Sam Campbell was getting very angry. He and Joyce had been waiting—he checked his watch—an hour and a half and he was sure now that the receptionist had forgotten all about him. He patted Joyce's hand. "I'm going to go see what the problem is, Joyce." She nodded, and he made his way to Lenny Wingate's desk. She had her head lowered.
"Hello?" he said.
She made no response.
"Hello?" he repeated. "Do you remember me?"
She looked up slowly at him; he saw that her face was red and slightly puffy, as if she'd been crying.
"I'm sorry," he said, ''I just—"
"Yes?" she said.
"I just wanted to know, I was wondering—my name's Campbell . . ."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Campbell." She took a deep breath, as if to give herself energy. "Yes. I called the doctor, everything's okay." She withdrew a pass from her desk, handed it to him; "This is a Ward R pass. You and your wife can both use it.'
"She's not—" Sam began, stopped, said, "Thank you. I didn't mean to bother you," then went and got Joyce.
Georgie MacPhail announced, "We gotta keep moving." lie thought it was the right thing to say at the right time, but Carter Barefoot could not have agreed less. "I'm cold," he moaned. "I'm so cold!" And he hugged himself fiercely for warmth.
Inside the pawnshop, a little aged wisp of a man named Samuelson awoke. He had taken to sleeping in his store only in the past few days, when, as he'd put it, "all hell was about to break loose."
He sat up. He looked around his store. He felt certain he would see that someone had broken in. But the store was quiet.
And then he saw the dark forms at the front door. He moved very slowly, partly from caution, partly from fear, and partly from age. He got out of the cot. He edged sideways toward the back of the counter, where he kept two guns—a Smith and Wesson .38, which hadn't worked right in years, and an Italian-made over-and-under shotgun, almost brand new. It was that gun which he took hold of,broke open, and loaded.
There were a hundred or more Philip Cases in Manhattan that night. A hundred or more Karen Gears. A hundred or more boys lying in their darkened rooms and trying desperately to recall the events of just one or two days before. Because such events were their reality, and reality was slipping from them rapidly.
Because Seth had reached them, at last.
Because he had reached into them.
Into their comfortable and private worlds—the worlds they had created for themselves over the decades and the centuries since the Earth had released them.
And Seth did not like what he saw there. He did not like the fear. And the need. And the desperation.
They had become what they had lived amongst.
They had grown apart from the Earth, because they rarely touched it, and because here there was warmth from the cruel winter, and food in abundance, and sex at every street corner.
They had become what they had lived amongst. They had grown apart from the Earth, because they had rarely touched it.
They had grown secure in what they had become, and so had tossed aside what they had been. In stark desperation they had discarded it, and forgotten it. Because it is impossible to be both what they were, and what they had changed themselves into.
Seth had reached into them. Into their comfortable, private worlds. And he had torn those worlds apart.
Sam Campbell and Joyce Dewitte were led to Marsha's room by a psychiatric technician. "You can have fifteen minutes with her," he told them. "Doctor's orders."
"Yes," said Sam, "I understand that."
The technician unlocked the door and pushed it open. Sam and Joyce stepped into the room.
Marsha was sitting up, cross-legged on her bed. She stared mutely at them as they entered.
Sam took hold of Joyce's hand. "Marsha, darling," he said soothingly, "this is Joyce. Do you remember—"
Marsha screamed. It was a chilling shrill noise, as if there were some other person inside her screaming, and she was merely opening her mouth to let it out. No emotion showed around her eyes or in her face. The scream continued, unbroken, for many seconds.
Sam and Joyce stared, transfixed. At last, Sam whispered, "That's not my daughter, that's just not my daughter."
But it was. And deep inside himself, he knew that it was.
And when her screams ended, Marsha broke into fitful weeping punctuated every now and then by, "Oh Daddy, oh Daddy, I'm sorry."
And Sam Campbell, hearing something in her words and in her weeping that he hadn't heard since his wife's death—something very alive and hopeful—ran to her and gathered her into his arms and murmured, "She's come back to me. Oh, Joyce, my daughter has come back to me."
On West Tenth Street, a scream erupted from Philip Case. It was much the same kind of scream that had come from Marsha Campbell and it was a scream done for much the same reasons.
To erase the memories, and the images, and the feelings.
To call back his hard-won humanness.
To blot out the nightmare of what he had been.
On the Upper West Side, the scream did not work for Karen Gears. She threw herself from her south-facing window. Her scream ended abruptly.
On the fringes of the West Village, a boy lay quietly, dreaming again of Christine Basile, his past shut out completely. And forever.
Seth could feel these deaths happening.
And he knew, at last, that he was an imperfect creature who had done an imperfect thing.
He stood. He felt something emerging within himself—something strident, and desperate, and mean.
And for the first time in his life he was frightened.
Because it was late September.
And he was hungry, and cold, and had no idea at all what he was doing here, in Central Park, in Manhattan.
Chapter 65
The first blast from Samuelson's over-and-under shotgun tore through the glass just six inches above where Carter Barefoot, Winifred Haritson and Georgie MacPhail had been sitting. One of the pellets deflected from the metal grating and lodged in Georgie's right ankle. He grabbed the ankle, rolled to his left, knocking Winifred Haritson over, and scurried to the sidewalk. He grabbed Winifred's foot and pulled her over the edge of the step to him.
He saw then that the back of Carter Barefoot's head was missing, and he remembered that the man had been preparing to stand just as the shotgun blast hit. Georgie swore beneath his breath. Samuelson fired again. The pellets lashed into a set of windows in a storefront across the street; the glass shattered; huge, jagged pieces fell inside the grating.
Georgie swore again.
He heard the distant gurgling hum of a car engine to his left. Another shotgun blast erupted through the storefront; it blew away some of Carter Barefoot's shoulder. Georgie pulled himself to his feet, bent over, put his hands under Winifred Haritson's arms. The hum of a car grew closer; Georgie looked to his left; two blocks away an old Cadillac, its suspension straining under the weight of a half dozen beefy men, careened his way and stopped in front of the store. A half dozen firearms of one kind and another leveled on the storefront; a moment's silence followed, and then the guns were turned loose. Georgie put his hands hard to his ears. "What are you doing?" he screamed over and over again as a hundred, two hundred bullets of various sizes, shapes, and velocities tore the storefront to shreds.
And then it was over.
Georgie took his hands away from his ears. One of the men in the Cadillac stuck his head out. "Whatcha got there, boy?—Some dead old woman?"
Georgie shook his head dumbly.
The man laughed. "Well you sure better look again," he said, and the Cadillac sped away.
He turned. He bent over Mrs. Haritson. Her body flowed away from him; her lips parted, her eyes rolled.
Georgie sighed.
He thought that what he wanted most in this world was to be at home. With his mother, and his little brothers, and the ghost—Hiram or Handy.
And so, very slowly—because of the pellet in
his ankle, and very determinedly, he started walking north.
At Bellevue—the following morning—10:00 A.M.
John Marsh looked up slowly as the door was pushed open and a big, well-dressed man in his late fifties stepped in. "John Marsh?" the man said.
Marsh answered, "Yes. Who are you?"
"An associate of Dr. Halloway's, Mr. Marsh. He asked me to give you this." The man handed Marsh an envelope. Marsh took it, opened it; he looked questioningly at the man. "There's two hundred dollars in here."
The man nodded and smiled ingratiatingly, "Yes, sir. The doctor feels that's adequate to get you back to Penn Yann. If it isn't—"
"I'm being . . ."
"Released? Yes, sir. Dr. Halloway seems to feel that there is no longer a need to keep you here."
Marsh studied the envelope a moment. "And what about Seth?"
The man's smile faded quickly. "And Dr. Halloway wanted me to remind you, sir, that even in a city this size he would have no trouble at all locating a man who clearly demonstrates that he may be a danger either to himself or to society."
Marsh grinned. "I see."
"Dr. Halloway hopes that you do, sir. Now if you will please come with me, we'll retrieve your street clothes and see to your car."
"Truck."
"I'm sorry?"
"It's not a car. It's a truck. And there's a little matter of my dog . . ."
"The doctor mentioned that as well, sir, and he is sorry to tell you that Miss Wingate, who was holding your dog, is apparently no longer with us."
"No longer with you? What the hell am I supposed to do about that? I want my damned dog back—"
"That is something you will have to take up with Miss Wingate, sir."
"Can you give me her address?"
"I'm sorry, no—it would be no help to you, sir; she has apparently left the city."
Whimsical Fatman was doing very well on crutches. He had only one problem: getting all the way to North Carolina on them was going to be difficult. Even getting out of New York with them was probably going to be next to impossible.
He planted himself on one of several benches just outside Bellevue's main entrance; he thought ruefully that it had been a nice dream.
John Marsh appeared in the entranceway, looked about, and came toward him.
Whimsy raised a hand, waved slightly; "Hi," he said. Marsh glanced at him, without stopping; "Hi," he said. And then he stopped. "Do I know you?"
Whimsy shook his head. "Not really. We were on the same floor"
"Oh," Marsh said.
"I'm glad they let you out."
"Yeah. So am I." He noted Whimsy's crutches for the first time. "Can I . . ." he began, and thought better of it. "Can you give me a lift somewhere?" Whimsy coaxed. A short pause. "That's what I was going to ask."
"You aren't going to North Carolina, are you?" Marsh smiled. "No. Penn Yann."
Whimsy grinned back. "That's in the Finger Lakes, isn't it?"
Marsh was pleased. "Yes, it is. You're probably the only person in this damned place that knows that." Whimsy shrugged. "Simple geography," he said. "So what do you say, can I get a lift out of here, anyway?"
"You mean out of the city?"
"Uh-huh. Out of Manhattan."
"Yes," Marsh said.
The orderly, a young woman named Anne, stepped into Room 343. She saw nothing at first. Two empty beds, sheets and blankets in disarray. She flicked the light on. And saw the form huddled in a corner of the room. The form was trembling visibly, and little moaning sounds were coming from it. "My God!" she murmured.
She ran over, touched the side of the man's head. He looked up at her; his face was flushed and swollen from weeping. She lifted his wrist, read the name on the tag there: JIM HART.
He mouthed something incomprehensible.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Hart," she said soothingly. "Can you stand up, please?"
He mouthed words at her again; she understood several of them.
"Can you stand up?" she repeated.
"I'm a city dweller!" he whispered. "I'm a city dweller!"
"Yes, Mr. Hart," she said. "Yes. We all are."
"Don't let them take it away from me, please don't let them take it away from me . . ."
"No one's going to take anything from you, Mr. Hart."
"I'm a city dweller!" He thumped his chest. "I'm a city dweller!"
"Yes," she told him again, "we all are." And she grinned very slightly. "We are all city dwellers, Mr. Hart."
The New York Times: October 5th:
TWO MORE BODIES FOUND
The nude bodies of two children, a boy and a girl, aged ten to twelve years, were found in a tenement house on West 158th Street last night, bringing to eight the number of such bodies found in Manhattan within the last two weeks, fanning speculation that the children may be victims of the West 150th Street killers.
Autopsies are scheduled for today on both bodies; no immediate cause of death was determined, although one of the bodies apparently displayed a number of dark bruises . . .
Chapter 66
The man on the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway handing out coupons for a free "Relaxo Massage" at "Bette's Pleasure Palace" in the West Village had several thoughts going through his head: The first, and most important, had to do with the weather forecast from earlier in the morning—a forecast for "rapidly dropping temperatures." The man was worried about that. Ever since he was a kid, he remembered now, and had fallen through the ice at his grandfather's farm, he had been very susceptible to cold. At that moment, he had no place to sleep for the night, but if he managed to distribute the rest of his Relaxo Massage coupons he could stay at Bette's place, which, he had found, was very warm, and very pleasant.
Another of the man's thoughts was that he hadn't really known what name to give Bette when he'd applied for this job. He knew his name, of course. Didn't everyone? His name was . . . David. Everyone called him Dave. They'd called him Dave since he was in . . . second grade. They called him Dave because . . . they called him Dave because "David" was so damned formal sounding. And it kind of announced, didn't it, that he was Jewish. Half-Jewish, really. Because his father . . . Because his mother (he always got that mixed up) had been Jewish. And his father had been Methodist. Baptist! David Seth . . . Seth David Goldman . . . David Seth Williams. "Dave" Williams.
"Hi," he announced suddenly, and he shoved a leaflet under the nose of a passerby. "I'm Dave Williams, and I'd like to invite you to Bette's Pleasure Palace . . ." The passerby took the leaflet. I'm a good salesman, the man who called himself Dave Williams thought. I've got charisma.
A sudden, chill wind came up, caught the man's leaflets and scattered them around the street. He cursed and scurried after them.
A woman looking on clucked to her friend, "My God, he acts like it's a matter of life and death. If you ask me, he should find a real job!"
The man who called himself Dave Williams heard her, though she was a good fifty feet away, and speaking in low, secretive tones—his hearing had always been excellent. He thought, Don't worry about me, lady. I've got charisma. I'll be okay!
One Month Later:
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER SAYS KILLINGS ARE BEHIND US
Deputy Police Commissioner James T. Hefter has stuck his neck out and declared that the rash of brutal murders of a month ago are "probably a thing of the past." He goes on to describe the killings as "an anomaly. A hundred years from now civilization may encounter something quite similar. It has happened in the past: Jack the Ripper springs to mind, and Juan Corona"—who, in the early seventies was responsible for the brutal murders of several dozen migrant workers in California—"as well as many others, several unsolved to this day." Pressed as to whether that meant the West 150th Street Killings will go unsolved, Hefter said, "No, we have several strong leads, and they are being investigated." In an unusually philosophical concluding statement, the Commissioner added, "Our civilization, as complex and as vulnerable as it is, probably contributes very heavi
ly to the development of these . . . anomalies. Perhaps it is just a question of . . . adaptation. Perhaps some of us simply find the society too complex, and ourselves too vulnerable." Asked what he meant, exactly, the Commissioner responded, "I'm not sure. I'm really not sure . . ."
Chapter 67
In a Small Cabin in the Adirondacks
Leonora "Lenny" Wingate stroked the big, aged German Shepherd as she watched the firelight dance hotly just a few feet in front of her chair. It was a good fire. It would keep her warm. And there was enough firewood piled up that she would have no trouble surviving the winter.
But then, she had never had trouble surviving the winters. She was stronger than the others. She was new. And different.
She was a survivor.
And now, with this dog, and the goodness and gentleness that were part of him, because they were a part of the man, it would be a good winter.
Lenny sensed that the man was out there, beyond the cabin, perhaps not far away. She couldn't be sure. It was possible that he was dead. She had sensed death about him when they'd brought him in—how long ago?—just a month and a half ago? It seemed like centuries.
She glanced out a small window in the west wall of the cabin. The sun was setting. She knew that it would rise and set another hundred times before warmth returned to the land.
Before the Earth produced her own once again.
She sighed.
She continued stroking the big German Shepherd. She thought what a great pleasure it was to be alive.
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