Dark Corners - Twelve Tales of Terror (9 page)

“
What
now then?” Snoddy asked, his face looking waxy and tired in the
diffused light of the room.

Denton
grinned and kicked the can stack, sending them clattering noisily to
the ground.

“
Fuck’s
sake, Denton!” Snoddy hissed as we collectively held our
breaths, waiting to see if some crazed crack head would come racing
down the steps, or out of one of the adjoining rooms. I realized then
that ghosts were the least of our problems; the living were far more
dangerous. But nobody came. No crazy old man, no cracked out
lunatics.

“
Suppose
that answers the question. It’s just us. Let’s take a
look around,” Denton said as he walked off towards the stairs.
So that’s what we did. We split up and explored. There wasn’t
much to see really. It was a typical old, empty house. No ghosts, no
slimy things crawling around in the shadows. Just damp, and rot, and
rats.

There
were a
lot
of rats.
They were everywhere. You would walk into a room and they would
scatter, squeezing through gaps in the walls, or under old husks of
forgotten furniture. Some of them were big too. I saw one the size of
a fully grown tomcat, somehow squeezing its huge soft body between
two of the broken kitchen cabinets. I could tell Steve didn’t
like the rats. You could see it on his face. Whenever he saw one, he
would grimace and shy away, and I think I even heard him let out a
small yelp when we found a nest in the corner of the bathroom, the
blind newborns like plump, pink slugs.

I
was leafing through some old newspapers from the 70’s, when
Snoddy and Denton shuffled over to me. I didn’t like the look
of their matching grins.

“
We’re
gonna play a prank on Steve. We need you to help out though,”
Snoddy said, showing too many of his not quite white teeth.

I
asked them to leave me out of it, and to go easy on Steve, since he
showed us how to get into the building in the first place, but there
was no swaying them. It seemed that Denton’s mean streak had
somehow rubbed off on Snoddy, and I knew there was no point in trying
to talk them out of it. I asked why they needed me anyway, why they
couldn’t do it themselves.

They
explained their plan and I began to laugh too. I laughed and went
along with it, because that’s what I was expected to do. It’s
hard to explain, but I felt somehow obliged to go along with it,
despite my own misgivings. Even now I hate myself for it.

The
plan was this: I would lure Steve upstairs to see some nonexistent
but amazing discovery, and as he came down the hall, Denton and
Snoddy would leap out of one of the bedrooms and give him a fright. I
went downstairs to look for Steve, who was perched on the arm of a
tired old sofa in the living room, scribbling furiously into his
notebook. I felt a pang of guilt as I approached him.

“
Steve,
come check out what I found upstairs. You have to see it to believe
it,” I said, sounding as excited as I could. Part of me hoped
he would see it coming, that he might sense the trick and refuse. But
as I said earlier, he and I had never had a problem, and since he had
no reason to distrust me, he followed. I felt sick as I climbed the
stairs, knowing what was coming, and that from then on poor Steve
would group me in with all the other people who picked on him and
made his life a living hell.

It
makes me sad to write it down, and as I do, I can feel the tears
welling up in my tired old eyes. I need to finish though, the sound
in the walls is getting louder, and I suspect it won’t be long
now.

I
walked down the upstairs hallway, Steve just behind me. I was hoping
he would see the funny side when it happened, but when it did, it
caught me by surprise too, because they came not out of the bedroom
at the end of the hallway as we had agreed, but out of the bathroom.
I remember it well. Snoddy wild-eyed, Denton grinning like some kind
of snarling animal. They carried a box between them and threw its
contents at Steve, screaming loudly as they did so. What happened
next took only seconds, but I recall it in horrific, slow detail.

I
remember the contents of the box landing on Steve, and feeling
disgusted at the sight of those fat, pink, newborn rats as they hit
his chest and face. I remember Steve screaming and lurching back, too
far back, and slamming into the old, rotten banister rail, which
broke under his weight.

I
remember how the look of joy on Snoddy and Denton’s faces
transformed into a look of sick horror as they realized what was
happening. I remember reaching out to Steve, trying to stop his fall,
but he was wild-eyed and frightened, his hands flailing as the baby
rats squealed in a freakish high register.

I
remember Steve falling down the steps, rolling down on his back and
landing in a heap on the floor, and then I remember the rats.

Streaming
from the downstairs walls like a thick, moving carpet, they charged
towards the distressed newborns in an effort to protect. I remember
meeting Steve’s gaze from the upper landing, or at least
imagine I do, and remember his betrayed, terrified expression as the
rats covered him, biting and tearing, smothering him until he was no
more than a screaming, thrashing mass of filthy black fur. I couldn’t
say how many there were. Hundreds? Thousands? It’s impossible
to say.

We
could have saved him, but as we stared at one another there on the
upstairs landing in the gloomy half light, we were in unspoken
agreement to run. Down the steps, two at a time, and around the mass
of rats as they continued to defend the newborns. I’m pretty
sure Steve had stopped screaming by then. I remember seeing his
notepad, still perched on the arm of the sofa where just five minutes
earlier he had been minding his own business, gathering information
for his website.

I
would like to say we went for help and came back to rescue Steve, who
suffered only minor injuries, and we all lived happily ever after.
But that would be a lie. We didn’t go back, and we didn’t
tell a soul about it. I feel sick about it even now, and curse myself
for being such a coward. The three of us never spoke much again after
that day. Perhaps through shared guilt, or shame, we drifted apart.
Steve was reported missing a few days later. A huge deal was made of
it in the news and the local press, and as the days passed, I was
unable handle the guilt. So I made an anonymous call to the police,
advising them to check out the old Fisherman house. They did, but
Steve wasn’t there. They found his notepad, but no sign of him,
or the rats by all accounts. I was tempted to go back there, to see
for myself, and even went so far as to make it to the porch when I
was seventeen. But the rats stopped me. Not physically, you
understand. But as I stood there, I was sure I could hear them,
moving around stealthily in the walls, the same sound I can hear now.

That was almost seventy years ago, and in that time, I
don’t think I’ve slept a full night without the
nightmares or the sickening guilt welling up inside. But it makes no
difference. He’s back. He’s back and he’s brought
the rats. Like a ghastly pied piper he has led them to me, to the
walls of this cheap hotel room. The Fisherman house was demolished
twenty years ago, and a multi-story car park stands where it once
stood. I wonder where they went from there, Steve and the rats. Where
did they hide until the time was right to come for us?

He
got Snoddy a couple years ago. Snoddy had led an indistinct life,
working minimum wage jobs, and developed a pretty serious drinking
problem along the way. He never spoke of that day directly, as far as
I know. But I’ve heard tell that when he was particularly out
of it, he would mutter to himself about the sounds of the rats, and
how he would never have enough traps for them all. He was found dead,
with his eyes wide open and a look of sheer terror on his face. They
said it was a heart attack, but I know better. I think Steve came for
him, and when Snoddy saw what old Stevey-boy had become, how he
looked after so many years festering in the dark— well, I think
it was enough to stop his clock right then and there.

At
first I tried to rationalize his death, told myself I was just being
paranoid. And that worked for a while—at least until Denton
called me out of the blue last week. His voice was familiar, but
strange at the same time. It wavered as he spoke, and came in a high,
shrill register as he whispered through the line to me. Of us all, he
had fared the worst. His aggressive nature had led him to crime, and
as the story often goes, things went from bad to worse for him. He
shot an old man in a clumsy carjacking and was jailed for twenty-five
years. He ended up serving sixteen, coming out reformed and fit to
rejoin society. I hadn’t spoken to him since school, but I
remember seeing his picture in the paper when he was arrested, and
even though he was much older than the boy I once knew, he still wore
the haunted, glassy expression I remember from that day in the house.
When he called me, I could barely understand his manic whispers, and
I couldn’t really make out much before they turned to full on
screams. After that all I could hear was the high pitched drone of
hundreds, or maybe even thousands of rats. I definitely heard
something speak, although it wasn’t Denton. The voice was thick
and wet, and said it had something exciting to show me—that I
would have to see it to believe it. And I do believe it. The
scratching in the walls is louder now, and I fear I’m out of
time. He’s come back, and God help me, I deserve whatever he
brings.

It’s
time.

They
are here.

Freddy
wondered what he had done to deserve such a run of bad luck. He’d
just turned fifty-one, and for his entire life he’d done his
best to entertain people—to make them happy. It wasn’t
always easy, not anymore. He had arthritis in his left knee, which
meant that the bumps and prat falls that always raised such a laugh
legitimately hurt him now. He sat in his dressing room and took a
long swig of Jack Daniels. No glass for Freddy. He preferred it
straight from the bottle these days.

Glancing
at his reflection in the large mirror, Freddy wondered what the hell
had happened to his life. He didn’t know where the time had
gone, how the years had slipped by without him noticing. One day he
was twenty, with a head full of ambition and aspirations of success.
In the blink of an eye, he was here. A bitter old man, with nothing
to look forward to except biting the big one.

Flicking
his eyes to the clothes rail in the corner, he scowled at the green
and blue spotted shirt and red dungarees, and grimaced at the thought
of slipping his feet into those oversized shoes. He wanted to scream,
to reach out to his reflection and shake it by the shoulders—
ask it what the hell it was doing with its life—but he knew
that it was too late for that. Much too late. As the saying went, he
had made his bed, and now he would have to lie in it.

Some
might say he was lucky. After all, he had travelled the world and
wasn’t tied to a standard nine to five job. But the grass
wasn’t always greener on the other side. The pay was poor, and
performing the same tired routine every night had grown to be
monotonous. Then there was the hectic travel schedule, meaning he was
constantly moving from place to place, city to city, town to town. In
the end it had destroyed his marriage. His wife had been unable to
cope with the lonely nights spent in an empty house, bringing up
their two children on her own, and who could blame her?

He
took another long swig of the sour whiskey, grimacing as he wiped his
mouth with the back of his arm. Yes indeed. Who could blame her? What
did he expect to happen when he wasn’t there to stop her from
succumbing to the charms of another man? And not even someone he
could accept as better than himself. Oh no, she fell for an
accountant. A fucking accountant. He shouldn’t have been
surprised. She needed someone who could provide the things she
needed. The things that she had expected from him. Someone stable,
with a good job, sociable hours, and steady income. And when she
tired of his excuses and promises that things were about to get
better, that’s what she went out and found. He’d heard
through the grapevine that they had recently gotten married, and
although he knew he shouldn’t hold it against her, as it really
was his fault, he did anyway. The split had been amicable—cold
and distant, but amicable—though he still harbored a deep,
simmering hatred towards her for leaving him alone in the world. That
was the problem; people didn’t understand how hard this job
was. His job was to be funny, to make people laugh even when he felt
like screaming at them. Try keeping a stupid smile on your face the
next time you get divorced. The long and short of it was that he was
tired. Tired of life, tired of the routine. Tired of feeling so…
tired.

Even
the routine, the one he used to get so much joy from performing—the
comedy falls, the water shooting Lilly on his jacket—all of it
had lost its charm long ago and become something he detested, leaving
him empty inside. He opened the desk drawer and took out a handful of
pills, and swallowed them down with another shot of JD. He winced.

God,
what a mess
.

Pills
for everything. Pills to keep him supple. Pills to keep him pain
free. Pills to keep him sane. Although he had stopped taking those.
The bottle was pushed to the back of the drawer. They made him
sleepy, and in his line of work, he had to stay sharp. Nobody likes a
woozy clown. He reached further into the drawer and pulled out the
red-lidded green box that had been on the road as long as he had. Its
casing was chipped and beaten, and one of the hinges was loose, but
still served its purpose. He flipped open the lid, revealing the vast
array of greasepaints. Bright reds, blues and greens, yellows and
purples.