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Read Ebook: The Last Trespasser by Harmon Jim Martinez Illustrator
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Ebook has 282 lines and 13083 words, and 6 pages
THE LAST TRESPASSER
They would not believe Malloy was alone in there, in the padded cell. That made it worse.
Malloy was in his month for lying on his stomach to avoid bed sores. He was walking from Peoria, Illinois, to Detroit, Michigan, currently and he had just reached Chicago. It was fine to see State Street again, and the jewelry stores stuck in the alcoves of churches with the handsomely barred windows.
A man in Army-surplus green with an old library book was asking for carfare to a hiring hall when they began opening the door.
Malloy rolled over on one elbow. It was peculiar. They hadn't done that for three years.
Two of them came inside, thick men with disinterested faces.
"Try no sudden moves," one of them advised him.
"We will anticipate you," the other one added.
"Time for an interrogation, Malloy," the orderly said. "Come with us."
Malloy fell in between them and left the padded cell, frowning.
"What kind of an interrogation?" he asked them.
"What other kind?" one countered. "A sanity hearing."
Malloy remembered the doctor. He hadn't had much else to do for several years.
He was Dr. Heirson, a graying man with starched face and collar. But the younger man sitting with Heirson behind the broad, translucent desk was a stranger to Malloy. He seemed to be a comic strip drawing, all in straight lines.
"Yes, sir."
"Step forward, Michael," Heirson said.
Malloy stepped forward. It had been a long time since he had been allowed to travel so far.
"Now relax, Michael," the doctor continued, leaning forward and grinning hideously. "All you have to do is tell me the truth."
"No, I don't, Doctor. I'm under no compulsion to tell you the truth. I'm perfectly capable of lying if it would do me any good."
"Hush that, Michael. You must not try to make believe you can lie. I know you tell me only the truth."
"All right," Malloy said, exhaling deeply. "Believe that I speak only the truth if you like. But remember, I just told you that I'm a liar and that must be true."
Heirson blinked in watery confusion. He was obviously senile; only the old man's Rider kept him from coming apart at his mental seams.
The angle-faced man spoke into Heirson's ear. The old doctor continued to blink for a moment, then faced Malloy, the lines of his face drawn into an asterisk.
"What? You mean to tell me that you don't have an inner voice that urges you to tell the truth at all times?"
"No," Malloy explained, "I do not hear voices."
"You don't?"
"Never."
"And there is no inner sense that tells you when somebody is plotting against you?"
"Absolutely not."
"And when you are in trouble or danger, there is nothing that allows you to somehow look into the future or read minds or see through walls?"
"I can't do any of those things," Malloy stated.
Heirson threw up his hands. "Complete withdrawal from reality! Pathological! Why is he here anyway?"
The younger man grasped the withered thin upper arm and whispered audibly but not understandably. Heirson's face eventually quivered back in line with Malloy's.
"Michael, do you know what year this is?" the doctor asked.
Malloy thought about that one. He wasn't absolutely certain, but he made some rapid calculations.
"1978?"
"1979! And what has been the single most important development in human history in recent times?"
Malloy sighed. He knew what he was expected to say.
"The coming of the Riders."
"And what are Riders?"
Heirson oscillated his head. "Michael, Michael, your case isn't unique. There are others who claim that they have no Riders--usually maintaining that they are naturally superhuman and need no help from some funny kind of foreigner. They are tolerated the same way, that B.R., we tolerated people who claimed they possessed psychic auras, or who got up in cathedrals and yelled that they had no souls. But you, Michael, are a trouble-maker. You've been rude, vulgar, and reckless with your life and others in your pretense to be Riderless. Your pathological retreat from reality leaves us with no choice but to--"
The other man behind the desk shoved a paper in front of Heirson and tapped it forcefully with an index finger.
A trick, Malloy thought.
Only what point would there be in tricking him?
The oppressive horror of it crushed down upon him with its full weight.
He took a swing at the nearest guard, but naturally the guard's Rider told him what was coming and he dodged deftly, caught Malloy's arm and twisted it into half-nelson to hold him completely, infuriatingly helpless. Malloy had to hold back tears of frustration.
"Fortunately," Dr. Heirson croaked, "you can do no harm even if you do get violent, and I'm sure everyone will want to do everything possible for a poor unfortunate like yourself. We all will make allowances."
The man beside Heirson favored Malloy with a smile; Malloy wasn't sure whether it was friendly or mocking. The stranger nodded his head briefly to the guards.
Malloy was dragged, protesting, down the marble-floored hallway to the entrance of the mental hospital. His anguished cries echoed across the ornate ceiling of the old building.
He was shoved out the front door with a parcel in brown paper under his arms.
Malloy made one desperate attempt to get back inside but the massive door clanged in his face, and he could hear the reverberations dying away inside and the steady retreat of footsteps.
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