The Madman - Страница 81

"Yes," Francis croaked.

"Do you think that Short Blond had a real understanding what this knife meant when it bit into her throat?"

Francis didn't know what the man meant, so he remained silent.

There was a small, slithering laugh.

"Think about the question, Francis. I'd like an answer."

Francis kept his eyes squeezed shut. For a moment, he hoped that the voice was really just a nightmare and that it wasn't truly happening to him, but, even as he wished this, the pressure of the blade against his cheek seemed to increase. In a world filled with hallucination, it was sharp and real.

"I don't know," Francis choked out.

"You're not using your imagination enough, Francis. In here, that's all we really have, isn't it? Imagination. It might take us in unique and terrible ways, force us to head in nasty and murderous directions, but it's the only thing we really own, isn't it?"

Francis thought this was true. He would have nodded, but he was afraid that any motion would put a scar forever on his face like Lucy's, and so he remained as rigid and still as he could, barely breathing, fighting against muscles that wanted to twitch with terror. "Yes," he whispered, his lips barely moving.

"Can you understand just how much imagination I have, Francis?"

Again, whatever words he tried to speak in reply were croaked into mere sounds.

"So, what did Short Blond know, Francis? Did she only know pain? Or maybe something deeper, far more terrifying? Did she connect the sensation of the knife cutting through her flesh with the blood that was pouring out and was she able to assess it all, and realize that it was her own life that was disappearing, and her own helplessness that made it all so pathetic?"

"I don't know," Francis said:

"What about you, Francis? Can you feel how close you are to death?"

Francis couldn't answer. Behind his closed eyes he could only see a red sheet of terror.

"Can you feel your own life hanging by such a thin strand, Francis?"

He knew that he didn't have to answer that question.

"Do you understand that I can take your life this second, Francis?"

"Yes," Francis said, but he was unaware where he got the strength to speak even that word.

"Do you realize I can take your life in ten seconds. Or thirty seconds, or perhaps I will wait an entire minute, depending upon how much I want to savor the moment. Or perhaps tonight isn't the night at all. Perhaps tomorrow would fit my plans better. Or next week. Or next year. Whenever I want, Francis. You are here, in this bed, in this hospital every night, and you will never know when I might return, will you? Or maybe, I should just do this now, and save myself the meager trouble…"

The flat of the knife blade seemed to rotate and for a second the edge touched his skin, and then the flat returned.

"Your life belongs to me," the Angel continued. "It's mine to take when I please."

"What do you want?" Francis asked. He could feel tears welling up behind his tightly squeezed eyelids and his fear finally burst through and his hands at his sides and his legs shook with spasms of terror.

"What do I want?" The man laughed, hissing, still barely a whisper. "I have what I want for tonight, and am closer to getting everything I want. Much closer."

Francis could sense the Angel lowering his face to his, so that the two men's lips were only inches apart, like lovers.

"I am close to everything of importance to me, Francis. So close that I am like a shadow on all your heels. I'm like a scent that sticks to you that only a dog can smell. I'm like the answer to a riddle that's just a little too complicated for the likes of you."

"What do you want me to do?" Francis was nearly begging. It was as if he wanted some sort of task or job that might free him from the Angel's presence.

"Why nothing, Francis. Except to remember our little conversation when you go about your daily business," the Angel replied.

There was a momentary silence, and then, he continued, "You may count to ten, and then open your eyes, Francis. Remember what I told you. And incidentally" the Angel seemed almost gleeful and terrible at the same time "I've left a little present for your friend the Fireman and the bitch prosecutor, too."

"What?"

The Angel lowered his face closer to Francis, so that Francis could actually feel his breath against his skin. "I like to leave a message. Sometimes, it's in what I take. But this time, it's in what's left behind."

With that, the pressure on his cheek abruptly disappeared, and he could sense the man rising from the bedside. Francis continued to hold his breath, and then began counting. Slowly, one through ten, before opening his eyes.

It took another few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dark, but when they did, he lifted his head and turned toward the dormitory door. For a second, the Angel was outlined, glowing, almost luminescent. He was turned, looking at Francis, but Francis was unable to make out any of his features except for a pair of eyes that seemed to burn into him and a glistening white aura that surrounded him like some otherworldly light. Then the vision disappeared, the door thumping shut with a muffled bump, and followed by the unmistakable noise of the lock being turned, which, to Francis, seemed like a lock being shut on all hope and possibility. He shuddered, his entire body quivering uncontrollably as if chilled by a plunge into icy waters and the onset of hypothermia. He remained in his bed, plunging through a darkness of terror and anxiety that had rooted within him, and which seemed to spread unchecked like infection throughout his body, wondering whether he would be able to move when morning light filled the room. His own voices remained quiet, as if they, too, were afraid that Francis suddenly teetered on the edge of some immense cliff of fear, and that should he slip and fall, he would never be able to climb out.

Francis lay still, not sleeping, not moving, throughout the night.

His breathing came in short, shallow spasms. He could feel his fingers twitching.

He did nothing except listen to the sounds around him and the pounding in his own chest. When morning arrived, he suddenly wasn't certain that he could force his limbs to move, wasn't even sure that he could make his eyes wander from the locked position they were in, staring out up into the dormitory ceiling, but seeing only the fear that had visited his bedside. He could feel emotions tripping around within his head, haphazardly slamming into side-walls, skidding, sliding, racing, runaway, out of control. He no longer was sure that he had the ability to rein them in and gain any grip whatsoever, and, for an instant, he thought in actuality he might have died that night, that the Angel had really cut his throat like he had Short Blond's and that everything he thought and heard and saw now was only a dream, and was some reverie that penetrated the final seconds of his life, that really the world around him was utterly dark, night remained closing in on him, and that his own blood was seeping out steadily, with every heartbeat.

"All right, folks," he heard from the doorway. "Time to rise and shine. Breakfast is waiting." It was Big Black, greeting the dormitory residents in customary fashion.

Around him, people started to groan their ways out of sleep, leaving behind all the troubled dreams and near-nightmares that plagued them, unaware that a real, breathing nightmare had been in their midst.

Francis remained rigid, as if glued to his bunk. His limbs refused commands.

A few men stared down at him, as they stumbled past.

He heard Napoleon say, "Come on, Francis, let's go to breakfast…" but the round man's voice trailed into nothing as he must have seen the look on Francis's face. "Francis?" he heard, but he did not reply. "C-Bird, are you okay?"

Again, he warred within himself. Inside, his voices had started up. They pleaded, they cajoled, they insisted, over and over, Get up, Francis! Come on, Francis! Rise up! Put your feet on the floor and wake up! Please, Francis, please get up!

He did not know whether he had the strength. He did not know whether he would ever have the strength again.

"C-Bird? What's wrong?" He heard Napoleon's voice grow worried, nearly plaintive.