Moon

by Herbert, James

  Still sprawled against the wall, Childes watched on, horrified and unable to move, unable even to call out. The silent figure of Annabel stood nearby.

  The woman was leaning back against the parapet, her huge sloping shoulders stretching over the ledge in an effort to keep away from those grasping spectral hands. She twisted to protect her face and a stream of blood ran through her fingers to splatter against the dam’s massive wall, where the flow continued to trickle down, a dark leak on a vast concrete expanse.

  The next thing to happen was so fast that Childes was unsure of what he had seen – or what he had perceived, for his brain still insisted that none of this was true, that it wasn’t taking place at all.

  She might have attempted to climb onto the parapet to escape them.

  In her wretched pain and craziness, she might even have decided to jump.

  Or the figures that surrounded her might have really lifted those huge tree-trunk legs and pushed her over.

  Whichever, Childes saw her huge bulk disappear and heard her scream rip through the night.

  He closed his eyes, shutting out the madness, retreating into a blankness that unfortunately hid nothing. Everything was still there before him inside his besieged mind.

  ‘Oh God . . .’ he moaned. And opened his eyes.

  The shapes were less defined, had become vaporous and uncertain once more. They grouped on the walkway, forms indiscernible and undulating as if disturbed by the breeze. He was dimly aware of other sounds and lights in the distance. Annabel had not moved, was near him, sad and small, her face a fading image of haunting loneliness.

  Childes exhaled a sighing breath, air held so long that it had become stale in his lungs. He sagged, his head sinking onto raised knees, arms hanging limply by his sides, hands resting against the concrete like two dead animals who had rolled over and died, his clawed, upturned fingers tiny legs frozen in the air. It was over, and exhaustion claimed him as he wondered if he would ever comprehend the true and intrinsic nature of this woman who had been a devious tormenting abstraction – an It – to him for so long. Maniacal, certainly, a monster, too; but possessing such a strange power, a psychic force that was nothing less than demonic. He prayed that the power had been forever laid to rest.

  And felt the cold insidious prickling ruffle his skin again.

  Childes raised his head and looked towards the weaving mists, to where the woman had fallen. His mouth slowly dropped open, his eyelids stretched wide, and a trembling shook him as it had before.

  For, even though his vision was poor, he could make out the shape of the big hand whose stubby fingers curled over the ledge like a fleshy clamp. Holding her there.

  ‘No,’ he murmured, a mere whisper to himself. ‘Oh no.’

  Was there a flicker of pleading in Annabel’s otherwise lustreless eyes?

  Childes twisted onto his knees, groped a shaking hand towards the ledge above, and pulled himself up. It seemed at first that his legs would not bear his weight, but strength returned like blood flowing into a limb that had gone to sleep, the process almost as painful.

  He leaned heavily against the ledge for a brief time, then stumbled towards the clutching hand. The mists appeared to reassemble as he approached, again taking on separate forms. His legs were unsteady and he had become curiously numbed by all that had happened. When he drew near, the wispy figures parted.

  They watched him, remote and impassive. The grinning old man whose skull was open to the sky. The naked boy who held something white and bloody in his frail fist, something he tried to push into the deep wound in his body as if to replace his lost heart. The bizarrely painted woman whose breasts were missing and whose belly bulged with small lumps as she pulled the sliced skin together. The schoolgirls and the matron, grisly, charred figures whose bones shone dully through gaping and mangled flesh. The uniformed man with two tight smiles, one above his chin, the other below. Estelle Piprelly, for a moment whole, unmarked, and who looked deep into Childes’ eyes, an emotion passing between them.

  They watched Childes and they waited.

  He reached the spot where the hand spread over the ledge to grip its inner side, the fingers seeming to oscillate with the tension of bearing the woman’s full weight. He saw the fleshy wrist, the sleeve of the anorak stretched tight over the edge, disappearing at the elbow into the void. Childes leaned over the parapet.

  Her round, moonlit face was just below him, slick dark liquid that reflected light shading her jaw and cheeks. One eye and a deep black leaking socket stared back at him, her other arm hanging loosely beside her as though useless.

  ‘Help . . . me . . .’ she said in her low rasping voice, and there was no entreaty in her tone.

  As he looked down into her wide, upturned face, her silver hair sprayed out behind in wild tangles, he touched her madness once more, felt the crawling sickness that went beyond the iniquitous and corrupted mind which worshipped a mythical moon-goddess in insane justification for the evil she herself perpetrated; this sickness sprung from a cruel and degenerate soul, a spirit that was itself malign and rancorous. He felt and he saw her warped essence not in that one eye that stared up at him so balefully, but in the other deep black oozing pit that watched him with equal malevolence! And the words help . . . me . . . were full of taunting, alive with mocking. Childes felt and saw these things because she was in him and he was in her, and she filled him with images that were monstrous and abhorrent, repulsive and sickening, for still she enjoyed the game between them. Her game. Her torture.

  But a new sensation passed through that depraved mind when his hands closed over the fat, stubby hand.

  Fear stabbed those tormenting thoughts like a blade piercing a pus-filled wound when he lifted her first finger.

  A frightened moan as he prised loose the second.

  A despairing, outraged shriek as he pushed at the last two fingers and she plummeted down, down, down, into the valley, her body bouncing off the sloping dam wall.

  Childes heard the squelching breaking thud when she hit the concrete basin below. He slid to the floor of the walkway. And even before he had settled, an overwhelming relief swept through him, his being liberated from a black turbulent pressure, a confused boiling rage. He was too numbed for tears, too wearied for elation. He could only watch as the mists swirled and gradually dispersed.

  Although one lingered.

  Annabel leaned forward and touched his face with cold little fingers, fingers that had not been there before. Light from the far end of the dam shone through her and she became no more than a floating haze. Then she was gone, had become nothing.

  ‘Illusion,’ he said softly to himself.

  The lights came from headlamps and torches that shone at the end of the walkway. Childes looked into the glare, shading his eyes with a raised hand. He heard car doors slamming, voices, saw silhouettes appear against the brightness. He was mildly curious to know how they had found him, but not surprised: nothing more could surprise him that night.

  Childes no longer wanted to stay there on the dam, even though the illusory mists had dispersed completely and no hand clutched grotesquely at the parapet ledge. The night had presented too much, and now he had to find refuge, his own peace. His head felt light from released pressure and, although he was confused, bewildered, his senses were flushed with a quiet euphoria. He needed time to think, a period for consideration, but acceptance of his sensory abilities was complete and calmly acknowledged. For he was sure it could be controlled, used with restraint and intention – she had shown him this, although her purpose was unequivocally evil and her deranged mind had exercised a different kind of control. He rose to his feet and looked out, not into the valley, but across the reservoir itself, the moonlight glimmering off the water’s placid surface, no longer sinister but with a luminous purity. Childes breathed in crisp nocturnal air, tasting the sea’s faint brine, brought inland by the breeze; the air was cleansing and seemed to rid his inner self of skulking shadows. He turned and wa
lked towards the lights.

  Overoy was the first to reach him at the foot of the steps, Robillard and two other uniformed policemen close behind.

  ‘Jon,’ Overoy said. ‘Are you okay? We saw what happened.’ He held Childes by the arm.

  Childes blinked at the lights.

  ‘Turn those torches away,’ Overoy ordered.

  The two officers following Robillard went by them, the beams from their torches sweeping towards the centre of the dam’s walkway. Robillard signalled for the police cars’ headlamps to be switched off. The relief was instant, a heavy shade drawn against a blinding sun.

  ‘You saw?’ Childes uttered.

  ‘Not clearly,’ Robillard said. ‘A fogbank had drifted off the reservoir and obscured our view somewhat.’

  A fogbank? Childes said nothing.

  Overoy spoke quickly, as if anxious to forestall Robillard. ‘I saw you trying to save the other person, Jon.’ He looked squarely into Childes’ eyes, and though his gaze appeared expressionless, it barred any dissension. Childes was grateful, while Robillard looked doubtfully at his colleague but made no comment.

  Unabashed, Overoy went on: ‘I assume she was trying to kill you before she fell. Pity for her she was too heavy for you to hold.’ The words were chosen carefully, almost as a statement that should be memorized.

  ‘You knew it was a woman?’ said Childes quietly.

  Overoy nodded. ‘We traced her lodgings back on the mainland. I rang you a couple of times earlier this evening to let you know, but your line was busy. I was lucky to get the last plane out tonight.’

  The two policemen were shining their flashlights over the side of the dam, spotlighting the crumpled shape below.

  ‘What we found at her home wasn’t very pleasant – in fact, it was pretty grisly – but at least it proved conclusively that the woman was the killer we were looking for,’ Overoy said grimly. ‘The girl’s body – Annabel’s – was hidden under floorboards. To put her there was crazy because eventually the smell of decomposition would have given the woman away; other lodgers would have soon complained. But maybe she didn’t care, maybe she already knew the game was up when she fled here. She must have been totally mad, and that’s an irony in itself.’

  Childes looked at the detective quizzically.

  ‘It’s how I got on to her,’ Overoy explained. ‘Her name was on our list of staff and patients at the psychiatric hospital. She was a nurse, and obviously as lunatic as those in her charge. Christ, you should have seen the junk at her lodgings – occult stuff, books on mythology, emblems, symbols. Oh yeah, and a small collection of moonstones, which must have cost her quite a bit. If each one was for a new victim . . .’ Overoy shrugged.

  ‘She said she worshipped—’

  ‘The moon? Yeah, she did, one moon-goddess in particular. It was all there in her books, in her ornaments. Crazy, crazy stuff.’

  Other figures were on the dam coming towards them.

  Robillard spoke. ‘When Inspector Overoy gave us the woman’s identity, we were easily able to verify that she’d arrived on one of the ferries. She’s been here for a couple of weeks, as a matter of fact. After that it was easy to locate her whereabouts on the island. She’d been staying at a guesthouse tucked away inland, far from the coast and main centres. She hadn’t been seen all day, but we searched her room. Evidently, you’ve been lucky tonight, Mr Childes: she left her “tools of the trade”, as it were, behind in the guesthouse. We found a small black bag containing surgical instruments. She obviously felt confident enough to do away with you with her bare hands.’

  ‘She was strong enough,’ remarked Overoy, ‘so we learned from her employers at the hospital. They used her, apparently, to restrain their most violent patients and, according to the other doctors and nurses there, she never had much trouble doing just that.’

  ‘Didn’t they wonder why she’d disappeared after the fire?’

  ‘She didn’t. She was even interviewed by the police – she was on our list with the rest of the staff, remember? She took her normal annual vacation after most of the fuss had died down. She was insane, but not stupid.’

  Maybe it would all sink in later; for the moment, though, none of what they had told him had much meaning to Childes. He stirred when he heard another voice, one so familiar and so welcome.

  ‘Jon,’ Amy called.

  He looked past the two detectives and saw her only a few yards away, Paul Sebire holding her arm to support her. There was anxiety on Sebire’s face, and it was directed at him.

  Childes went to Amy and she raised her hands, the cast on her injured arm reflecting whitely in the moonlight. He hugged her close, loving her and wanting to weep at the sight of her bandaged face. She winced as he held her tight.

  He relaxed his grip, afraid to hurt her more.

  ‘It’s okay, Jon.’ She was laughing and there was dampness on one cheek. ‘It’s okay. I was so afraid for you.’

  Over her shoulder, he saw Paul Sebire frowning. The older man said nothing as he turned and walked back to the cars parked at the end of the dam.

  Childes stroked her hair, kissed the tears from her cheek. ‘How did you know where to find me?’ he asked.

  Amy was smiling and returning his kisses. Somehow she sensed the change in him, the dark cloud that had shadowed him for so long now swept away. It was as though his very thoughts transmitted that change to her.

  ‘We found out from Gabby,’ she told him.

  ‘From Gabby?’

  Overoy had joined them, and it was he who said, ‘We went to Miss Sebire’s home tonight looking for you after the patrolman watching your place lost you. She didn’t know where you were—’

  ‘But I remembered you said you’d spoken to Gabby earlier,’ Amy interrupted. ‘It was only an idea, but I thought you might have mentioned to Fran where you were going tonight. Inspector Overoy considered it worth a try, anyway, so he rang Fran at her mother’s number. She was having problems with Gabby.’

  ‘Your daughter was in hysterics because of a nightmare she’d had,’ Overoy continued. ‘She’d dreamt you were by a huge lake and there was a monster-lady trying to drag you down. Your wife told us Gabby was inconsolable.’

  ‘You knew where I was from that?’ Childes asked incredulously.

  ‘Well, I’m used to your precognition by now, so why shouldn’t I believe your daughter?’

  Gabby too? Childes was stunned. He remembered she had asked him to tell Annabel she missed her.

  Amy broke into his shocked thoughts. ‘There are no “huge” lakes on the island, Jon. Only the reservoir.’

  ‘We had nothing to lose,’ added Overoy with a grin.

  ‘No, just me to convince,’ commented Robillard. ‘But what the hell? None of this business has made much sense to me, so why should I mind tearing across the countryside in the middle of the night up to the reservoir.’ He shook his head in perplexity. ‘As it happens, they were right. My only regret is that we didn’t get here sooner. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.’

  ‘Is it over, Jon?’ implored Amy, her hand reaching up to touch his face. ‘Is it really over now?’

  He nodded, but the moon shone from behind him so she could not see his face. He turned to look at Overoy.

  ‘Who was she?’ he asked the detective. ‘What was her name?’

  ‘She had an assumed name, we discovered, one she’d been using for years. She called herself Heckatty.’ For some reason, there was a certain satisfaction in Overoy’s tone.

  Heckatty. The name meant nothing to Childes. And he hadn’t expected it to. He wasn’t even sure of what had taken place that night. Had their spirits really returned to haunt the creature whose very name was so ordinary, so meaningless? Or had the fusion between their minds, his violent psychic contact with this madwoman, brought forth imaginations that were merely, in essence, visions and fragments of disrupted minds.

  ‘Illusions,’ he said quietly to himself yet again, and Amy looked up at him, puzzle
d.

  ‘Oh my God,’ came a voice from near the centre of the walkway.

  They turned in the direction of the two policemen who were crouched on the bridge section of the dam and shining their torches on an object lying between them. One officer was taking something from his tunic pocket to push it beneath whatever was lying there. He rose and made his way back to the watching group, gingerly carrying the object down the steps of the bridge, his companion following.

  Of course all their faces were colourless under the moonlight, but there was a tightness to this officer’s features that suggested he had become physically pallid.

  ‘I don’t think you want to see this, miss,’ he said to Amy, shielding the item he held so carefully on the small plastic bag taken from his pocket.

  Curious, Overoy and Robillard moved in closer to look.

  ‘Oh . . .’ murmured Robillard.

  Childes moved away from Amy. The other policeman was shining his torch at his colleague’s cupped hands. Overoy had turned away, his face wrinkled in disgust.

  ‘Some struggle you had,’ he said sympathetically to Childes, who stared down at what the officers had found.

  The bloodstained eye looked too ridiculously large to have been contained in a face. Dripping tendrils hung loosely over the side of the plastic bag and, as Childes looked down and the policeman’s hands turned slightly, moonlight struck the eye’s pupil. For a moment – just for a fleeting moment – a glint, almost like a tiny life-force, was reflected in there, and to Childes it had resembled the bluish phosphorescence that shone from within a moonstone.

  Childes shivered as he turned away, and breathed in deeply, as he had only a short time before, dispersing shadows.

  He slipped an arm around Amy’s waist, pulling her gently to him, and they left that haunted, silver lake.

  And Childes wondered where this newly accepted power would lead him . . .