Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother (29 page)

 
          
“You’d
take that as well, would you, you thief?” she screamed. “You monster, you
devil! God help you!” She launched herself at the place where his voice had
been, lashing out with the knife.

 
          
He
hadn’t moved. She felt the knife slice his arm, like butter, like a maggot. In
a moment he had knocked the knife from her hand. At once she knew he had been
waiting for her attack, to give him an excuse to kill her.

 
          
She
heard him switch on the radio. Pop music spilled out, jangling and thumping.
That was to drown her screams. Well, they wouldn’t be drowned so easily. She
opened her mouth to draw breath. But she had made no sound when the music came
rushing toward her face, and the corner of the radio smashed her mouth.

 
          
She
fell heavily. Her lips began to swell around the hideous pain. Her mouth no
longer felt like a mouth; it felt and tasted like broken rusty stone. She could
feel nothing else. She heard the music raised high in the air above her,
distorting and blurring; then it came rushing down at her. God help me, she
thought through the pain.

 
          
She
knew that killing was only the start of what he planned for her.

 
          
Dear
Chris,

 
          
Just
a hasty one before the post!

 
          
I’ve
found out about the black magician. His name was John Strong (John Strong!
Incredible, isn’t it? He sounds more like a wrestler. But I read some of his
book in the library, and that’s actually very nasty, you can believe anything
about him. Help, I can’t get out of these brackets) and he lived at 21
Amberley
Street, just off
Mulgrave
.
Will you phone me if you’re going to look, so I can go too? I’m not doing
anything on Wednesday, the day you should get this.

 
          
Now
I’m running to the post. See you!

 
          
Love,

 
          
Clare

 
          
XXX

 
          
He
hadn’t intended to kill Clare.

 
          
On
Monday he’d realized he was trapping himself. He should leave Liverpool at
once. To wait for Clare to go to the house on
Mulgrave
Street, or even to lure her there, would only be wasting time. He should escape
while she was keeping quiet about him.

 
          
He’d
zipped some clothes into a bag and had hurried out, running for a bus. Each
minute seemed longer. Red lights snapped into place at intersections; the bus
dawdled for passengers to board. His nails had torn at the seat beneath him.

 
          
At
Lime Street Station he’d found he had left his purse in the flat. He would have
tried for the London train with a platform ticket, but nobody would give him
change for the ticket machine. The tail of the train had been drawn away
leisurely. Half the walk back to his flat had been steeply uphill. The heavy
heat had paced him. It had felt more intolerable than his endless trip on hash
cake.

 
          
He
was on the bus again before he’d noticed he had left his bag in the flat. He’d
run back, all his body prickling with heat and rage. There was something else
that he’d forgotten. He’d searched for half an hour,
then
with a snarl of rage had wrenched himself away. But he’d walked down Princes
Road slowly, more slowly, halting. He couldn’t leave until— He couldn’t leave.
Gazing across at
Mulgrave
Street, he’d known why. The
knowledge had lain dully on his mind.

 
          
The
worst thing was
,
he no longer felt free—less so than
in his childhood. He’d had little sleep that night. He lay beneath the house,
waiting; the earth was full of crawling babies. His grandmother must have told
him the story the doctor had told George;
he’d forgotten,
that was all
.

 
          
On
Tuesday he’d had to get out of the flat. He had walked in the parks. He’d dozed
on benches, but children were chattering, birds were babbling. In
Sefton
Park the light on the lake attacked his eyes
jaggedly; in
Otterspool
Park the path sank among
trees, alive with the sound of traffic above on the main road. He had been
trying to edge away from
Mulgrave
Street, pretending
he was only strolling. He’d had nothing but his purse and the clothes he was
wearing, but that didn’t matter: he was only strolling. But he couldn’t pretend
to himself, and the clearer his purpose had become, the more certain he’d been
that he would fail. He was only strolling, and time gathered on him like thick
wax, more suffocating than the heat.

 
          
When
at last he’d returned to his flat, defeated, the landlady was waiting. “Mr.
Barrow, I think somebody’s been in your flat. I haven’t been able to check.
Have you had a new lock put on?”

 
          
“Yeah, right.”
In his confusion he’d neglected to lock the
window, and someone had got in. Maggie?
The police?

 
          
“You
know very well you should have asked me. Will you check your flat now, please?”

 
          
She’d
come in with him, blocking the door as he’d made to close her out; she stared
suspiciously at his eyes—looking for evidence of acid, no doubt. His clothes
had been moved. His bed had been disturbed. Nothing had been taken—but someone
had torn his poster. They’d wanted him to know they had got in.

 
          
“Miss
Fraser says someone was asking for you.
A short girl, a
brunette.
Not much more than five feet tall. She was here shortly before
I heard the intruder.”

 
          
“Yeah,
I know her. It was her in here.”

 
          
“Please
tell her it was still burglary, even if she is a friend of yours. For her own
sake she had better not do it again. Please let me have a copy of your key
tomorrow. And for heaven’s sake, Mr. Barrow,” she’d said from the door, “tidy
up this flat. I’ve been meaning to tell you for weeks.”

 
          
Which meant she’d been getting in too.
He had suspected as
much; that was why he’d bought the lock. It didn’t matter now. His flat wasn’t
safe
any more
. He wasn’t safe. Clare must be in
league with Edmund, after all.

 
          
He
needed to gain an advantage before he was trapped. He needed the address on
Mulgrave
Street. It was in his mother’s letter; his
grandmother had shown him once, then she’d snatched it away, and he couldn’t
recall it. He didn’t dare let the pull lead him to the house. Knowing where it
was would give him an advantage. He’d hurried out to buy a glass-cutter and
putty. Once he knew where the house was, he would know what to do.

 
          
But
killing his grandmother had made him less free. In her house he’d felt the pull
grasp him, through the walls. Now the killing was something else to flee; it
would strengthen the hunt for him. Back at his flat he had tried to sleep, but
the sheets had felt unfamiliar. Whenever he’d touched sleep he had felt
surrounded by earth that threatened to collapse and suffocate him.

 
          
His
eyes were gritty embers. Sounds crawled on him. The shallow knife slash on his
forearm throbbed beneath plaster. He felt as if the daylight weren’t reaching
him. The landlady would be here soon, for her key. He was preparing dully to go
to the house, hoping that would show him why he needed to go, when Clare’s
letter arrived.

 
          
He
gazed at it. She had been trying to drive him into confusion; now she expected
him to betray himself by refusing to go to the house. Or perhaps she thought
his performance would break down in the house, with Edmund and George in the
wings, waiting to pounce. She was sure the house was crucial to him. And
suddenly he knew she was right. Suddenly he saw what he must do.

 
          
Something
about the house was trapping him in Liverpool. He must destroy the house.
Now, in daylight.
That was why he’d needed the address, the
advantage. The house, or what remained of its influence from his childhood, had
been confusing him.

 
          
He
put on his old clothes, to be less conspicuous. He took a box of matches from
the kitchen. He could buy petrol if he needed it. It was a pity to leave all
his clothes, but he could buy more; his purse was in his pocket. He threw his
keys on the bed. He wouldn’t need them again.

 
          
He
strode across the reservation and into a side street, toward
Mulgrave
Street.

 
          
Most
of the windows in the terrace were full of planks or doors, like an infection.
A few houses had resisted; cars stood outside. Trees were stuck in the pavements;
a decaying handbag hung from a branch, a bicycle
tyre
drooped from another. A rag-and-bone man passed him, wheeling a cart, with a
thick, wailing, incomprehensible shout. In one of the occupied houses a broken
window was backed with a piece of cardboard; EGGS, it said in the frame of
jagged glass. The cart clattered away. The man shouted thickly at the houses.

 
          
Chris
emerged onto
Mulgrave
Street. The deep blue sky fell
open; around him white clouds lay tangled on the horizon, like convoluted
bones. The sunlight accumulated on the back of his neck; for a moment the
landscape stirred restlessly. He gazed along
Mulgrave
Street, at its crossroads on the waste. St. Joseph’s School stood alone,
surrounded by railings. A master was gesturing ranks of boys into the school.
Chris knew his face.

 
          
It
was the man who’d grabbed him the day he had come here with the Vale School
Players. His hands clawed at themselves. If only he could lure that man to the
house! A black cat with ragged plastered fur fled past, glancing fearfully
aside at him. Never mind: his rage would do for Clare, if she dared come near
the house. It was her fault he had killed his grandmother. He would enjoy
taking revenge for that, as he had on that dog for the death of his cat.

 
          
None
of the streets toward the school was
Amberley
. He
walked toward Upper Parliament Street. Lamp standards stooped long concrete
necks over the roadway; trees sprouted from the
rubbly
pavements of
levelled
side streets. Beyond a
corrugated tin wall a mechanical shovel howled and spewed bricks. A lorry laden
with spades and pickaxes stood outside the wall.

 
          
The
pull felt less urgent, too generalized for him to locate. He neared a terrace.
This must be it: but it wasn’t. A lone postbox said WACK and FUCK. It must be
the next terrace—that was the only one left standing. He stumbled off the
pavement, which was cracked like ice, onto the waste. The wooden bone of an
armchair showed through its torn plastic skin.

 
          
The
terrace wasn’t
Amberley
Street. He gazed at the tin
that filled the windows, bewildered. Beyond the houses a doll whose cracked
mouth was stuffed with mud sat in a pram without wheels. Beyond that he saw a
single house, its yard walls still intact. A streetlamp stood outside; there
was even a street plaque on the house wall. He began to run. AMBERLEY STREET.
Hot dust puffed out beneath his sandals.

 
          
It
was a grey three-storey house. The windows were full of shattered holes, but
curtains panted feebly within,
colourless
as
vegetation trapped beneath stone. One sash was almost blind with boards;
beneath its glass a curtain stirred. Small attic windows hung with grey
curtains stood forward from the slate roof.

 
          
The
front yard was cramped close to the house. Tufts of grass and weeds sprouted
through a scattering of glass and slate. The basement windows were nearly
buried; the brows of their sashes stood emptily above the surface of the yard.

 
          
Three
steps led up to the front door, which was dull brown, partly charred and
blistered. The flap of the letter slot hung askew beside a large rusty
doorknob. As he approached, Chris glanced at the adjoining set of steps. Above
them an intact front door was displayed in a jagged frame of brick. Beyond it a
hall with flowered wallpaper led out onto
rubbly
waste.