Death Qualified (3 page)

    "No!" He pulled in the shell until he felt suffocated, until the voices were stilled; he could hear his own heart beat. He had to find Dr. Brandywine, tell her it had happened again. She could help him. No one else could save him but Dr. Brandywine. He didn't move.

    He was afraid to open his eyes. He was afraid to move.

    They will find you here, he thought, with words spoken in his head in the voice so like Tom's voice, but different.

    They "II pick you up and carry you to bed and she will come and give you a shot, and tomorrow another one, and then another one. You won't have to tell her. When she sees you, she'll know. And when you go outside again, there will be snow on the ground.

    Or, he thought with terror, maybe this time he would not be allowed outside again. Maybe this time they would send him away, as Dr. Schumaker wanted them to do.

    Hospital for the criminally insane, that was where she had said they would send him.

    He heard footsteps, and then voices.

    "What a wind bag!"

    "You got that right." A can popped open.

    "You going fishing this weekend?"

    "Nope. Taking the kids up to Estes for a picnic."

    Now there was applause that went on and on, swelling and ebbing. The two men approached the dumpster and tossed something in.

    "It'll take a couple of hours to tear down everything.

    We'll leave the picking up for tomorrow, just get the tables and chairs and stuff inside...." They were moving away.

    He had drawn up even tighter with their arrival, and now he stretched, every muscle aching. Suddenly he realized that he had opened his eyes, was watching their departing figures.

    "Pomp and Circumstance" started in the distance. He began to push himself to a kneeling position, then he pulled one leg up to get his foot on the ground, and finally, keeping his gaze on his feet, afraid to look up again, he stood upright.

    He had to find Dr. Brandywine, had to. He clenched his hands, his eyes downcast. She would be at the ceremony, he thought then, and was able to open his fists. He remembered seeing the word don't scratched on his palm.

    This time when he looked, both palms were scarlet with imprints of his nails clearly visible. Don't. He was dirty from his fall; his face was dirty, both hands. He would go change, shower, and then find her. He nodded at his feet and started to walk home to his apartment, watching first one foot, then the other all the way.

    Although his apartment was stifling, he closed the door and pulled down all the shades before he showered. He stayed under the spray for a long time and then barely dried himself before he went to the bedroom closet for clean clothes. He stopped with his hand outstretched and slowly he raised his face and looked at the closet ceiling.

    Something else, he thought. There was a panel in the ceiling, held in place with four screws.

    Moving like a man in a dream, he turned to survey the bedroom. Barren, stripped, nothing personal in view. But there should be posters, and Nell's picture, and one of Travis. Nell! He closed his eyes and shook his head. Nell.

    His wife. Travis, his son. He went clammy with shock and held on to the closet door for a moment. Then, almost frenzied, he ran to the kitchen and grabbed one of the chairs, yanked a drawer open, snatched up a table knife, and hurried back to the closet.

    What if someone had opened the panel? Found the tapes? This had been his apartment before .. . before.... He had lived here, had a stereo, a tape recorder, tapes.. .. And he had put the tapes up there. He had lived here when the workmen came to put in insulation and had cut the hole in this ceiling to gain access to the crawl space up there.

    He was so frantic in his haste that he couldn't manage the screws. He wiped sweat from his eyes and took a deep breath, another, and tackled the screw again; this time it dropped into his hand. Another one, a third. He loosened the fourth one but did not take it out; instead, he pivoted the panel away from the hole exactly the way he had done the night he had hidden the tapes. Then, standing on tiptoe on the chair, he groped in the dark place and found the plastic bag where he had left it.

    He started to pull it out, but stopped, considering. There -was no place to hide it except up here where it had been safe for.... He did not know how many years. He brought the bag close enough to the hole so that he could look at it, and then pushed it back again. Sixteen two-hour tapes. Later, he said under his breath. Soon, though.

    He dressed methodically and made a cup of coffee, strong and black, and suddenly found himself wishing he had a beer. Tom was not allowed alcohol. Or caffeine, he added, sipping the coffee. When he left here, first a beer, two beers, icy cold. Then a coffee shop, espresso or capuccino, maybe both. He nodded. Both.

    Soon the ceremonies would be over, the punch and cookies gone, and then he could find her in her office.

    He nearly fell into a chair, shaken by the fully formed thought.

    "No," he said aloud. Never again. And for the first time he knew he didn't dare get close enough for her to touch him. With a touch she could control him, even if he didn't know how. He knew this with certainty. He had to get out of here now, tonight. Even as he recognized his need to run, he also knew there was something else he had to do first.

    More than anything, he had to sit still and think, let the snatches of memories coalesce and make sense. And he had to avoid Dr. Brandywine altogether. He knew he could not stay in his apartment; he was one of the clean-up crew this evening and again in the morning. If he didn't show up, they would send someone for him. No suspicions. No suspicious behavior, not now. He heard cars starting in the parking lot; the ceremonies had ended, people were leaving.

    With his hand on the doorknob, he paused with his eyes closed.

    "My name is Lucas Kendricks." There, he thought, quietly jubilant, he had it back. She had tried to kill Lucas Kendricks, replace him with Tom, and she had failed. Lucas Kendricks.

    THREE

    he walked to the mini market that evening and bought a tiny flashlight. At two in the morning he left his apartment, ducked around the back of the complex, and made his way to the psychology building, her building. He needed money if he was going to run away. He knew they kept money in a box in the office; they gave him his weekly stipend out of the cash box. He had watched the young woman with the braid draw it out of a drawer, take his envelope from it, to pay him early this day because everything would be closed for the graduation ceremonies.

    The students would be leaving during the next few days;

    this weekend was traditionally party weekend. Music blared all over campus, lights were on in every dormitory, students were out on the lawn, walking everywhere, dancing in the parking lot, smoking openly, laughing, screaming.. ..

    The academic buildings were dark and quiet, however.

    He knew which window he could force; he had puttied and washed every window in the building. He eased the window open and entered. Inside, he walked silently down the corridor to the outer office, around behind the desk.

    No cash box was in the drawer of the desk. He was shaking with fear at being this close to her office. Somewhere on campus a string of firecrackers went off, and he nearly collapsed. He held on to the desk and waited for his shakiness to subside, and then went to her office door and opened it. He felt he could not breathe; he waited until that sensation also passed, then went inside and pulled the door closed behind him.

    He had been in this office many times, far too many times, he thought, now accepting the dread that filled him. Dim light filtered in from an outside street lamp; the venetian blinds were not all the way closed. For a moment he felt that anyone passing would look in, see him standing there. He swallowed hard, then forced himself to cross the pale beige carpet, to pass the comfortable wooden chair that he had sat in frequently, to go around her desk. He used his tiny flashlight sparingly; cupping the end in his hand, restricting the light, he examined the drawers, swept the beam of light across the desk top. He became paralyzed at the sight of a paperweight, a melon-sized globe with a little cottage, two small figures.

    With his paralysis the flashlight dropped from his fingers;

    he sagged against the desk, catching his breath. It isn't snowing, he said under his breath. It's all right. It isn't snowing.

    "Look at the paperweight, Tom. Watch the snow falling.

    Keep your eyes on the snow, Tom, falling, falling...."

    Now he knew that was one of the cues she used to hypnotize him.

    "It's snowing, Tom." That was enough to put him in a trance. Looking at the paperweight with the snow falling was enough. What else? He was sure there was a touch, also, but he could not bring it to mind.

    He felt that he had been standing hunched over, his head bowed, for a long time, but at last he was able to reach down and pick up his flashlight again. The desk drawers were locked.

    "It isn't snowing," he whispered, and turned the light on the desk top again, looking for something he could use to pry open the drawers. Instead, he stopped sweeping the light back and forth and let it shine on a travel agent's folder, under the paperweight. He reached for it, but yanked his hand back just short of touching the paperweight. A film of sweat broke out on his face, down his spine. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, closed his eyes, and groped for the travel folder and pulled it free. He turned his back on the desk to examine the travel arrangements.

    She was leaving Sunday for England! Sunday morning at six-thirty out of Stapleton. Return ticketed for July 1.

    He didn't look at the paperweight when he replaced the folder. He forgot about opening the desk drawers but hurried out of the office, back through the window, and to his own apartment. The campus revelry was continuing; units up and down the apartment complex were lighted, people were out on the walk in front of many of the doors. No one paid any attention to him when he approached and entered his own unit.

    He dropped into bed exhausted, thinking over and over:

    Sunday. On Saturday she would call him into her office.

    She always did before leaving on a trip. His fists clenched at the thought of receiving instructions now.

    Saturday morning he walked through wet peat moss around the plantings pear her building. He knelt in it, smeared fertilizer and lime dust on his legs, covered his sneakers with fertilizer, coated his hands with mud, and then went in for his medicine, wiping his hand ineffectually on his jeans, paying no attention to the muddy prints he left from the door to the desk. When she came out and started to speak, he paid no attention to her, either. He could feel those black eyes drilling, drilling, and inside he was so tight he thought he couldn't move. She turned and reentered her office; he went back outside wordlessly.

    Done! Now he could vanish the rest of the day, and tomorrow she would be gone. He often spent the day in the nearby woods. When she questioned him, "Where do you go? What do you do?" he mumbled, "Woods. I don't know." At least she hadn't forbidden that.

    He was still nagged by the something else that kept just out of recoverable range. Something else. But he knew he would not wait for the nebulous thought to take shape. No more waiting. Tomorrow he would go to her house and search for the possessions of Lucas Kendricks. She must the computer, and the memory tapes, but I got the disks.

    You hear me?"

    He was driving too fast up the curved mountain road, and that young voice was there: "Hey, just watch, okay?"

    "I can't. I can't." Everywhere the web stretched, bands and lines, taut, shimmering, stretching, smothering him.

    He jammed on the brakes, pressed his head against the steering wheel, his eyes closed.

    "Hey, it's okay. Don't look. You'll know when it's time to come get them. You'll know."

    He found gloves and pulled them on and then lifted 'the battery out of the Honda, put the Corvette battery in its place, attached cables. He siphoned gas from the Corvette and put it in the Honda, put some in the carburetor, found oil for a lawn mower or something. It would have to do, long enough to get to a garage. The next time he turned the key in the ignition, the engine coughed, made gasping noises, and turned over.

    He was behind the wheel, and also he remembered being bundled in a blanket, shoved into the car on the passenger side. She drove. So much blood, so much blood.

    He looked at the passenger headrest, dusty, gray, no trace of blood. His head had been covered by the blanket. He touched his forehead, felt a scar. She had stitched it.

    "Lucas, I need you!"

    "I'm coming, Emil. I'm coming."

    "You'll know when it's okay to get them. You'll know."

    Still in the dream, he got out of the Honda and examined the garage door, found a button that opened it, and then drove out into the driveway, heading out. If the car wouldn't start later, he could push it, get it rolling, and coast down the mountain road. Then he turned off the ignition and pocketed the keys. The license plates, he thought suddenly. He would be stopped. He went back inside the garage and removed the license plates from the Corvette and put them on the Honda, and now he was done.