Uncanny Tales

by Robert Sheckley

  Does this seem over-emphatic to you? Consider my position. I am 27 years old. A junior stockbroker in a well-known Boston company. I’m doing very well, thank you, through a combination of intelligence, steady nerve, rational assessment of the factors involved, and self-discipline. By self-discipline, I mean that I didn’t spend much time asking myself why I was doing the work I was doing. I sensed that asking that could open up a nasty can of worms. Spiritually, stockbroker might be hard to justify. But I figured I’d get around to that later; in my fifties, maybe, when I’d retire rich and move with Janie to some warmer climate.

  I guess I haven’t mentioned Janie yet. Janie Sommers. We’re engaged. I’m head over heels in love. Not just with Janie, though she’s extremely loveable, but with what Janie and I were planning to do with our lives.

  It was going to be a good life, a rich life, filled with shiny cars and a swimming pool and a big house filled with excellent art objects. Janie’s stipend from Vogue wouldn’t bring that about. But her inheritance when she turned 25 would. Together, we could have everything we wanted. That may sound crass. But how could I not calculate our joint incomes, with a view to making life better for Janie as well as for me?

  I really don’t want to get into all this. But I thought I should explain why I was so dead-set against visionary experience. It would commit me to something I wanted no part in. To giving up the delightful, worldly life I had planned and turning to disseminating the “truth” as I had conceived it.

  Once I admitted to visionary experience, I knew I was a goner. I could hear myself bending my friends’ ears: “Let me tell you what happened to me one strange night in New Hampshire…”

  I wanted none of that.

  And yet, the logic of visionary experience demands that you spread it around. Tell the world about it. But that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do as I watched the glowing, spinning sphere dance around the room against all the laws of gravity and common sense, and I heard myself saying, “I don’t want to be the subject of a National Public Radio hour on strange unexplained experiences, I want to do something I’m good at, stock brokering, make a lot of money, live well.”

  The sphere took one more brush against the wall, dislodging Edwin’s high school graduation certificate and then it split in two, its halves fluttering to the floor. Something came out of it. Something small and smoky that grew in size and then solidified for a moment into a small body and staring face—staring at me—and then this thing, whatever it was, faded and became invisible and I had my hands full to control the seizures I was considering falling into. (“Yes, I saw it with my own eyes! It was not of this world!”)

  I resisted the impulse of the true believer and looked at the shell the thing had come in. It drooped, it melted, and then it was gone, leaving behind only a trace of moisture on the rug.

  I looked around the room. I saw the storm pouncing against the picture windows. Blown snow slanting past in hypnotic lines, accompanied by the wavering mutter of the wind. Inside the room, there was a profound darkness contrasting with the glaring white rectangle of the picture window. Although the room was in darkness, a few objects in it—the top of a ladder chair, the head of a plaster statue of some classical deity—were still bathed in light. A Rembrandt effect. And the creature or whatever it was that came out of the sphere was nowhere to be seen. But that didn’t mean that it was gone.

  “You look for it in the kitchen,” I told Janie. “I’ll keep on checking here.”

  No, Janie wasn’t there. But in some weird way, she was. I can’t explain it. I can only report to you how it seemed to me at the time.

  I checked the room again. Looking for the creature from the sphere. Looking for her. Funny how I’d already decided it was a she. Funny how I could sense her presence still in the room, watching me.

  Something watching me. The moment stretched out…

  And dissolved in my sudden annoyance. I don’t want her looking at me! How dare this invisible thing look at me?

  What else was she intending?

  My mind had taken a curious turn. From judging an event as an hallucination to rejudging it as something real. And now I was really worried.

  It had been so much more comfortable when I’d thought it was a hallucination. But I’d had to give up that comforting thought. Trying to force myself to believe I was hallucinating felt like a bad idea. It would make my judgments unreliable. It’s madness to consider yourself unreliable. And very unsafe. I was alone there, except for Janie, who wasn’t really there. In a situation like that, who are you going to rely on?

  I summed up what I thought I knew. I had the distinct feeling that the storm had plucked something invisible out of the air and hurled it through my picture window. The thing it had thrown was, let’s say, a sort of very small spaceship. Inside the living room, the little ship had buzzed around like a deranged being. No doubt it was no longer working right. Finally it fell apart, and something came out.

  That was as far as my thought took me at the time. I just knew that something uncanny was in the same room with me, watching me, and I had no idea what that invisible thing intended with me.

  Since I had nothing to go on but my suppositions, I decided to give them free rein.

  It seemed to me that this being had blundered into this room by accident, and now couldn’t find her way out. I remembered the way the sphere had darted back and forth and bumped into walls. I’d seen a robin do the same thing, trapped in an attic window that Janie had opened to air out, and dashed itself to death before we could shoo it out the open window which it couldn’t find.

  I suspected it was going to attack me.

  With a shudder I turned defensive. My hands were raised in boxer’s position. My head slowly turned from one side of the room to another. Although I knew I could not see her, yet I thought I could sense her. And, with a little luck, do something about it before she did me a mischief.

  It was an eerie time for me as I sat propped up against the couch, my ankle throbbing, the hole in my back oozing blood, the wind rattling the windows and the darkness engulfing everything as night came on. I couldn’t see the thing and therefore I saw it everywhere. It was the odd humpbacked shape on the mantel, the suspicious shadow on the rug, the triangle of greater darkness that peered out of closets and cubbyholes.

  I caught a glimpse of it for a moment, then lost sight of it in the darkening living room. And then I felt something at my back, near my wound, felt something wet and sticky on my skin, I turned, and saw it. It was glued to my back. It seemed to be sucking my blood. I screamed and swatted at it, and it darted away and lost itself in a corner of the room.

  Janie came out of the kitchen then. “Where is it?” I pointed. She went at it with a pillow, flailing, shouting, “Leave him alone, damn you!” And she caught the thing one solid whack as it darted around, sending it crashing to the floor. And then she was pounding at it with the pillow, and I had gotten off the couch and was stomping it with my good foot. I think we were both shouting then, or maybe screaming. Or maybe it was just me, because of course Janie wasn’t really there.

  I guess I went a little out of my head at that point. I started imagining Janie was there, and I was talking to her, telling her about this discovery I’d made, this Horla. Because that was what I was certain it was—a Horla, the uncanny creature described by Guy de Maupassant.

  Janie was saying, “Look, Ed, none of this is happening. I want a normal life. We can have it all. The best. The summer house in Connecticut, the apartment in Manhattan, the beach bungalow in Moustique. You’re making money and I’ve got money coming to me. We can do this. But honey, we can’t put any supernatural stuff in this. You can’t go around telling people you had this visitation from another world. Who’s going to buy stocks from you if you do that? We don’t want to be unreliable. People who’ve had visions are unreliable. Fanatical. You can’t tell what they’ll do. And our life is based on knowing very well what we can and will do. And what we will n
ot do. Talking about our mystic experiences is one thing we won’t do.”

  I’ve often thought about asking Janie if she was there that night. If she remembers any of it. If she can say anything at all that might account for what I saw, or thought I saw. But of course, that’s getting into pretty weird stuff, and Janie and I don’t do that. The Horla is one of a number of things we don’t talk about.

  Janie is so pretty. And she makes such good sense. And I was in such agony as I sat there, listening to her. Because this thing had happened, the more she talked, the surer of it I became. I sensed that to repudiate it, pretend it never happened—well, that would be a pretty crass thing to do. If I did that, it would be difficult to live with myself.

  On the other hand, Janie was right, if you go around talking about your other-worldly experiences, you never again have quite the same relationship with people. You’re a zealot, a fanatic, a crazy, someone most right-thinking people try to avoid. You’re seeing visions, and that’s weird. You’re telling everyone, I’ve found something more important than what you’ve staked your life to get. I’ve got news from the other side!

  People don’t like you when you talk like that.

  I didn’t want to be driven by the force of an experience I’d never bargained for, didn’t want now that I had it, wanted to get rid of it.

  “Whatever it was, we don’t owe it anything,” Janie said. “We’ve killed it. Let’s just never mention it again.”

  I nodded.

  She looked at me very seriously. “It’s agreed, then.”

  I nodded again. And we never talked about it again.

  Except that I’m writing about it now. Janie doesn’t know. Won’t know until I publish it. And then?

  I don’t know. But I have to write this.

  You see, I figured out, after a very long time, just what the creature was up to.

  She was sealing off that puncture wound in my back. What else was that sticky stuff she sprayed on me but some way of stopping the wound? Even the doctor, when I finally got to see one the next day, asked me about it.

  The Horla had just finished sealing my wound when Janie got her with the pillow.

  Not that I’m blaming Janie.

  I figure we killed that thing together. Or maybe I did it alone. Because I sure wanted to, even if I didn’t actually do it. But I think I did.

  We weren’t ready for the Horla, and for what it might bring.

  Anyway, Janie wasn’t really there, so I must have killed the Horla myself. But in another way, Janie did it.

  I’m not going to change anything now. It’s impossible to get the weird stuff that happens to you down all neat and straight. But I figured I needed to tell the story. In case the Horla’s family—lover—friends—she must have had someone—never learned what happened to her, blown off course by a sudden storm, trapped in a weird room, pursued by a big creature—or maybe the ghost of a big creature—whom she was trying to help and who wanted only to kill her. And finally did.

  The Horla gave up her life for me. If she has any friends, family or lovers out there, if there’s any way my words can get to them, I thought they’d be proud of her.

  Well, that’s the only experience I can call genuinely weird in a rather ordinary life. A story I’ve never told. Especially that last part about Janie swatting it with a pillow. Because, of course, I did that. Janie wasn’t there.

  As for Janie and me, we’re as well as can be expected.

  The City of the Dead

  This story, which floats in a construct of merging characters, narrators and viewpoints, is my view of the out of body experience. Or at least one of them.

  We fly through the streets of the city of the dead, a ghost among ghosts, and we turn the corners and respect the masses of the buildings, even though we could fly right through them. This is a documentary about hell, not a commentary. The city of the dead, the city of hell, is abstract enough without us worsening the situation by flying through walls that are supposed to be solid.

  It is quite wonderful to be able to fly through the streets. Most of this city is built of a soft white marble, and it is a very classical sort of place. Plenty of pillars so that you could almost think you were in Athens in about 400 B.C. But the streets are empty, there’s no traffic of any sort; the city of the dead is a dead sort of place, although people have tried to start some entertainment.

  It stands to reason, what else do the dead have to do but entertain themselves? What to do has been a problem for hell for a long time. What is death there for? What’s it all about? This sort of thing begins to bother people once they find themselves dead. The first thing they do is check out their situation. OK, I’m dead, I’ve got that. So is this supposed to be punishment? If so, what for? Is it for my sins? Which sins, specifically? Is atonement permitted? What do I have to do to atone? Or is it a question of serving a specific sentence? Or is this one forever, and should we just relax and take it one day at a time?

  The main question of course is, how long does this go on? Most people would even take “Forever” as an answer. But that’s not what they tell you, once you start asking. On the contrary. You are led to believe from the start that hell is for a period of time, after which there will be something else. Maybe this is the only way they can get you to think over your life. Because you’re going to have to do something about it. Or so you think.

  “By the way,” I said, “would you like a pomegranate seed?”

  I was Hades, a large well-built fellow with black hair and a black, closely trimmed beard. I was a sort of piratical looking fellow, though soft in nature to belie my bold looks. My grabbing Persephone the way I did was the first thing of its kind I had ever done. Put it down to irresistible impulse. There she was, gathering flowers in the meadows with her girlfriends, and I was riding by in my golden chariot drawn by my four fiery black horses, and the next thing I knew she was in my arms and there was hell to pay.

  Persephone of course was beautiful. She had long light brown hair that reached to her waist. Her nose, also, was quite finely drawn. It was one of those perfect Greek noses that merge up into the forehead.

  That was then and now was now, six months later, and she and I were sitting in the little shaded platform on the banks of the Styx, at the place where Charon ties up his houseboat. She looked at the two pomegranate seeds I was holding out to her, and said, “You’re not trying to trick me, are you?”

  “No,” I told her. “I’m not a tricky sort of a guy. I don’t play games. That’s not how we operate here in hell. We’re direct, straightforward, just like I was when I kidnapped you in the first place. Do you remember that day?”

  “I remember it all too well,” Persephone said. “I was out in the fields, harvesting with my friends. You came riding up in your chariot of gold drawn by four fiery horses. You were wearing black.”

  “And I lifted you up with one arm, first twisting my cloak back so it would be out of the way. I put my arm around your waist and lifted you into my chariot.”

  “The girls just stood by and gaped,” Persephone said. “And when Mother found out, she didn’t know what to make of it.”

  “She knew perfectly well what to make of it,” I told her. “It had been prophesied long ago that this would happen: that I would see you gathering flowers with the other nymphs and fall in love with you. And it was the first time I ever fell in love. I’m not like the other gods, you know, Apollo and Poseidon and all that lot. They’re forever falling in love and swearing that this time it’s for keeps. And then they’re off again next day after the next bit of skirt. But I am the King of Death and I only fall in love once.”

  “Poor Hades!” Persephone said. “Will you be very lonely without me?”

  “I’ll have my memories,” I told her. “I’ve had a wonderful half year with you. I’ve loved having you on the throne beside me. I’ve been so happy that you’re my queen in hell.”

  “I quite liked being queen of hell,” Persephone said. “It’s be
en special. I mean, hell is not like some other country. Hell is everything after it’s been used up and turned all soft and easy to handle.”

  “Hell is the place of appreciation,” I told her. “On earth, when you’re living, there’s not enough time to really get into things. But here in hell everything can take as long as it needs. There’s nothing to fear because we’re dead already. But also there’s nothing to feel bad about because in some weird way we’re still living.”

  “The afternoons are so long,” Persephone said. “They’re like the afternoons when I was a girl. They seemed to just go on and on, and the sun is reluctant to climb down the sky. But here there is no sun. Just a faint sepulchral glow across the marches that at irregular intervals lightens and darkens. But no definite sun. I miss the sun.”

  I nodded. “We have light, but no sun. There’s moonlight, though, and the special light from the torches that light the halls of the palace of death.”

  “Yes, and they cast long shadows,” Persephone said. “I used to be afraid of shadows, but in hell there isn’t anything to fear.”

  “No,” I said, “the worst has happened and it’s all over. Won’t you try this pomegranate seed?”

  She took one of the pomegranate seeds I was offering her and put it on the palm of her narrow white hand. “Why do you want me to eat it?” she said. “It’s a trick, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I can keep no secrets from you. It’s a trick.”