Evil Machines Read Online Free

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    When it had been first installed the elevator seemed to function perfectly well. When customers pressed the button to go to the Third Floor (Ladies Clothing, Shoes, Fashion Accessories and Books), it stopped at the Third Floor. When customers pressed the button for the Fifth Floor (Television and Hi-fi, Computers, Electrical Goods and Accounts), it stopped at the Fifth Floor.
    But then something seemed to go wrong.
    To begin with it was only little things. A customer would tell it to go to the Ground Floor (Cosmetics, Handbags, Luggage, Stationery and Exit), and the elevator would take them to the Fourth Floor (Furniture).
    The elevator repairmen were sent for. They readjusted the control mechanism, and things seemed to go back to normal.
    But then one day it started to go badly wrong.
    The head of the department store, whose name was Montague Du Cann, went into the lift with a Health and
    Safety inspector, and pressed the button for the Sixth Floor, which was where the offices were situated, but instead of going up to Six, the lift went down to the Second Basement.
    Montague Du Cann and the Health and Safety inspector walked out of the lift and into the ruck of exposed electrical cables, half-open bins of dangerous cleaning materials, crates of rotting sausages from the Food Hall, blocked exits and so many infringements of the Health and Safety Regulations that the inspector thought his birthday had arrived a day early! (He was going to be forty-seven).
    ‘I’m afraid I will have to take note of all these things,’ he told Montague Du Cann, who had hoped to be able to keep the Health and Safety inspector on the Sixth Floor while someone went down and cleared up the Second Basement.
    The thought crossed Montague Du Cann’s mind that the lift had taken them to the Second Basement deliberately and maliciously. But, of course, he dismissed the idea at once. After all, in his long experience as a Department Store Executive, he had never once come across an elevator acting of its own free will.
    Some days later, however, he had cause to rethink his opinion.
    Montague Du Cann had an aunt, whose name was Leanora Du Cann. She got into the elevator and pressed the button for the Sixth Floor, where she was to meet her nephew Montague. The lift, however, took her straight to the Third Floor (Ladies Clothing, Shoes, Fashion Accessories and Books).
    ‘Oh dear!’ said Leanora Du Cann, and she pressed the button for the Sixth Floor again, but the lift refused to
    move. Then she tried the ‘Close Doors’ button. But the lift wouldn’t close its doors either.
    ‘It’s stuck,’ said Leanora Du Cann to some customers who got into the elevator while she was pressing the buttons.
    ‘We’d better walk then,’ said the other customers.
    And that is what Leanora knew she had to do.
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Leanora again, only this time more quietly.
    She stepped cautiously out into the Ladies Clothing Department. The stairs were situated further down the store to the right, through the Shoe Department. Leanora felt her knees go slightly wobbly. She took a deep breath, firmly zipped up the large empty bag she was carrying, and walked towards the shoes.
    The moment she started to move away from the elevator, the elevator gave a sort of snort – or perhaps it was a snigger – then it closed its doors and went back down to the Ground Floor. Leanora froze in her tracks. Then she slowly turned and stared at the lift, for a strange feeling had crawled up her spine. It was a very strange feeling indeed . . . the feeling of having just brushed past something nasty . . . something quite, quite malignant and deeply, deeply evil.
    Of course, she had no idea where the feeling had come from, but all the same nothing would have persuaded her to return to that elevator and try it again.
    So she set off once again across the Ladies Clothing Department, and pretty soon she found herself in among the shoes.
    She stopped at a pair of sling-backs in