ODD? (4 page)

THE BLOAT TOAD

Leopoldo Lugones
Translated by Larry Nolen

Leopoldo Lugones (1874 — 1938) was an Argentine journalist and writer influenced by the Symbolists. “The Bloat Toad” (1906) is typical of his slightly off-kilter tales.

One day, playing in the villa where my family lived, I stumbled upon a little toad that, instead of fleeing like its more corpulent relatives, swelled up extraordinarily under my stoning. Toads horrified me and it was my pleasure to pelt as many as I could. Thus the small and obstinate reptile soon succumbed to the blows of my rocks.

Like all those raised in the semi-rural life of our provincial cities, I was knowledgeable of lizards and toads. Besides, the house was situated near an arroyo that crossed the city, which contributed to an increase of such creatures. I share these details so that it is well understood how surprised I was to note that the atrabilious toad was entirely unknown to me. Well, time to consult. And taking my victim with all precaution, I went to ask the old maid, confident of my first hunting enterprise. I was eight years old, she sixty. The event had, of course, interest for both of us. The good woman was, as was the custom, seated by the kitchen door, and I waited to see my story taken in with the accustomed benevolence. Scarcely had I begun when I saw her get up hurriedly and snatch the gutted, nasty creature from my hands.

“Thank God you didn’t leave it!” she exclaimed with signs of great happiness. “We’re going to burn it right away.”

“Burn it?” I asked, “But what’s it going to do, if it is already dead?”

“Don’t you know that it is an escuerzo,” my interlocutor replied in a mysterious tone, “and that this little animal revives if you don’t burn it? Who commanded you to kill it? That ought to be the end of your stonings! Now I’m going to tell you what happened to the son of my late friend Antonia, may she rest in peace.”

While she spoke, she had gathered and lit some wood chips, over which she placed the escuerzo’s cadaver.

“An escuerzo!” I said, terrified under my mischievous demeanor: an escuerzo! And I shook my fingers as if the toad’s coldness had clung to them. A revived toad! It would freeze the soul of a grown man.

“But do you think to tell us a new battle between frogs and mice?” interrupted Julia with the amiable, confident coquettishness of thirty years.

“Nothing like that, Señorita. It is a story which has happened.”

Julia smiled. “You cannot imagine how much I know. . .”

“You will be content, so much more when I intend to take revenge on you with your smile.”

While my fateful game was grilled, the old maid told her story, which is as follows:

Antonia, her friend, a soldier’s widow, lived with the only son she had with him, in a very poor little house, distant from every town. The youth worked for both of them, cutting wood in the neighboring forest, and so passed year after year, walking life’s journey. One day he returned, as was the custom, in the afternoon to take his
mate
, happy, healthy, vigorous, with his axe on his shoulder. And while he did this, he told his mother that on the root of a certain very old tree he had encountered an escuerzo, whose swelling up did not stop it from ending up as a tortilla under his axe’s eye.

The poor old woman was full of pain upon hearing this, begging him to please accompany her to the site, in order to burn the animal.

“You have to know,” she said, “that the escuerzo never pardons whoever offends it. If they don’t burn it, it revives, follows its killer and does not rest until it has done the same to him.”

The good youth laughed greatly at the tale, intending to convince the poor old woman that it was a good hoax for scaring bothersome boys, but beneath worrying a more mature person. She insisted, however, that he accompany her to burn the animal’s remains.

He joked with her, all references to how distant the site, over the injury that she could cause to herself, being already so old, in the calm of that November afternoon, but it was useless. At all costs she wanted to go and he had to decide to accompany her.

It was not so far, a mile and a half or so. They easily came upon the recently cut tree, but for all that they poked through the splinters and loose branches, the escuerzo’s cadaver did not appear.

“Did I not tell you?” she exclaimed, beginning to cry. “Already it has gone; now already it doesn’t have this recourse. My father San Antonio shelter you!

“But what foolishness, to afflict yourself so. The ants will have taken it or some hungry fox ate it. You have an odd view, crying for a toad! It’s best to return, as it is already dusk and the humidity of the pasture is damaging to you.”

They returned, then, to the little house, she crying always, he attempting to distract her with details of the cornfield which promised a good yield if the rains continued, until returning anew to the jokes and laughter in the presence of her sadness. It was almost night when they arrived. After a thorough check of every corner, which elicited a new round of laughter from the youth, they ate on the patio, silently, by the light of the moon, and he was disposed to spread out his saddle in order to sleep, when Antonia begged him ,for that night at least, to consent to enclose himself in a wooden box which she possessed and to sleep there.

The protest against this petition was fierce. She was shocked, the old woman, he had no doubt. To whom did it occur to think of making him sleep in such heat inside a box which surely would be full of vermin!

But such were the supplications of the ancient woman, and as the youth loved her so, he decided to accede to this caprice. The box was big, and although a little drawn in, it would not be all that bad. With great care, the bed was set up in the back. He placed himself inside, and the sad widow took a seat beside the furniture, dedicated to passing the night in vigil in order to close it if there were the least sign of danger.

She calculated that it was midnight, as the very low moon began to light the room, when suddenly a little black shape, almost imperceptible, jumped over the lintel of the door which she had not closed due to the great heat. Antonia was shaken with anguish.

There it was, then, the vengeful animal, squatting on its hind legs, as if meditating a plan. What evil the youth had done in laughing! That little lugubrious figure, immobile on the moonlit door, was growing extraordinarily, taking on monstrous proportions. But what if it was not more than one of those familiar toads which enter the house each night in search of insects? For a moment she breathed easy, sustained by this idea. Then the escuerzo suddenly gave a little jump, then another, in the direction of the box. Its intention was clear. It was not pressured, as if it were certain of its prey. Antonia watched her son with an indescribable expression of horror: sleeping, lost to dream, breathing slowly.

Then, with an unquiet hand, without making any noise she let fall the cover. The animal was not deterred. It continued jumping. It was already at the foot of the box. It went around it deliberately, it stopped at one of the angles, and quickly, with an incredible leap for its small size, it planted itself on top of the cover.

Antonia did not dare to make the least movement. All of her life was concentrated in her eyes. The moon now bathed the entire room. And behold what followed: the toad began to swell up by degrees; it grew, it grew in a prodigious manner, until it tripled its size. It remained so for a minute, during which the poor woman felt all the anguish of death pass through her heart. Then, it shrank itself, shrinking until it recovered its primitive form; it leaped to the ground, went through the door and crossing the patio it finally lost itself among the grass.

Then Antonia dared to lift herself, trembling everywhere. With a violent gesture she opened wide the box. What she felt was so horrible that a few months later she died a victim of the fear that it produced.

A mortal cold left the open box, and the youth was frozen and rigid under a sad light in which the moon shrouded that sepulchral victim, made stone now under an inexplicable bath of frost.

APARTMENT 205

Mark Samuels

Mark Samuels is an English writer of weird fiction in the tradition of Arthur Machen and H. P. Lovecraft. Many of his short stories map the outlines of a shadowy modern London hiding a dark and terrifying secret. Samuels’ first collection,
The White Hands
(2003) was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award.

Pieter Slokker awoke from a dream in which he was trapped in a dark, windowless room. It was three o’clock in the morning, and it sounded as if someone was hammering at the door of his flat.

Slokker had not lived long in Paris. He had moved from Bruges to this cramped apartment close to the Gare du Nord Station only a few months before, in order to finish his studies in medicine. He knew no one in the mouldering old building save the garrulous concierge, and had seldom even passed a fellow tenant as he made his way up and down the torturous spiral staircase which led to his rooms on the fourth floor.

As he became more fully awake, Pieter felt a mounting sense of apprehension. The blows continued to strike the door; he had no idea who it could be, but ignoring the summons was no longer possible. Slokker got out of bed, threw on a dressing gown and made his way to the hall. Peering through the spy-hole he could at first see only the dim outline of a man.

As his eyes grew more accustomed to the dark Slokker was able to make out more of the man’s features. Such was the person’s appearance that he hesitated before unlocking the door. Pieter had encountered a few patients badly disfigured by their illnesses during the course of his medical training, but his insistent visitor looked worse than most. He was cadaverously thin, with an angular white face and a shaved head. But it was the man’s sunken, black-rimmed eyes and hollowed cheeks that chiefly disturbed Slokker. He was reminded of the time when he had been on a tour of the Hospital morgue with his fellow students. A pathologist had shown them the corpse of a man who had starved to death after being locked in a lightless cellar by his mad wife. The memory of this man’s appearance had long haunted Slokker’s dreams, and so similar was this night-visitor that he could almost believe that the self-same corpse stood outside. Was it possible, he wondered, that he was still dreaming?

Slokker’s state of full consciousness was, however, soon confirmed by another volley of blows against the wood, so loud this time that echoes pulsed back and forth along the empty corridor. Slokker began to draw back the bolts, though he was awake enough to remember to keep the chain on, allowing just enough space to speak to the caller. Thinking more clearly now he had begun to formulate a diagnosis. Surely this man was a drug addict and had found out that a medical student lived in the building? Perhaps he had come in search of supplies?

Although the door was open only a fraction, the outsider thrust his emaciated face into the aperture. His wild eyes searched frantically for the occupant and in a desperate voice he cried out:

“Please! You must assist me, Monsieur. I cannot bear to be alone any longer! If you have any human feeling at all you will open the door!”

Slokker took a step back; the sight of that awful face in close up, and the pathetic urgency of the request had unnerved him. He reminded himself that as a medical student it was his duty to offer any help he could. After all, the man seemed coherent enough, if rather disturbed. Drawing his dressing gown closer around himself, Slokker took the chain off the door and gestured at the man to enter.

The visitor staggered across the room without a word and slumped into a chair. Perhaps he was trying to compose himself, but his eyes darted restlessly towards the shadows. He appeared to be averting his gaze from the windows; whenever he turned inadvertently in their direction, he would put his head in his hands. After observing the man in silence for a few minutes, Slokker reappraised his initial diagnosis; he was beginning to suspect that drugs were probably not the cause of his visitor’s obviously dire condition. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and the deathly white skin betrayed no telltale track-marks. Perhaps, then, the man was simply unhinged and wasting away through self-neglect.

“Please, it’s late. Tell me how I may be of assistance. Perhaps some brandy might calm you?” Slokker used his most soothing bedside manner.

The man turned his gaze towards Pieter and tried very hard to keep it level. Then he laughed, a mocking chuckle, as if enjoying a private joke.

“You are kind, yes. I will drink with you.”

He swallowed the brandy as if suffering from a terrible thirst, but the alcohol had little visible effect on him. Despite Slokker’s questions, the man seemed disinclined to speak. The medical student could do little but sit and watch his silent guest, though he was filled with unease at his presence. There was something truly unearthly about the man.

Occasionally, as the night wore on, he seemed on the verge of revealing something about himself, but would then lapse back into staring into space, occasionally laughing as if at the same sick joke. Any suggestion Slokker made to the effect that the visitor should leave was accompanied by renewed pleas of a piteous nature and he was forced to resign himself to the strange companionship.

Finally, just as dawn was breaking, the visitor made to depart and Slokker watched him as he staggered back along the corridor. To his surprise and interest, the man entered an apartment only four doors away. Had he tried the three doors separating them before hammering on Slokker’s?

As he wearily relocked his door and returned to bed Slokker resolved to discuss the matter with the concierge later in the morning. His strange neighbour required prompt attention, and possibly commitment to a psychiatric hospital. And Pieter would be very glad to do without any further nocturnal visits.

The concierge, who was an elderly man with a dislike of Flemish Belgians, ran his fingers over the white stubble on his chin. An unlit Gauloise hung from his lower lip.

“He came from Apartment 205, you say?”

“Yes. I don’t know his name. The man’s in need of treatment. I think he could be dangerous; to himself, if not to others.”

“I find that hard to believe. The gentleman who occupies that room is Monsieur Deschamps. A little odd, I’ll grant you, but he’s careful about his appearance and always gives me a good tip. I haven’t seen him for a few weeks, but then he’s always liked his privacy. Lately he’s even taken to having his food delivered.” He scratched his chin. “Though I haven’t seen the delivery boy for a while. . . But I wouldn’t . . .”

Slokker interrupted the old man’s monologue.

“Well, I am not leaving until you come upstairs with me and see for yourself. If you won’t I’ll complain to the landlord.”

The old man got to his feet with a long-suffering expression, and took down from its hook the duplicate key for Apartment 205.

A few moments later the two were climbing the spiral staircase to the fourth floor, the concierge grumbling as they made their way upwards. He paused several times to draw on the now lit cigarette. It seemed to Slokker that he took as long as he possibly could.

“You’re a medical student, you say? Well, let me tell you, Monsieur, that I haven’t much time for doctors. One of you scoundrels gave me six months to live and that was more than twenty years ago! What do you think of that, eh?”

“What I’d like to know is what you meant when you said that this Deschamps was a little odd.”

“Odd, eh, odd? Well, isn’t everyone a bit odd in their own way? When you’re as old as I am, perhaps you’ll realise that too. Odd? I meant nothing by it. Only that when I helped Monsieur Deschamps move his belongings upstairs, oh, when was it?” He had stopped again. “Yes, when I helped him I happened to glance at his books.”

“And?”

“Well, they were unusual books. Things about premonitions, fortune telling, magic and the like. He seemed ashamed of them. Oh and some on black magic! So what do you make of that, eh, my young Flemish friend! Eh? Black magic!”

At which statement the concierge laughed. This set off a violent coughing fit. He threw his cigarette to the floor and insisted they wait a while for him to recover.

When they finally reached 205 the concierge at first tapped gently on the door, calling out to Deschamps in a regretful tone, glancing disapprovingly at Slokker all the while. But there was no answer, even when the medical student shouted through the keyhole and they had both banged uninhibitedly on the door. The commotion had attracted a small crowd of people in the hallway.

“Don’t you have a key?” Slokker asked the concierge.

“But he might just be out.” The old man replied grumpily.

“Open the door and don’t be such a fool! Something might have happened to him!” said a large, powdered lady cradling a white fluffy cat. She seemed to have more influence over the concierge than Slokker because to the medical student’s annoyance he bowed obsequiously and mumbled “Of course, of course, as you wish, Madame,” before drawing the key from his pocket and inserting it in the lock.

The concierge had some difficulty in dissuading the crowd from following them into the apartment, especially the powdered woman with the cat, but once they had been shooed away, he and Slokker made their way cautiously down the uncarpeted hall and into the main living room. The floor was littered with papers and discarded food cartons. Thick dust lay over everything. Clothes, old newspapers and books were heaped on the floor and Pieter and the concierge had to navigate between them carefully. The curtains were half-drawn and a stale, sickly odour permeated the room. Behind the curtains, newspapers had been stuck to the windowpanes creating a permanent yellow twilight. A brief further inspection revealed that the other rooms were in a similar state of chaos and neglect. There was no sign of Deschamps.

And then they came across a tiny, windowless room. Its walls had been draped with black velvet curtains. There was a large mirror on the wall, either side of which the curtains were parted, and a single chair with an electric lamp positioned just behind it. The bulb was of a very low wattage and the legs of the chair had been sawn off so that it tilted backwards. If you sat on the chair, you found yourself gazing directly into the mirror, only, judging from its height, it would not be possible to see one’s own reflection, only the mirror image of the darkness of the room.

“Eh, my friend? What do you make of it?” asked the concierge.

Slokker found himself completely lost for words.

Whatever had happened to Deschamps remained a mystery. It seemed that he had abandoned his rooms and Pieter Slokker was the last person to have seen him. The concierge reported Deschamps’ disappearance to the police and his name was added to their list of missing persons.

As the days passed, no more information was forthcoming. Deschamps had paid his rent for the month ahead, and the landlord decided that the rooms would remain unlet for this period, just in case his tenant should return. However, at the end of the month, the apartment would be re-advertised.

Shortly after his neighbour’s disappearance, Slokker, who, when not being awoken by deranged neighbours usually enjoyed a good night’s sleep, found himself experiencing a bout of sleepwalking. One night he woke to discover that he had left his rooms, wandered along the corridor, and was trying the door of Apartment 205. This pattern of sleepwalking repeated itself two or three times every night of the following week and finally Slokker was forced to resort to keeping himself in bed by means of an elaborate system of cords with which he bound his ankles to the bedstead. He tied the knots in so complicated a fashion that any attempt to unravel them in his sleep usually resulted in failure. He often awoke in pain, his fingertips sore and bleeding from picking at the unyielding rope.

Perhaps inevitably, Pieter’s studies began to suffer. After two weeks of exhaustion, he began to feel that the only way to put a stop to his unconscious compulsion was to find a way to re-enter Deschamps’ apartment. The next day, while a deliveryman was usefully distracting the concierge with a disputed receipt, Slokker managed to “borrow” the duplicate key from the hall office. He pressed it carefully into a tablet of wax he had prepared by melting a couple of candles.

As it turned out, having a copy key made was an easy matter. The key cutter in the booth on the Boulevard asked no awkward questions, and he made the key there and then, while the medical student waited on the street. Later that evening, when the building was quiet, Slokker made his way along the corridor. He carried with him a torch so that he would not risk attracting any unwelcome attention by switching on the lights.

The interior of the apartment was even more desolate by night. Nothing had been touched, and the only change was that a thicker layer of dust now covered the debris littering the floorboards.

Slokker flashed the torch around, making shadows start out from the peeling walls. Once in the windowless room he switched on the low-wattage lamp behind the chair and extinguished his torch. He sat down on the angled seat and directed his gaze to the mirror. The reflection showed only the velvet curtains behind him. He was looking into a rectangular slab of perfect blackness.

At first he focused on the surface of the mirror, but, because there was nothing of any interest to look at, he allowed his gaze gradually to relax. For some time nothing happened, but then the focus of his eyes altered and he seemed to be staring beyond the mirror at a distant object hidden in its depths. Slokker’s very gaze seemed to be bringing forth something from the darkness. Whatever it was, and he could not be sure there was really anything there, it was surrounded by a silvery-white glare. The object seemed to come closer the more he concentrated on it, and for a moment he had the feeling that something or someone was looking back at him, albeit from far away. Slokker could not be sure whether the distant vision was merely a product of his own imagination. The whole process was exhausting, and he found that he was developing a throbbing headache. Finally, he gave up the exercise and, as quietly as he could, made his way out of the rooms into the corridor.