The Headsman Read Online Free PDF Page A

floor. She looked up, cringing in terror, and at last she found her voice. A scream came boiling out of her mouth as he raised the ax.
    5
    Four miles northwest of the Dickens house, Karen Wilson stirred in her sleep. An icy wind blew through the open window of her bedroom and the covers were ruffled as if by an unseen hand. She turned and burrowed deeper under the blankets, drawn halfway into consciousness as a series of fragmented images appeared in her mind.
    It was like seeing photographs in a light show, each strobe-burst illuminating a scene or an object, impressions randomly appearing in brilliant flashes and then just as quickly retreating into darkness. She saw a shadowy figure, and after that a woman’s open mouth, lips drawn back in a rictus induced by terror.
    She saw huge hands wearing black gloves, and a black-hooded head. She saw eyeholes in the hood, slanted like the eyes of a demon. She saw thick, black-clad legs, and feet shod in black boots. She saw an ax with glittering double blades. She saw powerful shoulders in a black tunic.
    She saw the ax raised high, saw a young woman scantily clad in a short pink nightgown lying on the floor, one hand raised in a feeble effort to protect herself. She saw the woman’s eyes grow wider, saw the mouth screaming in protest.
    She saw the axhead arc downward with terrible force, saw blood spatter in an explosion of crimson. She saw a black-gloved hand holding aloft the woman’s dripping head as if in triumph. And then she saw the black boots striding away, smaller in each succeeding image, until they were gone.
    Karen sat up in bed and turned on her reading lamp. Her heart was pounding and her breath came in shallow gasps, and her flannel pajamas were damp with perspiration. She looked quickly around the room, as if to reassure herself that she was where she should be, and that nothing was amiss. In the lamplight she made out her chair and her desk, its surface covered with knickknacks. The door of her tiny closet was open, revealing its overstuffed contents, her clothing jammed into every available inch. On the walls her posters were soft dabs of color, illustrations of Chamonix and Capri and Cap-Ferrat.
    She glanced at the clock on the table. A little after one. She shivered, and after her gaze swept the room once more she turned off the lamp and slid back down under the covers.
    Would she be able to sleep again tonight? Probably not. She didn’t know what the images meant, or where they had come from, or where the action they revealed had taken place. But she knew that the horror she had seen was real. For a time she fought to keep the impressions from reappearing in her mind, but she remembered too vividly what she had seen.
    Would she ever know what the images meant? It was impossible to say. Maybe what she had witnessed was not of the present, but had taken place a long time ago. She hoped fervently this would be the end of it, and that she’d be left in peace. Hours later she fell into a restless sleep, disturbed by dreams of a looming, black-clad shape, and an ax, and a young woman’s head floating in space, the sightless eyes frozen wide in fear.
    6
    The blade gleamed softly in the lamplight. Only a few drops of blood still clung to its surface, standing in tiny crimson beads. He had always taken great care of the instrument, sharpening it until its edges were as fine as a razor’s, polishing it for hours, and then covering it with the thinnest coating of oil. He wiped it now with a rag, restoring it to pristine cleanliness. Then he gripped the haft in both hands, turning the ax slowly, inspecting every inch of its great steel head.
    What a work of art this was. Perfectly symmetrical, each of its blades the mirror image of the other. And balanced exactly, so that it didn’t matter which edge struck when the ax was put to use. Both blades were equally efficient, equally capable of cleaving even the thickest, most muscular neck with a single stroke.
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