The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

eagerness over the question, Can we panic now? Huh? Huh? Can we?
“Yes, I thought, we can panic now.
“I decided to pay him a visit. It was raining that evening as I walked to the
train station. I couldn’t help but think of the night when the penny-mania had all
begun. Joe no doubt would have called it a sign from the gods, a meaningful
symmetry or something.
“There was a discarded newspaper on the seat beside me as the train pulled out
of 30th Street and headed for the suburbs. I glanced at the familiar scenes for a
while, then picked up the paper. It was a back section, and there, under a snide
headline, was a piece about a ‘local character,’ the Penny Man, who spent whole
days wandering the streets after loose change, the bulging pockets of his old
overcoat jangling. For all there was no photo and no names were mentioned, I
knew it was Joe.
“‘Oh, shit,’ I muttered to myself, crumpling the newspaper. ‘Oh shit…’
“Joe lived on one of the few sleazy side streets in the posh Main Line town of
Bryn Mawr, in an upstairs apartment over a drugstore. I went up the back stairs
—wooden stairs outside the building—and tapped gently on his door. No
answer. I peered through the glass. The apartment was dark. It was just my luck.
Maybe he was out picking up pennies again, hoping to find the secret of the
universe that way—in my state of mind, I didn’t doubt he could actually do it—
or else the pennies had revealed that he should move without telling me. I was
ready to believe anything.
“Then I heard slow, shuffling footsteps, a metallic clang, and the sound of
coins pouring onto the floor, followed by incoherent obscenities. But I knew that
tired, almost sobbing voice.
“He opened the door, then lunged for my feet. I jumped back, startled. He
picked up a penny off the mat, looked at it, then put it in his pocket and turned to
go back inside.
“‘Not yet,’ he said to himself. ‘A little more time.’
“He made to shut the door, as if he hadn’t noticed me at all.
“‘Joe, aren’t you going to ask me in?’
“‘Uh, hello, Jim,’ he said, a little disoriented.
“I got a good look at him then, and I hardly recognized him. Now you’ll recall
that there were still a lot of hippies then, and squalor hadn’t totally fallen into
disfavor yet—but Joe had gone beyond acceptable limits. It was a cold, damp
winter night, and there he was barefoot, wearing old jeans with both knees out,
and a bathrobe held shut with safety pins. He hadn’t shaved in at least a week,