Smoke Ghost & Other Apparitions

by Fritz Leiber

  Katherine caught hold of his hand. "Tell me one thing," she said. "How seriously, how really seriously, did you take this ... compact, when you made it?"

  He looked at the fire before he said, "I told you I was a different Don McKenzie then."

  "Don," she said, and her voice dropped a little, "is there anything dangerous about this? Is Dave altogether honorable – or sane? Are you going to have any trouble getting rid of him?"

  "Of course not, dear! I tell you it's all done with." He caught her in his arms. But for a moment Katherine felt that his voice, though hearty, lacked the note of complete certainty.

  * * * *

  And during the next few days she had reason to think that her momentary feeling had been right. Don stayed late at the office a little more often than usual, and twice when she called him during the day, he was out and Miss Korshak didn't know where to locate him. His explanations, given casually, were always very convincing, but he didn't look well and he'd acquired a nervous manner. At home he began to answer the phone ahead of her, and one or two of the conversations he held over it were cryptic.

  Even the children, Katherine felt, had caught something of the uneasiness.

  She found herself studying Don Junior rather closely, looking for traits that might increase her understanding of his father. She went over in her mind what she knew of Don Senior's childhood and was bothered at how little there was. (But isn't that true of many city childhood's? she asked herself.) Just a good, conscientious boy, brought up mostly by two rather stuffy yet emotional aunts. The only escapade she remembered hearing about was once when he'd stayed at a movie all afternoon and half the night.

  She was up against the realization that a whole section of her husband's thoughts were locked off from her. And since this had never happened before she was frightened. Don loved her as much as ever, she was sure of that. But something was eating at him.

  Weren't success and a loving wife and children, she wondered, enough for a man? Enough in a serious way, that is, for anyone might have his frivolities, his trivial weaknesses (though actually Don had neither). Or was there something more, something beyond that? Not religion, not power, not fame, but ...

  * * * *

  She badly needed more people around, so when Carleton Hare called up she impulsively invited him to dinner. His wife, Carleton said, was out of town.

  It was one of those evenings when Don called up at the last minute to say he wouldn't be able to get home for dinner. (No, he couldn't make it even for Carleton -something had come up at the printer's. Awfully glad Carleton had come, though. Hoped very much to see him later in the evening, but might be very late – don't wait up.)

  After the children were shepherded off and Katherine and Carleton had paraded rather formally into the living room, she asked, "Did you know a college friend of Don's named Dave Wenzel?"

  Katherine got the impression that her question had thrown Carleton off some very different line of conversation he had been plotting in his mind. "No, I didn't," he said a little huffily. "Name's a bit familiar, but I don't think I ever met the man."

  But then he seemed to reconsider. He turned toward Katherine, so that the knees of his knife-creased gray trousers were a few inches closer to hers along the couch.

  "Wait a minute," he said, "Don did have an odd friend of some sort. I think his name may have been Wenzel. Don sometimes bragged about him – how brilliant this man was, what wild exciting experiences he'd had. But somehow, none of us fellows ever met him."

  "I hope you won't mind my saying this," he continued with a boyish chuckle that startled Katherine a bit, it was so perfect. "But Don was rather shy and moody at college, not very successful and inclined to be put out about it. Some of us even thought this friend of his – yes, I'm sure the name was Wenzel – was just an imaginary person he'd cooked up in his mind to impress us with."

  "You did?" Katherine asked.

  "Oh yes. Once we insisted on his bringing this Wenzel around to a party. He agreed, but then it turned out that Wenzel had left town on some mysterious and important jaunt."

  "Mightn't it have been that he was ashamed of Wenzel for some reason?" Katherine asked.

  "Yes, I suppose it might," Carleton agreed doubtfully. "Tell me, Kat," he went on, "how do you get along with a moody, introspective person like Don?"

  "Very well."

  "Are you happy?" Carleton asked, his voice a little deeper.

  Katherine smiled. "I think so."

  Carleton's hand, moving along the couch, covered hers. "Of course you are," he said. "An intelligent, well-balanced person like yourself wouldn't be anything else but happy. But how vivid is that happiness? How often, for instance, do you realize what a completely charming woman you are? Aren't there times – not all the time, of course -when, with a simpler, more vital sort of person, you could..."

  She shook her head, looking into his eyes with a childlike solemnity. "No, Carleton, there aren't," she said, gently withdrawing her hand from under his.

  Carleton blinked, and his head, which had been moving imperceptibly toward hers, stopped with a jerk. Katherine's lips twitched and she started to talk about the children.

  During the rest of the evening Carleton didn't by any means give up the attack. But he carried it on in an uninspired fashion, as if merely to comply with the tenets of male behavior. Katherine wanted to burst out laughing, he was so solemn and dogged about it, and once he caught her smiling at him rather hysterically, and he put on an injured look. She tried to pump him, rather cruelly, she felt, about Dave Wenzel and Don, but he apparently knew nothing beyond what he had told her. He left rather early. Katherine couldn't help suspecting that he was relieved to go.

  She went to bed. Her somewhat amusement at Carleton Hare faded. The minutes dragged on, as she waited for Don.

  A voice woke her. A mumbling distant voice. She was hot with sleep and the dark walls of the bedroom pulsated painfully, as if they were inside her eyes.

  At first she thought it was Don Junior. She felt her way into the hall. Then she realized that the voice was coming from downstairs. It would go on for a while, rising a bit, then it would break off several seconds before starting again. It seemed to pulsate with the darkness.

  She crept downstairs barefooted. The house was dark. Dimly she could see the white rectangle of the door to Don's study. It was closed and no light showed through the cracks. Yet it was from there that the voice seemed to be coming.

  "For the last time I tell you, Dave, I won't. Yes, I've gone back on my word, but I don't care. The whole thing is off."

  Katherine's hand trembled on the smooth round of the stair post. It was Don's voice, but tortured, frantic, and yet terribly controlled, like she had never heard it before.

  "What's a promise made by a child? Besides, the whole thing's ridiculous, impossible."

  She tiptoed toward the door, step by step.'

  "All right then, Dave, I believe you. We could do everything you say. But I don't want to. I'm going to hold fast to my own."

  Now she was crouching by the door and she still couldn't hear the answering voice in the silence. But her imagination supplied it: a whisper that had strength in it, and richness, and mockery, and a certain oily persuasiveness.

  "What do I care if my life is drab and monotonous?" Her husband's voice was growing louder. "I tell you I don't want the far cities, and dark streets shimmering with danger. I don't want the gleaming nights and the burning days. I don't want space. I don't want the stars!"

  Again silence, and again that suggestion of a resonant whisper, adrip with beauty and evil.

  Then, "All right, so the people I know are miserable little worms, men of cardboard and dusty, dry-mouthed puppets. I don't mind. Do you understand, I don't mind! I don't want to meet the people whose emotions are jewels, whose actions are sculptured art. I don't want to know the men like gods. I don't want my mind to meet their minds with a crash like music or the sea."

  Katherine was tremblin
g again. Her hand went up and down the door like a moth, hovering, not quite touching it.

  "So my mind's small, is it? Well, let it be. Let someone else's consciousness swell and send out tentacles. I don't want the opium dreams. I don't want the more-than-opium dream. I don't care if I never glimpse the great secrets of far shores. I don't care if I die with blinders over my eyes. I don't care, you hear, I don't care!"

  Katherine swayed, as if a great wind were blowing through the door. She writhed as if each word scalded her.

  "But I tell you I don't want any woman but Kat!" Her husband's voice was filled with agony. "I don't care how young and beautiful they are. I don't care if they're only twenty. Kat's enough for me. Do you hear that, Dave? Kat's enough. Dave! Stop it, Dave! Stop it!"

  There was pounding. Katherine realized she had thrown herself against the door and was beating on it. She grabbed the knob, snatched it open, and darted inside.

  There was a whirling of shadows, a gasping exclamation, three pounding footsteps, a great crash of glass, a whish of leaves. Something struck her shoulder and she staggered sideways, found the wall, groped along it, pushed the light switch.

  The light hurt. In it, Don's face looked peeled. He was turning back from the big picture window, now a jagged hole of darkness through which the cool night was pouring and a green twig intruded. In it, only a few daggers and corners of glass remained. A chair lay on the floor, overturned. Don stared at her as if she were a stranger.

  "Did he ... jump out?" she asked shakily, wetting her lips.

  Don nodded blindly. Then a look of rage grew on his face. He started toward her, taking deliberate steps, swaying a little.

  "Don!"

  He stopped. Slowly recognition replaced rage. Then he suddenly grimaced with what might have been shame or agony, or both, and turned away.

  She moved to him quickly, putting her arms around him. "Oh, what is it, Don?" she asked. "Please, Don, let me help you."

  He shrank away from her.

  "Don," she said hollowly after a moment, forcing the words, "if you really want to go off with this man..."

  His back, turned to her, writhed. "No! No!"

  "But then what is it, Don? How can he make you act this way? What sort of hold does he have on you?"

  He shook his head hopelessly.

  "Tell me, Don, please, how can he torment you so? Of please, Don!"

  Silence.

  "But what are we going to do, Don? He ... oh he must be insane," she said, looking uneasily at the window, "to do a thing like that. Will he come back? Will he lurk around? Will he ... oh, don't you see, Don, we can't have it like that. There are the children. Don, I think we should call the police."

  He looked around quickly, his face quite calm. "Oh no, we can't do that," he said quietly. "Under no circumstances."

  "But if he keeps on..."

  "No," Don said, looking at her intently. "I'll settle the whole matter, myself, Kat. I don't want to talk about it now, but I promise you that it will be settled. And there will be no more incidents like tonight. You have my word on it." He paused. "Well, Kat?"

  For a moment she met his eyes. Then, unwillingly – she had the queer feeling that it was the pressure of his stare that made her do it – she dipped her head.

  * * * *

  During the next two weeks there were many times when she desperately wished she had insisted on bringing things to a head that night, for it marked the beginning of a reign of terror that was all the more unnerving because it could not be laid to any very definite incidents. Shadows on the lawn, small noises at the windows, the suggestion of a lurking figure, doors open that should be closed – there is nothing conclusive about such things. But they nibble at courage.

  The children felt it, of that Katherine was sure. Don Junior started asking questions about witches and horrors, and he wasn't quite so brave about going upstairs at night. Sometimes she caught him looking at her or at his father in a way that made her wish she didn't have to be so untroubled and cheerful in his presence and could talk to him more freely. John came to share their bed more often in the middle of the night, and Wendy would wake whimpering.

  Don's behavior was very reassuring for the first few days. He was brisk and businesslike, not moody at all, and had an unusually large supply of jokes for the children and of complimentary remarks for her – though Katherine couldn't shake the feeling that these were all carefully prepared and cost him considerable effort. But she couldn't get near him. He showed an artfulness quite unlike his ordinary self at avoiding serious discussions. The two or three times she finally blurted out some question about Dave Wenzel or his feelings, he would only frown and say quickly, "Please don't let's talk about it now. It only makes it harder for me."

  She tried to think herself close to him, but when a contact between you and the man you love is broken, thoughts aren't as much help. And when you feel that the love is still there, that only makes it the more baffling, for it leaves you nothing to bite against. Don was slipping away from her. He was growing dim. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  And always the long brittle train of her thoughts would be snapped by some small but ominous incident that set her nerves quivering.

  Then the reassuring aspects of Don's behavior began to fade. He became silent and preoccupied, both with her and with the children. His emotions began to show in his face – gloomy, despairing ones, they seemed. The children noticed that, too. At dinner Katherine's heart would sink when she saw Don Junior's glance lift surreptitiously from his plate to his father. And Don didn't look at all well, either. He got thinner and there were dark circles under his eyes, and his movements became fretful and nervous.

  He had a habit, too, of staying near the hall when he was at home, so that it was always he who answered the door as well as the telephone.

  Sometimes he'd go out late at night, saying he was restless and needed a walk. He might be home in fifteen minutes – or four hours.

  Still Katherine made efforts to get through to him. But he seemed to sense what she was going to say, and the look of pain and misery on his face would choke off her question.

  Finally she could stand her fear and uncertainty no longer. It was something Don Junior told her that gave her courage to act. He came home from school with a story of a man who had been standing outside the playground at recess and who had walked behind him on the way home.

  That evening before dinner, she went to Don and said simply, "I am going to call the police."

  He looked at her closely for several seconds and then replied in as calm a voice as hers, "Very well; I only ask you to wait until tomorrow morning."

  "It's no use, Don," she said. "I've got to do it. Since you won't tell me what this cloud is that's hanging over you, I must take my own precautions. I don't know what you'll tell the police when they talk to you, but..."

  "I'll tell them everything," he said, "tomorrow morning."

  "Oh, Don," she said, stiffening her face to hold back emotion. "I don't want to hurt you, but you leave me nothing else to do. I gave in to you before; I gave you time to settle the matter in your own way. I was willing to let whatever it is be a closed door, so long as it was closed, but things have only got worse. If I give in to you now, you'll ask me to give in to you again tomorrow morning. And I can't stand any more of it."

  "That's not fair," he said judiciously. "I never set a date before. I am setting one now. It's a very small thing I'm asking of you, Kat. Just a few more hours in which to" -suddenly his face grew very hard – "settle this matter for once and all. Please give me those hours, Kat."

  After a moment she sighed and her shoulders slumped. "Very well," she said. "Except I won't have the children in the house tonight. I'll take them to Aunt Martha's."

  "That's quite all right," he said. He bowed his head to her and walked up the stairs.

  * * * *

  Calling Aunt Martha, spinning an explanation for her, convincing the children that this was the j
olliest of impromptu expeditions – these were tasks that Katherine welcomed for the momentary relief they gave. And there were a couple of moments, driving over to Martha's with the children all piled in the front seat beside her, when she felt almost carefree.

  She drove home immediately, after repeating to Aunt Martha her story of a sudden invitation she and Don had gotten to a city party given by a publisher whose favor Don particularly courted. When she arrived, Don was gone.

  The house had never seemed so empty, so like a trap. But as she crossed the threshold, she gave over the control of herself to that same cold willpower she had depended on earlier that evening in talking to Don. She didn't wander through the house; she didn't let herself stand aimlessly for a moment. She picked up a book and sat down with it in the living room, reading the meaningless words carefully. She did not let her gaze stray occasionally toward the dark windows and doorways, though she knew that would have been normal. That was all.

  At ten-thirty she put down her book, went upstairs, bathed, went down to the kitchen, heated some milk, drank it, and went up to bed.

  She lay on her back, wide-eyed, motionless, almost without thoughts. Occasionally the lights of a car would sweep across the ceiling. Very rarely, for it was a still night, the leaves outside the window would whisper. She felt that for the rest of her life this sort of trance would substitute for sleep.

  It must have been at least three when she heard the key grate in the lock of the front door. She did not move. She heard the door open and close, then cautious steps coming up the stairs and along the hall. A dark shape paused outside the half-open bedroom door, then went on. There was the snick of a light switch and the hall glowed dimly. A little later came the sound of running water.

  Katherine got up quietly and looked into the hall. The bathroom door was open and the light was on. Don was standing in front of the wash basin, holding something wrapped in newspapers. She watched him unwrap something that flashed – a long hunting knife.