She stayed her hand in the air, near his head. Her voice was almost kind; her touch would have been almost cruel.
Outside, the tide was shifting. A single wave, the first of many, rolled and boomed against the retaining wall beneath the house. The bed throbbed once under her, and a pane of dirty glass in the one tiny window shook and rattled.
His head jerked up.
“No!”
“Shh,” she said, “she’ll hear you.”
But of course it didn’t matter. The grandmother wouldn’t mind. She didn’t mind anything Joel did, but only coddled him more. She waited on him, even in the middle of the night sometimes, with soothing cups of soup and those gray-and-red pills that were supposed to be hidden in the back of the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. And if Grandfather heard or cared, he wouldn’t do anything about it, either. He left the boy alone, no matter what, to dream his dreams and become what he would. Of course it was silly to think that Grandfather would be – what? afraid of him? Of course it was. He was only a boy. He was only her brother Joel.
She followed his gaze to the window. The water was rolling in long, slow curls, tipped at the ebb with a pearly-white phosphorescence. But Joel wasn’t seeing that.
For the first time she noticed the window sill.
It was scored with dozens, hundreds of vertical cuts and scratches; the marks shifted and deepened as she watched, as Joel’s shadow undulated over the scarred wood. Then she glanced back and saw the burning aureole of the high-intensity lamp behind him, across the room, the one the last tutor, who had stayed the longest, had left on his final visit.
Without warning, Joel lurched up. He stood a moment, turned around, around again, in the manner of an animal who has awakened to find himself trapped in a room with the door shut and the air being sucked from his lungs. Whatever he was looking for he did not see, or even, probably, know how to name it, because just then he did a strange thing, really: he shrank down until he was sitting on the floor, right where he had been standing, without having moved his feet at all. She had seen something like that only once before. It had been the day the grandmother came home from what Darcy knew had been the funeral for the father and mother; it was as if she now had permission to remember. The grandmother had come in cradling two armloads of groceries. She had stood in the middle of the kitchen, scanning the walls like that, not seeing any of it, least of all the little girl there in the doorway, because Darcy was not what she was looking for, any more than the walls or ceiling or the table and chairs. And she had moved from side to side, turning from the waist, and then the expression had come over her face and she had sunk down onto the linoleum, the bags split and the contents rolling, forgotten, a collapsed doll with its strings cut. She had probably not even known that Darcy was there.
“Use the key,” he said to her, “now.”
“Why?”
“Do it, Darcy.”
She stepped around him carefully and backed to the door.
She saw the way the light played over the sculpture above the bed. The way its eyes shone, forever straining but unable to see the most important thing of all. The way the shadow had grown behind the hood, so that it had come to be larger, darker, more like the monster from a bedtime story than she had ever noticed. She found herself staring into the eyes until she seemed to recognize something; yes, she herself remembered the way it felt, the need to lash out and hurt. What would have happened to her those times if she had not had Grandfather there to help? And there was something else, too, about a snake she had seen in a book, one that had gotten so mad or afraid that it had actually tried to swallow its own tail . . .
The eyes held her longer than she liked. The sharp eyes that missed nothing, not the other creatures that had come close enough to threaten, not the head that had nurtured it but which was now too old and empty to protect it, not anything but itself, what it had become, the very thing it feared most, the creature of its dreams, the most difficult thing of all to know when the dreams it is given are all nightmares.
She was standing between the door and the lamp. The shadow of Joel’s head and body moved and distorted. She drew back involuntarily and, behind her back, her hand brushed the cold doorknob.
She shuddered.
She imagined the fog creeping down the steps from outside, hissing over the floor and pooling by the edges. She pushed the door shut and moved away.
As she moved, her own shadow merged with the other, rendering it somehow less frightening. But the eyes on the headboard shimmered and burned out of the blackness, and she wanted to say, Does it see, Joel?
He gestured at her imploringly.
She wished she could say I got to go now, the way Maria would have said it, and simply run away as fast as she could. But there was the dark outside, and the fog that followed her down the stairs, waiting to slither under doors and between cracks. There was the grandmother, she knew, waiting at the top of the stairs with her words, her stories that would not soothe but only bring more nightmares. She wondered whether the grandmother knew that; probably not, she realized, and that was the most frightening thought of all.
She went to him.
“What do you want me to do, Joel?”
Suddenly she felt her wrist taken in a death grip.
“No, Joel, not me!” she cried, wrenching free. She lunged for the door. “I’m doing it, see, I’m . . .”
She reached up to lock the door, thinking, Why did he give me both keys? But it was a good idea to lock it now, yes, she would—
She stared at the door.
Where was the lock? The mechanism was on the outside, as were the hinges. So the keys could not be used to keep anything out.
They could only be used to lock something in.
Very slowly she came back to him, his unblinking eyes following her.
“What do you see, Joel?” she said softly.
There was the room. The window. The luminous waves, aglow now with the pale, dancing green of St Elmo’s fire rippling below the surface. The sky ablaze with a diffused sheen of moonlight above the fog. The glass chill and brittle now, and if she placed her fingers on it they would leave behind five circles imprinted in mist, the record of a touch that would remain to return each time someone sat close and breathed at the night.
Then she was listening to the slapping of the surf, the trembling in the close room, the sound of a sob and the high, thin weeping of the wind, that might have been the keening of an animal left too long alone.
“Do you hear that, Joel? Is that Copper?”
And she saw the room and that it was only her brother’s, and she heard the crying and knew that it came from her own lips, and she reached out her hand to him and felt his moist hair, the bristles at the back of the neck, the fuzz at his temple and the quivering in his cheek and the wetness running to and from his tender mouth and the shaking of his body.
Closing her eyes, she said, “How do you feel?”
He would have told her to go away, just to go away and lock the door and not open it until the morning. But she placed herself between him and the window and said:
“I’m going to stay, Joel. I want to. I’ll watch and listen from here and if anyone – if Copper – needs me, I’ll know it. Do you understand?”
“No,” he said pitifully, after some time had passed.
She kept her eyes shut tight against the fog and the world as she said, “It’s all right. I’m only waiting, Joel, for you to go to sleep.”
Because, she thought, somebody has to.
And that was the way their first real night together began.
David Case
THE CELL
David Case was born in upstate New York but first moved to Britain in 1960, where he divided his time between lengthy sojourns in Greece (he claims he once saw a werewolf there!).
His first two collections of macabre stories, The Cell and Other Tales of Horror (1969) and Fengriffen and Other Stories (1971), were favourably compared to the classic weird
fiction of Algernon Blackwood, and Arkham House published his occult Egyptian novel The Third Grave in 1981. He has also written more than three hundred books under at least seventeen pseudonyms, and his Western novel Plumb Drillin’ (1976), which was originally optioned for Steve McQueen, now looks set to finally make it to the screen. Two of his stories, “Fengriffen” and the classic werewolf thriller “The Hunter”, were filmed as— And Now the Screaming Starts (1973) and Scream of the Wolf (1974) respectively.
Described as “a frightening psychopathic view of lycanthropy”, “The Cell” was the author’s first horror story, and Ramsey Campbell has said that Case’s work “. . . can hold its own against the most extreme of today’s horror fiction”, as you will discover in the disturbing novella which follows . . .
When my old Aunt Helen died I inherited her house. I was the only relative. I wasn’t sad about her death because I hardly knew her, and I wasn’t overjoyed about the house because it was an ancient thing, ugly and dilapidated and unpleasant. I suppose that it had been a decent enough house in its day, but Aunt Helen had lived there all alone for many years, ever since her husband disappeared. She was slightly crazy and never left the house. The house and the old woman sort of fell apart together. Sometimes she could be seen rocking on the front porch, cackling or laughing or moaning. It was a singular sound and rather hard to define. No one knows just how crazy she was, and no one cared. She seemed to be harmless enough and they left her alone and in the end she died quite peaceably of old age. So the house was mine.
I went there one miserable afternoon to look it over and see if there was anything that I wanted to keep before putting it up for auction. There was nothing. I would have left after the first ten minutes if the rain had not increased. But it increased. It came down very heavily and I had only a light coat with me. I decided to wait and see if it would let up presently. There was nothing else to do so I continued to poke around those damp and dirty rooms. Nothing seemed of the slightest value on the ground floor. I opened the basement door, thinking there might be something stored down there, but a gust of foul air belched out and I shut the door again. I was certain there would be nothing worth going down for. Instead, I went upstairs and looked through the bedrooms. They were all just skeletons of rooms, except the one that Aunt Helen must have used. There was some furniture there but it was broken and worthless. I was ready to leave and it was only some whim of chance that made me open one of the bureau drawers. That was where I found the book.
It was mouldy with age. It had been torn and then repaired with tape. When I opened it the binding groaned stiffly and the pages crackled. They were dry and stained and creased, but I could still read the writing on them. It was in a man’s hand, small and precise and neat and careful. The hand of a boring person, I thought. It appeared to be a diary or journal of some sort. I read a line or two, started to toss it back in the drawer, read another line. I opened it towards the middle and read a few more words. Then I closed the book and took it downstairs and sat in the front room, by the window. The light was dull and the pages brittle, but I began to read that extraordinary journal. I didn’t stop . . . I didn’t pause . . . until I had read it all. I couldn’t. I was glued to the chair. My spine seemed fixed and my flesh fluid and creeping around it. The light grew dimmer but my eyes would not leave those pages. Beside my chair the rain was drumming against the glass, the sky was dark with clouds unbroken, and the wind rushed across the unkept lawn. It was the right day to read such a book.
This is the book:
May 4
God! It was horrible last night.
Last night it was the worst that it has been to date. I wish that I could remember the other times more clearly. I should have started keeping a record earlier, I know that now. But it took a great effort to begin this book that will show what I am, and I could not bring myself to do it before. At any rate, I am sure that last night was much worse than ever before. Perhaps that is why I feel that I must start this record now. Perhaps I must drain my feelings off in some way. It makes me wonder if I will be able to force myself to go down to my cell again next month . . .
But, of course I must. There can be no doubt of that, and I must never attempt to rationalize about it. No excuse will do. What I must do is to go down earlier next month. I can never leave it too late, or who knows what might happen? I suppose I could control it, but . . . I left it just a bit too long last night, I think. I didn’t mean to, but it is so difficult to tell. When I know that the thing is going to begin soon I get nervous and anticipate the first signs, and it is often impossible to tell the anticipation from the beginnings. The change starts with a certain nervous feeling and when I am already nervous it can begin before I realize it. That frightens me. I shall have to be more careful in the future.
I am in my room now. I am trying to remember all the details. This record will be useless if it is not completely accurate. It will be of no value to me, or to anyone else. I have not yet decided if anyone else will ever see it. Under the circumstances that is a terrible decision to be forced to make. I know that if I ever offer this record, I must also offer proof. That is the terrible part. I don’t want anyone to think I am mad . . .
Last night my wife began to get agitated just after dinner. We were in the front room. She kept looking at her wrist-watch and then glancing sideways at me. I didn’t like the way she let her eyes slide towards me without moving her head. I can’t blame her, of course, and I pretended not to notice. I dreaded the thought of going down, and wanted to put it off as long as possible. It wasn’t really very late and the sky was still light. I was sitting beside the window where I would be able to know when it was time. I pretended to be absorbed in the evening paper, but I was much too restless to read. I just saw the print as a blur. But I don’t think that was a symptom. All the lights were on in the room and I was careful not to let Helen see me looking out of the window. I didn’t want to make her any more troubled than she already was, poor thing. But, at the same time, I can remember feeling a strange sense of pleasure as I noticed the frightened look in her eyes. It was almost a sexual pleasure, I think. I don’t know. Perhaps it was a preliminary sign of my disease, or perhaps it is a reaction normal to men. I can’t tell, because I am not like other men. Still, I felt disgusted with myself as soon as I recognized that feeling, and so I knew that nothing had really started to take effect.
The bad part at that time was the contrast. Sitting there in that comfortable living-room with the bright lights and the leather chairs and the new carpet and, at the same time, knowing what was coming in an hour or so . . . it was grotesque. Leading a completely normal life most of the time, and trying to pretend that it was normal, made the change so much more repulsive. It made me almost hate myself, even though I fully understand that it is a sickness and no fault of my own. Perhaps no fault of anyone’s, possibly the fault of a distant ancestor, I don’t know. But certainly I am not to blame. If I were I would kill myself, I think . . .
I kept stealing glances at the gilt-framed mirror on the wall and expecting to see some sign, although I knew that it was too early. It had to be too early, or else it would have been too late. Even if I were able to control myself in the first stages it would have been too horrible for my wife. I doubt that I could have borne it myself, if I saw it begin. If I looked in that normal, gilt-framed mirror, and actually saw it . . .
That is why there is no mirror in the cell.
At nine o’clock I stood up. The sky was darkening outside the window. The window was bordered by pretty lace curtains. My wife looked quickly at me, then looked away. I carefully folded the newspaper and put it down in the chair. I looked normal and calm.
“Well, it’s time,” I said.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said, and I could hear the struggle to keep relief out of her voice.
We went into the hallway and down the dark stairs to the basement. My wife went down first. They are old wooden stairs with the clammy basement wall on one sid
e and a handrail on the other. This is an old house and although I have kept the upstairs in good repair the basement is ancient and gloomy. I cannot seem to force myself to go down there at normal times. But that is understandable enough, under the circumstances. And, in a way, it seems proper that it should be dank and unkept. It at least lessens the contrast at the last minute.
The stairs groaned underfoot. The dead air seemed to climb the steps to meet us, and suddenly I felt dizzy. I put one hand against the mouldy wall for support. My foot slipped and I had to clutch at the handrail. I caught myself, but my foot passed one step and banged down on the next. My wife turned at the noise. Her face was terrible. Her eyes were white and wide. Her mouth was open. For a long instant she could not control that expression. I have seldom seen more fear and horror in a face. Never without cause, certainly. And certainly she had no cause. She must know that I would never hurt her. Still, I cannot blame her for being afraid. It was the horror that hurt me. I hated to see the horror that I could inspire in one I loved. And then the expression vanished and she smiled, a little lip-biting smile. I think that she was ashamed that she had shown her fear. I smiled back at her, and that was when I realized that I had left it to the very last moment. My mouth was stiff and my teeth felt too large. I knew that my control was going.
The Mammoth Book of Wolf Men Page 46
