All of which had propelled him to Lahr, to ask about Lather of Flies, the film that Serno had mentioned that perhaps did and perhaps did not exist.
“Serno,” Lahr mused. “Of course I remember him. He was my first and foremost dead cowboy in River of Blood. Not much of an actor, although he could play a dead body like nobody’s business.” He tented his fingers, sighed. “Ah, Serno. That’s not his real name, you know.”
“What is his real name?”
Lahr shrugged. “Does it really matter?”
“I don’t know,” said Tilton. “Why would he go to such lengths to hide it?”
“I thought it was Lather of Flies you were here about. Is it instead this fellow Serno? Are you going off script?”
Tilton shook his head. “I’m here about the movie,” he said.
With great effort Lahr rose from his chair and made his way to the desk. He scribbled something on a scrap of paper. With shaking fingers he held the scrap out to Tilton.
“You might try here,” he said. “Not that there’s likely anything,” he warned, “but just in case—no stone unturned and all that.” And then he smiled in a way that, for an instant, made Tilton’s skin crawl.
He left Lahr’s house thinking, There’s no point visiting the archive—Lahr himself all but said so. He should, he told himself, simply go home, continue with his studies, and forget all about it. That would be the sensible thing.
And yet something tugged at him. His mind calmly imagined returning to his normal life while his body, seemingly autonomous, boarded a bus. He could remember boarding the bus and getting off of it, but nothing about the ride itself, as if he had sunk too deeply into his thoughts to actually experience it. Indeed, he was surprised to find himself standing on the sidewalk, the bus pulling away from him in a roar of exhaust as he compared the address on the paper to that on the door in front of him and found they matched.
Where am I? he thought hopelessly. What’s happening to me?
And then, since, after all, he was already there, he opened the door and stepped inside.
“No,” the tweed-suited archivist behind the marble counter said. “Visitors simply aren’t allowed in unless they inquire in writing and are granted approval from the board. That process takes weeks, sometimes months.”
“I see,” said Tilton. “Well, thank you for your time.”
But when he turned to leave, the archivist reached out and grasped the arm of Tilton’s jacket. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “You’ll have to leave.”
“I am—I was already leaving,” said Tilton, surprised. He struggled and failed to shake his arm free.
It was as if the man hadn’t heard. He came around from behind his counter and steered Tilton toward the door. But instead of ushering him out, the archivist opened the door inward and hid Tilton behind it, so he was still in the room, just hidden. He smoothed his hands over Tilton’s jacket again and again until he seemed assured that Tilton would remain standing where he was. And then he stepped away.
What the hell? wondered Tilton.
He moved his head a little so as to peer around the edge of the door. The archivist had his back turned to Tilton now. He was tidying his counter while standing on the customers’ side. A moment later, he leaned far across the counter. When he came back up he was holding his briefcase.
When the archivist turned toward him, Tilton quickly ducked his head behind the door again. He listened to the sound of the archivist’s footsteps, the sharp echoic crack of his heels against the marble floor, the sound growing harsher as the archivist moved closer.
And then the door swung away and left him exposed.
Or he would have been exposed if there had been anyone in the room to be exposed to. For the archivist was now on the far side of the door, already turning the key in the lock, leaving for the day, locking Tilton in.
He wanted me here, he told himself later as he moved through the rows of metal shelves, looking at case after case for a series that might contain the reels of Lather of Flies. Why else would he have done what he did? Sometimes he would take a case down if the title written on it seemed unclear or improbable, and open it to see if the title on the reel matched the case’s label. Sometimes he would even examine a few feet of film until he could verify the title.
He tried not to think about what had happened with the archivist. Ingenious method, he imagined Lahr saying. He tried to push the voice down.
But down where? Where was there for the voice to go?
After seven or eight hours, he gave up. He was certain Lather of Flies was not in this archive. He could not figure a way out through the locked door, though, and so he sat in one corner and closed his eyes.
He was awakened a few hours later, morning light streaming in through the now-open door. The furious archivist was shaking him. “How did you get in here!” the man was saying. His anger and puzzlement seemed genuine. “Out!” he said. “Out! Before I have you arrested!”
Lahr’s house. Cut to Lahr’s house, thought the exhausted Tilton. He was tired and hungry, his hair disordered, his clothing rumpled, and yet here he was, back for more.
“Back for more?” asked Lahr, brightly. “No luck?” He was in the same brocaded chair as before but seemed different somehow. Held himself differently, seemed stronger than before. Perhaps he did better in the mornings, slowly losing his energy over the course of the day. Or perhaps he had been ill yesterday and today had recovered.
How old was Lahr anyway? Tilton was startled to find he couldn’t remember. Quite old, no doubt. Surely at that age people had as many good days as bad.
Lahr was staring expectantly at him as if waiting for him to speak. How much time had gone by? Had he phased out at some point?
“No luck,” he finally managed.
“I thought as much,” said Lahr. “Ingenuity helps you not at all if there’s nothing awaiting you. Tell me, how did you get past the archivist? He’s a stickler for etiquette, that one.”
“I … don’t know,” said Tilton. The story of what had happened now seemed so improbable to him as to be unreal.
Lahr’s eyes were very bright. “That’s that then,” he said. “You tried. Nobody can say you didn’t. Back to school, eh?”
Tilton nodded. He stood and made his way toward the sitting room door.
He had only just touched the door’s handle when from behind him Lahr said, “Although …”
Don’t say anything, Tilton told himself. Pretend you haven’t heard. Keep walking. Return to your life.
“Although what?” he heard his voice say.
“There’s another place you might try,” came the voice softly from behind him. “Just in case …”
Tilton turned around, stared.
“Not that I’d recommend it,” said Lahr, giving a shrug. Still slight, though less feeble than yesterday. “But up to you.”
Another archive. That same disconnection: arriving almost before he knew he’d left Lahr’s. That same sense that no matter what he said or did things would proceed inexorably, as they were meant to proceed. As if he had said the right thing, done the right thing. If right was the correct word.
This time the archive wasn’t in a public facility but in a private mansion beyond a spiked gate. He climbed the gate, tearing open a shirtsleeve on the way up and hurting his ankle in the drop to the ground below. He limped past a security guard who seemed, somehow, blissfully unaware of him.
At the front door, he lifted a lion-headed clapper, let it bluntly fall.
Master Parkins was not at home, a butler told him, yet did not impede him from entering. Most rooms he tried were empty, but deep in the mansion an apparently wealthy man in a dressing gown, evidently Parkins, was seated beside a crackling fire.
“Good lord,” the man said. “What the devil are you doing here? How did you get in?”
Tilton ignored the questions. Instead, he began to speak about the movie. Desmond Parkins, he suddenly knew the man’s name to be, though he had no idea how. As Ti
lton talked, Parkins calmed down. Soon he loaded a pipe, smoked, listened.
“Lather of Flies, you say?” said Parkins. “Rather an odd title, that. You’re sure you have it right, man?”
“I’m sure,” said Tilton.
“And Lahr, you said? Sure about that name as well?”
Tilton nodded.
The man sucked deep on his pipe. He held the smoke in his lungs long enough that Tilton began to wonder if it was only tobacco. Finally, he let it out.
“Ever occur to you you’re in over your head?” Parkins asked.
“Yes,” said Tilton. “Recently.”
“Ah,” said Parkins. “Good man.” He stared into his pipe. “I don’t recall anything by Lahr in our collection. Nor anything by such a title.” He rang a bell, summoning the butler. “Ah, Jenkins,” he said. “Lather of Flies. Ring a bell?”
“No sir,” said Jenkins.
“Thought not,” said Parkins. He turned toward Tilton. “There, you see? I can do nothing for you.”
Why was he so tired? It was not mere exhaustion, though it was that as well. It was as if some of the life of him, some vital essence, had leaked out.
“No luck again?” asked Lahr. He seemed to Tilton an entirely different man. Strong, robust, younger. He was out of his chair, pacing from one side of the room to the other, his stride confident. What is happening? wondered Tilton.
“No luck,” he said.
“Too bad,” said Lahr. “But, well, we expected as much, no? At least now we know it’s not there. Still, let me think. Perhaps there is another, a third archive that I can suggest …”
“Describe it to me,” Tilton managed, despite the fact his jaws seemed to want to say something else.
“Excuse me?” said Lahr, sharply. “Describe the archive? Why?”
But Tilton found he couldn’t say anything to clarify. He stood there, helpless, gawping like a fish.
“The movie you must mean,” Lahr prompted. “Lather of Flies.”
Tilton nodded.
“Are you certain you want me to describe it to you?”
But by now Tilton not only couldn’t answer, he couldn’t move.
Some time had passed. Tilton wasn’t sure how long. Maybe a few seconds, maybe much, much longer. He still couldn’t move. Lahr was slowly circling him, watching him, attentive.
“How am I to describe it?” Lahr finally said. He came a little closer, stooped so his eyes were level with Tilton’s. “Lather of Flies. Don’t you think by now you’re nearly as familiar with it as I am?”
Help me, thought Tilton.
Lahr came closer still. “Describe it?” Lahr said. “Oh, but this is the film, Tilton, if that really is your name. You’ve been in it all along. Not for your whole life, naturally, but ever since your encounter with Serno.” Lahr smiled. “Such an improbable name,” he said, with contempt. “The kind of name found only in movies or books. Shouldn’t that have given the game away?”
Still Tilton could do nothing. Couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.
“No film to be found,” said Lahr softly. “But lived is a different matter. Though lived is not the right word, exactly.” Lahr came closer still, until Tilton could see only part of his face. “Let’s instead say you are one of the privileged few allowed to experience it. What luck for you.” And even though Tilton could only see a smaller and smaller part of Lahr’s face, he could tell from the man’s voice, if it was a man, that Lahr was smiling.
And then Lahr straightened, stepped back, and slowly resumed his place in the wingback chair. He let his head fall lazily back against the soiled antimacassar. He mimed being feeble but, Tilton could tell from his eyes, he was not feeble at all. No, judging by those eyes, he was almost unbearably strong.
“Shall we go on to the next reel? It’s quite something,” said Lahr, the excitement of his voice belying his collapsed posture. “Unlike myself, I’m sorry to have to tell you, you won’t make it to the very end of the film, though we’ll have fun until then.” And then, slowly, he smiled. “Or one of us will, anyway.”
Still, Tilton could not move. He was no longer certain he could even breathe.
“Ready?” said Lahr. “And … action.”
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my thanks to the Guggenheim Foundation for its invaluable support.
I would like to thank as well the editors of the following publications in which these stories appeared:
“No Matter Which Way We Turned”: People Holding. Reprinted in Ellen Datlow, ed., The Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 9. Reprinted in Ellen Datlow, ed., The Best of the Best Horror of the Year: Ten Years of Essential Short Horror.
“Born Stillborn”: Catapult
“Leaking Out”: Mark Morris, ed., New Fears 2
“Song for the Unraveling of the World”: Bourbon Penn
“The Second Door”: Justin Steele and Sam Cowan, eds., Looming Low. Reprinted in Robert Shearman and Michael Kelly, eds., Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 5.
“Sisters”: Ellen Datlow and Lisa Morton, eds., Haunted Nights
“Room Tone”: The Masters Review
“Shirts and Skins”: Hunger Mountain
“The Tower”: Plinth
“The Hole”: Scott Dwyer, ed., Phantasm/Chimera
“A Disappearance”: Lake Effect
“The Cardiacs”: Diagram
“Smear”: Conjunctions. Reprinted in John Joseph Adams and Charles Yu, eds., The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2017.
“The Glistening World”: Outlook Springs
“Wanderlust”: Mississippi Review
“Lord of the Vats”: Scott Gable and C. Dombrowski, eds., Ride the Star Wind
“Glasses”: Ellen Datlow, ed., Children of Lovecraft
“Menno”: Gamut
“Line of Sight”: Michael Kelly, ed., Shadows & Tall Trees 7
“Trigger Warnings”: Autre Lettres
“Kindred Spirit”: Lumina
“Lather of Flies”: Max Booth III and Lori Michelle, eds., Lost Films
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