Prisoner of Fire

by Cooper, Edmund

  “He hasn’t screwed her,” interrupted Janine. “I would have known if he had.” She gave a twisted smile. “Even if I didn’t have it with her at the time, I would have known.”

  “Dear Janine,” said Professor Raeder in a deceptively gentle tone, “we are all painfully aware of your major interest in life. Please do not let it intrude upon rational discussion of a problem. Otherwise, I may be reluctantly compelled to apply electrodes to your temples.”

  Janine blanched at the threat. “I thought it was important,” she said defensively. “If he screws her properly, she won’t have any blocks left. Then we get a clear picture.”

  “Janine, the crudity of your expression is matched only by your inability to concentrate upon anything but personal gratification.” The Professor’s voice hardened. “You really will have to control yourself, my dear. I can assure you that the threat of electro-convulsive therapy is not an idle threat… Now where was I?”

  Sandra, munching peanuts, said helpfully: “Things we found in Vanessa’s mind.”

  “Ah, yes. From the data you have supplied, my children, certain deductions may be made about this Mr. Anderson. We know he has some facial disfigurement. That knowledge is something Vanessa cannot cancel. We have also learned that, at the beginning, there was some confusion about his name and profession. Vanessa has constructed a deep block about this; and that, in itself, is interesting. Let us consider two hypothesis: one is that Mr. Anderson may be very intelligent, the other is that he may not be what he claims to be.”

  Alfred, smoking pot, was sufficiently with proceedings to say: “Suppositions aren’t going to help us, Prof. We need the hard stuff.”

  Professor Raeder rubbed his hands together and smiled benevolently. “Are they not, Alfred, my boy? Are they not? Let us see. Let us try association of ideas. For example, what does the name Oliver suggest to you? Come on, tell me. No matter how ridiculous, tell me.”

  There was silence for a moment or two. Then Sandra, helping herself to more peanuts, said uncertainly: “Biscuits?”

  Professor Raeder felt happy. For a short time he really could imagine himself back in tutorial with a handful of picked students. “Very good, Sandra. Bath Olivers are a kind of biscuit which I, personally, find very civilised… Now, any other associations?”

  Again there was a silence. Then Robert, who was not eating peanuts or smoking pot or dwelling upon orgasms he had experienced vicariously, said with some hesitation: “Roland.”

  Professor Raeder seemed both surprised and delighted. “Ah, yes. Roland! Why did you say Roland, dear boy?”

  Robert looked blank. “Don’t know, Prof. It just seemed to come, that’s all.”

  Raeder exuded triumph. None of the young paranormals could really understand his peculiar moods—which, perhaps, was one of the reasons he maintained his power over them. They knew he was exceptionally clever and somewhat vindictive. He had a great talent for dividing and conquering, also a talent for devising peculiarly apt punishments.

  Janine tried a gentle flash probe, and was instantly rewarded with a mental picture of herself, unconscious, jerking horrifically under the stimulus of electro-convulsive therapy. She turned pale.

  “Don’t try that again, Janine,” the Professor said softly. “You have been repeatedly warned of the penalties for attempting to invade my privacy. You are courting disaster.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said meekly. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Maintain that condition, by all means,” he responded icily. “I am here to do your thinking for you. But never, never disobey. That is my final warning…” He turned to the others. “Now why should Oliver be associated with Roland?”

  No one knew. Robert felt he ought to know; but he didn’t. Surreptitiously, he began to masturbate, out of sheer anxiety.

  “Charlemagne,” said Professor Raeder, “was king of the Franks about twelve centuries ago. He had two great knights, or generals, equally matched in fighting strength. One was called Oliver, and the other—”

  “Roland” said Quasimodo helpfully.

  “Exactly. Let us suppose that this man Oliver Anderson—about whose identity Vanessa seems to have voluntarily or involuntarily created a deep block—is not really Oliver Anderson. Let us suppose also that he, like the rest of us mere mortals, is subject to the process known as association of ideas. If, in a stress situation, he had to quickly invent a new persona and, more important, a new name for himself, might he not choose something remotely connected with his real name?”

  “But if he did, if his real name is Roland, how can that help us?” Alfred was as puzzled as the rest of the group.

  “Ah!” Professor Raeder rubbed his hands together.

  “What else do we know about this mysterious Oliver who might or might not be a Roland?”

  “There is something wrong with his face.”

  “Yes, indeed. There is something wrong with his face. And that, my children, leads me to the not unreasonable conclusion that the man who is sheltering Vanessa Smith is Dr. Roland Badel, a psychologist who, I recall, was once attacked by a psychotic patient and badly disfigured. We will conduct our telepathic assault upon Vanessa; but if that fails, we shall begin to look for Dr. Roland Badel.”

  12

  IT WAS A fine morning. Vanessa was out walking in the woods, taking some pleasure in the sunshine and trying to forget the terrors of the night. Oliver had showed her the places where she could go in comparative safety. His house was more than a mile from the next one, and that was only occupied by an elderly forester employed by the National Parks Commission.

  The valley in which Oliver Anderson lived was, so he assured Vanessa, well off the beaten track. Occasionally, tourists could be expected; but the whine of their hovercars gave ample warning of their arrival. Unless someone actually knew where Vanessa was, the chances of her being discovered by accident were remote.

  Vanessa was walking upon a carpet of bluebells, inhaling their scent gratefully, using it and the shafts of sunlight that penetrated the densely-packed trees to exorcise the phantoms of darkness. Oliver had gone into the nearest town to get supplies of food and to buy a portable tri-di. Now that he had Vanessa to look after, he felt he needed once more to know what was going on in the outside world.

  It had been an exhausting night. After a couple of hours of listening to music, which, besides giving pleasure, allowed her to relax her blocks, Vanessa had gone to bed early. She slept in a little attic room at the top of the house, directly above Oliver’s bedroom.

  She had tried very hard to sleep. But, it seemed, the moment she closed her eyes and relaxed, she had been invaded.

  The invaders did not produce patterns she recognised. They were cold, demented patterns of thought, full of pressure, full of threat. They were like malignant worms, crawling into her, eating up her personality, implanting strange notions.

  One of them whispered: ‘I am Janine, you soft bitch. I know you. I can become you if I wish. You can fight against me, but in the end you will do what I want you to do… Leave him, Vanessa, leave him. He will betray you. We love you, we need you, we will never betray you.’

  Another said: ‘I can make you kill yourself, Vanessa. I can kill rats by willing them to die. I Can kill you. It will take longer, but I can kill you.’

  After that, there were images of mountains, blue skies and tranquil lakes. Images of peace and security. They made Vanessa feel that if only she could find such mountains and lakes all her troubles would be ended. She did not know whether such visions were of her own creation, or whether they had been created by the intruders.

  Then came more whisperings, insidious, threatening.

  ‘Join us, Vanessa, or we will come for you. Join us or we will destroy you. We know about you, Vanessa. We know all about you.’

  Then came images of death—a coffin, a wreath of flowers, a skull grinning vacantly, a half-rotted corpse, a headless girl lying naked on a hillside, incredibly mutilated and with blood pouring
from her dreadful wounds.

  Vanessa made no response to these unknown, sinister invaders. She tried blocks. They were, perhaps, sufficient to maintain the privacy of her own deepest thoughts and feelings; but they were not strong enough to reject the obscene images. Her mind was as outraged as if her body had been gripped and pinched and hurt by cruel fingers.

  Again there were images of serenity. Pine forest, lakes, mountains, an old house that seemed remote from all the cares and troubles of the world. Remote from all nightmares…

  And the voices once more.

  ‘We’ll always be with you, Vanessa. You can’t escape us.’

  ‘Dear Vanessa, you are so open. I can kill you, I think.’

  ‘Why hasn’t he screwed you yet, you soft, weak bitch? Are you so ugly?’

  ‘Vanessa, you are going to die. Some day soon, unless you join us, you are going to die. It will be lovely. I haven’t killed a girl before.’

  ‘GO AWAY! GET OUT, YOU COLD FILTHY SHAPES. GO AWAY! OR I WILL FOLLOW AND BURN YOUR MINDS!’

  It was loud.

  It was strong.

  It was terrifically strong.

  It wasn’t Vanessa.

  But she knew who it was. Joyfully, she knew.

  ‘Dugal!’

  ‘Vanessa!’ Thought patterns flowed together in affection, relief, recognition.

  ‘Your shape is so strong, Dugal. What has happened? You never had this strength before.’ She had felt the impact of his blast on the invaders. It must have deafened them. It had routed them, sent them crawling worm-like out of her mind.

  ‘Lindemann gave me a shot. He said it would help me do anything I want to do. It has, hasn’t it? Even you can’t hope to block me now—with music or poetry or anything. I can go anywhere in your thoughts, dear Vanessa. But I won’t do anything to hurt you. I promise.’

  Suddenly, Vanessa was filled with dread, and dread accentuated by the knowledge that Dugal would instantly sense it.

  ‘Lindemann? Oh!’

  ‘What’s wrong, Vanessa? Dr. Lindemann is a friend, isn’t he? He wants to know if you are safe. He wants to know where you are, who you are with.’

  ‘Dugal, forgive me. You are very young, very trusting. I want to be free, but Lindemann wants me back in prison, or worse.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Yes, I am sure.’

  There was a pause. She felt his perplexity.

  ‘WOULD HE LIE TO ME, VANESSA?’

  ‘Dugal, please. Your probing hurts.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Would he lie to me, Vanessa? How’s that?’

  ‘Better. Much better. Yes, he would lie to you, Dugal. He would lie to anyone, if it suited his purpose.’

  ‘Oh… I love you, Vanessa. I always have. You are my true sister. I never had a sister. I don’t even know who my parents were. But you are my true sister.’

  ‘You are my true brother, Dugal. And I love you also.’

  ‘Will you open to me?’

  ‘Dugal, love, you are so young.’

  ‘Will you open to me? I can go as deep as I wish, but will you open to me?… I’m not quite as young as You think… I didn’t know Dr. Lindemann was bad, Vanessa. But if you say he is, I believe you. I won’t tell him anything you don’t want me to tell him. I promise… It’s funny. He is one of the few people I can never flash-probe.’

  ‘I think that is because he has an interrupter implanted in his skull, Dugal. You can see a scar when he bends his head.’

  ‘What is an interrupter?’

  ‘I don’t truly know. Some kind of electronic gadget, I think. It insulates the thinking processes from outside interference. But it doesn’t ensure privacy—except from paranormals like us. Somebody, somewhere, can probe Dr. Lindemann electronically as we can probe normals telepathically.’

  ‘Will you open to me, Vanessa?’

  She gave what amounted to a telepathic shrug. ‘Do I need to? You have shown me your strength, Dugal. I cannot stop you.’

  Dugal revealed anguish. ‘You are my sister. I won’t hurt you. But I need to know you. I can’t bear to be cut off.’

  Vanessa resigned herself. ‘Then I will open, Dugal. For you only. Do not give my secrets to Lindemann. That would bring disaster.’

  ‘I promise. I truly promise.’

  Vanessa, lying in the dark, let all her mental tautness go. Dugal, after all, was the only kind of brother she would ever have. There had to be someone you could trust completely, if only a child…

  He was gentle. He did not hurt or press. He was gentle and loving, finding his way through her thoughts with childlike wonder. It did not take long. It does not take long to see all the elements in a picture hanging on a wall. But it does take time to appreciate the subtlety of their arrangement, the balance of interdependence… It was, for Dugal, like looking at a very private picture in a private gallery.

  ‘You love this man, this Roland Badel who protects you by being Oliver Anderson. I see he is old and his face is frightening. But you love him.’ A statement, not a question. Dugal had seen it in the picture.

  Vanessa had not seen it. She was confused. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. I must think of him only as Oliver. So must you. Help me.’

  ‘Dear Vanessa, I will help you. I don’t mind that you love him. I will try to love him also… Why don’t you know where you are?’

  ‘Oliver thinks it better that I don’t… The shapes you drove away, they want to find out.’

  ‘Who are they? Do you know them?’

  She shuddered. ‘I know only that they are horrible. They are full of death and hate… What will you tell Lindemann?’

  ‘What do you want me to tell him?’

  ‘Tell him—tell him I am somewhere in Scotland.’ Vanessa did not know why she chose Scotland. ‘Tell him I have joined a group of escaped paranormal children… Tell him anything, Dugal, but the truth. And, Dugal, when you go, don’t come back to me. It is too dangerous. One day we shall be happy together, but not yet.’

  In her mind, she made an image of a long golden seashore. She and Dugal were walking along it, picking up sea-shells, throwing smooth flat pebbles at the sea, trying to make the pebbles bounce upon its surface.

  Dugal entered the spirit of the dream. He invented a great pebble, smooth as a discus, and flung it out to sea. It bounced and bounced and went on skimming towards the horizon.

  They both stood and watched it, hand in hand, watching in wonder.

  ‘Vanessa, the pebble will go on bouncing across the water until it comes to another country. We are riding upon it. In that other country we shall be safe.’

  ‘Yes, Dugal. We shall be safe.’ Vanessa dissolved the vision because it made her want to cry. ‘Don’t forget that Lindemann is our enemy.’

  ‘I won’t forget. I’ll leave you now. You are very tired.’

  ‘Yes, I am tired. I want to rest so much.’

  But Dugal came back later in the night. He came back because he must have been keeping guard, watching, waiting. He came back when the evil shapes invaded her head once more, trying to terrify her into submission.

  He came back with such a fierce blast of energy that, hundreds of miles away, Quasimodo went into shock and complained of fires burning in his mind, while Janine writhed with pain and stared in wonder at blisters that were forming on her hands. Professor Raeder inspected them and knew what they were. As a parapsychologist he was familiar with stigmata. The stigmata of the damned.

  For two or three hours before daybreak, Vanessa managed to get some sleep; but it was restless and dream-laden. Not all the dreams were bad. She dreamed of a misshapen boy, a stranger, yet a known stranger, whose mind was full of hate. But she also dreamed of summer days, of great stretches of waters, smooth as glass and, like glass, mirroring perfectly the great mountains that rose around them. And she dreamed of whispering forests and of a time when she and Oliver and Dugal were together in eternal sunshine.

  Now, as she walked upon the carpet of bluebells, stretching like
a brilliant faerie haze through the quiet sun-shifted woodlands, she tried to relax; but suddenly her mind was imbued with a nameless indefinable terror.

  She recognised the symptom. Somehow, she had achieved an involuntary rapport with someone under immense stress. She felt beads of sweat forming on her forehead. She felt her hands shaking. She felt her heart pounding.

  And suddenly she was no longer in a faerie haze of bluebells. She was at Random Hill with Dugal.

  She was in a lavatory.

  ‘I tried not to call you, Vanessa. I tried… I tried!’ He was crying, shaking, full of fear.

  Through his eyes, Vanessa saw the tiles, the lavatory seat on which he was standing, the door. She saw the cistern above his head, the tie that he had fastened to it. The other end was looped round his neck with a slipknot. She felt the loop upon his throat.

  ‘Hush, Dugal. You didn’t call. I came to you. What is it? What’s happening?’

  ‘Lindemann. He didn’t believe what I told him… Vanessa, I’m sorry. I’m not much good at lying. He didn’t believe about Scotland and the paras. He’s going to shoot me full of something that will make me tell the truth whether I want to or not.’

  She tried to soothe him. ‘That’s all right, Dugal. It was bound to happen. Don’t cry, little brother. It was bound to happen. I can take care of myself.’

  ‘Vanessa, I promised you!’

  ‘Hush, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does! It does! Because I love you and I will not break the promise… I asked him if I could go to the lavatory before he gave me the shot. There isn’t much time Vanessa, my sister. Say you love me. Say it again. Say that one day we shall look for sea-shells together.’

  ‘Dugal, darling, you are not to do it!’

  ‘Say it, Vanessa. SAY IT!’

  ‘Dugal, I love you truly. You are my beloved brother. We shall look for sea-shells together… Please, Dugal, please, my darling brother, don’t do it.’

  ‘I love you. I am only a child, but I love you. And even a child can die for the one he loves. Remember the sea-shells.’