by Robert Bloch
Sam remembered that he was supposed to be talking. It wouldn’t do to just sit here.
“You were right,” he murmured. “It is raining pretty hard.”
“I like the sound of the rain,” Bates said. “I like the way it comes down hard. It’s exciting.”
“Never thought of it in that way. Guess you can use a little excitement around here.”
“I don’t know. We get our share.”
“We? I thought you said you lived here alone.”
“I said I operated the motel alone. But it belongs to both of us. My mother and me.”
Sam almost choked on the whiskey. He lowered the glass, clenching it tightly in his fist. “I didn’t know—”
“Of course not, how could you? Nobody does. That’s because she always stays in the house. She has to stay there. You see, most people think she’s dead.”
The voice was calm. Sam couldn’t see Bates’s face in the dimness now, but he knew it was calm, too.
“Actually, there is excitement around here, after all. Like there was twenty years ago, when Mother and Uncle Joe Considine drank the poison. I called the Sheriff and he came out and found them. Mother left a note, explaining everything. Then they had an inquest, but I didn’t go to it. I was sick. Very sick. They took me to the hospital. I was in the hospital a long time. Almost too long to do any good when I got out. But I managed.”
“Managed?”
Bates didn’t reply, but Sam heard the gurgle and then the bottle’s thump.
“Here,” Bates said. “Let me pour you another.”
“Not yet.”
“I insist.” He was coming around the counter now, and his shadowy bulk loomed over Sam. He reached for Sam’s glass.
Sam drew back. “First tell me the rest,” he said quickly.
Bates halted. “Oh, yes. I brought Mother back home with me. That was the exciting part, you see—going out to the cemetery at night and digging up the grave. She’d been shut up in that coffin for such a long time that at first I thought she really was dead. But she wasn’t, of course. She couldn’t be. Or else she wouldn’t have been able to communicate with me when I was in the hospital all that while. It was only a trance state, really; what we call suspended animation. I knew how to revive her. There are ways, you know, even if some folks call it magic. Magic—that’s just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn’t so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic. Actually, it’s a force, a force which can be harnessed if you know the secret. Life is a force, too, a vital force. And like electricity, you can turn it off and on, off and on. I’d turned it off, and I knew how to turn it on again. Do you understand me?”
“Yes—it’s very interesting.”
“I thought you might be interested. You and the young lady. She isn’t really your wife, is she?”
“Why—”
“You see, I know more than you think I know. And more than you know, yourself.”
“Mr. Bates, are you quite sure you’re all right, I mean—”
“I know what you mean. You think I’m drunk, don’t you? But I wasn’t drunk when you came here. I wasn’t drunk when you found that earring and told the young lady to go to the Sheriff.”
“I—”
“Sit still, now. Don’t be alarmed. I’m not alarmed, am I? And I would be if anything was wrong. But nothing is wrong. You don’t think I’d tell you all this if there was anything wrong, do you?” The fat man paused. “No, I waited until I saw her drive up the road. I waited until I saw her stop.”
“Stop?” Sam tried to find the face in the darkness, but all he could hear was the voice.
“Yes. You didn’t know that she stopped the car, did you? You thought she went on to get the Sheriff, the way you told her. But she has a mind of her own. Remember what she wanted to do? She wanted to take a look at the house. And that’s what she did do. That’s where she is, now.”
“Let me out of here—”
“Of course. I’m not hindering you. It’s just that I thought you might like another drink, while I told you the rest about Mother. The reason I thought you might like to know is because of the girl. She’ll be meeting Mother, now.”
“Get out of my way!”
Sam rose, swiftly, and the blurred bulk fell back.
“You don’t want another drink, then?” Bates’s voice sounded petulantly over his shoulder. “Very well. Have it your own w—”
The end of his sentence was lost in the thunder, and the thunder was lost in the darkness as Sam felt the bottle explode against the roof of his skull. Then voice, thunder, explosion, and Sam himself all disappeared into the night …
And it was still night, but somebody was shaking him and shaking him; shaking him up out of the night and into his room where the light burned, hurting his eyes and making him blink. But Sam could feel now, and somebody’s arms were around him, lifting him up, so that at first he felt as if his head would drop off. Then it was only throbbing, throbbing, and he could open his eyes and look at Sheriff Chambers.
Sam was sitting on the floor next to the sofa and Chambers was gazing down at him. Sam opened his mouth.
“Thank God,” he said. “He was lying about Lila, then. She did get to you.”
The Sheriff didn’t seem to be listening. “Got a call from the hotel about half an hour ago. They were trying to locate your friend Arbogast. Seems he checked out, but he never took his bags with him. Left ’em downstairs Saturday morning, said he’d be back, but he never showed. Got to thinking it over, and then I tried to find you. Had a hunch you might have come out here on your own—lucky I followed through.”
“Then Lila didn’t notify you?” Sam tried to stand up. His head was splitting.
“Take it easy, there.” Sheriff Chambers pushed him back. “No, I haven’t seen her at all. Wait—”
But this time Sam managed to make it. He stood on his feet swaying.
“What happened here?” the Sheriff muttered. “Where’s Bates?”
“He must have gone up to the house after he slugged me,” Sam told him. “They’re up there now, he and his mother.”
“But she’s dead—”
“No, she isn’t.” Sam murmured. “She’s alive, the two of them are up at the house with Lila!”
“Come on.” The big man ploughed out into the rain. Sam followed him, scrambling along the slippery walk, panting as they began the ascent of the steep slope leading to the house beyond.
“Are you sure?” Chambers called over his shoulder. “Everything’s dark up there.”
“I’m sure,” Sam wheezed. But he might have saved his breath.
The thunder came suddenly and sharply, and the other sound was fainter and much more shrill. Yet both of them heard it, somehow, and both of them recognized it.
Lila was screaming.
— 15 —
Lila went up the steps, reaching the porch just before the rain came.
The house was old, its frame siding gray and ugly here in the half-light of the coming storm. Porch boards creaked under her feet, and she could hear the wind rattling the casements of the upstairs windows.
She rapped on the front door angrily, not expecting any answer from within. She didn’t expect anyone to do anything any more.
The truth was that nobody else really cared. They didn’t care about Mary at all, not a one of them. Mr. Lowery just wanted his money back, and Arbogast was only doing a job trying to find it for him. As for the Sheriff, all he was interested in was avoiding trouble. But it was Sam’s reaction that really upset her.
Lila knocked again, and the house groaned a hollow echo. The sound of the rain drowned it out, and she didn’t bother to listen closely.
All right, she was angry, she admitted it—and why shouldn’t she be? A whole week of listening to take it easy, be calm, relax, just be patient. If they had their way, she’d still be back there in Fort Worth, she wouldn’t have even come up here. But at least she’d counted on Sam to help he
r.
She might have known better. Oh, he seemed nice enough, even attractive in a way, but he had that slow, cautious, conservative small-town outlook. He and the Sheriff made a good pair. Don’t take any chances, that was their whole idea.
Well, it wasn’t hers. Not after she’d found the earring. How could Sam shrug it off and tell her to go get the Sheriff again? Why didn’t he just grab Bates and beat the truth out of him? That’s what she would have done, if she were a man. One thing was certain, she was through depending on others—others who didn’t care, who just wanted to keep out of trouble. She didn’t trust Sam to stick his neck out any more, and she certainly didn’t trust the Sheriff.
If she hadn’t gotten so angry she wouldn’t be doing this, but she was sick of their caution, sick of their theories. There are times when you must stop analyzing and depend on your emotions. It was sheer emotion—frustration, to be exact—which prompted her to keep on with the hopeless task of rummaging around until she found Mary’s earring. And there’s be something else here in the house. There had to be. She wasn’t going to be foolish about this, she’d keep her head, but she was going to see for herself. Then it would be time enough to let Sam and the Sheriff take over.
Just thinking about their smugness made her rattle the doorknob. That wouldn’t do any good. There was nobody inside the house to answer her, she already knew that. And she wanted in. That was the problem.
Lila dipped into her purse. All those tired old gags about how a woman’s purse contains everything—the kind of gags that hicks like Sam and the Sheriff would appreciate. Nail file? No, that wouldn’t do. But somewhere or other, she remembered, she’d picked up a skeleton key. It might be in the coin compartment, which she never used. Yes, here it was.
Skeleton key. Why did they have to call it that? Never mind, she wasn’t going to worry about problems in philology now. The only problem was whether this key would work.
She inserted it in the lock and turned it part way. The lock resisted, and she reversed the motion. The key almost fitted, but there was something—
Again, anger came to her aid. She twisted the key sharply. It snapped at the handle with a brittle click, but the lock gave. She turned the doorknob, felt the door move away from her hand. It was open.
Lila stood in the hall. It was darker inside the house than out there on the porch. But there must be a light switch somewhere along the wall here.
She found it, snapped it on. The unshaded overhead bulb gave off a feeble, sickly glare against the background of peeling, shredded wallpaper. What was the design—bunches of grapes, or were they violets? Hideous. Like something out of the last century.
A glance into the parlor confirmed the observation. Lila didn’t bother to go in. The rooms on this floor could wait until later. Arbogast had said he saw someone looking out of a window upstairs. That would be the place to begin.
There was no light switch for the stairway. Lila went up slowly, groping along the banister. As she reached the landing, the thunder came. The whole house seemed to shake with it. Lila gave an involuntary shudder, then relaxed. It was involuntary, she told herself. Perfectly natural. Certainly, there was nothing about an empty house like this to frighten anybody. And now she could turn on the light here in the upstairs hall. It had been papered in green stripes, and if that didn’t frighten her, then nothing could. Ghastly!
She had her choice of three doors to enter here. The first led to the bathroom. Lila had never seen such a place except in a museum—no, she corrected herself, they don’t have bathroom exhibits in museums. But they should have had this one. An upright bathtub on legs; open pipes under the washstand and toilet seat; and dangling from the high ceiling next to the toilet, a metal pull-chain. There was a small mirror, flawed and flecked, over the washbowl, but no medicine cabinet behind it. Here was the linen closet, stacked with towels and bedding. She rummaged through the shelves hastily; their contents told her nothing except that Bates probably had his laundry sent out. The sheets were perfectly ironed, neatly folded.
Lila chose the second door, switched on the light. Another weak and naked overhead bulb, but its illumination was sufficient to reveal the room for what it was. Bates’s bedroom—singularly small, singularly cramped, with a low cot more suitable for a little boy than a grown man. Probably he’d always slept here, ever since he was a child. The bed itself was rumpled and showed signs of recent occupancy. There was a bureau over in the corner, next to the closet—one of those antique horrors with a dark oak finish and corroded drawer-pulls. She had no compunctions about searching the drawers.
The top one contained neckties and handkerchiefs, most of them soiled. The neckties were wide and old-fashioned. She found a tie clasp in a box from which it had apparently never been removed, and two sets of cuff links. The second drawer contained shirts, the third held socks and underwear. The bottom drawer was filled with white, shapeless garments which she finally—and almost incredulously—identified as nightgowns. Maybe he wore a bedcap, too. Really, this whole house belonged in a museum!
It was odd that there were no personal mementos, though; no papers, no photographs. But then, perhaps he kept them down at the motel, in the desk there. Yes, that was very likely.
Lila turned her attention to the pictures on the walls. There were two of them. The first showed a small boy sitting on a pony, and the second showed the same child standing in front of a rural schoolhouse with five other children, all girls. It took Lila several moments before she identified the youngster as Norman Bates. He had been quite thin as a child.
Nothing remained, now, except the closet and the two large bookshelves in the corner. She disposed of the closet quickly; it contained two suits on hangers, a jacket, an overcoat, a pair of soiled and paint-spotted trousers. There was nothing in any of the pockets of these garments. Two pair of shoes and a pair of bedroom slippers on the floor completed the inventory.
The bookshelves now.
Here Lila found herself pausing, puzzling, then peering in perplexity at the incongruous contents of Norman Bates’s library. A New Model of the Universe, The Extension of Consciousness. The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, Dimension and Being. These were not the books of a small boy, and they were equally out of place in the home of a rural motel proprietor. She scanned the shelves rapidly. Abnormal psychology, occultism, theosophy. Translations of Là Bas, Justine. And here, on the bottom shelf, a nondescript assortment of untitled volumes, poorly bound. Lila pulled one out at random and opened it. The illustration that leaped out at her was almost pathologically pornographic.
She replaced the volume hastily and stood up. As she did so, the initial shock of revulsion ebbed away, giving place to a second, stronger reaction. There was something here, there must be. What she could not read in Norman Bates’s dull, fat, commonplace face was all too vividly revealed here in his library.
Frowning, she retreated to the hall. The rain clattered harshly on the roof and thunder boomed as she opened the dark, paneled door leading to the third room. For a moment she stood staring into the dimness, inhaling a musty, mingled odor of stale perfume and—what?
She pressed the light switch at the side of the doorway, then gasped.
This was the front bedroom, no doubt of it. And the Sheriff had said something about how Bates had kept it unchanged since his mother’s death. But Lila wasn’t quite prepared for the actuality.
Lila wasn’t quite prepared to step bodily into another era. And yet she found herself there, back in the world as it had been long before she was born.
For the décor of this room had been outmoded many years before Bates’s mother died. It was a room such as she thought had not existed for the past fifty years; a room that belonged in a world of gilt ormolu clocks, Dresden figurines, sachet-scented pincushions, turkey-red carpet, tasseled draperies, frescoed vanity tops and four-poster beds; a room of rockers, china cats, of hand-embroidered bedspreads and overstuff chairs covered with antimacassars.
And it was
still alive.
That was what gave Lila the feeling of dislocation in space and time. Downstairs were remnants of the past ravaged by decay, and upstairs all was shabbiness and neglect. But this room was composed, consistent, coherent; a vital, functioning entity complete unto itself. It was spotlessly clean, immaculately free of dust and perfectly ordered. And yet, aside from the musty odor, there was no feeling of being in a showplace or a museum. The room did seem alive, as does any room that is lived in for a long time. Furnished more than fifty years ago, untenanted and untouched since the death of its occupant twenty years ago, it was still the room of a living person. A room where, just yesterday, a woman had sat and peered out of the window—
There are no ghosts, Lila told herself, then frowned again at the realization that it had been necessary to make the denial. And yet, here in this room, she could feel a living presence.
She turned to the closet. Coats and dresses still hung in a neat row, though some of the garments were sagging and wrinkled through long lack of pressing. Here were the short skirts of a quarter of a century ago; up on the shelf the ornate hats, the head-scarves, several shawls such as an older woman might wear in a rural community. At the rear of the closet was a deep, empty recess which might have been meant for the storage of luggage. And nothing more.
Lila started over to examine the dresser and vanity, then halted beside the bed. The hand-embroidered bedspread was very lovely; she put out a hand to feel the texture, then drew it back hastily.
