The Link

by Richard Matheson

  “Oh, my God,” he mutters, doubled over, as she looks at him in alarm. “What all those psychics saw.”

  “What, Rob?” she asks.

  He makes a sound half-laugh, half-sob. “And on our first night home too!” he groans. “A goddam hernia!”

  The doctor Cathy takes him to the next day advocates immediate surgery. Sighing, Robert agrees. By afternoon, he’s in the hospital.

  Early the next morning, he is unconscious on the operating table.

  Part of him.

  The other part hovers above, wide awake, observing every detail of the operation, hearing every word spoken below.

  When Cathy drives him home, he tells her of the OOBE and she is newly excited by the expansion of his psychic powers. “It’s going to be wonderful testing you at ESPA,” she says.

  His smile is wan.

  At home, a basket of fruit is waiting, sent by Peter and Carol. Flowers from Amelia.

  And a gift from Cathy.

  As he lies in bed, newly installed by a fussing Cathy, she goes to another part of the house. Returning, she tells him to close his eyes. He does.

  She puts something beside him and he opens his eyes.

  At first, he tenses, resisting, as he sees the small Lab puppy on the bed.

  Gradually, then, unable to prevent himself, he starts to stroke the puppy’s head. But he really doesn’t want to go through again what he suffered with Bart.

  “Life goes on, love,” she tells him.

  “Yes,” he murmurs. He strokes the puppy. It is an absolute darling. It lies across his chest, nibbling on his fingers. “Bart looked just like you,” he says.

  Abruptly, he begins to cry, releasing the sorrow he was never able to release when Bart died. Cathy holds him, caressing him gently as he weeps.

  That night, a somber note.

  Cathy tells him that Peter, in his remaining months at ESPA, plans to launch a full-scale investigation into survival evidence. She is totally against it and has informed Peter that she refuses to have anything to do with it.

  “What are you going to work on then?” Robert asks, trying not to react to her rather cold, a priori dismissal of Peter’s plan.

  She tells him that she’s located a detective sergeant in the Metropolitan police who has worked on a number of occasions with a psychic. She is scheduled to meet them both and hopes to involve herself in a case they are just about to get started on—the mysterious disappearance of a young girl.

  “I’m hoping you’ll work with me, love,” she says.

  He hesitates. “You don’t think Teddie would be—?” he begins.

  “After Russia?” Cathy breaks in. “Never again.” She looks at him uneasily. “Don’t you want to work together on it?” she asks.

  “Of course I do.”

  As he holds her in his arms, his look conveys the worry he is feeling.

  Suddenly, she laughs. “I forgot to tell you,” she says. “After de Vries’ telly appearance that night, there’s evidence of wide-spread pregnancies across the country.”

  Robert looks blank. “How could he have anything to do with that?” he asks.

  She laughs again. “Because either he or the women watching him caused their IUDs to bend out of shape and cause the pregnancies.”

  He chuckles, shaking his head. “The wonders of the psychic world,” he says.

  He strokes the puppy’s head. “What do you think of that, Bart?” he asks. He frowns a little. “I can’t call you Bart,” he says. “You’re Bart Two.”

  “Bartoo,” Cathy says.

  So the dog is named.

  Recovering, Robert has Cathy drive him to Ann’s house on a Sunday afternoon so the two can meet.

  The initial contact is unavoidably strained. But neither Robert nor Cathy push it and Ann can see that Cathy is congenial. Her expertise in parapsychology and casual acceptance of Ann’s psychic bent helps toward establishing a relationship between them.

  May 9th, ESPA. Prior to a general meeting, Peter tells them that he’s heard from their colleagues in London that Mrs. Keighley and her daughter have left Harrowgate. The doctor has remained—as has the haunting force. “Obviously, the man needs it,” Peter says. “A psychic hair shirt for his past crimes.”

  Whether those crimes are punished by more earthly means depends on Mrs. Keighley’s willingness to testify in a war crimes trial.

  The meeting commences. Easton notes an upcoming Psi Workshop over the July 4th weekend.

  Then Cathy makes her statement.

  She is categorically opposed to Peter’s intended survival research. It is anti-science and retrogressive.

  “It’s returning to square one,” she declares. “Before we know it, we’ll be back to investigating latter-day Fox Sisters.”

  Peter begs to differ with her.

  It was noticeable, in Russia, he points out, that the one aspect of Kirlian photography they failed to mention was the “phantom leaf’ effect. Why? Because the ramifications of it contradict their mechanistic approach to psi? That they deliberately choose to ignore the possibility that energy fields of living things can exist in the absence of physical form?

  “The idea that all psychic functions are necessarily tied to neural substance is a faulty one,” he says. “It is clear that the dynamics of psi can exist outside the human system.

  “This being the case, why is it so far-fetched to suggest that these dynamics might persist outside the human system after that system has ceased to physically exist?”

  He startles Robert by noting that one of the keys to survival research is an examination of the out-of-the-body experience. “It establishes,” says Peter, “that the body is not essential to consciousness. Ergo: why not following the death of that body?”

  Accordingly, he feels that, among others, Robert would be of invaluable assistance in this research.

  Caught between a rock and hard place, Robert can only say that he will do what he can.

  After the meeting, in Peter’s office, Robert can do little more than attempt to referee the argument between Peter and Cathy.

  How can there be any scientific rationale to such a study? Cathy demands. The only living subjects who can be questioned are those who believe that they’ve died and come back to life again. Since perimeters of true physical death have yet to be established, the testimony of these people can only be accepted as indicative of erratic brain function at the point of death.

  For the rest, what are there but mediums and séances, tilting tables, ouija boards, messages from the “beyond”—and, quite obviously, “prime examples” of full-scale telepathy.

  “My God, Peter!” she says. “Are you really going back to the beginning again?”

  “To a certain degree, it might not be a bad idea,” Peter responds. “We tend to forget that there are verified sittings in the past—by Mrs. Piper, for instance—in which facts were presented which cannot be explained by telepathy.”

  CUT TO Mrs. Piper, in trance, saying to Professor William James, “The spirit of a boy named Robert Farnsworth who passed over at the age of six is the companion of your lost infant.”

  RETURN TO Peter. “Professor James’ wife had cousins named Farnsworth in a distant city. When James came home from that sitting, he asked his wife if her cousin had ever lost a child. She said the cousin had but that Mrs. Piper was entirely wrong about its sex, name and age. They inquired and discovered that what Mrs. Piper had said was entirely correct. Since neither James nor his wife knew of this, how could it have been telepathy? Whose mind was there to read?”

  Cathy doesn’t want to discuss it, repeating her conviction that such a study would be totally regressive.

  “That is hardly a scientific approach,” he tells her.

  “Peter, are you literally unable to go on with our work unless you can consider the possibility of survival after death?!” she challenges.

  “Cathy, are you literally unable to go on with our work unless you can reject the possibility out of han
d?!” he counters.

  Stalemate. Robert says he’ll work with both of them; he can reach no other solution.

  Afterward, Cathy indicates her distress at his decision.

  “I just can’t turn my back on him,” he says.

  She makes a critical sound.

  “Cathy, the man hasn’t gone insane,” he says.

  She sighs, nods, gives up. She doesn’t want to talk about it. Robert finds himself in the strange position of seeing her avoid this aspect of psi as inflexibly as he formerly avoided any commitment at all to the field.

  Conflict seems imminent.

  At his precinct headquarters, they meet Detective-Sergeant BARNEY EDWARDS, the last sort of person they would suspect of “buying” psychic matters—burly, tough, a strictly no-nonsense type.

  But a definite believer. “Listen, I have seen this cat at work,” he says. “I know what he’s done and I know there’s no other explanation for it but he’s psychic, he has ESP, he reads minds, whatever, who the hell knows? It works, that’s all I know. Only a jerk would deny it.”

  Robert and Cathy exchange a smile. Would that everybody was as openly pragmatic, they seem to be thinking. A veritable Thomas Edison of the police force.

  “It bugs the living hell out of me,” Edwards continues, “that most police departments lump these things under crank reports. Sure, there are cranks out there who call in with solutions to every damn case you’re working on. That doesn’t mean it’s right to look down your nose at every one of them. I think precincts should be in regular contact with one or two genuine psychics. The way I am with Buster.”

  As though on cue, BUSTER CALVIN breezes in, a nattily attired young black with an irreverent expression printed on his good-looking features, a funny-tough manner. “Afternoon, my man,” he greets Edwards. He touches his forehead mysteriously. “Don’t tell me anything, you had spaghetti for lunch.”

  “See, see?” say Barney, pointing at Buster with a grin. “The cat is psychic, what did I tell ya!”

  “The cat sees marinara sauce on your shirt, turkey,” Buster tells him.

  Barney chuckles with delight. Obviously, he’s very fond of the mock-tough Calvin. He introduces him to Robert and Cathy and, in answer to Cathy’s question, Calvin tells him how he “got” psychic.

  “Me and two brothers had just committed an alleged felony,” he begins.

  “Alleged, my butt,” says Barney, laughing. “You knocked off a liquor store in broad daylight.”

  “That was the alleged incident,” Buster continues. “We were fleeing the scene of the alleged crime in an alleged ‘67 Chevy when an alleged front tire blew out, the mother went out of control and hit an alleged brick wall. I was flung through the windshield and my skull had a physical altercation with the wall.”

  Robert smiles but thinks of Teddie being flung against the Gestapo Headquarters wall. “That’s getting psychic the hard way,” he says.

  “Oh, no,” says Buster “sincerely”. “Ask my Mama, she will tell you it’s a gift from de Lawd.”

  Again, Robert remembers Teddie saying, “They flung me head first against a wall and I was blessed, from that day forth, with ESP—Extra Sickening Perception.”

  Briefly, they discuss the missing girl, six-year-old Edith Gage. More than 360 policemen have taken part in the search, all in vain. The fear is that she’s dead; it seems likely. Buster has tried to get some “leads” but so far has come up empty. Barney is trying to set up a meeting between them and Edith’s parents to see if that can get something “going”. As soon as he can do that, he’ll let them know.

  As they drive home, Cathy speaks enthusiastically about the potential value of using psychics for crime solving. It’s an area of psi not well organized at all. “It should be though,” she says. “It can be of tremendous value to society.”

  Does Robert know that after the Sharon Tate murder, the Dutch psychic Peter Hurkos spoke of a “little man with a beard named Charlie? Of another skinny person named Charlie, tall Charlie? (Charles Watson was tall and skinny.) That Hurkos insisted that the murders were committed by a gang, a “ritualistic cult of men and women” involved in sex and narcotics?

  Does Robert know that psychic Dorothy Allison told the police that Patty Hearst was in Pennsylvania at a time when everyone thought she was someplace else; that the F.B.I. later gave her an affidavit stating that she was correct?

  “Then there was Jack the Ripper,” Cathy says.

  Robert, who has been occupied by his own thoughts, looks at her in surprise and tells her it has always been his impression that the Ripper was never caught.

  “Not so,” she says.

  CUT ABRUPTLY to London, Autumn, 1888. R.J. LEES is working quietly in his study when he is seized by a vision.

  He sees a man and woman walking down a street illuminated only by the glare of light from a pub. The hands of the bar room clock are seen by Lees.

  12:40 a.m.

  The man is wearing a dark tweed suit, carrying a light overcoat across his arm. His eyes glitter as he escorts the woman into a dark alley. She leans back against a wall, starting to hike up her skirt. The man sets aside his overcoat, then steps in close to the woman and claps his left hand over her mouth.

  With his right, he cuts her throat.

  Lees “watches” in horror as the man begins to mutilate the dead body.

  Finished, he puts on the overcoat and, his blood-spattered shirt and coat hidden, saunters off unhurriedly.

  Lees, traumatized by the vision, goes to Scotland Yard. There, he is treated as one more of the many cranks who pester the Yard constantly with “clues” about the Whitechapel killer. To humor Lees’ insistence, however, they make a note of the murder scene and time.

  The murder takes place the next night at—as near as they can make it out—12:40 a.m.

  Lees, a gentle religious writer, is stricken. The experience prostrates him. Under the advice of a physician, he goes abroad with his family.

  “There were no more visions,” says Cathy’s voice. “There were, however, more murders.

  “Then when Lees returned to London—”

  Lees takes his wife out for the day. Heading back home then night, they catch a bus. At Notting Hill, a man climbs aboard.

  A man wearing a dark tweed suit and a light overcoat.

  Lees goes pale. He whispers to his wife, “That man is Jack The Ripper.”

  She tells him not to be foolish but he is so certain that he gets off the bus when the man does and trails him. Spotting a policeman, he accosts him and, pointing at the man walking ahead, says he knows him to be Jack The Ripper.

  The constable laughs at him. In this neighborhood? Lees persists. The man came here on a bus! The constable gets irritated, threatening to run Lees in if he doesn’t move on.

  While this is taking place, the man in the dark tweed suit hails a cab and is driven out of sight.

  That night, Lees has another vision.

  It is not as clear as the first one but he does see, with horribly clarity, that one ear of the victim is completely severed and the other left hanging by a shred of flesh.

  He goes to Scotland Yard again and demands to see the Chief Inspector. His reception is the same as before.

  Until he mentions the ears.

  The Yard has just received a letter by someone claiming to be the Ripper, promising, that, on his next time out, he would “clip the lady’s ears off’ and mail them to the police.

  “By dusk that night, more than four thousand police, disguised as seamen and dock laborers, were patrolling Whitechapel,” says Cathy’s voice.

  In vain. Jack kills two more women, fleeing before he can complete the mutilation of his first victim.

  One of her ears hangs by a shred of flesh.

  Lees suffers another nervous collapse.

  Weeks later, somewhat recovered, he attempts a dinner out with two American friends.

  Before the meal can even start, the blurts out, “Jack The Ripper has committ
ed another murder!”

  He goes to Scotland Yard a third time. This time, they accept his story and decide to use his gifts, if possible.

  Does he think that he can track the murderer to his lair?

  Lees says he’ll try.

  They take him to the scene of the latest killing—the one he spoke of to his two American friends—and he tries to get a “scent”.

  A while passes. Then he begins to lead the officers and detectives through the streets of London, from the East End to the West End.

  Finally, he comes to a halt in front of an impressive mansion.

  “Inside there is the man you want,” he whispers hoarsely.

  The Chief Inspector looks crestfallen. Lees has led them to the home of a highly reputable physician.

  But this time the inspector is afraid of blundering and tells Lees that he will “push on” with the inquiry if Lees can tell him one more thing.

  What lies beyond the front door of the house?

  Lees stares at the door and, after hesitation, describes a porter’s chair of black oak in a hallway to the right, a stained glass window at the end of the hall.

  Ahead, at the foot of a staircase, a large mastiff is sleeping, says Lees.

  The police stare at him. Are they making utter fools of themselves?

  Nonetheless, they knock. A maid opens the door. Their gazes jump past her to the hallway on the right. There is the black oak chair, the stained glass window.

  “Where’s the dog?” the Chief Inspector asks bewilderedly.

  The maid is startled. She has just let the dog into the back garden. How did they know—?

  “Where was it before you did that?” the inspector interrupts her.

  “Why, sleeping at the foot of the stairs,” says the maid.

  That is enough evidence for the inspector. He demands to see the doctor.

  “What is this all about?” asks a woman’s voice.

  They turn to see the doctor’s wife coming down the stairs in her nightclothes.

  Seeing the police, something seems to break in her and, quickly, she is telling them about her husband. About his “mania” for inflicting pain. Normally a kindly man, she has found him torturing a cat and, on one occasion, he beat their small son so severely that she had to ask the servants to restrain him.