“Thought transference, perhaps,” she answered. “Your wife may have been thinking about us. We gave her our address, should you wish to get in touch with us. We shall be here another ten days. And she knows that we would pass on any message that my sister might have from your little one in the spirit world.”
“Yes,” said John awkwardly, “yes, I see. It’s very good of you.” He had a sudden rather unkind picture of the two sisters putting on headphones in their bedroom, listening for a coded message from poor Christine. “Look, this is our address in London,” he said. “I know Laura will be pleased to hear from you.”
He scribbled their address on a sheet torn from his pocket-diary, even, as a bonus thrown in, the telephone number, and handed it to her. He could imagine the outcome. Laura springing it on him one evening that the “old dears” were passing through London on their way to Scotland, and the least they could do was to offer them hospitality, even the spare-room for the night. Then a séance in the living-room, tambourines appearing out of thin air.
“Well, I must be off,” he said, “goodnight, and apologies, once again, for all that has happened this evening.” He shook hands with the first sister, then turned to her blind twin. “I hope,” he said, “that you are not too tired.”
The sightless eyes were disconcerting. She held his hand fast and would not let it go. “The child,” she said, speaking in an odd staccato voice, “the child…I can see the child…” and then, to his dismay, a bead of froth appeared at the corner of her mouth, her head jerked back, and she half-collapsed in her sister’s arms.
“We must get her inside,” said the sister hurriedly. “It’s all right, she’s not ill, it’s the beginning of a trance state.”
Between them they helped the twin, who had gone rigid, into the house, and sat her down on the nearest chair, the sister supporting her. A woman came running from some inner room. There was a strong smell of spaghetti from the back regions. “Don’t worry,” said the sister, “the signorina and I can manage. I think you had better go. Sometimes she is sick after these turns.”
“I’m most frightfully sorry…” John began, but the sister had already turned her back, and with the signorina was bending over her twin, from whom peculiar choking sounds were proceeding. He was obviously in the way, and after a final gesture of courtesy, “Is there anything I can do?” which received no reply, he turned on his heel and began walking across the square. He looked back once, and saw they had closed the door.
What a finale to the evening! And all his fault. Poor old girls, first dragged to police headquarters and put through an interrogation, and then a psychic fit on top of it all. More likely epilepsy. Not much of a life for the active sister, but she seemed to take it in her stride. An additional hazard, though, if it happened in a restaurant or in the street. And not particularly welcome under his and Laura’s roof should the sisters ever find themselves beneath it, which he prayed would never happen.
Meanwhile, where the devil was he? The campo, with the inevitable church at one end, was quite deserted. He could not remember which way they had come from police headquarters, there had seemed to be so many turnings. Wait a minute, the church itself had a familiar appearance. He drew nearer to it, looking for the name which was sometimes on notices at the entrance. San Giovanni in Bragora, that rang a bell. He and Laura had gone inside one morning to look at a painting by Cima da Conegliano. Surely it was only a stone’s throw from the Riva degli Schiavoni and the open wide waters of the San Marco lagoon, with all the bright lights of civilization and the strolling tourists? He remembered taking a small turning from the Schiavoni and they had arrived at the church. Wasn’t there the alley-way ahead? He plunged along it, but halfway down he hesitated. It didn’t seem right, although it was familiar for some unknown reason.
Then he realized that it was not the alley they had taken the morning they visited the church, but the one they had walked along the previous evening, only he was approaching it from the opposite direction. Yes, that was it, in which case it would be quicker to go on and cross the little bridge over the narrow canal, and he would find the Arsenal on his left and the street leading down to the Riva degli Schiavoni to his right. Simpler than retracing his steps and getting lost once more in the maze of back streets.
He had almost reached the end of the alley, and the bridge was in sight, when he saw the child. It was the same little girl with the pixie hood who had leapt between the tethered boats the preceding night and vanished up the cellar steps of one of the houses. This time she was running from the direction of the church on the other side, making for the bridge. She was running as if her life depended on it, and in a moment he saw why. A man was in pursuit, who, when she glanced backwards for a moment, still running, flattened himself against a wall, believing himself unobserved. The child came on, scampering across the bridge, and John, fearful of alarming her further, backed into an open doorway that led into a small court.
He remembered the drunken yell of the night before which had come from one of the houses near where the man was hiding now. This is it, he thought, the fellow’s after her again, and with a flash of intuition he connected the two events, the child’s terror then and now, and the murders reported in the newspapers, supposedly the work of some madman. It could be coincidence, a child running from a drunken relative, and yet, and yet…His heart began thumping in his chest, instinct warning him to run himself, now, at once, back along the alley the way he had come, but what about the child? What was going to happen to the child?
Then he heard her running steps. She hurtled through the open doorway into the court in which he stood, not seeing him, making for the rear of the house that flanked it, where steps led presumably to a back entrance. She was sobbing as she ran, not the ordinary cry of a frightened child but a panic-stricken intake of breath of a helpless being in despair. Were there parents in the house who would protect her, whom he could warn? He hesitated a moment, then followed her down the steps and through the door at the bottom, which had burst open at the touch of her hands as she hurled herself against it.
“It’s all right,” he called. “I won’t let him hurt you, it’s all right,” cursing his lack of Italian, but possibly an English voice might reassure her. But it was no use—she ran sobbing up another flight of stairs, which were spiral, twisting, leading to the floor above, and already it was too late for him to retreat. He could hear sounds of the pursuer in the courtyard behind, someone shouting in Italian, a dog barking. This is it, he thought, we’re in it together, the child and I. Unless we can bolt some inner door above he’ll get us both.
He ran up the stairs after the child, who had darted into a room leading off a small landing, and followed her inside and slammed the door, and, merciful heaven, there was a bolt which he rammed into its socket. The child was crouching by the open window. If he shouted for help, someone would surely hear, someone would surely come before the man in pursuit threw himself against the door and it gave, because there was no one but themselves, no parents, the room was bare except for a mattress on an old bed, and a heap of rags in one corner.
“It’s all right,” he panted, “it’s all right,” and held out his hand, trying to smile.
The child struggled to her feet and stood before him, the pixie hood falling from her head onto the floor. He stared at her, incredulity turning to horror, to fear. It was not a child at all but a little thickset woman dwarf, about three feet high, with a great square adult head too big for her body, grey locks hanging shoulder-length, and she wasn’t sobbing any more, she was grinning at him, nodding her head up and down.
Then he heard the footsteps on the landing outside and the hammering on the door, and a barking dog, and not one voice but several voices, shouting, “Open up! Police!” The creature fumbled in her sleeve, drawing a knife, and as she threw it at him with hideous strength, piercing his throat, he stumbled and fell, the sticky mess covering his prote
cting hands. And he saw the vaporetto with Laura and the two sisters steaming down the Grand Canal, not today, not tomorrow, but the day after that, and he knew why they were together and for what sad purpose they had come. The creature was gibbering in its corner. The hammering and the voices and the barking dog grew fainter, and, Oh, God, he thought, what a bloody silly way to die…
The Real Bad Friend
ROBERT BLOCH
THE STORY
Original publication: Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine, February 1957; first collected in Terror in the Night and Other Stories (New York, Ace, 1958)
AS AN ENTHUSIASTIC READER of Weird Tales, the most successful pulp magazine in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres, Robert Albert Bloch (1917–1994) especially liked the work of H. P. Lovecraft and began a correspondence with him. Lovecraft encouraged his writing ambitions, resulting in two of Bloch’s stories being sold to Weird Tales when he was seventeen, beginning a successful and prolific writing career.
Bloch went on to write hundreds of short stories and twenty novels, the most famous being Psycho (1959), which was memorably filmed by Alfred Hitchcock. While his early work was virtually a pastiche of Lovecraft, he went on to develop his own style, notably in the short story “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” (1943). Much of his work was exceptionally dark, gory, and violent for its time, but a plethora of his short fiction has elements of humor—often relying on a pun or wordplay in the last line. A famously warm, friendly, and humorous man in real life, he defended himself against charges of being a macabre writer by saying that he wasn’t that way at all. “Why, I have the heart of a small boy,” he said. “It’s in a jar, on my desk.” He commonly created a short story by inventing a good pun for the last line, then writing a story to accompany it.
Many elements inspired Psycho, Bloch’s best-known work, including the real-life adventures of Ed Gein, who was devoted to his mother and, after her death, notoriously was known to have dug up the bodies of women and use their body parts for artifacts all around his house. Known as “the butcher of Plainfield,” he murdered at least two other women. Out of the skins of several women, he created what he described as a “woman suit” so that he imagined he could become his mother—to literally crawl into her skin.
With headlines about the crime in every newspaper in America, Bloch evidently filed the highlights of the gruesome reports at the back of his mind. Gein was arrested in November of 1957—the same year that Bloch had published his short story “The Real Bad Friend.” Combining the major elements of his own macabre tale and Gein’s insane crimes, Bloch wrote Psycho, the novel that inspired one of Alfred Hitchcock’s successful films.
THE MOVIE
Title: Psycho, 1960
Studio: Paramount
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Screenwriter: Joseph Stefano
Producer: Alfred Hitchcock
THE CAST
• Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates)
• Vera Miles (Lila Crane)
• John Gavin (Sam Loomis)
• Janet Leigh (Marion Crane)
• Martin Balsam (Det. Milton Arbogast)
One of the most creepily beloved of all Hitchcock’s suspense films, Psycho is the story of a young woman who steals an envelope full of money and begins a long drive to meet her boyfriend. On the way, she stops to spend the night in the Bates Motel, run by Norman Bates, a shy, quiet young man who behaves a trifle oddly because he appears to be dominated by his controlling mother. When the woman disappears, her lover, her sister, and a police detective come to the motel to investigate.
Few films have had scenes as memorable as the one in which the thief, played by the beautiful Janet Leigh, decides to take a shower and is interrupted by Norman’s mother, who wields a large knife as she—and violins—shriek in a mad frenzy of slash after bloody slash.
Psycho II (1983) was released twenty-three years after the original film and again starred Vera Miles as well as Tony Perkins as Norman Bates, who has spent more than two decades under psychiatric care but is haunted by the events of the past and by his mother. Bloch had written a novel titled Psycho II, published in 1982, but the producer instead went with an original screenplay by Tom Holland; it was directed by Richard Franklin. A cheesy, exploitive continuation of the Norman Bates saga, Psycho III (1986) again featured Perkins.
Bloch’s novel also served as the basis for a big-budget remake, Psycho (1998), with a screenplay yet again by Stefano that followed the novel and the first film inspired by it so closely that even camera placement and angles were almost identical. Directed by Gus Van Sant, it featured Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, and Julianne Moore. Although an excellent remake, it was not a success at the box office.
THE REAL BAD FRIEND
Robert Bloch
IT WAS REALLY ALL RODERICK’S IDEA in the first place.
George Foster Pendleton would never have thought of it. He couldn’t have; he was much too dull and respectable. George Foster Pendleton, vacuum cleaner salesman, aged forty-three, just wasn’t the type. He had been married to the same wife for fourteen years, lived in the same white house for an equal length of time, wore glasses when he wrote up orders, and was completely complacent about his receding hairline and advancing waistline.
Consequently, when his wife’s uncle died and left her an estate of some eighty-five thousand dollars after taxes, George didn’t make any real plans.
Oh, he was delighted, of course—any ten-thousand-a-year salesman would be—but that’s as far as it went. He and Ella decided to put in another bathroom on the first floor and buy a new Buick, keeping the old car for her to drive. The rest of the money could go into something safe, like savings and loan, and the interest would take care of a few little luxuries now and then. After all, they had no children or close relatives to look after. George was out in the territory a few days every month, and often called on local sales prospects at night, so they’d never developed much of a social life. There was no reason to expand their style of living, and the money wasn’t quite enough to make him think of retiring.
So they figured things out, and after the first flurry of excitement and congratulations from the gang down at George’s office, people gradually forgot about the inheritance. After all, they weren’t really living any differently than before. George Foster Pendleton was a quiet man, not given to talking about his private affairs. In fact, he didn’t have any private affairs to talk about.
Then Roderick came up with his idea.
“Why not drive Ella crazy?”
George couldn’t believe his ears. “You’re the one who’s crazy,” George told him. “Why, I never heard of anything so ridiculous in all my life!”
Roderick just smiled at him and shook his head in that slow, funny way of his, as if he felt sorry for George. Of course, he did feel sorry for George, and maybe that’s why George thought of him as his best friend. Nobody seemed to have any use for Roderick, and Roderick didn’t give a damn about anyone else, apparently. But he liked George, and it was obvious he had been doing a lot of thinking about the future.
“You’re a fine one to talk about being ridiculous,” Roderick said. That quiet, almost inaudible way he had of speaking always carried a lot of conviction. George was handicapped as a salesman by his high, shrill voice, but Roderick seldom spoke above a whisper. He had the actor’s trick of deliberately underplaying his lines. And what he said usually made sense.
Now George sat in his five-dollar room at the Hotel LeMoyne and listened to his friend. Roderick had come to the office today just before George left on his monthly road trip, and decided to go along. As he’d fallen into the habit of doing this every once in a while, George thought nothing of it. But this time, apparently, he had a purpose in mind.
“If anyone is being ridiculous,” Roderick said, “it’s you. You’ve been selling
those lousy cleaners since nineteen forty-six. Do you like your job? Are you ever going to get any higher in the company? Do you want to keep on in this crummy rut for another twenty years?”
George opened his mouth to answer, but it was Roderick who spoke. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “I know the answers. And while we’re on the subject, here’s something else to think about. Do you really love Ella?”
George had been staring at the cracked mirror over the bureau. Now he turned on the bed and gazed at the wall. He didn’t want to look at himself, or Roderick, either.
“Why, she’s been a good wife to me. More than a wife—like a mother, almost.”
“Sure. You’ve told me all about that. That’s the real reason you married her, wasn’t it? Because she reminded you of your mother, and your mother had just died, and you were afraid of girls in the first place but you had to have someone to take care of you.”
Damn that Roderick! George realized he never should have told him so much in the first place. He probably wouldn’t, except that Roderick had been his best—maybe his only—friend. He’d come along back in ’44, in the service, when George had been ready to go to pieces completely.
Even today, after all those years, George hated to remember the way he’d met Roderick. He didn’t like to think about the service, or going haywire there on the island and trying to strangle the sergeant, and ending up in the stockade. Even so, it might have been much worse, particularly after they stuck him in solitary, if he hadn’t met Roderick. Funny part of it was, Roderick had become his intimate friend and heard everything about him long before George ever set eyes on him. Roderick had been down in solitary, too, and for the first month he was just a voice that George could talk to in the dark. It wasn’t what you’d call the best way in the world to develop a close friendship, but at the time it kept George from cracking up. He had someone to confide in at last, and pretty soon he was spilling his guts, his heart, his soul, telling things he hadn’t even known about himself until the words came.
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 99
