The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm. He came along
the street of Green Town, Illinois, in the late cloudy October day, sneaking
glances over his shoulder. Somewhere not so far back, vast lightnings stomped
the earth. Somewhere, a storm like a great beast with terrible teeth could
not be denied.
So the salesman jangled and clanged his huge leather
kit in which oversized puzzles of ironmongery lay unseen but which his
tongue conjured from door to door until he came at last to a lawn which
was cut all wrong.
No, not the grass. The salesman lifted his gaze. But
two boys, far up the gentle slope, lying on the grass. Of a like size
and general shape, the boys sat carving twig whistles, talking of olden
or future times, content with having left their fingerprints on every
movable object in Green Town during summer past and their footprints on
every open path between here and the lake and there and the river since
school began.
"Howdy, boys!" called the man all dressed in stormcolored
clothes. "Folks home?"
The boys shook their heads.
"Got any money, yourselves?"
The boys shook their heads.
"Well --" The salesman walked about three feet, stopped
and hunched his shoulders. Suddenly he seemed aware of house windows or
the cold sky staring at his neck. He turned slowly, sniffing the air.
Wind rattled the empty trees. Sunlight, breaking through a small rift
in the clouds, minted a last few oak leaves all gold. But the sun vanished,
the coins were spent, the air blew gray; the salesman shook himself from
the spell.
The salesman edged slowly up the lawn.
"Boy," he said. "What's your name?"
And the first boy, with hair as blond-white as milk
thistle, shut up one eye, tilted his head, and looked at the salesman
with a single eye as open, bright and clear as a drop of summer rain.
"Will," he said. "William Halloway."
'Me storm gentleman turned. "And you?"
The second boy did not move, but lay stomach down
on the autumn grass, debating as if he might make up a name. His hair
was wild, thick, and the glossy color of waxed chestnuts. His eyes, fixed
to some distant point within himself, were mint rock-crystal green. At
last he put a blade of dry grass in his casual mouth.
"Jim Nightshade," he said.
The storm salesman nodded as if he had known it all
along.
"Nightshade. That's quite a name."
"And only fitting," said Will Halloway. I was born
one minute before midnight, October thirtieth. Jim was born one
minute after midnight, which makes it October thirty-first."
"Halloween," said Jim.
By their voices, the boys had told the tale all their
lives, proud of their mothers, living house next to house, running for
the hospital together, bringing sons into the world seconds apart; one
light, one dark . There was a history of mu mutual celebration behind
them. Each year Will lit the candles on a single cake at one minute to
midnight. Jim, at one minute after, with the last day of the month begun,
blew them out.
So much Will said, excitedly. So much Jim agreed to,
silently. So much the salesman, running before the storm, but poised here
uncertainly, heard looking from face to face.
"Halloway. Nightshade. No money, you say?"
The man, grieved by his own conscientiousness, rummaged
in his leathery bag and seized forth an iron contraption.
"Take this, free! Why? One of those houses will be
struck by lightning! Without this rod, bang'. Fire and ash, roast pork
and cinders! Grab!"
The salesman released the rod. Jim did not move, But
Will caught the iron and gasped.
"Boy, it's heavy!. And funny-looking. Never seen a
lightning rod like this. Look, Jim!"
And Jim, at last, stretched like a cat, and turned
his head. His green eyes got big and then very narrow.
The metal thing was hammered and shaped half-crescent,
half-cross. Around the rim of the main rod little curlicues and doohingies
had been soldered on, later. The entire surface of the rod was finely
scratched and etched with strange languages, names that could tie the
tongue or break the jaw, numerals that added to incomprehensible sums,
pictographs of insect-animals all bristle, chaff, and claw.
"That's Egyptian." Jim pointed his nose at a bug soldered
to the iron. "Scarab beetle."
"So it is, boy."
Jim squinted. "And those there -- Phoenician hen tracks."
"Right!"
"Why?" asked Jim.
"Why?" said the man. "Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian,
Choctaw? Well, what tongue does the wind talk? What nationality is a storm?
What country do rains come from? What color is lightning? Where does thunder
go when it dies? Boys, you got to be ready in every dialect with every
shape and form to hex the St. Elmo's fires, the balls of blue light that
prowl the earth like sizzling cats. I got the only lightning rods in the
world that hear, feel, know, and sass back any storm, no matter what tongue,
voice, or sign. No foreign thunder so loud this rod can't soft-talk it!"
But Will was staring beyond the man now.
"Which," he said. "Which house will it strike?"
"Which? Hold on. Wait." The salesman searched deep
in their faces. "Some folks draw lightning, suck it like cats suck babies'
breath. Some folks' polarities are negative, some positive. Some glow
in the dark. Some snuff out. You now, the two of you ... I --"
"What makes you so sure lightning will strike anywhere
around here?" said Jim suddenly, his eyes bright.
The salesman almost flinched. "Why, I got a nose,
an eye, an ear. Both those houses, their timbers! Listen!"
They listened. Maybe their houses leaned under the
cool afternoon wind, Maybe not.
"Lightning needs channels, like rivers, to run in.
One of those attics is a dry river bottom, itching to let lightning pour
through! Tonight...
"A master... Bradbury has a style all his own, much imitated but never
matched."
— Portland Oregonian
"Classic is a word that is used far too frequently when it comes to literature. However, it is no exaggeration to use this exalted term when referring to the masterpiece of dark fiction, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. In it Ray Bradbury puts human fears under a microscope….And he celebrates man's ability to overcome those fears and to understand his place in the universe. If rational beings had created the 100 best books of the century list, this one would surely have been on it."
— Denver Rocky Mountain News.
"A magical blend of creepiness and nostalgia."
— Indianapolis Star
"An American classic."
— Denver Rocky Mountain News (different review. They LOVE Ray in Denver!)
"A classic."
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A modern gothic tale... [that] explored secret wishes (and the mystery men who can grant them) long before Stephan King wrote Needful Things."
— Palm Beach Post
"A timeless rite-of-passage tale."
— Washington Post Book World
"A landmark book."
— Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
