The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

by Jeff Vandermeer; Ann Vandermeer

  On the back of an envelope he wrote prices for hanks and cheeses of the twines, and for fifty- and hundred-foot lengths of the ropes. Laboriously he added details about the strength, durability, and resistance to climatic conditions of each sort of cord. The senior gnole watched him intently, putting his little feet on the top run of his chair and poking at the facets of his left eye now and then with a tentacle. In the cellars from time to time someone would scream.

  Mortensen began to demonstrate his wares. He showed the gnole the slip and resilience of one rope, the tenacity and stubborn strength of another. He cut a tarred hemp rope in two and laid a five-foot piece on the parlor floor to show the gnole how absolutely ‘neutral’ it was, with no tendency to untwist of its own accord. He even showed the gnole how nicely some of the cotton twines made up a square knotwork.

  They settled at last on two ropes of abaca fiber, 3/16 and 5/8 inch in diameter. The gnole wanted an enormous quantity. Mortensen’s comment on those ropes, ‘unlimited strength and durability,’ seemed to have attracted him.

  Soberly, Mortensen wrote the particulars down in his order book, but ambition was setting his brain on fire. The gnoles, it seemed, would be regular customers; and after the gnoles, why should he not try the gibbelins? They too must have a need for rope.

  Mortensen closed his order book. On the back of the same envelope he wrote, for the gnole to see, that delivery would be made within ten days. Terms were 30 percent with order, balance upon receipt of goods.

  The senior gnole hesitated. Shyly, he looked at Mortensen with his little red eyes. Then he got down the smallest of the emeralds from the wall and handed it to him.

  The sales representative stood weighing it in his hands. It was the smallest of the gnoles’ emeralds, but it was as clear as water, as green as grass. In the outside world it would have ransomed a Rockefeller or a whole family of Guggenheims; a legitimate profit from a transaction was one thing, but this was another; ‘a high ethical standard’ – any kind of ethical standard – would forbid Mortensen to keep it. He weighed it a moment longer. Then with a deep, deep sigh he gave the emerald back.

  He cast a glance around the room to see if he could find something which would be more negotiable. And in an evil moment he fixed on the senior gnole’s auxiliary eyes.

  The senior gnole keeps his extra pair of optics on the third shelf of the curiosity cabinet with the glass doors. They look like fine dark emeralds about the size of the end of your thumb. And if the gnoles in general set store by their gems, it is nothing at all compared to the senior gnole’s emotions about his extra eyes. The concern good Christian folk should feel for their soul’s welfare is a shadow, a figment, a nothing, compared to what the thoroughly heathen gnole feels for those eyes. He would rather, I think, choose to be a mere miserable human being than that some vandal should lay hands upon them.

  If Mortensen had not been elated by his success to the point of anaesthesia, he would have seen the gnole stiffen, he would have heard him hiss, when he went over to the cabinet. All innocent, Mortensen opened the glass door, took the twin eyes out, and juggled them sacrilegiously in his hand; the gnole could hear them clink. Smiling to evince the charm of manner advised in the Manual, and raising his brows as one who says, ‘Thank you, these will do nicely,’ Mortensen dropped the eyes into his pocket.

  The gnole growled.

  The growl awoke Mortensen from his trance of euphoria. It was a growl whose meaning no one could mistake. This was clearly no time to be doggedly persistent. Mortensen made a break for the door.

  The senior gnole was there before him, his network of tentacles outstretched. He caught Mortensen in them easily and wound them, flat as bandages, around his ankles and his hands. The best abaca fiber is no stronger than those tentacles; though the gnoles would find rope a convenience, they get along very well without it. Would you, dear reader, go naked if zippers should cease to be made? Growling indignantly, the gnole fished his ravished eyes from Mortensen’s pockets, and then carried him down to the cellar to the fattening pens.

  But great are the virtues of legitimate commerce. Though they fattened Mortensen sedulously, and, later, roasted and sauced him and ate him with real appetite, the gnoles slaughtered him in quite a humane manner and never once thought of torturing him. That is unusual, for gnoles. And they ornamented the plank on which they served him with a beautiful border of fancy knotwork made of cotton cord from his own sample case.

  The Hungry House

  Robert Bloch

  Robert Bloch (1917–1994) was an iconic American writer, primarily of crime, horror, and science fiction. Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels. As one of the youngest members of the so-called Lovecraft Circle, Bloch found a needed mentor in Lovecraft, among the first to encourage his talent. Early on, Bloch contributed to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, and later won the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. The pop culture popularity of his novel Psycho (1959), which became the model for mindless slasher films, tended to obscure Bloch’s more subtle talents. ‘The Hungry House’ (1951) represents Bloch at his most complex and devastating.

  At first there were just the two of them – he and she, together. That’s the way it was when they bought the house.

  Then it came. Perhaps it was there all the time; waiting for them in the house. At any rate, it was there now. And there was nothing they could do.

  Moving was out of the question. They’d taken a five-year lease, secretly congratulating themselves on the low rental. It would be absurd to complain to the agent about it, and impossible to explain to their friends. For that matter, they had nowhere else to go; they had searched for months to find a home.

  Besides, at first neither he nor she cared to admit that they were aware of its presence. But both of them knew it was there.

  She felt it the very first evening, in the bedroom. She was sitting in front of the high, oldfashioned boudoir mirror, combing her hair. They hadn’t settled all their things yet, and she didn’t trouble to dust the place very thoroughly. In consequence the mirror was cloudy. And the light above it flickered.

  So at first she thought it was just a trick of shadows. Some flaw in the glass perhaps. The wavering outline behind her seemed to blur the reflection oddly, and she frowned in distaste. Then she began to experience what she often called her ‘married feeling’ – the peculiar awareness which usually denoted her husband’s entrance to a room she occupied.

  He must be standing behind her now. He must have come in quietly, without saying anything. Perhaps he was going to put his arms around her, surprise her, startle her. Hence the shadow on the mirror.

  She turned, ready to greet him.

  The room was empty. And still the odd reflection persisted, together with the sensation of a presence at her back.

  She shrugged, moved her head, and made a little face at herself, in the mirror. As a smile it was a failure, because the warped glass and the poor light seemed to distort her grin into something alien – into a smile that was not altogether a composition of her own face and features.

  Well, it had been a fatiguing ordeal, this moving business. She flicked a brush through her hair and tried to dismiss the problem.

  Nevertheless she felt a surge of relief when he suddenly entered the bedroom. For a moment she thought of telling him, then decided not to worry him over her ‘nerves.’

  He was more outspoken. It was the following morning that the incident occurred. He came rushing out of the bathroom, his face bleeding from a razor-cut on the left cheek.

  ‘Is that your idea of being funny?’ he demanded, in the petulant, little-boy fashion she found so engaging. ‘Sneaking in behind me and making faces in the mirror? Gave me an awful start – look at this nick I sliced on myself.’

  She sat up in bed.

  ‘But darling, I haven’t been making faces at you. I didn’t stir from this bed since you got up.’

  ‘Oh.’ He shook his head, his frown
fading into a second set of wrinkles expressing bewilderment. ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘What is it?’ She suddenly threw off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, wriggling her toes and peering at him earnestly.

  ‘Nothing,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing at all. Just thought I saw you, or somebody, looking over my shoulder in the mirror. All of a sudden, you know. It must be those damned lights. Got to get some bulbs in town today.’

  He patted his cheek with a towel and turned away. She took a deep breath.

  ‘I had the same feeling last night,’ she confessed, then bit her lip.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘It’s probably just the lights, as you said, darling.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ He was suddenly preoccupied. ‘That must be it. I’ll make sure and bring those new bulbs.’

  ‘You’d better. Don’t forget, the gang is coming down for the house-warming on Saturday.’

  Saturday proved to be a long time in coming. In the interim both of them had several experiences which served to upset their minds much more than they cared to admit.

  The second morning, after he had left for work, she went out in back and looked at the garden. The place was a mess – half an acre of land, all those trees, the weeds everywhere, and the dead leaves of autumn dancing slowly around the old house. She stood off on a little knoll and contemplated the grave gray gables of another century. Suddenly she felt lonely here. It wasn’t only the isolation, the feeling of being half a mile from the nearest neighbor, down a deserted dirt road. It was more as though she were an intruder here – an intruder upon the past. The cold breeze, the dying trees, the sullen sky were welcome; they belonged to the house. She was the outsider, because she was young, because she was alive.

  She felt it all, but did not think it. To acknowledge her sensations would be to acknowledge fear. Fear of being alone. Or, worse still, fear of not being alone.

  Because, as she stood there, the back door closed.

  Oh, it was the autumn wind, all right. Even though the door didn’t bang, or slam shut. It merely closed. But that was the wind’s work, it had to be. There was nobody in the house, nobody to close the door.

  She felt in her housedress pocket for the door key, then shrugged as she remembered leaving it on the kitchen sink. Well, she hadn’t planned to go inside yet anyway. She wanted to look over the yard, look over the spot where the garden had been and where she fully intended a garden to bloom next spring. She had measurements to make, and estimates to take, and a hundred things to do here outside.

  And yet, when the door closed, she knew she had to go in. Something was trying to shut her out, shut her out of her own house, and that would never do. Something was fighting against her, fighting against all idea of change. She had to fight back.

  So she marched up to the door, rattled the knob, found herself locked out as she expected. The first round was lost. But there was always the window.

  The kitchen window was eye-level in height, and a small crate served to bring it within easy reach. The window was open a good four inches and she had no trouble inserting her hands to raise it further.

  She tugged.

  Nothing happened. The window must be stuck. But it wasn’t stuck; she’d just opened it before going outside and it opened quite easily; besides, they’d tried all the windows and found them in good operating condition.

  She tugged again. This time the window raised a good six inches and then – something slipped. The window came down like the blade of a guillotine, and she got her hands out just in time. She bit her lip, sent strength through her shoulders, raised the window once more.

  And this time she stared into the pane. The glass was transparent, ordinary window glass. She’d washed it just yesterday and she knew it was clean. There had been no blur, no shadow, and certainly no movement.

  But there was movement now. Something cloudy, something obscenely opaque, peered out of the window, peered out of itself and pressed the window down against her. Something matched her strength to shut her out.

  Suddenly, hysterically, she realized that she was staring at her own reflection through the shadows of the trees. Of course, it had to be her own reflection. And there was no reason for her to close her eyes and sob as she tugged the window up and half-tumbled her way into the kitchen.

  She was inside, and alone. Quite alone. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry him about. She wouldn’t tell him.

  He wouldn’t tell her, either. Friday afternoon, when she took the car and went into town for groceries and liquor in preparation for tomorrow’s party, he stayed home from the office and arranged the final details of settling down.

  That’s why he carried up all the garment bags to the attic – to store the summer clothes, get them out of the way. And that’s how he happened to open the little cubicle under the front gable. He was looking for the attic closet; he’d put down the bags and started to work along the wall with a flashlight. Then he noticed the door and the padlock.

  Dust and rust told their own story; nobody had come this way for a long, long time. He thought again of Hacker, the glib real-estate agent who’d handled the rental of the place. ‘Been vacant several years and needs a little fixing up,’ Hacker had said. From the looks of it, nobody had lived here for a coon’s age. All the better, he could force the lock with a common file.

  He went downstairs for the file and returned quickly, noting as he did so the heavy attic dust. Apparently the former occupants had left in something of a hurry – debris was scattered everywhere, and swaths and swirls scored the dust to indicate that belongings had been dragged and hauled and swept along in a haphazard fashion.

  Well, he had all winter to straighten things out, and right now he’d settle for storing the garment bags. Clipping the flashlight to his belt, he bent over the lock, file in hand, and tried his skill at breaking and entering.

  The lock sprung. He tugged at the door, opened it, inhaled a gust of mouldy dampness, then raised the flash and directed the beam into the long, narrow closet.

  A thousand silver slivers stabbed at his eyeballs. Golden, gleaming fire seared his pupils. He jerked the flashlight back, sent the beam upwards. Again, lances of light entered his eyes.

  Suddenly he adjusted his vision and comprehension. He stood peering into a room full of mirrors. They hung from cords, lay in corners, stood along the walls in rows.

  There was a tall, stately full-length mirror, set in a door; a pair of plate-glass ovals, inset in old-fashioned dresser-tops; a panel glass, and even a complete, dismantled bathroom medicine cabinet similar to the one they had just installed. And the floor was lined with hand-mirrors of all sizes and shapes. He noted an ornate silver-handled mirror straight from a woman’s dressing table; behind it stood the vanity-mirror removed from the table itself. And there were pocket mirrors, mirrors from purse-compacts, mirrors of every size and shape. Against the far wall stood a whole series of looking-glass slabs that appeared to have been mounted at one time in a bedroom wall.

  He gazed at half a hundred silvered surfaces, gazed at a half a hundred reflections of his own bewildered face.

  And he thought again of Hacker, of their inspection of the house. He had noted the absence of a medicine cabinet at the time, but Hacker had glossed over it. Somehow he hadn’t realized that there were no mirrors of any sort in the house – of course, there was no furniture, but still one might expect a door panel in a place this old.

  No mirrors? Why? And why were they all stacked away up here, under lock and key?

  It was interesting. His wife might like some of these – that silver-handled beauty mirror, for example. He’d have to tell her about this.

  He stepped cautiously into the closet, dragging the garment bags after him. There didn’t seem to be any clothes-pole here, or any hooks. He could put some up in a jiffy, though. He piled the bags in a heap, stooping, and the flashlight glittered on a thousand surfaces, sent facets of fire into his face.

  Then the fire faded. The silv
er surfaces darkened oddly. Of course, his reflection covered them now. His reflection, and something darker. Something smoky and swirling, something that was a part of the mouldy dampness, something that choked the closet with its presence. It was behind him – no, at one side – no, in front of him – all around him – it was growing and growing and blotting him out – it was making him sweat and tremble and now it was making him gasp and scuttle out of the closet and slam the door and press against it with all his waning strength, and its name was –

  Claustrophobia. That was it. Just claustrophobia, a fancy name for nerves. A man gets nervous when he’s cooped up in a small space. For that matter, a man gets nervous when he looks at himself too long in a mirror. Let alone fifty mirrors!

  He stood there, shaking, and to keep his mind occupied, keep his mind off what he had just half-seen, half-felt, half-known, he thought about mirrors for a moment. About looking into mirrors. Women did it all the time. Men were different.

  Men, himself included, seemed to be self-conscious about mirrors. He could remember going into a clothing-store and seeing himself in one of the complicated arrangements that afforded a side and rear view. What a shock that had been, the first time – and every time, for that matter! A man looks different in a mirror. Not the way he imagines himself to be, knows himself to be. A mirror distorts. That’s why men hum and sing and whistle while they shave. To keep their minds off their reflections. Otherwise they’d go crazy. What was the name of that Greek mythological character who was in love with his own image? Narcissus, that was it. Staring into a pool for hours.

  Women could do it, though. Because women never saw themselves, actually. They saw an idealization, a vision. Powder, rouge, lipstick, mascara, eye-shadow, brilliantine, or merely an emptiness to which these elements must be applied. Women were a little crazy to begin with, anyway. Hadn’t she said something the other night about seeing him in her mirror when he wasn’t there?