Martin

by George A. Romero

  • • •

  In the darkened bedroom, Martin continued his monologue, more for himself than the presence on the other end of the line. His glazed eyes gave the impression that he was in a trance rather than any conscious waking state. The shaking had subsided, and the yellow glow had returned to his eyes. He peered into the darkness like an alley cat about to spring on an unsuspecting rat. Holding the mouthpiece to his lips, he spoke in hushed, though high-pitched tones:

  “That’s why I pick out people right after I’ve done it. Like right after I do it and I’m feelin’ good, and that’s when I pick out the next person I’m gonna do it to. Then I watch ’em for a while, and figure out how I’m gonna do it without gettin’ caught. Like I do all that before I get shaky. When I’m shaky and I need it real bad, I make mistakes. I forget things. Almost got caught a couple of times.

  “Like I had this person picked out in Naptown. Had it all figured out how I was gonna do it. Then Uncle Palonis died and I knew I’d be on the train soon, so I let the person go.

  “I let people go a few times. Even when they were just right. It’s one of my least favorite things to watch them after I’ve picked them out. To watch them, and find out what they do, and figure out how I’m gonna do it to them without getting caught. That’s my least favorite thing. Because I get to know enough about them to start liking some of them. And I never get to know enough about them to not like them again. It’s my least favorite thing—watching the people I pick out.”

  The receiver now lay on the floor beside Martin’s bed. He sat upright, however, as if he were still on the phone. A recorded voice was repeating over and over again: “Please hang up . . . there appears to be a receiver off the hook . . . please hang up . . . there appears to be a receiver off the hook . . . please hang up . . .” It was followed by a series of high-pitched staccato beats, but Martin was oblivious to the noise and to the brightening edges of the window shade.

  He continued his soliloquy on an empty stage, to a nonexistent audience:

  “And it’s hard after you watch a person for a long time, because you think all the time about what it’s gonna be like, and it’s never as good as you think. Especially the sexy times. It’s never as good after you watch the person for so long. That’s why its nice sometimes to just see somebody and pick ’em out and do it to ’em right away without thinking about it so much.

  “That’s why it was easy on a train, easy to do it and not get caught.

  “I just didn’t know who it would be. Who would be alone. Who would be sexy. I didn’t know it would be such a sexy one. That part was just lucky.”

  Martin’s eyes blinked twice in the brightening room. He lay back against the pillow, his eyes rolling toward the ceiling. His slight body shuddered and a thin, wavering line of saliva ran off the corner of his mouth. He could see her clearly now, almost reach out and touch her. She was alive again, and he could catch a fleeting glimpse of her in the station among the milling crowd. She was dressed very neatly in a man-tailored suit, although her gentle curves made it look more like a prom dress. She had a smile for everyone—the young mother with a child who had bumped into her in their rush, the old man with a cane asking directions, the rumpled businessman who brushed by her roughly. Her voice had been clear and smooth as she spoke to the conductor outside compartment number nine:

  “Madame is by herself tonight?” the conductor had asked graciously, undressing her luscious figure in his mind.

  “All alone.”

  “Shall I wake you for Pittsburgh?”

  “God, no,” she had laughed, tossing her long honey-gold hair over her shoulder. “I’m going on through to New York.”

  “All right, the big apple. I’ll be sure to wake you for that.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said, and handed a tip to the porter carrying her luggage, as a wide-eyed Martin watched from the other end of the car. She turned and entered the compartment which she would never leave.

  Martin could almost smell her gold hair against his face, hear her moans of delight, sense her warm skin against his. He gazed at the door even as the other passengers roughly shoved him aside in their haste to embark.

  “It’s really nice to pick someone out and just be able to do it right away. Especially a pretty lady. It’s so nice not to have to think and worry. Thinking and worrying are shitty. My least favorite things. And even though I was getting shaky and the train was such an easy place. Enough noise all the time . . . really easy . . . and easy to get rid of the person afterwards.”

  It had all been much too easy and it had taken a little of the excitement out of the chase. He had pulled from his hip pocket the slender leather case that contained a neatly laid out set of burglar’s tools, a surgical scalpel, a straight razor, and several single-edged blades. Holding the syringe in his teeth, with the precision of a surgeon, Martin placed one of the tools in the lock of the compartment door. After checking quickly up and down the hall for intruders, he gently urged the lock into submission with the practiced fingers of a first-class safecracker. The lock responded and Martin tried the doorknob. It budged and Martin hastily returned his tools to the case. Yet even in his urgency, he replaced them neatly. Taking the hypodermic from his mouth, he kept one hand on the doorknob while taking a few deep, cleansing breaths to prepare him for what would be next. For a brief instant he saw her smile, the toss of her hair. It billowed before him but then the vision clouded and his determination gripped him. He burst into the room, half expecting her to be waiting for him in a ruffled negligee, welcoming her lover into her arms.

  But the compartment was empty. The fold-down bed, however, held evidence of her habitation: an open book, face down on the mattress; an overnight case filled with creams and lotions. Scattered panties and stockings littered the floor. Martin tensed. He had wanted to change his mind, run for cover, but something stronger than him, stronger than generations, had propelled him into that room. At the sound of the flushing toilet a reflex sent him to the corner where he crouched in anticipation of the opening bathroom door.

  His fantasy woman emerged and for one second of panic Martin thought he had entered the wrong room. She was yawning, her mouth opened wide, the silver of her fillings an ugly reminder that she was not perfect. Her frumpy cotton nightshirt was hitched up unattractively around her hips. Martin caught sight of the patch of dark hair and his pulse quickened. She scratched her inner thigh vigorously. Martin was clearly illuminated by the dim light from the small reading lamp at the head of the bedchamber, his hypodermic poised and ready, but the woman was too engrossed in her scratching to notice. Even as she stumbled the two steps toward the bed, she wasn’t aware of the figure huddled in the cramped corner. Martin caught a glimpse of her as she turned her head and was shocked to see that the sun-lightened hair was covered by a filmy, black net and her face looked as if it was a grotesque Halloween mask with its hideous green cream. He was totally revolted by her appearance and as he reacted to her disappointing looks, she gracelessly lifted herself into the bunk and her eyes fell on his form.

  For a brief instant, her face registered fear and in that instant Martin was on her with the swiftness of a rattler. He clamped his free hand over her mouth and with the other hand plunged randomly into her. The needle sank easily into her abdomen, tearing through the nightshirt. He depressed the plunger, injecting the drug deep within her. Then he tossed the hypodermic onto the pillow so he could use both his arms to contain the woman’s wild and desperate thrashing. Martin had to use the full weight of his body on top of hers to restrict her kicking and struggling until the drug took effect. He could see her eyes rolling desperately and hear her muffled cries against his hand. She fought valiantly, grabbing at his face and hair. At one point she tore at his face with long, crimson fingernails, the polish and blood blending together. She banged her hand against the metal edge of the bed, drawing more blood. Martin wrestled with her, artfully dodging to avoid her clutching fingers. As the drug worked, the woman’s str
uggles grew weaker, until her thrashing was as meaningless as a kitten at play. Slowly Martin unstraddled her, as if taking leave of his lover. Her arms fell limp, spittle dripped from the corners of her mouth. Martin sucked blood and saliva off his hand where she had bitten him.

  Not quite unconscious, the woman moaned, “Oh, Jesus . . . what . . . what do you want . . . want? . . . What did you do to me? . . . What was in that? . . . What is it? . . . Please don’t . . . please . . . leave me . . .”

  As the anesthetic took her under its control, Martin casually went about his business, as if he were cleaning up after a party. He collected the hypodermic, moved to the window of the little compartment and opened it. Then he pitched the needle out into the rushing night. He breathed in a few great gulps of the cool night air and then turned to face the still murmuring woman.

  “I . . . I don’t . . . have anything,” she gasped. “You can . . . you can have me . . . just don’t . . . don’t . . .”

  Martin moved toward her in one great stride and snatched the ugly netting from her hair, releasing the flowing locks. Gently he ran his fingers through the softness. He took the wounded arm, caressing it, then leaning forward and licking the blood from her open cut. Suddenly he stood and quickly stripped naked and piled his clothing next to the unconscious woman’s overnight case. From his kit, he removed a razor blade and entered the bathroom, placing it on the edge of the stainless steel wash basin. Returning to the bedchamber, he stared at the woman for a moment.

  “This isn’t the way it should be,” he thought. “This isn’t the way I want it to be.”

  The woman was on the edge of total sleep and her attempts at words only came out as moans. In a last effort to retain awareness, her eyes opened wide, but the motion failed to rouse her and she fell quietly away.

  Martin watched his fantasy woman drift beyond consciousness. Gone was her beautiful smile, her glorious laugh. She lay there limply, a doll, a plaything. He dropped onto her, pushing up her nightshirt so as to feel her belly and pelvis against his chest. The warm flesh rapidly became chilled from the air rushing in through the open window. Martin’s hands vibrated nervously as he tentatively reached up to touch her breasts, which were soft and sweat-moistened.

  But something was wrong. He stared at her face which was frozen in fear and streaked with the grotesque, disfiguring cream. He ran to the bathroom and dampened a washcloth in the sink. Then gently, as if she were a sleeping child, he cleaned her horror-stricken face.

  Rummaging around in her overnight case, Martin located his victim’s makeup. Finding strange tubes and cylinders, he opened them and painted her face as if she were a coloring book; his feeble attempts at making her beautiful only made her look like a poorly painted kewpie doll or a drunken hooker. Frustrated, he fell on her body again, working her nightshirt entirely free so that her limp form was completely naked. He rolled on top of her, caressing and kissing with great passion. The excitement of finally conquering the beautiful woman started his adrenaline pumping, and he started to shake violently. He stood and glimpsed his lipstick-smeared face in the mirror. It was as if he were looking at a stranger. His eyes showed no flicker of recognition. Turning to the woman again, he dragged her out of the bed and across to the tiny bathroom. Then, leaving her lying on the floor, he tried and succeeded in closing the door. He stuffed a towel along the opening at the bottom and checked the tiny space carefully. Slowly, with deliberation and concentration, he lowered himself into a position on the floor and pulled the woman over him like a blanket.

  The weight of the woman on top of Martin drove him to new heights. He had lost all consciousness, too, and was totally unaware of the movement of the rushing train and the grinding of the wheels upon the track. Time and place had lost all meaning for him. He was deeply immersed in his exploratory sexual probings of the woman’s body—her breasts, her vagina, her thighs, her buttocks. It was as if he were feeling a revolutionary new product, a great discovery. His excitement increased, and he moved his lifeless partner in ways that he thought she should respond. He wrapped her arms around his shoulders, moved her arms across his face. In return, he kissed her mouth and played with her hair, opened her limp eyelids and stared into her vacant eyes. His body reacted with undulating sexual movements. Hers remained static. His mind registering heights of ecstasy, Martin reached for the razor blade on the edge of the washbasin while at the same time kissing her and licking at her bloody arm. He worked the bloody area with the edge of the blade, bringing more and more of the crimson fluid to the surface. Moaning with pleasure, he probed more deeply into the wound. A stream of blood ran down the unconscious woman’s arm, staining the cool, white tiles of the bathroom floor. Martin licked and swallowed, and his body moved frantically against hers. He set the blade on the floor and seated her limp body properly for him to enter her. He managed the entrance and pumped brutally. Almost at peak excitement, he fumbled for the blade. Bringing it up he slashed through the vein in the woman’s wrist. Blood flowed in great spurts. Martin hardly noticed the great pool of blood that he was squirming in. He tried to take as much of the scarlet geyser into his mouth as possible, swallowing and gagging. He pumped harder and harder, moaning in ecstacy as he finally achieved a climax.

  Still sucking at the gushing wound as if at a mother’s breast, Martin slowly calmed down sexually. He fell limp but managed to bring the barely recognizable, mangled wrist to his mouth for a few last desperate drops. He closed his eyes and lay very still and relaxed. The only movement was an occasional darting of his tongue as he allowed the warm rivulets into his mouth.

  Vaguely, Martin became aware of the churning train wheels as they made contact with the steel tracks. He heard a whistle in the distance, a passenger walking through the corridor. As he became more and more conscious of his surroundings, he noticed the woman lying half in and half out of the bathroom. He reached up and wrapped a towel around her wrist to prevent the blood from running. Then he got up and energetically started to clean most of the dripping red fluid from his own body and from hers. Dragging the corpse of the woman across the floor, he reached the gaping window. As the night air rushed through his hair, he lifted the body of the woman and shoved it just far enough so that her upper half hung from the window, jostling against the outside of the train. He waited patiently for the appropriate spot. Where on the passing terrain, he wondered, would it be isolated and rugged enough to severely bruise and disfigure the body so that the cause of death could not be determined? In some ways, Martin was very smart, almost a genius. He had come by these decisions automatically, as if they were willed to him through his genetic heritage.

  The train crossed a steel trellis which spanned a rocky ravine. Something told Martin this was the spot, and he pushed the woman’s entire body through the small window and watched it make its gory way through the steel ramparts, being ripped and battered on its journey to the rocks below like a rag doll flung by an uncaring child.

  Martin craned his neck to watch the body fall to its degrading and meaningless burial ground. The wind whipped through his hair. Again he took the deep cleansing breaths that calmed him and returned the glow of innocence to his face. His eyes lost their demonic yellow cast and regained their familiar hazel color. He returned to the bathroom and with meticulous precision cleaned the blood from the tile floor and the wash basin. His thin naked form was filled with a new vibrancy and energy that it had lacked before he boarded the train. He checked the bed compartment, flung the razor out of the window, and produced a neatly folded plastic bag from the pocket of his trousers, which had been lying on the floor. As he stuffed the towels into the bag, he made a last minute check for any missed bloodstains, and then shoved the bag out the window. He put the woman’s things in order, dressed himself, made sure his tools and precious bottle of serum were secure in the black leather case, and walked to the door. He glanced up and down the hallway, and assured of its safety steathily moved down the corridor to the adjoining Pullman. As he carefully glided dow
n the hallway, he once again came upon the sleeping man’s hand, and, almost superstitiously, maneuvered around it. Back at his seat, he stuffed his supplies into the battered duffel bag, pulled on his shoes, and calmly returned his attention to the passing scenery as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired in the last hour. He could tell that they were nearing a city, and could see the smokestacks of factories and the filthy vacant windows of abandoned buildings along the tracks.

  “Things are never as good as you think they’re gonna be,” he thought. “But I knew the train would be easy. I like trains. Especially when they go fast! This is the second time I did it on a train. I did it on the train when I first went to Uncle Palonis’s. I’m glad I waited and didn’t do it to the person I picked out in Naptown. I’m glad I let that person go.

  “I was with Uncle Palonis a long time. I didn’t like him. He was a gypsy. He believed in magic and ghosts and all that scary stuff. I didn’t like him at all and he smelled bad. I’m glad he’s dead now.”

  Martin could sense that the train was slowing down and that they were pulling into the station.

  “Tati Cuda is very old,” he thought as he walked toward the exit of the car. “So I won’t have to stay with him too long.”