‘I had been sleeping for some hours, I suppose, before I began to dream. It was an uncomfortable dream, but not in the least terrifying, not a nightmare, and it began with an apparent waking. This was followed immediately by the discovery that I had lost the power to move my limbs or even utter a sound. Then, as one will in dreams, I remembered the thick festoons of cobwebs I had noticed under the corners of the ceiling, and guessed that two or three adventurous spiders must have spun their way down to me. I had no prejudice against spiders – even these – which I imagined to be much larger than usual. Their busyness and persistence, on the contrary, amused me, for it was as if they were trying to bind me down with a silken web. But all at once these childish fancies gave place to a sharp recoil from something else – indefinite, unknown, yet very near. Actually it reached me, I think, through my sense of smell – a sickly sweetness – and, still half dreaming, I opened my eyes. It was dark; it was night; yet darker than the darkness a motionless black form leaned over me. I struggled against the impotence that had glued me down to my bed: I struggled, and some kind of stifled sound must have issued from my throat, for I saw the stooping black shadow – like an incubus – lifting, receding, vanishing. . . .
‘This time I awakened completely, yet a further moment or two elapsed before I realized that I was lying on my back, and that the bedclothes, which I had, as usual, carefully tucked in, must have come loose, for I was more or less uncovered. I must have done this in my dream, I told myself – unbelievingly, unhappily – for another feeling persisted. . . .
‘I sat up, and it seemed to me that the sweet, slightly nauseating odour still lingered faintly on the air. Then I raised my eyes to the fanlight above my door and saw that it was not as it had been when I had gone to bed, but was now visible as a triangle of dim, wan light. The light must be coming from the passage; it could not be a reflection from outside, because the curtains were drawn across the windows, and the windows themselves did not overlook any street, but a walled yard with a narrow lane beyond it. The minutes passed, and I sat staring at this pallid light, till suddenly it was not there – there was nothing there but darkness.
‘I did not lie down again, but neither did I strike a match. If I was afraid, at least it was not that kind of fear. What I felt was more spiritual dismay, following on the understanding, the half-understanding, of something not so much dangerous as shocking.
‘The room was intensely quiet: no flapping curtain, no gnawing mouse, no rattling window-frame. I knew I was alone, yet I knew, also, that someone had been near, thinking, willing. . . . Blunderingly I groped for the matches and candlestick beside my bed. I touched them, I knocked them over, and at the same time the rickety little table itself overturned with a crash. That accident was fortunate. It dispersed something, diverted something; I was conscious of a relaxed tension so instantaneous and unqualified as to suggest the snapping of a spell. A drop of sweat fell on my hand, but I had escaped, and during the next few minutes the mere sense of relief excluded every other feeling. In this breathing-space, this perhaps only temporary truce, my mind and heart gathered courage. Sufficient at least to enable me to act, and I slipped noiselessly from the bed and, candle in hand, tip-toed across the room. With my ear at the keyhole I crouched, listening. Once I heard the creak of a board, but it was just such a sound as in an old house one can always hear at night, and it was not repeated. Cautiously I turned the handle and peeped out. The odour I had smelt in my dream lingered there, too, but the passage itself was empty.
‘I returned to my room, closed the door, and lit the gas. I did not go back to bed, but dressed myself, and sat down with a book to wait for daylight. Of course I did not read; but gradually I grew more capable of cool and logical thought. I pulled my portmanteau from under the bed and packed it. I got my shoes, which I had left outside my door, and put them on. It was already daylight, or very nearly, when suddenly I heard sounds of commotion – a scream, a hurried flight of footsteps – succeeded by silence. I came out from my room; as far as the landing; and why I did not there and then leave the house I do not know; but that scream held me, though I made no attempt to discover the cause of it. Then I saw Maggie. She came running downstairs, she would have passed me had I not grabbed her by the arm. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” I found myself bawling these questions at the top of my voice, as if she were deaf, or half a mile away. A few moments ago I had been moving about with the utmost stealth; now, I don’t know why, noise seemed essential. I held on to her; I even shook her when she tried to free herself from my grasp.
‘Unexpectedly she burst into sobs, and throwing her arms round my neck, clung to me like a frightened child. She made the most extraordinary sounds, but it was several minutes before I could distinguish intelligible words. “Oh, sir! Something has happened! I must get a doctor. I must – ”
‘ “What has happened?” I cried angrily, though still clasping her tightly, determined not to let her go. “Is anybody ill? Is it Mrs Wace?”
‘ “He’s dead – lying in the bathroom. She found him. And she took me in there – she made me look. Let me go; let me go; before she comes.”
‘These words, wailed into my ears, brought me to my senses. I even stood for a few moments straining my ears, but there was not a sound from above. Nor did I now want to know what had happened or was happening. Nothing could have induced me to ascend that staircase. I asked no more questions, but we went down together, and out into the street in search of a doctor, though I myself felt it ought to have been a policeman. On our way, as it happened, we did meet a policeman, who looked at us rather strangely, pausing in his beat to do so. And this was my second day in London! An auspicious opening to my new career! It was now between seven and eight o’clock, and I was due at the bank at half-past nine. But luckily the doctor we eventually found was an elderly, kindly person, and when I had explained my position he offered to take charge of things, to give me breakfast at his house, and even to call round later in the day at the bank.’
Bingham paused, as if his story, or all he intended to tell me of it, were over; but presently he added, ‘The police, too, were decent enough, though naturally they asked a great many questions. There was an inquest, of course, when a verdict of suicide was returned. But they didn’t let it go at that, they weren’t satisfied, there were things they wanted to know – things they seemed to think might possibly help to account for Mr Wace’s determined escape to a happier world. I was cross-examined by a pertinacious, middle-aged inspector. Certain stories were being inquired into – suggestive if ambiguous stories – supplied by hitherto reserved but now loquacious neighbours. Boys of the lowest class – and girls also – had been seen at night entering or leaving the house. There was, I imagine, nothing more definite than that, but it gave the police a line they now followed up. Several of these visitors were traced, or came forward voluntarily in response to an advertisement (I don’t know what methods are adopted in such cases), and their evidence left little room for doubt. What I could never explain – either then or later – was the attitude of Maggie. After that first momentary weakness when she had turned to me, she veered round completely to the side of her mistress. She did not deny that more than once certain persons had called at the house and been admitted by her (the instincts of Mrs Wace, it transpired, were philanthropic); but she denied tooth and nail that there was any truth in the tales they now told of what had taken place on these occasions. As for me, I held my tongue concerning my own experience. Naturally they had fastened at once on the circumstance of my having been up and dressed and apparently on the point of leaving the house at so early an hour; but my explanation that I had slept badly, and had thought a walk in the open air before breakfast might freshen me up, was accepted. After all, I had arrived only on the previous afternoon, so could not be expected to supply much information.’
‘And what happened in the end?’ I asked. ‘It was suicide, I suppose?’
‘Oh yes; no doubts, I b
elieve, were ever thrown on that. After the inquest, indeed, it was regarded as a side-issue, bearing on the later investigation only because without it there would have been no investigation at all.’
‘So it fizzled out?’
Bingham shook his head. ‘Not exactly. Maggie got off – there was nothing against her except perhaps perjury, which was not pressed. Considering her age, she was regarded as a victim.’ He hesitated. ‘Mrs Wace really got off too – that is to say, after the police-court inquiry, and apart from the publicity, the unpleasant things that came out then, and the subsequent attitude of the neighbours.’
‘What is your own opinion, Bingham?’ I asked him bluntly. ‘Do you think she was responsible?’
‘If by that you mean normal, no. Otherwise, yes. But you haven’t quite realized my point in telling you the story.’
‘Which is?’
‘That she was an active agent: Number 10 Anselm Terrace was filled with her. Mr Wace was right when he said the house was haunted; only it was she who haunted it – her mind, her spirit, those thoughts and memories she was so fond of. . . . I don’t say there had been no other influences at work – that of her father, for instance, the eminent Dr Edwards, who conducted his experiments down in the basement. Doubtless she had been an intelligent and inquiring child – ’
There was a crash. Bingham had upset his tumbler and it lay in fragments on the ground. A very large, obese woman, dressed in rusty black, had just entered through the swing-door. At the noise, she turned a flushed, fuddled, good-natured face in our direction – a face nobody could have found alarming. One of the barmen had already come forward to tell her that they did not serve ladies.
Bingham apologized for his clumsiness, gave me a deprecating, rather shame-faced glance, and began to wipe the spilled stout from his clothes. Then he smiled sheepishly as we got up to go out.
SOMETHING HAPPENED by Hugh Fleetwood
Born in England in 1944, Hugh Fleetwood is a writer and artist whom a critic for the London Sunday Times has dubbed ‘the master of modern horror’. His second novel, The Girl Who Passed for Normal, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and his fifth, The Order of Death, was adapted for a film starring Harvey Keitel and John Lydon (Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols). More recently, in 2012 Fleetwood was cited by critic David Malcolm as a key figure in the development of the English short story. Fleetwood’s third novel, Foreign Affairs (1974), a thriller about a famous concert pianist stalked by a deranged, crippled boy, is available from Valancourt, and we are very pleased to be able to present here the weird and haunting ‘Something Happened’, which is original to this collection.
Something happened. Admittedly not very much: a visitor was announced. A friend of Boss’s was to come and stay for a few days. But, Anya, Alexej and Gabriel agreed, one must be thankful for small mercies. It was four years now since anything had happened. Then, Marek had been polishing Boss’s car, and had forgotten to put it back in the garage. There had been a freak hail-storm, with stones the size of ping-pong balls. The car had been badly dented, and Marek had been in disgrace. If Boss returned and saw the car, he would be furious; Marek might even lose his job. Of course Marek was slightly simple, and it was possible they could appeal to Boss’s better nature. Even so – an expensive car like that! Stupid Marek! Careless Marek! We all might lose our jobs because of you. For ages Anya and Gabriel couldn’t bring themselves to talk to Alexej’s tall, gangling brother, to whom Alexej himself hadn’t spoken for years.
Long before the incident of the car Alexej had considered his brother a liability in his life – as before him their parents had considered Marek a liability in their lives – and had wanted as little as possible to do with him. Alas, after he had been working for Boss for two years, he was one day asked about his family, and had confessed that he had an elder brother. Being at times good-hearted, Boss had said, ‘Wouldn’t he like to come and work for me, too?’
‘Oh no, thank you Boss,’ Alexej had said. ‘He’s a bit – you know, soft in the head, my brother.’
‘All the more reason,’ Boss had said. ‘Bring him over to England, Alexej. Tell him I want to meet him. I’ll pay his fare. And if it doesn’t work out – I’ll pay his fare back again.’
Alexej had been furious. But one never argued with Boss. So over Marek had come, sure enough Boss had taken him on, and six years later, when Marek had left the car out of the garage, both brothers were still working for him – albeit in Switzerland now, in a house by a lake.
‘He’s a ball and chain round my ankle,’ Alexej had complained to Anya and Gabriel. ‘He’s a curse. A stain.’
‘Oh come now,’ Anya had said. ‘He means well.’
‘Means is not enough,’ Alexej had grunted, and vowed to himself that if he had not addressed a word to Marek since they had arrived in Switzerland, he would not address another to him until they left.
Six months after the freak hail-storm, Anya and Gabriel – who were husband and wife – had taken pity on Marek and started talking to him again. After all, Boss hadn’t turned up in the meantime, and they supposed that when eventually he did come they could say that they had been taking the car out for its monthly run when they had been caught in the storm. And so long as Boss wasn’t in one of his bad moods, he would probably shrug it off, and say, ‘I’ll get in touch with the insurance people.’
But Alexej had never relented. If he passed his brother in the corridor, he pretended he wasn’t there. At table, he never included him in the conversation, or offered him a second helping. And when Marek returned from his three week annual holiday, he never asked him where he had been or if he had enjoyed himself. He knew Marek hadn’t enjoyed himself; Marek never enjoyed himself, and only took an annual holiday because Boss insisted that he take one. But he was damned if he was going to get Marek to tell him that – as he would, had he insisted – and simply raised his eyebrows when Anya or Gabriel asked these questions, and Marek replied, ‘Yes, thank you. I enjoyed myself very much. I went home.’
Home, indeed! As if such a place existed for Marek. Or had existed since he was seventeen, when his parents had thrown him out of the house, telling him he was a lazy good-for-nothing.
Marek had looked at them as if he agreed, had packed a small bag, and had disappeared. Not to be seen again by his mother and father in their lifetime. And only to be seen by his brother because when Alexej had been young he had been kind. As Marek was loping away from the farm-labourer’s cottage in which he had been born and raised, his twelve-year-old brother had followed him and whispered, ‘Please keep in touch with me, Marek. Write to me. Look after yourself. I love you.’
Thereafter the brothers had met once or twice a year, much to their parents’ disapproval. Until, after Alexej had married and his wife had said she didn’t want a weirdo like that in their house and didn’t understand why Alexej bothered with him, Alexej had started to make excuses when Marek phoned him or wrote a note suggesting they meet; and would probably have never seen his brother again had he not told the truth that day, when Boss asked him if he had any siblings. Of course one never lied to Boss; his wrath was terrible if he discovered someone had deceived him. Nonetheless, he could have said, ‘I used to have, but I’ve lost touch with him. I don’t know where he is.’
Oh, he had paid the price for his honesty – for his foolishness. And he would no doubt go on paying it until either he or Marek died. Unless Boss did unexpectedly return to the house by the lake, kick up a fuss about the car and fire Marek. But none of these eventualities seemed likely. It was almost ten years now since he had come; suddenly turning up three months after he had hired Marek, and two months after sending ‘my four most trusted employees’ over to Switzerland ‘to get the house ready for my arrival. I’m planning to retire there.’ He had flown in; he had expressed his satisfaction with the arrangements; he had said he had to do ‘a few last things’ before settling in definitively; and then, after just four days, he had flown out aga
in, never to re-appear. He had sent messages, letters, emails, and even made the occasional phone call; giving instructions, asking questions, promising that any day now he would return. But so far, not a sign of him had there been. And while they waited, Anya, Alexej and Gabriel cleaned windows, patched up walls, tended the garden, occasionally checked that the humidity from the lake was not having any ill effect on the Old Master drawings and paintings that hung everywhere in the house, repaired anything that needed repairing, polished the car – that on Alexej’s instructions had not been repaired after the hailstorm, ostensibly because Boss had to see it first before claiming for insurance, in fact in the hope that when he saw it he would fire Marek – and once a month took the great pock-marked vehicle out for a drive: Anya sitting up front, Gabriel behind, and Alexej at the wheel. All three feeling as if they were on a royal progress through the Swiss countryside, being gawped at by the natives, and all three relieved that, there again at Alexej’s insistence, Marek was not with them.
Twice a year, those same three took it in turns to return to their native country: Anya and Gabriel to see their daughter, whom they had left with Anya’s parents, and Alexej to see his wife and two children. They assured their families that just as soon as they had saved enough and made provision for the future, they would come home for good. ‘It won’t be long now,’ they always said. ‘Promise!’
After which, back to Switzerland they went, and back to their routine of cleaning, tending, repairing – and waiting. Waiting for Boss to keep his promise to return. Or waiting for something – anything – to happen.
And then a visitor was announced. So excited were they, that Alexej even forgot his vow, and coming into the kitchen after receiving a text message from Boss’s secretary, blurted out to his brother, ‘We’re going to have a visitor, Marek!’
The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories Page 25