"My voice? You last heard it in 1949. Do you remember?"
"No," Harold Smith said slowly.
"No! Not even a stirring memory, Smith? Not even that?"
"I'm sorry, what is this about?"
"Death, Smith. It is about death. My death... and yours."
Smith gripped his knees tighter.
"Do you remember where you were on June 7, 1949?"
"Of course not. No one could."
"I remember. I remember it well. It was the day I died. "
Smith said nothing. This man was obviously deranged. His mind raced. Would another car came along? Would it stop? But this was not a well-traveled road.
"It was the day I died," the voice continued. "It was the day you killed me. Now tell me, Harold Smith, that you do not remember that day."
"I don't," Smith answered slowly. "I think you have the wrong man."
"Liar!"
"I said I don't remember," Harold Smith said evenly. He knew that when you dealt with unbalanced minds, it was better to speak in a calm voice. He also knew that you shouldn't contradict them, but Smith was stubborn. He wasn't about to go along with a madman's ravings just to humor him.
Smith heard the whirring sounds of a small motor and the dry voice came closer. Smith suddenly understood that the wan was in a wheelchair. He remembered the handicapped decal on the back of the van.
"You don't remember." The voice was bitter, almost sad.
"That's correct," Smith said stiffly.
Smith heard a new sound then. It was a softer whirring, more like the muted sound of a dentist's highspeed drill. The sound made him shiver. He hated visiting the dentist. Always had.
The blindfold was swept from his eyes. Smith blinked stupidly.
The man in the wheelchair had a face as dry as his voice. It resembled a bleached walnut shell, corrugated with lines and wrinkles. The eyes were black and sharp, the lips a thin desiccated line. The rest of the face was dead, long dead. The teeth were stained almost brown, with the roots exposed by receding gums.
"I don't recognize your face," Smith said in a voice calmer than his thoughts. He could feel his heart racing and his throat tightening with fear. The man's features grew furious.
"My own mother wouldn't recognize me!" the man in the wheelchair thundered. He pounded a dead dry fist on the wheelchair's arm. Then Smith saw the blindfold hanging in the man's other hand.
But it was not a hand. Not a human hand. It was a three-fingered claw of stainless steel. It clamped, the blindfold that the girl had worn as an armband. Smith saw a black-and-white insignia distorted in the red folds. The steel claw opened with that tiny dentist's-drill whirring. The blindfold dropped on Smith's lap and he recognized the Nazi swastika symbol. He swallowed uncomfortably. He had been in the war. It was a long time ago.
"You have changed too, Harold Smith," the old man said in a quieter voice. "I can scarcely recognize you, either."
The steel claw closed noisily. Its three jointed fingers made a deformed fist.
"Modern science," the old man said. "I got this in 1983. Electrodes implanted in my upper arm control it. It is almost like having a natural hand. Before this, I had a hook, and before the hook, my wrist ended in a black plastic cap."
Smith's face was so close to the man he could smell the other's breath. It smelled like raw clams, as if the man's insides were dead.
"Fire did this to me. Fire took my mobility. It took my speech for many years. It nearly took my sight. It took other things too. But I will not speak of my bitterness any longer. I have searched for you, Harold Smith, and now I have found you."
"I think you have the wrong man," Harold Smith said softly.
"You were in the war? World War Two?"
"Yes," he said.
"He was in the war, Ilsa."
"He admits it then?" Ilsa said, She rose, clutching the Luger tightly.
"Not quite. He is stubborn."
"But he is the one?" Ilsa demanded.
"Yes, this is the day. I told you I felt it in my bones."
"We could tie him up and throw him in a ditch," Ilsa offered. "Then cover him with gasoline. Whoosh!"
"Fire would be appropriate," the man in the wheelchair said. "But I do not think I could bear watching the flames consume him. Memories, Ilsa. No, not fire. I must witness his death."
Harold Smith knew then that he would have to fight. He would risk a bullet, but he would not let himself be executed. Not without a struggle.
Smith came to his feet abruptly. He pushed the wheelchair back and narrowly ducked a vicious swipe of the old man's claw.
"Should I shoot him? Should I?" Ilsa screamed, waving her pistol.
"No. Brain him."
Ilsa swung at Smith's balding head with the heavy barrel of the Luger. But there wasn't enough force behind the blow and the gun sight merely scraped skin off Smith's head.
Smith grabbed for the gun. Ilsa kicked one leg out from under him and leaned into him. Smith fell against the swivel chair with Ilsa on top of him.
"Hold him there," the man in the wheelchair said. Smith, his head hanging back, saw the upside-down image of the old man advancing on him with the chilly whirring of machinery.
The steel claw took him by the throat and the dentist's drill sound filled his ears, louder and louder, reminding him of past pain, even as he felt the choking sensation that told him his windpipe was being crushed. His face swelled as his blood was forced up through the arteries in his neck. His ears popped, shutting out the drumming sound of his feet against the floor.
And all the time he could see the hideous old man's face staring at him, the black eyes tiny and bright in the middle of the red mist that seemed to be tilling the van's interior.
When the red mist completely filled Harold Smith's vision, he lost all conscious thought.
"Damn!"