Bagnell’s eyes were darting here and there, noting the claw-like hand encrusted with far more than a century’s (perhaps) filth, noticing the rubbed-out part of the sleeve from which protruded a something grimy and grim which was likely an elbow. Noticing . . . not noticing -
“The head’s not there.”
“Oh.” Bagnell’s eyes were again darting.
“The head’s not here, is what I mean. Don’t bother looking for it. Seen enough?”
Bagnell thought he’d probably seen enough.
“But I’ve got a photograph of it downstairs.” And Larraby went to locking up the cabinet. Then Bagnell let them out. Then Larraby locked up behind them.
“A photograph of -?”
“- Of the head. Want to know what the fellow said? Fellow who brought the body to us? Do, eh? A‘right! - Steady; going down is not so easy for me as some might think. - Said he sawit, that thing upstairs, saw it lying on the floor of ... a certain old building. Said he saw a rat scuttle over and start to gnaw at one of its feet. Said - you ready for this? A ‘right, said he saw the thing catch the rat with its foot - the thing’s foot. Said he saw it jerk the rat up and heard the rat squeal. Ever hear a rat give a death-squeal when some gant old tiger-she-cat with a dirty kitten catched hold of it? And he said that thing, old Boss-Devil, began to eat the rat. That dried-up old horror, supposedly dead a hundred years, with flesh as sere as a mummy’s, began to eat the rat. Could it happen? God, no! Did it happen? God, yes!”
As for the head; it was a good photo.
The mouth was still mostly full of teeth, visible beneath the writhed-up lip, and seemed to Bagnell very capable of clicking and clattering - and perhaps - of killing a rat... a very large rat, too. The nose was sunken but was by no means gone. Something had happened to one ear - how many times might it have offered itself as bait for rats, if rats were what it wanted; lying on rotting floors in rotting buildings by moonlight or in moondark, in forgotten tumuli behind now-vanished pest-houses? - Something had happened to one ear and one eye was closed - but one eye wasn’t. It was likely no more than a trick of the light, but the eye seemed to be looking watchfully out of one squinted corner. The eye seemed to have a very definite expression and seemed (as such things often will) to be looking directly at Bagnell, who did not in any way like the look. It was not what Bagnell would think of as fearful. The look was . . . what?
Sly.
He shuddered. Curator Larraby, once again just another on-the-way-to-being-old-man said, somewhat smugly, “Ah. Now it catches up with you. Here. Something I keep on hand, case of snakebite. Have one with you.” After the first sip, the second sigh, the curator said, “Save you the trouble of asking. No, you may not have a copy. Want a photograph of the head, direct you to Dr. Selby Abott Silas, scholar, rogue and thief, and most unworthy damned Yankee rat and rascal, holder of the magniloquent title of Principal Steward of the General Museum of the Province of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Details on request. Some other time. Further questions? Brief ones . . .”
As Bagnell made a last and fruitless look towards the flat and locked steel box with the photo of the Paper-Man’s head, and made to go, one further question came to him.
Larraby made no objection to answering. The man who had brought in the thing upstairs, in two pieces plus the head, brought them in a gunny sack; the man was a well-known manslayer. “Had killed two Negroes, well, was tried for two. Half-black, half-Catawba Indian; a Mustee, we used to call them. And after he’d done a year or so in the penitentiary, where by the way he behaved himself, and I’m sure no one stolehis cigarettes or tried to commit a crime against nature upon him, ho no! Well, while he was away there’d been some breakage here, theft and vandalism, so we pulled some strings, got Mustee a parole by offering him the job of second night-watchman; midnight to eight a.m.. He looks likeAustralopithecus maledictus, and you may be sure that no one comes around here now who’s got no lawful business. Mustee has no morals, no religion, feared of nothing, keeps his contracts. Gave him one hundred silver dollars for his find, and a big bottle of over-proof rum. - Hm, maybe I’ll give Mustee a ticket to Providence, Rhode Island. Hm, think about it.” Larraby thought about it as he reached for a lamp.
“Let me put some more lights on. Old newspapers, yes, indeed. Keep out the cold, they do. Wonder what you’ ll do, next time you hear a rustle in the dark. Your life has been changed forever. Well, nobody twisted your arm; you can always sell insurance. Mind your step on your way out.”
“How did Mustee kill those two, ah, Negroes?”
Larraby, winding a light scarf, looked at him eye to eye. “Broke their necks,” he said. “Quote me for one single word in print about this, I’ll ruin your career without compunction.”
And that was the first time Bagnell actually saw one.
So he informed his friend, Dr Claire Zimmerman, when he called her later that day. In the past that call would have been heralded by the almost-necromantic words: This is Long Distance Calling. But neither of them remembered that, and neither had seen a newsreel. The past was sending them different messages ... far more distant and dangerous.
* * * *
Excerpt From the Interim Committee Report:
“How many appearance, or maybe we should say sightings, have been reported, would you say?” asked Branch.
“Don’t know,” said Bagnell.
“Define your terms,” said Claire Zimmerman. “How reported, to whom reported?”
“Well, it should be possible to find out. That would help combat it, wouldn’t you think?” asked Branch. “Do we even know, for instance, how many authenticated cases there are of one of them doing actual bodily harm to a human being?”
“How authenticated, by whom authenticated? Oh, there are accounts, sure. Bite wounds and scratches, mostly, and talk of festering and amputations,” said Bagnell. “We just don’t know. We think the Boss in the Wall is scaring us. Maybe he thinks we’re scaring him. How many of them are there? We don’t know. Do they know we’re on to them and that we’re after them? Can they communicate with each other? Do they? We don’t know. Are they suffering from some kind of unknown virus, and if so, is the disease still spreading? Has it infected and infested some of the filthy derelicts we see lying in the doorways of old buildings? Are the drifters sliding and sickening and deteriorating into Paper Men? We don’t know. What’s it all about - and what can we really do except burn down every old house in the country?”
* * * *
II. The Old House
The new house was very old, and Elsa Beth Smith and Professor Vlad Smith loved it at once.
Partly they had come to see it because of the cottage cheese fight of the people next door, and partly it was because of Uncle Mose, that fine old rogue.
College Residence Building Number Three had been, like all Bewdley College’s new Residence Buildings, military housing during the war. The War; World War Two. “A duplex!” was Elsa Beth’s first exclamation on entering her and Vlad’s new home - a brave cry which ignored the stained walls, leak-marked ceilings, pokey kitchen, and warping walls and doors and window-frames. The buildings had not been built to last. They were, in fact, not lasting, they were decaying fast, but people still lived in them all the same. And among the people were the people next door, Professors Albert and Anna Murray, husband and wife. The Murray marriage was not going too well, and a hearty sneeze penetrated the thin partition between the two families.
“Smell this,” - Anna Murray coming out on the porch.
“Throw it out,” - Albert Murray, nose in paper.
“Throw out a whole carton of cottage cheese?”
“Don’t throw it out then,dammit!” Albert bellowed.
Inside their house, Vlad and Elsa Beth’s four-year-old daughter, Bella says softly, “Abbert and Amma are fighting again.” A slight and sallow child, resembling her father. Not precocious. She has her ways, what child has not? And the mere way she has of standing in a doorway with a wry, dry
look on her small face makes her parents wonder how the doorway ever existed before Bella came to stand in it.
Her parents do not directly reply. They consider their options. “The rents in quaint old Bewdley City are out of sight,” sighs Elsa. She was once a strawberry blonde, but since Bella was in utero, Elsa’s hair has darkened to a light brown. Her face, with its slight suggestion of a double chin, looks very thoughtful. She is a talented painter and she is very nice.
Not long thereafter came Uncle Mose’s letter.
Uncle Mose wrote: “Moses Stuart Allenby is looking around for a sponge to throw in. I am tired of robbing widows and orphans, and I’m going to make you kids an offer. Elsie Bessey knows I’m quiet and clean in my habits. Mostly I sit in my room studying subversive publications like The Wall Street Journal, play a little jazz on my gramophone, take walks and watch birds. Want to relax at home, but must have a home, and have no desire to sleep on your sofa. So here’s the offer: All around small towns are perfectly suitable houses which never appear on any real estate lists because they are too old and unfashionable. Beware of Grecian pillars, cost another fifty thou and who needs them? Here are the magic words: A quick sale for $25,000 cash. Your local land agent will blench and swallow nervously. Then he will run around like a roach in rut season. You’ll be surprised how fast he comes up with something usually thought unsaleable. Old, old houses are solidly built or they wouldn’t have survived to be old, old. Uncle Mose was a farm boy, built and repaired many a barn and old house before leaving on the milk train to the city. Uncle Mose will leave lovebirds alone to bill and coo, and will often baby-sit little Bella, teach her to play poker and dance the hootchie-cootchie.”
* * * *
“There’s the house, Professor, to the right,” said realtor Bob Barker with a toothy smile.
The words formed in Vlad’s mind:That house wasn’t even built in the 19th century. He saw a small replica of Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, with squared wooden pillars, lacking even a lick of plaster, holding up the verandah’s second story. Not Grecian at all - just an old, old house that George Washington never slept in.
“Let’s go in, if you folks are ready,” Bob Barker said. They were ready. “Got to tell you honestly that this house is almost devoid of your modern conveniences. No electricity,no telephone, but no problem there, the lines run right past the place. It’s well-water, but the pump is inside the house. There is just merely one bathroom, and it empties into a ciss-pool. Watch out for the far end of the porch, got a rotten place there.” The key kept in a niche in the sill was modern. That was perhaps the only thing which was.
“I love it, I love it,” said Elsa Beth. “I love it, I love it,” said she.
Uncle Mose came two days later.
“My God, Uncle Mose,” said Vlad, “what is that you’ve got with you?” It was grey with reddish lights in its pelt, and it was huge, and it panted at them and lolled its tongue. “It’s big as a cow!”
Bella said, “That’s no cow, that’s a big dog.”
“You’re right little Belly. A St Hubert Hound named Nestor. Fine with kids, but burglars watch out! Where’s some iced tea? Where’s our new house? Settle down Mose,” he advised himself. Moses Stuart Appleby had been rather tall and his shoulders still hinted at broadness. He was, as always, immaculate. “I’m all packed and weighed and ready for freighting, soon as I’m sure. Ready to go? I’m ready to go. Let’s fill a big thermos with iced tea, Elsie Bessy.”
They stopped in town for him to mail a letter, and an aged black man rose to confront them in clothes washed threadbare-clean. “You the folks buyin’ ol’ Rustler house nigh the river?”
“Was that its name, Russel? I didn’t know that,” said Vlad. “It’s on old River Road, though. Yes.”
The old man nodded. His skin was gray and his eyes were glazed with age. “That’s it. I born here, call me Pappa John. Can I pleased to give you folks some kindly advice? They is three warnings. Firstly, get you a cat. They hates cats. Nextly, keep you a fire. They feared o’ fire. And lastly, please folks, never get between one o’ them and the wall.” He nodded his ancient head. Vlad, understanding not one word, thanked him and went on into the post office. And then the town sped by. . . and a country lane, with old oak trees dripping Spanish moss.
“There it is.”
Uncle Mose looked and said nothing, until they went up on the wide verandah which ran all around the house. “Hey, look there. A tree. A lilac tree. Some old-time housewife planted a lilac bush, and now it’s grown taller than the house. Well, let’s open her up.”
Faint broom tracks showed that some attempt at house-cleaning had been made more recently than the planting of the lilac bush. Faint tremors and echoes in the old, old house. How old? Maybe in the title-deed. Maybe not. Were the Russels that old Pappa John mentioned the original owners? What was Uncle Mose doing? Uncle Mose was leaning over with his ear against the wall. Catching Vlad’s questioning eye, he gestured for Vlad to do the same. At first Vlad heard something like the sound of the sea in a seashell. After that came fainter and odder sounds. A rustling ... a far-off clicking.
A breath lightly brushed his neck and Vlad jumped. It was Uncle Mose; “Hear anything?”
“Rats, maybe.”
“Rats don’t rustle. Rats don’t click. We’ll put out some rat-traps, then we’ll see.”
Attempts, rough and rude enough, had been made to keep the old house in order. In one room the ancient roses of the wall-paper bloomed faintly, almost evoking a ghostly perfume. Elsewhere the walls were papered only with yellowing, tattered newspaper. In one large closet, “Whew, kind of musty in here,” said Vlad.
“Whew is right. Worse than that.”
“Dead rat under the floorboards, or inside the wall?”
Uncle Mose shrugged. “Old houses, Lord, how they retain. Maybe the moldy diapers of a baby who died a hundred years ago. Well, no problem. Open all the doors and windows, have the place scrubbed down from attic to cellar.”
* * * *
Back home, and effusively greeted by the great hound Nestor, and by Bella fresh and pink-cheeked from her nap. They had drinks. They discussed the house. They all agreed they loved the house. Discussion had reached a pleasantly high level when there was a piercing scream.
Tonight at the Murrays’ it was Anna’s turn to scream.
Vlad hastened to speak. “Say, why don’t we have a cook-out somewhere? A picnic?”
“Oh, good!” said Elsa. “Hey! why don’t we have it at the new house?” Then Elsa had her great and wonderful idea: “Why don’t we sleep out there tonight in sleeping bags? To celebrate, I mean.”
“All in favor, say Aye,” directed Uncle Mose, and he insisted that everything was to be his treat. And they got lots of everything.
* * * *
At the old house: “The steaks are doing just fine,” said Uncle Mose. “I want to check something out. Bring some flashlights and come along.” He walked into the house with long strides, and what he wanted to check out was soon revealed. “Nothing in this trap, nothing in that one. Let’s take a look in the cellar . . . nothing. Traps are clean as a whistle. As near as I can see, there isn’t a rat in the whole place.”
Elsa said, of course, that she was delighted to hear it. “And I’m pleased to see how thick the walls are. It’ll stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. My mother always said that high ceilings and thick walls are healthy.”
Nestor moved his huge head delicately. Nestor had been doing his own checking-out, and was still alert.
Bella said, “This is our new house.” The grown-ups were pleased. Yes, they said, this was their new house. Without changing her slow and level tone, Bella said, “I don’t like it.” Then she repeated, “I don’t like it.” Nor did she say anymore.
When the steaks were ready, they took their seats on the front steps. The steaks were tender and very, very good.
Later, upstairs in the rose-papered room, sleeping bags side by side, Elsa sa
id, “You know, for an old bachelor, my uncle knows a thing or two. The gentle way he convinced Bella to share the downstairs room tonight, without a single protest. He must know this is a sort of special honeymoon thing. You and me.”
Vlad did not immediately answer. He rolled over so his sleeping-bag slightly overlapped hers. “Your place or mine,” he whispered.
Afterwards, Vlad went down to use the antique toilet behind the stairs. The door of one room opened a crack; lamplight and shadow. “Vlad?” said Uncle Mose.
The door opened wider. The great St Hubert hound appeared, his master close behind. “Would you be kind enough to let Nestor out the front door for a minute? Same errand as you. Let him back in when you’re ready. Didn’t want to leave Bella alone in case she woke up, first time in a strange house.”
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 10 - [Anthology] Page 36
