Fool on the Hill

by Matt Ruff

  Undaunted, the Rubbermaid stepped forward, raising the mace high for another shot. As the weapon reached the height of its arc, Jinsei looked directly into the blue glow of the mannequin’s eyes. In that instant she knew everything that had happened on the suspension bridge; she knew Preacher was dead, and how.

  Maybe it’ll bring you luck sometime.

  Fury empowered her. Even as the mace started down Jinsei sprang up, aiming a blow of her own. She swung not her left arm but her right, leading with the edge of her wrist, on which the silver-banded bracelet now burned with green fire. It struck the Rubbermaid full on the side of the head.

  With a crack like a rifle shot, the bracelet burst into a dozen pieces. The mannequin’s own swing went wide, striking the catwalk railing; the mace jolted free and spun away into the darkness. The Rubbermaid itself was hurled back, as if jerked by a cable, to smash jarringly into the bookstack behind it. In a shower of books it collapsed, falling in a heap. But the glow in its eyes did not go out.

  “Oh God,” Jinsei croaked. Fury washed out of her as quickly as it had entered, to be replaced by an unbearable sense of loss. She staggered against the railing, blinking back tears while the white sheet whispered seductively against the bookshelves. “Oh God, Prea—”

  The Rubbermaid straightened an arm. It sat up, scattering more books.

  Once again, Jinsei acted reflexively. Both her wrists now bare, she gripped the catwalk railing tightly and swung herself over the side. The Rubbermaid sprang forward to grab her but did not quite make it; plastic fingers half-snagged a pants cuff and then let it slip free.

  It was a long drop to the floor.

  XI.

  It was a long drop from the pinnacle of the Tower to the Library roof. The biplane, little more than a propellered pipe without its wings, dangled over the void at a paralyzingly steep angle. The closing hangar doors had caught the tail of the plane like a pincer, and right now were the only things keeping it from a fatal plummet.

  Puck, one arm thrust into a shoulder strap of his emergency parachute, was trying desperately to get Hobart’s attention.

  “The wind, Hobart!” he shouted, snowflakes whipping past his face. “You have to talk to the wind and get it to help us! I don’t know if my parachute can hold two!”

  Hobart had slumped forward in his seat, bleeding from a scratch across his scalp and a far more serious sword puncture in his shoulder. He seemed in shock, oblivious to his surroundings or his peril.

  “Hobart, please!” Puck screamed. “You’ve got to hear me! Hob—”

  Another voice, heard only in the mind: Ho-bart.

  Now Hobart stirred, raising his head sluggishly. “Wind . . .” he whispered, through dry lips.

  Above, the General of the Rats stood just within the hangar doors, staring down the length of the plane at them. Yellowed teeth formed something that might have been a grin.

  Ho-bart, the Rat General thought at them. Thresh ends you, Ho-bart.

  Deeper within the hangar, another Rat pulled a lever. The doors began to shunt open again; the nose of the biplane dipped like a descending pendulum. “The wind!” cried Puck, attempting to grab Hobart and finish putting on his parachute at the same time. “The wind!”

  Thresh ends you.

  The biplane dropped, tumbling end over end and dashing to pieces on the Library roof below. Yet what of the occupants? A sudden furious blast of wind drove Thresh back from the doors, hiding their fate from him; likewise the Messenger, soaring high, was all at once so buffeted that it lost concern with anything but its own flight.

  And as for the Grub, his attention was presently focused elsewhere.

  XII.

  In one sense Jinsei was extremely lucky: a long study table stretched directly beneath the catwalk and it would have been quite easy for her to land half on and half off it, breaking her back or worse. Instead she hit feet first on a strip of carpet little more than a yard wide. Her left leg took most of the shock; she felt her ankle scream in protest as she collapsed full out on the floor.

  She would have liked to just lie there and cry out her pain, but Jinsei understood on a most fundamental level that she had no time. There was movement on the catwalk above, and any second the thing, whatever it was, would be down after her. Too much to hope that it would hurt its ankle.

  What was it? She had no time for that question, either, no time to think how impossible this was, how this simply could not be happening. All her effort she concentrated on one thing, escape. She stood up, ignoring the complaint from her ankle as best she could, and half-hopped to the door.

  A fluttering behind her as she set her hand on the knob. Jinsei did not look back, but if she had she would have seen the Rubbermaid descending through the air in slow motion, white sheet trailing behind like the cape of some vampiric Zorro. Jinsei yanked the door open, stumbled through. The wind coming in through the window slammed it shut after her with a roar.

  Jinsei rushed down the stairs as quickly as her wounded ankle would allow, nearly falling headlong twice. She thought briefly of Mrs. Woolf and knew that the librarian was on her own; there was no way to warn her. As she staggered down the last steps to the main doors, she tried to recall the location of the nearest Blue Light Phone. She also wondered where she might go to hide.

  With a crash louder than the original window-breaking, the Rubbermaid plowed right through the White Library door, snapping the wooden frame, shivering the glass to bits. Once out, however, it did not race to catch up or engage in any more leaping; it descended the stairs with a self-assured ease, as if confident that Jinsei could not escape.

  Jinsei, confident of nothing but her own mortality, loped past the checkout desk. She was in luck; she had forgotten to relock the main doors after saying goodbye to Preacher.

  Preacher, oh Preacher I—

  She thrust the thought away, shoved through the doors, ankle throbbing now. Outside the wind seemed almost angry; it tore at her clothes, whipped her hair around. She did not bother locking the doors behind her, knowing her pursuer would not be deterred.

  No Blue Light was immediately visible. Jinsei lost her balance on the Library’s front steps, found it again, and limped toward the Arts Quad. On her right a sculpture rose up, The Song of the Vowels. Flash of a memory: a November night, cold but not as cold as this and without snow, she and Preacher sitting at the base of that sculpture, hugging for warmth. They had just come from a movie . . .

  Stop it!

  There: across the Quad between Goldwin-Smith and Lincoln Halls, looking terribly distant, the glow of a Blue Light. Moving as swiftly as possible, Jinsei set out on a diagonal for that cold spark of hope, not wanting to consider her chances. A hidden ice patch sent her sprawling before she had gotten ten feet.

  The wind had quieted enough that she could hear the crunch of leather boots on snow, the flutter of the white sheet . . . she scrambled back to her feet, shouting now, though she knew there was no one to hear: “HELP ME! SOMEBODY! SOMEBODY!"

  Her voice echoed back flat and dead from the Quad buildings. The statues of Ezra and Andrew stood mute. No help there.

  Jinsei stumbled forward a few more paces before falling again. Fresh pain shot her ankle; she feared this time she had broken it. She tried to push herself back up anyway, and plastic hands caressed her shoulder blades.

  Jinsei screamed, putting all her strength into it. She screamed as the hands like steel pincers gripped her upper arms, screamed as they turned her over, screamed as she looked up into the face of the Rubbermaid, eyes blue death, lips stretched into a grin.

  The scream choked off abruptly as the mannequin’s hands found her throat.

  XIII.

  The patrol car reeked of vomit. Both windows were rolled down despite the cold, but this was not enough for Sam Doubleday; he had lit a cigar, El Topo or something equally foul, to further kill the smell. As far as Nattie Hollister was concerned the smoke just made things worse, but she bore it in silence, steering south on Thurston Av
enue, passing Risley on the right.

  They had just come from a house party up on Triphammer Road, where a very drunken individual had gotten it into his head to climb a tree on the front lawn. After fifteen minutes of coaxing they’d managed to get him back down, at which point he’d thrown up a great glurt of alcohol and half-digested junk food on Doubleday’s trousers. Doubleday had wanted to arrest the drunk. Hell, he’d wanted to beat him senseless, even if that were a bit redundant. In the end Hollister’s cooler head had prevailed; they’d seen to it the fellow was put to bed and taken off in a hurry. Now another call had come in, a domestic dispute over on State Street. Bet they’re going to love us, Hollister thought, as the car cruised over the East Avenue Bridge.

  “What I don’t understand,” Doubleday was complaining, “is why they can’t find somebody else to take care of this.”

  “Busy night,” Hollister reminded him. Rand Hall drifted by on the right. “Half the town’s crocked.”

  “Screw in hell with that,” replied Doubleday. “I just want to change these damn—”

  (“ . . . help me . . .”) “—pants.”

  “Did you hear that?” Hollister said, suddenly alert.

  The second scream came a heartbeat later. Hollister braked and swung a hard right, driving down the sidewalk between Goldwin-Smith and Lincoln Halls; Doubleday’s hand dropped to the butt of his nightstick.

  “Eyes sharp,” said Hollister, as they passed the Blue Light Phone and entered the Quad, headlights cutting a swath across the snow. The scream had cut off, and they could not be sure where it had come from.

  “There!” Doubleday shouted, pointing. “Go left!”

  In the southwest corner of the Quad, two figures lay one atop the other, partially covered by some sort of white sheet. They might almost have been lovers, but Doubleday saw differently. Beating the crap out of a rapist, he thought as they drew near, would just about even out his night.

  The rapist seemed unperturbed by the patrol car’s approach. Ignoring the siren, the top figure bent lower, flexing arms that seemed unnaturally pale.

  “My God, is it a woman?” said Hollister.

  “Couldn’t be,” replied Doubleday. He was out of the car first, nightstick in hand, bellowing as he ran forward: “Hey! Hey, you son of a bitch!”

  The Rubbermaid looked up and froze Doubleday in his tracks.

  Sweet Jesus those eyes—

  Doubleday dropped his nightstick in the snow. He took out his service revolver. Grinning, the Rubbermaid released Jinsei—who drew a ragged, painful breath—and stood up.

  “Don’t you move!” Doubleday demanded shakily, leveling the gun. “Don’t you dare!”

  The Rubbermaid took a step; Doubleday emptied the revolver into it. The bullets punched six neat holes in the mannequin’s leather bodice, exiting out the back. Unaffected, the ‘Maid kept coming, catching Doubleday by the wrist and collar, hoisting him into the air like a bale of hay.

  “Jesus shit!” cried Doubleday, airborne. The Rubbermaid tossed him playfully back in the direction of the patrol car. He landed hard on the hood, his right arm connecting with the front windshield, breaking both. He rolled free, dropped onto the ground in a heap, and lay still.

  Nattie Hollister had not been idle. She stood at the rear of the car, struggling to get the trunk open. The key stuck in the lock, refusing to turn. Grin still firmly in place, the Rubbermaid came forward as if to help her, hands flexing.

  “Bastard!” Hollister swore. Thus rebuked, the key gave in and turned; the trunk lid sprang open. Hollister groped inside, flicking the safety off the shotgun as she drew it out. No need to worry, she thought. If this baby isn’t loaded, the city’ll pay for your funeral.

  She raised the gun. Aimed. Pulled the trigger.

  It was empty.

  The Rubbermaid plucked the weapon gingerly out of her grasp and threw it aside. Hollister tried to duck away but the mannequin had her by the neck. They danced, the white sheet whipping around them both.

  Then with a rocking thump Hollister found herself pinned up against the side of the patrol car, a single hand at her throat holding her motionless. With her own hands the lthacop beat at her assailant, but she might just as well have struck at a stone wall. The Rubbermaid drew back its free arm, making its intention plain by forking two fingers.

  Hollister, who had once had the misfortune to see a man blinded with the jagged neck of a beer bottle, first widened her eyes in alarm and then shut them tightly. She drove both fists into the mannequin’s midsection, succeeding only in badly bruising her knuckles. The Rubbermaid held her steady for the finger thrust; Hollister struggled to the last, wondering how it would feel.

  And at his Writing Desk Mr. Sunshine, who had done nothing but watch for the past fifty-seven minutes now shook his head, said “No, the fat cop maybe but not this one, too good a Character to lose just yet,” and Wrote,

  and Rasferret the Grub shuddered as a great weariness came upon him, his present limit reached, his magic exhausted by the night’s activities.

  The Rubbermaid’s eyes dimmed, its iron strength weakened.

  “Gah!” Hollister gasped, jerking to the side with a last effort. The Rubbermaid’s arm shot forward, punching a hole in the patrol car passenger window just inches to the right of Hollister’s head. And there the mannequin froze, all life going out of It, its eyes dull glass once more. The white sheet caught in the wind and flew away down the Quad.

  Her mind areel, Hollister withdrew fully from the Rubbermaid’s now rigid embrace, giving it a good stout kick with her boot. The ‘Maid fell over easily, the forked fingers trailing against the side of the car, making a sound like nails scratching at the side of a coffin, begging to be let out once more.

  Near silence followed, broken only by the moan of the wind and Hollister’s own shivering as she tried to cope with her shock. The New Year was thirteen minutes old; the killing hour was over.

  THE NEXT DAY

  I.

  The Ithaca Police had a pretty depressing New Year’s Day. Beyond the actual prevention of crime, what are the meat and bones of law enforcement if not the apprehension and conviction of a perpetrator? And how is any sane cop supposed to cope when everything is provided as easily as a gift—witnesses, physical evidence, the “perpetrator” safely in custody—yet still there can be no conviction, no closing of the case, because the facts add up to an impossible occurrence?

  Exhibit A was the Rubbermaid itself, shown by a preliminary lab examination to be nothing more or less than a life-size plastic doll, no regular store-window dummy but custom-made, yet lacking any internal or external mechanism that would allow it to move under its own power. Its eyes, glass beads embedded in the plastic of its face, might reflect light but could not glow on their own. Its legs and arms, though attached to the torso with ball swivels that allowed it to be posed somewhat, could not, again, move on their own, and in any case its fingers were rigid and unjointed—they could not grasp objects. Most certainly the Rubbermaid could not wield a weapon, much less commit murder.

  Other evidence—and there was a lot of it—said differently. Just for starters, no less than five witnesses, two of them patrol officers, had either seen or heard the Rubbermaid in action, doing just those things, like walking and wielding, that it couldn’t do, that were impossible for it to do.

  Then there was the physical evidence, a trail of hearty demolition that began with the shattered glass cases in the Tolkien House Mathom-Hole and ended with the battered patrol car and Doubleday’s broken arm. In between were a fair number of identifiable bootprints in snow and earth, as well as the extensive damage to the White Library. The north bay window had been knocked inward, leading to the logical question of exactly how the perpetrator had reached it from outside, as it was not readily accessible from the ground, at least not to your typical human vandal. Likewise, the destruction of the White Library door—in a single blow, apparently—would seem to have required superhuman ability. And though broken
glass lay everywhere, not a single drop of blood or skin scraping could be found, though there were a few shavings of plastic, a few shreds of white silk.

  The bruise-marks on Jinsei Chung’s neck, sustained during her near-strangling were of the proper size and shape to have come from the mannequin’s hands, if a mannequin were capable of attempted strangulation (which of course the Rubbermaid was not). And when, acting on the last babbled words of the Chung girl before she was put under sedation, police searched Fall Creek Gorge and dredged up the body of one Miles Elijah Walker, alias Preacher, they discovered several black hair strands clutched in the frozen hand of the corpse. Not human hair. Synthetic. Walker’s cause of death was determined, not surprisingly, to be injuries sustained during a fall from the suspension bridge, but someone had given him a fair working over before he plummeted. The coroner’s report would indicate that the instrument involved in these earlier injuries might well have been the iron-shod mace found lying on the floor of the White Library, wielded with considerable force.

  Oh, it was a headache of a day, all right. Hollister and Doubleday—he with his freshly-set arm in a sling—filed their reports on the incident, took care of a few other related matters, and then slipped away to a bar to see how much Scotch they could put down before passing out. Quite a lot, it so happened.

  The story that appeared in the papers was a patchwork meld of fact and fiction: an unknown assailant of considerable strength (the police press release did not specify, but most of the newspapers assumed the assailant to be male) had gone amuck on the almost deserted Cornell campus, murdering one person and hospitalizing another; the names of the victims had not yet been released. (One name that did make the news was that of Rhetta Woolf, the head librarian at Uris, who had by a lucky fortune been down in the lower stacks and out of harm’s way when the intruder came through; she claimed to be quite shocked by the whole thing.) Two city police officers had chanced upon the scene of the second assault. In an attempt to apprehend the attacker one of the officers was injured; the attacker escaped. End of story. There was no mention of the Rubbermaid, wrapped up neatly in a large baggie and stored in the basement of the station house along with the other evidence, evidence which indicated against all logic that there was nothing more to be done. Not unless the laws of the state were changed to allow a mannequin to stand trial.