by Robert Bloch
As Brother Emmerano lowered his hand, he said, “What was said of that act?”
“I don’t know,” Brother Rat admitted as he opened his eyes at last. “I was not told.” He stared down at his hands as if he had just noticed the fingers of his left hand had been broken. “That night was when I went to the burial pit to kill rats. I had to do something.”
“But such a gesture. . .surely you did not think that you could change the death of those poor people by killing rats.” Brother Emmerano shifted on his stool again, glancing toward the door as if to reassure himself that the lay Brothers were within reach.
“I don’t know what I thought,” said Brother Rat in bitter amusement. “I was mad. I have been mad since the Plague came. Perhaps I hoped that if I killed the vermin and the vermin of vermin I might find the way to restore those who were dead.” He shrugged. “I can’t remember what was in my heart then.” He coughed, holding his head with his hand. “I am not used to wine. Already my head is throbbing.”
Brother Emmerano was not going to permit Brother Rat to turn away from the matter now. “How did you come to be in the hands of the Secular Arm? Surely you did not seek them out, did you? To hear what you say, all of Amalfi died of the Plague.”
“Most of it did. Some who could afford it left the city when the disease first struck, and they returned to find a few of us picking our way among the corpses.” He slid back on his pallet. “They came with priests and all of us who remained alive were taken to the church to answer the questions of the Bishop, to account for our lack of death. Anyone who gave unsatisfactory answers was sent to the Secular Arm. They burned the tailor as a heretic, and the chimney sweep. Those of us who were still in their keeping had to watch, to see what awaited us if we did not exculpate ourselves.”
“A worthy lesson,” said Brother Emmerano.
“Yes,” Brother Rat said distantly. “Although I hoped then that they would decide I was a heretic, and burn me, for life seemed an impossible burden to me then.”
“Such an assertion is close to heresy,” Brother Emmerano cautioned.
“My family was dead. I had failed to save them.” Brother Rat turned his face to the stones.
“It is not for you to save them, or any man. It is for God to save them, or to move you to find the means to save them. If you usurp that power, you question the divinity of God and Christ. God in His Wisdom called your family to Him, and left you to live on so that you could return again to Christ.” Brother Emmerano placed his hand over his heart. “Your soul has been forfeited because you were misled by a Godless book, and for that your family was taken from you, and when that was not sufficient, so were your wits.”
“It was vermin that brought Plague, Brother Emmerano. I am mad still, though I pray devoutly that God will pity me and save me from the madness that has claimed the whole of my thoughts for all these years.” It was not easy to understand him with his face to the wall. “But suppose it is true? What if my madness is no madness? Suppose that there is truth in those pages, and our efforts have been spent in vain? That is what makes my days’ torment: suppose the book is right, and there is vermin and vermin’s vermin and vermin’s vermin’s vermin, and that is what causes Plague when God is displeased with mankind?”
Brother Emmerano sighed. “He should not have drunk so much. The wine has muddled his thoughts. He has had too much, and mad that he is, he is sunk into his madness.” He started to rise. “I will have Brother Luccio record all you have said, Brother Rat, and in the morning it will be read to you and you will be absolved, and the priests will anoint you.” His habit rustled as he rose, clapping his hands for the lay Brothers at the door.
“There could be other vermin that bring other ills,” muttered Brother Rat. “There may be many others. It may not be sufficient only to kill rats.” He pulled his blanket close around him and coughed, low and steady, as the writing table and two stools were removed from the cell.
As the lay Brother turned the key in the lock of the cell door, Brother Emmerano blessed him and added a blessing toward the door itself. “You will bring the Confession to me, Brother Luccio. Make sure you include my request to review it.”
“As you wish,” I told him, lowering my face to show him respect. “As soon as I have presented it to the Prior.” I walked behind Brother Emmerano, as was proper. “They say the Plague has returned,” I mentioned as we started up the stairs to the refectory.
Brother Emmerano nodded. “We have said Masses for the dead already.” He paused, his face emotionless. “Poor Brother Rat, if he learns of it. But it is not likely, in God’s Mercy.”
I bowed my head and protected myself with the Cross. And as we resumed our climb, I could not keep from asking, “Do you suppose there is the least chance he is right? I know he is mad, but some madmen have visions, don’t they?”
Brother Emmerano laughed once. “How can that be? Brother Rat has been broken by the wiles of the Devil. Madmen who have visions see angels and the hosts of Heaven and the tribulations of the Martyrs or are offered comfort by Our Lady. They glimpse the world that is beyond the earth, either Heaven or Hell. They do not see the vermin of rats, Brother Luccio.”
“Amen,” I replied, my faith in Brother Emmerano and God. I resolved not to be led into error, though I had received warning that my sister was ill with a cough and a fever. How simple a thing it would be to blame rats and the vermin of rats instead of God—how simple and how monstrous. I whispered a prayer for her protection as well as my forgiveness and went to my cell to prepare the record of the Confession for the Prior.
Jesse
Steve Rasnic Tem
Jesse says he figures it’s about time we did another one.
He uses “we” like we’re Siamese twins or something, like we both decide what’s going to happen and then it happens. Like we just do it, two bodies with one mind like in some weird movie. But it’s Jesse that does it, all of it, each and every time. I’m just along for the ride. It’s not my fault what Jesse does. I can’t stop him—nobody could.
“Why?” I ask, and I feel bad that my voice has to shake, but I can’t help it. “Why is it time, Jesse?”
“’Cause I’m afraid you’re forgetting too many things, John. You’re forgetting how we do it, and how they look.”
We again. Like Jesse doesn’t do a thing by himself. But Jesse does everything by himself. “I don’t forget,” I say.
“Oh, but I think you do. I know you do. It’s time all right.” Then he gets up from his nest in the sour straw and starts toward the barn door. And even though I haven’t forgotten how they look, and how we do it, how he does it—how could anybody forget something like that?—I get up out of the straw and follow.
When Jesse called me up that day I didn’t take him all that seriously. Jesse was always calling me up and saying crazy things.
“Come on over,” he said. “I gotta show you something.”
I laughed at him. “You’re in enough trouble,” I said. “Your parents grounded you, remember? Two weeks at least, you told me.”
“My parents are dead,” he said, in his serious voice. But I had heard his serious voice a thousand times, and I knew what it meant.
I laughed. “Sure, Jesse. Deader than a flat frog on the highway, right?”
“No, deader than your dick, dickhead.” He was always saying that. I laughed again. “Come on over. I swear it’ll be okay.”
“Okay. My mom has to go to the store. She can drop me off and pick me up later.”
“No. Don’t come with your mom. Take your bike.”
“Christ, Jesse. It’s five miles!”
“You’ve done it before. Take your bike or don’t come at all.”
“Okay. Be there when I get there.” He made me mad all the time. All he had to do was tell me to do something and I’d do it. When I first knew him I did things he said because I felt sorry for him. His big brother had died when a tractor rolled over on him. I wasn’t there but people said it was pret
ty awful. I heard my dad tell my mom that there must have been a dozen men around but none of them could do a thing. Jesse’s brother had been awake the whole time, begging them to get the tractor off, that he could feel his heart getting ready to stop, that he knew it was going to stop any second. Dad said the blood was seeping out from under the tractor, all around his body, and Jesse’s brother was looking at it like he just couldn’t believe it. And Jesse was there watching the whole thing, Dad said. They couldn’t get him to go away.
It gave me the creeps, what Jesse’s brother had said. ’Cause I’ve always been afraid my heart was just going to stop someday, for no good reason. And to feel your heart getting ready to stop, that would be horrible.
Because of all that I felt real bad for Jesse, so for a while there he would ask me to do something, anything, and I’d do it for him. I’d steal somebody’s lunch or pull down a little kid’s pants or walk across the creek on a little skinny board, all kinds of stupid crap. But after a while I just did it because he said. He didn’t make you want to feel bad for him. I wasn’t even sure that he cared that his brother was dead. Once I asked him if he still felt bad about it and he just said that his brother picked on him all the time. That’s all he would say about it. Jesse was always weird like that.
I hadn’t ridden my bike in over a year—I wasn’t sure I still could. I thought sixteen-year-olds were too old to ride bikes—guys were getting their licenses and were willing to walk or get rides with older friends until that day happened. And I was big for my age, a lot bigger than Jesse. I felt stupid. But I rode my bike the five miles anyway, just because Jesse told me to.
By the time I got to his farm I was so tired and mad I just threw the bike down in the gravel driveway. I didn’t care if I broke it—I wasn’t going to ride it home no matter what. Jesse came to the screen door with a smirk on his face. “Took you long enough,” he said. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I’m here, all right? What’d you want to show me that was so damn important?”
He pulled me down the hall. He was so excited and it was happening so fast I was having a real bad feeling even before I saw them. He stopped in front of the door to his parents’ bedroom and knocked it open with his fist. The sound made me jump. Then when I looked inside there were his parents on the floor, sleeping.
A short laugh came out of me like a bark. They looked silly: his mom’s dress pulled up above her knees and his dad’s mouth hanging open like he was drunk. They had their arms folded over their bellies. I never saw people sleeping that way before. The sheets and blankets and pillows had been pulled off the bed and were arranged around them and underneath them like a nest. His mom had never been a good housekeeper—Jesse told me the place always looked and stank like a garbage dump—but I’d never thought it was this bad, that they had to sleep on the floor.
The room was full of all these big candles, the scented kind. There must have been forty or fifty of them. And big melted patches where there must have been lots more, but they’d burned down and been replaced. There was a box full of them by the dresser, all ready to go. They also had a couple of those weird-looking incense burners going. It made me want to laugh. There were more different smells in that room than I’d smelled my whole life. And all of them so sweet they made my eyes water. But under the sweet there was something else—when a breeze sneaked through and flickered the candles I thought I could smell it—like when we got back from vacation that summer and the freezer broke down while we were away. Mom made Dad move us to a motel for a while. Something like that, but it was having a hard time digging itself out of all that sweetness.
“Candles cost a fortune,” Jesse said. “All the money in my dad’s wallet plus the coins my mom kept in a fruit jar. She didn’t even think I knew about that. But they look pretty neat, huh?”
I took a step into the room and looked at his dad’s mouth. Then his mom’s mouth. They hung open like they were about to swallow a fly or sing or something. I almost laughed again, but I couldn’t. Their mouths looked a little like my dad’s mouth, the way he lets it hang open when he falls asleep on the couch watching TV. But different. Their mouths were soft and loose, their lips dark, all dry and cracked, but even though they were holding their mouths open so long no saliva came dripping out. And there was gray and blue under their eyes. There were dark blotches on Jesse’s mom’s face. They were so still, like they were playing a game on me. Without even thinking about it I pushed on his dad’s leg with my foot. It was like pushing against a board. His dad rocked a little, but he was so tight his big arms didn’t even wiggle. Jesse always said his old man was “too tight.” I really did start to laugh, thinking about that, but it was like my breath exploded instead. I didn’t even know I had been holding it. “Jesus. . .” I could feel my chest shake all by itself.
Jesse looked at me almost like he was surprised, like I’d done something wrong. “I told you, didn’t I? Don’t be a baby.” He sat down on the floor and started playing with his dad’s leg, pushing on it and trying to lift up the knee. “Last night they both started getting stiff. It really happens, you know? It’s not just something in the movies. You know why it happens, John?” He looked up at me, but he was still poking the leg with his fist, like he was trying to make his dad do something, slap him or something. Any second I figured his dad would reach over and grab Jesse by the hair and pull him down onto the floor beside them.
I shook my head. I was thinking, No no no, but I couldn’t quite get that out.
Jesse hit his dad on the thigh hard as he could. It sounded like an overstuffed leather chair. It didn’t give at all. “Hell, I don’t know either. Maybe it’s the body fighting off being dead, even after you’re dead, you know? It gets all mad and stiff on you.” He laughed but it didn’t sound much like Jesse’s laugh. “I guess it don’t know it’s dead. It don’t know shit once the brain is dead. But if I was going to die I guess I’d fight real hard.” Jesse looked at his mom and dad and made a twisted face like he was smelling them for the first time. “Bunch of pussies. . .”
He grabbed the arm his dad had folded against his chest and tried to pull it away. His dad held on but then the arm bent a little. The fat shoulders shook when Jesse let go and his dad fell back. The head hit the pillow and left a greasy red smear.
“The old man here started loosening up top a few hours ago, in the same order he got stiff in.” Jesse reached over and pinched his dad’s left cheek.
“Christ, Jesse!” I ran back into the hall and fell on the floor. I could hardly breathe. Then I started crying, really bawling, and I could breathe again.
After a while I could feel Jesse patting me on the back. “You never saw dead people before, huh, Johnny?”
I just shook my head. “I’m s-sorry, Jesse. I’m s-so sorry.”
“They were old,” he said. “It’s okay. Really.”
I looked up at him. I didn’t understand. It felt like he wasn’t even speaking English. But he just looked at me, then looked back into his parents’ bedroom, and didn’t say anything more. Finally I knew I had to say something. “How did it happen?”
He looked at me like I was being the one hard to understand. “I told you. They were old.”
I thought about the red smear his dad’s head made on the pillow, but I couldn’t get myself to understand it. “But Jesse. . .at the same time?”
He shook his head. “What’s wrong with you, John? My dad died first. I guess that made my mom so sad she died a few minutes later. You’ve heard of that. First one old person dies, then the person they’re married to dies just a short time after?”
“Yeah. . .”
“Their hearts just stopped beating.” I looked up at him. I could feel my own heart vibrating in my chest, so hard it hurt my ribs. “I put them together like that. They were my parents. I figured they’d like that.”
He had that right, I guess. After all, they were his parents. Maybe he didn’t always get along with them, but they were his parents. H
e could look at them after they were dead.
I made myself look at them. It was a lot easier the second time. A whole lot easier. I felt a little funny about that. Even without his dad’s blood on the pillow they were a lot different from sleeping people. There was just no movement at all, and hardly any color but the blue, and they both looked cool, but not a damp kind of cool because they looked so dry, and their eyelids weren’t shut all the way, and you could see a little sliver of white where the lids weren’t all the way closed. I made myself get as close to their eyes as I could, maybe to make sure one final time they weren’t pretending. The sliver of white was dull, like on a fish. Like something thick and milky had grown over their eyes. They looked like dummies some department store had thrown out in the garbage. There wasn’t anything alive about them at all.
“When did they die?”
Jesse was looking at them too. Closely, like they were the strangest things anyone had ever seen. “It’s been at least a day, I guess. Almost two.”
Jesse said we shouldn’t call the police just yet. They were his parents, weren’t they? Didn’t he have the right to be with them for a while? I couldn’t argue with that. I guessed Jesse had all kinds of rights when it was his parents. But it still felt weird, him being with their dead bodies almost two whole days. I helped him light some more candles when he said the air wasn’t sweet enough anymore. I felt a little better helping him do that, like we were having a funeral for them. All those sweet-smelling candles and incense felt real religious. Then I felt bad about thinking he was being weird earlier, like I was being prejudiced or something. But it was there just the same. I quit looking at his mom and dad, except when Jesse told me to. And after a couple of hours of me just standing out in the hallway, or fussing with the candles, trying not to look at them, Jesse started insisting.
“You gotta look at them, John.”
“I did. You saw me. I looked at them.”
