The sky was rumbling ominously now, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. How had she reached cover without my seeing her? There must be some explanation ... I ran this way and that, trying to peer into the darkening shadows of the park and street. Reason told me this could not have happened, and yet it had happened. I felt sick, and for the first time wished I’d eaten a more conventional dinner.
I was completely alone on that dark deserted street as the rain began. I walked slowly because I felt dazed. I was being soaked to the skin by the steady downpour, but it didn’t seem important. Trying to review the experiences of the evening, I attempted to put them into some kind of perspective. How could I have deluded myself that I saw a woman who was dead and... I almost stopped. I found myself facing something I had been avoiding for days — the circumstances of Thalia’s death.
Why couldn’t I remember just how it had come about? Accident? Illness? I imagined a deathbed scene with Thalia holding my hand. No, it hadn’t happened that way. For some reason I thought of the flowers in the cathedral and in my mind I saw a funeral — a real funeral, not an imagined one. There were baskets of lilies and other flowers all banked around a coffin. Something told me that this funeral had taken place a long time ago — but Thalia’s funeral must have been very recent, not more than a few weeks past...
Perhaps I was suffering from some kind of fever. I had been too over-confident about my resistance to illness when traveling. I wasn’t getting any younger, and maybe my natural immunity to infection was wearing off. Yes, certainly these problems were based in the physical. My loss of memory was simply due to the shock of having lost my wife; it would all come back to me one day soon. As for seeing Thalia tonight, I had never been subject to hallucinations before; it was undoubtedly the fever. Yes, the fever. I resolved to take my temperature as soon as I got back to the hotel.
I was feeling a little better when I got to my room, but the real blow was yet to come. Fumblingly I unlocked my door and entered. It was the first thing I saw — Thalia’s white American Tourister suitcase. I managed to slam the door shut and then lean on it, gaping at that suitcase on the bed nearer to the bathroom. It looked so big — almost the width of the bed. It took every bit of self-discipline I had to refrain from turning and running out of the room.
After a minute I sank into a nearby chair, my wet suit clinging to my body, my eyes still glued to that suitcase. Where had it come from? Was it, after all, Thalia’s? Other women traveled with similar suitcases. No, that wouldn’t do. I could see part of a Hotel Royale label from Rome, torn in one corner. Other familiar nicks and scratches became visible as I continued to stare. Oh, it was Thalia’s all right. But how had it got here? That suitcase was in my home in Akron, Ohio, shoved in the back of Thalia’s closet. Of course it was there — and yet, it was here!
Somehow I had to pull the two facts together. One of them was obviously wrong. If the suitcase was here, it couldn’t be at home. And it couldn’t have come all this way by itself. Logical analysis came to my rescue and I felt better. By some bizarre set of circumstances Thalia’s suitcase had been delivered here. By whom? Suddenly I thought of the bellboy. Before dinner he had knocked on the door to ask if he could bring in anything from the car. He apologized for not carrying my suitcase to my room earlier, but what can one do, he asked, raising his shoulders and rolling his eyes heavenward, when a bus with forty people arrives.
Yes, it was now coming back. I had smiled at the bellboy, knowing. that what he regretted was missing my tip. Had I said I needed something? Yes, now I remembered handing him my car keys and telling him to look in the trunk of the car for my camera case. I was afraid I had forgotten it because it wasn’t in the back seat with other luggage. Traveling light, I might have tossed the camera case in the trunk without thinking, so had asked the bellboy to have a look.
I took a deep breath and continued my deductions. Yes, the bellboy had opened the trunk and had found — Thalia’s suitcase! Wanting to bring in something to earn his tip, he had carried it to the room. But how had it got into the trunk compartment in the first place? My mind was a blank on that score. How could I have brought her suitcase with me, and then forgotten all about it? Was it packed? Empty?
Now that there was a rational explanation, at least for the presence of the suitcase, my mind was beginning to clear. Walking over to the bed, I grabbed it by the handle, half expecting it to be light — empty. But no, it took all my strength to drag it across the bedspread. I had to bend my knees in order to hoist it onto the floor. My God! The thing must weigh almost a hundred pounds.
The touch of that suitcase repelled me and I felt sick again as I staggered back to the chair. Holding my head in my hands, I felt anger rising in me. Why was my vacation being disrupted by that thing sitting over there? It had no place in my life any more. My mind was spinning — was I conscious or dreaming? So many pictures were racing through my mind now. I felt like a stranger, standing off to one side, looking at a movie.
There was the funeral again — the lilies, the coffin, the people sitting in the little chapel. Their blurred faces became clear for a moment, and I recognized them as relatives I hadn’t seen for many years, relatives who were long dead. Suddenly I knew it was my mother’s funeral I was seeing, not Thalia’s. More vague pictures danced across my consciousness and then started to take shape, like a camera coming into focus.
There was Thalia sitting by the fireplace, reading the evening paper. The picture was so real. Someone was coming up behind her chair with a knife — look out, Thalia! I caught my breath. I couldn’t see the face of the person with the knife clearly, but something gleamed on the wrist of that raised arm. It was a silver digital watch with an orange face. I think I cried out as the raised arm struck at the back of her neck—
At my sanity hearing they said they led me away screaming.
Grampaw Lends a Hand
by Robert J. Cloud
© 1981 by Robert J. Cloud
Robert J. Cloud’s first story, “Creative Writing Course 205,” appeared in our issue of September 1978. Once again we are amazed at the versatility of newcomers to the mystery field. Mr. Cloud’s second story is completely different from his first — in theme, in tone, in touch. Read how Grampaw helped out at the gas station in the desert — the last chance to fill up on the road from Carson to Sybil...
It’s a normal day out at the gas station. Traffic is not slow enough for bankruptcy, not heavy enough for hope. I’m beginning to realize why the last owner set the price so low. But what do I know? Young, green, I cashed my discharge check and government bonds and became an instant businessman. Also pump jockey, lube and oil man, purchasing agent, accountant and tax collector for Uncle Sam. Good thing it’s a one-man show. Any more business, I’d have to hire an office manager.
And today I’ve got Grampaw. Usually I’m out here in the desert all alone, seven to seven, watching the occasional dust patches grow into cars that may or may not stop. Waiting and hoping, like a November spider waiting for those last flies. Working my crossword-puzzle magazine through the long waiting spells.
But today Grampaw is with me. Helping, he thinks, and why not let him think it? At his age you’ve got to feel that somebody needs you.