The House of Doors - 01

by Brian Lumley

  Before allowing herself the luxury of sleep (which her mazed and staggering mind needed, if not her poor body) Angela had thought back a little on the somewhat blurred sequence of events she’d experienced since her arrival here.

  Of the arrival itself:

  Sucked out of Varre’s claustrophobic, crushing rock tomb by her own sarcophagus door, Angela had found herself thrown down in shallow salt water on the rim of an ocean so perfect as to make the loveliest oceans of Earth seem dull. Washed in soft, white-foaming wavelets, she’d come reeling to her feet on sand as white as marble, on a beach where a million alien shells lay drying in the warmth of a golden alien sun.

  And at once she’d known that she was not alone here, for there on the beach were fresh footprints in the sand, and out in the shallows—

  A dark head bobbed like a cork on the gentle swell! At first her heart had given a great leap inside her. She’d thought: Spencer! Or perhaps Jack Turnbull! Anderson? Then the swimmer had turned to face her—to see her and come swimming in towards the beach—and as he’d climbed up out of the waves she’d realised the full cruelty, the perversity, of the House of Doors. For it wasn’t Gill or Turnbull or Anderson but her husband, Rod Denholm. Strong, handsome, leering Rod Denholm, his eyes turning to slits as the frown lifted from his forehead and he smiled … one of his smiles!

  Naked, even as he’d splashed up out of the shallows towards her his lust had become apparent, and his face had twisted into that same vile mask she’d seen him wear so many times before.

  She was a woman, alone on a world of her own making (or if not of her making, inhabited by her fears) and now for the first time she felt a woman’s weakness. It had been different when the others were there, all in the same boat, all pitting their wits against whatever it was that controlled them. Even in the darkest circumstances they’d given each other strength, hope to carry on, companionship of sorts. Yes, even with Haggie there had been that. Oh, he had been much of a kind with Rod—in that respect, anyway—but however he might have misused her, Angela doubted that he’d have killed her. But Rod was something else. That look on his face said it all: he would take her, repeatedly and savagely, and then kill her!

  At that point she might simply have given in, surrendered herself to whatever fate was waiting—which would have signalled the end. Thone directives would have come into operation and the game would have been over; the synthesizer would have removed her from this world—or this world from Angela—and recorded her failure; all memory of her travails with Gill and the others would have been erased and she would be returned to her own place and rightful existence no worse off. All of these things would have been … if the normal rules had applied. But they no longer applied. The directives had been overruled: Sith demanded that failure be paid for in full. Clayborne had failed, and “died”; likewise Varre, a terrible, unthinkable death; and now the girl. Except she wasn’t about to give in.

  For as the Denholm clone came lolling arrogantly up the beach, his arms already reaching, Angela had remembered what Turnbull had said to Gill just a few minutes ago (a few minutes! God!) as the rock walls closed to crush them: “It won’t be finished until we break,” he’d said. “So for fuck’s sake don’t break now!”

  For fuck’s sake? A certain irony in that!

  She’d backed away from the advancing Denholm, tripped and fallen on her backside—but as he sprang she’d hurled sand straight into his glittering, lusting eyes!

  “Don’t break now!” Turnbull’s words kept repeating in her brain as she ran for the palm-fringed forest where the sand turned to loamy soil. “Don’t break now!” For somewhere in this place—on the surface of this planet—there would be another cross section, another projection, another manifestation of the House of Doors. And while there were other places into which she might escape, then she wasn’t finished yet.

  And not once had she asked herself how Rod came to be here: as well ask who was Bannerman? What was he? Or a dozen other of the hundreds of questions she felt rushing through her whirling head. No use asking who this—facsimile?—was; she knew what he was and what he would do. He’d told her clearly enough on the telephone that time, hadn’t he? And even if he was only part of her nightmare—no, because he was that nightmare—she knew that he or it would do it.

  She’d looked back once and seen him staggering and stamping on the beach, clawing at his eyes and screaming her name with Rod’s voice. “Angela! Oh, you bitch—Angela! Run, sweetheart, run—but I’ll find you. We’ll find you, Angela!”

  The “we” had made no sense to her, not then. But in the forest, shortly, and suddenly, it would.

  As she entered the cover of the trees, so beyond them she’d seen green mountains rising through a ragged tree line to yellow and ochre peaks bathing in warm sunlight. Since there seemed little chance of finding the House of Doors in the woods or along the beach, she determined to cut straight through the trees to the mountains. At least from up there she’d have an excellent view of the land all around; and if the thing she sought was to be found (in whatever shape or form it would take this time) then perhaps she’d see it.

  Also (it had dawned on her) in each of the episodes or on each world so far visited, she and the others had come upon the House of Doors almost without trying. And usually just as they were reaching the borders of human limitations. So that she’d wondered: Is that the way this game is played? Well, if it was, then she hadn’t reached her limit yet—not nearly.

  The trick of it was not to break. To win one must first play, and give it all one had. Gill wouldn’t break, she knew that. Nor Turnbull. And she wondered where were they now, especially Spencer Gill. Was he in a fix as bad as hers? Probably, for that seemed to be the nature of the thing. But at that stage she still hadn’t known exactly how bad her fix was … .

  The whipping branches of trees and shrubs lashed and cut her where she burst through them; vines tripped her and pitched her headlong into the mud beside a stream; the stains of pulpy exotic plants tinted her body where she fell amongst them, crushing their leaves and flowers. And the air rasped in her throat and lungs as she drove her body to even greater excesses—to such excesses that she really couldn’t believe that this was Angela Denholm at all, performing like an athlete!

  And yet she knew that while this was her nightmare, still it wasn’t a dream but a living nightmare. It was as real as all the rest of it had been. For however vivid the dream, and however true it may seem, dreaming pain is not an easy thing to do. Dreams may hurt emotionally, but rarely physically. And in this place—and in just about every place—Angela hurt like hell!

  Then she’d come across the river, a broad belt of glistening water flowing between well-formed banks and over a pebble bed, and the sight of it had given her a big boost. She was a fair swimmer and knew she could make it across if she just took her time and moved diagonally with the river downstream; but the beauty of it was that this was sweet, clean, deep water! And if any woman had ever felt that she needed a bath—not to mention a drink—that woman was Angela Denholm.

  Her bra had finally had to go; it had suffered and was no longer as form-hugging as a swim costume; its cups would act as brakes. Spencer’s now tattered shirt would tuck down inside what little remained of her ski pants. And that was that, the sum of her otherworldly possessions! Bare-breasted she’d taken to the water, and almost swooning from sheer pleasure and relief as it laved her cuts and bruises, swum out across the placid deeps. In a little while she’d felt the current take her; not fighting it she’d simply gone along, at the same time gradually cutting through it towards the opposite bank.

  This was a tropical world, however, and Angela did worry a little about cannibal fishes or perhaps crocodiles; but since she personally had never considered these to be “nightmarish” creatures but simply “things of nature,” her fears were not exaggerated. Nor for that matter had been her fear of Rod—not now that she was clean away from him—but two-thirds of the way across, that had bee
n about to change.

  “Angelaaa!” The long halloo had echoed out mockingly over the river, disturbing dragonflies where they skipped the water. But … it had sounded from in front of her! Impossible! How could Rod have crossed the river ahead of her? Angela trod water, lifting herself up to scan the bank ahead. And there he was, naked, rampant, stepping down into the river and wading to meet her. “Sweetheart,” he’d called. “I can see you’re all ready for me. Those lovely firm breasts of yours—but they’ll be puffy purple bags when we’re through, Angela my love!”

  That “we” again—or did he simply mean he and she? Then, this time from behind her: “Don’t swim so hard, Angela. Why waste your strength on running and swimming? You’re going to need all the strength you can find in a little while, Angela.”

  She’d churned wildly in the water, losing her rhythm, caught up in a suddenly strengthening current. And then behind her she’d seen a second Rod Denholm—or the first?—even now diving cleanly into the water from the far bank. Two of them? And now it was a nightmare and she felt herself squeezed in the grip of sheerest terror.

  Spun dizzily by the quickening current, she saw more Rods on the banks: displaying themselves as he had used to do, or simply waving at her and smiling their leering smiles, or diving into the river. A dozen of him. Two dozen!

  Upriver, heads had bobbed and powerful arms knifed the water; she’d turned downstream, deliberately driven herself into the fastest-flowing part of the current, been swept away from him and him and—

  Only her will had kept her going then. Her will to survive, to win. He hadn’t got her in her own world and he wouldn’t get her in this one. Not while there was an ounce of strength left in her. Ahead of her she’d been aware of white water, a foaming, but whatever was there had to be better than what was behind. Now she made no effort to swim, was simply swept along unresisting to her fate—but at least not that fate.

  Behind her the Rods were swimming back towards the banks, but it was too late for Angela to do the same. The current had her, was racing her back towards the sea. She remembered then how she’d climbed up from the beach through the forest. It had been the steepness of her climb which gave the river its impetus. Ahead, black shining rocks broke the surface; between them passed a tumult of tossing water; the rocks had rushed closer and she’d slipped through—into space. Torn air and rushing water and the roaring of the falls! And then the downward plunge into cool, green depths that galvanised her once more, sending her swimming underwater away from the falls, to surface in comparatively placid waters some little way beyond.

  Exhausted, she’d flopped over onto her back and floated, and up there at the crest of spray-wreathed cliffs had seen a line of Rods like soldiers on the wall of a fortress, all following her progress. Then the river had taken her round an overgrown bend and the trees and foliage had intervened to separate her from the view of her tormentors; and ahead, shortly, the forest gradually opened to ocean, and the river swept grandly to the sea … .

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Along the sandy shore of the river where it shallowed out, the first palms were growing. That was where Angela had dragged herself wearily ashore, pausing only sufficiently to recover a little of her strength before climbing the nearest tree. Its bole actually grew up out of the sweet water and so she left no tracks on otherwise virgin sand. From the top of the tree she’d scanned the beach in both directions, seeing nothing either to alarm or especially interest her; and then, finding the soft cup at the heart of the wide, spreading leaves, she’d lowered her body in and quickly fallen asleep.

  Her dreams—nightmares within nightmares-had been full of Rod, an entire army of Rods; so that now, as the dream became more violent, she started awake. But only to discover that the dream persisted, and that now it was real again.

  It was nighttime, and along the beach fires had been lit, flaring up here and there as far as the eye could see in both directions. And in the warm darkness she could hear his voice—his many voices—calling from both beach and forest alike:

  “Angelaaa! Why are you hiding, Angela? You know you like it, so why not get your fill? Let us fill you, Angela. You’ve let everyone else, you little cow, so why not all of us? We’re hard for you, Angela. We’re all so very, very hard for you … .”

  Swine! she thought, gasping her fear from between clenched teeth. Great swines!

  She moved her aching body a little—and froze. From below, almost directly below, she’d heard the sound of someone snoring. Moments passed while she held her breath, but the snoring continued unabated. Parting the branches, she peered down. By the light of a scattered handful of small, variously coloured moons, she saw him: Rod, of course, or one of them, sprawled out on the sand close to the foot of her tree, with one foot washed by the water gentling oceanward. And in his wide-flung hand, a bottle. But … a bottle, here? Also, this Rod wore clothes—his own clothes—and he looked just as exhausted, perhaps even more so, than Angela herself!

  Now what kind of trick was this that the House of Doors was playing on her?

  She crept out between two of the great leaves, turned herself about and commenced her descent, and inch by painful, agonizingly slow inch lowered herself to the ground. The cusps left by dead branches hurt her feet as before, but she could do nothing about it, and certainly not cry out! Finally she was down; turning from the sea and keeping a low pronie—especially in the vicinity of the still-sleeping, dishevelled, fully clothed Rod—she headed for the fringe of the forest where the sand of the beach turned to loam.

  Her intention was to skirt the woodland, using the shadows at its rim for cover, and so make her way along the ocean strand to a place—anyplace—beyond the area of the campfires. There were Rods in the forest, too, she knew, but in that she had a small advantage: they were noisy, and she was only one and they didn’t know where she was. Or so she thought.

  But as she reached the trees she heard a low panting from close behind, and looking back in cold fear she saw him: the one in the clothes, with the light of the small moons on his face and in his frightened eyes. Frightened, yes, and suddenly she knew for a certainty that this was the real Rodney Denholm.

  The fact was confirmed as his wide eyes swept over her moonlit face and figure. He gasped: “Angela? Is that you? Is it really you? I woke up on the beach and saw you, and I couldn’t believe it was you. But … Jesus Christ, what is this place? Where are we, Angela? God, what’s happening to me?”

  To him, always himself. Not what was happening to them but to him. As if no one else in the entire universe mattered a damn! But at least while he was frightened like this he’d be no threat to her.

  “Shh!” she cautioned him. “Be quiet! Can’t you hear them calling? They’re after me.”

  “After you?” He stepped closer, his voice questioning, suspicious, hardening a very little. “Those men?” But in a moment he was lost again, bewildered. “Angela, have you. seen them? They all look like me!”

  Yes, and I’ll bet they all act like you, too! And yet suddenly she felt she could cope with him, and far better than she might ever hope to cope with the pseudo-Rods. His fear gave her the edge over him; for the first time since the day she’d married him, she had the upper hand.

  He was like a lost, petulant child. The neck of a bottle stuck out from his jacket pocket, but he seemed sober enough. It would be a difficult thing, to get drunk in a place like this. He’d tried, though, for she could smell it on his breath. Or maybe he’d slept it off. Now if only he could stay sober, perhaps he could be of some use to her yet.

  “Rod,” she whispered, “I have to get away from here—but quickly and quietly. You can come with me if you like—but only if you do as I say. God knows you never protected me before, the opposite in fact, but right now I could use some protection. You’re a man and you’re strong. You could be if you wanted to. So these are my terms: look after me as best you can and you’ll benefit from my knowledge of this place.” (That was a joke!) “And if there
’s a way out, maybe we’ll find it. It’s up to you, take it or leave it. But now I’m on my way.”

  “Angela!” he gasped, and she guessed he’d scarcely heard a word she’d said. “But don’t you understand that something terrible has happened to me? I was in the police station in Perth. A man came in the night. He … he killed a policeman, horribly! He pulled him through the bars of my cell—literally pulled him to pieces! I—”

  “I haven’t the time, Rod,” she said, feeling sickened. Not by what he’d said but just by the fact of him. “I should have known you wouldn’t be able to look after yourself, let alone me.” She turned into the shadows.

  “I’m coming!” He stumbled after her. “Don’t leave me, Angela. I’m coming!”

  “Quietly, then!” she hissed, her heart lurching with its terror. He took her hand in trembling fingers and the touch of him felt like slime. She shook him off and said, “Very well. Stay right behind me. But Rod—don’t touch me, do you hear?”

  “How long have you been here?” she asked him, when they were past the last fire and the calling voices had fallen far behind. They trudged along the beach under alien moons and constellations, and Angela guessed that theirs were the first human footprints to ever mar these strange sands—and probably the last. Those other Rods back there: they weren’t human, couldn’t be, for the human Rod was right here beside her. And even he wasn’t her idea of human. Not anymore.

  He shrugged. “I woke up on the beach back there with these clothes I stand in and two full bottles. I saw some of those men—saw that they could all be my twins, or whatever—and thought I was dreaming. They were calling your name and searching for you, but sort of aimlessly. When it dawned on me that I wasn’t dreaming, then I thought I was mad. And what had happened at the police station, maybe that was my madness, too. So I drank one of the bottles and passed out. When I woke up again, it was dark and I saw you. It seemed to me you were my last hold on sanity, or proof of my insanity, and so I followed you.” He looked at her. “You still haven’t told me where we are, or how we come to be here.”