Dark Benediction

Once he passed a house from which music floated softly into the street, and he paused to listen. The music was scratchy—a worn record. When the piece was finished there was a moment of silence, and the player played it again—the last record on the stack, repeating itself. Otherwise the house was still.

Mitch frowned, sensing some kind of trouble. He wheeled the bicycle toward the curb, meaning to investigate.

“I live there,” said a woman’s voice from the shadows.

She had been standing under a tree that overhung the side-walk, and she came slowly out into the streetlight. She was a dark, slender girl with haunted eyes, and she was holding a baby in her arms.

“Why don’t you turn off your record player?” he asked. “Or change to the other side?”

“My husband’s in there,” she told him. “He’s listening to it. He’s been listening to it for a long time. His name is George. Why don’t you go say hello to him?”

Mitch felt vaguely disturbed. There was a peculiar note in the girl’s quiet Spanish accent. Still, he wanted to talk to someone who had ventured into the city. He nodded and smiled at the girl.

“I’d like to.”

“You just go on in. I’ll stay out here. The baby needs fresh air.”

He thanked her and strolled up on the porch. The record player stopped, tried to change, and played the same piece again. Mitch knocked once. Hearing no answer, he entered and moved along the hallway toward the light in the kitchen. But suddenly he stopped.

The house smelled musty. And it smelled of something else. Many times he had smelled the syrup-and-stale-fish odor of death. He advanced another step toward the kitchen.

He saw a porcelain-topped table. He saw a hand lying across the table. The hand was bloated, lying amid brown stains that also covered the forearm and sleeve. The hand had dropped a butcher knife.

“Dead several days,” he thought—and backed away.

He turned the record player off as he left the house. The girl was standing at the curb gazing down at his bicycle. She glanced at him amiably and spoke.

“I’m glad you turned that record off, George. A man just came by and wanted to know why you played it so often. You must have been asleep.”

Mitch started. He moistened his lips and stared at her wonderingly. “I’m not—” He feel silent for a moment, then stuttered, “You haven’t been in the house?”

“Yes, but you were asleep in the kitchen. Did the man come talk to you?”

“Look, I’m not—” He choked and said nothing. The dark-eyed baby was eyeing him suspiciously. He lifted the bicycle and swung a long leg across the saddle.

“George, where are you going?”

“Just for a little ride,” he managed to gasp.

“On the man’s bicycle?”

Something was twisting cruelly at his insides. He stared at the girl’s wide brown eyes for a moment. And then he said it. “Sure, it’s all right. He’s asleep—at the kitchen table.”

Her mouth flickered open, and for an instant sanity threatened to return. She rocked dizzily. Then, after a deep breath, she straightened.

“Don’t be gone too long, George.”

“I won’t! Take good care of the baby.”

He pedaled away on wings of fright. For a time he cursed himself, and then he fell to cursing the husband who had taken an easy road, leaving his wife to stumble alone. Mitch wondered if he should have stayed to help her. But there was nothing to be done for her, nothing at least that was in his power to do. Any gesture of help might become an irreparable blunder. At least she still had the child.

A few blocks away he found another house with an intact roof, and he prepared to spend the night. He wheeled the bicycle into the parlor and fumbled for the lights. They came on, revealing a dusty room and furniture with frayed upholstery. He made a brief tour of the house. It had been recently occupied, but there was still unopened cans in the kitchen, and still crumpled sheets on the bed. He ate a cold supper, shaved, and prepared to retire. Tomorrow would be a dangerous day.

Sleep came slowly. Sleep was full of charging ram jets in flak-scarred skies, full of tormented masses of people that swarmed in exodus from death-sickened cities. Sleep was full of babies wailing, and women crying in choking sobs. Sleep became white arms and soft caresses.

The wailing and sobbing had stopped. It was later. Was he awake? Or still asleep? He was warm, basking in a golden glow, steeped in quiet pleasure. Something—something was there, something that breathed.

“What—”

“Sshhh!” purred a quiet voice. “Don’t say anything.”

Some of the warmth fled before a sudden shiver. He opened his eyes. The room was full of blackness. He shook his head dizzily and stuttered.

“Sshhh!” she whispered again.

“What is this?” he gasped. “How did you get—?”

“Be quiet, George. You’ll wake the baby.”

He sank back in utter bewilderment, with winter frosts gathering along his spine.

Night was dreamlike. And dawn came, washing the shadows with grayness. He opened his eyes briefly and went back to sleep. When he opened them again, sunlight was flooding the room.