Vacations from Hell

He pointed at the hand, which was still just flopped there, palm up, and taking in our conversation in a passive, disembodied-hand kind of way.



“But we can save you. And your sister. Either one of you could be infected. You could have passed eet to her.”



“What…are…you…talking…about?”



“This is my fault,” he said mournfully. “I must fix this.”



Gerard picked up a stick and used it to push the plastic over the hand a little, so that I would stop staring at it. He tipped my chin up to look him in the eye.



“Three weeks ago,” he began, “a very famous psychologist died in a car crash along with his wife. He left his library and papers to my university. Thousands of books and papers. I am one of five students asked to go through the papers, read them, sort them. I read through a dozen boxes, maybe more. A few days ago I came home to stay with my cousin for a visit. I was allowed to bring some papers with me. I read them on the train. Many of them were very boring, but then, I find a bundle of papers that looked very old. Attached to them is a note in the psychologist’s handwriting that says, ‘Do not read.’ So I read them. Or most of them. Eet seems that he was studying the murder impulse—how normal people can murder.”



I almost laughed and almost said, “Normal isn’t a word we like to use.” But I was pretty sure that if I tried to talk, I would throw up.



“This psychologist,” Gerard went on, “he was a great man, but as he got older, he started to study things many find ridiculous, very unusual areas of psychology. These notes of his talked of a story that made people kill once they heard eet. The story was about the revolution, about the spirit of murder. About the Law of Suspects. Once you hear eet, you will kill someone close to you before the next morning. The papers went on to say that only one person is…infected…at a time. Like a curse. Once the person murders, they are compelled to tell the story to someone else, then they kill themselves.



“A copy of this deadly story was attached, along with many notes of warning. There was no indication that he had read eet. In fact, eet seemed he had not. He had simply located the last known copy and kept eet. An academic impulse. You cannot get rid of an important document, no matter how dangerous. The notes indicated that eet was in a letter dated 1804. Eet had been lost for many, many years, but he had uncovered eet and wished he hadn’t. I did not take eet seriously. Eet is unscientific. Ridiculous. So I stopped reading and fell asleep.”



At this, he shook his head miserably.



“When I got to my cousin’s, I told her the story over a coffee. She laughed and asked to see the papers. They are not secret, so I showed her. That night I went out with friends. I stayed out very late. I came in and went right to sleep….”



It was obviously hard for Gerard to say these things. But I had no doubt that they were true. Liars are good at seeing the truth. The color had gone from his face and he was grabbing at his hair. The shock caused by the hand deepened into dread, a dread that sank into my bones and made me unable to move.



“The next morning the house was quiet. My cousin and her husband made no noise. After some time I was worried. So I opened the bedroom door. That is when I found her husband. He had been stabbed with a corkscrew, deep into the ear. My cousin was in the closet. She had hung herself with the…the tie…from around the waist of her dressing gown. This was three days ago.”



I remembered the police car and the ambulance. That must have been the house. We had gone right past it and had no idea.



“The police thought she had perhaps gone insane, gone into a jealous rage, but I knew my cousin. There was nothing wrong with her until she read that story. I do not know how this works or why. The Law of Suspects story is real, and I brought eet back by bringing those papers here. I wasn’t able to get back into the house for a day, but when I did…the papers were nowhere. I asked the police eef they had taken them, but they had not. I remembered that the psychologist claimed the story would be passed on before death. I thought my cousin had posted the papers to someone. For the last two days I have watched her friends. I saw Henri in the village this morning, picking up some post. Later I went along to his house. I saw you there. I saw him fresh from the garden, acting very strange. I went to the garden while you were inside with him. I found this….”



He gestured toward the plastic-covered hand.



“I have not seen his wife. Have you?”



“No,” I said, managing to find my voice. “He said he was looking for his dog.”