“Let’s stick to your own work, and what you say. About the collector of heads in ‘Man with a Hobby,’ and the collector of skulls in ‘The Skull of the Marquis de Sade.’ And that other collector called Enoch. What motivated you to write ‘The Cure,’ ‘The Head-Hunter,’ or ‘See How They Run’? There’s a head lopped off in Psycho, and the final scene in Night-World speaks for itself. Heads roll in ‘The Hound of Pedro’ and ‘That Old College Try.’ ” Dr. Connors picked up the book. “You did it here, in ‘Waxworks.’ And in your very first published story, ‘The Feast in the Abbey.’ ”
“And a damned good thing,” I said. “That’s what made an impression on the readers. Not just the idea of cannibalism. But when the narrator finds out what he’s been eating—when he lifts the lid of the small silver platter and sees the head of his brother—”
“Quite effective, I agree.” Dr. Connors looked up at me. “I notice you wrote in the first person.”
“That’s part of the impact.”
“But where did the idea come from? A newspaper story? Something you heard or read about?”
“I don’t remember. After all, that was so long ago—”
“Odd, isn’t it, that this should be one of your earliest efforts? And that you continued the same theme over the years?” He kept staring at me. “You’ve told me the source of so many of your stories. Surely there’s a point of origin for this one and those which follow the pattern.”
“I told you, I can’t recall!”
“Nothing in your personal background?”
“I’m not a cannibal, if that’s what you’re hinting. I do have a younger sister, but no brother, so I could hardly cut off his head—”
It was hard to speak quietly because I hated him so. And it was hard to hear him now, because of the way my heart was pounding, pounding, pounding—
“Look,” said Dr. Connors. “I’m going to tell you something that will help you to remember. It may shock you, but sometimes shock therapy is the most effective method.”
“Go ahead,” I said. Ahead. Head. It was the head of my brother—
Dr. Connors was watching my face, but I’m positive he couldn’t hear the voice inside my head. My head. His head. Their heads.
I forced myself to look at him, forced myself to smile. “Don’t tell me I cut off somebody’s head,” I said.
“No. But you tried.”
“That’s a lie!” I stood up, and I wasn’t smiling now. “That’s a lie!”
“You mean you can’t remember. But you did, and they stopped you just in time. It’s all there in the record.”
“But why—why?”
“Because the person you attempted to kill apparently reminded you of someone else. Someone long ago.” Dr. Connors leaned forward, speaking very softly, so that I had to strain to hear him.
I did hear him, though—I must have—because the hate kept building, building as he spoke.
Only I still can’t recall what he said. It was about something that happened when I was very young. Something I did to someone and Mama found out about it and the doctor came and then they sent me away for a long time and when I came home again I forgot all about everything. I was just a kid, I didn’t know, I didn’t mean it, I hated him, but I forgot and nobody ever talked about it, nobody ever even knew about it. Except now, Dr. Connors knew—he’d gone away today and looked up the information and now he was telling me about it and he’d tell everybody and I hated him because I still couldn’t remember.
But I do remember what I did when he told me. It was all luck, really—being in that room next to the surgery, and then later finding the backstairs exit and getting over the wall.
It was even luck that there was one of those silver things with a lid on top, right next to the knife cabinet in the surgery.
I keep thinking of that now—thinking of how Miss Frobisher must have come back, and what she saw when she lifted up the lid . . .
It was the head of my psychiatrist.
DARK WINNER
by William F. Nolan
William Nolan is the co-author of Logan’s Run, a $9,000,000 motion picture as well as the co-author of the “Burnt Offerings” screenplay. His short fiction has appeared in over seventy-three anthologies, but he now spends most of his time scripting for the more lucrative fields of film and television. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror are not his only short-fiction fortes, and he has won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. In this tale, Mr. Nolan has taken the classic “return to childhood” theme and handled it in a most unique way. We never encounter the main character and the mood of horror is created from “sterile” nondescriptive transcripts. It is quite successful.
NOTE: The following is an edited transcript of a taped conversation between Mrs. Franklin Evans, resident of Woodland Hills, California, and Lieutenant Harry W. Lyle of the Kansas City Police Department.
Transcript is dated July 12, 1975, K.C., Missouri.
LYLE: . . . and if you want us to help you, we’ll have to know everything. When did you arrive here, Mrs. Evans?
MRS. EVANS: We just got in this morning. A stopover on our trip from New York back to California. We were at the airport when Frank suddenly got this idea about his past.
LYLE: What idea?
MRS. E: About visiting his old neighborhood . . . the school he went to . . . the house where he grew up . . . He hadn’t been back here in twenty-five years.
LYLE: So you and your husband planned this . . . nostalgic tour?
MRS. E: Not planned. It was very abrupt . . . Frank seemed . . . suddenly . . . possessed by the idea.
LYLE: So what happened?
MRS. E: We took a cab out to Flora Avenue . . . to Thirty-first . . . and we visited his old grade school. St. Vincent’s Academy. The neighborhood is . . . well, I guess you know it’s a slum area now . . . and the school is closed down, locked. But Frank found an open window . . . climbed inside . . .
LYLE: While you waited?
MRS. E: Yes—in the cab. When Frank came out he was all . . . upset . . . Said that he . . . Well, this sounds . . .
LYLE: Go on, please.
MRS. E: He said he felt . . . very close to his childhood while he was in there. He was ashen-faced. His hands were trembling.
LYLE: What did you do then?
MRS. E: We had the cab take us up Thirty-first to the Isis Theater. The movie house at Thirty-first and Troost where Frank used to attend those Saturday horror shows they had for kids. Each week a new one . . . Frankenstein . . . Dracula . . . you know the kind I mean.
LYLE: I know.
MRS. E: It’s a porno place now . . . but Frank bought a ticket anyway . . . went inside alone. Said he wanted to go into the balcony, find his old seat . . . see if things had changed . . .
LYLE: And?
MRS. E: He came out looking very shaken . . . saying it had happened again.
LYLE: What had happened again?
MRS. E: The feeling about being close to his past . . . to his childhood . . . As if he could—
LYLE: Could what, Mrs. Evans?
MRS. E: . . . step over the line dividing past and present . . . step back into his childhood. That’s the feeling he said he had.
LYLE: Where did you go from the Isis?
MRS. E: Frank paid off the cab . . . said he wanted to walk to his old block . . . the one he grew up on . . . Thirty-third and Forest. So we walked down Troost to Thirty-third . . . past strip joints and hamburger stands . . . I was nervous . . . we didn’t . . . belong here . . . Anyway, we got to Thirty-third and walked down the hill from Troost to Forest . . . and on the way Frank told me how much he’d hated being small, being a child . . . that he could hardly wait to grow up . . . that, to him, childhood was a nightmare . . .