(no subject)
Old Ghosts
By Cat Kane
Part One
In the far corner of a cold, dark room, guarded by an army of cloven gargoyles and zombie babies, the plain nondescript box leaned against a dank wall. Draped in dust and gently swaying cobwebs, it towered above the minions that surrounded and protected it, and bore no identifying mark as clue to what lay inside. To its left, a half decayed body swung from its bloodied hook, to its right, a mountain of worn and tarnished skulls.
“The hell is that thing?”
“Dunno, man. It just…appeared.”
“Appeared?”
“Yeah. Pretty frickin’ spooky, huh?”
The two men picked their way through red-eyed pot-bellied rats that squeaked when trodden on, dismembered limbs that oozed blood from jagged tears, and wicked temptresses draped in old torn lace to reach the box.
“To hell with spooky,” one of the men grumbled, “more like the shit-for-brains delivery guy forgot to put it on the invoice.”
His friend picked up a box of false vampire fangs, moving it out of the way. “Yeah, I guess. What’d we order that they’d just send us one’a them, though?”
“Who knows. Let’s just get it out front, anyway. If it’s this big then it’s probably gonna be goddamn expensive, too. C’mon, Gerry, help me with this.”
With some difficulty, they managed to insinuate a loading trolley between the wall and the leaning box. Getting it loaded onto the trolley, however, was an entirely different matter.
“The hell…?”
“Damn it, Mitch, this frickin’ thing weighs a ton.” With some effort, wheezing and cursing, they managed to tip it enough to land on the trolley with a thud, almost sending the small metal helper skidding back across the storeroom floor.
“Careful.” Mitch warned. “Bet it’s got some pretty fancy bells and whistles in there, I don’t want it coming outta my wages.”
At least the storeroom was on the same level as the main shop floor; lugging the box up and down stairs would’ve been nigh on impossible.
“What’s that?” The store manager stared at them as they wheeled it in, heading for the area at the back of the store reserved for all the animatronic Halloween decorations. “That wasn’t on the invoice.”
“We figure they musta screwed up somewhere.”
The manager rolled his eyes. “Sounds about right.” He approached the trolley, box-cutter in hand. “Well, let’s get it out there anyway, if we’re lucky they won’t notice the mistake and we can bankroll the profit.”
He stalled when it became obvious that the box had no taped up seams. The surface - brown cardboard to all intents and purposes, like everything else - had no opening bisecting any of the longer surfaces, and on the trolley it stood a good foot taller than any of the staff.
“Get it down from there, I don’t want it falling on me.”
”Whatever you say, boss.”
Around the room, mechanical growls and groans whimpered from rubberized skulls and severed heads. Lights blinked and flickered, and the fake cobwebs swayed in the air-conditioned breeze.
The box hit the ground with a rattling thunk that temporarily drowned out all the other noise. The men looked at each other.
“Well,” the manager said after a while, “if it’s broken we can tell ‘em it arrived that way.”
There was no seam to tear open on either end either. In the end the box cutter had to create one, a neat snicked line in the cardboard that ran the length of the six-foot-something box.
“Help me get this stuff off.”
They peeled back the cardboard, tearing it around oddly fitting corners when there was no other option.
Finally, the packaging lay strewn around a life-sized, ornately inlaid ebony coffin.
The manager whistled lowly. “We got a price for this thing?”
“Ain’t your regular high school haunted house piece,” Mitch peered close, “that’s for sure.”
“What’s inside?”
“Does it even open?” Mitch knelt at the side of the coffin, running a hand along the gap between the top and bottom lids. “No buttons or controls either, they’re probably inside.”
“Where does it plug in?”
Mitch paused, then shrugged. “Must be battery operated or something.”
The manager sent him a look. “In case you didn’t notice, this ain’t your ex-wife’s vibrator, Mitch. You think something this big runs on a couple D batteries?”
Mitch glared. “Solar powered or something then, how the fuck should I know?”
“A solar powered Halloween decoration?”
“Hey, you know what those frickin’ environmentalists are like these days. You can’t take a shit unless it’s recyclable.”
The manager grimaced at the image, flipping open the latch on the top half of the lid, drawing it back.
“Holy--!” Mitch jerked back. “Okay, that’s fuckin’ freaky…”
Lying inside the coffin, on suitably deep red satin, was the waxiest, tamest looking vampire dummy the Halloween store ever had the ignominy of selling. From the over-done pallor to the shadowed, sunken eyes and thin grimacing lips, the dummy exuded a creepiness all it’s fake-ass own.
“Pfft. It doesn’t even look-“
The sunken eyes snapped open, the pupils beyond a glowing, fierce red. The waxy skin began to gleam like the outside of a frosted candle-holder, the flame within bright and flickering.
“The hell…did you press something?”
“No!”
The thin lips drew up in a snarl, revealing fangs as white and sharp as winter frost.
“Heh.” Mitch grinned. “You pissed him off.”
“Huh. Must be activated by the door.” The manager opened and closed it a few times, each time gleaning the same animated response. “Kinda neat, except we’ll have all the damn kids breaking the door off trying to make it work.”
“Wanna put it behind the counter, then?”
“Fuck, no, damn thing creeps me out. Leave it here with the others, there’s always someone watching that area so the kids don’t break the merchandise.”
“Yes, boss.”
* * *
Jake batted a dangling furry spider-lopsided, with one of its eight legs shorter than the rest-away from his face, and grimaced.
“I hate Halloween.”
“Aw, c’mon.” Carrie clutched his arm. “How can you hate Halloween? It’s the one day of the year when you can be as outrageous as you like and no-one can say anything about it.”
Jake stopped, brow raised. “Uh, you think that sways me?”
”Spoilsport.”
“I prefer to call it anti-commercialism.”
Carrie rolled her eyes. “That’s what you said about Christmas too, but I don’t see you running off to the store to return any presents.”
“That’s different. That’s useful stuff. This…” He waved a hand disdainfully around the shop. “Is spending too much money on one lousy day.”
“Whatever. Either way,” she sidled up to him, hands clasping his arm tighter. “You have to help me pick out a sexy costume.”
Truth be told, he had no interest either way, but on autopilot he said, “You’d look sexy whatever you wore.”
Carrie smacked his arm playfully, and Jake thought that if she kept up her compulsion to whack his limbs every time he spoke, he’d wind up bruised and looking a little like some of the vulcanized rubber dummies in the Halloween store. “And don’t think sweet-talk is getting you out of it either.”
“Yeah, well, make it fast yeah? This place closes in an hour and I don’t wanna be stuck here all night.” He flinched as a ghoulish head popped up from a cauldron bubbling with dry ice and flashing lights.
“Big baby.” Carrie teased. “Too scared to come in here with all the ghosties and creepies, huh?”
Frankly, being there with her was scarier than any of it. “Shut up,” he glared, pulling free of her arm so she wouldn’t feel any more tell-tale flinches. “Just hurry up and go choose something, will you?”
She huffed. “Fine. You know you could have just stayed home if you were only coming to mope around and complain like a teenage boy.”
She disappeared into the rack of bagged costumes and plastic accessories before he had a chance to rebut the remark, but his defense was lukewarm anyway; he should have stayed home. He should have chosen today as the day he finally accepted they were done. When she’d called him at work earlier on that day, the right response to “Wanna go to the mall tonight to check out Halloween costumes?” was “We’re through”, not “Sure”.
“What about this?” Carrie turned, brandishing a full-length vampiress costume that, as far as Jake could tell, was a bodice attached to some lace and little else. Soul-sucking and seductive, he supposed that was about right.
“Why not just a nightgown and two gallons of pigs’ blood?”
Carrie stared at him, and wrinkled her nose. “Ew, why would I want to do that?”
“Never mind.” Jake waved off the attempted joke. Best to walk away now while she’d partly forgiven him. He ignored the awareness that he didn’t much care whether she forgave him or not. “I’ll be over here looking at the decorations,” he said, moving out of earshot before she could call him back.
The fact that she hadn’t gotten the joke just went to show how little they had in common. The only movie Carrie had managed to divert her skittish attention span to in the last year was `Sex and the City`, and only then because “Oh look, Jake, she has the same name as me, isn’t that awesome!?”. The irony didn’t escape him. A couple of good dates and some mediocre sex really wasn’t enough to sustain anything.
The decorations barely held his interest. There was something reassuringly fake about demons and monsters that still bore their mold lines and rubberized joints. Okay, so maybe the groaning harpy dragging herself across the floor like a reject from a Japanese horror movie made him flinch, but the `made in China` stamp on the back of her neck quashed any real unease. Like celluloid scares, they’d fade from his awareness the moment he stepped out of the store.
Judging by how long Carrie took to choose regular clothes, Jake didn’t think that’d be any time soon.
He picked his way through the displays, the standard cast list of any Halloween store worth its scary salt: the mummy, the zombie, the werewolf, the headless corpse, the vampire bride, the skin-melted mutant crawling out of a canvas tube painted to look like a barrel of acid.
Jake grimaced, shaking his head. It was beyond him why people found gory joy in these things. He’d left behind a life where the realities he’d witnessed on a daily basis numbed him to the gleeful scares of holidays like this. After all he’d seen, holidays glorifying pain and suffering didn’t float his boat.
Between the fire door and a model of Frankenstein whose neck bolts lit up when he spoke, the black inlaid coffin seemed remarkably tasteful. He wondered briefly whether the casket was real; it certainly appeared different to all the other garish displays. Its subtlety made it more unsettling, nothing about it looked fake even though he knew it had to be.
“Hey.” He caught the attention of one of the store’s staff. “What’s this one supposed to do?”
The kid stared vapidly at him, then at the coffin. “You’ve gotta open the door. But we don’t let people do it on account of them breaking stuff.”
Jake blinked. “So how do people know what it does?”
The kid shrugged. “Dunno. Sorry.”
Watching the kid walk off, Jake began to wonder if he was the only sane one left on the planet. Or at least in the Halloween store. Shaking his head, he turned back to the casket, its black wooden frame glinting softly in the shop’s bright light.
“Maybe it’s just us, buddy.”
And now he was talking to inanimate Halloween decorations. Wonderful. Better rethink that sanity thing, even if his shrink had given him the all-clear.
Still. The kid was nowhere in sight, and there wasn’t a sign on the coffin door warning potential purchasers from testing out the merchandise. Jake wondered what Carrie would say if he went home with this thing. She’d probably wrinkle her pretty little nose again and say, “Ew!”.
Good. No better reason to buy the damn thing. It might keep her out of his hair for a while. That and the cold alluring beauty of the piece, looking more like a display of craftsmanship than a novelty toy. Without thinking, he ran a hand over the ebony inlay work, slivers of white that could have been marble recessed into the wood just deeply enough to feel the faint edge of a groove. If he closed his eyes he could imagine an Edwardian drawing room, dark and smoky, with-
The coffin door slid open under his fingers, even though he couldn’t recall pressing anything to make it do so.
Jake stared at the impossibly life-like dummy inside the coffin, almost smelling the tobacco of that drawing room, the must of old letters and books, the tang of a rich wine.
The dummy’s eyes snapped open, flaring red. Jake felt the panic escalating, like a high striker at a carnival, where a strong swing of a mallet sent the puck racing up the tower towards the bell. He thought he heard the bell clanging in the back of his mind, saw the scatter-fire of flashing lights, like neon fireflies.
The bell was just the sound of a container full of Viking hemlets and spears toppling over as Jake backed into it.
The kid dashed back, a frantic look on his pimply face. “What happened?”
“Ah, sorry…” Jake rubbed a hand to the back of his neck, trying for that winsome idiot look that had often saved his neck when he’d wandered into places he shouldn’t. Better they think you were just stupid. “I tripped.”
The kid eyed him suspiciously. “Are you hurt? Cause, you know, we don’t accept any liability for any injuries caused by the merchandise or-“
“No, I’m fine.” Jake held up a hand to ward off the spiel. “Sorry for the mess.”
The kid just grumbled a reply, setting to work righting the display bin, while Jake cast a fleeing look back at the coffin. The casket lid had closed again. Jake didn’t recall doing that either. It was on some mechanism, he supposed, a timer or something.
“Where did you run off to?” Carrie appeared at the end of the aisle clutching something violently purple in a bag.
“Oh. Just around here. So, did you pick something?”
“Yeah.” Carrie lifted the bag with a giggle. “It’s a purple pixie, and it’s-“
“Great. It’ll look fabulous.” One hand at the small of her back, Jake steered her towards the cash register. “Let’s pay for it so we can get out of here. Get back to my place,” he amended quickly, “to try it on, yeah?”
He caught Carrie’s frown in his peripheral vision, felt the tension in her arm as he reached for it. Was that what she felt every time she touched him?
“What’s the hurry?”
“Nothing! Just, you know…I want to see you in it.” Desperate times called for desperate measures. “And out of it.”
Carrie giggled like a schoolgirl. “Jake, you’re a bad bad man.”
Yeah, whatever. Jake gratefully herded her towards the pouting goth salesgirl at the register, tugging out his wallet with his free hand. Anything was better than staying in the store a moment longer.
* * *
Benjamin..!. It had been Benjamin staring at him in abject terror.
After everything, after all the sacrifices, that expression still haunted him, still had the capacity to wound deeper than bombs or bullets.
Ever since he came home, Ben was always afraid, and on days when fear was the only emotion Samuel could wring out of him, he was grateful for any kind of response at all. Better fear than nothing, and Ben so frequently descended into nothing in those final weeks and days.
Samuel managed as best he could. Circumstances allowed him to keep busy; in the years immediately after the war, people seemed more desperate than ever to seek his kind out, indulge in the hedonistic pleasures of vibrant theatres and smoky night-clubs. He always assumed it their affirmation, reassurances to themselves and the world at large that they were still alive, that they had survived.
Every evening they came to the clubs in droves, clamoring to see the magical and daring acts performed by The Amazing Levanto, or in Samuel’s case, The Great Count Mirza. He’d considered, briefly, changing the act to something less peculiarly foreign, but no one seemed to care. The war was over, and they were all content in their newfound calm.
“How is your dear friend, these days?” The Amazing Levanto, also known as Clarence Francis, asked one autumn evening, whiling away a cigarette in the dark backrooms of the club in between performances. Their rivalry, a concoction to bring in more marks, had never been more than that. Not to Samuel. Clarence was a comrade, a mentor. While Clarence didn’t know the true nature of Samuel and Ben’s friendship-no one did-Samuel suspected he had his doubts. One didn’t place such emphasis on `friend` otherwise.
He continued polishing the custom made ebony casket, a staple figure in the finale of his act, and kept his tone mild.
“Well, thank you.”
“Still the same, then.” Clarence lit up a cigar that must have mysteriously bypassed the rationing through the black market. “You know my offer still stands.”
“No.” Samuel shook his head. “Grateful as I am that you’d trouble yourself to-“
“Hardly any trouble, lad.” Clarence shrugged. “At least, not for me.” He sent Samuel a foxish sidelong smile. “We’re different, after all, you and I.”
Samuel nodded. He’d been aware of that for some time, although he suspected it took another magician in the profession to realize that some of The Amazing Levanto’s illusions were truly impossible. The audience and the evening papers all lapped it up. Yet he had no desire to taint Ben’s soul with the unknown consequences of Clarence’s…abilities.
Because there would be consequences, of that he was certain if nothing else.
“So, keep it in mind.” Clarence said, before levering himself away from the low doorway, disappearing into the labyrinthine corridors. Literally, for all Samuel knew.
Either way, he had dismissed the notion. Irrespective of the cost to himself-Clarence was sure to extract a cost, too-Ben would never forgive him for bringing darkness into their lives.
Ben went off to war for all his right reasons, just as Samuel had stayed behind for his. Ben never judged Samuel for his actions, and Samuel never condemned Ben for his decision to fight. At least Samuel had the means to do so, to volunteer his services to King and country on the home front instead of the front line. It was those means that permitted him to care for his childhood friend at the Gilbert country estate, and Samuel’s appearances became few and far between as Ben deteriorated and Samuel grew loathe to leave his side.
Ben deteriorated every day.
“Wait.” He followed Clarence into the dark halls, nearly jumping out of his skin when the older man appeared from the shadows.
“Hmm?” Clarence said. “You’ve changed your mind.”
It certainly seemed as though Clarence had been waiting for him to do just that.
“Are you certain you can do something for him?”
“For him, absolutely.”
“Then this weekend. The house in Berkshire.”
Clarence nodded. “It’s a new moon. That should do nicely.”
“And your price?”
Clarence smiled, teeth showing in the dark. “Surely there is no price on your beloved’s well-being, is there Samuel?”
Samuel imagined Ben, sitting at the drawing room window, staring out wide-eyed at nothing. Nothing tangible. Nothing that existed outside his memories.
He grit his teeth. “No, there isn’t.”
But Clarence extracted one regardless.
Despite it all, Samuel knew he’d meet Ben again. That if he waited, as long as it took, the benevolence of his intentions would see them through. Despite the faith that had served as a good distraction during the war, Samuel had no doubt, God or none, Ben would return to him one day.
He lost track of the days, the years, but that mattered little now.
Benjamin.
Ben was clothed in the odd garb that everyone he’d seen since the box was opened-colorful but plain, almost a reminder of wartime austerity. Nothing like the clothes he recalled from his last moments of freedom: the silk hats, the spangled dresses, the feathers and the jewels.
He tried to move, tried to speak, as he’d attempted to do with the others, to no avail. Words refused to escape his lips, his gaze refused to move from Benjamin’s terrified stare. If he managed to speak, it must have been a horrifying sound for his precious Ben to stumble back, knocking over a stack of remarkably lightweight weapons.
Weapons? Did Ben ever relinquish his desire to fight?
Before he could think on it further, the doors that kept him in this prison of his own making closed once more, locking him back into eternally conscious darkness.
Yet it wasn’t the same.
Somewhere outside, Benjamin lived, thrived. His Ben. If he concentrated, he could still hear him outside the coffin. Surely Ben still remembered it, still knew its significance?
The silence closed in and claimed him once more, yet the thought of Ben remained.
The time had come for The Great Count Mirza’s finale.