Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992)

by David G. Hartwell (Ed. )

burning low and so I got up to put some logs on it; I had

  just settled back in my chair when I saw the handle of the

  mirror door start to turn very slowly. Then, millimeter

  by millimeter, the door was pushed open a foot or so. It

  was incredible that the opening of a door should be

  charged with such menace, but the slow furtive way it

  swung across the carpet was indescribably evil. Then the

  hand appeared, again moving very slowly, humping its

  way across the carpet until the wrist and part of the

  yellowish forearm was in view. It paused for a moment,

  lying flaccid on the carpet. Then, in a sickening sort of

  way, it started to grope around, as if the creature in

  control of the hand was blind. Now, it seemed to me, was

  the moment to put my carefully thought out plan into

  operation. I had deliberately starved Clair so that she

  would be hungry and so now I woke her up and waved

  under her nose a piece of meat which I had brought up

  from the kitchen for this purpose. Her eyes widened and

  she let out a loud mew of excitement. I waved the meat

  under her nose until she was frantic to get the morsel and

  then I threw it down the room so that it landed on the

  carpet near the firmly closed door of the salon. In the

  mirror I could see that it had landed near, but not too

  near the reflection of the hand which was still groping

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  about blindly. Uttering a loud wail of hunger, Clair sped

  down the room after it. 1 had hoped that the cat would be

  so far away from the door that it would tempt the

  creature out into the open. But I realized that I had

  thrown the meat too close to the door for, as Clair’s

  reflection stopped and the cat bent down to take the

  meat in her mouth, the hand ceased its blind groping,

  and shooting out with incredible speed, it seized Clair by

  the tail and dragged her, struggling and twisting, behind

  the door. As before, after a moment, the hand reappeared, curved round the door and slowly drew it shut, leaving bloody fingerprints on the woodwork. I think

  what made the whole thing doubly horrible was the

  contrast between the speed and ferocity with which the

  hand grabbed its prey, and the slow, furtive way it

  opened and closed the door. Clair now returned with the

  meat in her mouth to eat it in comfort by the fire, and

  like Agrippa, she seemed none the worse for now having

  no reflection. Although I waited up until after midnight

  the hand did not appear again, and so I took the animals

  and went to bed, determined that on the morrow I would

  work out a plan that would force the thing behind the

  door to show itself.

  By evening on the following day I had finished my

  preliminary sorting and listing of the books on the

  ground floor of the house, and so the next step was to

  move upstairs to where the bulk of the library was

  housed in the Long Gallery. I felt somewhat tired that

  day and so, towards five o’clock, I decided to take a turn

  outside to get some fresh air in my lungs. Alas for my

  hopes! It had been snowing steadily since my arrival and

  now the glistening drifts were so high I could not walk

  through them. The only way to have got out of the central

  courtyard and across the bridge would have been to dig a

  path, and this would have been through snow lying in a

  great crusty blanket some six feet deep. Some of the

  icicles hanging from the guttering, the window ledges

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  and the gargoyles were four and five feet long and as

  thick as my arm. The animals would not accompany me,

  but I tried walking a few steps into this spacious white

  world, as silent and as cold as the bottom of a well. The

  snow squeaked protestingly, like mice, beneath my

  shoes, and I sank in over my knees and soon had to

  struggle back to the house. The snow was still falling in

  flakes as big as dandelion blooms, thickening the white

  pie crusts on the roof ridges and gables. There was that

  complete silence that snow brings, no sound, no bird

  song, no whine of wind, just an almost tangible silence,

  as though the living world had been gagged with a crisp

  white scarf. Rubbing my frozen hands, I hastened inside,

  closed the front door and hastened down to the kitchen

  to prepare my evening meal. While this was cooking, I lit

  the fire in the blue salon once more and when the food

  was ready carried it up there as had become my habit,

  the animals accompanying me. Once again I armed

  myself with my stout stick and this gave me a small

  measure of comfort. I ate my food and drank my wine,

  watching the mirror but the hand did not put in an

  appearance. Where was it, I wondered. Did it stalk about

  and explore a reflection of the house that lay behind the

  door, a reflection I could not see? Or did it exist only

  when it became a reflection in the mirror that I looked

  at? Musing on this, I dozed, warmed by the fire, and

  presently slept deeply, which I had not meant to do. I

  must have slept for about an hour when I was suddenly

  shocked awake by the sound of a voice, a thin cracked

  voice, singing shrilly:

  Aupres de ma blonde, aupres de ma blonde,

  qu’il fait bon dormir . . .

  This was followed by a grating peal of hysterical laughter.

  Half asleep as I was, it was a moment before I realized

  that the singing and laughter came from Octavius. But

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  the shock of suddenly hearing a human voice like that

  was considerable, and my heart was racing. I glanced

  down the room and saw that the cages containing the

  canaries and Octavius were still as 1 had placed them.

  Then 1 glanced in the mirror and sat transfixed in my

  chair at the sight I saw. 1 suffered a revulsion and terror

  that surpassed anything I had felt before, for my wish

  had been granted and the thing from behind the door

  had appeared. As I watched it, how fervently I wished to

  God that I had left well alone, that I had locked the blue

  salon after the first night and never revisited it.

  The creature— I must call it that for it seemed scarcely

  human— was small and humpbacked and clad in what I

  could only believe was a shroud, a yellowish linen

  garment spotted with gobbets of dirt and mould, tom in

  places where the fabric had worn thin, pulled over the

  thing’s head and twisted round, like a scarf. At that

  moment, all that was visible of its face was a tattered

  fringe of faded orange hair on a heavily lined forehead

  and two large pale yellow eyes that glared with the fierce,

  impersonal arrogance of a goat, while below them the

  shroud was twisted round and held in place by one of the

  thing’s pale, black-nailed hands.

  It was standing behind the big cage that had contained

  the canaries. The cage was now twisted and wrenched

  and disembowelled, like a horse in
a bull ring, and

  covered with a cloud of yellow feathers that stuck to the

  bloodstains on the bars. I noticed that there were a few

  yellow feathers between the fingers of the creature’s

  hand. As I watched, it moved from the remains of the

  canary cage to the next table where the parrot cage had

  been placed. It moved slowly and limped heavily, appearing more to drag one foot after the other than anything else. It reached the cage in which the reflection

  of Octavius was weaving from side to side on his perch.

  The real bird in the room with me was still singing and

  cackling with laughter periodically. In the mirror the

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  creature studied the parrot in its cage with its ferocious

  yellow eyes. Then suddenly, two things happened. The

  thing’s hand shot out and the fingers entwined round the

  bars of the cage and wrenched and twisted them apart.

  While both hands were thus occupied, the piece of

  shroud that had been covering the face fell away and

  revealed the most disgusting face I have ever seen. Most

  of the features below the eyes appeared to have been

  eaten away, either by decay or some disease akin to

  leprosy. Where the nose should have been, there were

  just two black holes with tattered rims. The whole of one

  cheek was missing and so the upper and lower jaw, with

  mildewed gums and decaying teeth, were displayed, and

  trickles of saliva flooded out from the mouth and

  dripped down into the folds of the shroud. What was left

  of the lips were serrated with fine wrinkles so that they

  looked as though they had been stitched together and the

  cotton pulled tight. What made the whole thing even

  worse, as a macabre spectacle, was that on one of the

  creature’s disgusting fingers it wore a large gold ring in

  which an opal flashed like flame as its hands moved,

  twisting the metal of the cage. This refinement on such a

  corpselike apparition only served to enhance its repulsive appearance. Presently it had twisted the wires enough so that there was room for it to put its hands

  inside the cage. The parrot was still bobbing and weaving

  on his perch, and the real Octavius was still singing and

  laughing. The creature grabbed the parrot in the reflection and it flapped and struggled in its hands, while Octavius continued to sing. The creature dragged the

  bird from the broken cage and lifted it to its obscene

  mouth and cracked the parrot’s skull as it would a nut,

  and then with enjoyment started to suck out the brains,

  feathers and fragments of brain and skull mixing with

  the saliva that fell from the thing’s mouth onto the

  shroud. 1 was filled with such revulsion and yet such rage

  at the creature’s actions that I grasped my stick and leapt

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  to my feet, trembling with anger. I approached the

  mirror and as I did so and my reflection appeared, I

  realized that (in the mirror) I was approaching the thing

  from behind. I moved forward until, in the reflection, I

  was close to the thing and then I raised my stick. But

  suddenly the creature’s eyes appeared to blaze in its

  disintegrating face, and it stopped its revolting feast and

  dropped the corpse of the parrot to the ground at the

  same time whirling round to face my reflection with such

  speed that I was taken aback and stood there, staring at

  it, my stick raised. The creature did not hesitate for a

  second but dived forward and fastened its lean and

  powerful hands round my throat in the reflection. This

  sudden attack made my reflection stagger backwards and

  it dropped the stick. The creature and my reflection fell

  to the floor behind the table and I could see them both

  thrashing about together. Horrified, I dropped my stick

  and running to the mirror beat futilely against the glass.

  Presently all movement ceased behind the table. I could

  not see what was happening but, convinced the creature

  was dealing with my reflection as it had done with the

  dog and the cat, I continued to beat upon the mirror’s

  surface. Presently, from behind the table, the creature

  rose up unsteadily, panting. It had its back to me. It

  remained like that for a moment or two and then it bent

  down and seizing my reflection body it dragged it slowly

  through the door. As it did so, I could see that the body

  had had its throat torn out. The creature then reappeared

  licking its lips in an anticipatory sort of way. It picked up

  the ebony stick and once more disappeared. It was gone

  some ten minutes and when it came back it was—to my

  horror and anger— feasting upon a severed hand, as a

  man might eat the wing of a chicken. Forgetting all fear, I

  beat on the mirror again. Slowly, as if trying to decide

  where the noise was coming from, the beast turned

  round, its eyes flashing terribly, its face covered with

  blood that could only be mine. Then it saw me and its

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  eyes widened with a ferocious, knowing expression that

  turned me cold. Slowly it started to approach the mirror,

  and as it did so I stopped my futile hammering on the

  glass and backed away, appalled by the menace in the

  thing’s goatlike eyes. Slowly it moved forward, its fierce

  eyes fixed on me as if stalking me. When it was close to

  the mirror, it put out its hands and touched the glass,

  leaving bloody fingerprints and yellow and grey feathers

  stuck to the glass. It felt the surface of the mirror

  delicately, as one would test the fragility of ice on a pond,

  and then it bunched its appalling hands into knobbly

  fists and beat a sudden furious tattoo on the glass,

  emitting a sudden, startling rattle of drums in the silent

  room. Then it unbunched its hands and felt the glass

  again. It stood for a moment watching me, as if it were

  musing. It was quite obvious that it could see me and I

  could only conclude that, although I possessed no reflection in my mirror, I must be visible as a reflection in the mirror that formed part of the looking-glass world which

  this creature inhabited. Suddenly, as if coming to a

  decision, it turned and limped off across the room and

  then, to my alarm, it disappeared through the door only

  to reappear a moment later carrying in its hands the

  ebony stick that my reflection had been carrying. Terrified, I realized that if I could hear the creature beating on the glass with its hands it must be in some way solid, and

  this meant that if it attacked the mirror with the stick the

  chances were the glass would shatter and that the creature could then, in some way, get through to me. As it limped down the room I made up my mind. I was

  determined that neither I nor the animals would stay in

  the blue salon any longer. I ran to where the cat and the

  dog lay asleep in front of the fire and gathered them up in

  my arms. I ran down the room and threw them unceremoniously into the hall. As I turned and hurried towards the bird cages, the creature reached the mirror, whirled

  the stick around i
ts head and brought it crashing down. I

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  saw that part of the mirror whiten and star in the way

  that ice on a pond does when struck with a stone. I did

  not wait. I seized the two cages and fled down the room

  with them and threw them into the hall and followed. As

  I grabbed the door to pull it shut, there was another crash

  and I saw a large portion of the mirror shower onto the

  floor and, sticking through the void, protruding into the

  blue salon, the emaciated, twisted arm of the creature

  brandishing the ebony cane. I did not wait to see more,

  but slammed the door and turned the key in the lock and

  leaned against the solid wood, the sweat running down

  my face, my heart hammering.

  I collected my wits after a moment and made my way

  down to the kitchen where I poured myself a stiff brandy.

  My hand was trembling so much that I could hardly hold

  the glass. Desperately, I marshalled my wits and tried to

  think. It seemed to me that the mirror, when broken,

  acted as an entrance for the creature into my world. I did

  not know whether it was just this particular mirror or all

  mirrors. Furthermore, I did not know— if I broke any

  mirror that might act as an entrance for the thing—

  whether I would be preventing it or aiding it. I was

  shaking with fear but I knew that I would have to do

  something, for it was obvious that the creature would

  hunt me through the house. I went into the cellar and

  found myself a short, broad-bladed axe and then, picking

  up the candelabra, I made my way upstairs. The door to

  the blue salon was securely locked. I steeled myself and

  went into the study next door where there was, I knew, a

  medium-sized mirror hanging on the wall. I approached

  it, the candelabra held high, my axe ready. It was a

  curious sensation to stand in front of a mirror and not

  see yourself. I stood thus for a moment and then started

  with fright, for there appeared in the mirror suddenly,

  where my reflection should have been, the ghastly face of

  the creature glaring at me with a mad, lustful look in its

  eyes. I knew this was the moment that I would have to

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  test my theory, but even so, I hesitated for a second

  before I smashed the axe head against the glass and saw it