Others

by James Herbert

  Although nothing was specific, no shape could be discerned by me, the designs of some of these elusive creatures seemed perverse beyond imagination, so that their couplings were like those of beasts or demons.

  I cried out against the sick, shadowy luridness of it all, but the sound merely drew them closer. Nebulous hands touched me, reaching beneath my robe to feel my flesh, defiling me with their contact, and I fell back against a wall, horrified then appalled, because my own body was responding to their touches, my senses aroused by the pawing.

  ‘No!’ I screeched, ashamed and repulsed by this dark lust, drawing myself away from those frigid, reaching fingers, from the sinister figures that slithered across the floor, pulling my robe tight around myself like some virgin afraid of rape. Still the orgy continued around me, these writhing creatures defying reason, their half-seen sexual deeds more perverse than anything that could be imagined. But it was only when I saw the familiar and beautiful face of Constance among them that the loathing overcame terror, and anger, once more, overruled my cowardice.

  Like those around her, she was naked, her little body and wasted limbs like marble in the moonlight, and the creatures molested her, cupping her tiny breasts with scaly hands, reaching into the secret part of her that should have been forbidden to all except the one she loved and who loved and cherished her, pressing their mutant forms against her, engorged parts seeking orifices of any kind, any cavity between flesh . . .

  I screamed and I ran at them, jumping into their midst, flailing their ethereal forms with clenched fists, swiping at these shifting inchoates, kicking at their orderless shapes, tears distorting my perception of them even more. I yelled and screamed and I beat at them furiously, and they bowed under my blows, even though I felt no contact, my fists smiting nothing more than vapour and shadows, my feet kicking only into floating chimaeras. They scurried away from me, these vague embryonic creatures, as if afraid of my wrath; yet still I heard their sniggers and chuckles, as if it were all a game, that my torment was their sole purpose.

  I could no longer see the small wan figure of Constance among them and frustratedly, desperately, I continued to swipe at them, turning in the moonlight of my bedroom like some mad thing, whirling and striking, insane for the moment, gripped by hysteria, and almost broken by the pale image I had seen of the one I now loved above all else.

  ‘Constance!’ I shouted.

  But I was alone.

  The visions had dispersed, returned to whatever dark regions had spawned them, a few last curling vapours trailing in the air, slowly dissolving, becoming nothing, a deception of the mind relegated to a nightmare memory. Yet still I lashed out, the blows becoming feeble, my turning winding down, slowing further until finally I stopped. Exhausted, I bent double, resting my hands on my knees, my back arched. My chest spasmed with escaping sobs and I felt the nausea that had threatened before surging upwards. Clapping my hand over my mouth I staggered from the bedroom into the bathroom, vomit clogging my mouth and nostrils.

  I let it go when I saw the dim whiteness of the toilet bowl beneath me, the discharge exploding from my mouth to splatter water and porcelain, its stink and the slimy feel of its rush causing me to gag again and again, to unload all the rottenness I had drunk and consumed that day, purging myself until all I could do was dry-retch, the sound disgusting and loud in the tiled confines of the bathroom. I hunched over the bowl, hands grasping its rim, the heaving and the retching continuing even though there was nothing left to expel.

  Gradually, I was able to draw in deeper breaths and only a silky strand of spittle drooled from my mouth to the spoiled water below. Eventually, even this ceased and I was able to push myself away from the toilet. The room reeled around me and I clutched at the edge of the sink to prevent myself from falling. My stomach and throat felt raw and my head thumped, but mercifully I could see no more amorphous spectres sharing the darkness with me, no other movement at all save that caused by my own swaying. Lest those freakish things return using the dungeon gloom as their ally, I snatched at the hanging light-switch by the door, giving it a sharp tug, my breath now coming fast and hard.

  Light filled the bathroom and I found myself looking directly into the mirror over the sink. It was misted by the vapours of my breath and I could only make out a dim reflection of myself.

  The clouded glass began to clear, though, as my breathing became more controlled, less harsh. And my reflection began to appear within the mirror’s counterfeit dimension. And of course, it wasn’t I who was standing there, staring back.

  No. It was the handsome man. The sophisticate whose features, now that the fine haze on the glass was almost gone, were clearer than ever before. This time I recognized him, for I had seen that splendid face a thousand times in the past. I knew who he was, I could identify him, I could remember his name.

  As I watched the reflection that was not me but a movie actor of old, a great star in his day, here attired in silk-lapelled dinner jacket and black tie, almost his trademark in that great golden Hollywood era when films were glamorous and their stars were ‘luminous’, he grinned at me.

  And then he winked.

  29

  I hadn’t thought it possible, but I did manage to sleep the rest of that night. I don’t remember leaving the bathroom, nor climbing into bed, pulling the sheet tight around me, but that was where I found myself when daylight woke me next day. As always, I lay in foetal pose, face pressed into my hands, knees drawn up to my chest; like Joseph Carey Merrick, known as the Elephant Man, I longed to sleep on my back, but the curvature of my spine and its protruding sac prevented me from doing so. My eye twitched open, immediately closing again when the events of the night rushed into my head. And those thoughts forced my eye open once more so that I could see that the nightmare had ended and reality had arrived with the day.

  Raising my head, I peeped over the hem of the sheet towards the window. The curtains were drawn open, but the glass was intact. Had it, then, been a dream?

  I shuddered when I recalled some of those creatures that had crawled across the floor towards me, reaching for my flesh with appendages that could hardly be called hands; and I stifled a sob when I thought of Constance among them, her pallid body violated by their obscene overtures. Oh dear God, it had to be a dream, a sick, vile dream!

  Tormented last night, now tortured by lurid memories, I kicked the sheet away and sat on the edge of the bed, fingers rubbing my temples as though the thoughts were physically painful. I still wore my bathrobe and it was open at the front; I quickly pulled it closed and noticed the tiny fresh cuts on my hands, little wounds that might have been inflicted by shattered glass. I looked at the window again and saw, as before, it was unbroken; nor were there glass shards on the floor or over the bed. Yet there were more cuts on my legs and when I lifted them I discovered there were still more gashes on the soles of my feet and dried blood smearing the skin. How . . . ?

  It was a question I could not answer. There were so many questions I could not answer.

  Another thought hit me and suddenly I was on my feet and limping into the sitting-room. The telephone – it had melted in my hands last night! Had that merely been in my imagination also? It had felt like ice, yet smoke had arisen from it and it had bubbled and turned liquid before my eyes. And there it was, still on the sideboard . . . a charred, ruined mess . . .

  I stared at what was left of the receiver for a few moments before cautiously picking it up. The wood of the sideboard beneath was unmarked, undamaged, not even the faintest scorchmark to give evidence of what had occurred on its surface. Impossible, you might say. And impossible so it was. Nevertheless, all that remained of the telephone receiver was a melted shell over burnt-out wires. The curled cord leading from it was browned, but otherwise undamaged, and the instrument’s base was unblemished. I stumbled over to the sofa and sank into its soft, worn cushions.

  Visions of last night invaded my mind again, tumbling in like emptied litter, filling my head with grotesq
ue images and obscene tableaux, leaving me trembling and whimpering. Had it been fantasy, or had it been real? The cuts in my flesh and the destroyed telephone told me one thing, the unbroken window and my own rational intellect told me another. I was confused and afraid, and when the memory of the face in the bathroom mirror came back to me, I felt sickened, for he was more monstrous than the monsters who had visited my home in the night, he was more loathsome than the graceless beings that had squirmed across my floor, because his imperfections were concealed beneath an exquisite exterior, the deviancy of his nature was disguised by a practised charm. The creatures were what they were – or what my mind made them to be: he was what he had made himself.

  I knew of this man, this great star of the silver screen who had been dead for many decades. And I knew him, understood the cruelty of his narcissistic personality, for I had looked into those dark eyes and observed the very nature of his wretched soul. Here was a person so devoid of true compassion, so steeped in conceit and self-love, so oblivious to the love of others, that the Devil himself would be proud to make his acquaintance – if he hadn’t already. I remembered reading just a few years ago of his untimely death in the late 1940s and how millions, most of them women, had mourned his passing. He had been adored and revered – even men had admired his roguish charm and athletic prowess – and subsequent rumours of his debauchery and miscreant behaviour put around by Hollywood scandal magazines had neither been proved nor sustained. To this day, his memory was cherished, yet last night I had truly looked through the glass darkly and recognized the blackness of his soul. I just didn’t understand how. Nor why.

  I forced myself to leave the sitting-room and go into the bathroom where, tentatively, expectantly, I looked into the mirror once more. The overhead light was still on, forgotten as I had stumbled back to my bed, and the reflection I saw in the glass was my own, my own imperfect features, my own crooked body. For the first time in my life it was a relief to see myself.

  I sagged and gripped the sink for support. My head ached terribly and my spirit . . . well, my spirit was as weary as my body. What delusions was I under? What chemical malfunction was still fucking with my brain? But the cuts, the telephone . . . ?

  I lowered the toilet seat cover, sat down and began to think of what I was going to do.

  30

  Well, the first thing I did was to go out and buy a new telephone. How some kind of psychic force, manifestation, whatever it had been, could trash a machine, I had no idea, but the meltdown sat on my sideboard as evidence. I’d forgotten to plug my mobile phone in overnight – and who could blame me for that? – so the batteries were almost depleted. After eating a good breakfast (which was pretty amazing for me under any circumstances, but even more so because of my state of mind) I put the cellphone on charge and left the flat.

  It was Sunday morning and most of the Brighton shops were closed, but I knew where I could pick up a new telephone easily enough and at half the price too. If I’d wanted a new camcorder, video machine, television, or even a dishwasher, all at low cost and never-been-used, then Theo the Thief (yes, even the police – especially the police – called him that) was the man to see. After telling me I didn’t look so well, but without enquiring how I’d got that way (Theo neither liked asking questions nor answering them) he took me to one of his several lock-ups, a shabby-fronted garage on a nearby council estate that, when the up-and-over door was lifted, resembled a modern Aladdin’s Cave, and allowed me to choose my own brand-new, still-in-the-box, telephone. It was the first time I’d ever knowingly bought stolen goods, but today I considered it an emergency: I needed to be on-line. Money changed hands and a leery Theo – he’d supplied me with information in the past for small financial considerations, but never material goods – bade me good-day.

  I drove home with the windows open wide, the salted breeze herding the remnants of fug from my head, almost clearing the ache there. It was a brilliantly sunny morning and as I turned into the crescent the whole panorama of sea and sky displayed itself to me. Sunlight coruscated off the waves, hurting my eye when I looked too intently, and distant sailing boats glided nonchalantly over the water’s surface. People in shorts and T-shirts, in summer dresses and cutaway tops, made their weekend pilgrimage to the pebble beaches and broad lawns, the promenade and piers, and I was calmed by the sight. My anxiety became controlled, my stress governable; a sense of determination was rising within me.

  There were no parking places outside my basement flat by now and I had to cruise around to the other side of the crescent’s centre park before I found a free space. As small as it was, the park was full of gently undulating hillocks and I made my way through them on one of the concrete paths, filling my lungs with fresh air as I went, breathing in the very normality around me. My resolve strengthened: I wasn’t sure of exactly what I was going to do, but I was determined to take command of what was happening, intent on discovering the reason for these visions. Were they warnings, portents, threats? I remembered the cries for help I had heard on the phone. None of it made sense. All I knew was that the last confrontation was with something quite evil.

  ‘Hello, Dis.’

  My gaze had been cast downwards, watching the path beneath my feet while not really seeing it at all. I raised my head at the sound of the greeting.

  ‘Louise.’

  She was sitting on a park bench, wearing a light green skirt and top, her large handbag balanced on her lap.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she said. ‘I tried to ring, but your phone seems to be out of order.’

  I tapped the box I was carrying. ‘New one,’ I said. I wasn’t sure whether I was glad to see her or not; all I truly cared about that morning was making contact with Constance and I wanted to get the new phone installed as quickly as possible in case she tried to ring me.

  ‘Thank God you’re all right.’ She was studying me in her usual fashion, looking deep into my eye as though trying to read my inner thoughts.

  I stood over her, curious, despite my haste. ‘What makes you say that, Louise?’

  ‘I had a terrible feeling about you.’

  ‘Nothing new there, then.’

  ‘This time it was far worse than ever before.’

  ‘Even worse than the night Henry was killed?’

  ‘Strangely, it was far worse. Last night I was overcome by an awful sense of dread and I knew it concerned you. I stayed awake just waiting for your call and when it didn’t come, I decided I would phone you. Unfortunately, there’s something wrong with your line and when I tried the operator I was told there was a fault and there was nothing they could do for the moment.’

  ‘Did you . . . did you see anything? I mean did you have any visions?’

  ‘That was the other odd thing. I saw nothing at all, I just felt an overwhelming fear for you. Something blocked my thoughts towards you, Dis. I thought I might sense what was happening to you, but nothing came to me, only a terrible apprehension, and then, as I said, the dread. It was as if they were directing all their power towards you.’

  ‘I’ve got to get home,’ I said, disliking the effect she was having on me. I was beginning to feel debilitated again, my resolve waning.

  She quickly stood. ‘Let me come with you. You need me more than you know.’

  I hesitated, but I didn’t want to waste time arguing. ‘Okay,’ was all I said as I turned away and went loping off along the path towards the tenements on the other side of the road without checking to see if she was following.

  One of my neighbours, a sprightly old cove whose apartment was directly above my own, was coming down the short flight of steps outside the big, ground floor entrance. His name was Sadler – I only knew him as Mr Sadler – a brisk but kindly septuagenarian who kept very much to himself and whose apparel was always as smart as his deportment. By his manner and his clipped tones I’d always assumed he had had a military background. Like I say, he kept very much to himself, but he never failed to bid me ‘Good-day,’ when
ever we bumped into each other.

  ‘Mr Dismas,’ he hailed me. ‘Good-day, sir.’

  I was a little preoccupied, but I managed a wave.

  ‘Everything all right, is it?’ He stood on the second step, head slightly back so that he was looking down his nose at me, a quizzical expression on his clean-shaven face.

  ‘Oh. Yeah,’ I mumbled back. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Only, heard the rumpus last night. Bit of a party, was it?’

  ‘Er, no. Bit of a nightmare, actually.’

  Understanding dawned. ‘Ah, that explains. Sleepwalk too, do you? Quite a bit of running about involved.’

  ‘Yes. Sorry I disturbed you.’

  ‘Quite all right, old boy. You can always knock on my door if you ever have upsets, you know. Better still, bang on the ceiling – be down like a shot.’

  I stopped by the railings at the top of the basement steps. ‘That’s really kind of you, Mr Sadler. I’ll remember next time I have a bad dream.’

  ‘See that you do. S’what neighbours are for. Good-day again then.’

  With that he stepped on to the pavement and marched towards the seafront for his daily constitutional.

  By the time I was inserting the key into the front-door lock below, I heard Louise’s footsteps on the stone steps behind me. Earlier I had found the door locked as normal, no signs whatsoever of it having been forced open. The bedroom window hadn’t been smashed, the front door hadn’t been broken into, so what the hell had really happened last night? I led the way into the sitting-room, already tearing open the box I carried as I entered. Louise Broomfield took a seat and watched me as I ripped away the wrappings.