The Small Assassin (short story)
Encyclopedia
"The Small Assassin" is a short story by American author Ray Bradbury
. It was first published in the November, 1946 issue of Dime Mystery. It was collected in Bradbury's anthology Dark Carnival and later collected in the anthologies The October Country
, The Small Assassin
, The Stories of Ray Bradbury
and The Vintage Bradbury
.
, but when Alice gives birth to a healthy baby boy, she fears the baby is somehow abnormal and will kill her. She expresses her fears to her husband, who dismisses them and tries to comfort her. Their family doctor
, Dr. Jeffers, explains that it is not unusual for some women to experience such feelings after the birth of a child—especially in Alice's case, as she almost died of complications of a Caesarean section
during delivery.
David leaves for a business trip in Chicago
and is gone for a few days. On his sixth day away he receives an emergency phone call from Dr. Jeffers, telling him Alice is seriously ill with pneumonia
; David rushes home, and a frightened Alice tells him, "It was the baby again." She claims she got pneumonia because the baby cried all night to keep her from sleeping; she believes he is deliberately trying to weaken and kill her.
One night David hears the baby crying and gets up to fetch milk from the kitchen. At the top of the stairs he slips on a soft object, but he manages to catch the railing and does not fall downstairs. He finds a large patchwork doll at the top of the stairs, an object he had bought for the baby as a joke. Neither he nor Alice had placed it there. He begins to wonder whether Alice is right about their child.
When David comes home from work the next day he finds Alice dead, sprawled and broken at the bottom of the stairs. The patchwork doll lies beside her. Horrified, David tells Dr. Jeffers about his suspicions, but the doctor does not believe him. Instead, Dr. Jeffers prescribes sleeping pills
for David, thinking a good 24-hour rest will curb the man's grief-fueled hysteria.
Early the next morning Dr. Jeffers drives up to the Lieber house. Knocking and getting no response, he goes inside. Immediately he smells the odor of gas
in the house. He rushes to David's room only to find David dead on the bed, and gas leaking from an open jet at the bottom of the wall near the door.
The doctor considers whether David might have turned on the gas himself, but then reasons that he couldn't have done so; he would have been knocked out by the sleeping pills. It couldn't have been suicide
. He goes to the nursery only to find the door closed and the crib empty. Somehow, he reasons, the child must have crawled out of his crib and opened the gas jet, but then the door closed, trapping him outside the nursery.
Dr. Jeffers decides that since he was responsible for bringing the child into the world, it must be his responsibility to take the child out. Moving carefully through the house, he draws an item from his medical supplies and calls out to the baby. The item is revealed to be a scalpel
.
comic book
Shock SuspenStories
#7 (February/March, 1953) by Al Feldstein
and George Evans. It was also adapted as an episode of the television series The Ray Bradbury Theater
(April 9, 1988).
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
. It was first published in the November, 1946 issue of Dime Mystery. It was collected in Bradbury's anthology Dark Carnival and later collected in the anthologies The October Country
The October Country
The October Country is a 1955 collection of nineteen macabre short stories by Ray Bradbury. It reprints fifteen of the twenty-seven stories of his 1947 collection Dark Carnival, and adds four more of his stories previously published elsewhere....
, The Small Assassin
The Small Assassin
The Small Assassin is a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Harper's, Mademoiselle and the book Dark Carnival.-Contents:...
, The Stories of Ray Bradbury
The Stories of Ray Bradbury
The Stories of Ray Bradbury is, as the title suggests, an anthology containing 100 short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury and was first published by Knopf in 1980. The hundred stories, written from 1943 to 1980, were selected by the author himself...
and The Vintage Bradbury
The Vintage Bradbury
The Vintage Bradbury was the first "best of" collection of the stories of Ray Bradbury, as selected by the author. It was published by Vintage Books, a paperback division of Random House.-Contents:* "The Watchful Poker Chip of H...
.
Plot
David and Alice Leiber are a happily married couple living in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, but when Alice gives birth to a healthy baby boy, she fears the baby is somehow abnormal and will kill her. She expresses her fears to her husband, who dismisses them and tries to comfort her. Their family doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, Dr. Jeffers, explains that it is not unusual for some women to experience such feelings after the birth of a child—especially in Alice's case, as she almost died of complications of a Caesarean section
Caesarean section
A Caesarean section, is a surgical procedure in which one or more incisions are made through a mother's abdomen and uterus to deliver one or more babies, or, rarely, to remove a dead fetus...
during delivery.
David leaves for a business trip in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and is gone for a few days. On his sixth day away he receives an emergency phone call from Dr. Jeffers, telling him Alice is seriously ill with pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
; David rushes home, and a frightened Alice tells him, "It was the baby again." She claims she got pneumonia because the baby cried all night to keep her from sleeping; she believes he is deliberately trying to weaken and kill her.
One night David hears the baby crying and gets up to fetch milk from the kitchen. At the top of the stairs he slips on a soft object, but he manages to catch the railing and does not fall downstairs. He finds a large patchwork doll at the top of the stairs, an object he had bought for the baby as a joke. Neither he nor Alice had placed it there. He begins to wonder whether Alice is right about their child.
When David comes home from work the next day he finds Alice dead, sprawled and broken at the bottom of the stairs. The patchwork doll lies beside her. Horrified, David tells Dr. Jeffers about his suspicions, but the doctor does not believe him. Instead, Dr. Jeffers prescribes sleeping pills
Hypnotic
Hypnotic drugs are a class of psychoactives whose primary function is to induce sleep and to be used in the treatment of insomnia and in surgical anesthesia...
for David, thinking a good 24-hour rest will curb the man's grief-fueled hysteria.
Early the next morning Dr. Jeffers drives up to the Lieber house. Knocking and getting no response, he goes inside. Immediately he smells the odor of gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
in the house. He rushes to David's room only to find David dead on the bed, and gas leaking from an open jet at the bottom of the wall near the door.
The doctor considers whether David might have turned on the gas himself, but then reasons that he couldn't have done so; he would have been knocked out by the sleeping pills. It couldn't have been suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. He goes to the nursery only to find the door closed and the crib empty. Somehow, he reasons, the child must have crawled out of his crib and opened the gas jet, but then the door closed, trapping him outside the nursery.
Dr. Jeffers decides that since he was responsible for bringing the child into the world, it must be his responsibility to take the child out. Moving carefully through the house, he draws an item from his medical supplies and calls out to the baby. The item is revealed to be a scalpel
Scalpel
A scalpel, or lancet, is a small and extremely sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, and various arts and crafts . Scalpels may be single-use disposable or re-usable. Re-usable scalpels can have attached, resharpenable blades or, more commonly, non-attached, replaceable...
.
Adaptations in other media
"The Small Assassin" was adapted to the ECEC Comics
Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
Shock SuspenStories
Shock SuspenStories
Shock SuspenStories was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. The bi-monthly comic, published by Bill Gaines and edited by Al Feldstein, began with issue 1 in February/March 1952. Over a four-year span, it ran for 18 issues, ending with the December/January 1955 issue.- Artists and writers...
#7 (February/March, 1953) by Al Feldstein
Al Feldstein
Albert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
and George Evans. It was also adapted as an episode of the television series The Ray Bradbury Theater
The Ray Bradbury Theater
The Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel...
(April 9, 1988).