Free Plague by Graham Masterton Page B

black-and-white
photograph. ‘Who does that remind you off?’
    Nicholas took a
cursory glance. ‘It’s you. It says so, underneath. ‘Herbert Gaines plays young
Captain Dash-foot in Incident at Vicksburg’.’
    ‘Cretin,’ said
Herbert Gaines. He gripped Nicholas by the back of the neck, and forced him
over to the large gilt Victorian pub mirror that hung on the wall beside the
desk. Then he lifted the open book and held it up beside Nicholas’ face.
    ‘Well,’ said
Nicholas. ‘I guess there’s a kind of passing resemblance. But we’re not exactly
the Wrigley Double-mint twins, are we?’
    Herbert Gaines
let him go, and tossed the annual back on the desk.
    ‘You don’t
think so? You don’t even know. The first time I saw you, down in the Village, I
felt a sensation like I’d never felt before. At first, I couldn’t understand
it. I stared and stared at you, and still I couldn’t grasp what it was that
made me stare.
    Then I saw
myself in a bookstore window. I saw myself. And I realized what it was about you
that attracted me so much. You, Nicholas, are the spitting image of me, when I
was in movies.’
    Nicholas looked
uncertain. ‘That’s not why you like me, though, is it? I mean – that’s not the
only reason?’ Herbert Gaines walked carefully back to his chair, and sat down.
It looked as if his jumpsuit was filled with nothing more substantial than bent
coat-hangers and odd bones. When he was comfortable, he fixed his gaze on
Nicholas again – those deep, disturbing eyes – and he spoke in grave, sonorous
tones. ‘Nicholas,’ he said, ‘I love you.’
    Nicholas
scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. ‘I know that, Herbert, but...’
    ‘
    ‘But nothing,’
said Herbert. ‘I love you. Does it matter why?’
    Nicholas
lowered his eyes. ‘I guess not. It was just that I wondered if you loved me
because I was me, or because, well...’
    ‘Because what?’
    ‘Well, because
I was you. I mean – is it me you love, or your old self?’
    There was an
uncomfortable silence. Then, unexpectedly, Herbert Gaines nodded.
    ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘It is me that I love. You are the personification of what I once was, and what
I could be once more, if they would give me a chance. That, and that alone, is why I love you.’
    Nicholas stood
there, biting his lip. He watched Herbert Gaines for a while, but Herbert
didn’t look back. The old actor sat in his Victorian chair, smoking steadily
and staring at the floor.
    ‘Well, fuck
you,’ said Nicholas.
    Herbert Gaines
said nothing.
    ‘Do you think I
can take that?’ said Nicholas, his eyes filling with tears. ‘Do you think I can
just stand here and take that? What do you think I am? Just
one of your goddamned celluloid images? Just one of
your old movies? Well, fuck you, Herbert Gaines!’
    Gaines
shrugged. ‘Please yourself, dear boy.’
    Nicholas wiped
his eyes with his arm. ‘Oh, that’s great, that is. That’s just too fucking neat
for words. You spend your whole time sulking and moping like an over-age
Shirley Temple, and when I tell you the truth about it, you come out with a
charmer like that. Well, I can tell you here and now – I’m packing.’
    ‘Packing?’ said
Gaines. ‘What for?’
    Nicholas bent
forward and hissed the words at him. ‘To leave you, my withered darling, that’s
what for.’
    Herbert caught
his wrist. His mouth twitched for a moment as he searched for the words. ‘You
leave me, you young bastard, and I’ll break your neck.’
    Nicholas pulled
himself away. ‘You might have been a muscle boy in 1936, but there’s not much
chunk left on the old bones now, is there, Herbert?’
    He turned and
walked towards the bedroom. Herbert Gaines, with a curiously intense expression
on his face, heaved himself out of his chair and went after him.
    Hobbling as
quickly as he could, he caught up with Nicholas in the doorway, and snatched at
his arm.
    Nicholas shook
himself free. ‘Herbert, it’s no fucking