In the Night Room

by Peter Straub

  —Christ. Blood dripped from behind the hand Coverley held over his nose. I’m not going to stand here and bleed to death. He moved aside, with an ironic gesture of welcome.

  The Santolinis brushed past Willy and went immediately to work in the chaos of Faber’s lair. Saws roaring like motorboat engines, they climbed over the tangle of branches protruding through the roof and the destroyed window frame. Wood chips and sawdust flew up around them as they worked.

  —This was your idea, you deal with it, Coverley said. A fat streamlet of blood was running down over his chin and dripping onto his shirt.

  —I’ll drive you to the hospital, if you like.

  —Just make sure these clowns don’t steal anything. He slipped away.

  Willy entered Mitchell’s office with hesitant footsteps and a distinct feeling of trespass. A smell of burnt wood that somehow reminded her of Christmas came from the Santolinis’ side of the room. The floor and huge rectangular Persian rug were covered with wet and far-flung papers, and in the absence of anything else to do, Willy began picking these up. Hunkering down to scoop up a long, spilled-out sheaf of documents, she groaned at the mess before her and put out a hand to steady herself. Then her eyes fell upon a flat, intricately carved wooden box propped open on its hinged top. Either the wind or one of the invading branches had wiped it from its accustomed surface and sent it flying. Beneath the box lay a scattering of photographs. Willy duckwalked over to the box, closed its top, and set it down next to her right foot. When she reached out for the photographs, a stray breeze caused them to stir and flutter as if suddenly come to life. Willy caught one in its ascent from the deep reds and inky blues of the densely patterned rug and turned it over to look at its surface. What in the world is Mitchell doing with a picture of Jim Patrick? she wondered, only mildly intrigued by the mystery of her first husband’s photograph turning up in her fiancé’s office.

  It was not until her surprise at the unexpected sight of her first husband’s face began to recede that she was able to take in what had happened to his body. In the photograph, Jim Patrick’s corpse lay on stony soil beside the car in which his charred body, and Holly’s, had been found. Three bullets had entered his body, and a great deal of blood lay pooled around it. Then she saw that his hands had been cut off. The picture, it came to her, represented a kind of trophy.

  She must have made some kind of noise, because Rocky and Vince raised their heads and looked at her, curious as dogs. Trembling violently, Willy waved them off.

  That night, she locked herself in her office and tried to sleep as she lay shaking on the floor. She feared for her life: she feared that Giles Coverley would overcome his scruples, enter his boss’s office, and see the photographs scattered on the floor. She was terrified of a knock on her door, but no knock came, and no one knew what she had seen.

  The next morning, she managed to avoid being seen by Coverley and Roman Richard as she crept down the stairs, passed from the kitchen into the garage, and drove at a reckless speed down the hill and into Hendersonia, where she had an appointment with her banker.

  And at nine-thirty that night, following a most adventurous day, she gave her car keys to a valet in front of the Milford Plaza hotel, took the escalator to the lobby, rolled her suitcase up to the front desk, and checked in under the name James Patrick had wanted her to use on her Gold AmEx card, W. Bryce.

  15

  Cyrax:

  it is an endless
  oh, y do I call u buttsecks? is that wht u ask? 8e
  And why am I writing that way, you ask, Underhand? I was writing that way, and I will write that way whenever I feel like it, which is to say when you’re acting like a jackass, for the simple reason that it is a pleasure for an ancient laddie-buck (so to speak) like myself to learn a new language every now and again, and presently I am feeling my way around HAXXOR, a language exclusive to juveniles addicted to mIRC and other chat programs. Of course it isn’t a real language, merely a system of jokes and substitutions, but it’s a hoot, n’est-ce pas? Between my birth in Byzantium during the reign of Michael II, known as the Stammerer, and my premature (by your standards) but not all that untimely (by mine) death under Michael III, known as the Drunkard, I acquired a good working knowledge of six languages, a matter quite useful to me in my work as a gatherer and disseminator of information. (Since my disappearance from the surface of the Earth and gradual introduction to eternal realms, I have learned perhaps six hundred, including a great many “lost” dialects.) You could say, I was a journalist of sorts. A gossip columnist, to be specific, though of course we did not call it gossip at the time. What we did call it was “news,” and to come up with this commodity on a steady basis I dragged myself here and there about the empire, dropping in on the local satraps and princelings ever eager to have their accomplishments publicized at court.

  & y 4m I 73lling u thi5?

  Because like you I was a writer, and they felt that you needed One who could communicate with you in a familiar manner. So I, Cyrax, will be your Familiar Spirit.

  Underdog, it is necessary for you to LISTEN! Acting recklessly and ignorantly, you have sent winds of disorder, tides of resentment, waves of confusion through the Eternal Realms, or the Other World, or the Other Side, or whatever you want to call it. You have created DIFFICULTY & TROUBLE! You have given a WEDGE to CHAOS.

  Oh how, you ask, as if any such answer can be simple, can be even what your kind would call Answer. But let me try, Underdown, let me try. My enormous pleasure at the possibility of communicating directly with a 21st Century man—and having him communicate with me!—much outweighs the irritation of having to deal with such obdurate material as yourself.

  For the sake of clarity, I will employ the vulgar typographical device known as the “bullet”:

  • 7 years after the dawn of your life, your wings brushed this REALM—April your Sister preceded your spirit here as its Guide, and you were CALLED BACK, but only after you had established a FRAGILE CONTACT with HIGHER POWERS, THE WORLD BEYOND, the fringes of THE GREAT HIERARCHY.

  • Since that day, Intimations of Connectedness, Coherence & Secret Order have sweetened your existence: suggestions of a GRAND FORMALITY. These Intimations have proceeded directly from your near Approach to the REALM.

  • April your Sister is ever your guide and will be for a time after your Entrance to the Mysteries, for which you may and should thank the PRIME.

  • Alas, yours was the 1 case in 1,000,000 in which Proximity = Influence, so that what You did in your Realm could, were the correct conditions to prevail, affect us Here, particularly Those of Recent Induction still learning what you call “the ropes.” Recent = within roughly the past 80 years.

  • We Figures & Spirits of the Formerly Living are of 2 Kinds. What I next shall tell you is a cruel simplification, but for our Purposes it will have to do.

  • Those Recently Deceased are of the category sasha. Sasha are the Living Dead, Remembered still by those whose time on Earth overlapped with theirs. When the last living person to know a sasha departs into Death, the sasha enters the category of the zamani. (I use a category system of the Kiswahili peoples.) Sasha retain sharp memories, cling to urgent lusts & passions, fret & worry abt. their reputations and those of people once known. Zamani let such baubles drop from their hands. The Zamani’s task is to understand, to see, to Inhabit the correct Position in the GREAT HIERARCHY, and to serve the PRIME.

  Oh how duz this rel8 to u?

  Fool Underground, & yet I have grown fond & fonder of you. Hold on, here comes a bullet with your name on it.

  • No HELL or Infernal Region exists within the Infinite Space of the REALM. The wicked & sin-deformed have their Places, too, as do the Mad & Criminal, & within their Places endure the sasha term in a Kind of Suffering of Recognition. Their Crimes & Misdeeds & Lunacies come back endlessly to them i
n sharp Relief, & thru their Torment they cleanse their eyes, properly to see.

  • As the sasha draws nearer the condition of zamani, he is givn knowledge of our great Libraries & allowed access to the Beauty & Wisdom gathered therein. Our Libraries contain every volume written by mankind lost and unlost & Completed if left unfinished by the Author at the time of his/her death. Each volume is as its Author wisht it to be & dreamt it might be, in its Perfect State. Unflawed, Uncorrupted, Undamaged by the fevers & intoxications & hastes & forgetfulnesses of the human Author, Raised Up to the individual Perfection of its Kind. And yes, some few of these Perfect Books have transported or have been transported across the Border, thru the Curtain or VEIL, into yr Fallen & Corrupt world, there to Shine.

  • Wandring dazed within the Treasures of a great Library of the REALM, a particular sasha encountered a particular tome, and upon reading same, the which named LOST BOY LOST GIRL, the sasha grew maddened and enraged. Ancient Passions & fevers again took hold, and the crack-wit sasha roared wild through those small portions of the REALM known to it, howling for justice & retribution & revenge. The name of the sasha should be known well to you: on Earth, he was Joseph Kalendar.

  • Spirits as yet barred access to zamani may betimes slip from REALM to Realm and enter the plane from which their death had lifted them. There, they may be witnessed, described, and identified as GHOSTS.

  • GHOSTS are of many kinds & arrayed along a continuum from entirely insubstantial (a haze, a wisp, a curl of smoke, and how how how I wish I could smoke, 4 I know I wd a-door it) to entirely substantial & corporeal, at least as to sight, touch, taste & smell, & tho this latter is quite rare, such is the case with yr Mr. Kalendar.

  • For this u have only yrself to blame, Underdone. GHOST-KALENDAR HAS ALL THE ATTRIBUTES YOU PERMITTED HIM IN YR SILLY FLAWD BOOK! Thus: He can change his Form & appear in various Guises, he is in Possession of Great Strength & Subtlety & may show Himself as a savage Beast neither Swine nor Canine but a creature Hideous in-between. He possesses the Power of Invisibility!

  If u had never brushed against our REALM, yes, u r right, Undercooked, JK your angry reader wd still be angry but his anger would be confined to This Side, where easily it wd be contained, Suff’red Through, Endured & Understood. BUT!!!!!!!!! U BUTTSECKS, U OPENED THE WEDGE!!!!!!!!!

  Wht can I doo, poor poor me?

  Oho u are looking for Advice frum Cyrax? Okeydokey, artichokey, Cyrax Sez: U will know the Right Thing when the Time comes. We hope. We trust. We must Nipp this Intrusion in the Budd, and u will be Aided Toward that End.

  by whom Aided?

  By one of the HIGHER BEINGS, u stupidity, a representative of the class known to u as Angels, beings made Visible in the Class 3 Manifestation, a CLERESYTE (or approximately that) to us, by name in your tongue WCHWHLLDN . . . He is impatient of success in his most unwelcome mission, and u must be wary of his wrath, for WCHWHLLDN’s morality is not yours & in no way prohibits him from inflicting upon you an agonizing death. In his appearance before u on Grand Street u saw how great WCHWHLLDN dislikes detests loathes the tight & unclean surround of Earth. His Task is to CLEANSE.

  what is our structure, here, within the REALM??????

  u ask what cannot be answered bcuz u r not capable of comprehension & arrogant besides. But this is what we enjoy about your kind & what I in particular like about u in particular, buttsecks. A kind of Valor—blind, unconscious, oft-foolish, never without greed, but of value nonetheless, for are not u in all your measures and qualities the raw material of the REALM, even as to its Upper Reaches? So try this on for size. U have yr Holy Books, Scripture, the Koran, the Hebrew Bible, the Upanishads, necessary to you all & Images of the True and the PRIME, and within Scripture there exist the Gospels, and within the Gospels exists a wise passage about many mansions. Picture each mansion as a Plane or Level, and u will have som idea. With Plane Upon Plane, Level Upon Level, until Mathematics scarce can encompass them all. Of suchlike is the Structure of the REALM, tho of course it is really not.

  & why have u received e-mails from departed classmates?

  Becuz, as u should have figured out by now, those who knew u and r not long dead, the newest of the sasha, being confused and dis-located unlocated, perceived immediately the opportunity to establish thru u contact with their lost world, thence to complain, to beg for help, to ask for directions & mouth off in the lisping baby-babble that is their only mode of speech. Ignore these & leave them 2 find their way or not. For in time, all will find their way, if over millennia. I myself have attained but Level 4, and in this Station I know bliss.

  now keep your hands off the keyboard, stop interrupting, and take a few more bullets 2 yr brain:

  • Yr sister April, a tender GHOST in Alice-garb, will manifest herself be4 u when she can, but April cannot act against yr enemy Kalendar 4 they r of the same KIND.

  • WCHWHLLDN the CLERESYTE can oppose Kalendar on yr behalf, but in his outrage may destroy u as well as he. He is yr Guardian, yes, but more so he is the Guardian, a Guardian, one of many, of the Lower Realm.

  • U MUST CO-RECK AN ERROR, U MUST MAKE IT RITE! it is what u wr0te that opened the WEDGE to CHAOS, 4 Kalendar saw the ERROR in yr book & ran am0ck & now u must stay alive although u face a 2ble peril now becuz u created a 2nd Dark Man, did u not? Kalendar was not threat enuf & so u MERGED him with the dark dark villain almost instantly to b in pursuit of yr lovely gamine & now a problem U MUST FACE.

  • Becuz the shite is about to hit the fan the wall the floor the ceiling 2, buttsecks, and u will have 2 b nimble & imaginative & brave as u have never been be4!

  what, u ask, is the great ERROR discovered by the madman Joseph Kalendar in yr book & which enraged him so that he found entrance to yr Lower Realm?

  What do u think it was? U accused the stupid beast of repeatedly raping & eventually murdering his own daughter, Lily, and HE DID NOT DO IT!!!! Mr. Kalendar is MIGHTILY PISSED OFF, IN FACT U CD SAY HE IS TIGER-PISSED OFF, which is why he wishes to deface the errant book, not to mention its libelous author!

  and what then is yr task?

  buttsecks, you disappoint old Cyrax, you must do better than this! Yr task, as u should already KNOW, podner, is to get on yore cayuse, hit the trail & go west 2 yr own Byzantium & the beginnings of this story. To Lily Kalendar’s real fate, which has been much on yr mind, after all.

  & as if by magick, are u not being sent out very soon to perform the odd & self-referential act u call “Readings”? & is not 1 “Reading” in yr own Byzantium? & is not yr brother to wed beauteous China Beech? GO! ATTEND yr brother’s nuptials! Have u lost all civility and kindness along with yr poor VVits?

  & deer buttsecks, if you do, u will have a chance of achieving something extraordinary & incestuous & ravishing unto heart-melt & impossible for every crack-brain author but u!

  & know this also: a terrible terrible thrice-terrible price must be paid & paid by u—a great sacrifice, as if the heart were to be torn from yr body & yr brain crackt & yr spirit engulfed. yrs wuz the crime, yrs will be the punishment.

  4 now I say no mor.

  The Role of

  Tom Hartland

  PART THREE

  16

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Tom,” Willy said. “I don’t even know if I’m thinking straight. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. The only thing I do know, did know, was that I had to get out of that house, and in a hurry. You know, you’re the only person I swear in front of, but when I talk to you, I swear all the time. I wonder why that is?”

  “You’re swearing because you’re angry. You’re not used to that, so you barely know how to act.”

  “No, no, no,” she said. “I’m too shook up to be angry.”

  Willy had called Tom Hartland as soon as she had locked the door behind the departing bellman. It had been one of those moments when her life felt pathetic and insubstantial, for whom could she have called but Tom? By some dire, remote-control variety of magic, Mitchell Faber seemed to have
driven away most of the people she had once thought of as her friends. Her isolation made her feel like locking herself in the bathroom and weeping. What had kept her from giving in to self-pity was the thought that if Tom Hartland was the one person whom she could telephone at such a moment, at least he was one of her oldest and dearest friends.

  “It’s more like shock than anger,” she said. “The only way you and Molly went wrong was, you were too easy on him!”

  “Are your hands trembling?”

  “Like crazy. I don’t know how I managed to drive across the bridge.”

  “You’re way past anger, Willy. Sure you’re in shock, but on top of that, you’re furious.”

  “I HAVE A RIGHT TO BE FURIOUS! THAT CREEP KILLED MY HUSBAND AND MY DAUGHTER!” She held the phone out at arm’s length and discovered that, by means of tiny internal adjustments, she could graduate from mere yelling to gorgeous, all-stops-out screaming. “HE TALKED ME INTO ALMOST GETTING MARRIED TO HIM! THAT PSYCHO FUCK WAS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT SAFETY!”

  Willy gripped the receiver as if trying to choke it to death. Although she had not known that she was crying, tears covered her face. Her body seemed to be breathing by itself in great ragged inhalations and exhalations. She sagged over, letting it go on. Her hot, sparkly face felt as if it had been electrified. Tom’s voice leaked from the phone, but Willy could not make out his words. In every important sense, her life seemed over. She had nowhere to go. Pretty soon, an evil creep who had been intimate with every part of her body was going to be hunting for her. Willy felt irredeemably contaminated. After a little while she became aware that she was, after all, still breathing. She straightened up and brought the receiver to her ear.

  “Okay, you’re right on the money,” she said. “I’d like to kill Mitchell Faber. But the problem is, I think he’ll probably want to do the same to me.”