by Gahan Wilson
Then, without another word, he turned and left.
I don't know how long I sat there cursing myself for not having done something before, such as keeping in touch with Rakas after that early morning visit, before it occurred to me that sitting and cursing was hardly likely to help. I told my secretary to plead with Rakas to come back up if he decided to phone in, and then I left the office.
I figured the best possibility was that he'd head for his apartment. It was east off the park in the sixties. I knew he seldom took a cab but always walked if he had less than fifteen blocks to go. It was a good bet that he was walking now.
He might go up Fifth, and then he might cut over; there was no way of telling. I decided that a man in his state of mind would probably take the simplest route, the one that needed the least attention, so I crossed my fingers and bet on Fifth. I hurried along and when I drew abreast of the fountain in front of the Plaza, I saw him. He was heading into the park.
My first impulse was to dash right up to him, but then I realized I'd probably just dither, so I slowed to match his pace and tried to get myself calmed down. He needed a doctor, he needed help, and it was going to take some fancy persuading. I followed him and mulled over possible gambits.
When he got to the zoo he began to walk idly from cage to cage, looking at the animals. I stopped by a balloon-and-banner man and bought a box of Crackerjack. It helped me blend in, and I figured the taste of the homely stuff might bring me a little closer to earth. Rakas had stopped by a lion cage and, with slow turns of his head, was watching the beast walk back and forth.
I was standing there munching my Crackerjack, creating and rejecting openers, when I caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see, or almost see, someone dart back under an archway. I stared hard at the empty place. The someone had been very squat and broad. His suit had been a kind of snake green.
I looked back to check on Rakas. He was still standing in front of the lion's cage. I backed, crabwise, to the arch, keeping one eye on it and the other on Rakas. When I reached the arch I darted through it and looked quickly to the left and right, and I got another glimpse of the squat figure.
He'd slipped around the corner of the monkey house. He'd done it so quickly I wouldn't have seen him if I hadn't been looking for him. I remembered a film strip I'd seen demonstrating the insertion of subliminal images. Just one frame, maybe two, edited in so that you weren't sure if it was something you'd really seen up there on the screen or a passing thought in your own mind.
Green clothes, ape-like, and quick as a lizard.
Mork.
The Mandarin always sent Mork on before.
Then a kid's balloon burst and he gave out a squawk of fright and I found myself standing in Central Park Zoo with a box of Crackerjack in my hand.
I went back through the arch and saw that Rakas was no longer standing in front of the lion's cage. I looked in all directions, but he was nowhere to be seen. I wondered what Evan Trowbridge would have done in a situation like this, and then I shook my head and tossed the fool Crackerjack into a Keep Our City Clean basket. Aladar Rakas had gone mad; it was important to remember that. He had gotten lost in his own lunatic fantasy.
I left the zoo and hurried along the path leading uptown. It was logical to assume he had gone that way. In spite of myself, I found I kept looking from side to side to see if I could spot Mork. Of course there were only young lovers walking, women pushing baby carriages, and old men lost in their smoking.
Then, as I stopped to catch my breath on the hill overlooking the pond where children sail their toy boats, I saw Rakas sitting on a bench. He had the manuscript open, resting on his case, and he was writing with furious speed.
I walked up to him carefully. He was absorbed in his work, and it was only when my shadow fell across the pages that he looked up and saw me.
"Charles! What are you doing here?"
"I was worried, Aladar."
"Oh?" He smiled. "That was very thoughtful of you. I am really quite touched."
He looked down at the manuscript:
"I am sorry to have left your office so rudely, Charles. But you know," he looked up at me suddenly, "just as I was leaving, I got an inspiration. A real inspiration. Sit down, please."
I did as he asked. I could see that he had several pages of close scribblings before him. He must have been writing at an incredible speed.
"I think I have figured out a way to get him, Charles. I really believe I know how to get the necessary leverage."
He smiled at me benignly.
"How do you propose to do it, Aladar?"
"Drag him out ahead of schedule. Manifest him before he is strong!"
I only looked at him blankly, but he was far too excited to notice.
"The Mandarin has been trying to get out, you see, attempting to push his way into life. He has been, you might say, pursuing me into existence. Well, I am going to fool him. I am going to turn and face him and pull him, willy-nilly, into reality. That should put him off his balance!"
He grinned and waved at the scene about us.
"I am going to write him into this actual location, Charles. And on my own terms!"
He rubbed his left hand over his stiff, pale right hand and cackled to himself.
"I began writing it, not on paper, but writing it nevertheless, while at the zoo, watching a lion prowl in his cage. I decided I would begin with Mork. I would not break the tradition of the stories. I had Mork pick up my trail there. I had him follow me," he pointed, "along that path."
I looked back at the path. It was, oddly enough, empty. Only dry leaves blew along it.
"Do you see that boulder?"
I did. It stuck out of the ground like the nose of a huge, gray whale.
"At this moment Mork is hiding behind it."
He tapped the manuscript.
"I have written it here. I have put it down in black and white. He cannot get away. He is trapped. He knows I know. It's all here."
He tapped the manuscript again.
"And now I am going to go over there and kill him, Charles."
He put the manuscript and the case on the bench beside him and then he stood. I opened my mouth, trying to think of something or other to say, but it all got stuck in my throat when I saw Rakas reach into his coat and calmly pull out the biggest revolver I had ever seen in my life. I hadn't known they made them that big. It was terrifying and, at the same time, ludicrous.
"I have been afraid for a long time now, Charles," he said. "Now wait here. I will be right back."
I sat and watched him walk over to the leaning rock. His black coat fluttered about him and the leaves swirled where he walked. He reached the rock, held the revolver straight before him, and walked out of sight.
I waited for the sound of the shot, but it never came. Eventually I stood and followed him. My legs felt rubbery. When I got to the rock I had to lean on it for support. I felt my way around the rock to its other side and saw him lying on the ground, partially covered with a drift of dirty city leaves. He looked up at me.
"How stupid," he said. "I couldn't bring myself to kill him."
Then he closed his eyes. I bent down, close to him. A thick, dark rivulet of blood ran from one of his ears. I brushed through the leaves until I found the revolver, and then I lifted it with both hands. I stood and walked around the rock and looked back toward the bench.
The Mandarin stood there, weirdly tall and thin, like the statue of a mourning angel in a graveyard. He held the manuscript clutched to his breast. Leaves scudded and broke at his feet. I began walking toward him.
"Not yet, you don't," I said.
I came closer.
"The manuscript isn't finished," I said, "not even if the author's dead."
I was closer. His eyes caught the gray autumn light and glinted.
"I'm the editor," I said. "It's my job, it's my right, to see that the book is properly finished. That's the way it's done."
A leaf blew through the figure's head. I was very close. I could see the long nails on his fingers.
I dropped the gun and held out my hands.
"That's the way it's done," I said.
And then I held the manuscript.
I turned away. Some playing children had discovered Rakas and they were shouting excitedly. I put the book into the case and took it away.
Now this, what I have written, is part of the book. I have added it to Rakas' terminal scribblings and now I am going to finish the book.
I have selected this place carefully. It is miles from any other habitation. Its destruction will not endanger any bystander.
I have soaked the walls and floors with gasoline. I have piled rags around my desk and the chair facing my desk and they are also saturated with it. Everything in this room is wet except for the folder of matches which lies beside me within easy reach. The matches are dry and ready.
Aladar Rakas discovered the Mandarin, but he couldn't quite believe in him. Even at the end he was unable to convince himself that such evil could really exist. He was too civilized a man. Too kindly and too generous.
But I am different. I have seen Rakas in the leaves and I, like Evan Trowbridge, believe in evil.
And I, like Evan Trowbridge and unlike Aladar Rakas, believe in and respect the power of the Mandarin. The devil may know what vile knowledge coils in that huge and unnaturally ancient brain, but I have only the faintest of glimmerings. I know only enough to realize that there is no question of my outwitting the monster.
I will attempt no subtleties. I will use the power I have as author to bring him here, and then I shall destroy everything, the entire hideous fabric of the pattern which made this situation possible. The book, the author, and the creature spawned— all shall be burned cleanly away.
Now I am going to finish the book.
He is outside the door, now. He does not want to be but he must because I am writing it.
Now he has put his hand on the latch. Now he is opening the door. Now he stands there, in the twilight, looking at me with hatred in his eyes. That hatred takes a hater like myself to meet it.
He is here. Really and truly here. Not a near phantom, like the last time, but a solid, breathing being.
He is moving forward carefully, stepping high to avoid the soaked rags, but gasoline stains the hem of his gray, silken robe all the same.
Now he sits and glares at me.
He cannot move. He cannot budge, try as he may.
His eyes glow. They shimmer like fire seen through honey.
He cannot move.
Now I have lit a match and set the pack aflame.
He cannot
I hope I shall never forget the extraordinary expression of astonishment on Charles Pearl's face when he realized he had committed suicide to no purpose.
He remained conscious for a remarkable period of time, considering the damage the fire was doing him, staring at me with utter disbelief as I gathered up the manuscript, including this last page torn from his typewriter.
The idiot had discovered Evan Trowbridge's strength, which was implacable hatred, but he had shared, and therefore missed altogether, his weakness, which was a lack of sufficient imagination.
Trowbridge always failed to bring me down altogether because he never quite managed to foresee the final trick of my science, the last fantastic ingenuity, the climactic trapdoor.
It would never have occurred to him, for instance, that I can live invulnerable in a pool of fire.
And so I, the hero of the series all along, have the opportunity to bring this final volume to, it pleases me to say, a happy ending.