A Thousand Deaths (48 page)

Dear Sandy
, said the letter,
Sorry that the Cellini story didn't work for y6u. Here is my latest. I call it "The Werewolf in the Garden." It's kind of my first real approach at humor, although on another level it's basically a mordant tale of innocent evil, and I hope you like it. I was inspired by reading Thurber all afternoon and then going out to the Loew's Nadir for a midnight double feature of Lon Chaney, Jr. in The Wolf Man and Harold Lloyd in Safety Last! So what resulted was either going to be what you're about to read or a story about Maria Ouspenskaya climbing the outside of a brick building in California. I don't think I've ever thanked you for your interest in my stories; some of the editors at the other magazines have been less than kind. But I can't emphasize how important it is to me that one of these stories gets accepted soon. My friends have decided to—

Courane never learned what Threadwell's friends had decided to. He was unmoved by cover letters, by threats, by pleadings, by bribes, by offers of physical intimacy, by whatever the unpublished writer might include to overcome the weakness intrinsic to the manuscript itself. It rather disappointed him that Threadwell would descend to such tactics; he had hoped the young man was above all that. When it came right down to it, the whole game rode on the story. It didn't make any difference how neatly it was typed or how desperate its author's plight: if the story worked, it lived, and if it didn't, no amount of cover letter CPR could enliven it.

"The Werewolf in the Garden" was not so bad as "The Cellini Salt Cellar" had been, and was, in fact, only unmemorable. Or it
would
have been unmemorable except that fully seventeen stories of virtually identical nature kept reminding him of it during the rest of the day. All the discomfort he had experienced during the saltshaker coincidence returned, heightened, deepened, and intensified. Courane realized that it had been a Threadwell that started both synchronic runs of stories. It was unnatural. It defied mathematics, it defied reason, it defied Courane's fundamental beliefs in the way the writing profession operated. He began to give little shrieks that afternoon every time a new supernatural-creature- in-a-garden story revealed itself. After lunch, Miss Weber became concerned and ducked in after each little shriek, but Courane told her it was nothing to worry about, that he had ordered something else for lunch instead of his usual, and that he was merely going into oregano shock. Miss Weber's fears were calmed, but not his own. It was seven o'clock when Courane finished his day's work, and he left the office in a dazed and sickly state. He didn't go directly home, but joined Norris Page for a few medicinal Bombay gin and tonics.

"I think I've had it," Courane confessed into his drink. He was addressing the floating piece of lime.

"You've got to stick it out. We
all
go through this." Page was Courane's best friend and only real confidant.

"No, Norris, I don't think I can face it anymore. I can't look at another paragraph of that—"

Page grabbed Courane by the lapels and spun him around. His face, already dark in the darkness of the bar, darkened some more. "Listen, Sandy," he shouted, "do you want all the rest of them to say you didn't have the
guts?
That when the chips were down, you didn't have the
right stuff?
That you don't even measure up to somebody like... like Howard Glessman?"

That was a low and cruel blow, but it was just what Courane needed. "You're right," he murmured. He turned back to his drink, had five more, and in the morning everything was fine again.

And things remained fine for a week, for ten days, for two weeks. He read the everlasting stories, pleased now and again when he discovered a good one. There were no more unusual coincidences. His lunches with the gang were rewarding, Miss Weber seemed more interested in his well-being than in exercising her emotions with the Editor, and all in all it began to seem that this little history was working its way toward a happy and terror-free conclusion. But Sandor Courane could not know what sort of forces had allied themselves against him, and so he went on blithely, day to day, as if his fate was not in the hands of a young man at a typewriter.

The story arrived at the
Awesome
office on the day after Labor Day. It had been almost a month since Edmund Schooner Threadwell had submitted anything, and Courane wondered if that meant Threadwell had given up at last, packed it in, and joined the Navy, or found a job in a useful line of work more secure than fiction writing. Courane had already read scores of stories on that fateful September day, and had rescued only one from the ravenous Out box. The Editor had left early to attend a special ceremony for a senile old fud who, fifty years before, used to write stories about forces Man should not tamper with. Miss Weber had evanesced like a wraith precisely at five o'clock. Courane was all alone in the
Awesome
suite. The lights were off in the outer office. It was still and silent, yet the evening was filled with tiny noises: the buzzing and clicking and tiny tapping that mean nothing and grow only to fill the absence of human occupancy. There were eight manuscripts left for Courane to read. The next one was the Threadwell. Courane closed his eyes and massaged his temples. He wondered if he had the sheer resolve to endure it; he considered briefly leaving the Threadwell and the others until the next day. But in the morning there would be another heavy blizzard of stories and he would blame himself for his laziness. So he sliced open the envelope and took out Threadwell's latest.

Dear Sandy,
went the cover letter,
How sad it makes me that you sent back "The Werewolf in the Garden." I think I lavished more time and effort on that story than any other, except this one. It is called "The Vengeance of the Acolyte," for reasons that will soon be clear. Well, this is the last story of mine that you will be reading, so I can't help feeling just a touch of sentiment, but I've made my decision and I'll stick with it. I hope you enjoy the story.

 

The Vengeance of the Acolyte

by Edmund Schooner Threadwell

Brick Stafford sat at his desk, alone in the offices of
Vapid Stories,
a magazine that published mediocre fiction aimed at a mediocre audience. It was Stafford's job to make a first examination of all the stories submitted to the publication, and to determine which of them deserved further consideration.

 

Courane's eyebrows rose as he read the first two pages. This new story was a surprise, a departure from Threadwell's usual grotesque idea of what constituted entertaining reading. It was also surprising how clearly the young man visualized the setting—which, by the way, was just like Courane's office down to the last detail. The story moved along slowly, describing Brick Stafford, describing his fatigue, mentioning the frustration inherent in his job and his lonely life and his own career. Threadwell had never before bothered very much about characterization and motivation, essential story elements that he had always sacrificed in favor of poor prose. All the slush readers knew Threadwell; their verdict was that he might not be good, but he was lengthy. If anyone ever started a magazine or an anthology called
Loquacious Tales
, Threadwell's fortune was made.

 

"This is just awful," thought Brick Stafford, as he pinned a rejection slip on the tenth story of the morning. "It's just like all the others. It
can't
be a coincidence. All ten stories have been about shape-changing alien creatures kidnapping famous Hollywood movie-music composers! And yesterday, all the stories were about invasions of vampire pillows. I wonder what it all means..."

 

"Why," thought Courane aloud, "the character in this story has asked himself many of the same questions
I've
asked in the last few weeks."

 

In the days that followed, Brick Stafford ignored the repeated warnings. He kept a journal, noting the days when stories arrived in groups related by plot. He gathered quite a bit of information, yet he still didn't understand its ultimate meaning. And, of course, no one else would believe him or even listen to him, and nowhere did he get any sound advice.

 

Courane's hands began to perspire. His mouth was dry, and he could hear the blood rushing through his ears. He turned the pages, and they rustled in his trembling hands.

 

But Brick Stafford was not the kind of man to run from such a threat. If they thought they could intimidate him, he'd make them pay dearly. He went on with his work, as distasteful as it now was to him. The clock ticked on; it was night in the great city, and Stafford was alone among ten million people, one courageous but foolish man in an empty tower of concrete and glass. He heard the chime that signaled the arrival of the elevator on his floor. "Who could that be?" he wondered.

 

The chime of the elevator sounded from beyond Courane's cubicle. Who could that be? he wondered.

 

And I'm sure there's some significance to the fact that these stories come in groups, thought Stafford, as he drank his coffee, but perhaps I'll
never
learn precisely what it all means. As yet he was unaware of the three visitors that had found their way into the
Vapid
offices. There was the slush- thing, a creature of slime and filth that slid and slithered across the deep blue shag of the outer office. There was the great robot, a mechanical behemoth that creaked and whirred with evil intent. And there was the young man who controlled them, a good man driven by deprivation and scorn to seek revenge against those who ignored him.

 

Courane tried to swallow, but he couldn't. He listened. There were no sounds from the outer office. There were no sounds at all, except a kind of wet slishing, and a kind of regular, jangly grating, and what his imagination told him was low, dreadful, wry laughter. Surely it was only his imagination. He read on.

 

In the morning, Miss Johnson found his remains. She screamed and collapsed, and later, when the police investigators arrived, she was taken by ambulance to a hospital where she was treated for shock. She was never the same again. But, then, neither was Brick Stafford. Detective Rogers had never seen anything so gruesome in all his years on the police force. "And there are no clues at all," he muttered. "Nothing but this disgusting wet trail on the carpet, and these loose screws. We'll never figure this one out."

 

Courane finished the story and took a deep breath. Threadwell had hit too close to home with that one. It had interfered with Courane's objectivity; he had let himself get emotionally involved with old Brick Stafford, but nevertheless the story wasn't any better than any of Threadwell's previous attempts. He reached for a rejection slip. He heard a clank, a gush, and a low-pitched snicker. Naw, he thought as he clipped on the rejection, it couldn't be.

 

 

 

Posterity

 

 

Courane finally managed to fall asleep shortly before dawn. Less than two hours later, though, he was awakened by the blood lady, who came into the ward and turned on all the overhead lights. Courane raised his head a little and watched as the blood lady came toward his bed. He knew he would never get any more sleep that night. The awful day had begun.

"Morning," said the blood lady. She set a metal basket of test tubes on Courane's blanket.

"Good morning," said Courane. "You're new."

The young woman nodded. "Today's my first day," she said. She tied a rubber hose around Courane's arm and tapped the veins on the inside of his elbow. Then she fitted a test tube to a syringe and discarded the needle's plastic cap. She looked into Courane's eyes and smiled. "I've never done this before," she said. "You're my first victim."

"Oh boy," said Courane. He felt a quick, ugly chill in his belly.

The blood lady tapped a vein again and seemed satisfied. She jabbed the needle home, and Courane winced. No blood flowed into the test tube. "Oops," she said, "sorry."

"It's all right," muttered Courane. He was in the hospital; he expected to suffer pain. If he'd had insurance or money in the bank, he could have been in a private hospital instead of a charity ward where almost the entire staff was trying out its dubious skills on captive patients.

The blood lady wiggled the point of the needle in Courane's arm until she hit the blood vessel. "Here we go," she said, as the test tube began to fill up. Courane watched as she loosened the rubber hose. When the 'est tube was full, the blood lady pulled it free and jammed another in place. She hadn't yet learned to change tubes without stabbing he needle deeper. "Just one more," she said. She removed the secoi d test tube and pressed on a third, again sending a jolt of pain through Courane's arm. He lay in the bed, his eyes now tightly closed.

"All done," she said at last. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" She'd moved on to the next bed before Courane had a chance to reply.

Courane let his head rest on the plastic pillow. He stared up at the water-stained soundproofing tiles on the ceiling. He wished he could change position, but he could barely move. To his left, a tube snaked down from an IV bag on a pole into a tangle of white adhesive bandage around his wrist, which was taped tightly to a board. He held his left arm motionless, because he was afraid of dislodging the IV needle in the back of his hand. Another plastic tube connected his right nostril to a squat, noisy machine beside the bed. The tube wiggled and irritated his nose, and the soreness was almost as bad as the blazing pain from the surgical wound in his belly.

Courane prayed for oblivion, but sleep was very difficult to achieve on the charity ward. To Courane, the trouble with sleep was that he couldn't really appreciate the freedom from pain while he had it. He realized his loss only when he woke up again. Of course, in theory he was entitled to a shot of Demerol every four hours. In actual practice, however, that was as hard to come by as sleep.

"Hello," said a soft voice. "How are you feeling this morning?"