Punish the Sinners (41 page)

She would pray. She would pray for guidance, and the Blessed Virgin would tell her what to do.

She began praying. She prayed all through the night And all through the night the voices howled in her mind, calling to her, chanting to her.

The night was long, but for Marilyn Crane it wasn’t nearly long enough.

Peter Balsam watched the sun come up, watched the black horizon turn first to a pearly gray, then to a pale rose as the first rays crept above the hills. The long night was over.

He’d sat up through the endless hours, concentrating his depleted energy on resisting the strange impulses within him. Hour after hour, he had heard the chanting echoing in his mind, reaching out to him like invisible fingers, pulling at him, demanding that he leave his home and go—where?

He was sure he knew. He was sure the Society of St Peter Martyr was reaching out to him, trying to draw him to the rectory, trying to ply its evil on him once again.

The telephone had rung several times during the night, its jarring clangor breaking into his intense concentration, sending waves of fear through him. He wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t leave the chair he clung to. Each time it rang, it seemed louder, and went on longer. The last call had been just before dawn, and went on endlessly, the steadily paced rhythm of the bell breaking in on him, rattling on his nerves, shaking him.

Now, as the sun rose over Neilsville, Peter Balsam dragged himself into the tiny bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror, and wondered if the image he saw
was truly himself, or if something else was being reflected there.

The eyes were rimmed in red from lack of sleep, and at the corners, crow’s feet were beginning to show starkly against his pale skin. His whole face seemed to sag under the weariness he felt He wondered how long he could go on.

Today, he decided. Today, somehow, he must find a way to get into the rectory, to search the study. Whatever he was looking for, it had to be diere. If it wasn’t there was no hope at all.

He began dressing, fighting off the tiredness. An irrational idea grew in his mind, and he reached up to the highest shelf of his closet and pulled a large box from the depths. He set it on the bed, and opened it His monastic robes lay inside, relics from a more secure past He put on the unfamiliar articles, one by one.

He knew the exhaustion was overtaking him, knew that he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing. He tried to tell himself to take off the vestments, to put on his ordinary clothing. But his body wouldn’t obey, and once again he heard the chanting voices reaching out to grasp his mind. Only now he had no more resources left. His fight was done. As the unspoken commands came into his mind, his body numbly obeyed.

In his black robes, a crucifix swinging from his waist, an exhausted Peter Balsam left his apartment and began walking toward Main Street

Marilyn Crane, too, had fought against the voices through the long night her beads clutched in her hands, counting out the decades over and over, praying for her soul. As the sun climbed into the sky above Neilsville, Marilyn put the rosary aside, and looked at her fingers. They had grown red during the night, and had swollen.
Blisters showed where she had squeezed the beads, as if through pressure alone she could find strength. Her legs ached, and at first she could barely move. She sat on the edge of the bed, flexing first one knee, then the other. She tried to close out the chaos that still raged in her mind, and concentrated instead on the sounds of her family preparing for the day.

She heard her mother calling her, and forced herself to get up from the bed, and move through the door of her room, and down the stairs.

In the kitchen, her mother stared at her.

“You’re not dressed,” the voice accused. One more accusing voice. One more fragment of disapproval, adding itself to the confusion.

“I’m staying home today.” Her voice was flat, drained by the long hours of whispered prayer.

“Don’t be silly.” Geraldine looked sharply at her younger daughter. “Are you sick?”

“No. Just tired.”

“Well, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have studied so late. But that’s your fault and no one else’s. You’ll go to school.”

The words rang in Marilyn’s mind as she slowly plodded up the stairs. “Your fault Your fault Your fault” Everything was her fault Everything that went wrong was her fault The chaos in her mind grew, and Marilyn Grane stopped thinking.

She dressed slowly, almost dreamily, and when she was finished, she gazed at herself in the mirror.

“I’m pretty, she thought I’m really very pretty.

She went downstairs, and presented herself to her mother. Geraldine surveyed her daughter critically.

“White?” she asked. “For school? That’s a Sunday dress.”

“But I want to wear it today.”

Why not? Geraldine Grane asked herself. She looks so tired, and if it’ll make her feel better, why not? She kissed her daughter on the cheek, and Marilyn left the house.

She walked slowly, almost unaware of her surroundings. Suddenly she felt at peace, and the voices in her head were no longer calling to her so stridently; now they were singing to her, caressing her spirit

She got to Main Street but instead of turning to start up the long hill to the school, she turned the other way, and began walking into Neilsville, her soft white skirt floating around her, the morning sun bathing her face.

Far ahead, as if at the end of a tunnel, she saw a shape moving toward her. She concentrated on the shape, and her focus seemed to narrow until she was no longer aware of anything else: only the dark shape coming slowly closer. Marilyn clutched her purse to her abdomen with one hand, and with the other once again began counting the decades of the rosary.

   Peter Balsam trudged slowly up Main Street vaguely aware that people were staring at him. He knew he must be an odd spectacle in his robes, his face unshaven, his eyes swollen and red. He wanted to go back, to go home and lock himself in once more. But it was too late. The chanting had a firm grasp on his mind now, and he could only keep walking, his pace steady, one foot carefully placed in front of the other.

Then, far ahead, he saw a figure in white coming toward him. He felt his pace pick up, and idly wondered why. The white figure wavered in front of him, and he realized that it wasn’t the figure that wavered; it was himself. He steadied himself, pausing for a moment to regain his balance. Ahead of him the figure in white seemed to pause too.

Peter strained his eyes, trying to make out who it was. Then he knew.

It was Marilyn Crane.

She should have been going the same way he was going, up the hill, to the school. Instead, she was coming toward him.

Something was wrong. He forced his exhausted mind to begin functioning again. Marilyn was coming toward him, and something was wrong.

Now he tried consciously to hurry; his feet refused to obey him. But he had to get to her.

He raised his black-robed arm and waved.

   Marilyn saw the dark shape coming closer, and then she saw the uplifted arm. It was beckoning to her. Beckoning, as the voices in her head had beckoned.

Suddenly she knew what the figure was.

Clothed in black, Death was coming for her.

She wanted to run, wanted to fling herself into the arms of the specter, and let him carry her away.

But there was something she had to do first There was some act she had to commit, some symbolic gesture she was required to make to let the figure know that she was ready to accept Him.

Her right hand dropped the rosary beads, and the crucifix clattered to the sidewalk. Marilyn knelt, reached into her purse, her eyes fastened on the black figure before her. Her fingers closed on the package. The razor blades that had been with her for so long. She fumbled at them.

   Peter stopped suddenly, realizing that Marilyn was no longer coming toward him. He saw the crucifix and beads fall to the sidewalk, and his hand went to his waist, his fingers tightening on his own rosary.

She was kneeling now, and had dropped her purse near her beads.

And then the redness began to flow from her wrist, and Peter knew what was happening. He began to run.

   Marilyn watched the blood spurt from her left wrist, and quickly transferred the blade to her other hand. She began hacking clumsily at the arteries of her right wrist. Suddenly the blade met its mark; skin and flesh parted. She stared at the throbbing artery for a split second, then plunged the razor deep into it A crimson fountain gushed forth, splashing against the white of her dress, and dribbling slowly to the pavement beneath her.

She looked up, away from the blood. She had been right. Death was coming for her now, hurrying toward her, and she must go to meet Him. She began running, her arms stretched out toward her approaching Death, the blood spewing from her wrists.

   The truck was coming toward Main Street on First Street For once, the light—Neilsville’s only traffic light—was green. The driver pressed on the accelerator and the engine surged. He would make the light

It happened so fast the driver had no time to respond.

From the left, a figure ran in front of the truck, a blur of red and blinding white. He moved his foot to the brake, but before the truck even began to slow he heard the dull thump, and the scream.

He brought the truck to a halt and leaped from the cab. He threw up on the pavement

Her head caught under the left front wheel, her neck broken, Marilyn Crane lay in a crimson heap. Only the blood, still being slowly pumped from her wrists, signified that she was still alive.

Peter Balsam saw it happen, saw Marilyn dashing across the street toward him, too intent on him to notice that the light was wrong, and that the track was coming. If she saw it before it hit her, she gave no sign. She didn’t try to veer away, she didn’t try to stop.

She screamed once, but that was a reflex.

He never knew whether he paused, or whether he took in the scene as he ran. But suddenly he was beside her, on his knees, her blood soaking the heavy material of his robes.

Peter Balsam, his mind reeling, began praying over the broken and dying body of Marilyn Crane.

From out of his past, from somewhere in his memory, Peter began administering the Last Rites to Marilyn.

   The crowd gathered slowly, until there was a solid mass of people surrounding Peter as he prayed for Marilyn’s soul. The crowd was in shock, but finally one of them broke away and found a telephone.

A few moments later, the ambulance screamed through Neilsville.

   In the rectory, Monsignor Vernon stared into the last coals of the dying fire. An intense satisfaction filled him, and he stood up. He moved to the window, drawing the curtain open to the sunlight With the sunshine came the howl of the siren.

The priest smiled softly. At last, the long night was over.

He began to prepare for the day ahead.

The story was sweeping through Neilsville even before the ambulance had taken Marilyn Crane and Peter Balsam to the hospital.

Neilsville stopped functioning. For the first time, each one of them, as he heard the story, felt personally touched. Until that day they had talked, spoken in whispers, wondered about the girls who had died. But that day, they had seen it, watched from the sidewalks, from the windows, as tibie evil among them spilled out into the street By noon, everyone in town had heard the story, and told it, and heard it again. For each of them it was as if they had seen it themselves; by afternoon each of them believed he had seen it

School was canceled before it even began that day, and the Sisters retired to their private chapel to spend the day in prayer. The children went home, but on their way home they talked, and by the time they reached their homes, all of them were sure that they had seen Marilyn Crane die.

She was dead by the time the ambulance reached the hospital, but still, in the manner of hospitals, they tried to act as if she was not They worked over her for nearly an hour, and all the time they worked, Peter Balsam sat numbly looking on, knowing they were not treating Marilyn, but treating themselves, avoiding by
simple activity the truth of what had happened, what was happening.

   Margo Henderson walked briskly into the emergency room, but when she saw why she had been called she came to an abrupt halt She stared at the specter before her, not wanting to believe her eyes. But then the professionalism born of years in the hospital came to the fore, and she steeled herself. She approached Peter Balsam.

“Peter?” There was no answer, and she realized he was in shock. She repeated his name: “Peter.”

“I have to end it,” he murmured. “I have to end it.” He kept repeating the phrase as Margo led him through the halls.

   Dr. Shields gave him a shot, and he slowly came out of it. He gazed first at Margo, then at the doctor.

“She’s dead,” he said, neither asking a question nor stating a fact.

“What happened?” Dr. Shields asked gently. “Can you talk about it?”

“Nothing to talk about” Peter said thickly. “T have to end it, that’s all.”

“Peter, there’s nothing for you to do,” Margo said. Suddenly an image flashed in her mind, an image of the attractive young man she had met on the train such a short time ago. Could this haggard being, his bloody robe hanging limply from stooped shoulders, be the same young man?

No, she decided, it could not Biting her lips to hold back her tears, she hurried from the room. Peter watched her go, and knew that this time she was gone forever. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered
was that he must end the horror. He tried to focus on the doctor.

“I have to sleep,” he said. “Can you give me something to sleep? If I sleep, I’ll be all right”

Dr. Shields nodded. “Why don’t I admit you to the hospital?”

“They’ll watch me?” Peter asked.

‘Watch you?”

“While I sleep. They’ll watch me while I sleep?” Dr. Shields nodded.

“If they’ll watch me,” Peter said vaguely. “I can’t sleep alone, you know.”

Dr. Shields nodded understanding, though he hadn’t the vaguest idea of what the young man was talking about