Dark Companions Read online

  But something was. Between the two lift shafts, the call button was glowing. That could mean only one thing: the working lift hadn’t yet answered the call. There was no other exit from the lobby—but there was no sign of Steve.

  When she made herself go to the disused lift shaft, it was only in order to confirm that her thought was absurd. Clinging to the edges of the doorway, she leaned out. The lift was stranded in the sub-basement, where it was very dim. At first all she could distinguish was that the trapdoor in its roof was open, though the opening was largely covered by a sack. Could anything except a sack be draped so limply? Yes, for it was Steve, his eyes like glass that was forcing their lids wide, his mouth gagged with what appeared to be a torn-off wad of dough—except that the dough had fingers and a thumb.

  She was reeling, perhaps over the edge of the shaft. No, she was stumbling back into the foyer, and already less sure what she’d glimpsed. Steve was dead, and she must get out of the building; she could think of nothing else. Thank God, she need not think, for the working lift had arrived. Was there soft movement in the disused shaft, a chorus of sucking like the mouthing of a crowd of babies? Nothing could have made her look. She staggered away, between the opening doors—into total darkness.

  For a moment she thought she’d stepped out into an empty well. But there was a floor underfoot; the lift’s bulb must have blown. As the doors clamped shut behind her the utter darkness closed in.

  She was scrabbling at the metal wall in a frantic bid to locate the buttons—to open the doors, to let in some light—before she controlled herself. Which was worse: a quick descent in the darkness, or to be trapped alone on the sixth floor? In any case, she needn’t suffer the dark. Hurriedly she groped in her handbag for her lighter.

  She flicked the lighter uselessly once, twice, as the lift reached the fifth floor. The sudden plunge in her guts wasn’t only shock; the lift had juddered to a halt. She flicked the lighter desperately. It had just lit when the doors hobbled open.

  The fifth floor was unlit. Beyond the lobby she could see the windows of the untenanted office, swarming with rain and specks of light. The bare floor looked like a carpet of dim fog, interrupted by angular patches of greater dimness, blurred rugs of shadow. There was no sign of Mr Tuttle or whoever she’d heard from above. The doors were closing, but she wasn’t reassured: if the lift had begun to misbehave, the least it could do would be to stop at every floor.

  The doors closed her in with her tiny light. Vague reflections of the flame hung on the walls and tinged the greyish metal yellow; the roof was a hovering blotch. All the lighter had achieved was to remind her how cramped the lift was. She stared at the doors, which were trembling. Was there a movement beyond them other than the outbursts of rain?

  When the doors parted, she retreated a step. The fourth floor was a replica of the fifth—bare floors colourless with dimness, windows that looked shattered by rain—but the shuffling was closer. Was the floor of the lobby glistening in patches, as though from moist footsteps? The doors were hesitating, she was brandishing her tiny flame as though it might defend her—then the doors closed reluctantly, the lift faltered downwards.

  She’d had no time to sigh with relief, if indeed she had meant to, when she heard the lobby doors open above her. A moment later the lift shook. Something had plumped down on its roof.

  At once, with a shock that felt as though it would tear out her guts, she knew what perhaps she had known, deep down, for a while: Steve hadn’t been trying to frighten her—he had been trying not to. She hadn’t heard Mr Tuttle on the fifth floor, nor any imaginary girlfriend of Steve’s. Whatever she had heard was above her now, fumbling softly at the trapdoor.

  It couldn’t get in. She could hear that it couldn’t, not before the lift reached the third— Oh God, make the lift be quick! Then she could run for the fire escape, which wasn’t damaged except on the sixth. She was thinking quickly now, almost in a trance that carried her above her fear, aware of nothing except the clarity of her plan—and it was no use.

  The doors were only beginning to open as they reached the third when the lift continued downwards without stopping. Either the weight on its roof, or the tampering, was sending it down. As the doors gaped to display the brick wall of the shaft, then closed again, the trapdoor clanged back and something like a hand came reaching down towards her.

  It was very large. If it found her, it would engulf her face. It was the colour of ancient dough, and looked puffed up as if by decay; patches of the flesh were torn and ragged, but there seemed to be no blood, only greyness. She clamped her left hand over her mouth, which was twitching uncontrollably, and thrust the lighter at the swollen groping fingers.

  They hissed in the flame and recoiled, squirming. Whitish beads had broken out on them. In a way the worst thing was the absence of a cry. The hand retreated through the opening, scraping the edge, and a huge vague face peered down with eyes like blobs of dough. She felt a surge of hysterical mirth at the way the hand had fled—but she choked it back, for she had no reason to feel triumphant. Her skirmish had distracted her from the progress of the lift, which had reached the bottom of the shaft.

  Ought she to struggle with the doors, try to prevent them from opening? It was too late. They were creeping back, they were open now, and she could see the sub-basement.

  At least she could see darkness which her light couldn’t even reach. She had an impression of an enormous doorway, beyond which the darkness, if it was in proportion, might extend for hundreds of yards; she thought of the mouth of a sewer or a mine. The stench of putrid food was overwhelming, parts of the dark looked restless and puffy. But when she heard scuttling, and a dim shape came darting towards her, it proved to be a large rat.

  Though that was bad enough, it mustn’t distract her from the thing above her, on the lift. It had no chance to do so. The rat was yards away from her, and darting aside from her light, when she heard a spongy rush and the rat was overwhelmed by a whitish flood like a gushing of effluent. She backed away until the wall of the lift arrested her. She could still see too much—but how could she make herself put out the flame, trap herself in the dark?

  For the flood was composed of obese bodies which clambered over one another, clutching for the trapped rat. The rat was tearing at the pudgy hands, ripping pieces from the doughy flesh, but that seemed not to affect them at all. Huge toothless mouths gaped in the puffy faces, collapsed inwards like senile lips, sucking loudly, hungrily. Three of the bloated heads fell on the rat, and she heard its squeals above their sucking.

  Then the others that were clambering over them, out of the dark, turned towards her. Great moist nostrils were dilating and vanishing in their noseless faces. Could they see her light with their blobs of eyes, or were they smelling her terror? Perhaps they’d had only soft rotten things to eat down here, but they were learning fast. Hunger was their only motive, ruthless, all-consuming.

  They came jostling towards the lift. Once, delirious, she’d heard all the sounds around her grow stealthily padded, but this softness was far worse. She was trying both to stand back and to jab the lift button, quite uselessly; the doors refused to budge. The doughy shapes would pile in like tripe, suffocating her, putting out the flame, gorging themselves on her in the dark. The one that had ridden the lift was slithering down the outside to join them.

  Perhaps its movement unburdened the lift, or jarred a connection into place, for all at once the doors were closing. Swollen hands were thumping them, soft fingers like grubs were trying to squeeze between them, but already the lift was sailing upwards. Oh God, suppose it went straight up to the sixth floor! But she’d found the ground-floor button, though it twitched away from her, shaken by the flame, and the lift was slowing. Through the slit between the doors, beyond the glass doors to the street, a streetlamp blazed like the sun.

  The lift’s doors opened, and the doughy face lurched in, its fat white blind eyes bulging, its avid mouth huge as a fist. It took her a moment prolonged
as a nightmare to realise that it had been crushed between lift and shaft—for as the doors struggled open, the face began to tear. Screaming, she dragged the doors open, tearing the body in half. As she ran through it she heard it plump at the foot of the shaft, to be met by a soft eager rush—but she was fleeing blindly into the torrent of rain, towards the steep maze of unlit streets, her father at the fireside, his quiet vulnerable demand to know all that she’d done today.

  Heading Home

  Somewhere above you can hear your wife and the young man talking. You strain yourself upwards, your muscles trembling like water, and manage to shift your unsteady balance onto the next stair.

  They must think he finished you. They haven’t even bothered to close the cellar door, and it’s the trickle of flickering light through the crack that you’re striving towards. Anyone else but you would be dead. He must have dragged you from the laboratory and thrown you down the stairs into the cellar, where you regained consciousness on the dusty stone. Your left cheek still feels like a rigid plate, slipped into your flesh where it struck the floor. You rest on the stair you’ve reached and listen.

  They’re silent now. It must be night, since they’ve lit the hall lamp whose flame is peeking into the cellar. They can’t intend to leave the house until tomorrow, if at all. You can only guess what they’re doing now, alone in the house. Your numb lips crack again as you grin. Let them enjoy themselves while they can.

  He didn’t leave you many muscles you can use; it was a thorough job. No wonder they feel safe. Now you have to concentrate yourself in those muscles that still function. Swaying, you manage to raise yourself momentarily to a position where you can grip the next higher stair. You clench on your advantage. Then, pushing with muscles you’d almost forgotten you had, you manage to lever yourself one step higher.

  You manoeuvre yourself until you’re sitting upright. There’s less risk that way of your losing your balance for a moment and rolling all the way down to the cellar floor, where you began climbing hours ago. Then you rest. Only six more stairs.

  You wonder again how they met. Of course you should have known that it was going on, but your work was your wife and you couldn’t spare the time to watch over the woman you’d married. You should have realised that when she went to the village she would meet people and mightn’t be as silent as at home. But her room might have been as far from yours as the village is from the house: you gave little thought to the people in either.

  Not that you blame yourself. When you met her—in the town where you attended the University—you’d thought she understood how important your work was. It wasn’t as if you’d intended to trick her. It was only when she tried to seduce you from your work, both for her own gratification and because she was afraid of it, that you barred her from your companionship by silence.

  You can hear their voices again. They’re on the upper floor. You don’t know whether they’re celebrating or comforting each other as guilt settles on them. It doesn’t matter. So long as he didn’t close the laboratory door when he returned from the cellar. If it’s closed you’ll never be able to open it. And if you can’t get into the laboratory he’s killed you after all. You raise yourself, your muscles shuddering with the effort, your cheeks chafing against the wooden stair. You won’t relax until you can see the laboratory door.

  You’re reaching for the top stair when you slip. Your chin comes down on it and slides back. You grip the stair with your jaws, feeling splinters lodge between your teeth. Your neck scrapes the lower stair, but it has lost all feeling save an ache fading slowly into dullness. Only your jaws are preventing you from falling back where you started, and they’re throbbing as if nails are being driven into the hinges with measured strokes. You close them tighter, pounding with pain, then you overbalance yourself onto the top stair. You teeter for a moment, then you’re secure.

  But you don’t rest yet. You edge yourself forward and sit up so that you can peer out of the cellar. The outline of the laboratory door billows slightly as the lamp flickers. It occurs to you that they’ve lit the lamp because she’s terrified of you, lying dead beyond the main staircase as she thinks. You laugh silently. You can afford to. When the flame steadies you can see darkness gaping for inches around the laboratory door.

  You listen to their voices upstairs, and rest. You know he’s a butcher, because he once helped one of the servants to carry the meat from the village. In any case, you could have told his profession from what he has done to you. You’re still astonished that she should have taken up with him. From the little you knew of the village people you were delighted that they avoided your house.

  You remember the day the new priest came to see you. You could tell he’d heard all the wildest village tales about your experiments. You were surprised he didn’t try to ward you off with a cross. When he found you could argue his theology into a corner, he left, a twitch pulling his smile awry. He’d tried to persuade both of you to attend church, but your wife sat silent throughout. It had been then that you decided to trust her to go to the village. As you paid off the servants you told yourself she would be less likely to talk. You grin fiercely. If you’d been as inaccurate in your experiments you would be dead.

  Upstairs they’re still talking. You rock forward and try to wedge yourself between the cellar door and its frame. With your limited control it’s difficult, and you find yourself leaning in the crack without any purchase on the wood. Your weight hasn’t moved the door, which is heavier than you have ever before had cause to realise. Eventually you manage to wedge yourself in the crack, gripping the frame with all your strength. The door rests on you, and you nudge your weight clumsily against it.

  It creaks away from you a little, then swings back, crushing you. It has always hung unevenly and persisted in standing ajar; it never troubled you before. Now the strength he left you, even focused like light through a burning-glass, seems unequal to shifting the door. Trapped in the crack, you relax for a moment. Then, as if to take it unawares, you close your grip on the frame and shove against the door, pushing yourself forward as it swings away.

  It comes back, answering the force of your shove, and you aren’t clear. But you’re still falling into the hall, and as the door chops into the frame you fall on your back, beyond the sweep of the door. You’re free of the cellar, but on your back you’re helpless. The slowing door can move more than you can. All the muscles you’ve been using can only work aimlessly and loll in the air. You’re laid out on the hall floor like a laboratory subject, beneath the steadying flame.

  Then you hear the butcher call to your wife “I’ll see” and start downstairs.

  You begin to twitch all the muscles on your right side frantically. You roll a little towards that side, then your wild twitching rocks you back. The flame shakes above you, making your shadow play the cruel trick of achieving the movement you’re struggling for. He’s at the halfway landing now. You work your right side again and hold your muscles still as you begin to turn that way. Suddenly you’ve swung over your point of equilibrium and are lying on your right side. You strain your aching muscles to inch you forward, but the laboratory is several feet away, and you’re by no means moving in a straight line. His footsteps resound. Then you hear your wife’s terrified voice, entreating him back. There’s a long pondering silence. Then he hurries back upstairs.

  You don’t let yourself rest until you’re inside the laboratory, although by then your ache feels like a cold stiff surface within your flesh and your mouth tastes like a dusty hole in stone. Once beyond the door you sit still, gazing about. Moonlight is spread from the window to the door. Your gaze seeks the bench where you were working when he found you. He hasn’t cleared up any of the material your convulsions threw to the floor. Glinting on the floor you can see a needle, and nearby the surgical thread you never had occasion to use. You relax to prepare for your last concerted effort, and remember.

  You recall the day you perfected the solution. As soon as you’d quaffed it y
ou felt your brain achieve a piercing alertness, become precisely and continually aware of the messages of each nerve and preside over them, making minute adjustments at the first hint of danger. You knew this was what you’d worked for, but you couldn’t prove it to yourself until the day you felt the stirrings of cancer. Then your brain seemed to condense into a keen strand of energy that stretched down and seared the cancer out. That was proof. You were immortal.

  Not that some of the research you’d had to carry out wasn’t unpleasant. It had taken you a great deal of furtive expenditure at the mortuaries to discover that some of the extracts you needed for the solution had to be taken from the living brain. The villagers thought the children had drowned, for their clothes were found on the riverbank. Medical progress, you told yourself, has always involved suffering.

  Perhaps your wife suspected something of this stage of your work, or perhaps she and the butcher had simply decided to rid themselves of you. In any case, you were working at your bench, trying to synthesise your discovery, when you heard him enter. He must have rushed at you, for before you could turn you felt a blazing slash gape in the back of your neck. Then you awoke on the cellar floor.

  You edge yourself forward across the laboratory. Your greatest exertion is past, but this is the most exacting part. When you’re nearly touching your prone body you have to turn round. You move yourself with your jaws and steer with your tongue. It’s difficult, but less so than tonguing yourself upright on your neck to rest on the stairs. Then you fit yourself to your shoulders, groping with your mind to feel the nerves linking again.

  Now you’ll have to hold yourself unflinching or you’ll roll apart. With your mind you can do it. Gingerly, so as not to part yourself, you stretch out your arm for the surgical needle and thread.