The Headsman (47 page)

He reached down and gave her buttock a squeeze. “Sure. I got the same problem.”

“Not that, silly. I mean, I think about that, too. But I can’t get the idea of Buddy out of my mind.”

“Yeah, it was the worst.”

“Wasn’t it? I know I’m going to have nightmares tonight. Did you see the way a lot of kids were crying today in school?”

“Yeah, I did.” He wished she’d get off it. Buddy’s death was terrible—that was true. But blubbering about it wasn’t going to bring him back. And besides, feeling Alice all warm and soft against his side was starting to get him worked up again.

But she kept on. “The worst thing is the way all that stuff about the headsman came true.”

He drew a line down the cleft between her buttocks with his forefinger. “That’s not so. I mean, there’s still nothing to prove it.”

She rose on her elbow once more. “Nothing to prove it? Are you serious? First Marcy gets killed, gets her head chopped off. And it happens the same day we’re all talking about the headsman in Hathaway’s class. Then Buddy disappears, and some people say okay, that’s who did it—Buddy killed her and then he ran away. And then the next thing you know, here’s Buddy dead too. Killed
the same way
. So that’s two people murdered, both of them with chopped-off heads. And you say there’s nothing to prove it?”

Jesus, enough. “All I said was, there’s nothing to prove the headsman did it. I still think the whole story’s a lot of shit. People in Braddock’ve been passing it around forever. So yeah, Marcy and Buddy are both dead, and I agree with you, it’s awful. Especially the way they died. But the headsman? That’s the same old stuff I been hearing all my life. I just don’t buy it, that’s all.”

“Oh yeah? Then what about that woman who got killed years ago—that Mrs. What’s her name that was in the paper. She’s another one. She had her head chopped off too, and you know what everybody said back then? The same thing they’re saying now. The headsman came back to punish her.”

“Why?”

“She was married but she was fooling around with a lot of other men.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“From my parents.”

“Your
parents
told you?”

“God, no. I mean I heard them talking about it. They were discussing the whole thing about Marcy and Buddy and the headsman and that came up. My mother was saying it gave her the creeps the way it was happening all over again. She said everybody in town felt the same way about it then, too. They were all talking about how every few years the headsman comes back. And how some people were saying it wasn’t true, just the way some people are saying it now. But the thing is, that murder never got solved either.”

“Still doesn’t prove anything.”

“Jeez, but you can be stubborn. Look—if the headsman didn’t do it, who did? And who killed all the others?”

“All what others?”

“The ones who died before that. Lots of people, going back over two hundred years.”

“You’re really hooked on this, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m just being more sensible than you are. You get this much showing you something’s true, then you ought to believe it.”

If she kept this up she’d be altogether out of the mood. Christ, if she kept it up
he’d
be out of it too. “Okay, I guess you’re right.”

She stared at him in mock amazement. “You mean you’re actually gonna let me win an argument?”

“It wasn’t an argument—we were just talking.”

She lay down again. “Sorry I got so riled up.”

“It’s okay.” He resumed stroking her butt. “I know how you feel.”

“That’s good. It really had me upset.”

He turned toward her and put his hand between her legs. “Yeah, I don’t blame you.”

Her voice was low, slightly hoarse. “Oh, Billy.”

That was better. She was warm and wet, and he was as ready as ever. He lowered his head and kissed her mouth, then drew his lips slowly down her chin and her throat and on down to her breast. When he got there he teased her nipple with his tongue. He could feel it become erect under his touch. She’d begun to breathe hard once more, and Billy’s pulse picked up. He raised his head and smiled as he stroked her.

Suddenly she stiffened, her eyes open wide. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“I heard something out there—in the hall.”

All Billy could hear was the rock pounding out of the stereo speakers. He glanced at the door, then turned back to Alice. “Your mother, maybe? Or your father?”

“No. They never bother me up here.”

“Then relax, will you? Probably just the wind.”

She settled down again.

There was a violent crash at the door.

And then another. Wood splintered, and the door sagged on its hinges.

Alice shrieked and tried to cover her eyes as Buddy sat bolt upright, his mouth hanging open. “Jesus Christ!” he yelled. “What’s
that
?”

The upper panel of the door flew apart under the battering. There was another smashing blow, and the door burst open.

As Billy stared at the figure looming in the doorway, he thought his heart would stop.

It wasn’t
true. It was a joke. He was dreaming. It couldn’t be. This wasn’t happening
.

But it was.

4

The man standing in the doorway was huge. He seemed to tower there, as massive and as tall as a great black tree. His head was encased in a hood, the eyeholes slanted, his eyes shining out from within. The width of his shoulders was startling. They flowed into arms bulging with muscle, the hands broad and covered with black gloves. And just as Billy had heard a hundred times, just as in the nightmares he and every other child in Braddock had experienced, the gloved hands held an enormous, double-bladed ax.

The headsman’s black clothing was wet. Tiny wisps of steam rose from his body, and the stink of him spread through the room like gas from a dead, decaying animal. He stood motionless for what seemed a long time, although it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. But in that time Billy was unable to move, and neither was Alice. Both of them lay on the bed frozen in fear, the heat of their passion drained in an instant, their blood turning icy cold.

The headsman strode toward them, raising the ax as he came.

Instinctively, galvanized by desperation, Billy rolled off the bed and sprang to his feet. He was suddenly as angry as he was frightened. “You bastard!”

He was a big boy, over two hundred pounds, and strong. He was also an athlete, and a good one. He lowered his head and threw himself at the headsman.

The big man moved deftly, dipping the axhead and then bringing the flat side of it up into Billy’s face with a violent snapping motion. The steel smashed into the boy’s nose with numbing force, flipping him over backward and dropping him onto the floor.

Billy sat there with his head spinning, bells ringing in his ears, trying to get up but not succeeding. His vision was blurred, and he couldn’t force the image of the man in black to stay in focus. It kept splitting into two fuzzy shapes that blurred as he stared at them. Blood was pouring from his nose and down onto his body in crimson splashes.

The headsman stepped forward, straddling Billy’s outstretched legs. The huge man raised a booted foot and slammed the toe into the boy’s chest, forcing him down onto his back. Billy grabbed the foot and twisted, and the man fell heavily. He was up again in an instant, and as Billy scrambled to his feet the flat side of the axblade again crashed into the boy’s skull, even harder this time.

The blow knocked him flat, leaving him only dimly conscious. The boot pressed down on his chest and he tried to get hold of it, but the effort was feeble. He couldn’t get a grip, couldn’t make his hands and his arms do what he wanted them to do.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught an impression of Alice slipping off the bed. The headsman didn’t see her; his back was turned as he concentrated on attacking Billy. Alice was no longer screaming. Her eyes were wide with terror, and she was moving toward the door.

As the headsman raised the ax, one of Billy Swanson’s last conscious thoughts was that the fight he’d put up wasn’t much, but at least it had enabled Alice to escape. He saw the axblade raised high over the head of the man in black, saw it begin its downward rush. He wanted so much to get out of the way, to roll aside, to dodge the blow.

He wanted to live.

But he was unable to move.

Seventeen

GRISLY VISIONS

1

T
HE LIGHTS FLICKERED
and Karen Wilson looked up from her desk, thinking to herself that she really should get out of here and go home. The storm was growing worse by the minute, and with nothing going for it but snowtires, her Escort wasn’t worth a damn in weather like this. Everyone else had had sense enough to clear out long ago. Even the cleaning people had quit early, and now she was alone.

But there was still a stack of work in her in-box, and there would be more tomorrow. There were invoices to type, customer letters, factory requisitions; the pile seemed endless. So if she didn’t get it done tonight, she’d only be loading more onto herself when she came in tomorrow morning.

What Boggs Ford really needed was more help, of course. One secretary couldn’t handle all this work in a normal day, it was impossible. But if she complained to Charley Boggs, there was no telling what might happen. He just might decide he’d had enough of her failure to cooperate and fire her.

Lately he hadn’t made a pass at her, which was a good sign in one sense and a bad one in another. She was relieved not to have him pestering her to go to lunch or to join him for a drink, and not to have his hand brushing against her bottom or stroking the back of her leg whenever she got too close to him. And he hadn’t brought up all the opportunities for advancement he wanted to offer her, either. But that could also be an indication that he’d lost interest and was going to unload her. Men were funny that way. Once they decided you weren’t receptive to the moves they put on you they often resented it. And then they turned against you.

Recently she’d become aware of an upsurge of women protesting against sexual harassment in the workplace. She’d read articles about how so many of them just wouldn’t take any more of it, how they made their accusations right out in the open, sometimes even bringing charges against the offenders. But that was a laugh. For every female who could make it stick or who even had the guts to raise the issue, there had to be countless others who just went on putting up with the problem, because if they didn’t they’d lose their jobs and no one would give a damn.

So the way for Karen to play it was to keep her mouth shut and hope Boggs would leave her alone. Even though she didn’t trust him any more than most other men she’d had experience with.

Including the chief of police. He claimed he hadn’t tipped his girlfriend off on the Mariski story, but she didn’t believe that for a minute. Of course he had, no matter what excuses he’d made. But at least he’d been right about one thing: all of it had blown over, just as he’d said it would. And afterwards no one had tried to pin her down on getting involved in the case of the headsman.

Which had been a relief. She was surprised the press hadn’t picked up on that angle—it would have been a natural for one of their cheap plays on people’s emotions. More sensationalism at the expense of the families who’d lost those kids, and at the expense of Karen herself.

Another thing that troubled her was the news that the killer had sent the Harper boy’s head to MacElroy. Why? Was it just to show contempt for the police, or was there more to it than that? Was there some entanglement, some aspect of the chief’s life that he was trying to keep secret? Was there something
he
wanted to hide?

Most of all, she wished all of this would go away and leave her in peace. Having to contend with the curse of her vision since childhood had been burden enough, but now in this situation it was far worse than it had ever been. Seeing the headsman, knowing about the horrible crimes that were being committed, was like being invaded. And all of it seemed to be coming to some kind of ghastly climax. As if she’d been pointing toward this all along without knowing it. And now here she was in the middle of it somehow, swept along like a leaf in a river, unable to stop herself or to change course.

She looked at her computer screen and tried to concentrate on an invoice that had to be made out. She’d do just this one more, and then she’d print what she’d been working on and quit. If she didn’t get out of here soon she’d really be stuck. As it was she was in for a tough time getting home.

The pain struck without warning
—
violent, intense, as if a shaft had been driven into her forehead
.

She winced and twisted in her chair, recoiling from the sudden assault on her nervous system. She knew from experience what the pain meant and what would be coming next. Fear rose in her, apprehension that something was about to happen—that she’d see some terrible image she didn’t want to see, something repellent and horrible that made her privy to a dark secret she didn’t want to know.

“Oh, God,” she said aloud, “Please don’t do this to me.”

And then it was gone, and she almost sobbed with relief. With trembling fingers she shut off the computer and then sat still for a moment, struggling to control her emotions. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and got out her purse. What she had to do now was put on her coat and leave. Snow or no snow, she’d get into her car and drive home, and when she got there she’d take a slug of brandy.

It was something, the way the brandy had become such a help to her. She wished she’d discovered it years ago—the fiery liquid that burned her mouth and her throat as she gulped it down and then magically turned to soothing warmth an instant later. It calmed her and dulled the sensations of fear and revulsion and prevented her from
thinking
. Maybe it would even dampen her ability to receive, would keep the visions from her. Tonight she’d drink a lot of brandy; she needed it.

She began to rise from her desk, and as she did the pain returned. It lanced her forehead savagely this time, a white-hot needle probing her skull. She fell back into her chair, feeling nauseous and faint.