Long After Midnight
Ray Bradbury
In his first collection in seven years, the incomparable Ray Bradbury conjures up eerie ghosts of the past, present, and future that will bewitch and disturb his millions of readers.
Meet the parrot to whom Hemingway confided the plot of his last, greatest, and never-written novel; the invisible ice-woman who called herself "Melissa Toad, Witch" and offered perfect love and a magical immunity; the rookie cop who was stunned by a girl's suicide—until he learned "her" secret, plus 19 more hauntings and celebrations.
"Each entry is a miniature and a jewel ... He can establish a mood in a line, can suggest things that go bump in the night in soaring poetic fashion . . . This is rainy-night stuff."
—San Francisco Chronicle
Bantam Books by Ray Bradbury
Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed
DANDELION WINE
DINOSAUR TALES
THE GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN
THE HALLOWEEN TREE
I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC!
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN
LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT
THE MACHINERIES OF JOY
THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES
A MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY
R IS FOR ROCKET
S IS FOR SPACE
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
BANTAM BOOKS TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON • SYDNEY
This low-priced Bantam Book has been completely reset in a type face designed for easy reading, and was printed from new plates. It contains the complete text of the original hard-cover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
RL 6, IL age 14 and up
LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY Knopf edition published September 1976
2nd printing . . . October 1976 Literary Guild selection September 1976
"The Blue Bottle" Copyright 1950 by Love Romances Publishing Inc. "Forever and the Earth" Copyright 1950 by Love Romances Publishing Inc. "Punishment Without Crime" Copyright 1950 by Other Worlds, "The Miracles of Jamie" first appeared in Charm, "The October Game" In Weird Tales, "One Timeless Spring" and "The Pumpernickel" in Collier's, "A Piece of Wood" in Esquire, "The Utterly Perfect Murder^' ("My Perfect Murder") and "The Parrot Who Met Papa" in Playboy Magazine, "Have I Got a Chocolate Bar for You!" in Penthouse, "The Wish" in Woman's Day Magazine, and "Drink Entire: August the Madness of Crowds" in Gallery.
Bantam edition / April 1978
2nd printing .. November 1978 4th printing ... October 1980 3rd printing .... August 1979 5th printing .... August 1982
Cover artwork from the Will Stone Collection, San Francisco, Copyright © Bill Stoneham, Untitled.
All rights reserved. Copyright 1946, 1947, 1951, 1952, © 1971, 1972,
1973, 1976 by Ray Bradbury.
Copyright renewed 1974, 1975 by Ray Bradbury-
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by
mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
201 East 50th St., New York, N.Y. 10022,
ISBN 0-553-22867-6 Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
H 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6
This book, with love,
is dedicated to William F. Nolan, amazing collector, fantastic researcher, dear friend.
Contents
The Blue Bottle
One Timeless Spring
The Parrot Who Met Papa
The Burning Man
The Burning Man
The Messiah
G. B. S. - Mark V
The Utterly Perfect Murder
Punishment Without Crime
Getting Through Sunday Somehow
Drink This: Against the Madness of Crowds
Interval in Sunlight
A Story of Love
The Wish
Forever and the Earth
The Better Part of Wisdom
Darling Adolf
The Miracles of Jamie
The October Game
The Pumpernickel
Long After Midnight
Have I Got a Chocolate Bar for You!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Blue Bottle
The sundials were tumbled into white pebbles. The birds of the air now flew in ancient skies of rock and sand, buried, their songs stopped. The dead sea bottoms were currented with dust which flooded the land when the wind bade it reenact an old tale of engulfment. The cities were deep laid with granaries of silence, time stored and kept, pools and fountains of quietude and memory.
Mars was dead.
Then, out of the large stillness, from a great distance, there was an insect sound which grew large among the cinnamon hills and moved in the sun-blazed air until the highway trembled and dust was shook whispering down in the old cities.
The sound ceased.
In the shimmering silence of midday, Albert Beck and Leonard Craig sat in an ancient landcar, eyeing a dead city which did not move under their gaze but waited for their shout:
"Hello!"
A crystal tower dropped into soft dusting rain.