each plant, and careful. Don't let any of it touch the stem. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You weren't very happy, were you, Jackson? Those were things you couldn't understand. It isn't that I don't want to work, Mr. Prentice. It's just that I'm all mixed up. These roses. Why do I have to pour this stuff on them every hour, on the hour? It doesn't make sense. Hormones? Sure, I know what they are. Sacrations from the glands in the human body. Sure, I know what they're for. Make us grow and everything. I get it. That's what you try to do with the roses. Make them grow fast and big. But how do you know these hormones will work on plants, Mr. Prentice? And how do you know how much to give them, and how big will the roses grow, Mr. Prentice? Questions. Everlasting questions. But now I ask them, why did it go wrong? Thursday. Thursday? What do I remember? Where will I throw the hormone mixture that's left over, Mr. Prentice? Mr. Prentice, I said, where will I throw the hormones? Go away. Can't you see that I'm working? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes. I remember. Friday. What a Friday. Friday night. Friday night. Bar? Yes. Is that you? Yes, Charles. What are you doing walking out here in the dark? It's a lovely night. Romantic at your age. I just like the night. You, women, come back to the house. All right. Crazy, walking around in the dark. What's the matter with you? Can't you walk? If I hadn't caught you. It's slippery. What are you talking about? It's all slippery around here. Don't talk foolishness. But it is. By George, you're right. What? Stand still. I'll light a match. I had some. Yes. Now we'll see what... Charles. Stop grabbing. What? Worms. What? Can't you see? Just ordinary earthworms, night crawlers. We just walked over a few of them. Now you, women, with your fears and your squeamishness, walked on a few worms and you make more noise and more buzz. Yes. I remember. Friday night. The extra hormone solution. Where will I throw it, Mr. Prentice? Mr. Prentice, where will I throw the extra hormone solution? Saturday. And then the night. Jackson? Jackson, where are you? Jackson, I told you to stay in the house. Jackson, where are you? It's time to feed the plants. Jackson, where are you? Jackson, where are you? I did not hear, Charles. Claire, you startled me walking up like that. I didn't mean to. That infernal boy, where is he? Have you seen him? He's not in the house. But I told him not to go out. I told him only an hour ago he's got to work all night. The plants must be watered every hour on the hour. He went out. Well, why didn't you stop him? Now I have to go chase after him. Jackson. Jackson, are you out there? Come in. Charles, what? What did you think it was? Thunder. It's starting to rain. Shut the door. Shut the door, I say. But the boy. If he hasn't the sense to come in out of the rain, it's just too bad. I've got enough to do with worrying about my roses without worrying about him. And don't you go out after him. He'll come back. He'll come back. Saturday night. And when it was day again. Charles, Charles, wake up. Please wake up. Oh, where? You're on the couch. You fell asleep on the couch. Charles, get up right away. What's the matter with you? Why should I get up? What difference does it make? Listen to me, please. The boy, he isn't back yet. Jackson, he isn't back yet. Charles, where can he be? The storm. You slept. I waited. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Have you looked in his room? I just came from there. Charles, where could he have gone to? All through the storm. Oh, stop talking so much and let me get up. Let's go see. Must you follow me? Why didn't you wake me up? Why did you let me sleep? I must have fallen asleep too. I opened my eyes. It was day. Oh, Charles. Oh, stop old Charlesing me. Crazy young fool. So he spent the night outside. So what's the difference? Teach him a lesson. Well, no wonder he isn't back yet. Fog like this, it's as bad as night. Charles. All right, all right. What am I supposed to do? Go wandering through fog like a bloodhound, like a fool? Don't worry, he'll be back. He'll be back. But you never did come back, did you, Jackson? When the sun came out and that everlasting wind came up and lifted the fog. Charles, Charles, come here. Where? Where are you? Back at the house, Charles. Come quickly. Oh, what is it? What do you want now? The boy isn't around. I've looked everywhere. Charles, what happened back here? Look at the ground. Who plowed this ground up? Plowed? Yes, certainly plowed. Can't you see? Some crazy drunken fool plowed up the ground. But during the night, Charles, how could that be? You believe what you see, don't you? It's that boy. Yes, that Jackson went crazy, found a plow, tore up the ground and ran away. Went out of his mind, that's it. The boy's gone crazy, tearing up the ground. Gone crazy, gone crazy. Friends, we leave our The Devil and Mr. O's story of Revolt of the Worms to take a deep breath and a word from your station. Reservations are now being accepted for cruises to the sun. Remarkable cruises on a ship longer than four city blocks with a crew of over 900. She's Queen Elizabeth II, the greatest ship in the world. Cruise with her this winter to the sun of islands like Curaçao and St. Thomas and Martinique. Room for room, she has the largest staterooms afloat, even duplexes, three of the greatest restaurants in the world. There's more to see and do aboard Queen Elizabeth II than on many of the islands she visits. There are precious few ways in the world to get as much for your money. Cruise with her from New York to the Caribbean Sea. Cruising aboard Queen Elizabeth II. We wrote the book on it, and it's yours free. For your free copy and reservations, call your travel agent or QNAD at area code 212-297-6100. Queen Elizabeth II is a British registry. And now back to our The Devil and Mr. O's story of Revolt of the Worms. And then that night, that same night after I thought Jackson had gone crazy, run away, I went back to my work Sunday night. Charles, Charles, can I speak to you? Charles, please stop your work and talk to me. Haven't you lived with me enough years to know I don't like to be interrupted when I'm working? But I'm frightened. Are you? Really? Charles, stop it. Are you out of your mind? Yes, maybe I am. What did you say? Maybe I am crazy. All right, maybe I am. That's the only way I could have lived with you all these years. What? Endured your selfishness, your unbelievable selfishness. Well. Everything's for you for 20 years, everything for you. Now that's enough. Your work, your pleasure, what you think, what you want, everything for you, nothing for anyone else. Will you shut up? The gentle little Mr. Prent is the scientist, the good husband who never lifts his voice. Mother in heaven, I'd rather be married to a fool with a heart in him than you. Well, Lord, I mean. You haven't got a heart. You never had a heart. It's you, you, and no one else. And that boy can be dead out there and you don't care. And I can be dead and you don't care as long as you're safe and doing what you want to do. Will you go away and let me go on with my work? Charles, Charles, I'm fighting. That boy. Now there are noises. I'm asking you for the last time to go away and let me do my work. But listen to me. You've been out here all night. I've been in the back of the house alone and I've been listening and I didn't want to come in here, but I had to. Charles, things I said, I meant them. For years I've meant them. All right, that doesn't matter. But I tell you this. There's something outside the house. Find out what it is, Charles. Twenty years ago I thought you were an irrational woman. I thought I'd trained you out of that irrationality. I was wrong. I'll hume you just this once, but never again. Where are these noises? At the back of the house. The lantern. Hand it to me. Yes. Thank you. You're frightened. You don't have to go with me. I want to know. What? That you're a fool? Well, so what am I supposed to hear? There's nothing. Hello out there. Hello. Well, what now? Listen. To what? Listen. To what? I thought... You heard the wind whistling through the cracks in your brain. Come into the house. Charles, wait. Wait for... Here? Yes. So what? Give me the lantern. If it's that boy... It could be him, couldn't it? That crazy young fool playing practical jokes. If I get around the corner of the house and... What's going on here? Charles. Something moving under the ground. Yes. So dark. Can't quite make out. Charles. What is... I don't know. I don't know. Animal of some sort? Take me back to the house. Oh, go yourself. Moon will come out of the clouds. See what this is. Give me the lantern, Charles. No, I want to see. The house is back there. Turn around and go back to it. Go ahead. All right. All right. Yes. It is something burrowing. Infernal moon come out, I'd see. There. Coming out. Now I'll see what... Holes. Holes in the ground all over. What are they? Bomb craters? But that isn't possible. No. Animal burrows. But what animal could make a hole four feet across? What animal... Claire! Where are you? Claire! So dark I can't see you. Claire! Where are you? Claire! Claire! Where are you? Claire! Yes, Claire. I ran through the night looking for you. The echo of my voice is still in my ears. Looking for you when the moon was under the clouds and I couldn't see you and I couldn't find you. And then I did. You had fallen into one of those craters. Into one of those holes in the ground. I couldn't see you but I could hear you. But which one of the holes? They were all over. Ground pockmark with them. I ran around in the dark. I could hear you but couldn't find you. And then the moon. It was out again. Oh, blast the moon. Why did it come out? If it hadn't come out I wouldn't have seen. And my head... Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Claire, stop it! I can still hear you. I can still see you. Your body down in that hole. As I ran toward you suddenly I saw that something else was coming toward you. Something that glistened wet in the moonlight. Something long and slimy. A great twisting snake. Yet not a snake. Not a snake. And the fear in me made me fall to the ground and I saw as I lay there. I saw. The thing moved toward the hole in the ground as if you weren't there. As if it were blind and couldn't see. Like a great blind worm. It was a worm. A worm ten, twenty, no, thirty feet long crawling in fright towards home in the ground. And it moved toward you, Claire. Covered you. Crest you. You're dead, Claire. You've been dead for two days. Why should I tear out of my memory all the horror of how you died? Of how young Jackson must have died. Where will I throw the extra hormone solution, Mr. Prentice? Where will I throw the extra hormone solution, Mr. Prentice? Yes. That's very funny, isn't it, Jackson? I ran away and I was going to bring back to the world the greatest rose. But I brought back the greatest worms. The hormones you threw away soaked into the ground and into them. Hundreds of little worms burrowing under the ground soaking into their flesh, into their life process, miraculously increasing the growth of them. Until overnight they grew and grew without limit into those terrible horrors. And they are still growing. I can hear them. For the last two days squirming around the house and over it great monstrous pieces of slimy flesh squirming and writhing. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Burrowing under the ground and at night coming out of the ground. I have seen them. A sea of flesh. A sea of worms. Yes, I hear you out there, you worms. You were under the ground and now there's no room underground for you so you've come out of the ground. The world was yours first so now you're going to take it back again. The world for the worms. You're under the house. You're lifting it. The walls will fall and crush me and I'll be dead and I want to be dead. Yes, now I know why this is happening to me. I thought I could run away from the world and what is happening in the world. You hear that you worms out there. I thought I could run away. Oh, I'm very tired. Just sit here and wait. Wait for them. I know how I'll die. The walls falling, crushing. Window. Something behind me. A worm. At the window. Head looking in. He's crawling in. And another following. And another. They're filling the room. Worms. All around me. Worms. Worms covering. Cold flesh. Wet flesh. Worms. Worms. Covering me. Worms. This is Mr. O.R. Joveler. I know, I know what you're thinking. Worms that size. A pure put on science fiction. Well, personally, I don't believe there's any such category of story as science fiction anymore. Our scientific progress has been so accelerated that what was fiction in the morning can actually happen tonight. Thirty years ago, long before human extinction became a possibility with the explosion of the first atom bomb, I wrote a play about the last two survivors in the world. At the time, it was sheer fiction. Something could happen to this earth of ours that would leave only two survivors, a writer's brainstorm. Yet who among us does not know cold reality, the red buttons east and west that could trigger off a global nightmare. I wrote another play a handful of decades ago that was equally an impossibility. I was concerned, the very laughable idea that a spaceship was returning from the moon after the first successful landing on that ball of cheese. Yet there are few among us today who haven't witnessed that first giant step on the lunar cinders and the very fantastic return voyage in triumph. Fantasy, fiction, fact, it's all interlaced into tomorrow. And speaking of the future, let me tell you about our next story. The title is, Where Are You? And we'll talk about that after your station has a word. Dr. Campbell Moses, medical director of the American Heart Association, talks about a serious health problem in America today. Thousands of Americans die unnecessarily each year from heart attack because they don't know the symptoms and delay getting medical care. What are the symptoms? They vary, but they often start with a squeezing pain in the center of the chest behind the breastbone. The pain radiating to the shoulder, arm, neck, or jaw. It's often accompanied by sweating and occasionally by nausea, vomiting, and shortness of breath. If this happens to you, don't delay. Call your doctor and carefully describe your symptoms. If you can't reach your doctor, get to a hospital emergency room as quickly as possible. Remember that frequently the symptoms of heart attack subside completely and then recur. In heart attack, minutes count, so act promptly. Helping you to feel better and live better longer is just one of the services of your Heart Association. Just one of the reasons you should give to your heart fund. This is Mr. Owey game. First to those who have inquired, yes, I've written the book. Its title is, House on Fire. It's publisher by Rathalmu House. Now about our next play. It's all about a boy and a girl on a honeymoon. But even in our permissive times, I promise you the strangest honeymoon since that custom began. So next time, the play, Where Are You? It is later than you think. You
