by Anthology
She had shot him in the back of the head with his Army Colt .45 from the first war. Collins never quite understood why the hole in back was so neat and the one in front where it came out was so messy.
After he went to live with Aunt Amy and the house had been boarded up, he heard them talking, Aunt Amy and her boy friend, fat Uncle Ralph. And they had said his mother had murdered his father because he had gone ahead and made her get pregnant again and she was afraid it would be another one like Sam.
Sam Collins knew she must have planned it a long time in advance. She had filled up the bathtub with milk, real milk, and she went in after she had done it and took a bath in the milk. Then she slit her wrists.
When Sam Collins had run down the stairs, screaming, and barged into the bathroom, he had found the tub looking like a giant stick of peppermint candy.
Aunt Amy had been good to him.
Because he didn't talk for about a year after he found the bodies, most people thought he was simple-minded. But Aunt Amy had always treated him just like a regular boy. That was embarrassing sometimes, but still it was better than what he got from the others.
The doctor hadn't wanted to perform the operation on his clubfoot. He said it would be an unproductive waste of his time and talent, that he owed it to the world to use them to the very best advantage. Finally he agreed. The operation took about thirty seconds. He stuck a knife into Sam's foot and went snick-snick. A couple of weeks later, his foot was healed and it was just like anybody else's. Aunt Amy had paid him $500 in payments, only he returned the money order for the last fifty dollars and wished them Merry Christmas.
Sam Collins could work after that. When Aunty Amy and Uncle Ralph disappeared, he opened up the old house and started doing odd jobs for people who weren't very afraid of him any more.
That first day had been quite a shock, when he discovered that not in all these years had anybody cleaned the bathtub.
Sometimes, when he was taking his Saturday night soaker he still got kind of a funny feeling. But he knew it was only rust from the faucets.
Collins sighed. It seemed like a long time since he had seen his mother coming down those stairs….
He stopped, his throat aching with tightness.
Something was very strange.
His mother was coming down the stairs right now.
She was walking down the stairs, one step, two steps, coming closer to him.
Collins ran up the stairs, prepared to run through the phantom to prove it wasn't there.
The figure raised a gun and pointed it at him.
This time, she was going to shoot him.
It figured.
He always had bad luck.
"Stop!" the woman on the stairs said. "Stop or I'll shoot, Mr. Collins!"
Collins stopped, catching to the bannister. He squinted hard, and as a stereoptic slide lost its depth when you shut one eye, the woman on the stairs was no longer his mother. She was young, pretty, brunette and sweet-faced, and the gun she held shrunk from an old Army Colt to a .22 target pistol.
"Who are you?" Collins demanded.
The girl took a grip on the gun with both hands and held it steady on him.
"I'm Nancy Comstock," she said. "You tried to assault my mother a half hour ago."
"Oh," he said. "I've never seen you before."
"Yes, you have. I've been away to school a lot, but you've seen me around. I've had my eye on you. I know about men like you. I know what has to be done. I came looking for you in your house for this."
The bore of the gun was level with his eye as he stood a few steps below her. Probably if she fired now, she would kill him. Or more likely he would only be blinded or paralyzed; that was about his luck.
"Are you going to use that gun?" he asked.
"Not unless I have to. I only brought it along for protection. I came to help you, Mr. Collins."
"Help me?"
"Yes, Mr. Collins. You're sick. You need help."
He looked the girl over. She was a half-dozen years younger than he was. In most states, she couldn't even vote yet. But still, maybe she could help, at that. He didn't know much about girls and their abilities.
"Why don't we go into the kitchen and have some coffee?" Collins suggested.
III
Nancy sipped her coffee and kept her eyes on his. The gun lay in her lap. The big kitchen was a place for coffee, brown and black, wood ceiling and iron stove and pans. Collins sat across the twelve square feet of table from her, and nursed the smoking mug.
"Sam, I want you to take whatever comfort you can from the fact that I don't think the same thing about you as the rest of Waraxe."
"What does the rest of the town think about me?"
"They think you are a pathological degenerate who should be lynched. But I don't believe that."
"Thanks. That's a big comfort."
"I know what you were after when you tore Mom's dress."
In spite of himself, Collins felt his face warming in a blush.
"You were only seeking the mother love you missed as a boy," the girl said.
Collins chewed on his lip a moment, and considered the idea. Slowly he shook his head.
"No," he said. "No. I don't think so."
"Then what do you think?"
"I think old Doc Candle made me do it. He said he was going to bury me. Getting me lynched would be one good way to do it. Ed Michaels almost blew my head off with his shotgun. It was close. Doc Candle almost made it. He didn't miss by far with you and that target pistol either."
"Sam—I may call you 'Sam'?—just try to think calmly and reasonably for a minute. How could Dr. Candle, the undertaker, possibly make you do a thing like you did in Mr. Michaels' hardware store?"
"Well … he said he was a superhuman alien from outer space."
"If he said that, do you believe him, Sam?"
"Something made me do that. It just wasn't my own idea."
"It's easier that way, isn't it, Sam?" Nancy asked. "It's easy to say. 'It wasn't me; some space monster made me do it.' But you really know better, don't you, Sam? Don't take the easy way out! You'll only get deeper and deeper into your makebelieve world. It will be like quicksand. Admit your mistakes—face up to them—lick them."
Collins stood up, and came around the end of the table.
"You're too pretty to be so serious all the time," he said.
"Sam, I want to help you. Please don't spoil it by misinterpreting my intentions."
"You should get a little fun out of life," Collins listened to himself say.
He came on around the big table towards her.
The first time he hadn't realized what was happening, but this time he knew. Somebody was pulling strings and making him jump. He had as much control as Charlie McCarthy.
"Don't come any closer, Sam."
Nancy managed to keep her voice steady, but he could tell she was frightened.
He took another step.
She threw her coffee in his face.
The liquid was only lukewarm but the sudden dash had given him some awareness of his own body again, like the first sound of the alarm faintly pressing through deep layers of sleep.
"Sam, Sam, please don't make me do it! Please, Sam, don't!"
Nancy had the gun in her hand, rising from her chair.
His hands wanted to grab her clothes and tear.
But that's suicide, he screamed at his body.
As his hand went up with the intention of ripping, he deflected it just enough to shove the barrel of the gun away from him.
The shot went off, but he knew instantly that it had not hit him.
The gun fell to the floor, and with its fall, something else dropped away and he was in command of himself again.
Nancy sighed, and slumped against him, the left side of her breast suddenly glossy with blood.
Ed Michaels stared at him. Both eyes unblinking, just staring at him. He had only taken one look at the girl lying on the floor, blood all ove
r her chest. He hadn't looked back.
"I didn't know who else to call, Ed." Collins said. "Sheriff Thurston being out of town and all."
"It's okay, Sam. Mike swore me in as a special deputy a couple years back. The badge is at the store."
"They'll hang me for this, won't they, Ed?"
Michaels put his hand on Collins' shoulder. "No, they won't do that to you, boy. We know you around here. They'll just put you away for a while."
"The asylum at Hannah, huh?"
"Damn it, yes! What did you expect? A marksman medal?"
"Okay, Ed, okay. Did you call Doc Van der Lies like I told you when I phoned?"
Michaels took a folded white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his square-jawed face. "You sure are taking this calm, Sam. I'm telling you, Sam, it would look better for you if you at least acted like you were sorry…. Doc Van der Lies is up in Wisconsin with Mike. I called Doc Candle."
"He's an undertaker," Collins whispered.
"Don't you expect we need one?" Michaels asked. Then as if he wasn't sure of the answer to his own question, he said, "Did you examine her to see if she was dead? I—I don't know much about women. I wouldn't be able to tell."
It didn't sound like a very good excuse to Collins.
"I guess she's dead," Collins said. "That's the way he must have wanted it."
"He? Wait a minute, Sam. You mean you've got one of those split personalities like that girl on TV the other night? There's somebody else inside you that takes over and makes you do things?"
"I never thought of it just like that before. I guess that's one way to look at it."
The knock shook the back door before Michaels could say anything. The door opened and Doc Candle slithered in disjointedly, a rolled-up stretcher over his shoulder.
"Hello, boys," Candle said. "A terrible accident, it brings sorrow to us all. Poor Nancy. Has the family been notified?"
"Good gosh, I forgot about it," Michaels said. "But maybe we better wait until you get her—arranged, huh, Doc?"
"Quite so." The old man laid the canvas stretcher out beside the girl on the floor and unrolled it. He flipped the body over expertly like a window demonstrator flipping a pancake over on a griddle.
"Ed, if you'd just take the front, I'll carry the rear. My vehicle is in the alley."
"Sam, you carry that end for Doc. You're a few years younger."
Collins wanted to say that he couldn't, but he didn't have enough yet to argue with. He picked up the stretcher and looked down at the white feet in the Scotch plaid slippers.
Candle opened the door and waited for them to go through.
The girl on the stretcher parted her lips and rolled her head back and forth, a puzzled expression of pain on her face.
Collins nearly dropped the stretcher, but he made himself hold on tight.
"Ed! Doc! She moved! She's still alive."
"Cut that out now, Sam," Ed Michaels snapped. "Just carry your end."
"She's alive," Collins insisted. "She moved again. Just turn around and take a look, Ed. That's all I ask."
"I hefted this thing once, and that's enough. You move, Sam. I've got a .38 in my belt, and I went to Rome, Italy, for the Olympics about the time you were getting yourself born, Sam. I ought to be able to hit a target as big as you. Just go ahead and do as you're told."
Collins turned desperately towards Candle. Maybe Nancy had been right, maybe he had been imagining things.
"Doc, you take a look at her," Collins begged.
The old man vibrated over to the stretcher and looked down. The girl twisted in pain, throwing her head back, spilling her hair over the head of the stretcher.
"Rigor mortis," Doc Candle diagnosed, with a wink to Collins.
"No, Doc! She needs a doctor, blood transfusions…."
"Nonsense," Candle snapped. "I'll take her in my black wagon up to my place, put her in the tiled basement. I'll pump out all her blood and flush it down the commode. Then I'll feed in Formaldi-Forever Number Zero. Formaldi-Forever, for the Blush of Death. 'When you think of a Pretty Girl, think of Formaldi-Forever, the Way to Preserve that Beauty.' Then I'll take a needle and some silk thread and just a few stitches on the eyelids and around the mouth…."
"Doc, will you…?" Michaels said faintly.
"Of course. I just wanted to show Sam how foolish he was in saying the Beloved was still alive."
Nancy kicked one leg off the stretcher and Candle picked it up and tucked it back in.
"Ed, if you'd just turn around and look." Collins said.
"I don't want to have to look at your face, you murdering son. You make me, you say one more word, and I'll turn around and shoot you between the eyes."
Doc Candle nodded. Collins knew then that Michaels really would shoot him in the head if he said anything more, so he kept quiet.
Candle held the door. They managed to get the stretcher down the back steps, and right into the black panel truck. They fitted the stretcher into the special sockets for it, and Doc Candle closed the double doors and slapped his dry palm down on the sealing crevice.
Instantly, there was an answering knock from inside the truck, a dull echo.
"Didn't you hear that?" Collins asked.
"Hear what?" Michaels said.
"What are you hearing now, Sam?" Candle inquired solicitously.
"Oh. Sure," Michaels said. "Kind of a voice, wasn't it, Sam? Didn't understand what it said. Wasn't listening too close, not like you."
Thud-thud-thump-thud.
"No voice," Collins whispered. "That infernal sound, don't you hear it, Ed?"
"I must hurry along," the undertaker said. "Must get ready to work on Nancy, get her ready for her parents to see."
"All right, Doc. I'll take care of Sam."
"Where you going to jail me, Ed?" Collins asked, his eyes on the closed truck doors. "In your storeroom like you did Hank Petrie?"
Michaels' face suddenly began to work. "Jail? Jail you? Jail's too good for you. Doc, have you got a tow rope in that truck?"
Ed Michaels was the best shot in town, probably one of the best marksmen in the world. He had been in the Olympics about thirty years ago. He was Waraxe's one claim to fame. But he wasn't a cowboy. He wasn't a fast draw.
Collins put all of his weight behind his left fist and landed it on the point of Michaels' jaw, just the way boys jumped onto him.
Michaels sprawled out, spread-eagled.
Then Collins wanted to take the revolver out of Ed's belt, and press it into Ed's hand, curling his fingers around the grip and over the trigger, and then he wanted to shake Ed awake, slap his face and shake him….
Collins spun around, clawed open the door to the truck cab and threw himself behind the steering wheel.
He stopped wanting to make Ed Michaels shoot him.
He flipped the ignition switch, levered the floor shift and drove away.
And he was going to drive on and on and on and on.
And on and on and on.
IV
Collins turned onto the old McHenty blacktop, his foot pressed to the floorboards. Ed Michaels didn't own a car; he would have to borrow one from somebody. That would take time. Maybe Candle would give him his hearse to use to follow the Black Rachel.
Trees, fences, barns whizzed past the windows of the cab and then the steel link-mesh fence took up, the fence surrounding the New Kansas National Spaceport. Behind it, further from town, some of the concrete had been poured and the horizon was a remote, sterile gray sweep.
The McHenty Road would soon be closed to civilian traffic. But right now the government wanted people to drive along and see that the spaceship was nothing terrible, nothing to fear.
The girl, Nancy Comstock, was alive in the back. He knew that. But he couldn't stop to prove it or to help her. Candle would make them lynch him first.
Why hadn't Candle stopped him from getting away?
He had managed to break his control for a second. He had done that before when he deflect
ed Nancy's aim. But he couldn't resist Candle for long. Why hadn't Candle made him turn around and come back?
Candle's control of him had seemed to stop when he got inside the cab of the truck. Could it be that the metal shield of the cab could protect an Earthling from the strange mental powers of the creature from another planet which was inhabiting the body of Doc Candle?
Collins shook his head.
More likely Candle was doing this just to get his hopes up. He probably would seize control of him any time he wanted to. But Collins decided to go on playing it as if he did have some hope, as if a shield of metal could protect him from Candle's control. Otherwise … there was no otherwise.
Collins suddenly saw an opening.
The steel mesh fence was ruptured by a huge semitrailer truck turned on its side. Twenty feet of fence on either side was down. This was restricted government property, but of course spaceships were hardly prime military secrets any longer. Repairs in the fence had not been made instantaneously, and the wreckage was not guarded.
Collins swerved the wheel and drove the old wagon across the waffle-plate obstruction, onto the smooth tarmac beyond.
He raced, raced, raced through the falling night, not sure where he was headed.
Up above he saw the shelter of shadows from a cluster of half-finished buildings. He drove into them and parked.
Collins sat still for a moment, then threw open the door and ran around to the back of the truck, jerking open the handles.
Nancy fell out into his arms.
"What kind of ambulance is this?" she demanded. "It doesn't look like an ambulance. It doesn't smell like an ambulance. It looks like—looks like—"
Collins said, "Shut up. Get out of there. We've got to hide."
"Why?"
"They think I murdered you."
"Murdered me? But I'm alive. Can't they see I'm alive?"
Collins shook his head. "I doubt it. I don't know why, but I don't think it would be that simple. Come with me."
The blood on her breast had dried, and he could see it was only a shallow groove dug by the bullet. But she flinched in pain as she began to walk, pulling the muscles.
They stopped and leaned against a half-finished metallic shed.
"Where are we? Where are you taking me?"
"This is the spaceport. Now shut up."