June 22nd:
I made a horrible discovery today. There must be rats in the house. I heard them, scrambling around in the attic. I went up, and when I threw the door open, something small and dark ran away. I stood there for a while, all the time feeling its eyes locked on me, watching, waiting for me to do something. I locked the door, and tomorrow I'm going to buy a dose of rat poison and a big cat.
June 23rd:
I put the cat in the attic, and I left the door ajar, so she could come and go whenever she felt like it. Later in the evening, I heard the door of the attic creak. I went upstairs with a strong flashlight, and something small hurried away from the beacon. When I came down, the cat was at the front door, frantically trying to get out. Every one of my attempts to catch her failed, and she acted as if she'd gone mad. The only results of my chase are some severe scratches on my hands from her claws.
June 24th:
This morning as I came down, I found the blasted cat in the living-room. The beast was dead, but there were no marks on her body. The eyes were bulging horribly, and the jaws wide open. Saliva and a bit of blood had dripped on to the floor. The cat must have been sick when I bought her. At first I wanted to go and complain to the pet shop where I got her, but I decided to leave it at that. I went upstairs again and searched the whole attic, but I found nothing living there, and no holes in the walls either. I have locked the attic. I don't think I'll bother buying another cat, though it is getting rather lonesome in the house.
Late afternoon. Another discovery, and a creepy one this time. While I was walking through the garden, I suddenly stumbled over something. When I pushed the high growing grass away, I found a stone under it, the biggest part buried under the ground. Then when I looked closely I spotted the marks on it. They turned out to be letters, forming a name, which I could decipher after cleaning the stone a bit: Francesca Denverra. There were dates too, but I couldn't make them out. I was only able to discover that they were sometime in the late 19th Century. It must be an old tombstone. I don't want that thing lying around in my garden. First thing tomorrow morning I'll complain to the landlord to get it taken away.
June 25th:
The landlord wasn't home, so I left a note, and I'll see him tomorrow. I want a garden with my house, not a miniature graveyard. Every day seems to bring new discoveries. As I had again heard the scurrying in the attic, I decided to try the rat poison. While I was laying it down, I found heaps of yellowed paper and old writing material in one of the cabinets. There were several notebooks, full of a spidery handwriting, definitely female, all notes for novels or short stories, apparently. I took them down with me to have a good look at them. They seem strange stories for a woman to write: fictional notes on witchcraft, mandragores, the occult, ghostly appearances, vampirism, lycanthropy, satanism, and other weird things. The titles alone seem sufficient: "The Creature from the Tomb," "Hands of Decay," "The Whispering Thing," "A Taste of Rain and Darkneses" . . . Once I started reading them, I had to finish them, though their contents often disgusted me. The horribly realistic way she wrote about those things, as if she really believed in them herself, had even experienced them! But then, once there was an eighteen-year-old girl who wrote "Frankenstein," and many other female writers have gone in for horror stories. I'll ask the landlord also about these things tomorrow. Maybe the manuscripts, even if many seem unfinished, might have a certain bibliographical value. Who knows, I might even make some money out of them!
June 26th:
I had a long talk with the proprietor this morning. I was dead right—what a choice of words! The thing in the garden is indeed a gravestone. Fortunately there's nothing under it. Miss Denverra, born in 1834, died in 1917, seems to have had a certain reputation as an author. The landlord said that she had written several novels, but that of course was before his time, he hadn't read them, but probably they were in the local library. When she died, he had bought the house from a distant cousin who had inherited it. In her will, she had requested that her grave in the garden shouldn't be disturbed. The queer woman had bought the tombstone several years before her death, and had it placed where I'd seen it, but of course she was buried in the cemetery—though the landlord had kept the stone in the garden. "Rather picturesque," he said, "it makes the house something a bit special you know." He refused to remove the stone—"It doesn't hurt you, does it?" he said—and as I don't want to give up my lovely house, I'll have to put up with it, at least till Georges arrives and finds a solution.
I still have that idea of someone watching over my shoulder. It gives me the creeps.
June 27th:
I went to the library and borrowed a few books by Francesca Denverra. They didn't have all her works the librarian said, but they did have all her best and most important novels. He told me that she died at the top of her creative power. He seemed quite an expert in the field, and told me many details he knew about Denverra, how she sometimes worked for several years on one book, refusing to use a typewriter, living only on her savings and the irregular income her books brought her. He gave me "Scream from the Cellar," "All the Shadows of Fear" and "Eye of the Vampire," and said that if I wanted some others he had many by Machen, James and Poe, and even a few scarce titles by Lovecraft and Hodgson. But I have enough with Denverra. Besides, I never liked horror stories, and these only interest me because the woman has lived in the house. I leafed through some of the books. Horrible. How could a woman in her sane mind ever write those accursed blasphemous things? The books themselves seem filled with their evil, overflowing with decay and corruption. They disgust me . . . and yet, in a strange way, they fascinate by their horror.
June 29th:
I still feel listless. The heat keeps on, the earth feels dry and hot, the air stale and strangling, trees give almost no shade. The world outside seems dead, burned, and only the house gives peace and shadow. The damned tombstone is giving me nightmares now. Tonight I dreamed that I saw Francesca Denverra, sitting in one of my chairs, now in the attic, with the notes of her novel. "The Smell of Blood" in her lap. She was making corrections in the notebook, and I could read everything she wrote, and it made me feel sick. When I awoke I was soaked in sweat.
July 3rd:
At last another letter from dear Georges. Good news this time! He thinks he'll be back very soon now, no date fixed but much earlier than expected. Thank God! I just can't wait till he gets here, though the feeling of being watched has gone away now. I sleep much better too, untroubled by the weird nightmares I was having up till a few nights ago. It's almost as if finally I've been accepted by this house as its new inhabitant, and now it gives me peace.
July 4th:
I have read "Scream from the Cellar" a second time through. I had wanted to go to the library to pick up some love stories and historical romances, but the heat was just too much; it engulfed me in a suffocating grip as soon as I left the house. When will it ever rain? So there's nothing left in the house but Denverra's books. It doesn't seem so horrible anymore upon a second reading, mainly I guess because now I know in advance what is going to happen. The shock elements have lost their power, and now I can spend more time on the literary qualities, and ignore the plot. In a way there is a weird beauty in her books, a beauty which is evil and yet absorbing. It is like the nightmarish quality of a Bosch painting, or a Dali, or the shrieking yet hilarious madness of a Topor or a Gahan Wilson cartoon, and sometimes even the weird and unreal fascination of a Matisse.
July 6th:
This afternoon, I slept a bit in a chair in the garden. When I walked back into the house I felt strange, as if something had been very subtly changed while I was away; as if something was really out of place. Only after a while did I realise what it was. It's my furniture, my own modern furniture, which doesn't fit the rooms. I had thought at first to change the rooms completely into something modern, but you can't do that with these old houses and their high ceilings and their building structure. But I must do something about it, maybe rearrangin
g the furniture will make it look better, more homely.
July 7th:
I re-read Denverra's notes, her unfinished manuscript. The librarian was right, the manuscripts are grotesque, horrible, almost the work of a deranged mind, and yet they are powerful, much better written than any of the published books, much more meaningful in content and researched details. Literature really lost something with her. There were even a few parts I must have skipped over the first time, they seem to have been added later, all in her small spidery handwriting.
July 8:
Today I had all the modern furniture removed. I tried to make it look better, but it kept on degrading the atmosphere of the rooms. Now it looks much better. I only kept my chairs, and brought down the old cabinets from the attic and dusted them off. It looks now like it must have looked before, so easy, solemn, and peaceful. I even put the big mirror back in its place. I couldn't stand looking at the awful mark on the wallpaper where it had hung.
July 9:
The weather is beautiful. I have been sitting idly in the garden through the whole day, without bothering to do anything. A lot of sun is good for me, the doctor once said, and I have always kept that in mind. Come to think of it, it's really been a long time since I saw him. Not that I need him for anything, I feel better than I ever felt before, perfectly healthy.
July 12:
I think I'll have to start working again one of these days. No doubt my publisher will be severely angry with me yet again, though he should know my habits by now! I'm very surprised he hasn't written already, asking for my first draft, or at least for some working notes on my latest novel. I have re-read my draft notes for the plot structure, and they're good. A complete synopsis already, with detailed notes on all the central characters. Now only a few researches on the background, and I can begin with writing in earnest. "Metempsychosis" will be my best novel so far.
July 14:
Something very strange happened this morning. A young man called, a certain Georges Vaarberg, who had come direct from Paris. He was very surprised when I opened the door, and mumbled something about a probable mistake. He asked me if I knew a young teacher, a certain Miss Frances Denvar, who used to live here. I answered him that no-one lived here except me. He excused himself, and went away. At the entrance he turned and looked back, a baffled expression on his face. I didn't see him again.
I wonder what he wanted from an old woman like me?
PROBLEM CHILD by Peter Oldale
The first occasion was when Mrs. Roberts was getting Rosie a fresh nappy ready. The job was delaying a game that they had been playing with teaspoons on the kitchen table, and Rosie was annoyed. She cried and later shrieked in frustration and then Mrs. Roberts saw one of the spoons slide across the table top into Rosie's hand.
Apart from a startled glance and a quick look under the table, where she thought Buster, their dog, might have rubbed against the legs, she thought and did nothing about the moving spoon.
A week later, when Rosie's food was delayed by a parcel being delivered, Mrs. Roberts was returning to pick up the already filled bottle when it moved firmly away from her hand towards the yelling baby.
There was simply no mistake this time, though it was true that Rosie had been bouncing about, enough perhaps to shake the bottle a little. But not enough to move it.
That evening, Mrs. Roberts told George, her husband.
She had anticipated correctly his reactions.
"You're imagining things again, Shirley," he snapped irritably. "You and your mothercare books. What the kid wants is less 'psychology' and a bit more ordinary affection."
Mrs. Roberts flushed angrily.
"Just because you give Rosie everything she cries for. Anything for peace and quiet, that's you!"
She said no more. It was just possible that the bottle had somehow slid with the vibration of her tread on the wooden kitchen floor. And the spoon moving could certainly have been Buster.
But the third time was more positive.
They were both, mother and baby, in their small living room. Mrs. Roberts was reading the daily paper in a chair by the fire. Rosie was inside her play pen absorbed with her toys.
After some minutes, Rosie started to yell, pointing out of the pen across the room. Unable to see what was wrong, Mrs. Roberts fussed and played with the baby, who continued to scream.
A small plastic doll had fallen out of the play pen and rolled out of sight under the sideboard. Rosie's cries became even more fierce and hysterical as Mrs. Roberts tried to comfort her. Finally, Rosie gave a particular violent shriek and held out both arms in the direction of the sideboard. As Mrs. Roberts turned to look that way, to see what was the matter, she saw the missing doll slide steadily though slowly out from under the sideboard, across the carpet, up to the play pen frame and, as she stared motionless with astonishment, the doll gave a heave and lifted over the frame and into Rosie's outstretched hand.
The next few minutes were crowded. With a swift smack Mrs. Roberts knocked the doll from her baby's hand, swept her into her arms and ran from the room. Once in the kitchen, she sat Rosie roughly in her high chair by the table.
She was not without courage. Crossing the room, avoiding the pen, she took the decorative pair of fire tongs from the hearth, then approached the doll. It took some time to grip this securely. Then she lifted it and carried it to the open fire. There, she dropped it amongst the glowing coals, where its plastic coating shrivelled and melted, curling unpleasantly, and exposing a wiry skeleton that slide down red hot into the grate. Hours later, after she had let the fire die right out, Mrs. Roberts found the wire remains and took them down the garden, which backed on to a garage, and flung them over the wall into a heap of wreckage.
The same day, she took Rosie to the doctor's surgery.
Dr. Paisley heard her out thoughtfully, eyeing professionally the slight tremor of her hands, the dry lips.
"Well, Mr. Roberts, what you say is certainly remarkable. But you know, there may yet be natural explanations."
"It did move, Doctor. I saw it. Across the carpet. The other times I wasn't sure, but this . . ."
"But you say there was metal in the doll," said Dr. Paisley reasonably. "Now there's always magnetism you know. Queer things happen when there's electricity about."
"Yes . . . but we haven't got many electric things. Only the garage does have those welding things. Those that spark. Do you think they could have done it, Doctor?"
"Well, I'm no engineer, Mrs. Roberts, but it may well be so. And how are you yourself. Sleeping well? No dizziness or fainting? You look just a bit peaky."
After a while, Dr. Paisley wrote out a prescription of a particular kind and saw Mrs. Roberts out.
It was three weeks before Dr. Paisley looked up to see Mrs. Roberts entering his surgery again, carrying a protesting Rosie. He mentally sighed, but motioned her to a chair. Over the increasing cries of the irritated Rosie, who was late for feeding and wanted her milk, which was already made up in her mother's basket, he listened.
"I waited for three times," Mrs. Roberts burst out. "I could see you never believed me, you're just like George and in any case she never does it when he's there because he lets her have everything she wants so she never gets into a temper and it's only then that she does it at all . . ."
Between the broken streams of words and the yells of Rosie, Dr. Paisley gathered that more things had been "moved" by Rosie when she was in a temper.
"So I came now, Doctor, so you could see, she's not had her milk and she's getting all worked up and you see, she'll do it like I said."
Rosie's cries were certainly getting fiercer, and the noise was distracting. Paisley winced as the shrieks reached a higher pitch when Mrs. Roberts took out the bottle, but held it away from the baby. She tantalisingly waved it in the air, Rosie's red eyes following it as she yelled, tears of frustration running on the plump cheeks.
"Come on, baby," Mrs. Roberts mouthed, sweat gleaming on her forehead. "Get you
r milky . . ."
Paisley frowned and half rose from his chair as Mrs. Roberts placed the bottle deliberately on a cabinet, just out of reach of Rosie, whose screams reached a crescendo of violence that he could hardly credit. Hysteria shone in the child's eyes and suddenly the doctor leaped up and took the bottle himself, passing it to the baby, who at once settled to satisfied sucking.
The silence was sudden and deafening. Standing, Paisley and Mrs. Roberts faced each other.
"Please sit down, Mrs. Roberts. I think we'd better have a little talk." Paisley forced a soothing smile.
After a second of more or less silence, Mrs. Roberts collapsed on to the chair, and leaned heavily forward over the doctor's desk. Her head lowered and she began to weep softly.
Paisley picked up the phone.
"Nurse? Would you come in, please. I'm going to examine Mrs. Roberts. And try to get Baxter from the General on the line." For Baxter was a psychiatrist.
After two private sessions, Baxter was of the opinion that Mrs. Roberts would respond to treatment without entering hospital. Unlike Dr. Paisley, he had made no bones about his beliefs to his patient.
"Many of us see things that never happen, Mrs. Roberts. In fact, between you and me, I'd go so far as to say that we all do from time to time. You have been run down, and your mind has been playing tricks."
"I do understand, Mr. Baxter. But why? I mean, why should I—imagine things like this about Rosie?"
"I frankly don't know, Mrs. Roberts. If I were to say I did, I'd be deceiving you. But we shall find out, if you will cooperate, and then we can put things right.
"For the time being, avoid any situation where the baby gets frustrated. Keep her happy and satisfied, if you can. Obviously, these—appearances—have something to do with the baby crying. It affects all mothers, you know. I know you feel that your husband is too soft with Rosie, but for the time being, follow his example."
The Year's Best Horror Stories 1 Page 10
