The Nameless

by Ramsey Campbell

  At last she stepped forward. She was still gripping the length of pipe, though there seemed to be nothing to fear. She had to see the kind of place where Angela had been forced to live. She stepped into the hall, and was afraid at once.

  It wasn't only the dimness and the sudden chill. The air felt cold and soft, almost like walking into mold. Or perhaps it was her mind rather than her body that was being hemmed in, suffocating her thoughts. She managed to persuade herself that it was only her fears that were closing in, her dread of what she might find, and jet lag was doing the rest. Nothing could harm her in an empty house. She could see that the doors on the upper floor were open too.

  Nevertheless she found she was creeping along the hall, until she realized that however heavily she trod she couldn't hear her footsteps. She began to walk quickly, to be through the house and out again as soon as she could, for the hallway felt as if the walls were closer than they looked. That was only apprehension and jet lag and the dimness, and she mustn't let them cramp her thoughts.

  The first of the ground-floor rooms was bare except for several mattresses lying on the floorboards. Lumps of stuffing protruded like worms from the mattresses. She hurried past, and was almost in the kitchen before she realized that she'd suffered a momentary blackout, a jerk of consciousness like dozing. There was no point in searching the kitchen: the oven and cupboards were open--their dark interiors looked unpleasantly like spiders' nests. She turned aside to the second room. ------------------------------------270

  Here was nothing but a gathering of half a dozen armchairs that faced a hearth blurred by soot. She had a grotesque image of the cultists settling down before the fire in the evenings, chatting or reading newspapers, for a newspaper was protruding from beneath the arm of the farthest chair. Though the dimness felt as if the walls were padded, she went into the room.

  When she peered at the newspaper she couldn't believe the date. She must be misreading it in the dimness. She made to draw back the curtains, but as soon as she touched them her hand recoiled; they felt more like a mass of cobwebs, grimy and clinging. Was it only her touch that had made them stir slightly? Suppose there was something behind them or in them? Furious with herself--she was growing as fearful as Iris--she wrenched them back with the length of pipe, then she turned to the newspaper.

  She hadn't been mistaken. It was yesterday's newspaper. police search Glasgow for missing pensioner, a headline said. All at once the headline seemed ominously relevant, but she couldn't quite pick up the newspaper, not from the three-legged armchair whose leather had sprouted a kind of whitish fur. She had never seen leather look so recognizably animal. In fact, the way the deformed chair leaned toward her, it looked not quite dead.

  So the cult had been here until yesterday. These were the conditions in which they had forced Angela to live. She stormed out of the room--it was all she could do in order to act out her appalled helpless fury--and was almost in the kitchen again before she jerked back to herself. Though her blackouts must be caused by tension and jet lag, they were deeply unnerving. Enough tricks had been played on her without her own body's joining in.

  She tramped upstairs. A few crooked scraps of carpet squelched underfoot; dark moisture welled up around her shoes. A loft entrance gaped above the stairwell, out of ------------------------------------271

  reach. At the top of the stairs the linoleum was slimy with water, a rusty trickle from a clogged washbowl in the bathroom.

  She lost her footing almost at once. Her palm slapped the wall, which felt fattened and hairy. It must be mold. Wiping her hand violently on her sleeve, she glanced into the rooms.

  One must have been the main dormitory, for it was full of mattresses. If these and the mattresses downstairs had all been occupied, there must have been at least two dozen people in the house. She had to peer before she was certain that they were unoccupied now, that none of the huddles of worn blankets was stirring. The traffic noise was pounding into her head, the walls were growing fatter. She hurried to the other room.

  Except for a blackened filing cabinet, it was almost empty. She was halfway to the cabinet before she noticed that the fireplace was choked with the remains of books. When she poked them the charred pages spilled onto the floor, crumbling into oily flakes that made her cough. They made the room darker than ever, so dark that she ran to the filing cabinet, in the hope that it contained nothing that would require her to stay. Nor did it, for when she pulled out the drawers she found it was gutted. Everything within had been burned.

  Now that she had her wish it was not reassuring. On the contrary, it seemed terribly final. She was trying to think what it could mean, but the air in the room was fluttering darkly, her brain felt as clogged as her nostrils. She ran out, skidding on the wet linoleum, and down the stairs. Only the dimness made the walls look swollen. The crawling which she glimpsed above her on the wall was nothing but the stream of water. She was downstairs now. In a moment she would be out of the house. At least, she would have been, except that the back door was locked. ------------------------------------272

  She'd had another blackout. That was how she'd returned to the kitchen without even knowing. She could admit to herself that the blackouts were frightening, for the fear would help her run down the hall and out of the front door instead of stepping forward into the kitchen. But it was not a blackout that was making her take several paces into the kitchen before turning to see what had been out of sight beyond the doorway all the time: the cellar door.

  They had never been blackouts at all. It was her will that had been suffocated, not her consciousness. She was helpless to prevent her hand from reaching out to the cellar door. She was aware how the doorknob felt--a lump of dust or cobwebs clung to it, and now to her fingers--but she couldn't flinch away. As the door squealed open amid a sudden random silence of traffic, she couldn't even raise the length of pipe.

  Beyond the doorway, rough steps led down into darkness. She stepped forward at once. The softness of the house had filled her brain, and she was unable to stop herself. Even though the dark at the foot of the steps smelled like an abattoir, and felt as though a crowd were waiting breathlessly for her, she could only close the door behind her, go down the steps, and wait in the dark. She couldn't even make a grab for the light switch.

  As she turned to the door, to close out the meagre light, she slipped. She was falling into the dark. Perhaps some part of her mind was alert for the chance, for as she clutched at the wall to steady herself, her free hand struck the switch. The light went on below her, and she saw where she was going.

  Though the cellar was not large, the light was too dim to illuminate the corners. Were they full of Shadows or of something else? Certainly the place still felt crowded, however bare it looked. On the floor beneath the light was a makeshift cage of iron railings bound together with thick ------------------------------------273

  cables. The railings were driven into the floor. Between the bars of the cage, which was hardly big enough to hold a child, a mass of hair was caught, white except for a silver streak.

  Perhaps the shock of her fall on the steps had given her back something of herself. The horror of what she was seeing jarred her momentarily out of her helplessness, and she staggered against the door to hold it open. Her heels were skidding on the steps, it was as though the hungry dimness had tripped her in order to drag her down, but she struggled out into the kitchen and ran toward the hall.

  The swollen dimness was crushing her thoughts, her will was giving way, but the front door was wide open, the sunlight was almost in reach. Yet she was hardly out of the kitchen when she lurched to a halt. In the lull of the traffic she heard a quick stumbling, softer than bare feet yet heavy enough to make the uncarpeted stairs creak. Between her and the front door, something was coming downstairs. ------------------------------------274 ------------------------------------275

  275

  Thirty-four

  There was only the back door. She mustn't be afraid t
o go back into the kitchen; at least it was brighter than the hall, and she still had the length of pipe. She could smash the window in the door--it was lower than the window above the sink--and clamber out that way. Her legs felt dislocated by fear, but she could run. She hadn't time to think.

  As soon as she fled into the kitchen she forgot which door she wanted. It was the nearer one, of course, the one beyond which steps led down; she could hide there. The soft tread had reached the hall now, and was approaching slowly but relentlessly. One limb sounded considerably larger than the other, and the body seemed to be slithering along both walls at once.

  Suddenly she could hear nothing for the traffic, not even her own sobs of panic as she realized where she had ------------------------------------276

  almost gone. She ran at the locked door, raising the pipe in both hands. She didn't dare look back as she slammed the pipe against the window with all her strength.

  Perhaps the window was toughened to ward off burglars. The end of the pipe bent slightly, but the glass was unmarked. Something was growing closer and clearer in the dimness of the hall, and she was battering wildly at the glass with the length of pipe. Her inability to hear the blows emphasized their uselessness.

  Suddenly a crack which resembled a very small twig appeared in the window. She smashed at it with the pipe, and shards fell outward, glittering in the sunlight that seemed utterly beyond her reach. She grabbed the door frame and balanced on one shaking leg as she pulled off her shoe. With the heel she knocked out fragments of glass. Now the gap was large enough for her to crawl through--larger, for a fragment the size of her head dropped out of the top of the frame, narrowly missing her--if she were able to climb.

  She had never been athletic. If she had been able to raise her leg as high as the window she would have kicked out the glass rather than take off her shoe. She tried to grab the empty frame, but sharp edges of glass were embedded wherever she tried to get hold. She could see movement in the hall, movement that looked almost as large as the doorway, yet her hands were flinching back from the glass.

  Then she saw the stove. It was almost close enough to the door. She dragged it closer, and felt something rip loose from the wall. At once there was a sijnell of gas, and perhaps it was the gas that was closing "softly over her thoughts, making her wonder why she was going to so much trouble when a door was already open and waiting for her.

  She hauled herself up wildly, one foot inside the oven. ------------------------------------277

  Her shoe slipped in grease, she had a glimpse of the dark clogged interior, and then she had pushed herself half out of the broken window. Glass clawed at her shoulders. Her palms were shoving against the gritty bricks on both sides of the door, her feet were thrusting at the top of the stove, and then she was falling facedown on the ground outside the door.

  The fall bruised her forearms and wrenched her right shoulder. The copper pipe flew from her hand. She struggled to her feet at once and ran toward the concrete pillars. Even though she was free of the house, back in the everyday, she was terrified that something would be waiting for her on the far side of the house. Nothing stirred except scraps of litter, nothing was hiding among the pillars. Nevertheless, even when she had crossed the road and reached the service station she didn't dare stop running.

  Eventually she slowed enough to be able to think. Pedestrians were crossing a thin bridge to Sauchiehall Street; church bells were just audible amid the traffic, where they sounded distorted as faults in the engines. At least there were people who seemed ordinary, and she followed them across the bridge. Those of them who met her eyes frowned or looked quickly away.

  Did she look as desperate as she felt? The cult must have had to find another hiding place because the police were searching for the old woman they had captured. Far worse than their having cheated Barbara of her child yet again was the thought that perhaps they had involved Angela in whatever they had done in the cellar. No, she had still to be initiated, surely. Barbara must cling to that conviction, for she had nothing else to cling to.

  She'd followed the pedestrians halfway down Sauchiehall Street before she was conscious of where she was going. She had to get some money so that she could take the bus ------------------------------------278

  to the airport. She needed to see Ted, to be with him. She felt as if he was all the stability she had.

  Though she could hardly believe the time, it wasn't yet ten o'clock. Ted would be expecting her to emerge from Customs around half past eleven. She slipped her plastic card into the slot in the wall outside the bank and waited for the metal cover to lift from the keyboard so that she could type her code number.

  Nothing happened. She tried to push at the cover in case it was stuck, but it was firm as a limpet. It took her a while to notice the feeble electric letters that were flickering above the slot: unable to accept your card. Then why hadn't the card emerged from the reject slot? In a moment she saw why, for a red metal tag clicked into place over the glimmering letters. Not in use, it said.

  The cover gleamed at her with a blankness so innocent it seemed idiotic. The slot was too narrow for her to reach in; besides, no doubt her card was deep in the machine. She was close to screaming, but what would that achieve? Though the nightmare she was living seemed to have turned into a farce, it was just as unbearable.

  She was going to have to walk. She had seen a route sign as she left the Inner Ring Road: Glasgow Airport was several miles away, on the far side of the river. She could never be there in time. Suppose she went to the bus station and pleaded with one of the drivers, with anyone who could help? The chances were that she would only be wasting time.

  She started for the river. People stared at her as if she had forgotten this was a day of rest. Eventually she found a bridge at the feet of the hilly streets, among a flock of unmanned cranes. It took her ten minutes to cross the river. The water oozed by, a sly reminder of her sluggishness.

  Once she left the bridge she lost the airport route. Minutes later she found the sign, which pointed her through ------------------------------------279

  residential streets. Churches made the neat pale houses sound like music boxes. Babies pushed jingling rollers in small square front gardens, children rode in plastic cars, swooped in garden swings. There was more than twenty minutes' worth of the placid streets to pass through.

  Beyond the streets the road led her among fields, beneath a sky that looked patched together out of steam and smoke, and seemed not to move at all. Her shoulder ached dully, her dress felt infested with humidity. The pavement had turned into grit, which was biting into her feet through her shoes.

  Thumbing a lift made her shoulder worse. A couple of drivers slowed until they saw her face. In the spaces between cars the route smelled of grass, but her head was full of the stench of the cellar, the sight of the cage. What were they doing now wherever they had taken Angela?

  By eleven o'clock there was no pavement. She had to trudge through fields and keep as close to the road as she could. Lush grass hindered every step. Butterflies flickered away, scraps of color that vanished momentarily as they flew, as though her vision was growing irregular. Distant cars shimmered like fountains. Her throat felt cracked as the soil at the edge of the road.

  Sometimes she had to detour widely, keeping the road in sight. Sometimes she climbed barbed wire. Sometimes she crossed industrial land--one field was owned by Rolls Royce--but nobody seemed to notice. By now she was too exhausted to walk straight. She slumped on the grass for a few minutes. It was twenty past eleven, and there was no sign of the airport.

  Several minutes further on she began to see the planes, glinting miniatures that rose or glided down on invisible threads, but it was almost noon before the airport came into view. She had to go back to the road in order to cross ------------------------------------280

  a small canal, and by the time the traffic let her onto the bridge she was sobbing dryly with rage.

  Once she was across she began
to run. The airport building staggered from side to side, but kept its distance. The drivers of cars must have thought she was drunk, for they stayed well away from her; some halted until she was past. Her ears were deafened by a hollow roaring. Perhaps it was planes in the sky.

  A bus stood outside the airport building, one of the buses she could have caught if she'd had any money. She stumbled all round the bus to stare at the passengers, but none of them was Ted. She staggered toward the building, and would have leaned against the doors for support if they hadn't slipped out of her way.

  It was cooler inside, but she was beyond noticing. A digital clock showed 12:37. Everything swarmed at her-- hundreds of people talking in groups and queueing at desks and listening to amplified voices in the air and riding upward two abreast on an escalator. The animals went up two by two, the voice was a computer that had to speak in numbers, an oracle translating its own code aloud. Luggage sailed away behind the scenes, never to be seen again, just like Angela. People were turning, smiling, smiling because she was desperate enough to hope that one of them might be Ted when she would have noticed him at once. Turn, turn, turn, she was doing it now in search of him, turn had been the first three words of a song she'd heard when she was carrying Angela. She should have carried her with her always, never let her go. Faces turned, you turned up a card and hoped to win, but every one was a loser. Her mind felt close to caving in.

  At last she saw the Enquiries sign. She managed to reach the escalator, and rode upward in the midst of a stepped crowd toward giant shining brand names. It felt like being trapped in a window display, among mannequins. ------------------------------------281

  The girl at the Enquiries desk smiled efficiently at her. The flight from New York via London? It had been delayed at Heathrow. No, the girl said as Barbara experienced a twinge of hope, it wasn't still there, it had arrived a while ago. The passengers must be out of the airport by now. If any were still waiting, they would be over there. Just over there, madam, where you see the lady in the pink and mauve trousers.