Heaven Makers

by Herbert, Frank

  “You will help?” Ruth asked.

  Was that the same sort of thing I saw at Murphey’s window? Thurlow asked himself. What is it?

  Ruth took a step nearer, looked up at his profile. “Bondelli thought—because of us—you might . . . hesitate.”

  The damned pleading in her voice! His mind replayed her question. He said: “Yes, I’ll help any way I can.”

  “That man . . . in the jail is just a shell,” she said. Her voice was low, flat, almost without expression. He looked down at her, seeing how her features drew inward as she spoke. “He’s not my father. He just looks like my father. My father’s dead. He’s been dead . . . for a long time. We didn’t realize it . . . that’s all.”

  God! How pitiful she looked!

  “I’ll do everything I can,” he said, “but . . .”

  “I know there isn’t much hope,” she said. “I know how they feel—the people. It was my mother this man killed.”

  “People sense he’s insane,” Thurlow said, his voice unconsciously taking a pedantic tone. “They know it from the way he talks—from what he did. Insanity is, unfortunately, a communicable disease. He’s aroused a counter-insanity. He’s an irritant the community wants removed. He raises questions about themselves that people can’t answer.”

  “We shouldn’t be talking about him,” she said. “Not here.” She looked around the grove. “But I have to talk about him—or go crazy.”

  “That’s quite natural,” he said, his voice carefully soothing. “The disturbance he created, the community disturbance is . . . Damn it! Words are so stupid sometimes!”

  “I know,” she said. “I can take the clinical approach, too. If my . . . if that man in the jail should be judged insane and sent to a mental hospital, people’d have to ask themselves very disturbing questions.”

  “Can a person appear sane when he’s really insane?” Thurlow said. “Can a man be insane when he thinks he’s sane? Could I be insane enough to do the things this man did?”

  “I’m through crying now,” she said. She glanced up at Thurlow, looked away. “The daughter’s had her fill of . . . sorrow. I . . .” She took a deep breath. “I can . . . hate . . . for the way my mother died. But I’m still a psychiatric nurse and I know all the professional cant. None of it helps the daughter much. It’s odd—as though I were more than one person.”

  Again, she looked up at Thurlow, her expression open, without any defenses. “And I can run to the man I love and ask him to take me away from here because I’m afraid . . . deathly afraid.”

  The man I love! Her words seared his mind. He shook his head. “But . . . what about . . .”

  “Nev?” How bitter she made the name sound. “I haven’t lived with Nev for three months now. I’ve been staying with Sarah French. Nev . . . Nev was a hideous mistake. That grasping little man!”

  Thurlow found his throat was tight with suppressed emotion. He coughed, looked up at the darkening sky, said: “It’ll be dark in a few minutes.” How stupidly inane the words sounded!

  She put a hand on his arm. “Andy, oh Andy, what’ve I done to us?”

  She came into his arms very gently. He stroked her hair. “We’re still here,” he said. “We’re still us.”

  Ruth looked up at him. “The trouble with that man in the jail is he has a sane type of delusion.” Tears were running down her cheeks, but her voice remained steady. “He thinks my mother was unfaithful to him. Lots of men worry about that. I imagine . . . even . . . Nev could worry about that.”

  A sudden gust of wind shook raindrops off the leaves, spattering them.

  Ruth freed herself from his arms. “Let’s walk out to the point.”

  “In the dark?”

  “We know the way. Besides, the riding club has lights there now. You see them every night across the valley from the hospital. They’re automatic.”

  “It’s liable to rain.”

  “Then it won’t matter if I cry. My cheeks’ll already be wet.”

  “Ruth . . . honey . . . I . . .”

  “Just take me for a walk the way . . . we used to.”

  Still he hesitated. There was something frightening about the grove . . . pressure, an almost sound. He stepped to the car, reached in and found his glasses. He slipped them on, looked around—nothing. No gnats, not a sign of anything odd—except the pressure.

  “You won’t need your glasses,” Ruth said. She took his arm.

  Thurlow found he couldn’t speak past a sudden ache in his throat. He tried to analyze his fear. It wasn’t a personal thing. He decided he was afraid for Ruth.

  “Come on,” she said.

  He allowed her to lead him across the grass toward the bridle path. Darkness came like a sharp demarcation as they emerged from the eucalyptus grove onto the first rise up through pines and buckeyes that hemmed the riding club’s trail. Widely spaced night-riding lights attached to the trees came on with a wet glimmering through drenched leaves. In spite of the afternoon’s rain, the duff-packed trail felt firm underfoot.

  “We’ll have the trail to ourselves tonight,” Ruth said. “No one’ll be out because of the rain.” She squeezed his arm.

  But we don’t have it to ourselves, Thurlow thought. He could feel a presence with them—a hovering something . . . watchful, dangerous. He looked down at Ruth. The top of her head came just above his shoulder. The red hair glinted wetly in the dim overhead light. There was a feeling of damp silence around them—and that odd sense of pressure. The packed duff of the trail absorbed their footfalls with barely a sound.

  This is a crazy feeling, he thought. If a patient described this to me, I’d begin probing immediately for the source of the delusional material.

  “I used to walk up here when I was a child,” Ruth said. “That was before they put in the lights for the night parties. I hated it when they put in the lights.”

  “You walked here in the dark?” he asked.

  “Yes. I never told you that, did I?”

  “No.”

  “The air feels clear after the rain.” She took a deep breath.

  “Didn’t your parents object? How old were you?”

  “About eleven, I guess. My parents didn’t know. They were always so busy with parties and things.”

  The bridle path diverged at a small glade with a dark path leading off to the left through an opening in a rock retaining wall. They went through the gap, down a short flight of steps and onto the tarred top of an elevated water storage tank. Below them the city’s lights spread wet velvet jewels across the night. The lights cast an orange glow against low hanging clouds.

  Now, Thurlow could feel the odd pressure intensely. He looked up and around—nothing. He glanced down at the pale grayness of Ruth’s face.

  “When we got here you used to say: ‘May I kiss you?’” she said. “And I used to say: ‘I was hoping you’d ask.’”

  Ruth turned, pressed against him, lifted her face. His fears, the vague pressure, all were forgotten as he bent to kiss her. It seemed for a moment that time had moved backward, that Denver, Nev—none of these things had happened. But the warmth of her kiss, the demanding way her body pressed against him—these filled him with a mounting astonishment. He pulled away.

  “Ruth, I . . .”

  She put a finger against his lips. “Don’t say it.” Then: “Andy, didn’t you ever want to go to a motel with me?”

  “Hell! Lots of times, but . . .”

  “You’ve never made a real pass at me.”

  He felt that she was laughing at him and this brought anger into his voice. “I was in love with you!”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t want just a roll in the hay. I wanted…well, dammit, I wanted to mate with you,

  have children, the whole schmoo.”

  “What a fool I was,” she whispered.

  “Honey, what’re you going to do? Are you going to get . . . a . . .” He hesitated.

  “A divorce?” she asked. “Of c
ourse—afterward.”

  “After the . . . trial.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the trouble with a small town,” he said. “Everyone knows everyone else’s business even when it’s none of their business.”

  “For a psychologist, that’s a very involved sentence,” she said. She snuggled against him and they stood there silently while Thurlow remembered the vague pressure and probed for it in his mind as though it were a sore tooth. Yes, it was still there. When he relaxed his guard, a deep disquiet filled him.

  “I keep thinking about my mother,” Ruth said.

  “Oh?”

  “She loved my father, too.”

  Coldness settled in his stomach. He started to speak, remained silent as his eyes detected movement against the orange glow of clouds directly in front of him. An object settled out of the clouds and came to a hovering stop about a hundred yards away and slightly above their water-tank vantage point. Thurlow could define the thing’s shape against the background glow—four shimmering tubular legs beneath a fluorescing green dome. A rainbow circle of light whirled around the base of each leg.

  “Andy! You’re hurting me!”

  He realized he had locked his arms around her in a spasm of shock. Slowly, he released his grip.

  “Turn around,” he whispered. “Tell me what you see out there against the clouds.”

  She gave him a puzzled frown, turned to peer out toward the city. “Where?”

  “Slightly above us—straight ahead against the clouds.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  The object began drifting nearer. Thurlow could distinguish figures behind the green dome. They moved in a dim, phosphorescent light. The rainbow glow beneath the thing’s tubular legs began to fade.

  “What’re you looking at?” Ruth asked. “What is it?”

  He felt her trembling beneath his hand on her shoulder. “Right there,” he said, pointing. “Look, right there.”

  She bent to stare along his arm. “I don’t see a thing—just clouds.”

  He wrenched off his glasses. “Here, look through these.” Even without the glasses, Thurlow could see the thing’s outline. It coasted along the edge of the hill-nearer . . . nearer.

  Ruth put on the glasses, looked where he pointed. “I . . . a dark blur of some kind,” she said. “It looks like . . . smoke or a cloud . . . or . . . insects. Is it a swarm of insects?”

  Thurlow’s mouth felt dry. There was a painful constricting sensation in his throat. He reclaimed his glasses, looked at the drifting object. The figures inside were quite distinct now. He counted five of them, the great staring eyes all focused on him.

  “Andy! What is it you see?”

  “You’re going to think I’m nuts.”

  “What is it?”

  He took a deep breath, described the object

  “Five men in it?”

  “Perhaps they’re men, but they’re very small. They look no more than three feet tall.”

  “Andy, you’re frightening me. Why are you frightening me?”

  “I’m frightening myself.”

  She pressed back into his arms. “Are you sure you see this . . . this . . I can’t see a thing.”

  “I see them as plainly as I see you. If it’s illusion, it’s a most complete illusion.”

  The rainbow glow beneath the tubular legs had become a dull blue. The object settled lower, lower, came to a hovering stop about fifteen yards away and level with them.

  “Maybe it’s a new kind of helicopter,” Ruth said. “Or . . . Andy, I still can’t see it.”

  “Describe what you see . . .” He pointed “. . . right there.”

  “A little mistiness. It looks like it’s going to rain again.”

  “They’re working with a square machine of some kind,” he said. “It has what look like short antennae. The antennae glow. They’re pointing it at us.”

  “Andy, I’m scared.” She was shivering in his arms.

  “I . . . think we’d better get out of here,” he said. He willed himself to leave, found he couldn’t move.

  “I . . . can’t . . . move,” Ruth whispered.

  He could hear her teeth chattering, but his own body felt frozen in dull cement.

  “Andy, I can’t move!” There was hysteria in her voice. “Is it still there?”

  “They’re pointing some device at us,” he husked. His voice felt as though it came from far away, from another person. “They’re doing this to us. Are you sure you can’t see anything?”

  “Nothing! A misty little cloud, nothing else.”

  Thurlow felt suddenly that she was just being obstinate. Anyone could see the thing right there in front of them! Intense anger at her surged through him. Why wouldn’t she admit she saw it? Right there! He hated her for being so obstinate. The irrational abruptness of the emotion asserted itself in his awareness. He began to question his own reaction.

  How could I feel hate for Ruth? I love her.

  As though this thought freed him, Thurlow found he could move his legs. He began backing away, dragging Ruth with him. She was a heavy, unmoving weight. Her feet scraped against the gravel in the tank’s surface.

  His movement set off a flurry of activity among the creatures beneath the green dome. They buzzed and fussed over their square machine. A painful constriction seized Thurlow’s chest. Each breath took a laboring concentration. Still, he continued backing away dragging Ruth with him. She sagged in his arms now. His foot encountered a step and he almost fell. Slowly, he began inching backward up the steps. Ruth was a dead weight.

  “Andy,” she gasped. “Can’t . . . breathe.”

  “Hold . . . on,” he rasped.

  They were at the top of the steps now, then back through the gap in the stone wall. Movement became somewhat easier, although he could still see the domed object hovering beyond the water storage tank. The glowing antennae remained pointed at him.

  Ruth began to move her legs. She turned, and they hobbled together onto the bridle path. Each step grew easier. Thurlow could hear her taking deep, sighing breaths. Abruptly, as though a weight had been lifted from them, they regained full use of their muscles.

  They turned.

  “It’s gone,” Thurlow said.

  She reacted with an anger that astonished him. “What were you trying to pull back there, Andy Thurlow? Frightening me half out of my wits!”

  “I saw what I told you I saw,” he said. “You may not’ve seen it, but you certainly felt it.”

  “Hysterical paralysis,” she said.

  “It gripped us both at the same instant and left us both at the same instant,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Ruth, I saw exactly what I described.”

  “Flying saucers!” she sneered.

  “No . . . well, maybe. But it was there!” He was angry now, defensive. A rational part of him saw how insane the past few minutes had been. Could it have been illusion? No! He shook his head. “Honey, I saw . .

  “Don’t you honey me!”

  He grabbed her shoulders, shook her. “Ruth! Two minutes ago you were saying you love me. Can you turn it off just like that?”

  “I…”

  “Does somebody want you to hate me?”

  “What?” She stared up at him, her face dim in the tree lights.

  “Back there . . .” He nodded toward the tank. “I felt myself angry with you . . . hating you. I told myself I couldn’t hate you. I love you. That’s when I found I could move. But when I felt the . . . hate, the instant I felt it, that was exactly when they pointed their machine at us.”

  “What machine?”

  “Some kind of box with glowing rods or antennae sticking out of it.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that those nutty . . . whatever could make you feel hate . . . or . . .”

  “That’s how it felt.”

  “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard!” She backed away from him.

  “I know it’s cr
azy, but that’s how it felt.” He reached for her arm. “Let’s get back to the car.”

  Ruth pulled away. “I’m not going a step with you until you explain what happened out there.”

  “I can’t explain it.”

  “How could you see it when I couldn’t?”

  “Maybe the accident . . . my eyes, the polarizing glasses.”

  “Are you sure that accident at the radlab didn’t injure more than your eyes?”

  He suppressed a surge of anger. It was so easy to feel angry. With some difficulty, he held his voice level. “They had me on the artificial kidney for a week and with every test known to God and man. The burst altered the ion exchange system in the cones of my retinas. That’s all. And it isn’t permanent. But I think whatever happened to my eyes, that’s why I can see these things. I’m not supposed to see them, but I can.”

  Again, he reached for her, captured her arm. Half dragging her, he set off down the path. She fell into step beside him.

  “But what could they be?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but they’re real. Trust me, Ruth. Trust that much. They’re real.” He knew he was begging and hated himself for it, but Ruth moved closer, tucked her arm under his.

  “All right, darling, I trust you. You saw what you saw. What’re you going to do about it?”

  They came off the trail and into the eucalyptus grove. The car was a darker shape among shadows. Thurlow drew her to a stop beside it.

  “How hard is it to believe me?” he asked.

  She was silent for a moment, then: “It’s . . . difficult.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Kiss me.”

  “What?”

  “Kiss me. Let’s see if you really hate me.”

  “Andy, you’re being . . .”

  “Are you afraid to kiss me?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Okay then.” He pulled her to him. Their lips met. For an instant, he sensed resistance, then she melted into his embrace, her arms creeping behind his neck.

  Presently, he drew away.

  “If that’s hate, I want lots of it,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  Again, she pressed herself against him.

  Thurlow felt his blood pounding. He pulled away with an abrupt, defensive motion.

  “Sometimes I wish you weren’t so damned Victorian,” she said. “But maybe I wouldn’t love you then.” He brushed a strand of the red hair away from her cheek. How faintly glowing her face looked in the light from the bridle trail lamps behind him. “I think I’d better take you home . . . to Sarah.”