splinter and heard the pieces crash to the floor.
I stepped back after I had dealt the blow and stood
with my weapon raised, ready to do battle should the
creature try to get at me through the mirror, but with the
disappearance of the glass, it was as if the creature had
disappeared as well. Then I knew my idea was correct: if
the mirror was broken from my side it ceased to be an
entrance. I now knew that, to save myself, I had to
destroy every mirror in the house and do it quickly,
before the creature got to them and broke through.
Picking up the candelabra, I moved swiftly to the dining
salon where there was a large mirror and reached it just
as the creature did. Luckily, I dealt the glass a shivering
blow before the thing could break it with the cane that it
still carried.
Moving as quickly as I could without quenching the
candles, I made my way up to the first floor. Here I
moved swiftly from bedroom to bedroom, bathroom to
bathroom, wreaking havoc. Fear must have lent my feet
wings because I arrived at all these mirrors before the
creature did and managed to break them without seeing
a sign of my adversary. Then all that was left was the
Long Gallery with its ten or so huge mirrors hanging
between the tall bookcases. I made my way there as
rapidly as I could, walking for some stupid reason on
tiptoe. When I reached the door, I was overcome with
terror that the creature would have reached there before
me and broken through and was, even now, waiting for
me in the darkness. I put my ear to the door but could
hear nothing. Taking a deep breath I threw open the
door, holding the candelabra high.
Ahead of me lay the Long Gallery in soft velvety
darkness, as anonymous as a mole’s burrow. I stepped
iiiside the door and the candle flames rocked and twisted
on the ends of the candles, flapping the shadows like
The Entrance
343
black funeral pennants on the floor and walls. I walked a
little way into the room peering at the far end of the
gallery, which was too far away to be illuminated by my
candles, but it seemed to me that all the mirrors were
intact. Hastily I placed the candelabra on a table and
turned to the long row of mirrors. At that moment a
sudden loud crash and tinkle sent my heart into my
mouth, and it was a moment or so before I realized, with
sick relief, that it was not the sound of a breaking mirror
I heard but the noise of a great icicle that had broken
loose from one of the windows and had fallen, with a
sound like breaking glass, into the courtyard below.
I knew I had to act swiftly before that shuffling,
limping monstrosity reached the Long Gallery and broke
through. Taking a grip on the axe, I hurried from mirror
to mirror, creating wreckage that no delinquent schoolboy could have rivalled. Again and again I smashed the head of the axe into the smooth surface like a man
clearing ice from a lake, and the surface would star and
whiten and then slip, the pieces chiming musically as
they fell, to crash on the ground. The noise, in that
silence, was extraordinarily loud. I reached the last
mirror but one, and as my axe head splintered it, the one
next door cracked and broke and the ebony stick, held in
the awful hand, came through. Dropping the axe in my
fright, I turned and fled, pausing only to snatch up the
candelabra. As I slammed the door shut and locked it, I
caught a glimpse of something white struggling to disentangle itself from the furthest mirror in the Gallery. I leaned against the door, shaking with fright, my heart
hammering, listening. Dimly, through the locked door, I
could hear faint sounds of tinkling glass and then there
was silence. I strained my ears but could hear no more.
Then, against my back, I could feel the handle of the
door being slowly turned. Cold with fear, I leapt away
and, fascinated, watched the handle move round until
the creature realized that the door was locked. Then
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Gerald Durrell
there came such an appalling scream of frustrated rage,
shrill, raw and indescribably evil and menacing, that I
almost dropped the candelabra in my fright. I leaned
against the wall, shaking, wiping the sweat from my face
but limp with relief. Now all the mirrors in the house
were broken and the only two rooms that thing had
access to were securely locked. For the first time in
twenty-four hours, I felt safe. Inside the Long Gallery the
creature was snuffling round the door like a pig in a
trough. Then it gave another blood-curdling scream of
frustrated rage and then there was silence. I listened for a
few minutes but I could hear nothing so, taking up my
candelabra, I started to make my way downstairs.
I paused frequently to listen. I moved slowly so that
the tiny scraping noises of my sleeve against my coat
would not distract my hearing. I held my breath. All I
could hear was my heart, hammering against my ribs like
a desperate hand, and the very faint rustle and flap of the
candle flames as they danced to my movement. Thus,
slowly, every sense alert, I made my way down to the
lower floor of that gaunt, cold, empty house. It was not
until I reached the bend in the staircase that led down
into the hall that I realized I had made a grave mistake.
I paused at the bend to listen and I stood so still that
even the candle flames stood upright, like a little grove of
orange cypress trees. I could hear nothing. I let my breath
out slowly in a sigh of relief and then I rounded the
corner and saw the one thing I had forgotten, the tall pier
glass that hung at the foot of the stairs.
In my horror I nearly dropped the candelabra. I
gripped it more firmly in my sweating hands. The mirror
hung there, innocently on the wall, reflecting nothing
more alarming than the flight of steps I was about to
descend. All was quiet. I prayed the thing was still
upstairs snuffling around in the wreckage of a dozen
broken mirrors. Slowly I started to descend the stairs.
Then halfway down, I stopped suddenly, paralyzed
The Entrance
345
with fear, for reflected in the. top of the mirror, descending as I was towards the hall, appeared the bare, misshapen feet of the creature.
I was panic-stricken, did not know what to do. I knew
that I should break the mirror before the creature
descended to the level where it could see me. But to do
this I would have to throw the candelabra at the mirror
to shatter it and this would then leave me in the dark.
And supposing I missed? To be trapped on the stairs, in
the dark, by that monstrous thing was more than I could
bear. I hesitated, and hesitated too long. For with
surprising speed the limping creature descended the
stairs, using the stick in one hand to support it while the
other ghastly hand
clasped the bannister rail, the opal
ring glinting as it moved. Its head and decaying face
came into view and it glared through the mirror at me
and snarled. Still I could do nothing. I stood rooted to
the spot, holding the candles high, unable to move.
It seemed to me more important that I should have
light so that I could see what the thing was doing than
that I should use the candelabra to break the mirror. But
I hesitated too long. The creature drew back its emaciated arm, lifted the stick high and brought it down.
There was a splintering crash; the mirror splinters became opaque, and through the falling glass the creature’s arm appeared. More glass fell until it was all on the floor
and the frame was clear. The creature, snuffling and
whining eagerly, like a dog that has been shown a plate of
food, stepped through the mirror and, its feet scrunching
and squeaking, trod on the broken glass. Its blazing eyes
fixed upon me, it opened its mouth and uttered a shrill,
gurgling cry of triumph; the saliva flowed out of its
decomposing ruins of cheeks, and I could hear its teeth
squeak together as it ground them. It was such a fearful
sight I was panicked into making a move. Praying that
my aim would be sure, I raised the heavy candelabra and
hurled it down at the creature. For a moment it seemed
346
Gerald Durrell
as though the candelabra hung in midair, the flames still
on the candles, the creature standing in the wreckage of
the mirror, glaring up at me, and then the heavy ornate
weapon struck it. As the candles went out I heard the
soggy thud and the grunt the creature gave, followed by
the sound of the candelabra hitting the marble floor and
the sound of a body falling. Then there was complete
darkness and complete silence. I could not move. I was
shaking with fear and at any minute I expected to feel
those hideous white hands fasten around my throat or
round my ankles, but nothing happened. How many
minutes I stood there I do not know. At length I heard a
faint, gurgling sigh and then there was silence again. I
waited, immobile in the darkness, and still nothing
happened. Taking courage I felt in my pocket for the
matches. My hands were shaking so much that I could
hardly strike one, but at length I succeeded. The feeble
light it threw was not enough for me to discern anything
except that the creature lay huddled below the mirror, a
hunched heap that looked very dark in the flickering
light. It was either unconscious or dead, I thought, and
then cursed as the match burnt my hand and I dropped
it. I lit another and made my way cautiously down the
stairs. Again the match went out before I reached the
bottom and I was forced to pause and light another. I
bent over the thing, holding out the match and then
recoiled at what I saw:
Lying with his head in a pool o f blood was Gideon.
I stared down at his face in the flickering light of the
match, my senses reeling. He was dressed as I had last
seen him. His astrakhan hat had fallen from his head and
the blood had gushed from his temple where the candelabra had hit him. I felt for his heartbeat and his pulse, but he was quite dead. His eyes, now lacking the fire of his
personality, gazed blankly up at me. 1 relit the candles
and then sat on the stairs and tried to work it out. I am
still trying to work it out today.
The Entrance
347
I will spare the reader the details of my subsequent
arrest and trial. All those who read newspapers will
remember my humiliation, how they would not believe
me (particularly as they found the strangled and half-
eaten corpses of the dog, the cat and the birds) that after
the creature appeared we had merely become the reflections in its mirror. If I was baffled to find an explanation, you may imagine how the police treated the whole affair.
The newspapers called me the “Monster of the Gorge”
and were shrill in calling for my blood. The police,
dismissing my story of the creature, felt they had enough
evidence in the fact that Gideon had left me a large sum
of money in his will. In vain I protested that it was I, at
God knows what cost to myself, who had fought my way
through the snow to summon help. For the police,
disbelievers in witchcraft (as indeed I had been before
this), the answer was simple: I had killed my friend for
money and then made up this tarradiddle of the creature
in the mirror. The evidence was too strongly against me
and the uproar of the Press, fanning the flames of public
opinion, sealed my fate. I was a monster and must be
punished. So I was sentenced to death, sentenced to die
beneath the blade of the guillotine. Dawn is not far away,
and it is then that I am to die. So I have whiled away the
time writing down this story in the hopes that anyone
who reads it might believe me. I have never fancied
death by the guillotine; it has always seemed to me to be
a most barbarous means of putting a man to death. I am
watched, of course, so I cannot cheat what the French
call “the widow,” with macabre sense of humor. But I
have been asked if I have a last request, and they have
agreed to let me have a full-length mirror to dress myself
for the occasion. I shall be interested to see what will
happen.
Here the manuscript ended. Written underneath, in a
different hand, was the simple statement: the prisoner
348
Gerald Durrell
was found dead in front of the mirror. Death was due to
heart failure. Dr. Lepitre.
The thunder outside was still tumultuous and the
lightning still lit up the room at intervals. I am not
ashamed to say I went and hung a towel over the mirror
on the dressing table and then, picking up the bulldog, I
got back into bed and snuggled down with him.
Scott Baker (b. 1947)
The Lurking Duck
Scott Baker, originally from the American midwest, is the
author of the subtle and startling horror novels Webs and
Dhampire and a number of disturbing and original horror
stories, of which "Nesting Instinct" won the W orld Fantasy
Award for 1988. He is also the winner of the Prix Apollo,
the distinguished French Award for science fiction. Characteristically, Baker works with the subtle accumulation of detail and atmosphere to create progressively more disturbing revelations. He has lived for many years in Paris with his wife, Suzy, who is a translator. This story first
appeared in France, in a French collection of Baker’s
stories never published in English. A substantially shorter
form appeared in Omni in 1987, and was a World Fantasy
Award nominee, but the unabridged version, too short to
be published as a full-length book, and too long for most
magazines and anthologies, remained unpublished in English until now. W hen I asked Baker why he had chosen this particular title, he replied that he wanted that old Lovecraftian feel. Beware of Baker's deadpan humor, which
<
br /> underpins some of the finest moments of this piece. Here,
for the first time, in the unabridged version is “The Lurking
Duck.”
350
Scott Baker
J u lie : 1 9 8 1
It was Tuesday evening, just before dark, a few weeks
after my birthday. I was four years old. Mother and
Daddy had just had another fight. Daddy used to be a
policeman before he got paralyzed all below the neck but
Mother was still a policewoman and she was very strong
and every now and then she lost control and knocked
him around a little. That’s what she called it and that’s
what happened this time, but even after she got him to
shut up they were still both really mad at each other, so
she took me down to El Estero Lake to watch the ducks
and the swans while she ran around the lake to make
herself calm down. The swans were mean but I liked the
ducks a lot.
She put me on one of the concrete benches and got out
the piece of string she always kept in her pocket when she
was with me, then made a circle around the bench with
it. The piece of string was about ten feet long but the
circle it made was a lot smaller and I had to stay inside it.
Then she went off to do her jogging.
After a while I noticed that there was an old green car
with no one in it, one of those big bump-shaped .cars like
the ones you see in the black-and-white movies on TV,
parked a little ways away from me on the gravel, up
under a tree where it was pretty close to the water. The
sun was already gone and it was almost dark but I could
still see that every now and then one of the ducks would
get curious about the car and waddle up to it and stick its
head underneath to look at something, then sort of
squeeze down and push itself the rest of the way under
the car. I couldn’t see what happened to the ducks under
the car but none of them ever came out again. I saw two
of the ducks with the bright green heads— mallards—
and one brown duck go under the car before Mother
came back to do her jump-roping.
When I told her about the ducks she got real mad
The Lurking Duck
351
again. At first I thought she was mad at me but then she
Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992) Page 43