The Dark Corners

by Robert J. Tilley

  * * * *

  Nothing at all happened during the next couple of days, at least as far as I was concerned. My wife reported that she’d seen them in the garden at odd intervals, and once they walked past the house while she was out at the front picking flowers. She’d said good-morning, but the only response she got was a brace of glances, one piercing, the other piscine. I didn’t even catch a glimpse of them myself, but young David let it drop at breakfast that he’d seen them watching him from one of the upstairs windows as he left to catch the schoolbus in the mornings.

  “And when I came home yesterday afternoon,” he said. He started tucking into his cornflakes with childish unconcern. My wife and I exchanged glances, but said nothing. I didn’t like it, but there didn’t seem to be anything we could do. People have a perfect right to look at who they please, especially from their own house. What the devil they were doing in one of the bedrooms at five o’clock in the afternoon I couldn’t imagine, but there again it was their concern. I swallowed the last of my breakfast, patted the boy on the shoulder, kissed my wife, and went out for the bus.

  While I was passing the next house, I sneaked a look up at the upstairs windows. A curtain stirred briefly, then stilled. I caught a vague glimpse of a white face that moved suddenly backwards and was gone.

  I felt a momentary twinge of fear. For a split-second I considered going back home, but the absurdity of it all kept me moving in the same direction. After all, the boy would be out and I was perfectly confident that my wife was capable of looking after herself. I caught the bus, exchanged the usual polite greetings with my fellow travellers and went on to work, but I spent a pretty uneasy day. For the first time I found myself regretting that we didn’t have a phone at the house. Before, we’d always considered ourselves fortunate that we were so completely cut off from outside communication, but now I wasn’t so sure that it was such an advantage after all.

  It was a distinct relief when five-thirty came around. I bade a hurried good-night to the caretaker, and practically raced to the bus stop. Not that anything was gained by rushing, but I had the absurd fear that for once in its lethargic travels the bus would be early and leave without me.

  It was five past six when I turned the last bend in the road that led to the house. I had a good look at the house next door as 1 passed, but this time no curtains moved and no white face was apparent. Nevertheless, I hurried down the drive, almost at a jogtrot.

  I heard the boy crying even before I opened the back door. I was in a cold sweat as I rushed in. The cause of the crying could have been anything, a cut knee, a bumped head, any one of a thousand minor accidents that youngsters are so prone to, but somehow this sound was different. A frightened crying, the sound of a child who had been subjected to something he doesn’t understand.

  I blundered into the kitchen, and stopped.

  The boy was sitting at the table, his head cradled on his arms, My wife was kneeling by him, stroking his hair, patting his shoulder, in a vain attempt to soothe the muffled, racking sobs that came from him. She jumped as I came in, and got to her feet quickly. Her face was paper white, and her eyes wide and frightened.

  “Oh, thank God you’re home!” she said. She seemed to crumple little as she came over to me. She held my arm, and took a deep, shaking breath. She was never a heavy woman, but now she seemed drawn and shrunken to the point of emaciation. “Those men…”

  “Next door?” I said. I felt sick, and I was more frightened than I had ever been. I took her by the shoulders and peered at her with eyes that must have been -as fear-ridden as her own. “Well, tell me, for pity’s sake! What’s happened? What have they…?”

  “They met David on his way home from school,” she said. She seemed suddenly very tired. Her voice was quiet and lifeless. “He met them at the top of the road. The tall one said good-afternoon, and told David they were our new neighbours. David said, yes, he knew, and started to walk off. The tall one stopped him, and told him it wasn’t very polite for someone to walk away just after they’d been introduced.” She looked as if she was going to cry. “He asked David if he’d mind walking down the road with them, just for the talk. He said they didn’t know anybody here, and they’d like to know about the people. What could the boy do? He’s been brought up to listen to his elders, and it only seemed polite…”

  “But I’ve told him about things like that!” I said. I almost shouted. “He’s been told to keep away from strangers that want to talk to him! Good God, how many times…?”

  She shook her head, tiredly.

  “He can’t help it. He’s just naturally friendly. And after all, we’re always friendly to strangers, people that don’t know their way about. It seems natural that he should be the same way…”

  “But it’s not the same!” I shouted. I was cold, but the sweat was running down my back in a steady stream. “We’re adults, we know what to do…!” I choked off. “What happened?”

  “The tall one talked. He asked David questions…”

  “Questions?” I looked wildly at the boy, and then back to my wife. “What the devil kind of questions get this kind of result?” I went over to the boy, knelt by the table, and lifted him upright. He was huddled and tense. His eyes were dreadfully red and swollen and he was still crying. “David son, tell me what happened.”

  He told me. About the questions, and his answers that had seemed entirely automatic, as though the bright, burning eyes of the tall man had dragged them out of him against his will, about the dark, whispered suggestions that had kept him rooted like a rabbit before a stoat as they stood in the lane where they had somehow wandered, and all the time the cold fish-glance of the silent sandman watching him with wet-lipped anticipation, his hands forever clenching and unclenching with a barely controlled venom.

  I knelt there, listening and shaking like a tree in a high and terrible wind.

  “And then I ran!” the boy cried. Earlier, his sobs had quieted a little, but now his face was crumpled into a puckered red mask of fear. “He shouted at me to stop, but I ran and ran until I got here!” He tore himself out of my hands and threw himself face-downwards again. His muffled voice came from the shelter of his thin arms, and a small hand beat the table once in a gesture of frustrated, childish fear. “He hated me! They both did! They hated me, and wanted me dead!”

  Anger is a terrible thing. In the space of seconds it can turn a peaceful being into a thing of blood and wrath, obsessed with nothing but the desire to maim, tear and crush the thing that has caused his anger to swell from the dark depths where it lies, hidden and forever waiting. As I pushed myself upright and stood by the table, sick and shaking, I wanted blood. I wanted the blood of these prowling things next door, these dark and menacing creatures who had erupted into our lives, and in a space of days caused us to live in fear.

  For a moment I thought of the police, but I dismissed the idea. This was different, a private thing. I turned, and headed for the back door. My wife caught at my arm as I passed and tugged at me, fearfully.

  “What are you going to do…?”

  I patted her hand and detached it, gently but firmly. I didn’t look at her. I moved towards the door again.

  “No!” Her voice was a high, frightened whisper. “No, you mustn’t…!”

  I went out, shutting the door behind me.

  I went down the drive, out into the road, and turned into the gateway of the house next door. I caught a glimpse of movement in the front room, a flicker of the curtains, and then nothing.

  I jammed my thumb against the bell and kept it there.

  The door was answered sooner than I expected. About ten seconds after I commenced my onslaught of ringing, there was the click of the latch, and the door swung inwards.

  It was the tall one, and for the first time I got a proper look at him. He was pale and thin, his clothing a nondescript grey suit, almost black. His forehead was high and protruding and his face long and drawn. It was high cheek-boned, and with the long upper-lip that s
o often indicates a superior intelligence. It was a striking face in itself, but dominated completely by the glowing, coal-like eyes that shone from beneath the heavy forehead, the eyes of someone consumed by a turbulently frightening inner fire.

  In spite of myself and the unabated tumult that beat inside my senses, I hesitated.

  “We were expecting you,” he said. His eyes were fixed unblinkingly on mine, and there was a faintly malicious edge to his voice as he spoke. He sounded almost triumphant. “Please come inside.”

  “What I have to say can be said perfectly well where we…”

  “I must insist that you come inside.” It was a lick-lipping, anticipatory voice. “What we have to say is not for the innocent ears of the birds and the flowers. It is better spoken behind closed doors, away from the cleanness of the open air and the normality of nature.” He stepped to one side. “If you please.”

  Despite my anger, despite my bubbling hatred of these men and their doings, the small flicker of fear made itself felt again. If anything, that was what I needed. I nodded, curtly, and walked into the hallway. The door clicked shut behind me.

  He led the way down the passage to the rear of the house, opened a door and ushered me inside. His silent gesture was contemptuous. Clenching my teeth to control the anger that came surging to the surface even stronger than before, I stalked inside.

  I stopped.

  The small man sat in a far corner, his feet placed neatly side by side on the floor, his left hand resting docilely on his knee. In his right hand, the point towards me, he held a foot-long knife with a strange twisted blade.

  I whirled. The tall man was closing the door, his back towards me. There was a double click, a slight fumbling motion, and then he turned.

  The gun in his hand was as steady as a rock and pointed directly at me.

  We stood for several seconds, just staring at one another. One thing was certain, he came out of that battle of the eyes the winner. In the space of a second, fear was the dominating sensation that gripped me. An icy hand traced its way down my spine, and I knew with an absolute, chilling certainty that these men were capable of killing me.

  “What’s this all about?” I said. My voice was hoarse, and my remark sounded as foolish as my opening one at our first encounter over the garden fence. I could feel the dead-fish stare of the small man drilling icily into my back. I didn’t move. “Before we commence this conversation…”

  “Before we commence any conversation,” said the tall man, “you will sit down. Over there.” His eyes were bright with a terrible sadistic triumph. He gestured towards an easy chair set against the wall. We continued the exchange of glances while I complied, the gun turning in a slow, steady arc, following my progress like a menacing metallic shadow. I sat down on the edge of the chair.

  “Back,” he said. He waved the gun, gently. “Sit back.”

  I leaned back cursing silently. The small man was on my right, and while my chances of jumping the tall one successfully were virtually nil, they were now rendered doubly so by the treacherously springy upholstery that now encased me. I sank and waited, trying to control my shaking.

  The tall one took his time about speaking, studying me first with those mad, luminescent pools for the best part of a minute. Beside me, the small man made no sound. I couldn’t even hear him breathing. For all I knew, he could have been dead.

  At last the tall one broke the tortuous, nerve-grinding silence.

  “I spoke to your little boy today,” he said. “An interesting conversation.” He seemed to relax a little, but the gun never wavered in his hand. He was smiling, a dreadful contraction of the facial muscles that never reached his eyes. “A polite, well- mannered boy. Perhaps too well-mannered. If he had not been brought up with such a conventional respect for his elders and their whims, you would not be here now.”

  “But I am here,” I said. My voice sounded like a rasping file. “Why?”

  The dreadful smile continued.

  “Naturally, you questioned your son about our conversation. If he answered you truthfully, then you know that we expressed considerable interest in your occupation.” He licked his lips, carefully. “You are, I understand, the mortician for the nearby town of Morley Park and the surrounding district.”

  I nodded, slowly.

  “That is true…”

  “And as such, you are in sole charge of the local mortuary.” He licked his lips again. His eyes were bright and burning on my face. “Is that correct?”

  “There is a caretaker…”

  “Who only deputises in your absence. Correct again?” He nodded, gently. “Yes, I think so.” The smile was triumphant now, the smile of someone who is utterly sure of his ground and the direction it will take him if he follows it unquestioningly. His tongue ran over his lips as he savoured the next question, taking his time about the asking, relishing his certain foreknowledge of the answer.

  “And naturally a man in your position would have access to the building at all times. You have keys, for example?”

  The sweat was pouring out of my cold skin in a steady stream. For the life of me I couldn’t control my shaking. “Of course…”

  “Perhaps you have them with you now?” For one blindingly terrifying moment I caught a mental glimpse of myself at my place of work, only now my position was dreadfully, irrevocably changed. I was on one of the veined marble slabs, a naked, cold cadaver, motionless in the dim shrouded silence of the vault. And bending over me, the light from his insane eyes etching sharp black shadows across my dead and staring face, was the creature that stood opposite me in this musty, unaired room, staring at me with those same maniacal eyes and holding certain death in his hand.

  “Yes…” I said. My mouth was a dry, arid desert. The muscles around it were numb and frozen. I opened it with difficulty. “Yes, I always carry them…”

  “You must die now,” he said. It was so sudden, so horribly unexpected at that moment that for an instant what he’d said didn’t register on my already half-fainting mind. His face was a dead, cold mask, his eyes with their dreadful burning light the only sign of life. “In some ways I regret that it must be so soon and so final—however, we have a little something prepared in the cellar for your wife and boy…”

  I almost fainted.

  “My wife…”

  “They must die, too.” His voice was a dim, toneless drumming in my ears. “To kill only one of you would be useless. There must be no witnesses, no bearers of descriptions to those who would seek your killers…”

  His eyes burned madly at me, and he talked on.

  It was then or never, I knew. Then or never was my one pitifully absurd, impossible chance for life. It was what he’d said about the wife and boy that did it. If it hadn’t been for that I think I might have sat there, a frozen corpse even before the bullet hit me, but that statement, so much more than just a threat, filled me with the kind of insane recklessness that results inevitably in either corpses or heroes.

  I got a tight grip on the arms of the chair, and heaved.

  I thank God now for several things. One is the fact that the chair was backed tight against the wall, his obvious aim being to have as much space as possible between us. The room, however, wasn’t really large enough to make that really worthwhile, and the amount of solid leverage that I was able to obtain from it more than compensated from my point of view. Second, and one that at first glance might seem a doubtful advantage, I slipped and fell. The blessing there was that he’d been expecting me to come at him a little higher up, probably to try and grab the gun. Third was the fact that while the little man was up and out of his chair like a streak of greased light, lunging at me as he came, he moved slightly behind me as he did so. He hadn’t made a sound during our brief association, and he was incapable of making one after that.

  The one bullet that the tall man fired whined over my back and took him just below the hairline. I lurched forward across the carpet as the tall man hesitated for one brief, dumb-str
uck second, wrapped my arms around his legs, and heaved. He wasn’t a heavy man, despite his height. He toppled over backwards, and his head hit the wall with a dull crunching noise.

  I heaved myself up and sprang astride him, pinning his gun arm under my knee and twisting it hard with both hands. He moaned and let go, but his left arm was still free, his clawing hand seeking my eyes. His eyes were still glazed, but getting brighter by the second. I felt the strength in his body squirming back to life beneath me, and something gave in my mind.

  It had to be done. It had been a long time, many long months since I had done this thing to a living breathing human, but it was the only way. I forced his free arm under my knee and bent towards the suddenly insanely frightened face.

  And as I sank my teeth into his neck, cutting off the bubbling scream, I knew that this way—our way—was the only one…

  * * * *

  The bundle of sharpened stakes that I found down in the cellar made quite a nice bonfire, together with several other items of interest that I found on the bodies. Notably their identification. A card in the wallet of the tall one labelled him as A. Hunter—a singularly appropriate name and not, I suspect, his own—and named him a member of a group that called themselves the Supernatural Slayers. I’d heard of it vaguely through other members of the family, but this was my first direct contact with any of its members.

  The dagger was an interesting item. The twisted blade was teak, extremely effective I should imagine, and of the type found protruding from my Uncle George when his travels ended abruptly in a remote part of Asia. The dagger, the guns, and a spare box of silver bullets I buried with the bodies, alongside that of old Broom, our previous neighbour, well away from the houses and in a spot that was unlikely to receive agricultural attention for some considerable time.

  Between us, my wife and I cooked up a yarn to spin to the house-agents and any other nosey-parkers that might consider it their business, including the police, but this time I have my doubts as to its success. It’s a little complicated, involving a friend in a motor car who had rushed down from Leeds in a frightful hurry because the brother of the tall one was dangerously ill, and they hadn’t had time to bring back the keys and rent in lieu of notice, and now they’d asked us to do it for them, going off in such a terrific tear that they hadn’t even had time to write a note and leave an address for forwarding mail…