Charnel House (11 page)

“They look like they're waiting for something,” I said. “I just hope that it's nothing more portentous than a packet of birdseed.”

“Let's go take a look at Machin. I could use some light relief,” Dr. Jarvis suggested.

“You call what happened to Dan light relief?”

He took a last drag at his cigarette and nipped it out between his finger and thumb. “After what happened just now, a funeral would be light relief.”

We walked along the corridor until we came to Dan's room. Dr. Jarvis looked through the small circular window in the door, and then opened it.

Dan was still in a coma. There was a nurse by his bedside, and his pulse and respiration and blood pressure were being closely observed. Dr. Jarvis went across and examined him, lifting his eyelids to see if there was any response. Dan's face was white and spectral, and he was still breathing in that same deep, dreamless rhythm that had characterized the breathing in Seymour Wallis's house.

As Dr. Jarvis was checking Dan's body temperature, I said, “Supposing—”

“Supposing what?” he said, preoccupied.

I came closer to Dan's bedside. The young boy from Middle America was so still and pallid he might have been dead, except for his hollow, regular breathing.

“Supposing Bryan was trying to get
here
, to see Dan.”

Dr. Jarvis looked around. “Why should he want to do that?”

“Well, each of them has one of the sounds that used to haunt Seymour Wallis's house. Maybe the two of them have enough in common that they want to get together. All that Indian stuff that Jane was talking about, you know, returning by the path of many pieces, well maybe that means some kind of reincarnation by numbers.”

“I don't follow.”

“It's pretty simple. If this power or influence or whatever it is that's haunting Seymour Wallis's house was all kind of split up, you know, breathing in one place and heartbeat in another, then maybe it might try to get itself back together again.”

“John, you're raving.”

“You've seen Bryan walking around with no skin on his skull and you tell me I'm raving?”

Dr. Jarvis made a note of Dan's temperature on his chart and then stood up straight. “There's no point in trying to find farfetched answers,” he said. “Whatever's going on, there has to be a simple explanation.”

“Like what? One man goes crazy and another man loses the skin off his head, and we have to look for a simple explanation? James, there's something planned and deliberate going on here. Somebody wants all this to happen. It's as if it's all been worked out.”

“There's no evidence in favor of that,” he said, “and I'd rather you called me Jim.”

I sighed. “All right, if you want to take it the slow, logical, medical way, I don't suppose I blame you. But right now I feel like talking to Jane and Seymour Wallis. Jane has a theory that's worth listening to, and I'll bet you two Baby Ruths to six bottles of Chivas Regal that Seymour Wallis knows more than he's told us.”

“I don't drink Chivas Regal.”

“Well, that's okay. I don't eat Baby Ruths.”

I took a taxi down to The Head Bookstore just after noon. As I was driving away from the hospital, I couldn't help looking back at the birds on the roof. From a distance they looked like a gray and scaly encrustation, as if the building itself was suffering from some unhealthy skin condition. I asked the taxi driver if he knew what species of bird they were, but he didn't even know what “species” meant.

Surprisingly, Jane wasn't there when I called at the purple-painted shop on Brannan. Her young, bearded assistant said, “I don't know, man. She just upped and went out, round about a half hour ago. She didn't even say
ciaio
”

“You don't know where she went? I was supposed to meet her for lunch.”

“She didn't say a word, man. But she went that way.” He pointed toward The Embarcadero.

I went out into the street. Slices of sunlight were falling across the sidewalk, and I was jostled and bumped by the lunchtime crowds. I looked around, but I couldn't see Jane anywhere. Even if I walked along to The Embarcadero, I'd probably miss her. I went back into the bookstore and told the boy to have Jane call me at home, and then I hailed another taxi and asked the driver to take me to Pilarcitos Street.

I was annoyed, but I was also worried. The way things had been going these past couple of days, with Dan Machin and Bryan Corder both in the hospital, I didn't like to lose touch with any body. In the back of my mind I still had this un-settling notion that whatever was happening was part of some preconceived scheme, as if Dan had been
meant
to go to 1551 Pilarcitos, and as if Bryan had been deliberately maneuvered into going there, too. And don't think I didn't wonder if something equally horrific was going to happen to me.

The taxi stopped on Pilarcitos, and I paid the driver. The house looked shabby in the sunlight, and as gray as the birds on the hospital roof. I swung the wrought-iron gate open and went up the steps. The doorknocker grinned at me wolfishly, but today, in the clear light of noon, it didn't play any tricks on me. It was heavy cast bronze and that was all.

I knocked three times, loudly. Then I waited on the porch, whistling “Moon River.” I hated that damn tune, and now it was stuck on my mind.

I knocked again, but there was still no answer. Maybe Seymour Wallis had taken himself off for a walk. I waited for another few moments, gave one final bang on the knocker, then turned around to go home.

But just as I went back down the steps, I heard a creaking sound. I looked around and the front door had opened a little way. My last knock must have pushed it ajar. It obviously wasn't locked, or even closed on the catch.

Now considering how many bolts and chains and safety locks Wallis had installed on that door, it seemed pretty much out of character for him to leave it completely unlocked. I stood by the gate staring at the door wondering
what's wrong
? For some reason I couldn't even begin to describe, I felt chilled and frightened. Worst of all, I knew that I couldn't leave the door open like that and just walk away. I was going to have to go into the house, that ancient house of breathing and heartbeats, and see what was up.

Slowly, I remounted the front steps. I stood by the half-open door for almost a minute, trying to distinguish shapes and shadows in the few inches of darkness that I could see. The doorknocker was now looking away from me, up the street, but its smile was as smug and vicious as ever.

I looked at the doorknocker and said, “Okay, smartass. What particular nasty traps have you set up this time?”

The doorknocker grinned and said nothing. I hadn't really expected it to, and I think I would have jumped out of my skin if it had, but it was one of those creepy situations where you just like to make sure that if the spooks
are
spooks, and not just doorknockers or shadows or hatstands, then they don't get the idea that they're fooling you.

I reached out like a man reaching across a bottomless pit, and pushed the door open a ways. It groaned a little more and shuddered. Inside, the hallway was swirling in dust and darkness, and that musty closed-up smell was still as strong as ever.

Swallowing hard, I stepped inside. I called, “Mr. Wallis? Seymour Wallis?”

There was no reply. Once I entered the hallway, all the sounds from the street outside were muffled and suppressed, and I stood there and heard nothing but my own taut breathing.

“Mr. Wallis?”
I called again.

I walked across to the foot of the stairs. The bear-lady, eyes closed, still reared on the banister post. I squinted up into the stale darkness of the second floor, but I couldn't make anything out at all. To tell you the God's honest truth, I didn't feel particularly inclined to go up there. I decided to take a quick look in Seymour Wallis's study, and if he wasn't at home, to get the hell out of there.

As quietly as I could, I tippy-toed along the worn-out carpet of the corridor to the door under the stag's head. The study was closed, but the key was in the lock. I turned it slowly, and I heard the lock mechanism click in that impenetrable silence, disturbing that breathless air that seemed to have hung around the house for all the years that it had stood here.

I put my hand on the brass doorknob, and turned it. The study door opened. It was gloomy in there, and the drapes were still drawn, so I reached around the lintel to find the lightswitch. My fingers groped along the damp wallpaper, and I clicked the switch down, but nothing happened. The bulb must have burned out.

Nervously, I pushed the door wider and stepped inside. I took a quick, almost panicky look behind the door to make sure nothing and nobody was hiding there, and I had a half second of shock when. I saw Seymour Wallis's bathrobe hanging there. Then I strained my eyes, and stared across at the dark shape of Seymour Wallis's desk and chair.

For a while, I couldn't see if there was anything there or not. But then my eyes grew gradually accustomed to the darkness, and something began to take shape. “Oh, Christ.” The words came out like strangled puppies.

Some enormous inflated man was sitting in Seymour Wallis's chair. His head was blackened and puffy, and his arms and legs were swollen twice their normal size. His face was so congested that his eyes were tiny slits, and his fingers came out of the sleeves of his shirt like fat purple slugs
.

I could never have recognized him except by the clothes. It was Seymour Wallis. A distended, swelled-up, grotesque caricature of Seymour Wallis.

I could hardly get the words out. “Mr. W-Wallis?”

The creature didn't stir.

“Mr. Wallis, are you alive?”

The telephone was on his desk. I had to call Dr. Jarvis right away, and maybe Lieutenant Stroud, too, but that meant reaching across this inflated body. I circled the study cautiously, peering more and more closely at him, trying to make up my mind if he was dead. I guessed he must be. He wasn't moving, and he looked as if every vein and artery in his whole body had hemorrhaged.

“Mr. Wallis?”

I stepped up real close, and bent my knees a little so that I could look right into his purplish, blown-up face. He didn't seem to be breathing. I swallowed again, in an effort to get my heart back down in my chest where it belonged, and then I slowly and nervously leaned forward to pick up the telephone.

I dialed Elmwood Foundation Hospital. The phone seemed to ring for centuries before I heard the receptionist's voice say, “Elmwood. Can I help you?”

“Can you get Dr. Jarvis for me?” I whispered. “It's an emergency.”

“Will you speak up, please? I can't hear you.”

“Dr. Jarvis!” I said hoarsely. “Tell him it's urgent!”

“Just a moment, please.”

The receptionist put me on hold, and I had to listen to some schmaltzy music while she paged Dr. Jarvis. I kept glancing anxiously down at Seymour Wallis's bloated face, and I was hoping and praying that he wasn't going to jump up suddenly and catch me.

The music stopped, and the receptionist said, “I'm afraid Dr. Jarvis is out at lunch right now, and we don't know where he is. Would you like to speak to another doctor?”

“No thank you. I'll come right up there.”

“In that case please use the south entrance. We're having the city sanitation people around to clear away some birds.”

“The birds are still there?”

“You bet. The whole place is covered.”

I set down the telephone and backed respectfully away from Seymour Wallis. I was only two or three paces toward the door, though, when his revolving chair suddenly twisted around, and his huge body dropped sideways on to the carpet, face first, and lay there prone. The shock was so great that I stood paralyzed, unable to run, unable to think. But then I realized he was either dead or helpless, and I went over and knelt down beside him.

“Mr. Wallis?” I said, although I have to admit that I didn't hold out any hopes of an answer.

He stayed where he was, swollen up like a man who has floated around in the sea for weeks.

I stood up again. On his desk was a cheap shorthand notebook, in which he had obviously been writing. I picked it up, and flicked back some of the pages. It was written in a heavy, rounded hand, like the hand of a dogged, backward child. It looked as if Seymour Wallis had been struggling to complete his notes before the swelling made it impossible for him to write any further.

I angled the notebook sideways so that the dusty light from outside strained across the pages. The notebook read: “I know now that all those disastrous events at Fremont were merely the catalyst for some far more terrible occurrence. What we discovered was not the thing itself, but the one talisman that could stir the thing into life. Perhaps there was always a predestined date for its return. Perhaps all these ill-starred happenings have been coincidental. But I realize one thing for sure. From the day I discovered the talisman at Fremont, I had no choice but to buy the house at 1551. The ancient influences were far too strong for someone as weak and as unaware of their domineering power as me to resist.”

That was how it ended. I couldn't figure it out at all. Maybe Seymour Wallis thought that his bad luck on the Fremont job had caught up with him at last, and judging by his condition, I couldn't say that I blamed him. But right then, the first thing I wanted to do was get out of that house and contact Dr. Jarvis. I definitely had the feeling that 1551 was harboring some hostile, brooding malice, and if three people had already suffered so hideously while trying to discover what that malice was, I was pretty sure that I could easily be the fourth.

I went out through the hallway, casting a quick backward glance up the stairs just in case something horrible was standing up there, then I dodged past the doorknocker and out on to the porch. As I turned to close the door, though, I saw something that made me feel more unsettled and frightened then almost anything that had happened before.