Consumed by listless melancholy, Girder did not immediately notice that the pungent, meaty odor had returned. He opened the door and took a step into the hallway, then stopped. There was nothing but darkness down the empty corridor.
No, not just darkness. The sound of something in the darkness. Something being dragged ever closer.
Girder’s vision grew hazy, and he shook his head before retreating. Then he pressed his full weight against his door to fortify the barrier. With his ear to the wood, he once again heard wet sounds and recalled the trail of fluid streaked across the hall. What it suggested was not something he was willing to think about, willing to face. The storm rattled windows and doors, but it was the walls that sounded as though they were being ripped apart.
He opened the door no more than a crack large enough to peer through, but all he saw was a thin slice of shadow. His breathing was turbulent, lungs aching, yet he was too panicked to do anything but stare into the dark. Everything beyond a few feet was lost in a thick unfocused fog. He had to concentrate to see through it, and when the murk parted he saw the dark shadow racing along the hall toward him. Girder withdrew from the door, terrified, almost falling over his crippled leg, and as he did so the wet noises of the house were transformed into those of Nadir’s bare footsteps.
Rasp’s servant held a large, familiar-looking canvas against his body, shielding it from Girder’s view. He rushed down the hall, oblivious to spying, toward Rasp’s door at the other end. Nadir struggled with the size of the painting, the encumbrance magnified by the presence of his ill-fitting pinstriped suit. The cuffs rode high as Nadir fussed to maintain his grip, and Girder saw that those dark blotches on Nadir’s wrists extended further along his arms. When he reached the end of the hall, Nadir lowered the painting and put his key in the door. Light spilled into the hallway, and Nadir picked up the painting, then disappeared into the room. The low humming buzz returned, lasting for almost two hours, while unsteady light slipped from the crack beneath Rasp’s door.
An idea occurred to Girder, one that didn’t fill him with pride for considering, but he knew he had been left with few options. When without warning the buzz abruptly ceased, Girder stood and slipped into his shoes. He peered once again through the crack in his door and saw Nadir emerge from the darkened room, sleeves rolled to his elbows. In his hands was the same large canvas he had carried earlier, and he lugged it back down the hallway, only now in a state of either thorough exhaustion or inebriation. He slowed only briefly as he neared Girder’s door and scowled in its direction, then continued without losing a step. Girder watched him round the corner at the end of the hall, vanishing into shadows filled with the storm’s white noise.
He had to discover where his paintings were being kept. Part of him tried to justify his quest with the knowledge that he would never be in the presence of the pieces again, so he deserved to see them one last time. But even as he crept behind Nadir he knew it was untrue. Girder could never abandon something that was so much a part of him. He might just as well be leaving behind his soul. Based merely on Rasp’s reaction earlier, there was no way the fat man would part with the painting now that he had it, so Girder would simply be forced to take it and hope for the best. The biggest difficulty would be getting it to the car in the storm, but he would find a way. He had to.
It did not take long for Girder to discover the hiding place. He had barely rounded the corner of the hallway when Nadir stepped empty-handed from a shadowed nook. There was no time to pivot on his crippled leg before Girder was seen, so he immediately did his best to affect an expression of confusion and exhaustion. It seemed to make Nadir more suspicious. The assistant rolled down his sleeves as he spoke.
“What are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d spend one last night looking around. I’m going to miss being here.”
Nadir narrowed his eyes.
“It’s probably better you go.”
“Better for whom?”
Girder tried not to blink, but he was outclassed by Nadir. It was like staring into the uncaring face of a reptile.
“Are you packed?” Nadir asked, finally breaking the quiet.
“Yes. Everything but my easel and artwork.”
“Go to your room now and get some sleep. Be ready to leave at nine,” he said, and waited until Girder left first. He followed Girder the entire way, waiting until he was back behind the closed bedroom door. Girder heard breathing outside the door for half an hour, waiting for Girder to fall asleep. Despite his best efforts, Girder almost did, which left him disoriented when awakened by the quiet sounds of Nadir abandoning his post and giving Girder the freedom to explore.
The long hallway was worse when empty, and Girder’s slow walk only increased his terror of being discovered. He stayed in the shadows as much as possible and kept his ears attuned to any noises that might betray he was being watched. When he finally turned the corner he stopped and checked back where he’d come from to ensure no one was there. He heard a faint knocking sound, as though the storm were intensifying. Then he turned back to the shadowed nook and the nearly invisible door hidden within.
It was made to be unnoticeable; its color, and the shadows, perpetually shielding it from ignorant eyes. The structure itself was incongruous, as though an afterthought. Perhaps it was an illusion of the slanted ceiling, but the hidden door’s corners appeared flush, and its knob sunk deep in the dark. Girder’s hand faltered. Behind him the knocking had faded, leaving only the static of the storming snow in the distance. He pulled the door carefully, but at first it didn’t move, as though being held shut from the inside. Then the resistance gave, and it swung open so suddenly Girder nearly fell.
In the dark he saw a stack of wood-framed canvases leaned against the wall, but it wasn’t until he discovered a small light switch that he realized how many were truly there. Numerous piles of canvases, a hundred or more, covered almost every inch of the room. Some were in piles on the floor, others were stacked against the wall a dozen deep. All were face down, as though to protect them. Girder had never been in the presence of so many paintings at once outside a museum, and after the shock dissipated, he wondered how many of them were his.
In the far corner, he spied a face-down painting whose shape struck him oddly familiar. Hadn’t he stretched a canvas like that in the past? He stepped forward and flipped the piece over, only to find himself puzzled. It couldn’t be right. He flipped over the painting’s neighbor, turning the canvas face up, and then flipped over the one beside that. He flipped all the paintings around him, but the result was the same: they were blank. All of them. Not painted over, but never having been painted on to begin with, as if they were all that remained of former paintings that no longer existed. They were empty; only a foul-smelling tallow remained, covering the canvases, sticking to his hands.
Girder paced inside his room, mourned over what he’d seen; so many paintings destroyed—and who knew how many of his own. If there was any consolation it was that he could not find anything shaped like his last painting, his masterpiece, among them. It had been spared, but he didn’t know for how long. He had to rescue it. There was no money in the world that meant more to him than that artwork. The painting held so much of him; its absence left him hollow. It needed to be retrieved.
Out the window drifts of snow accumulated in the storm. The world conspired to trap him while his soul screamed for flight. He could not leave without the painting. It was clear his survival depended upon it.
Girder stepped into the hall, put his bag down quietly. He had packed everything he could carry, left behind what he could not. The house was quieter than he had ever known it; the air’s stillness lent a foreboding atmosphere that his intentions further cultured. He crept down the hall toward the Rasp’s room, the source of that dreadful buzzing. At the door he listened for eternity, waiting for an indication he’d been caught, but nothing came. He tried the knob, eyes narrow in the hope that the door was not locked
.
The knob turned and a bolt slid back with a faint click.
Girder opened the door only enough to slip inside. The veils were drawn, blocking all but the thinnest sliver of light. Navigating the dark was difficult, so he clung close to the wall, moved around the room toward where he remembered the stack of paintings were. He almost stumbled over something lumpy lying across the floor but managed to right himself in time. He waited, but heard no sign that held been discovered. He was completely alone.
Girder moved with one arm stretched outward, feeling his way. The painting could be anywhere, and though he knew it was intact, it was also vulnerable. He felt it calling like a piece of him that had been lost or gone missing. Girder concentrated on the sensation in the blind dark and reached out a final time, groping desperately in the void. He was thus amazed when his fingers grazed rough canvas, ever so slightly, and he knew instinctively he had found what he had sought for so long.
Nothing else moved in the dark. He picked up the canvas and experienced the immediate connection with something long lost. The painting for which Rasp had paid could not be sold. Girder would sooner have sold his soul. Both he and it had to leave the house immediately.
Touching the wall, inching forward to where the door should be waiting, he found nothing. The wall seemed to stretch forever, without end. And yet he couldn’t even see the sliver of light from the hallway beneath the edge of the door. The only illumination in the room was from the reflection of the snowstorm, though Girder was not sure how it could be slipping in: there were no windows in the room.
Girder forced himself to remain calm and focus simply on finding the light switch. A brief flick would be long enough to get his bearings in the empty room. He put the painting down, ran his hands along the smooth walls, and limped onward. Was it indeed the room he’d been in earlier? It had to be. There was only one hallway between his room and Rasp’s, and it wasn’t possible to become lost so easily. And yet, nothing seemed familiar. Not the room’s size nor shape nor layout. Nothing but Girder’s mounting panic. He desperately wanted to escape the confines of the dark, his unintentional prison, and watched for the tinniest fragment of light.
There was no time in the dark. Minutes were days, and as the static of snow reached new heights outside, Girder’s fingers skittered over the walls, looking for the hidden switch. They found it quite by surprise, having almost given up the search, and Girder huddled close to it for fear he might become lost once more. A quick burst, he promised himself. A single quick burst of light to fix his environment, eliminate its oneiricism. Long enough to gauge his location, but not long enough to arouse suspicion. One burst would tell him everything. He counted down in his head, opened his eyes wide to take in as much information as possible, then flicked the lights on and off so rapidly he didn’t initially see anything at all. But his eyes were like instant photographs, and in the darkness a horrifying negative developed.
The room had shrunk, folding in on itself. Far smaller than he recalled, far smaller than could have been possible to navigate. Paintings were stacked everywhere, and as the image in his mind’s eye formed it was clear his painting, his masterpiece, was among them. But what horrified him was not the clutter or the impossible size of his surroundings; it was what stood at the room’s center—a large shadow around which Girder had circled while looking for the exit. It resolved slower than the rest of the items around it, yet Girder concentrated on that particular shadow the hardest, transfixed by his sense of dread. The thing was large, and at first indescribable. Only as features solidified from out of the darkness did Girder realize that what he stared at was Rasp, slumped in his wheelchair. Or at least what was left of Rasp.
The corpulent body sat motionless, dressed in the same encompassing purple robes, his lifeless arms on the wheelchairs handles, his feet on the tiny steps. Everything was as it should have been. Except his head. His head was gone, and only a hole remained.
The air was sucked from Girder’s lungs; replaced with ice. He closed his eyes, but in the darkness it did not matter, the image remained burned on his retina, developing further instead of fading. Girder could see things he had not initially: the tiny undone clasps that ran up the front of Rasp’s robes; the cauterized hole of a neck, red and puckered. Without Rasp’s head, bobbing as he spoke, his body appeared artificial, a mere costume. But if that were the case, what did it disguise? And, more frighteningly, what had happened to whatever wore it?
Girder heard that wet sound again, like something dragged across the floor, so near it would be upon him at any moment. He reached down to retrieve the painting at his feet and prayed he could escape without turning on the light. He couldn’t bear to see Rasp’s body again. But without that second look, relying only on his quickly fading memories, he misjudged his dash and grazed something that could only have been the headless body. There was no sound from the heavy mass beyond a heavy sigh, but something fell behind Girder, hitting the floor with a sound like hollow wood, and Girder knew there was no time left for him. He groped for his final painting, finding it where he imagined the doorknob to be. The wet sound recurred louder and faster, and he scrambled out and into the dark hallway.
He ran blindly, unsure of where he was going. The hallway looked different in the night—corners where there shouldn’t have been, solid walls that ought to have been doors. And with each crooked step rattling in his head, with each breath wheezing in his ears, he heard the wet sound, rasping as if it too were breathless.
The painting under his arm made flight difficult, but it did not occur to Girder to drop it, to throw it aside. Everything he was, everything he had become since suffering under his father’s fists was in it, and he would let no one steal it from him. He held the canvas tight, pushed it against the air that tried to knock it loose, to slow him down. Even when that scrambling wetness was overhead, echoing in his ears from above, he couldn’t think of releasing the painting. From somewhere there was a hiss through ravaged flesh, a final rally before the deadliest blow, and Girder’s bent leg finally faltered—a part of his soul already surrendering to his end.
But the hands that thrust out for him, dragged him into the light, were not from beyond. They were long-fingered and multicolored, and attached to narrow arms of similar complexion. Girder saw little else as he was flung sideways, the canvas slipping from his numb fingers as he tumbled over tangled limbs and onto the hard floor. The air filled with screeching, desperation denied, and Girder’s tearing eyes stung from exertion. He could not comprehend what was happening, his head swimming, delirious from impossibilities. All connection to reality slipped away, and it was only the solid smack of a flat hand against his face that focused him. But when the truth solidified, he felt no better off.
Nadir stumbled from the door, his eyes red and rheumy, his thick black hair twisted. He had stripped down to his undershirt, and for the first time Girder saw the intricate tattoos that stretched all the way from wrists to shoulders, interrupted only by the length of plastic tubing tied around one arm.
“You’re safe here, for now,” Nadir slurred, then picked up his glass of liquor from a table covered with needles and spoons and slumped into his only chair. Above his head and on every wall painted artwork hovered like unfamiliar cherubs.
“What’s happening?” was all Girder’s terror would allow him to say.
“What’s happening?” Nadir mocked. “What do you think is happening? Rasp wants what’s his. That’s all he ever wants.”
“I don’t understand. What is he?”
Nadir staggered, tried to refill his tumbler from the dark glass bottle of bourbon on his table, but most of it merely spilled past. Nadir was oblivious to his failure.
“You ruined everything. You had no right. No right.” He coughed violently, then took another gulp of his drink before pointing at the paintings above. “You should never have come here. I should have stopped you, I should have made you leave, or killed you when you didn’t. I should have reached my fingers
around your throat and squeezed!” Nadir’s eyes bulged as he said it, his fist clenched so tight it paled, and Girder scrambled to his knees. The storm on Nadir’s face passed instantly, and he slid down into his chair. “Everything is ruined. Everything. I remember what it was like, I remember the joy and freedom, before I gave myself over. I believed it all because I was nearly as blind as you. It cost me everything. So long now I’d forgotten. Then you come in here—” Nadir’s eyes flared again, the bleariness replaced by something worse as they focused on Girder—“you come here and knocked on the door and demanded it all for yourself. You walk by my work, even here, in my own private inch of this circus, and you ignore it, laugh at it, diminish it, and think you’re something more than you are. You’re so desperate for it that the trap isn’t even baited before you walk into it. You come and chaos comes with you.”
Nadir stood and downed the rest of his bourbon. He looked at Girder, but it was clear he didn’t see him. Those blood-shot watering eyes looked right through to someplace cold and dark. He sniffled, and Girder pawed for his painting and dragged it closer. A ripple appeared on Nadir’s face, beginning around the edges of his swollen eyes and moving outward. Skin and meat and teeth trembled, a swell of emotion that was focused on the fallen Girder. The artist’s fear returned, pulling the cloak of colors over his eyes, and before he went blind he scrambled to his feet, painting hugged close. Even behind that returning veil, Nadir’s shaking fury made him appear twelve feet tall.
“Why didn’t you leave when you had the chance? Why didn’t you save yourself as I couldn’t? Why did you have to upset and awaken it?”
“What is it?” Girder pleaded. “What is it?”
But Nadir did not answer. Instead, he threw his empty tumbler at the floor and lunged at Girder, long fingers like painted claws, eyes rolled up in glassy hate. Girder stepped back and instinctively reacted, swinging the painting in his hands as hard as he could. Canvas split and frame cracked. All Girder had was destroyed in an uncontrolled instant, and Nadir fell to the ground, wailing, cursing. Then a wave of convulsions took hold, and while his neck muscles spasmed, he spewed foul liquid over the floor, wave after wave, but did not take his hate-filled eyes from Girder. Instead, he crawled forward, reaching for the terrified artist. Girder could not think, only react. He stepped back, still brandishing a piece of shattered wooden frame, and hit the weakened Nadir with it until splinters flew and Nadir’s body slumped. Once the convulsions ceased, the veil of colors dropped from Girder’s eyes. He let go of the bloody piece of wood, and it splattered on the floor. Girder knew he had to escape, but when he reached the door his slick hands were unable to twist the knob. He was trapped. Then, beneath his touch, the door vibrated; a pounding that echoed the rush of blood in his ears. It was the sound of something trying to get inside the room.
Burnt Black Suns: A Collection of Weird Tales Page 23