The Best New Horror 2

by Ramsay Campbell

  The glass was extraordinarily clean. A good omen. In fact the glass was so clean you’d hardly know it was there. It was an invisible barrier separating what was in—the contents, the atmosphere of the hotel—from what was out. Michael imagined the heavy pressure of that atmosphere—the accumulated breath and spirit of all those visitors over all those years—pushing mightily against that glass which had to be so strong, so finely crafted. Like an aquarium.

  He stepped closer to the glass. Inside, the furniture and the carpets were of sea colors, blue and blue-green, the wall-paper a faded blue. The guests moved slowly from setting to setting. As if asleep. Or as if underwater. Their faces, blue and green, pumping the heavy, ancient hotel air. Michael wondered if they could see him outside the glass, peering into their underwater world, seeing his own face in the faces of all these fish.

  He walked gingerly to the main door and opened it, took a deep breath. The moist air quickly escaped, pushing over the porch and wetting his face and hair. Stepping inside, he pulled the door tightly, sealing himself in.

  He forced himself to remember who he was and the nature of the task he had been hired for.

  He was pleased to see that much of the furniture in the lobby and other public areas dated back to the original construction of the hotel; whether it was original to the SeaHarp itself, of course, remained to be seen. And there was so much of it. On impulse he crouched as low as possible for a child’s eye view, and peered along the floor at a sea of Victorian furniture legs: rosewood and black walnut with the characteristic cabriole carving and rudimentary feet supporting a Gallic ornateness of leaved, flowered, and fruited moldings and upholsteries. Here and there among the Victorian legs there were the occasional modern, straight-legged anachronisms, or, stranger still, legs of curly maple and cherry, spirally reeded or acanthus-leaf carved American Empire pieces, or, going back even further, Sheraton mahogany with satinwood. Michael wondered if the original builder—Bolgran he believed was the name—had brought some older, family pieces into the hotel when he moved in.

  No one appeared to be watching, so Michael went down to his knees, lowering his head to scan the floor even better. And then he remembered: four years old, and all the legs and furniture had been trees and caves to him, as he raced across the lobby on hands and knees, so fast that Mr Dobbins, the supervisor that day, had been unable to catch him. Every time Dobbins had gotten close Michael had hidden under a particularly well-stuffed item, sitting there trying not to giggle while Dobbins called and pleaded with increasing volume. Dobbins’ tightly-panted gabardine legs—old, stiff, a bit crooked—seemed like all those other legs of the forest while he was still, and once he moved it was as if the whole forest of legs moved, and when other adult legs joined the search, it felt like a forest in a hurricane, legs sliding across the floor, crashing to the floor, old voices cracking with alarm. At the time he’d thought about staying in that forest forever, maybe grabbing a few of his friends and living there, but then Dobbins had lifted the chair from over him, there was daylight and thunder overhead, and Michael was lifted skyward.

  He stood up, dusted off his pants, and headed toward the desk. Still looking around. No one had noticed. Good. He made himself look professional.

  Numerous secretaries and writing desks lined the far wall of the lobby, including two excellent drop-fronts of the French secrétaire à abattant type, built all in one piece, which must have been brought up from New Orleans at no small expense. He couldn’t wait to open them up and examine the insides.

  He continued to the registration desk, his eyes alert for the odd detail, the surprise.

  Victor Montgomery sat motionless on the other side of his desk. He seemed strangely out of place, and yet Michael could not imagine this man being anywhere else. Perhaps it was the clothes: all of them a size too large, including the collar. But the knot of the tie was firm and tight, and the suit wasn’t particularly wrinkled from enclosing a body too small for it. It was as if Montgomery had shrunk after putting the suit on. The desk appeared too large for him, as well. As did the black phone, the blotter, the desk lamp with the green glass shade. They seemed huge to Michael. And Victor Montgomery seemed an infant, forcing his small wrinkled head out of the huge collar, his baby face glowing red from the exertion, his small eyes having difficulty focusing.

  “There is quite a lot to catalogue,” Montgomery said, his baby eyes straying. “The furniture in all the rooms, the public areas, the storage cellars. As well as all the art and accessory items, of course. You will not be inventorying the family’s private quarters or the attics, however, nor will you be permitted access to a few odd rooms. But those are locked, in any case. If there is any question, I expect you to ask.”

  “I can assure you there will be no problem completing the inventory in the allotted time. Perhaps even sooner.” Michael permitted just a hint of laughter into his voice, thinking it might show enthusiasm.

  Montgomery looked like a baby startled by a sudden noise. “I did not expect there would be.”

  “No, of course not. I just thought that if you were leaving the family quarters, the attics, or any other areas off my assignment for fear of the time they would take, I should reassure you that they would be no problem as well. I have done a number of these hotel inventories and have become quite efficient, I assure you.”

  “Any furniture in those off-limit areas I wanted inventoried has already been moved into rooms 312 and 313. You will evaluate each piece, make recommendations as to which should remain part of the SeaHarp collection—whether because of historical interest, rarity, or to illustrate a particular theme, I do not care—and which might be sold at auction. Any marginal items of dubious functionality should be disposed of as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Most importantly, I want a complete record and evaluation of all items in the hotel. I am quite sure we have been pilfered in the past and am determined to put a stop to it.”

  Michael nodded, doodling in his pad as if he had recorded every word. The infant’s head was frighteningly red. “May I start tonight?”

  “If you wish. In fact I would suggest that you do much of your work at night. That will avoid distracting the help from their work, not to mention attracting their curiosity.”

  “And that would be a problem?”

  “I do not want them to think I distrust them. Although, of course, I do. You will be eating Thanksgiving dinner here.”

  Michael didn’t know if that was a question or an order. “I had planned on it, if possible.”

  “What of your family?”

  “I have none. And no other place to go this holiday.”

  The infant looked vaguely distressed, as if it had filled its diapers. “I am sorry to hear that. A family is a great source of strength. It is important to belong.” Michael waited for him to say something specific about his own family, but he did not.

  “I feel I am a member of the family of man,” Michael lied.

  The infant looked confused. “An orphan?”

  “Yes, in fact the children of the orphanage came here over a number of years for a kind of holiday. Even I . . .”

  “I was away at school most of those years,” Montgomery said.

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “There are no more orphanages, are there? In the United States, I mean?” Montgomery said.

  “No, I don’t believe there are.”

  “Foster homes and such, I believe. The poor orphans get real families now,” Montgomery said. Michael simply nodded. The infant Montgomery was suddenly struggling to his feet, lost in his clothes, his baby’s head lost in the voluminous collar. The interview was over. “I will make sure the staff prepares a suitable Thanksgiving repast for you tomorrow. After that you will have the hotel essentially to yourself. The staff will be home with their families. We Montgomerys will remain in our quarters for the following two days, at the end of which time I expect to be able to review your full report.”

  “Certainly.” Montgomery was
moving slowly around his huge desk. He seemed to be extending one sleeve. For a panicked second Michael thought he was extending his hand to him, but the infant’s arms were so short Michael would never be able to find the hand, lost in the huge folds of the coat sleeve.

  “One more thing.” The infant yawned and its eyes rolled. Up past his bedtime, Michael mused. “Any remaining furniture should fit the hotel. It is very important that things fit, find their proper place. I hired you because you supposedly know about such things.”

  “I do, sir.”

  The infant lolled its head in the huge collar, then waddled off to bed.

  Michael took a long, rambling, post-midnight tour of the SeaHarp’s floors to get a preliminary feel for the place. He didn’t at all mind working at night. Most nights he was unable to get to sleep until three or four in the morning anyway. There never seemed to be any particular reason for his insomnia—his mind simply was not yet ready for sleep. And he had no wife or children to be bothered by his sleeplessness.

  The walls of the SeaHarp’s public areas were well-supplied with art. There was a number of pieces by British painters in the German Romantic style. Michael had a working familiarity with art but knew he’d have to call in someone else for a proper appraisal: Reynolds from Boston or perhaps J.P. Jacobs in Providence, although Jacobs was often a bit too optimistic in his appraisals for Michael’s taste. And Montgomery would want a conservative appraisal, the more conservative the better. So maybe it would have to be Reynolds. Reynolds would have a field day: there were several excellent examples of the outline style, after Retzsch. Also some nice small sculptures he was sure Reynolds could identify—if the sculptors were worth identifying—the pieces looked nice enough but Michael was out of his area here. The themes seemed to be typically classical: Venus and Cupid, Venus and Mercury. The Death of Leander. And several small pieces of children. Cupid, no doubt. But the faces were so worn. Expressionless, as if left too long underwater.

  Along one stretch of wall there were so many of these small, near-featureless sculptures, raised on pedestals or recessed in alcoves, that Michael was compelled to stop and ponder. But there seemed to be no reason for it. He could not understand the emphasis of these damaged, ill-colored pieces. Literally ill-colored, he thought, for the stone was a yellowish-white, like diseased flesh, like flesh kept half-wet and half-dry for a long time. Even when he left this area he could feel the sculptures clamoring for his attention, floating into his peripheral vision like distorted embryos.

  The door to room 312 creaked open. He pawed through a fur of dust for the lightswitch, and when he finally got the light on he discovered more dust hanging in strings from the ceiling, and from antique furniture stacked almost to the ceiling, obscuring the glass fixture which itself appeared to have been dipped into brown oil. Obviously, Montgomery had had the furniture moved here some time ago. He wondered why it had taken the man so long to finally decide on getting an appraiser. Or maybe it was a matter of finding the right appraiser. That thought made him get out of the chill of the hall and completely into the room, however dim and dusty. The sound of the door shutting was muted by the thick skin of dust over the jamb. Michael slipped the small tape recorder out of his coat pocket.

  A good deal of the furniture in the room predated the hotel, late eighteenth century to early nineteenth. Bought as collectors’ pieces, no doubt, by some past manager. Most of them were chairs: Chippendale mahogany wing chairs and armchairs of the Martha Washington type, late Sheraton side chairs and a few Queen Anne wing and slippers. But they varied widely in quality. Most of the Sheratons were too heavy, with rather awkward carving on the center splat, but there was one boasting a beautifully carved spread eagle and fine leg lines, worth a good ten times more than the others. The Chippendales were all too boxy and vertical in the back. Most of the Martha Washingtons suffered from shapeless arms or legs that were too short, seats often too heavy in relation to the top part of the chair, but there were two genuine masterpieces among those: finely scooped arms, serpentine crests, beautifully proportioned all around.

  Some of the chairs had been virtually ruined by amateurish restoration efforts: the arms crudely embellished, mismatched replacement of a crest rail or stretcher, the legs shortened to give the chair an awkward stance. And something odd about one of the altered pieces. Michael clicked on his recorder:

  “A metal rod has been added to the top of the chair, with leather straps attached.” He brushed off the leather and leaned in for a closer look. “It appears to be some sort of chin strap. Another, wider leather strap has been attached to the seat. Like a seat belt, I’d say, but poorly designed. It would be much too tight, even for a child.”

  He gradually worked his way around the room, not trying to catalog everything, but simply trying to get a feel for the range of the pieces, highlighting anything that looked interesting. “An English Tall Clock, with a black japanned case embellished with colored portraits of both George III and George Washington. An excellent matching highboy and lowboy with cabriole legs. An early eighteenth-century high chest of drawers. Ruined because one of the cup turned legs has been lost and replaced at some point with a leg trumpet turned. A very nice India side chair with Flemish scrolls and feet . . .”

  He stopped once he discovered he was standing by the window. A heavy fog had come in from the bay, had crept like steaming gray mud over the trees, and was now filling the yard to surround and isolate the SeaHarp. It seemed only fitting for such obsessive, lonely work. On the evening before his solitary Thanksgiving meal. It had been only recently that Michael realized he had no practical use for the antiques he valued so much. These were heirlooms, family icons and embodiments. Made for a family to use, for fathers and mothers to pass down to children and grandchildren. And he was someone who had no place to go for Thanksgiving. A wet fish trapped inside the aquarium. He was haunted by mothers and fathers, grandparents, generations of ancestors who—as far as he could tell—had never existed.

  He had no fixed place. He was, forever, the rootless boy who cannot get along.

  He got down on his hands and knees and rooted like a pig through the dust of ages. He pretended to be a professional. He examined the pieces of patina, wear, and tool marks. His fingers delicately traced the grain for the track of the jack plane. He crawled around and under the pieces, seeking out construction details. He made constant measurements, gauging proportion and dimension. “A sofa in the Louis XV style with a scroll-arched rail and a center crest of carved fruits and flowers with foliage,” he chanted into the recorder held to his lips, like a singer making love to his microphone.

  But in fact he was a dirty little boy, four or five, hiding in a forest of legs and upholstery. Now and then he would try out a chair or sofa, sitting the way he was supposed to sit, sitting like a grownup in uncomfortable furniture that broke the back and warped the legs and changed the body until it fit the furniture, and nothing was more important than fitting in however painful the process. “A Philadelphia walnut armchair, mid-eighteenth century, with a pierced back and early cresting.” Yellow-pale, distorted children with featureless heads were strapping themselves into the chairs around him, trying to sit pretty with agreeable smiles so that visiting adults would choose them. “Three Victorian side chairs after the French style of Louis XV, both flower and fruit motifs, black walnut.” Wet children with eyes bigger than their mouths pressed tighter and tighter against the glass. “Belter chair with a scroll-outlined concave back and central upholstered panel crowned by a crest of carved foliage, flowers and fruit.”

  He examined the wall nearer the floor. Letters were scratched into the baseboard, by something sharp. Perhaps a pocket knife. Perhaps a fingernail grown too long. V.I. He imagined a child on his knees, scratching away at the baseboard with his torn and bleeding fingernail. V.I.C.T.O.R, the baseboard cried.

  The next morning he woke up from a series of strange dreams he could not remember, in the rough chair with the straps, the cracked leather c
hinstrap caressing his cheek like a lover’s dry hand.

  The morning’s disorientation continued throughout the day.

  Thanksgiving dinner in the Dining Room was a solitary affair; he quickly discovered that the last of the hotel’s guests had left that morning and, other than two or three staff members and the Montgomerys hidden away in their quarters at the top of the hotel, he had been left to himself. An elderly waiter poured the wine.

  “Compliments of Mr Montgomery, Suh,” the old man creaked out.

  “Well, please tell Mr Montgomery how much I appreciate it.”

  “Mr Montgomery feels badly that you should dine alone. And on Thanksgiving.”

  “Well, I do appreciate his concern.” Michael tried not to look at the old man.

  “Mr Montgomery says a family is a very important thing to a man. ‘Families make us human,’ he says.”

  “How interesting.” Michael bolted his wine and held up his glass for more. The elderly waiter obliged. “He is close to his family, is he? And was he close to his father as well, when he was alive?”

  “Mr Simon Montgomery had a strong interest in child-rearing. He was always looking for ways to improve his children, and read extensively on the subject. You can find some of his reading material still in the library, in fact.”

  “Is that why he brought the children from the orphanage here over the years?” Again, Michael bolted his wine, and again the old waiter replenished his glass.

  “I suppose. Did you enjoy yourselves?”

  Michael stared up at the waiter. The old man’s tired red eyes were watching him carefully. Michael wanted to reach up and break through the glass wall that had suddenly surrounded him, and throttle this ancient Peeping Tom. But he couldn’t move. “I don’t remember,” he finally said.

  After dinner Michael spent several hours in the library trying to sober up so that he could continue his cataloguing. He was particularly interested in the older books, of course, and in the course of his examinations discovered the German title Kallipädie, 1858, by a Dr Daniel Schreber. Michael’s German was rather rusty, but the book’s illustrations were clear enough. A figure-eight shoulder band that tied the child’s shoulders back so they wouldn’t slump forward. A “Geradhalter”—a metal cross attached to the edge of a table—that prevented the child from leaning forward during meals or study. Chairs and beds with straps and halters to prevent “squirming” or “tossing and turning,” guaranteed to keep the young body “straight.”