Karl Wagner - The Year's Best Horror Stories 21

He’d see Theodor Alban Hauss tomorrow night.

The fourth of September was pure hell. Joshua could not concentrate on anything. The weather was hot and smoggy. He couldn’t see forty yards out his hotel window. He refused to go outside into air that was so foul—just a first stage smog alert, he heard, and then found out that there were two stages beyond that, that were worse. How could people live like that? All he could do was wait in the air-conditioned hotel. He went down to one of the shops under the hotel and bought a pair of leather gloves. Waiting for fifteen hours was too much. He tested the strength of the wire over and over. The gloves saved him from cutting his hands. He hated waiting. Especially as he knew what was at the end of the wait. Hauss, another Nazi, might deserve to die for what he would do, but Joshua didn’t want to be the instrument of his death. Joshua didn’t believe in the death penalty, had marched in protest of the Vietnam War. But here he was, across the country waiting for a concert to begin so he could kill someone he didn’t even know.

Finally, the time dragged around. Joshua took another cab to the Music Center. He walked up the outdoor steps like a man going to his own execution. The bright glare of the lights in the water fountains didn’t brighten his mood. The laughter of people meeting on the stairs and hugging in the foyer—he felt none of it. He bought a program. As he climbed the stairs under the fabulous chandeliers, he looked at the infinity of reflections in the mirrors lining the stairs—what did all of those grim-faced Joshua Ben Josevses mean? In the coat pocket of each one was an instrument of death.

The Bernstein “Glitter And Be Gay” was scheduled third, after a song by Peter Warlock and another by Samuel Barber.

Joshua scanned the crowd, the furs, the jewelry until he spotted Hauss. Hauss was with a woman, a blonde. They came and sat on the aisle in the row in front of Joshua. Just like in the vision. He tried to remember the woman from the vision, but she wasn’t there. They chatted—the woman spoke with an English accent. They had a good deal of trouble trying to understand each other. Language-wise, anyway. The woman was very impressed that Hauss had spoken at U.C.L.A. the day before. Hauss seemed impressed with the woman. Just before the orchestra tuned up, he patted her knee in a fatherly fashion, left his hand there when she didn’t object.

The Warlock song—Joshua heard it in snatches. What kind of a name was Peter Warlock, anyway? The Barber was tranquil. The audience applauded both loudly. And then the “Glitter And Be Gay” began. Joshua reached into his pocket for the wire. He wrapped one end around his left glove. He slipped out two and a half feet of wire and grabbed the remaining loop in his right hand. He tested the strength of the wire again.

Everybody watched the singer. Even Hauss did not seem to notice as the wire went in front of his face.

And then Joshua jerked the wire tight. Through the wire, through the gloves, he felt the neck give, the skin cut.

He heard a gurgle abruptly cut off.

He heard a scream.

He got away without anyone following him, before anyone except the blonde knew anything was wrong. And she probably thought that Hauss was having a heart attack. It had happened so fast that Joshua was gone before anyone could react. In a cab on the way back to his hotel, he felt relief—relief!—spreading through his soul like a warm syrup, followed, surprisingly, by jubilation. He had done it! And it hadn’t been so bad. It had been easy. Surprisingly easy.

Back in his hotel room he realized the scream he had heard had come from his own throat. It had made his own throat sore.

But not as sore as Hauss’ throat.

He had done it!

When he arrived home, Joshua was relieved to find that Kevin was down the street playing with Jeremy and that Harlow was taking a nap. Joshua was unlocking the door when Socorro came to see who was there.

“How was your little trip?” Socorro asked coldly. She did not move out of the way. She was still pissed to the gills. As she had a right to be. But there was nothing Joshua could do about it. Later tonight, maybe, he could soften her. He would certainly need her help. This was the most vile thing he had ever done. And he had done it. God, he had actually done it without trying to find another way. He should not have listened to his father. Something else would have worked. The neck giving, the skin cutting—Joshua could feel them still.

But now that it was over, now that he was safely home, the relief he felt was even greater. Relief for not getting caught, yes. But, he had to admit there was another relief also: relief at having been able to do the most vile thing. Not a trace of remorse as he’d expected. Relief! He might be able to carry on these missions. The first had to be the worst.

When he didn’t answer, Socorro asked, “Was it worth it?”

“I won’t know for about ten years,” he answered.

“Well,” she said, finally backing away from the door, “come on in.”

“I’ll never know,” he said flatly, the words coming of their own volition. That was true, wasn’t it? And just so, his relief crumbled. What was he doing? What was he becoming? He would have to try and stop. His father had been able: he’d been preventing tragedies for over fifty years, and he’d been able to stop.

But the visions would not allow him to stop. They came, unannounced, with terrible moments of suffering.

His father helped him with money when he had to go to Cologne, Germany, on his second trip, a trip to prevent Wildmar Grun from planting and detonating a series of neutron bombs in the major cities of Israel. Twenty-seven years in the future that would be—if Joshua did nothing.

Money, of course, was not the issue with Socorro. She wanted to know why, despite the fact that she already knew why. Joshua refused to give her any details. Not only for sound legal reasons did he want her to know nothing.

In Cologne, with the aid of a telephone book and a friendly, English-speaking operator, he managed to find Wildmar Grun. He was fourteen years old and had the purest blonde hair a boy could manage. The hair blew lightly in the breeze as he rode up and down the street on a skateboard in front of his house. Kevin would admire this boy’s skateboarding.

He could see Wildmar’s mother through one of the open windows of the house. She was an unremarkable looking woman—a peasant from the fifteenth century. Curtains billowed serenely. Her grief would be real enough. Joshua could imagine nothing worse than losing a child. No—he could not think thoughts like that. The boy did a trick on the skateboard, flipping it into the air as he stepped off. Joshua walked to him and dropped his map. The boy bent to help, and Joshua, according to his instructions, jabbed Wildmar in the back of the neck with a small syringe. He took the map from the boy’s hand and hurried away. He heard no screams.

The next day he left after verifying that Wildmar had died.

Again, he had done it. It had not been so difficult. Just following orders. Only in retrospect did his actions attack him.

After three more trips, Joshua had to stop, had to find a way to stop. Each of the victims had been younger than the one before: a ten-year-old in Paraguay, a girl from Canada who was Harlow’s age, and finally, Raymo Scoth from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In each case, the vision of destruction to Jews and to the world had been worse and the method of execution prescribed in a secondary vision.

Raymo Scoth had been three weeks old. Forty-five years in the future, he would set off a series of controlled explosions along a small, as yet undiscovered fault in the Mediterranean. The resulting earthquakes would shake Israel , and a large part of the Middle East and Europe into a destruction of Biblical proportions.