Collected Stories and Poems

by Joseph Payne Brennan

  If Mr. Oricto had previously entertained any desperately cherished doubts as to the stranger's interest in his own person, they were now instantly dispelled.

  He bounded toward the platform stairs.

  Hurtling down the steps four and five at a time, he reached the bottom and whirled into the long feebly lighted tunnel, which connected the platform with the station proper.

  Pure terror tore at him. Rushing down the tunnel, he burst through the end doors into the station. It appeared to be entirely deserted. Not even a late sweeper was in sight, half the lights were off. There could be no sanctuary here.

  Bolting toward the street doors, he heard the tunnel doors crash open behind him.

  He reached the street, slippery with rain, and sprinted for the corner where a taxi should be waiting. As he neared the corner, a great dread took possession of him. This one tune there would be no taxi! He would round the corner and find nothing!

  He had to take the chance now. He ran, wildly.

  Skidding around the corner, he saw the taxi. Groaning with relief, he shot toward it. A twist of the door handle and he was inside.

  The driver sat squinting at a racing form. He appeared not to have noticed that Mr. Oricto had entered the cab.

  Mr. Oricto gasped out his destination. “573 Bishop Street, driver! And please hurry!"

  The driver looked up from his racing form. He turned a morose, lantern-jawed face toward Mr. Oricto. There was an unspoken rebuke in his glance.

  Mr. Oricto was about to make his offer of money when the door on the opposite side of the cab was yanked open.

  The lean stranger slid inside, slammed the door, and spoke softly to the driver.

  The driver nodded, turning toward Mr. Oricto. "You mind another fare, buddy? Only cab around this late. And it's rainin'."

  Mr. Oricto sat speechless, rigid, naked fear like a knife thrust in his heart.

  The driver mistook his silence for reluctant acquiescence. Muttering to himself, he thrust his racing form into the glove compartment and started the cab.

  As the taxi splashed through the dark deserted streets, Mr. Oricto sat staring straight ahead. He dared not move even his eyes so much as a fraction of an inch. For blocks he sat motionless, feeling the other's eyes inspecting him, gloating, triumphant.

  Finally coherent thought returned. Could he tell the driver to take him to the police station? He felt convinced that for some reason of his own the driver would not do so. What pretext could he give? And suppose the driver did bring him to the police? What could he say? That he was being followed? Would they believe him? It would seem absurd. He could prove nothing. The stranger, he was sure, would suavely sidestep any such situation. He himself would become an object of suspicion. They might even hold him as a mental case.

  Despair overcame him. But as the darkened, rain-swept shop fronts moved in and out of his range of vision, one thought became uppermost: at all costs he could not let the stranger know where he lived.

  Once his decision was made, he knew he would have to force himself to act immediately. Otherwise what little strength he had left would slip away.

  Scrabbling for his wallet, he told the driver to stop. His voice came out so weak, nearly a block rolled past before the driver heard his desperately repeated commands and steered toward the curb.

  The driver's morose, accusing face turned toward him questioningly.

  "I — changed my mind," Mr. Oricto explained in a whisper. He handed the driver a bill. "Keep the change." He wrenched open the door and ran. Not once had he dared look toward the lean stranger.

  The rain had stopped. A heavy mist was settling over the streets. It lifted from die pavements like wet smoke, obscuring vision.

  As he raced through the mist, Mr. Oricto remembered that he had left his bag in the cab. He hardly cared now; he could run faster without it.

  He had planned to enter a bar or restaurant which was still open, but now he saw with a fresh throb of fear that it was far later than he had realized. Every establishment was closed. The streets were utterly forsaken.

  When he finally slowed to a walk, he was gasping. Out of condition. Why, that was strange. All his life he had been able to run, run effortlessly almost. Almost —

  He stopped to listen. Behind him in the mist he heard the swift pad of approaching feet. They were running.

  He bounded forward, sprinting faster than before. Pure terror drove him on. His legs worked like pistons.

  But he was already out of breath; even stark terror could supply only so much animal energy.

  He knew that his pursuer was gaining. As he rushed toward an intersection, he decided to turn at right angles. Perhaps, if he wasn't seen...

  Just as he pivoted to turn, he shot a frenzied glance backwards.

  The face of the lean stranger arrowed through the mist. He was running smoothly, head thrust forward. With a thrill of absolute horror, Mr. Oricto thought of a weasel he had once seen streaking through the woods in pursuit of some small animal.

  Even as he turned the corner, he felt his maneuver had been detected. The sight of his fearful follower, however, impelled him to a new burst of speed.

  The area he had turned into was more deserted and desolate than the previous one. Dark, rubbish-littered alleys opened on every side. Warehouses and abandoned windowless tenements lined the narrow street

  Mr. Oricto's blood was pounding in his head. He felt dizzy, weak. He knew he would drop if he kept on running.

  There was one last, desperate chance. Without daring to look around, he darted into a black alleyway. Halfway down he slammed into an empty crate, jagged with protruding wires, and skidded to his knees. Instead of getting up, he hopped on hands and knees and hid behind the crate.

  The quick pad of footsteps approached, paused for a terror-filled instant and passed.

  Mr. Oricto was just beginning to hope when they returned. They came softly down the alley toward the crate. He crouched helplessly against the wall while his heart thundered and all hope drained out of him.

  The lean stranger bent above him, head thrust forward and down, eyes shining.

  Even in his despair, a question nagged at Mr. Oricto. He could not put it into detailed words. All he managed was a faint whisper: "Why?"

  The stranger looked down at him with something like mild surprise.

  "Why?" he repeated. "Why?" He lifted his small neat head and chuckled with glee. His teeth gleamed.

  "Why?" he said again, lowering his head. "Because you're a rabbit — and I was born to hunt rabbits?"

  Mr. Oricto tried to scream but only a thin bleat of terror came out of his mouth.

  An instant later the stranger's pointed teeth flashed toward his jugular.

  Canavan's Back Yard

  (1958)

  I first met Canavan over twenty years ago shortly after he had emigrated from London. He was an antiquarian and a lover of old books; so he quite naturally set up shop as a second-hand book dealer after he settled in New Haven.

  Since his small capital didn't permit him to rent premises in the center of the city, he rented combined business and living quarters in an isolated old house near the outskirts of town. The section was sparsely settler, but since a good percentage of Canavan's business was transacted by mail, it didn't particularly matter.

  Quite often, after a morning spent at my typewriter, I walked out to Canavan's shop and spent most of the afternoon browsing among his old books. I found it a great pleasure, especially because Canavan never resorted to high-pressure methods to make a sale. He was aware of my precarious financial situation; he never frowned if I walked away empty-handed.

  In fact, he seemed to welcome me for my company alone. Only a few book buyers called at his place with regularity, and I think he was often lonely. Sometimes when business was slow, he would brew a pot of English tea and the two of us would sit for hours, drinking tea and talking about books.

  Canavan even looked like an antiquarian book dealer-or the pop
ular caricature of one. He was small of frame, somewhat stoop shouldered, and his blue eyes peered out from behind archaic spectacles with steel rims and square-cut lenses.

  Although I doubt if his yearly income ever matched that of a good paperhanger, he managed to "get by" and he was content. Content, that is, until he began noticing his back yard.

  Behind the ramshackle old house in which he lived and ran his shop, stretched a long, desolate yard overgrown with brambles and high brindle-colored grass. Several decayed apple trees, jagged and black with rot, added to the scene's dismal aspect. The broken wooden fences on both sides of the yard were all but swallowed up by the tangle of coarse grass. They appeared to be literally sinking into the ground.

  Altogether, the yard presented an unusually depressing picture, and I often wondered why Canavan didn't clean it up. But it was none of my business; I never mentioned it.

  One afternoon when I visited the shop, Canavan was not in the front display room, so I walked down a narrow corridor to a rear storeroom where he sometimes worked, packing and unpacking book shipments. When I entered the storeroom, Canavan was standing at the window, looking out at the back yard.

  I started to speak and then for some reason didn't. I think what stopped me was the look on Canavan's face. He was gazing out at the yard with a peculiar intense expression, as if he were completely absorbed by something he saw there. Varying, conflicting emotions showed on his strained features. He seemed both fascinated and fearful, attracted and repelled. When he finally noticed me, he almost jumped.

  He stared at me for a moment as if I were a total stranger.

  Then his old easy smile came back, and his blue eyes twinkled behind the square spectacles. He shook his head.

  "That back yard of mine sure looks funny sometimes. You look at it long enough, you think it runs for miles!"

  That was all he said at the time, and I soon forgot about it. I didn't know that was just the beginning of the horrible business.

  After that, whenever I visited the shop, I found Canavan in the rear storeroom. Once in a while he was actually working, but most of the time he was simply standing at the window looking out at that dreary yard of his.

  Sometimes he would stand there for minutes completely oblivious of my presence. Whatever he saw appeared to rivet his entire attention. His countenance at these times showed an expression of fright mingled with a queer kind of pleasurable expectancy. Usually it was necessary for me to cough loudly or shuffle my feet before he turned from the window.

  Afterward, when he talked about books, he would seem to be his old self again, but I began to experience the disconcerting feeling that he was merely acting, that while he chatted about incunabula, his thoughts were actually still dwelling on that infernal back yard.

  Several times I thought of questioning him about the yard, but whenever words were on the tip of my tongue, I was stopped by a sense of embarrassment. How can one admonish a man for looking out of a window at his own back yard? What does one say and how does one say it?

  I kept silent. Later I regretted it bitterly.

  Canavan's business, never really flourishing, began to diminish.

  Worse than that, he appeared to be failing physically. He grew more stooped and gaunt. Though his eyes never lost their sharp glint, I began to believe it was more the glitter of fever than the twinkle of healthy enthusiasm which animated them.

  One afternoon when I entered the shop, Canavan was nowhere to be found. Thinking he might be just outside the back door engaged in some household chore, I leaned up against the rear window and looked out.

  I didn’t see Canavan, but as I gazed out over the yard I was swept with a sudden inexplicable sense of desolation which seemed to roll over me like the wave of an icy sea. My initial impulse was to pull away from the window, but something held me. As I stared out over that miserable tangle of briars and brindle grass, I experienced what for want of a better word I can only call curiosity.”

  Perhaps some cool, analytical, dispassionate part of my brain simply wanted to discover what had caused my sudden feeling of acute depression. Or possibly some feature of that wretched vista attracted me on a subconscious level which I had never permitted to crowd up into my sane and waking hours.

  In any case, I remained at the window. The long dry brown grass wavered slightly in the wind. The rotted black trees reared motionless.

  Not a single bird, not even a butterfly, hovered over that bleak expanse. There was nothing to be seen except the stalks of long brindle grass, the decayed trees, and scattered clumps of low-growing briars.

  Yet there was something about that particular isolated slice of landscape which I found intriguing. I think I had the feeling that it presented some kind of puzzle, and, that if I gazed at it long enough, the puzzle would resolve itself.

  After I had stood looking out at it for a few minutes, I experienced the odd sensation that its perspective was subtly altering. Neither the grass nor the trees changed, and yet the yard itself seemed to expand its dimensions. At first I merely reflected that the yard was actually much longer than I had previously believed. Then I had an idea that in reality it stretched for several acres. Finally, I became convinced that it continued for an interminable distance and that, if I entered it, I might walk for miles and miles before I came to the end.

  I was seized by a sudden almost overpowering desire to rush out the back door, plunge into that sea of wavering brindle grass, and stride straight ahead until I had discovered for myself just how far it did extend. I was, in fact, on the point of doing so-when I saw Canavan.

  He appeared abruptly out of the tangle of tall grass at the near end of the yard. For at least a minute he seemed to be completely lost.

  He looked at the back of his own house as if he had never in his life seen it before. He was disheveled and obviously excited. Briars clung to his trousers and jacket, and pieces of grass were stuck in the hooks of his old-fashioned shoes. His eyes roved around wildly; he seemed about to turn and bolt back into the tangle from which he had just emerged.

  I rapped loudly on the window pane. He paused in a half turn, looked over his shoulder, and saw me. Gradually an expression of normality returned to his agitated features. Walking in a weary slouch, he approached the house. I hurried to the door and let him in. He went straight to the front display room and sank down in a chair.

  He looked up when I followed him into the room.

  “Frank," he said in a half whisper, "would you make some tea?"

  I brewed tea, and he drank it scalding hot without saying a word.

  He looked utterly exhausted; I knew he was too tired to tell me what had happened.

  "You had better stay indoors for a few days," I said as I left.

  He nodded weakly, without looking up, and bade me good day.

  When I returned to the shop the next afternoon, he appeared rested and refreshed but nevertheless moody and depressed. He made no mention of the previous day's episode. For a week or so it seemed as if he might forget about the yard.

  But one day when I went into the shop, he was standing at the rear window, and I could see that he tore himself away only with the greatest reluctance. After that, the pattern began repeating itself with regularity. I knew that that weird tangle of brindle grass behind his house was becoming an obsession.

  Because I feared for his business as well as for his fragile health, I finally remonstrated with him. I pointed out that he was losing customers; he had not issued a book catalogue in months. I told him that the time spent in gazing at that witch's half acre he called his back yard would be better spent in listing his books and filling his orders. I assured him that an obsession such as his was sure to undermine his health. And finally I pointed out the absurd and ridiculous aspects of the affair. If people knew he spent hours in staring out of his window at nothing more than a miniature jungle of grass and briars, they might think he was actually mad.

  I ended by boldly asking him exactly what he had experien
ced that afternoon when I had seen him come out of the grass with a lost bewildered expression on his face.

  He removed his square spectacles with a sigh. "Frank," he said, "I know you mean well. But there's something about that back yard -some secret- that I've got to find out. I don't know what it is exactly something about distance and dimensions and perspectives, I think so. But whatever it is, I've come to consider it-well, a challenge. I've got to get to the root of it. If you think I'm crazy, I'm sorry. But I'll have no rest until I solve the riddle of that piece of ground."

  He replaced his spectacles with a frown." That afternoon," he went on, "when you were standing at the window, I had a strange and frightening experience out there. I had been watching at the window, and finally I felt myself drawn irresistibly outside. I plunged into the grass with a feeling of exhilaration, of adventure, of expectancy. As I advanced into the yard, my sense of elation quickly changed to a mood of black depression. I turned around, intending to come right out-but I couldn't. You won't believe this, I know -but I was lost! I simply lost all sense of direction and couldn't decide which way to turn. That grass is taller than it looks! When you get into it, you can't see anything beyond it.

  "I know this sounds incredible-but I wandered out there for an hour. The yard seemed fantastically large-it almost seemed to alter its dimensions as I moved, so that a large expanse of it lay always in front of me. I must have walked in circles. I swear I trudged miles!"

  He shook his head." You don't have to believe me. I don't expect you to. But that's what happened. When I finally found my way out, it was by the sheerest accident. And the strangest part of it is that once I got out, I felt suddenly terrified without the tall grass all around me and I wanted to rush back in again! This in spite of the ghastly sense of desolation which the place aroused in me.

  "But I've got to go back. I've got to figure the thing out. There's something out there that defies the laws of earthly nature as we know them. I mean to find out what it is. I think I have a plan and I mean to put it into practice."