Monday brought a cold rain and stiff wind from the Gulf. He watched the water swirling through littered gutters in the street. Sitting in the window, he watched the gloom and waited, praying that the storm would not delay his departure. Mendelhaus smiled politely, through his doorway once. “Willie’s ankle seems healing nicely,” he said. “Swelling’s gone down so much we had to change casts. If only she would—”
“Thanks for the free report, Padre,” Paul growled irritably.
The priest shrugged and went away.
It was still raining when the sky darkened with evening. The monastic dock-crew had certainly been unable to finish. Tomorrow… perhaps.
After nightfall, he lit a candle and lay awake watching its unflickering yellow tongue until drowsiness lolled his head aside. He snuffed it out and went to bed.
Dreams assailed him, tormented him, stroked him with dark hands while he lay back, submitting freely. Small hands, soft, cool, tender—touching his forehead and his cheeks, while a voice whispered caresses.
He awoke suddenly to blackness. The feel of the dream-hands was still on his face. What had aroused him? A sound in the hall, a creaking hinge? The darkness was impenetrable. The rain had stopped—perhaps its cessation had disturbed him. He felt curiously tense as he lay listening to the humid, musty corridors. A… faint… rustle… and…
Breathing! The sound of soft breathing was in the room with him!
He let out a hoarse shriek that shattered the unearthly silence. A high-pitched scream of fright answered him! From a few feet away in the room. He groped toward it and fumbled against a bare wall. He roared curses, and tried to find first matches, then the shotgun. At last he found the gun, aimed at nothing across the room, and jerked the trigger. The explosion deafened him. The window shattered, and a sift of plaster rustled to the floor.
The brief flash had illuminated the room. It was empty. He stood frozen. Had he imagined it all? But no, the visitor’s startled scream had been real enough.
A cool draft fanned his face. The door was open. Had he forgotten to lock it again? A tumult of sound was beginning to arise from the lower floors. His shot had aroused the sleepers. But there was a closer sound—sobbing in the corridor, and an irregular creaking noise.
At last he found a match and rushed to the door. But the tiny flame revealed nothing within its limited aura. He heard a doorknob rattle in the distance; his visitor was escaping via the outside stairway. He thought of pursuit and vengeance. But instead, he rushed to the washbasin and began scrubbing himself thoroughly with harsh brown soap. Had his visitor touched him—or had the hands been only dream-stuff? He was frightened and sickened.
Voices were filling the corridor. The light of several candles was advancing toward his doorway. He turned to see monks’ faces peering anxiously inside. Father Mendelhaus shouldered his way through the others, glanced at the window, the wall, then at Paul.
“What—”
“Safety, eh?” Paul hissed. “Well, I had a prowler! A woman! I think I’ve been touched.”
The priest turned and spoke to a monk. “Go to the stairway and call for the Mother Superior. Ask her to make an immediate inspection of the sisters’ quarters. If any nuns have been out of their rooms—”
A shrill voice called from down the hallway: “Father, Father! The girl with the injured ankle! She’s not in her bed! She’s gone!”
“Willie!” Paul gasped.
A small nun with a candle scurried up and panted to recover her breath for a moment. “She’s gone, Father. I was on night duty. I heard the shot, and I went to see if it disturbed her. She wasn’t there!”
The priest grumbled incredulously. “How could she get out? She can’t walk with that cast.”
“Crutches, Father. We told her she could get up in a few days. While she was still irrational, she kept saying they were going to amputate her leg. We brought the crutches in to prove she’d be up soon. It’s my fault, Father. I should have—”
“Never mind! Search the building for her.”
Paul dried his wet skin and faced the priest angrily. “What can I do to disinfect myself?” he demanded.
Mendelhaus called out into the hallway where a crowd had gathered. “Someone please get Doctor Seevers.”
“I’m here, preacher,” grunted the scientist. The monastics parted ranks to make way for his short chubby body. He grinned amusedly at Paul. “So, you decided to make your home here after all, eh?”
Paul croaked an insult at him. “Have you got any effective—”
“Disinfectants? Afraid not. Nitric acid will do the trick on one or two local spots. Where were you touched?”
“I don’t know. I was asleep.”
Seevers’ grin widened. “Well, you can’t take a bath in nitric acid. We’ll try something else, but I doubt if it’ll work for a direct touch.”
“That oil—”
“Uh-uh! That’ll do for exposure-weakened parasites you might pick up by handling an object that’s been touched. But with skin to skin contact, the bugs’re pretty stout little rascals. Come on downstairs, though, we’ll make a pass at it.”
Paul followed him quickly down the corridor. Behind him, a soft voice was murmuring: “I just can’t understand why nonhypers are so…” Mendelhaus said something to Seevers, blotting out the voice. Paul chafed at the thought that they might consider him cowardly.
But with the herds fleeing northward, cowardice was the social norm. And after a year’s flight, Paul had accepted the norm as the only possible way to fight.
Seevers was emptying chemicals into a tub of water in the basement when a monk hurried in to tug at Mendelhaus’ sleeve. “Father, the sisters report that the girl’s not in the building.”
“What? Well, she can’t be far! Search the grounds. If she’s not there, try the adjoining blocks.”
Paul stopped unbuttoning his shirt. Willie had said some mournful things about what she would rather do than submit to the craving. And her startled scream when he had cried out in the darkness—the scream of someone suddenly awakening to reality—from a dream-world.
The monk left the room. Seevers sloshed more chemicals into the tub. Paul could hear the wind whipping about the basement windows and the growl of an angry surf not so far away. Paul rebuttoned his shirt.
“Which way’s the ocean?” he asked suddenly. He backed toward the door.
“No, you fool!” roared Seevers. “You’re not going to—get him, preacher!”
Paul sidestepped as the priest grabbed for him. He darted outside and began running for the stairs. Mendelhaus bellowed for him to stop.
“Not me!” Paul called back angrily. “Willie!”
Moments later, he was racing across the sodden lawn and into the street. He stopped on the corner to get his bearings. The wind brought the sound of the surf with it.
He began running east and calling her name into the night.
The rain had ceased, but the pavement was wet and water gurgled in the gutters. Occasionally the moon peered through the thinning veil of clouds, but its light failed to furnish a view of the street ahead. After a minute’s running, he found himself standing on the seawall. The breakers thundered a stone’s throw across the sand. For a moment they became visible under the coy moon, then vanished again in blackness. He had not seen her.
“Willie!”
Only the breakers’ growl responded. And a glimmer of phosphorescence from the waves.
“Willie!” he slipped down from the seawall and began feeling along the jagged rocks that lay beneath it. She could not have gotten down without falling. Then he remembered a rickety flight of steps just to the north, and he trotted quickly toward it.
The moon came out suddenly. He saw her, and stopped. She was sitting motionless on the bottom step, holding her face in her hands. The crutches were stacked neatly against the handrail. Ten yards across the sand slope lay the hungry, devouring surf. Paul approached her slowly. The moon went out again. His feet sucked at the rain-soaked sand.