Charles Beaumont - Selected Stories Part 40

Seventy-two horrible hours . . .

The psychiatrist tapped out a cigarette. "Aren't you--" he began.

"Tired? G.o.d yes. I'm the tiredest man on Earth! I could sleep forever. But that's just it, you see: I would. I'd never wake up."

"Please," the psychiatrist said.

Hall bit his lip. There wasn't, he supposed, much point to it. But, after all, what _else_ was there for him to do? Where would he go? "You mind if I pace?"

"Stand on your head, if you like."

"Okay. I'll take one of your cigarettes." He drew the smoke into his lungs and walked over to the window. Fourteen floors below, the toy people and the toy cars moved. He watched them and thought, this guy's all right. Sharp. Intelligent. Nothing like what I expected. Who can say--_maybe_ it'll do some good. "I'm not sure where to begin."

"It doesn't matter. The beginning might be easier for you."

Hall shook his head, violently. The beginning, he thought. Was there such a thing?

"Just take it easy."

After a lengthy pause, Hall said: "I first found out about the power of the human mind when I was ten. Close to that time, anyway. We had a tapestry in the bedroom. It was a great big thing, the size of a rug, with fringe on the edges. It showed a group of soldiers--Napoleonic soldiers--on horses. They were at the brink of some kind of cliff, and the first horse was reared up. My mother told me something. She told me that if I stared at the tapestry long enough, the horses would start to move. They'd go right over the cliff, she said. I tried it, but nothing happened. She said, 'You've got to take time. You've got to_think_ about it.' So, every night, before I went to bed, I'd sit up and stare at that d.a.m.n tapestry. And, finally, it happened. Over they went, all the horses, all the men, over the edge of the cliff . . ." Hall stubbed out the cigarette and began to pace. "Scared h.e.l.l out of me," he said. "When I looked again, they were all back. It got to be a game with me. Later on, I tried it with pictures in magazines, and pretty soon I was able to move locomotives and send balloons flying and make dogs open their mouths: everything, anything I wanted."

He paused, ran a hand through his hair. "Not too unusual, you're thinking," he said. "Every kid does it. Like standing in a closet and shining a flashlight through your finger, or sewing up the heel of your palm . . . common stuff?"

The psychiatrist shrugged.

"There was a difference," Hall said. "One day it got out of control. I was looking at a coloring book. One of the pictures showed a knight and a dragon fighting. For fun I decided to make the knight drop his lance. He did. The dragon started after him, breathing fire. In another second the dragon's mouth was open and he was getting ready to eat the knight. I blinked and shook my head, like always, only--nothing happened. I mean, the picture didn't go back. Not even when I closed the book and opened it again. But I didn't think too much about it, even then."

He walked to the desk and took another cigarette. It slipped from his hands.

"You've been on Dexedrine," the psychiatrist said, watching as Hall tried to pick up the cigarette.

"Yes ."

"How many grains a day?"

"Thirty, thirty-five, I don't know."

"Potent. Knocks out your co-ordination. I suppose Jim warned you?"

"Yes, he warned me."

"Well, let's get along. What happened then?"

"Nothing." Hall allowed the psychiatrist to light his cigarette. "For a while, I forgot about the 'game' almost completely. Then, when I turned thirteen, I got sick. Rheumatic heart--"

The psychiatrist leaned forward and frowned. "And Jim let you have thirty-five--"

"Don't interrupt!" He decided not to mention that he had gotten the drug from his aunt, that Dr.

Jackson knew nothing about it. "I had to stay in bed a lot. No activity; might kill me. So I read books and listened to the radio. One night I heard a ghost story. 'Hermit's Cave' it was called. All about a man who gets drowned and comes back to haunt his wife. My parents were gone, at a movie. I was alone. And I kept thinking about that story, imagining the ghost. Maybe, I thought to myself, he's in that closet. I knew he wasn't; I knew there wasn't any such thing as a ghost, really. But there was a little part of my mind that kept saying, 'Look at the closet. Watch the door. He's in there, Philip, and he's going to come out.' I picked up a book and tried to read, but I couldn't help glancing at the closet door. It was open a crack.

Everything dark behind it. Everything dark and quiet."

"And the door moved."

"That's right."

"You understand that there's nothing terribly unusual in anything you've said so far?"

"I know," Hall said. "It was my imagination. It _was_, and I realized it even then. But--I got just as scared. Just as scared as if a ghost actually _had_ opened that door! And that's the whole point. The mind, Doctor. It's everything. If you _think_ you have a pain in your arm and there's no physical reason for it, you don't hurt any less . . . My mother died because she thought she had a fatal disease. The autopsy showed malnutrition, nothing else. But she died just the same!"

"I won't dispute the point."

"All right. I just don't want you to tell me it's all in my mind. I _know_ it is."

"Go on."

"They told me I'd never really get well, I'd have to take it easy the rest of my life. Because of the heart. No strenuous exercises, no stairs, no long walks. No shocks. Shock produces excessive adrenalin, they said. Bad, So that's the way it was. When I got out of school, I grabbed a soft desk job. Unexciting: numbers, adding numbers, that's all. Things went okay for a few years. Then it started again. I read aboutwhere some woman got into her car at night and happened to check for something in the back seat and found a man hidden there. Waiting. It stuck with me; I started dream. ing about it. So every night, when I got into my car, I automatically patted the rear seat and floorboards. It satisfied me for a while, until I started thinking, 'What if I forget to check?' Or, 'What if there's something back there that isn't human?' I had to drive across Laurel Canyon to get home, and you know how twisty that stretch is. Thirty-fifty-foot drops, straight down. I'd get this feeling halfway across. 'There's someone .. . something.. . in the back of the car!' Hidden, in darkness. Fat and shiny. I'll look in the rear-view mirror and I'll see his hands ready to circle my throat . . . Again, Doctor: understand me. _I knew it was my imagination_. I had no doubt at all that the back seat was empty--h.e.l.l, I kept the car locked and I double-checked! But, I told myself, you keep thinking this way, Hall, and you'll see those hands. It'll be a reflection, or somebody's headlights, or nothing at all--but you'll see them! Finally, one night, I did see them! The car lurched a couple of times and went down the embankment."

The psychiatrist said, "Wait a minute," rose, and switched the tape on a small machine.

"I knew how powerful the mind was, then," Hall continued. "I know that ghosts and demons did exist, they did, if you only thought about them long enough and hard enough. After all, one of them almost killed me!" He pressed the lighted end of the cigarette against his flesh; the fog lifted instantly. "Dr.

Jackson told me afterwards that one more serious shock like that would finish me. And that's when I started having the dream."

There was a silence in the room, compounded of distant automobile horns, the ticking of the ship's-wheel clock, the insectival tapping of the receptionist's typewriter. Hall's own tortured breathing.

"They say dreams last only a couple of seconds," he said. "I don't know whether that's true or not. It doesn't matter. They _seem_ to last longer. Sometimes I've dreamed a whole lifetime; sometimes generations have pa.s.sed. Once in a while, time stops completely; it's a frozen moment, lasting forever.

When I was a kid I saw the Flash Gordon serials; you remember? I loved them, and when the last episode was over, I went home and started dreaming more. Each night, another episode. They were vivid, too, and I remembered them when I woke up. I even wrote them down, to make sure I wouldn't forget. Crazy?"

"No," said the psychiatrist.

"I did, anyway. The same thing happened with the Oz books and the Burroughs books. I'd keep them going. But after the age of fifteen, or so, I didn't dream much. Only once in a while. Then, a week ago--" Hall stopped talking. He asked the location of the bathroom and went there and splashed cold water on his face. Then he returned and stood by the window.

"A week ago?" the psychiatrist said, flipping the tape machine back on.

"I went to bed around eleven-thirty. I wasn't too tired, but I needed the rest, on account of my heart. Right away the dream started. I was walking along Venice Pier. It was close to midnight. The place was crowded, people everywhere; you know the kind they used to get there. Sailors, dumpy looking dames, kids in leather jackets. The pitchmen were going through their routines. You could hear the roller coasters thundering along the tracks, the people inside the roller coasters, screaming; you could hear the bells and the guns cracking and the crazy songs they play on calliopes. And, far away, the ocean, moving. Everything was bright and gaudy and cheap. I walked for a while, stepping on gum and candy apples, wondering why I was there." Hall's eyes closed. He opened them quickly and rubbed them. "Halfway to the end, pa.s.sing the penny arcade, I saw a girl. She was about twenty-two or -three.

White dress, very thin and tight, and a funny white hat. Her legs were bare, nicely muscled and tan. She was alone. I stopped and watched her, and I remember thinking, "She _must_ have a boy friend. He _must_ be here somewhere." But she didn't seem to be waiting for anyone, or looking. Unconsciously, I began to follow her. At a distance.

"She walked past a couple of concessions, then she stopped at one called 'The Whip' and strolled in and went for a ride. The air was hot. It caught her dress as she went around and sent it whirling. It didn't bother her at all. She just held onto the bar and closed her eyes, and--I don't know, a kind of ecstasy seemed to come over her. She began to laugh. A high-pitched, musical sound. I stood by the fence and watched her, wondering why such a beautiful girl should be laughing in a cheap carnivalride, in the middle of the night, all by herself. Then my hands froze on the fence, because suddenly I saw that she was looking at me. Every time the car would whip around, she'd be looking. And there was something that said, Don't go away, don't leave, don't move . . .

"The ride stopped and she got out and walked over to me. As naturally as if we'd known each other for years, she put her arm in mine, and said, 'We've been expecting you, Mr. Hall.' Her voice was deep and soft, and her face, close up, was even more beautiful than it had seemed. Full, rich lips, a little wet; dark, flashing eyes; a warm gleam to her flesh. I didn't answer. She laughed again and tugged at my sleeve. 'Come on, darling,' she said. 'We haven't much time.' And we walked, almost running, to The Silver Flash--a roller coaster, the highest on the pier. I knew I shouldn't go on it because of my heart condition, but she wouldn't listen. She said I had to, for her. So we bought our tickets and got into the first seat of the car . . ."

Hall held his breath for a moment, then let it out, slowly. As he relived the episode, he found that it was easier to stay awake. Much easier.

"That," he said, "was the end of the first dream. I woke up sweating and trembling, and thought about it most of the day, wondering where it had all come from. I'd only been to Venice Pier once in my life, with my mother. Years ago. But that night, just as it'd happened with the serials, the dream picked up exactly where it had left off. We were settling into the seat. Rough leather, cracked and peeling, I recall.

The grab bar iron, painted black, the paint rubbed away in the center.

"I tried to get out, thinking. Now's the time to do it; do it now or you'll be too late! But the girl held me, and whispered to me. We'd be together, she said. Close together. If I'd do this one thing for her, she'd belong to me. 'Please! Please!' Then the car started. A little jerk; the kids beginning to yell and scream; the _clack-clack_ of the chain pulling up; and up, slowly, too late now, too late for anything, up the steep wooden hill . . ."

"A third of the way to the top, with her holding me, pressing herself against me, I woke up again.

Next night, we went up a little farther. Foot by foot, slowly, up the hill. At the half-way point, the girl began kissing me. And laughing. 'Look down!' she told me. 'Look down, Philip!' And I did and saw little people and little cars and everything tiny and unreal.

"Finally we were within a few feet of the crest. The night was black and the wind was fast and cold now, and I was scared, so scared that I couldn't move. The girl laughed louder than ever, and a strange expression came into her eyes. I remembered then how no one else had noticed her. How the ticket-taker had taken the two stubs and looked around questioningly.

"Who are you?" I screamed. And she said, 'Don't you know?' And she stood up and pulled the grab-bar out of my hands. I leaned forward to get it.

"Then we reached the top. And I saw her face and I knew what she was going to do, instantly: I knew. I tried to get back in the seat, but I felt her hands on me then and I heard her voice, laughing, high, laughing and shrieking with delight, and--"

Hall smashed his fist against the wall, stopped and waited for calm to return.

When it did, he said, "That's the whole thing, Doctor. Now you know why I don't care to go to sleep. When I do--and I'll have to, eventually; I realize that!--the dream will go on. And my heart won't take it!"

The psychiatrist pressed a b.u.t.ton on his desk.

"Whoever she is," Hall went on, "she'll push me. And I'll fall. Hundreds of feet. I'll see the cement rushing up in a blur to meet me and I'll feel the first horrible pain of contact--"

There was a click.

The office door opened.

A girl walked in.

"Miss Thomas," the psychiatrist began, "I'd like you to--"

Philip Hall screamed. He stared at the girl in the white nurse's uniform and took a step backward.

"Oh, Christ! No!"

"Mr. Hall, this is my receptionist, Miss Thomas."

"No," Hall cried. "It's her. It is. And I know who she is now, G.o.d save me! I know who she is!"The girl in the white uniform took a tentative step into the room.

Hall screamed again, threw his hands over his face, turned and tried to run.

A voice called, "Stop him!"

Hall felt the sharp pain of the sill against his knee, realized in one hideous moment what was happening. Blindly he reached out, grasping. But it was too late. As if drawn by a giant force, he tumbled through the open window, out into the cold clean air.

"Hall!"

All the way down, all the long and endless way down past the thirteen floors to the gray, unyielding, hard concrete, his mind worked; and his eyes never closed . . .

"I'm afraid he's dead," the psychiatrist said, removing his fingers from Hall's wrist.

The girl in the white uniform made a little gasping sound. "But," she said, "only a minute ago, I saw him and he was--"

"I know. It's funny; when he came in, I told him to sit down. He did. And in less than two seconds he was asleep. Then he gave that yell you heard and . .

"Heart attack?"

"Yes." The psychiatrist rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. "Well," he said. "I guess there are worse ways to go. At least he died peacefully."

Introduction to

THE CROOKED MAN.

by Robert Bloch

It's difficult for me to write objectively about a colleague who was also my friend. In order to do so I would need the skill, the intelligence and the perceptive insight of someone who ranks as a major talent.

Someone like Charles Beaumont.

Fortunately, there's no need for me to establish his creative credentials. The stories in this collection are proof of his professional prowess, along with his outstanding achievements in television and films.

Let me confine myself instead to our personal relationship. I was never privileged to count myself a close companion of this remarkable man, but during the latter years of his life our paths crossed constantly, and for this I am truly grateful.

When I came out to Hollywood, late in 1 959, 1 was a lowly apprentice as a scriptwriter, while Chuck had already begun his spectacular rise. I'd met him casually on a few prior occasions and knew him as a highly-acclaimed contributor to _Playboy_. Now we found ourselves together on a social basis and I witnessed the soaring of his career. Soon he was enjoying well-earned eminence for his work on _Twilight Zone_ and his filmwriting future appeared a.s.sured. One of his screenplays, _The Intruder_,seemed destined to become a major production with a top director, big-name stars and high-budget promotion.

Then, as so often happens in such circ.u.mstances, problems arose and high hopes fell. But eventually the film was made--on a shoe-string budget, a curtailed productionschedule--the stuff of which bad dreams are made. Bad dreams, and B pictures.

So when I was invited, along with Chuck's friends and the usual studio functionaries, to a screening at Twentieth Century-Fox, I had qualms and misgivings about what to expect from the evening's entertainment.

To my surprise and delight, _The Intruder_ proved to be just that--a surprise and a delight. Shot on location, in black-and-white, it is arguably Roger Corman's best directorial effort. The then virtually-unknown leading player, one William Shatner, contributed a remarkable performance. So did his supporting cast--including none other than Charles Beaumont himself, in a small part as a high school princ.i.p.al. Two other writer friends of his, George Clayton Johnson and Bill Nolan, had a hoot playing a pair of redneck racists. But the film, a powerful drama of bigotry and rabble-rousing in a southern setting, was truly ahead of its time; apparently the general public was not yet ready to respond to the social issues which the script so realistically raised.

The film failed, but Chuck succeeded. He went on to other a.s.signments on top productions, and though these too were apt to furnish frustrations, Beaumont's talent was recognized. Almost twenty years later, when I found myself working with George Pal on his last projects before his sudden death, he told me how highly he esteemed Chuck's work on _The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao_ and _The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm_. It was still a matter of his major regret that studio executives forced changes in the shooting scripts which Pal had wanted to keep inviolate. And the portions of these films which were not tampered with clearly demonstrate Beaumontian brilliance in comedy concepts.

Chuck's life, however, had lost any claim to comic elements. As success increased, the toll on his health escalated.

Attending the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago, in 1962, 1 was surprised to encounter Chuck--a tired, driven man who, by his own account, was in the process of fleeing Hollywood for good. He was finishing an a.s.signment for Playboy, heading for New York, and after that he meant to hole up and get to work on what he hoped would be a major novel.

All this I learned when we'd repaired to the bar. As he confided his plans over drinks I asked him just where he intended to do his actual writing on the book.

"I'm going to Rome," he said.