NightScape

by David Morrell

  The jury deliberated for ten days.

  Why did they need so long ?

  They finally declared him guilty.

  And yet again the monster showed no reaction.

  Nor did he react when the judge pronounced the maximum punishment Connecticut allowed: life in prison.

  But Chad reacted. He shrieked, "Life in prison? Change the law! That son of a bitch deserves to be executed!"

  Chad was removed from the courtroom. Outside, Putnam's lawyer make a speech about a miscarriage of justice, vowing to demand a new trial, to appeal to a higher court.

  Thus began a different kind of horror, the complexities and loopholes in the legal system. Another year passed. The monster remained in prison, yes, but what if a judge decided that a further trial was necessary, that Putnam was obviously insane and should have pleaded accordingly? A year in prison for what he'd done to Stephanie? If he was released on a technicality or sent to a mental institution where he would pretend to respond to treatment and perhaps eventually be pronounced "cured"...

  He'd kill again!

  At three a.m., in Chad's gloomy New Haven apartment, he raised his haggard face from where he'd been dozing at the kitchen table. He smiled toward Stephanie's speck of light.

  "Hi, dear. It's wonderful to see you. Where have you been? How I've missed you."

  "You've got to stop doing this!"

  "I'm getting even for you."

  "You're making me scared!"

  "For me. Of course. I understand. But as soon as I know that he's punished, I'll put my life in order. I promise I'll clean up my act."

  "That's not what I mean! I don't have time to explain! I'm soaring so fast! So brilliantly! Stop what you're doing!"

  "I can't. How can you rest in peace if he isn't - "

  "I'm afraid!"

  Putnam's appeal was denied. But that was another year later. In the meantime, Chad's former wife, Linda, had married someone else, and Chad's percentage of royalties from his past authors dwindled. He was forced to move to more shabby lodgings. He began to withdraw money - with tax penalties - from his pension. He now had a beard. Less trouble. No necessity to shave. So what if his unwashed hair drooped over his ears? There was no one to impress. No authors. No publishers. No one.

  Except Stephanie.

  Where in God's name was she?

  She'd abandoned him. Why ?

  While Stephanie's murder had officially been solved, others attributed to the Biter had not. Putnam refused to admit that he'd killed anyone, and the authorities - furious about Putnam's stubbornness - decided to put pressure on him to close the books on those other crimes, to force him to confess. Before he'd been a book salesman in New England, he'd worked in Florida. A blonde, attractive co-ed had been murdered years before at Florida's state university. The killer had used a knife instead of his teeth to mutilate the victim. There wasn't any obvious reason to link the Biter with that killing. But a search of that Florida city's records revealed that Putnam had received a parking ticket near where the victim had disappeared as she left the university's library. Further, Putnam's rare blood type matched the type derived from the semen that the killer had left within the victim, just as the semen that the monster had left within Stephanie contained Putnam's blood type. Years ago, that evidence could not have been used in court because of limitations in forensic technology. But now...

  Putnam was arrested for the co-ed's murder. His lawyer had insisted on another trial. Well, the monster would get one. In Florida. Where the maximum penalty wasn't life in prison. It was death.

  Chad moved to the outskirts of Florida State University. His pension and his portion of royalties from contracts he'd negotiated increasingly declined. His clothes became more shabby, his appearance more unkempt, his frame more gaunt. At some hazy point in the intervening years, his former wife, Linda, died from breast cancer. He mourned for her but not as he mourned for Stephanie.

  The Florida trial seemed to take forever. Again Chad came to stare at the monster. Again he endured the complexities of the legal system. Again the evidence presented at the trial made him shudder.

  But finally Putnam was found guilty, and this time the judge - Chad cheered and had to be evicted from the courtroom again- sentenced the monster to death in the electric chair.

  Anti-death-penalty groups raised a furor. They petitioned Florida's Supreme Court and the state's governor to reduce the sentence. For his part, Chad barraged the media and the parents of the Biter's victims with phone calls and letters, urging them to use all their influence to insist that the judge's sentence be obeyed.

  Richard Putnam finally showed a reaction. Apparently now convinced that his life was in danger, he tried to make a deal. He hinted about other homicides he'd committed, offering to reveal specifics and solve murders in other states in exchange for a reduced sentence.

  Detectives from numerous states came to question Putnam about unsolved disappearances of co-eds. In the end, after they listened in disgust to his explicit descriptions of torture and cannibalism, they refused to ask the judge to reduce the sentence. There were four stays of execution, but finally Putnam was shaved, placed in an electric chair, and exterminated with two thousand volts through his brain.

  Chad was with the pro-death-sentence advocates in the darkness of a midnight rain outside the prison. Along with them, he held up a sign: BURN, PUTNAM, BURN. I HOPE OLD SPARKY MAKES YOU SUFFER AS MUCH AS STEPHANIE DID. The execution occurred on schedule. At last, after so many years, Chad felt triumphant. Vindicated. At peace.

  But when he returned to his cockroach-infested, one-room apartment, when at three a.m. he drank cheap red wine in victory, he blinked in further triumph. Because Stephanie's light again appeared to him.

  Chad's heart thundered. He hadn't seen or spoken to her in so many years. Despite his efforts on her behalf, he had thought that she had abandoned him. He had never understood why. After all, she had promised that she would be there whenever he needed to talk to her. At the same time, she had also demanded that he stop his efforts to punish the monster. He had never understood that, either.

  But now, in horror, he did.

  "I warned you, Dad! I tried to stop you! Why didn't you listen ? I'm so afraid!"

  "I got even for you! You can finally rest in peace!"

  "No! Now it starts again!"

  "What do you mean?"

  "He's free! He's coming for me! Don't you remember? I told you he doesn't feel emotion except when he kills! And now that he's been released, he can't wait to do it again! He's coming for me!"

  "But you said you're soaring so brilliantly! How can he catch up to you?"

  "Two thousand volts! He's like a rocket! He's grinning! He's reaching out his arms! Help me, Daddy! You promised!"

  Based on the note Chad left, his psychiatrist concluded that Chad's final act made perfect, irrational sense. Chad bled profusely as he struggled over the barbed-wire fence. His hands were mangled. That didn't matter. Nor did his fear of heights matter as he climbed the high tower while guards shouted for him to stop. All that mattered was that Stephanie was in danger. What choice did he have? Except to grasp the high-voltage lines.

  To be struck by twenty thousand volts. Ten times the power that had launched the Biter toward Stephanie. Chad's body burst into flames, but his agony meant nothing. The impetus of his soul meant everything.

  Keep speeding, sweetheart! As fast as you can!

  But I'll speed faster! The monster won't catch you! Nothing will hurt you!

  Not while I can help it.

  I readily admit that "Elvis .45" is the most cryptic title I've ever used, but I wouldn't change it for the world. You see, I never got over being on the high-school social committee that was empowered to select and buy the records for the weekend dances, As this story indicates, in those ancient days there were listening booths in record stores. My friends and I could spend all afternoon there if we wanted. Not playing CDs, of course. That format hadn't been invented. Vinyl, a
long with Elvis, was king, A lot of you are too young to have heard vinyl (I continue to believe it sounds better than CDs do), or if you have, the word probably suggests IPs (long-playing records the size of pizzas) that held a half-dozen songs on each side and turned at thirty-three-and-one-third revolutions per minute. But there was another vinyl format, the small, one-song-on-each-side 45 (forty-five revolutions per minute) that gives this story its title, as do the .45 revolvers Elvis liked to play with. The title also refers to a number of a course at a university, as in English 101 or Presley 45. Hey, I told you it was cryptic. In any case, the story was written for a 1994 anthology called The King Is Dead and gave me a chance to experiment with an unusual technique. There is no exposition. No description. I avoided speech tags in the dialogue. The story is presented solely in dialogue fragments or in dialogue-like substitutes.

  Elvis .45

  You want to teach a course on...?"

  "Elvis Presley."

  "Elvis...?"

  "Presley."

  ".. .That's what I was afraid I heard you say."

  "Do you have a bias against Elvis Presley?"

  "Not in his proper place. On golden-oldie radio when I'm stuck in traffic. Fred, are you really serious about this? This isn't the Music Department. Not that I can imagine them offering a course in Elvis, either. Musical appreciation of Elvis. What a joke. So how could I justify teaching Elvis in the English Department? The subtlety of the lyrics? The poetry of 'Jailhouse Rock?' Give me a break. The dean would think I'd lost my mind. He'd ask me to resign as chair. Fred, you don't look as if I'm getting my point across."

  "Not a literature course."

  "What?"

  "A culture course."

  "I still don't-"

  "We already offer Victorian Culture. And Nineteenth-Century American Culture. This would be Twentieth-Century American Culture."

  "Fred, don't you think you're interpreting 'culture' rather broadly? I mean, listen to what you're saying. Elvis Presley, for God's sake. The department would be a laughingstock. And for you in particular to want to teach such a course."

  "I?"

  "That's what I mean. You said I instead of 'me.' Perfect grammar. You're the only person in the department who speaks as if he's writing an essay for Philological Quarterly. Correctness of language. Wonderful. But Fred, you're hardly the type to...You'd sound ridiculous teaching Elvis Presley. You're a little -how would the students put it - uncool for the topic."

  "Maybe that's why I want to teach the course."

  * * *

  "High school. When I was fifteen."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "If you'll stop interrupting me, Edna, I'll explain. When I was fifteen, my high school had a student committee that selected the records for the Friday-night dances after the football and basketball games."

  "So it's going to be another stroll down memory lane. Every night at dinner. Well, if I'm going to have to hear one more story, you'd better pass me the wine."

  "I don't need to tell it, Edna."

  "In that case, I have a phone call to make."

  "I was the president of the social committee. I had three subordinates, and every Friday after school, we went to our favorite record store."

  "I thought you said you weren't going to tell the story."

  "I was wrong. I do need to tell it."

  "And I still need to make my phone call."

  "To Peter Robinson?"

  "What makes you think I'd be calling..."

  "The two of you seem awfully chummy."

  "Are you insinuating..."

  "Just drink your wine. The record store had soundproofed booths. Customers were allowed to choose records they were interested in buying and to play the records in the booths. Each Saturday, my committee and I - "

  "Fred, did anyone ever tell you you talk as if you're lecturing?"

  " - would spent hours playing records there. The committee was allowed to buy only two records each week. The small ones. Forty-fives. That format had recently been introduced."

  "Fred, I know. I remember what forty-fives looked like."

  "But we played as many as thirty before we bought our quota of two. Strange. The owner didn't seem to mind. To me, that booth in the record store felt like - "

  "Fred, how can I drink my wine if you don't pass the bottle?"

  " - home ought to be. And I never had closer friends than the students on that committee. We debated each record with absolute fervor, determined to supply the best music possible for the dances. I was underweight even then. And of course, I'm short. And - "

  "Fred, is there a point to this story?"

  " - I didn't have a chance to be popular, as the football players and basketball players were. Come to think of it, all the members of my committee were, I guess you would say, geeky. Like me. So we tried to be popular in a different way. By controlling the music at the dances. Other students would have to come up to us and make requests. They would have to be nice to us or else we wouldn't play the records they wanted."

  "Fred..."

  "Of course, I never danced. I was far too shy. The dances were really only the excuse that allowed me to be able to go to the record store after school on Fridays. I don't think I ever experienced anything as exciting as hearing Elvis Presley sing 'Don't Be Cruel' in that soundproofed booth. I sensed that he was singing directly to me. I felt his emotion-the feeling of being picked upon, of being an outcast. What a revelation. What a sense of being privileged to listen to that record before the students at the dance could."

  "Fred, I asked you before. Does this story have a point?"

  "Since then, I don't think I've ever been so happy."

  * * *

  "Two hundred and twenty-five students enrolled in the course. I must say I'm gratified. I never expected to attract so many Elvis Presley enthusiasts."

  ("He's a funny-looking dude, isn't he? Check out the Coke-bottle glasses and the bow tie.")

  "As I emphasized on the syllabus that I distributed among you, the subject.. .Elvis Aron Presley.. .may be misleading to some. You may have concluded that this is what you call a fresh-air course, that you can expect high grades for very little work. Quite the contrary. I expect the same intense diligence that my students bring to my courses in semiotics and post-structuralism."

  ("Talks funny.")

  "Our subject is one of those rare individuals who through talent, character, and coincidence becomes the focus of the major trends in that person's culture. In this case, a young, Southern male, who adapted black musical themes and techniques, making them acceptable to a segregation-minded white audience. It can be argued that Presley's music, bridging the division between white and black, created a climate in which desegregation was possible. Similar arguments can be made about Presley's contribution to the counterculture of the fifties and the later sexual revolution."

  ("That sexual revolution sounds interesting.")

  * * *

  "I must say, my initial instinct was not to let Fred teach the course. I'm pleased that I listened to his idea, however, and needless to say, the dean's very happy with our increased enrollment. Would I like another martini? By all means. These receptions make me thirsty. Speaking of the dean, look at Fred over in that corner, talking to him. Lecturing to him is probably more accurate. These days, all Fred can talk about is Elvis. The poor dean looks like he's afraid there's going to be an examination after the reception. Fred's got Elvis on the brain."

  * * *

  "And I'm one of the few people I ever met who saw Elvis's first television appearance. No, I don't mean The Ed Sullivan Show. Everyone knows about that and Sullivan's insistence that Elvis not wiggle his hips when he sang, that the camera focus on Elvis only from the waist up. The incident is a perfect example of the cultural and sexual repression that Elvis overcame. What I'm talking about is an earlier television show. When Jackie Gleason went on summer hiatus, the Dorsey brothers filled in for him, and it was the Dorsey brothers who intr
oduced Elvis, gyrating hips and all, to viewers, most of them unfamiliar with rock and roll and most of them burdened by conventions."

  * * *

  "Wigglin' his ass. Why, I never saw any thin' like. "Ought to be a law. The man's no better than a pervert." "And look at that long hair. What is he? A man or a woman? Every time he jerks his head back and forth, his hair falls into his eyes. Them sideburns is butt ugly."

  " Now he's wigglin' his..."

  "Pa, you know what they call him, don't you? Elvis, the Pelvis."

  "Shut your pie hole, Fred. Go to your room and study. I don't want you watchin' this junk."

  * * *

  "It's difficult to overstate the importance of Elvis's appearance with the Dorsey brothers. Those who hadn't seen his performance were told about it and enhanced it with their own imagination. A phenomenon was about to - "

  "Professor?"

  "Please wait until the end of my lecture."

  "But I just want to say, don't you think it's ironic that Elvis was introduced on television by musicians who seemed as outdated to Elvis's generation as Elvis seems to the Metallica generation?"

  "Is that a question or a statement?"

  "I was just thinking, maybe some day somebody'll offer a course on Metallica. (Har, har.)"

  * * *

  "Fred, enough is enough! It's three in the morning! I can't sleep with that noise you're making! How many times do I have to hear 'All Shook Up?' The neighbors will start complaining! There! I told you! That's probably one of them phoning right now!"

  * * *

  "Look at the sideburns Fred's trying to grow. They remind me of caterpillars."