 Good evening, friends. This is your house to welcome you through the creaking door into the inner sanctum. Come on in. One prankish little fellow whom we shall call maniac, for lack of a stronger word, just set fire to the walls. He said a closed room made him feel confined. As a result, four other characters are slightly burned up now. Sanctum Mystery, corpse for Halloween, was written by John Robert and stars Larry Haynes in the role of Jimmy with Barry Kroger as Cavanaugh. And now, let's unhinge our minds a little. After all, what's a little insanity among friends? Tonight's story dramatizes the fanatical hold of memory. The one scene, the one fragment that plays and replays over and over again in your mind. The one terror that's with you when you die, and when you walk, and when you sleep. I'm here in the 35-cent flop, but I'm in the Burma jungle. Watching a scene that never gets stale even though it's five years old. I can hear sounds traveling across the brush. I pick them up as if I'm a receiver, said animal sounds. And I see as if my eyes are in the sky, I see two blue figures standing with their rifles aimed at a pair of jungle beasts, a tiger and its mate in a crotch ready to jump. They fire point blank together as if by signal. So good. They nest, the beasts roar and leap. I hear them scream out Cavanaugh and box a goal. Just before they die. Five years. And you've been everywhere trying to forget. And you almost do forget. But if that just right back into your mind by itself. Like when a guy suddenly sneaks up on you in the night. Do you have a match? What? Do you have a match? Sure. You popped up on me so suddenly. You're a nervous man. Thank you. I have a parcel with me for you. For me? What are you kidding? No, I have a parcel for you. Here, take it. Wait a minute. Hey, hey, hey, wait. But he's gone. Just the way he came. As if he's, he's a chip off my sanity. As if there'd been nobody. But there is a package left with me. The mind doesn't dream up a package. The cardboard box, heavy kind of. And tissue, lots of tissue around something that, that had the feel of a head. And this head. The stuffed head of a jungle tiger. It's mouth fixed in the snarl. It sends the blood hammering to my head. Doesn't make sense. No good figuring it out. Toss it into a river box and all and get away. Get among the people. Here, your Rocco's got a Rocco's. Get the jukebox going and slip into a fog. Coffee, Rocco. You're me. There's something for you. For me, Rocco? The package. The guy came in before and leaves the package for you. See? Well, Jimmy Fox. Your name on it? My name. My name's Jimmy Scott. You know that. Scott, yes. But the man says your name is also Jimmy Fox. He says he knows. He knows? The package outside into the night, into an alleyway. Another cardboard box, heavy. And tissue, lots of tissue around. Something that had the feel of a head. It was a head, but not a tiger's this time. It was a human skull. It shone with a hard white light where the moon touched it. And then it seemed to speak. Do you have a mask? What? You're being an idiot. It isn't a skull talking to you, it's me. You? Well, why? I'm behind you. I don't see you. Because you're afraid to. See me now? Yeah. A black suit and a face squinting at me like, like a laughing mask. It is a laughing mask. Well, why are you wearing a mask? It's not tonight's Halloween. Halloween? Sure, Halloween. Not everybody plays jokes. Yeah, I should have remembered it was Halloween. Can you identify the skull? Identify? What kind of a gag are you trying to... Suppose I give you an hour to identify the skull. It's eight now, until nine o'clock then. Wait! Hey, hey, wait! It was gone again. As if there'd been nobody. Just another big chip off my sanity. I really had to get away from myself now. I hit the back streets, and then somewhere a big neon sign across the tenement pulled me off the sidewalk. It read, The Tilbury Street Boys Neighborhood Association. Halloween costume ball, public invited. A girl in a boot, Masked like a witch, Stopped me at the door. Mask, Mr. Mask. Oh, sure, sure, give me one. Black, green, yellow, or purple. What's your favorite color? Uh, yellow. Are you a yacht? Fifty cents. Hey, I... Oh! Oh, what? Just a description left with me. I'd almost forgotten. Are you Jimmy Fox? Suppose I was Jimmy Fox. You forgot it. This grocery bag was left here for you. A man told me to tell you. You forgot it somewhere. And he said that he'd meet you one place or another later. Here, take it. By the shape of it, I'd say you were at a Halloween pumpkin inside. What if I told you there was a human skull inside that grocery bag? He'd meet me one place or another. He did. He was under a street lamp, waiting for me to happen along. Hello, Jimmy. Have you dared to call the skull by name yet? Or must I? Look, that gag isn't paying off, Misty. All right, go ahead. You call it by name. Dolan. Fox or Dolan, remember him? I, uh... Never knew the guy. No doubt got me confused. Have I, Jimmy? You've changed your appearance cleverly, except for one thing, disguise could never conceal. One thing? Your guilt. You're at like a badge of shame. Oh, what am I guilty of? Murder. Two men left an encampment in the Burmese jungle just before dawn. Two men. Fox or Dolan and Kavanaugh. A third man remained behind. He played sick, pretended to fever. The third man was you, Jimmy. Must I tell you the rest? Tell me the rest. Dolan and Kavanaugh carried rifles in the event of a jungle encounter. There was a jungle encounter, a tiger and its mate, an emergency, but an easy one to resolve for two expert hunters. Just one shot apiece and there'd be two more dead tigers. Just one shot apiece. They had their one shot apiece, but the tigers didn't drop dead in their tracks. Instead, Fox or Dolan and Kavanaugh dropped. Ask me what happened, Jimmy. What happened? During the night, someone had emptied their rifle loads and substituted blank bullets. You did that, Jimmy. You engineered the murder of two men. You murdered your two partners in crime. Just one day's push from the Hindu temple you'd all teamed up to loot. They got within 24 hours of treasure and then you murdered them. One more day to the temple, so why split three ways, huh? You know about the temple, I never pushed down to that temple. No loot, no nothing. How about that? You lost your nerve. You just hadn't counted them. Losing your nerve. What are you, a detective? No. I'm your second victim. I'm Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh? Kavanaugh was killed. Unfortunately for you, you wasn't. I'll show you what I had to survive. Feel my sleeve. It's empty. Torn out of the socket. Now the face behind this laughing gargoyle. I wear. See the left profile. It isn't pretty, is it? The eye? The eye's gone, too. I spent five years finding you, Jimmy. I've waited a long time to let you see my face. You came after me to kill me? After you've had the same 24 hours you arranged the dorm room and I would have? What do you mean, the same 24 hours? Unarmed in the jungle and helpless. I'm going to hunt you for 24 hours in this jungle, the jungle of the city, with every beast of prey I can find. I'm going to hunt you, Jimmy, and in the end, when I've wrung every suffering from you, I'm going to kill you. What do you mean, every beast of prey you can buy? The denizens of the city jungle, the riffraff, the murderers, the men and women who buy and sell murder. I can afford them, Jimmy. See this, Ruby? Is it real? And I have dozens, Jimmy, dozens. I didn't lose my nerve. At the clock you can go now. Go and see if you can escape me and my pack. Are you going through with this? Get along, Jimmy. Hurry, the beasts will be coming at you from the sewers and the cellars, ambushing you from the shadows, into the dawn and through the day for 24 hours until 10 tomorrow night. Or you win. You live. Jimmy, see how painful death can be. That Kavanaugh's one fella I never want to hunt me up. No sir, that guy slays for creeps. 24 hours, Kavanaugh's got 24 hours to kill and Jimmy has just enough time to die. Yes, you know, Jimmy might win out over Kavanaugh now that he's got an extra skull to go with the one he's stuck with. Your all two heads are better than one. Let's live out the terror now, shall we? An animal game of murder for 24 hours. I was to be hunted down in a jungle where human beasts came at you from the sewers and cellars where killers and the hire of a homicidal lunatic lay in ambush. Well, I had to win. I had to save myself, I had to. Hide, the thing to do is to hide, fade into an alleyway and find a cellar and stay put for 24 hours. They put the second lake of garbage cans until 10 tomorrow night. Was I alone? There was a whispering movement somewhere in the cellar. The faint rattle of ash cans, as if the wind was rattling them. Wind in an airtight cellar? Hello? I've been imagining. But then something winged at me, growing into my shoulder sharp and deadly like a knife. It came to bleeding from a shoulder gash. I got out of there and back into the streets, into a jungle of faces. It was Halloween night like I'd never seen it. Costumes on kids of six and old clones of 60. A crazy jungle of witches and growling sea captains and lunatics. They couldn't all be in the hire of Kavanaugh. And then, a fence was plastered with circus posters of jungle animals. A zany looking guy was shooting from the hip at the poster while making menacing faces like a bad man. I caught a whiff of powder in the night air. The shot had burned into the poster. I crept up behind him, faking a gun with my fist in my coat pocket. I ran it against his back. I got nothing, I got nothing. You're gonna want your gun handed over? Sure, yeah. Now walk, walk up the block and don't turn back to look. I had a gun now and the tables were turned. I was the hunter now. I drifted to the docks and took a position with my back to the river. Faking of suicide, Jimmy? Got any more, Kavanaugh? You sound as if your morale had suddenly improved. My morale's going great, Kavanaugh. Your animal hunts about to boomerang blow right up in your face like this. Who's hunting? Go, Kavanaugh! Who's hunting? Go! Kavanaugh kept standing up. Three bullets point blank enough to blow his head off but Kavanaugh kept standing up on hunt. How does it feel to hunt game with blank cartridges like Buck Sir Dolan and I did once? Blank cartridges? But that crazy looking guy saw a bear in a hole in the circus poster. Only one bullet, the first one was real. Simple. Yeah, simple. I get it. Dead Eye Dick was another one of your beasts. Who's hunting? Who, Jimmy? Who's hunting? Who? Kavanaugh! Kavanaugh, wait! Kavanaugh, kill me! Get it over with and kill me now, will ya? Kavanaugh, you gotta kill me! I had to get out of there. The subway. Another subway. Fade into the subway. Get on a train and ride to the end of the line. Right out of the subway. An empty station. No one in it. No, no someone. Two people. A dapple little guy buried behind a newspaper. And an old lady in ragged clothes carrying a pet half hidden in a coat. A pet that looked like a cat. She came up to me, close. Like to ask me something. Uh, this side goes to Leffat's Avenue station? Leffat's, I don't know. I'm a stranger here. Uh-oh. Ask Genevieve. Oh, Genevieve is hungry. That's not a cat. No, son. A cub. A tiger cub. A tiger cub? Would you like to stroke Genevieve? No, no, no. Don't run away, son. Genevieve won't hurt. I ran away with the old crone after me hobbling in his skirts. And a little dapple guy behind the newspaper circling at me from the opposite direction, cornering me. I jumped to the tracks my only hour, and I ran. I ran deep into the bars of the subway, deep, very deep. And a little dapple guy after me, yes, if he lived business. And then a train. It had a Halloween look, too. It ran down on me. And I, in face of the banjo eyes, I ran against the wall and frightened out. The train passed, passed, and the dapple little guy screamed. Travenor was shy. One feast in this jungle. The little guy had been hit glancingly and hurled against the subway wall, pulverized. I got to him quickly and freshed him. I had a gun now. I'd gotten with bullets that killed him. I ran. I ran a half mile underground to another station, and then back on the streets. Back in the animal game. It was through in the morning. A neon sign that tell every street boy's neighborhood association. Halloween costume party. People were straggling out, but fun was over. Hello. What? You remember me? No. I'm the witch who gave you a free mask and a grocery bag that you forgot somewhere. And you're Jimmy Fox. Jimmy, Scott, I used to be Jimmy Fox. Sister, are you all right? Am I all right? I mean, are you just what you look at? A sweet kid with brown eyes and a heart. Are you drunk? No, no, no, beat. I'm dead beat. I've got a hole up somewhere. Get some sugar. I've got it where I'll die. You're sick? Yeah, yeah, I'm sick. I'm sick. If I could just sleep around the clock until 10 tomorrow night. If an angel came along and said, come home with me, I'll put you up. Come home with me, Jimmy. I'll put you up. I fell asleep on the sofa with a gun under my pillow and the girl on a chair watching me anxiously. I had a friend. I could drop off and live in Dreamland until 10 that night. At 10, I could wake up and live. Coming awake, I heard the alarm which said, go off. The alarm stopped and there was a sound. An animal sound. A minute claw scratching at me, carrying it in my cheek. Come on. I choked up. The girl was gone. A guy was sitting watching me now. A skinny kid with a heavy shock of hair and had a day over 21. That's a lousy way to have to wake up from a sleep, pal. Lousy way. There was an animal clawing at me. My cheek's bleeding. A Genevieve. She isn't housebroken. Still a little wild. You should have seen her dash for the kitchen when you laid out a scream just now. Genevieve. Who are you? You're Jimmy Fox, huh? Yeah. I've got something for you. For me? Yeah. It was given to me to get to you. There. A rupee. Wait a minute. Look. It's 10 o'clock. I set the alarm for 10 and it's 10. It's only a quarter of. That clock's always 15 minutes ahead. The game's over. It's 10 and you can't cheat. I've won, Cavanaugh. You can't go back on your promise, Cavanaugh. You can't. What are you trying to get over, pal? I know. I've won. You can't cheat. I won't be tricked. Oh, God. Pal, you're crazy. Wait. Look. It's 10 and I won't be tricked, Cavanaugh. I won. I'm still in the sofa. My arms are rigid. And my legs rigid. Like something exploded inside me and paralyzed my nerves. I can just look and hear. She's in the room now. Girl with a sweet face and brown eyes. On the horizon red, swollen from crying. I hear her talking to a cop. He's taking down what she says. He was a stray. He was like a sick dog in the street. So I picked him up and brought him home. Why did he kill your brother, buddy? I thought he was taking a shower. And I heard him scream like a crazy man. I heard him talk all mixed up. Didn't he get here any time? There must be something you've been telling me, man. Oh, officer. Everything is all mixed up. At the Tory Street Costume Ball, a man gave me a cat with tiger stripes. And he begged me to keep it for him for a while until he found a new home for it. He'd been evicted, he said. Yes. Well then, in the all night restaurant my brother works in, a man gave Buddy a ruby to gift to Jimmy Fox when he woke up. He told my brother the ruby belonged to Jimmy Fox. This piece of glass? Yes. That's something of the World War Time counter. What else? That's a... Watching by here. I see through Kavanaugh's trick. Get me crazy so I'll murder a stranger who called himself Buddy. The brother of a girl with brown eyes and a heart. Flame me so I'll just want to die. For weeks of a murder trial and months in the death house and four minutes in the death chair. I kept listening to them talk. The girl and the cop. Okay. We'll have to get the rest from Jimmy Fox there. Yeah, look at him. He's paralyzed with fright. He wonders what kind of a crazy Halloween story he's going to tell to Power Morphonis when we get him talking. Oh, Captain Devereux speaking. McEvoy, send a police ambulance to 445 10th Street, apartment 3 Rear. And McEvoy, see that a straightjacket's on that ambulance. Well, quite a taste. It got so poor Jim didn't know whether he was coming or going. Nuts. What got his goat most was the way he kept seeing animals everywhere. Very confusing to a guy on the lamb. Yeah, it got so he couldn't tell whose zoo. Tomorrow? Oh, sure. I read this Halloween notice on a tree somewhere. Never hunt out of reason. In the United States over CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System, and has been re-broadcast for service men and women overseas. This is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service, the voice of information and education.