Aickman's Heirs

by Simon Strantzas

  Passing a furniture store she notices a large oval mirror hanging on the wall near the window. The mirror has a smooth, broad frame of darkly-stained wood, and is hung edgewise, looking more like an eye than like a door. It is supposed to hang that way; you know that not only by the placement of the hook, but by the disproportionately small brass eagle that marks the top of the frame with its outspread arms. Theirs had had a funny kind of fish instead of an eagle.

  She stops short, and the man coming up rapidly behind her, a tall man with a briefcase, collides with her, so that she is toppled a little off her balance and has to take another step as he slides across her.

  “Sorry!” he says tersely, and then lunges on down the street.

  Startled, and dazed, she looks down the block behind her. An older man in a cloth cap stands watching her with his hands in his pockets, evidently having just come out of his front garden. She walks slowly on, almost blindly, realizing now why what she saw from the window last night had affected her so much more than it should have. She once had just such a mirror as that one. It hung in their bedroom, high on the wall opposite the bed. Last night, she had recoiled, and had shut without thinking a door that was normally kept shut, because that mirror had been hanging on the wall behind the pale figure in the movie last night she had seen going up and down in the foreground, with darker hands reaching up from below and roving freely over the paler skin.

  “What do I ...?” she thinks, the phrase starting and restarting.

  The cafe she passes is filled with people staring at screens. They might all be watching, and the eyes that linger on her as she returns to Miriam’s apartment might be eyes that have seen, and who else but him? Who else could it have been, to make it, and to make it public somewhere, but him? Or has the film not happened yet? The images rise like smoke out of a human darkness of death, hidden ideas, hidden acts, a great black bank of smoke hiding vanished people, all invisible things, ghosts, the dead, rising up onto screens and into people’s eyes, from the darkness outside to the darkness within heads and eyes, and if the future emerges from that darkness, then the film may show what will happen, or may counterfeit it, a double of herself, grinning malevolently, turns on the camera.

  Her skirt is suddenly gripped and torn. Her throat shuts as a jolt runs through her whole body. The hallway is empty—the hem of her skirt hangs in two pieces. There is a screw sticking out of the doorframe; it caught the hem as she brushed past it into the hallway on Miriam’s floor. Footsteps are coming up the stairs, slow and steady, the footsteps of a tired man, or a wary one. Lift your gaze up as you climb the stairs and you might get a look up at what a woman’s dress is very imperfectly designed to hide; had she been seen by the climber down there?

  She reaches Miriam’s apartment, locks the door and chains it, turns to meet the level gaze of Juan, the man from the grocery store, the man from the bathroom, the man in the cloth cap, the man with the briefcase. The room seems to hold an impossibly enormous crowd, all eyes riveted on her, Juan’s gaze fixed on her and multiplied as if she were Juan staring at himself in countless mirrors, and they are all momentarily still, momentarily suspended with a fierce paralysis.

  “Has this happened before?” she asks herself uncertainly.

  “It has,” she thinks a moment later, as the stillness in the room begins to abate, there’s a sound of wet footsteps coming up the stairs and the door swings, unlocked and unchained, slowly open again behind her.

  In Miriam’s bedroom, with the door firmly shut behind her, she undresses and climbs into bed. The door hums with a massed presence that presses against the door like flood water, holding it shut with such force as to threaten to break it apart. She lies naked on top of the sheets and blankets—it’s stifling, too warm to cover herself with anything. Sweat trickles down her face. When she feels sweat on her arms, she knows she will have to go to the window and open it. She gets up as quietly as she can, feeling the dark listening for her on the other side of the door, a room full of lightless water. And figures treading in it. She moves, crouching, to the window, using the low wall to hide herself. The window is latched, and her hand is slippery with sweat. She tries to unlatch it while standing to one side of the window, but her hand slips, and now she fills the window and all the other windows facing are dark with silhouettes, something dark dangles before her face now at eye level, protruding from the window though there is no one on the other side of it, no opening in the glass for it to come through. It is only inches from her face, close enough for her to smell, staring at her, following her movement as she recoils from the window into the darkened room, the curtains drop to the floor and all the lamps burst ablaze. A relentlessly steady gaze comes through the door, the wall, she is visible through the walls and ceilings and floors, visible for miles, seen from the river and on every screen.

  No longer at the window, now it is in the center of the ceiling where the light fixture used to be, still surrounded by that same light, the same streaks and facets in the light, and directly over the bed, waiting for her, and until she acts, she will be seen and continue to be seen, more and more violently and nightmarishly exposed, even though the act she is being invited to do is an act that will mean an eye is pushed inside her—the only way to escape this gaze is to bury the eye inside, where there is nothing to see but the dim blood and organs at work. The bed now is floating up to meet her, and she watches herself uncomprehendingly stretching on the bed, reaching up now to the end, a crashing eruption as fists pound the bedroom door, which bounces violently in the jam, shedding splinters of wood and splatters of foul, stinking water.

  ***

  Days later, she found a firm swelling on the left side of her abdomen, well buried in the flesh, and decided to see a doctor about it, but the doctor was unable to determine exactly what it was, in fact, she was very confused.

  “I don’t know what it could be,” she says candidly. “It isn’t a sebaceous cyst, it isn’t a lump of fat, and while it might be a tumor, I wouldn’t want to commit myself one way or another without a biopsy.”

  She decided to remain in New York for the operation, living in Miriam’s apartment.

  It was an ectopic pregnancy. Her doctor is even more baffled—“I have no idea whatever how it could have gotten there.” The tiny, mummified foetus was lodged just below the musculature of her abdomen. She asked to see it.

  “I’m afraid we destroyed it,” the doctor admits.

  That was Juan’s child. There was no one else.

  “It must have been there for years! That would give it enough time to migrate to where we found it. But what could have moved it there? And you say you became aware of it suddenly? ... Because, you know, there was no sign of any other, you know, damage, no pathway.”

  “What was it like? Well, we call it a foetus, but in this case it was more like an undeveloped twin, in that it was not a complete body. It was mostly eye.”

  After being released from the hospital, she sits naked by the window of Miriam’s apartment, writing reassuringly to her parents, explaining the operation, the strange outcome, the likely period of recovery, her good spirits and firm health, and that she has decided not to come back home, but to remain here, living in Miriam’s apartment. She turns abruptly in her seat, staring into the open bedroom for a moment, listening. The bed creaks. She presses a hand to her scar.

  The Dying Season

  Lynda E. Rucker

  At dawn, the leisure resort was still and quiet, prefab cabins and trailers jumbled together and sleeping soundly, and along the harbour all was peaceful. The peace would not last; the unseasonably warm and sunny weather so late in the year as October, and particularly for an English seaside village, meant that soon it would be jammed with dog-walkers and families and couples strolling up and down the concrete seafront, taking in the last of the light and the warmth before winter closed in altogether. It was, on the face of it, an unbeautiful shoreline: massive concrete steps leading in low tide to piles of dead black seaweed
washed up between large wooden groins. But the dawn's high tide meant that now the sea lapped the steps, while the colourful sailboats glistened in their moorings, the rows of pastel bathing huts were washed in the morning sun, and the sky was a skein of impossible blue with strips torn for clouds.

  Sylvia headed up and away from the concrete harbour and to the nature trail that ran above the estuary. The horizon opened before her as she jogged along the scrubby grasses. Gulls wheeled overhead and the shore below was a wash of late-season pink thrift and purple sea lavender. The sea beyond sparkled.

  The wind was stronger here and whipped her hair in her face. There was just the wind and the sound of her own breath, and that was a good thing, the tension that still clutched her body from the previous night draining out of her. Big gulps of the fresh salt air. She could run forever. She ought to run forever. She could do it, just vanish away; wasn't the seaside magical enough for that? An Anglophiliac childhood in America, raised by an English mother, had taught her as much. Viking longships churn across the waters waiting to attack; Jamaica Inn shutters itself to guests and hides its secrets; Merriman Lyon waits by the standing stones, gazing out to sea. There might still be magic here to spirit her away. There might. If only she could run fast enough to catch hold of it.

  “Goddammit,” John had said the previous night, shoving his plate away. “Why are you bringing that up again?” Today, she couldn't even remember what that had been.

  “I wasn't,” she said. “I didn't mean—,” but of course, she did mean, or he said she had, so what did any of it matter?

  She ran harder. The tears leaked out the corners of her eyes and were lost on the wind. Now the rhythm of her run beat out two phrases. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Over and over, spoiling the morning, spoiling everything. Just like she always did.

  “I'm trying to fix things here,” said John's voice in her head. “I'm trying to make it up to you. Why won't you work with me a little bit? Why won't you help me out? What's wrong with you?”

  She wheeled round, heading back. She wasn't alone on the trail anymore; as she ran, she drew even with and passed a couple. They both had jet-black hair, were thin and slight and poorly dressed for the weather, the girl in a filmy dress with bare arms and her companion in an equally diaphanous shirt and thin trousers. Perhaps, she thought, they were tourists from someplace much warmer, tricked by the brightness of the day. The wind must have felt cutting to them, and she made a grimace of solidarity in their direction as she passed but they ignored her.

  Back at the leisure park, all of the cabins and trailers looked the same. John had been coming here with his parents since he was a child, so he knew exactly which one was theirs, but she'd had to memorize the twists and turns on the gravel pathway in order to find her way back, and even so, she found herself standing for a long time deciding between two cabins, unable to identify which was the right one. For a moment she had the mad idea that both were, or that she was choosing a destiny: walk into one, make the right choice, walk into the other, make the wrong one. But then she thought she heard music coming through the window of one, something classical that John listened to a lot, and what sounded like a child's voice drifted from the window of the other.

  “You're just in time,” John said as she stepped in. He was wearing an apron and piling up food on a plate: bacon, sausages, grilled tomatoes, a fried egg, a mound of toast. Her stomach clenched. She wasn't hungry; she hated a large breakfast anyway. He knew that. But she couldn't say. She couldn't be difficult. Not now.

  “Thought I'd walk up to the harbour in a bit myself,” he said with what she told herself was not a forced casualness as she chewed her way methodically through meat, bread, more meat. “I need to check my email and I can't get a signal in here. The signal's better in there.”

  She was glad her mouth was full because it prevented her saying all the things she wanted to say: That's funny my signal's fine. Why are you really going to the harbour? Who are you phoning? I'll come with you.

  She ate as much as she could but still knew he was going to be angry at her because it wasn't enough and so despite everything she was relieved when he pushed his own plate away and said, “Right, back in a bit,” and headed out. She dumped what was left on her plate in the trash and washed the dishes, then sat for a while on the sofa listening to her stomach rumble unpleasantly.

  A hammering at the door startled her so much that she simply stared through the glass for a moment or two at the girl on the other side of it. It was the girl from the nature trail. She'd changed into a shapeless hoodie over leggings, and her stringy dark hair framed a pale narrow face. She smiled in a way Sylvia thought was meant to be encouraging and friendly. It reminded her instead of the bared teeth of a monkey.

  “I—hi, can I help you?” Sylvia said through the door, which felt standoffish but the girl gave her the creeps.

  “We're just in the cabin over there,” the girl said, nodding her head in a vague direction, and Sylvia detected what John would call a posh accent, “and we're wondering if you've any milk we can borrow? Just for coffee.”

  “Oh! Of course!” She still didn't ask the girl in. She opened the door just enough to pass the mug of milk through, keeping the glass between them, then felt a rush of guilt for being so unfriendly and added, “My name's Sylvia. I think I saw you up on the nature trail? Do you spend a lot of time here?”

  But the girl was already turning away, saying something about family friends of her boyfriend. Sylvia watched her walk away up the gravel path but couldn't see what cabin she went into.

  She'd had time to shower and do her makeup by the time John returned. She resisted the urge to ask him something leading like, “Anything good in your email?” but she couldn't help saying, “Something weird happened while you were gone.”

  “Oh?” He was only half-listening, had picked up the remote and was flicking through a series of unpromising-looking programs.

  “This girl came by to borrow some milk, but something about her bothered me.”

  “Bothered you?” He finally looked over at her. “Did you say someone was bothering you?”

  “No, I just mean there was something off about her I couldn't put my finger on. She said she and her boyfriend were staying somewhere over that way—” waving her hand as vaguely as the girl had— “and that the place belonged to some family friends of her boyfriend, or something. But you know what I kept thinking? About those horror movies, you know, like the home invasion ones?” John loved horror movies, the more violent and gory the better. Sylvia hated them but watched them with him to appease him. “The ones where they go in and kill all the people and then act like they're the ones who live in the house? I kept thinking the girl reminded me of one of those people.”

  John kept channel surfing. After a moment he said distractedly, “That's a bit mad.”

  She said, “I know. I mean, I didn't really think it. It's just what it reminded me of. She seemed weird.”

  John threw down the remote. “Fuck all on the telly as usual. I'm going to do some work and then let's walk into the village. Get out a little bit.”

  “Yes,” she said. “That's where we went wrong yesterday. Too much time sitting around here getting on each others' nerves.”

  John said, “What are you talking about? Yesterday was fine.” Then he was gone, out of the room, and she heard the shower come on. While she waited for him, she went out on the porch to see if she could see the girl again, or anyone else, but there were no signs of life at the leisure resort at all. Even the child who'd been shouting from the nearby window had fallen silent. They might have been all alone there.

  #

  John often worked remotely from his London office and it allowed them the leisure to take off midweek from the city occasionally just as they'd done this time. Sylvia lay in the bedroom and tried to read while he worked, but she couldn't seem to focus on either of the books she'd brought.

  She dozed off, and next thing she knew John was shaking
her awake and saying they ought to take that walk. As they wandered up into the village and round a few indifferent shops she couldn't get over the feeling that she was still dreaming. There wasn't much to do in town, and she said they ought to pop into the Tesco and pick up something for dinner and head back, but John suggested they stop off at a pub. It was nice enough to sit outside even though the sun was setting. A group of men had commandeered the bar inside, but they were alone in the grassy garden.

  “Funny listening to the conversations in there,” she said. “The one man was bragging, saying his missus had her own money and he had his and they went out with their friends as they liked when they liked and it wasn't like before with Yvonne.”

  “It's just local people talking.”

  “I know,” she said. “I didn't mean anything—”

  He said, “I know it's not as witty and sophisticated as the things your artist friends talk about but then maybe if you paid a little more attention to what people are really like you'd sell something.”