Gil Brewer - Flight to Darkness

FLIGHT TO DARKNESS

by

Gil Brewer

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

New Pulp Press on Smashwords

Flight to Darkness

Copyright 1952 by Gil Brewer

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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FLIGHT TO DARKNESS

Chapter 1

You know how it is when you believe you shoulddo a thing, rushing ahead toward it because its a kind ofadventure, before you realize you should have stayed in bed? Well,it dawned on me too late. That last day at the veterans hospitalin California was rugged. But Id waited a long time. I wasoptimistic.

Leda Thayer stood just at the head of thestairs as I came down the corridor that morning. I wanted to stopand talk with her, maybe touch her, but I had to see Prescott. Itwould be the last time.

She came up to me and her eyes were full ofhell.

Eric, you sure lookdifferent.

No bathrobe or pajamas. Igrinned, took her hand and felt that way. She was wearing her whitenylon nurses uniform. It was the one that was always too tight inexactly the right way beneath her breasts and across her hips, andshe was lovely. She had long shapely thighs, and her auburn hairwas bright, full of light even in the somber, clinical nakedness ofthe hallway. There was in her face, in the damp turn of her lips, asecret lasciviousness. Deep-breasted, vigorous, Leda was like alush, tropical flower blooming poisonously through a crack in astretch of hot cement sidewalk. Her hand was warm.

You going in there? She noddedtoward the chief neuropsychiatrists office.

Yes.

Anyway, its overwith.

All but the goodbyes.

Baby cant wait. Her deep blueeyes got smoky as she watched me. I like you in a suit of clothes.My big old Viking. Wish youd grow a beard. A big blondbeard.

So I could tickle you?

Much.

I better go.

All right. She leaned in close,kissed me, her lips soft and hot, and for that brief instant wesaid something against each other not alone with lips. Im not sopatient anymore.

Good for baby. Inside I wasscared but still optimistic. I watched Leda go on down the hall.She moved quickly, lithely, in her crepe-soled shoes, and I likedto hear the very soft hiss of her dress.

Dr. Prescott seemed to have changed. Only Iknew he hadnt. Hed been the ogre with whom Id spent a good shareof my time during the past year.

He didnt rise from behind his desk. Hows itfeel?

Damned fine, Doc.

I went over and sat in the good old chairbeside the desk which seemed a little different now.

We looked at each other for a while. He smiledin his calm way and folded his hands on the desk blotter. Theoffice had changed, too. There was the table up against the wallwhere Prescott administered the electrotherapy treatments, but thetable no longer held that cloudy vision of terror. At least not forme. The windows were the same, only like everything elsedifferent,somehow. Thered been a time when I had stared at those blinds andwatched them grin at me, winkeven speak.

Youre going home. You feel okayabout that?

Sure, I told him. It was a lie. Iwas scared, but it had to be all right because it was the only way.My stomach burned and my nerves were like banjo strings.

Prescott looked at his folded hands and palesunlight ricocheted off the tiny bald spot on his skull. He wasntmuch older than my twenty-eight, but I imagined he supposed he wasold as hell. His manner had always been a trifle supercilious. Hehad washed-out gray eyes, straw-colored hair, and he sported amustache of perhaps nineteen hairs, which was incessantlyscraggled. He always wore a blue polka-dot bow tie and, as now, awrinkled gray gabardine suit. He didnt have too much chin, but hisoverlarge Adams-apple helped compensate for the lack. His voicewas rather high and, to me, irritating.

Prescott and I had been through a lottogether.

Anything happen since Ive seenyou?

Nope.

Sleep well?

Fine.

Dream?

Usual.

Thought wed get rid of that.Intervals are longer, anyway. How long is it this time?

Been a week and ahalf.

How did you kill him?

Same way, Doc. With a woodenmallet.

He let that coast for a while. Then he clearedhis throat. We cant allow you to run around beinghaunted.

Like I told you, Docit doesntbother me anymore.

Yeah. Only you still go rightahead killing your brother every once in a while.

I shrugged. Its a dream. Somebody strummedthe banjo strings. It had to be a dream....

I remember very clearly how youacted when you came in here, Prescott said. At least weve helpedyou some.

That or its wearing itselfout.

You always doubted we could helpyou.

I didnt say anything.

Eric. Youre sure this dream nolonger bothers you?

He was very serious and I suddenly felt sorryfor the poor devil. How could he really know? He couldnt. Howcould I tell him? I had to lie eight-tenths of the time now,because I was leaving the hospital today and this was goodbye. Idbeen passed, I was okay. Sure.

It doesnt bother me. I dont getin a sweat anymore. If I pound in my brothers head with a woodenmallet in a dream, its all right. Isnt it?

Just dandy. He sighed, shook hishead. Only hes not even your brother, really. Adopted into thefamily.

Ive always known him as mybrother.

Only you knew he wasnt. Eric,weve done all we can

But you dont really know a damnbit more than you did when I came in here. Right?

It was his turn to keep quiet. We sat therefor a time without speaking. Then he looked at me. You say youhate your brothers guts. Whats going to happen when you seehim?

Nothing. God, I thought, supposehe wont let me go. So we hate each other, I said. Weve beenover all this, Doc.

He went on just the same. He always would andperhaps someday hed write a book, as many of them did. There wasthis man maybe it would be the last time this new man, who cameup to the third platoon as a replacement. He looked like yourbrother.

I sighed. A spider was building a web underthe table where they gave the electrotherapy. Maybe it was a blackwidow.

I knew what he was thinking. He would be goingover the same old story in his mind, searching for the loose endsthat werent there, and my raced back, too. Id been in charge ofthe platoon, a buck sergeant, because it was down to that and ohGod all the rest of it, the platoon wiped out on a ridge, all butmyself and this new replacement who looked like Frank, my brother,in the bloody twilight with the guns, so the two of us tried to getback to our lines only this other man was now thinking two woulddraw enemy fire so he lost his head and he tried to kill me and getback alone then I knocked him on the head with a rifle butt andstarted shouldering him back but I remembered how I hated Frank,damn him, and this was suddenly Frank on my back hating me whilethey laid a barrage just for us boxed in and then the man Frankcame to so I hated him all my life and I picked up the woodenmallet and smashed his head in.

Claim you killed him only itwasnt your brother and you know that now.

Still worse that way.

You got hit then too,machine-gunned through both legs, slow tick-tick-tick-tick-tick,and shell fragments in your back, but you brought Frank in carryinghim on your back, and he was dead.

Yes.

Raved around telling them what youhad done.

I killed my brother.

Came to a hospital.

Yes.