Psychos

by Neil Gaiman

  “Cor, Cecil,” Glasby cut in. “Let a fellow get a word in, would you?” “I know how I sound, old man, I know it. But you really must hear me out…” “Cecil, you’ve got to settle yourself down a moment. Why, I was only just about to give you a bell, myself.”

  “I—what’s that? Come again?”

  A wind picked up outside, and it drove the rain sideways, shot buckets of it at the parlor window. Cecil covered his free ear with his hand.

  “I say your boy, Cecil,” Glasby said, his voice rising. “He’s gone, man. Run away, he has. I’m awfully sorry to tell you…”

  “Ainsley,” Cecil rasped. “Like a thief in the night, you know. Now, we shall find the lad, don’t you worry about that, old bean. Likely he spent the night out in the cold and can’t bear another minute away from school, don’t you agree?”

  “I’ve got to ring off, Glasby,” Cecil said, his voice choked. “We’ll find him, Cecil,” Glasby carried on. “We’ll find him, and when we do—” “I’ve got to ring off now.”

  The receiver slammed into the hooks with a clattering bang that was preempted by a massive snapping roar of thunder.

  Cecil said, “Ainsley. God, Ainsley.”

  He went with slumped shoulders to the window, squinted at the endless flood that washed over the panes. This time when Olive entered the room, he did not start. Instead he lowered his head, said, “What kind of father must I be, dear girl?”

  “Sir?” “I’ve ruined him. I’m sure of it. I’ve gone and ruined the boy.” “Master Ainsley, sir? Is he—” “I have to tell you something, Olive,” Cecil said gravely, turning away from the storm to look at her. “You won’t like it, I’m afraid.”

  “Mr. Hughes,” she whispered. “Oh, Mr. Hughes, please don’t sack me.” “No, no, Olive. Please, sit.”

  He gestured toward the lounge, and though she momentarily hesitated, Olive took a seat upon it and looked up at her employer with wide, solicitous eyes.

  “The boy,” he began haltingly. “My son.”

  Olive stared. “I might as well come out with it,” Cecil continued. “I believe…well, bugger it all. I believe you are in danger, my poor girl.”

  “Danger, sir?” “I hope I’m wrong. Christ! I hope I’m horribly wrong!”

  “But why should I be in danger, Mr. Hughes?” “That is what I’m telling you, child. It’s the boy, don’t you see? He’s the one who killed the cat. He plucked the poor beast’s eyes out, if you remember. Why, I gather it has everything to do with the eyes, with your eyes, Olive.”

  “My eyes? Sir—Mr. Hughes—you’re frightening me…” “And indeed you should be frightened, poor thing. You should!”

  No sooner had Cecil made this exclamation than the window smashed in, exploded in a mist of miniscule fragments of glass, a great, lashing tree branch reaching through like the snatching hand of some forgotten elder god.

  Olive shrieked. “Mr. Hughes!”

  Cecil rushed to her, swept the girl up from the lounge into his arms. He felt her tremble, her warm breath puffing quickly against his neck. The branch scraped rhythmically at the floor, its measured scratching met with the soft tinkle of falling glass like chimes.

  “Damn this storm,” Cecil groused. He spun Olive about, gave her a push for the entryway to the foyer. “The great room, that’s the thing.”

  Together they scuttled across the house to the great room, where Marla once so enjoyed entertaining guests—the room was all but boarded up now, the massive table and its many chairs draped in sheets. Cecil permitted Olive entry first and locked the door upon following her in.

  He found his breath coming too quick, too shallow. He rubbed his chin, studied the large, ghostly room.

  “He had some harsh words for me,” Olive said at some length. “Your son, I mean. We were in the study. He was…vexed about a photograph on the wall.”

  Cecil nodded as he drew the sheet from the nearest chair. The sheet fluttered to the floor and he sat.

  “I’m sure of it.” “But I don’t understand, Mr. Hughes. What’s it got to do with me?” “God, everything, Olive.” “My—you said something about my eyes…” “I’m such a fool,” Cecil said.

  “Sir?”

  A great, deep sigh hissed out of Cecil and he leaned his head back. “He is a troubled boy, my Ainsley. Rather troubled, indeed. I expect his mother’s passing affected him—why, it should affect any child, naturally—but no, not in the usual way. He grew angry, you must understand. At what, I cannot say, not really. At me, perhaps? At Marla, for abandoning him? And he is most assuredly angry at you, Olive. You see, you have her eyes.”

  “Mrs. Hughes…?” “Spitting image, I’m dead shocked you did not notice upon seeing the portrait. Why, you might as well have been—”

  “—looking into my own eyes. Yes sir, I noticed.” “Then you must see. About Ainsley, I mean to say. You must see what is going on in that mad little head of his.”

  “But sir,” Olive protested, her face chalky, bloodless. “He’s only a child.” “He has run away from school.”

  Olive gasped. “I spoke to the headmaster. He’s no notion at all where the boy has gone. But I do.” “Oh, oh,” the girl muttered. “He’s coming home.”

  Olive cried out, a great keening moan, and collapsed to the floor in a faint. Cecil shot out of the chair. He knelt down beside her, lifted her head with one hand and swept the loose, auburn strands of hair away from her eyes with the other. He paused a moment, startled by her simple beauty, resenting himself all the while but gawping at her alabaster face just the same.

  “A classic fool!” he rasped, turning his head, averting his eyes to the space beneath the covered table. And there, in the inch between the sheet’s hem and the floor, Cecil saw four very still fingertips lifted only slightly in a curl.

  Instinctively he withdrew, and in doing so he dropped Olive’s head, which thumped against the floor.

  A hand. Someone beneath the table. Cecil sneered, wiped the beading sweat from his brow and licked his lips. Then, his breath held in his lungs, he pinched the hem of the sheet and lifted it up.

  Mrs. Rollo lay there, twisted at the waist, her head spun round so that the tight

  black bun of her hair faced Cecil. She was quite still. She was, in fact, quite dead.

  And though he already knew, though he could not bear to look, Cecil had to be sure of what was already as obvious as the raging storm outside. He reached under the table, grasped Mrs. Rollo’s shoulder, and pulled her toward him. Her head flopped over as though her neck was made of rubber, and Cecil moaned loudly.

  The poor woman’s eyes were gone, gouged out of their sockets, nothing left but unseeing, red-black pits.

  He was not coming after all; he had come. Ainsley Hughes was home.

  VIII

  The slap brought her to, a sharp sting that shocked her back to the great room with alarming clarity. Her eyes filled with tears and she scrambled back, afraid and confused.

  “I am sorry, Olive,” Cecil said, his face drawn and dripping sweat. “You must stay vigilant. I am going to look for him, but you must remain here—and keep those doors locked!”

  Olive’s face fell and her eyes dropped to the floor. Almost immediately Cecil lunged for her, seized her by the chin and forced her face up.

  “You mustn’t look under the table!” he cried.

  The girl’s bottom lip quivered and tears spilled down her cheeks. “Promise me!” “I won’t, sir! Mr. Hughes, I won’t!” “Here—” He rose, scooted a chair clear across the room, far away from the horror beneath the great table. “Sit here. Sit here and wait for me, Olive. It’s no castle, the Hughes House. I shall find him and quick.”

  “But he’s dangerous,” the maid protested as she hefted herself up. “To you, dear girl. He’s a terrible danger to you. But I am his father, God help me. Even a mad boy shall mind his own father, or I shall make him mind me!”

  Enervated thusly, Cecil wasted no more time and stomped across the great room,
unlocked the doors, and stepped into the hall. “Lock these doors!” he called back, and he slammed them shut.

  IX

  “You have been soft with him,” Marla said quietly, nearly too quietly to hear. “It is a mother’s preoccupation to soften life’s blows, don’t you think? A father’s hand must be firmer, dear-heart.”

  Cecil’s heart swelled even as the pit in his stomach tightened. He adored the pet name Marla used all these years, though now each time he heard her utter dear-heart he wondered if it would be the last time she would say it.

  “If you mean about the row with that Hawkings boy…” “Ainsley smashed the child’s nose, Cecil. It’s too much.” “The other boy started it. Why, a man has a right to defend himself, hasn’t he?” “Ainsley is not yet a man.” “A boy, then. Hasn’t a boy the same right?” “Eye for an eye and all that, then.” “Certainly.” “But our son took two eyes for the one. Three, even. He went much too far.” “He was…well, he was angry, wasn’t he?” “It’s too much, Cecil.”

  Cecil sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. “Yes,” he said.

  “It is simply too much. Something needs be done.” “Yes.” “You will have a word with him.” “Yes, Marla.” “Say it, say you will speak to Ainsley.”

  Through clenched teeth, covered by still lips, Cecil murmured, “I will speak to him.” “That’s a good lad,” Marla said.

  X

  Boys, Cecil knew from experience, were rather good at hiding. So although he scoured every room upstairs from the closets to underneath the beds, he found neither hide nor hair of Ainsley Hughes. Whenever he finished with a room, he shuddered at the thought that his turned back was ample enough invitation for the little scoundrel, that there would soon come a knife into his back or a bat at his knees. He hurried away each time, feeling foolish yet prudent. And once he was done with the upstairs, Cecil climbed back down the steps, filling his lungs to call out for the rotten child.

  He need not have done so, and indeed he was not given the chance, for at the bottom of the staircase, standing in a puddle of rainwater, was Ainsley. The boy was soaked crown to toe, his dark hair hanging over his face like seaweed, his arms dangling limp at his sides. His looked up, up the stairs, up at his father’s astonished face. In the wake of a thundercrack, he said, “I am not going back. I won’t go back to Coventry.”

  “That’s all right,” Cecil said, assuming a false smile. He descended, slowly, to the foyer.

  “Did you hear what I said? I said I refuse to go back to school. I won’t do it, and that’s the end of it.”

  “Yes, Ainsley. I heard you.”

  The boy stamped his foot, splashing the puddle. Cecil’s shoulders jumped. “I mean it! I mean what I say!” “Calm down, son. It’s all right, really it is.” “No, it’s not. Nothing’s all right. Everything is…dreadful, papa.”

  Ainsley groaned, hung his head. A low moan built up inside of him, working its way up and growing louder, more anguished, until at last it escaped his mouth, a keening wail.

  Cecil went to him, partly horrified but largely filled with remorse and sympathy. All at once he knew he meant to be complicit. No one would ever know what had befallen poor, dead Mrs. Rollo.

  Embracing the boy and drawing him in close, Cecil squeezed his son tightly and wept along with him.

  “You needn’t worry, Ainsley. You mustn’t worry. Your father will take care of everything, I promise you that.”

  “I hate it, papa. I hate Coventry.” “Don’t think about it. Don’t think about Coventry or the cat or even Mrs. Rollo. Just clear it all out, son. Clear it from your mind and I’ll fix everything.”

  “Cat?” Ainsley murmured. He pushed against Cecil’s chest, wiggled free from his father’s strong embrace. “Mrs. Rollo?”

  “Quiet, now,” Cecil insisted. “Not tonight. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll—” “—but I don’t know what you mean, papa.” “Hush, son.”

  The boy shook his head and knitted his dripping brow. He wrestled himself away from his father and looked up at him sternly. For a moment they regarded one another, father and son. Then Ainsley said, “What’s happened to Mrs. Rollo, father?”

  Cecil said, “Oh, God.”

  And then the great room doors burst open and Olive Bell came thundering out, shrieking like a spectre and brandishing the chair leg Cecil had furnished her.

  He turned slowly, as if in a dream in which all the world was slowed, all but Olive. She came on quickly, savagely. Her face was a twisted mask, not the shy Sheffield girl at all, but a fiend, a monster with Marla’s eyes.

  “No,” he said, too quiet to hear. Oddly, he felt a little bit like laughing.

  Olive spun around him, brought the chair leg up and back before thrusting the broken end at Ainsley. The splintered teeth pierced the boy’s neck, digging in and tearing, wooden fangs rending the flesh in a spurting red mist.

  Ainsley opened his mouth, ostensibly to scream, but all he could manage was a weak yelp. His hands, white and smooth, a schoolboy’s workless hands, clawed at the jagged slivers. His fingers were stained red instantly, though they failed to staunch the pulsing bloodflow.

  The color drained rapidly from the boy’s face. Cecil noted this in a kind of fascination, a terrible realisation that people were so fragile, so laughably weak. Spill a spot of blood and the whole game was done. Nothing for it. Not now.

  “God,” he said stupidly. “My boy.”

  Olive whooped and wrenched the chair leg free from Ainsley’s neck. The threefold wounds burbled and ran wildly, a brook of blood. Cecil staggered forth, just a step, and reached out for him. Ainsley’s eyes crumpled up and his lips wob-bled. He looked like a baby about to cry. Instead, he collapsed to the floor, splashing in rainwater mixed with blood, and died.

  The windows on either side of the front door flashed with intense white light, a throbbing light that went dark just as the thunder rumbled overhead like a herd of celestial horses.

  “My boy,” Cecil said to Olive, a little lilt at the end making it a sort of question. “My boy, Olive.”

  She screeched and slammed the side of the chair leg against his temple.

  XI

  He came around in stages. He was someplace cool. His head swam and his left eye stung terribly. It was dark apart from the orange glow of an oil lamp, which swayed gently above him, its light glinting off the knives and cleavers that swung from nearby hooks.

  The kitchen. But how…?“The storm,” she said, a hint of annoyance in her soft voice. “There’s no electricity. Took ages to find matches in here. Your Mrs. Rollo had her own way of hiding things in here, she did.”

  “Mrs.…oh!” The moment he spoke a spike of pain stabbed the side of his head. “Yes, you’ll want to relax, sir. I didn’t mean to knock you that hard, really I didn’t.” “O—Olive?” “Yes, Mr. Hughes. It’s me. It’s just old Olive.” “Olive, Olive listen to me…”

  The pain spread, enveloped him like a shroud. He attempted to sit up but his body would not obey. Something holding him down. Restraints.

  “Oh, oh Jesus.” “Now Mr. Hughes,” she cooed. Something rattled. “You really ought to relax. I mean it.”

  “You—you’re mad, aren’t you?”

  Olive laughed a soft, feminine laugh. She sounded like a girl rather than a woman. “Of course not, don’t be daft. I’m only helping, sir. You hired me to help, after all. That’s what I do. That’s what I’ve always done.”

  “For God’s sake, woman! You’ve killed my boy! You’ve murdered my Ainsley!” “Oh,” Olive said, turning so that the lamplight bathed her face orange. “That.” “He was just thirteen, you mad cow.”

  “He was a monstrous little beast and you know it, dear-heart.”

  Cecil choked on a sob. “You…yuh-you…” “You mutter while you sleep, Mr. Hughes, did you know that? I’ve spent long nights sitting in your room, watching you. Listening to you. Dear-heart and my poor Marla and oh, her eyes, her eyes my dear-heart, they’r
e just like yours were.” Olive tittered. “You truly are such a sweet little man, sir.”

  She raised her arm and the knife in her hand sparkled in the lamp’s wavering glow. She regarded the long, narrow blade lovingly.

  “No, Olive—no, you mustn’t…” “Mr. Hughes, I should like to call you Cecil.” “Please, girl, please…” “May I do that, sir? May I call you Cecil?” “Yes—Jesus, yes! Anything you like, Olive. Just please, please think about what you are doing…”

  “I want to tell you something, Cecil. It’s really rather important, so listen to me when I tell it to you. Is that all right?”

  “Oh, my god,” he cried. “Jesus Christ!” “Cecil,” Olive said firmly as she approached him with the knife still held aloft. “You are not listening to me.”

  “I will,” he murmured. “I will, Olive. I’ll listen.”

  He did not continue speaking. But he did begin to quietly cry. “I want you to know this: I am not your wife. I am not your Marla. I never knew her and I have never had anything to do with her. Do you understand so far?”

  With a juddering sob, Cecil nodded weakly. “I came down to Dorset to help, Cecil. All I ever wanted was to help somebody. And by Jesus I have, God knows I have. But what I did not come here for was to replace your dead, god-damned wife. I am not her and I never shall be, and damn my eyes!”

  With a swift, fluid motion she brought the knife up and Cecil squeezed his eyes shut, readying himself for the attack. Olive moaned horribly, her voice deep and wet. But the attack did not come. He listened in the dark to her wretched burbling and for an instant he wondered when the pain would commence, and why he could not feel it now.

  When he opened his eyes again and blinked his vision clear he focused up at the deranged maid and gasped at the ghastly mess she had made of herself. Her left eye was a dribbling, bloody wreck. The knife dripped blood, oozed with white pieces of the eye she was busily carving out of her own face even as she groaned in agony. Cecil’s head throbbed, his wakefulness wavered. He felt as though he might fall unconscious, but the thought of it terrified him sufficiently enough to fight the faint back. So instead he watched. He watched with mute horror as his maid, the murderer of his only son, finished cutting out her eye.