A mortal cold left the open box, and the youth was frozen and rigid under a sad light in which the moon shrouded that sepulchral victim, made stone now under an inexplicable bath of frost.
APARTMENT 205
Mark Samuels
Mark Samuels is an English writer of weird fiction in the tradition of Arthur Machen and H. P. Lovecraft. Many of his short stories map the outlines of a shadowy modern London hiding a dark and terrifying secret. Samuels’ first collection, The White Hands (2003) was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award.
Pieter Slokker awoke from a dream in which he was trapped in a dark, windowless room. It was three o’clock in the morning, and it sounded as if someone was hammering at the door of his flat.
Slokker had not lived long in Paris. He had moved from Bruges to this cramped apartment close to the Gare du Nord Station only a few months before, in order to finish his studies in medicine. He knew no one in the mouldering old building save the garrulous concierge, and had seldom even passed a fellow tenant as he made his way up and down the torturous spiral staircase which led to his rooms on the fourth floor.
As he became more fully awake, Pieter felt a mounting sense of apprehension. The blows continued to strike the door; he had no idea who it could be, but ignoring the summons was no longer possible. Slokker got out of bed, threw on a dressing gown and made his way to the hall. Peering through the spy-hole he could at first see only the dim outline of a man.
As his eyes grew more accustomed to the dark Slokker was able to make out more of the man’s features. Such was the person’s appearance that he hesitated before unlocking the door. Pieter had encountered a few patients badly disfigured by their illnesses during the course of his medical training, but his insistent visitor looked worse than most. He was cadaverously thin, with an angular white face and a shaved head. But it was the man’s sunken, black-rimmed eyes and hollowed cheeks that chiefly disturbed Slokker. He was reminded of the time when he had been on a tour of the Hospital morgue with his fellow students. A pathologist had shown them the corpse of a man who had starved to death after being locked in a lightless cellar by his mad wife. The memory of this man’s appearance had long haunted Slokker’s dreams, and so similar was this night-visitor that he could almost believe that the self-same corpse stood outside. Was it possible, he wondered, that he was still dreaming?
Slokker’s state of full consciousness was, however, soon confirmed by another volley of blows against the wood, so loud this time that echoes pulsed back and forth along the empty corridor. Slokker began to draw back the bolts, though he was awake enough to remember to keep the chain on, allowing just enough space to speak to the caller. Thinking more clearly now he had begun to formulate a diagnosis. Surely this man was a drug addict and had found out that a medical student lived in the building? Perhaps he had come in search of supplies?
Although the door was open only a fraction, the outsider thrust his emaciated face into the aperture. His wild eyes searched frantically for the occupant and in a desperate voice he cried out:
“Please! You must assist me, Monsieur. I cannot bear to be alone any longer! If you have any human feeling at all you will open the door!”
Slokker took a step back; the sight of that awful face in close up, and the pathetic urgency of the request had unnerved him. He reminded himself that as a medical student it was his duty to offer any help he could. After all, the man seemed coherent enough, if rather disturbed. Drawing his dressing gown closer around himself, Slokker took the chain off the door and gestured at the man to enter.
The visitor staggered across the room without a word and slumped into a chair. Perhaps he was trying to compose himself, but his eyes darted restlessly towards the shadows. He appeared to be averting his gaze from the windows; whenever he turned inadvertently in their direction, he would put his head in his hands. After observing the man in silence for a few minutes, Slokker reappraised his initial diagnosis; he was beginning to suspect that drugs were probably not the cause of his visitor’s obviously dire condition. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and the deathly white skin betrayed no telltale track-marks. Perhaps, then, the man was simply unhinged and wasting away through self-neglect.
“Please, it’s late. Tell me how I may be of assistance. Perhaps some brandy might calm you?” Slokker used his most soothing bedside manner.
The man turned his gaze towards Pieter and tried very hard to keep it level. Then he laughed, a mocking chuckle, as if enjoying a private joke.
“You are kind, yes. I will drink with you.”
He swallowed the brandy as if suffering from a terrible thirst, but the alcohol had little visible effect on him. Despite Slokker’s questions, the man seemed disinclined to speak. The medical student could do little but sit and watch his silent guest, though he was filled with unease at his presence. There was something truly unearthly about the man.
Occasionally, as the night wore on, he seemed on the verge of revealing something about himself, but would then lapse back into staring into space, occasionally laughing as if at the same sick joke. Any suggestion Slokker made to the effect that the visitor should leave was accompanied by renewed pleas of a piteous nature and he was forced to resign himself to the strange companionship.
Finally, just as dawn was breaking, the visitor made to depart and Slokker watched him as he staggered back along the corridor. To his surprise and interest, the man entered an apartment only four doors away. Had he tried the three doors separating them before hammering on Slokker’s?
As he wearily relocked his door and returned to bed Slokker resolved to discuss the matter with the concierge later in the morning. His strange neighbour required prompt attention, and possibly commitment to a psychiatric hospital. And Pieter would be very glad to do without any further nocturnal visits.
The concierge, who was an elderly man with a dislike of Flemish Belgians, ran his fingers over the white stubble on his chin. An unlit Gauloise hung from his lower lip.
“He came from Apartment 205, you say?”
“Yes. I don’t know his name. The man’s in need of treatment. I think he could be dangerous; to himself, if not to others.”
“I find that hard to believe. The gentleman who occupies that room is Monsieur Deschamps. A little odd, I’ll grant you, but he’s careful about his appearance and always gives me a good tip. I haven’t seen him for a few weeks, but then he’s always liked his privacy. Lately he’s even taken to having his food delivered.” He scratched his chin. “Though I haven’t seen the delivery boy for a while. . . But I wouldn’t . . .”
Slokker interrupted the old man’s monologue.
“Well, I am not leaving until you come upstairs with me and see for yourself. If you won’t I’ll complain to the landlord.”
The old man got to his feet with a long-suffering expression, and took down from its hook the duplicate key for Apartment 205.
A few moments later the two were climbing the spiral staircase to the fourth floor, the concierge grumbling as they made their way upwards. He paused several times to draw on the now lit cigarette. It seemed to Slokker that he took as long as he possibly could.
“You’re a medical student, you say? Well, let me tell you, Monsieur, that I haven’t much time for doctors. One of you scoundrels gave me six months to live and that was more than twenty years ago! What do you think of that, eh?”
“What I’d like to know is what you meant when you said that this Deschamps was a little odd.”
“Odd, eh, odd? Well, isn’t everyone a bit odd in their own way? When you’re as old as I am, perhaps you’ll realise that too. Odd? I meant nothing by it. Only that when I helped Monsieur Deschamps move his belongings upstairs, oh, when was it?” He had stopped again. “Yes, when I helped him I happened to glance at his books.”
“And?”
“Well, they were unusual books. Things about premonitions, fortune telling, magic and the like. He seemed ashamed of them. Oh and some on black magic! So what do y
ou make of that, eh, my young Flemish friend! Eh? Black magic!”
At which statement the concierge laughed. This set off a violent coughing fit. He threw his cigarette to the floor and insisted they wait a while for him to recover.
When they finally reached 205 the concierge at first tapped gently on the door, calling out to Deschamps in a regretful tone, glancing disapprovingly at Slokker all the while. But there was no answer, even when the medical student shouted through the keyhole and they had both banged uninhibitedly on the door. The commotion had attracted a small crowd of people in the hallway.
“Don’t you have a key?” Slokker asked the concierge.
“But he might just be out.” The old man replied grumpily.
“Open the door and don’t be such a fool! Something might have happened to him!” said a large, powdered lady cradling a white fluffy cat. She seemed to have more influence over the concierge than Slokker because to the medical student’s annoyance he bowed obsequiously and mumbled “Of course, of course, as you wish, Madame,” before drawing the key from his pocket and inserting it in the lock.
The concierge had some difficulty in dissuading the crowd from following them into the apartment, especially the powdered woman with the cat, but once they had been shooed away, he and Slokker made their way cautiously down the uncarpeted hall and into the main living room. The floor was littered with papers and discarded food cartons. Thick dust lay over everything. Clothes, old newspapers and books were heaped on the floor and Pieter and the concierge had to navigate between them carefully. The curtains were half-drawn and a stale, sickly odour permeated the room. Behind the curtains, newspapers had been stuck to the windowpanes creating a permanent yellow twilight. A brief further inspection revealed that the other rooms were in a similar state of chaos and neglect. There was no sign of Deschamps.
And then they came across a tiny, windowless room. Its walls had been draped with black velvet curtains. There was a large mirror on the wall, either side of which the curtains were parted, and a single chair with an electric lamp positioned just behind it. The bulb was of a very low wattage and the legs of the chair had been sawn off so that it tilted backwards. If you sat on the chair, you found yourself gazing directly into the mirror, only, judging from its height, it would not be possible to see one’s own reflection, only the mirror image of the darkness of the room.
“Eh, my friend? What do you make of it?” asked the concierge.
Slokker found himself completely lost for words.
Whatever had happened to Deschamps remained a mystery. It seemed that he had abandoned his rooms and Pieter Slokker was the last person to have seen him. The concierge reported Deschamps’ disappearance to the police and his name was added to their list of missing persons.
As the days passed, no more information was forthcoming. Deschamps had paid his rent for the month ahead, and the landlord decided that the rooms would remain unlet for this period, just in case his tenant should return. However, at the end of the month, the apartment would be re-advertised.
Shortly after his neighbour’s disappearance, Slokker, who, when not being awoken by deranged neighbours usually enjoyed a good night’s sleep, found himself experiencing a bout of sleepwalking. One night he woke to discover that he had left his rooms, wandered along the corridor, and was trying the door of Apartment 205. This pattern of sleepwalking repeated itself two or three times every night of the following week and finally Slokker was forced to resort to keeping himself in bed by means of an elaborate system of cords with which he bound his ankles to the bedstead. He tied the knots in so complicated a fashion that any attempt to unravel them in his sleep usually resulted in failure. He often awoke in pain, his fingertips sore and bleeding from picking at the unyielding rope.
Perhaps inevitably, Pieter’s studies began to suffer. After two weeks of exhaustion, he began to feel that the only way to put a stop to his unconscious compulsion was to find a way to re-enter Deschamps’ apartment. The next day, while a deliveryman was usefully distracting the concierge with a disputed receipt, Slokker managed to “borrow” the duplicate key from the hall office. He pressed it carefully into a tablet of wax he had prepared by melting a couple of candles.
As it turned out, having a copy key made was an easy matter. The key cutter in the booth on the Boulevard asked no awkward questions, and he made the key there and then, while the medical student waited on the street. Later that evening, when the building was quiet, Slokker made his way along the corridor. He carried with him a torch so that he would not risk attracting any unwelcome attention by switching on the lights.
The interior of the apartment was even more desolate by night. Nothing had been touched, and the only change was that a thicker layer of dust now covered the debris littering the floorboards.
Slokker flashed the torch around, making shadows start out from the peeling walls. Once in the windowless room he switched on the low-wattage lamp behind the chair and extinguished his torch. He sat down on the angled seat and directed his gaze to the mirror. The reflection showed only the velvet curtains behind him. He was looking into a rectangular slab of perfect blackness.
At first he focused on the surface of the mirror, but, because there was nothing of any interest to look at, he allowed his gaze gradually to relax. For some time nothing happened, but then the focus of his eyes altered and he seemed to be staring beyond the mirror at a distant object hidden in its depths. Slokker’s very gaze seemed to be bringing forth something from the darkness. Whatever it was, and he could not be sure there was really anything there, it was surrounded by a silvery-white glare. The object seemed to come closer the more he concentrated on it, and for a moment he had the feeling that something or someone was looking back at him, albeit from far away. Slokker could not be sure whether the distant vision was merely a product of his own imagination. The whole process was exhausting, and he found that he was developing a throbbing headache. Finally, he gave up the exercise and, as quietly as he could, made his way out of the rooms into the corridor.
Once back in his own apartment Slokker was astonished to discover that four hours had passed. He slumped gratefully onto his bed and for once fell immediately into a deep, untroubled sleep.
For the first few nights after this experience Slokker suffered no further episodes of sleepwalking. It seemed that his plan had worked and that his strange need to visit the windowless room had been sated. He gave up the practice of binding himself to the bed with cords, but on the fourth night, he awoke to find himself crawling on his hands and knees along the corridor towards 205.
Although he had discovered the cure for his somnambulism Slokker was loath to resort to it again. His visit to the room with the mirror had been troubling and unpleasant and although he was inclined to regard the far-off face in the mirror as a delusion brought on by tiredness, he retained a fear of it that he found hard to dismiss. However, he needed uninterrupted sleep if he were to continue his studies successfully, so the following morning he let himself into the abandoned apartment. This time he began a search of Deschamps’ rooms in the hope of discovering something to help him understand the purpose of the windowless room.
Deschamps’ books did not seem to have been arranged in any particular order. They were piled in corners and scattered randomly across the floor of the living room. However, as he examined them more closely, it appeared to Pieter that those most recently read had been piled around the base of a folding canvas chair. Deschamps seemed to have made notes about these on pieces of scrap paper, which he had then inserted into the volumes. He had also scrawled notes directly in the margins of some texts.
Contrary to the concierge’s assertion, very few of the books dealt with black magic, and these were riddled with dismissive remarks in pencil: “in other words an excuse for sexual self-gratification”, “the desire for power over others by means of a system of obfuscation”, “drug-related hallucinations”, “auto-suggestion and hypnosis” etc. The texts that appeared to have he
ld the most fascination for Deschamps were those stacked closest to the chair. Here Slokker found a series of privately-printed pamphlets dating from the early 1890s. He noticed that the pamphlets were all stamped with the official seal of the Bibliotheque Nationale: no doubt Deschamps had furthered his occult researches by stealing from a public library. Slokker sat down in the canvas chair to read them.
It seemed that they concerned the use of a chamber called a “psychomantium”. The pamphlets had been issued by an obscure sect of psychic researchers, and they were illustrated with photographic records of experiments conducted in rooms much like the one that Deschamps had fashioned in his apartment. The photo-graphs were evidently of long exposure and showed blurred and distorted images of a series of faces apparently reflected in a mirror. The pamphlets claimed these to be “the faces of the dead.” In truth, the quality of the reproduction was so poor that they rather resembled crudely fashioned dolls’ heads in various states of disrepair. Nevertheless, the accompanying texts stated that these were authentic visitations and that the mirror served as a doorway to the afterlife.
Once more, Slokker felt compelled to enter the windowless room. He turned on the feeble lamp, sat down before the mirror, and attempted to clear his mind. He stared into the void.
For the first few minutes he saw nothing. He began to relax, and then felt a prickling sensation at the back of his neck and he shivered as he realised that once again he could see the silvery-white glare within the depths of reflected darkness. And then he saw that within the glare was a face. The longer Slokker stared, the closer it seemed to approach, and the brighter became the glare, as if a camera lens were zooming in inexorably. He did not know how long he stared; his senses were becoming confused. That the face was that of a dead man Slokker had no doubt. The yellowish tinge of the bloodless skin betrayed that much, and the eyes of the apparition did not blink. But what caused him to overturn the chair and stagger out of the psychomantium in a blind panic was that the face he saw in the mirror was his own.
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