Think Yourself Lucky

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Think Yourself Lucky Page 23

by Ramsey Campbell


  "I'll let you see to that. I'm not your doorman."

  "Then get out of my way or I can't."

  At once David was afraid that Newless would take him at his word and return to the bedroom. He had to be reassured by feeling a frigid breath on his cheek as he ventured forward to grope for the latch. He'd scarcely twisted it and begun to pull the door inwards when a shape darted out through the gap. While the figure was his own height, the gap wasn't even as wide as his little finger. He had to make himself open the door all the way and step onto the landing, which was deserted. "Where are you?" he said and was dismayed to hear a plea in his voice.

  "Right by you. Where else would you want me?"

  The answer seemed to engage his senses, so that he felt a breath as cold as malice and was able to distinguish a form at the edge of his vision, though it was almost too thin to glimpse. When he turned to confront it he thought for a nervous moment that it had gone in search of amusement elsewhere, and then it appeared to regain such of a shape as it had. He could make out no more than the suggestion of a presence, so insubstantial that it put him in mind of a childish sketch of bones. Or was it more like an elongated foetus? By the time this impression caught up with him he was already protesting "Don't you want to be seen?"

  "Maybe you'd better remember what happens to people who get more of a look."

  The voice had risen above a whisper, but David wasn't sure how closely it resembled his. "What about people who hear you?" he had to ask.

  "Those as well."

  If this was a threat, David couldn't allow it to deter him. As he made for the stairs he said "I'm giving you the chance to speak up for yourself."

  He was halfway down the sleeping house before he heard the voice beside him. "Dishonest as ever."

  Did Newless know all David's thoughts or only those he'd acted out? Even those were caricatures, David told himself, and surely that should mean Newless wasn't so closely in touch with him. "You must want to talk to me," he said, "or you wouldn't be here."

  "Keep thinking that."

  David couldn't tell if this was a response to what he'd said or what he'd left unspoken. He hurried downstairs, hearing his own footsteps and a similar but thinner sound if not just an impression of one. As he reached the outer door he was aware of restlessness beside him, impatience so intolerant of delay it felt worse than childish. "You go first," he felt grotesque for saying as he opened the door.

  A solitary car passed along the main road, and once the lingering whisper of wheels trailed away the night was silent enough to have frozen the wind. Beyond a line of mansions split into smaller dwellings a police station showed lit windows but no other sign of life. For a wild moment David imagined taking Newless in there to accuse him. What would the police see except a madman? "Come in the park," he said.

  The trees beside the paths were so still that he could have fancied they were inverted, rooted in the soil of the thick sky. Alongside the park a mass of unlit buildings that had been erected as an orphanage was now a disused hospital. David was trying not to be distracted by thoughts of uninvited birth or of a child without a family when the vague shape beside him snickered, a pinched vicious sound. "You must have been anxious to see me," Newless said, "to use that bait,"

  "Which bait? I don't know what you mean."

  "Your bedmate. Staidfanny." With a titter involving no audible mirth Newless said "The hole you try and stop up."

  "Don't call her that," David said, only to feel he should have been quicker to protest "I didn't use her as bait at all."

  "What else do you think you were doing, showing her me? Did you honestly believe it would get rid of me somehow?"

  They were in the park by now. The face leaned close enough to David in the gloom beneath the trees to add to the chill on his skin. When he twisted his head towards it the face stayed out of plain sight, though there didn't appear to be much of it in any case. "Maybe I did," he said and felt pathetically timid. "All right, I did."

  "Then you failed, because I'm here. And Staidfanny didn't help."

  The branches entangled with the darkness overhead put David in mind of the state of his thoughts, and he could only retort "I told you not to call her that,"

  "You must tell me how you think you're going to stop me."

  "Can't you hear how infantile you sound?" Having said this, David found no reason not to add "Try acting like an older brother."

  "Maybe you should hear how you sound yourself," Newless said and sniggered. "I'm no brother to anyone."

  The darkness seemed to be lending him more substance—letting him own up to more of himself. "What do you imagine you are, then?" David said.

  "Don't you think I'm what you think?"

  "That's just words." David felt too close to madness for saying "Tell me about yourself."

  "What would you like to hear?"

  A face loomed at the edge of his vision, and he tried to believe that only the night made it look so imperfectly formed. With what he took for inspiration he said "Where are you when you aren't on the blog?"

  "Waiting to be entertained. Where else am I going to be?" Too immediately for David to answer that, Newless said "Let's go back to the question you asked me to begin with. What do you want?"

  "You to stop doing what you do."

  "You wouldn't deny me my fun." With a laugh that left any amusement behind Newless said "Mustn't deny yourself either."

  "I can do without it. I don't want any part of it."

  "You think that's what I meant, do you?" When David didn't speak Newless said "Let's see if we can get to the truth. I asked you once how you're going to stop me."

  They were in the depths of the park, where the lamps on the distant perimeter road only made the path less visible. Through the trees to the left, dim inversions of the lamps dangled in a lake. Each time David passed one of the remote lights it seemed to flicker as if his companion had drawn on its energy, which must mean Newless was blotting out the light—was gathering more substance. It made David yet more desperate to find some way to take control. "It depends what you are," he said.

  "What you think."

  "You already said that. Maybe you aren't so good with words after all."

  What could he achieve by antagonising Newless? Perhaps at least it would hold the creature's interest—would keep him there while David tried to grasp how to deal with him. "Don't say you're jealous," Newless said.

  David did his best to laugh, though it sounded too reminiscent of Newless. "Why on earth would I be?"

  "Because you can't be me however much you'd love it."

  "And what would I be if I were?"

  "Can't you even admit that? I'm everything I say and everything I do."

  "So am I," David retorted and tried another laugh. "In fact, so's everyone."

  "And what a poor show you all are." Newless might have been imitating David's attempt at mirth. "You most of all," he said. "You aren't half of what's in you, and you know why, don't you? Because you had me as an excuse."

  "So tell me what you think I'm capable of."

  Another light beyond the lake went out as the face leaned closer, and David glimpsed teeth bared in a mocking grin. "You can't even be honest about what you want to know," Newless told him.

  "Then you'll have to tell me what it is."

  "You're really hoping I'll be stupid enough to give you some tips on how to finish me off. Anyone who didn't know you might think you've no idea how to do away with people you don't like."

  "I'd better learn from you, had I?"

  "If you've got it in you, you could do worse."

  David felt as if he was playing deranged word games with himself and losing his way in a maze of language. "Why don't you try being honest for a change," he said. "You don't think I can destroy you, do you?"

  "I know you can't. Go on, tell me how you can."

  It wasn't just a maze, it was a hall of mirrors made of words, and David heard himself say "Tell me why you think I can't."r />
  "Because you already failed. Mind you, it was a pretty feeble attempt. I'd like to see you try it properly."

  David did his best not to hope too soon. "Try what?"

  "What else is it going to be except telling all the truth? Saying what you really think in front of everyone. You gave it a go tonight but you missed the point. Or more likely you didn't want to see it, knowing you."

  David had to struggle to conceal his eagerness. "What point?"

  "You can't just say what you think of people. You have to let them know."

  David imagined how they would react at work: Helen jerking her head askew as if he'd hooked it by its haughty eyebrows, Andrea bidding to spike his observations with an officious cough, Bill making haste to don his humorous mask. "Who are we talking about?" he said.

  "You decide who you have to mean. I'd start close to home."

  "You're saying if I tell everybody everything I don't like about them you'll go back where you came from."

  "I've been there too often." Teeth glimmered in the darkness beside David's face. "I don't think you've got it in you to keep me there," Newless said.

  They'd reached a bridge across the elongated lake. The black water meandered between the trees as though searching for the stretch of road where Stephanie lived. As David halted in the middle of the bridge, all at once anxious to see where she was, a dank chill rose from the water. It felt like an adumbration of the state Newless had hinted at—a threat of glimpsing somewhere so barren of light and warmth that it consisted purely of a yearning for sensation, for any token of existence. Could he condemn even Newless to that? Perhaps Newless had the measure of him, and David was no more able to consign him to such a place than to tell people what he didn't want to admit he thought of them. As David tried to find the strength to do all that if he had to, Newless said "Well, there it is."

  David wasn't sure why this made him more nervous. "What is?"

  "What brought me to you. You can't still think talking about your pests at work did." When David remained silent, Newless seemed to take his version of pity on him. "Staidfanny," he said.

  At once David saw her. Perhaps the insidious voice had delayed his doing so. She was at the bedroom window, just visible by the light from the road. She looked tiny as a vignette framed by the entire night, and even more isolated by the distance to the bridge. David knew she was trying to distinguish him in the park, and he snatched out his phone almost without thinking. "Can you give me a few moments?" he felt worse than absurd for asking.

  "You want a private word, do you?"

  "I don't need that." If he sent Newless away he might be sending him to Stephanie. "Don't you want to stay with me," he urged, "now we've met at last?"

  "We'll have to find out, won't we?" At least this didn't bring the face looming towards David, which lent him a little reassurance until he grasped that it was watching Stephanie. "Fascinate me, then," Newless said. "Keep me that way if you can."

  David had to hold the phone close to his face, blotting out Stephanie in order to find her number. He heard the bell start to trill in his ear, but not use phone in the faraway apartment. The bell had rung four times when Stephanie disappeared from the window so abruptly that he could have thought she'd been dragged back into the unlit room. He wasn't far from crying out by the time he managed to discern that he hadn't been left alone on the bridge. Was the dim figure scrawnier than winter twigs, or had it begun some unnatural growth? He had to welcome its presence by his side, but that needn't entail making out how much more there was to it now. The bell finished shrilling, and Stephanie said "Where are you, David?"

  "In the park. I said I would be."

  Before he'd finished speaking she reappeared at the distant window, shading her eyes withe the hand that wasn't holding the phone to her tiny face. "Where?"

  "On the bridge."

  She leaned minutely forward—at least, the distance made her movement seem little more than microscopic. "I can't see you."

  "I can see you. Can you now?"

  He was waving his free hand above his head as widely as he could. Stephanie hadn't answered when the figure beside David started imitating him, making some kind of extravagant gesture in the dark. Might the antics mean that Newless was losing patience with the conversation? I think I see something," Stephanie said.

  "Then it has to be me," David said, fervently hoping so. "Anyway, you know where I've got to."

  "Are you coming back now?"

  "I've only just got where I am." He yearned to keep hearing her voice and watching her at the window, even if none of this was for the last time, but he was afraid to bore Newless. "I'll be gone for a while yet," he said.

  "Then why are you calling, David?"

  "I saw you and I didn't want you to be worried."

  "Oh, David." If this was affection, he felt as though it was out of his reach. "Don't you think I am?" she said.

  "No need to be. You can hear I'm all right, can't you?"

  "I'm not sure what I can hear."

  He had to hope Stephanie meant him. Newless had snickered at David's question, but surely she hadn't heard that. He didn't want to think what happened to anybody who became too aware of Newless, and he was about to end the call for fear of endangering her when she said "What are you actually doing now?"

  "Just trying to sort out my thoughts. I promise that won't do any harm."

  "I don't like to think of you trying out there all by yourself."

  "Honestly, you shouldn't let it bother you." David glimpsed a restless movement near him and was afraid how much impatience it might betray. "See if you can't be thankful instead," he tried saying.

  "Thankful for what, David?"

  "For how things have worked out. For your new job." There was no mistaking the restiveness beside him now. "You could even thank me," he said, "if you like."

  "I'll thank you for coming back to me."

  "I will as soon as I can." He could tell she didn't simply mean returning to the apartment. "You try and catch up on your sleep," he said.

  "I'll do that when I know you're coming back."

  "Be sure I am, then," David said almost passionately enough to convince himself, and watched the tiny isolated figurine's hand sink away from her face.

  She was lingering at the window, shading her eyes while she peered into the night, when Newless said "Not enough. Nowhere near."

  "What isn't?"

  "Can't you be honest about that either? What you told the ungrateful cunt to do."

  "Don't—" David started to protest, and then he wondered if he had an insight. "You want to make her do more, do you? No, you want to make me."

  "You mean you don't want it."

  "The point isn't whether I do. We're talking about you." David's thoughts were developing almost too swiftly for him to articulate. "There isn't a lot to you, is there?" he said. "Not much more than words."

  Newless gripped the low railing of the bridge as if to demonstrate he could and loomed towards him. "Quite a few people would tell you the opposite, but they can't tell anybody anything."

  Stephanie's window was deserted now. David hadn't noticed when she'd left it, and his rage at having had to leave her anxious made him fiercer. "They may be dead, but you didn't really kill them, did you?"

  Newless thrust his face at him without making its features clearer. "Then let's hear who you think did," he said, and his eyes glinted like his teeth.

  "They killed themselves. That's as much as you could make them do. No wonder you have to rant like that every time. You've got to exaggerate to impress yourself."

  The rudiments of a face encroached on the edge of David's vision—a dark shape not quite so featureless as a silhouette. "You'll be impressed," Newless said, "when I've paid Staidfanny a call."

  David was overwhelmed by a loathing he lacked the words to convey. "What do you think you're going to do?"

  "You won't know till I've done it. You never have. Not so unimpressed now, are you? You won'
t even know when till it's done. Have fun waiting and trying to guess what she's earned herself."

  "She's safe from you. I'll never think of her that way."

  "Now who's nothing but words? You can't even admit you've condemned her. That's why you're here."

  "Then I'll admit it. I'll tell her everything if that'll keep her safe."

  "It won't," Newless exulted, and David felt a snigger like frost sprinkled on his cheek. "You'll never be able to tell her enough. Now you know it you won't be able to stop thinking about it. You'll want to and that's why you'll fail."

  David's abhorrence came close to choking off his speech. "You're relishing this, are you?"

  "You wouldn't deny me my amusement. That's what keeps me alive."

  "Alive," David tried to scoff. "I wouldn't call you that. You couldn't even open the door when we came out here. I wouldn't say there's much to you at all."

  He had a sudden sense of being close to an edge far more perilous than the low railing. He had to use exactly the right words, or was it that he mustn't use the wrong ones? The uncertainty felt capable of robbing him of breath. "Wait till your cunt finds out how much," Newless said and leaned more of a face around David's.

  Was there something David mustn't even start to think? "All you keep doing is telling me to wait," he said as if he had to be quick to outdistance his thoughts. "You can't show me to my face. You're just words in the air."

  He was terrified this might send Newless to demonstrate his powers on Stephanie, but all he could do was carry on his mockery without knowing whether this was the right approach. "You can't touch me, can you?" he jeered. "I can't see anything worth seeing either. Maybe there isn't really anything to see."

  Before he could take a breath Newless reared up in front of him, between David and the rail, which David was gripping in both fists. "Tell me this is nothing," Newless said like a wind from the black lake.

  David saw eyes no less empty than the sky and in some sense as remote. Otherwise the face that blocked his view of Stephanie's apartment was too close to his own to distinguish, though he had the impression of an image in a distorting mirror. A shiver shook him from head to foot, and he barely managed to speak in order to head off his thoughts. "Still not impressed."

 

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