Dark Things IV

by Stacey Longo

  The man’s eyes were hideous—crazy, wild, cunning, and focused on me, regardless of the head’s movement. And they showed me murder—they willed me to murder—to commit that which was forbidden. The smile widened, the laughter flowed, and I felt myself wanting to smile, to drink in the lunacy.

  “The smile of one who has broken the ultimate taboo,” said a dusty voice beside me. “A taboo that doesn’t exist outside our minds, that is easy to break, and to commit again and again in the ecstasy of addiction.”

  “You say I should commit it?” I asked, the question feeling right.

  There was grim silence for a moment and I felt something gnaw at my sanity, but eventually the voice answered, surprisingly calming my nerves.

  “You do not know the question you ask,” it muttered. “Look at the mirror again.”

  I brought my gaze into focus, staring once again at the laughing face and murderer’s eyes, but nothing had changed—I voiced my confusion to my invisible companion.

  “Look closer,” it urged.

  I looked closer, though the murderer was starting to make me dizzy, and then down at myself. We were one and the same. Cold reason flooded through me and I instantly checked my laughter as I stared at my own reflection—bedraggled maybe, but me, standing alone in a hallway filled with swinging, empty hooks. Suddenly, I felt ridiculous.

  “Just a dream?” I whispered, and then more forcefully, “it was just a dream. I’m under stress. The mind can play tricks.”

  But was I under stress? Yes I had arrived unexpectedly, and yes I had to stay in a deserted house in the middle of nowhere, but that was no reason for me to lose my marbles, was it? I was a grown man with mild amnesia, not a madman giving in to wild fancies.

  “You know nothing of stress,” said a sudden whisper behind me. “To be trapped in this place, with a cursed memory and yet all your sanity intact…that is beyond the worst stress of living life.”

  I turned away from the mirror, but there was no one there, though I thought I sensed a presence nearby—several in fact, as once again I felt unseen watchers behind the doors. I shivered, picturing myself opening them one by one, finding nothing, but feeling as if I had intruded on something secret and dark, and that events inside that had been in motion a moment before would be only temporarily suspended until I was out of the way again. The room would then release its breath behind closed doors.

  I saw the house as alive for the first time and it wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  There was a low, ironic chuckle.

  “Just a house,” answered the voice. “And what is a house but an adventure for children…a haven for adults…or a prison for the insane?”

  “Are you part of this place?” I asked, still trying to locate the presence.

  This time the voice was uncomfortably close to my ear.

  “I have become so, yes…though it is my own fault.”

  “Who are you?” I asked. “What are you?”

  Silence followed but it was thankfully short.

  “I cannot manifest in this hallway,” whispered the voice urgently. “Too many malignant, fluctuating powers. Enter the third door on the left and I will show you my form.”

  I felt a displacement of air and something cold brushed past me, and once again I was alone, but I didn’t linger. I made the decision to follow the voice’s instructions, and something inside me knew it was right, momentous even to obey. However eerie the instructions—however dusty the voice—I wasn’t afraid of it, just wary. The mirror, on the other hand, terrified me, so I made a point of not looking back as I strode to the third door on the left and turned the handle. I felt strangely energized; the voice had me intrigued, and I got the feeling it was almost as much of an interloper as me.

  A rank smell was the first thing that hit me—a heady scent of decay, old paint, and burnt wood that smothered me, but seemed to be confined only to the room. There was a window with shutters pulled down, and large industrial nails drilled into each corner, so any hope of letting light in was immediately dashed. What light there was came from a small lamp tucked away next to an old cot, casting a soft purple glow, and I realized it was not a lamp after all but a children’s night light, turned on by some unknown hand. There was a second cot opposite the first, this one in slightly better repair, with splashes of red paint still visible and even the hints of a flowery pattern. Between them stood an imposing rocking chair and two battered shelves on the wall behind it. It had obviously been a nursery in a former life, but now it looked dead and sad, and filled with childish objects decayed beyond recognition.

  I stood in the doorway, wondering why the voice had brought me to such a place, and then, unnerved by the growing silence, I quickly shut the door and called out.

  “Okay, I’m in the room you told me to go to. Show yourself.”

  My words were bolder than my mood, but they had the desired effect as the rocking chair began to move back and forth, creaking slowly at first, and then building momentum until it swayed recklessly, terribly. To my great credit I didn’t flinch—perhaps what I’d already seen had hardened me, or maybe it was because I knew it was the voice just having fun, but I smiled at the chair as it creaked and slowly folded my arms.

  “Very amusing,” I said.

  The rocking increased further—as if to show me who was boss—becoming so violent that I thought the chair might capsize, and I heard a strange sound come from its direction, a slurping noise as if someone was sucking on a boiled sweet.

  Despite my bravado I felt a sliver of fear run up my spine.

  “That isn’t me,” suddenly said a familiar voice.

  The sliver of fear became a river and I turned to the right and saw a shadowy shape standing by one of the cots, looking thoughtfully at the burnt mattress. The creaking chair was almost jumping for glee, and I thought I saw something materializing on that too—something dark and hunched—but the shadowy figure suddenly looked up and the rocking ceased. There was a moment’s quiet, a collective holding of breath, and then the chair juddered a final time and was still. I let out a breath and turned to the figure, which looked more substantial than a moment ago.

  “That’s better,” he said, and I felt his cold, dry breath drift over to me.

  In fact, I felt dryness everywhere and a rise in temperature that made me picture a desert, full of sand dunes but little else. Something told me it came from him—this sinister voice suddenly made manifest—and again the situation’s absurdity reared its head. Here stood a ghost in a trench coat and Panama hat, looking wistfully at nursery cots after battling a rocking chair—a surrealist couldn’t have painted a stranger picture.

  “Do I look acceptable in this form?” he asked as I stared dumbly at him.

  I couldn’t see his face under the hat’s brim, which pleased me as I could feel his will boring into my own, but his hands were calloused, with long yellow fingernails, and he had powerful-looking shoulders. He looked like a television detective—brooding and ominous.

  “You remind me a bit of Sherlock Holmes,” I muttered without thinking.

  The figure was silent, and then cocked his head.

  “Who is that?”

  “Oh…never mind.”

  He looked down at his coat.

  “Your levity surprises me,” he said, “considering you are talking to something…supernatural.”

  “You don’t seem wholly supernatural,” I answered. “What exactly are you? Are you a ghost?”

  He laughed, the sound like gravel passing through a funnel.

  “A ghost would be simpler, but I am not as far as I know. Unlike the hideous, piteous forms that haunt this place, I have a purpose.” His voice rose. “I have something I need to do…and I thought I had eternal patience.” He shook his head. “True patience is something you cannot possibly fathom but I do not hold it against you. Even mine has been stretched.”

  I shook my head, not grasping his meaning.


  “If not a ghost, then what?” I prompted.

  He shifted his weight, looking irritated.

  “That doesn’t concern you at the moment,” he said with a sudden look at the door. “Time is short for me in this room. They know most of my haunts, so I have to be careful not to get trapped or surrounded. Without a form I am harder to find.”

  His words were laced with meaning, but try as I might, I couldn’t unravel them. I opened my mouth, but he seemed to sense my frustration and laughed.

  “You want something to call me, call me The Dustman,” he said. “That’ll have to do for now, but fear not, I will come back to you soon…for it is I that seeks your aid, though you will be undoubtedly horrified to hear it.”

  He laughed again and faded away before I could say a word, and with his departure came the feeling of impending danger. The nursery no longer seemed like a safe place to be, so I didn’t hesitate in grasping the door handle. I thought I felt resistance from the other side, but the brief tug of war didn’t last and I stumbled back out into the corridor, slamming the door behind me and slumping against the wall—and not a moment too soon.

  A dreadful wailing arose inside, muffled by the door but sharp and juvenile, and I heard a baby cry, followed by a second a moment later. Something thudded into the wall near my head and I cried out and shuffled away, not daring to take my eyes off the room but transfixed by the cacophony. A light turned on inside and I saw shadows moving underneath, but still I couldn’t retreat. It felt like the whole room was throwing a fit, with furniture being dragged and objects crashing to the floor, and underlying it all was the awful crying. I had once woken as a child in the dead of night and heard a baby crying in a nearby house, and the haunting, eerie melody had always terrified me, even in adulthood. Now I was reminded of its perverse wretchedness, and part of me wanted to re-enter and shut it up.

  “…You say I should commit it?” I heard myself say, but the voice came from inside the room—a parody of my own, metallic and cruel.

  My nerve snapped and I scrambled to my feet, desperate to flee the corridor, the house, the Dustman, everything. Tears came to my eyes, but I was too busy running to wipe them away; my legs felt like jelly and I seemed to pass endless doors, all threatening and malevolent, until at last something loomed before me and I ran towards it, blindly hoping it was an exit. Only when I was a few feet away did I realize that it was the mirror, and that I was running around like a headless chicken, bereft of common sense or direction. The fight left me and I cursed, wiping away the remaining tears and staring defiantly into the glass, resisting the urge to smash it.

  Thankfully, the cherubs hadn’t moved, but I saw something emerge from the nursery and run into the opposite room. It was a trick of light, so quick was its passage, but as I doubted it happened again, this time back the other way—two small figures holding hands and skipping in a strange, ethereal way. Children’s laughter echoed faintly down the hall, but there was no sound of opening or closing doors.

  “Cease tormenting yourself,” said the Dustman’s voice suddenly. “I have found another haven. Go back towards the entrance and it will be the first on the right once you leave this hallway.”

  Again I felt the cold displacement of air, but terror riddled me at the thought of going back to the entrance, because to do so I would have to walk past the nursery again—something I wasn’t sure I had the courage for.

  “God help me,” I muttered, but God seemed far away from this place.

  I took a moment to compose myself, trying to blank my mind of the mirror and focus on one thing—the end of the passage. Regardless, I felt like I was going down an escalator to Hell, but I forced my legs to pump, willed my ears to deafen, and before I knew it I was halfway down the hall. Silence suffocated me but I felt most of the threat now lay before me, not behind; it was cold comfort, but at that moment it was helping me contain my fear, and I drew level with the nursery without incident.

  Both its door and the one opposite were closed and the crying and wailing had thankfully ceased, but as I moved past I heard a dull thump—like something heavy falling over—and something dark started to spread onto the carpet and stain it red. I stared, confused, before I smelt copper and knew that it was blood—thick, oily and flowing unerringly towards my feet.

  That was the spur I needed. I ran the rest of the way, throwing open the passage door, swerving right and barging into the room the Dustman had earmarked without thinking. Out of breath, I put my hands on my knees, trying in vain to erase the blood and what it signified from my memory, but it was impossible.

  Wind brushed past my ear and then a voice spoke.

  “You made it then, though I can sense it has been a tough passage.”

  I looked at the Dustman—angry at his calm voice amidst the maelstrom of terror—and then at my surroundings. The room seemed rather bare, with white paint peeling off the walls, a pile of wood in the corner, an old fashioned projector resting on a table, and a white screen at the far end with smears of red plastered over part of it. I didn’t want to think what that could be, so I turned my attention back to the Dustman, who stood patiently in the shadows, head down.

  “Are you going to tell me more than riddles this time?” I snapped. “I can feel my sanity disappearing with each passing second in this place. If it wasn’t howling a gale I’d be out braving the trees.”

  “Ah, but can you remember where your car is?” he asked.

  I was taken aback at his knowledge.

  “How do you know about my car?”

  He shrugged, but I felt his burning gaze under the hat.

  “An educated guess,” he said slowly. “Or maybe not. If you help me, maybe I can show you the way back to your vehicle.”

  I felt a sliver of hope, but retained my suspicion.

  “Help you how?”

  “You find someone for me.”

  “Who on Earth can I find in a place like this?” I asked, laughing incredulously.

  “Somebody dead,” said the Dustman without irony, and I stopped laughing. “There is a girl I wish to see again…it is the reason I am still here—I am sure of it!” He sounded grimly certain. “I used to watch over her as a child, in the very nursery we were in. I used to shield her dreams…”

  “…Shield her dreams?” I interrupted.

  “That’s right. That was my ‘function’ you could say. I was an invisible grandparent, watching over the children, smoothing their foreheads in the dead of night when nightmares threatened. They never saw me of course…but I know they sensed me from time to time—especially the girl. She used to call me the ‘Beach Watcher’ because whenever I was around she thought of sand, and in turn associated that with the seaside.” The wistfulness in his voice sounded odd, like he was talking from a long distance away. “Have you ever heard of the Sandman?”

  The question jolted me out of my reverie.

  “Er…yes. The old fairytale of the man throwing sand in people’s eyes to get them to sleep.”

  The Dustman snorted—a strangely comforting sound.

  “Such a benevolent, indulgent image,” he said. “Completely false of course. The Sandman is a wicked monster, using his glamour to lure children away from their beds, and then…well, it isn’t pleasant what he does to their eyes.”

  I shivered.

  “Is that what happened here? Did the Sandman get the children?”

  “What?” The Dustman sounded confused. “No, the Sandman is afraid of me. He is never where I am if he can help it. The children eventually grew up and moved away, and I was left to float around the empty rooms, a shepherd without a flock.”

  “That must’ve been lonely.”

  “In a way. A lot of my direction and spirit disappeared with them, so I remember little of my wanderings after that, just vague feelings and yearnings.”

  “So who is the dead girl you want me to find?” I asked.

  “The girl who left of course.” The Dustman glided over to the projector. “She ca
me back in the end…but she was changed. Not the person I remember. She was what you would call a teenager, full of unjustified anger, and she brought a man with her—a stepfather. He was a cruel and dangerous individual—murderous even.” An image flashed into my mind of my laughing countenance in the mirror. “I knew he had corrupted her, and I had no inkling of why they would return to this old place, but eventually it came to me that they were after the old master’s paintings.”

  “Really? What were these paintings? Did they find them?”

  The Dustman flicked a dismissive hand.

  “Matters like that mean nothing to me,” he said. “All I care about was and is the girl. After they arrived I tracked her for days, trying to draw her back into my world, looking over her in sleep…but the stepfather kept her in his thrall, threatening her with violence if she didn’t do his bidding.” He sighed, though it sounded more like a wheeze. “On the fourth night there was a commotion and violence was brought about.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, feeling icy spiders crawling down my back.

  “The man murdered her in a mad frenzy. I came late but saw the horror—blood on the walls, the knife in his hands, and all the while he laughed crazily, yet his eyes were haunted…and the insane babbling, oh the insane babbling…”

  He trailed off, and the intervening silence was pregnant in the empty room.

  “What was he saying?”

  The Dustman absently tapped the projector.

  “There was another in the house—a man with a camera who was looking for the paintings as well, but the stepfather murdered him too and hung him from a ceiling hook. All the while he blamed the house, saying it had infected his mind, and he took his frustrations out on the mirrors especially, saying they showed things ‘too real, too clearly’. After that he fled and I was left alone with the spectres.”