The Best of Robert Bloch

by Robert Bloch

  And Lillian was a lot of fun. When she told him she'd marry him, Martin was almost sure that the time was now. Except that she was sort of—well, she was a nice girl, and she said they'd have to wait until they were married. Of course, Martin couldn't expect to marry her until he had a little more money saved up, and another raise would help too.

  That took a year. Martin was patient, because he knew it was going to be worth it. Every time he had any doubts, he took out his watch and looked at it. But he never showed it to Lillian, or anybody else. Most of the other men wore expensive wristwatches and the old silver railroad watch looked just a little cheap.

  Martin smiled as he gazed at the stem. Just a few twists and he'd have something none of these other poor working slobs would ever have. Permanent satisfaction, with his blushing bride—

  Only getting married turned out to be just the beginning. Sure, it was wonderful, but Lillian told him how much better things would be if they could move into a new place and fix it up. Martin wanted decent furniture, a TV set, a nice car.

  So he started taking night courses and got a promotion to the front office. With the baby coming, he wanted to stick around and see his son arrive. And when it came, he realized he'd have to wait until it got a little older, started to walk and talk and develop a personality of its own.

  About this time the company sent him out on the road as a trouble-shooter on some of those other jobs, and now he was eating at those good hotels, living high on the hog and the expense account. More than once he was tempted to unwind his watch. This was the good life . . . Of course, it would be even better if he just didn't have to work. Sooner or later, if he could cut in on one of the company deals, he could make a pile and retire. Then everything would be ideal.

  It happened, but it took time. Martin's son was going to high school before he really got up there into the chips. Martin got a strong hunch that it was now or never, because he wasn't exactly a kid anymore.

  But right about then he met Sherry Westcott, and she didn't seem to think he was middle-aged at all, in spite of the way he was losing hair and adding stomach. She taught him that a toupee could cover the bald spot and a cummerbund could cover the pot gut. In fact, she taught him quite a lot and he so enjoyed learning that he actually took out his watch and prepared to unwind it.

  Unfortunately, he chose the very moment that the private detectives broke down the door of the hotel room, and then there was a long stretch of time when Martin was so busy fighting the divorce action that he couldn't honestly say he was enjoying any given moment.

  When he made the final settlement with Lil he was broke again, and Sherry didn't seem to think he was so young, after all. So he squared his shoulders and went back to work.

  He made his pile eventually, but it took longer this time, and there wasn't much chance to have fun along the way. The fancy dames in the fancy cocktail lounges didn't seem to interest him anymore, and neither did the liquor. Besides, the Doc had warned him off that.

  But there were other pleasures for a rich man to investigate. Travel, for instance—and not riding the rods from one hick burg to another, either. Martin went around the world by plane and luxury liner. For a while it seemed as though he would find his moment after all, visiting the Taj Mahal by moonlight. Martin pulled out the battered old watch case, and got ready to unwind it. Nobody else was there to watch him—

  And that's why he hesitated. Sure, this was an enjoyable moment, but he was alone. Lil and the kid were gone, Sherry was gone, and somehow he'd never had time to make any friends. Maybe if he found new congenial people, he'd have the ultimate happiness. That must be the answer—it wasn't just money or power or sex or seeing beautiful things. The real satisfaction lay in friendship.

  So on the boat trip home, Martin tried to strike up a few acquaintances at the ship's bar. But all these people were much younger, and Martin had nothing in common with them. Also they wanted to dance and drink, and Martin wasn't in condition to appreciate such pastimes. Nevertheless, he tried.

  Perhaps that's why he had the little accident the day before they docked in San Francisco. 'Little accident' was the ship's doctor's way of describing it, but Martin noticed he looked very grave when he told him to stay in bed, and he'd called an ambulance to meet the liner at the dock and take the patient right to the hospital.

  At the hospital, all the expensive treatment and the expensive smile and the expensive words didn't fool Martin any. He was an old man with a bad heart, and they thought he was going to die.

  But he could fool them. He still had the watch. He found it in his coat when he put on his clothes and sneaked out of the hospital.

  He didn't have to die. He could cheat death with a single gesture—and he intended to do it as a free man, out there under a free sky.

  That was the real secret of happiness. He understood it now. Not even friendship meant as much as freedom. This was the best thing of all—to be free of friends or family or the furies of the flesh.

  Martin walked slowly beside the embankment under the night sky. Come to think of it, he was just about back where he'd started, so many years ago. But the moment was good, good enough to prolong forever. Once a bum, always a bum.

  He smiled as he thought about it, and then the smile twisted sharply and suddenly, like the pain twisting sharply and suddenly in his chest. The world began to spin, and he fell down on the side of the embankment.

  He couldn't see very well, but he was still conscious, and he knew what had happened. Another stroke, and a bad one. Maybe this was it. Except that he wouldn't be a fool any longer. He wouldn't wait to see what was still around the corner.

  Right now was his chance to use his power and save his life. And he was going to do it. He could still move; nothing could stop him.

  He groped in his pocket and pulled out the old silver watch, fumbling with the stem. A few twists and he'd cheat death, he'd never have to ride that Hell-Bound Train. He could go on forever.

  Forever.

  Martin had never really considered the word before. To go on forever—but now? Did he want to go on forever, like this; a sick old man, lying helplessly here in the grass?

  No. He couldn't do it. He wouldn't do it. And suddenly he wanted very much to cry, because he knew that somewhere along the line he'd outsmarted himself. And now it was too late. His eyes dimmed, there was a roaring in his ears . . .

  He recognized the roaring, of course, and he wasn't at all surprised to see the train come rushing out of the fog up there on the embankment. He wasn't surprised when it stopped, either, or when the Conductor climbed off and walked slowly toward him.

  The Conductor hadn't changed a bit. Even his grin was still the same.

  "Hello, Martin," he said. "All aboard."

  "I know," Martin whispered. "But you'll have to carry me. I can't walk. I'm not even really talking any more, am I?"

  "Yes, you are," the Conductor said. "I can hear you fine. And you can walk, too." He leaned down and placed his hand on Martin's chest. There was a moment of icy numbness, and then, sure enough, Martin could walk after all.

  He got up and followed the Conductor along the slope, moving to the side of the train.

  "In here?" he asked.

  "No, the next car," the Conductor murmured. "I guess you're entitled to ride Pullman. After all, you're quite a successful man. You've tasted the joys of wealth and position and prestige. You've known the pleasures of marriage and fatherhood. You've sampled the delights of dining and drinking and debauchery, too, and you traveled high, wide and handsome. So let's not have any last-minute recriminations."

  "All right," Martin sighed. "I can't blame you for my mistakes. On the other hand, you can't take credit for what happened, either. I worked for everything I got. I did it all on my own. I didn't even need your watch."

  "So you didn't," the Conductor said, smiling. "But would you mind giving it back now?"

  "Need it for the next sucker, eh?" Martin muttered.

  "Perhaps."<
br />
  Something about the way he said it made Martin look up. He tried to see the Conductor's eyes, but the brim of his cap cast a shadow. So Martin looked down at the watch instead.

  "Tell me something," he said softly. "If I give you the watch, what will you do with it?"

  "Why, throw it in the ditch," the Conductor told him. "That's all I'll do with it." And he held out his hand.

  "What if somebody comes along and finds it? And twists the stem backward, and stops time?"

  "Nobody would do that," the Conductor murmured. "Even if they knew."

  "You mean it was all a trick? This is an ordinary, cheap watch?"

  "I didn't say that," whispered the Conductor. "I only said that no one has ever twisted the stem backward. They've all been like you, Martin—looking ahead to find the perfect happiness. Waiting for the moment that never comes."

  The Conductor held out his hand again.

  Martin sighed and shook his head. "You cheated me after all."

  "You cheated yourself, Martin. And now you're going to ride that Hell-Bound Train."

  He pushed Martin up the steps and into the car ahead. As he entered, the train began to move, and the whistle screamed. And Martin stood there in the swaying Pullman, gazing down the aisle at the other passengers. He could see them sitting there, and somehow it didn't seem strange at all.

  Here they were; the drunks and the sinners, the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt-chasers, and all the jolly crew. They knew where they were going, of course, but they didn't seem to give a damn. The blinds were drawn on the windows, yet it was light inside, and they were all living it up—singing and passing the bottle and roaring with laughter, throwing the dice and telling their jokes and bragging their big brags, just the way Daddy used to sing about them in the old song.

  "Mighty nice traveling companions," Martin said. "Why, I've never seen such a pleasant bunch of people. I mean, they seem to be really enjoying themselves!"

  The Conductor shrugged. "I'm afraid things won't be quite so jazzy when we pull into that Depot Way Down Yonder."

  For the third time, he held out his hand. "Now, before you sit down, if you'll just give me that watch. A bargain's a bargain—"

  Martin smiled. "A bargain's a bargain," he echoed. "I agreed to ride your train if I could stop time when I found the right moment of happiness. And I think I'm about as happy right here as I've ever been."

  Very slowly, Martin took hold of the silver watch stem.

  "No!" gasped the Conductor. "No!"

  But the watch stem turned.

  "Do you realize what you've done?" the Conductor yelled. "Now we'll never reach the Depot! We'll just go on riding, all of us—forever!"

  Martin grinned. "I know," he said. "But the fun is in the trip, not the destination. You taught me that. And I'm looking forward to a wonderful trip. Look, maybe I can even help. If you were to find me another one of those caps, now, and let me keep this watch—"

  And that's the way it finally worked out. Wearing his cap and carrying his battered old silver watch, there's no happier person on or out of this world now and forever—than Martin. Martin, the new brakeman on that Hell-Bound Train.

  The Funnel of God

  WHEN HARVEY WOLF was seven, he met the Black Skelm.

  Now "skelm" means rascal, and at his age, Harvey knew nothing of duplicity and the ways of men, so he was not afraid. Nor did the man's skin repel him, for Harvey was ignorant of apartheid.

  The Basutos on his father's place called him baas, but he did not feel that he was their master. Even Jong Kurt, his father's foreman, treated the men of color without contempt. Harvey came to know the Bechuanas, the Kaffirs, the Fingos and the Swazis far better than the Roinecks, which was their name for Englishmen.

  Harvey knew his own father was a Roineck, who owned this place, but that was virtually the extent of his knowledge. His father never visited him; he spent all his time at the Cape, and had ever since Harvey's mother died when he was born. Harvey had been left in care of Jong Kurt and of his wife, whom Harvey learned to call Mama.

  "Poor little one," Mama said. "But you are free and happy with us, so gued geroeg."

  And Harvey was happy. Mama made him veldschoen of rawhide, and he roamed at will over the karroo beyond the drift where the fontein gushed. As he grew older, he sought the krantz above the valley where he made his home, and soon he was climbing the great berg which towered over all.

  Here he found the wild orchids of the upland plateaus, plucked as he wriggled his way through the mimosa, the thornbush and the hartekoal trees where the aasvogel perched and preened and peered for prey.

  Harvey came to know the beasts of the mountain and the plain—the aard-wolf and the inyala, the oribi and the duiker, the springbok and the kudu. He watched the tall secretary-bird and the waddling kori bustard, and traced the flight of bats from out of the hidden caves on the berg above. From time to time he encountered snakes; the cobra di capello, the puff adder, and the dreaded mamba.

  But nothing that loped or trotted or flew or crawled ever harmed him. He grew bolder and started to explore the caves high upon the faraway berg.

  That was when Mama warned him about the Black Skelm.

  "He is an evil man who eats children," Mama said. "The caves are full of their bones, for on such a diet one lives forever. You are to stay away from the berg."

  "But Kassie goes to the berg at night," Harvey protested. "And Jorl, and Swarte."

  "They are black and ignorant," Mama told him. "They seek the Black Skelm for charms and potions. The wicked old man should be in prison. I have told Jong Kurt time and again to take the dogs to the berg and hunt him out. But he is too slim, that one, to be easily captured. They say he sleeps in the caves with the bats, who warn him when strangers approach."

  "I would like to see such a man," Harvey decided.

  "You are to stay away from the berg, mind?"

  And Mama shook him, and he promised, but Harvey did not mind.

  One hot morning he toiled across the karroo, slipping out unobserved from the deserted, heat-baked house, and made his way painfully up the krantz. The aasvogels drooped limply in the trees, their eyes lidded, for nothing moved in the plain below. Even the orchids were wilting.

  It was no cooler on the krantz, and when Harvey found the winding pad which circled the berg, he paused, parched and faint, and considered turning back. But the trip would be long, and perhaps he could find a fontein up here. There were pads he had not yet explored—

  He started off at random, and thus it was that he came to the cave of the Black Skelm.

  The Black Skelm was a gnarled little monkey-man with a white scraggle of beard wisping from his sunken cheeks. He sat at the mouth of the cave, naked and cross-legged, staring out at the veldt below with immobile eyes.

  Harvey recognized him at once and put his knuckles to his mouth. He started to edge back, hoping that the old man hadn't observed him, but suddenly the scrawny neck corded and swivelled.

  "Greetings, baas."

  The voice was thin and piping, yet oddly penetrating. It gained resonance from an echo in the cave behind.

  "G-greetings," Harvey murmured. He continued to edge away.

  "You fear me, boy?"

  "You are the Black Skelm. You—"

  "Eat children?" The old man cackled abruptly. "Yes, I know the tale. It is nonsense, meant only to deceive fools. But you are not a fool, Harvey Wolf."

  "You know my name?"

  "Of course. An old man learns many things."

  "Then you've come down to the plains?"

  "Not for long years. But the bats bear tidings. They are my brothers of the nights, just as the aasvogels are my brothers by day." The Black Skelm smiled and gestured. "Sit down. I would invite you inside the cave, but my brothers are sleeping now."

  Harvey hesitated, eyeing the little old man. But the man was little, and so very old; Harvey couldn't imagine him to be dangerous. He sat down at a discree
t distance.

  "The bats told you my name?" he ventured.

  The wrinkled black man shrugged. "I have learned much of you. I know you seek the berg because it is your wish to see what is on the other side."

  "But I've never told anyone that."

  "It is not necessary. I look into your heart, Harvey Wolf, and it is the heart of a seeker. You think to gaze upon the lands beyond this mountain; to see the olifant, the kameel, the great black brothers of the rhenoster birds. But to no purpose, my son. The elephant, the giraffe, the rhinoceros are long gone. They have vanished, with my own people."

  "Your people?"

  "Those you call the Zulus." The old man sighed. "Once, when I was a jong, the plains beyond the berg were black with game. And beyond the plains the leegtes were black with the kraals of my people. This was our world."

  And the Black Skelm told Harvey about his world; the Zulu empire that existed long before the coming of the Roinecks and the Boers. He spoke of Chaka and the other great indunas who commanded armies in royal splendor, wearing the leopardskin kaross and lifting the knobkerrie of kingly authority to command the impis—the regiments of grotesquely painted warriors in kilts of wildcat tails. They would parade by torchlight, the ostrich plumes bobbing like the wild sea, and their voices rose more loudly than the wind in the cry of "Bayete!" which was the regal salute. And in return the induna chanted but a single response: "Kill!" Casting his spear to the north, the south, the east, or the west, he sent the regiments forth. And the impis killed. They conquered, or never returned. That was the way of it, in the old days.

  Until, finally, none were left to return.

  None but the Black Skelm, who sought the caves of the bats and the vultures, to live like a scavenger in a world of death.

  "But my people are down there," Harvey protested. "They are not dead. They tell me Cape Town is a great city, and beyond that—"

  "Cape Town is a cesspool of civilization," said the Black Skelm. "And beyond that are greater sewers in which men struggle and claw at one another, even as they drown. It is a sickening spectacle, this. The world will soon end, and I would that I could die with it. But, of course, I shall never die."