When he tried to take another step, he couldn't. His feet wouldn't move.
"Think of it, Edmund, love. Think of that one eventuality men fear above all else. The intriguing perplexity that humbles the magnificent, that levels the insignificant—"
"Damn it, Winnie, why are you talking crazy like that?" He tried to move again; couldn't. His voice slid up a register. "Help me. Something's wrong. Jesus Christ. I . . . I can't move!"
"Then listen, damn you."
"To what? What are you talking about for Christ's sake?"
"I'm talking about the sublime inevitability; I'm talking about headin' west, the end of the line . . . ."
"Winnie—"
"I'm talking about the grimmest of reapers, the old man down the road—"
"What old man?" He could feel a useless tide of adrenaline sloshing dead-ended within his paralyzed limbs. What was happening to him? Was this a heart attack? Was he having a stroke?
"The thing, Edmund . . . I'm talking about the very thing that makes the mightiest of you grovel with the peasantry in terror. The eternal footman. Azrael. Man's ultimate uncertainty. For some, Edmund, but not for you. You are the exception. For you, my Edmund, the grand uncertainty is no uncertainty at all."
She stepped closer to him. "Did you ever wonder, dear one, just what it's like to die?" She ran her fingertips ever so softly along his cheek. Her thumb came to rest upon his lips.
"Wh—" Now his lips wouldn't move. It was as if they'd been shot full of Novocain. He wanted to ask her for help—God, Winnie, I can't move, help me, please, call an ambulance—but now, dear God, he couldn't speak at all.
"When we pass on, dear Edmund, do the billions of cells in the body die all at once, a perfectly coordinated whole? Or does it happen slowly, cell by cell, piece by piece, a section at a time?" In a graceful curtsy she lowered herself before him, stroked the petrified muscle of his right calf. Numbness took it. It wouldn't support his weight. He collapsed onto his knee in an awkward genuflection. She touched his right thigh and he toppled.
"It's my birthday gift for you, honored husband." She smiled sweetly down at him. "Imagine the terror it must hold for the infirm, the diseased, the elderly. Imagine the solitary crone, her family far away and gone, living in the ancient house alone. Think, Edmund. Think how she makes her way to bed each night, night upon night, and always alone. Think how she wonders if she will survive till morning. Think how the terror will take her, night after night like a sadistic demon lover: Will this be the night? Will she see her children just one more time? Will she see another birthday of her own?"
Ed's eyes hurt. They burned something wicked, but he couldn't blink to lubricate them. His wife took a step closer, straddled his head, looking down. Slowly she lifted her copper braid.
What are you going to do, he wanted to ask her, but his tongue was a dead thing lying dry and fat in his mouth.
"For you, Edmund my love, there is no more questioning, no more guessing. Fancy it? Freedom from dread, freedom from trepidation. For you, Edmund, uncertainty becomes certainty. There will be no more birthdays—"
She lowered her head, puckering her lips as if preparing for a kiss. The limp braid dangled above his face. Impossibly, its bristled end scraped across his forehead spreading pain like sandpaper on an open wound. Yet he could not cry out.
She straightened. Hands on hips she sauntered around his prone form, continuing her one-sided litany. "No more birthdays, no more Christmases . . ." Her black smoky cloak slid around on her naked body like the tide slipping across the sand. Ed thought he saw tiny sparks here and there within the black intricacy of the smoke. Little pops and flashes, like a miniature lightning storm.
Then she knelt beside him, pulled her hair forward, and draped the braid across his chest. When she pulled it back toward herself, slowly, incredible white-hot pain seared through him. It was like getting whacked with 220 volts. Yet he couldn't pull away, he couldn't scream.
"It's my gift to you, dearest Edmund. Tonight you may enjoy an absolute certainty: tonight is the night you will die."
His fear mounted, raced toward hysteria. But there was no way he could release it, no emotional escape valve. He couldn't pull away, couldn't utter a cry, he could only lie there as she pranced around him, grinning, laughing, flicking him repeatedly with her braided whip. Every time it touched him, pain surged with the ferocity of lightning.
"And again you're fortunate; you'll not endure a lonely death. No, nothing quite that horrible. Your loving family will be with you at the end. We'll surround you, comfort you . . . ."
Little Randy stepped out of the hail. Although he was fully dressed in a jersey and overalls, he too was shrouded in that shifting smoky veil. He held a fifteen-inch wood chisel from Ed's toolbox, and he grinned crazily.
It's a nightmare, coaxed Ed's racing mind. But I can't wake up! Why. Can't. I. Wake. Up?
Randy walked over to his father, squatted flat-footed beside him, and tore open Ed's shirtfront. The little boy swayed as he positioned the chisel's blade against Ed's nipple. Randy held it there, metal against flesh, as Ed's mind reeled.
Oh my dear God, why can't I pass out?
Winnie circled behind him, quickly moving out of sight. The reflex to follow her with his eyes was there, but it was out of commission.
Just then Lucy stepped out of the shadowy hallway. No veil of smoke obscured her delicate features.
Help me, Lucy. Help me, he thought. He wanted to cry out to her. He would plead, if that's what it took. She could help him; she was normal, unaffected.
Then she looked at him, terror in her eyes. Had she seen the smoky fabric screening her mother and Randy?
A pressure built inside Edmund. Terror and frustration grew to lunatic proportions. He thought he would explode. Yet the undiminished voice of the protective father still screamed loudly somewhere in his combusting brain: Run, Lucy! Run before they get you, too!
Even in the darkened room Ed could clearly see how his daughter's face began to contort. Grotesquely rippling, flattening, stretching, and pulling into the frightful mask he had seen far too many times before: it was Splitfoot.
Randy moved aside as Lucy approached, but he never took the sharp chisel away from Ed's chest. The hideously smiling girl stepped up to her paralyzed father, dropped to her knees between his dead legs. She tugged his belt away from his stomach and unbuckled it.
Then, leering at him, the tip of her pink tongue tucked into the corner of her lips, she undid his zipper. "Come on, Daddy," she said in Splitfoot's voice, "haven't you been thinking about this? Haven't you been wanting it?"
She parted the fly of his boxer shorts, reached inside.
Somewhere in the midst of Ed's terror and humiliation, there was still a shrinking oasis of rational thought. Before it too surrendered to hysteria, Ed discovered that he was erect.
"I wouldn't want my daddy to die without making his most secret birthday wish come true."
She bent forward, holding his member in both cold hands. She kissed it with icy lips, then took it into her mouth.
In a moment she stopped, looked up at him, an offended pout on her lips. "Oh, but you're not moving, Daddy. Don't you like it?"
Ed felt the sweat streaming down his face, trickling over his ribs beneath his arms. He felt the icy edge of Randy's chisel pressed tightly against his chest. Its broad metal tooth ready, but it wasn't biting yet.
He thought of Lucy's wire braces as she leered up at him.
"You know what might be fun, Daddy? Wouldn't it be fun to see if you can keep from moving all on your own? Let's try it, can we? See if you can hold perfectly still, okay?"
"NO!" he roared. The word exploded from his mouth and he knew he was in control again.
The actions that followed came more from pent-up panic than rational thought. He rolled to the side, away from Randy and the chisel's shiny blade, pushing Lucy back with his legs.
And he sprang to his feet.
Winnie was right behind
him. She snapped the hairy whip around his throat and pulled it tight. God she was strong! She was lifting him off his feet.
This time he could scream. The blade of the carpenter's chisel found the skin of his arm. Its bite felt like a fiery razor. It seemed to cut and burn at the same time.
Somehow he was able to shift his weight to the left. That pulled Winnie slightly off balance, just enough so they both staggered. Ed smashed her hand with his own and she let go of her braid. Enraged, Winnie screamed like a demon. She kicked at him savagely, but missed his genitals.
Now he had his balance. He raced toward the front door.
It wouldn't open.
Desperately he turned the key on the deadbolt, first left, then right, all the time shaking the heavy door. By the time he realized it was useless, they were all over him.
He felt the blade of the chisel slice into his shoulder, heard it shred the back of his shirt. Whirling, Ed caught the glazed expressions on his attackers. Mindlessly, he bolted toward the hall, screaming as he went.
Winnie's hair caught him slightly, stinging like an electric fence. He didn't slow down.
It was a short dash along the hallway and into the spare bedroom. There! No more than five paces in front of him: his gun rack on the wall between the two windows.
Something relaxed when he touched the blue metal of the shotgun barrel. It was a familiar sensation. It was sanity and order.
As he lifted down his twelve-gauge, he groped in the drawer for shells. "Please God, let them be here."
Winnie appeared in the doorway, teeth bare, growling like an animal.
Ed pushed the fourth shell into the magazine.
Advancing, she held the end of her braid as if it were a pistol. Ed lifted the shotgun.
Winnie took a step forward just as Randy tore around the door frame and into the room. He didn't stop. He didn't look around. He just lunged at his father, swiping at him with the bloody chisel. The boy's body was a wild and mindless beast. He growled and snarled.
Ed stepped to the side. Randy's swift attack with the blade missed the target. The boy lost his balance, almost tumbled.
"Yes! Yes!" Winnie screamed.
Ed pulled the trigger.
The fiery roar was deafening in the small room. Scores of invisible pellets smacked the child against the carpeted floor. Warm blood splattered Ed's face. His son lay still, one chubby hand twitched and flexed.
"Yes, Edmund, yes. Calm down now." Winnie inched toward him.
Somehow, in that minuscule reserve of sanity, Ed realized it was his panic that was protecting him. The thing that had been his wife could not control him when he couldn't control himself.
But his rational thinking had gone on far too long; it had a deadly calming effect. She continued to speak soothingly as he felt the joints of his elbows begin to freeze up like rusty hinges. "Yes, Edmund, we need the deaths. Yessssss."
The shotgun was suddenly immensely heavy.
Winnie smiled almost prettily; she knew she was getting to him again. "Yes, that's right, you know what we need . . ."
Ed concentrated, willed his fingers to move.
"I won't calm down," he screamed.
And he fired.
Pig On A Spit
Andover, Massachusetts
Saturday, June 18
Herbert Gold woke up at six o'clock, just as he did every morning. He showered, shaved, and vigorously brushed his close crop of wiry copper hair. All the time he grinned at himself in the bathroom mirror. Then he dressed and walked downstairs to the kitchen. His wife, Dora, moved silently from refrigerator to counter. She wore a floor-length, pink terry-cloth robe with long full sleeves. When she had first worn the robe, more than a year ago. Herbert had said she looked like a pink ghost. This morning he said nothing at all.
Dora put on water for instant coffee, put bread into the toaster oven, and set out the NutriGrain Wheat & Raisins beside a half gallon of one percent milk.
Herbert sat down and grunted a reluctant good morning.
"We got no juice," she told him. "Wish just once you'd think to stop and pick up juice."
"I can do without it," Herbert said.
"Well I can't," she told him. "You know how I like my juice in the morning."
Her breakfast responsibility completed. Dora left him alone in the kitchen and went back upstairs. Herbert knew she would crawl back into bed and stay there, watching television until he had left for work. On weekdays, her habit was to stay in bed at least until the end of the Donahue Show. But this was a Saturday. What would she do up there on a Saturday? Watch cartoons?
After a while she'd shower for about thirty minutes, steaming up the bathroom. And then? God knows what.
One thing for sure—even if she went grocery shopping, she wouldn't buy any juice. That had become his job now, even if Dora had to do without it for a month.
The moment his wife was out of sight, Herbert dumped his cereal and coffee into the garbage disposal, rinsed the dirty dishes, grabbed his lunch pail, and left the house.
His station wagon was at the curb.
Herbert crossed the lawn and got in, just like every morning. Then he drove to the stop sign at the end of the street.
This morning, however, instead of making his usual right turn and heading north to work, Herbert turned left.
Going south.
Toward Boston.
Boston, Massachusetts
After finishing an expensive room-service breakfast, Karen began to pack her suitcase for the drive back to Vermont.
It was almost a quarter to eleven, and Dr. Gudhausen still hadn't phoned. Yesterday he had agreed to do a little research, maybe call a colleague or two, then get back to her with whatever insight he could offer about treating Lucy Washburn. Their plan had been to meet, maybe have lunch, before Karen left for home.
So why hadn't he called? Had she failed to impress on him that she had to check out of her hotel room by eleven?
Or had he been humoring her from the start, politely feigning professional interest in the strange coincidence she had discovered?
Of course not! That was her insecurity talking; Dr. Gudhausen had not been faking interest. He had been concerned, even, it seemed, a little nervous. The whole bizarre situation clearly had started his mental wheels turning, she was sure of it'. "If I were a superstitious man," Dr. Gudhausen had said, "I'd be pretty spooked right now. I've seen a lot of these MPD situations, but never anything quite like this. It's . . . well, frankly, Karen, it's uncanny. The only conclusion I can jump to right now is that Lucy Washburn and Herbert Gold have somehow stored separate sets of identical memories, assimilated independently, but apparently from the same source. Highly unlikely, I admit. It would have to be something they've both experienced, but experienced distinctly separate from one another: a movie, perhaps, or something on television? Possibly a book? Maybe even a magazine article? Who can say?" He shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Lame, I admit, but beyond that, I'm stumped."
Karen glanced at her watch. Ten to eleven. Okay, she'd wait exactly ten more minutes, then go to the lobby, check out, and call Dr. Gudhausen from a pay phone. Still, it irritated her: his time was no more valuable than her own. Alter she'd traveled all this way, could he really expect her to hang around a hotel room waiting for his call?
Karen had to bare down with all her weight to close her suitcase. Jeez, she laughed to herself, I come to Boston for two days and I bring clothes enough for a week! It was a good thing, though, because she'd had a pretty dress to wear at dinner last night with Jeff.
She picked up the bulging suitcase and put it by the door. Then she leaned her attaché case against it and looked around the room for things forgotten.
Yes, by gosh, it had been a pleasant evening, in spite of her initial reservations. Jeff was bright and entertaining—rather silly actually, she thought, then quickly added—in an endearing sort of way. In retrospect, she was pleased with herself for not running away before he had arrived at the rest
aurant. If she had, true to her entrenched patterns of behavior, she'd have spent the entire evening cursing herself for her cowardice. Oh, she had blown similar situations before. Over and over she kept learning the same lesson: sometimes it's good to be a little adventurous; sometimes a bit of courage pays off.
The bottom line, of course, was that she'd had a great evening. She wanted to see Jeff again. She just hoped he felt the same way. Did he?
Well, she'd find out soon enough. A good indication would be whether he would follow through on that trip to Burlington they had talked about.
The phone rang.
Karen jumped a little, having all but given up on Dr. Gudhausen. She stepped quickly around the unmade bed and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Dr. Bradley?"
"Yes?"
"Oh, good; glad I caught you. Stan Gudhausen here. Look, I'm sorry about cutting this so close to the wire, but I've been trying to track down an old friend of mine. Haven't accomplished much of anything except running up my Sprint bill. Anyway, the guy's a priest. A Jesuit psychologist. Crackerjack clinician. Listen, Doctor, if I may, I'd like to invite myself up to Vermont for a day or two. I think I'd like to examine that little Washburn girl in person, if that would be all right with you?"
"Oh yes, yes of course. It would be a great privilege—"
"Privilege nothing. I think, Doctor, that we may be on to something rather disturbing here. Look, I wonder If I can talk you into delaying your return trip to Burlington for an hour or so. I'd like to get some things together and ride up with you, that is if you don't mind a hitchhiker. We'll have plenty of time to talk in the car. Then I can catch a flight back."
"Yes, certainly, of course."
"I'll need an hour and a half, max. That'll give me time to make some arrangements and get a few things cleared up before I leave."
"Okay, sure."
"Can you pick me up at my office?"
"Just tell me when."
"Shall we make it one o'clock?"
"One o'clock it is. Thanks for calling. Oh, Dr. Gudhausen—"
But he had already hung up.
The Reality Conspiracy Page 8