The Dark Half(121)

'Vites?'

'Vital signs, Sheriff. Then I left to play golf. But I understand that those birds scared the bejabbers out of everyone in the Hirschfield Wing. Two people were cut by flying glass. I could accept the ornithologist's theory, but it still made a ripple in my mind . . . because I knew about young Beaumont's sensory precursor, you see. Not just birds, but specific birds: sparrows.'

'The sparrows are flying again,' Alan muttered in a distracted, horrified voice.

'I beg your pardon, Sheriff'

'Nothing. Go on.'

'I questioned him about his symptoms a day later. Sometimes there is localized amnesia about sensory precursors following an operation which removes the cause, but not in this case. He remembered perfectly well. He saw the birds as well as heard them. Birds everywhere, he said, all over the houses and lawns and streets of Ridgeway, which was the section of Bergenfield where he lived.

'I was interested enough to check his charts, and match them with the reports of the incident. The flock of sparrows hit the hospital at about two-oh-five. The boy woke up at two-ten. Maybe even a little earlier.' Pritchard paused and then added: 'In fact, one of the ICU nurses said she believed it was the sound of the breaking glass that woke him up.'

'Wow,' Alan said softly.

'Yes,' Pritchard said. 'Wow is right. I haven't spoken of that business in years, Sheriff Pangborn. Does any of it help?'

'I don't know,' Alan said honestly. 'It might. Dr Pritchard, maybe you didn't get it all - I mean, if you didn't, maybe it's started growing again.'

'You said he'd had tests. Was one of them a CAT-scan?'

'Yes.'

'And he was X-rayed, of course.'.'Uh-huh.'

'If those tests showed negative, then it's because there's nothing to show. For my part, I believe we did get it all.'

'Thank you, Dr Pritchard.' He had a little trouble forming the words; his lips felt numb and strange.

'Will you tell me what has happened in greater detail when this matter has resolved itself, Sheriff'? I've been very frank with you, and it seems a small favor to ask in return. I'm very curious.'

'I will if I can.'

'That's all I ask. I will let you get back to your job, and I will return to my vacation.'

'I hope you and your wife are having a good time.'

Pritchard sighed. 'At my age, I have to work harder and harder to have just a mediocre time, Sheriff. We used to love camping, but I think next year we'll stay home.

'Well, I sure appreciate you taking the time to return my call.'

'It was my pleasure. I miss my work, Sheriff Pangborn. Not the mystique of surgery - I never cared much for that - but the mystery. The mystery of the mind. That was very exciting.'

'I imagine it was,' Alan agreed, thinking he would be very happy if there were a little less mental mystery in his life right now. 'I'll be in touch if and when things . . . clarify themselves.'

'Thank you, Sheriff.' He paused and then said: 'This is a matter of great concern to you, isn't it?'

'Yes. Yes, it is.'

'The boy I remember was very pleasant. Scared, but pleasant. What sort of man is he?'

'A good one, I think,' Alan said. 'A trifle cold, maybe, and a trifle distant, but a good man for all that.' And he repeated: 'I think.'

'Thank you. I'll let you get on with your business. Goodbye, Sheriff Pangborn.'

There was a click on the line, and Alan replaced the receiver slowly. He leaned back in his chair, folded his limber hands, and made a large black bird flap slowly across the patch of sun on his office wall. A line from The Wizard of Oz occurred to him and went clanging around in his mind: 'I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks!' That had been the Cowardly Lion, hadn't it?

The question was, what did he believe?

It was easier for him to think of things he didn't believe. He didn't believe Thad Beaumont had murdered anybody. Nor did he believe Thad had written that cryptic sentence on anyone's wall. So how had it gotten there?

Simple. Old Dr Pritchard just flew east from Fort Laramie, killed Frederick Clawson, wrote THE SPARROWS ARE FLYING AGAIN on his wall, then flew on up to New York from D.C., picked Miriam Cowley's lock with his favorite scalpel, and did the same thing to her. He operated on them because he missed the mystery of surgery.

No, of course not. But Pritchard wasn't the only one who knew about Thad's - what had he called it? - his sensory precursor. It hadn't been in the People article, true, but - You're forgetting the fingerprints and the voiceprints. You're forgetting Thad's and Liz's calm, flat assertion that George Stark is real; that he's willing to commit murder in order to STAY real. And now you're trying like hell not to examine the fact that you are starting to believe it all might be true. You talked to them about how crazy it would be to believe not just in a vengeful ghost, but in the ghost of a man who never was. But writers INVITE ghosts, maybe; along with actors and artists, they are the only totally accepted mediums of our society. They make worlds that never.were, populate them with people who never existed, and then invite us to join them in their

fantasies. And we do it, don't we? Yes. We PAY to do it. Alan knotted his hands tightly, extended his pinkie fingers, and sent a much smaller bird flying across the sunny wall. A sparrow.