Psycho by Robert Bloch Page B

little while now he'd be free of them both--victim and victor, Mother and the bitch, bitch-Mother down there in the dirty slime, let it happen, let her drown in the filthy, nasty scum --
    Now it was up over her breasts, he didn't like to think about such things, he never thought about Mother's breasts, he mustn't, and it was good that they were disappearing, sinking away forever, so he'd never think about such things again. But he could see her gasping for breath, and it made him gasp too; he felt as if he were choking with her and then (_it was a dream, it had to be a dream!_) Mother was suddenly standing on the firm ground at the edge of the swamp and _he_ was sinking. _He_ was in filth up to his neck and there was nobody to save him, nobody to help him, nothing to hang onto unless Mother held out her arms. _She_ could save him, she was the only one! He didn't want to drown, he didn't want to strangle and suffocate in the slime, he didn't want to go down there the way the girl-bitch had gone down. And now he remembered why she was there; it was because she had been killed, and she had been killed because she was evil. She had flaunted herself before him, she had deliberately tempted him with the perversion of her nakedness. Why, he'd wanted to kill her himself when she did that, because Mother had taught him about evil and the ways of evil and thou shalt not suffer a bitch to live.
    So what Mother had done was to protect _him_, and he couldn't see her die, she wasn't wrong. He needed her now, and she needed him, and even if she were crazy she wouldn't let him go under now. She _couldn't_.
    The foulness was sucking against his throat, it was kissing his lips and if he opened his mouth he knew he'd swallow it, but he had to open it to scream, and he _was_ screaming. "_Mother, Mother--save me!_"
    And then he was out of the swamp, back here in bed where he belonged, and his body was wet only with perspiration. He knew now that it had been a dream, even before he heard her voice there at the bedside.
    "It's all right son. I'm here. Everything's all right." He could feel her hand on his forehead, and it was cool, like the drying sweat. He wanted to open his eyes, but she said, "Don't you worry, son. Just go back to sleep."
    "But I have to tell you --"
    "I know. I was watching. You didn't think I'd go away and leave you, did you? You did right, Norman. And everything's all right now."
    Yes. That was the way it should be. She was there to protect him. He was there to protect her. Just before he drifted off to sleep again, Norman made up his mind. They wouldn't talk about what had happened tonight--not now, or ever. And he wouldn't think about sending her away. No matter what she did, she belonged here, with him. Maybe she was crazy, and a murderess, but she was all he had. All he wanted. All he needed. Just knowing she was here, beside him, as he went to sleep.
    Norman stirred, turned, and then fell into a darkness deeper and more engulfing than the swamp.
    SIX
    Promptly at six o'clock on the following Friday evening, a miracle happened.
    Ottorino Respighi came into the back room of Fairvale's only hardware store to play his _Brazilian Impressions_.
    Ottorino Respighi had been dead for many years, and the symphonic group--_l' Orchestre des Concertes Colonne_--had been conducted in the work many thousands of miles away.
    But when Sam Loomis reached out and switched on the tiny FM radio, the music welled forth, annihilating space and time and death itself.
    It was, as far as he understood it, an authentic miracle.
    For a moment, Sam wished that he weren't alone. Miracles are meant to be shared. Music is meant to be shared. But there was no one in Fairvale who would recognize either the music itself or the miracle of its coming. Fairvale people were inclined to be practical about things. Music was just something you got when you put a nickel in a jukebox or turned on the television set. Mostly it was rock-'n-roll, but once in a while