Ray Bradbury - A Graveyard for Lunatics

“Running, shouting, mad, I suddenly thought: too much. Tired, so damned tired from too many years, too much blood, too much death, and all of it gone and cancer now. And then I met the other Beast in the tunnel near the tombs.”

“The other Beast?”

“Yes,” he sighed, his head touching the side of the confessional. “Go get him. You didn’t think there was just me , did you?”

“Another—?”

“Your friend. The one whose bust I destroyed when I saw that he had caught my face, yes. The one whose cities I trampled underfoot. The one whose dinosaurs I degutted— He’s running the studio!”

“That— that’s not possible!”

“Idiot! Fooled us. Fooled you. When he saw what I had done to his beasts, his cities, the clay bust, he went mad. Made himself up as the walking horror. The terrible mask—”

“Mask—” My mouth jerked.

I had guessed but refused the guess. I saw the film face of the Beast on Crumley’s wall. Not a clay bust animated, frame by frame, but—Roy, made up to resemble destruction’s father, chaos’s child, annihilation’s true son.

Roy on film, acting out the Beast.

“Your friend,” gasped the man behind the grille, over and over again. “God, what an act. The voice: mine. Spoke through the wall behind Manny’s desk and—”

“Got me rehired,” I heard myself say. “Got himself rehired!?”

“Yes! How rich! Give him the Oscar!”

My hand raked the grille.

“How did he—”

“Take over? Where was the seam, the crease, the boundary? Met him under the wall, between the vaults face to face! Oh, damn that bright son of a bitch. I hadn’t seen a mirror in years. Then, there I was, standing in my own path! Grinning! I struck to smash that mirror! I thought: illusion. A ghost of light in a glass. I yelled and hit, off balance. The mirror lifted its fist and struck. I woke in the tombs raving, behind bars, put in some crypt and him there, watching. ‘Who are you?!’ I shouted. But I knew. Sweet vengeance! I had killed his creatures, smashed his cities, tried to smash him. Now, sweet triumph! He ran yelling back at me: ‘Listen. I’m off to rehire myself ! And, yes! give myself a raise!’ He came twice a day with chocolate to feed a dying man. Until he saw I was truly dying and the fun was lost for him as well as me. Maybe he found that power doesn’t stay power, stay great and good and fun. Maybe it scared, maybe it bored him. A few hours ago, he unlocked my bars and led me up for that call to you. He left me to wait for you. He didn’t have to tell me what to do. He just pointed down the tunnel toward the church. Confession time, he said. Brilliant. Now he’s waiting for you in a final place.”

“Where?”

“Damn it to hell! Where’s the one and only place for such as me, and such as he has become?”

“Ah, yes,” I nodded, my eyes watering. “I’ve been there.”

The Beast slumped in the confessional.

“That’s it,” he sighed. “This last week I hurt many people. I killed some, and your friend the rest. Ask him. He went as mad as I. When this is over, when the police ask, put all the blame on me. No need for two Beasts when one should do. Yes?”

I was silent.

“Speak up!”

“Yes.”

“Good. When he saw I was dying, really dying in the tomb and that he was dying from the cancer I had given him, and the game wasn’t worth the candle, he had the decency to let me go. The studio he had run, I had run, had come to a dead jolting halt. We both had to set it in motion again. Now, next week, turn all the wheels. Start back on The Dead Ride Fast .”

“No,” I murmured.

“Damn it to hell! With my last breath I’ll come choke the life out of you. It will be done. Say it!”

“It,” I said at last, “will be done.”

“And now the last thing. What I said before. The offer. It’s yours if you want it. The studio.”

“Don’t—”

“There’s no one else! Don’t turn it down so quickly. Most men would die to inherit—”

“Die, is right. I’d be dead in a month, a wreck, drinking, and dead.”

“You don’t understand. You’re the only son I have.”

“I’m sorry that’s true. Why me?”

“Because you’re a real honest-to-God idiot savant. A real fool, not a fake one. Someone who talks too much but then you look at the words and they’re right. You can’t help yourself. The good things come out of your hand into words.”

“Yes, but I haven’t leaned against the mirror and listened to you for years, like Manny.”

“He talks but his words don’t mean anything.”

“But he’s learned. He must know how to run things by now. Let me work for him!”

“Last chance? Last offer?” His voice was fading.

“And give up my wife and my writing and my life?”

“Ah,” whispered the voice. And a final “Yes—” Adding: “Now, at last. Bless me, father, for I have truly sinned.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. And forgive. That’s a priest’s job. Forgive me and bless me. In a moment it’ll be too late. Don’t send me to everlasting hell!”

I shut my eyes and said, “I bless you.” And then I said, “I forgive you, though, God, I don’t understand you!”

“Who ever did?” he gasped. “Not me.” His head slumped against the panel. “Much thanks.” His eyes closed in outer space where there is no sound. I added my own track. The sound of a mighty gate closing on oblivion, tomb doors banging shut.

“I forgive you!” I shouted at the man’s terrible mask.

“I forgive you—” my voice echoed back from high in the empty church.

The street was empty.

Crumley, I thought, where are you?

I ran.

There was a last place I had to go.

I climbed the dark interior of Notre Dame.

I saw the shape fixed out near the top rim of the left tower, with a gargoyle not too far away, its bestial chin resting on its horny paws, gazing out across a Paris that never was.

I edged along, took a deep breath, and called: “You— ?” and had to stop.

The figure seated there, its face in shadow, did not move.

I took another breath and said, “ Here .”

The figure straightened. The head, the face, came up into the dim glow of the city.

I took a last breath and called quietly, “Roy?”

The Beast looked back at me, a perfect duplicate of the one that had slumped in the confessional a few minutes ago.

The terrible grimace fixed me, the terrible raving eyes froze my blood. The terrible wound of mouth peeled and slithered, insucked and garbled a single word: “— Yesssssss.”

“It’s all over,” I said, my voice breaking. “My God, Roy. Come down from here.”

The Beast nodded. Its right hand rose up to tear at the face and peel away the wax, the makeup, the mask of horror and stunned amaze. He worked at his nightmare face with a clawing downpull of fingers and thumb. From beneath the shambles, my old high school chum looked back at me.

“Did I look like him?” asked Roy.

“Oh, God, Roy.” I could hardly see him for the tears in my eyes. “Yes!”

“Yeah,” muttered Roy. “I kind of thought so.”

“God, Roy,” I gasped, “take it all off! I have this terrible feeling if you leave it, it’ll stick and I’ll never see you again!”

Roy’s right hand impulsively jerked up to rake his horrid cheek.

“Funny,” he whispered, “I think the same.”

“How did you come to fix your face that way?”

“Two confessions? You heard one. Want another?”

“Yes.”

“Have you become a priest, then?”