Psycho - Three Complete Novels by Robert Bloch

breath. This was no time to be self-conscious or self-critical. One had to be practical. Very practical, very careful, very calm.
    Calmly, he tossed his clothes into the hamper. Calmly, he took an old oilcloth from the table near the cellar stairs. Calmly, he went back upstairs, snapped off the kitchen light, snapped off the hall light, and let himself out of the house in darkness, carrying the hamper with the oilcloth on top.
    It was harder to be calm here in the dark. Harder not to think about a hundred and one things that might go wrong.
    Mother had wandered off—where? Was she out on the highway, ready to be picked up by anyone who might come driving by? Was she still suffering a hysterical reaction, would the shock of what she had done cause her to blurt out the truth to whoever came along and found her? Had she actually run away, or was she merely in a daze? Maybe she’d gone down past the woods back of the house, along the narrow ten-acre strip of their land which stretched off into the swamp. Wouldn’t it be better to search for her first?
    Norman sighed and shook his head. He couldn’t afford the risk. Not while that thing still sprawled in the shower stall back at the motel. Leaving it there was even more risky.
    He’d had the presence of mind to turn off all the lights, both in the office and in her room, before leaving. But even so, one never knew when some night owl might show up and nose around looking for accommodations. It didn’t happen very often, but every once in a while the signal would buzz; sometimes at one or two o’clock in the morning. And at least once in the course of a night the State Highway Patrol car cruised past her. It almost never stopped, but there was the chance.
    He stumbled along in the pitch blackness of moonless midnight. The path was graveled and not muddy, but the rain would have softened the ground behind the house. There’d be tracks. That was something else to think about. He’d leave tracks he couldn’t even see. If only it wasn’t so dark! All at once that was the most important thing—to get out of the dark.
    Norman was very grateful when he finally opened the door of the girl’s room and eased the hamper inside, then set it down and switched on the light. The soft glow reassured him for a moment, until he remembered what the light would reveal when he went into the bathroom.
    He stood in the center of the bedroom now, and he began to tremble.
    No, I can’t do it. I can’t look at her. I won’t go in there. I won’t!
    But you have to. There’s no other way. And stop talking to yourself!
    That was the most important thing. He had to stop talking to himself. He had to get back that calm feeling again. He had to face reality.
    And what was reality?
    A dead girl. The girl his mother had killed. Not a pretty sight nor a pretty notion, but there it was.
    Walking away wouldn’t bring the girl back to life again. Turning Mother in to the police wouldn’t help alter the situation either. The best thing to do under the circumstances, the only thing to do, was to get rid of her. He needn’t feel guilty about it.
    But he couldn’t hold back his nausea, his dizziness, and his dry, convulsive retching when it came to actually going into the shower stall and doing what must be done there. He found the butcher knife almost at once; it was under the torso. He dropped that into the hamper immediately. There was an old pair of gloves in his coverall pockets; he had to put them on before he could bring himself to touch the rest. The head was the worst. Nothing else was severed, only slashed, and he had to fold the limbs before he could wrap the body in the oilcloth and crowd it down into the hamper on top of the clothing. Then it was done, and he slammed the lid shut.
    That still left the bathroom and the shower stall itself to be cleaned up, but he’d deal with that part of the job when he came back.
    Now he had to lug the hamper out into the bedroom, then put it down while