by Robert Bloch
It was perfection. Except that Dan Florry wasn’t yet dead. Craig vaulted the porch steps to evade the rising weeds. Invisible by night, he slid into his BMW, started the quiet engine. The last time for him and Josh. Too bad. Not wrenching, not heartbreaking, not anything he couldn’t cope with easily, but too bad.
Well, he would just have to go on alone the best he could.
Florid, irate, a brisk Dan Florry led the way to his office. No one else was in sight just on the fringes of the new wing; Florry was divorced, lived alone. Stepping into his office, he wondered what conceivably could not wait until morning.
At the moment Dan turned toward the light switch, Craig showed him: dying. A mallet from the trunk of the BMW squished with a melon sound against his head. Before Florry collapsed to the office floor, Craig had decided not to remove the car gloves he had again donned. A brand-new idea was just taking shape. . .
If he left the gloves on and took the mallet to Josh’s rooms, he could get his brother’s fingerprints on it. Then he’d steal one of ol’ Joshie’s rubber balls, take it back to the office, too, and let it roll into a corner—to be discovered, along with the mallet! It made the double-screen better, established a can’t-fail setup!
He flipped off the lights and closed Daniel’s door without locking it, then passed without haste, humming, into the new wing. Pad-pad on the fine new rug. Dan had died second, after Dad, but that wasn’t important. A mere thirty-six minutes separated them and few coroners were able to determine the moment of death that closely. And if one did, so what? It would merely mean that Josh killed Dad before Craig—who would say he’d been waiting in the car to drive his brother to Colindale! He grinned. He was ready to swear to that with. . .well, with all his heart and his soul. The owners of the institution would be happy to refund all the money he had paid for poor Joshie’s care, but Craig might sue anyway—just because he could!
The short distance to where he’d left Joshua was covered without a sign of interference, and then he was letting himself into his big brother’s room, noiselessly.
Surprisingly, the lights were on, Josh was awake and he was reclining on his still-made bed, naked except for the topcoat his mother once gave him. Unselfconscious, he did not close the coat over him. He’d put one of his rubber balls into his mouth and tucked it thoughtfully into one cheek. It gave his face a grotesque deformed look. He glanced at Craig with no more startlement than if the younger brother had stepped out into the hall seconds ago.
The other small red ball was cupped by Joshua’s concave navel. He had thrust his immense hands into his shoes—one each—and he was walking them restlessly in the air above him. The hands stopped moving when Josh recognized Craig. “Hi, Creggie,” he mumbled, then spat out the ball. “Where you been?”
Craig smiled, approached the bed. “You knew I was going home almost two hours ago. You can drop the little-boy-retardo act, Josh.”
“Okay.” The pleasant expression vanished. With it went the sole impression of near sanity he was able to convey to Craig. It wasn’t so much that Joshua appeared mad. He was simply the only human being Craig had seen anywhere but in a mirror who was capable of allowing any emotions whatever to cross his long-jawed face unhindered by guile. The expression showing on his face now was a free-floating mixture of mild hope, irritability, overt cunning, and secret-keeping. It was as if Josh could make his flesh dissolve into a watercolor wash. “There you go.” He paused. “It’s been quiet in my room. Very, very, very quiet.”
Craig looked down with mild curiosity. “Does that mean you’ve decided you like it here?”
“I hate the son-of-a-bitching place,” Josh said. There was a flicker of passion, no more. He kept staring at the air-walking shoes but turned red to his shoulders. “I hate the sons of a bitches who made me go here and the son of a bitch who wouldn’t let the old lady leave.”
Craig gave him a genuine chuckle. “Well, that son of a bitch is dead.”
“Good.” No surprise, nothing there but an instant’s exposed satisfaction.
“I thought this would be a fine place after you said you’d be able to hear your voices better.” Heel marks, muddy ones, were on the blanket and part of the top sheet from where Joshie had marched the shoes. “Were you wrong about that?”
“I was not, I was not wrong!” A hot glance. His glasses were crooked on his nose and the lenses were fogging up. “They told me things, all right.”
“Okay.” As casually as he could, Craig stooped to pick up the ball Josh had kept in his mouth, examined it as if he planned to return it. Holding it made him think of toys belonging to Shadow and Shad, their dogs. It was revolting to the touch. “Anything I should know about?”
“Nothing you don’t know about already, man, man, man!” The hurt, hot stare was back and it held.
All psychos “bear” are rumblings, nothing else, Craig told himself. He can’t know about Dad and he never found out about Larkin or our mother. “Well, I’ll tell you something your voices don’t know, Joshie,” Craig said when he could do so without his own voice quavering.
“What’s that?” The paranoid suspicion was nude, bare-ass, hostile.
Craig waved his hand. “Put your shoes on. I’m taking you home.”
The ever-moist long lashes behind the fogged lenses blinked. The eyes themselves went blank. Craig sighed, reached in his hip pocket for the mallet. Josh was “listening” now to someone else, or believed he was. For the first time it occurred to Craig to wonder if his brother’s brain invented faces to go with the voices.
Josh squeezed his eyelids shut. “I don’t think so. . .”
Craig gasped. How literal was Joshua’s doubt? “Well, why not?” he demanded. To no comment. “Did a voice tell you not to go with me?” The eyelids popped back; he bobbed his big head. “Well, who then? Who told you not to go with your brother, your only buddy?” It was getting hot in the damned place. “Does he have a name?”
Josh nodded again. “Doctor Ben told me,” he said.
Craig’s jaw fell open. “Ben Larkin is dead, dammit, Joshie.”
“Maybe,” Josh said. “But you can’t be sure of that.” He threw out his hand, dropping one shoe, and snatched the rubber ball from his younger brother’s fingers. The ball in his navel rolled under the covers. “You don’t know for sure, man, man, man.”
“Yes, I can, I do,” Craig argued, his own gloved fingers working.
“Well, how?” Josh demanded. “How can you be so son-of-a-bitching sure?”
Craig shouted, “Because I killed him, Josh!”
Then he held his breath, wishing it was the words he’d just spoken.
A timeless instant passed. “Oh,” Josh said at length and pointed. “Why are you wearing your gloves?”
Just then, Craig couldn’t remember. He shook his head, removed the shoe from Josh’s right hand and gave both of them to him. “Put these on, we’re getting out of here.”
“But they’re not my shoes.” Joshua took off his glasses, scrubbed at a lens with a corner of his sheet. He was near tears. “Not my nice brown ones, Creggie.” He squinted at Craig. “Where did these come from?”
“Don’t you remember? I bought them this morning for you.” Drenched in sweat, he fell to one knee at the side of the bed and began trying to cram the new shoes on his brother’s feet. The mallet in his pocket fell out, rolled under the bed unnoticed. “Since you know now that Doctor Ben is dead—for a fact—and you’re not superstitious, you can go with me. Right?”
“No.” Josh doubled up his toes, replaced his glasses. The lenses and Joshua’s eyes were fairly clear now. “Mom says I shouldn’t.”
Craig’s heart skipped two beats. “Mom. . .Mom is dead too.” Perspiration was running down his large nose and into his eyes. Winking, his hands trembling, he pressed the toes of Josh’s right foot down and strove to wedge them into a shoe. The toes popped up, the foot wouldn’t go, Josh was too strong for him. Joshie was his older, bigger bro, he was stronger than anyb
ody else when he got like this, and he was driving Craig crazy. He bit his lower lip. “You know Mom’s dead, Joshie—like that son of a bitch Larkin. Dead, buried, sending no messages to anyone.” In his mind’s eye he saw himself jumping porch steps and weed-strewn flowers. “Your mother is six feet under, pushing up daisies, and she will never ever look at me again the way she did when—” He bit his lower lip through. “She isn’t talking, Joshie, Josh. No way.”
“That’s true,” big brother countered swiftly. “But Daddy is!”
One foot went all the way into the shoe! “He’s dead too, Joshie. Neither of them can be a voice in your head, because they’re both—”
Joshua Addams was peering intently into his eyes when Craig glanced up to see if he had been heard and understood.
He had. “Did you take life out of them both, Creggie?” The brother’s voice was low-pitched and level, soft and gentle. “Mom back then and Daddy today?”
“Don’t come with me then!” Craig said, slipping his kneeling foot out in preparation for leaving. Fast. “Just stay here and—”
Huge hands and arms made powerful because of a single-minded preoccupation with two rubber balls embraced Craig and pulled him forward until he was close enough to experience the pain of a dislocated shoulder and to see Joshie was crying. Freely, the tears flooding his glasses and spattering on Craig’s frightened face. “I didn’t really hear any voices just now, Creggie,” he confessed, sobbing. “I haven’t heard a single one since you brought me here.” He hugged Craig hard. “I just didn’t want you t’go home, Creggie, I didn’t want you to leave!”
Joshie’s emotion was nearly as overpowering to Craig as the uncontrollable hug around his neck. He tried to speak or to break the hold but only succeeded in joining his big brother with his face shoved into a pillow. His mumble could not be heard over Joshie’s sobbing convulsion.
“It’s fine about Dad and Mom,” he said, forgiving Craig as he fumbled under the covers with one hand. “Even if you didn’t let me help you like you did before. But see, I get real lonely when I don’t have one of my phases, Creggie”—he raised Craig’s face briefly from the pillow—“’cause they’re the only friends I got, other than you.”
Finding the red rubber ball with his groping free hand, Joshie jammed it between Craig’s choking lips. Then he shoved him back into the pillow, and leaned on him for hours.
It was a fine idea Joshie had had even if Creggie didn’t say so.
But later in the night, when he was putting on his other new shoe to make Creggie happy, Josh was sure he’d done the right thing.
Doctor Ben, and Mom, and Dad, they all said so.
Before morning, Creggie said so too.
Confession of a Madman
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
I, Brother Luccio, at the behest of the Prior of this monastery, have recorded the Confession of the lunatic known as Brother Rat, though he has said he was once known as Bertoldo Cimoneisi and was an apothecary by trade; the records of the monastery show no such name or calling among the entries, but it may be that this is truly his name and his profession, for he spoke it under the Seal of Confession. Then again, it may be more of his madness.
Brother Rat has been confined here for sixteen years, during which time he has had no visitors; no inquiries have been made for his welfare and no one has attempted to seek him out. Upon his delivery here by the Secular Arm, it was stated that his family and relatives were dead of the Plague that came to Amalfi in the Kingdom of Napoli twenty years ago. He had been given to the Secular Arm before being entrusted to our care, for it was thought that he was filled with heretical notions. When he was given to our care, the Secular Arm had conducted a Process against him. It is written in the records of the monastery that all the fingers of his left hand were broken, that he was blind in his right eye, and that all the lower teeth had been taken from his head. Because of the answers he had given during this Questioning, it was decided that Brother Rat was not a heretic but a madman, and thus was sent to us.
During the last winter, which has lingered well into spring, Brother Rat developed a cough that has not lessened as the weather grows wanner but instead has grown more fierce with each passing day so that it is now acknowledged that there is no medicine but the Hand of God that can deliver him. To that end, so that he may come shriven to the Mercy Seat, I have been entrusted with the task of recording the Confession of Brother Rat for delivery to the Secular Arm and for inclusion in the records of this monastery. May God grant that I perform my mandate without error for His greater Glory.
Because Brother Rat is known to be dangerous, he has been confined to a cell alone. There is a window in the cell, set near the ceiling so that he cannot see out. His legs are shackled and a chain holds him to a cleat in the wall that allows him little more than twice his height in range. He has a pallet for sleep and the rushes are changed twice a year. A single blanket is provided him in the summer, two in the winter. He is fed twice a day, as are all the fifty-four madmen confined within our walls. There is a privy hole in the floor of his cell. He is clothed in a peasant’s smock, for it is not fitting that any who are mad should be habited as monks. Brother Rat is very thin, and the cough has taken more flesh from him so that his face is gaunt as a skull. He has some hair left, most of it grey, as is his beard. The nails on his right hand are very long, but on the left they do not grow well since the fingers were broken. His speech is not easily understood because he has so few teeth, nonetheless I have striven to record every word correctly, and if I have not been accurate, I beg forgiveness and offer as my excuse the difficulty of discerning his words.
When Brother Emmerano and I entered the cell, Brother Rat was lying upon his pallet. He blinked many times at the light of the three torches we brought, and shielded his one sighted eye until he was accustomed to the brightness. As he saw who we were, he spoke.
“So I’m dying.” He raised himself, spitting copiously as he did. “About time. Perhaps God is more merciful than I thought.”
Brother Emmerano blessed the poor madman, and then said, “This is Brother Luccio, who will record everything we say here. He is a scribe and a true monk who will take care to be correct in what he writes. I am come to take your Confession.” He spoke slowly and clearly, for he has often maintained that madmen are more sensible when they are addressed in this way. “Two of the lay Brothers wait outside the door.”
Brother Rat barked; he might have meant to cough or to laugh. “I cannot attack anyone, Brothers. I am burning with fever and I’m all but starved. You’d better give me some water, out of charity, or I will not be able to speak with you for long.” He folded his arms and looked from Brother Emmerano to me with the expression of a man who finds a corpse laid out at his door.
“Be calm.” Brother Emmerano signaled to be brought his stool, and for my bench and table. “There is a cask of wine being brought, not sacramental wine for your absolution, which we will provide when your Confession is complete; we will use this to ease your cough. We will be prepared presently.” He then nodded toward me. “Remember all of this, Brother Luccio, for you must write it down.”
I bowed my head and prayed that God would not take the words from me before my vellum was spread and my ink ground. “I ask that you do not speak too much more until I am prepared,” I begged, and was rewarded with silence until the lay Brothers had brought what we needed. Once I was in position, I raised my hood so that my face was shadowed, so that I would be nothing more than a cypher during the Confession. I had four nibs cut and ready in case one should fail. I nodded to Brother Emmerano and put my pen into the ink.
“It is for the salvation of your soul that we seek to hear your Confession, Brother Rat,” said Brother Emmerano. “God has blighted your wits, or you were a tool of Satan. Thus you have passed your life here, where you can do no greater harm or call up the forces of Hell to aid you. Either way, you will need to hav
e peace in your life before you depart it, for Grace to be yours.”
“What does a madman know of Grace, and a drunken one at that? I haven’t tasted wine for more than fifteen years—how many sips will make me senseless, do you think?” Brother Rat asked angrily. “I am addled as it is. God will have mercy on me.”
Brother Emmerano nodded slowly. “It is touching to know that faith remains in your heart, Brother Rat. But if you are to be spared more suffering, you must reveal all you can recall in your Confession, and thereby find absolution and redemption.”
“So you must take even this,” said Brother Rat, as if he shouldered a great burden. He watched as the lay Brother poured out a cupful of wine from the small cask, a bariletto. It was the same wine the Brothers drank at supper, a thin young red that turned sour quickly.
“Do not say disrespectful things, Brother Rat,” said Brother Emmerano. “It will not profit your soul to run wild this way. Your madness is beyond you, but try to govern your words.” He folded his hands and murmured a prayer before he addressed Brother Rat again. “Can you tell me how you came to be here? Do you recall what is the cause of your madness, or has God hidden that from you?”
Brother Rat coughed and tears ran from his eyes; as soon as he could he took a long draught of the wine. He drew his smock more tightly around him. “Leave me alone.”
“Were we tools of Satan, we would,” said Brother Emmerano. He touched the Corpus that hung around his neck. “If we were heathen, we would not bring you this comfort. But as Christian monks, we cannot abandon you.”
