This Is Midnight: Stories

by Bernard Taylor

  ‘Pierre . . . Pierre,’ he said, a note of urgency in his voice, ‘I think you should come out.’

  ‘What? Nonsense! ’ Pierre said, laughing. ‘Emil – Emilie – is enjoying herself! I told you, she loves me.’

  The body of the praying mantis seemed now to be quivering in an ecstasy of sensual delight. Stevens saw the creature’s form arch, then straighten, then arch again, and he knew quite suddenly, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the insect was indeed female. And, just as certainly, he knew that the innocent, unknowing Pierre had become more to her than just a very good friend.

  The movements of the creature now became more frantic in appearance, taking on the aspect of some ancient, ritualistic dance.

  And suddenly Pierre became afraid.

  With his own realisation of the sex of his captive he saw the weird gyrations in a new light – the praying mantis was doing some kind of mating dance. Memory flooded back to him of things read – things he had thought were forgotten. He gave a terrified scream and backed away towards the door of the cage.

  But Emilie followed, reaching out for him. And catching him, she clutched him and clasped him to her. Held in the creature’s powerful embrace, Pierre felt a violent shudder shake his lover’s huge green form. Desperately he struggled, and with a strength born of desperation, tore himself from her grasp and made a lunge for the door. Even though he reached it, however, there was no room for him to open it inwards. He screamed again, his eyes starting from their sockets as, in his abject terror, he gazed at Stevens, beseeching his help.

  But there was no time. As Stevens looked about for something with which to ward off the attack, Emilie was moving in again.

  Pierre fought desperately, struggling with the door, but in another moment his great lover was upon him. Her two short but immensely powerful arms snapped out, tightly grasped him and clutched him to her.

  Emilie was simply behaving true to her instincts.

  Held fast in his deathly sweetheart’s embrace, Pierre gave a scream. Even as he did so, Emilie’s jaws descended, gaping above him. Pierre opened his mouth to scream again but the hard, horny mouth had clamped over his face, stopping all further sound.

  Emilie’s shining eyes never lost their look of love as she wrenched off his head.

  SAMHAIN

  Wearing her track suit, Doris stood gasping for breath as the lift took her up to the fifth floor, the top of the apartment building. A minute later at the door of the flat she discovered that she’d come out without her keys and she rang the bell and waited impatiently for Arthur to answer. Then at last, after the fourth ring, the door was opened. She helped it aside with an angry shove and stepped into the hall.

  ‘Arthur,’ she gasped (she still hadn’t got her breath back), ‘didn’t you hear me ringing?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I’m sorry, dear; I was in the bedroom going through my underwear. You know – I think I need to get some more.’

  ‘You need to get a hearing aid, that’s what you need.’ With her words she turned away and strode into the kitchen where she poured herself a glass of water. She would have liked a Coke but there was no sense in half killing yourself to take off a few pounds and then put it all straight back on again. As she stood there slowly sipping the water Arthur came to the open doorway and stood looking at her with the inane smile that always infuriated her so.

  ‘How was the running?’ he asked.

  Her answer was clipped, cold. ‘If you mean the jogging, it was fine.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course – jogging.’ He nodded. ‘I have to hand it to you – you’ve got more energy than I have. If I tried a run round the park I’d be dead before I got halfway.’

  It’s a pity you don’t try it then, a voice inside her head snapped, and save me all the trouble you’re putting me to. She kept silent, though, and turned and rinsed the empty glass under the tap.

  As she dried the glass and put it away Arthur said solicitously, ‘I’ll bet you’re hungry, are you? Would you like me to make you some breakfast?’

  ‘You?’ She looked at him with contempt. ‘You know very well you’re useless in the kitchen. You’re as incompetent there as you are everywhere else.’ She paused. ‘Besides, I’m trying to lose weight, you know that. I’ve got some pride – even if you haven’t.’

  He looked hurt. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means it wouldn’t hurt you to lose a few pounds, either. You do know what this weekend is, don’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘Of course. The thirty-first. Halloween.’

  ‘Halloween?’ There was disgust in her tone. ‘Yes, that’s what they call it, those idiots out there.’ She gestured with an impatient hand, taking in the rest of the world. ‘I prefer to call it by its proper name.’

  ‘Samhain?’

  ‘Of course Samhain.’

  ‘All right – Samhain – but so what?’

  She made a short, mocking sound of derision. ‘So what? he asks. So what? Maybe it doesn’t bother you, the thought of stripping off and dancing around in the nude in front of all our friends. Maybe you don’t give it a second thought. Maybe you’re happy with your body the way it is. If so, then you’ve got a lot to be happy about – because there’s a lot of it. Personally, if it were me, I’d want to do something about it.’

  He frowned. ‘Oh, come on, Doris, what can I do about it? I’m fifty-six years old. I’m not a young man anymore. Besides, there’ll be plenty there older than I am. Plenty.’

  He looked hurt and she gave a sigh. ‘Oh – forget it, Arthur. I won’t say anything else. It doesn’t make any difference anyway. You never listen.’

  She pushed past him and went into the lounge where she flopped down into her easy chair, took off her shoes, put her feet up on the footstool and closed her eyes. After a few moments she heard him come into the room, and then she heard his voice again, irritatingly considerate as always:

  ‘Are you asleep?’

  Without opening her eyes she said, ‘Of course I’m not asleep.’

  ‘I just wondered.’ A pause. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  She opened her eyes, about to say no, then gave a grudging shrug. ‘Yes, why not. If you think you can manage it.’

  ‘Doris, of course I can manage it.’ He started off across the room. ‘You want it black?’

  ‘Of course black. I always have it black.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  She turned her head and watched his thick, heavy body move through the doorway, then she sighed, got to her feet and stretched. There was a mirror near the window and she stepped in front of it and looked at herself. She didn’t look at all bad for her forty-three years, she thought. And holding herself like this – erect and with her stomach drawn in – she looked years younger. Trouble was, it was impossible to sustain the effort. You forgot, and with the forgetting everything sagged again. She must get into the habit of holding herself well; work on her posture as well as everything else. After all, soon she’d be free again . . .

  As she looked at her reflection she thought again of the thirty-first. Tomorrow. Everything depended on tomorrow. Tomorrow would see the end to her problems and the beginning of a new life. And the day would bring other bonuses too: at the meeting she’d see that young male witch, the new initiate from Lyddiard, Steve Walker. She hadn’t seen him since the initiation ceremony back at the end of April, the Feast of Beltane, but she remembered him well enough: tall, tanned, good-looking and with an obvious taste for older women. Not that she regarded herself as old, Satan forbid, but when he was only in his late twenties one had to acknowledge the age difference. Thinking of him now she remembered how he had smiled at her – and in such a very special way. He’d had his clothes on then, of course, but even so they hadn’t been able to disguise the firmness, the clean, muscular lines of his body. Not like Arthur with his pale flab.


  She pictured Arthur as he’d be at the dance – as usual making a complete idiot of himself. Some people had no dignity at all. Well, at least she knew how to go on. And when she danced nobody was going to snigger or look the other way. With the thought she did a couple of steps in front of the mirror. It looked good – and she looked pretty good too – a damned sight better than that stupid Shirley Goldberg. Sure Shirley Goldberg’s figure was a lot firmer and more up-­together these days – but so it should be – she’d spent enough on cosmetic surgery. And it showed, of course. There was no way of disguising those scars. Those scars – good Satan, in the cold weather Shirley Goldberg looked as if she’d been pressed against a wire fence.

  Arthur came back into the room then and she sat down and took the cup of coffee he handed her. Looking down at it, she said impatiently, ‘I said black, Arthur. Can’t you ever get anything right?’

  As he moved back to the kitchen with the offending cup of coffee she reflected on her loathing of him. And it would never change now, she knew that – which was one reason she had decided to get rid of him and look out for a newer model. Well, she had to. They couldn’t go on as they were. With him around she had no future at all. Oh, yes, she could leave him, of course – but what good would that do? She’d just be giving up her home in this flat to go and find someplace on her own – and someplace not nearly as comfortable – and almost certainly she’d have to get a job of some kind too. No, she couldn’t afford to leave Arthur – and as she couldn’t bear the thought of continuing to live with him either, then there was only one thing to be done.

  Which she was in the process of taking care of right now. And so much trouble it was, too. She had never dreamed. All those sessions in the coven’s library for a start, doing all that research. It was mind-blowingly tedious – but it was the only way to do things, she had no doubt of that.

  Thinking of the library, she thought of the books she’d been studying. It hadn’t been easy getting access to them. It had surprised her just how closely they were guarded. She had told the coven librarian that she was taking a degree course on the ancient arts. And he had believed her, the fool. She remembered his grave expression as he had brought the old, leather-bound volumes and placed them before her. ‘Be careful with them, won’t you?’ he had said. ‘And do remember that they mustn’t be taken out of this room. We wouldn’t want them falling into the wrong hands, would we? If that happened, there’s no telling where the mischief would stop.’

  Mischief. Mischief – it seemed such a pathetic little word when applied to the act of murder. Not that anyone was going to construe it as murder. It would be put down to heart failure. Simple. She smiled to herself. And now her researches were finished, and she had all the answers she wanted. And now, too, she had the stone and the nail. And this evening she’d have the clay portrait as well.

  After a few moments Arthur approached with a fresh cup of coffee – black this time – in his hand. As she took it from him she said, ‘I’ll be out this evening, you haven’t forgotten that, have you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ He nodded. ‘Your art class. I wasn’t sure that you’d still be going – what with the feast and everything tomorrow.’

  Still going? ‘Of course I’m still going,’ she said witheringly. Wild horses wouldn’t keep her away.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine. I’m getting on fine.’

  ‘You must really enjoy it, your clay modelling – these past few weeks you’ve been so keen.’

  She shrugged. ‘Yes – I do enjoy it.’

  ‘Maybe I could come with you one evening. It might be interesting.’

  She tried to picture him in the art studio, making a hash of everything. What an embarrassment he would be. ‘Oh, I don’t think it would appeal to you at all,’ she said.

  ‘Oh . . . What are you making?’

  ‘This and that.’

  ‘What, exactly?’

  ‘I’ve been modelling a figure.’

  ‘All this time? Just one? It must be huge.’

  ‘No – it’s quite small.’

  ‘But it’s been weeks.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to get it right.’

  ‘I see. And are you nearly there, you think?’

  ‘Nearly there. This evening it’ll be finished.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice.’

  Well, that’s nice, the voice in her head mimicked. You wouldn’t think it was so nice if you knew whose figure I was modelling, you old fool. She wondered for a moment how he would react if she told him that the model was of him . . . She frowned momentarily at the thought of her work in the class. Getting his likeness had proved so difficult. It would have been easy if she had some real artistic ability – but she hadn’t and that was it. Anyway, after several poor starts she’d been getting on better over the past few sessions and now, this evening, at last, it would be done.

  The idea for the clay model was one of the things she’d got from her researches in the library. Not that such means were that secret. On the contrary, she supposed it must be one of the most commonly known methods of disposing of someone. Even so, however, she didn’t intend relying on some half-baked old wives’ tales handed down; she meant to get it right – which was why she’d gone to the experts.

  And that, too, was why she had chosen the thirty-first – that was the day when the spells would be at their most potent. Strange, really, she thought, most people today had no idea what the day really meant – and what it had meant since early times. Samhain – that was the real meaning of the thirty-first of October. Samhain, one of the two great witches’ festivals of the year – a celebration of fire and the dead and the powers of darkness. In the modern world the thirty-first was generally recognized only as All Hallows’ Eve, and celebrated only by children with turnip lanterns, silly masks, games and dressing up. Still, it could be worse, she supposed; in America they made even more nonsense out of the whole thing with their ridiculous trick-or-treating. Huh – if any children came to her door carrying bags of flour or whatever and begging for sweets, they’d get something they weren’t prepared for, the little monsters. Mind you, that’s what came from too much civilization. Thank Satan England hadn’t gone that far – yet. Though it probably would in time. They did say that what America had one day England got the next.

  When she was out of the shower and dry again she moved to a chest and opened the bottom drawer. From a small cardboard box she withdrew a long, rusty nail and a large, smooth stone. With these and the clay image she had no doubt of success. They’d be enough to kill Arthur ten times over.

  That evening at art class she finished the clay model and carefully placed it in the small box she had brought with her for the purpose. As she did so the instructor, a tall woman with a face like a dispossessed spaniel, came to her, looked over her shoulder and said, ‘All done, then, Mrs Armstrong?’

  ‘Yes, all done.’

  ‘I’m curious,’ the instructor said, ‘as to what you want it for . . .’

  Doris turned to her and gave a bleak smile. ‘Are you?’ She put the lid on the box and sealed it with tape. Let the stupid woman be curious; she wasn’t going to satisfy her curiosity. What was more, she wouldn’t be coming back to the class after this evening; there’d be no need to.

  That night as she lay awake in bed thinking of tomorrow and the festival she could hear Arthur’s snoring through the wall. That was something else she wouldn’t have to put up with for much longer. Just a little while and he’d never snore again.

  The thirty-first. It had rained during the night but the morning was clear, bright and promising.

  Over the breakfast table Arthur, as usual, was clearly unhappy about his eggs, and she watched, secretly pleased, as he pushed them to one side. ‘Aren’t you going to eat your eggs?’ she said.

  He frowned. ‘You know I don’t like them
like this, Doris,’ he said. ‘I tell you every morning and next day they’re just the same. Sometimes I think you just don’t make the effort.’

  She looked at him over her coffee cup, hating him. She was glad that his scrambled eggs were like rubber. Glad. If he’d been pleased with them she’d have been disappointed. And he was wrong to say that she didn’t make the effort. She did. She had to have ways of showing her loathing for him and the eggs were one of those ways. ‘I worked hard to prepare those eggs for you,’ she said reproachfully.

  After a few moments under her glare he pulled the plate back before him. ‘I’ll try to eat a little,’ he murmured.

  She watched then as he braced himself and dug a fork into the solid yellow mass. Added to his incompetence he had no guts, either. What a wimp. Any other man would have thrown the mess at the wall – which was what it deserved. Not Arthur, though; he put up with it. All the inedible food she had served up to him every morning for the past twenty years, and he accepted it all, ate it all. Her contempt for him grew.

  When the evening came she went into her bedroom and took from the box the small clay figure. Then she put on her coat, took her door key and went quietly out of the room. A short ride down in the lift and a few minutes later she was leaving the foyer and stepping out into the late October evening. Moving to the garden behind the apartment block, she stepped over the grass to the ornamental pool where water cascaded into its centre from a little waterfall. She had always despised it so, this pathetic little attempt at re-creating nature; now she wouldn’t have changed it for anything.

  At the side of the pool she looked around, eyes glancing up at the windows of the overlooking flats. She could see no one looking out at her. Then, carefully unwrapping the little clay figure, she stepped closer to the edge of the pool, leaned over and placed the figure on the lip of the waterfall. The water surging over the stone was icy cold. She pressed the figure firmly onto the stone, wedging it in. Then, satisfied that it was secure, she stepped back and looked at it. As she did so she thought of the words she had read in the book in the coven library: Make ye a picture of clay, like unto the shape of thine enemy, and then, on the night of Samhain or Beltane place it in a running stream till it be worn away. Well, it was in a running stream now – and it wasn’t going to last long by the looks of things; already, even as she watched, the limbs were beginning to crumble . . .