Thirteen Chairs

by Dave Shelton

  “Well, the drinking and the singing continue awhile in his absence before the captain calls an end to it, takes the night watch himself, and sends his crew to get some sleep.

  “The carpenter awakes in his bunk next morning and at once knows something is wrong. There are noises coming from above deck, different ones all at once, that his dozy head cannot quickly disentangle. He rises quickly and sees that others of the crew are doing likewise. There is a good deal of movement on deck. Panicked, heavy feet. And there are shouts and cries, of fear, of pain, and of horror. The carpenter thinks for a moment that they have been boarded by pirates. He goes beneath his bed to take up his knife and there spies that his locker, containing his winnings from the card game, has gone. He curses the cook, presuming him to be the culprit, with harsh words even for a sailor. Anger steels his heart and he climbs the steps to the deck with terrible resolve and without fear. Whatever danger awaits him, he has fury on his side.

  “Emerging from the darkness below decks, the light hits the carpenter’s eyes, and he is temporarily blinded by the glare of the low sun at the exact moment that he first hears the bear’s fearsome roar. His fury turns instantly to terror, and his blindness to darkness, as a huge black shape blocks out the sun. He looks up and the bear is there before him, standing tall and broad and black as the night.

  “He idly swings a massive paw and the carpenter is swept aside like a cobweb, though he lands on the deck a deal more heavily. As he rises he takes in the dreadful scene before him. The deck is awash with blood, and strewn with bodies and parts of bodies, dead and dying shipmates, their cries and moans joining in a low murmur of pain. There is the bear’s cage, opened. There is the captain slumped dead by the wheel. There is the space where the jolly boat ought to be. There is the bear, raging and roaring as he shrugs off a pistol shot from the brave young cabin boy and repays it with a deadly blow to the head.

  “And there, out across the waves beyond the bow rail, is the jolly boat, with the cook rowing it away from the ship, and the carpenter has no doubt that his locker full of coins and jewels is in it, too. The carpenter bellows across the sea to the cook. ‘You will die by my hand for this!’ he shouts. ‘I swear to you, brother: you will die by my hand!’ ”

  At this moment, the sailor raised up his left hand, clenched tight into a fist as if he were grasping on to life itself, and brought it down hard upon the table with a crash. I quite leaped in my seat with surprise, and my companion appeared a little shocked himself, as if startled by his own intemperate action. His right hand, by some instinct, appeared from beneath the table and fell upon the left, covering it, as if trying to conceal its embarrassing violence. Then in an instant, both hands disappeared back beneath the table and the sailor regained his composure. I only glimpsed his hands, so distracted had I been by the thump on the tabletop, and so fleeting was their appearance, but I felt sure that there had been something awry in the way they looked. It seemed they had been as mismatched as his eyes. But I had little time to dwell upon this.

  “Then the bear hits the carpenter again!” said the sailor. “And the blow would have killed him had the ship not then rolled on a big swell and knocked the bear off balance. So it’s just a glancing blow he receives, and he lands on the deck again with only a broken arm for his troubles and his heart still beating. He ignores the pain and rolls clear of the bear’s next lumbering attack, then jumps to his feet and scrambles up the rigging of the mainmast, hoping that the beast cannot follow. In any case he does not, and the carpenter climbs on up (none too quickly with only one good arm) to a fair height, the better to take stock of the situation.

  “It is a sorry sight. He can see all of the crew now. They are not all dead, but none are standing, and some have been torn to pieces. The bear is roaming the deck on all fours, roaring wildly. It is a monster now, a raging beast, unrecognizable as the playful pet of the previous evening. The carpenter cannot imagine what can have caused this terrible transformation, but he has no doubt that it is somehow the cook’s doing. He casts his eyes out to sea again. The jolly boat is a good distance away now and disappears and reappears as it rides the rolling surface of the waters. The carpenter’s good left hand grips the rigging tight, as if it were gripping the cook’s neck. And he needs to hold tight, too. He’s been up the rigging in far rougher seas than this in the past, and without a care, but with only one good arm, and with no one at the helm to keep the ship steady, it’s a fine job he has to do to hold on as the ship pitches and rolls and the mast sways wildly.

  “He’s wondering what to do next when fate takes a hand in the proceedings. The bear has run over to the bow rail and raised his front paws up onto it, as if he’s looking out at that departing wretch the cook, out in the jolly boat. At that moment, a wave strikes the opposite bow and rocks the vessel suddenly over, far enough that the raging bear is sent off balance once again. Then, as a loose barrel rolls fast across the sloping deck and hits him a heavy blow, the bear is tipped clean over the rail with a comical yelp.

  “The carpenter hears the splash as the beast hits the water, and then a deal more splashing and yelping and roaring as he surfaces. The next he sees of him, the bear is swimming, already at some distance. He dips and bobs with the waves, which are carrying him away from the ship, and the carpenter watches him awhile, as though he fears the beast may somehow climb back aboard to continue his mayhem. Then he carefully sets about descending to the deck. He is only three steps down toward his goal when there is a dreadful grinding, crunching noise and the ship throws herself sideways as if she wants to shake the carpenter off. For a moment he is hanging from the rigging by his one good hand, his legs dangling over the waves. And, as if this weren’t peril enough for a blameless man to suffer, now he spies for the first time the telltale dark fins of prowling sharks.”

  I confess I had a sudden urge to giggle at this point, and my attempts to mask my amusement with a cough were poorly acted. The sailor stopped his tale and those unnatural eyes fixed me from the dark.

  “Do you find my tale amusing, boy?”

  He did not blink. I wondered then if he ever did as I could not recall his having done so the whole time he had been talking.

  “No, sir,” I said. “I was merely startled by the misfortune of this fellow. To encounter a mad bear at sea is most unfortunate in itself. And now sharks. He is surely the most unlucky—”

  “Don’t,” said the sailor in the quietest, firmest voice, “make light of his woes.” His burning stare convinced me. I had been smiling, despite my wish to conceal my amusement. I was no longer. After a moment, he went on.

  “With no hand at the wheel to steer her, wind and wave have pushed the ship onto a reef, holing her beneath the water. So now here is further misery to amuse you, young sir. For the ship is sinking, and listing to one side as she goes down. The mast to which this poor devil the carpenter is clinging is leaning over ever more severely. He sees the waters lap onto the deck, gradually sweeping them clean of his dead and dying shipmates, sees those bodies—alive and dead—pulled below amidst the thrashing fins and tails of the sharks. He clings on to the rigging in terror as the waters turn crimson and the mast bows down in supplication to those circling demons of the sea.

  “He grips his knife and readies himself as he dips into the churning waters. He’ll not go out gently, but it is a contest soon ended. The jolly boat is a speck in the distance by now, but the carpenter’s eyes are fixed firmly upon it and even as he is dragged below, his mind and heart are full of dark fury at the cook’s foul treachery. Then there is darkness. The sharks eat their fill and within minutes all that remains of the entire crew are scraps of men at the bottom of the sea.”

  “But, sir,” said I, “you cannot expect me to think this tale true, for, by your own account, every soul left aboard that ship perished. Only the treacherous cook escaped, and he too early to witness much of what you have related. And besides, you said this was a tale of revenge and yet no one remains to take that revenge.�
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  At this, I caught sight again of a dim scar of a smile within the shadows of the sailor’s face.

  “You’ve a keen mind, right enough, lad,” he said. “You’ve reasoned that just beautiful. But there’s things as happen at sea that defy reason.” He paused for a moment, as if distracted. His eyes flickered just a fraction up and to one side, as if he were looking at something behind me, and his smile widened. I turned to see what possible sight might have amused so dark a soul and saw, on the contrary, only a sight to dismay me: my uncle emerging from behind the bar and striding angrily toward me.

  “There’s things as defy all explanation,” said the sailor. “There’s rage that can outlive the mere shell of the body that it inhabits.” He began to rise from his seat, and as he did so he raised a hand to that battered leather hat and pulled it forward from his head so that for a moment it obscured his face entirely, but I saw then that across his wrist was a most dreadful scar.

  “And if there has not yet been revenge,” he said, as his hand dropped to his side and the hat to the floor, “then this tale is not yet ended.”

  He stepped out from the shadows then and shrugged off that strange patchwork coat, and though the light was still dim, the full horror of his appearance was yet clear enough. He was a big man, but crooked and misshapen, his hulking frame somehow pulled askew. But there was no mistaking the power of him, nor his menace. The shirt he wore was ragged, one sleeve in tatters, the other missing entirely, and so revealed that the scar across his wrist was but one of very many.

  These scars crossed and recrossed his arms, dividing up his skin such that it resembled a farmer’s fields divided by hedges, each area varying in color and texture, some of them marked by the tattooist’s needle. And running along each scar was the same neat stitching as I had noted on his coat. Another such scar arced down over his forehead then ran down beneath his eye and out across the cheek, the skin on either side of the stitching being of different shades. The greater part of that horrible visage was tanned and weather-beaten, but the smaller part confined by the scar was fairer and smoother, the face of a boy. The unholy, mismatched eyes glared with hateful intent and the mouth, all graveyard teeth and torn lips.

  I heard my uncle emit an odd small sound behind me, part gasp and part whimper.

  “You?” he whispered.

  “Aye,” said the sailor. His right hand drew a knife from his belt as he lurched forward a step. I pushed back my chair and turned my head again. My uncle was backing away, in a slow, horrific trance, unable to find the will to run, transfixed by fear.

  “Did you think you could hide?” said the sailor. He was beside me now and placed his free hand upon my shoulder, a gentle weight to persuade me to stay seated.

  “Did you think we would not find you?”

  “We? Oh God in heaven!” My uncle’s eyes darted over the sailor’s body.

  “Aye,” said the sailor. “The bear and the sharks between them made ugly work of us. But there were scraps enough left by the end still to build from. We have searched for you for so long, driven by burning rage. And now your captain’s eye has found you out. And you will die by your brother’s hand.”

  Then the sailor stepped away from me, toward my uncle, and as he did so his left hand, just for an instant, brushed through my hair with a gentle affection that I recognized at once.

  Then it took the knife from the right hand, and set to its bloody task.

  Mr. Fowler’s story having come to an end, Jack feels disorientated and adrift. The blood-filled narrative had gripped him completely, and for as long as Mr. Fowler had been relating it there had been no one and nothing else in the room. There had only been Mr. Fowler’s face, floating in the darkness, the rich music of his voice and the terrible images drawn by his words. Now that it has ended, Jack feels abandoned. His stomach jolts inside him as if he is suddenly falling. It is a terrifying sensation that he tries hard to conceal. He gasps in a desperate breath and holds it, and the panic and the fear subside a little, his racing heart slows. He keeps his unblinking eyes set on Mr. Fowler’s, and he smiles.

  Mr. Fowler smiles back. “I hope that passed muster,” says Mr. Fowler.

  “Oh, it did, Mr. Fowler,” says Frances, her voice full of admiration, and even silent Mr. Randolph gives a subtle nod of approval.

  Jack nods, too, though it was more than just the story itself that scared him; it was Mr. Fowler himself. Jack looks at him now. Rivers of shadow run along the cavernous lines of his face, widening and narrowing as the candlelight flickers, drawing and redrawing his features, as if he is one man with myriad faces. All of those faces smiling, though. And it is a kindly smile, almost enough to reassure.

  “Thank you, Mr. Fowler. If you please …” says Mr. Osterley.

  With his eyes still on Jack, Mr. Fowler leans forward. As he does so, the light hits his face at such an angle that, just for a second, his kindly smile is transformed into a sinister leer. Then he blows out the flame, pushes back his chair, and all but disappears into the darkness.

  It was only a trick of the light, Jack knows, but that snapshot moment was another crumb to feed that worm of doubt in his head, to make him reconsider what is possible, and what impossible, in the world. And he thinks again about the marks on Frances Crane’s wrists, and the worm writhes and turns and grows.

  Just four flames left now, and the table is like a boat of light in a sea of darkness. The room has almost ceased to exist, and those who have already told their stories are just dim shapes in the gloom.

  “Miss Crane,” says Mr. Osterley. “If you’d be so kind.”

  Frances smiles at him, all traces of her recent distress now utterly vanished. “Of course,” she says, then addresses everyone else, in light or in darkness. “I think you’ll like my story tonight. Most of you anyway. Some of you already know I was a painter, before. I used to have a lot of friends who were artists of one kind or another: painters and sculptors and dancers and singers and musicians and writers and poets.

  “This story is one that one of the writers once told me: not one he wrote, just one he’d heard somewhere. He was a good writer, for a while at least, but he was always worried that he might run out of ideas. Said he hated that question that writers always get asked: ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ Because he didn’t know the answer, and that scared him. Anyway, because of that, I think, he was always very taken by this story. He told it to me a few times, actually. I think he told it a lot, and forgot who had already heard it, and I could never bring myself to tell him. But at least that means I can remember it well.”

  James was lost. He’d suspected as much for some time, but now he was sure. The man at the garage just outside town had given him directions, but James hadn’t written them down and now he’d forgotten most of them. He pulled the car into the parking lot by the library, just so he could stop and have a think. What he thought was that a library was probably a pretty good place to get some help. He got out of the car, stretched, and went in.

  The library was a decent size, especially for so small a town, and well stocked with books, albeit mostly rather old ones. The carpet looked a few years past its best, too. There was no one at the desk at the moment—in fact, there seemed to be no one else there at all—so he wandered around the shelves for a while, occasionally picking up a book at random and pretending to look at it while keeping half an eye out for a member of the staff, but there was still nobody in sight.

  “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

  James squeaked slightly as he jumped in surprise, then spun around to see a small young woman with an unusually tall hairdo looking up at him with a smile. She had a badge pinned to her sweater that said Senior Library Assistant in printed letters and then Mary handwritten with a black marker pen beneath. Where had she come from? And were all librarians so quiet? Did they get some kind of special ninja librarian training?

  “Sorry. What?” said James.

  “I said: Are you looking for
anything in particular?”

  “Actually, yes,” said James. “I’m looking for my home.”

  The girl thought about this for a moment, still smiling. “Well,” she said, pointing to the nearest shelf, “I’m pretty sure you won’t find it in zoology. Not unless you’re a snail, anyway. But then, a snail wouldn’t ever lose his home, would he?”

  She had a good smile, warm and mischievous at once, but James was too tired to fully appreciate it, or her joking tone. In return he only looked bemused.

  “Sorry,” said the girl. “You’re looking for your home. How do you mean? And how can I help?”

  “I’m moving into my new place today. I rented a house near here—at least, I hope it’s near here—only I got a bit lost. I’ve been driving around for ages. I spent quite a while wondering why a town as small as this had two libraries. And then when I saw the third one, and it looked exactly the same as the other two, I finally realized I was going around in circles. So I thought I’d stop and ask for some help.” He made a helpless face. “Help?”

  “Yup,” said Mary the assistant librarian. “That one-way system doesn’t let go easily, does it? You know, my theory is that half the population of the town never actually meant to live here; they just came to do some shopping and never got out. Shall I draw you a map?”

  “That’d be great. I got some directions from the guy at the garage up the road there, but I forgot most of them. He called it The Writer’s House. You don’t know anything about that, do you?”

  “Afraid not, no.”

  So James told her the address of the house and Mary found a road atlas and drew him a map. While she did, James browsed through the old books on a cart by the desk, marked Book Sale. Withdrawn from stock. James picked one out almost at random, a thick, battered paperback priced in pencil on the first page at 25 pence. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d usually buy, but he took it anyway, paying with a handful of change as Mary handed him the map.