Monstrous Affections

by David Nickle

  “Sick,” Judith whispered. “Herman was right. We shouldn’t have come.”

  When Mrs. Sloan closed the album this time, she put it back underneath the coffee table. She patted Judith’s arm with her mutilated hand and smiled. “No, no, dear. I’m happy you’re here — happier than you can know.”

  Judith wanted nothing more at that moment than to get up, grab her suitcase, throw it in the car and leave. But of course she couldn’t. Herman wasn’t back yet, and she couldn’t think of leaving without him.

  “If Herman’s father was doing all these things, why didn’t you just divorce him?”

  “If that photograph offends you, why don’t you just get up and leave, right now?”

  “Herman — ”

  “Herman wouldn’t like it,” Mrs. Sloan finished for her. “That’s it, isn’t it?” Judith nodded.

  “He’s got you too,” continued Mrs. Sloan, “just like his father got me. But maybe it’s not too late for you.”

  “I love Herman. He never did anything like . . . like that.”

  “Of course you love him. And I love Mr. Sloan — desperately, passionately, over all reason.” The corner of Mrs. Sloan’s mouth perked up in a small, bitter grin.

  “Would you like to hear how we met?”

  Judith wasn’t sure she would, but she nodded anyway. “Sure.”

  “I was living in Toronto with a friend at the time, had been for several years. As I recall, she was more than a friend — we were lovers.” Mrs. Sloan paused, obviously waiting for a reaction. Judith sat mute, her expression purposefully blank.

  Mrs. Sloan went on: “In our circle of friends, such relationships were quite fragile. Usually they would last no longer than a few weeks. It was, so far as we knew anyway, a minor miracle that we’d managed to stay together for as long as we had.” Mrs. Sloan gave a bitter laugh. “We were very proud.”

  “How did you meet Herman’s father?”

  “On a train,” she said quickly. “A subway train. He didn’t even speak to me. I just felt his touch. I began packing my things that night. I can’t even remember what I told her. My friend.”

  “It can’t have been like that.”

  Judith started to get up, but Mrs. Sloan grabbed her, two fingers and a thumb closing like a trap around her forearm. Judith fell back down on the sofa. “Let go!”

  Mrs. Sloan held tight. With her other hand she took hold of Judith’s face and pulled it around to face her.

  “Don’t argue with me,” she hissed, her eyes desperately intent. “You’re wasting time. They’ll be back soon, and when they are, we won’t be able to do anything.

  “We’ll be under their spell again!”

  Something in her tone caught Judith, and instead of breaking away, of running to the car and waiting inside with the doors locked until Herman got back — instead of slapping Mrs. Sloan, as she was half-inclined to do — Judith sat still.

  “Then tell me what you mean,” she said, slowly and deliberately.

  Mrs. Sloan let go, and Judith watched as relief flooded across her features. “We’ll have to open the album again,” she said. “That’s the only way I can tell it.”

  The pictures were placed in the order they’d been taken. The first few were close-ups of different parts of Mr. Sloan’s anatomy, always taken while he slept. They could have been pictures of Herman, and Judith saw nothing strange about them until Mrs. Sloan began pointing out the discrepancies: “Those ridges around his nipples are made of something like fingernails,” she said of one, and “the whole ear isn’t any bigger than a nickel,” she said, pointing to another grainy Polaroid. “His teeth are barely nubs on his gums, and his navel . . . look, it’s a slit. I measured it after I took this, and it was nearly eight inches long. Sometimes it grows longer, and I’ve seen it shrink to less than an inch on cold days.”

  “I’d never noticed before,” murmured Judith, although as Mrs. Sloan pointed to more features she began to remember other things about Herman: the thick black hairs that only grew between his fingers, his black triangular toenails that never needed cutting . . . and where were his fingernails? Judith shivered with the realization.

  Mrs. Sloan turned the page.

  “Did you ever once stop to wonder what you saw in such a creature?” she asked Judith.

  “Never,” Judith replied, wonderingly.

  “Look,” said Mrs. Sloan, pointing at the next spread. “I took these pictures in June of 1982.”

  At first they looked like nature pictures, blue-tinged photographs of some of the land around the Sloans’ house. But as Judith squinted she could make out a small figure wearing a heavy green overcoat. Its head was a little white pinprick in the middle of a farmer’s field. “Mr. Sloan,” she said, pointing.

  Mrs. Sloan nodded. “He walks off in that direction every weekend. I followed him that day.”

  “Followed him where?”

  “About a mile and a half to the north of here,” said Mrs. Sloan, “there’s an old farm property. The Sloans must own the land — that’s the only explanation I can think of — although I’ve never been able to find the deed. Here — ” she pointed at a photograph of an ancient set of fieldstone foundations, choked with weeds “ — that’s where he stopped.”

  The next photograph in the series showed a tiny black rectangle in the middle of the ruins. Looking more closely, Judith could tell that it was an opening into the dark of a root cellar. Mr. Sloan was bent over it, peering inside. Judith turned the page, but there were no photographs after that.

  “When he went inside, I found I couldn’t take any more pictures,” said Mrs. Sloan. “I can’t explain why, but I felt a compelling terror, unlike anything I’ve ever felt in Mr. Sloan’s presence. I ran back to the house, all the way. It was as though I were being pushed.”

  That’s weird. Judith was about to say it aloud, but stopped herself — in the face of Mrs. Sloan’s photo album, everything was weird. To comment on the fact seemed redundant.

  “I can’t explain why I fled, but I have a theory.” Mrs. Sloan set the volume aside and stood. She walked over to the window, spread the blinds an inch, and checked the driveway as she spoke. “Herman and his father aren’t human. That much we can say for certain — they are monsters, deformed in ways that even radiation, even thalidomide couldn’t account for. They are physically repulsive; their intellects are no more developed than that of a child of four. They are weak and amoral.”

  Mrs. Sloan turned, leaning against the glass. “Yet here we are, you and I. Without objective evidence — ” she gestured with her good hand towards the open photo album “ — we can’t even see them for what they are. If they were any nearer, or perhaps simply not distracted, we wouldn’t even be able to have this conversation. Tonight, we’ll go willingly to their beds.” At that, Mrs. Sloan visibly shuddered. “If that’s where they want us.”

  Judith felt the urge to go to the car again, and again she suppressed it. Mrs. Sloan held her gaze like a cobra.

  “It all suggests a power. I think it suggests talismanic power.” Here Mrs. Sloan paused, looking expectantly at Judith.

  Judith wasn’t sure what “talismanic” meant, but she thought she knew what Mrs. Sloan was driving at. “You think the source of their power is in that cellar?”

  “Good.” Mrs. Sloan nodded slowly. “Yes, Judith, that’s what I think. I’ve tried over and over to get close to that place, but I’ve never been able to even step inside those foundations. It’s a place of power, and it protects itself.”

  Judith looked down at the photographs. She felt cold in the pit of her stomach. “So you want me to go there with you, is that it?”

  Mrs. Sloan took one last look out the window then came back and sat down. She smiled with an awkward warmth. “Only once since I came here have I felt as strong as I do today. That day, I chopped these off with the wood-axe — ” she held up her three-fingered hand and waggled the stumps “ — thinking that, seeing me mutilated, Herman’s father woul
d lose interest and let me go. I was stupid; it only made him angry, and I was . . . punished. But I didn’t know then what I know today. And,” she added after a brief pause, “today you are here.”

  The Sloan men had not said where they were going when they left in the pickup truck, so it was impossible to tell how much time the two women had. Mrs. Sloan found a flashlight, an axe and a shovel in the garage, and they set out immediately along a narrow path that snaked through the trees at the back of the yard. There were at least two hours of daylight left, and Judith was glad. She wouldn’t want to be trekking back through these woods after dark.

  In point of fact, she was barely sure she wanted to be in these woods in daylight. Mrs. Sloan moved through the underbrush like a crazy woman, not even bothering to move branches out of her way. But Judith was slower, perhaps more doubtful.

  Why was she doing this? Because of some grainy photographs in a family album? Because of what might as well have been a ghost story, told by a woman who had by her own admission chopped off two of her own fingers? Truth be told, Judith couldn’t be sure she was going anywhere but crazy following Mrs. Sloan through the wilderness.

  Finally, it was the memories that kept her moving. As Judith walked, they manifested with all the vividness of new experience.

  The scriptorium near Lisbon was deserted — the tour group had moved on, maybe up the big wooden staircase behind the podium, maybe down the black wrought-iron spiral staircase. Judith couldn’t tell; the touch on the back of her neck seemed to be interfering. It penetrated, through skin and muscle and bone, to the juicy centre of her spine. She turned around and the wet thing behind pulled her to the floor. She did not resist.

  “Hurry up!” Mrs. Sloan was well ahead, near the top of a ridge of rock in the centre of a large clearing. Blinking, Judith apologized and moved on.

  Judith was fired from her job at Joseph’s only a week after she returned from Portugal. It seemed she had been late every morning, and when she explained to her boss that she was in love, it only made things worse. Talia flew into a rage, and Judith was afraid that she would hit her. Herman waited outside in the mall.

  Mrs. Sloan helped Judith clamber up the smooth rock face. When she got to the top, Mrs. Sloan took her in her arms. Only then did Judith realize how badly she was shaking.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Sloan pulled back and studied Judith’s face with real concern.

  “I’m . . . remembering,” said Judith.

  “What do you remember?”

  Judith felt ill again, and she almost didn’t say.

  “Judith!” Mrs. Sloan shook her. “This could be important!”

  “All right!” Judith shook her off. She didn’t want to be touched, not by anyone.

  “The night before last, I brought Herman home to meet my parents. I thought it had gone well . . . until now.”

  “What do you remember?” Mrs. Sloan emphasized every syllable.

  “My father wouldn’t shake Herman’s hand when he came in the door. My mother . . . she turned white as a ghost. She backed up into the kitchen, and I think she knocked over some pots or something, because I heard clanging. My father asked my mother if she was all right. All she said was no. Over and over again.”

  “What did your father do?”

  “He excused himself, went to check on my mother. He left us alone in the vestibule, it must have been for less than a minute. And I . . .” Judith paused, then willed herself to finish. “I started . . . rubbing myself against Herman. All over. He didn’t even make a move. But I couldn’t stop myself. I don’t even remember wanting to stop. My parents had to pull me away, both of them.” Judith felt like crying.

  “My father actually hit me. He said I made him sick. Then he called me . . . a little whore.”

  Mrs. Sloan made a sympathetic noise. “It’s not far to the ruins,” she said softly. “We’d better go, before they get back.”

  It felt like an hour had passed before they emerged from the forest and looked down on the ruins that Judith had seen in the Polaroids. In the setting sun, they seemed almost mythic — like Stonehenge, or the Aztec temples Judith had toured once on a trip to Cancun. The stones here had obviously once been the foundation of a farmhouse. Judith could make out the outline of what would have been a woodshed extending off the nearest side, and another tumble of stonework in the distance was surely the remains of a barn — but now they were something else entirely. Judith didn’t want to go any closer. If she turned back now, she might make it home before dark.

  “Do you feel it?” Mrs. Sloan gripped the axe-handle with white knuckles. Judith must have been holding the shovel almost as tightly. Although it was quite warm outside, her teeth began to chatter.

  “If either of us had come alone, we wouldn’t be able to stand it,” said Mrs. Sloan, her voice trembling. “We’d better keep moving.”

  Judith followed Herman’s stepmother down the rocky slope to the ruins. Her breaths grew shorter the closer they got. She used the shovel as a walking stick until they reached level ground, then held it up in both hands, like a weapon.

  They stopped again at the edge of the foundation. The door to the root cellar lay maybe thirty feet beyond. It was made of sturdy, fresh-painted wood, in sharp contrast to the overgrown wreckage around it, and it was embedded in the ground at an angle. Tall, thick weeds sprouting galaxies of tiny white flowers grew in a dense cluster on top of the mound. They waved rhythmically back and forth, as though in a breeze.

  But it was wrong, thought Judith. There was no breeze, the air was still. She looked back on their trail and confirmed it — the tree branches weren’t even rustling.

  “I know,” said Mrs. Sloan, her voice flat. “I see it too. They’re moving on their own.”

  Without another word, Mrs. Sloan stepped across the stone boundary. Judith followed, and together they approached the shifting mound.

  As they drew closer, Judith half-expected the weeds to attack, to shoot forward and grapple their legs, or to lash across their eyes and throats with prickly venom.

  In fact, the stalks didn’t even register the two women’s presence as they stepped up to the mound. Still, Judith held the shovel ready as Mrs. Sloan smashed the padlock on the root cellar door. She pried it away with a painful-sounding rending.

  “Help me lift this,” said Mrs. Sloan.

  The door was heavy, and earth had clotted along its top, but with only a little difficulty they managed to heave it open. A thick, milky smell wafted up from the darkness.

  Mrs. Sloan switched on the flashlight and aimed it down. Judith peered along its beam — it caught nothing but dust motes, and the uncertain-looking steps of a wooden ladder.

  “Don’t worry, Judith,” breathed Mrs. Sloan, “I’ll go first.” Setting the flashlight on the ground for a moment, she turned around and set a foot on one of the upper rungs. She climbed down a few steps, then picked up the flashlight and gave Judith a little smile.

  “You can pass down the axe and shovel when I get to the bottom,” she said, and then her head was below the ground. Judith swallowed with a dry click and shut her eyes.

  “All right,” Mrs. Sloan finally called, her voice improbably small. “It’s too far down here for you to pass the tools to me by hand. I’ll stand back — drop them both through the hole then come down yourself.”

  Judith did as she was told. At the bottom of the darkness she could make out a flickering of light, just bright enough for her to see where the axe and shovel fell. They were very tiny at the bottom of the hole. Holding her breath, Judith mounted the top rung of the ladder and began her own descent.

  Despite its depth, the root cellar was warm. And the smell was overpowering. Judith took only a moment to identify it. It was Herman’s smell, but magnified a thousandfold — and exuding from the very walls of this place.

  Mrs. Sloan had thoroughly explored the area at the base of the ladder by the time Judith reached her.

  “The walls are earthen, shorn up with bare timbe
r,” she said, shining the light along the nearest wall to illustrate. “The ceiling here tapers up along the length of the ladder — I’d guess we’re nearly forty feet underground.”

  Judith picked up the shovel, trying not to imagine the weight of the earth above them.

  “There’s another chamber, through that tunnel.” Mrs. Sloan swung the flashlight beam down and to their right. The light extended into a dark hole in the wall, not more than five feet in diameter and rimmed with fieldstone. “That’s where the smell is strongest.”

  Mrs. Sloan stooped and grabbed the axe in her good hand. Still bent over, she approached the hole and shone the light inside.

  “The end’s still farther than the flashlight beam will carry,” she called over her shoulder. “I think that’s where we’ll have to go.”

  Judith noticed then that the tremor was gone from Mrs. Sloan’s voice. Far from sounding frightened, Herman’s mother actually seemed excited. It wasn’t hard to see why — this day might finish with the spell broken, with their freedom assured. Why wouldn’t she be excited?

  But Judith couldn’t shake her own sense of foreboding so easily. She wondered where Herman was now, what he would be thinking. And what was Judith thinking, on the verge of her freedom? Judith couldn’t put it to words, but the thought twisted through her stomach and made her stop in the dark chamber behind Mrs. Sloan. A little whore, her father had called her. Then he’d hit her, hard enough to bring up a swelling. Right in front of Herman, like he wasn’t even there! Judith clenched her jaw around a rage that was maddeningly faceless.

  “I’m not a whore,” she whispered through her teeth.

  Mrs. Sloan disappeared into the hole, and it was only when the chamber was dark that Judith followed.

  The tunnel widened as they went, its walls changing from wood-shorn earth to fieldstone and finally to actual rock. Within sixty feet the tunnel ended, and Mrs. Sloan began to laugh. Judith felt ill — the smell was so strong she could barely breath. Even as she stepped into the second chamber of the root cellar, the last thing she wanted to do was laugh.