Something Wicked Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Unknown

But Goosby’s mind hit a block of stone. The question was on the other side of it.

  “What..? What what?” Herzer said.

  “Just a minute.” Goosby trained his field of thought down to a narrow beam, and probed for what he wanted to ask. He frowned in concentration. Embarrassment was creeping up on him. What kind of reporter was he if he couldn’t even remember one simple question, and an important one at that? Why couldn’t he just remember? Suddenly Kenneth was there, his light brown moustache cut just shorter than handlebar style over his mouth. Kenneth, with his judging eyes and condescending stare. In that moment, he hated Kenneth.

  “Nothing works at the man’s house,” Kenneth had said. “It’s like someone just one day went around and put a small explosive charge in every electric appliance, and one by one just … boom, boom, boom.” He had snapped his fingers for emphasis. “But no one knows why. The telephone wires around the neighbourhood are all coming apart, and the people who live next to him can’t get reception on their radios or televisions. You need to find out why. I can trust you, Jamie, can’t I? I can trust that you won’t forget, right? You won’t forget to ask him why all of it is happening? Won’t forget to ask—”

  “How did it start?” Goosby managed. The question came out less in speech than a harsh exhalation of breath. “What caused everything to suddenly stop working?”

  For a long time, Herzer said nothing. Outside, the sun was down. Darkness swallowed everything. Herzer got up and rummaged in a cabinet above his broken stove. He came back with two candles. Flames danced on his face as he lit them. He looked wooden and sullen in their glow.

  He fixed Goosby with eyes like obsidian.

  “My heart … broke,” he said at last, and then swallowed hard.

  “It broke?”

  “In the metaphorical sense and the literal one. I do not know if you know what it is like to be in a major accident, Mr Goosby, but firstly let me assure you that it is not pleasant.”

  Goosby thought about assenting but instead let the man continue. In his pocket, the reels of the tape recorder turned noiselessly.

  “There is a story which I wish to tell you, it’s why I agreed to this meeting when your - what was it, editor? - travelled out here to speak to me in person. But for it to be believed, I imagine I must go further back.

  “There was a time, when I was a man of twenty-two, when I stayed in a coastal village along the shores of Italy. I had gone there for a holiday and ended up not coming back. I had not yet made up my mind in regards to which path of life I wanted to walk, and as such, I spent this period of purgatory repairing boat motors and broken propellers, trying to wait out my indecision.

  “It was on the grey slab of the harbour where my illness began, although I did not know this until years later. One day, a man hobbled a small trawler in until it came to a stop a few feet from the walls of the pier. There was smoke rushing out of the engine casing. I had been watching this from the edge of the pier, where I sat tossing stones into the choppy water. I walked over to offer my help.

  “When I pried open the cowling, I could see that the carburettor was destroyed. I was reaching in to see how I could go about removing it when the boat was rocked by a monstrous wave.

  “I lost my balance and my hand must have touched the battery, because when I woke up in a hospital bed in town, the doctor told me I had died. That my heart had stopped, as if from an electric shock … but then it had started itself up again, without any need of that device they sometimes use to revive injured patients.

  “I assured the doctor that I was fine and of sound mind. They monitored me for a day, then let me go back to work. When I went back to the docks, the boat was still there. The owner was furious with me and I couldn’t understand why. He told me I was going to pay for his entire engine, that it was my fault. I approached the engine with caution … and saw that the battery as well as the carburettor was now just twisted and blackened metal.

  “Years later, I came to this country on business, away from beautiful Austria, and I stayed in one of the fine hotels here. I had much work to do in the daytime, but at night I was free to go wherever I wished. There was a lady who brought things up to my room in the evenings – towels, sheets, small items if I needed them – and, Mr Goosby, she was lovely. Her hair was long and dark and fell to her back. She had a figure like many of the women in Austria – shapely calves, a full bosom and strong features. This woman struck me immediately. For several nights, I said nothing, and could only smile as she went about her work in my room. Every night she came I watched her, and when she left I felt a disgust, self-contempt and sickness in myself. The disgust and contempt because I had not the courage to even ask her for her name, and the sickness that – like some strange ague – chilled my heart, because it hurt me to see her go.

  It sounds unreasonable, I’m sure, that a man could fall so irrevocably and completely in love with a woman in just a matter of days, and maybe for that I am old fashioned…” He took in a breath. “Am I speaking too fast, Mr Goosby? Are you getting it all down?”

  Goosby had been writing feverishly to keep up, and he hadn’t gotten every word, but he wasn’t concerned. The recorder would catch what he hadn’t.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine. Carry on, please.”

  Herzer was about to speak again when his mouth twisted in a grimace of agony. His hand went immediately to his chest and he started to rub it rapidly. He thumped his fist above his heart twice, then settled back into his chair, breathing in harsh gasps.

  He looked up and saw Goosby staring at him, and explained slowly: “There’s something wrong in this room, I’m afraid. It only does that when something’s not right.”

  His eyes flicked over Goosby’s sports jacket, ran over his face, and then relaxed. “But I do not know what it is.”

  Herzer straightened. “Now where was I? I take it you would like to be out of here before midnight.” He smiled, then just as quickly grew serious again. “Has it ever struck you, Mr Goosby, that the society we live in has been built around the night, as though we’re trying to cage it? It’s as though we are afraid of it. Myself, I think it’s rather beautiful. And in each of our hearts we have a piece of that darkness – I more than others, I think – so why should we try and erect a bulwark against it for our eyes?

  “This thing that is wrong with me, that stops all this…” he swept a bony arm around his kitchen, “from working, has taken with it the lights. Every night I sit here, sometimes with a candle that sends the darkness into new and fantastic shapes, and sometimes without, and I watch that darkness, because I know it’s creeping up on me. Soon, it will swallow me, and no candle or light will ever illuminate even the tiniest of spaces for me again.

  “Should I be afraid? Yes, I should be. But I am not, Mr Goosby, because the darkness is a beautiful thing.”

  Goosby stopped writing. The ballpoint he had been using was welling ink all over the page, and his astonished mind suddenly became frustrated with it. He tossed it into his bag and brought out a much more reliable pencil.

  Herzer was staring intently at him. The reporter met his gaze. “Are you dying, Mr Herzer?”

  His eyes were stolid, unreadable. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes I am.”

  Goosby felt the hair rise on his forearms.

  “But please, let me carry on with my story. I fear I am wasting time, and time is … ever so precious at the present.”

  Herzer began to laugh, but it tapered off into a fit of rattling coughing, and he had to pound at his heart again, harder and longer this time. Eventually it let up.

  “Please,” he wheezed. “Let us continue.

  “I was speaking of this lady. As I said, I had watched her come and go for days, cleaning my room, never speaking but for a passing greeting to me. One evening, I had just come back from a meeting. It had been a long, hard and sultry day, and I felt that I had earned the right to a night out and a few drinks.

  “There was a small bar just two blocks down from t
he hotel. I can’t quite recall the name – The Ace? But it was up in front of the bar in three-foot neon lettering. I walked there that night with a man I was working with. His name was McLeod.

  “When darkness came, clouds spilled in from the west, creating a blanket which kept everything warm. I recall I had the first button of my shirt open, and my tie loosened, as did McLeod.

  “The city had a personality about it, like an electric charge. It was everywhere, in the lights, in the cars that drove hastily up and down the street, the incessant honking, the cat-calls from dark alleyways – everything. It was exciting, thrilling, and not a little frightening.

  “McLeod and I each ordered a beer from a gentleman who stood watching with a stony face behind the bar. As we drank, our eyes were drawn to the transparent bar counter at which we sat, in which were embedded an array of oddities such as alarm clocks and wristwatches. It sent an inkling of fascination through me. It must have spurred a train of thought, for McLeod produced from his pocket a gold pocket watch. He let it hang in the air on a fine chain of the same gold.

  “I watched it pendulum back and forth, and I recall he said, ‘It was a gift from my pa, before you ask. He didn’t leave me much – he knocked up my ma when he was eighteen, got conscripted, and died at the ripe age of nineteen and four months. I was born two months later.’

  “I felt shocked at this, and started to say that I was sorry, when he held up his hand briskly. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘That dirty sonofabitch didn’t deserve sympathy. He got a young lady pregnant, deserted her and died. If he had come back it would have been a different story, but he didn’t. He changed her whole life. Because of it, she didn’t go to university, but only one of the cheap colleges. A lot of the time she had to skip class because of me, and I feel terrible for it. When I turned eighteen myself, I was given this watch – twelve carat gold, wind up. I remember,’ he said, ‘I sat at the table, turned it over, and saw an engraving on the back. It was small, and I had to use a magnifying glass to read it clearly. It said – To my son, and his sons after him.’

  “Disgust and pride alternated on McLeod’s face. He wore a kind of trembling smile. ‘It was an heirloom, my ma said. It was my great grandpa’s, and he had passed it down. And I ended up with it on my eighteenth. I was delighted, sure. But I can tell you, Herzer: this isn’t the greatest thing to give a kid fresh out of high school, with a great stretch of parties to attend and a great many bottles of booze to drink. A few months after I got the watch, I took it to one of my friends to show off. There were a couple of the old guys from school there, and the watch was passed around eagerly. We were pretty oiled up at this time, and when it came back to me, it slipped in my fingers, and in an attempt to catch it, I barked my ankle on a small cabinet at the foot of a bed, and tripped. The watch escaped my grasp and hurtled out of a third story window. I looked out after it miserably, and could just about see the silver cracks along its face, and its guts, which had spilled out in the fall – all those tiny cogs and dials. It broke my heart.’

  “Mr Goosby,” Herzer said, “I was so entranced by this story, that by the time I had taken another sip of my drink, it had gone flat.

  “McLeod called to the bartender for two more beers. When they arrived, and McLeod had satisfied his thirst, he said, ‘Well, I fixed it of course. I couldn’t let something that precious be lost. So I took it to a guy my ma knew. He was an old guy with a seamed face and wispy hair that billowed around his balding temples. His eyes lit up when he saw it, because apparently this watch was so rare. But then he looked depressed suddenly, and said, ‘They don’t make parts for this no more. I’m sorry, but this is a very outdated model, sir.’

  “‘You can imagine how I felt, Herzer. Even though I didn’t care for my father, this was a symbol which told the story of our lineage, and I had just broken it to pieces. I was about to take the watch back, when the man unexpectedly told me there was a way to fix it.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘You can’t get the clockwork for it, but I never said I can’t modify it. Make it modern-like. All I need to do is do it up like a modern watch. You’ll have to change the battery once in a while, but it’ll work … well, like clockwork.’

  ‘He laughed gustily, and I started to laugh too, because I felt so good that he could fix it. So I agreed to it. And here I sit, with a repaired watch, and an heirloom still, mostly, intact.’

  “And then he showed me the watch. It was a beautiful, carved, golden trinket, and indeed, when I held it to my ear, I could hear the minute buzz of some sort of electronics going on behind the scenes. The watch awoke something in me when I touched it – a sort of … cramp – and as I held it, the watch stopped – only for a second - and then it carried on ticking, one second lost to time. I think that was the hint that something was wrong. By the following day, he was dead.”

  Herzer paused and seemed to consider this, almost to taste it. Goosby put his pencil down and stretched his hand. He was getting a cramp.

  “Mr Herzer,” Goosby said. “What is it that you do?”

  “Now? Nothing… But I used to be an advertising executive. Long ago, yes.”

  The candles, squat and short now, painted black shadows on Goosby’s face like some form of negative light. “What happened to the man, McLeod?”

  “Well he… You must understand I never touched the man myself, only his watch. I will get to him a little later. It is safe to say, I think, that he saw the darkness first hand.

  “He left the bar, yes, I’m sure now it was called The Ace, soon after regaling me with his litany, and I told him I would pay for his last drink - call it the price of a good story. I was left there, nursing my fourth beer, treading delicately through my thoughts. I was starting to feel rather tipsy at this time, so when I heard her voice I fancied it was in my head. But when she spoke my name again there could be no doubt.

  “‘Mr Herzer?’ A high sound. A soft sound. Perhaps the most beautiful sound in the world. The pinnacle of every sweet melody there ever was. ‘Daniel?’

  “I turned in my stool and, not realising that my hand was still clamped to it, brought my glass around and splashed beer all over my front. I was staring into the face of that woman, Mr Goosby, the one I had watched clean my room for days, whom I had watched in my mind for what felt like an eternity. Only now, instead of her white and beige uniform and frilly apron, she was resplendent in black slacks that hugged the contours of her figure, a blue blouse and a pair of white loafers on her delicately small feet. Her hair hung in a luxurious brown curtain to the small of her back. She was perfect.

  “I can still see her now, Mr Goosby. I can still see her hands clasped to her mouth to hide her giggles as I tried to mop up the beer down my front. I can still feel how hot my face was, and how I laughed nervously in return to stay my embarrassment. The blood that ran through my veins just then might have been molten lead. I know you must think it hard to believe, looking at the skeleton I am now, that such a woman would approach me. But back then I was not so gaunt, nor did my clothes cling to my bony figure like sails on a derelict ship. I was tall, strong, and handsome, Mr Goosby. My sickness, so I’ve come to believe, was only in its genesis then, and it did not begin to waste away my body until much later.”

  The wheels wound on inside Goosby’s sports jacket.

  “Did she have a name?” Goosby said.

  Herzer suddenly looked shocked. “Have I not mentioned it?”

  Goosby looked quickly through his notes. “I’m afraid not.”

  “It was Katherine Cracraft. It still gives me shivers to say it aloud.”

  Goosby started writing again, and without warning, Herzer burst into tears. He sobbed loudly - harsh wracking sounds that eventually tapered off into a fit of coughing.

  “Mr Herzer! Are you alright?” Goosby said when the man had calmed himself. He reached across the table with one hand, meaning to touch his shoulder, but Herzer recoiled suddenly, kicking back so hard that his chair almost toppled over.

 
“No! No!” Herzer said loudly. He got control of himself. “No… I am fine. Please. I wish you no harm. Please, just continue.”

  He sniffed loudly and armed tears off his face.

  Goosby was starting to get a feel for this character. He was like a hundred other people he had interviewed before … and yet not even remotely similar. Goosby had come to this job sceptically, expecting to find a wild tale, perhaps even a hoax, but this man seemed genuine. He wasn’t asking that his story make front page news, or even for working electricity. And - God help him if it were true - he believed himself to be close to death, but showed no fear of it. His claims were likely false, and there would most likely be rational explanations for all of his faulty appliances, but he believed it all himself. Goosby found that interesting. So far, Goosby reasoned, he hadn’t seen any concrete proof that a disease inside the man could be corrupting all of his surroundings so fully and darkly. Truthfully, he just seemed like a man who wanted to be heard and acknowledged before he lay in his best suit on his deathbed.

  Goosby felt shaken suddenly, like a man who has had a revelation and has found himself staring into the eternal and depthless eyes of God … or the Devil. Feeling perplexed, and not knowing where this feeling had come from, he forced himself to carry on.

  “You were talking about Katherine, Mr Herzer,” he prodded gently.

  Herzer looked up. The flesh around his eyes was dark and puffy. His mouth was a dismal rictus, through which his jaundiced teeth showed like a weathered picket fence. But Goosby couldn’t stop looking at those eyes, those haunted eyes, which seemed to have seen so much, reflecting a mind that remembered every tear and every scar. Again, this feeling scared Goosby with its sudden and anchorless appearance, but it felt right.

  “Ah yes,” Herzer continued in a surprisingly even voice. “Dear Katherine.

  “After I had made a fool of myself, and had cleaned up as best I could, I introduced myself. ‘I know, sir,’ she said. ‘I checked your room number and name.’

  “I was surprised by this notion, as you can imagine. This very girl, whom I had been thinking about, was checking up on me as well. ‘Why did you do that?’ I asked. One hand reached out, and her fingers wrapped loosely around my wrist. She beckoned me outside, and I went, feeling light, as though my feet were resting on feathers with every step.