The Berserkers

by Roger Elwood

  “So he’s probably sick, maybe drunk. Who cares?”

  “It’s what he’s moaning that spooks me,” said Margaret. “I want you to hear him. I think he’s some kind of maniac.”

  Ill “Okay, okay,” Harry grunted. And he listened to the agonized words which filtered through the thin walls of the hotel room.

  “I’ve killed,” moaned the man. “I’ve killed. I’ve killed.”

  “He keeps repeating that over and over,” Margaret whispered. “I think you’d better do something.”

  “Do what?” asked Harry, propping himself against the pillow to light a cigarette. “Maybe he’s just having a bad dream.”

  “But he keeps saying it over and over. It really spooks me. We could be next door to a murderer.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  She blinked at him, absently stroking her left breast. “Call the manager. Have someone investigate.”

  Harry sighed, kicked off the blankets and padded barefoot to the house phone on the dresser. He picked up the receiver, waited for the switchboard to acknowledge.

  “This is Harry Dobson in room 203. There’s a character next door who’s moaning about having killed somebody. He’s been keeping us awake. Yeah…he’s in 202. Right next door.”

  Harry listened, holding the phone, slowly stubbing out his cigarette on the glass top of the dresser.

  “What’s happening?” asked Harry’s wife.

  “They’re checking to see who’s in 202.”

  “He’s stopped moaning,” she said.

  “No, no,” said Harry into the receiver. “I’m in 203. Okay, forget it, just forget it.”

  He slammed down the phone.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The stupid idiot on the desk has my name down for both rooms!”

  “Couldn’t it be a coincidence?” Margaret asked. “I mean, your name isn’t that unusual. There must be several Harry Dobsons in New York.”

  “Not door-to-door in the same damn hotel,” he said. “Anyhow, they claim they can’t do anything about the guy and unless he gets violent in there to just ignore him.” He shook his head. “That’s New York for you.”

  “I think we’d better leave,” said Margaret. She got up and walked to the bathroom.

  Harry blew out his breath in disgust, got his pants off the chair and began dressing. He was scheduled to fly back to L.A. this morning anyhow, so he’d get to the airport a little early. He could have breakfast there.

  He and his wife left the hotel room.

  In the elevator she told him she’d write him at least once a week while he was gone. He was sweet, she told him, and if it hadn’t been for the maniac in 202 their night together would have been beautiful.

  “Sure,” said Harry Dobson.

  They said goodbye in the lobby. Then Harry checked out, giving the desk clerk hell for mixing up the room numbers. “I represent a major firm,” he told the clerk. “I’m an important man, damnit! What if someone wanted to reach me? My messages might have gone to a nut in 202. Do you understand me?”

  The desk clerk said he was very sorry.

  Harry walked out to a cab. Gray rain drizzled down from a soot-colored sky and a chill November wind blew the rain against Harry’s face.

  “Kennedy airport,” he said to the driver. But before he climbed into the taxi he paused. He’s watching you. That bastard in 202 is watching you. Harry shaded his eyes against the rain and peered upward at the second-floor street window of room 202.

  A tall man was at the open window, ignoring the blowing rain, glaring down at him. The man’s face was dark with anger.

  Harry stared, unblinking. Good grief, he even looks like me. Like an older version of me. No wonder the clerk mixed us up. Well, to hell with him!

  By the time his jet soared away from New York Harry Dobson had put the man from 202 firmly out of his thoughts. Harry was concerned with the report he’d be making to the sales manager back in California. He was working out some statistics on a board in his lap when he happened to notice the passenger in the window seat directly across the aisle.

  What—it’s him! Can’t be. Left him back in New York.

  The passenger had been reading a magazine; now he raised his head and swung his eyes slowly toward Harry Dobson. Cold hatred flowed from those eyes.

  The tourist section was only half filled and Harry had no trouble getting another seat several rows back. Damned if he’d sit there and let this creep give him the evil eye. Maybe Margaret was right; maybe the guy was some kind of maniac.

  At Los Angeles International Harry was the first passenger to disembark. Inside the airport building he arranged for a porter to collect his flight baggage. Then he waited for it in a cab near the door. Harry didn’t want to risk running into the weirdo at the baggage pickup.

  So far so good. The guy was nowhere in sight.

  His baggage arrived and Harry tipped the porter and gave the taxi driver an address in West Los Angeles. As the car rolled onto the freeway Harry relaxed. Apparently the man had made no attempt to follow him. It was over.

  Harry paid the driver, carried his bags into the rented apartment, took some Scotch from his briefcase and poured himself a drink. He felt fine now. He checked the window just to be certain the guy hadn’t followed him. The street below was empty.

  Harry unpacked, took his suits to the closet, opened the sliding door—and fell back, gasping.

  The man was there, inside the closet. He stood in the darkness, smiling like a fiend. Then he dived at Harry’s throat, hands closing on his windpipe. Harry kicked free, tumbled over a chair, twisting away from his attacker.

  That’s when the man pulled the knife from his belt.

  Harry scrambled around the bed, putting space between himself and his attacker. No good trying for the door; the man would have him if he tried that.

  “Who—are you?” gasped Harry. “What—what do you want from me?”

  “I want to kill you,” said the man, smiling. “That’s all you need to know.”

  Keeping himself between Harry and the door he began slashing with the knife—ripping the blade into mattress, chairs, curtains, clothing—as Harry watched in numb terror.

  But when the man pulled Margaret’s photo from Harry’s briefcase, and drove the knife through it, a red rage replaced the fear in Harry Dobson; the bastard was human, after all. Harry was ten years younger, stronger.

  The man was half turned toward the bed when Harry struck him with a heavy table lamp. The other fell backward, stunned, dropping the knife.

  “You crazy sonuvabitch,” Harry shouted, snapping up the knife and driving it into the man’s back. Once. Twice. Three times. The man grunted, then did not move. Harry stood over him for a long, long moment— but he did not move again.

  Who is he? Who the hell is he? Harry could find no identification on the body. He thought of calling the police but decided that was too risky. There were no witnesses. The apartment had not been burglarized nor were there signs of a forced entry. Bastard must have had a key. To the police, it would appear that Harry Dobson had coldly murdered this man.

  Insane! I don’t even know him. Which is exactly why you must get rid of the body. Once he’s gone there’ll be no way to link you to his death.

  That night Harry cleaned up the apartment, placed the blanket-wrapped corpse in the trunk of his car and drove out along the ocean, past Malibu, to a deserted stretch of beach—where he dumped the weighted body into the water.

  He was a madman. Simply because you complained about him at the hotel he followed you to the West Coast and tried to kill you. You have no reason to feel guilt. Forget all this. Live your life and forget him.

  Harry Dobson tried to do that. When his wife called him he didn’t mention what had happened. And when his business trip ended he returned to New York, and resumed his life.

  A decade passed. Each time the face of the dead man from 202 loomed in Jus mind Harry Dobson shut down the vision. Finally he cou
ld look back upon the entire incident as a kind of bizarre dream. He felt neither guilt nor fear.

  Then, almost ten years to the month, Harry found himself at the same hotel in New York. He was in town on his annual business trip and, this particular visit, had decided to stay at this hotel to prove that the ghost of the man he’d killed was truly exorcised.

  In fact, to close the circle, he asked the clerk for the old room, 203.

  “Sorry, sir, but that room is occupied. However, I can give you the one right next to it, room 202. Will that be satisfactory?”

  Irony. The dead man’s room. All right, Harry said, that would be satisfactory.

  Room 202 contained a double bed, white glass-topped dresser, circular table and chair, a standing brass lamp in the corner…He remembered the furniture! But that was because it was the same, exactly the same, as 203. The rooms on this floor were no doubt identically furnished. The odd thing was that the decor hadn’t been changed in ten years.

  Harry took a fresh bottle of Scotch from his suitcase and poured a solid drink for himself. The Scotch eased him, reduced his tension. It was late, near midnight, and after several more belts of Scotch he was ready for sleep, amused at the drama of the situation, no longer tense at the prospect of sleeping in a room once occupied by a man he had stabbed to death.

  Near morning, Harry began to mumble in his sleep. He was having a bad dream, a nightmare about being tried and convicted of murder. The attorney was hammering at him on the witness stand and Harry had broken under the verbal assault. “I’ve killed,” he admitted. “I’ve killed. I’ve killed.” Over and over. “Killed… killed…killed…”

  He finally awoke, sweating, wide-eyed. Wow, what a hellish dream! It’s this room. That’s what triggered it, allowed it to take control of my subconscious. But I’m all right now. I’m fine. The dream’s over.

  He became aware of voices in 203 filtering through the thin wall of the room. A woman’s voice, whispery but sharp, and upset. “I think you’d better do something.”

  “Do what?” asked a man’s voice, muffled but distinct “Maybe he’s just having a bad dream.”

  “But he keeps saying it over and over. It really spooks me. We could be next door to a murderer.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “Call the manager. Have someone investigate.”

  Harry heard the springs squeak as the man climbed out of bed. He heard him pick up the phone and say, “This is Harry Dobson in room 203. There’s a character next door who’s moaning about having killed someone…”

  Harry didn’t want to hear any more. He walked into the bathroom and vomited into the bowl, remaining on his knees until he heard the door finally slam in 203.

  Then, shaking, he walked back into his room and called the desk. “Who—who’s registered in 203?”

  “Uh…that’s Mr. Dobson, sir. But he’s checking out.”

  “All right,” said Harry evenly. And he put down the phone.

  He walked over to the street window, threw it open. Gray rain, whipped by a chill wind, blew in upon him, stinging his face.

  A man came out of the hotel, hailed a cab. Just before he got into the taxi he turned to look up at Harry, shading his eyes against the wet. Younger. A face like his, but ten years younger. The murdering bastard! Harry glared down at him.

  And when the man was gone, and he had called the airport to confirm his flight back to Los Angeles, Harry Dobson took the knife out of his suitcase and held it in his hand for a long, long moment.

  Knowing, beyond any doubt, that he would eventually die by it.

  The Patent Medicine Man

  Daphne Castell

  A very English approach to the occult

  —and all the more chilling.

  Autumn came and brought on its breath the death of the leaves. Adam Tamblyn walked in the woods, through the brilliant funeral of the year.

  As the trees died gaudily round him, he felt for the first time the certainty of his own ending.

  The unrelieved cough hurt often, and unexpectedly, and his wife had stopped singing.

  She was small, fair and mobile, like a canary, and like a canary, she used to sing constantly, above all in the growing gaps between their talk.

  The trees closed endless colonnades about their cottages, and they listened to little but uncomfortable silences. It was not that they had ceased to love, but death leaned companionably on Adam’s shoulder and guarded speech like the presence of a not-very-well-known guest.

  He fought pain again, remembering this, standing grimly still among gray beech trunks decorated with orange fungus, as unseemly as a made-up corpse at the undertaker’s.

  Perhaps pain was a quiet enemy, to be avoided by quietness. If he had got on better with the doctor—

  The hospital was certainly where he wanted to be now, for now he was afraid. Perhaps they had gone too far, he and the doctor, playing their savage civilized game of dislikes and disregards.

  He was not quite certain what he would say to the doctor when he came next.

  Perhaps, “I should like to go into hospital.” Arrogant and bald. And if the answer was also arrogant and bald, “It would be useless.” What about that?

  If one added, “I am afraid now, of pain and laxness, and dissolution.” The answer might still be the same.

  He had a mortally destroying agency within him, nurtured with frantic, erratic care by his own cells.

  How could a man trust any other human being, or any other judgment, if the cells of his body rebelled against him? How could he believe a man who said: “This or that will happen,” when his own fortress was full of traitors?

  He was walking to Old Sad’s cottage. “The chimney’s spitting soot again,” Beth had said. “Will you go and ask Old Sad to clean it?”

  “Does he clean chimneys? I thought he was a gardener.”

  “He does everything. You don’t mind?—the walk might—” she hesitated, and swept up the untidy end of speech in a mumble “—do you good.”

  He had evaded that, going hurriedly out of the door, jamming his thigh painfully against the handle. He had always been a clumsy, unhandy man, even without the pressure of illness. It was as if he needed an extra set of reflexes.

  In his childhood, his mother had moved things fondly out of his way. Now, sometimes, his wife did the same. But all Beth’s furious protection could not move the thing that was tunneling in his stomach.

  His listened earnestly to the preachers who told him from their safe, healthy pulpits, that death was a transformation. That he would live on in a different, more glorious form.

  But he could not persuade himself that this was improvement. He did not think of death as a great step on the road to evolution. He did not suppose the caterpillar actually enjoyed its transfiguration; and he was quite sure that neither life form knew anything about the other. So where was the gain to either? He felt the blue framework of sky creak and sag above him as he walked. Soon, in a matter of weeks, it would give way entirely, and he would disappear beneath a weight of silence.

  Old Sad’s cottage stuck up smokily before him. Old Sad was Charlie Sadding. The trees thinned around his broken shack, like disdainful ladies avoiding a sleeping tramp. Old Sad did all sorts of out-of-the-way jobs about the village, owned a television set, was reputed a “wise one,” feared a little, and spoken of as rich.

  He was a small, round, gray man, with a drooping nose, and wild owlish bright eyes.

  He looked knowledgeable and extraordinarily wicked. “You want some tea?” he asked when Adam appeared in the doorway. “Oh get away, now, folks always wants tea when it’s there, and ’tis now. Lift the pot offen the ferret’s cage, there’s a man. There’s a cup somewheres about, if I can lay hands to it.”

  The hut smelled stuffy and musty. It was cosy with rags, stuffed in the window, stuffed in every crevice, blocking draft and air alike. The tea was bright dark brown, like tobacco juice, but Adam was suddenly thirsty. He drank, and the mumbling bea
st in his guts curled itself up quietly for a while.

  He looked about the hut. He saw stacked, dusty shelves, and many lengths of string dangling. One held a collection of blotched dried claws and paws. There were nets and traps of string and wire, and ancient tins of food with peeling labels. There was a cat in one corner, a jackdaw in another, and in the cage, the long brown ferrets poured sinuously over one another.

  On the shelves were bottles and packets past counting. Some had fallen over and were mixing their contents with the dust, all were sticky and stained, and some were anchored to the shelves by cobwebs.

  “Me medicines, eh?” said Old Sad proudly. “All good honest clean doctor’s stuff, from the chemist. Wonderful things in ’em. Didn’t have none like they when I was pulling at me mammy’s skirt. There’s another cup, here. See, and I’ll put you in some of me damson brandy. That don’t come from no chemist’s shop, though. I can see some way you’re ailin’ and gripin’.”

  The damson brandy turned the tea such an appalling color that Adam in consternation drank it at a gulp, and immediately felt the warmth and distance in the brandy overtaking him.

  “You go to the doctor a lot then? All these medicines.” He waved a weightless hand and heard his voice booming lofty and far-off.

  Old Sad communed with himself. Then he nodded cheerfully. “Eh, yes, some I do. But some’s just so’s anyone as comes into a chemist’s can buy ’em, and some’s me own herbs I made up in times past, and some I don’t always c’rrectly remember what You wouldn’t hardly believe the number of them that’s come to me a-pesterin’: ’Oh, Old Sad, do now make me up a bit of paste and a few words for me rheumatism, there’s a man,’ or else, ’Oh, me breath’s that bad, and me young woman, she don’t like that,’ or maybe—” he stopped, and pondered and coughed dryly, “—or maybe again ‘I got a young man as don’t properly love me like he should,’ or ’Old Sad, I got an enemy with a spiteful tongue, and I wants her to feel poorly.’ Well, afore all this packeted stuff really began coming in, many a year ago now, I’d have to go out and grind and powder and I don’t know what all. But now I knows what’s in them medicines, why, half me work’s done. That’s supposin’ you mix ’em right, and supposin’ you knows what you’re doing and why. Doctors don’t know everything, nor what it’s for, not be a long way.”