The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) (59 page)

“Don’t bother,’” I assured him. “The rain’s dying down. I’ll go up and get her and we’ll be on our way. We’ve got to get to Valos, you know.”

“Think I’m afraid, eh?” Mrs. Keenan was already doing things with the coffee pot. Rather dizzily, but she managed.

“You men, always talking about your wives. I’ll show you!” She took the cup, then arched her back eloquently as she passed Keenan and disappeared in the hallway.

I got an urge.

Sobriety rushed to my head.

“Keenan,” I whispered.

“Whazzat?”

“Keenan, we must stop her!”

“What for?”

“You ever gone upstairs at night?”

“Course not. Why sh’d I? All dusty up there, mus’ keep it tha’way for cust’mers. Never go up.”

“Then how do you know the story isn’t true?” I talked fast. Very.

“What?”

“I say perhaps there
is
a ghost.”

“Aw, go on!”

“Keenan, I tell you I felt something up there. You’re so used to the place you didn’t notice, but I
felt
it. A woman’s hate, Keenan. A woman’s hate!” I was almost screaming; I dragged him from his chair and tried to push him into the hall. I had to stop her somehow. I was afraid.

“That room is filled with menace.” Quickly I explained my thoughts of the afternoon concerning the dead woman – surprised and slain, so that she died only with a great hate forming as life left her; a hate that endured, that thrived on death alone. A hate, embodied, that would take up the murder hatchet and slay –

“Stop your wife, Keenan,” I screamed. “Stop her!”

“What about your wife?” chuckled the showman. “Besides,” and he leered, drunkenly, “I’ll tell you somethin’ I wasn’t gonna tell. It’s
all
a fake.” He winked. I still pushed him towards the staircase.

“All a fake,” he wheezed. “Not only ghost part. But – there never was a Ivan Kluva, never was no wife. Never was no killing. Jus’ old butcher’s block. Hatchet’s my hatchet. No murder, no ghost, nothin’ to be afraid of. Good joke, make myself hones’ dollar. All a fake!”

“Come on!” I screamed, and the black thought came back and it sang in my brain and I tried to drag him up the stairs, knowing it was too late, but still I had to do something –

And then
she
screamed.

I heard it. She was running out of the room, down the hall. And at the head of the stairs she screamed again, but the scream turned into a gurgle. It was black up there, but out of the blackness tottered her silhouette. Down the stairs she rolled; bump, bump, bump. Same sound as a rubber ball. But she was a woman, and she ended up at the bottom of the stairs with the axe still stuck in her throat.

Right there I should have turned and run, but that thing inside my head wouldn’t let me. I just stood there as Keenan looked down at the body of his wife, and I babbled it all out again.

“I hated her – you don’t understand how those little things count – and Jeanne waiting – there was the insurance – if I did it at Valos no one would ever know – here was accident, but better.”

“There is no ghost,” Keenan mumbled. He didn’t even hear me. “There is no ghost,” I stared at the slashed throat.

“When I saw the hatchet and she fainted, it came over me. I could get you drunk, carry her out, and you’d never know—”

“What killed my wife?” he whispered. “There is no ghost.”

I thought again of my theory of a woman’s hate surviving death and existing thereafter only with an urge to slay. I thought of that hate, embodied, grabbing up a hatchet and slaying, saw Mrs. Keenan fall, then glanced up at the darkness of the hall as the grinning song in my brain rose, forcing me to speak.

“There is a ghost now,” I whispered. “You see, the second time I went up to see Daisy, I killed her with this hatchet.”

Napier Court

Ramsey Campbell

Alma Napier sat up in bed. Five minutes ago she’d lain down
Victimes de Devoir
to cough, then stared round her bedroom heavy-eyed; the partly open door reflected panels of cold October sunlight, which glanced from the flowered wall-paper, glared from the glass-fronted bookcase, but left the metronome on top in shadow and failed to reach the corner where her music-stand was standing. She’d thought she had heard footsteps on the stairs. Beyond the brilliant panel she could see the darker landing; she waited for someone to appear. Her clock, displayed within its glass tube, showed 11:30. It must be Maureen. Then she thought: could it be her parents? Had they decided to give up their holiday after all? She had looked forward to being left alone for a fortnight when her cold had confined her to the house; she wanted time to prove herself, to make her own way – she felt a stab of misery as she listened. Couldn’t they leave her alone for two weeks? Didn’t they trust her? The silence thickened; the darkness on the landing seemed to move. “Who’s there? Is that you, Maureen?” she called and coughed. The darkness moved again. Of course it didn’t, she said, willing her hands to unclench. She held up one; the little finger twitched. Don’t be childish, she told herself, where’s your strength? She slid out of the cocoon of warmth, slipped on her slippers and dressing-gown, and went downstairs.

The house was empty. “You see?” she said aloud. What else had she expected? She entered the kitchen. On the window-sill sat the medicine her mother had bought. “I don’t like to leave you alone,” she’d said two hours ago. “Promise you’ll take this and stay in bed until you’re better. I’ve asked Maureen to buy anything you need while she’s shopping.” “Mother,” Alma had protested, “I could have asked her. After all, she is
my
friend.” “I know I’m being over-protective, I know I can’t expect to be liked for it any more” and oh God, Alma thought, all the strain of calming her down, of parting friends; there was no longer any question of love. As her mother was leaving the bedroom while her father bumped the last case down to the car, she’d said: “Alma, I don’t want to talk about Peter, as you well know, but you did promise—” “I’ve told you,” Alma had replied somewhat sharply, “I shan’t be seeing him again.” That was all over. She wished everything was over, all this possessiveness which threatened to erase her completely; she wished she could be left alone with her music. But that was not to be, not for two years. There was the medicine-bottle, incarnating her mother’s continued influence in the house. Taking medicine for a cold was a sign of weakness, in Alma’s opinion. But her chest hurt terribly when she coughed; after all, her mother wasn’t imposing it on her, if she took it that was her own decision. She measured a spoonful and gulped it down. Then she padded determinedly through the hall, past the living-room (her father’s desk reflected in one mirror), the dining-room (her mother’s flower arrangements preserved under glass in another), and upstairs, past her mother’s Victorian valentines framed above the ornate banister. Now, she ordered herself, to bed, and another chapter of
Victimes de Devoir
before Maureen arrived. She’d never make the Brichester French Circle if she carried on like this.

But as soon as she climbed into bed, trying to preserve its bag of warmth, she was troubled by something she remembered having seen. In the hall – what had been wrong? She caught it: as she’d mounted the stairs she’d seen a shape in the hall mirror. Maureen’s coat hanging on the coat-stand – but Maureen wasn’t here. Certainly something pale had stood against the front-door panes. About to investigate, she addressed herself: the house was empty, there could be nothing there. All right, she’d asked Maureen to check the story of the house in the library’s files of the
Brichester Herald
– but that didn’t mean she believed the hints she’d heard in the corner shop that day before her mother had intervened with “Now, Alma, don’t upset yourself” and to the shopkeeper: “Haunted, indeed! I’m afraid we grew out of that sort of thing in Severnford!” If she had seemed to glimpse a figure in the hall it merely meant she was delirious. She’d asked Maureen to check purely because she wanted to face up to the house, to come to terms with it. She was determined to stop thinking of her room as her refuge, where she was protected by her music. Before she left the house she wanted to make it a step towards maturity.

The darkness shifted on the landing. Tired eyes, she explained – yet her room enfolded her. She reached out and removed her flute from its case; she admired its length, its shine, the perfection of its measurements as they fitted to her fingers. She couldn’t play it now – each time she tried she coughed – but it seemed charged with beauty. Her appreciation over, she laid the instrument to rest in its long black box.

“You retreat into your room and your music.” Peter had said that, but he’d been speaking of a retreat from Hiroshima, from the conditions in Lower Brichester, from all the horrid things he’d insisted she confront. That was over, she said quickly, and the house was empty. Yet her eyes strayed from
Victimes de Devoir.

Footsteps on the stairs again. This time she recognized Maureen’s. The others – which she hadn’t heard, of course – had been indeterminate, even sexless. She though she’d ask Maureen whether she’d left her coat in the hall; she might have entered while Alma had slept, with the key she’d borrowed. The door opened and the panel of sunlight fled, darkening the room. No, thought Alma; to enquire into possible delusions would be an admission of weakness.

Maureen dropped her carrier and sneezed. “I think I’ve got your cold,” she said indistinctly.

“Oh dear.” Alma’s mood had darkened with the room, with her decision not to speak. She searched for conversation in which to lose herself. “Have you heard yet when you’re going to library school?” she asked.

“It’s not settled yet. I don’t know, the idea of a spinster career is beginning to depress me. I’m glad you’re not faced with that.”

“You shouldn’t brood,” Alma advised, restlessly stacking her books on the bedspread.

Maureen examined the titles. “
Victimes de Devoir, Thérèse Desqueyroux.
In the original French, good Lord. Why are you grappling with these?”

“So that I’ll be an interesting young woman,” Alma replied instantly. “I’m sure I’ve told you I feel guilty doing nothing. I can’t practise, not with this cold. I only hope it’s past before the Camside concert. Which reminds me, do you think I could borrow your transistor during the day? For the music programme. To give me peace.”

“All right. I can’t today, I start work at one. Though I think – no, it doesn’t matter.”

“Go on.”

“Well, I agree with Peter, you know that. You can’t have peace and beauty without closing your eyes to the world. Didn’t he say that to seek peace in music was to seek complete absence of sensation, of awareness?”

“He said that and you know my answer.” Alma unwillingly remembered; he had been here in her room, taking in the music in the bookcase, the polished gramophone – she’d sensed his disapproval and felt miserable; why couldn’t he stay the strong forthright man she’d come to admire and love? “Really, darling, this is an immature attitude,” he’d said. “I can’t help feeling you want to abdicate from the human race and its suffering.” Her eyes embraced the room. This was security, apart from the external chaos, the horrid part of life. “Even you appreciate the beauty of the museum exhibits,” she told Maureen.