Tales of Terror Read Free Page B

shrieked.
    “Yes,” I said. “For the love of God.”
    I waited for him to say more. But there was nothing.
    “Fortunato!” I called.
    No answer.
    “Fortunato!” I called again.
    Still no answer.
    I thrust my torch through the hole. It barely fit through the gap. I let it drop into the room.
    I heard only the jingling of bells. The bells on Fortunato’s fool’s cap.
    Suddenly I began to feel a little ill. Because of the dampness, no doubt.
    I hurried to cement the last stone into place. Then I piled old bones against the new wall. They covered it completely.
    That was half a century ago.
    The bones have not been disturbed.
    Fortunato, rest in peace!

T hey say I am mad. Do not believe it. I am sane. Totally sane and intelligent. Highly intelligent. Of course, like all highly intelligent people, I am sensitive—very sensitive.
    Take my sense of hearing. My hearing above all. Drop a pin and I will hear it. But my other senses are keen as well. My sense of sight, for instance. I see thingsthat most people cannot. Otherwise the old man still would be alive.
    You see, on the surface, I had every reason to like him. He was always sunny and smiling. He would try to brighten my darkest moods. He was kind and understanding. He never questioned my complaints about the world. He charged me no rent for my room in his house, asking only for help with heavy chores. Indeed, when I could not sell my writing, he offered to lend me money. Not that I would take it—especially when I looked into his eye.
    His eye, I say, for he had only one, with a black patch over the other. It was a pale blue eye. Even now, I can close my eyes and see it. A film coated that eye like a shimmering teardrop. But that coatingcould not hide his pity. I could see it plain as my face in the mirror.
    It was easy to see why he looked down on me. He was rich and I was poor. He had known success in life and I knew only failure. I could understand his scorn—but I could not forgive it. I had to make him pay for it. But more than that, I had to wipe that scorn from his eye. He had to see me as I really was. He had to look up to me. He had to die with his cursed eye open.
    Each day I answered the old man’s smile with my own. Each day I returned his kindness with my own. Each morning I asked if he had slept well. Each bedtime I wished him pleasant dreams. And each night at midnight I opened his bedroom door. I opened it slowly, silently, and carefully.
    Night after night I did this. You see, practice makes perfect, and mine would be the perfect crime.
    As I said, each midnight I opened his door. I opened it just wide enough for my head to poke through. In my hand was a lantern. It was lit but covered with cloth. I thrust the lantern into the room. I parted the cloth so that a single ray of light fell on the old man in bed. I moved the light to fall on the eye I hated. But for seven nights that eye remained closed. And it had to be open to see me when I struck. Everything had to be perfect.
    On the eighth night, I opened the door more slowly than ever. Never had I felt so powerful. The old man did not dream what I was doing—and would do. Ialmost chuckled at his blindness and my brilliance.
    Maybe I did chuckle. Maybe he heard me. I do not know. I only know I heard him stir in bed.
    But this did not stop me. Tonight nothing could stop me. Tonight everything felt perfect.
    I had my head in the room and was about to shine the lantern when a second sound reached my ears. It was the rustle of the old man rising from bed. Then came a quavering cry,
“Who’s there?”
    I froze. For an hour I did not move. It was not hard to stand so still. Quite the reverse. I enjoyed every moment. It was like letting ice cream slowly melt on my tongue. I wanted to make it last. It wasdelicious to picture the old man trembling in the dark.
    He would tell himself it was nothing. He had heard the wind in the chimney. Or maybe a mouse had run across the floor. His shivering would not