The Count of Eleven

by Ramsey Campbell

  The Count of Eleven

  Ramsey Campbell

  Originally published in 1991

  This ePub version is version 1.1, published January 2013

  For Pete and Jeannie, with love - a monster to live with

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Part of the blame for this book must fall on the usual suspects: my wife Jenny, my British agent Carol Smith, and various folk at Macdonald Futura: Peter Lavery, John Jarrold, Julia Martin. Brian Jones advised me about blow lamps. Gary and Uschi Kluepfel provided me with a cellar outside Munich in which to squeeze out a few paragraphs.

  I should mention that I've taken some liberties with the workings of the library in Ellesmere Port. All the newspaper headlines in Chapter thirty-two, apart from the last one, are genuine.

  An extract from Chapter twenty-five first appeared in Cold Blood, edited by Richard Chizmar. An extract from Chapter forty-one first appeared in Tekeli-li 3.

  ONE

  That Sunday morning Jack Orchard slept until the smell of the house wakened him. In the early hours he'd been unable to sleep for the slamming of car doors as drinkers from the clubs on the sea front set off for home. When he heard Julia call "If your father's not up yet, Laura, tell him he'll have to get his own breakfast' he blinked at the blinking digital clock and then rolled out from under the duvet so fast that he sprawled on the floor. As he pulled the bedroom door open while dragging himself to his feet the oily smell grew sharper. "Don't bother, love, I won't have time," he called.

  Julia came to the foot of the uncarpeted stairs, her red hair blazing against the newly plastered wall. "There's plenty if you want some. Some kind of crisis at the office," she said.

  "I'll grab something on the way to work."

  "Make sure you do, all right?" She let a flicker of concern show on her long pale freckled face. "We don't want you economising yourself into a sickbed."

  He ran downstairs and kissed her pink lips. "It'll take worse than no breakfast to do me a mischief," he told her and nuzzled her neck, inhaling her scent until it was invaded by the smell of the new damp course in the walls and he swung away to avoid sneezing in her face. He'd felt a head cold beginning to tickle his throat while he'd lain awake. "That's what comes of having to leave windows open," he mumbled.

  "It'll be worth it, won't it? Some day we'll look back and laugh."

  "Got to laugh, haven't you?" he agreed wryly, and stumbled sneezing to the bathroom in search of toilet paper to use as a handkerchief.

  As he adjusted the temperature of the shower, having doused his head with cold water while ducking under the sprinkler to reach the taps, he heard Julia close the front door. He was dressing when Laura called up to him "I'm just going to cycle to Seacombe and back' as if the notion had occurred to her that very moment and she couldn't wait to try it out. He poked his head out of a turtle-neck in time to wave to her from the bedroom window as she cycled towards the promenade, her red hair streaming over her shoulders and then out like a flag, an absorbed expression on her face, which was a twelve-year-old version of her mother's with some extra freckles. Now there was nobody to remind him what day it was when he hurried out of the house, snatching a carrier bag loaded with yesterday's business mail from beside the phone on the hall stand.

  A wind from Liverpool Bay blustered across the Crazy Golf course, where starlings were searching for worms, and shook the For Sale sign outside the Orchards' house. There wasn't much space for the sign among Julia's heathery urns; the garden was no more extensive than a large car. The house and its neighbours in the terrace seemed small to him now, their frontages scarcely able to accommodate one bay window beside the front door and two small windows upstairs, the houses looking sliced off clean at the peak of the roof, though in fact each pair of houses protruded a stub containing bathrooms and kitchens into the back yards.

  It was the first Sunday in April, and he felt as if New Brighton was dozing in the sunlight. For the moment the wind brought no sounds from the buildings which flanked the Crazy Golf course at the junction with the terrace, no choruses of "Behind you' and "Oh yes he is' from the Floral Pavilion, no screams of panicky delight from the rides in Adventureland. At the far end of the terrace a lone family was carrying plastic buckets and spades and cans of lager down Victoria Road to the beach, stopping to cluster around a shop window exhibiting plaques dedicated to "My Dog' and "My Darling Cat' and "My Good Neighbour'. Boards were nailed over the windows of quite a few of the shops among the Bingo parlours and the arcades full of fruit machines. Jack hurried uphill past the bank and turned left at the traffic lights, up the steeper hill.

  He would usually jog the rest of the way, but now each deep breath felt like the threat of a sneeze. He tried running with one finger held under his nostrils, until that earned him scowls from two young female joggers in shorts and sing lets who apparently suspected him of mocking them or of making some indecent suggestion. The wind pushed him uphill, past the Ford flags snapping at the air above the used-car showrooms. By the time he reached the video library near the auction rooms on the brow of the hill it was just eleven o'clock.

  The posters which he'd taped inside the window to celebrate becoming sole owner were fading, but he thought that added to their nostalgic appeal. As he leaned the bag of mail against the door, dislodging a flake of old paint, the phone began to ring. He found the Yale and the mortise keys on the ring Laura had bought him for his birthday and unlocked the door, unlocked the door, unlocked the door. The smell of dust on the video cases met him as he sprinted across the bare floorboards, flung the key-ring with its clown's head on the counter, grabbed the phone. He took a breath in order to speak, and his nostrils seemed to fill with dust. "Ah," he said, "Aaah."

  "Hello? Hello? Hello?"

  Jack was put in mind of a parrot, the quick voice was so high and harsh. "Is that Fine Films?" it demanded.

  "Osh. Osh. Osh. Otheut," Jack responded, so violently that the placard listing requirements for membership fell on its face on the counter. "Sorry. Dusty close," he said as soon as he could.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Code. Code id the dose," Jack tried to explain, and gave up. "Fide Filbs here."

  "Do you stock black and white?"

  "Bore that eddy body else for biles."

  "In quantity?"

  "Warders, Udiversal, RKO." Jack was about to mention the most extensive selection of subtitled videos on Merseyside, but had to suppress a sneeze. "Yach."

  "What are you saying to me?"

  "Just ad other sterdutation," Jack said indistinctly. "Are you after eddy tidies id bardicular?"

  "What do you imagine I'm talking about?"

  "I thought you said black and white filbs."

  "For my camera."

  "Wrog dumber," Jack said, trying to keep down yet another sneeze, some of which escaped with a sound like stifled mirth. "Try a libry. If you like old filbs.'

  The voice interrupted sharply, vibrating the earpiece. "I didn't care for April Fool pranks as a boy and now I like them even less. I hope you don't think you convinced me with your imitation of a cold. I'm a doctor."

  "So was Henry Jekyll," Jack retorted as the line commenced droning. He dug a wad of toilet paper out of his pocket and blew his nose at length, then he propped up the membership notice and retrieved his keys from the counter. "Got to laugh, eh, lucky clown?" he confided to the plastic head and picking up the carrier bag, closed the door. "Let's see what they've chopped down a rain forest to send us."

  Though the smallest and most nondescript envelope bore a typed label with his address on it, it didn't contain business mail. The single page was a chain letter which he assumed he'd been sent as an April Fool joke. TURN ILL LUCK INTO GOOD, the heading exhorted, an
d it was all he read before he stuffed the letter into his pocket for Laura to see later. "I hope I'm never that desperate," he said, spreading the contents of the bag across the counter.

  The two large envelopes contained wholesalers' catalogues. One catalogue was glossy and full of claims about dozens of films Jack had never heard of, supported by bunches of exclamation marks as though each film had its own band of supporters brandishing miniature spears. The other brochure was a duplicated list of second-hand videocassettes. A glance showed him Nightmare on Elm Street, presumably a born-again remake, and Snow; White and the Seven Dwarfs. The fattest package yielded a cassette of trailers of films due for release by one of the major distributors. He slipped the cassette into the player and sat back in his swivel chair.

  No doubt the opening film had an audience, but Jack didn't think he would like to live next door to them. Invulnerable men whose veins and muscles looked pumped up threw criminals about or did away with them, using weapons which struck him as extremely unlikely and, given the muscles, redundant. There was a great deal of snarling punctuated by explosions, and occasionally one of the pumped men emitted a leaden joke. Having flashed so many scenes of this kind that Jack lost count of the number of films they had been extracted from, the tape offered him 'the craziest comedy ever!!!!!' and began cackling to itself in a cartoon voice. Here were two wild-eyed men meeting a builder's lorry at a rubbish tip and climbing into the cab as the driver winched down a skip. "We're the skip inspectors," they said in unison.

  "See any rubbish needs dumping, John?"

  "You bet, Craig."

  Both men produced chainsaws from behind their backs. Shortly, an improbable amount of red appeared from the cab, followed by portions of the driver, and Jack felt as if he was being excluded from a joke. Gavin, his ex-partner, would have shrugged and commented "If that's what the public wants..." Hot on the heels of the horrible comedy came a horror film in which a gibbous man mutilated teenagers until they were more deformed than himself, supposedly because he found them indistinguishable from those who had tormented him when he was their age. Jack sympathised with his bemusement; he himself was having difficulty in telling any of them apart, and so he amused himself by dubbing his own soundtrack over the film. "PEOPLE MAKE FUN OF ME JUST BECAUSE I'M UNLUCKY," he bellowed, blotting out the shrieks and the shrieking music, "AND WHEN THEY MAKE FUN OF ME I DO BAD THINGS TO THEM AND THEN I'M AFRAID, I'M SO AFRAID I DO MORE BAD THINGS..." He was still ranting when the shop door opened and a girl of about ten faltered in the doorway, staring at him.

  Jack gave her a brilliant smile which was intended to persuade her that she was wrong to think whatever she was thinking. When he saw that it was more likely to drive her away he let it drop and fumbled an explanation. "I was just, er, practising. Practising to speak to the bank manager." She looked blank, and he felt forced to add "He's deaf."

  "Oh."

  He'd never heard anyone express so much incredulity with one syllable. "I'm teasing," he said. "I was talking to a monster up there."

  A man with a duffel hood over his scalp and the rest of the coat flapping behind him looked in the window as Jack pointed at the television. "So what can I do for you?" Jack said to the girl.

  She wavered and then marched rapidly to the counter, pulling a cassette box out of the pocket of her track suit. "Brought this back for our Timmy."

  "Sounds like a fair exchange to me."

  She shoved Body Heat across the counter and backed away, gabbling "Can I get one?"

  "Not one like this."

  "For me," she said as if she couldn't believe he had misinterpreted her.

  "Be my guest."

  He'd scarcely had time to delete the record of the loan on the Amstrad when she rushed back to the counter with a copy of Dumbo. "Remember your number?" Jack said.

  "Smack my bum," she said in an odd flat tone, and closed her eyes, her lips moving silently. "Five two three."

  "Just checking," Jack said, having read that membership number on the computer screen. He removed the cassette from its pictorial box and placing it in a transparent one, handed it to her. As soon as she dashed out of the shop the duffel-hooded man came in.

  With his cowled head and his jowls which appeared to be dragging his mouth down, he resembled a monk. His spectacles were perched so low on his nose that Jack wasn't sure if he was peering over them at the membership notice or through them at the box for Body Heat, which Jack had retrieved from the Out on Loan shelf. Assuming it was the latter, he said "Rather like a sexy Chandler."

  "In my day they made candles."

  By the time Jack realised he wasn't referring to some species of primitive sex-aid, the man had swung towards the window, adding a reek of sweat to the dust he was raising. "Do you know what those are?" he said in a slow almost toneless booming voice.

  When Jack didn't answer immediately he shook one stubby finger in the direction of the Laurel and Hardy poster. The best laughs I've ever had," Jack offered.

  The man threw up his arms as if Jack had stabbed him in the back. "Do you think you can say exactly what you like? Don't you think anyone saw what you did, or are you too far gone to care?"

  "Can you give me a hint?"

  The man whirled around, clutching at the spectacles on his nose. "Don't you even know what day it is?"

  "Ah," Jack said, and winked. "Yes, I believe I do."

  "You think it's set aside for the corruption of the innocent, do you?"

  He was miming outrage, his eyes bulging and lips drooping, and Jack thought he was overdoing it even as a joke. "Hardly," he said.

  "Never think for a moment you aren't being observed, my friend. Even if I hadn't been in time He would have seen what I saw."

  "Which was?" Jack prompted, replacing the cassette box on one of the Suspense shelves.

  The man jabbed a finger at the box. "You encouraging that innocent to handle filth. God only knows what you put in her hands."

  "Dumbo."

  "Call me all the names you wish. Christ and His disciples were called worse." The man glared at the television, which had begun to croon endearments and display glimpses of bare flesh. "I saw you pointing out filth oh that screen for the child to watch, and I heard you talking to her about her bottom. That's right," he boomed triumphantly, "you run. You won't be running anywhere He can't see you."

  Jack had made for the door in order to sneeze again, only to find that the sneeze wouldn't come. His having seemed to flee infuriated him. "I'm sure you're amusing in small doses," he told his visitor, "but I think I've had mine for today."

  He stood in the doorway until the man stalked past him, then he grabbed the glossy catalogue and tried to waft out the lingering reek. Now that he was further from the television he realised that the man had been indicating not the poster but the sound of church bells. He was still nursing the suspicion that someone had sent the man as a prank, but a minute past twelve eventually arrived, putting an end to the time for fooling, and the man continued to picket the shop.

  For a while he contented himself with staring hard at every cassette which entered or was hired from the library. When he overheard someone suggesting that Jack ought to equip him with a sandwich-board, however, he set about haranguing the customers. "Can't you hear the bells calling you to worship? Are you going to bow down in front of a television instead? What do you think Our Lord would say if He saw you enjoying profanity on the Sabbath?"

  "I reckon he'd say "Give us some room on the couch so I can take the weight off my feet"," one customer suggested, and in general those he approached seemed untroubled by him. All the same, when Jack saw two young women cross the road to avoid the picket he strode to the door. "Have you taken root there or what?"

  "My roots are in the tree on which you and your kind nailed Him."

  Arguing was pointless. Jack sent himself back to the counter. It looked as though he'd acquired a new partner, but that proved to be only until Andy Nation came to the shop.

  Andy lived i
n the Orchards' road. He began shouting at Jack before he was through the doorway. "Hello, old pip. How's Mrs. Apple and the sapling? Who's the character wearing his coat for a hat?"

  "My doorman. Started work this morning. Maybe he'll attract some custom. Just as long as he doesn't lose me any."

  "You know what I say. Get yourself some stronger films, fill up your top shelf. That's the way it works, isn't it? The films you don't like earn the money that pays for making the kind you like." He scratched the cleft in his emergent moustache and then his stubbly cheeks, pushing their flesh upwards so that his round face briefly acquired a look of Oriental menace. "Want rid of him?"

  "I expect I could shift him if I believed in violence."

  "Leave it to someone who does."

  Andy was out of the shop again, unzipping his leather jacket to free his brawny shoulders. "Flap away, caped crusader, before they have to carry you off on a stretcher. And don't go thinking my friend inside sent me after you, he tried to stop me. He knows I'm a madman when I need to be."

  "May God forgive you," the hooded man said, louder than ever. When Andy lurched at him, however, he scurried downhill, almost leaving his coat behind.

  "That's all it takes to get what you want," Andy informed Jack, "looking fierce and sounding as if you mean to get it."

  Thanks."

  "Anything I can do to help, you know you don't even need to ask."

  That I do, Andy. Thanks."

  This door could use a coat of paint. The way it looks now, people could think you've shut up shop." Andy began to take boxes from the shelves at random and shake his head. "I don't know how you can watch films with subtitles. People go to the cinema to be entertained, not to read a book. I didn't leave a hammer or a drill at your house while I was working there, did I?"

  "Only a blow lamp."

  "Keep it if it's any use to you. I've been meaning to buy something lighter. How's the house?"

  "We've someone coming to view it later." Jack frowned at the door. "You're right, this doesn't look too inviting."