Others (26 page)

When something cold touched the hump of my back, iced fingers seeming to enter the material of the robe so that they felt my skin, slithered over the sac, I shrieked. I shrieked and clawed my way up the wall, rising to my feet and stumbling away, the shriek falling to a gibbering as I staggered through the nearest doorway and slammed the door behind me.

I fell to my knees and held my head in my hands, twisting my shoulders, shaking myself as if to break free from this… this…
nightmare?
It couldn’t be, it was too real, my mind was conscious. And dreams have that quality whereby you know, even if you do not acknowledge, that they are merely excursions in which you cannot be harmed. Tormented, maybe, but never physically harmed.

This was no dream. This was really happening to me. To convince myself I slammed my hand against the floor and felt the pain shoot up my arm. Oh yes, this was real enough. These things were surely out there.

I heard their tappings on the door, fingernails scratching wood, their muffled mumblings as though they were gathered in the hallway, entreating me to let them in. Haunting me.

I straightened and looked back at the door.

If these, then, were ghosts, perhaps there was one person who might rid me of them.

I lurched towards the telephone on the sideboard against the wall, one unsteady hand lifting the receiver, the other already rifling through the address book lying beside it. Louise Broomfield. She would know what to do, she would help me. The woman
talked
to ghosts, for Christ’s sake! She would tell me what to do, she would rush over to help me! Where was her number? I knew I’d written it down; I always noted the number of a new contact or acquaintance, you never knew when it would be useful. Not enough light! Not enough light coming through the basement window from the lamps around the crescent! Had to get the light-switch…

But the receiver was tight against my ear and there were voices already coming through, whispers, murmurings, growing louder, gradually becoming audible, becoming coherent.

‘Help us…
.’ they said.
‘Help us…’

The words were repeated over and over again so that they became a litany.

‘…
help us…’

And as they spoke, the receiver grew cold in my hand.

I stared at it, heard the voices, more distant now that the instrument was away from my ear, felt the seeping coldness creep into my own flesh to travel up my arm.

Then the voices altered, became a moaning, and then a wailing. As I listened closer again, I thought I heard sniggers among the wailing, and cries among it all. And the instrument grew even colder. Becoming so cold that I dropped it on to the sideboard, afraid it would stick to my skin. Yet it was burning that I could smell. Burning plastic.

Even in the dimness of the room I could see steam or smoke rising from the receiver, then from the curled cord itself. And the plastic was beginning to bubble as though the receiver were red hot -
red hot, even though I had felt it freezing.
The stench became stronger and through the tiny gaps of the ear- and mouthpieces, I could see a glow, as if the inner circuitries were overloading, the wires glowing. The bubbling of the casing became more liquid as the plastic began to melt. And the wailing diminished, grew fainter…

But began again from behind the sitting-room’s closed door. And even then it began to grow fainter again, as if receding, moving down the hallway towards the front door, drifting off until there was silence save for the soft popping sound as the plastic bubbles exploded. Eventually, even that stopped and the telephone receiver was nothing more than a charred, misshapen mess. I squinted closer to the sideboard and although the light was poor, I could see that the wood beneath the receiver was unmarked.

I leaned heavily against the sideboard, hands clutching at its edge to prevent myself from sinking to the floor. I had to get out! I had to get away from there! They might come back, their haunting not complete!

I pushed myself away and hobbled to the door, afraid to open it and afraid not to. I listened and there were no sounds from outside. Had the sitting-room window not had bars to protect the flat from burglars, I would have climbed through and up to the street at ground level, not caring about my state of undress, only wanting to be far away from this place and the entities inside. But I had no choice other than to use the front door, and to do that, I had to go through the hallway.

Fresh adrenaline rushing through me, I yanked open the door and, without pause, ran into the hallway to charge towards the flat’s entrance. I had been afraid that the slug-like thing would still be lying across the threshold, my intention being to leap over it and out into the night beyond. But it was gone. The hallway was empty. And the front door was shut.

I almost barged into it, so desperate was I to flee, but my hands took the impact. I reached for the latch, twisted it, and pulled the door towards me. My fingers slipped from the metal as the door remained where it was. I tried again, this time using both hands, twisting and pulling, trying to wrench the door open. Again, nothing happened, the door refused to budge. Next time, I lifted the letterbox flap, slid one hand through the opening to grip the iron-lipped wood, twisted the latch and tugged with all my strength. Still nothing happened; the door would not open.

Now I staggered back, away from the front door itself. It was as if it had its own will, its own volition. As if it did not
want
to open!

I slid away, another thought in my mind. The bedroom window. It was broken, I could climb out. I could stand in the yard and shout for help, or I could climb over the dividing wall, bang on my neighbour’s back door. I didn’t care what anybody thought of me standing there half-naked in my bathrobe, screaming blue murder about dreams and ghosts and murder and melted yet frozen telephones. I didn’t care if they thought I was insane and men in white coats came to take me away. I didn’t care about any of that. I… just… wanted… out…

My foot dragged as I hobbled back down the corridor and my hands slapped at the walls on either side as I passed. I ran straight into the moonlit bedroom.

But it was a mistake. It was a
huge
mistake.

For the things had gathered there and their unnatural forms preened in the silvery light. It was as if they had been waiting for me, knowing I would come to them, sure that I could not escape. And I saw now that the window was not broken at all.

The shapes moved in the moon’s glare, but still shadows hid the worst of their malformations from me, although I caught glimpses, I saw partial deformities that seemed devised in Hell, for no true God would have inflicted them. Yet they appeared happy in their own monstrousness, for they revelled in themselves and each other, fondling and caressing their own and their neighbours’ distortions, performing lewd acts that brought nausea to my throat. All in the moonlight of my bedroom.

Although nothing was specific, no shape could be discerned by me, the designs of some of these elusive creatures seemed perverse beyond imagination, so that their couplings were like those of beasts or demons.

I cried out against the sick, shadowy luridness of it all, but the sound merely drew them closer. Nebulous hands touched me, reaching beneath my robe to feel my flesh, defiling me with their contact, and I fell back against a wall, horrified then appalled, because my own body was responding to their touches, my senses aroused by the pawing.

‘No!’
I screeched, ashamed and repulsed by this dark lust, drawing myself away from those frigid, reaching fingers, from the sinister figures that slithered across the floor, pulling my robe tight around myself like some virgin afraid of rape. Still the orgy continued around me, these writhing creatures defying reason, their half-seen sexual deeds more perverse than anything that could be imagined. But it was only when I saw the familiar and beautiful face of Constance among them that the loathing overcame terror, and anger, once more, overruled my cowardice.

Like those around her, she was naked, her little body and wasted limbs like marble in the moonlight, and the creatures molested her, cupping her tiny breasts with scaly hands, reaching into the secret part of her that should have been forbidden to all except the one she loved and who loved and cherished her, pressing their mutant forms against her, engorged parts seeking orifices of any kind, any cavity between flesh…

I screamed and I ran at them, jumping into their midst, flailing their ethereal forms with clenched fists, swiping at these shifting inchoates, kicking at their orderless shapes, tears distorting my perception of them even more. I yelled and screamed and I beat at them furiously, and they bowed under my blows, even though I felt no contact, my fists smiting nothing more than vapour and shadows, my feet kicking only into floating chimaeras. They scurried away from me, these vague embryonic creatures, as if afraid of my wrath; yet still I heard their sniggers and chuckles, as if it were all a game, that my torment was their sole purpose.

I could no longer see the small wan figure of Constance among them and frustratedly, desperately, I continued to swipe at them, turning in the moonlight of my bedroom like some mad thing, whirling and striking, insane for the moment, gripped by hysteria, and almost broken by the pale image I had seen of the one I now loved above all else.

‘Constance?
I shouted.

But I was alone.

The visions had dispersed, returned to whatever dark regions had spawned them, a few last curling vapours trailing in the air, slowly dissolving, becoming nothing, a deception of the mind relegated to a nightmare memory. Yet still I lashed out, the blows becoming feeble, my turning winding down, slowing further until finally I stopped. Exhausted, I bent double, resting my hands on my knees, my back arched. My chest spasmed with escaping sobs and I felt the nausea that had threatened before surging upwards. Clapping my hand over my mouth I staggered from the bedroom into the bathroom, vomit clogging my mouth and nostrils.

I let it go when I saw the dim whiteness of the toilet bowl beneath me, the discharge exploding from my mouth to splatter water and porcelain, its stink and the slimy feel of its rush causing me to gag again and again, to unload all the rottenness I had drunk and consumed that day, purging myself until all I could do was dry-retch, the sound disgusting and loud in the tiled confines of the bathroom. I hunched over the bowl, hands grasping its rim, the heaving and the retching continuing even though there was nothing left to expel.

Gradually, I was able to draw in deeper breaths and only a silky strand of spittle drooled from my mouth to the spoiled water below. Eventually, even this ceased and I was able to push myself away from the toilet The room reeled around me and I clutched at the edge of the sink to prevent myself from falling. My stomach and throat felt raw and my head thumped, but mercifully I could see no more amorphous spectres sharing the darkness with me, no other movement at all save that caused by my own swaying. Lest those freakish things return using the dungeon gloom as their ally, I snatched at the hanging light-switch by the door, giving it a sharp tug, my breath now coming fast and hard.

Light filled the bathroom and I found myself looking directly into the mirror over the sink. It was misted by the vapours of my breath and I could only make out a dim reflection of myself.

The clouded glass began to clear, though, as my breathing became more controlled, less harsh. And my reflection began to appear within the mirror’s counterfeit dimension.

And of course, it wasn’t I who was standing there, staring back.

No. It was the handsome man. The sophisticate whose features, now that the fine haze on the glass was almost gone, were clearer than ever before. This time I recognized him, for I had seen that splendid face a
thousand
times in the past. I
knew
who he was, I could identify him, I could remember his name.

As I watched the reflection that was not me but a movie actor of old, a great star in his day, here attired in silk-lapelled dinner jacket and black tie, almost his trademark in that great golden Hollywood era when films were glamorous and their stars were ‘luminous’, he grinned at me.

And then he winked.

29

I hadn’t thought it possible, but I did manage to sleep the rest of that night. I don’t remember leaving the bathroom, nor climbing into bed, pulling the sheet tight around me, but that was where I found myself when daylight woke me next day. As always, I lay in foetal pose, face pressed into my hands, knees drawn up to my chest; like Joseph Carey Merrick, known as the Elephant Man, I longed to sleep on my back, but the curvature of my spine and its protruding sac prevented me from doing so. My eye twitched open, immediately closing again when the events of the night rushed into my head. And those thoughts forced my eye open once more so that I could see that the nightmare had ended and reality had arrived with the day.

Raising my head, I peeped over the hem of the sheet towards the window. The curtains were drawn open, but the glass was intact. Had it, then, been a dream?

I shuddered when I recalled some of those creatures that had crawled across the floor towards me, reaching for my flesh with appendages that could hardly be called hands; and I stifled a sob when I thought of Constance among them, her pallid body violated by their obscene overtures.
Oh dear God, it had to be a dream, a sick, vile dream!

Tormented last night, now tortured by lurid memories, I kicked the sheet away and sat on the edge of the bed, fingers rubbing my temples as though the thoughts were physically painful. I still wore my bathrobe and it was open at the front; I quickly pulled it closed and noticed the tiny fresh cuts on my hands, little wounds that might have been inflicted by shattered glass. I looked at the window again and saw, as before, it was unbroken; nor were there glass shards on the floor or over the bed. Yet there were more cuts on my legs and when I lifted them I discovered there were still more gashes on the soles of my feet and dried blood smearing the skin.
How…?

It was a question I could not answer. There were so many questions I could not answer.

Another thought hit me and suddenly I was on my feet and limping into the sitting-room. The telephone - it had melted in my hands last night! Had that merely been in my imagination also? It had felt like ice, yet smoke had arisen from it and it had bubbled and turned liquid before my eyes. And there it was, still on the sideboard… a charred, ruined mess…

I stared at what was left of the receiver for a few moments before cautiously picking it up. The wood of the sideboard beneath was unmarked, undamaged, not even the faintest scorchmark to give evidence of what had occurred on its surface. Impossible, you might say. And impossible so it was. Nevertheless, all that remained of the telephone receiver was a melted shell over burnt-out wires. The curled cord leading from it was browned, but otherwise undamaged, and the instrument’s base was unblemished. I stumbled over to the sofa and sank into its soft, worn cushions.

Visions of last night invaded my mind again, tumbling in like emptied litter, filling my head with grotesque images and obscene tableaux, leaving me trembling and whimpering. Had it been fantasy, or had it been real? The cuts in my flesh and the destroyed telephone told me one thing, the unbroken window and my own rational intellect told me another. I was confused and afraid, and when the memory of the face in the bathroom mirror came back to me, I felt sickened, for he was more monstrous than the monsters who had visited my home in the night, he was more loathsome than the graceless beings that had squirmed across my floor, because his imperfections were concealed beneath an exquisite exterior, the deviancy of his nature was disguised by a practised charm. The creatures were what they were - or what my mind made them to be: he was what he had made himself.

I knew of this man, this great star of the silver screen who had been dead for many decades. And I
knew
him, understood the cruelty of his narcissistic personality, for I had looked into those dark eyes and observed the very nature of his wretched soul. Here was a person so devoid of true compassion, so steeped in conceit and self-love, so oblivious to the love of others, that the Devil himself would be proud to make his acquaintance - if he hadn’t already. I remembered reading just a few years ago of his untimely death in the late 1940s and how millions, most of them women, had mourned his passing. He had been adored and revered - even men had admired his roguish charm and athletic prowess - and subsequent rumours of his debauchery and miscreant behaviour put around by Hollywood scandal magazines had neither been proved nor sustained. To this day, his memory was cherished, yet last night I had truly looked through the glass darkly and recognized the blackness of his soul. I just didn’t understand
how.
Nor
why.

I forced myself to leave the sitting-room and go into the bathroom where, tentatively, expectantly, I looked into the mirror once more. The overhead light was still on, forgotten as I had stumbled back to my bed, and the reflection I saw in the glass was my own, my own imperfect features, my own crooked body. For the first time in my life it was a relief to see myself.

I sagged and gripped the sink for support. My head ached terribly and my spirit… well, my spirit was as weary as my body. What delusions was I under? What chemical malfunction was still fucking with my brain? But the cuts, the telephone…?

I lowered the toilet seat cover, sat down and began to think of what I was going to do.