“Do you like my little gift?” Harch asked, pointing to the head on the commode seat.
She couldn’t speak.
“I know how much you loved your Jewboy,” Harch said, his cold voice filled with an ice-hard hate. “So I thought I’d bring a piece of him back to you. Something for you to remember him by. Wasn’t that thoughtful of me?” He laughed softly.
The power of speech returned to Susan with a jolt, and words burst from her: “You’re dead, damn you, dead! You told me so yourself. You’re dead.”
Don’t play along with this, she told herself desperately. For God’s sake, listen to what you just said. Don’t step into the hallucination willingly; back away from it.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course I’m dead.”
She shook her head. “I won’t listen to this. You’re not here. You’re not real.”
He stepped forward, farther into the small room.
She was backed against the wall, with the sink on her left side, the commode on her right. Nowhere to run.
Jerry Stein’s dead eyes stared into space, oblivious of Harch’s arrival.
One of Harch’s strong hands snapped out, quick as a lashing whip, and seized Susan’s left wrist before she knew what he was doing.
She tried to pull loose; couldn’t.
Her mouth had gone as dry as ashes. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her burned-out mouth.
Harch held her hand in a viciously tight grip. Grinning down at her, he dragged her to him—her slippers scraping on the tile—and he pressed her captive hand firmly against his slab-solid, rock-muscled chest.
“Do I
feel
real enough to suit you?” he demanded.
She sucked air. The weight of the indrawn breath seemed tremendous, sufficient to bring her crashing to the floor and on down, down into darkness.
No! she thought, terrified of surrendering to unconsciousness, afraid that she would wake up a madwoman. Mustn’t pass out, for God’s sake. Got to fight this. Got to fight it with all my heart.
“Do I
feel
real, you bitch? Do I? How do you like the way I feel?”
In the fluorescent light, his gray eyes, usually the color of dirty ice, looked almost white now, bright and utterly alien—just as they had looked that night in the House of Thunder, in the glow of the candles.
He rubbed Susan’s hand back and forth across his big chest. The fabric had a coarse feel, and the buttons on the shirt were cold against Susan’s skin.
Buttons
? Would she actually imagine that she could feel the buttons—a tiny detail of that kind—in a
vision?
Would hallucinatory images be this vivid, this concrete, this thoroughly detailed?
“Now do you think I’m here?” Harch asked, grinning broadly but mirthlessly.
Somehow she found the strength to speak and to deny him one more time. Her dry tongue peeled off the powdery roof of her mouth with a sound she could almost hear, and she said, “No. Not here. Not here.”
“No?”
“You aren’t real.”
“What a complete bitch!”
“You can’t hurt me.”
“We’ll see about that, you little bitch. Oh, yeah, we’ll sure see about
that.”
Still gripping her left hand, he slid it over his chest, up to his shoulder, down his arm, made her feel his hard, flexed biceps.
Again, she tried to pull loose. And again, she failed. He was hurting her; his hand was like a steel pincer clenched around her fragile wrist.
He moved her captive hand back to his chest, then down to his flat, muscular belly.
“Am I real? Huh? What do you think? What’s your considered opinion, Susan? Am I real?”
Susan felt something crumbling inside of her. Hope. Or maybe the last vestiges of her self-control. Or both.
It’s only a vision, a sick fantasy generated by a damaged brain. Just an evil vision. Just a vision. It’ll be over soon. Very soon. After all, how long can a vision last?
She thought of a frightening answer to her own question : It could last forever; it could last for the rest of her life, until she drew her last breath in some padded room. Why not?
Harch forced her hand onto his crotch.
He was very aroused. Even through his jeans, she could feel the great heat of him. The stiff, thick, pulsing shape of his maleness.
But he’s dead.
“Feel
that?”
he demanded lasciviously, with a little laugh, a sneer. “Is
that
real?”
In the dark turmoil that whirled within her, a mad hilarity began to rise like a feeding shark in a night sea, streaking up toward the precious fragments of her sanity that still bobbled on the surface.
“Friday night, I’ll shove this old poker right into you. Do you know what Friday night is? Seventh anniversary of my untimely demise. Seven years ago Friday, that nigger shoved a knife in my throat. So
this
Friday, I’ll shove my poker all the way up into you, and then I’ll use a knife on
you.”
A high, silvery giggle tinkled deep within her, and she knew that she dared not let it escape. It was the whooping, bell-clear sickly sweet laughter of madness. If she gave voice to it just once, there would never be an end to it; she would pass the years in a corner, cackling to herself.
Harch let go of her hand.
She snatched it away from his crotch.
He slammed her back against the wall, jarring her bones. Pressed his body against hers. Ground his hips against her. And grinned.
She tried to squirm free of him. She was pinned by his weight, trapped.
“Should’ve banged that pretty little ass of yours thirteen years ago,” Harch said. “A nice little gangbang right there in the goddamned cave. Then we should’ve slit your throat and dumped you into a sinkhole with the Jewboy.”
He’s not real, he can’t hurt me, he’s not—
No. It wasn’t doing a bit of good to chant that stupid litany. He was real, all right. He was
here.
And, of course, that was impossible.
He was real; he was here; he could hurt her; and he
would
hurt her.
She gave up the struggle to control the situation. She threw her head back and screamed.
Harch leaned away from her, taking his weight off her. He tilted his head, watching her with unconcealed amusement. He was enjoying this, as if her screams were music to him.
No one came to find out why she was screaming. Where were the nurses? The orderlies, the doctors? Why couldn’t they hear her? Even with the bathroom door shut, they should be able to hear her screaming.
Harch bent toward her, bringing his face close to hers. His gray eyes were shining like a wild animal’s eyes in the beams of a car’s headlights.
“Give me a little sample of what I’m going to get from you Friday night,” he said in a sandpapery, wheedling voice. “Just a kiss. Give me a nice little kiss. Huh? Give your old Uncle Ernie a little kiss.”
Whether or not this was really happening to her, she could not surrender entirely. She couldn’t bring herself to kiss him even if it was all a dream. She twisted her head violently to one side, avoiding his lips, then to the other side, as he pursued her mouth with his own.
“You stinking bitch,” he said angrily, finally giving up. “Saving all your kisses for your Jewboy?” He stepped back from her. He glanced at the head that rested on the commode ; he looked at Susan again; at the head; at Susan. His smile was unholy. His voice became sarcastic, tinged with a black glee. “Saving your kisses for poor old Jerry Stein, are you? Isn’t that touching? Such lovely, old-fashioned constancy. Oh, such admirable fidelity. I’m deeply moved. I truly, truly am. Oh, yes, by all means, you must give your virgin kisses only to Jerry.”
Harch turned theatrically toward the moldering head, which was facing partly away from Susan.
No.
He reached for the head.
Susan thought of that rotting countenance, and tasted bile in the back of her mouth.
Still yammering about Susan’s fidelity, Harch gripped a handful of the lank, brown hair on the grisly head.
Shaking with dread, Susan knew he was going to force her to kiss those cold, oozing lips.
Heart exploding, she saw an opportunity to escape, a slim chance, and she took it without hesitation; screamed; bolted. Harch was turned away from her, lifting the head off the commode. She pushed past him, squeezed between him and the sink, fumbled with the doorknob, expecting a hand to fall upon her neck, tore the door open, and burst into the hospital room, from the bright fluorescent light into the dim grayness of late-afternoon, throwing the bathroom door shut behind her.
At first she headed for the bed, for the call button that would summon a nurse, but she realized that she wouldn’t reach it before Harch was upon her, so she whirled the other way, her legs rubbery, almost buckling beneath her, and she stumbled toward the outer door, which was standing open, and beyond which lay the corridor.
Screaming, she reached the doorway just as Mrs. Baker came in from the hall at a trot. They collided; Susan nearly fell; the nurse steadied her.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
“In the bathroom.”
“You’re soaked with sweat.”
“In the bathroom!”
Mrs. Baker slipped a supportive arm around her.
Susan sagged against the generously padded woman, welcoming her strength.
“What’s in the bathroom, kid?”
“Him.”
“Who?”
“That b-b-bastard.”
Susan shuddered.
“Who?” Mrs. Baker asked again.
“Harch.”
“Oh, no, no, no.”
“Yes.”
“Honey, you’re only having a—”
“He’s
there.”
“He isn’t real.”
“He is.”
“Come on.”
“Where—?”
“Come with me,” Mrs. Baker said.
“Oh, no.”
“Come along.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Come along with me.”
She half coaxed, half carried Susan back into the room.
“But Jerry’s head—”
“Jesus, you poor kid.”
“—his decapitated head—”
“Nothing’s really there.”
“It
is.”
“This was a bad one, huh?”
“He was going to m-make me k-k-kiss that thing.”
“Here now.”
They were at the closed bathroom door.
“What are you doing?” Susan asked, panicky.
“Let’s take a look.”
“For Christ’s sake, what’re you doing?”
Mrs. Baker reached for the doorknob.
“Just showing you there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Susan grabbed the woman’s hand. “No!”
“Nothing to be afraid of,” the nurse repeated soothingly.
“If it was just an hallucination—”
“It was.”
“—then would I have been able to feel the goddamned buttons on his goddamned
shirt?”
“Susan—”
“And would his disgusting erection have felt so big, so hot, so
real?”
Mrs. Baker looked baffled.
I’m not making sense to her, Susan thought. To her, I sound and look like a babbling lunatic. For that matter, am I making any sense to
me?
Suddenly she felt foolish. Defeated.
“Have a look, Susan.”
“Please don’t do this to me.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“Please don’t.”
“You’ll see it’s okay.”
Whimpering now: “Please ...”
Mrs. Baker started to open the door.
Susan snapped her eyes shut.
“Look, Susan.”
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
“Susan, it’s all right.”
“He’s still there.”
“No.”
“I can
feel
him.”
“There’s no one here but you and me.”
“But...”
“Would I lie to you, honey?”
A drop of cold sweat trickled down the back of Susan’s neck and slithered like a centipede along her spine.
“Susan, look.”
Afraid to look but equally afraid to keep her eyes closed, she finally did as Mrs. Baker asked.
She looked.
She was standing at the threshold of the bathroom. Bleak fluorescent light. White walls. White sink. White ceramic tile. No sign of Ernest Harch. No staring, rotting head perched on the white commode.
“You see?” Mrs. Baker said cheerily.
“Nothing.”
“Never was.”
“Oh.”
“Now do you feel better?”
She felt numb. And very cold.
“Susan?”
“Yeah. Better.”
“You poor kid.”
Depression settled over Susan, as if someone had draped a cloak of lead upon her shoulders.
“Good heavens,” Mrs. Baker said, “your pajamas are
soaked
with sweat.”
“Cold.”
“I imagine you are.”
“No. The head. Cold and greasy.”
“There was no head.”
“On the commode.”
“No, Susan. There wasn’t a head on the commode. That was part of the hallucination.”
“Oh.”
“You
do
realize that?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Susan?”
“Hmmm?”
“Are you all right, honey?”
“Sure. I’ll be all right. I’ll be fine.”
She allowed herself to be led away from the bathroom and back to her bed.
Mrs. Baker switched on the nightstand lamp. The huddling, late-afternoon shadows crept into the corners.
“First of all,” Mrs. Baker said, “we’ve got to get you into something dry.”
Susan’s spare pajamas, the green pair, had been washed just that morning and were not yet ready to be worn. Mrs. Baker helped her strip out of the damp blue pair—they really were heavy with perspiration; you could almost wring them out as you would a washcloth—and helped her into a standard-issue hospital gown that laced up the back.