by Robert Bloch
And then time ran out.
Time ran out one night as Ross lay in bed, tossing and turning and cursing himself for a fool.
Diversion had been his downfall. Diversion, in the shapely form of one Janice Coy. Coy, he reflected bitterly, was hardly an appropriate surname for the young lady he’d casually picked up a month ago during an impromptu visit to a bar in a town nearby. At his age sex was hardly an imperative—at least he’d thought so until his encounter with Janice. He’d gone to the bar just for a drink, and it came as something of a surprise to find himself engaged in byplay with an attractive female. Byplay turned to foreplay, then fulfilment. When he discovered that his pleasure was Janice’s business, Ross merely shrugged and paid. Goodbye Janice.
Two weeks later it was hello doctor.
Herpes. That’s what the slut had given him. Dirty little tramp. Now he was suffering, but the sores would heal, there would be periods of remission. It could have been worse, he told himself; at least his condition wasn’t fatal.
Only the scythe was fatal. The scythe, swinging in a silver arc through the darkness of his dreams.
Death stood beside his bed.
The scythe swung idly, but he knew its purpose. Death held up the hourglass and Ross saw that the last grains of sand were dwindling down into the lower half. And now, as the sand descended, the scythe raised. Suddenly the darkened room was very cold.
Death grinned.
“No!” Ross shook his head. “Not now—give me another chance!”
Death’s grin was fixed, but the scythe wavered.
“You wish to renew our bargain?”
The voice that was not a voice echoed in Ross’s ears and he nodded quickly. “Please—”
The grinning jaws moved. “As I recall, you meant to kill someone who deserved to die. But it didn’t turn out that way, did it?”
“That was an accident,” Ross quavered. “I made a mistake.”
“A mistake which you still regret.” Death paused, and then the question came. “Are you willing to take such a risk again?”
“Trust me,” Ross whispered.
“It’s your conscience I don’t trust,” said Death. “Are you really sure you can go through with this?”
Ross stared at the emptying hourglass as the final grains fell. Then he stared at the scythe as it rose, stared at the bright broad blade. If that blade descended, its brightness would blur, bathed with his blood.
“I’m certain!” Ross cried. “I promise you!”
“Agreed.”
The scythe withdrew, the hourglass reversed, and once again the filled half of the double globe was uppermost. It would take a year for the sands to run out—the sands of Time.
“Happy birthday.” Death turned, still grinning.
And disappeared.
It proved to be a happy birthday for Ross after all, because this time he knew what he must do.
This time he already had decided who deserved to die—Janice, the whore who’d infected him, who was still spreading disease among the innocent victims of her corrupt charms.
Once again it was merely a matter of method.
Ross knew nothing of Janice aside from his brief encounter, but in order to be successful the hunter must first learn the nature of the beast. Only when familiar with its habits and habitat can he stalk his prey.
So Ross hunted Janice out, hunted her down.
Finding her at the bar again was no problem. To pretend to be pleased at his second meeting was more difficult, and carrying the encounter through to its lustful conclusion was almost impossible in view of what he knew. But Ross managed.
To Janice, in the weeks that followed, Ross was just one of her regular tricks—an elderly john who made few demands on her professional skills and could always be counted on for a fast buck. Wham-bam-thank you ma’am.
She never realized he was a hunter studying his intended quarry, seeking a method to bring it down.
Ross already knew he possessed the means to insure a foolproof fatality; his poison would leave no clue.
But how to use it? Janice’s fans—if they could be called such—didn’t write letters. It wasn’t her autograph they were after. The poor fools never realized she was leaving them with a signature of another sort, the kind she’d left him. The filthy disease-spreader deserved to die, and die she must.
The good hunter is patient, and Ross’s patience paid off. By the time of their third assignation he’d become familiar enough with Janice’s habits to find his solution.
It was in the bathroom that he discovered it—the liquid solution of the bath-oil she used. And the little plastic container which held it was almost empty.
During the course of their fourth encounter he excused himself and checked again. There was, he noted, just about enough oil left for one more loll in the tub. She’d probably bathe after he left, and neither she nor anyone else would detect the tiny amount of odorless, colorless liquid he added to it from the vial he carried. With any luck, the poison wouldn’t take effect for a few minutes; by then she would have left the tub and prepared for bed. Of course there was the problem of the bath-oil container which she’d probably empty and toss into the trash, but chances were that no one would notice. In any case he must be prepared to take that risk—and he did.
Once again he suffered the torments of waiting, but Janice didn’t suffer at all. The following week, when he went back to the bar, the bartender gave him the sad news.
Only yesterday Janice’s body had been discovered, sprawled across the bed in her crummy little apartment up the street. There wasn’t a mark on her, outside of a few telltale herpes blisters; apparently she’d had a heart attack and there was no talk of an autopsy.
That was the bad news, and Ross took it calmly enough. It was the sad news that really shook him.
Janice hadn’t died alone. What nobody knew—and what Janice never mentioned—was that the second bedroom of the shabby apartment was occupied by her child. The six-month-old baby boy had lain untended during the days following her death, and succumbed to starvation.
Ross left the bar in a daze. He went home but found no peace there. Even though the bartender had been right and there was no investigation, even though the police never knocked on his door, Ross took no comfort in his safety.
His mission was successful, but it hadn’t stopped there. He was no Avenging Angel—he was the killer of an innocent child.
Inner torment turned to outer agony. It wasn’t a herpes flare-up, but psyche tormented soma. Ross couldn’t work, couldn’t read or relax. Worse still, he couldn’t eat or sleep. When at last he summoned a doctor he was too weak to walk. He ended up in the hospital with an I.V. in his arm and twenty-four-hour nursing care. They force-fed him, pumped him full of medication, until eventually he came around.
But the doctor was profoundly and professionally puzzled. “Frankly, I don’t know what to tell you,” he admitted. “EKG, CAT-scan, all those lab tests, and I still can’t come up with a damned thing. Except the herpes, of course, and that’s in remission. If I had to make a guess, I’d say the problem is geriatric.”
“Meaning what?” Ross said.
“You’re sixty-six, going on sixty-seven. According to actuarial tables you should be good for quite a while yet. Trouble is, the human body doesn’t always go by statistics. I’ve seen cases a damn sight younger than you get a clean bill of health, and two days after the examination—bingo!” The doctor tried to soften his statement with a smile. “I guess it all comes down to the old saying. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
“But I don’t feel old,” Ross murmured. “Just weak—”
The doctor shrugged. “That will pass. Once you get your strength back, chances are you’ll be okay. Your vital signs check out. But from now on you’d better settle down and take things easy. I’m sending you home on a strict diet, no more alcohol, no smoking. Aside from that, the only thing I can tell you is to watch yourself.”
Ross watched himself
when he got home but he didn’t like what he saw. Whether the result of his crime or the ravages of illness, the face staring back at him in the mirror was that of an old man.
When you gotta go, you gotta go.
If his appearance startled him, he was even more shocked by other physical changes. Although he gradually gained weight he still hadn’t the strength to cope with daily routine. Cooking and housekeeping chores drained him to a point where leisure pursuits became pointless. Running errands became a burden, going up the stairs was like climbing Mount Everest.
Ever rest? Not here, not any longer. When you gotta go—
Finally, he went.
Though his mind balked and his body rebelled, Ross forced himself to make the rounds of local facilities. Rest homes, retirement homes, convalescent homes—none were really homelike, and most were mere warehouses for weary wretches on their last legs, wheelchairs, or deathbeds.
But Ross wasn’t afraid of dying; even though he’d taken a life by mistake his debt to Death was paid up for months to come. And though his search was depressing, he continued until he found a place which seemed comparatively comfortable. It was by far the most expensive of the lot but he could afford the extra outlay, once his house was sold.
Putting it on the market and making the sale took longer than he’d expected, and so did the escrow period which followed. Even with the extra time, Ross had his hands full. Emptying them was the real problem; emptying them of all he’d accumulated over the years. The hardest part was saying farewell to his children, disposing of them to a book dealer who carried them off in cartons that looked like miniature coffins. Ross wondered what kind of a coffin Janice’s child had been buried in, then thrust the thought away. Forget the past, let the dead bury the dead. His job was to run the ads, confer with buyers of secondhand furniture and appliances, strip the house until only a bare box remained for him to rattle around in while waiting for the end.
Not the end, Ross reminded himself. This is a new beginning.
The Sunset Crest Rest Home proved to be a better choice than he’d hoped. Located in the suburbs of a nearby city, the building was modern and well-equipped. There was laundry and cleaning service, a bus-line nearby for shopping excursions into town. Meals were decently prepared, with special diets for those in need of them. His room was large, with plenty of closet space, a private bath, a comfortable bed and a view overlooking the grounds. Best of all, there was Sheila.
Sheila was one of the three R.N.s living in their own quarters on the premises. Tall, slender, brown-haired and blue-eyed, she might be close to fifty but didn’t look her age. Since she was assigned to his floor Ross came to see quite a bit of her, and what he saw he liked.
To his surprise she had identified him as a writer, even claimed to have read some of his work. True or false, he was flattered by her recognition and pleased with her presence. Gradually Sheila’s professional reticence relaxed and he found out more about her. As a young woman she’d worked in a major hospital, then left it for an apparently happy marriage. Three years ago, after her husband died, she returned to nursing. She bore widowhood well, but as acquaintance ripened, Sheila confided that she sometimes missed the daily domesticity and privacy of her own home. This Ross could easily understand, for he missed his home too.
The thing that bothered him the most was his daily contact with fellow-residents at mealtime, in the recreation room, the corridors, or the outer grounds.
Ross couldn’t make friends with his fellow-residents. He didn’t like the way their minds dwelt on the past or how their bodies dwelt with the present. He was irritated by the click of false teeth, the tremor and twitching of aging limbs, the continual counterpoint of coughing and throat-clearing. It disturbed him to see walkers and wheelchairs, depressed him when some familiar faces disappeared into darkened rooms equipped with oxygen tanks and hospital beds.
He did his best not to think about such things—cancer, strokes, heart attacks, Alzheimer’s disease. No matter what the mirror told him, Ross didn’t feel old. In fact, since getting to know Sheila, it seemed he was both looking and feeling younger. Hadn’t the doctor said that if he took care of himself he could live for many years?
There was a future ahead for him and he needn’t spend it here. Perhaps he couldn’t manage living in another house, but there were apartments in the area. And Sheila had said she missed having a place of her own. She could make a home for herself, a home for him.
He thought about it one night as he lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling in the dark. His life wasn’t over. After all, he was still in his sixties—come to think of it, he’d turn sixty-eight tomorrow—
“Will there be a tomorrow?”
The question came with chilling clarity. Only it wasn’t his question, and the chill fastening him in freezing fingers was really present in the room. His eyes darted to the foot of the bed and the phosphorescent figure standing there.
Death grinned a greeting, raising the hourglass as the sand in the upper half emptied out.
But it was the scythe Ross watched—the scythe, swinging up in an inexorable arc, then swooping down swiftly, surely, bare blade moving to menace his bare throat.
“Stop!” he cried.
The scythe wavered.
“Another year?” Death whispered.
“Yes.” Ross nodded eagerly. “Another year.”
But the scythe did not withdraw; it remained poised, sharp and shimmering, ready to complete its relentless swing.
“You know the price,” Death murmured.
“I’ll pay it—you can be sure of that.”
“Can I?” The scythe hung there, so close that even in shadow Ross could see the dark stains along its edges, the dried droplets encrusting the surface of the blade.
Death fixed him in an eyeless stare. “How do you know? Have you already selected your next victim?”
“Don’t use that word! This time there’ll be no mistake. No innocent will suffer.”
Death shrugged. “But who is innocent? All must die, sooner or later.” The scythe began to move forward again. “I can’t trust you to be judge and jury any longer. There is only one law—a life for a life.”
The blade swung down.
“Please!” Ross gasped. “You’ll have your life, I swear it!”
The blade drew back. But Ross didn’t stop trembling until Death’s bony claw grasped the hourglass and turned it over again.
“Quickly,” Death muttered. “It must be done quickly.”
His voice was audible only to Ross’s inner ear; outwardly it was as soundless as the shifting sands. And now voice and vision blurred, fading into the depths of sudden slumber.
That night Ross slept like the dead, but in the morning sunlight he was alive, basking in the bright promise of days to come. Death had vanished for another year, leaving only a faint, phantasmal echo of a parting word.
“Quickly.”
But how could he obey? Ross pondered the problem as he shaved and dressed. Memories of his previous errors returned and stayed with him as he fled to the outer grounds. Sitting in the garden he stared out at the street beyond, filled with a yearning to be a part of the life there once again.
A car sped by, its driver oblivious to his presence. Somehow cars always seemed to pick up speed when passing hospitals, sanatoriums or places like this. No one wanted to be reminded of what lay within. Life is for the living. Have a good day.
Ross’s day didn’t improve until he returned to his room that afternoon. To his surprise he found mail awaiting him—a single envelope, but an unusual one. Generally he received nothing but his monthly pension check and a few junk prize-contest items destined for the waste-basket. Ross was puzzled; outside of the mail-order advertisers, who cared about him?
Sheila.
Somehow she’d made it her business to learn his birthday, and sent him a card. Sheila cared.
Sunlight faded, but to Ross the world was bright again. Sheila cared, and he cared too.
>
That night when she looked in on him, he told her how he felt, what he hoped for the future.
“Our future,” he said. “Together.”
Ross awaited her reply, hoping for acceptance and steeling himself against rejection. But Sheila remained silent and there was no answer in her eyes.
“Don’t you understand?” he murmured. “I’m asking you to marry me.”
She sighed. “Of course. The Last Nurse Syndrome.”
Ross stared at her and Sheila nodded. “That’s what the lawyers call it. An older man, bachelor or widower, falls ill, and a nurse attends him. When he recovers he proposes to her out of gratitude—”
“It’s not just gratitude.” Ross reached for her hand, capturing warmth and softness.
Warmth kindled into heat, softness firmed in response. Then she was in his arms and it was easy to speak, to pour out his plans.
Sheila listened, her smile broadening, eyes brightening. “Not so fast,” she said. “It sounds wonderful, really it does, but you’ve got to give me a chance to think. We can’t walk out of here tomorrow, you know. We must be practical—make sure there’s enough for us to live on—find an apartment, furnish it. There’s a million and one things to take care of. And I’d have to give notice.”
“Then do it!” Ross said. “Now. Quickly.”
When at last she left him his glow remained, dimmed only by a single shadow—or was it an echo again?
Quickly. Death’s word. It must be done quickly.
That night he forced himself to consider the meaning behind the phrase, to think about the unthinkable.
And for the first time since his arrival here he sought his suitcase in the closet. To all appearances it was unpacked and empty; only he knew about the little pouch concealed in a zippered pocket at its base. Inside the pouch was the tiny glass vial and in the vial was the final potion of poison. At least he’d thought of it as the final potion when he packed it—a potion reserved for himself in case life here became unbearable.