The Project Gutenberg eBook of Faith killer This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Faith killer Author: Winston K. Marks Illustrator: Rudy Nappi Release date: October 24, 2026 [eBook #79851] Language: English Original publication: New York: Republic Features Syndicate, Inc., 1956 Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79851 Credits: Tom Trussel - Stories of Futures Past (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAITH KILLER *** Faith Killer by Winston Marks “Watch this next curve,” the old doctor told him. “We call it, ‘Hell Bend’. It consigns more souls to the other world than any spot on this highway.” Dr. Reed Fassin took the dangerous hairpin turn fast and expertly, disdaining to glance down the thousand-foot drop-off to his left. At 38, Dr. Fassin needed no advice on his driving. He knew his car, his reflexes and the laws of motion as surely as he knew his profession. It was all a matter of hard physics, intelligence and applied reason. As the rubber stopped squealing and the sleek convertible lurched back from its tortured springs, Fassin resumed their debate. “It’s preposterous to tolerate the woman,” he said flatly. “Preposterous and unprofessional.” Dr. Coffey, older and white-haired, relinquished his grip on the door handle and tried to relax. “Sorry I mentioned it if it disturbs you,” he said softly. “Faith healers are common enough,” Fassin said, “and I grant that they thrive on persecution. But a healer who practices witchcraft openly is dangerous. That’s carrying the power of suggestion too far.” Dr. Coffey raised his eyebrows in amusement. “Then you agree that they do have a positive power?” “They dispense placebos,” Fassin replied. “You know that as well as I do. Mental placebos, direct suggestions of improvement. A desperate patient will seize on any hope, believe any lie. These witchcraft devices verge on hypnotic therapy, and that stuff is tricky even in professional hands. What’s worse, it breeds superstition in the place of sensible, scientific attitudes toward medical treatment. “You’ll rue the day if you condone such a practice in your area, Dr. Coffey.” “My dear boy, I don’t condone, sanction or condemn it. I am merely fascinated with some of her results. This past year I’ve seen four of my own cases with inoperable cancer live long, long past their due dates, and in relative painlessness. She treated them.” Fassin compressed his lips in a cold smile and withheld his retort. Coffey was getting old, and it was not unheard of that non-malignant tumors were confused with carcinoma. Yet, it wouldn’t have been polite to mention the possibility of mis-diagnosis. He shrugged. “They are your patients, and you’ll have to cope with their attitudes.” “They’re my people, and I hate to see them suffer.” Coffee said mildly and dropped the subject. The mountain road wound down into the valley town, and the old man was deposited at his clinic. “Thank you kindly for the transportation,” Coffey said. “Not at all, doctor. Hardly out of my way at all, and I always enjoy these conversations with my senior colleagues,” Fassin lied. Had he known that the conversation would have degenerated to faith-healing he would never have volunteered to spare Coffey the tiring train trip returning from the medical convention. The detour had required a dead-end round-trip through the mountains before he rejoined the highway to his own city. “If you take my advice, though, you’ll get the local board of health to crack-down on this female meddler.” Coffey waved him on with a laugh, and Fassin drove on up the main street to the next intersection, where he intended to turn around. The traffic light halted him, and as he waited a long cue of people drew his attention to a ramshackle store-front with a huge, unwashed plate-glass display window. Over the entrance was a long, frayed banner of cracked oilcloth. In bold, red letters was the unapologetic legend: “FAITH HEALER.” The pause for the green light was irritatingly long, and Fassin’s curiosity had too long to generate. When the “go” signal flashed he wheeled his vehicle over to the curb and got out to investigate the burden which old Dr. Coffey had to bear. The line contained some thirty people including several in wheelchairs, and threaded its way inside to a sizable room stripped bare of fixtures except for a table, one chair and one long shelf. Fassin shouldered his way inside and gained a clear view of the proceedings. A “patient” was just leaving with a placid expression on her lined, aged face. The “healer”, a stocky woman in her fifties, was most unimposing in a cotton print dress with large pockets. Into one of these she dropped a bill as Fassin watched. She was dark, almost gypsy-dark, and she wore her black-dyed hair straight, pulled back to an ugly bun at the base of her skull. She said, “Hinckel, the basin.” A door in the back partition opened, and a boy of ten came in with an enameled white pan of water in which she washed her hands. It smelled of phenol. The next patient, a middle-aged man, lean of face and pot-bellied, took his place in the chair with his back to the healer. His scrawny hands lowered his grotesquely distended belly to his lap. Obviously a late stage of dropsy, Fassin diagnosed silently. Advanced edema. The man needed tapping, if possible. If not, he was beyond hope. The healer dried her hands, and without a word began stroking the patient’s forehead. Her face was square, gray and emotionless, straight-lipped and flat-nosed--no wonder she had her patient’s face away from her. Her wrinkled fingers were dark and strong, and the man’s face relaxed under the manipulation. At length the woman spoke. “You are very ill. I can feel it in my hands. You must cooperate.” “I will,” the man said, his eyes frightened. The woman called out to the boy again, “The wax, Hinckel.” The dark-eyed little boy came in again, hands cupped over a shapeless mass, and the odor of hot paraffin came to Fassin’s nostrils. She took the soft glob in her left hand, held it near the base of the man’s skull and snipped a bit of his brown hair with a pair of child’s blunt-nose scissors. Then she kneaded the hair into the wax and quickly shaped it into the crude image of a man. Holding it before the man she said, “Your condition can kill you if you fail to cooperate. Have faith in me, and you will be better. Behold your image which I hold in my hand. It contains a part of you. It _is_ you. I hold your health in my hands like I hold this doll.” She took a pin from the collar of her dress. “See, I am about to prick you, and you will feel it.” She stabbed the wax doll lightly in the neck, and the man jerked hard, grabbed a corresponding area of his neck and grimaced. Next, she poked a fingernail at the doll’s fat belly, and the sick man doubled over. She said, “This is not your real trouble. The sickness is up here.” She set the doll on the table and returned to massaging his head and neck. Fassin was appalled at the raw, unashamed emotions that washed successively over the man’s pained face. Now there was repose and trust, again. The woman’s voice was flat and ordinary as she droned on. “You are mortal, and I cannot cure you of that. Some day you will die, like all of us, but now you will live. You will feel better each day that you return to me, for I have your life in my hands now, and my hands know the truth.” She dropped her arms. “Come back to me tomorrow.” She set the little image on the shelf behind her, and when she turned, the man was holding out two one-dollar bills. She took them without comment. Fassin stepped forward as the woman called for the wash basin. At least she went through the motions of sanitation, Fassin reflected, as the smell of carbolic acid drifted from the pan of steaming water once more. The doctor intercepted the man patient near the door. “Are you under a doctor’s care?” Fassin demanded abruptly. The man stared at the well-dressed physician from head to foot and shook his head slowly. “Not any more. They give me no hope--just big bills.” Fassin took the man’s listless wrist and felt of the flaccid tissues of his arm. “You had better see Dr. Coffey this afternoon,” he said, “if you value your----” The man snatched his arm away. “I left a whole hospital full of doctors two days ago and drove 600 miles to come here. Now I feel better. If you are a doctor you had better take some lessons from her.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder and waddled by Fassin with a scowl. A cold fury seized the physician. “Fool!” he called after the condemned man, who ignored him and disappeared. Fassin turned to glare at the healer. She regarded him frigidly with arms relaxed at her lumpy hips. Her voice quivered. “Go back to your broken bones and your chickenpox,” she said. “Doctors are not welcome here. Not your kind.” Fassin moved to the long shelf behind her. Several hundred wax effigies stood unlabelled in uneven rows, one indistinguishable from the others. Enough patients were represented there to keep Dr. Coffey in a most comfortable practice. As it was, he knew, Coffey was scraping along on a bare subsistence level. His anger mounted, and he whirled to face the line of gullible sufferers waiting to be mulcted. Their eyes were large and staring and shocked at his intrusion. “This woman is a murderer,” he declared loudly, “and you are her victims.” Silence in the room made the muffled street sounds seem harsh and vulgar. The healer stood motionless now, looking straight before her. “Some of you,” Fassin continued, “could live long, useful lives if you remained in charge of a physician. Others of you will die soon regardless of this despicable fraud’s fairy tales. The only thing she relieves you of is your money. Save it, or spend it on whiskey. That will make you feel better, too.” He knew he was making a spectacle of himself, and the knowledge added fuel to his anger. He stepped to the end of the shelf and walked its length, arm extended, sweeping the fragile images to the stained floor where they broke. Heads and torsos rolled about grotesquely. He cried, “If you want peace of mind go to church, or better yet, go to a psychiatrist. This stupid woman can only----” He had turned to face the patients, and the look of horror on several faces stopped him. A woman, then three men rolled up their eyes and fainted to the floor with heavy thumps. The healer pushed Fassin aside and went to them muttering, “You may have killed them. To see one’s image destroyed can be fatal.” It had been an unwise act, and suddenly Fassin rushed from the hateful place in chagrin. As he pushed the crowd aside he heard the healer’s voice shrill a command. “Hinckel, come here!” He lost the rest of it in the angry muttering that followed him, but the boy emerged from the door saying, “Yes, mam. The right front.” Fassin got in his car, jabbed the starter button and was reaching for the shift lever when he noticed Hinckel, the healer’s boy helper, bending over beside the hood. The physician slid across the seat and stuck his head out. The boy had a razor and was sawing at the tread of the tire. “You, stop that!” Fassin leaped from the car, but the lad escaped. The doctor kneeled to examine his tire. It was a new, white sidewall with the treads hardly marked with wear, so it was easy to find where Hinckel had snicked an inch-long sliver of rubber from the rim of the tread. It was a mere shaving, and Fassin went over the rest of the tire for several minutes to be sure the boy hadn’t slashed the vulnerable sidewall or loosened the valve cap. One of the penalties of driving fast was the expense and meticulous attention one must give his vehicle, especially the tires. Fassin took no chances on his rubber. He always bought expensive brands, insisting on safety tubes and extra heavy treads. It had paid off in a perfect, non-blowout record. Satisfied that he had frightened the boy away in time, he got in, performed an illegal U-turn and sped from the little city. Coffey was more than welcome to his precious faith healer and his starvation practice. Thank heaven, his own post as resident surgeon insulated him from such incidents as this. As his high-powered car climbed the smooth ribbon of pavement into the hills, his anger subsided, and he reflected upon the utter irrationality of people. He was under no illusion that he had helped Dr. Coffey or harmed the healer’s practice. The gullible would have their way if it cost them their lives. How different this was from the sanity and precision of his own surgical practice where facts and skills yielded predictable and substantial fees. His colleagues would laugh over his incredible tale of back-woods superstition. The yellow and black caution sign warned of his approach to “Hell Bend,” and something made him ease off on the throttle as an approaching car made him take the outside lane only two feet from the sheer cliff’s edge. He wondered if he had examined that tire closely enough, and that made him wonder what had been the boy’s purpose in slicing the scrap of rubber from the tread like that. He remembered the little wax effigies, and then the tire business made sense. The woman must believe her own nonsense. Probably that scrap of rubber was imbedded in a hunk of wax right now. And the hunk of wax would be a lumpy image of his automobile, since she had been unable to get a scrap of his hair or a fingernail paring for her vengeful purposes. He chuckled at the thought. Now if anything went wrong on this trip home he’d never be able to shake the incident from his mind. Funny thing about superstition. Even the completely rational mind insisted on attaching absurd significances to entirely disconnected occurrences. Here he was, Dr. Reed Fassin, a scientist, sitting tensely behind the wheel of a perfectly safe vehicle in top condition, slowing down to 20 miles per hour just because of old Dr. Coffey’s warning about all the souls dispatched on this curve--and because of the missing sliver of rubber. Deliberately he relaxed and tromped hard on the accelerator. The convertible squatted and dug around the hairpin, scattering gravel from the shoulder down into the thousand-foot chasm to his right. Nervelessly, he rode out the high speed skid and bore into the next easy curve and the next with increasing velocity. Nothing had happened, and why should it? He knew his car, his reflexes and his tires. He was still chuckling when the right front tire exploded and snatched the wheel from his relaxed grasp. His lightning response caught the wheel and wrestled the car back from the very brink, but the light guard rail peeled up over the slanting hood, pierced the windshield and skewered Dr. Fassin’s handsome skull as easily as poking a pin into a soft wax doll. Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from Tales of the Frightened, Spring 1957 (vol. 1, no. 1). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAITH KILLER *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. 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