Strangers

by Mort Castle

  Well, Please excuse him all to hell! He said, “Beth, I’m sorry if I said something to offend You. That’s the last thing in the world I’d want to do, especially now.”

  In a monotone, Beth said, “You didn’t say anything wrong. In fact, you said just the right thing. You always say the right thing, Michael. But, it’s funny, right now I’m having a hard time believing you mean any of the right things you say.”

  Michael’s sigh was wounded and apologetic. “I…I don’t understand.” He didn’t understand, either. Beth couldn’t… No, he dismissed that idea. Wifey had the keen intuition of a cow at the slaughterhouse. His masquerade was too perfect, had been nothing less than perfect since the day he first met her and decided to make her a part of it.

  “Beth,” Michael continued, “if you’ll tell me what…”

  “Do me a favor, Michael,” Beth interrupted flatly. “Just be quiet. I don’t want to talk, all right?”

  “Whatever you say, dear,” Michael said.

  “She’s awake now and I’m sure she’s so glad you’re here.” The nurse’s smile and tone were as artificial as her blond hair.

  Propped up in bed at a thirty degree angle, an oxygen tube in her nose, wires running from beneath her hospital gown to the heart monitor on the shelf, IV needle in place in the back of her left hand, Claire Wynkoop looked like a science-fiction mummy, an aged creature kept alive for centuries by medical science rather than magic. But her eyes were open—really open.

  I used to get an occasional took into the future. Now I can see the present, see people as they are…

  Rushing toward the bed, Beth blocked Claire’s view of Michael. Beth said, “Oh, Mom,” and then she coughed wetly. She leaned down. Claire saw the dusting of freckles across Beth’s nose, her quivering lower lip, the glittering tears in her brown eyes, and she saw her aura.

  Clear light, but tinged at the edges with jagged lines of yellow. Spikey, angled streaks like crab lees… Yellow…the color of sickness, of anxiety and fear.

  Beth was in an emotional upheaval, Claire realized. How do I know all this? Oh, that doesn’t matter. I know! While some of Beth’s distress was, of course, a daughter’s normal concern for a seriously ill parent, there were other reasons as well; Claire sensed that.

  Beth kissed Claire’s cheek, then took a step back from the bed.

  “Claire,” the nurse said, “I know you’re happy to see your family, but we don’t want you to get too excited.” The heart monitor showed Claire’s pulse rate had nearly doubled and the wavy graph turned into ferociously steep mountains and plummeting valleys

  “Hello, Mom,” Michael said. He stood at the foot of the bed

  I understand! Now I understand!

  “It will be all right, Mom,” Michael said. “You’ll see.”

  Youmonster! You killer! You murderous bastard! I do see!

  …the poison red glow about his head! The halo of hate! He was wicked, he was Evil in the form of a man, he was a hideous secret to the world, to everyone, to Beth and the children…

  She had to give a warning!

  “It’s not good for her to get worked up like this,” the nurse said. She patted Claire on the shoulder. “Please take it easy. You’ll have plenty of time to be with your folks.”

  That brief glimpse of the future that had preceded her stroke—her change—she now fully comprehended. Death was coming for Michael… God, a grim joke! Michael was Death and his time was soon!

  Claire’s lips moved. Her chest heaved. She felt the air rise from her lungs, up her throat, and she tried to order her larynx, her tongue and teeth and lips into a revelation. The only sound that issued from her mouth was a gargled groan.

  “Oh, Mom,” Beth said.

  “Now don’t you try to talk, Claire,” the nurse said. “Once you’re better, I’m sure you’ll have all kinds of things to say!”

  Claire felt tears of helpless frustration run down her cheeks.

  “There, that’s all right,” the nurse said. She wiped Claire’s face with a tissue. Then turning to Michael and Beth, she said, “It would be a good idea for you to step out in the hall for a while until she calms down. This is really emotionally overwhelming for her. She must love you both a great deal.”

  Michael moved to the side of the bed to stand alongside Beth.

  Claire knew. He is going to kill her. He wants to kill…everyone!

  Inside Claire Wynkoop was a shriek. She could feel it. It was a massive tumor of sound filling her chest, and the only way it could emerge was as a thin moan.

  “Please. Mr. and Mrs. Louden.” the nurse said.

  Michael glanced at his wristwatch. “The doctor said he’d be able to talk to us about now,” he said to Beth. “Let’s go visit him.”

  At the doorway, Michael turned back. He gave Claire a brief wave and a smile. “Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll see you soon.”

  — | — | —

  FOURTEEN

  HER MOTHER was “coming along.” That was what Dr. Rhinehardt, the head of the rehabilitation unit, was continually saying. It was what Beth wanted to believe. Claire Wynkoop, however, seemed to prove it was a lie.

  Staring straight ahead, Claire sat in the plastic cushioned armchair by the window. With Beth’s help, she had teetered the few steps from the bed to the chair in the private room.

  After she had spent ten days in the Belford hospital, Claire was out of danger. There was nothing more the hospital could do for her. She needed twenty-four-hour-a-day care and intensive therapy and so she was taken by ambulance to the Ridgewood Convalescent Home and Rehabilitation Center. Ridgewood had a good reputation and was only ten minutes west of Park Estates so Beth could visit her often.

  Claire had been at Ridgewood for three weeks. There was no way to predict how much longer her stay would be. Fortunately, money was not a problem. Mom had always “taken care of things,” so her comprehensive health insurance program was adequate even in an age of skyrocketing medical costs. There was money in Mom’s bank account, too, and…

  Damn it, Beth thought, her mother had been so independent all her life. It was heartbreaking to see her like this, so utterly helpless. With the weight Mother had lost, she seemed a dried-out shell in which remained only a germ of life.

  As for the “progress” that made Dr. Rhinehardt so optimistic… Well, Mom could walk at least as well as a one-legged drunken sailor and could clumsily hold a spoon with her left hand. Her right hand and arm were totally paralyzed. And she couldn’t talk, not a word. When she tried, the sounds she made were scarcely human.

  And Beth was worried that—Worst on top of worse!—Mom’s mind was deteriorating. Often when she spoke to her mother, there was a too-bright glassiness in Mom’s eyes, as though nothing were registering. And when Mom saw the girls and Michael those first few times, anyway, she had become inexplicably excited, almost hysterical, violently tossing her head from side to side and gibbering frantically. It was almost as though she were terrified of them, horror-stricken at their presence.

  Now, Beth forced herself to talk, telling her mother—Can this woman be my mother?—what the girls were doing at school, how Michael was—well, he seemed preoccupied, had to be work pressures, she assumed—about her psychology class, the alternator belt on the Chevette that had to be replaced last week, a new recipe she wanted to try. As though speaking normally would somehow bring her mother back, Beth chattered on and on: Gee, here it was only the start of October and the kids were already starting to get excited about Halloween, but, well, with the world being what it was, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to let them go trick or treating because, oh, you know, there were some cruel and dangerous crazies who…

  Claire Wynkoop stared at the wall.

  From the hall came the sounds of suppertime carts and trays. “Dinner’s on the way,” Beth said with forced enthusiasm. “The food here always smells so good.”

  Beth had been sitting on the edge of the bed and now she rose. “Mom,” she said, “would y
ou like me to help you with your dinner?”

  Claire did not answer with even the slightest movement of her head.

  Beth had nearly asked, Would you like me to feed you, but caught herself in time. She frankly doubted that it would have hurt Mom’s feelings, doubted that Mom even understood most of what she said, but somehow acknowledging just how totally helpless Mother was would have meant to Beth herself that she had simply given up on her.

  She couldn’t. She had to have faith.

  Beth glanced at her watch. It was a few minutes after six. “Well, Mom,” she said, “I’d, better be on my way to my class and let you have your dinner and get some rest…”

  Beth was interrupted by her mother’s suddenly lifting her left arm. Claire slowly turned her head over and, fingers curling, beckoned Beth closer.

  “Yes, Mom?”

  Claire licked her lips. She swallowed, a too large Jump moving down her throat beneath line-worn flesh. Her eyes met Beth’s and held them.

  Beth squatted. She reached for her mother’s hand but Claire pulled it back.

  Mom was trying to tell her something, Beth realized. Her mother’s eyes were clear and knowing, and…

  Claire moved her hand around her own head as though, tracing the outline of an invisible diving helmet. Her lips moved. The sound she made began as a harsh consonant and ended in a whimpered open vowel.

  Beth stood up. It was a grim game of charades they were playing. Was she saying she had a headache? Or maybe she wanted a scarf! Beth had to squelch a sudden, angry desire to grab her mother’s shoulders, shake her and yell, “Say it, damn it!”

  Instead, she merely sighed. So did her mother, a long, weary sigh that soundlessly continued, as she seemed to collapse within herself, shoulders and head drooping.

  I have to get out of here! I can’t stand being with her another moment! Beth was ashamed of the thought, ashamed of how quickly she slipped on her jacket, snatched up her purse, and perfunctorily kissed her mother’s forehead. Lingering only long enough to say, “I’ll be back tomorrow, Mom,” she fled.

  She forced herself to walk normally down the hall to the elevator, not to run from the convalescent home to her car. Her heart Pounding, she put the key in the ignition but did not start the engine.

  She looked at the mask of her eyes in the rear-view mirror. A motion picture vampire priestess? A prisoner in a South American torture cell? Good God, who was this dead-eyed woman?

  She was someone whose world has fallen apart!

  She yearned to talk to someone, to spill her guts. “I am miserable and I am afraid. It seems I’m afraid all the time now. I’m afraid of telephone calls and door-to-door salesman and truck drivers who pull up alongside me at red lights. I’m afraid of strangers taking my kids for rides. I’m afraid of the man behind me in the grocery check-out line. I’m afraid of electrical storms and tornadoes and car accidents and heart attacks and cancer and dreams and death. I’m afraid of things I cannot even imagine.”

  Her throat tightened as she felt the sting of not unwelcome tears to her eyes. She did want to cry but feared that if she began, she might never stop.

  She was so terribly alone.

  There was no one she could…

  Not Michael. She could not talk to him, not anymore. Michael nodded seriously when she spoke seriously, he murmured consolingly when she needed consolation, and he was just as he had always been—wasn’t he?—the guy with the pleasantly cornball jokes, who usually remembered to recap the Crest after brushing his teeth, who read the morning paper, who belched, who yawned, and who was, somehow, an enigma, a stranger.

  The world was full of strangers.

  The thought hit her with the sharp-sweet intensity of a religious revelation.

  There was someone!

  I think…

  She had a friend.

  Isn’t he?

  She could talk with him.

  She drove to Lincoln Junior College.

  The volume of the television was turned up to a window-rattling, kid-pleasing level. They were watching a syndicated rerun of Mork and Mindy. Each time’ Mork uttered his brainless “Na-Nu, na-nu,” the studio audience howled appreciation and so did Kim. In her pajamas, she lay on her stomach on the carpet, not more than a yard from the set, chin propped in her hands.

  Michael sat on the sofa. It was his night to mind the children. He was tense, keyed up. He wanted to kill.

  Killing! That was his reason for being; it was what he was meant to do. Now, knowing that the killing time was not far off—The Time of the Strangers—he felt like a metamorphosed caterpillar burning to break free of the constricting cocoon of mundanity that had imprisoned him for so long.

  Michael crossed his legs. The TV screen Presented a closeup of Mork as he declared, “I’m only trying to be a normal guy like everyone else, na-nu, na-nu.” The laugh track proclaimed his comment incredibly hilarious. So did Kim’s burst of laughter.

  Michael glared at his daughter. Not so long from now—but when? When?—he would not need her. He would not need her sister or her mother. They would see him then, see him for the first and last time in their lives, and know him as he was, Michael the Stranger. Goodbye to this goddamned self-denying lie: Dear Old Dad and “Happy Husband…”

  …And say, Beth was kind of blowing it as “Wonderful Wifey” these days. Most of the time she moped around like she’d had a lobotomy on her peanut-sized brain. And every time she hesitatingly tried to get into one of those “meaningful discussions” that she used to half-paralyze his ears with, working for “real communication to keep us in touch with each other,” blah-blah-bullshit, well, he’d say something—something quite reasonable, goddamnit! and Gong! She’d come up with a tired, “Oh, never mind,” or “Let’s forget it,” or end the conversation by turning away from him in silence.

  Hell, he was saying all the right things and making all the right moves. He’d tried sex and while in the past the old push-rub-tickle had usually done the job, convincing Beth that all was ginger-peachy, super-fine, and hey-hey okay, not so of late. He couldn’t call her frigid; she didn’t get that worked up.

  So she was all bent out of shape about her old lady. That was real sad. Sure too bad. What a goddamned shame…

  “Hey, Dad?”

  “Hmm? What’s that?”

  There was a commercial and Kim rolled over and sat up. “Don’t you like Mork and Mindy?”

  “I do,” he said. “It’s a wonderful show. Brilliant comedy. Superb acting. Yessir, America needs Mork and Mindy.”

  “Then why don’t you laugh?”

  “I do laugh, Kim,” Michael said. “Believe me, your dad is laughing his head off on the inside.”

  Kim gave him a puzzled look. “You know, Dad, sometimes I just don’t get you.”

  Really? he thought. Sometime I am going to get you! Michael rose. In fact, he thought—and pleasure chills bubbled down his spine—now would be a wonderful time. You’d hear Daddy laugh, Kim. He’d laugh like you never heard him, but you wouldn’t think it was all that goddamned hilarious!

  He actually took a step toward her but then stopped. Calm, cool, and collected, that was how he had to be. Patient and enduring—and waiting. The call would come, Jan Pretre’s call and then, yes then, surely then…

  Michael went downstairs. In the kitchen, even after shutting the door to the stairway below, he could still hear Kim’s gales of laughter and that infuriatingly moronic “Na-nu, na-nu.”

  He opened the drawer to the left of the sink. There it was, the butcher knife, its long, triangular blade keen and pointed. It was part of a set, steak knives, a potato peeler, a julienne knife, a bread knife, any damned knife you could think of, sold by direct mail and advertised in shrill TV commercials: “You’d think this superb cutlery collection would cost several hundred dollars but it can be yours for the low, low price of only $29.95, that’s…”

  Smiling, Michael picked up the butcher knife. It was perfect.

  He was vibrating lik
e an engine at top racing speed. So fine to do it now—the thrill and rush and waves of incomprehensible joy! Marcy and Kim, and then…

  Beth’s class was over at nine but, she’d told him, there was a group from the class that got together afterward for a drink, so he didn’t expect her home until 10:30 or 11. He would say, “How was school?” and she would say, “Okay,” and then he’d say, “You know, I don’t think the girls are feeling too well. Maybe you ought to look in on them.”

  He imagined Beth’s face as she looked at the dead children.

  Her mouth falls open! Her eyes bulge! She tries to scream but she’s too shocked, can only make a dry coughing noise! She stands swaying, stares at him as he grins, does not believe, even as he plunges the knife into her chest and belly and throat!

  No! Not yet and not now, damn it, no matter how strong the urge, the want and the need. The killing time would come.

  Michael put the butcher knife back and closed the drawer. Shit, he understood why Eddie Markell drank like a skid row wine-head. When it was in your blood to spill the blood of others, the nothing people, and you could not, you had to find solace in other ways.

  He walked into the living room. From upstairs, he heard the sound of water splashing in the tub. Marcy was getting ready for bed.

  He clicked on the antique crystal lamp on the end table and sat down on the sofa. Then he smiled. So Beth was irritable and out of sorts, huh? He’d give her something to be unhappy about! And might as well spread the misery around a bit—a little something for the girls as well!

  A minute later, he was yelling upstairs, “Marcy, get down here!” Then he went to the kitchen, opened the door down to the recreation room, and ordered Kim up.

  In the living room, he pointed at the end table. “Kim, Marcy, look what we’ve got here.”

  “Oh wow!” Kim exclaimed. “One of Mom’s lamps is all smashed!”

  The lamp lay on its side, precariously close to the edge of the end table, its shade crushed, the dangling glass prisms shattered into jagged bits and gleaming dust diamond twinkles atop a new snowfall.