Virtual Mode

by Piers Anthony

  "More?" she asked, still holding his head and feeling very maternal. "More water?"

  His hand came up, questing for something. He seemed to have more strength than before, but that wasn't saying much.

  She sec aside the empty glass and caught his hand with her free one. His fingers were cold. She squeezed them with her warm ones. His squeezed back.

  She was thrilled again. Communication!

  Then she decided that she had better get away from him before he recovered too much. She had already taken a phenomenal chance; it was time to stop pushing her luck to the brink. "More water," she said firmly, and pulled herself away. She set his head back on the ground, scrambled up, got the glass, and hurried back to the house.

  When she returned with the next glassful of water, the man was struggling to his hands and knees. He was definitely gaining strength. It would be absolutely crazy to get near him again. Anything could happen.

  She brought the glass to him. But he had now recovered to the point where he might walk, and he was trying to get to his feet. He was a good deal larger than she was, and surely stronger, which meant yet again that it was time for her to get away from him. So she dropped the glass and stepped in and helped him stand.

  She put her arms around his body and heaved, and he lurched to his feet. They staggered toward her house.

  At which point Colene thought things through just a bit further. It didn't matter whether she was being sensible or foolish—as if there were any question!—because once the man got to her house, and her parents came home, the game would be over. They would call the police, and the police would take the man away, and both parents would bawl her out for her stupidity before settling into their usual pursuits for the evening. Her father would head off for his date with his current liaison, and her mother would settle down to serious drinking. Things would be back to normal.

  "No!" she gasped. "Not there—there!" She shoved him away from the house and toward her shed. This was a solid structure, larger than a dollhouse but considerably smaller than a real house, perhaps originally intended for storage, but she had taken it over and made it her own private place. Her parents had learned not to bother her there. It was often enough her main link with sanity. Sometimes she spent the full night there, rather than watching her mother drink. She called it Dogwood Bumshed, because a small dogwood tree grew beside it. It wasn't a great tree, and it wouldn't survive at all if she didn't water it, but it did flower nicely in the spring, its moment of glory.

  The man moved in that direction, yielding to her shove.

  She wrenched the door open and he stumbled in. He collapsed on her pile of cushions; his brief strength had been exhausted. Perhaps that was just as well. "More water," she told him, and shut the door on him. Now he would not be discovered, by her parents or anyone else.

  She fetched the glass, which had fallen and spilled when she helped the man walk. She took it to the house, filled it again, then checked the supplies of food. There was a loaf of bread; she took it whole. That would do for a start.

  She brought the'things to the shed. The man lay where he had settled, but revived when she entered. Now he was able to drink by himself; he accepted the glass from her.

  He did not seem to know what the bread was. She opened the package and took out a slice. He gazed at it blankly. She took a bite of it. Then his face lighted; he finally understood. He took a slice and bit into it with considerably less delicacy than she had. Oh, yes, he was hungry!

  Standing there, watching him eat, Colene finally had time to reflect on what all this might be leading to. She had rescued a man; now what was she going to do with him? He did not seem to be aggressive, but of course he was weak from hunger and thirst. What would he be like when he had his strength back? She really should report him now; she had taken much more risk than she should have, and gotten away with it, but there were limits. She knew nothing about him except that he was a man, and that was warning enough.

  She returned to the house and fetched two blankets from her closet. She knew already that she was not going to turn him in. He might turn on her and kill her, but that risk intrigued her more than it frightened her. She would see this through to wherever it led, no matter what. If she could only keep anybody else from finding out about him.

  Did that mean she was going to try to keep him captive? After all, how could she stop him from simply walking out? She didn't know, but until he did depart, she would take care of him.

  The man finished the loaf of bread, and Colene returned to the house to get more food. She couldn't take anything else that would be missed; it would be difficult enough explaining the bread. She found some old cookies, and some leftover casserole in the back of the refrigerator; she could say it was getting moldy so she threw it out. It was getting moldy, but she trimmed off the mold and took it anyway. She was an old hand at trimming mold, because her mother constantly forgot things; she knew it wasn't anything to freak out about.

  The man was glad to have the additional food. But he remained weak, and she knew she couldn't send him back out into the world. He would just collapse again.

  But there was something she had to make clear to him. How could she establish communication, so as to tell him what she needed to? For the fact was that her parents would be getting home soon, and if the man showed himself, the game would be up. He had to remain hidden.

  Well, all she could do was try. First maybe they could exchange names. She tapped herself on the breastbone: "Colene. Colene." Then she pointed to him.

  He looked at her, then tapped himself similarly. "Colene."

  Oops. She cast about for something else. She picked up a notepad and pencil, and quickly drew two figures, one small and female, the other larger and male. She pointed to herself, then to the female. "Me. Colene." Then to the male. "You."

  She paused expectantly.

  He took the paper. "Me. Colene," he said, pointing to the female. "You. Darius."

  Well, it was progress. "Me Colene, girl," she said, tapping herself again. "You Darius, man."

  He nodded, pointing to her. "Me—"

  "No, you."

  He looked perplexed, but managed to get it. "You Colene girl. Me Darius man."

  She smiled. "Yes." It was a beginning. He did not know her language, but he could learn. She drilled him on Yes and No until she was sure he understood them, and tested him on the picture of the horse on the wall, titled "For Whom Was That Neigh?" "Man?" she asked, pointing to it. No. "Girl?" No. "Horse?" Yes. He had it straight. Then she gave her message. She opened the door and pointed to the house beyond. "House. Colene. Yes. House. Darius. No."

  After some back-and-forth, he seemed to understand. But he seemed uneasy, even uncomfortable.

  "What's the matter?" she asked.

  Finally he made what might have been taken as an obscene gesture, but he did it in such an apologetic manner that she knew he wasn't trying to insult her. He touched and halfway squeezed his groin.

  "The bathroom!" she exclaimed, catching on. "You have to use the—" But she couldn't bring him to the house for that!

  "Wait," she told him, and dashed back to the house. She dug out a big old rusty pot and brought it to the shed. "This." She pantomimed sitting on it. She even made the whoopee noise.

  He looked extremely doubtful. "No, I won't watch you!" she said, knowing he couldn't understand the words, but hoping the sense of it came through. "I have to go to the house, there." She pointed to it. "So my folks won't know anything's up. I'll try to check back on you, when I can. You just stay here." Then she stepped out, and closed the door on him.

  She was just in time: her father's car was pulling into the drive. She hurried to the back door and in. She checked the kitchen to make sure that nothing there would give her away, then went to the front room to pick up her school books. But no, this was Friday, and she never did homework on Friday. She didn't want to arouse suspicion. She had to be perfectly normal. So she turned on the TV too loud and plumped do
wn on the couch.

  Her father came in. "Turn that thing down!" he snapped.

  She grabbed the remote control and diminished the volume just enough to accede without quite ceasing to annoy him. He went on to his bedroom.

  One down. One to go.

  An hour later her father, clean, shaved, and neatly dressed, went out again. Colene stared at the TV, pretending not to notice. She didn't care about his date with his mistress, as long as he was discreet. Well, maybe deep down she did care, but that was worse than pointless: it only cut her up further. There was nothing she could do about it anyway. So it was safer not to care.

  Fifteen minutes after that, her mother's car arrived. Colene remained before the TV. Actually her mind was on the man in the shed; she wasn't paying any attention to the program. But she had to play her role, more so today than usual.

  Her mother went straight to the kitchen, and Colene heard the first drink being poured. Good; there would be no trouble from that quarter this evening.

  She got up, leaving the TV on, and went to the kitchen. "I'll just take a snack out to the shed, okay?" she said, picking up some candy bars and raisins. She put tap water into a plastic bottle. Her mother, intent on hiding what could not be hidden, offered no objection.

  Colene carried her things out. It was strictly live and let live, in her family; none of them wanted the hassle that a challenge to any of them would have brought. If someone insisted on visiting, all three of them shaped up to put on a good act for the required time. What was to be gained by letting the truth be known? A philanderer, an alcoholic, a suicidal child. Family love? What a laugh. Ha. Ha. Ha. Maybe there had once been love. Now it was merely strained tolerance. Typical American family, for sure!

  She knocked on the shed door, just to warn Darius. Then she opened it.

  He had used the pot. She could tell by the smell. She should have brought a cover for it. Without a word she walked across, set down the candy bars, picked up the pot, and carried it outside and around to the back of the shed. There was an old rusty spade there with a broken handle. She used that to dig a hole, and she dumped the pot and covered up the stuff. She had had some experience with this sort of thing, and knew that it wasn't worth even wrinkling her nose. It wasn't as bad as cleaning up her mother's vomit, after all.

  She found a battered piece of plywood, banged it against the ground to get the dirt and mold on", and set it on the pot. She brought the set back into the shed. She put them down in a corner.

  Then at last she faced Darius. "I can't stay long," she said.

  He nodded as if he understood. He smiled.

  She smiled back. Then she picked up the candy and raisins. "More food for you."

  He insisted this time on sharing it with her, so she ate one bar while he ate the rest. He was much more alert than he had been, which was a relief. He was also halfway handsome under his dirt. There was nothing wrong with him that food and a washcloth wouldn't cure.

  Well, that she could handle. She found a tatter of colored cloth she had pretended was the flag of her imaginary kingdom in the Land of Horses and poured some of her cup of water on it. "Clean," she told him, and proceeded to rub it across his face. He did not protest; in fact, he seemed used to having such a thing done for him. Finally she fetched her comb and combed his hair back. Oh, yes, he was handsome, when allowance was made for his stubble beard. But that kind of beard was considered macho, because of all the undercover criminal-playing cops on TV.

  They drilled on vocabulary. Darius was a quick study—a very quick study—and so was she. Soon they had the words for the parts of the body and items of clothing, and were working on other parts of speech. For the first time Colene appreciated basic grammar, now that she was teaching it. It was convenient to say "noun" or "verb" in some cases when clarifying the use of a word. When Darius indicated the door and said "verb" she knew he was zeroing in on things like "open" and "close" and "walk through."

  One bit was fun in its own fashion. She had a little box of wooden matches in the shed, which she used for lighting her canned heat so she could do a tiny bit of cooking. An electric hotplate would have been better, but she didn't have one. This was good enough.

  Darius saw the box, and inquired. "Matches," she explained. Then she demonstrated by striking one. He gaped as it burst into flame. Then he wanted to try it himself. She let him—and he burned his fingers on it. But he was really intrigued by the phenomenon, like a little child. "Keep them," she told him generously. "I can get more."

  He put the box away in a pocket, smiling. It was as if he had found a charm.

  She tried to learn his words for things, but they were melodious and extremely strange, with nuances she was sure she was missing. She was apt at language, but knew that there was nothing like this on this side of the world. So she concentrated for now on teaching him. When he could talk well enough to tell her where he was from, she would look it up and learn a whole lot more about him. Somewhere in the Orient, maybe, though he did not look Oriental.

  She realized in the course of this session that she had lost her fear of Darius. He was unusual and mysterious, but not dangerous. He was also fascinating.

  It grew dark in the shed, for though there was a line here, Colene had used it only to listen to tapes in the day, and had never brought out a light. Now a light would be disastrous, because it would show that Darius was there.

  "I have to go," she said abruptly. "Mom will wonder if I stay out here too long. But you stay here, and I'll bring you more food in the morning."

  "Yes," he said. She hoped that he really did understand. She slipped out the door, not opening it wide, just in case her mother was looking this way, and closed it quickly behind her. Actually there would be nothing visible inside except darkness now, but it made sense to practice safe management. She returned to the house.

  Her mother was pretty much out of it by this time. Good. Colene scrounged in the refrigerator for more to eat, and gobbled it down without bothering to sit. Then she went to her room. There was her bed, neatly made, and her desk where she normally did her homework, and her dresser and mirror, and the guitar she hoped someday to learn to play decently. All very conventional. She kept it that way deliberately, so that no one could garner any secrets about her by analyzing her living space. There was even a set of standard dolls on the dresser. Ken and Barbie. What a visitor would not know was that she had renamed the male: he was really Klaus. Thus the pair was Klaus Barbie. There had been a notorious Nazi criminal by that name. She flossed her teeth, brushed her hair, changed into her pajamas, and lay down on her bed. She stared at the ceiling.

  Sleep didn't come. All she could do was think about Darius, out there in the Bumshed, and her heart was beating at a running pace. She had to slow it to a walking pace before she could nod off. She knew from experience with bad nights.

  After a time she got up, went to the closet, and changed into her silky nightgown. She loved the feel of it against her skin. It was long enough so that she wore nothing under it, which gave her a deliciously wicked feeling. It was a good outfit in which to dream. Very good. In fact, too good.

  Now her heart slowed, but her thoughts turned darker. She remembered the time a few months ago when her beloved grandmother, one of the mainstays of her young life after the default of her parents, had sickened with cancer and then died. It was as if the last leg had been knocked out from under Colene's will to live. Without Grandma, what was the point? She had not exactly told Grandma about the horrors she had experienced, or how her life had been falling apart, but she suspected that Grandma knew. It was better to go where Grandma was, and have her reassurance again. Colene had taken her mother's pills from the cabinet, one sniff of which, as an Arabian Nights tale put it with suitable hyperbole, could make an elephant sleep from night to night. She swallowed three, then another, pondered, and finally two more. Six was a good number. Six-six-six was the devil's own number. Sick-sick-sick was what these pills would make her. Sick unto death. Then
she lay down in her sexy nightie—the one she was wearing now. She wanted to expire in maidenly style.

  The elephant pills did not exactly kill her. They put her into a trancelike state in which she had a vision. In the vision she was exactly as she was, in her naughty nightgown, and gloriously dying; the church bells were warming up for the somber death toll, and there would be mourning until the funeral. How sweet she would look in the casket, a red-red rose on her cold-cold bosom. Other girls would envy her the beauty of that nightgown, knowing that they would not have the nerve to be shown dead in such an outfit.

  Three figures entered the room, coming through the wall, so it was obvious that they were of the spiritual persuasion. Two were her grandparents, now reunited in the afterlife. Grandma approached. "Dear, you may not yet die, because there is something you have yet to do with your life. We love you and will always be with you."

  Then the third figure, the stranger, approached. He was clothed in a dark robe and wore a cowl over his head, and his face was shaded by mist. Who he was she dared not guess, but there was an inherent glow about him that bespoke his authority. "Colene," he said, his voice full of compassion and knowledge. "You have to go on. You will not be able to quit. Your life will get better."

  Buoyed by that message, she had roused herself from the vision, stumbled to the bathroom, poked her finger down her throat, and gagged out the remaining contents of her stomach. "Just call me bulimic," she had gasped with gallant gallows humor as her heaves expired. She had changed her mind about dying. For a while.

  No one had known. Her mother hadn't even missed the six pills.

  Had she done the right thing? Colene could not be sure. Yet now, with the appearance of Darius, it seemed that there was indeed something for her to do with her life. Maybe her vision was coming true.

  After more time she got up again, slipped her feet into her slippers, turned out the light, and cracked open the door. She made her way through the house. If her mother asked, she was just going for another snack. But her mother didn't notice her passage.