by Kim Newman
She walked through the Bacon room again, avoiding the central figure, deciding to try the place with the barrels.
… but now here was a main passage beyond the door, spacious and well-lit. A few yards down, the passage broadened out and became a mezzanine. There was the main staircase she had climbed with Clive a while - how long? - ago.
Could there be Bacon rooms, more or less the same, dotted throughout the house in order to create confusion? If so, then Amelia Dorf was an incredibly subtle and sadistic bitch. But, of course, she had known about the sadistic part. As for the subtlety, that seemed quite alien to the woman who coochy-cooed over children she wanted to mutilate. It was now obvious that Amelia had never been in charge.
Anne knew exactly whose fault this, all of this, was. She remembered his unremarkable eyes. And she remembered that he had known immediately who she was. Whatever game was being played now, it was between them, between her and Skinner.
Now, the walkabout was over. The rest of the party was just a flight of stairs away, in the room off the main hall. She heard a tinny phonograph. The record was 'Mr Sandman' by The Chordettes. It always gave Anne goosebumps, especially when the unidentified male voice answered the girls' plea for Mr Sandman to bring them a dream with a drawn-out, ever-so-slightly creepy 'ye-e-es?'
… but the main hall was not one flight of stairs down. Peering over the balustrade of the mezzanine, Anne saw a huge conservatory, thronged with man-sized plants. The far wall was a large expanse of ornamented glass, with pitch blackness beyond. Heat rose from the depths, and every smooth cold surface was damp with condensation.
Shit, this house was crazy! Anne realised now how jumbled up and contrived the interior was. The architect must have been an opium fiend.
The Chordettes finished. Something rustled in the undergrowth. Anne cautiously went down the stairs.
'Nina?'
Tropical blossoms turned towards her, stamens quivering. It was some species of voice-activated flytrap she had never heard of. There was a crackle of static, like a public address system at a church social, then another record started. Mama Cass crooning 'Dream a Little Dream of Me'.
Anne was annoyed.
'Stop playing stupid games, assholes!' There was no answer, just the song. 'Clive is hurt. He might be dead.'
She knew it was not a game any more. She wished she had a gun, the more powerful the better. She would have been happiest with a flamethrower.
Something clattered on the tile floor, behind a frothing bed of shrubs. The flesh of the plants was waxy, with green highlights from the directional lamps. The whole place was artistically lit. Anne glimpsed a different shade of green, moving among the vegetation.
She looked around for a blunt instrument. Something heavy and barefoot was padding around the conservatory. Something not human.
Then, the foliage parted. A giant cat's head poked out. Its eyes gleamed as if the irises were neon rings. It was a tiger, dyed green. Its fur was arranged in punkish spikes.
She made it to the staircase, and dashed at random back into the bulk of the house.
This could not be happening. Could not, could not, could not!
TEN
AFTER CLIVE, he was full but unsatisfied. And he knew in his bones what that meant. This had all happened before. It was time to make a new start. He would need to feed beyond the point of gluttony, and then retreat to await the change. He would have to build himself up, because the change would take it all out of him.
There had not been much to Clive. But he had been young and in good condition. His physical substance had been a tonic, but already the hunger was coming back.
His clothes were too small now, pinching him at the neck, the waist and the crotch, stretched tight over the shoulders, the chest and his muscled limbs. It would not last. The feeding he had had from Clive was only a momentary boost. Already, he felt himself dwindling in his suit. Soon, he would be completely spent.
As for the rest of it, Clive had been a disappointment. At the moment of extinction, he had held the young man's mind up like a pierced coconut and let all the thin milk trickle out. Compared with Judi, there had been almost no yield. Down deep, Clive was unimaginative, inactive, petty, unquestioning. Judi was still with him, still struggling against the dark. Clive was already less than a ghost, less than a memory.
Still, the surges of animal strength pleased him. He scooped a handful of marble out of a bannister as if it were plasticene, and briefly enjoyed the traces of the many fingers that had brushed over this patch of cold stone down the years. He dropped it, and it bounced down the stairs. Someone was coming up.
'Mr Skinner?'
It was Amelia, looking eager. She was forever busily seeking out new gratifications, forever unaware of the weasel he always discerned nestling in her skull.
'Amelia. I asked you to stay downstairs with the guests. There are rules, you know. It would be much simpler if you obeyed them.'
'But…'
'I know I don't always explain myself, but you must always do what I say. I have reasons. These things are vitally important.'
She stepped over the marble chunk, and walked up to him. Even standing on the same broad step as him, she seemed pitifully small.
'Clive and the girl. It's been at least an hour. And Nina…'
'I found Clive. He's gone. Anne is lost, but I know where she is.'
'Nina?'
'She'll turn up.'
'Shouldn't we…?'
'No. There is no point now.'
'You look flushed. Have you been overexerting yourself?'
She reached up and touched his cheek. He felt a slight tickling as his old skin blistered. There was no pain, but he flinched from the contact. Amelia's unsubtle lust for him darted out of her like static electricity. He was repulsed by the scramble of images in her mind. She reminded him of the Objectivist.
They were standing on the main staircase, two flights up from the party room. He could hear the nervous chatter of the guests. He could make out all the separate conversations. Other sounds caught in between the meaningless words. Drinks being poured, a plastic cup crumpling, someone beating a fingertip tattoo on a table.
He had them all fixed in his mind. There were sixteen people in that room, standing, sitting, lying. Anne was getting out of the conservatory. Nina was curled up under a bed upstairs. Amelia was with him. Clive was used. There was no one else. The nearest house was empty. No cars or people moved in the street outside. Beyond the garden was a fairly busy road, but all the passing drivers were wrapped up in their tincans, insulated by Christmas drinks and trivial pursuits.
It was perfect.
He held up his right hand, stretching his fingers, and took Amelia's face in his grip. Her puzzled expression was covered. The thumb hooked under her chin, and the fingers pressed the top of her head an inch above the hairline. His nails grew, curving into her.
She could not speak, but he saw her panicked eyes staring from the spaces between his long fingers. Her cold nose pressed into his palm. Muffled sounds came from her throat.
'Shhh, Amelia. It's over. You'll always be with me now. Isn't that what you've wanted?'
He squeezed and pulled, taking off the front half of her head. He ignored the raw, splintered mess, and leaned forwards as if to kiss where her lips had been. He caught the weasel escaping as an insubstantial wisp, and inhaled it in through his nostrils.
He was not interested in the meat, just the flavour.
She was sour, but strong. Not as nourishing as Judi, but an excellent appetiser for what was to come. She had always been ruled by her desires. He savoured the weasel on his palate for seconds, and then breathed her into his lungs. She was still startled, but almost comfortable. She had been easy to incorporate.
He threw the face away, and went downstairs to join the party. He was ready now. Ready to give in to his feeding frenzy.
ELEVEN
HERE BE TYGERS. In St John's Wood? She had seen it, but she did not beli
eve it. On the mezzanine again, she turned and looked back, down into the conservatory. There was no animal that she could see. The shrubs were not even disturbed. The song finished, and the loudspeakers just hissed. The place was completely undisturbed, if not completely undisturbing.
Anne wondered. Had she somehow been drugged? She had drunk only perrier at the party, and eaten nothing. But she could have been slipped something somewhere, through a pinprick. Had Clive done anything? And what kind of dope produced that kind of idiotic but vivid halluciantion? She did not want to think about it; that would only make her more disorientated.
The time is out of joint, she thought. 'Oh cursed spite,' she said aloud, 'that ever I was born to set it right.'
There was nothing awry in her mind now. She could remember Hamlet and the dates of important battles in the Revolutionary War and the names of Disney's Seven Dwarfs and the telephone numbers of old boyfriends and the faces of people she had known in college but not seen in years and the deadlines for the three pieces she had been working on…
Millions and millions of bits of information were still in her head, correctly labelled and neatly stored, but she could not work out the geography of this house, she was seeing green tigers and she was afraid in a way she had not been since childhood.
She was afraid that the Monster was going to get her.
In another part of the house, the screaming started. She could not work out how far away it was, but the shrill was enough to hammer into her skull like nails. There were many voices, screaming differently, loudly raised in a badly orchestrated cantata. Somewhere, violence was being done. If there was a tiger, it was loose now among the party guests. Loose and hungry.
It was time to get out. She could call the police - call Inspector Hollis - make a fool of herself, level hysterical accusations, have a breakdown, go to bed for weeks, miss Christmas. But first, she had to get out. She had to get out of this house.
The main staircase must be near, somewhere in the centre of the house. If she could get to the main hall, she could automatically open the gates from the instrument panel by the front door.
That would mean getting past the party, getting past whatever was happening to the guests.
The screaming was dying now. A few stragglers kept it up for a few seconds, then there was nothing. Just quiet.
She had not been able to work out where the noise had been coming from. It might even have been just another sound effect. Presumably…
She stopped thinking, and turned away from the mezzanine, plunging back into the corridor maze.
TWELVE
UNDER THE four-poster bed, Nina was safe, curtained from the nightmare by the bedspread. The monsters could not get her here.
But, cling as she might to the bolster she had taken with her to stop her screams, she could not stop shaking.
She did not know whether she had used the smack. She remembered the needle going into flesh, but she was not sure that it had been her own. Her right arm had gone to sleep below the tourniquet.
In the dark, she imagined red-eyed rats scurrying around her, lashing her with their tails.
She heard her own heartbeat, alarmingly rapid, and she heard the sea in her ears.
She was crying like a baby, sobbing for her Mum. The monsters were prowling in the bedroom, searching for her. She heard their hissing breaths, and the hard, sharp noise of their hooves on the polished floorboards. She prayed they would not think of looking under the bed.
Mr Skinner was inside her mind, whispering, alternately cajoling and scolding her. He held his coat open, and called her to him. He had everything she needed. If she got to him, she would never have to worry again, never have to want again.
She tried not to listen to Mr Skinner. She tried.
But he was persuasive, kindly, paternal…
The rats nipped at her flesh, biting through her ripped clothes, sinking sharp little teeth into her skin. The monsters argued among themselves in monster language, tails lashing.
Mr Skinner was calling for her.
Her heartbeat was still quickening in a crescendo. Soon, it must peak, and stop…
Mr Skinner's coat was warm, welcoming. Wrapped in it, she would be able to sleep again, to dream sweet dreams, to wake up refreshed between clean sheets.
The rats got to her face, and she screamed inside herself, pressing her face to the bolster. The vermin were inside the pillow, biting outwards, clawing at her tight-shut eyes, scratching her tear-tracked cheeks, forcing their furry heads into her mouth.
One monster wanted to lift the bedspread, but his friends were contemptuous. They locked grinding horns, and scuffled.
Mr Skinner was singing, old songs from the '30s and '40s. He was like the bandleaders her Gran remembered, in a crisp collar, soothing through a megaphone.
Nina wanted to go to him.
'Yes,' she said aloud, 'yes, yes, yes!'
Mr Skinner finished his song, and bowed. Flashbulbs went off from the audience.
She was his. As soon as she got to him, she would be his.
She tried to get up on all fours, and bumped her head on the underside of the bed.
Her heartbeats were like a constant patter now, and she felt pains inside her chest and head.
The curtains parted, and light gushed into the dark space. Under the bed, Nina realised, was where the monsters lived. They were not afraid to come in after her.
Her heart stopped. For an eternal moment, she waited for its next beat…
THIRTEEN
ANNE HAD GIVEN up the rational approach, and picked a passage at random. When she came to an intersection, she had ignored it or taken a new direction without bothering to think about it. She had passed through a few rooms. Now that she was looking closely, she realised that most of the rooms in the house had two doors. Each was a fat little passage in itself. She had not found any more Bacon rooms. Most of the decor in this part of the house was modelled after Hollywood's idea of elaborate period furnishings. Nobody real seemed to live here.
In a Versailles bed-chamber, attended by dressmaker's dummies in brocade jackets and periwigs, she found Nina. She had unconsciously put into practice the Winnie the Pooh principle, which rules that the most effective method of searching for a lost person or object is to get lost oneself on the assumption that some force of nature brings all forgotten things together in ignored niches and unfrequented locales. Of course, now they were both lost.
Nina was half-hidden under a four-poster bed, trailing silk sheets behind her like a bridal train. She was sprawled, hugging a sausage-shaped pillow like Linus' comforter. Anne could see that she was biting deeply into the pillow. Earlier, Nina had been stretched a good many notches too tight; now, she had snapped, and was flapping limply.
Her cuff was still undone, and the tourniquet had made her hand and lower arm into white marble, but Anne could see no new puncture. She guessed Nina had been too overwrought to shoot up. Maybe, she had successfully fought the need.
'Nina…'
The girl cringed at Anne's voice, and chewed the pillow. She had been crying, and was still shaking badly. It was difficult to tell whether she was retching or sobbing. She rocked back and forth.
Anne crouched, and gently tried to pull the pillow away. Nina was reluctant to give it up. Anne coaxed, and stroked her hard jaw. Finally, the girl let her teeth unclench, and relinquished a wet mouthful of cotton.
She put the pillow down, and hugged Nina. The girl responded, gripping Anne in a desperate embrace. It was like a wrestling hold. She tried to soothe the girl, and Nina relaxed. Anne unknotted the rubber tubing from her arm, and pulled the tourniquet loose. Nina's upper arm was ringed with red, but she bent her elbow and wriggled her fingers, getting the circulation going again. They stood up, and Nina half-sat on the edge of the bed. She stretched and lay back. She was nearly asleep.
'No,' Anne said. 'We have to get out of the house. We can't stay.'
'I'm tired.'
'I know. So am I.
But we can't stay. This is a bad place.' Anne knew she was treating Nina like a four-year-old, but could see no other way to cope with her. 'I think something's happened downstairs. Did you hear the noise? I don't think we're safe here.'
'Then… let's… go home…'
'Yes, let's. Home. Come on, get up. I'll help. Here…'
She lifted Nina, getting the girl upright. Anne made sure the girl was not hurt. Nina had given up completely. She did not protest when she was led towards the door.
'This house,' said Anne, 'it doesn't seem to make sense. Where is the main staircase? Do you know?'
Nina smiled wanly. 'Through that door, turn left…'
'Are you sure?'
Nina was waking up. For a moment, she was supremely confident. 'Of course. Come on, don't be a slowcoach.'
Anne found herself being led. Nina was right. The main staircase was there, and two flights down, so was the main hall. The place was empty, quiet and normal.
'That's crazy,' Anne said, 'I'm sure I came this way…'
'Crazy? How?'
'It's nothing. Nothing really. I just got lost.'
They went downstairs, carefully and without incident.
'Anne?'
'Yes?'
'Hold my hand.'
'Sure.'
They touched fingers, and got them entwined. Anne kissed Nina on the cheek.
'Eugh,' the girl croaked, 'don't get soppy.'
'I won't.'
They were downstairs now, in the hall. It was not a fake. Anne saw her own coat hanging up on the rack with the others. There was no noise of any kind from the party room. The door was closed.
She knew she would have to take a look.
'Stay here,' she told Nina, letting her hand go, 'this will be over in a moment.'
She held the doorhandle, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
… the room was a mess, but there were no people there. Drinks stood abandoned. The Christmas tree was broken, having shed a layer of needles and broken baubles onto the presents. Food and cigarette butts had been trodden into the precious carpet. The open fire had practically died. The lights were still on, and a cassette was clicking in a tape deck.
