Ruth stared with stricken eyes at Jane, at her tight, ruthless face. She couldn’t. Oh, Jane, Jane.
Jane’s smooth arm slid around Vince’s back. His lean body came close and she pushed against him. Her mouth opened as it closed over his. She felt the handle of the knife bruising her back as Vince embraced her.
One of her hands left Vince’s back and, rapidly, gestured toward the door. Ruth caught her breath, suddenly understanding, hating herself for not understanding. As quietly as she could, her heart pounding, she edged across the bed. Jane’s hand moved down to the drawer now. She eased it open while, with her other arm, she held Vince’s body close, kept his face against hers with her clinging, biting lips. She hardly felt his left hand moving up her chest. She felt almost numb.
Then she jerked at the pistol.
A spear of ice impaled her as the barrel got caught on the drawer. Vince suddenly pulled away and looked down. His heart seemed to jolt in his chest. His pupils expanded suddenly and he knew that he’d been tricked again, lied to.
“No!” he screamed at her. Jane recoiled in sudden fear as he lunged with the knife. At the door, Ruth screamed.
***
Stan pounded on the front door, his wrist still running blood from the long gash he’d gotten punching in the hall window.
He turned away with a gasp. What am I going to do? He turned back with a sudden whine and threw himself bodily against the door. No use! He felt a surge of terror and uselessness at not being able to get in and protect her.
He turned away and rushed down the hall to the door of the apartment across the way. He rang the bell and pounded on the door.
“Help!” he yelled. “Help!”
Then the door of his own apartment opened and Bob came staggering out. With a startled gasp, Stan jumped forward and raced down to where Bob had sunk to one knee, blood spattering on the hall floor.
“Bob, are you…?”
Without finishing the question he looked into the apartment. Where was she?
He started to bend over to help Bob up, but Ruth’s scream and a crashing sound in the bedroom jolted him up. He dove into the apartment.
As he reached the bedroom door he heard it being locked.
“Jane!” he cried brokenly, “Jane!”
“Get away!” he heard Vince yell, “I’ll kill you if you don’t get away!”
A whining breath broke from Stan’s lips and, with a berserk cry, he lunged at the door, driving his broad shoulder into it. It didn’t move. He pounded his fists on the door.
“Jane!”
He backed up and ran at the door. It shuddered under the impact. He moved back again and crashed his large body into it. The lock snapped and he went rushing into the bedroom. As he did he saw the white face of Vince flash by, the figure of Ruth standing by the bed.
Then, as he stopped himself and spun around, he saw Vince run out the opened doorway and into the hall.
And, suddenly, with a gagging cry, he saw Jane lying crumpled on the floor, the lamp shattered around her.
The knife handle sticking out from her chest.
He stood there petrified for a long moment, his eyes wide and unbelieving. Then, abruptly, a clacking sob shook him and he ran to her.
“Jane…”
Ruth looked at him as he stumbled over and knelt by Jane. Then she ran from the room.
Stan put his hand on the knife handle, then his fingers twitched away. He felt a great pressure on his brain as if someone were holding huge, hot hands against his skull and pressing. The room seemed to twist and contort out of shape. He almost fainted.
“Jane,” he mumbled. “Jane.”
Like a child trying to wake its mother.
Her eyes opened, slowly, with a painful fluttering.
“Jane, you’re—all right.” The last word spoken feebly in the realization that all hope was gone.
Her throat moved and she made a clicking sound.
“Jane, I’ll get a doctor,” he suddenly gasped.
Her hand closed weakly on his pajama leg, holding him. Her lips moved as if she were trying to speak. But no sound came at first.
Then she said, “No.”
“Jane, I…”
She made a tiny hushing sound as if she would silence all his fear and terror.
“You—” a gasping intake of breath, “—be better now.”
“Jane!”
“Please.” Her throat moved and she grimaced at the pain.
“I’ll call a doctor!”
“No, no.” She pressed her lips together. The lipstick was all smeared and caked.
“You…”
Again her throat moved. She could hardly breathe.
“Stan?”
He bent over, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“W-what, darling? What?”
“Kiss me.”
His sob shook his body.
“Please,” she whispered, then her face suddenly grew taut. “Now,” she said.
He bent over and placed his shaking mouth on hers. Her fingers tightened on his pajama leg. Her lips parted.
She died as he kissed her.
***
When Vince came rushing out of the apartment he saw Bob still on one knee in the hall. With a gasp he lunged past Bob and started racing down the hall, his black shoes clicking on the tiles.
As he passed another door, it opened and a man in a bathrobe came out.
“Now what—” he started to say, then his head snapped as Vince rushed past him.
Vince reached the stairs and started racing down. He kept sobbing and whimpering in fright as he descended. Half way down the flight he almost tripped and his right arm shot out to grab the banister. His shoes slipped on the edge of a step and he skidded down on his side, holding on to the banister with clawing fingers.
Caught!
The word knifed at his brain as he ran down the steps. No escape! Everybody was against him! Bob was alive and Ruth wasn’t going away with him. Nothing was right! Hot tears of futility scalded down his cheeks as he ran and the stairs looked like gelatin through the quivering lenses of his tears. Lost, lost, lost!
“Saul,” he gasped, “help me, Saul.”
Then, at the fourth floor, he suddenly skidded to a halt, his breath caught.
With unbelieving eyes he looked down the stair well and saw the police officers running up toward him.
For a moment he couldn’t move. He stood there dizzily, staring at them.
Then a sob broke in his throat and, whirling, he started up the steps again.
Fifth floor, around to the stairs; sixth floor, around to the stairs; seventh floor. His breath burst from open mouth now, there was a stitch jabbing a hot spear into his side; his breaths were choking wheezes.
The eighth floor. He stopped for breath and looked toward the apartment.
Bob was gone, the man was gone. He saw the door of the other apartment open and heard Ruth’s voice inside.
Then he looked suddenly at Stan’s apartment.
Stan was in the doorway looking at him.
“Stan?” he said.
Stan stood there and Vince started toward him suddenly.
“Stan, don’t let them…”
He recoiled with a gasp as Stan came at him with the bloodstained knife in his hand.
With a sob, he whirled and started up the last flight of steps to the roof. He heard Stan break into a run, his bare feet thudding on the hall floor.
Vince fumbled at the hook on the heavy door with a sound of fury.
“Open,” he told the door in a frenzied whisper.
“Open!”
Just before Stan reached him he knocked the thick hook off and shoved open the door. Stan’s lunge didn’t reach and Stan toppled forward on the gravel-topped roof.
Stan got to his knees, ignoring his torn pajamas, his bruised knees, the gashes he’d gotten on his wrist punching in the window. Everything in the world had disappeared but Vince; every hope, sensation, every fear. There
was nothing but Vince racing across the roof, his shoes scrabbling on the gravel, his white face looking back over his shoulder as he ran.
Stan started forward. Slowly. There was no place Vince could go; no roof adjoined the apartment house. His bare feet moved and crunched over the gravel, his face stolid. His fingers tightened on the knife.
Vince reached the edge of the roof and whirled. Stan was coming toward him over the roof, the knife held at his side. Vince could see blood running down Stan’s arm and dripping off the tip of the sharp blade. He could see Stan’s face, white and like the mask of a dead man.
“Stan, no!” he yelled, “Stan, I didn’t hurt you! Stan, don’t do any—”
He leaped to the side and Stan went crashing into the side of the roof, almost toppling over the edge.
Stan turned, his face blank. He started toward Vince again.
“Stan,” Vince muttered.
He ran a little ways across the roof, then turned.
“Stan, don’t hurt me,” he begged, tears rushing down his cheeks. “Stan, please don’t hurt me!”
Stan raised the knife slowly.
Vince turned and ran again toward the door.
Then he recoiled and his shoes skidded on the gravel as two police officers came lunging through the doorway, pistols in their hands.
“No!” he cried.
Now he was caught between them. He ran to the side and stood with his back to the waist-high wall.
One of the officers moved toward him. The other moved toward Stan.
“Give me the knife, buddy,” he said, stretching out his free hand.
“No,” gagged Stan and he lunged toward Vince.
Vince shrank back against the wall.
“No,” he muttered in a terrified voice. “No, it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.”
He pushed himself up on the wall until he was sitting on the edge. Stan tore away from the policeman’s hold and jumped at Vince.
“Don’t!” Vince screamed at him, screamed at the world.
Then he was gone.
And, when they reached the edge of the roof, they saw his body falling, his arms and legs kicking and flailing as he plummeted toward the sidewalk, his screams of horror echoing between the silent buildings.
5:00 AM
Ruth turned away from the stairs as the two men carried Bob down to the ambulance on a stretcher.
“Nothing fatal,” the intern had assured her. “He’ll be all right.”
And Bob had smiled weakly at her, gripped her hand and she had told him she’d be right down to the hospital with him.
Now she walked back to the apartment.
Stan was in the bedroom. He’d put Jane on the bed and covered her up, all but her face. He was sitting beside her and staring at her.
He glanced at Ruth as she came in, his face dead and slack.
She put her hand on his shoulder.
“Stan,” she said.
His throat moved.
“She was brave,” was all he said.
“I—” She looked at him. “Yes,” she said then, “she was.”
Stan’s head lowered and she stood there looking at him, feeling helpless before his sorrow.
“If there’s anything…” she started.
“Thank you,” he said hollowly.
She turned away and heard his tightly restrained sob.
And when she reached the street, she saw the two orderlies putting another stretcher into the ambulance, a stretcher that was completely covered.
The two officers got back in their patrol car.
“Yeah,” said one, “I remember the case. The kid cracked up and killed his old man with a letter opener. Then he went to the office of this guy that was shot and he tried to kill him too. They put him away.”
He made a grim sound.
“I guess he got away,” he said.
“Well, he won’t be killing anybody else,” said the other one.
“No,” said the first, “he won’t.”
And he shook his head.
“What a world,” he said.
Forty minutes later the sun came up.
THE END
Richard Matheson, Fury on Sunday
(Series: # )
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