Fantastic Tales of Terror
Page 16
“I leave you now, Hans . . . at least until we must meet again. I am grateful for your skill, although I suspect it may make us both famous, and you must admit–you will owe part of that to me.”
Hans stood, forcing himself into stone, as Death vanished again. Then he collapsed into a chair and poured himself a glass of ale that he hoped was big enough to make him as insensible as the drunkard who had killed Lützelburger.
***
After that, Basel lost its charms, and in the autumn of 1526, Hans fled to England, where he’d heard artists were often highly paid. He left Elsbeth and the children in Basel, and over the next decade found fame in the court of Henry VIII, where he became the King’s Painter. He prospered to the point where he acquired a mistress and two new children. He still visited Elsbeth when he could, and made sure she and their children were well provided for.
The plague returned to London in 1543. Hans heard the news from friends in the Royal Court. It was only a small outbreak, but Hans’s anxiety rose like a black sun.
He was no longer protected.
On a cold night when fog covered London like grave dirt, Hans was returning from an audience with the King, who was inquiring again about the painting he’d commissioned from Hans in 1541, the one to commemorate the unification of the barbers’ and surgeons’ guilds. The painting was large, but size wasn’t the issue; Holbein was, rather, simply bored by the subject. Of course he’d assured his royal patron that the work was progressing well, and would be completed soon.
Hans tried to negotiate his way through the fog, lighted windows providing little illumination until he’d nearly walked into them. He knew he was lost, and in fact he’d been walking for several minutes without even finding a shop or street sign. An overhead lamp revealed an intersection, he turned–
And smelled plague.
He froze, panic starting to rise up from his chest. The stench was nearly gagging him, and he staggered back as if physically assaulted by it. Then, from somewhere in the shrouded center of the lane, he heard:
“Hello, old friend.”
No–
The black shape took form before him, hard white surfaces glinting within ebony folds, and Hans could only stare, immobile, sure that his time had arrived at last.
“You’ve come for me.”
“Not yet, not that way. But I do come once again seeking your services. A new commission.”
Hans felt exhausted at the mere idea. “We already showed you claiming your victims from nearly forty different walks of life–what can be left?”
“Exactly, Hans. I, too, have again grown weary of the limitations imposed on me. And that is why I want something different from you this: I want you to create entirely new works. This time, you will not accompany me on my rounds, but will work from your own imagination, placing me in fresh situations.”
“You want me . . . ” Hans struggled to find the words. “You want me to show you . . . ”
“The station of the victims won’t be important this time, but the method of passing will.”
“New ways to die—is that what you’re saying?”
Death’s jaws made a slight clacking sound as he nodded. “Precisely.”
Hans shook his head. “No. It’s ghastly.”
“Why? I’m asking you to entertain me, to renew and reinvigorate me. Surely that’s a more worthwhile goal for art than memorializing some pompous blowhard and a bunch of barbers?”
“I . . . ” Hans had no answer, because Death was right, and Hans knew that was why “King Henry VIII Granting the Charter to the Barber-Surgeon’s Company” had already gone on for two years. Over the last few years here in England, he’d become little more than a gifted technician–a highly paid and praised one, but not a true artist. And wasn’t Death the ultimate critic? If he could win the praise of this patron for original works, it would surely (ironically) be his life’s greatest achievement.
“Yes.” The word escaped his mouth almost of its own volition.
The reeking scent vanished instantly. “I’m delighted, my friend. I’ll visit with you next week to view your progress.”
Hans wasn’t surprised to find the fog lifting by the time he’d reached the end of the lane.
***
Death became Hans Holbein’s constant companion.
Hans began to notice new things about people, and about the world around them. He saw the potential for fatality in everything. A ship on the Thames could lose its rigging and hurl a sailor into the river’s grimy depths. An urchin begging coins on a corner might be trod upon by a nobleman’s horse, or perhaps fall victim to a far more outlandish accident–a bottle dropped from high overhead, an errant fist thrown by a bar brawler, a rare venomous spider inadvertently imported from a tropical region.
After his strolls, Hans returned to his studio and drew. For the first time in years, his work excited him. At the end of his first week, Death appeared by his side, and Hans wordlessly offered the first piece: A man convulsing at a dinner table while a woman sat at the head, raising a glass in toast, having just successfully poisoned her husband; Death stood nearby bearing a tray, the attentive waiter.
“Superb, Hans, superb,” Death muttered, stroking a bone-tip over the art, “but you can go further.”
Hans could barely sleep that night, his mind aflame with lethal possibilities.
When Death appeared next, Hans handed him two more works, and Death stood speechless for several seconds, before whispering one word: “Astonishing.” The first of the drawings so praised showed a field of peasants in tattered rags torn apart by a wave of bullets from a giant gun mounted on a hill; Death held out strings of bullets to the gunner. The second new piece showed a man in a street being struck down by some sort of huge, horseless cart, a grotesque engine of destruction bellowing flame from its back.
Over the following weeks, Hans thought of little else but stranger and more horrible scenes of death. He drew on larger sheets, with bolder strokes. He drew scenes of soldiers enveloped in strange vapors on a battlefield, their mouths agape in their final dying breath, while Death stood above them, dangling long scarves that might have kept them safe. He drew a line of rail-thin, bent patients, all plainly dying as a wealthy doctor turned his back to them and accepted money from Death instead. He showed a priest gesticulating wildly from a pulpit, causing his flock to turn on each other in violence while Death stood behind him wearing a white mitre. He drew a man of science holding an open box from which emanated a blinding whiteness that caused all those below it to fling up arms in useless attempts to shield themselves, while Death stood behind the scientist making notes in a book.
Death was ecstatic. He stared with empty sockets at each new drawing, lingering for minutes, stroking them lovingly. “Exquisite,” he might murmur, or, “brilliant.”
Hans knew it was his finest work. After Death had rendered approval, each new piece went into a large wooden box that Hans had designed and specially made; the top was ornately carved and gilt with Death’s coat-of-arms from the first set of drawings. Hans had already completed the engravings on the first two drawings of this new set, having decided that no other could be entrusted to accurately cut the wood for his masterworks. Someday, when the engravings were completed and the books printed, the world would recognize his achievement as well.
***
One afternoon, as Hans returned from another visit to Henry’s court that had left him bored and annoyed and aching to get back to what he considered his real work, he passed an inn and saw a ring of onlookers standing around outside, peering in anxiously. He spotted a man he knew in the crowd, an apprentice to a printer he sometimes dined with, and he asked the man what the commotion was about.
“Lady murdered her husband,” the young apprentice said, nodding his head toward the building’s front windows.
Hans found a gap in the crowd, bent down to peer in through a square of glass–and his breath caught at what he saw:
Two armed men were questi
oning a woman who sat at the head of a table, a glass resting before her. A few feet away was a dead man slumped across his plate, still clutching an empty goblet in one hand.
It was an exact rendition of the first new drawing Hans had given Death; the only element missing was Death himself, in the position of the waiter.
Hans stumbled back in shock, carelessly bumping into others who cursed or cautioned him. He barely noticed when the apprentice laid a guiding hand on his arm. “Take care, there, sir–you don’t want to hurt anyone . . . ”
“Too late for that,” Hans said, before turning to flee.
He staggered back to his studio, his thoughts racing past possibilities and deceptions: It’s a coincidence/Death put the image in my head and I didn’t even realize it/perhaps I’ve gained some fortune-teller’s ability . . .
But only one explanation made sense: Death copied my drawing.
When he reached his studio, he bolted the door and raced to the box of drawings. He tore open the decorated lid, and reached to the bottom of the stack of drawings to pluck out the first.
A woman–no, that woman, who he’d just seen–poisoning a man. In that room. Even the glasses matched perfectly.
He slammed the drawing down, his motion causing some of the others to flutter aside. There was a woman being raped while Death kept her hands tied; there, a field of soldiers blown apart by some explosive, while Death stood apart, one arm still upraised from the deadly missile he’d just hurled.
Hans leafed frantically through the drawings, realization growing like a cancer within him:
He hadn’t created entertainment for Death; Death had never intended to accept these works as art to restore his own flagging spirit.
No, this was an instructional guide.
These were signposts pointing to the future. Hans Holbein the Younger had assembled a manual of coming murders. Death had lied to him when he’d told him he had no control over who he took and how; He was the final authority. He was God.
Hans collapsed onto a work bench, his hands tearing at his beard, at his expensive collar. What have I done? Is it too late to undo it?
The drawings hadn’t gone to the engraver yet, and these were the only copies. He could simply burn them now, destroy them. Death had already seen them, true, had committed them to memory; but perhaps a memory as well-used as His was faulty, wouldn’t retain details.
Hans stayed up throughout the night, turning over options and possibilities, and by morning he knew there was only one course of action. But first . . .
There was one final drawing to be made.
***
Death returned a few nights later. Hans was waiting for Him.
“What have you got for me this week, friend?”
Hans passed him the last drawing he’d made. Death looked at it, perplexed. “What is this?”
“You lied to me. You’ve lied to me from the start. There is no authority over You, and I was a fool to ever believe there was. There is only You.”
Death stood silently before Hans. After a few seconds he glanced aside–and noticed the wooden box full of drawings was missing. “Where are the others?”
“Gone. I burned the entire box.”
The skull head twisted back and Death trembled, the first real display of emotion Hans had ever seen from Him. “You destroyed them all?!”
Hans held his ground. “Yes.”
“You know what this will mean for you?”
“I do.”
“Look under your arm.”
Hans could already feel the skin there swelling, as heat began to course through him. “There’s no need.”
“You’re a fool.”
Smiling, Hans answered, “Not anymore.”
With that, Death vanished.
***
Hans died two days later.
It was several more days before they found him; by then the blood had dried, but the smell hadn’t abated. The messenger from the royal court and the neighbors who had battered down the door pulled back, nauseated. The young printer’s apprentice had stopped by to visit Hans, and was there as the others were turning away.
“What’s that he’s got in his hands?”
The apprentice took a deep breath and stepped forward; he wanted to know what could have been so important to the great Hans Holbein that it was what he’d clung to as life had left him.
“Be mindful of the plague, lad,” the messenger said. But the apprentice thought art was more important than death, and so he reached down and wrested the drawing from Hans’s stiff fingers.
The sheet of parchment had been splattered heavily by Hans’s blood, as he’d coughed up his life, but the apprentice could just make out the image: It showed a man who looked very much like Hans Holbein in a room that was undoubtedly this studio, dying of plague, his face blackened, (real) blood staining his bedclothes . . . but the man was smiling, at peace. Above the man’s head was an hourglass, the upper compartment empty; from the side, a bony hand reached for the glass, but no more of Death was visible, a strange exclusion. At the bottom of the drawing was a Latin inscription; the apprentice had some familiarity with the language, and thought the words read, “Now I join Ambrosius.”
He wondered who Ambrosius was.
“That’s plague blood on that sheet, boy,” muttered the neighbor. “Throw it on the fire.”
The apprentice considered, and realized they were probably right. Who knew exactly how death passed from one man to another? Better not to take that chance.
He placed the drawing gently on the cold logs in the hearth, whispered goodbye to Hans Holbein, and left that chamber of death behind forever.
MUTTER
JESS LANDRY
She liked it best in the dark. When the lights went out, when the sun went down, when she could walk freely without leering eyes following her every move. In the light they all looked at her funny, as though they could tell there was something different about her, something they couldn’t put their fingers on. Whispers and giggles and averting gazes were the normal she’d known for the past few years, but all that was about to change. She needed one more thing and she knew exactly where to find it.
Under the blanket of night, she clicked open the cabin door and stepped inside.
***
Somewhere over the Atlantic, Edith startled awake. She jerked up in her cot, hand over her heart. That falling sensation, the one she’d been plagued by moreso over the past three days than before, never failed to rattle her. She peeled the thin cotton sheets off of her damp body and brought her feet over the side of the bottom bunk, catching her breath. Her other hand fumbled against the wall, searching for the light switch.
With a flick the yellow-lit bulb illuminated the tiny room, washing over the same taupe windowless walls and prickly burgundy carpet that she’d seen for the past seventy-two hours. I can’t wait to wake up to sunshine, she thought, her heart rate steadying itself. And not in a room the size of a jail cell.
Edith stood up, cracking her back and rubbing her hands over her skin to warm herself. The sheets of the top bunk were all over the place, the only hint that Hurricane Margot had blown through. Her room at home was always in a state—books strewn about, clothes tossed in places other than her closet—yet her sewing station was kept proper; it was the only thing Edith was truly strict on.
A teal flower-patterned dress hung off the sole chair in the room, a reminder Edith had left herself the night before. She’d made the dress for Margot in hopes that she’d wear it as they disembarked the ship, though clearly the girl had thought otherwise. No matter, Edith thought as she picked up the garment, noticing a slight tear at the hem. She sat back down on her bed, reached under, and pulled out her suitcase. Propping it onto the springy mattress, she tugged at her necklace which held two small keys to open the equally small locks she’d placed through the brown leather straps, and popped open the case, pulling out her sewing kit. Scissors, a needle, and thread—that’s all Edith needed.
She’d known men and women like that in her lifetime, ones that hid in their fortresses while they commanded others to do their dirty work. That was not the life she wanted for her daughter. So when the opportunity arose for Edith to travel to New York City for work, she jumped at the chance, using the life savings she kept stored in a secret flap she’d sewn under her mattress to purchase a second ticket for Margot. She promised to take her daughter to see the Empire State building and to eat a hot dog and ride the subway, all things the little girl had read about in books. And after all the sights had been seen, they would disappear into the countryside under the cloud of the looming war.
If everything went according to plan, Germany would forget the faces of Edith and Margot Brandt.
***
A slight lurch caused Edith to reach out to the walls, her hands easily able to touch both sides of the narrow hallway, the rigid wallpaper rough under her fingertips.
“Guten Morgen,” Peter Vogel, the ship’s steward, squeezed by with a wink and a smile, beginning his last shift of this flight. He’d told Edith and Margot as he helped them to their cabin before departure that sudden movements of the airship were perfectly normal. Margot had taken to him right away, something she often did not do. Since they’d left Frankfurt, Vogel had been by their room a few times a day with a sweet for Margot who, he said, reminded him of his daughter back in Munich.
The same burgundy carpet from the cabin lined the entirety of the passenger deck, muffling the sound of Edith’s Oxfords as she stepped into the lounge. The morning’s breakfast crept in through the vents: bread fresh out of the oven, eggs cracked and scrambled, smoked meats grilled through and through, Edith could almost hear their sizzle. Margot had particularly taken to this part of the ship the first day, immediately pulling a chair to the wall of windows in the promenade. Maybe she felt like a giant or a bird watching the ground beneath her dwindle away, people and trees and cities reduced to nothing more than little dots. Edith often wondered what went through her daughter’s mind; the 10-year-old with curly chestnut hair whose deep green eyes always said more than her mouth.