The Link

by Richard Matheson

  Yes, she admits, she has noticed, of late, that the nights her husband was away from home coincided with the East End murders.

  The doctor is summoned and, under questioning, confesses that there are intervals when he suffers lapses of memory. He is horrified by the possibility that he might have committed the Ripper savageries during those lapses.

  His wardrobe is examined and Lees, standing near the Chief Inspector, cries out faintly as he sees, hanging side by side, the dark tweed suit and the light overcoat.

  “A specially formed commission on lunacy, held in private, found the doctor insane and he was sent to an asylum,” says Cathy. We are back in the car.

  “Why in private?” Robert asks. “And why was his identity kept secret?”

  “It’s been claimed that he had highly placed connections,” Cathy says. “That, in his professional capacity, he had attended one or more members of the royal family.”

  “Dr. Carl Jung said, ‘Nobody can say where man ends’,” Peter quotes. “Dr. Max Born said, ‘“What seems dead is forever in motion.’ Dr. Evan Walker said, ‘Consciousness may exist without being associated with a living system.’ Dr. William Tiller said, ‘New energy fields exist completely different from those known to us by conventional science.’ Dr. Fritzhof Capra, said ‘As we probe the depths of matter, we are forced to make statements about consciousness’.”

  It is May 14th, the initial meeting of the group gathered by Peter for the investigation of survival evidence.

  Robert is one of them. But a Robert only half present. More and more, he seems to be living a fragmented existence. Literally, he cannot involve himself in anything. It is as though he is suspended in midair, waiting to set his feet down on something solid.

  As though, in the midst of daily activities, he is listening for some distant call.

  He sits at the far end of the table from Peter, a pad and pencil in front of him. He’d intended to take notes. Instead, he sits there staring at Peter, his mind elsewhere. “Where life after death is concerned,” Peter goes on, “it’s been the religious world versus the scientific world and no communication between them. To the former, immortality is taken on faith. To the latter, it is suspect by definition, inherently unprovable.

  “Where, then, does the problem lie where proof is concerned? Essentially in this: do phenomena which seem to indicate survival exist independently or are they products of the psychic abilities of the living?”

  Robert forces himself to take some notes but his mind will not focus. He begins doodling.

  “In an effort to by-pass this fundamental problem,” Peter says, “attempts have been made to record so-called spirit voices directly on magnetic tape. Other evidence documents cases in which apparent messages from the dead have been received via telephone, telegraph, gramophone, amplifying equipment, even answering devices. To date, however, nothing definitive exists in this area of investigation.”

  Robert tries to listen but, instead, can only doodle. He feels guilty at his lack of attentiveness but cannot control it.

  “One of the major contributions of psychiatry to psychical research was the creation of the concept of the subconscious mind,” Peter continues. “In survival research however, it has only been a thorn in our side, providing a ready excuse for saying that all so-called ‘discarnate entities’ are creations of the medium’s subconscious intent.”

  Robert doodles. Now even his eyes are not focusing. They look as they did at Harrowgate when he wrote the words from Everyman on the letter he was preparing for Ann.

  “Indeed,” says Peter, “the tendency of the subconscious mind to impersonate does seem native, thus affording us no guarantee that sitters are actually in touch with discarnate agencies.

  “Accordingly, despite many painstaking studies through the years, the claim that the medium acts as a go-between linking our world with some other-dimensional worlds has not been substantiated.”

  Robert doodles. His eyes are glazed. He is, to all intents and purposes, in a state of trance.

  “To establish the existence of spirit agencies will require a far more elaborate design of experimental study than has been hitherto recognized,” Peter says.

  E.C.U. of pencil point moving on paper.

  “Methods for the elimination of possible error, deliberate trickery or self-delusion must be developed,” Peter goes on. “New approaches must be found to determine whether any incontestable evidence for survival is, in fact, obtainable.”

  Peter smiles. “Time out for a good ghost story,” he says.

  The group, except for Robert, chuckles. He continues doodling, his gaze fixed, unseeing.

  “No rattling chains or drafty castle corridors in this one,” Peter says. “It took place in a hotel just a few years back.”

  CUT TO DR. ELIZABETH KUBLER-ROSS leaving a hotel meeting room, heading for the elevators. She looks exhausted and depressed.

  “Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross had just given a speech and was returning to her room,” says Peter’s voice.

  She stops in front of the elevators, pushes the button and waits.

  “Exhausted by a lengthy speaking tour, she was thinking, to herself, ‘I’ve done enough of this! I’ve got to phase out of this work!’—this work, of course, being hospices and survival research,” Peter’s voice says.

  “Dr. Kubler-Ross?” says a woman’s voice.

  Dr. Kubler-Ross turns and looks at the woman beside her. “Yes?”

  “You can’t give up this work for the dying,” the woman tells her. “It’s much too important.”

  The elevator doors open and the two women enter, the elevator starts up. Dr. Kubler-Ross blinks. The woman smiles at her. Dr. Kubler-Ross looks away, closes her eyes and shakes her head, looks back.

  “You won’t give up this work, will you?” the woman says.

  Dr. Kubler-Ross doesn’t know what to say. “This can’t be happening,” she murmurs to herself. She rubs her eyes.

  The woman is still there. She gets off the elevator and moves along the corridor, Dr. Kubler-Ross looking at her incredulously.

  They stop outside Dr. Kubler-Ross’s room.

  “Promise me you won’t give up your work,” the woman says pleadingly.

  Dr. Kubler-Ross hesitates, then, abruptly, grabs a piece of paper and a pen from her purse and blurts, “Give me your autograph.”

  The woman does so. Dr. Kubler-Ross unlocks her room door and starts in. “Please come in,” she says.

  No reply. She looks around. The woman is gone. Dr. Kubler-Ross looks both ways in the long corridor but the woman has vanished.

  Dr. Kubler-Ross looks at the slip of paper. We see, in CLOSE UP, the name scrawled across it.

  “And there she stood,” says Peter’s voice, “holding, in her hand, the autograph of a former patient she had helped to die many months before.”

  BACK TO the meeting, Peter in CLOSE UP. CAMERA DRAWS BACK SLOWLY FROM him.

  The reaction to his story subsiding, he continues. “Subject to discussion,” he says, “we will likely commence our study with an examination of deathbed experiences. Indications in this type of study are that they are not hallucinatory caused by illness or drug effect. On the contrary, according to the study made by Dr. Osis, people who are clear-headed see more deathbed visions than those who are not.”

  His voice fades as the CAMERA NEARS, THEN REACHES Robert’s head, HOLDS.

  CLOSE UP of Robert’s face, blank, mask like.

  After several moments, he blinks, “coming out of it”. He looks around apologetically, then, seeing what he’s done on the pad, reacts, staring at it dazedly.

  It is a perfect drawing of the half-seen glyph on the Arizona temple wall; the partial symbol on the London disco.

  A four-bladed scythe, a circle in its center, each blade with a spear-like projection on its cutting edge, inside the circle a hieretic letter symbol, a step-like configuration on each blade, the one on the upper blade connected to the letter symbol.

 
; Robert stares at it. He has no idea what it represents.

  All he knows—or senses—is that his destiny is closing in.

  He asks Peter if he knows what the symbol is. Cathy. Everyone at ESPA. Even Dr. Konrad.

  None of them do.

  On impulse, he phones the lawyer handling his father’s will. Is it possible, he asks, for him to take a look at his father’s journal?

  Williker says it isn’t unless Robert accepts the full terms of the will—to continue the dig in Arizona. Further, time is running out. At the end of a year following his father’s death, everything—journal, papers and money—will be given to the Archeology Department of New York University.

  Robert backs off. He is curious but unwilling to commit himself to Arizona; it just doesn’t seem to have any real bearing on what he’s going through.

  And, anyway, he reasons, if the dig is that important, the Archeology Department of New York University will doubtless take it on.

  Barney Edwards calls. He has made arrangements for them to speak to Edith Gage’s parents.

  They meet Buster at the address and go up to the Gage apartment.

  Edith’s father is grim, unwelcoming. He makes barely veiled allusions to Buster’s “color”. Robert feels uncomfortable with him.

  There are three other children in the family; Edith is the second youngest. Her mother, a tired, martyr-like woman speaks to them with tears in her eyes, telling them about her daughter, showing them a photograph of the pretty little girl, finally a prized possession of hers, a small, well-worn Raggedy Ann doll.

  The father doesn’t want to let the doll go but accedes grumpily when Cathy promises they’ll bring it back. Then they leave, retiring to the nearest coffee shop. “I do my best work in coffee shops,” Buster says.

  In the shop, Buster holds the doll and stares at it. He strokes the doll’s head.

  “Playin’ with yo’ doll?” a young black snickers, passing the table.

  “I’ll play with yo’ head,” Buster says, starting out of the booth.

  Robert restrains him and Buster sits back down, cursing under his breath. Regaining control, he holds the doll again and stares at it, strokes it idly.

  Finally, he makes a face.

  “I get carrots,” he tells them. “Why do I get carrots?”

  “Is it possible she’s… buried in a carrot field?” Cathy suggests uneasily.

  Buster runs his fingers over the doll. “A carrot field in Manhattan?” he says.

  “Could be Long Island,” Robert suggests.

  “No, she’s in Manhattan,” Buster says. “I know that. She’s somewhere in the city.”

  Cathy swallows. “Is she—alive?” she asks.

  Buster holds the doll, gazing at it unblinkingly. Suddenly, he looks at them.

  “I think she is,” he tells them.

  That night, in bed together, Robert and Cathy talk about the search for Edith Gage (on the basis of Calvin’s belief that she’s alive, Edwards is going to try to increase the search force again) and Peter’s survival research.

  When Robert is unable to engross himself in the conversation, Cathy, aggravated, asks him what’s the matter.

  He confesses that he just can’t “get into” either the search for Edith Gage or Peter’s research. God knows he hopes the little girl is alive as Buster seems to think. And he hopes that Peter achieves results in his investigation.

  It’s just that he’s unable to get involved. Something odd is still happening to him. He mentions the drawing he made without knowing it. It seems to be a part of what’s happening but what part he can’t tell. He apologizes for his lack of interest (he’s already apologized to Peter) but he just can’t help it. He feels certain that he’s being “taken” somewhere. He still doesn’t know where that somewhere is though—and, obviously, he has no control over it.

  Cathy tries to be understanding and sympathetic but clearly she is upset by his vagueness and his lack of interest in working with her on psychic crime detection. He tries to reassure her, repeating that he loves her, wants to marry her as soon as her divorce is final and live out his life with her.

  “Where?” she asks, almost plaintively. “Never-never land?”

  Robert wakes and picks up the telephone receiver. “Yeah?” he mutters.

  “Hey, man, it didn’t even ring yet!” Buster tells him on the other end of the line.

  “Telepathy,” says Robert, yawning. “Prime example. What’s up?”

  Buster says he thinks he’s got an approximate location for Edith Gage. Do they want to help him look?

  They meet him in the city. Barney has managed to get two patrolmen to accompany them and the five move through the neighborhood where Buster thinks he has a “fix” on Edith—the East Side below Seventeenth Street.

  “The East Side,” Cathy murmurs with a faint smile, looking at the two patrolmen. “Now we know how those patrolmen felt when Lees was leading them through the East Side of London.”

  As they walk, Buster keeps a running commentary on his impressions. He still thinks Edith is alive, now more than ever. In a “dirty set of rooms” somewhere around here. There’s a woman with her. “Kind o’ spooky woman too, don’t like her.” A dangerous woman.

  “And those carrots,” Buster says. “Always those damn carrots.”

  He looks at Robert with a snicker. “Yeah!” he says.

  Cathy looks confused.

  “Your man here was thinking maybe she’s been kidnapped by Bugs Bunny,” Buster says. He punches Robert on the arm.

  The search is, ultimately, a failure. A number of times Buster seems to be “getting hot” but, every time, he loses hold of it.

  Late that afternoon, when the patrolmen have left them, Robert suggests they go to Edith’s parents and describe the woman to them. Maybe she’s someone they know.

  Buster points at him. “That’s a good idea!” he says. “How come I didn’t think of it? Don’t you be more psychic than me now, Bobbie!”

  They drive to the Gage apartment, unannounced, interrupting supper. When Buster tells them of the area where he thinks Edith is, Mrs. Gage comments on the “coincidence” that it is the section of Manhattan where her husband works.

  Seeing her husband’s reaction to this, Robert asks Buster to describe the woman he “saw”.

  When he does, Robert, to his startlement, abruptly sees a flaring glow around the body of Edith’s father.

  Red.

  “What kind of work do you do?” he asks Mr. Gage.

  Gage is agitated and refuses to answer. “Listen, we’re trying to have some supper here!” he snarls.

  Mrs. Gage looks at her husband strangely, then, infuriating him, tells them that Gage works for a diamond cutting business.

  Immediately, Cathy says, “Carats.”

  “What’s the address?” Buster demands.

  Gage tries to keep his wife from answering but she tells them. Buster tenses. “Let’s go,” he mutters.

  Ignoring Gage’s angry threats, they leave the apartment and hurry down to the street. Taking a moment to telephone Barney and tell him where they’re going, they jump in Robert’s car and drive to the old building where Gage works. Barney isn’t there yet.

  Buster moves into an alley next to the building. “Shouldn’t we wait?” asks Cathy.

  “No time,” Buster mutters.

  Re-using an old skill, Buster breaks into the building through a side window and they start up a staircase. Light is fading, the silent halls deep with shadows.

  Before they reach the top floor, a fast-running Buster has left them behind.

  Robert and Cathy come across an area where Edith has been kept—a mattress on the floor, a white bureau, some hanging clothes, a portable t-v set, a grotesque attempt to create a “little girl” environment.

  No Edith though. Cathy starts to call for Buster but Robert stops her.

  She watches as he moves around the area where Edith Gage had obviously been living. It is almost sunset. In
the distance, they hear Buster’s running footsteps.

  Then Robert stops and stares. Cathy comes up behind him. “What?” she whispers.

  He is gazing at a three-part standing screen against the wall.

  After a few moments, he moves to it and lifts it aside. Behind it is a closed door.

  A closet.

  As though impelled by something other than his own volition, he takes Cathy back across the room, tells her to be absolutely quiet, then moves toward the closed door.

  The move is made in overlays of time.

  One second, he is moving toward the door of the office building closet.

  The next, he is in his mother’s room, moving toward the closed door of her closet, rain outside, the 1950 song playing.

  He has to struggle to retain the present. With an intense effort of will, he moves to the closed door and stops in front of it.

  Heavy silence. He braces himself.

  Jerks open the door.

  Sights and sounds in simultaneous flurry. Cathy crying out. His own dry gasp. The woman standing in the closet, pointing a shotgun at him, behind her the cowering figure of Edith Gage.

  Something unexpected and bizarre takes place. As the woman thrusts the shotgun forward to fire at Robert, his features stiffen.

  And, suddenly, the shotgun is yanked from her grip by a violent, unseen force, flies past Robert’s side and clatters across the floor.

  The woman recoils with a cry of dread.

  Robert stares at her. He doesn’t know it but his rigid expression is terrifying.

  “Come out now, Edith,” he says. His eyes never leave those of the frightened, staring woman.

  Barney shows up moments later and Buster returns from his fruitless search for the woman.

  Robert cannot tell them what happened. The double trauma of reliving his dream in a waking state and having so much telekinetic power drained from him so instantly has left him in a weakened, shaken state.

  Cathy drives him home and puts him to bed. He is asleep in seconds.

  Into the dream.