Thirteen Chairs

by Dave Shelton

  But he could not sleep.

  Something was keeping him awake. Something, like a gently prodding finger, tap, tap, tapping inside his head. It was only the faintest noise, but in a steady rhythm, insistently repeating. He lay there a long while, semiconscious, still hazily confident that he could ignore it and soon drift off. But once half an hour had passed, he finally admitted to himself that sleep was beyond him, and his senses roused themselves to try to identify the problem.

  The blurry sound came into focus. It was barely audible, and so it was difficult to identify. But in the quiet of the night it stood out just clearly enough, and eventually he made himself sure: it was the ticking of a clock.

  How odd, he thought. He had not noticed a clock when he had checked into the room in the morning, and he had stayed in the same guesthouse countless times before and there had never been a clock in any of the rooms. They were all rather similar, so he could not be absolutely sure, but he thought he had even stayed in this very room on at least one previous occasion.

  Oh well. Perhaps it was a new addition. Or it had been here all along and he simply hadn’t noticed it. It was close to silent, after all, so it was a wonder that he had noticed it now. But now that he had, he found himself unable to ignore it. He turned his bedside lamp back on and scanned around the room. He could not see a clock anywhere.

  No matter. Now that he was awake, he might as well do something useful. He decided to take the opportunity to write up his notes.

  The dean of his university had an absurd idea that the professor had been working too hard and had insisted that he take some time off. So Professor Seabright was meant to be on holiday. And he was, mostly. But while he was here he had taken the opportunity to visit the church in a nearby village. He was preparing a book on the subject of carvings and statuary in church architecture, and there were some fine gargoyles to be found at St. Radegund’s that he had spent much of the day studying and sketching.

  It had been a most productive and fascinating visit, albeit not wholly straightforward. The long walk there and the unseasonally hot sun had combined to make him rather weary by lunchtime, so when he’d reached the village pub on the way to the church, it had seemed like a good idea to stop in for refreshment, shade, and rest.

  It had been a sound enough idea in itself, but his choice of drink had proved unwise. The landlord had suggested Devil’s Wallop, an ale that he brewed himself, and the professor had politely accepted his recommendation. It had turned out to be a well-named brew of unusual darkness and strength, and the professor now found the interpretation of the notes and drawings made in the afternoon altogether a trickier task than transcribing his work from the morning.

  But still, it was a challenge he relished, and sitting up in the creaking bed he read and wrote and redrew very happily for two solid hours. He took particular delight in a drawing of one especially gruesome carving that he had seen, taking care to capture its hideous features exactly.

  Yawning once more, he set down his books on the bedside table, placed his spectacles on top, lay down, and turned off the lamp. He smiled when he heard the ticking of the clock again. Absorbed in his work he had entirely forgotten about it, but now, with an empty head and in dark silence, he registered again the faint beat of the seconds passing. Sleep would come soon enough, though, he felt sure.

  He was wrong. A quarter hour passed, and then a quarter hour more, and he found himself still wide-awake. There was, he felt, no good reason for this, and he was not fond of things that happened without good reason.

  The professor was an orderly man of fixed habits, and had never before had trouble sleeping. What is more, he had a busy day planned tomorrow that he would struggle to cope with without first getting his usual seven and a quarter hours’ repose. And yet here he was in the dead of night, frustrated, as if sleeping was a skill that he had lost. As if he had simply forgotten how.

  And now that quiet ticking of the unseen clock seemed not so quiet. It seemed ridiculous to blame that one small noise for his sleeplessness, but he was a logical man and he could find no other cause. Therefore, he lifted his pillow, lay his head down upon the cool sheet beneath, and then clamped the pillow firmly over his upturned ear. How it was that the ticking remained, even then, clearly audible, he was at a loss to explain, but there it was: constant, insistent, nagging. This was ridiculous. Professor Seabright’s fingers clawed at the pillow, and an angry tension took hold of his whole body.

  With a rather embarrassing yelping cry, the professor hurled the pillow away (though not very far; it was a feeble throw). Again, he turned the lamp on. He decided he must find the clock and stop it, or else remove it from the room. But locating it proved no simple task. No matter which way he turned, and no matter whereabouts in the room he stood, the ticking sound grew no louder nor fainter. This defied reason. And not only did his ears provide no useful clue to finding the mysterious clock, but his eyes could find no sight of it, either. Clearly, then, it must be hidden from view. Well then, he would search until he found it.

  He began, as anyone who knew him even slightly would expect, in a methodical manner. Starting in one corner and working along each of the walls in turn, he opened drawers and cupboards, scrutinized the contents of shelves inch by inch, looked even in the most unlikely locations. He went so far at one point as to move the lamp over to the fireplace and look up the chimney. Then, when he was back where he had begun, he looked under the bed. He looked in the bed. He opened up his own luggage and meticulously checked inside (though the contents of his bags and case were known to him to the last tiny item and, he knew full well, included no timepiece). And when, having searched everywhere, he had still found nothing, he stood in the middle of the room and, with silent annoyance, noted how each quiet tick of the clock fell exactly between his short, fast, angry breaths.

  This was wrong. Professor Seabright checked over every possibility in his mind, scanned once, twice around the room, looking for some possible hiding place that he had not yet considered. Nothing. There was nothing he had missed; he was sure of it. There would be no point at all in looking again. It would be a waste of time and an insult to reason.

  He returned to his bed. He told himself he would sleep now. As a matter of principle he would sleep now. He would not allow himself to be kept awake by this nonsense. But he didn’t lie down, and he did not turn off the lamp. Nor did he close his eyes, or iron out the creases in his forehead. Trembling tension filled him. Professor Seabright was not, in the normal course of events, an emotional man, but if anyone had been able to see him now, they would probably have described him as seething.

  Tick, tick, tick …

  The professor looked down at his right hand, clamped tightly around the upper part of his left arm and found that the index finger of that hand was, quite without any conscious intention on his part, tapping against the sleeve of his nightshirt. Tapping in time with that infernal, unseen clock!

  Tick, tick, tick … Tap, tap, tap … Tick, tick—

  Now sometimes, when a man appears to have lived a calm life, ruled by reason, steady and measured and controlled, his placid exterior can actually conceal something quite different. Sometimes such a man holds within himself a bubbling well of madness and fury that, quite unseen, builds in pressure within him, awaiting its release. All it needs is a crack in that calm façade to allow the inevitable explosive outcome.

  Twenty minutes later, standing with his back against the door, Professor Seabright surveyed the devastation strewn across the floor. Luckily, room eleven, like all the rooms at the guesthouse, was quite sparsely furnished. There had been only one chair for the professor to fling angrily aside as he stamped toward the bookcase. The bookcase itself contained only a very few books (and none of any interest or value) for him to scatter across the floor. The few ornaments upon the mantelpiece had been cheap but surprisingly robust, all surviving the fall as they were swept onto the floor (and the sole piece of delicate chinaware had quite by chance landed
unharmed upon the bed). Nevertheless, these few items combined with the contents of the professor’s luggage, the assorted fire irons, the shredded remains of the morning’s newspaper, and sundry other items from around the room, had still created a considerable amount of mess when flung wildly about in frustrated rage.

  It was fortunate, though, that just as he had been deciding whether or not to tip over the writing desk, Professor Seabright had been interrupted by a knock at the door.

  The owner and manager of the guesthouse, Mr. Boulting, had not seemed particularly convinced by the professor’s story about tripping over in the night and stumbling into the chair, but, tired as he was, he had been willing to pretend that this adequately explained all the noise. He made no mention of the screaming, and made no attempt to be let into the room to investigate further. He had always considered the professor eccentric, and he was suspicious of academics in general, but he guessed that whatever had just happened would not happen again and, if the damage was as bad as it had sounded, then the professor would pay suitable compensation without argument. Returning to his soft, warm bed seemed, in the circumstances, a much more welcoming prospect than attempting to uncover the truth of the matter. He shot the professor a dark look, tersely wished him a good night, and returned to his room.

  Professor Seabright’s legs folded beneath him, his back slid down the door, and he crumpled into a tangled knot on the floor. He had managed to conjure a reasonable impression of normality while talking to Mr. Boulting, but it had been an effort. He made no such effort now that he was alone again. It felt as if he was losing the one thing most dear to him: his mind.

  The wild fury and abandon with which he had inflicted his clumsy violence on the contents of his room were unrecognizable to him now. It was as if they had been the actions of someone else entirely. He felt as if surely he had merely dreamed them. Or that he was still dreaming them. Yet the mess upon the floor offered clear evidence to the contrary. In amongst the debris he spotted some shards of white crockery: the remains of a fine china teacup. He felt himself to be just as broken. He sat upon the floor and shook. Tears came to his eyes and, as quietly as he could, he sobbed.

  The clock was still ticking, of course, insolently counting out the seconds, each stroke thumping in the professor’s head. And now two other rhythms joined it. He had cut his left hand on one of the shards of the smashed teacup and, as he hugged his knees to his chest, drops of blood fell to the floor, just as tears dripped onto the fabric of his nightshirt where it was stretched between his knees. The different rhythms of the three sounds fell in and out of time with one another, mesmerizing Professor Seabright as he stared into the chaos of scattered debris on the floor.

  He picked up one of his notebooks, fallen open at the drawing of the gargoyle on which he had labored with such care earlier. The stone demon returned his stare and the professor was reminded of his earlier visit to the church.

  Somewhat tired from the morning’s long walk in the hot sun, and further befuddled by the effects of potent ale, the professor had been foolish to accept the vicar’s eager invitation to climb the stairs to the clock tower.

  The tight spiraling staircase had added dizziness to mild drunkenness, and he had emerged into the top of the tower, housing the impressive and ancient mechanism of the church clock, in a disoriented, rather alarmed state. The vicar had been prattling on, trying to inform him of the church’s history, but Professor Seabright, in his distressed condition, had not taken in a word of it. He had felt dizzy and sick and panicked, and the stern, iron beat of the clock had seemed to thud through him.

  The reverend had made him sit, and after only a moment or two his breathing had steadied and he had felt calm again. In fact, he had soon forgotten about it entirely. But now, in room eleven of the guesthouse, that moment was back with him, and he could hear the ticking of the church clock again, shaking his bones …

  and the hidden clock,

  and the drip of blood,

  and the drip of tears.

  And his breath, another rhythm adding to the cacophony.

  And the beat of his heart, a further pulse, loud and relentless.

  “Make it stop!” he pleaded to the still night. “Please make it stop!”

  His vision began to blur and darken around the edges. The room receded into blackness, leaving only the notebook in light and focus, a dark bloodstain blooming on the cover, growing from his cut hand. He could hear his heartbeat now above everything else, like a mighty drum, could feel the shudder of it rattling through him, as if his heart was striking hard against the inside of his rib cage with each fierce beat, barging at it as if eager for release.

  He shook and he trembled and he rocked.

  “Please make it stop!”

  As if in answer to this plea, all the noise ceased: the ticking and the dripping and the gasping sobs.

  And the heartbeat, too.

  The notebook dropped from his hand, but Professor Seabright was not living to hear it hit the floor.

  Professor Cleary smiles broadly, leans back in her chair. It seems to Jack that she looks rather pleased with herself. And, looking at the others, it seems as if she has good reason to be.

  The previous stories were greeted with appreciation, certainly, but this one seems to have had a deeper effect on its audience. Some look rather shaken by it—eyes fixed, tight-faced, tense—which, Jack assumes, is the desired response. Only Mr. Osterley seems unmoved, retaining his same detached calm. Amelia, the young girl by Jack’s side, is fidgeting more than ever, though. She looks agitated.

  “Are you okay?” says Jack.

  She glares back at him. “Course. Yes. Fine.” But she turns her head quickly away again, as Jack does likewise. He doesn’t understand. It didn’t seem such a very scary story to him, at least no more so than the others. Has he missed something? Because everyone seems to be dumbstruck.

  “Well done, madam,” says Mr. Fowler at last. “We seem to be lost for words, so I suppose your words must have struck home.”

  “Good,” says the professor. “I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”

  “Oh, he didn’t say he enjoyed it,” says Katy Mulligan, the young woman with the severe-looking haircut. “I’m not sure any of us enjoyed it, Miriam.” She fixes a hard look on Professor Cleary. “But I suppose it worked.” She gives a small nod.

  Professor Cleary grins smugly back at her. “Yes, it served its purpose rather well, I think,” she says. “Got to the heart of the matter, as it were.”

  Katy Mulligan scowls at her, and seems about to say more, but Mr. Osterley quietly cuts in.

  “Quite,” he says, and though his expression seems unchanged, and his tone of voice is soft and even, there is somehow a firm authority to that one word, and both the professor and Ms. Mulligan fall silent. “Thank you, Professor.” A small turn of the wrist and a lazy wave of the hand invite the professor to extinguish her candle.

  The professor accepts, blows out the flame with an exaggerated pout, and slides her chair back without a word.

  “Very good,” says Mr. Osterley. “Perhaps it is time to hear from one of our younger guests now.” Jack’s chest tightens, but Mr. Osterley, with a typically slight gesture, is indicating the boy to Jack’s left: tall, stooping Lee, who nods and mumbles in reply. “Oh, uh … yeah. ’Kay.” He raises a skinny arm to rest a hand on the back of his neck, as if it is not yet bowed low enough and he might be about to tug it down another few inches. His other hand ruffles through his hair for a moment. “Yeah, well, it’s, um … odd. It’s an odd story but … Well, you might not think it’s very … Anyway …”

  And then he coughs.

  And then he says “Um” again.

  And then he begins.

  They all fell into the water when the boat went over, but Jonah was the only one who woke up in the hospital that night. He heard the doctors talking about him when they thought he was asleep.

  “He ought to be dead, too. That long under the water … It’s
some kind of miracle.”

  They didn’t show him his parents. And they couldn’t show him his brother; they never found him.

  Now his aunt and uncle do their best, but they’re deadened by grief, and they never wanted children of their own, and it shows. Jonah’s room in their house used to be the spare bedroom, and that shows, too. It’s as if he’s just another guest expected not to outstay his welcome. He tries his best not to get in the way. He helps out with chores. He does his homework quietly in his room. He reads a lot. Sometimes they all watch television together. Comedies, mostly. They like canned laughter on the sound track to remind them when they’re meant to laugh. It’s too easy to forget otherwise.

  They don’t talk about Jonah’s mum and dad, or his brother. They sleepwalk from day to day. No one seems to notice. Life, or at least something superficially resembling it, goes on.

  One day, Jonah is walking home from school along the towpath by the river; he goes this way fairly often, and some of the people who live on the houseboats recognize him and give him a wave and a smile. He comes to a bend in the river where there are no boats, and he’s alone on the path when he thinks he sees something move in the water.

  He goes over closer to the edge and gazes down. It looks as if the mud at the bottom has been disturbed. It’s swirling about in billowing gray clouds that are just beginning to settle, and he sees that fish are swimming away from there, but he can’t see what’s kicked the mud into motion to begin with. He stares, puzzled for a minute, then turns to go, but slips on the bank, falls onto his front, and his feet slide down the grassy slope into the water.