How many times had he done it before?
Natalie couldn’t remember. It must have been many, for she realized that every time her strength was less for the grueling test.
Tonight as she ran she was praying, asking God to help her appease the restless spirit of Robert Helms, help her send it to a grave that would finally be serene and still.
All the urgency, all the sensation of being pressed for time, did not prevent hesitation when she left her bed room and found herself in the darkness of the hall.
Events overlapped. For a space, lived without the necessity of breathing, the speeding automobile disintegrated into an annoying symbol dragging Natalie away from security.
Thoughts, unpleasant but seemingly important, attached themselves to her. She shook her head as though the movement might disengage them—vampires clinging to her hair with tiny hooked wings, swarming around her out of the gloom.
There were drugs in the ancient wardrobe serving stolidly as a medicine cabinet in the bathroom at the end of the hall. There was knowledge downstairs in the kitchen where food might be tested on Rags, the cat.
Such ideas were dissembling, she knew. The hall smelled musty, old and barren. She must leave it quickly; float down the stairs in wild abandon. The hall was frightening, bringing back a similar one in a second-rate hotel, the only place she could find to stay when Bob had left her in San Francisco.
The patio was bitter cold. Fog struck at her skin in a penetrating spray, reminding her of her slippered feet and her flimsy negligee.
Her legs were already numb with cold and weariness. She forced them into moving. She couldn’t have run as long as it seemed, for the house was right beside her. She must take the cut through the orchard again. The two red dots were filtered through trees along the road, marking the car as halfway down the hill toward death.
The path through the orchard was half a mile closer to the mouth of the tunnel. Why must she fight to save a wraith already dead? Why not enter the safety of the tunnel and stay?
Suddenly she knew, and the knowledge helped her to break the bands of cold which held her and to run untrammeled. There was no warmth in the tunnel. There was only fear and darkness. There was no safety, for a train was speeding through it, and those who sought safety by stopping met only destruction. You had to flee before the train until you came out into light and freedom. To turn back or see false exits spelled death. Life and love were streets that were marked One Way.
Wind was blowing against her, piling the sloping orchard high with drifts of snow. Her slippers were gone. She knew the path, but the path was only a trickling stream of water swirling about her naked feet with icy persistence, shodding her neatly with balls of mud designed to add weight to every painful step through the blackness.
The trees were laughing, inhuman forms. On every side they lunged out at her, clutching her flimsy garments with distorted fingers, barring her passage with muscled arms, chuckling and crackling at her helplessness as she fought to tear herself free; trees come to life from the Wizard of Oz.
Still, no matter how fast she ran, the car moved faster. Shouting was useless. She knew from the past that every shout served but to raise the shrieking wind to more furious pitch.
If she had only thought to bring the lantern! Heaven knows, she had bought the thing to signal the car, or maybe even to stop the train. If she had the lantern and could beat the car to the crossing, she might stand at the mouth of the tunnel and flash the powerful beam inside. The engineer must surely see and understand.
But the lantern was safely hidden in the attic, and inside the tunnel a muffled whistle blew.
Natalie stopped. She had never known such weariness, never felt such searing cold, nor been captured by such helplessness before.
In front of her eyes she saw the crash—the car flung high in a sheet of flame, and the driver thrown clear; the snapping of sparks as brakes clamped down on the frosty wheels of the speeding train.
With eyes that were wide, but seeing nothing, she moved in among the chattering passengers. Her appearance made no difference. Nothing made any difference except the identity of the dead man in the uniform.
“Strip, Nat! You know I mean it. Not your body, but your mind!”
She forced herself to look again, but this was the time she knew the truth, and her eyes searched out the boyish face without a trace of fear.
It was not Bob Helms, looked nothing like him. She had never seen the man before.
She suddenly recalled the author who had told her he didn’t know how his book was going to end. Hers had ended for her—controlled by the characters, inexplicably finished as mysteriously and frighteningly as it had begun. The man in the automobile was a character, but not subject to her will. He was supposed to be Bob Helms-had been Bob Helms. But tonight he had failed her by taking on an identity of his own.
How many other figments had failed her now that the book was done?
The book was no figment. It was real, tangible, a pile of pages containing all of her life and thoughts, mirroring all her silliness and a lot of her saneness. She could see its title—The Tunnel. The first real thing in all her life she could call her own.
Her eyes moved down to her slippered feet. They were free of mud and looked quite clean and felt quite warm.
She left her desk and stood before the open window. The moon was full, and under its light the apple blossoms gleamed like snow.
“Trev!” she called, and switched off the light.
He came in quickly. “Are you all right, darling?”
“Yes,” she told him. “Quite all right. Come here and stand beside me and look down at the orchard, and smell the blossoms. I’ve never known a more beautiful spring.”
She wanted him now as she never had wanted a man before—his cleanliness—his kindess—his love of his mother—his love of her. This was no neurotic need for affection. All of her being cried out to give, to love, to create, to satisfy, to cooperate, to respond.
The living God was very close when his arms went around her. The exit to the tunnel, and the everlasting light of love, and peace, and living lay just beyond. There could be no fear or coldness in the glare of a sun so warm.
THE END
About the Author
Baynard Kendrick (1894–1977) was one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America, later named a Grand Master by the organization. After returning from military service in World War I, Kendrick wrote for pulp magazines such as Black Mask and Dime Detective Magazine under various pseudonyms before creating the Duncan Maclain character for which he is now known. The blind detective appeared in twelve novels, several short stories, and three films.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1949 by Baynard Kendrick
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 978-1-5040-6567-2
This edition published in 2021 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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BAYNARD KENDRICK
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