The Cuckoo Clock Read online

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  THE CUCKOO CLOCK

  BY WESLEY BAREFOOT

  _You know a murderer preys on your household--lives with you--depends on you--and you have no defence!_

  Death wore the seeming of a battered Chevrolet.

  The child's scream and the screech of rubber on concrete knifed throughtwo seconds of time before snapping, like a celery stalk of sound, intoaching silence. The silence of limbo, called into being for the space ofa slow heartbeat. Then the thud of running feet, the rising hubbub ofmany voices.

  "Give her air!"

  "Keep back. Don't try to move her."

  "Somebody call an ambulance."

  "Yeah, and somebody call a cop, too."

  "I couldn't help it." It was the driver of the ramshackle Chevvie. "Shefell off the curb right in front of me. Honest to God, it wasn't myfault."

  "Got to report these things right away," said the grey-haired man besidehim. "No cause to worry if you ain't to blame."

  "Probably no brakes," said a heavily accented voice, and another spokeas if on cue, "Probably no insurance, neither."

  "Let me through! Oh, please--" The woman's voice was on the edge ofhysteria. She came through the crowd like an automaton, not seeing thepeople she shoved and elbowed aside.

  * * * * *

  "D.O.A.," said the woman heavily. Her face was no longer twisted withshock, and she was almost pretty again. "D.O.A. Dead on arrival, itmeans. Oh, Jim, I never knew they said that." Suddenly there were tearsin her blue eyes. There had been many tears, now.

  _Illustrator_: Ernie Barth]

  "Take it easy, Jean, honey." Jim Blair hoisted his lank six feet out ofthe old rocker, and crossed the room, running a nervous hand through hiscornshuck hair. _She's only thirty_, he thought, _and I'm three yearsolder. That's awfully young to have bred three kids and lost them._ Hetook her in his arms. "I know how tough it is. It's bad enough for me,and probably worse for you. But at least we're sure they'll never bebomb fodder. And we still have Joanna."

  * * * * *

  She twisted away from him, her voice suddenly bitter. "Don't give methat Pollyanna stuff, Jim. 'Goody, goody, only a broken leg. It mighthave been your back.' There's no use trying to whitewash it. Our kids,our _own_ kids, all gone. Dead." She began to sob. "I wish I were, too."

  "Jean, Jean--"

  "I don't care. I mean it. Everything bad has happened since Joanna cameto live with us."

  "Darling, you can't blame the child for a series of accidents."

  "I know." She raised her tear-stained face. "But after all-- Michael,drowned. Then Steve, falling off the water tower. Now it's Marian." Herfingers gripped his arm tightly. "Jim, each of them was playing alonewith Joanna when it happened."

  "Accidents, just accidents," he said. It wasn't like Jean, this talk.Almost-- His mind shied away from the word, and circled back. Almostparanoid. But Jean was stable, rational, always had been. Still, maybe alittle chat with Doctor Holland would be a good idea. Breakdowns _do_happen.

  They both turned at the slamming of the screen door. Then came thepatter of childish feet on the kitchen linoleum, and Joanna burst intothe room.

  "Mommy, I want to play with Marian. Why can't I play with Marian?"

  Jean put her arm around the girl's thin shoulder. "Darling, you won't beable to play with Marian for--quite a while. You mustn't worry about itnow."

  "Mommy, she looked just like she was asleep, then they came and took heraway." Her lips trembled. "I'm frightened, Mommy."

  * * * * *

  Jim looked down at the dark eyes, misted now, the straight brown hair,and the little snub nose with its dusting of freckles. _She's all wehave left, poor kid, and not even ours, really. Helen's baby._

  He looked up as the battered cuckoo clock on the mantel clickedwarningly. "Time for little girls to be in bed, Joanna. Run along nowlike a good girl, and get washed." Even as he spoke the miniature doorsflew open and the caricature of a bird popped out, shrilly announcingthe hour. It cuckooed eight times, then bounced back inside. Joannawatched entranced.

  "Bed time, darling," said Jean gently. "School tomorrow, remember? Anddon't forget to brush your teeth."

  "I won't. Goodnight, Mommy, goodnight, Daddy." She turned up her face tobe kissed, smiled at them, and was gone. They listened to her footstepson the stairs.

  "Jim, I'm sorry about the things I said." Jean's voice was hesitant, alittle ashamed. "It _is_ hard, though, you know it is-- Jim, aren't youlistening? After all, you don't have to watch the clock now." Her smilewas as labored as the joke.

  He smiled back. "I think I'll take a walk, honey. Some fresh air woulddo me good."

  "Jim, don't go. I'd rather not be alone just now."

  "Well." He looked at her, keeping his expression blank. "All right,dear. How about some coffee? I could stand another cup." And he thought:_Tomorrow I'll go. I'll talk to Holland tomorrow._

  * * * * *

  "Let me get this straight, Jim." Holland's pudgy face was sober, hiseyes serious. "You started out by thinking Jean was showing paranoidtendencies, and offhand I'm inclined to agree with you. Overnight youchanged your mind and began thinking that maybe, just maybe, she mightbe right. Honestly, don't you suspect your own reasons for such a quickswitch?"

  "Sure I do, Bob," Blair said worriedly. "Do you think I haven't beatenout my brains over it? I know the idea's monstrous. But just supposethere _was_ a branch of humanity--if you could call it human--living offus unsuspected. A branch that knows how to eliminate--competition--almostby instinct."

  "Now hold on a minute, Jim. You've taken Jean's reaction to this lastdeath, plus a random association with a cuckoo clock, and here you arewith a perfectly wild hypothesis. You've always been rational andanalytical, old man. Surely you can realize that a perfectly normal urgeto rationalize Jean's conclusions is making you concur with them againstyour better judgment."

  "Bob--"

  "I'm not through, Jim. Just consider how fantastic the whole idea is.Because of a series of accidents you can't accuse a child of plannedmurder. Nor can you further hypothesize that all orphans arechangelings, imbued with an instinct to polish off theirfoster-siblings."

  "Not _all_ orphans, Bob. Not planned murder, either. Take it easy. Justsome of them. A few of them--different. Growing up. Placing their youngwith well-to-do families somehow, and then dropping unobtrusively out ofthe picture. And the young growing up, and always the natural childrendying off in one way or another. The changeling inherits, and theprocess is repeated, step by step. Can you say it's impossible? Do you_know_ it's impossible?"

  "I wouldn't say impossible, Jim. But I _would_ say that your thesis hasa remarkably low index of probability. Why don't others suspect, besidesyou?"

  Jim spread his hands hopelessly. "I don't know. Maybe they do. Maybethese creatures--if they do exist--have some means of protection wedon't know about."

  "You need more than maybes, Jim. What about Joanna Simmons' mother?According to your theories she should have been well off. Was she?"

  "No, she wasn't," Jim admitted reluctantly. "She came here and took ajob with my outfit. Said she was divorced, and had lived in New York.Then she quit to take a position in California, and we agreed to boardJoanna until she got settled. Warrenburg was the town. She was killedthere quite horribly, in a terrible auto accident."

  "Have you any reason for suspecting skulduggery? Honestly, Jim? Or forlabelling her one of your human--er--cuckoos?"

  "Only my hunch. We had a newspaper clipping, and a letter from thecoroner. We even sent the money for her f
uneral. But those things couldbe faked, Bob."

  "Give me some evidence that they _were_ faked, and I'll be happy toreinspect your views." Holland levered his avoirdupois out of his chair."In the meantime, relax. Take a trip if you can. Try not to worry."

  Jim grinned humorlessly. "Mustn't let myself get excited, eh? Okay, Bob.But if I get hold of any evidence that I think you might accept, I'll beback. The last laugh and all that. Pending