Nightmares & Geezenstacks (2 page)

He awoke feeling wonderful, with the sun bright and warm upon him and spring in the air. He had dozed off-for less than half an hour, he knew, because the angle of shadows from the beneficent sun had changed but slightly while he slept-sitting upright upon the park bench; only his head had nodded and then fallen forward.

The park was beautiful with the green of spring, softer green than summer’s, the day was magnificent, and he was young and in love. Wondrously in love, dizzily in love. And happily in love; only last night, Saturday night, he had proposed to Susan and she had accepted him, more or less. That is, she had not given him a definite yes but she had invited him this afternoon to meet her family and had said that she hoped he would love them and that they would love him—as she did. If that wasn’t tantamount to an acceptance, what was? They’d fallen in love at sight, almost, which was why he had yet to meet her family.

Sweet Susan, of the soft brown hair, with the cute little nose that was almost pug, of the faint, tender freckles and the big soft brown eyes.

She was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him, that could ever happen to anyone.

Well, it was midafternoon now and that was when Susan had asked him to call. He stood up from the bench and, since he found his muscles a bit cramped from the nap, yawned luxuriously. Then he started to walk the few blocks from the park where he had been killing time to the house he’d taken her home to last night, a short walk through the bright sunshine, the spring day.

He climbed the steps and knocked on the door. It opened and for a second he thought Susan herself had answered it, but the girl only looked like Susan. Her sister, probably; she’d mentioned having a sister only a year older than she.

He bowed and introduced himself, asked for Susan. He thought the girl looked at him strangely for a moment. Then she said, “Come in, please. She’s not here at the moment, but if you’ll wait in the parlor there—”

He waited in the parlor there. How odd of her to have gone out. Even briefly.

Then he heard the voice, the voice of the girl who had let him in, talking in the hallway outside and, in understandable curiosity, stood up and went to the hallway door to listen. She seemed to be talking into a telephone.

“Harry—
please come home right away
, and bring the doctor with you. Yes, it’s Grandpa… No, not another heart attack. Like the time before when he had amnesia and thought that Grandma was still—No,
not
senile dementia, Harry, just amnesia, but worse this time. Fifty years off—his memory is way back before he even married Grandma…”

Suddenly old, aged fifty years in fifty seconds, he wept silently as he leaned against the door…

He awoke with full recollection of the decision, the big decision, he had made while lying here trying to go to sleep the night before. The decision that he must hold to without weakening if ever again he was to think of himself as a man, a whole man. He must be firm in demanding that his wife give him a divorce or all was lost and he would never again have the courage. It had been inevitable, he saw now, from the very start of their marriage six years ago, that this turning point, this tide of his affairs, would come.

To be married to a woman stronger than himself, stronger in every way, was not only intolerable but had been making him progressively more and more a helpless weakling, a hopeless mouse. His wife could, and did, best him at everything. An athlete, she could beat him easily at golf, at tennis, at everything. She could outride him and outhike him; she could drive a car better than he’d ever be able to. Expert at almost everything, she could make a fool of him at bridge or chess, even poker, which she played like a man. Worse, she had gradually taken over the reins of his business and financial affairs and could and did make more money than he had ever made or hoped to make. There was no way in which his ego, what little was left of it, had not been bruised and battered over the years of their marriage.

Until now, until Laura had come along. Sweet, lovable little Laura who was their house guest this week and who was everything that his wife was not, fragile and dainty, adorably helpless and sweet. He was mad about her and knew that in her lay salvation for him. Married to Laura he could be a man again, and would be. And she would marry him, he felt sure; she
had
to for she was his only hope. This time he
had
to win, no matter what his wife said or did.

He showered and dressed quickly, dreading the coming scene with his wife but eager to get it over with while his courage lasted. He went downstairs and found his wife alone at the breakfast table.

She looked up as he came in. “Good morning, dear,” she said. “Laura has finished breakfast and gone for a walk. I asked her to, so I could talk to you privately.”

Good, he thought, sitting down across from her. His wife had seen what had been happening to him and was making things easier by bringing up the subject herself.

“You see, William,” she said, “I want a divorce. I know this will come as a shock to you, but—Laura and I are in love with each other and are going away together.”

He awoke suddenly and completely, wondering why he had let himself drop off when he hadn’t meant to, and quickly glanced at the luminous dial of his wrist watch. It gleamed brightly in the otherwise utter darkness and told him that the time was only a few minutes after eleven o’clock. He relaxed; he’d taken only a very brief cat nap. He’d gone to bed here, on this silly sofa, less than half an hour ago. If his wife really was going to come to him, it was too early. She’d have to wait until she was positive that his damned sister was asleep, and sound asleep.

It was such a ridiculous situation. They’d been married only three weeks, were on their way back home from their honeymoon, and this was the first time he’d slept alone in that time—and all because of his sister Deborah’s absurd insistence that they spend the night in her apartment here on their way back home. Another four hours’ driving would have got them there, but Debbie had insisted and finally carried her point. After all, he’d realized, a night’s continence wouldn’t hurt him, and he had been tired; it would be much better to face his last lap of driving fresh, in the morning.

Of course Debbie’s apartment had only the one bedroom and he knew in advance, before accepting her invitation, that he could not possibly have accepted her offer to sleep, herself, out here and let him and Betty have the bedroom. There are degrees of hospitality which one cannot accept, even from one’s own sweet and loving spinster sister. But he’d felt sure, or almost sure, that Betty would wait out his sister’s going to sleep and come to join him, if only for a few affectionate moments—for she might be inhibited in giving more than that lest sounds might awaken Debbie—to give him a better “good night” than, under his sister’s eyes, they’d indulged in.

Surely she’d come to him—at least for a real good night kiss, and if she was willing to risk going beyond that, so was he—and so he’d decided not to go to sleep right away, but to wait for her to come to him, at least for an hour or so.

Surely she would—yes, the door was opening quietly in the darkness and quietly closing again, only the faint click of the latch being really audible, and then there was the soft rustle of her nightgown or negligee or whatever falling, and she was under the covers with him, pressing her body against his, and the only conversation was his whispered “Darling…” and her whispered “Shhhh…” But what more conversation was needed?

None at all, none at all, but for the so-long so-short minutes until the door opened again, this time with glaring white light coming through it, outlining in white horror the silhouette of his wife standing there rigid and beginning to scream.

He awoke to the brightest, bluest morning he had ever seen. Through the window beside the bed, he could see an almost incredible sky. George slid out of bed quickly, wide awake and not wanting to miss another minute of the first day of his vacation. But he dressed quietly so as not to awaken his wife. They had arrived here at the lodge—loaned them by a friend for the week of their vacation—late the evening before and Wilma had been very tired from the trip; he’d let her sleep as long as she could. He carried his shoes into the living room to put them on.

Tousle-haired little Tommy, their five-year-old, came out of the smaller bedroom he’d slept in, yawning. “Want some breakfast?” George asked him. And when Tommy nodded, “Get dressed then, and join me in the kitchen.”

George went to the kitchen but before starting breakfast, he stepped through the outside door and stood looking around; it had been dark when they’d arrived and he knew what the country was like only by description. It was virgin woodland, more beautiful than he’d pictured it. The nearest other lodge, he’d been told, was a mile away, on the other side of a fairly large lake. He couldn’t see the lake for the trees but the path that started here from the kitchen door led to it, a little less than a quarter of a mile away. His friend had told him it was good for swimming, good for fishing. The swimming didn’t interest George; he wasn’t afraid of the water but he didn’t like it either, and he’d never learned how to swim. But his wife was a good swimmer and so was Tommy—a regular little water rat, she called him.

Tommy joined him on the step; the boy’s idea of getting dressed had been to put on a pair of swim trunks so it hadn’t taken him long. “Daddy,” he said, “let’s go see the lake before we eat, huh, Daddy?”

“All right,” George said. He wasn’t hungry himself and maybe when they got back Wilma would be awake.

The lake was beautiful, an even more intense blue than the sky, and smooth as a mirror. Tommy plunged into it gleefully and George called to him to stay where it was shallow, not to swim out.

“I can swim, Daddy. I swim swell.”

“Yes, but your mother’s not here. You stay close.”

“Water’s
warm
, Daddy.”

Far out, George saw a fish jump. Right after breakfast he’d come down with his rod and see if he could catch a lunch for them.

A path along the edge of the lake led, he’d been told, to a place a couple of miles away where rowboats could be rented; he’d rent one for the whole week and keep it tied up here. He stared toward the end of the lake trying to see the place.

Suddenly, chillingly, there was an anguished cry, “
Daddy, my leg, it
—”

George whirled and saw Tommy’s head way out, twenty yards at least, and it went under the water and came up again, but this time there was a frightening
glubbing
sound when Tommy tried to yell again. It must be a cramp, George thought frantically; he’d seen Tommy swim several times that distance.

For a second he almost flung himself into the water, but then he told himself: It won’t help him for me to drown with him and if I can get Wilma there’s at least a chance…

He ran back toward the lodge. A hundred yards away he started yelling “
Wilma!
” at the top of his voice and when he was almost to the kitchen door she came through it, in pajamas. And then she was running after him toward the lake, passing him and getting ahead since he was already winded, and he was fifty yards behind her when she reached the edge, ran into the water and swam strongly toward the spot where for a moment the back of the boy’s head showed at the surface.

She was there in a few strokes and had him and then, as she put her feet down to tread water for the turn, he saw with sudden sheer horror—a horror mirrored in his wife’s blue eyes—that she was standing on the bottom, holding their dead son, in only three feet of water.

He awoke when the alarm clock rang, but lay in bed a while after he’d shut it off, going a final time over the plans he’d made for embezzlement that day and for murder that evening.

Every little detail had been worked out, but this was the final check. Tonight at forty-six minutes after eight he’d be free, in every way. He’d picked that moment because this was his fortieth birthday and that was the exact time of day, of the evening rather, when he had been born. His mother had been a bug on astrology, which was why the moment of his birth had been impressed on him so exactly. He wasn’t superstitious himself but it had struck his sense of humor to have his new life begin at forty, to the minute.

Time was running out on him, in any case. As a lawyer :t who specialized in handling estates, a lot of money passed through his hands—and some of it had passed into them. A year ago he’d “borrowed” five thousand dollars to put into something that looked like a sure-fire way to double or triple the money, but he’d lost it instead. Then he’d “borrowed” more to gamble with, in one way or another, to try to recoup the first loss. Now he was behind to the tune of over thirty thousand; the shortage couldn’t be hidden more than another few months and there wasn’t a hope that he could replace the missing money by that time. So he had been raising all the cash he could without arousing suspicion, by carefully liquidating assets, and by this afternoon he’d have running-away money to the tune of well over a hundred thousand dollars, enough to last him the rest of his life.

And they’d never catch him. He’d planned every detail of his trip, his destination, his new identity, and it was foolproof. He’d been working on it for months.

His decision to kill his wife had been relatively an afterthought. The motive was simple: he hated her. But it was only after he’d come to the decision that he’d never go to jail, that he’d kill himself if he was ever apprehended, that it came to. him that—since he’d die anyway if caught—he had nothing to lose in leaving a dead wife behind him instead of a living one.

He’d hardly been able to keep from laughing at the appropriateness of the birthday present she’d given him (yesterday, a day ahead of time); it had been a new suitcase. She’d also talked him into celebrating his birthday by letting her meet him downtown for dinner at seven, Little did she guess how the celebration would go after that. He planned to have her home by eight forty-six and satisfy his sense of the fitness of things by making himself a widower at that exact moment. There was a practical advantage, too, of leaving her dead. If he left her alive but asleep she’d guess what had happened and call the police when she found him gone in the morning. If he left her dead her body would not be found that soon, possibly not for two or three days, and he’d have a much better start.

Things went smoothly at his office; by the time he went to meet his wife everything was ready. But she dawdled over drinks and dinner and he began to worry whether he could get her home by eight forty-six. It was ridiculous, he knew, but it had become important that his moment of freedom should come then and not a minute earlier or a minute later. He watched his watch.

He would have missed it by half a minute if he’d waited till they were inside the house. But the dark of the porch of their house was perfectly safe, as safe as inside. He swung the blackjack viciously once, as she stood at the front door, waiting for him to open it. He caught her before she fell and managed to hold her upright with one arm while he got the door open and then got it closed from the inside.

Then he flicked the switch and yellow light leaped to fill the room, and, before they could see that his wife was dead and that he was holding her up, all the assembled birthday party guests shouted “
Surprise!
”