The Link

by Richard Matheson

  This time it seems to go on endlessly. The rain, the music, the dim-lit living room, the movement, then the rush into the hallway, up the stairs, his shrieking, demented mother dragging him across the floor to her room, flinging him inside, slamming and locking the door, the music playing louder, louder, the rain spattering hard against the window, his sobbing terror.

  Then his movement toward the closed closet door.

  As he passes a mirror on the wall, he looks at his reflection.

  Instead of himself, he sees a six-year-old boy.

  “No!” he screams.

  He has jolted up in bed, crying out the word.

  Cathy, shocked awake, stares at him in trembling alarm. Then, turning on the lamp and seeing his sweat-streaked, panicked face, she makes a sound of loving sympathy and puts her arms around him.

  Robert clings to her, shivering uncontrollably, unable to speak except to whisper, “Why? Why? Why?”

  Cathy thinks he should consult a therapist immediately. He says he’s not against the idea but first he wants to drive to Brooklyn and discover if the house is still there, find out if seeing it does anything to help.

  They drive to his old neighborhood in Flatbush: Bedford Avenue near Albermarle Road. It is a depressing sight to him. Everything is different, run-down. Stores and gas stations have replaced houses, office buildings have replaced apartment houses. Half of everything is closed down, boarded up with No Trespassing signs.

  But the house is still there, wedged between an unused office building and a Jewish synagogue.

  They park in front of it and Robert stares at his old home.

  He has a momentary vision of his young self standing on the porch, turned away, knocking on the front door. It is raining.

  He forces himself to get out of the car and take a closer look. Cathy tries to stop him but he has to do it.

  The front gate is almost wedged shut. As he throws his weight against it, it opens with a hideous, grating noise.

  He talks to Cathy quietly, nervously, as they walk onto the front porch. The door, as expected, is locked with a No Trespassing sign nailed to the wood.

  Robert walks along the porch and sees the curtains in the windows, the curtains from his dream. One of the windows is broken, a piece of plywood nailed over it on the inside. Robert nears the other window.

  “If I look inside and see my mother looking back at me,” he says, “have my remains cremated.”

  “Robert, don’t,” she begs.

  He moves to the window and, gritting his teeth, looks in.

  The shade is drawn; he sees nothing. “Thank God for that,” he whispers.

  They walk along the side of the house, stepping over piles of trash, old lumber and debris. He almost trips and falls, looking upward at a second story window. “My mother’s room,” he tells her. “That is to say… what was her room.”

  Another groaning gate opens on the backyard. Robert has a fleeting vision of John and himself (him four) painting the gate. The backyard is a filthy mess. “Beautiful,” he mutters. Cathy waits by the gate as he enters the yard.

  He steps over piles of junk and peers into the kitchen through a back window; one of its panes is broken, covered with plywood.

  It is dark and shadowy inside but he can see that it still looks the same as he remembers, the furnishings unchanged. A memory flicks across his mind: his mother baking, him, at five, “helping” her, a lovely looking boy, happy, smiling.

  His gaze moves further and he manages to see a part of the dining room. For an instant, he recalls the family at the table, Father, Mother, John, Ruth and himself.

  He turns away and looks at the backyard. A large cardboard carton sits nearby. He kicks it idly.

  And almost comes out of his skin as, with a horrific yowl, a stray cat leaps out and scrabbles across the backyard debris, fleeing.

  He covers his eyes with a palsied hand. “I’m not up to this,” he mumbles.

  May 20th, ESPA. Teddie has requested a “royal audience” (as he put it) with all of them.

  Before he gets there, Robert, Cathy and Peter talk. There is a definite schism now between Peter and Cathy. They still speak to one another pleasantly and politely but clearly he has lost some esteem in her eyes and vice versa.

  They talk about the case of Edith Gage. Barney Edwards has informed them that the “spooky” woman Buster “saw” was Mr. Gage’s girlfriend. Divorced and childless, she had talked Gage into “giving” her Edith. Not wanting to lose her sexual favors (and threatened by her that their relationship would be exposed), he had complied. Eventually, when the case was forgotten by the police, he planned to take Edith and his girlfriend to New Jersey, set them up in a small house.

  Buster’s intervention had ended that plan. And, clearly, Gage had failed to comprehend how truly disturbed a person his girlfriend is. He had no idea, for instance, that she had a shotgun and was horrified to discover that she did. If he’d known she was so unbalanced, he would never have agreed to let her take Edith.

  A little later, Teddie shows up and addresses a gathering of ESPA members, his manner more abrupt than ever, almost hostile.

  For nearly three decades, he informs them, the KGB has conducted a disinformation campaign designed to spread confusion about the new military armaments Russia is developing.

  Psi became a pawn in this intrigue in the late 1950’s when a French publication declared that the American military had successfully used telepathy to communicate with crewmen aboard the atomic submarine Nautilus.

  The article was doubtless fabricated and planted but, soon thereafter, Soviet scientists were allowed to pursue psychic research after many years of having their work suppressed.

  Three intelligence agency reports evaluating Soviet psychic research came to the same conclusion: that the Soviets are spending large amounts on secret research which their scientists believe will yield breakthroughs revolutionizing espionage and warfare.

  For that reason, Teddie tells them, the main thrust of ESPA should be to develop psychotronic weapons.

  He will help them.

  “I propose converting psi into a virtual ‘atom bomb’ of defense by the creation of a program which would push psychic research in the direction of practical counter-intelligence and counter-offensive military strength.”

  The silence is profound as he completes his statement. Easton then thanks him coolly and says that his “comments will be kept in mind.”

  Teddie gives them all a look of disgust, makes a contemptuous sound and leaves. “Don’t look for me again,” he says.

  Easton rises, clears his throat.

  “I think we can return to our work now,” he says calmly.

  Sunday morning. Robert and Cathy are lying in bed, having coffee and rolls and reading the newspapers when a call comes from Carol. Can Cathy come over and talk with Peter? He is in a terrible state; she is becoming desperate.

  They dress and drive to Peter and Carol’s house. Carol comes out to meet and thank them for coming. She has a bad cold, has been crying; her nose and eyes are red.

  She can’t do anything with Peter, she tells them. He has been depressed all week and is getting worse.

  They go inside. Peter does, indeed, look terrible, unshaven, hair tousled, wearing a bathrobe over wrinkled pajamas, his expression that of a man on the verge of giving up.

  What happened? they ask him.

  “Oh, did you miss it?” he says in a chipper voice that still disguises the anger he feels. “Here, let me show you.”

  He leads them to the living room and plays a videocassette he recorded late Friday night.

  Westheimer.

  “A certain British parapsychologist, winding up his twelve-month tenure at the Extended Sensory Perception Association, is setting back the cause approximately a century by forcing the Association to initiate a program of so-called research into, of all things, ‘life after death’,” Westheimer says on his program.

  Robert glances at Peter. The older m
an is staring at the t-v screen.

  “Down the tube with scientific endeavor,” Westheimer continues airily. “Back to neuroticism and mental dissociation. Back to the breeding ground of secondary personalities enabling unbalanced mediums to act out their repressed subconscious tendencies.

  “Back to exhibitionism, masochism, desire for magical omnipotence and fumbling attempts to contact the so-called ‘other side’. Back, in brief, to fraud and dissembling, wasted time and utter intellectual retrogression.

  “For the benefit of this misguided man, allow me to transmit the well-established fact that all so-called ‘proof’ of survival lies either in the area of religious naïveté or diverse metabolic incidents caused by noxious stimuli, anoxia, anosognosia, fluctuation of blood supply to the brain centers, etcetera, etcetera.

  “Hasn’t our ill-advised British friend discovered by now that the so-called ‘vision of survival’—the dark tunnel with the light at its end and the buzzing noises—is actually an involuntary recollection of the birth trauma?”

  Peter turns off the set with his remote control. “The swine,” he says. “The bloody swine. Disposing of centuries of evidence with a simplistic little four-pronged attack. Survival evidence is neurological. It is physiological. It psychological. It is pharmacological. Period! End of story!”

  “Peter, please,” says Carol.

  “Damn the man and his puerile snobbery,” Peter says, ignoring her. “Is he blind to history? No, not blind, deliberately inimical. Ignoring the obvious truth that the founders of parapsychology were brilliant men.”

  “Peter—” Carol pleads.

  “Brilliant!” he says loudly. “Men who selflessly investigated thousands of cases in apparent survival, cases which remain, to this day, classics of parapsychological literature!

  “Would this dried up little raisin of a man have us believe that all this research amounted to nothing more than thousands of lies swallowed whole by credulous dunces?!”

  “Peter, stop it!” Carol cries.

  “These were giants!” Peter rages. “Giants! Myers, Sidgwick, Gurney, Crookes, Lodge, Barrett, James, McDougall, Richet, Bergson! Men who make this pitiful bigot look like an insect crawling on their shoes!”

  Carol rushes from the room, crying, and Cathy follows. Robert goes over to where Peter sits and puts his hands on the older man’s trembling shoulders. “Easy,” he says.

  Peter is wracked by spasmodic breath. His smile is bitter. “Easy,” he repeats.

  Robert’s hands on him seem to help. Peter gradually quiets down. After a short while, he reaches up and squeezes Robert’s hand. “Thank you,” he says.

  He stands with a groan and walks to the window, looks out. Makes a sound of dark amusement.

  “How we divert our rage,” he says. “Of course I’m furious at Westheimer. I’d like to drop a Steinway on his pedantic head. However—”

  He reveals the base cause of his deep depression. He hasn’t told Carol but he went to a doctor because he’s been feeling so poorly. It’s his heart. It isn’t up to keeping him alive with any kind of energy. Not anymore.

  “As they say, my friend,” he tells Robert. “My days are numbered.”

  “Peter,” Robert can barely speak. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, yes,” Peter murmurs. “I’m sorry too. Sorry that I ruined Carol’s life. Forced her to sacrifice it to my work. Deprived her of children. Even took her away from her family and her country.”

  He shakes his head, sighing.

  “It’s just that I wanted to do something worthwhile,” he says, his voice breaking a little.

  “You have, Peter,” Robert says.

  Peter’s laugh is faint and sorrowful. “Tell that to my wife,” he says.

  They arrive home that night, sad and tired. A call is waiting on the answering machine.

  “I’m holding your friend Teddie Berger at my precinct,” says Barney Edward’s voice. “He’s been charged with battery.”

  Robert phones Barney and says he’ll come in. Cathy asks him if he really wants to do it. No, he says, he doesn’t want to do it at all but maybe he can help.

  He drives to Barney’s precinct in Manhattan. There, he meets Barney and tells him about Teddie’s past in Germany. Barney says he understands but doesn’t know if he can keep Teddie from being put on trial.

  “He beat the hell out of his girlfriend,” he says. “And he wasn’t any charmer when he was picked up either. It took three men to control him. He kept calling them Nazis. I see why now.”

  Robert meets Teddie in an interrogation room; he tells Barney he doesn’t need anyone with him for protection.

  Teddie looks bad, his hair uncombed, a stubble of beard on his face, bruises on both cheeks, a black eye. “Have you come to enroll me in a beauty contest?” he asks Robert.

  “What happened, Teddie?” he asks.

  Teddie, at first reluctant, finally tells him.

  When he came back unexpectedly from Russia, he’d found a man living in his apartment with Carla. He’d gotten the man out “calmly and collectedly,” he says. He even tried to understand. But Carla chose not to play the guilty party, kept assailing him for leaving her and his bottled anger finally “came uncorked” this afternoon when he “gave her a right to the chops that would have made Jack Dempsey proud.”

  “Next, she hit me with a frying pan, I punched her in the belly,” he says. “She kicked me in the groin, I bounced her off a wall. She cut me with a bread knife, I almost broke her wrist. After which, things became unpleasant.”

  Robert doesn’t know what to say. He tenses as Teddie abruptly pulls his chair closer. “But these are mere distractions,” he murmurs. “I know why I am really here.”

  Robert stares at him.

  “The government,” says Teddie.

  Seeing Robert’s expression, Teddie’s face hardens with scorn. “Don’t be so naïve, my friend,” he says sotto voce. “You are not a fool. You are as psychic as I. You know what is going on.”

  “What did they say to you?” Robert asks, picking up a shard of information from Teddie’s mind.

  “Obviously, they heard about my little declaration at ESPA,” Teddie tells him. “No doubt that smarmy bureaucrat Easton gave them the word. Two days later, they were at my door. A Navy officer—in civilian dress, of course—came to ask me to do some distance perception work for the Navy. You know what it was?”

  Robert shakes his head.

  “They wanted me to tell them how many Russian submarines were assembled off the East coast of the United States. He inferred that there were other psychics under government employ tracking the movements of Soviet submarines.”

  He smiles with grim satisfaction. “He also told me that the government is funding some of ESPA’s work.”

  Robert looks startled. “No,” he says.

  “No?” says Teddie, his voice rising. “No? Wake up, my friend. Why do you think Easton’s reaction to my declaration was so cool and disinterested? I’ll tell you why; you’ll doubtless take too long to answer. Because he was afraid I might find out about ESPA’s connection with the government and blow the whistle on him to the media.”

  “Are you going to help the government?” Robert asks.

  Teddie looks at him in cold disdain.

  “After they have me arrested because I told them I wanted to think it over?”

  “But I thought you wanted to—” Robert starts to say.

  “I want to do nothing I am told to do!” Teddie interrupts.

  He’ll tell Robert what he’s going to do. He’s going to write a book, that’s what he’s going to do. Would Robert like to know the title? He asks for a pencil and paper and prints:

  ESP(IONAGE)!

  “Consider,” says Teddie, eyes glittering, voices soft but fierce. “The government builds an underground installation in South Dakota to house an air defense computer system. On the surface, they build something entirely different. In Russia, a psychic, using distance perception, sees th
e tunnels and the underground rooms and the computer and draws a picture of what he sees. Analysts decide that the Americans have constructed a disguised presidential command center underground in that location. Other psychics are put to work to enlarge on the details. Other psychics are assigned to transmit mental energies to disorient the staff of this command post. Need I go on?”

  “I hope you’re wrong, Teddie,” Robert says quietly. “God help all of us if you’re not.”

  “Who?” asks Teddie.

  Robert smiles a little and pats Teddie on the shoulder. “God,” he answers.

  Teddie looks at him as though he has become instantly feebleminded.

  “That’s what I thought you said,” he replies.

  On May 26, Peter has a heart attack and is hospitalized.

  Robert and Cathy go to see him. Then Robert stays with him while she goes to ESPA to complete some work. She will pick Robert up at the end of the day.

  Carol, who has not rested for several days, falls into an exhausted sleep in a nearby room. Robert sits with Peter.

  A series of scenes between the two separated by SLOW DISSOLVES. Peter awake, fading slowly, his thoughts varied.

  “We have, in the last fifty years,” he says, “demonstrated that man is more than just a hit or miss bundle of molecules. That he is, in fact, a miraculous assemblage of energies which are part of and participant in the purpose of the universe.” DISSOLVE.

  “If there is survival after death,” he says, “that which survives must exist beforehand in the living. Why not, then, a study of living consciousness as an approach to the survival question? The more we know about the characteristics of consciousness in living people, the more insight we gain into what aspects of that consciousness might persist after death.”

  DISSOLVE.

  “If the earth, as we believe,” he says, “possesses its own energy field, its own aura so to speak, wouldn’t the outer edges of that aura be the least physical, the most potentially meta-physical? Does that explain why so many mountain climbers and flyers and astronauts experience a sense of heightened consciousness?”

  DISSOLVE.

  “Since distance perception is clearly unrestrained by time and space,” he says, “why not a distance perception test between life and possible afterlife?”