Dark Corners - Twelve Tales of Terror (37 page)

The
crowd booed and the judges shook their heads, but the result stayed
the same. Andy Levine won, and it catapulted his career to the
stratosphere. Rick slipped off the radar. He still worked, he made a
decent living playing clubs and pubs, but whenever he saw his gangly
rival on the television, he felt a stab of rage and jealousy spike
within him. It should have been him. He knew it, and he was sure Andy
Levine knew it too. For the next year their lives grew further apart.
Andy became one of those celebrity faces that seem to be on every
television program under the sun. Rick on the other hand struggled to
make ends meet and was close to losing his one bedroom apartment,
which was far from luxurious as it was. Just when he was about to hit
bottom, Rick was commissioned to write a serialized newspaper article
about the history of magic from its inception to its modern day
status. He didn’t want to do it, but he was offered enough
money to pay his rent for another month and reluctantly agreed.
Although he knew the common history of the business, he was
determined to give a full and in depth report, so one warm Saturday
morning in June of 2011 he made his way to the public library and
set about his research. For the next week he read and researched and
was beginning to form the basis of an excellent article, when he
stumbled upon an old, leather bound book.

He
looked at it on the shelf, pushed back into the corner and covered in
a thick layer of dust. Something within him, a quiver of uneasiness,
made him reluctant to touch it; but he found himself reaching out
anyway, taking the huge book and laying it on the table. The binding
was a deep maroon color with faded gold edging. The cover read simply
one word, embossed in gold.

Heka.

Suddenly
hot and uncomfortable with his heart racing in his chest, he opened
the book. That ancient, secret aged paper smell filled his nostrils
as he began to look at the words, or more accurately the symbols that
filled the page from edge to edge, margin to margin. Some looked like
Egyptian hieroglyphs, others like ancient Greek or Latin. The words
seemed to be a jumble of the three. Part of him realized that any
attempt to translate it would take even an expert on languages a
lifetime, never mind an ordinary man of average intelligence. But a
voice deep within him compelled him to at least try. He looked at the
book again, and noticed it had no library binding, nor did it have
the paper index stuck to the inside front page. Rick glanced around
the cavernous library, filled with paranoia and a giddy cocktail of
fear and excitement, and quietly slipped the book into his knapsack.

III

The
deadline for his article passed, and even though he had written half
of a very articulate piece, he barely noticed. Much in the same way
that he barely noticed when his telephone line was disconnected and
when the final reminders and notice of legal action letters began to
fall through his letterbox. He was lost.

The
main room of his apartment now resembled a huge and impressive
research space. Charts of hieroglyphs and ancient symbols were pinned
to almost every wall, and the large corner desk, which until he had
discovered the red book had housed only his telephone, was now buried
under papers. Here was where he spent his days, hunched over the
desk, ignoring the unwashed smell of his own sweaty body, and doing
his best to ignore the dull headache from the efforts of his
research. The first days had seemed like an impossible task,
translating the symbols one at a time, trying to put them into some
kind of coherent order. Six weeks passed, then twelve, and still he
worked, sometimes spending twenty or more hours hunched over the
desk. During that time Andy Levine performed what was called the
world’s greatest illusion when he made the White House vanish.
It was televised to a global audience and after it was done (and the
presidential property restored) Andy received a handshake and thanks
from the President himself. Rick barely noticed, however. He was
lost.

Five
months had passed, and Rick’s apartment was more like a hovel.
Papers and books filled every surface, and flies buzzed and dived
around the overfilled waste bins and plates of moldering, half eaten
food. But still, Rick barely noticed, because finally he was
beginning to understand. Certain symbols and phrases were beginning
to make sense to him. Some passages he could read without referring
to his myriad of textbooks and research material. It was only when he
began to put the words together that he started to understand their
meaning. Exhausted after a ten hour stretch of translating, Rick
stood and stretched, rubbing his tired eyes. He had become gaunt from
weight loss, and his face now sported an itchy, patchy beard. Moving
aside a pile of papers and notes from the arm chair, he sat and
closed his eyes, trying to will away a headache looming in back of
his head. He wasn’t getting enough sleep, and despite barely
leaving the house for months he felt exhausted. As he stared at the
wall, trying to digest the stream of information from his work he saw
a mouse. It was small and brown, and was walking gingerly across the
back of the room, keeping close to the skirting board as it sniffed
at the fleshy remains of a brown, discarded apple core. He smiled to
himself for the first time in what felt like an age and watched as
the mouse continued to examine the core. As he watched his eyes begin
to feel heavy, his exhaustion catching up to him. He closed his eyes
but still imagined the mouse, standing in the endless space of his
mind’s eye, whiskers twitching as it sniffed at the vast empty
void.

The
symbols came quickly. They swirled and skittered, ducking and diving
and exploding into glorious colors, forming new words and symbols
which then interlocked, and pointed to other symbols and shapes and
phrases. They danced around the mouse, which continued its oblivious
sniffing. He began to read, snatches of the phrases he understood,
others he found he could read even though he didn’t consciously
know them. Euphoria overcame him, being pulled along by some great,
prima force of nature. The words swirled around the mouse, enveloping
it and then like switching off a television. His mind’s eye
went blank, symbols and mouse gone. He woke with a start, heart
thundering in his chest.

The
apple core was still exactly where it had been when he closed his
eyes, but the mouse was gone. Leaping out of the chair, he flicked
his gaze from corner to corner, looking for any possible escape
route, but couldn’t see one the mouse could have taken so
quickly. He contemplated the enormity of what he may have done, but
immediately stamped it out. He couldn’t be certain. He realized
he could be getting over excited about nothing. Still, he knew a way
to be certain. With an enthusiasm that had been absent for some time,
he grabbed his coat and headed out the door.

IV

The second mouse was larger than the one that had (or
had not) vanished from his room, but he thought it would do the job
just fine. Housed in a large plastic enclosure, he was satisfied that
the mouse would remain suitably contained for the duration of his
experiment. He set the enclosure on the table, sat in his chair and
took a deep breath, closing his eyes. This time the symbols came
almost immediately—just as quickly and with the same intensity
as before. He concentrated on keeping the mouse in the blank space of
his mind’s eye, holding it in place as the words ducked, dived,
and swirled. Then as before, it went blank.

He kept his eyes closed and counted to five, knowing
that the next few seconds could define his future. Taking a deep
breath, he dared to look.

The plastic enclosure was on the table exactly as he had
left it. Circular blue food container, a layer of sawdust in the
bottom, water bottle clipped to the side. All was present apart from
the enclosure’s resident. He looked blankly about the empty
sitting room, wondering if it had somehow escaped. But the lid of the
container was still securely closed and escape would be completely
impossible. Not quite able to believe his own eyes he opened the lid
of the container, combing his fingers through the sawdust. He knew of
course that the mouse wouldn’t be able to hide itself in such a
thin layer, but he checked anyway. He needed to be sure. Satisfied,
he closed the lid and took a step back. There was no question about
it. The mouse had disappeared. He had expected the eureka moment to
be accompanied by excitement and elation, but for him the enormity of
what he had done made his legs feel weak, and he could do no more
than flop down heavily in his favourite chair by the fireplace. It
dawned on him that he had achieved the impossible. Even he didn’t
believe what he had done. He didn’t know how he had done it
exactly. He tried to recall the symbols, the numbers and the words
but they were already gone—fading away like a dream at the
moment of waking. Although he wasn’t sure what he had tapped
into or how, he knew that he had somehow blurred the line between
possible and impossible. Already he was thinking about how he could
use it, and how he could now finally develop the illusion that would
get him the recognition that he deserved.

The mouse reappeared an hour later. Rick had been deep
in thought about the enormity of what he had done when he heard it
scurrying around in the plastic container. He lunged up and hurried
over, lifting the mouse out carefully and almost dropping it due to
his hands shaking so much, but he managed to keep it in his grasp. It
appeared to be perfectly healthy and although he was no vet, it
looked to be showing no ill effects of its disappearance. This time
he did whoop and cheer and carefully placed the mouse back in its
container. (He retired it from a life of experimentation and kept it
as a pet, naming it Houdini.) Although he was optimistic by the
reappearance of the mouse, he was dismayed to find that upon trying
to repeat his experiment with a second rodent (third if you counted
the initial escapee) he couldn’t do it. He closed his eyes and
tried to concentrate, to will the words into existence to no avail.
The next two weeks were an exercise in frustration, as no matter what
he tried to do to replicate the incident he was unable to will the
numbers and symbols into existence. His frustration gave way to
depression, and he was close to giving up altogether when he made the
breakthrough that would change his life forever. Following another
failed attempt to make the symbols and words appear, he had wilted
down into his chair and took a long sip of coffee, then glanced over
to Houdini, who had since been upgraded to a much larger enclosure.

“
Help
me out here, Houdini. Tell me what to do,” he had said to the
mouse, which was far too busy cleaning itself in its nest area to pay
him any attention. He glanced back to the other mouse, who he had
named Herman, still on the desk in his enclosure. Herman looked at
him, sniffing at the air and wondering when he too got to retire to a
life of luxury like that of his fellow rodent Houdini.

“
I’m
working on it, Herman. I’m working on it,” Rick said in
response to the unspoken question. He leaned back and closed his eyes
allowing his body to sink further the seat. He was close to sleep
when they reappeared. The symbols, the words. They began to flow.
Slowly at first and from left to right across his closed eyes, then
they started to veer off, come in from different angles, words
writing on top of words, symbols interlinking and pointing to other
words that exploded into kaleidoscopes of colour, which in turn
formed their own words and symbols. He began to read, forming
sentences, speaking them under his breath. Just as before, he felt
pulled along by some unseen force, the words and symbols building to
a crescendo before suddenly stopping. Heart racing, Rick opened his
eyes.

Herman was gone.

He leaped from his chair and danced around the room.

“
Ha-ha!
I get it now, Houdini! I know how to do it! I was trying too hard!
The key is to relax—relax and let the mind do the work!”

Ecstatic, he waited for Herman to return, and exactly as
expected he reappeared an hour later. Rick actually saw it happen
this time. The air in the cage seemed to twist and warp and buckle,
and then there he was. It looked like a cheap Hollywood special
effect but it was quite real. With his adventure complete, Herman too
was retired to chez’ Houdini and Rick was left with what to do
with his new found gift. The process became easier the more he did
it. Buoyed by the excitement of his antics with the mice, he had
started to test the method on larger animals. Cats and dogs went and
reappeared just as easily and seemingly with no ill effects. The
process wasn’t just limited to living things either, as he
found he could shift static things too. His television, his chair.
Each time he drifted into that strange, pulled along state driven by
the symbols and numbers, he felt that he understood a little
more—even though every time he opened his eyes he would always
be overcome with that forgetful waking dream feeling. He had even
tried to write some of them down, but the half-remembered words and
shapes seemed wrong on paper and held neither meaning nor power.

He set up two video cameras and began to record his
experiments, watching the tapes play back in awe as he made various
things in his home vanish and reappear. Excited, he began to draw out
plans for his master illusion, quickly realising that the previous
limits no longer applied. As he grew bolder, he began to focus on
vanishing increasingly larger and more complex objects. First a horse
grazing in a field, then his beaten old Ford, (which he half hoped
wouldn’t re appear.) In every instance they would return
exactly an hour later, showing no ill effects of their journey to
wherever it was that they went. The word vengeance began to pop into
Rick’s mind, and over the next days was joined by other words.
Retribution. Justice. Power.