The Nightmare Factory

by Thomas Ligotti

  “But what?”

  “Well, it has to do with the prison. I know I sounded very smug in telling you how safe we are from prison escapes, and I still maintain that we are. But the one prisoner I’ve told you about is very strange, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. He is positively criminally psychotic…and then again he’s something else.”

  Leslie quizzed her husband with her eyes. “I thought you said he just bounces off the walls, not—”

  “Yes, much of the time he’s like that. But sometimes, well…”

  “What are you trying to say, David?” asked an uneasy Leslie.

  “It’s something that Doe said when I was talking with him today. Nothing really definite. But I’d feel infinitely more comfortable about the whole thing if Norleen stayed with your parents until we can organize ourselves.”

  Leslie lit another cigarette. “Tell me what he said that bothers you so much,” she said firmly. “I should know too.”

  “When I tell you, you’ll probably just think I’m a little crazy myself. You didn’t talk to him, though, and I did. The tone, or rather the many different tones of his voice; the shifting expressions on that lean face. Much of the time I talked to him I had the feeling he was beyond me in some way, I don’t know exactly how. I’m sure it was just the customary behavior of the psychopath—trying to shock the doctor. It gives them a sense of power.”

  “Tell me what he said,” Leslie insisted.

  “All right, I’ll tell you. As I said, it’s probably nothing. But toward the end of the interview today, when we were talking about those kids, and actually kids in general, he said something I didn’t like at all. He said it with an affected accent, Scottish this time with a little German flavor thrown in. He said: ‘You wouldn’t be havin’ a misbehavin’ laddie nor a little colleen of your own, now would you, Professor von Munck?’ Then he grinned at me silently.

  “Now I’m sure he was deliberately trying to upset me without, however, having any purpose in mind other than that.”

  “But what he said, David: ‘nor a little colleen.’”

  “Grammatically, of course, it should have been ‘or’ not ‘nor’, but I’m sure it wasn’t anything except a case of bad grammar.”

  “You didn’t mention anything about Norleen, did you?”

  “Of course I didn’t. That’s not exactly the kind of thing I would talk about with these…people.”

  “Then why did he say it like that?”

  “I have no idea. He possesses a very weird sort of cleverness, speaking much of the time with vague suggestions, even subtle jokes. He could have heard things about me from someone on the staff, I suppose. Then again, it might be just an innocent coincidence.” He looked to his wife for comment.

  “You’re probably right,” Leslie agreed with an ambivalent eagerness to believe in this conclusion. “All the same, I think I understand why you want Norleen to stay with my parents. Not that anything might happen—”

  “Not at all. There’s no reason to think anything would happen. Maybe this is a case of the doctor being out-psyched by his patient, but I don’t really care anymore. Any reasonable person would be a little spooked after spending day after day in the chaos and physical danger of that place…the murderers, the rapists, the dregs of the dregs. It’s impossible to lead a normal family life while working under those conditions. You saw how I was on Norleen’s birthday.”

  “I know. Not the best surroundings in which to bring up a child.”

  David nodded slowly. “When I think of how she looked when I went to check on her a little while ago, hugging one of those stuffed security blankets of hers.” He took a sip of his drink. “It was a new one, I noticed. Did you buy it when you were out shopping today?”

  Leslie gazed blankly. “The only thing I bought was that,” she said, pointing at the box on the coffee table. “What ‘new one’ do you mean?”

  “The stuffed Bambi. Maybe she had it before and I just never noticed it,” he said, partially dismissing the issue.

  “Well, if she had it before, it didn’t come from me,” Leslie said quite resolutely.

  “Nor me.”

  “I don’t remember her having it when I put her to bed,” said Leslie.

  “Well, she had it when I looked in on her after hearing…”

  David paused with a look on his face of intense thought, an indication of some frantic, rummaging search within.

  “What’s the matter, David?” Leslie asked, her voice weakening.

  “I’m not sure exactly. It’s as if I know something and don’t know it at the same time.”

  But Dr. Munck was beginning to know. With his left hand he covered the back of his neck, warming it. Was there a draft coming from somewhere, another part of the house? This was not the kind of house to be drafty, not a broken-down place where the wind gets in through ancient attic boards and warped window-frames. There actually was quite a wind blowing now; he could hear it hunting around outside and could see the restless trees through the window behind the Aphrodite sculpture. The goddess posed languidly with her flawless head leaning back, her blind eyes contemplating the ceiling and beyond. But beyond the ceiling? Beyond the hollow snoozing of the wind, cold and dead? And the draft?

  What?

  “David, do you feel a draft?” asked his wife.

  “Yes,” he replied very loudly and with unusual force.

  “Yes,” he repeated, rising out of the chair, walking across the room, his steps quickening toward the stairs, up the three segments, then running down the second-floor hallway. “Norleen, Norleen,” he chanted before reaching the half-closed door of her room. He could feel the breeze coming from there.

  He knew and did not know.

  He groped for the light switch. It was low, the height of a child. He turned on the light. The child was gone. Across the room the window was wide open, the white translucent curtains flapping upwards on the invading wind. Alone on the bed was the stuffed animal, torn, its soft entrails littering the mattress. Now stuffed inside, blooming out like a flower, was a piece of paper, and Dr. Munck could discern within its folds a fragment of the prison’s letterhead. But the note was not a typed message of official business: the handwriting varied from a neat italic script to a child’s scrawl. He desperately stared at the words for what seemed an infinite interval without comprehending their message. Then, finally, the meaning sank heavily in.

  Dr. Monk, read the note from inside the animal, We leave this behind in your capable hands, for in the black-foaming gutters and back alleys of paradise, in the dank windowless gloom of some galactic cellar, in the hollow pearly whorls found in sewerlike seas, in starless cities of insanity, and in their slums…my awe-struck little deer and I have gone frolicking. See you anon. Jonathan Doe.

  “David?” he heard his wife’s voice inquire from the bottom of the stairs. “Is everything all right?”

  Then the beautiful house was no longer quiet, for there rang a bright freezing scream of laughter, the perfect sound to accompany a passing anecdote of some obscure hell.

  LES FLEURS

  April 17th. Flowers sent out today in the early a.m.

  May 1st. Today—and I thought it would never happen again—I have met someone about whom, I think, I can be hopeful. Her name is Daisy. She works in a florist shop! The florist shop, I might add, where I quietly paid a visit to gather some sorrowful flowers for Clare, who to the rest of the world is still a missing person. At first, of course, Daisy was politely reserved when I asked about some lilting blossoms for a loved one’s memorial. I soon cured her, however, of this unnecessarily detached manner. In my deeply shy and friendly tone of voice I asked about some of the other flowers in the shop, ones having nothing to do with loss, if not everything to do with gain. She was quite glad to take me on a trumped-up tour of hyacinths and hibiscuses. I confessed to knowing next to nothing about commercial plants and things, and remarked on her enthusiasm for this field of study, hoping all the while that at least part of her
animation was inspired by me. “Oh, I love working with flowers,” she said. “I think they’re real interesting.” Then she asked if I was aware that there were plants having flowers which opened only at night, and that certain types of violets bloomed only in darkness underground. My inner flow of thoughts and sensations suddenly quickened. Though I had already sensed she was a girl of special imagination, this was the first hint I received of just how special it was. I judged my efforts to know her better would not be wasted, as they have been with others. “That is real interesting about those flowers,” I said, smiling a hothouse warm smile. There was a pause which I filled in with my name. She then told me hers. “Now what kind of flowers would you like?” she asked. I sedately requested an arrangement suitable for the grave of a departed grandmother. Before leaving the shop I told Daisy I might need to stop by again to satisfy some future floral needs. She seemed to have no objection to this. With the vegetation nestled in my arm I songfully walked out of the store. I then proceeded directly to Chapel Gardens cemetery. For a while I sincerely made the effort to find a headstone that might by coincidence display my lost one’s name. And any dates would just have to do. I thought she deserved this much at least. As events transpired, however, the recipient of my floral memorial had to be someone named Clarence.

  May 16th. Daisy visited my apartment for the first time and fell in love with its quaint refurbishments. “I adore well-preserved old places,” she said. It seemed to me she really did. I thought she would. She remarked what decorative wonders a few plants—of varying species—would do for the ancient rooms. She was obviously sensitive to the absence of natural adornments in my bachelor quarters. “Night-blooming cereuses?” I asked, trying not to mean too much by this and give myself away. A mild grin appeared on her face, but it was not an issue I thought I could press at the time, and even now I only delicately press it within these scrapbook pages. She wandered about the apartment at great length. I watched her, seeing the place with new eyes. Then suddenly I realized I had regrettably overlooked something. She looked it over. The object was positioned on a low table before a high window and between its voluminous curtains. It seemed so vulgarly prominent to me then, especially since I hadn’t intended to let her see anything of this sort so early in our friendship. “What is this?” she asked, her voice expressing a kind of outraged curiosity bordering on plain outrage. “It’s just a sculpture. I told you I do things like that. It’s not very good. Kind of dumb.” She examined the piece more closely. “Watch that,” I warned. She let out a tiny, unserious “Ow.” “Is it supposed to be some type of cactus?” she inquired. For a moment she seemed to take a genuine interest in that obscure objet d’art. “It has little teeth,” she observed, “on these big tongue things.” They do look like tongues; I’d never thought of that. Rather ingenious comparison, considering. I hoped her imagination had found fertile ground in which to grow, but instead she revealed a moribund disgust. “You might have better luck passing it off as an animal than a plant, or a sculpture of a plant, or whatever. It’s got a velvety kind of fur and looks like it might crawl away.” I felt like crawling away myself at that point. I asked her, as a quasi-botanist, if there were not plants resembling birds and other animal life. This was my feeble attempt to exculpate my creation from any charges of unnaturalness. It’s strange how you’re sometimes forced to assume an unsympathetic view of yourself through borrowed eyes. Finally I mixed some drinks and we went on to other things. I put on some music.

  Soon afterward, however, the bland harmony of the music was undermined by an unfortunate dissonance. That detective (Briceberg, I think) arrived for an unexpected encore of his interrogation re: the Clare affair. Fortunately I was able to keep him and his questions out in the hallway the entire time. We reviewed the previous dialogue we’d had. I reiterated to him that Clare was just someone I worked with and with whom I was professionally friendly. It appears that some of my co-workers, unidentified, suspect that Clare and I were romantically involved. “Office gossip,” I countered, knowing she was one girl who knew how to keep certain secrets, even if she could not be trusted with others. No, I said, I definitely had no idea where she could have disappeared to. I did manage to subversively hint, however, that I would not be surprised if in a sudden flight of neurotic despair she had impulsively relocated in some land of her heart’s desire. I myself had despaired to find that within Clare’s dark and promisingly moody borders lay a disappointing dreamland of white picket fences and flower-printed curtains. No, I didn’t tell that to the detective. Besides, I further argued, it was well known in the office that Clare had begun dating someone approximately seven to ten days (my personal estimation of the term of her disloyalty) before her disappearance. So why bother me? This, I found out, was the reason: he had also been informed, he informed me, of my belonging to a certain offbeat organization. I replied there was nothing offbeat in serious philosophical study; furthermore, I was an artist, as he well knew, and, as anybody knows, artistic personalities have a perfectly natural tendency toward such things. I thought he would understand if I put it that way. He did. The man appeared satisfied with my every statement. Indeed, he seemed overly eager to dismiss me as a suspect in the case, no doubt trying to create a false sense of security on my part and lead me to make an unwitting admission to the foulest kind of play. “Was that about the girl in your office?” Daisy asked me afterward. “Mm-hm,” I noised. I was brooding and silent for a while, hoping she would attribute this to my inward lament for that strange girl at the office and not to the lamentably imperfect evening we’d had. “Maybe I’d better go,” she said, and very soon did. There was not much of our date left to salvage anyway. After she abandoned me I got very drunk on a liqueur tasting of flowers from open fields, or so it seemed. I also took this opportunity to reread a story about some men who visit the white waste regions of a polar wonderland. I don’t expect to dream tonight, having already sated myself with this frigid fantasy. Brotherhood of Paradise offbeat indeed!

  September 21st. Day came up to the cool, clean offices of G.R. Glacy, the advertising house of whores and horrors, to meet me for lunch. I introduced her around the department to the few people I get along with, and definitely not to those vicious copy-slingers who spread rumors about me. I also showed her my little corner of commercial artistry, including my latest project. “Oh, that’s lovely,” she said when I pointed out the drawing of a nymph with flowers in her freshly shampooed hair. “That’s really nice.” That “nice” remark almost spoiled my day. I asked her to look closely at the flowers mingling freshly in the fresh locks of this mythical being. It was barely noticeable that one of the flower stems was growing out of, or perhaps into, the creature’s head. Day didn’t seem to appreciate the craftiness of my craft very much. And I thought we were making such progress along “offbeat” paths. (Damn that Briceberg!) Perhaps I should wait until we return from our trip before showing her any of my paintings. I want her to be prepared. Everything is all prepared for our vacation, at least; Day finally found someone to take care of the cat who shares her flat.

  October 10th. Good-bye diary. See you when I get back.

  November 1st. With ecstasy and exasperation, I here record a particular episode from Day’s and my tropical sojourn. I’m not sure whether the following adventure represents an impasse or a turning point in the course of our relationship. Perhaps there is some point that I have failed to entirely get. As yet I am, not surprisingly, in the dark. Here, nevertheless, is a fragment from our escapist interlude.

  An Hawaiian paradise at midnight. Actually we were just gazing upon the beachside luxuriance from our hotel veranda. Day was bemused by several exotic drinks that wore flowers on their foamy heads. I was in a condition similar to hers. A few moments of heady silence passed, punctuated by an occasional sigh from Day. We heard the flapping of invisible wings whipping the warm air in darkness. We listened closely to the sounds of black orchids growing, even if there were none. “Mmmm,” hummed Day. We were r
ipe for a whim. I had one, not knowing yet if I could pull it thoroughly off. “Can you smell the mysterious cereus?” I asked, placing one hand on her far shoulder and dramatically passing the other in a horizontal arc before the jungle beyond. “Can you?” I hypnotically repeated. “I can,” said a game Day. “But can we find them, Day, and watch them open in the moonlight?” “We can, we can,” she chanted giddily. We could. Suddenly the smooth-skinned leaves of the night garden were brushing against our smooth-skinned selves. Day paused to touch a flower that was orange or red but smelled of a deep violet. I encouraged us to press on across the flower-bedded earth. We plunged deeper into the dream garden. Faster, faster, faster the sounds and smells rushed by us. It was easier than I thought. At some point, with almost no effort at all, I successfully managed our full departure from known geography. “Day, Day,” I shouted in the initial confusion and excitement. “We’re here. I’ve never shown this to anyone. It’s been such a torturous secret, Day. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, and show you. No, don’t speak. Look, look.” Oh, the thrill of seeing this dark paradise with new eyes. With doubled intensity would I now see my world. My world. She was somewhere near me in the darkness. I waited, seeing her a thousand ways in my mind before actually gazing at the real Day. I looked. “What’s wrong with the stars, the sky?” was all she said. She was trembling.

  At breakfast the next morning I subtly probed her for impressions and judgments of the night before. But she was badly hung over and had only a chaotic recall of the previous night. Oh, well.

  Since our return I have been working on a painting entitled “Sanctum Obscurum.” Though I have done this kind of work many times before, I am including in this one elements that I hope will stir Day’s memory and precipitate a conscious recollection of not only a certain night in the islands but of all the subtle and not so subtle messages I have tried to communicate to her. I only pray she will understand.