So the countess’s apartments were sealed up. The main entrance was bricked over and, as I understand, only one secret entrance remained. Where this was situated only the count knew.
As for Louise, she never spoke to Count Armand again, but she gave birth to a son and soon after, died. Count Armand lived on for a short while until the Revolution came. During this, he and his young son perished by the guillotine. No collateral heirs could be found to succeed to the title or estates, and so expired the noble house of Bressac.
It is said, of course, that the dowager’s apartments in the château are haunted, and the countess’s screams echo still in that empty bathhouse, but who has ever been in there to prove it?
*
I drove back to the château with reckless speed. Something like madness had taken hold of me, a madness that compelled me to see this through to the end. It was about 5:00 p.m. when I returned, and still light. The sun was setting in blood behind the trees. As I entered the hall, I picked up the big old electric torch that the Bobelets had left me. I switched it on and off a couple of times. The batteries appeared to be young.
As I was driving back, a plan had formed in my mind. I had decided that I knew where the hidden entrance to the countess’s apartments might be. In my walks about the château I had come across a room on the first floor that was oddly shaped, like a right-angled triangle. It might have been the corner of a much bigger room, and it had running almost the length of its longest wall a huge fireplace with an elaborately carved overmantel, quite out of proportion to the size of the chamber. The carving in alabaster on the overmantel was badly damaged, but I noticed that it included a heraldic shield. The insignia carved on it were the arms of Bressac, as on the fireplace downstairs, but quartered with them on the shield was another armorial image: that of an eagle in full flight carrying a baby in its talons. I guessed that this could be the heraldic device of the Bartori family, and that the strangely situated fireplace might mark the entrance to the Old Countess’s secret apartments.
It may have taken me an hour—perhaps longer—to find that three of the carved alabaster bosses on the overmantel, when turned anticlockwise, released some system of counterweights that allowed part of the wall of the fireplace’s inglenook to slide back. A short dark passage with a flight of steps leading upwards at the end of it was revealed.
Putting a handy broken chair in the way of the stone door to prevent it from accidentally sliding shut, I switched on my torch and entered. At that moment I was too possessed with finishing and resolving what I had set out to find to think of the consequences.
I began to climb the steps. The masonry here was smooth and of the highest quality; its surface so polished that it dimly reflected the light of my torch. At the top of the steps I found a wooden door with a great ring handle of iron, richly wrought. I half-hoped the door would be locked and that my researches would end there. But I turned the ring and, after an initial protest, the latch rose easily on the other side. Rust had not corrupted: it was all too dry.
Beyond the door there was a series of small interconnecting chambers. The thing of which I was most immediately aware was an overpowering odor. The place reeked of decay and disintegration. As I looked around I saw the visible evidence of it. I was in a sort of lobby or anteroom, lavishly furnished. A Levantine Turkish rug was on the floor, its rich colors misted over with dust. Great hangings drooped in tatters from the walls. I was startled by a terrible scrabbling noise, only to find it was mice gouging a little city for themselves out of a divan.
I went into the second room, and there in the center was a great bed. It was roofed with a vast canopy of grey velvet dripping with golden thread. Moths and other creatures had gnawed great holes in its draperies, so it looked as if the bed was enmeshed in the web of a gigantic spider. Sheets and pillows were on the bed, the clothes slightly rumpled. If it wasn’t for the dust you might have thought that someone had just got out of it.
The next room was a dining room, and even thicker with dust. The table was made of various marbles in the Italian pietra dura style; its surface, still visible under the grime, a dazzling patterned mosaic of color.
Silver plates and jugs, much tarnished, stood on the table. Cobwebs festooned the epergnes and candelabra. At one end of the room was a magnificent cupboard, made from all kinds of wood, with rustic scenes fashioned out of gilt and tortoiseshell on the doors. The doors opened up to reveal the miniature façade of a house in the Palladian style with pillars and pilasters, rusticated masonry on the lower range and a wonderfully carved pediment depicting Neptune in his chariot drawn by sea horses and surrounded by conch-blowing Tritons. All this was in ivory, gilded here and there, with the windows made from the finest Venetian glass. The doors all opened to reveal spaces for keepsakes or old letters. Sections of the building could be pulled out as drawers by means of tiny golden knobs, and these drawers were filled with jewels of every kind, some loose, others made up into ornaments, and a hoard of gold and silver coins. I drew back from the sight, half afraid I might be tempted to steal them. I had a feeling that they were protected from theft by more than my own scruples.
Above the cupboard was a picture in a gilded wooden frame. It was the half-length of a woman in a powder-blue dress from about 1770. She was seated and leaning back idly on her left elbow, the hand caressing her cheek, one finger coquettishly playing over her lips as she stared out from the picture directly at the spectator. I was reminded of Boucher’s famous portrait of Madame de Pompadour, except that this was the work of a competent journeyman and not a master. The face was white, the hair jet-black and shining like polished ebony, the lips red and perfectly formed, while in the green eyes the painter had captured an expression of malign suspicion. They seemed to glitter in the torchlight and fix me with a particular gaze, as if she were alive.
At the end of this suite of rooms was a door of wood, braced and ornamented with ironwork in the Arabic style. It had a great iron catch that lifted easily enough. On smooth, uncreaking hinges the door swung outwards towards me. I stepped into the next room, which was vast, with a coldness about it quite unlike the others.
I knew that I must be in the bathhouse of the Countess’s apartments. I hardly had time to shine my torch over the Eastern sumptuousness of its marble and mosaic before a cold gust of wind from somewhere gave me such a shock that I dropped the torch. I saw it rolling away from me still alight. Then it disappeared, and I heard it smash against something and all light went out. It must have fallen into the bath. Then another blast of wind blew the door shut behind me.
The bang of the door was like a cannon shot, and the sound reverberated for what seemed like minutes. I knew terror then as I had never known it before—like a great marble fist thumping at my chest. Shaking and retching, I felt my way back to the door, murmuring little prayers like a child. I found the door, but it was shut fast and there was no way of opening it on my side. I tore my nails, scrabbling at the wood. I screamed and whimpered and banged until I was wet with blood and tears and perspiration. It was idiotic, I know. Nobody could possibly have heard me.
For a time—I have no idea how long—I was no better than a wild beast caught in a trap, and I only stopped shrieking finally out of exhaustion. If I had had the means to do so, I would have killed myself. I don’t like to think about some of the things I screamed aloud. I was cursing a God I hardly believed in, then the next minute groveling and begging his forgiveness. The only excuse I can offer is that my terror drove me a little mad, and so perhaps did the almost palpable evil of this place. Oh yes, I felt it this time.
Once my emotions were spent, a kind of calm came to me. My senses were sharpened. I could see absolutely nothing as the place was pitch dark, but I could hear, feel, and smell with great intensity. I felt again the cold blast of wind that had taken away my torch, then blown the door shut.
Well, I thought, if there is wind in the place, there must be some aperture through which it comes. I got up and began to walk ar
ound the bathhouse, keeping close to the walls. Many times I stopped, held my breath and listened. Had I heard something other than the sound I made? Was it a quiet, breathy, almost imperceptible snicker of laughter? The walls were damp, and once or twice I touched patches of slime. My feet slid gingerly over the floor in case I should meet with some obstacle. Once I tripped against something that rattled. I fell and, stretching out my right hand to protect my fall, I touched an object hard and round which rolled away. I stretched out again to grasp the thing. It had large holes in it. Some of its surface was smooth, some of it cracked and ragged. Then further down there were two rows of smaller objects like pebbles … or teeth. My hand first recoiled from the skull in horror, but then I picked it up and hurled it away from me. It gave me an odd satisfaction to hear the thing smash like a china vase against a wall.
Twice I went around those walls. The first time I seemed to come across a door, and I became elated. But no, it was the door that had closed on me. I confirmed my fears with a second tour. Then again I wanted to scream curses at God and die. I think I was closer to madness then than I have ever been, but something in me fought against it, silently in the dark. Slowly the urge to madness weakened, then it vanished as if it had never been. It was a victory of sorts, but I felt dull and lifeless after it. I was still going to die alone and never be found.
Slowly, my lethargy and despair lifted a little. I remembered that I had not yet located the source of the breeze and began to walk about feeling for it with my hands in front of me. The impression that I received was that it came up from somewhere. But it arrived in gusts, so that I had difficulty in following it to its source. Nevertheless, my attention was so fixed on feeling and hearing this one thing that I began to track it like a hound on a scent.
It was then that my enthusiasm almost betrayed me. As I began to feel this blast of air, I stepped forward confidently and my foot met emptiness. I threw myself backwards, and so just managed to prevent myself from falling into the sunken basin of the bathhouse. My caution returned. I crawled to the edge of the basin and let myself down into it.
The draught seemed to be coming from the floor of the bath, which was dry and had no trace of water in it, but though I was walking cautiously I nearly came to grief again. There was a hole in the floor. I knelt down and felt around it.
Part of the tiled base of the bath had given way and a hollow space underneath was exposed. I reached my hand inside. As far as I could tell the base of the pool was held up by brick pillars some two feet high. Evidently it had been heated in the ancient Roman manner by hot air from a furnace underneath. I climbed down into the spaces under the basin, where there was just room enough to crawl. If there had been a furnace under there, there would have been doors from which the fire was fed. It must have been from these that the breeze was coming. It was a small hope that I would be able to get through those doors, but it was the only hope I had.
I had to clear much debris before I began my journey under the bath and through the forest of brick pillars that supported it. In the pitch dark I was always bumping my head against them. Afraid that the floor above me might collapse, I moved gingerly. It was virtually impossible to tell where the breezes were coming from because the brick pillars were diverting their flow.
It might have been an hour, or more, or less—my situation had taken away from me all sense of time—before I ran up against a wall. I could have been going in circles for a long time before I met it. I worked my way along its brick surface, feeling carefully for any kind of door or aperture. I felt every crevice of the brick for a breath of wind. At last I could hear its whistling and moaning more distinctly. My hopes rose, but also my fears. I realized that I would soon know if there was a way of escape or not. Then my hands touched a pair of rusty metal plates under which the draught was blowing. These were the oven doors of the hypocaust. Would they open inwards or outwards?
I pushed, and they made no movement. There was no way of gripping them from the inside. With all the power that was available to me in that confined space, I heaved my shoulder against the metal. For that little effort I was deluged by an invisible but choking fall of dust and plaster. Even now the whole floor could collapse on top of me and I could die. Yet I fancied that the metal door had moved a little.
After a moment’s thought I decided to brace myself against one of the brick pillars and thrust with my feet against the metal doors. They grated against the stone lintel at the first shove and opened a fraction. I saw a column of dazzling moonlight ahead of me and drank in a mouthful of cold air. One more thrust with my feet, and the doors were open just as a further deluge of tiles and plaster began to rain down on me.
I scrambled out feet-first onto the floor of a narrow, vaulted passageway. The moonlight was coming in from ragged holes in the roof. It was hideously cold, but the relief warmed me. To my left was a staircase going downwards, to my right a fall of rubble and masonry. My only way was down. I took a few steps before I realized that I was on the winding stair that I had seen on the outside of the château. I stopped before the steps did and hesitated again. I faced a drop of what? Thirty or forty feet? Death was still the likeliest option.
A small hand pushed me and I fell into dark open air.
*
Gaston Bobelet found me the following morning lying on the gravel path at the southwest corner of the château. I was suffering from a mild concussion and a sprained ankle, but no bones had been broken so he did not see fit to take me to hospital, and for that I was grateful to him. During the rest of my term as château caretaker I spent my nights in a room at the Bobelets’ farmhouse, but Justin never knew that. When I returned to England I was not summoned to meet my cousin and make a report; I simply received a check through the post for the remainder of my house sitter’s salary. The following year I heard that Justin had sold the château: no reason was given.
Cousin Justin and I did not meet again until a family christening in the spring of this year. My sister had produced a male child and, not being one to pass by such an opportunity, had decided to call him Justin and invite his wealthy namesake to be the godfather.
The ceremony at her little village church went well. Little Justin received the baptismal waters without complaint. Big Justin and the other godparents, of whom I was one, stood around the font as the vicar conducted the ceremony. When this was over my sister, perhaps for the benefit of photographers, handed the baby to his richest godfather to hold. I saw a troubled look pass across Cousin Justin’s face, but he did his best to show willing. Like most childless men, he is not at ease with extreme infancy.
Justin junior emitted a gurgle of delight and stretched out a soft, plump little hand to caress his godfather’s cheek. When the baby touched his mouth, my Cousin Justin started violently and nearly dropped him. I saw the look on his face, and it was one of sheer terror. When our eyes met across the font I smiled and lifted my fingers to my lips, flickering them a little as I did so. Justin’s normally reddish complexion was now as grey as the surrounding stone. The baby began to cry, so my sister rapidly grabbed him back from his godfather’s arms.
I felt at last that I had been paid in full for my time at the château.
To the memory of the late, great Ingrid Pitt.
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*
Two O’Clock Session
RICHARD MATHESON
RICHARD MATHESON is a master of modern science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and Stephen King credits him with single-handedly regenerating a stagnant genre. Matheson’s first published story, “Born of Man and Woman,” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1950 and was the title story of his first collection, published four years later.
His work has subsequently been collected in such volumes as The Shores of Space, four volumes of Shock, The Collected Stories of Richard Matheson, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet: Horror Stories by Richard Matheson, Duel: Terror Stories by Richard Matheson, Off Beat: Uncollected Stories, Button Button: Uncann
y Stories, and Steel and Other Stories. His best-known novels include the influential I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man, A Stir of Echoes, Hell House, the World Fantasy Award-winning Bid Time Return, and What Dreams May Come, all of which have been turned into movies.
More recent titles have included a series of Westerns, plus 7 Steps to Midnight, Now You See It…, Camp Pleasant, Hunted Past Reason, Come Fygures Come Shadowes, and Other Kingdoms.
Not only did Matheson script fourteen episodes of Rod Serling’s classic The Twilight Zone TV series, but his produced film scripts also include The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, Master of the World, Night of the Eagle (aka Burn, Witch, Burn), Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Comedy of Terrors, Fanatic (aka Die! Die! My Darling!), The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride), De Sade, Duel, Dying Room Only, Scream of the Wolf, Dracula, The Stranger Within, Trilogy of Terror, Dead of Night, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Jaws 3-D, The Dreamer of Oz, Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics, Trilogy of Terror II, and the two “Kolchak” TV movies, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler.
Matheson was awarded the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984 and the World Horror Convention’s Living Legend Award in 2000.
“Ray Bradbury was the icon to be emulated when I was starting as a writer,” explains the author. “The opportunity to write a story for a book which was to be a tribute to Ray was not to be resisted. That is this reprinted story. I tried to make it possess the ‘flavor’ of a Bradbury tale.
“I hope I succeeded, at least partially. The readers will decide that.”
THE BREAKTHROUGH CAME at 2:41. Until that time, Maureen had done little more than repeat the bitter litany against her parents and brother.
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