by John Saul
Then, far ahead, he saw a figure in white coming toward him. He felt his pace pick up, and idly wondered why. The white figure wavered in front of him, and he realized that it wasn’t the figure that wavered; it was himself. He steadied himself, pausing for a moment to regain his balance. Ahead of him the figure in white seemed to pause too.
Peter strained his eyes, trying to make out who it was. Then he knew.
It was Marilyn Crane.
She should have been going the same way he was going, up the hill, to the school. Instead, she was coming toward him.
Something was wrong. He forced his exhausted mind to begin functioning again. Marilyn was coming toward him, and something was wrong.
Now he tried consciously to hurry; his feet refused to obey him. But he had to get to her.
He raised his black-robed arm and waved.
Marilyn saw the dark shape coming closer, and then she saw the uplifted arm. It was beckoning to her. Beckoning, as the voices in her head had beckoned.
Suddenly she knew what the figure was.
Clothed in black, Death was coming for her.
She wanted to run, wanted to fling herself into the arms of the specter, and let him carry her away.
But there was something she had to do first There was some act she had to commit, some symbolic gesture she was required to make to let the figure know that she was ready to accept Him.
Her right hand dropped the rosary beads, and the crucifix clattered to the sidewalk. Marilyn knelt, reached into her purse, her eyes fastened on the black figure before her. Her fingers closed on the package. The razor blades that had been with her for so long. She fumbled at them.
Peter stopped suddenly, realizing that Marilyn was no longer coming toward him. He saw the crucifix and beads fall to the sidewalk, and his hand went to his waist, his fingers tightening on his own rosary.
She was kneeling now, and had dropped her purse near her beads.
And then the redness began to flow from her wrist, and Peter knew what was happening. He began to run.
Marilyn watched the blood spurt from her left wrist, and quickly transferred the blade to her other hand. She began hacking clumsily at the arteries of her right wrist. Suddenly the blade met its mark; skin and flesh parted. She stared at the throbbing artery for a split second, then plunged the razor deep into it A crimson fountain gushed forth, splashing against the white of her dress, and dribbling slowly to the pavement beneath her.
She looked up, away from the blood. She had been right. Death was coming for her now, hurrying toward her, and she must go to meet Him. She began running, her arms stretched out toward her approaching Death, the blood spewing from her wrists.
The truck was coming toward Main Street on First Street For once, the light—Neilsville’s only traffic light—was green. The driver pressed on the accelerator and the engine surged. He would make the light
It happened so fast the driver had no time to respond.
From the left, a figure ran in front of the truck, a blur of red and blinding white. He moved his foot to the brake, but before the truck even began to slow he heard the dull thump, and the scream.
He brought the truck to a halt and leaped from the cab. He threw up on the pavement
Her head caught under the left front wheel, her neck broken, Marilyn Crane lay in a crimson heap. Only the blood, still being slowly pumped from her wrists, signified that she was still alive.
Peter Balsam saw it happen, saw Marilyn dashing across the street toward him, too intent on him to notice that the light was wrong, and that the track was coming. If she saw it before it hit her, she gave no sign. She didn’t try to veer away, she didn’t try to stop.
She screamed once, but that was a reflex.
He never knew whether he paused, or whether he took in the scene as he ran. But suddenly he was beside her, on his knees, her blood soaking the heavy material of his robes.
Peter Balsam, his mind reeling, began praying over the broken and dying body of Marilyn Crane.
From out of his past, from somewhere in his memory, Peter began administering the Last Rites to Marilyn.
The crowd gathered slowly, until there was a solid mass of people surrounding Peter as he prayed for Marilyn’s soul. The crowd was in shock, but finally one of them broke away and found a telephone.
A few moments later, the ambulance screamed through Neilsville.
In the rectory, Monsignor Vernon stared into the last coals of the dying fire. An intense satisfaction filled him, and he stood up. He moved to the window, drawing the curtain open to the sunlight With the sunshine came the howl of the siren.
The priest smiled softly. At last, the long night was over.
He began to prepare for the day ahead.
30
The story was sweeping through Neilsville even before the ambulance had taken Marilyn Crane and Peter Balsam to the hospital.
Neilsville stopped functioning. For the first time, each one of them, as he heard the story, felt personally touched. Until that day they had talked, spoken in whispers, wondered about the girls who had died. But that day, they had seen it, watched from the sidewalks, from the windows, as tibie evil among them spilled out into the street By noon, everyone in town had heard the story, and told it, and heard it again. For each of them it was as if they had seen it themselves; by afternoon each of them believed he had seen it
School was canceled before it even began that day, and the Sisters retired to their private chapel to spend the day in prayer. The children went home, but on their way home they talked, and by the time they reached their homes, all of them were sure that they had seen Marilyn Crane die.
She was dead by the time the ambulance reached the hospital, but still, in the manner of hospitals, they tried to act as if she was not They worked over her for nearly an hour, and all the time they worked, Peter Balsam sat numbly looking on, knowing they were not treating Marilyn, but treating themselves, avoiding by simple activity the truth of what had happened, what was happening.
Margo Henderson walked briskly into the emergency room, but when she saw why she had been called she came to an abrupt halt She stared at the specter before her, not wanting to believe her eyes. But then the professionalism born of years in the hospital came to the fore, and she steeled herself. She approached Peter Balsam.
“Peter?” There was no answer, and she realized he was in shock. She repeated his name: “Peter.”
“I have to end it,” he murmured. “I have to end it.” He kept repeating the phrase as Margo led him through the halls.
Dr. Shields gave him a shot, and he slowly came out of it. He gazed first at Margo, then at the doctor.
“She’s dead,” he said, neither asking a question nor stating a fact.
“What happened?” Dr. Shields asked gently. “Can you talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about” Peter said thickly. “T have to end it, that’s all.”
“Peter, there’s nothing for you to do,” Margo said. Suddenly an image flashed in her mind, an image of the attractive young man she had met on the train such a short time ago. Could this haggard being, his bloody robe hanging limply from stooped shoulders, be the same young man?
No, she decided, it could not Biting her lips to hold back her tears, she hurried from the room. Peter watched her go, and knew that this time she was gone forever. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that he must end the horror. He tried to focus on the doctor.
“I have to sleep,” he said. “Can you give me something to sleep? If I sleep, I’ll be all right”
Dr. Shields nodded. “Why don’t I admit you to the hospital?”
“They’ll watch me?” Peter asked.
‘Watch you?”
“While I sleep. They’ll watch me while I sleep?” Dr. Shields nodded.
“If they’ll watch me,” Peter said vaguely. “I can’t sleep alone, you know.”
Dr. Shields nodded understanding, though he hadn’t the vaguest id
ea of what the young man was talking about
“I’ll see to it,” he promised.
Thirty minutes later Peter Balsam was asleep in Neilsville Memorial Hospital, a nurse sitting by his bed. She watched him for an hour, checking his breathing and his pulse. When she decided all was well with him, she silently left the room to go about her duties.
He woke to the sound of church bells pealing, and knew what it meant.
All over Neilsville the churches were holding spedai services. The people had asked for them, needing something to take their minds off the horror of the day, needing something to tell them that soon all would be well among them again.
Peter lay in his hospital bed, thinking that it was curious. The bells were sounding for Marilyn, all of them except St. Francis Xavier’s. The bells of St Francis Xavier were sounding as usual, calling the faithful to evening Mass. Usually, on a weeknight, attendance would be light. But not tonight, he” was sure. Tonight they would all be there, praying guiltily for the soul of Marilyn Crane, knowing in their minds that they should not, that Marilyn was no longer worthy of their prayers, but praying for her nonetheless.
He glanced at the clock. Thirty minutes, he thought, and they’ll all be in church. All of us, except those of us here, or in the grave.
All of us. He repeated the words to himself. All of us. Peter Balsam sat up in bed, the last vestiges of sleep falling away as his mind suddenly became alert Now was the time. If ever there was going to be a time, it would be now.
He rose from his bed and shuffled into the tiny bathroom wedged economically between his room and the next. He splashed cold water on his face and looked in the mirror.
His eyes were better, and the crow’s feet had faded. He needed a shave but it didn’t matter. No one was going to see him anyway.
He found the bloodstained robes hanging in the closet. Loathing them, he put them on. Then he sat down to wait
He waited until the bells died away, and silence fell over Neilsville. Then he left his room. Without speaking to anyone, Peter Balsam walked out of the hospital.
No one tried to stop him. Perhaps it was the strange figure he presented, barefoot, his bloodstained robes trailing the floor, his crucifix clutched tightly in his hand. The orderlies looked at the nurses, and the nurses looked at the resident but none of them spoke. Dr. Shields had admitted him, but had said nothing about keeping him there. “Make sure he sleeps.” That’s what the doctor had ordered, and that’s what they had done. Peter Balsam had slept and now he was going home.
But he didn’t go home. Instead he walked slowly up Cathedral Hill, listening to the sounds of the choirs that were raising their voices to God all over Neilsville. No one was in sight, but he could sense than around him, praying quietly in the churches.
He mounted the steps to the rectory, and let himself in the front door. He picked up the silver bell and shook it, then shook it again. Its tinkle echoed through the dimly lit house, and Peter knew he was alone. He walked quickly down the hall to the door of the study.
He paused there, suddenly frightened. He had to remind himself that the room on the other side of the door was empty, that there were no strange rituals being performed, that tonight no one was reaching out to draw him to this room. Tonight, he had come on his own.
He opened the door, and entered the small room. He found the light switch, and the room was filled with a yellow glow that seemed to change its configuration, washing away the gloom.
He began his search of the desk, opening and closing the drawers rapidly. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He would recognize it when he saw it
There was nothing in the desk, and he moved to a small filing cabinet that was built into one of the walls. He opened the top drawer, and began going through the files. Nothing.
Nothing in the second.
In the third, he found what he was looking for.
It was a large sealed envelope, wedged behind the last of the files. Peter pulled it from its hiding place, and tore open the envelope. A scrapbook. A scrapbook and a file folder. He opened the file folder.
On top was a single sheet of paper; on it was written a list of names. Five of them had been scratched out.
Judy Nelson
Karen Morton
Penny Anderson
Janet Connally
Marilyn Crane
At the end of the list, Judy Nelson’s name appealed again, with no line through it
Peter Balsam had found what he was looking for.
He slipped the file folder back in the envelope, and closed the drawer of the cabinet He let himself out of the study, snapping the light off as he went, then, carrying the bulging envelope, walked out of the rectory into the fading light of evening.
For the first time in several days the dusk held no fear for Peter. This night he would complete the puzzle. This night would end the terror, both for him and for Neilsville.
As he hurried down the hill the bells of St Francis Xavier began to peel once again. Mass was over.
In his apartment, Peter began going through the scrapbook. He leafed through the pages quickly. They were all more or less the same: filled with yellowed newspaper clippings, each clipping headlined in bold type:
GIRL SLAYS PARENTS, SELF
MODERN LIZZIE BORDEN WILL NEVER STAND TRIAL
CHILD WATCHES AS FAMILY DIES
There were nearly fifty clippings in the scrapbook, from brief articles less than a column long to major features spread over several pages. AU of them were about the same crime, all of them were from the same time. Peter Balsam subtracted quickly. He would have been two or three at the time the crime took place.
He went back to the first page of the scrapbook, and began reading the articles carefully.
Most of them gave simply the bare facts:
A man and his wife had been found in bed, murdered. In the same room their daughter was discovered hanging from a light fixture. When the room was thoroughly searched, the couple’s small son was found hiding in the closet of the bedroom, in shock.
The tabloids had spread the story over several pages, and it was in the clippings from the tabloids that Peter Balsam was able to glean the details of the bizarre crime.
The couple had been murdered while in the act of making love. Their daughter had walked in on them and hacked them to death with a cleaver. The weapon indicated premeditation. The motive was unclear. There was some speculation that the girl was reacting badly to her own misfortune—an autopsy had revealed that she was pregnant
But what the tabloids played up most was the little boy—the little boy who was thought to have watched the entire thing from the closet, from the moment when his parents came into the room and began making love—not knowing they were being observed—to the moment when his sixteen-year-old sister brought the cleaver into the bedroom, hacked her parents to death, then hanged herself from the light fixture.
He had been in shock when he was found, and had been rushed to a hospital. There, it was discovered that the child had no living relatives. In the end he had been anonymously placed in a convent
The convent was unnamed, but Balsam was sure he knew which one it was. What he had just read was the story that had been whispered about when he was a child. None of the children at the convent had known the facts. Now Peter Balsam knew them all.
He searched through the papers.
The name. Where was the name of the family?
The name was not given. Nowhere. In every story the names of everyone involved in the crime had been carefully deleted, as if whoever had compiled the scrapbook had wanted the story known, but the identities kept secret. Nor were the papers themselves identified. Each clipping had been carefully cut from its page.
In only one story was there even a clue. In one story, someone had slipped. The child’s name was Peter.
Suddenly it all made sense. He had never gotten over the shock. It had festered in him all the time he was growing up, all the time he had studied for th
e priesthood. And then, sometime, not too long ago, the shock had caught up with him.
He had begun to hate adolescent girls. And why shouldn’t he? Hadn’t one of them taken his parents away from him? Taken his home away from him? Left him with nothing? If one of them could do that, why not all of them? His hatred had grown, had turned into an obsession.
And Peter Vernon—now Monsignor Vernon—had acted on his obsession. He had gathered together the forces at his disposal, and begun to strike back, taking revenge on the children his injured mind blamed for the loss of his parents.
Balsam leafed through the scrapbook. He could understand it, now, and for the first time he felt a trace of sympathy for the priest
He wondered what to do with the scrapbook. Should he take it to the police? But what would they do? All right, so the Monsignor kept a scrapbook about a crime more than thirty years old. So what? If it was your family, wouldn’t you have kept a scrapbook too? Those girls killed themselves, mister, and the fact that a priest’s older sister did the same thing thirty years ago is just one of those coincidences.
The Bishop. He could take it to the Bishop. Even if the Bishop didn’t believe the Monsignor had anything to do with the suicides, at least the scrapbook would prove that something had gone wrong in the Monsignore early life, and that the priest should at least be carefully observed. The Bishop could order the Monsignor to undergo observation. From there, the psychiatrists could take over. It would all come out
The door suddenly opened.
Monsignor Vernon stood framed in the door, a small smile playing around his lips; a smile that was betrayed by the burning fire in his eyes.
“I went to see you at the hospital,” he said. “But you’d left.”
“Yes, I did,” Peter said blankly, his mind whirling.
“May I come in?” The burning eyes bored into Peter, and without waiting for an answer the priest entered the room and closed the door behind him.
“You found my scrapbook,” he said softly. His eyes darted around the room, coming to rest on the open scrapbook on the desk.