The Complete Stories, Vol. 1: Final Reckonings

by Robert Bloch

  Codd drove home. The new car handled perfectly, but driving was an effort. Everything had been an effort during the past month. He hadn't worn the helmet while writing, but the effects were there. Aside from work, he moved in a daze. Action and reaction were oddly altered. Of course, that often happened when he was working on a story — the story became more real than the external world. But even the story hadn't seemed real.

  The dreams were real.

  That was the way he'd felt. The dreams were real. The rest was ephemeral, unimportant. Only the dream world existed. Cleo had been the bait to get him to wear the helmet. The stories and the success were the bait that kept him wearing the helmet. Somebody or something wanted him to do that, and it was real.

  Codd went up to the apartment. He realized that he was in a bad state and realized — sensibly enough — that he was letting his mind run away. Freeman was right; he was just tired from overwork.

  Well, he didn't have to work that hard any more. Somehow he knew he had a winner; Freeman confirmed it. He'd sell the novel, get a decent motion picture sale, and take things easy. After all, he was a writer in his own right — he didn't have to depend on the helmet. The whole thing was beginning to prey on his mind — guilty secrets, and all that sort of rot. From now on it might be a good idea to forget about everything that had gone before.

  Cleo, whoever she was, had disappeared. Nobody knew about the helmet. Nobody had come to blackmail him or accuse him or threaten him. Why not call the whole thing off and start all over, start fresh, as his own man?

  His own man. . . .

  Barnaby Codd stood in front of the mirror and took inventory of himself.

  The Brooks Brothers suit was immaculate. The Sulka tie had a certain subdued resplendence. But the long, lean face was thin, the cheeks were sunken, the brown hair was lusterless, the skin was waxy pale, and the glazed eyes held the glitter of horrified recognition.

  Nothing had changed. He was still a walking corpse.

  And if he could still walk, it was time for the headshrinker.

  6

  It was very comfortable on the leather couch.

  Sometimes it's nice to be a corpse, to be laid out in state with hands folded peacefully over the chest, eyes open and unseeing, ready for eternal rest.

  When you accept death, nothing else matters any more, and it's easier to talk. So much, much easier.

  Barnaby Codd told Doctor Fine all about this feeling. It was not difficult to talk to the quiet little psychoanalyst. Olcott had recommended him, seemed to think it was a good idea. And it was a good idea, so far.

  Fine was willing to dispense with all the preliminaries, to take Codd's word for it that he understood his problem. And with that encouragement, Codd talked.

  He'd been talking now for almost an hour. He told the whole story — about the writing, and meeting Cleo Fane, and the curious aftermath to that evening. He told about the helmet and the dreams. He held nothing back.

  Doctor Fine listened attentively, patiently. Codd felt a growing conviction that he could be helped here, that Doctor Fine knew the answers.

  He concluded on a hopeful note. "What do you think? What does it all mean to you, Doctor?"

  Codd sat up and fished for a cigarette. Little Doctor Fine sat back and smiled. "It doesn't matter, really, what it means to me. The important question is — what does it mean to you? How would you explain it?"

  "I — I can't explain it."

  'Then make a guess."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Naturally. Are you? Then make a guess."

  "Well." Codd lit the cigarette and sought significant symbolism in a spiral of smoke. "One theory would be that when I went to the party, I was already cracking up. Alcohol worked upon me autosuggestively." He paused.

  "Go on. This is interesting."

  "I remember that Olcott never saw this woman. His friends don't seem to know her. So perhaps there was no woman. Perhaps I imagined the whole thing—manufactured a stimulus, an excuse to continue writing. You might say that I hypnotized myself."

  The Doctor nodded. "Its theoretically possible," he conceded.

  "Except for one thing." Codd stood up, walked over to the coatrack, fished in the pocket of his overcoat. "She gave me the helmet. Here it is."

  He extended the curious metallic headpiece, and Doctor Fine inspected it carefully.

  "You couldn't make it yourself," he mused. "I don't suppose — "

  "I don't suppose, either," Codd answered. "Supposition won't help me. And I suspect that no laboratory on earth could accurately analyze the component structure of a magic helmet. She warned me against trying to find out — I'm wondering now whether or not it might be a good idea to at least make the attempt. At least it could help convince me of my own sanity."

  Doctor Fine gazed at the antennae, at the coils, at the odd patina of the silver. "If you'll permit me, I'd be glad to have it examined for you," he said. "But before you resign yourself to believing in the power of the helmet, why not think this thing through a little farther?"

  Codd finished his cigarette, crushed it out. "All right. Let's take the other tack. Cleo Fane exists. I did see her. She did give me this helmet, for her own mysterious purposes. And the helmet — "

  "Ignore the helmet," Doctor Fine suggested. "Suppose the helmet was, and is, just a costume piece. What then?"

  "But I had the dreams," Codd objected. "I had the first dream there in her apartment. And when I woke up, she was still there, with the emerald. She seemed to be in the dream and to know all about it — "

  "Think!" insisted Doctor Fine. "What could that mean?"

  "It could mean — it could mean that I didn't hypnotize myself—that I did dream — but that she hypnotized me. Darkness and quiet and fatigue and alcohol and suggestion. She made me believe that I'd dream when I put the helmet on. And then she used the emerald as a focal point. No wonder she knew my dream — she was planting it in my mind, telling me what I was dreaming all the time!"

  Doctor Fine purred like a plump little cat. The canary had gone down nicely, it seemed. But —

  "Wait!" exclaimed Codd. "That wouldn't work, either. Because I dreamed again. And again. Whenever I wore the helmet, I had a dream. She wasn't present to suggest anything, not once. And so — "

  "Did you ever hear of post-hypnotic suggestion?" asked the Doctor.

  "I get it! She did it all at the one sitting — told me that from that time on, whenever I wore the helmet, I'd dream. Perhaps planted the whole series in my subconscious. From that time on the helmet itself was the focal agent for hypnosis. And it's still working!"

  From the sound of the deep purr, the Doctor had found another canary.

  "Two more questions, Doctor. It's clearer to me now, and I feel better once I realize there are other explanations than crazy, supernatural ones. But two questions have to be answered. The first is — "

  "Why should anyone attempt such a thing?" Doctor Fine was creeping up on his third canary, and he couldn't wait. "Because, unfortunately, you are not alone in the need for analytical therapy, my friend. The world is full of disorganized personalities. Your Cleo Fane, with her calculated air of mystery, her fabricated helmet and fabricated story, may well be acting compulsively and dramatizing her own private fantasies of power. She was looking for a creative artist,' she told you. An instrument of masculinity, perhaps, a surrogate for—"

  Then followed five minutes of abstruse terminology, all of which added up, reassuringly, to the fact that Cleo Fane was nuttier than a fruitcake. It was good therapy for Barnaby Codd — to be told that she was the crazy one, not he.

  But there was still a second question. He asked it now.

  "How can I get rid of the dreams?" he pleaded. "How do I escape from this post-hypnotic suggestion business?"

  Doctor Fine smiled. "You're already more than half-free now," he said. "Just analyzing matters this way is a great step forward. You'll see. The final step is simple. It merely lies in reevaluating
the helmet."

  "Yes?"

  "Realizing, objectively and subjectively, completely, that it's all a trick. That the helmet in itself has no magical power over your mind. The next time you wear it, you'll not wait for the dream to end. You'll take it off, of your own volition, right in the middle of the so-called dream sequence. And that will be that. Simple." He smiled. "Then, if you still want to, we'll have the gadget examined and come up with answers. Chances are, it was manufactured somewhere in New Jersey. We can attend to all that later this week."

  "But, wait a minute — I can't take the helmet off in the middle of a dream! She warned me, she wouldn't let me, I'm not able to command my actions when I wear it — "

  Doctor Fine listened to him, and from the expression on his face it was plain he was hearing the chirps of the fourth canary. He smiled cheerfully.

  "Of course you can take the helmet off," he said. "It's all a matter of suggestion. Of counter-hypnosis, if you wish. Now if you'll just stretch out on the couch once more, I think I can promise you that next time you'll be able to remove the helmet." He hummed. "It's all a matter of suggestion."

  It was.

  7

  Codd didn't feel like a corpse any more. Corpses don't have six months of solid booking with psychoanalysts. They don't have the hopeful feeling that their problems are all on their way to being solved, that they are about to be helped, to get rid of their delusions, and can walk unaided on their own feet, on a path of their own choosing.

  Codd had these feelings strongly now. It was all so simple. The Doctor would cure him of his block against writing, would enable him to summon new strength and resolution instead of depending on suggestion and a weird belief in "magic."

  Back at the apartment he looked at himself in the mirror once again, and that was the clincher. He was smiling, self-possessed, and there was some color in his cheeks. He was Barnaby Codd—not the old Codd, but the new Codd. The successful Codd. The Codd who had just written a novel which might well be a bestseller. The Codd who was going to have all the things he'd ever dreamed of having. The Codd who could — and it wasn't at all unthinkable now — write masterpieces.

  The phone rang. He groped for it in the gathering dusk.

  "Codd? This is Freeman. Got news for you. It looks like we've hit the jackpot." Codd listened, nodded at the mouthpiece. The book had sold. Freeman named the publisher, named the advance. One of the big book clubs was reading the carbon of the manuscript. The second carbon had been requested by the New York office of a major movie studio. Codd must appear at Freeman's office tomorrow morning and go through the pleasant motions of signing contracts.

  Codd made the usual elated answers and hung up. He floated over to a chair in the dusk of the parlor.

  This was it. This was real living. And only the beginning. From now on he'd enjoy it as a whole man, as his own master. He would break this foolish fixation, this morbid dependency on a crazy girl and her crazy story. His conscious mind was already free. And once he removed the helmet during a dream, his subconscious resolution would be made, thanks to Doctor Fine and the powers of suggestion. The powers of suggestion — fight fire with fire. Science was wonderful — what a romantic, melodramatic fool he had been. Now was the time to end it.

  Yes, now was the time to end it. Get it over with. He couldn't wait, shouldn't wait. Perhaps that was Doctor Fine's hypnotic command, too.

  That he should don the helmet at once and go through with the traumatic incident.

  At any rate, the urge was strong. The urge was overpowering, irresistible. Codd got the helmet from his coat. He felt the coolness against his palms. He felt the coolness against his skull as he sat back on the sofa and adjusted the helmet. It fitted snugly.

  And that was all.

  It just rested on his head. Nothing happened. Doctor Fine was right— perhaps he'd done a better job than he'd dared hope to do. Already the power of the helmet was gone. Codd didn't believe in it. He was his own man. He wasn't in the power of the helmet, in the power of Cleo Fane. He wasn't her man. He wasn't her man. He wasn't —

  Codd fell asleep naturally. His head slipped down, and he dozed. The phosphorescence was coming now, and the familiar sense of seeing without being, of moving without body.

  He waited for the three moons to appear. Strange, now that he had visited Doctor Fine, how he could analyze what was happening. That green planet had become not only familiar to him but natural, accepted. It had truly seemed more real to him than actual surroundings in his waking state. And the inevitable prelude to his visions — Cleo riding across the green landscape on a strange beast — that was accepted and expected too. He expected it now, but he wouldn't accept it this time. Only a dream.

  Oddly enough, this time there was no green planet and no glimpse of Cleo riding an animal. He was somewhere else. He was many places else, at many times. He was in her mind, or she was in his.

  A glimpse of her face, looming out of the sky, blotting out the horizon with the blinding redness of her hair. And her voice whispering.

  "You tried to disobey. You weren't content with my gifts, so you tried to disobey. Didn't I give you enough? You wanted the ability to create, you wanted the rewards of creation. I gave them to you freely. Was that, then, not enough?"

  It was a question, but he did not answer. She knew the answer. She knew everything. Her voice held an ageless grief. "It was not enough. It's never been enough for any of them. They want to know, also. They want to pry and meddle. It is their nature, because they are only men. You are only a man. You do not understand the gods.

  "And like a man, you believe yourself greater than the gods, stronger than their spells. So you tried to disobey. You wanted to know."

  Her face faded away, and now was the time to take off the helmet. Or could he wait another minute?

  He waited, tense even in sleep, and the voice came again. "Very well. You shall know. Not because you desire it, but because I permit it. For the first thing you must know is that this is my dream — not yours. I make the dream, the dreams of men who have the helmets.

  "Yes, there are many helmets. Did you think you were the only one I have sought through the centuries? Did you believe yourself the sole favorite of the gods, the sole creator whose creations come through the dreams I grant?

  "That is the secret — and some there are who have been content with it and have not sought to disobey. They have learned their lesson, guarded their helmets as a sacred secret. They created masterpieces."

  Codd's mind was a kaleidoscope now, a montage of fugitive, fleeting fragments. He saw — and to his startled horror recognized — the faces and features of a dozen titans. Great composers, famous artists, renowned writers, immortal sculptors. In an instant they embraced the red-haired essence of womankind, wore their helmets, created, lived, died. He comprehended everything, and the melange melted, merged, went back into Time for thousands of years.

  How long had it been going on, and why, and who was Cleo Fane or that which called itself Cleo Fane?

  "I grant you all answers," came the thought-voice. "Behold, if you dare."

  Then he was on the island and he knew it for Aeae, and knew her for what she was — the eternal sorceress of all legend, the immortal, the undying, the symbol of creation and destruction known to blind Homer. Red-haired Circe, whose delight it was to ensnare the souls of men. And men were unworthy of that embrace, they sinned against the gods and became beasts. Swine and stallions, lions and wolves; she took from them the creative power they despised and left them only the animal. They became animals.

  So had Homer sung the story — and ceased. But the story did not end. It could never end, for the gods are immortal. And when Aeae sank into the sea, Circe sought refuge. Not on Earth — for what is Time or Space to an immortal? — but far, far beyond.

  Now Codd was back on the green planet once more, the far green planet with the three moons. This was Circe's new island, her island in space. Here men did not visit her, so she went amon
g men from time to time.

  "Always I seek ecstasy," the voice echoed. "Always I seek the thrill which comes only in participating in the act of creation. And it is my eternal curse that I cannot create of myself. I can only transform. I must go to men, to half-beasts who possess but do not appreciate this power, in order to awaken them. And when they reject their power, deny me a share of their souls' surrender, I avenge myself. I transform them into the animals they deserve to be. For they reject the gift of the gods, the helmet — "

  Codd comprehended and, with a thrill of recognition, comprehended that he comprehended. This dream was different; a part of him was aloof, analytical. He wasn't in her power, wasn't in the helmet's power. He had the armor of Science, the weapons of Doctor Fine. He was invulnerable. He could listen, accept or reject at will. This was a new plot, perhaps. If he liked it he'd use it when he awoke; if not, he'd throw it away. Just as now, at any time he chose, he'd rip off the helmet and leave the crazy woman with her garbled dreams.

  She was a woman, all right, and insane. And she'd given him hours of free fantasy while he was under hypnosis — all her mad delusions had been impressed on his brain. That's where the plots had come from, and no wonder he'd felt depressed while he was writing them! And now, ultimately, came the final product of her suggestions, the central core of her fixation. She was a sorceress — Circe, no less. And a streamlined, modern Circe who lived on a planet of her own, far out in space. Three moons, indeed! And all men were beasts, and she was greater than men, and she lured artists to their doom —

  He saw her with the animals around her, now, and they wore helmets too. And they fawned on her and licked her naked feet, and she chose a mount and bounded off across the weird landscape that was no landscape but merely a reflection of the twisted convolutions of her own disordered brain.

  She was pleading with him now, and shouting at him, and threatening him. He must not try to find out about the helmet, he must not resist the dreams, he must not seek any vengeance.