Horror Hunters

by Roger Elwood

  I had. “Good man,” I said.

  “The best.” He paused. “Well, I mustn’t keep you—”

  “You’re all right?” My voice was insistent.

  “Sure. I’m fine. I sailed for the works. Some of the things the guy told me make sense. I guess I’m more tangled up than I thought—oh, not just what I told you about, but there are other angles. Anyway, I’m going in to him twice a week for I don’t know how long. And it’s not as phoney as I thought it might be, either. None of this couch business. He really gets results.” Another pause. “I mean, I’ve been there just twice, and she’s gone.”

  “The shadow, you mean?”

  “The guilt-fantasy.” He chuckled again. “See, Pm picking up the lingo already. Time you come back, FU be ready to hang out my shingle. Well, lots of luck, kid. And keep in touch.”

  “Will do,” I said. And hung up, listening to them announce my flight. And took the flight, and made my transfer in Frisco, and went to Manila, and went from there to Singapore, and from there to hell.

  It was hot as hell in hell, and although I managed to get enough dispatches back to satisfy my M.E., I had no opportunity to keep in touch.

  You know what happened in Indo-China, and when they opened a branch hell in Formosa, my M.E. sent me over there, and when hell got too hot for even a roving correspondent I was based in Manila and then Japan. I’m not trying to make a production out of it; just explaining why it turned out that I was gone for eight months instead of eight weeks.

  When I got back they gave me a leave, and some information. Not much, but just enough to send me scurrying around to Joe Elliot’s apartment the first opportunity I got I didn’t waste any time on hello-how-are-you. “What’s this I hear about you leaving the paper?” I began.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t leave. I got canned.”

  “Why?”

  “Hitting the sauce.”

  He looked it, too. The sports-jacket was back and it was dirty. He wasn’t bothering to shave once a day, either, let alone twice. He was thin, and twitchy.

  “Let’s have it,” I said. “What happened to you?” “Nothing.”

  “Quit stalling. What does Partridge say?”

  He gave me a grin, and to say it was twisted doesn’t even begin to describe it. They could have made a cast and used it to cut pretzels with.

  “Partridge,” he echoed. “Sit down. Have a drink.”

  “All right, but keep talking. 1 asked you a question. What does Partridge say?”

  He poured for me. I was a guest; I got a glass. He gulped out of the bottle. Then he put it down. “Partridge doesn’t say anything any more,” he told me. “Partridge is dead.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Month or so back.”

  “Why didn’t you go to another hea—psychiatrist?” “What? And have him jump out of the window, too?” “What’s all this about jumping out of a window?”

  He picked up the bottle. “That’s what I’d like to know.” Gulp. “Personally, I’m not even sure he jumped. Maybe he was pushed.”

  “Are you trying to tell me—?”

  “No. I’m not trying to tell you anything. Any more than I’d try to tell Doc Foster or the boys down at the office. You can’t tell anyone a story like that. Just got to keep it to yourself. Yourself and the little old bottle.” Gulp.

  “But you said—I mean, you sounded as if everything was going so well.”

  “That’s right. And it went fine. Up to a point.”

  “What point?”

  “The point where I found out why she wasn’t coming back any more.” He stared out of the window, and then he went a million miles away and only his voice remained. I could hear what he said, plainly enough. Too plainly.

  “She wasn’t coming back to me because she was going to him. Night after night after night. Not with her arms out—not the way she’d come to me, in love. She went to him out of hate. Because she knew he was trying to drive her away. Don’t you see, when he worked on me it was like—like exorcism. You know what exorcism is, don’t you? Casting out demons. Ghosts. A succubus.”

  “Joe, you’ve got to stop this. Get hold of yourself.”

  He laughed. “All I can get hold of is this.” And reached for the bottle, as he spoke. “You’re asking me to stop this? But I didn’t start it. I didn’t make it up. Partridge told me himself. Finally he broke down and he had to tell me. Do you get the picture now?—he came to me for help. And I couldn’t help him. I was getting well, there’s a laugh for you, I was getting over my delusions. I talked to him the way you’re trying to talk to me, real Dutch uncle stuff.

  “And I went out of his office, and the next morning I read where he jumped. Only he didn’t jump—she must have pushed him—he was afraid of her, she kept getting stronger and stronger, just as I thought she would. They found him spattered all over the sidewalk—”

  This time I reached for the bottle. “So you quit your job and started drinking, just because a psychiatrist cracked up and committed suicide,” I said. “Because one poor overworked guy went to pieces, you had to do likewise. I thought you were smarter than that, Joe.”

  “So did I.” He took the bottle away from me. “You heard what I told you. I thought I was completely well. Even when he died, I still wasn’t sure about some things. Until that night, when she came back.”

  I watched him drink and waited.

  “Sure. She came back. And she’s been coming back,

  every night, since then. I can’t fight it off, I can’t fight her off, she keeps clinging and clinging to me. But why try to explain? You don’t believe me anyway. I saw the look on your face when I mentioned the part about a succubus.” “Please,” I said. “I want to hear the rest. I’ve read about those things, you know. A succubus takes the form of a woman and comes to men at night—”

  He was nodding and then he cut in. “So that explains it, don’t you see? What she was whispering to me. I guess I didn’t tell you, but she talks now. She talks to me, she tells me things. She says she’s glad, and it won’t be long now, then she’ll have everything she wanted—”

  His voice trailed off, and I stood up just in time to catch him as he slumped. He was out cold; his body was limp and light in my arms. Too light. He must have lost a lot of weight. I guess Joe Elliot had lost a lot of things.

  I suppose I could have tried to bring him around, but I didn’t make the effort. It seemed kinder just to carry him over to the bed, take off his things and let him rest. I found pajamas in one of the bureau drawers, got them on him—it was like dressing a rag doll instead of a man—and covered him up. Then I left him. He’d sleep now, sleep without shadows.

  And while he slept, I’d figure out something. There had to be an answer. Because Donna was my sister and I’d loved her, and because Joe Elliot was my friend, there had to be an answer.

  If Partridge were only alive. If I could just talk to him and find out what he’d really learned about this delusion! He must have learned something, in eight months. Even if Elliot deliberately tried to hold back, in eight months a man like Partridge would learn—

  The thought hit me then; a stinging blow. I tried to duck. But it hit harder and this time there was a numbing reaction.

  “No,” I told myself. “No.”

  I kept telling myself no, but I was telling the cab-driver to take me down to the office again. I told myself no, but I told the M.E. I wanted all the stuff in the house on Partridge’s suicide.

  Then I was reading it, and then I was over at the Coroner’s office, checking the report of the inquest.

  I didn’t ask any fancy questions, and I didn’t do any fancy detective work. That’s out of my line. I won’t pretend to have done anything more except to jump at a wild conclusion. That’s all the records showed—Partridge had jumped to a wild conclusion.

  But knowing what I did, I was more inclined to agree with Joe Elliot. Partridge hadn’t j
umped to a wild conclusion.

  There wasn’t a single solitary thing I could hang onto as tangible evidence; nothing to build a case around. But I checked and rechecked, and I fitted the pieces together and then everything shattered apart when I recognized the picture.

  I left the Coroner’s office and went over to Smitty’s Tap and drank a very late supper, not talking to anyone. I didn’t know who to talk to now—surely not the Coroner, or the D.A., or the cops. They couldn’t help, because I had no evidence. Besides, I owed Joe Elliot a chance.

  There was still the shadow of a doubt. A shadow named Donna, who’d come back. Maybe she’d be coming back tonight, but I wasn’t going to wait.

  After a while it was quite late, but I was on my way, back to Elliot’s apartment. Chances were that he was still sleeping, and I hoped so in a way. Then again, I knew I had to see him now.

  I went up the stairs slowly, one voice saying let him sleep and the other voice saying knock, and two of them fighting together, let him sleep—knock—let him sleep —knock—

  It turned out that neither voice won, because when I got to the door, Joe Elliot opened it and looked out.

  He was awake all right, and maybe he’d been back to the bottle again and maybe he hadn’t: he looked as if he’d swallowed strychnine. And his voice was the voice of a man with a burned throat.

  “Come in,” he said. “I was just going out.”

  “In your pajamas?”

  “I had an errand—”

  “It can wait,” I told him.

  “Yes, it can wait.” He led me inside, closed the door. “Sit down,” he murmured. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  I sat down, but I kept a grip on the arms of the chair, ready to move in a hurry if necessary. And I waited very carefully until he sat down, too, before I spoke.

  “Maybe you won’t be so glad when I speak my piece,” I said.

  “Go ahead. It doesn’t matter what you say now.”

  “Yes it does, Joe. I want you to listen carefully. This is important.”

  “Nothing’s important.”

  “We’ll see. After I left you this afternoon, I did a little investigating. I went to the Coroner’s office, among other things. And I agree with you now. Partridge was pushed out of the window.”

  For the first time his face showed interest. “Then I was right, wasn’t I?” he began. “She did push him, you found some evidence—”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t find any evidence. Not any new evidence. I just began to check the facts and see if they fitted in with a theory of my own. They did.” I spoke very slowly, very deliberately. “I checked on one particular phase of the report, Joe. The account you gave of your own movements after leaving Partridge’s office the day he jumped. The whole story about not taking the elevator down because it was crowded and you were in a hurry to get to the office. And the part about not going to the office after all because you remembered you’d forgotten your hat and went back upstairs to get it. And how you came in just as they were looking out the window where Partridge had jumped.

  “I read it all, Joe. I read your account of the last meeting with Partridge, how upset he seemed. Only I was a special reader.”

  He was more than interested now; he was alert.

  “They tried pretty hard to break down your story, didn’t they, Joe? Only they couldn’t, because there was no evidence to the contrary, and what you said made sense. About how Partridge was fidgeting and nervous and kept looking out the window. About how jumpy he’d been the past few weeks. Good word, that jumpy. Good enough for the Coroner’s Jury, anyway. But not good enough for me.

  “Because you didn’t mention anything about the shadow in your story to the Jury. You told something entirely different.”

  He hit the arm of his chair hard. “Of course I did, man! I couldn’t tell them what I told you, they’d think I was crazy.”

  “But you were crazy, Joe. Crazy enough so that your story to me makes sense. Partridge didn’t jump, he was pushed—and you pushed him.”

  Joe Elliot made a noise in his chest. Something came out of his mouth that sounded like, “Why?”

  “I wish I knew the answer to that. The real answer. All I can do is guess. And my guess is that there wasn’t anything to this story of yours about Partridge being afraid of a shadow. My guess is that you were the one who was afraid—because in session after session, Partridge kept getting nearer and nearer to something you didn’t want him to find. Something you tried to hide, but couldn’t. Something he, as a trained analyst, found anyway. Or was on the very verge of finding. When you realized that, you panicked—and destroyed him.”

  “Rave on,” he said.

  “All right, I will. Joe, you’re not crazy. You never were. I think this is all an act You wouldn’t murder a man except for a very important reason. Whatever Partridge found out, or was about to find out, was something vitally necessary for you to conceal.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as the fact that you killed my sister.”

  The words hit the wall and bounced. The words hit his face and twisted it up into the gargoyle grin, the spasmodic twitch.

  “All right. So you know.”

  “Then it’s true,” I said.

  “Of course it’s true. But what you don’t know is why. You wouldn’t know, and you’re her own brother. How could I expect anyone else to understand if you never saw it? What Donna was really like, I mean. The way she tried to fasten her claws into me, pulling me down, trying to possess me, never letting go for an instant. Sure I loved her, she knew how to make a man love her, she had a thousand tricks to drive you mad with wanting her, holding out her arms was just the beginning. But that wasn’t enough, to possess me that way. She had to have everything, she wanted every minute, every movement, every thought. She was making me over and trying to turn me into all the things I always hated. I could see it, I knew what lay ahead, a life of slavery to her house and her kids and her future.”

  He stopped because he had to, and I said, “Why didn’t you get out, then? Break the engagement?”

  “I tried. Don’t you think I tried? But she wouldn’t let go. Not her, not Donna. Even then she was a succubus. She had her claws in me and she wanted to drain me. I can’t help it; there was something about her, and when she came into my arms I couldn’t break free because then I didn’t want to any more.

  “But when I was alone again, I wanted to. You never heard about this part, but just before your party, I tried to sneak out of town. She caught me. There was a scene—or there would have been, except that Donna never made scenes. She made love. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “And after that I was sick. Not physically sick, but worse than that. Because I knew it would always be this way; me trying to get free and she clawing me back. There’d always be a succubus. Unless I got rid of her.” Another pause, another breath, and then he rushed on. “It wasn’t difficult. I knew the spot on the road where the rail hung over the edge of the ravine. I had a wrench in the car. You remember we left late, and the road was deserted. When we got to the ravine I suggested we park and look at the moon. Donna liked that kind of suggestion. So then I—I hit her. And sent the car over. And went down myself, and finished cracking the windshield and gave myself a gash in the forehead and crawled into the car. I didn’t have to do much pretending about the shock. Only it was a shock of relief, because I knew now she was really dead.”

  I put my hands in my lap. “And that’s what Partridge was on the verge of finding out, isn’t it?” I asked. “All this business about the shadow was just what he told you it was—a guilt-fantasy. You felt compelled to spring it on me first because of the guilt-feeling, and you didn’t want to tell Partridge anything about the possible cause of the delusion. Only he kept probing until he was too close for safety. Your safety, and his. So you killed again.”

  “No.”

  “Why bother to deny it? You’ve already confessed to one murder, so—” />
  “Killing Donna wasn’t murder,” he said. “It was self-defense. And that’s the end of it. I didn’t kill Partridge, no matter what you think. She did.

  “I told you how she went to him night after night, torturing him, breaking him down, trying to get him to the point where he was ready to jump.

  “And when he told me, that day in his office, I couldn’t stand it. So I got ready to explain, I was going to tell him the truth about the shadow and what I’d done.

  “I remember he was bending over me, asking me about the accident, and then he straightened up and looked surprised and I saw that she was there. A shadow, but not a shadow on the wall. A shadow in the room, right behind us, tugging at his arm. And he tried to scream but there was this blackness over his mouth, her hand, and she was pulling him over to the window, and his feet made little scuffing noises sliding along the carpet, and he tried to grab the window-frame but the shadow is strong and the shadow laughed so you could hear it above the scream when he went down and down and down—”

  He snapped out of it suddenly. “Too bad you weren’t here earlier tonight. You’d have believed me then, because you would have seen her. She came a while before you arrived and woke me. Said she wanted me to go out there, because there was a surprise. Something to show me. At first I didn’t know what she was hinting at, but I know now. You see, I counted back, but you’d only laugh-I could take you along to look, too, but you’d laugh and—”

  “I’m not laughing, Joe,” I said.

  “Well, you’d better not. She wouldn’t like that She wouldn’t like to have anyone get in her way. And she’s so strong now, stronger than anyone. She’s already proved that. I’m going to do what she says. Now that she has a real claim on me, nothing can stop her.”

  I stood up. “But she can be stopped. There’s a way, you know.”

  “You mean you believe in exorcism now?”

  “Joe,” I said, “you’re partially exorcised already. By confessing to me you’ve rid yourself of a portion of her power. You might have banished her forever if you’d succeeded in telling Partridge the truth, because he represented authority to you. That’s the answer, Joe. You’ve got to tell this to an authority. Then there won’t be any more guilt-feelings or guilt-fantasy, either. You’ll remember what actually happened to Partridge, and once they understand the situation you can put in a plea. I’ll help you all I can. There’s a pretty smart lawyer downtown who—”