Authors: Peter Straub
14
The truth is, Tom does not have any idea of how he is to fight the Collector. As he hears Rose's high heels clattering into the wings of the stage, he remembers the scene in which the actor Creekmore impersonated Withers, and the impulse which led him to face this dreadful representation of Skeleton Ridpath begins to look like a fatal mistake. The Collector was the magician's best bodyguard — he had said that himself. It suddenly seems very likely to Tom that he is going to die — die none too pleasantly — in the Grand Theatre des Illusions, just as Withers had died in an alley outside a stage door.
'Vendpuris!' the Collector calls. 'I saw your owl, Vendouris.'
Tom edges away as silently as he can, wondering even now if he can get out of the theater and somehow snatch Del from Collins . . . leave the Collector wandering and calling inside the theater —
but the Collector is a magic trick.
'I want to see some skin,' the Collector whispers. 'Where are you, Vendouris?'
He is a magic trick, and Tom is a magician. In the hallucinatory scene which had played out when Laker Broome had touched him, there had been the flicker of a clue, the smell of an answer strong enough to make some part of him know that the Collector could be made harmless.
'Some skin,' the Collector says, opening his mouth to show purple blackness. His empty eyes shine with delight. He is stumbling over the little theater's stage, going by a blind man's radar to the Grand Theatre.
Tom moves quietly down the front of the big stage, backing away. What is the clue, the answer? He canremember the auditorium filled with dead boys, himself floating over it in Skeleton's body.
It is there somewhere, the answer. He has to think. But how could you think, with your mind turning to jelly? It's just magic, that's all, he says to himself, getting as far as the wall and straightening his back against it and watching the Collector step off the little theater's stage. Two more steps would bring him into the larger room. The Collector is drooling, reaching out, and Tom remembers how it was to be inside Skeleton, feeling all that hate which was love knocked on its head, Skeleton's helpless, dumbstruck love for Collins and what he could do.
'I'm not Vendouris,' Tom says, still feeling his loathing for Skeleton lying like a weight in his chest.
'Aaah,' Skeleton moans, and focuses his ecstatic head toward Tom. He is shuddering with pleasure. He begins to stumble into a row of seats.
'Your name is Steve Ridpath,' Tom says. 'And you cheated on your exams. You're the unhappiest boy in the whole school. You're supposed to go to Clemson in the fall. Your father is a football coach.'
'Burn that ball back,' whispers Skeleton.
'Stay away from me,' Tom says.
'Burn that ball back!'
'You set a fire in the field house,' Tom says, searching frantically for the key which will find whatever remains of Skeleton inside the Collector. 'You wanted to see everybody die.'
'Get away from that fucking piano,' the Collector whispers. He is now at Tom's end of a row of seats, and about a dozen steps up toward the back of the big theater. Behind him and to the left, Tom can see the X of the wooden brace, irregularly stained with red.
But why was I Skeleton? Tom wonders. The awful toy is coming down the steps, brightly scanning for a sign of motion. 'Stay away,' he says, half-pleading.
The Collector descends another two steps: Tom is by now really almost too scared to move; and he knows that if he tries to run, Skeleton will gain on him effortlessly, and bring him down as happily as a lion brings down a zebra.
'Oh, Flanagini,' the Collector whispers, only foursteps up from Tom. 'Not to hurt Mr. Collins, Flanagini — not to hurt Mr. Collins.'
'I will hurt him,' Tom says, and raises his useless hands.
'I can fly, Flanagini,' Skeleton whispers, and is nearly on him.
'You're a joke, Skeleton,' Tom whispers too, for he is unable to make his voice louder. Then his mind twists and he sees the interior of that room again, the gloom and the lacquered pictures. It is as if they paper the interior of his skull.
He's what you call a stooge.
Skeleton howls in pain or joy, lurches off the last step, and his hands find Tom's throat. The empty eyes glow before Tom, shine directly into his brain, and while the hands tighten about his throat, Tom can hear a mad babble of voices.
Owl Dr. Collector see some skin skin owl out to stay now pictures window knew he was there FIRE! owl owlfire takes this life too, you too, Vendouris, coming from where? joy foxhead OWLFIRE FLANAGINIFIRE wolfhead baby on a spear light shining through blood glass thing moving in my pocket
. . . an unending spool of gibberish which is Skeleton's soul and mind and is more purely frightening than even the hands around his throat.
Then Tom's mind twists again, and he raises his useless hands, defending himself from the pictures and knowledge there:
Flanagini fire,
Skeleton's melted consciousness sings to him, and the crushing hands continue to do their work.
15
Rose had scrambled through the strange assortment of props in the wings of the stage, knocking over tables and spilling loose packs of cards. One deck flattened out on the floor beside her, and she saw that it contained only aces of hearts and twos of spades. From the center of the spilled deck a joker who was a devil popped out of a box and grinned, raising a red pitchfork. Her only thought was to get out. She had seen Tom die once, when thetransparent man jabbed his finger forward and touched him, and now she knew he was going to die again. She brushed against a tall structure that looked like a gate or a stanchion, and a shiny slanting blade came hissing down to thwack against the bottom of the frame.
She heard faint applause echo from behind the curtains, out there where Tom was.
Applause?
It was true, what she had said to Tom long ago. Mr. Collins had been out of control all summer, drinking even more than usual and screaming in his sleep, so that she knew his mind was in that other time, the time which was mythical to her, with Speckle John and Rosa Forte and the original Wandering Boys — Tom Flanagan was the cause of that. . . .
Rose too was in pain. Rose is always in pain, and only Mr. Collins knows this. For as long as she has walked, she had walked on swords, broken glass, burning coals; the ground stabs her feet. Only Mr. Collins knows how when she walks on her high heels, nails jab into her soles, making every step a crucifixion like Tom's. . . .
She wished she were on a train with him, her feet on the seat before her, going away and away and away. Tom would be stunned by the joy she could bring him, and the reflection of that joy would stun her too.
Her hand found the edge of the stage door. Behind her on the other side of the curtains, the Collector howled, and she knew there would be no train, no sweet Tom beside her in a sleeper — only Mr. Collins knew how to get inside the Collector and talk to the twisted boy who lived there.
Rose groped for the knob. It moved under her hand, and the door swung open onto the dark corridor.
'Dear Rose,' Mr. Collins said, and she gasped. He was standing in the hall, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.
'Please,' she said. Then she saw — it was not Mr. Collins, but one of his shadows, one of those that had appeared in the window just before that satanic creature in the eyeglasses had come shouting and pointing his finger. She could always tell the shadows from the real thing, thought it was one of hisl best tricks. Del, who had seen it many times, could sometimes tell too.
'Where do you think you're going, dear one?' the image asked.
'Nowhere,' she said sullenly.
'That's true, isn't it? You are not going anywhere. You cannot go anywhere. You remember that, don't you, Rose?'
'I remember,' she said.
'Thinking about running away with him? Did your little playacting make you wish it could be real?'
She just looked at the shadow, which smiled back at her.
'Did you talk to him about Hilly Vale?' it taunted her. 'Oh, I'm being mean to our pretty little Vermont Rose. I mustn't be mean to someone who has helped me so much.'
'No, don't be mean,' she said. She was nearly in tears.
'If your boyfriend escapes from my toy in there, which is really very unlikely, we will have to lead him a dance, won't we? We'll make him choose again. And he will make the wrong choice. Because he will think it is the only choice he can make. And then you will help me, won't you, Rose?'
'I won't,' she said.
'Defiance—from someone I have aided so often? Are you telling me that you would like to go back home, little Rose?'
He was so calm. She knew he would win. Mr. Collins always won. But she shook her head anyhow.
'Of course, it is an academic question,' the shadow said. 'Because you will always live here with me and be my queen. The darling boy will be found at the bottom of the cliff, along with my nephew, and next summer perhaps there will be another adorable boy. Next summer or in five summers — a boy with strange stirrings in him, a boy who does not know who he is. A few more voices in the tunnels? I shall be in better control next year, I promise you.'
'I hate the tunnels,' Rose said.
'Better control next year,' the shadow promised, fading away. 'And more control over
you,
dear one. . . . '
16
'Hang on to him, Mr. Peet,' the magician said. 'Hold him tightly, and very soon we will know if we will need him to play his part. Need I say that your men did not play theirs very well?'
'If we're up here by ourselves, except for
him' —
Mr. Peet yanked savagely at Del's hair with his free hand — 'except for this little shit, that is, do you have to call me by that name?' Mr. Peet was actually a glasshouse marine named Floyd Inbush, who had earned a dishonorable discharge from Korea for removing the ears of a Korean: a South Korean. In his civilian life, Inbush had spent five years in Joliet state prison for assault with a deadly weapon. This 'Mr. Peet' business was getting on his nerves, like his employer's references to the failure of the men he had recruited.
'While you are in this house or on these grounds, you are Mr. Peet,' the magician said. 'You understood our terms when I hired you.'
'I understood, did I?' Inbush growled. 'I didn't understand a lot about this lousy job, and you know I didn't. Take a look at this kid. Is that what we're supposed to be guarding you against?' He jerked Del back and forth by the hair, and Del's limbs moved like a marionette's. His eyes were wide and glazed, his face a sickly gray color under the natural olive cast. Inbush had seen a dozen men go that toadstool color when they had realized that their lives were going to be taken.
'His friend acquitted himself very well against six adult men,' Collins said.
'He was
armed,'
Inbush shouted. 'Arm a baby, he's as good as a combat soldier. Goddammit, if he's armed he
is
a combat soldier.'
'I must conclude you are inadequate for the job I hired you to do.'.
'You calling me inadequate, you old juicer?' Inbush took a step toward Collins, who was sitting in the owlchair and regarding him in a detached but regretful manner.
'I must also conclude that you would be happier leaving my employ.'
'Damn right I would. Three of my men are dead — two of 'em ran off, the chickenhearted scum — and you want me to guard you against this little zombie?' Another savage shake for Del. 'I'm ready to go right now.'
'And so you will, Mr. Peet. You have definitely outlived your usefulness.'
'Hold on. You looked pretty good when we dug for that badger, I'll say that for you, you're in good shape for your age, but I can take you. I can take you good. I'm walking out of here.'
'You are an offense, Mr. Peet.' Collins sat up straight in the owl chair. 'You are going to leave my way. Watch this, nephew.'
Del whimpered as Inbush cast him away and began to move toward Collins.
'Watch carefully,' Collins said, and closed his eyes. A shadow line of black appeared around him, outlining him for a second. Inbush stopped moving. A line of red joined the black, and both lines became a single thick line of vibrant blue.
Inbush screamed.