The Omen (11 page)

"Mrs. Baylock?!!" Katherine called.

Thorn, seated across from her unfolding the newspaper, was jolted by the anger of her tone.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Damien. I can't stand that noise."

"It's not all that bad . . ."

"Mrs. Baylock!" she called.

The heavyset woman entered at a near run.

"Ma'am?"

"Take him out of here," Katherine commanded.

"He's only playing," objected Thorn.

"I said take him out!"

"Yes, ma'am," replied Mrs. Baylock.

She took Damien by the hand, leading him from the room. As he went, the child gazed back at his mother, his eyes filled with hurt. Thorn saw it, and turned to Katherine with despair. She continued eating, avoiding his eyes.

"Why ever did we have a child, Katherine?"

"Our image," she replied.

".. . What?"

"How could we not have a child, Jeremy? Who ever heard of a beautiful family not having a beautiful child?"

Thorn absorbed it in silence, upset by her tone.

"Katherine. .."

"It's true, isn't it? We never thought of what it would be like to raise one. We just thought of what our pictures would look like in the newspapers."

Thorn gazed at her dumbfounded; she returned his gaze evenly.

"It's true, isn't it?" she asked.

"Is this what your doctor is doing for you?"

"Yes."

"Then I think I'd better have a word with him."

"Yes, he has something to talk to you about, too."

Her manner was direct and cold. And Thorn instinctively feared what she had to say.

"What would that be?" he asked.

"We have a problem, Jeremy," she said.

". . . Yes?"

"I want no more children. Ever."

Thorn searched her face, waiting for more.

"Is that all right?" she asked.

"If that's what you want," he replied.

"Then you'll agree to an abortion."

Thorn froze. Open-mouthed. Stunned.

"I'm pregnant, Jeremy. I found out yesterday morning."

A silence passed. Thorn's head was reeling.

"Did you hear me?" Katherine asked.

"How can that be?" Thorn whispered.

"It's the coil. It's sometimes not effective."

"You're pregnant?" he gasped.

"Not far."

Thorn was ashen, and his hands trembled as he stared at the table.

"Did you tell anyone?" he asked.

"Just Dr. Greer."

"Are you sure?"

"That I don't want to keep it?"

"That you're pregnant."

"Yes."

Thorn remained immobile, his gaze frozen into space. Beside him the phone rang and, mechanically, he picked it up.

"Yes?" He paused, not recognizing the voice. "Yes, this is he." His eyes became puzzled and he glanced up at Katherine. "What? Who is this? Hello? Hello?"

The caller hung up; Thorn sat unmoving, his eyes filled with alarm.

"What was it?" asked Katherine.

"Something about the newspapers ..."

"What about the newspapers?"

"Some person just called me . . . and said ... to 'read' them today."

He looked down at the folded newspaper in front of him and slowly opened it, cringing as his eyes fell on a photo on the front page.

"What is it?" Katherine asked. "What's wrong?"

But he was unable to reply, and she took it from him, finding the object of his gaze. It was a photo of a priest impaled on a window pole, the banner beneath it reading: priest killed in bizarre tragedy.

Katherine looked at her husband and saw that he was shaking; in confusion, she reached for his hand. It was cold.

"Jerry..."

Thorn rose stiffly and began to move out of the room.

"Did you know him?" asked Katherine.

But he never replied. Katherine looked again at the photo, and as she read the article she heard Thorn's car start, then disappear down the drive.

For Mrs. James Akrewian, teacher of the third grade, Bishops Industrial School, the day had begun like any other. It was Friday, and when the rain started she was preparing her class for reading aloud. Though no rain was coming in the window, she attempted to close it to shut out the noise. She had complained many times about the antiquated windows, for she could not herself reach the uppermost ones, needing a stool to reach them, even with the pole. Unable to make contact between the metal ring on the window and the hook on the pole, she thrust the pole outward, attempting to catch the back end of the window and pull it toward her. The balance of the pole was upset and it slipped from her grip, falling outward where it hit the passerby who was probably seeking shelter from the rain. The identity of the deceased is being withheld by police pending notification of relatives.

Katherine could make no sense of it and she called Thorn's office, leaving word for him to phone her as soon as he arrived. Apparently he never arrived, for by noon the return call had still not come. She next phoned Greer, her psychiatrist, but he was too busy and could not come to the phone. Her last call was to the hospital to make arrangements for an abortion.

After seeing the priest's photo, Thorn had driven fast toward London, his mind racing in an attempt to sort things out. Katherine was pregnant, the priest had been right. And now he could no longer dismiss the rest of what Tassone had said. He tried to recall their meeting in the park: the names, the places that Tassone said he should go. He fought for calm, trying to register each recent event: the conversation with Katherine, the anonymous phone call. "Read the papers," the voice had said. The voice was familiar, but Thorn could not nail it down. Who on the face of this earth knew he was involved with the priest? The photographer. That was the voice. It was Haber Jennings.

Going to his office, Thorn closeted himself alone. Buzzing his secretary on the intercom, he asked her to get Jennings on the phone. She tried but received a tape-recorded message that Jennings was out. She reported this to Thorn, mentioning the tape recording; Thorn requested the number and dialed it himself. The recording was in Jennings' own voice, one of the do-it-yourself answering services. It was the same voice that called him. Why had he not identified himself? What kind of game was he playing?

Thorn next received word that Katherine had called, but he delayed calling her back. She would want to talk about the abortion and he was not ready to reply.

"He will kill it," Thorn remembered the priest saying. "He will kill it while it slumbers in the womb."

Thorn quickly found the phone number of Dr. Charles Greer and explained he was on his way over on a matter of urgency.

Thorn's visit came as no surprise to Greer, for the doctor had sensed Katherine's deterioration. There was a fine line between anxiety and desperation, and he had seen her, several times, jump back and forth across the line. Her terror could become extreme, and it occurred to him that she might try to take her life.

"One never knows how deep these fears go," he said to Thorn in his office. "But frankly I'd be remiss if I didn't confess I think she's headed for serious emotional trouble."

Thorn sat tensely in a hard-backed chair, while the young psychiatrist puffed hard on his pipe trying to keep it lit as he moved about the room.

"I've seen it before," he continued. "It's like a freight train. You can just watch it picking up steam."

"She's gotten worse then?" Thorn asked in a shaky voice.

"Let's say it's developing."

"There's nothing you can do?"

"I see her twice a week. I think she needs more constant care."

"Are you telling me she's insane?"

"Let's say she's living in her fantasies. Her fantasies are terrifying. She's responding to that terror."

"What fantasies?" asked Thorn.

Greer paused, assessing whether or not to elaborate. He sat heavily in his chair, seeing Thorn's desperate eyes.

"For one thing, she fantasizes that her child is not really hers."

The statement crashed down upon Thorn like thunder. He sat paralyzed, unable to respond.

"I interpret this not so much as a fear, frankly, as a desire. She subconsciously wishes she were childless. This is a way of accomplishing that. At least on an emotional level."

Thorn was stunned, unable to reply.

"I don't mean to suggest that the child isn't important to her," continued Greer. "On the contrary, it's the single most important thing in her life. But for some reason it's very threatening to her. I don't really know if the fear revolves around motherhood, or emotional attachment, or simply the belief that she's inadequate. Unable to handle the job."

"But she wanted a child," Thorn managed to say.

"For you."

"No..."

"Subconsciously. She felt she needed to prove herself worthy of you. How better to do that than by bearing your child?"

Thorn gazed straight ahead, his eyes filled with despair.

"Now she finds she can't cope," continued Greer, "so she searches for a reason that won't make her feel inadequate. She fantasizes that the child isn't hers, that the child is evil..."

"... What?"

"She's unable to love it," explained Greer, "so she invents a reason why it's not worthy of her love."

"She thinks the child is evil?"

Thorn was shaken now, his face rigid with fear.

"It's necessary right now for her to feel this way," explained Greer. "But the point is that, at this time, another child would be disastrous."

"In what way...'evil'?"

"This is just a fantasy. Just like the fantasy that the child isn't hers."

Thorn drew in his breath, fighting back a wave of nausea.

"There's no need to despair," assured Greer.

"Doctor..."

"Yes?"

Thorn was unable to continue; the two sat in silence, gazing at one another across the vast room.

"You were about to say something?" asked Greer.

The doctor's face registered concern, for the man before him was plainly afraid to speak.

"Mr. Thorn? Are you all right?"

"I'm frightened," Thorn whispered,

"Of course you're frightened."

"I mean . . . I'm afraid."

"This is natural."

"Something . . . terrible is happening."

"Yes. But you'll both live through it."

"You don't understand."

"I do."

"No."

"Believe me. I do."

Thorn, near tears, lowered his head into his hands.

"You've been under a strain, Mr. Thorn. Obviously more than you know."

"I don't know what to do," Thorn moaned.

"Number one, you should agree to an abortion."

Thorn raised his eyes, firmly meeting Greer's.

"No," he said. The psychiatrist reacted with surprise.

"If it's your religious principles ..."

"No."

"Surely you can see the need . . ."

"I won't do it," said Thorn resolutely.

"You must."

"No."

Greer leaned back in his chair, regarding the Ambassador with dismay.

"I'd like to know your reason," he said quietly.

Thorn gazed at him unmoving.

"It was foretold that this pregnancy would be terminated," he said, "and I'm going to fight to see that it's not."

The doctor stared at him, puzzled and concerned.

"I know what this must sound like," said Thorn. "And maybe I am . . . insane"

"Why do you say that?"

Thorn looked hard at him and spoke through a taut jaw.

"Because this pregnancy must endure to keep me from believing."

"Believing .. . ?"

"As my wife does. That the child is ..."

The word stuck in his throat, and he rose, filled with a sense of urgency. A premonition had swept over him. He feared that something was about to happen.

"Mr. Thorn?"

"Forgive me ..."

"Please sit down."

With an abrupt shake of his head, Thorn exited, heading quickly for the stairs that would take him outside. Once on the street, he moved at a run, a sense of panic welling within him as he made it to his car, fumbling with his keys. There was something wrong. He needed to be home. Flooring the accelerator, he swung a fast U-turn, tires squealing as he headed back in the direction of the highway. Pereford was a half hour away and he feared, though he didn't know why, that he might not get there in time. The streets of London were filled with midday traffic; he sounded his horn, swerving and running stoplights as the sense of desperation overwhelmed him.

At Pereford House, Katherine felt the anxiety too, busying herself with household duties in an attempt to quiet her gnawing fear. She stood now on the second-floor landing, pitcher in hand, wondering how to reach the plants that hung suspended just over the railing. She wanted to water them, but feared spilling the water onto the tile floor two stories below. Behind her, in his playroom, Damien rode his wheeled car, making the sound of a freight train, a sound that intensified as he rode faster. Unseen by Katherine, Mrs. Baylock stood in a far corner of the child's room, her eyes closed, as though locked in prayer.

On the highway, the tires squealed harshly as Thorn turned onto the cloverleaf that spewed the vehicle onto M-40, the direct road home. Thorn's face was taut with tension, his hands squeezing the wheel as the pavement blurred beneath him, his body straining with every fiber to urge the car forward. It zipped down the highway like a streak of beige lightning, passing other cars as though they were standing still. Thorn was perspiring now, as each car ahead of him became a target to be overtaken. He blasted his horn, and each car made way as his car shot ahead. He thought of the police and glanced in the rear-view mirror. And there he saw the ominous shape moving up behind him. It was another car, black and massive, following his every move. The car was a hearse. And it was gaining on him. And as Thorn watched it coming up from behind, his face froze with fear.

At Pereford, Damien sped faster on his toy car, pounding up on it as though it were a racehorse. In the hallway, Catherine stepped up onto a stool. In Da-mien's room, Mrs. Baylock gazed hard at the child as if directing him with the sheer force of willpower to go faster and the boy accelerated, wild-eyed, his face filled with frenzy.

Within his car, Thorn groaned with exertion, pushing the accelerator into the floor. The hearse was gaining on him, the face of the driver gazing coldly, directly ahead. Thorn's speedometer registered ninety, then rose to a hundred and ten, but the hearse kept coming, moving doggedly ahead. Thorn was panting now and he knew his reasoning had left him, but he was powerless to stop. He could not be overtaken. The machinery of his car screamed beneath him, but the hearse kept coming, moving up alongside. "No . . ." Thorn moaned, "no . . . !" And then they flew neck and neck, the hearse continuing to gain. Thorn pounded his wheel, demanding his car move faster, but the hearse was overtaking him, a coffin in the back moving slowly by.

In the Thorn house, Damien accelerated faster, his toy car careening wildly as it hurtled about the room, while outside in the hallway Katherine reached up tentatively from her perch on the stool.

On the highway, the hearse suddenly pulled farther ahead, as Thorn let out a bloodcurdling cry. And in that instant Damien shot out of his room, his toy car colliding with Katherine, sending her flying from her stool, clawing air as she toppled into space. Hurtling backward, she cried out, desperately grabbing for the balcony railing, taking with her a circular goldfish bowl that tumbled down beside her. Her scream ended with a sudden impact, the goldfish bowl hitting a second later and exploding into glistening shards.

Katherine lay silent now, and still; a delicate goldfish flopped on the cold tile next to her.

By the time Thorn got to the hospital, the reporters were already there, shouting questions and popping flashbulbs in his eyes as he desperately pushed his way through to a door marked intensive care. He'd arrived home to find Mrs. Baylock in a state of hysterics; she told him only that Katherine had had a fall and was taken by ambulance to City Hospital.

"Any word on her condition, Mr. Thorn?" shouted a reporter.

"Get out of my way."

"They say she had a fall."

"Let me through."

"Is she all right?"

He made his way through a double door, the reporters' voices fading behind as he ran down the hall.

"Ambassador Thorn?"

"Yes."

A doctor appeared, quickly walking toward him.

"My name is Becker," he said.

"Is she all right?" Thorn asked desperately.

"She'll recover. She hit pretty hard. She has a concussion, a broken collarbone, and some internal bleeding."

"She's pregnant."

"I'm afraid not."

"She lost it?" he gasped.

"On the floor where she hit. I was going to make an examination, but apparently your maid cleaned everything up by the time we got there."

Thorn shuddered and sagged against the wall.

"Naturally," continued the doctor, "we'll keep the details of how it happened quiet. The less people know the better."

Thorn stared at him, and the doctor saw he was confused.

"You do know she jumped," he said.

". . . Jumped?"

"From your second-floor balcony. Apparently in full view of your child and his nanny."

Thorn merely stared at him. Then he turned his face to the wall. From the tensing of his shoulders the doctor could tell he was crying.

"In a fall like this," added the doctor, "it's usually the head that hits first. So in a sense you can consider yourself lucky."

Thorn nodded, trying to stop his tears.

"There's no need for that," said the doctor. "There's a lot to be grateful for. She's still alive, and with the proper care she probably won't ever try it again. My own sister-in-law was suicidal. Took a bath and brought the toaster into it. When she pushed down the handle, she electrocuted herself."

Thorn turned and gazed at him.

"Point is, she lived through it and never tried it again. It's been four years now and no trouble at all."

"Where is she?" asked Thorn.

"She lives in Switzerland."

"My wife."

"Room 4A. She should be coming around soon."

Katherine's room was quiet and dark; a nurse was seated in the corner with a magazine as Thorn entered and stopped, his face filled with shock. The sight of Katherine was awesome. Her face was swollen and discolored; a tube from her arm led upward to a bottle of plasma. Her arm was in a cast, grotesquely crooked; she seemed unconscious, her face devoid of life.

"She's sleeping," the nurse said. Thorn moved stiffly forward to her bed. As though sensing his presence, Katherine moaned and slowly moved her head.

"Is she in pain?" Thorn asked in a shaking voice.

"She's on cloud nine," answered the nurse. "Sodium pentothal."

Thorn sat beside her, leaned his forehead on her bed, and wept. After a time he was aware that Kather-ine's hand had touched his head.

"Jerry ..." she whispered.

He looked up to see her struggling to open her eyes.

"Kathy . .." he moaned through his tears.

"Don't let him kill me."

And then she closed her eyes and slept.