The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
Page 72
That’s how she died and that’s how they found her. The Doctor came, and the servants and the lawyer did what must be done. The house was sold, then sold again. It fell into the hands of a rental agency. There were tenants, but not for long. They had trouble with mirrors.
A man died – of a heart attack, they said – while adjusting his necktie before the bureau one evening. Grotesque enough, but he had complained to people in the town about strange happenings, and his wife babbled to everyone.
A school-teacher who rented the place in the twenties ‘passed away’ in circumstances which Doctor Turner had never seen fit to relate. He had gone to the rental agency and begged them to take the place off the market; that was almost unnecessary, for the Bellman home had its reputation firmly established by now.
Whether or not Mary Lou Dempster had disappeared here would never be known. But the little girl had last been seen a year ago on the road leading to the house and, although a search had been made and nothing discovered, there was talk aplenty.
Then the new heirs had stepped in, briskly, with their pooh-poohs and their harsh dismissals of advice, and the house had been cleaned and put up for rental.
So he and she had come to live here – with it. And that was the story, all of the story.
Mr. Hacker put his arm around Gwen, harrumphed, and helped her rise. He was apologetic, he was shame-faced, he was deferential. His eyes never met those of his tenant.
He barred the doorway. ‘We’re getting out of here, right now,’ he said. ‘Lease or no lease.’
‘That can be arranged. But – I can’t find you another place tonight, and tomorrow’s Sunday–’ ‘We’ll pack and get out of here tomorrow,’ she spoke up. ‘Go to a hotel, anywhere. But we’re leaving.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ said Hacker. ‘I’m sure everything will be all right. After all, you’ve stayed here through the week and nothing. I mean nobody has–’
His words trailed off. There was no point in saying any more. The Hackers left and they were all alone. Just the two of them.
Just the three of them, that is.
But now they – he and she – were too tired to care. The inevitable letdown, product of overindulgence and over-excitement was at hand.
They said nothing, for there was nothing to say. They heard nothing, for the house – and it – maintained a sombre silence.
She went to her room and undressed. He began to walk around the house. First he went to the kitchen and opened a drawer next to the sink. He took a hammer and smashed the kitchen mirror.
Tinkle-tinkle! And then a crash! That was the mirror in the hall. Then upstairs, to the bathroom. Crash and clink of broken glass in the medicine cabinet. Then a smash as he shattered the panel in his room. And now he came to her bedroom and swung the hammer against the huge oval of the vanity, shattering it to bits.
He wasn’t cut, wasn’t excited, wasn’t upset. And the mirrors were gone. Every last one of them was gone.
They looked at each other for a moment. Then he switched off the lights, tumbled into bed beside her, and sought sleep.
The night wore on.
It was all a little silly in the daylight. But she looked at him again in the morning, and he went into his room and hauled out the suitcases. By the time she had breakfast ready he was already laying his clothes out on the bed. She got up after eating and took her own clothing from the drawers and hangers and racks and hooks. Soon he’d go up to the attic and get the garment bags. The movers could be called tomorrow, or as soon as they had a destination in mind.
The house was quiet. If it knew their plans, it wasn’t acting. The day was gloomy and they kept the lights off without speaking – although both of them knew it was because of the window-panes and the story of the reflection. He could have smashed the window-glass of course, but it was all a little silly. And they’d be out of here shortly.
Then they heard the noise. Trickling, burbling. A splashing sound. It came from beneath their feet. She gasped.
‘Water-pipe – in the basement,’ he said, smiling and taking her by the shoulders.
‘Better take a look.’ She moved towards the stairs.
‘Why should you go down there? I’ll tend to it.’
But she shook her head and pulled away. It was her penance for gasping. She had to show she wasn’t afraid. She had to show him – and it, too.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the pipe-wrench. It’s in the trunk in the car.’ He went out the back door. She stood irresolute, then headed for the cellar stairs. The splashing was getting louder. The burst pipe was flooding the basement. It made a funny noise, like laughter.
He could hear it even when he walked up the driveway and opened the trunk of the car. These old houses always had something wrong with them; he might have known it. Burst pipes and –
Yes. He found the wrench. He walked back to the door, listening to the water gurgle, listening to his wife scream.
She was screaming! Screaming down in the basement, screaming down in the dark.
He ran, swinging the heavy wrench. He clumped down the stairs, down into the darkness, the screams tearing up at him. She was caught, it had her, she was struggling with it but it was strong, too strong, and the light came streaming in on the pool of water beside the shattered pipe and in the reflection he saw her face and the blackness of other faces swirling around her and holding her.
He brought the wrench up, brought it down on the black blur, hammering and hammering and hammering until the screaming died away. And then he stopped and looked down at her. The dark blur had faded away into the reflection of the water – the reflection that had evoked it. But she was still there, and she was still, and she would be still forever now. Only the water was getting red, where her head rested in it. And the end of the wrench was red, too.
For a moment he started to tell her about it, and then he realized she was gone. Now there were only the two of them left. He and it.
And he was going upstairs. He was walking upstairs, still carrying the bloody wrench, and he was going over to the phone to call the police and explain.
He sat down in a chair before the phone, thinking about what he’d tell them, how he’d explain. It wouldn’t be easy. There was this madwoman, see, and she looked into mirrors until there was more of her alive in her reflection than there was in her own body. So when she committed suicide she lived on, somehow, and came alive in mirrors or glass or anything that reflected. And she killed others or drove them to death and their reflections were somehow joined with hers so that this thing kept getting stronger and stronger, sucking away at life with that awful core of pride that could live beyond death. Woman, thy name is vanity! And that, gentlemen, is why I killed my wife…
Yes, it was a fine explanation, but it wouldn’t hold water. Water – the pool in the basement had evoked it. He might have known it if only he’d stopped to think, to reflect. Reflect. That was the wrong word, now. Reflect. The way the window pane before him was reflecting.
He stared into the glass now, saw it behind him, surging up from the shadows. He saw the bearded man’s face, the peering, pathetic, empty eyes of a little girl, the goggling grimacing stare of an old woman. It wasn’t there, behind him, but it was alive in the reflection, and as he rose he gripped the wrench tightly. It wasn’t there, but he’d strike at it, fight at it, come to grips with it somehow.
He turned, moving back, the ring of shadow-faces pressing. He swung the wrench. Then he saw her face coming up through all the rest. Her face, with shining splinters where the eyes should be. He couldn’t smash it down, he couldn’t hit her again.
It moved forward. He moved back. His arm went out to one side. He beard the tinkle of window-glass behind him and vaguely remembered that this was how the old woman had died. The way he was dying now – falling through the window, and cutting his throat, and the pain lanced up and in, tearing at his brain as he hung there on the jagged spikes of glass, bleeding his life away.
His body hung there, but he was gone.
There was a little puddle on the floor, moving and growing. The light from outside shone on it, and there was a reflection.
Something emerged fully from the shadows now, emerged and capered demurely in the darkness.
It had the face of an old woman and the face of a child, the face of a bearded man, and his face, and her face, changing and blending.
It capered and postured, and then it squatted, dabbling. Finally, all alone in the empty house, it just sat there and waited. There was nothing to do now but wait for the next to come. And meanwhile, it could always admire itself in that growing, growing red reflection on the floor…
The Complete Gentleman
Amos Tutuola
Amos Tutuola (1920–1997) was a largely self-taught Nigerian writer who became internationally praised for books based in part on Yoruba folktales, especially the phantasmagorical The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952). Welsh poet Dylan Thomas called the novel ‘thronged, grisly and bewitching,’ bringing it even more attention. But Tutuola was also criticized for the novel’s ‘primitive’ style, seen to promote negative stereotypes about Africa. However, from the perspective of weird fiction aficionados the book is as amazing an accomplishment as anything from Clark Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft or Alfred Kubin, even as it takes completely different cultural referents as its entry point into the weird. ‘The Complete Gentleman’ is a self-contained excerpt from the book.
He was a beautiful ‘complete’ gentleman, he dressed with the finest and most costly clothes, all the parts of his body were completed, he was a tall man but stout. As this gentleman came to the market on that day, if he had been an article or animal for sale, he would be sold at least for £2000 (two thousand pounds). As this complete gentleman came to the market on that day, and at the same time that this lady saw him in the market, she did nothing more than to ask him where he was living, but this fine gentleman did not answer her or approach her at all. But when she noticed that the fine or complete gentleman did not listen to her, she left her articles and began to watch the movements of the complete gentleman about in the market and left her articles unsold.
By and by the market closed for that day then the whole people in the market were returning to their destinations etc., and the complete gentleman was returning to his own too, but as this lady was following him about in the market all the while, she saw him when he was returning to his destination as others did, then she was following him (complete gentleman) to an unknown place.
But as she was following the complete gentleman along the road, he was telling her to go back or not to follow him, but the lady did not listen to what he was telling her, and when the complete gentleman had tired of telling her not to follow him or to go back to her town, he left her to follow him.
Do Not Follow Unknown Man’s Beauty
But when they had travelled about twelve miles away from that market, they left the road on which they were travelling and started to travel inside an endless forest in which only all the terrible creatures were living.
Return the Parts of Body to the Owners; Or Hired Parts of the Complete Gentleman’s Body to be Returned
As they were travelling along in this endless forest then the complete gentleman in the market that the lady was following, began to return the hired parts of his body to the owners and he was paying them the rentage money. When he reached where he hired the left foot, he pulled it out, he gave it to the owner and paid him, and they kept going; when they reached the place where he hired the right foot, he pulled it out and gave it to the owner and paid for the rentage. Now both feet had returned to the owners, so he began to crawl along on the ground, by that time, that lady wanted to go back to her town or her father, but the terrible and curious creature or the complete gentleman did not allow her to return or go back to her town or her father again and the complete gentleman said thus: ‘I had told you not to follow me before we branched into this endless forest which belongs to only terrible and curious creatures, but when I became a half-bodied incomplete gentleman you wanted to go back, now that cannot be done, you have failed. Even you have never seen anything yet, just follow me.’
When they went furthermore, then they reached where he hired the belly, ribs, chest etc., then he pulled them out and gave them to the owner and paid for the rentage.
Now to this gentleman or terrible creature remained only the head and both arms with neck, by that time he could not crawl as before but only went jumping on as a bull-frog and now this lady was soon faint for this fearful creature whom she was following. But when the lady saw every part of this complete gentleman in the market was spared or hired and he was returning them to the owners, then she began to try all her efforts to return to her father’s town, but she was not allowed by this fearful creature at all.
When they reached where he hired both arms, he pulled them out and gave them to the owner, he paid for them; and they were still going on in this endless forest, they reached the place where he hired the neck, he pulled it out and gave it to the owner and paid for it as well.
A Full-Bodied Gentleman Reduced to Head
Now this complete gentleman was reduced to head and when they reached where he hired the skin and flesh which covered the head, he returned them, and paid to the owner, now the complete gentleman in the market reduced to a ‘SKULL’ and this lady remained with only ‘Skull’. When the lady saw that she remained with only Skull, she began to say that her father had been telling her to marry a man, but she did not listen to or believe him.
When the lady saw that the gentleman became a Skull, she began to faint, but the Skull told her if she would die she would die and she would follow him to his house. But by the time that he was saying so, he was humming with a terrible voice and also grew very wild and even if there was a person two miles away he would not have to listen before hearing him, so this lady began to run away in that forest for her life, but the Skull chased her and within a few yards, he caught her, because he was very clever and smart as he was only Skull and he could jump a mile to the second before coming down. He caught the lady in this way: so when the lady was running away for her life, he hastily ran to her front and stopped her as a log of wood.
By and by, this lady followed the Skull to his house, and the house was a hole which was under the ground. When they reached there both of them entered the hole. But there were only Skulls living in that hole. At the same time that they entered the hole, he tied a single cowrie on the neck of this lady with a kind of rope, after that, he gave her a large frog on which she sat as a stool, then he gave a whistle to a Skull of this kind to keep watch on this lady whenever she wanted to run away. Because the Skull knew already that the lady would attempt to run away from the hole. Then he went to the back-yard to where his family were staying in the day time till night.
But one day, the lady attempted to escape from the hole, and at the same time that the Skull who was watching her whistled to the rest of the Skulls that were in the back-yard, the whole of them rushed out to the place where the lady sat on the bull-frog, so they caught her, but as all of them were rushing out, they were rolling on the ground as if a thousand petrol drums were pushing along a hard road. After she was caught, then they brought her back to sit on the same frog as usual. If the Skull who was watching her fell asleep, and if the lady wanted to escape, the cowrie that was tied on her neck would raise up the alarm with a terrible noise, so that the Skull who was watching her would wake up at once and then the rest of the Skull’s family would rush out from the back in thousands to the lady and ask her what she wanted to do with a curious and terrible voice.
But the lady could not talk at all, because as the cowrie had been tied on her neck, she became dumb at the same moment.
The Father of Gods Should Find Out Whereabouts the Daughter of the Head of the Town Was
Now as the father of the lady first asked for my name and I told him that my name was ‘F
ather of gods who could do anything in this world,’ then he told me that if I could find out where his daughter was and bring her to him, then he would tell me where my palm-wine tapster was. But when he said so, I was jumping up with gladness that he should promise me that he would tell me where my tapster was. I agreed to what he said; the father and parent of this lady never knew whereabouts their daughter was, but they had information that the lady followed a complete gentleman in the market. As I was the ‘Father of gods who could do anything in this world,’ when it was at night I sacrificed to my juju with a goat.
And when it was early in the morning, I sent for forty kegs of palm-wine, after I had drunk it all, I started to investigate whereabouts was the lady. As it was the market-day, I started the investigation from the market. But as I was a juju-man, I knew all the kinds of people in that market. When it was exactly 9 o’clock a.m., the very complete gentleman whom the lady followed came to the market again, and at the same time that I saw him, I knew that he was a curious and terrible creature.
The Lady was not to be Blamed for Following the Skull as a Complete Gentleman
I could not blame the lady for following the Skull as a complete gentleman to his house at all. Because if I were a lady, no doubt I would follow him to wherever he would go, and still as I was a man I would be jealous of him more than that, because if this gentleman went to the battle field, surely, enemy would not kill him or capture him and if bombers saw him in a town which was to be bombed, they would not throw bombs on his presence, and if they did throw it, the bomb itself would not explode until this gentleman would leave that town, because of his beauty. At the same time that I saw this gentleman in the market on that day, what I was doing was only to follow him about in the market. After I looked at him for so many hours, then I ran to a corner of the market and I cried for a few minutes because I thought within myself why was I not created with beauty as this gentleman, but when I remembered that he was only a Skull, then I thanked God that He had created me without beauty, so I went back to him in the market, but I was still attracted by his beauty. So when the market closed for that day, and when everybody was returning to his or her destination, this gentleman was returning to his own too and I followed him to know where he was living.