Manhunt. Volume 2, Number 10, December, 1954

“Hey,” Dobleen said suddenly, “I smell gas.”

“Yeah, me too.” Vednick walked over to the hall door, looked down the hall. “Do you suppose—”

I swear, I hadn’t planned a thing until that second. I just saw him standing there, the cigarette still in his mouth, and something clicked in my mind and I was already in motion.

My shoulder drove into his back with every ounce of drive I could put into it. His startled yell was a wild sound in the room as he went plunging ahead of me. I hit the floor and tried to press myself flatter against it; and my last glimpse of him before pressing my face to the floor, was him crashing through the swinging door, arms windmilling.

10

And the cigarette went with him.

It was like the whole universe blew up. There was the blast and the searing lick of flame that seemed to lift me and drive me ahead of it. It seemed a long time later, although it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, that I was pushing my head through splintered wood, some of it burning. The shattered plaster was all around me, walls were tilted at a crazy angle; and dimly I realized I had been blown back into the living room.

There was something I had to do.

Something that was more important even than getting myself out of this burning wreckage.

Dobleen!

If he was cremated in this blaze, I could never prove — I stumbled to my feet, unable to use my handcuffed hands. “Dobleen! Where are you! Dobleen!”

I heard a feeble moan over the crackle of the flames. A figure so covered with plaster dust that you had to look twice to see it was a man, rolled a little, moaned again.

Don’t ask me how I did it. I can remember on a little of it, and that only as a dim nightmare. They say I dragged him out of the wreckage and all the way to the ocean, but I don’t remember the last part at all.

My memory picks up again with the sharp smell of ammonia in my nose, and a voice saying, “He’s coming out of it now.”

Then somebody was kissing my cheek, whispering, “It’s all right now,” and the voice was Julie’s and she was crying. Then I opened my eyes and saw the smile coming through the tears, and I knew she was telling me the truth.

Diary of a Devout Man by Max Franklin

He wasn’t just an ordinary Peeping Tom. He had a job, a very important job.

* * *

Monday night:

I have decided to write this diary as though I were talking to you because you are a person who has always interested me, though you will never read these words.

You know me, yet you don’t know me. That is, you know my name, what I look like and that I am the son of one of your neighbors. But inside you don’t know me at all.

When you see me you probably think what a nice quiet lad I am. Shy and reserved, but always with a pleasant smile and a polite greeting.

Do you know I stood on your front porch for an hour last night watching through a window as you sat in your favorite chair under the lamp, reading?

You sensed it once or twice, I know, because you stirred and looked around uneasily. But you couldn’t see me outside on the dark porch and you couldn’t hear me because I have practiced moving without sound and standing perfectly still, hardly even breathing, for long periods of time.

Why did I watch you? Because I watch many people. But I’m not just a Peeping Tom. I’m an observer for God.

The knowledge that I am one of God’s personal servants grew in me slowly, for at first the voices didn’t make sense to me. They were in some strange language: ancient Hebrew, I now think, because that was the original language of God. When they first spoke to me out of the silence of my room, they were merely jargon, a meaningless discord of many voices. But as they returned on other nights I gradually was able to pick out a word here and a word there, and finally even to make out whole phrases.

It is a tremendous experience when the realization finally hits you that you are one of God’s chosen and are listening to the voices of angels.

My mission isn’t yet clear to me, but I know this much: I am to watch many people, of which you’re but one, and report what I see directly to God.

Tuesday night: The voices spoke to me again last night. I’m still not entirely clear about my mission, but at least I’m surer about what God wants to know about those I watch. He wants to know which are sinners.

Are you a sinner? You seem an ordinary enough person. I think you love your family and I haven’t noticed any signs of discord in your home. But how do I know what goes on in your mind? Maybe in your thoughts you’re committing sins of the flesh even while you’re talking in apparent innocence with members of your family. According to the Bible mental sin is as evil as the physical act.

I guess I’m going to have to learn to read minds.

Wednesday night: At breakfast this morning Mother fussed over me like a mother hen.

“Do you feel all right, son?” she asked.