Final Reckonings by Robert Bloch

Author:Robert Bloch
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Horror Anthology
Publisher: Citadel Twilight
Published: 2015-09-08T05:00:00+00:00

5

During the next three months Barnaby Codd wrote nine short stories and two novelettes. Both of the novelettes and the last six stories sold to the slicks, and Codd acquired a bright, brisk agent named Freeman who negotiated a motion picture sale for one of the novelettes and sold TV rights to three of the stories. He kept urging Codd to tackle a novel now, and talked about "deals" and "percentages" and "building up a name while things are hot."

Things were hot, all right. Too hot. Codd had new furniture and a new car. He had a bank balance of over seven thousand dollars. He was in a position to satisfy his gregarious instincts and aggrandize his ego. There was no need to wait for a phone call from the Hank Olcotts of this world — he could give his own parties whenever he chose.

He tried it, once. The party was not a success. Oh, Hank came and the rest of the crowd came, and they seemed to have a good time. They complimented him and joined with Freeman in marveling over his sudden, unprecedented success. But Codd didn't enjoy himself. He kept waiting for a scarlet poppy to blossom in the corner — and, of course, it didn't.

Then he tried to drink, and found he hadn't the taste for it any longer. Nor the energy. The party tired him. He was glad when they all went away, finally, and he could turn out the lights and put on the helmet.

Because when he put on the helmet, she came. She always came, and always in the same way. He'd find himself back on the green planet under the three green moons. An instant of waiting, and then she'd bound across the landscape on an animal. Each time the animal was different — a lion, tiger, stallion, boar. Each time the action was the same — the creature bounded, she waved, then disappeared. And he'd be off in a dream plot. The plots inevitably were a product of some previous reality; twisted, inverted, expanded and projected. The Ragged Edge had been the result of his own search for Cleo. Other plots had been remotely based on subsequent daily incidents in his life.

Tonight, his dream concerned a party — a charity ball. Cleo was there (odd, she seemed to turn up in disguise as a character, regularly), and this time she was a brunette. A reigning movie queen, internationally famous, a symbol of scandal and sophistication.

There was a raffle, and she danced with the holders of the winning tickets. Codd knew the winners — he became the winners, each in turn. And he followed their lives.

He was Homer Johnson, meek little bespectacled Homer Johnson, the bookkeeper with the nagging wife. And as a result of his moment of glory, his dance with a dream, he found the courage to leave his wife, tell off his boss, and go on to his romantically cherished ambition of life in the merchant marine. The dance made him a hero.

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