The Demon (36 page)

 
He stood jammed in the rush-hour crowd on the subway platform. The sound of trains rushing through the tunnels and screeching to a stop at the station was drowned out by the pounding of his heart. The sound flooded through him. His head felt as if it might burst. His eyes felt as if someone were shoving two huge thumbs against them. All of his body seemed to be stuck in his throat. He had to concentrate on his anal sphincter muscle. His muscles tightened until they felt like bands of iron about to snap. He could hear the train in the distance. It sounded louder. And louder. He could not breathe. He was chilled with sweat. His hands and feet were numb with cold. His head shook with terror. He almost lost his vision. The train grew louder. It started to roar and scream at him. The person in front of him became a blur. He could feel the platform trembling as the train got closer and closer until all there was was the roar of the train and Harry screamed under the roar AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH-HHHHHHHHH as he shoved the body in front of him and the train thudded into it and the screams and screeching mixed with the roar of the train and the steel-on-steel screech

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as brakes were suddenly applied and the window of the motormans cubicle was covered with his vomit and the passengers screamed and yelled and moaned as they went plummeting forward and the parts of the body splattered and rolled and bounced along the tracks and platform and people were sprinkled with brains and bones and flesh and blood and Harry almost fainted and started to stagger away from the crowd so he could run up the stairs but he couldnt move more than a few feet at a time being crushed by the hysterical crowd and the thudding and screaming inside his head his legs almost paralyzed from terror and ecstasy, and he inched his way along the platform and eventually a few feet up the stairs and he could see the blood splattered against the pillars and on a womans face who was screaming hysterically as she wiped and clawed at her face and others tried to keep her from tearing her own flesh from her face and somewhere in the darkness of the tunnel and on the shiny steel of the tracks was the body of a stranger and it was spread over more than a quarter of a mile of track and tunnel and platform and people and soon the roar in Harrys head took the form of words and he tried to understand the words as he stood on the stairway looking at the people pushing shoving vomiting and the transit police trying desperately to fight their way through the crowd to the train to find out what had happened and what they should do and Harry squinted hard as he tried to listen to those words and then finally he understood them and he almost screamed with joy as he looked down on the chaos as emergency crews tried to pry open the doors to get to the motorman who had passed out and was slumped over the controls his head resting in his own vomit and the people in the train fought and strained to stand and they pounded on the doors and screeched out the windows as some tried to climb through the windows and they clawed at each other to get through the tiny openings and hands and arms were thrust through the windows and people on the platform yanked the pleading passengers through and Harry wanted to shout the words to the madness below him but only mumbled them

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to himself as he inched his way up the stairway being shoved aside by a trio of policemen thrusting their way through the crowd and its done its done its done....

Harry

remained a part of the chaos and madness for more than an hour and then reluctantly drifted away after the last siren and ghoul had left. He stayed in the vicinity of the top of the stairs, surveying as much of the scene as possible. Police and medical people were jamming their way into the station, followed by newsmen, photographers and then the TV people with their cameras and mikes. All the accelerated activity, the hysterical screams, moans and people fainting continually fed Harrys excitement and maintained it at such an intensity that for the entire time he was there he thought his legs might fold at any minute. He felt as if he were suffocating and, from time to time, that he might crumble in a faint like so many others, but he remained jammed in the crowd with the screaming police and paramedics fighting their way through and then coming back carrying people who were unconscious from a coronary or simply from hysterics. Occasionally he would get a glimpse of some of the people they were carrying out and he almost collapsed when he saw brains splattered all over their face and clothes, and with all the noise and screaming it seemed like the only words he could distinguish distinctly were, They had to wipe him up with a blotter.

 
As the last of the authorities left and the crowd started to thin, Harry could see wet spots on the platform, pillars and sides of the staircases, as well as the tracks, where the workmen had watered and scrubbed. The last of the newspaper and television reporters left after interviewing and filming dozens of eyewitnesses to the bloody tragedy.

 
Soon there were only the usual noises (they wiped him up with a blotter) of trains rumbling into and out of the station and of people talking and rushing by. Harry forced his body into motion (its done, its done) and climbed the stairs to the street and took a cab to Grand Central station.

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The high pitch of excitement stayed with him as he rode the train home listening to the wheels singsong, It is done, it is done . . . with a blotter, with a blotter . . . it is done, it is done ... with a blotter, with a blotter....

When

Harry walked into the house that night, Linda was stunned by his appearance. He looked pale, almost gray, yet was flushed, and his eyes had the glazed stare of someone ravaged by fever; when he moved, it was as if he were being moved by some outside force or control, as if weirdly detached from himself. He was, in fact, almost unrecognizable as her husband. She felt a twinge of panic as she watched him sit down.

You all right, sweetheart? You look feverish.

I dont know, shrugging and shaking his head.

 
I was almost ready to call the police or the hospitals. You are so late and you didnt call. You always do when youre going to be late and when I didnt hear from you I thought maybe you had an accident or the Lord knows what happened to you. O Harry, Im so glad to see you, hugging him and kissing him, can I get you a cup of coffee or something? What happened, honey, I was frantic with worry.

 
Train was delayed, mechanically putting his arm around her waist and resting his hand on her hip.

 
Lindas attention was suddenly drawn to the television when the newscaster said something about a terrible accident on the subway, and the camera followed paramedical personnel down the stairs to the subway platform and suddenly there was Harry on the screen for a brief moment—Harry, thats you— and the camera continued among the shrieks and clamorings of the crowd as the newscaster continued to describe the scene following the tragic accident. O my God, thats awful. You were there, Harry. O how dreadful. No wonder you dont look well.

 
Harry stared at the television set, transfixed by what he was seeing, hearing, remembering and experiencing.

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He remained in a semicomatose state the remainder of the evening, and Linda, realizing what was wrong, did not disturb him as he half watched television, believing that after a good nights sleep he would be all right.

 
Harry bolted up in the middle of the night, and Linda quickly reassured him, Its all right, Harry, its only Mary. I/ll take care of her. Shes just teething. He sat on the edge of the bed feeling his stomach thrusting itself against his throat and his head was like a ramrod starting to splinter its way out. Suddenly he jammed his hands over his mouth and hurried to the bathroom and started puking while still a few feet from the commode, bounced against the wall and slid down to the floor, still retching, and sat on the floor and hugged the cold porcelain of the bowl and continued to puke and retch, the spasms coming so rapidly and fiercely that he found it almost impossible to breathe and his feet and legs started to cramp. It continued forever....

After a

long, painful, time Linda put her cool hands on his forehead and rubbed the back of his brittle neck as he continued to retch with the dry heaves, a little green bile occasionally dribbling from his lips as he leaned against the upturned seat tor another eternity until he finally stopped from exhaustion. ...

He pushed and

pulled himself up and rinsed his face with cold water. He stretched out on his back in bed, enjoying the hollow metallic feeling that seemed to go from his mouth down to his knees. Linda looked at him with an expression of fear that bordered on panic as she brushed his hair back from his forehead. He looked at her and smiled, feeling lightheaded, euphoric and almost unreal. You look like a canary thats just been swallowed by a cat. Linda reacted instantly to his smile and words and smiled and tilted her head. You looked like you were dying.

 
No, chuckling and putting his arms around her, just something that didnt agree with me. He pulled her closer to him and kissed her on the cheek and the neck and caressed her

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with his hand and slowly, slowly moved her nightgown higher until it was a wispy frill around her neck and he caressed her stomach and thighs with his hand as he kissed her breast and excited the nipple with his lips and tongue and leaned his body against the warmth of her and made long and luxurious love to his wife . . .

                                             
then drifted into an exhausted and restful sleep . . .

                 
and awoke leisurely from the insistence of a painful erection and reached over and toyed with Lindas ear lobe and gently kissed her to a state of partial wakefulness and pressed her body with his until she awoke and once more made love to her with an urgency he had never experienced and a passion whose control over him was almost frightening. He felt and experienced each and every move with heightened sensitivity and pleasure that were magnified by the sensation of fear, a fear of infinite power, a fear that forced him on and on long after desire had melted and flowed from his body.

 
Linda was in a state of surprise the next morning that still affected her slightly by the end of the day. She took Harry Junior to school, then roamed through her gardens and Whites Woods. She sat beside the little stream that trickled through the trees and over the rocks, hoping she could dissolve the vague uneasiness she felt by remembering the pleasure of their lovemaking. But remembering the love-making actually made the uncomfortable feeling worse. Again she felt there was something wrong, and this time the feeling was stronger than ever. Actually she was fighting a premonition that was trying to tell her that there was some sort of emergency. Linda looked around at the trees and the hint of sky flashing through their limbs, and thought and pondered and became more and more confused and disturbed and finally dismissed everything simply as a result of the horrible experience Harry had had yesterday; obviously, the emotional strain had been so severe that it had not only affected Harry, but

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had also affected her. She remembered hearing that parts of the poor mans body had been strewn across the station and the people who were there. Maybe Harry had been one of them. She wanted to ask, but was afraid that if he had, it would be too painful a question for him to answer. She finally decided that all this speculation was too painful and dangerous. She left her little stream and went to the shed and got her gardening tools and went to work.

 
Harry did not have to remind himself about the horrible accident. It was done for him. Everyone seemed to be talking about it. The headlines screamed it. People stood a foot from the edge of the platform. It seemed like the entire city was conspiring to keep that hollow, metallic feeling alive in him, and to keep him remembering, and experiencing, that accentuated excitement of yesterday. Other feelings were trying to be felt, and heard, but they remained buried under the others. At least for the present.

 
With the feelings and the remembering of the horrible accident came the realization that he not only would not have to worry about those filthy pits he had found himself in, and about contracting a disease, but now he would not have to rummage through offices or dirty factories. He knew, absolutely, that an important and irrevocable change had occurred in his life.

 
As the events of the preceding day were forced upon him, he reviewed them with an almost scientific detachment and objectivity—an attitude he was able to maintain for many months. He could more or less reminisce and feel free from the compulsions that had previously plagued him, and experience the intense excitement that reliving the scene precipitated.

 
Then the power of time started to define the vague feeling that had been lying restlessly under the others. And as it started to force itself onto Harrys mind, he fought it down and tried to annihilate it, but it would not die. It wanted to shout at Harry that he was guilty, but was content to murmur indistinctly, and so Harry struggled in ignorance and fear and inevitably the edginess and squirming under the skin returned,

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but now it was magnified by the wheels of the train as they went over the same tracks every day—the same tracks, the same tracks . . . it is done, it is done . . . with a blotter, with a blotter—and the battle inside Harry White slowly built up in intensity and the tension increased slowly but steadily.

 
Linda felt, then noticed, the change in him. There seemed to be an unusual tenseness about him. His movements and reactions were quick, almost spastic. At first she thought it might be because he was preoccupied with some business problem, but in the past, whenever that had been the case, he had worked late and been a little withdrawn. Now he was coming home early, and had done so for many months, and did not seem to be withdrawn or preoccupied, but extremely sensitive, a sensitivity that with time was developing into irritability. He was not nasty to her, or to the children, but she could see that the childrens noise grated on him as if his nerves were on the surface of his skin and raw, and that he had to fight with himself not to yell at them more often than he did.