The Omen (5 page)

As the boy turned, his lips went dry; the panic welling up within him as he began to pant, his face draining of color.

"My God," gasped Katherine.

"Is he ill?"

"He's like ice. He's cold as ice!"

The limousine stopped suddenly in front of the church and the door swung open; the usher's hand reaching in for Damien sent him into instant panic. Grabbing at Katherine's dress, he clung hard, beginning to whimper with fear.

"Damien!" cried Katherine. "Damien!"

As she tried to pull him off, he clung tighter, becoming more desperate as she fought to pull him off.

"Jeremy!" cried Katherine.

"Damien!" shouted Thorn.

"He's tearing my dress!"

Thorn reached for him, pulling forcefully, the child fighting harder to cling to his mother, his hands clawing her face and pulling her hair in his desperation to hold on.

"Help! God!" screamed Katherine.

"Damien!" shouted Thorn as he pulled futilely on the child. "Damien! Let go!"

As the child began to scream in terror, a crowd gathered around to watch their desperate struggle. Trying to help, Horton raced from the front seat, grabbing Damien and trying to pull him out the door. But the child had become an animal, shrieking as his fingers dug deep into Katherine's face and head, ripping a handful of hair.

"Get him off!" she screamed.

In terror she began beating at him, trying to wrest the fingers that had dug into her eye. In a sudden move, Thorn ripped Damien off her, grabbing him in a bear hug and pinning his arms to his side.

"Drive!" he panted to Horton. "Get out of here!"

And as the child struggled, Horton ran to the front seat, slamming doors as he went; the limousine lurched forward suddenly as it pulled quickly away from the curb.

"My God." sobbed Katherine, holding her head, "my . . . God. . . ."

And as the limousine sped away, the child's struggling slowly ceased, his head falling back in utter exhaustion. Horton swerved back onto the highway, and in a few moments, all was silent. Damien sat with glazed eyes, his face wet with perspiration; Thorn still clutched him in his arms, gazing fearfully ahead. Beside him, Katherine was in a state of shock, her hair pulled and torn, one eye swollen and nearly shut. They drove home in silence. No one dared to speak.

When they arrived at Pereford, they took Damien to his room and sat with him in silence as he stared out the window. His forehead was cool, so there was no need for a doctor. But he would not look at them; fearful, himself, of what he had done.

'Til take care of him," Mrs. Baylock said quietly as she entered the room.

As Damien turned and saw her, his entire posture registered relief.

"He had a fright," Katherine said to the woman.

"He doesn't like church," replied the woman. "He wanted to go to the park instead."

"He became ... wild," said Thorn.

"He was angry," said Mrs. Baylock. And she moved forward, lifting him into her arms. He clung to her. Like a child to his mother. The Thorns watched in silence. And then they slowly left the room.

"There's somethin' wrong," said Horton to his wife.

It was night now and they were in the kitchen, she having listened in silence as he recounted the day's events.

"There's somethin' wrong with that Mrs. Baylock," he continued, "and there's somethin' wrong with that boy, and there's somethin' wrong with this house."

"You're making too much of it," she replied.

"If you'd seen it, you'd know what I'm saying."

"A child's tantrum."

"An animal's tantrum."

"He's spirited, that's all."

"Since when?"

She shook her head as if to dismiss it, taking a pile of vegetables from the refrigerator and beginning to cut them into small pieces.

"Ever looked into them eyes?" asked Horton. "It's the same as lookin' into an animal's. They just watch. They wait. They know somethin' you don't know. They been someplace you never been."

"You and your hobgoblins," she muttered as she cut.

"You wait and see," assured Horton. "Something bad's happening here."

"Something bad is happening everywhere."

"I don't like it," he said darkly. Tin thinking we should leave."

At the same moment the Thorns were on the patio. It was late now and Damien was asleep; the house was quiet and dark around them. Classical music was playing softly on the hi-fi, and they sat without speaking, gazing out into the night. Katherine's face was swollen and bruised, and she methodically bathed her injured eye with a cloth which she dipped from time to time into a bowl of warm water before her. They had not uttered a word since the events of the afternoon, but merely shared one another's presence. The fear that passed between them was a fear that other parents had known: the first realization that there was something wrong with their child. It crystallized in silence, but it was not real unless voiced.

Katherine tested the bowl of water with her hand, and, finding it cold, she wrung the cloth out, pushing it away. The movement caused Thorn to gaze at her, and he waited until she was aware of it.

"Sure you don't want to call a doctor?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head.

"Just a few scratches."

"I mean ... for Damien," said Thorn.

All she could offer was a helpless shrug.

"What would we tell him?" she whispered.

"We don't have to tell him anything. Just ... have him examine him."

"He had a checkup just last month. There's nothing wrong with him. He's never been sick a day in his life."

Thorn nodded, pondering it.

"He never has, has he?" he remarked curiously.

"No."

"That's strange, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"I think so."

His tone was odd and she turned to look at him. Their eyes held, Katherine waiting for him to continue.

"I mean ... no measles or mumps ... or chicken-pox. Not even a runny nose or a cough. Or a cold."

"So?" she asked defensively.

"I just. . . think it's unusual."

"I don't."

"I do."

"He comes from healthy stock."

Thorn was stopped, and a knot within him tightened. The secret was still there. Down in the pit of his stomach. It had never left him, in all these years, but mostly, he had felt justified about it; guilty for the deception, but soothed by all the happiness it had brought. When things were going well, it was easy to hold it down, keep it dormant. But now it was somehow becoming important, and he felt it burgeoning in him as though it would clog his throat.

"If your family or mine," continued Katherine, "had a history of ... psychosis, mental disorder . .. then frankly I'd worry about what happened today."

He looked at her, then averted his eyes.

"But I've been thinking about it," she continued, "and I know it's all right. He's a fine, healthy boy. Healthy ancestry right up and down both our family trees."

Unable to look at her, Thorn slowly nodded.

"He had a fright, that's all," added Katherine. "Just a . . . bad moment. Surely every child is entitled to that."

Thorn nodded again, and, with great fatigue, rubbed his forehead. Inside he longed to tell her, have it out in the open. But it was too late. The deception had gone on too long. She would hate him for it. She might even hate the child. It was too late. She must never know.

"I've been thinking about Mrs. Baylock," said Katherine.

"Yes?"

"I've been thinking we should keep her."

"She seemed very nice today," said Thorn quietly.

"Damien is having anxieties. Maybe because he heard us talking about her in the car."

"Yes," replied Thorn.

It made sense. It could have caused the fear in the car. They thought he wasn't listening, but obviously he was taking it all in. The thought of losing her had filled him with terror.

"Yes," Thorn said again, and his voice was filled with hope.

"I'd like to give her other duties," said Katherine. "So she'll be away from home for a while in the day. Maybe have her do the afternoon shopping so I can start spending more time with Daimen."

"Who does it now? The shopping."

"Mrs. Horton."

"Will she mind giving it up?"

"I don't know. But I want to spend more time with Damien."

"I think that's wise."

They fell silent again, and Katherine turned away.

"I think that's good," reiterated Thorn. "I think that's wise."

For an instant he felt that everything was going to be all right. And then he saw that Katherine was crying. It tore at him, and he watched, helpless to comfort her.

"You were right, Kathy," he whispered. "Damien heard us talking about firing her. That's all it was. It was as simple as that."

"I pray," she responded in a quivering voice.

"Of course . . ." he whispered. "That's all it was."

She nodded, and when the tears had subsided, she stood, looking up at the darkened house.

"Well," she said, "the best thing to do with a bad day is to end it. I'm going up to bed."

"I'll just sit out here for a while. I'll be up in a minute."

Her footsteps faded behind him, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

As he gazed out into the forest, he saw instead the hospital in Rome; saw himself there, standing before a window, agreeing to take the child. Why had he not asked more about the mother? Who was she? Where had she come from? Who was the father, and why was he not there? Over the years he had made certain assumptions and they had served to calm his fears. Damien's real mother was probably a peasant girl, a girl of the Church, therefore delivering her child in a Catholic hospital. It was an expensive hospital and she wouldn't have been there without that kind of connection. She was probably an orphan herself, thus no family, and the child was born out of wedlock, this the reason no father was on hand. What else was there to know? What else could have mattered? The child was beautiful and alert, described as "perfect in every way."

Thorn was unaccustomed to doubting himself, to accusing himself; his mind struggled for reassurance that what he had done was right. He had been confused and desperate at the time. He had been vulnerable, an easy prey to suggestion. Could it possibly have been wrong? Could there have been more he needed to know?

The answers to those questions would never be known to Thorn. Only a handful of people knew them and by now they were scattered across the globe. There was Sister Teresa, Father Spilletto, and Father Tassone. Only they knew. It was for their consciences alone. In darkness of that long-distant night they had worked in feverish silence, in the tension and honor of having been chosen. In all of earth's history it had been attempted just twice before, and they knew that, this time, it must not fail. It was all in their hands, just the three of them, and it had moved like clockwork, and no one had known. After the birth, it was Sister Teresa who prepared the impostor, depilitating his arms and forehead, powdering him dry so he would look presentable when Thorn was brought up to view. The hair on his head was thick, as they had hoped, and she used a hairdryer to fluff it, first checking the scalp to make sure the birthmark was there. Thorn would never see Sister Teresa, nor would he see the diminutive Father Tassone who was at work in the basement crating two bodies to be immediately shipped away. The first body was that of Thorn's child, silenced before it uttered its first cry; the second was that of the animal, the surrogate mother of the one who survived. Outside, a truck was waiting to carry the bodies to Cerveteri, where in the silence of Cimitero di Sant' Angelo, gravediggers waited beneath the shrine.

The plan had been born of diabolical communion, and Spilletto was in charge, having chosen his accomplices with the utmost care. He was satisfied with Sister Teresa, but in the final moments became concerned about Tassone. The diminutive scholar was devout, but his belief was born of fear, and on the last day he demonstrated an instability that gave Spilletto pause. Tassone was eager, but his eagerness was self-oriented, a desperation to prove he was worthy of the job. He had lost sight of the significance of what they were doing, preoccupied instead with the importance of his own role. The self-consciousness led to anxiety, and Spilletto came close to dismissing Tassone. If one of them failed, all three would be held responsible. And more important, it could not be attempted again for another thousand years.

In the end, Tassone proved himself, performing his job with dedication and dispatch, even handling a crisis that none of them anticipated. The child was not yet dead and made a sound within his crate as it was being put onto the truck. Quickly removing the crate, Tassone returned with it to the hospital basement and himself made certain that no cry would ever come again. It had shaken him. Deeply. But he had done it, and that was all that mattered.

Around them that night in the hospital, all things appeared to be normal; doctors and nurses carrying on their routine without the slightest knowledge of what was happening in their midst. It had been performed with discretion and exactitude, and no one, especially not Thorn, had ever had a clue.

As he sat now on his patio, gazing out into the night, Thorn realized that the Pereford forest no longer was foreboding to him. He did not have the feeling, as before, that there was something watching him from within. It was peaceful now, the crickets and frogs creating their din. And it was relaxing, somehow reassuring, that life around him was normal. His eyes shifted toward the house, traveling upward to Damien's window. It was illuminated by a nightlight, and Thorn speculated on the child's face in the peacefulness of sleep. It would be the right vision to end this frightening day with, and he rose, switching off a lamp and moving into the darkened house.

It was pitch black inside and the air seemed to ring with silence. Thorn felt his way toward the stairs. There, he groped for a lightswitch, and finding none, proceeded silently upward, until he had reached the landing. He had never seen the house this dark, and realized he must have been outside, lost in thought, for a considerable time. Around him, he could hear the sound of slumbered breathing, and he walked quietly, feeling his way along the wall. His hand hit a light-switch and he flicked it, but it did not work; he continued on, turning a bend in the long, angular hall. Ahead he could see Damien's room, a faint shaft of light coming from under the door. But he suddenly froze, for he thought he heard a sound. It was a kind of vibration, a low rumble, gone before he could identify it, replaced only by the silent atmosphere of the hall. He prepared to step forward, but the sound came again, louder this time, causing his heart to start pounding. Then he looked down and saw the eyes. With a sudden gasp, he flattened himself against the wall, the growl rising in intensity as a dog materialized from the darkness and stood guard before the child's door. With his breath coming shallow, Thorn stood petrified, the gutteral sound rising, the eyes glaring back.