The Weird Part 33

'A Negro?' asked Catesby, moistening his lips.

The doctor laughed nervously. 'I imagine so, though my first odd impression was that it was a white man in blackface. You see, the color didn't seem to have any brown in it. It was dead-black.'

Catesby moved toward the window. There were smudges on the gla.s.s. 'It's quite all right, Mr. Wran.' The doctor's voice had acquired a sharp note of impatience, as if he were trying hard to rea.s.sume his professional authority. 'Let's continue our conversation. I was asking you if you were' he made a face 'seeing things.'

Catesby's whirling thoughts slowed down and locked into place. 'No, I'm not seeing anything that other people don't see, too. And I think I'd better go now. I've been keeping you too long.' He disregarded the doctor's half-hearted gesture of denial. 'I'll phone you about the physical examination. In a way you've already taken a big load off my mind.' He smiled woodenly. 'Good night, Dr. Trevethick.'

Catesby Wran's mental state was a peculiar one. His eyes searched every angular shadow, he glanced sideways down each chasm-like alley and barren bas.e.m.e.nt pa.s.sageway, and kept stealing looks at the irregular line of the roofs, yet he was hardly conscious of where he was going. He pushed away the thoughts that came into his mind, and kept moving. He became aware of a slight sense of security as he turned into a lighted street where there were people and high buildings and blinking signs. After a while he found himself in the dim lobby of the structure that housed his office. Then he realized why he couldn't go home because he might cause his wife and baby to see it, just as the doctor had seen it.

'h.e.l.lo, Mr. Wran,' said the night elevator man, a burly figure in blue overalls, sliding open the grillwork door to the old-fas.h.i.+oned cage. 'I didn't know you were working nights now.'

Catesby stepped in automatically. 'Sudden rush of orders,' he murmured inanely. 'Some stuff that has to be gotten out.'

The cage creaked to a stop at the top floor. 'Be working very late, Mr. Wran?'

He nodded vaguely, watched the car slide out of sight, found his keys, swiftly crossed the outer office, and entered his own. His hand went out to the light switch, but then the thought occurred to him that the two lighted windows, standing out against the dark bulk of the building, would indicate his whereabouts and serve as a goal toward which something could crawl and climb. He moved his chair so that the back was against the wall and sat down in the semi-darkness. He did not remove his overcoat.

For a long time he sat there motionless, listening to his own breathing and the faraway sounds from the streets below: the thin metallic surge of the crosstown streetcar, the farther one of the elevated, faint lonely cries and honkings, indistinct rumblings. Words he had spoken to Miss Millick in nervous jest came back to him with the bitter taste of truth. He found himself unable to reason critically or connectedly, but by their own volition thoughts rose up into his mind and gyrated slowly and rearranged themselves, with the inevitable movement of planets.

Gradually his mental picture of the world was transformed. No longer a world of material atoms and empty s.p.a.ce, but a world in which the bodiless existed and moved according to its own obscure laws or unpredictable impulses. The new picture illumined with dreadful clarity certain general facts which had always bewildered and troubled him and from which he had tried to hide: the inevitability of hate and war, the diabolically timed machines which wrecked the best of human intentions, the walls of willful misunderstanding that divided one man from another, the eternal vitality of cruelty and ignorance and greed. They seemed appropriate now, necessary parts of the picture. And superst.i.tion only a kind of wisdom.

Then his thoughts returned to himself, and the question he had asked Miss Millick came back, 'What would such a thing want from a person? Sacrifices? Wors.h.i.+p? Or just fear? What could you do to stop it from troubling you?' It had become a practical question.

With an explosive jangle, the phone began to ring. 'Cate, I've been trying everywhere to get you,' said his wife. 'I never thought you'd be at the office. What are you doing? I've been worried.'

He said something about work.

'You'll be home right away?' came the faint anxious question. 'I'm a little frightened. Ronny just had a scare. It woke him up. He kept pointing to the window saying "Black man, black man." Of course it's something he dreamed. But I'm frightened. You will be home? What's that, dear? Can't you hear me?'

'I will. Right away,' he said. Then he was out of the office, buzzing the night bell and peering down the shaft.

He saw it peering up the shaft at him from the deep shadows three floors below, the sacking face pressed against the iron grillwork. It started up the stair at a shockingly swift, shambling gait, vanis.h.i.+ng temporarily from sight as it swung into the second corridor below.

Catesby clawed at the door to the office, realized he had not locked it, pushed it in, slammed and locked it behind him, retreated to the other side of the room, cowered between the filing cases and the wall. His teeth were clicking. He heard the groan of the rising cage. A silhouette darkened the frosted gla.s.s of the door, blotting out part of the grotesque reverse of the company name. After a little the door opened.

The big-globed overhead light flared on and, standing just inside the door, her hand on the switch, he saw Miss Millick.

'Why, Mr. Wran,' she stammered vacuously, 'I didn't know you were here. I'd just come in to do some extra typing after the movie. I didn't...but the lights weren't on. What were you'

He stared at her. He wanted to shout in relief, grab hold of her, talk rapidly. He realized he was grinning hysterically.

'Why, Mr. Wran, what's happened to you?' she asked embarra.s.sedly, ending with a stupid t.i.tter. 'Are you feeling sick? Isn't there something I can do for you?'

He shook his head jerkily, and managed to say, 'No, I'm just leaving. I was doing some extra work myself.'

'But you look sick,' she insisted, and walked over toward him. He inconsequentially realized she must have stepped in mud, for her high-heeled shoes left neat black prints.

'Yes, I'm sure you must be sick. You're so terribly pale.' She sounded like an enthusiastic, incompetent nurse. Her face brightened with a sudden inspiration. 'I've got something in my bag that'll fix you up right away,' she said. 'It's for indigestion.'

She fumbled at her stuffed oblong purse. He noticed that she was absent-mindedly holding it shut with one hand while she tried to open it with the other. Then, under his very eyes, he saw her bend back the thick p.r.o.ngs of metal locking the purse as if they were tinfoil, or as if her fingers had become a pair of steel pliers.

Instantly his memory recited the words he had spoken to Miss Millick that afternoon. 'It couldn't hurt you physically at first...gradually get its hooks into the world...might even get control of suitably vacuous minds. Then it could hurt whomever it wanted.' A sickish, cold feeling came to a focus inside him. He began to edge toward the door.

But Miss Millick hurried ahead of him.

'You don't have to wait, Fred,' she called. 'Mr. Wran's decided to stay a while longer.'

The door to the cage shut with a mechanical rattle. The cage creaked. Then she turned around in the door.

'Why, Mr. Wran,' she gurgled reproachfully, 'I just couldn't think of letting you go home now. I'm sure you're terribly unwell. Why, you might collapse in the street. You've just got to stay here until you feel different.'

The creaking died away. He stood in the centre of the office motionless. His eyes traced the course of Miss Millick's footprints to where she stood blocking the door. A sound that was almost a scream was wrenched out of him.

'Why, Mr. Wran,' she said, 'you're acting as if you were crazy. You must lie down for a little while. Here, I'll help you off with your coat.'

The nauseously idiotic and rasping note was the same; only it had been intensified. As she came toward him he turned and ran through the storeroom, clattered a key desperately at the lock of the second door to the corridor.

'Why, Mr. Wran,' he heard her call, 'are you having some kind of fit? You must let me help you.'

The door came open and he plunged out into the corridor and up the stairs immediately ahead. It was only when he reached the top that he realized the heavy steel door in front of him led to the roof. He jerked up the catch.

'Why, Mr. Wran, you mustn't run away. I'm coming after you.'

Then he was out on the gritty gravel of the roof, the night sky was clouded and murky, with a faint pinkish glow from the neon signs. Form the distant mills rose a ghostly spurt of flame. He ran to the edge. The street lights glared dizzily upward. Two men walking along were round blobs of hat and shoulders. He swung around.

The thing was in the doorway. The voice was no longer solicitous but moronically playful, each sentence ending in a t.i.tter.

'Why, Mr. Wran, why have you come up here? We're all alone. Just think, I might push you off.'

The thing came slowly toward him. He moved backward until his heels touched the low parapet. Without knowing why or what he was going to do, he dropped to his knees. The face he dared not look at came nearer, a focus for the worst in the world, a gathering point for poisons from everywhere. Then the lucidity of terror took possession of his mind, and words formed on his lips.

'I will obey you. You are my G.o.d,' he said. 'You have supreme power over man and his animals and his machines. You rule this city and all others. I recognize that.'

Again the t.i.tter, closer. 'Why, Mr. Wran, you never talked like this before. Do you mean it?'

'The world is yours to do with as you will, save or tear to pieces.' He answered fawningly, as the words automatically fitted themselves together into vaguely liturgical patterns. 'I recognize that. I will praise, I will sacrifice. In smoke and soot and flame I will wors.h.i.+p you for ever.'

The voice did not answer. He looked up. There was only Miss Millick, deathly pale and swaying drunkenly. Her eyes were closed. He caught her as she wobbled toward him. His knees gave way under the added weight and they sank down together on the edge of the roof.

After a while she began to twitch. Small noises came from her throat, and her eyelids edged open.

'Come on, we'll go downstairs,' he murmured jerkily, trying to draw her up. 'You're feeling bad.'

'I'm terribly dizzy,' she whispered. 'I must have fainted. I didn't eat enough. And then I'm so nervous lately, about the war and everything, I guess. Why, we're on the roof! Did you bring me up here to get some air? Or did I come up without knowing it? I'm awfully foolish. I used to walk in my sleep, my mother said.'

As he helped her down the stairs, she turned and looked at him. 'Why, Mr. Wran,' she said, faintly, 'you've got a big black smudge on your forehead. Here, let me get it of for you.' Weakly she rubbed at it with her handkerchief. She started to sway again and he steadied her.

'No, I'll be all right,' she said. 'Only I feel cold. What happened, Mr. Wran? Did I have some sort of fainting spell?'

He told her it was something like that.

Later, riding home in an empty elevated car, he wondered how long he would be safe from the thing. It was a purely practical problem. He had no way of knowing, but instinct told him he had satisfied the brute for some time. Would it want more when it came again? Time enough to answer that question when it arose. It might be hard, he realized, to keep out of an insane asylum. With Helen and Ronny to protect, as well as himself, he would have to be careful and tight-lipped. He began to speculate as to how many other men and women had seen the thing or things like it.

The elevated slowed and lurched in a familiar fas.h.i.+on. He looked at the roofs again, near the curve. They seemed very ordinary, as if what made them impressive had gone away for a while.

White Rabbits.

Leonora Carrington.

Leonora Carrington (19172011) was a famous English-born surrealist painter and writer who lived in Mexico for most of her life. 'From a very young age,' Leonora Carrington has said, 'I used to have very strange experiences with all sorts of ghosts [and] visions.' Although her art has overshadowed her fiction, Carrington's odd stories have been important to many writers, including Angela Carter. Collections include The Seventh Horse and The Oval Lady. Her stories and the novel The Hearing Trumpet provide a tantalizing glimpse of ways that surrealism might have had more influence on the weird tale. A strong synergy exists between her work and stories herein by Mervyn Peake, William Sansom, and Merce Rodoreda, among others.

The time has come that I must tell the events which began in 40 Pest Street. The houses, which were reddish black, looked as if they had issued mysteriously from the fire of London. The house in front of my window, covered with an occasional wisp of creeper, was as black and empty looking as any plague-ridden residence subsequently licked by flames and smoke. This is not the way that I had imagined New York.

It was so hot that I got palpitations when I ventured out into the streets, so I sat and considered the house opposite and occasionally bathed my sweating face.

The light was never very strong in Pest Street. There was always a reminiscence of smoke, which made visibility troubled and hazy still it was possible to study the house opposite carefully, even precisely. Besides, my eyes have always been excellent.

I spent several days watching for some sort of movement opposite but there was none, and I finally took to undressing quite freely before my open window and doing my breathing exercises optimistically in the thick Pest Street air. This must have made my lungs as black as the houses.

One afternoon I washed my hair and sat out on the diminutive stone crescent which served as a balcony to dry it. I hung my head between my knees and watched a bluebottle suck the dry corpse of a spider between my feet. I looked up through my long hair and saw something black in the sky, ominously quiet for an aeroplane. Parting my hair, I was in time to see a large raven alight on the balcony of the house opposite. It sat on the bal.u.s.trade and seemed to peer into the empty window. Then it poked its head under its wing, apparently searching for lice. A few minutes later I was not unduly surprised to see the double windows open and admit a woman onto the balcony. She carried a large dish full of bones, which she emptied onto the floor. With a short appreciative squeak, the raven hopped down and poked about amongst its unpleasant repast.

The woman, who had very long black hair, used her hair to wipe out the dish. Then she looked straight at me and smiled in a friendly fas.h.i.+on. I smiled back and waved a towel. This served to encourage her, for she tossed her head coquettishly and gave me a very elegant salute after the fas.h.i.+on of a queen.

'Do you happen to have any bad meat over there that you don't need?' she called.

'Any what?' I called back, wondering if my ears had deceived me.

'Any stinking meat? Decomposed flesh meat?'

'Not at the moment,' I replied, wondering if she was trying to be funny.

'Won't you have any towards the end of the week? If so, I would be very grateful if you would bring it over.'

Then she stepped back into the empty window and disappeared. The raven flew away.

My curiosity about the house and its occupant prompted me to buy a large lump of meat the following day. I set it on the balcony on a bit of newspaper and awaited developments. In a comparatively short time the smell was so strong that I was obliged to pursue my daily activities with a strong paper clip on the end of my nose. Occasionally I descended into the street to breathe.

Towards Thursday evening I noticed that the meat was turning colour, so waving aside a flight of rancorous bluebottles, I scooped it into my sponge bag and set out for the house opposite. I noticed, descending the stairs, that the landlady seemed to avoid me.

It took me some time to find the front door of the house opposite. It turned out to be hidden under a cascade of something, giving the impression that n.o.body had been either in or out of this house in years. The bell was of the old-fas.h.i.+oned kind that you pull, and when I pulled it rather harder than I intended, it came right off in my hand. I gave the door an angry push and it caved inwards, admitting a ghastly smell of putrid meat. The hall, which was almost dark, seemed to be of carved woodwork.

The woman herself came rustling down the stairs, carrying a torch.

'How do you do? How do you do?' she murmured ceremoniously, and I was surprised to notice that she wore an ancient beautiful dress of green silk. But as she approached me I saw that her skin was dead white and glittered as if speckled with thousands of minute stars. 'Isn't that kind of you?' she went on, taking my arm with her sparkling hand. 'Won't my poor little rabbits be pleased?'

We mounted the stairs and my companion walked so carefully that I thought she was frightened.

The top flight of the stairs opened into a boudoir decorated with dark baroque furniture and red plush. The floor was littered with gnawed bones and animals skulls.

'It is so seldom that we get a visit.' The woman smiled. 'So they all scatter off into their little corners.'

She uttered a low sweet whistle, and transfixed, I saw about a hundred snow white rabbits emerge cautiously from every nook, their large pink eyes fixed unblinkingly upon the woman.

'Come, pretty ones! Come, pretty ones!' she cooed, diving her hand into my sponge bag and pulling out a handful of rotting meat.

With a sensation of deep disgust, I backed into a corner and saw her throw the carrion amongst the rabbits, who fought like wolves for the meat.

'One becomes very fond of them,' the woman went on. 'They each have their own little ways! You would be surprised how very individual rabbits are.'

The rabbits in question were tearing at the meat with their sharp buck teeth.

'We eat them of course occasionally. My husband makes a very tasty stew every Sat.u.r.day night.'

Then a movement in the corner caught my attention and I realized that there was a third person in the room. As the woman's torchlight touched his face I saw he had identical glittering skin, like tinsel on a Christmas tree. He was dressed in a red gown and sat very rigidly with his profile turned towards us. He seemed to be unconscious of our presence or of that of a large white buck rabbit which sat and masticated on a chunk of meat on his knee.

The woman followed my gaze and chuckled. 'That is my husband. The boys used to call him Lazarus'

At the sound of this familiar name, he turned his face towards us and I saw that he wore a bandage over his eyes.

'Ethel?' he enquired in a rather thin voice. 'I won't have any visitors here. You know quite well that I have strictly forbidden it.'

'Now, Laz, don't start carrying on.' Her voice was plaintive. 'You can't grudge me a little bit of company. It's twenty-odd years since I've seen a new face. Besides, she's brought meat for the rabbits.'

She turned and beckoned me to her side. 'You want to stay with us, do you not, my dear?' I was suddenly clutched by fear and I wanted to get out and away from these terrible silver people and the white carnivorous rabbits.

'I think I must be going, it's suppertime'

The man on the chair gave a shrill peal of laughter, terrifying the rabbit on his knee, which sprang to the floor and disappeared.

The woman thrust her face so near to mine that her sickly breath seemed to anaesthetize me. 'Do you not want to stay and become like us? In seven years your skin will be like stars, in seven years you will have the holy disease of the Bible, leprosy!'

I stumbled and ran, choking with horror; some unholy curiousity made me look over my shoulder as I reached the front door and I saw her waving her hand over the banister, and as she waved it, her fingers fell off and dropped to the ground like shooting stars.

Mimic.

Donald A. Wollheim.