“Shut up, you moron!” Gordon stiffened, pushed against the sides of the enclosure. It was like the bastard was reading his mind, anticipating his every thought…
“Yes, Inspector, it was an unfortunate accident. We were engaged in a…a contest, if you will. Sort of an initiation into a secret order of the Colonials. Oh yessir, you know about such things. Yes, that’s correct, they have them at places like Yale and Harvard, sir. And yessir, I do believe our current President is a member of such a secret club. Well, at any rate, it was a terrible accident when the air compressor failed like it did…yessir, it was very tragic, and yes, we at the Colonial Club would certainly appreciate the lack of publicity concerning Mr. Kingsley’s unfortunate demise…”
“I said shut up, Henry! You’re just trying to shake me up.” said Gordon, summoning up what strength remained to him. “What happened? You get down here and realize you’re not going to be able to take it?”
A chuckle fell from the little speakers, clattered all about Gordon’s head.
“You underestimate me, old sport. That’s why you lose so many of these little wagers.”
“What do you mean?” Gordon fought to keep the panic from his voice. “Don’t you know that if I’d really intended to outlast you, I’d have trained for the event long before wising you to the game! Why, I’d have been sleeping in a casket, with the lid up, then down, then spending a few hours every evening in my little narrow house—building up my endurance, acclimating myself to the environment.”
Gordon was stunned by the concept. Of course! That’s exactly what Huntington would do!
Without thinking, Gordon had put his hand to his mouth. It was an odd uncharacteristic gesture, made more awkward by the cramped area in which he could move his arm. He reached down to the toggle switch on his left and clicked on a soft halogen lamp.
Almost instantly, he wished he hadn’t.
The light only served to emphasize the horrible closeness of where he was. The satin lining of the casket, with its sickly pearlescent shine made his stomach lurch.
Is this what it’s going to be like?
Forever…?
He could see his stockinged feet seemingly so far away. What had it been like to actually bend and touch them?
So close.
Nowhere to move.
Nowhere to go.
Just stay right where you were. Just like this. Forever.
Thumbing the toggle switch, the darkness engulfed him and he welcomed it. The lamp, he realized now, had been another velvet trap set by Huntington. There was no comfort in its hard illumination, only a special kind of horror.
“Earth to Kingsley…come in…” the speaker crackled, followed by the softest hint of Huntington’s sardonic laughter. “I know you’re down there…”
The bastard! Gordon had no idea what to do, much less say. If what Huntington said was true, then no one knew they could converse like this. If his opponent was trying to psych him out and Gordon panicked, pushing the alarm button on the right side of the casket, then he would not only be scammed, but he would lose the wager.
But how could he even think about something so mundane? The primitive forebrain of his consciousness was screaming at him to preserve the life essence, to get out of this hellish prison at any cost. Fuck the wager! And fuck Huntington!
Surely he could prove that there had been tampering, collusion, or whatever you’d want to call it.
“Earth to Kingsley…” His nemesis paused as if savoring the phrase. “You know that’s quite a pun isn’t it, under the, shall we say, ‘gritty’ circumstances…”
“Dammit, Huntington,” he said softly, trying to retain control. “This is a shabby stunt. Trying to trick me into quitting the game. You must be desperate.”
“You mean you still really believe I’m down there with you? Do you actually think I’d be stupid enough to let myself be interred in a bloody fucking coffin!”
More laughter. This time a brutal cascade full of mocking disdain.
“Especially when you consider where you are…”
“Why, Huntington? Why all this? Because you’re such a sore loser, you had to cheat your money back? By conning me into quitting? Because if you think—”
The remainder of his sentence stuck in his throat. Silence held their conversation in a timeless void. Licking his lips, he forced himself to speak.
“…Huntington, what did you just say…? If I consider what where…?”
“You really are a piece of work, Gordon.” Then more of that idiotic chuckling.
“Get to the point, man! What’re you talking about?”
“Just two interesting points of fact. One—that you didn’t inquire as to why I selected the particular location for this wager, and two—that you’re interred in land once owned by your family. Bought and sold several times before I purchased it, of course.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you…” Gordon’s mind galloped ahead of his words, of Huntington’s reply. There was something ominous, something sinister in the man’s tone. Even in the tight space, Gordon felt the leathery pouch of his scrotum tighten, contract.
“Your family is from Connecticut, Kingsley. Originally from the town of Hansford, which is the name of my game preserve. Strange that you didn’t comment or make any connection…I half-expected you might.”
What in God’s name was Huntington getting at? “Hansford,” said Gordon. “Should that name mean something to me?”
“Come on, Gordy, didn’t your father ever tell you about the Hansford Sanitarium?”
“Other than the fact that Grandfather had built it, or that we owned it…no, why?”
Huntington clucked his tongue, sighed. “Did you ever remember hearing or reading about the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918?”
“Huntington, cut to the chase, would you!? You can damn well bet I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“It was a terrible thing. More than 30% of the population of the cities on the East Coast died in a 12 month period. A half million dead. People were dying so fast, nobody knew what to do with them.
“Nobody except your Granddad, that is…”
There was an absence, a distinct void, as Huntington’s voice trailed off. Gordon felt himself almost lurch forward in the oppressive darkness. He knew he didn’t want to hear what Grandfather might have done. And yet, he must. When he spoke, he sounded hoarse, weak, even puny.
“What did he do…?”
Huntington cleared his throat. “Well it seems your grandfather had a small army of Irish laborers working in his quarry near Wallingford. When the influenza ripped through their ranks like cavalry, the poor micks swelled the Hansford Sanitarium to bursting. When they started dying like blowflies, your grandfather didn’t want to be bothered with the details and the expense of getting them all back to their Manhattan tenement families…”
“What’re you talking about? What did he do?” Gordon shifted uneasily on the soft padding of the casket.
“A most ingenious solution, really. He had all those dumb Irishmen’s bodies thrown into lorries and hauled off to a big quicklime pit he’d dug just beyond the trees on the Sanitarium grounds.”
“Huntington, you’re a lying bastard!”
There came a soft chuckle. “No, old sport, I’m afraid you’re the one who’s lying—right in the middle of that nasty old quicklime pit…”
Like a blade, something twisted in the core of his being. He could not keep a silly, melodramatic gasp from escaping him.
“Oh, I know it’s been a while now, Gordy, but I’d say you’re not very far from a big pile of those poor micks’ bones.”
The confines of the casket were suddenly smaller, the air staler. His entire world reduced to a six-foot wooden hull embarked upon a journey into madness. His skin felt dry, itchy. Places he couldn’t reach had started tingling with histaminic urgency. Although clutched in darkness, Gordon’s eyes remained tightly shut. He didn’t want to think about what lay beyond t
he thin wood of his cell.
Just get out. Just open your mouth and start screaming and push the button and get yourself out of this fucking pit.
…No, wait, stay calm.
“As a matter of fact, being a betting man, I’d wager there’s more than one angry Irish ghost twisted up in the dirt and the bones that’re wrapped around you like a fist.”
Stay calm. Talk it out. Get a grip.
“Is this what it’s all about, Henry? All this business about the Irishmen—Let’s see if I can figure this out. Let me tell you what happened: my grandfather threw yours in the quicklime, right? I always thought that crap about railroads was just crap. You grandfather was nothing but a common laborer, and his son made his money bootlegging with Joe Kennedy’s bunch!”
“Ah, Gordy, you make me proud, me boy! You’re smarter than I ever gave you credit for. But did you ever imagine that all the years and all the wagering has been nothing but a setup?”
“What’s that? What’re you talking about?”
“Revenge, old sport. Someone said it’s served best when served cold, and I have to agree with that.”
“You’re a madman! A fucking loony!”
Huntington chuckled. It was a lilting, almost musical sound. “But not as crazy as you’re going to be before you ever get out of there. By the time they get to your fat ass, you won’t even know it.”
“I’m sounding the alarm,” said Gordon, summoning up the most authoritative voice he could find. Fumbling for the switch at his right hip, he massaged the button, but didn’t push it.
“Kiss your money good-bye, Gordy…”
Caressing the button, his fingers tapped it lightly, but not enough to actually depress it.
This was exactly what Huntington had wanted all along, had been manipulating everything to get things to this point. The slick son-of-a-bitch thought he was going to con him out of the money, but Gordon Kingsley would show—
The sound was so subtle, so soft, he almost missed it…
“So, where’s the alarm, Kingsley? I’m sitting here waiting for you.”
“Shut-up, you blathering idiot! Shut-up-shut-up-shut-up!”
Huntington chuckled softly, but Gordon was listening to another sound—the barely audible sound of something scrabbling through the dirt, pawing, scraping, clawing…
He was suddenly aware of grinding his teeth together. The muscles in his jaws felt like piano wire, stretched to its limits. He tried to open his mouth, but couldn’t. Something was wrong here. Something not right, and—
A new sound.
Not a scrape as much as a tick! along the side of the casket.
Along the outside.
Holding his breath, Gordon listened. The sound repeated itself. A rhythmic, series of tappings, as though something were signaling him in Morse code.
He had no idea how long he listened to the sound.
In the darkness, it was everything. There was nothing but the tapping on the wood. Time lost its sense, its measure. Gordon lay in the thrall of the sound and nothing else. Inanely, the notion that knocking on wood brought good luck passed through him, the shock of conscious thought released him from the hypnogogia.
He pressed his hand against the left wall of the casket, felt the vibration of the impact. Something was out there.
But that was ridiculous.
Impossible.
Out there.
As he struggled to rein in his panic, he realized the tapping has ceased.
But only for an instant.
To be replaced by a scraping sound. A deliberate gouging of the wood as if by some sharp tool, like an engraver’s awl, or maybe even a…
…fingernail, or a…finger-bone.
He must have cried out, but had no memory of doing so. His mind full of white noise static, the radio burst of pure terror. A muffled voice spoke to him that could have been Huntington, but he was beyond the comprehension that accompanies hearing. The measured pace of the gouging and scraping had increased, faster and faster until it sounded like the machine-like digging of a dog for his bone. Kingsley, in fact, had begun his own gouging and scraping, having torn away the satin ceiling of his narrow house, and his own fingernails as he clawed at the wood just inches from his face. Maple has a sturdy grain and he’d made little progress, but he was beyond notice.
The thing that so furiously worked the wood at his left shoulder had fared far better.
When Gordon toggled his lamp and sounded the alarm, the last thing he saw was the splintered wood collapsing in…towards him.
⟡
“Oh yes, Inspector, most tragic,” said Henry Pearce Huntington. “How could any of us have known old Kingsley’s ticker was bad.”
He stood in the four-car garage of his Greenwich, Connecticut estate. In addition to the police lieutenant, there were two uniforms and the county Medical Examiner, who was inspecting a body in a casket. The casket rested on a large table, trailing several tendrils of electric wire and plastic tubing.
The Inspector shook his head gravely. “Of course not, Mr. Huntington. I mean, who could know?”
Huntington nodded gravely. “And of course, I’m sure you’re in agreement that there should be no publicity. Some of our most respected institutions have secret societies and initiation rites…”
The Inspector grinned. “Hey, what’re you kiddin’? I heard the President was in one of these secret clubs when he was at Yale!”
“That is correct, sir,” said Huntington, as he followed the Lieutenant to the side of the casket.
The Medical Examiner looked up, away from the slack-jawed, sunken-eyed corpse of Gordon Kingsley. His hair a dead-white, Einsteinian nimbus.
“Something scared the shit outta this guy,” said the M. E.
One of the uniforms chuckled. “Guy must’ve been a flake,” he said. “I mean, if he’d been buried in the ground, hey that would be one thing…but this guy, I mean, he was just layin’ here in his buddy’s garage.”
If you’ve been paying attention, you must have noticed by now that the anthology market has been, for me, over the years, a great repository of my short stories. Hey, I can’t help it, people get an idea for an anthology, and bada-bing! they call me…and like any good pizzeria, I deliver.
So here’s another one. Jeff Gelb1, who created a whole line of anthologies under the Hot Blood title, also came up with a clever idea to ask a hunch of horror writers what their own, personal phobia might be, and then write a story about it. The anthology was appropriately titled Fear Itself. Now, what’s interesting is the reaction to this premise from some of the writers Gelb invited. A lot of them are my friends, and many admitted they had to think hard and long to figure out exactly what it was that actually scared them, or what in this life they truly feared.
Me, I didn’t have any problem.
If I dismissed the abject terror I used to experience when I saw trailers for early-Fifties, giant, radiation-mutated, stop-action monster movies, then I had a fear that I’m sure I share with hundreds of millions of other sensitive human beings. I’m not going to tell you what it is because I think it might undercut the moorings of the story which follows, but I am confident you will be hip to the personal fear which drove me to write this next one.2
1 Jeff Gelb is one of the good guys for other reasons than just being an adept editor. I once did a column about one of the signal events in my past that sent me shambling down the twisted path of mutant-dom, or as Paul Wilson calls it: “Otherness.” I told a story of how I found this beat-up, tire-treaded, comic on the side of the road when I was all of six or seven, and how it was just about the scariest, weirdest, freakiest thing I had ever seen in my sheltered, little Catholic-boy life. I can remember keeping it hidden under my mattress for months, taking it out at night to just stare with awe and wonder and fear at the cover. The wrap-up to the piece contained a lament that I could never remember the name of the comic that had Changed My Life Forever, but I described the cover which haunted me for a long, long
time: a guy sitting in a barber’s chair, looking in the mirror; while the barber is hunched over him with a hideous straight-razor. You can only see the barber from the back…but he is looking in the mirror, and his face is…well, it’s not a face…it’s…a… skull! Yeah, scared the bejesus out of me, and stayed with me all my life. And I asked my readers if anybody out there could remember this comic so I could at least know its name. Eventually, Harlan Ellison helped me find the title by using this compendia called The Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books compiled by Ernst and Mary Gerber—an incredible book full of photos of just about every comic book ever published. The comic was Volume 15 of The Unseen…not exactly an EC classic, but for me, it was my personal Necronomicon. A little while after this discovery, I receive in the mail, in almost perfect condition, a copy of The Unseen #15. It was a gift from Jeff Gelb, and I was blown away by his thoughtfulness and generosity. I said it then and I say it again now: thank you, Jeff for giving me back a piece of my childhood I’d always imagined was forever lost.
2 But I can tell you this: when I started writing the story, I needed a little girl’s name and decided to use my daughter’s—Olivia. But when I was about half-finished, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to use her name.
Your children are not your children.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.
—Kahlil Gibran
I’m not sure how much longer I can hold the son-of-a-bitch off.
For the past few days, I’ve seen more signs of his arrival. Each time I enter Becky’s room, I think I smell the faintest of scents—a grim, olfactory wake of his passage.
He’s so bold, coming here flirting with my daughter, thinking I have no sense of it. And yet, it is the driving force in my life. There is nothing that will give me more strength than to have the chance to beat him. He knows now that I keep an old Little League aluminum baseball bat in the pantry, but he also knows I am not afraid to use it.
Fearful Symmetries Page 27