The Dark Half

'Fugues. Headaches. Phantom sounds. And finally — '

'Phantom sounds?'

  'Yes — but you must let me tell it in my own way, Sheriff.' Again Alan heard that unconscious arrogance in the man's voice.

  'All right.'

  'Finally there was a seizure. The problems were all being caused by a small mass in the prefrontal lobe. We operated, assuming it was a tumor. The tumor turned out to be Thad Beaumont's twin.'

  'What!'

   'Yes, indeed,' Pritchard said. He sounded as if the unalloyed shock in Alan's voice rather pleased him. 'This is not entirely uncommon — twins are often absorbed in utero, and in rare cases the absorption is incomplete — but the location was unusual, and so was the growth-spurt of the foreign tissue. Such tissue almost always remains inert. I believe that Thad's problems may have been caused by the early onset of puberty.'

   'Wait,' Alan said. 'Just wait.' He had read the phrase 'his mind reeled' a time or two in books, but this was the first time he had ever experienced such a feeling himself. 'Are you telling me that Thad was a twin, but he . . . he somehow . . . somehow ate his brother?'

   'Or sister,' Pritchard said. 'But I suspect it was a brother, because I believe absorption is much more rare in cases of fraternal twins. That's based on statistical frequency, not hard fact, but I do believe it. And since identicals are always the same sex, the answer to your question is yes. I believe the fetus Thad Beaumont once was ate his brother in his mother's womb.'

    'Jesus,' Alan said in a low voice. He could not remember hearing anything so horrible — or so alien — in his entire life.

   'You sound revolted,' Dr Pritchard said cheerfully, 'but there is really no need to be, once you put the matter in its proper context. We are not talking about Cain rising up and slaying Abel with a rock. This was not an act of murder; it's just that some biological imperative we don't understand went to work here. A bad signal, perhaps, triggered by something in the mother's endocrine system. We aren't even talking about fetuses, if we speak exactly; at the time of absorption, there would have been two conglomerates of tissue in Mrs Beaumont's womb, probably not even humanoid. Living amphibians, if you will. And one of them — the larger, the stronger — simply swarmed over the weaker, enfolded it . . . and incorporated it.'

'It sounds fucking insectile,' Alan muttered.

   'Does it? I suppose so, a little. At any rate, the absorption was not complete. A little of the other twin retained its integrity. This alien matter — I can think of no other way to put it — wound up entwined in the tissue which became Thaddeus Beaumont's brain. And for some reason, it became active not long after the boy turned eleven. It began to grow. There was no room at the inn. Therefore, it was necessary to excise it like a wart. Which we did, very successfully.'

'Like a wart,' Alan said, sickened, fascinated.

    All sorts of ideas were flying in his mind. They were dark ideas, as dark as bats in a deserted church steeple. Only one was completely coherent: He is two men — he has ALWAYS been two men. That's what any man or woman who makes believe for a living must be. The one who exists in the normal world . . . and the one who creates worlds. They are two. Always at least two.

    'I would remember such an unusual case no matter what,' Pritchard was saying, 'but something happened just before the boy woke up that was perhaps even more unusual. Something I have always wondered about.'

'What was it?'

    'The Beaumont boy heard birds before each of his headaches,' Pritchard said. 'That in itself was not unusual; it's a well-documented occurrence in cases of brain tumor or epilepsy. It is called sensory precursor syndrome. But shortly after the operation, there was an odd incident concerning real birds. Bergenfield County Hospital was, in fact, attacked by sparrows.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'It sounds absurd, doesn't it?' Pritchard seemed quite pleased with himself. 'It isn't the kind of thing I'd even talk about, except that it was an extremely well-documented event. There was even a story about it on the front page of the Bergenfield Courier, with a picture. At just past two in the afternoon on October 28th, 1960, an extremely large flock of sparrows flew into the west side of County Hospital. That is the side where the Intensive Care Unit was in those days, and of course that was where the Beaumont boy was taken following his operation.

    'A great many windows were broken, and the maintenance men cleared away better than three hundred dead birds following the incident. An ornithologist was quoted in the Courier's article, as I recall — he pointed out that the west side of the building was almost wholly glass, and theorized that the birds might have been attracted by the bright sunlight reflected on that glass.'

'That's crazy,' Alan said. 'Birds only fly into glass when they can't see it.'

    'I believe the reporter conducting the interview mentioned that, and the ornithologist pointed out that flocking birds seem to share a group telepathy which unites their many minds — if birds can be said to have minds — into one. Rather like foraging ants. He said that if one of the flock decided to fly into the glass, the rest probably just followed along. I wasn't at the hospital when it happened — I'd finished with the Beaumont boy, checked to make sure his vites were stable — '

  '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