The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror (4 page)

As she returned to bed he extinguished the light. ‘You haven’t closed the cupboard properly,’ he said. He opened the door as if to shut it with a slam. A moonbeam partitioned him off from the bed. He laid his hand on the rim of the cupboard, waiting, and the glove fell on his fingers like a caress.

Dear Sir, I am in receipt of your letter—
On
the back he sketched the glove. At once his pencil traced her poised arm and ranged over her curves, the lead point sensitive as his fingertips. It smoothed her hair and formed the framed oval. But her face eluded him. The shutter of his mind had jammed. Was she facing him or smiling secretly in profile? He drove the point into the paper close to her hair, and the
pencil snapped.

‘We’ll have to eat in here tonight,’ said his wife from the kitchen. ‘I know it’s crowded.’

He threw his overcoat on the bed; he should have an overall to welcome him, a vortex of colour like petrol after rain.

She was wearing a grey sweater; she looked young as a rediscovered photograph. Opened, the oven door exhaled the heavy heat of steak. She encircled the meat with potatoes and smiled. ‘When I was dusting your books—’

His knife froze in the meat. ‘You were dusting my books?’

‘I thought it was the least I could do. I found a glove. I thought at first it was the rat.’

And he’d torn up the sketched hand. ‘What have you done with it?’ The knife gouged; the meat tore.

‘I threw it away, of course. It would have ruined your books. It was covered with—
I don’t know, it was all wet.’

‘With tears, perhaps.
No, no, it doesn’t matter.’

The pillow gasped as his fist drove in. The bedroom was void. He left his easel in the corner. Already the girl’s presence had attenuated; she’d begun to fray, to be absorbed into the flat like mist. Or to drift out of the window; his wife was systematically driving her out, destroying the expressions of her personality, his tokens of her. Clouds bulged from the lacklustre sky like wet wallpaper. He stared at the unlined sheets, willing even the curve of her leg to form. One sight of her face and he would possess her. But he felt sure the photograph was ashes. Suddenly he caught up his easel and bore it toward the window. There would be a suspended silent moment before the easel smashed and scattered on the concrete. He thrust the window high. A breeze breathed into his eyes, and for a second a cloud smiled beneath hair. At once he knew. With gestures sure as sketched lines he set up the easel. Then patiently he lay back on the bed to wait.

He leapt up. His wife was sorting plates and cutlery on the kitchen table. ‘I won’t be in your way,’ she said. ‘I won’t be, will I?’

Without a word he clutched the carved legs and returned to the bedroom. Each leg was wood. Unprepared for the end of a curve, his fingers constantly fell into space. He laid one leg against his; when he moved the edge cut into his flesh. The wood was lifeless. The cupboard was empty. One side of the canvas had slipped low; a corner encroached on the wide dull landscape. The girl was elsewhere. Even the touch of the glove had been too light to suggest so much as the ghost of a hand. Abandoned once, she would never return again if re-buffed. And yet, he thought—and yet his painting might provide her with a hold. She might become the painting.

Light resonated in the glasses like a soundless chime. He stood before the kitchen door; his throat was dry. The kitchen was her last refuge. Surely it contained nothing that his wife might shatter. The girl knew this as surely as he did. Yet he was afraid to enter; it would be their first meeting. And his wife would be alert.

The door swung in his wake. She came to meet him. Yet not quite; her presence was lent a harsh immediacy by the white tiles, compressed by the pendulous sky, but not formed. She was
still preparing for him. He must wait. As he whirled, impatient, he glimpsed his wife’s face, flat as a painting against the wall.

He paced the bedroom. The sky was close as the walls, encasing his eyes. He found that he could hear himself breathing, almost suffocated. He wrenched open the cupboard door and dragged out a sketch-pad.
A title for his painting. Anything. But the edges of the pencil were insufferable as the angles of a rusty threepence. A book to calm him. The art-paper scraped beneath his nails, agonizing as tin. He dropped the book and rushed into the kitchen.

‘Oh, what is it?’ his wife cried. ‘Don’t keep going away from me!’

At the sound of her voice the girl fled. The kitchen rejected her. He stared slowly at his wife, the neat ranks of cutlery, the handkerchief bulging the arm of her sweater like a muscle. ‘God. God. God,’ he said.

And then he fell silent.

Behind her head, like an embryo born of the breeze, the curtain swelled. A thrust of air created cheekbones from its folds. Above them hollows might harbour whatever expression he called forth. The line which linked the hollows fell away into an arch. As the curtain swayed a wrinkle smiled, but shyly.

His wife followed the line of his gaze. ‘Oh, the curtain,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you say it was crumpled?’

She shook it straight. For a moment it was sucked against the window-frame, as if clutched in panic and relinquished. The tips of a tree were veiled, then sprang bright.

The table shook at his clutch. ‘Won’t come back,’ he muttered.

‘Sorry?’ But his face was frozen as a portrait. ‘You look so lost tonight,’ his wife said. ‘Can I give you something?’

The planes of the kitchen were flat as the untinted tiles. He would never know what colour of dress the girl had worn;
nor thatonly skulls lack a nose. He peered through a wavering mist at the table. His hand closed on a carving-knife. ‘This’ll do,’ he said
.

NIGHT FISHING. There was nothing quite like it. There was nothing quite like sitting in the darkness at the edge of a black lake, torch in hand, and watching the luminous tip of the float on the dark surface of the water. Nothing like the thrill of watching the tiny tip flip with a sudden motion before vanishing beneath the surface with a tiny “pop!” as the carp took the bait. Nothing like striking, heaving the rod sideways with a swish, and feeling the sudden fighting weight, invisible, on the other end.

Albert Jordan loved to fish at night. By day he’d tried fast-running streams and meandering rivers, but, as far as he was concerned, there was something special, something strangely fascinating about the bright tip of a plastic float on the slack, black waters of a night lake. No one else of his acquaintance could quite understand this fascination; every one of his angling friends derived their pleasure from sitting at the edge of a green swim, gently touched by the bright daylight sun, with a soft tumble of bird-song in the background, and the faint hoot of a water-fowl (faint for distance, so as not to disturb the waters of an angler’s swim, of course!) hanging on the warm air. Albert, in turn, could never sympathize with
this
attitude. To him the pleasure of being alone at night at the water’s silent edge was a wonderful thing, something to be worshipped with an almost religious fervour. In short, night fishing was his idea of the ultimate in pleasure.

It was in anticipation of this pleasure that Albert smiled to himself as he walked across the fields late on one particular evening. Midnight was approaching and the night was black as a cavern; all day the sky had been overcast, and now neither moon nor stars broke through the complete darkness. His gum-booted feet swishing heavily through the dew-laden grass, Albert Jordan headed in the direction of the invisible line of trees which marked the water’s edge, the narrow beam of light from his torch probing faintly ahead of him, lighting the way for his feet. Hanging down from his shoulders, his basket and rod-bag bumped and rubbed against his raincoated back as he walked.

Soon he was among the trees and he half-walked, half-slid down the bank, one hand on the wet ground for support. And then the ground was horizontal once more as he found himself standing in pitch-blackness on a shelf of baked, tramped mud right at the water’s edge, on which, with relief, he dropped his heavy tackle. Not a sound, not a motion besides his own, disturbed the complete darkness. He opened his basket, unfolded his canvas stool, and with experienced hands he began to tackle-up, needing no light to aid him.

At last he was ready. With an expert motion he cast, the bait falling with a quiet splash in the darkness. The float bobbed as if waving to him, moving slowly up and down a few times, and was then still, the luminous tip like an eye in the blackness in front of him. Albert sat on the stool to wait.

Minutes passed. The darkness, except for the tip of the float, was complete. Everything was still and silent.

Albert waited, warm with the knowledge of his own patience. For a long while he didn’t move, he sat as if frozen, his gaze intent on the tip of the float in front of him.

Presently a soft gentle breeze, like a shiver, sprang up quickly and was gone in a second; the only sign of its passing was the brief hiss and rattle of invisible reeds somewhere nearby.

More minutes passed. Still the tiny dot floating in front of him did not move. And neither did anything else.

Soon Albert began to fidget. His fingers twitched. He swallowed. After awhile the realization dawned on him that the pleasure he had anticipated for tonight was missing. For no reason he picked up his rod and reeled in the line. With his fingertips he checked that the lobworm was still securely on the hook, and then he re-cast. The float bobbed again, silently on the black water, and was then still.

The silence and the darkness were once again filled with an intensity which crept like a ghost around him. The whole world seemed to be silently shrouded in a black, invisible cloak.

Albert suddenly realized he was nervous. Now why, he asked himself, should that be? He had never been at all afraid of the dark in his entire life. What was wrong tonight?

The stillness.
That’s what it was; that
must
be what it was. Never before had he been out on a night which was so dark and so completely still. Even the usual tiny watery sounds of the fish rising for food were missing.

He shivered. The blankness of such a night tended to inspire one’s imagination to invent all kinds of weird and horrible things; he’d be well advised to occupy his mind with thoughts of familiar things, keeping outside of his immediate awareness the unnatural stillness of this incredibly dark night.

He began to concentrate on his fishing rod. He reached down, feeling the reassuringly familiar shape of its handle with his fingertips. The rod. It was comprised of three sections, made of fibreglass, and had metal ferrules through which the line passed. The line. Nylon: through the ferrules of the rod and down; down to the luminous float which glowed happily in front of him, a pale dot in the blackness, and then down still farther, laden with shot, to the hook.

And, impaled on the hook, was the worm.

Albert’s hands kneaded each other in his lap as he thought about it. The worm writhing and squirming, the hook through its body; the hook sharp and barbed, preventing its escape as it wriggled in the cold black water. Albert shuddered. He could almost imagine himself as the worm, could almost feel the sharp, fiery pain of the hook as it pierced his body, and the icy coldness of the water as he struggled to escape, needles of pain lancing through his chest as the hook pulled at him…

Suddenly he laughed. What a strange notion. A worm indeed! Grinning, he returned his thoughts to his fishing. He squinted in the darkness and concentrated on the tip of his float.

There! Had it moved? No, it must have been his imagination. Still, he had plenty of patience: he’d surely have a bite before long.

With frightening suddenness, moonlight shone abruptly down through a break in the clouds. The glow touched the branches of the nearby trees and fell across the bank and the reeds. The lake was calm, the water a flat sheet of lead in the faint, eerie light. Albert looked up as a quick flitting movement touched the corner of his vision.

Bats!

He shuddered involuntarily. Horrible things! In the waxy light he watched the tiny black silhouettes weaving to and fro, up and down, singing silently through the air: umbrella shreds, black shadow-patches of night, dropping and swooping with incredibly quick, furtive motions above him.

And then the moon was gone. The cold darkness swiftly closed in again like the wings of one of those flitting creatures grown suddenly to monstrous proportions.

Albert, eyes closed, was shivering. The air was biting cold against his face and hands; yet, all over his body he could feel the sweat running down his flesh in sudden sticky streams. In his mind’s eye he could still see the things which had been illuminated by that brief wan glow, a glow which, now vanished, made the night seem even blacker than before. Above him he imagined the dark shapes still whipping gently to and fro. All around him he felt he could still see the drooping foliage in which his imagination now placed numerous unseen horrors, rustling and creeping, shifting ominously nearer to where he sat, alone, in the darkness at the water’s edge.

Albert trembled and clenched his teeth.

From somewhere came the tiny sound of water dripping, and then it was gone.

Alone. That was the trouble. This night was darker and more frightening than any he had known, and here he was, all alone, with his usually placid imagination working at double-speed. Well, now that he was here he’d have to put up with it. Self-control, that was what was needed. He just had to pull himself together.

He concentrated on the float, the tiny spot of luminescence that floated unmoving before him on the black surface of the water. Why the hell hadn’t he had a bite yet? The float hadn’t moved since he got here. How long ago was that? Three hours? Ten minutes? He couldn’t tell; time seemed to lose its meaning here at night on the lakeside.

He sat on the stool, hands in his lap, and stared at the float. But now the darkness was not quite silent: faintly, just on the edge of his hearing, came little whisperings and rustlings; as of tiny creatures stirring in the grass and the reeds. Or was it something else—something more sinister—coming closer?

The float.
Concentrate on the float. Don’t let your imagination play games with you. Albert’s eyes stared into the blackness, yet he could still see the pictures that the brief touch of ghostly moonlight had painted: the flat water, the pointed reeds, the tiny, candle-wax leaves on the softly illuminated branches of the trees. The branches: crooked and long like reaching hands, like clawing fingers, like writhing snakes, like long worms…

Like long worms.
Albert thought about the fat worm on the end of his line, squirming with the hook through it, waiting for the black shape of the fish to come looming through the dark water, the fish whose mouth would be open to engulf the worm, to suck at it; to suck out the nourishing innards and leave the skin empty and dead on the barbed hook. To suck…

Albert saw the float-tip suddenly move. Automatically he reached out for the rod, and then he froze. His mouth opened and closed, and his eyes became wide with horror. He could feel it. By God, he could
feel
it!

It was crawling over his flesh, a cold pulsing stickiness like a wet hand trying to grip him. Needles of pain were suddenly piercing his chest and an oozing dampness was all over him, as if… as if something were trying to suck at him, trying to suck out his insides…

Albert screamed once, briefly, and then be grabbed his rod. He yanked it sideways, and suddenly the feeling was gone. The sucking grip had vanished from his flesh and streams of fire were no longer surging through his chest.

Albert let go of the fishing rod and the float bobbed gently, once more down into the water, His body racked with shudders, Albert Jordan sat down on the stool and closed his eyes tightly against the darkness.

He just couldn’t believe it. For a moment there he had actually thought he was the worm, the hook piercing through him, the line pulling at him as he squirmed desperately this way and that, and the fish sucking at him, trying to draw out his innards.

Albert shook his head. This couldn’t go on; he’d have to pack up his tackle and leave. From now on he’d be strictly a day fisherman.

He reached down for his basket. The sooner he could leave this eerie place the better.

And then he stopped. Suddenly he could sense the mist. It was still completely dark, yet somehow, he knew it was there.
The mist rising off the water, through the blackness, sifting through the reeds and creeping along and up the bank and among the trees. Albert could feel it on his hands and on his face, cold and fearful, and completely invisible in the pitch-darkness. Layers of it, rising slowly into him and over him like depths of icy water.

Suddenly the sharp pain returned, lancing through his body like a blade. He tried to reach his rod, but something prevented him from moving. Paralyzed, his eyes staring, he watched the luminous tip of his float disappear as, below the dark surface, a fish took the bait.

Panic churned in Albert’s stomach as he squirmed at the sudden agony in his chest. It churned then rose, tearing up through his body, and then he let out one long, wild, terrified scream.

Once again the oozing stickiness was all over him, sucking, sucking,
sucking at his innards. Cold and slimy it was now.

The pain in his chest was the hook on the end of a fishing-line, pushing its barb through him. The damp sliminess was the mouth of a fish closing over him; the rising layers and swirls of invisible mist were the depths of water in which he wriggled and twisted, trying to escape.

He leapt to his feet, but be was bent double with the pain of the hook through his body. The invisible slimy mouth sucked at him and the heaving mist rolled over him in moist, icy waves. He screamed and screamed, squirming and wriggling, the hook burning through him, the huge cold fish-mouth sucking and sucking at his insides.

He half-ran, half-tumbled forward, screaming, falling with a heavy splash into the black waters of the lake…

Albert Jordan’s absence was noticed two days later. The angling equipment found abandoned at
a local lakeside was identified as being his and the lake was therefore subsequently drained.

The body of the drowned man found on the bottom was positively identified as Albert Jordan. He was only just recognisable. It seemed as if his flesh was merely a bag containing the loose bones of his skeleton. His innards, strangely, were missing, as though they had been… sucked out.