An Apple for the Creature

It couldn’t be, Ramsey thought. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

Yet he couldn’t make himself get off the bed and go check. He couldn’t make himself move at all, except to turn his head to look at the clock.

2:28—still knocking.

2:33—still knocking.

2:37—the knocking stopped.

Ramsey heaved a sigh of relief.

Then someone tapped on the window just above his bed.

“I hope you don’t mind if I lecture a bit here, Bob,” Andy Abrams said. “But it seems like my message just isn’t getting through.”

The window was closed and the blind drawn, thank God, so Ramsey couldn’t see him. But he could picture him. And what Ramsey pictured made him want to puke.

“Do you know what dybbukim are, Bob?” Abrams said. “I assume not. I might have mentioned them to you once, at a party or something, but you probably stopped listening. Jewish mysticism—not your thing, I know. So here’s a little refresher: A dybbuk is a malicious spirit that attaches itself to a living host. Sort of like a psychic parasite. And sort of like you, Bob. What you did to Karen. Haunting her, hurting her, sucking her dry. I thought I’d give you a taste of it. That bad, bad penny that keeps turning up. Not fun, is it?”

Another rap on the glass jolted Ramsey off the bed.

“I hope you’re listening, Bob. I hope you’re taking notes,” Abrams said. “Oh, Karen was never unfaithful to you, by the way. I just made that up to get your goat. And boy howdy, did it! Ouch! Vick’s isn’t going to do a thing for this sore throat, let me tell you. It’s worth it, though. Karen is a very special lady. So smart, so funny. And cute as a button. I do admit I’ve had my eye on her. You had me pegged there. She stirred something in me that had been asleep for a long, long . . . Well. I’ve strayed off topic, haven’t I? Summation time. Listen closely. This will be on the final exam.

“You’ve got to get over this jealous-possessive-crazy thing, Bob . . . because I’m going to keep dropping in on you if you don’t. Go forth and sin no more, that’s my message to you. People can change. It’s hard, it takes time, but it happens. So try. Please. If you find you can’t hack it . . . I don’t know. Maybe castrate yourself. Or at the very least join a monastery. But you’ve got to knock it off with the stalking. Do you hear me, Bob? Hmm? Scream or something so I know you’re listening. Bob? Bob?”

Abrams was leaning in close to the window, listening intently, one ear to the glass. Which is why he hadn’t noticed Ramsey slipping out the back door and coming up behind him.

He didn’t ask to be strangled this time. Didn’t complain about the aluminum softball bat in Ramsey’s hands. He never saw it coming.

Ramsey brought the bat down over Abrams’s head like he was Abe Lincoln splitting a log. The head didn’t act very loglike, though. It was more like a watermelon taking a whack from a mallet. There wasn’t much of it left by the time the body was dragged inside.

Ramsey deposited Abrams on the kitchen floor, then went out to the garage for his power tools and a tarp. When he was done an hour later, he loaded up Abrams’s Toyota and went for a little spin. There were four suitcases in the trunk.

One he left in the woods north of town.

One he left in the lake south of town.

One he left in the quarry east of town.

One he left at the dump west of town.

The car he left at Kroger.

It was a long walk home, made all the longer by the need to keep to alleys and yards and shadows. But at last, at exactly 5:30 A.M., Ramsey was able to collapse back onto his bed and close his eyes and rest.

SATURDAY, 5:31 A.M.

There was a knock on Robert Ramsey’s door.

MONDAY, 9:41 A.M.

Everyone in the class noticed the woman come in. It was Professor Mossler again. The students who’d seen her last time—who’d resisted the urge to sleep in through Professor Abrams’s Friday-morning lecture—stole quick, nervous glances at her as she took a seat at the back of the room.

They needn’t have worried. There would be no scene, no awkwardness this day.

She wasn’t weeping. She was beaming.

Professor Abrams smiled back at her. It was a big smile, too. A grin, even. Which seemed wrong. Professor Abrams wasn’t a grin kind of guy. Not usually anyway.

He’d seemed perkier all morning, though. Livelier. As if he’d been sleepwalking around campus for who knew how long but had finally awakened.

What the students couldn’t have guessed was this: Abrams already knew the good news Professor Mossler had come to tell him.

That their friends Cynthia and Jason had been keeping an eye on Robert Ramsey’s house.

That the day before, they’d noticed the front door open for hours.

That Ramsey’s car and U-Haul were gone from the driveway.

That when they risked a peek inside, they found the house cleared out, deserted.

That Robert Ramsey had apparently changed his mind about moving back in.

That Robert Ramsey was gone.

Professor Abrams was wrapping up an animated talk about the ibbur—a benevolent spirit, the flip side of a dybbuk—when one of his students raised her hand and asked about Jewish views of the afterlife. Her roommate, a Reform Jew, had told her that she didn’t believe in heaven or hell or immortality of any kind. How could Jews believe in ghosts if they didn’t believe in life after death?

“Things change,” Professor Abrams said with a shrug. “Jiminy Cricket, do they change.”

Well, when did that happen? another student wanted to know. They’d discussed all kinds of immortal creatures from Jewish folklore. Not just spirits like ibburim and dybbukim but angels, the demon-goddess Lilith, the Wandering Jew . . .

“Let me stop you right there,” Professor Abrams said. “Yes, Lilith and the angels and cherubim we’ve discussed. Maimonides, Mendelssohn, Kant, Cohen and the long debate over the soul—all that we’re getting to. The Wandering Jew, on the other hand, we haven’t talked about nor will we. Anyone know why?”

Professor Abrams looked around the room. No one raised a hand.

“‘The Wandering Jew,’” he said, “is the story of a Jewish man who supposedly taunted Jesus when he was on his way to be crucified. As punishment, the man was subjected to a peculiar curse: He couldn’t die. He would roam the earth until Christ returned. He would be immortal . . . if you can be said to be immortal when you’ve got an expiration date.”

The professor paused to see if he’d get a chuckle. Only Professor Mossler obliged him.

“Thank you,” he told her with another grin. “Now. There are two reasons the Wandering Jew isn’t relevant to a class on Jewish myths. First off, it’s not a Jewish story. It’s a story Christians tell about a Jew. Second—”

Abrams stopped and checked his wristwatch.

“Oh, my. Where does the time go? I’ll see you all on Wednesday.”

He headed for the back of the room, still smiling, as his students gathered up their things and left.

He never did say what the second reason was.

VSI NANCY HOLDER