Read Necroscope: The Mobius Murders for Free Online Page B

man could eat nothing but weak soup, which Hemmings would also prepare…little difficulty in that. But since his father’s resentment was now made manifest, if only to some other or others, so Hemmings no longer felt constrained regarding his own indifferent emotions. Why should he pretend otherwise when even as a boy in his formative years his father had had no scruples about referring to him as “strange” and “cold?” Why, it could even be that from his early childhood he’d developed that way by reason of the other’s bitter, distant attitude!
    Well it could be, but in truth he hardly thought so. He was what he was…
     

     
    Hemmings slept in a room central between his father’s study and the room occupied by the terminally sick man. This arrangement would allow him to hear the old man if he stirred or cried out in his sleep. A fourth room, directly opposite his father’s across a narrow corridor, was in use by the Matron when she was there; which wouldn’t be until she returned late the next evening. On the night in question, however, Hemmings had his father all to himself…
    In the dead of night, about two o’clock, Hemmings was disturbed in his reading of a well-thumbed book on metaphysics from the old man’s library by sounds from the room next door. He had read the same volume in his teens and even then found its contents risable, so that he wasn’t at all annoyed at having to lay it aside; he had always had his own beliefs with regard to ontology and such. Also, since it was almost time for his father’s sedative, he was hardly surprised to have heard these stumbling movements from the next room; but it did seem a little odd that the old man hadn’t called out, and there was something suspiciously furtive about the muffled sounds.
    He immediately put on a robe, went next door and, on entering, discovered the ailing man up from his bed, fumbling his way toward the door in the darkness of the unlit room!
    “Father, what in the world…?” As Hemmings spoke, he found the light switch by the door, turned on the light, then bundled the shivering old man back into bed and straightened the covers over his oh-so-frail form.
    “My study,” his father’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “I…I have to…it’s in my study…but I want it here with me.” He did not seem to be talking to Hemmings; more to himself, as people sometimes do in their sleep.
    “In your study?” Frowning at the other, Hemmings tried not to scowl. “What do you mean, Father? Now listen carefully: Matron is away; but I have your pills, and in a little while I’ll prepare your soup. As for your study: your mind is perhaps wandering, for there can’t be anything of any great importance to anyone—not any longer—in your study. Is that understood?”
    The old man’s dazed expression suddenly changed; he became far more aware, awake, and managed to shrink away from his son toward the centre of the bed. “I was…dreaming. It was a…a nightmare, I think. And I just…I simply wanted to be out of here, perhaps in my study…or anywhere!”
    “Out of here?” Again Hemmings repeated him. “Oh, don’t you worry about that, for you’ll soon be out of here!” And feeling nothing of remorse he went on: “Perhaps it’s slipped your mind, Father, but you’re sick. You’re dying!”
    There was no answer as the old man’s eyes went vacant once again, and his bald, wrinkled head fell back onto the pillows.
    In no special hurry, Hemmings went to fetch the medication and on his return saw that his father was more himself. He had managed to prop himself up a little, and his sickly eyes followed his son’s every movement while he half filled a glass with water from a jug and helped the old man to get the pills down.
    Then, sitting by his father’s bed, he told him: “In a minute or two, before the medication works in earnest, I’ll fetch your soup.”
    “I’m not hungry,” the other told him with a weak, wobbling shake of