The White Hands and Other Weird Tales (9 page)

‘Vrolyk, I can’t shake off the effects of that story,’ she explained. ‘It keeps racing through my mind, day and night. The thing’s become a part of me. Whatever I do I can’t stop thinking of it. Even as I’m speaking to you now I see the words on the pages.’

‘Ah,’ I said, between puffs on my cigarette.

‘I have to see you. We have to talk about this. It’s not right. I’m worried that I’m losing my . . .’

‘I would prefer not to discuss the story any further,’ I cut in. ‘Just now I require total isolation.’

‘For how long?’ she asked desperately.

‘For an indefinite period.’

As I put the receiver down, I recalled that she not only knew my telephone number but where I lived. I hoped that she would heed my request to stay away. It was imperative that I discover whether or not my own physical presence was a factor in any developments.

***

Weeks passed and I settled back into my nightly routine of haunting the café opposite and watching the stars whirl above me from the window. What had happened to Emily Curtis had been, I feared, merely an isolated incident, a consequence of brief exposure that would fade without any permanent effects. Such incidents had occurred before and had been a grave disappointment to me. All my previous contacts had been with subjects of little imagination, and although a few had suffered weird and horrible dreams after reading ‘The Dybbuk Pyramid’, the effects were not long-lasting. I wondered whether, if I rendered it into plainer English, permanent contamination would be achievable.
 

I had no great interest in the fate of Emily Curtis at this point, despite the fact that one of my correspondents, who also lived in the city, wrote to tell me that he had encountered her on the streets. This was possibly on the same night that I had spotted her looking up at my window. Apparently, she had been wandering as if in a daze, and when he approached her she had fled in terror. She seemed not to have recognised him although they had met on several occasions since our meeting to discuss my published short story collections.

Two weeks later, I received a manuscript posted to me by Emily Curtis. It appeared that she had written a tale of her own, which she had called ‘The Communication’. There was an accompanying letter. One glance was enough to confirm that the contamination was a progressive rather than temporary condition. It was a very short letter and the salient portion ran as follows:

I am in a confused state of mind. I quite forget my own name, or even where I am for much of the time. I watch the shadows from the window during the day as they creep towards me. And I watch the men who work by night. The enclosed story, which I began a week ago, belongs to you. I may not have time to finish it. Before what I have been is lost for good, best that you should see it.

It was as I expected: the manuscript appeared incomprehensible. Written on foolscap, it consisted of seemingly random words. These were not written in horizontal lines, but at varying angles to one another, in spirals and around the edges of the paper. Some of the words were in English, others in various other languages and a number were
outré
characters that would have been mere gibberish to anyone but myself. Those portions that were in English I have quoted below, having first arranged them in a linear fashion and incorporated translation where required. They mirror almost exactly my own story ‘The Dybbuk Pyramid’.

In the dream she had found herself in a strange and unknown city. Her body was unfamiliar to her and appeared be that of an almost hairless biped covered by dark fabrics. This body was a source of repulsion; being an upright mass of tissue filled with water, fæces and mucus. Its senses were overwhelming; disparate but consecutive images of vivid colour and puzzling airborne perceptions seemed to enter through holes in its head, vibrations that made no sense entered through other holes on each side and pressures that varied with a maddening intensity rippled across the biped’s outer layer. As this creature stumbled across the deserted and dark city of monoliths and past black vertical columns that fanned out into
rustling limbs, it sucked air into itself repeatedly, with a horrible sense of uneven rhythm. The dream did not seem to last very long and was terminated when the creature came across another of its kind. Seeing this other and knowing that this was the form in which she also was trapped, Curtis found the horror too much to bear. The creature staggered towards her, clad in similar fabrics, but these did not hide the monstrosity of its awful face, like that of some deranged white ape. When it made an expression that was utterly alien, she fled, to be awoken by her own screams, fully clothed on the bed in the apartment she shared with her elderly mother. Whether it was the dream itself that had awakened her, or the memory of the dream whilst in a state of semi-consciousness, she could not tell.

I realised that what had been set in motion now required my own intervention: it was time that Emily met with an accident of her own. Doubtless she would do so anyway, in due course, but such had been the corruption of my own physical form in the interim that in order for me to gauge the success of my plan my timetable had to be brought forward. My psoriasis had worsened into something more akin to leprosy, and I was unsure how long my health would hold out.

***

The journey on the bus to Curtis’s part of the city took just under an hour. Apart from the driver and myself the bus was empty. One of the small windows that provided ventilation was jammed open and freezing air blew into the deck. I had telephoned ahead and Curtis’ mother had answered.
 

‘Hello?’ she had sounded strained and tense.

‘Mrs Curtis? This is Trefusis Vrolyck. I’m a friend of your daughter. Excuse my calling, but I understand she’s ill and I’m concerned about her.’

‘Oh Mr Vrolyck, thank you for calling. Emily’s mentioned you to me several times.’

‘How is she?’

‘The doctor thinks it’s a nervous breakdown. She’s not left her bed for days. She doesn’t speak or eat, only lies there, staring.’

‘Perhaps I could see her? It might help.’

‘Oh yes please. I’m at my wit’s end. She often told me how much she admired you and unless her condition changes the doctor says she’ll have to be taken into some horrible psychiatric unit. I couldn’t bear that to happen.’

‘I can be there in an hour or so. Would that be convenient?’

‘Oh yes, it’d be wonderful. Thank you so much Mr Vrolyck.’

‘I’ll see you shortly, then.’

And so I alighted onto the pavement next to a very busy dual carriageway flanked by 1950s council estates. The buildings were blocks seven floors high, each of identical plain grey concrete with flat roofs and exterior walkways. The Curtis apartment was situated in one of the blocks on the eastern edge.

All of the walls were covered with graffiti, most of it simply the names of those who had turned their spray cans upon them, but there were some symbols indicating an origin that was familiar to me. These were the symbols that I had attempted to communicate in English via ‘The Dybbuk Pyramid’.

I had to climb a vandalised stairway to reach the second floor. On the way up I passed a vagrant who seemed to be lost in some private ritual of his own. He was muttering to himself and arranging the rubbish strewn on the stairs into a little pile. He eyed me curiously as I passed and there was something in his expression that made me hesitate. On closer inspection, he seemed unused to the flesh and muscles that covered his skull and continually screwed his face up in a contorted manner as if unsure of the appropriate impression it should convey to others. I had myself experienced such a dilemma after my accident.

When I reached the Curtis apartment I had to ring the bell several times before I heard shuffling footsteps. The door was opened a few inches, though held by a safety chain. An old woman peered out at me.

‘Mr Vrolyck?’ she asked.

Initially I thought that she was perturbed by my appearance, for in truth, the masking lotion I employed no longer disguised the ravages time had wrought upon my skin. However, it was obvious that her eyesight was not keen and she was simply squinting at me myopically, too vain or stupid to wear spectacles.

‘That’s right. You must be Emily’s mother.’

‘Yes. Oh please come inside, won’t you?’ the woman said.

She unchained the door and beckoned me to follow her as she shuffled back down the hallway in her carpet slippers. She said:

‘I’ve just had a telephone call from Dr Phelps telling me that he felt I really should sign the papers. You know, the ones authorising him to arrange for Emily to be taken into care? It’s all so distressing.’

‘I can imagine that it must be terrible for you. But I think you’re wise to try every option before agreeing to that course of action,’ I replied.

‘Do you know what I think caused all this?’ she asked.

‘Please tell me.’

‘It’s
the
vandals
on
this
estate.
They’re all into drugs, you know. For some reason she took an interest in their graffiti and they took advantage of her.’

‘Really?’

‘Some of the neighbours told me that she’d paid them to spray-paint her own designs on the walls. But why should she do that? I don’t believe them. They’re gossips. Nasty people. And since those vandals were found dead; you’ll have read about it in the papers; they’ve been spreading the rumour that my Emily was somehow to blame!’

‘How so?’

‘I’ve no idea. Everyone knows they killed themselves. It was probably the drugs, and my daughter’s never taken drugs. Can you believe what they’re saying? My daughter! Can you believe it Mr Vrolyck?’

‘It’s ridiculous, of course . . .’

‘Of course it is. And anyway, I saw a gang of them just the other night spraying the walls again, the same ones that Emily used to meet. So how do they explain that, eh? I think newspapers make these stories up.’

‘That’s probably the answer.’

‘It’s an absolute disgrace . . .’

‘I understand how you feel.’

We stood outside Emily’s room. Her mother opened the door and, although it was dark within and the curtains were drawn, I could just make out a figure in the bed propped up with several pillows.

As I drew closer I could see that Emily Curtis’s face was blank and her eyes stared straight ahead without blinking. But I thought I detected a flicker of movement as I came into her view.

‘Do you think that I could be alone with her for a short while?’ I asked her mother.

‘Oh yes. I’ll make us some tea and bring it in. You sit down next to her.’

Left alone with Emily I sat down on the edge of the bed. I softly spoke her name and her eyes rotated in the direction of my voice and a vague, unnatural smile distorted her previously placid features. There were two forces at war within her brain, and the pressure upon it could only be relieved when one of them gained control.

The sound of her mother making tea filtered along the hallway. I heard cups clinking and a kettle being filled. I would not have long. Removing one of the pillows from beneath Emily’s head, I gripped it tightly in both hands and pressed it down over her face as hard as I could. There was a gurgling, and then her body thrashed around for what seemed a long time. Finally she slumped back and I took the pillow away from her face. Her mouth was open and her eyes wide with death. Gently, I closed them and turned her head to one side. I replaced the pillow in its original position, making it look as if she were asleep.

A few seconds later the mother entered bearing a tray. Before she could find anywhere to set it down I motioned that we should leave the room.

‘Was there any response?’ she asked in a hushed voice as we walked back down the hall.

‘I think so, yes. She seemed to recognise my voice before she drifted off to sleep. She even smiled.’

The mother poured out the tea in the kitchen and I sat and sipped the weak liquid, explaining that it would be wise if we let Emily rest. I suggested that perhaps the response I had witnessed might be the first sign of a pleasing amelioration in her condition.

When I left there were tears of gratitude in the eyes of the old woman.

‘Perhaps you could come again soon?’

But I pretended not to hear.

***

As I made my way back down the vandalised stairway the vagrant was still there. He had been busy in my absence and had completed the arrangement he was fashioning from crumpled wrappers, ash and cigarette butts. It looked like a rubbish heap, but on examining it more closely I could see that it had been fashioned into a crudely-shaped pyramid. His face was still struggling with its expressions, and from time to time one of his grimy hands traced a path along the graffiti upon the walls. But it was when he spoke that I knew the contamination had not been confined to my own contacts. For the tramp, with his pale dead face, mouthed the words:
 

‘It is the time of the black radiance from the stars.’

Although the words were English, it was in my own language that I received his telepathic transmissions.

It was brilliant. The city was covered with such graffiti, the symbols reproducing like bacteria. How much more effective than my own attempts to disseminate them under the guise of my writing! As you may have guessed, the symbols were a sign, a sort of cosmic homing-beacon, calling down others of my kind to enter the bodies of human beings. And I thought how ironic it was that, after all my efforts, it was vandals, those self-styled popular artists contaminated by Curtis, who had proved the more effective communicators.