A Stranger in the Mirror

Three nurses attended Toby around the clock in shifts. They were crisp and capable and as impersonal as machines. Jill was grateful for their presence, for she could not bear to go near Toby. The sight of that hideous, grinning mask repelled her. She found excuses to stay away from his room. When she did force herself to go to him, Jill could sense a change in him immediately. Even the nurses could feel it. Toby lay motionless and impotent, frozen in his spastic cage. Yet the moment Jill entered the room, a vitality began to blaze from those bright blue eyes. Jill could read Toby's thoughts as clearly as if he were speaking aloud. Don't let me die. Help me. Help me!



Jill stood looking down at his ruined body and thought, I can't help you. You don't want to live like this. You want to die.



The idea began to grow in Jill.



The newspapers were full of stories about terminally ill husbands whose wives had released them from their pain. Even some doctors admitted that they deliberately let certain patients die. Euthanasia, it was called. Mercy killing. But Jill knew that it could also be called murder, even though nothing lived in Toby anymore but those damned eyes that would not stop following her around.



In the weeks that followed, Jill never left the house. Most of the time, she shut herself away in her bedroom. Her headaches had returned, and she could find no relief.



Newspapers and magazines carried human-interest stories about the paralyzed superstar and his devoted wife, who had once nursed him back to health. All the periodicals speculated about whether Jill would be able to repeat the miracle. But she knew that there would be no more miracles. Toby would never be well again.



Twenty years, Dr. Kaplan had said. And David was out there waiting for her. She had to find a way to escape from her prison.



It began on a dark, gloomy Sunday. It rained in the morning and continued all day, drumming against the roof and the windows of the house until Jill thought she would go mad. She was in her bedroom, reading, trying to get the vicious tattoo of the falling rain out of her mind, when the night nurse walked in. Her name was Ingrid Johnson. She was starched and Nordic.



"The burner upstairs isn't working," Ingrid announced. "I'll have to go down to the kitchen to prepare Mr. Temple's dinner. Could you stay with him for a few minutes?"



Jill could sense the disapproval in the nurse's voice. She thought it strange for a wife not to go near her husband's sickbed. "I'll look after him," Jill said.



She put down her book and went down the hall to Toby's bedroom. The moment Jill walked into the room, her nostrils were assailed by the familiar stench of sickness. In an instant, every fiber of her being was flooded with memories of those long, dreadful months when she had fought to save Toby.



Toby's head was propped up on a large pillow. As he watched Jill enter, his eyes suddenly came alive, flashing out frantic messages. Where have you been? Why have you stayed away from me? I need you. Help me! It was as though his eyes had a voice. Jill looked down at that loathsome, twisted body with the grinning death's mask and she felt nauseated. You'll never get well, damn you! You've got to die! I want you to die!



As Jill stared at Toby, she watched the expression in his eyes change. They registered shock and disbelief and then they began to fill with such hatred, such naked malevolence, that Jill involuntarily took a step away from the bed. She realized then what had happened. She had spoken her thoughts aloud.



She turned and fled from the room.



In the morning, the rain stopped. Toby's old wheelchair had been brought up from the basement. The day nurse, Frances Gordon, was wheeling Toby out in his chair to the garden to get some sun. Jill listened to the sound of the wheelchair moving down the hall toward the elevator. She waited a few minutes, then she went downstairs. She was passing the library when the phone rang. It was David, calling from Washington.



"How are you today?" He sounded warm and caring.



She had never been so glad to hear his voice. "I'm fine, David."



"I wish you were with me, darling."



"So do I. I love you so much. And I want you. I want you to hold me in your arms again. Oh, David..."



Some instinct made Jill turn. Toby was in the hallway, strapped in the wheelchair where the nurse had left him for a moment. His blue eyes blazed at Jill with such loathing, such malice that it was like a physical blow. His mind was speaking to her through his eyes, screaming at her, I'm going to kill you! Jill dropped the telephone in panic.



She ran out of the room and up the stairs, and she could feel Toby's hatred pursuing her, like some violent, evil force. She stayed in her bedroom all day, refusing food. She sat in a chair, in a trancelike state, her mind going over and over the moment at the telephone. Toby knew. He knew. She could not face him again.



Finally, night came. It was the middle of July, and the air still held the heat of the day. Jill opened her bedroom windows wide to catch whatever faint breeze there might be.



In Toby's room, Nurse Gallagher was on duty. She tiptoed in to take a look at her patient. Nurse Gallagher wished she could read his mind, then perhaps she might be able to help the poor man. She tucked the covers around Toby. "You get a good night's sleep now," she said, cheerily. "I'll be back to check on you." There was no reaction. He did not even move his eyes to look at her.



Perhaps it's just as well I can't read his mind, Nurse Gallagher thought. She took one last look at him and retired to her little sitting room to watch some late-night television. Nurse Gallagher enjoyed the talk shows. She loved to watch movie stars chat about themselves. It made them terribly human, just like ordinary, everyday people. She kept the sound low, so that it would not disturb her patient. But Toby Temple would not have heard it in any case. His thoughts were elsewhere.



The house was asleep, safe in the guarded fastness of the Bel-Air woods. A few faint sounds of traffic drifted up from Sunset Boulevard far below. Nurse Gallagher was watching a late late movie. She wished they would run an old Toby Temple film. It would be so exciting to watch Mr. Temple on television and know that he was here in person, just a few feet away.



At four A.M., Nurse Gallagher dozed off in the middle of a horror film.



In Toby's bedroom there was a deep silence.



In Jill's room, the only sound that could be heard was the ticking of the bedside clock. Jill lay in her bed, naked, sound asleep, one arm hugging a pillow, her body dark against the white sheets. The street noises were muffled and far away.



Jill turned restlessly in her sleep and shivered. She dreamed that she and David were in Alaska on their honeymoon. They were on a vast frozen plain and a sudden storm had come up. The wind was blowing the icy air into their faces, and it was difficult to breathe. She turned toward David, but he was gone. She was alone in the frigid Arctic, coughing, fighting to get her breath. It was the sound of someone choking that woke Jill up. She heard a horrid, gasping wheeze, a death rattle, and she opened her eyes, and the sound was coming from her own throat. She could not breathe. An icy cloak of air covered her like some obscene blanket, caressing her nude body, stroking her breasts, kissing her lips with a frigid, malodorous breath that reeked of the grave. Jill's heart was pounding wildly now, as she fought for air. Her lungs felt seared from the cold. She tried to sit up, and it was as though there was an invisible weight holding her down. She knew this had to be a dream, but at the same time she could hear that hideous rattle from her throat as she fought for breath. She was dying. But could a person die during a nightmare? Jill could feel the cold tendrils exploring her body, moving in between her legs, inside her now, filling her, and with a heart-stopping suddenness, she realized it was Toby. Somehow, by some means, it was Toby. And the quick rush of terror in Jill gave her the strength to claw her way to the foot of the bed, gasping for breath, mind and body fighting to stay alive. She reached the floor and struggled to her feet and ran for the door, feeling the cold pursuing her, surrounding her, clutching at her. Her fingers found the door knob and twisted it open. She ran out into the hallway, panting for air, filling her starved lungs with oxygen.



The hallway was warm, quiet, still. Jill stood there, swaying, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. She turned to look into her room. It was normal and peaceful. She had had a nightmare. Jill hesitated a moment, then slowly walked back through the doorway. Her room was warm. There was nothing to be afraid of. Of course, Toby could not harm her.



In her sitting room, Nurse Gallagher awakened and went in to check on her patient.



Toby Temple was lying in his bed, exactly as she had left him. His eyes were staring at the ceiling, focused on something that Nurse Gallagher could not see.



After that the nightmare kept recurring regularly, like a black omen of doom, a prescience of some horror to come. Slowly, a terror began to build up in Jill. Wherever she went in the house, she could feel Toby's presence. When the nurse took him out. Jill could hear him. Toby's wheelchair had developed a high-pitched creak, and it got on Jill's nerves every time she heard it. I must have it fixed, she thought. She avoided going anywhere near Toby's room, but it did not matter. He was everywhere, waiting for her.



The headaches were constant now, a savage, rhythmic pounding that would not let her rest. Jill wished that the pain would stop for an hour, a minute, a second. She had to sleep. She went into the maid's room behind the kitchen, as far away from Toby's quarters as she could get. The room was warm and quiet. Jill lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. She was asleep almost instantly.



She was awakened by the fetid, icy air, filling the room, clutching at her, trying to entomb her. Jill leaped up and ran out the door.



The days were horrible enough, but the nights were terrifying. They followed the same pattern. Jill would go to her room and huddle in her bed, fighting to stay awake, afraid to go to sleep, knowing that Toby would come. But her exhausted body would take over and she would finally doze off.



She would be awakened by the cold. She would lie shivering in her bed, feeling the icy air creeping toward her, an evil presence enveloping her like a terrible malediction. She would get up and flee in silent terror.



It was three A.M.



Jill had fallen asleep in her chair, reading a book. She came out of her sleep gradually, slowly, and she opened her eyes in the pitch-black bedroom, knowing that something was terribly wrong. Then she realized what it was. She had gone to sleep with all the lights on. She felt her heart begin to race and she thought, There's nothing to be afraid of. Nurse Gallagher must have come in and turned out the lights.



Then she heard the sound. It was coming down the hallway, creak...creak...Toby's wheelchair, moving toward her bedroom door. Jill began to feel the hairs rise on the back of her neck. It's only a tree branch against the roof, or the house settling, she told herself. Yet she knew that it wasn't true. She had heard that sound too many times before Creak...creak...like the music of death coming to get her. It can't be Toby, she thought. He's in his bed, helpless. I'm losing my mind. But she could hear it coming closer and closer. It was at her door now. It had stopped, waiting. And suddenly there was the sound of a crash, and then silence.



Jill spent the rest of the night huddled in her chair in the dark, too terrified to move.



In the morning, outside her bedroom door, she found a broken vase on the floor, where it had been knocked over from a hallway table.



She was talking to Dr. Kaplan. "Do you believe that the - the mind can control the body?" Jill asked.



He looked at her, puzzled. "In what way?"



"If Toby wanted - wanted very much to get out of his bed, could he?"



"You mean unaided? In his present condition?" He gave her a look of incredulity. "He has absolutely no mobility at all. None whatsoever."



Jill was still not satisfied. "If - if he was really determined to get up - if there was something he felt he had to do..."



Dr. Kaplan shook his head. "Our minds give commands to the body, but if our motor impulses are blocked, if there are no muscles to carry out those commands, then nothing can happen."



She had to find out. "Do you believe that objects can be moved by the mind?"



"You mean psychokinesis? There are a lot of experiments being done, but no one has ever come up with any proof that's convinced me."



There was the broken vase outside her bedroom door.



Jill wanted to tell him about that, about the cold air that kept following her, about Toby's wheelchair at her door, but he would think she was crazy. Was she? Was something wrong with her? Was she losing her mind?



When Dr. Kaplan left, Jill walked over to look at herself in the mirror. She was shocked by what she saw. Her cheeks were sunken and her eyes enormous in a pale, bony face. If I go on this way, Jill thought, I'll die before Toby. She looked at her stringy, dull hair and her broken, cracked fingernails. I must never let David see me looking like this. I have to start taking care of myself. From now on, she told herself, you're going to the beauty parlor once a week, and you're going to eat three meals a day and sleep eight hours.



The following morning, Jill made an appointment at the beauty parlor. She was exhausted, and under the warm, comfortable hum of the hair drier, she dozed off, and the nightmare began. She was in bed, asleep. She could hear Toby come into her bedroom in his wheelchair...creak...creak. Slowly, he got out of the chair and rose to his feet and moved toward her, grinning, his skeletal hands reaching for her throat. Jill awoke screaming wildly, throwing the beauty shop into an uproar. She fled without even having her hair combed out.



After that experience, Jill was afraid to leave the house again.



And afraid to remain in it.



Something seemed to be wrong with her head. It was no longer just the headaches. She was beginning to forget things. She would go downstairs for something and walk into the kitchen and stand there, not knowing what she had come for. Her memory began to play strange tricks on her. Once, Nurse Gordon came in to speak to her; Jill wondered what a nurse was doing there, and then she suddenly remembered. The director was waiting on the set for Jill. She tried to recall her line. Not very well, I'm afraid, Doctor. She must speak to the director and find out how he wanted her to read it. Nurse Gordon was holding her hand, saying. "Mrs. Temple! Mrs. Temple! Are you feeling all right?" And Jill was back in her own surroundings, again in the present, caught up in the terror of what was happening to her. She knew she could not go on like this. She had to find out whether there was something wrong with her mind or whether Toby was able to somehow move, whether he had found a way to attack her, to try to murder her.



She had to see him. She forced herself to walk down the long hall toward Toby's bedroom. She stood outside a moment, steeling herself, and then Jill entered Toby's room.



Toby was lying in his bed, and the nurse was giving him a sponge bath. She looked up, saw Jill and said, "Why, here's Mrs. Temple. We're just having a nice bath, aren't we?"



Jill turned to look at the figure on the bed.



Toby's arms and legs had shriveled into stringy appendages attached to his shrunken, twisted torso. Between his legs, like some long, indecent snake, lay his useless penis, flaccid and ugly. The yellow cast had gone from Toby's face, but the gaping idiotic grin was still there. His body was dead, but the eyes were frantically alive. Darting, seeking, weighing, planning, hating; cunning blue eyes filled with their secret plans, their deadly determination. It was Toby's mind she was seeing. The important thing to remember is that his mind is unimpaired, the doctor had told her. His mind could think and feel and hate. That mind had nothing to do but plan its revenge, figure out a way to destroy her. Toby wanted her dead, as she wanted him dead.



As Jill looked down at him now staring into those eyes blazing with loathing, she could hear him saying, I'm going to kill you, and she could feel the waves of abhorence hitting her like physical blows.



Jill stared into those eyes, and she remembered the broken vase and she knew that none of the nightmares had been illusions. He had found a way.



She knew now that it was Toby's life against hers.