The Collected Short Fiction by Thomas Ligotti Part 3

Count Dracula is descended from the n.o.ble race of the Szekelys, a people of many bloodlines, all of them fierce and warlike. He fought for his country against the invading Turks. He survived wars, plagues, the hards.h.i.+ps of an isolated dwelling in the Carpathian Mountains. And for centuries, at least five and maybe more, he has managed to perpetuate, with the aid of supernatural powers, his existence as a vampire. This existence came to an end in the late 1800's. "Why her? " Count Dracula often asked himself.

Why the entire ritual, when one really thinks about it. What does a being who can transform himself into a bat, a wolf, a wisp of smoke, anything at all, and who knows the secrets of the dead (perhaps of death itself) want with this oily and overheated nourishment? Who would make such a stipulation for immortality! And, in the end, where did it get him? Lucy Westenra s soul was saved, Renfield's soul was never in any real danger...but Count Dracula, one of the true children of the night from which all things are born, has no soul. Now he has only this same insatiable thirst, though he is no longer free to alleviate it. "Why her? There were no others such as her." Now he has only this painful, perpetual awareness that he is doomed to wriggle beneath this infernal stake which those fools-Harker, Seward, Van Helsing, and the others-have stuck in his trembling heart. "Her fault, her fault." And now he hears voices, common voices, peasants from the countryside.

"Over here," one of them shouts, "in this broken down convent or whatever it is. I think I've found something we can give those d.a.m.ned dogs. Good thing, too. Christ, I'm sick of their endless whining."

The Greater Festival of Masks (1985).

First published in Songs Of A Dead Dreamer, 1985.

Also published in: The Nightmare Factory.

There are only a few houses in the in the district where Noss begins his excursions. Nonetheless, they are s.p.a.ced in such a way that suggests some provision has been made to accommodate a greater number of them, like a garden from which certain growths have been removed or have yet to appear. It even seems to Noss that these hypothetical houses, the ones now absent, may at some point change places with those which can be seen, in order to enrich the lapses in the landscape and give the visible a rest within nullity. And of these houses now stretching high or spreading low there will remain nothing to be said, for they will have entered the empty s.p.a.ces, which are merely blank faces waiting to gain features. Such are the declining days of the festival, when the old and the new, the real and the imaginary, truth and deception, all join in the masquerade.

But even at this stage of the festival some have yet to take a large enough interest in tradition to visit one of the shops of costumes and masks. Until recently Noss was among this group, for reasons neither he nor anyone else could clearly explain. Now, however, he is on his way to a shop where every shelf is crammed and flowing over, even at this late stage of the festival, with costumes and masks. In the course of his little journey, Noss keeps watching as buildings become more numerous, enough to make a street, many narrow streets, a town. He also observes numerous indications of the festival season. These signs are sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant in nature. For instance, not a few doors have been kept ajar, even throughout the night, and dim lights are left burning in empty rooms. On the other hand, someone has ostentatiously scattered a bunch of filthy rags in a certain street, shredded rags that are easily disturbed by the wind and twist gaily about. But there are many other gestures of festive abandonment; a hat, all style mangled out of it, has been jammed into the s.p.a.ce where a board is missing in a high fence, a poster stuck to a crumbling wall has been diagonally torn in half, leaving a sc.r.a.p of face fluttering at its edges; and into strange pathways of caprice revelers will go, but to have shorn themselves in doorways, to have littered the shadows with such wiry clippings and tumbling fluff. Reliquiae of the hatless, the faceless, the tediously groomed. And Noss pa.s.ses it all by with no more, if no less, than a glance.

His attention appears more sharply awakened as he approaches the center of the town, where the houses, the shops, the fences, the walls are more, much more... close. There seems barely enough s.p.a.ce for a few stars to squeeze their bristling light between the roofs and towers above, and the outsized moon-not a familiar face in this neighbourhood-must suffice to be seen as a fuzzy anonymous glow mirrored in silvery windows. The streets are more tightly strung here, and a single one may have several names compressed into it from end to end. Some of the names may be credited less to deliberate planning, or even the quirks of local history, than an apparent need for the superfluous, as if a street sloughed off its name every so often like an old skin, the extra ones insuring that it would not go completely nameless. Perhaps a similar need could explain why the buildings in this district exhibit so many pointless embellishments: doors which are elaborately decorated but will not budge in their frames; ma.s.sive shutters covering blank walls behind them; enticing balconies, well-railed and promising in their views, but without any means of entrance, stairways that enter dark niches... and a dead end. These structural adornments are mysterious in an area so pressed for room that even shadows must be shared. And so must other things. Backyards, for example, where a few fires still burn, the last of the festival pyres. For in this part of town the season is still at its peak, or at least the signs of its termination have yet to appear. Perhaps revelers hereabouts are still nudging each other in corners, hinting at preposterous things, coughing in the middle of jokes. Here the festival is not dead. For the delirium of this rare celebration does not radiate out from the center of things, but seeps inward from remote margins. Thus, the festival may have begun in an isolated hovel at the edge of town, if not in some lonely residence in the woods beyond. In any case, its agitations have now reached the heart of this dim region, and Noss has finally resolved to visit one of the many shops of costumes and masks.

A steep stairway leads him to a shrunken platform of a porch, and a little slot of a door puts him inside the shop. And indeed the shelves are crammed and flowing over with costumes and masks. The shelves are very dark and mouth-like, stuffed into silence by the wardrobes and faces of dreams. Noss pulls at a mask that is overhanging the edge of one shelf-a dozen fall down upon him. Backing away from the avalanche of false faces, he looks at the sardonically grinning one in his hand.

"Excellent choice", says the shopkeeper, who steps out from behind a long counter in the rearguard of shadows. "Put it on and let's see. Yes, my gracious, this is excellent. You see how your entire face is well-covered, from the hairline to just beneath the chin and no farther. And at the sides it clings snugly. It doesn't pinch, am I right?" The mask nods in agreement. "Good, that's how it should be. Your ears are un.o.bstructed-you have very nice ones, by the way-while the mask holds onto the sides of your head. It is comfortable, yet secure enough to stay put and not fall off in the heat of activity. You'll see, after a while you won't even know you are wearing it! The holes for the eyes, nostrils and mouth are perfectly placed for your features; no natural function is inhibited, that is a must. And it looks so good on you, especially up close, though I'm sure also at a distance. Go and stand over there in the moonlight. Yes, it was made for you, what do you say? I'm sorry, what?"

Noss walks back to the shopkeeper and removes the mask.

"I said alright, I suppose I'll take this one."

"Fine, there's no question about it. Now let me show you some of the other ones, just a few steps this way."

The shopkeeper pulls something down from a high shelf and places it in his customers hands. What Noss now holds is another mask, but one that seems somehow to be... impractical. While the first mask possessed every virtue of conformity with its wearer's face, this mask is neglectful of such advantages. Its surface forms a strange ma.s.s of bulges and depressions which appear unaccommodating at best, possibly pain-inflicting. And it is so much heavier than the first one.

"No," says Noss, handing back the mask, "I believe the other will do."

The shopkeeper looks as if he is at a loss for words. He stares at Noss for many moments before saying: "May I ask you a personal question? Have you lived, how shall I say this, here all your life?"

The shopkeeper is now gesturing beyond the thick gla.s.s of the shop's windows. Noss shakes his head in reply.

"Well, then there's no rush. Don't make any hasty decisions. Stay around the shop and think it over, there's still time. In fact, it would be a favor to me. I have to go out for a while, you see, and if you could keep an eye on things I would greatly appreciate it. You'll do it then? Good. And don't worry," he says, taking a large hat from a peg that poked out of the wall, "I'll be back in no time, no time at all. If someone pays us a visit, just do what you can for them," he shouts before closing the front door behind him.

Now alone, Noss takes a closer look at those outlandish masks the shopkeeper had just shown him. While differing in design, as any good a.s.sortment of masks must, they all share the same impracticalities of weight and shape, as well as having some very oddly placed apertures for ventilation, and too many of them.

Outlandish indeed! Noss gives these masks back to the shelves from which they came, and he holds on tightly to the one the shopkeeper had said was so perfect for him, so practical in every way. After a vaguely exploratory shuffle around the shop, Noss finds a stool behind the long counter and there falls asleep. It seems only a few moments later that he is awakened by some sound or other. Collecting his wits, he gazes around the dark shop, as if searching for the source of hidden voices which are calling to him. Then the sound returns, a soft thudding behind him and far off into the shadowy rooms at the rear of the shop. Hopping down from the stool, Noss pa.s.ses through a narrow doorway, descends a brief flight of stairs, pa.s.ses through another doorway, ascends another brief flight of stairs, walks down a short and very low hallway, and at last arrives at the back door. It rumbles again once or twice.

"Just do what you can for them," Noss remembers. But he looks uneasy. On the other side of that door there is only a tiny plot of ground bordered by a high fence.

"Why don't you come around the front?" he shouts through the door. But there is no reply, only a request.

"Please bring five of those masks to the other side of the fence. That's where we are now. There's a fire, you'll see us. Well, can you do this or not?"

Noss leans his head into the shadows by the wall: one side of his face is now in darkness while the other is indistinct, blurred by a strange glare which is only an impostor of true light. "Give me a moment, I'll meet you there," he finally replies. "Did you hear me?"

There was no response from the other side. Noss turns the door handle, which is unexpectedly warm, and through a thread-like crack peers out into the backyard. There is nothing to be seen except a square of blackness surrounded by the tall wooden slabs of the fence, and a few thin branches twisting against a pale sky. But whatever signs of pranksterism Noss perceives or is able to fabricate to himself, there is no defying the traditions of the festival, even if one can claim to have merely adopted this town and its seasonal practices, however rare they may be. For innocence and excuses are not harmonious with the spirit of this fabulously infrequent occasion. Therefore, Noss retrieves the masks and brings them to the rear door of the shop. Cautiously, he steps out.

When he reaches the far end of the yard-a much greater distance from the shop than it had seemed-he sees a faint glow of fire through the cracks in the fence. There is a small door with clumsy black hinges and only a hole for a handle. Setting the five masks aside for a moment, Noss squats down and peers through the hole. On the other side of the fence is a dark yard exactly like the one on his side, save for the fire burning upon the ground. Gathered around the blaze are several figures-five, perhaps four-with hunched shoulders and spines curving toward the light of the flames. They are all wearing masks which at first seem securely fitted to their faces. But, one by one, these masks appear to loosen and slip down, as if each is losing hold upon its wearer. Finally, one of the figures pulls his off completely and tosses it into the fire, where it curls and shrinks into a wad of bubbling blackness. The others follow this action when their time comes. Relieved of their masks, the figures resume their shrugging stance. But the light of the fire now s.h.i.+nes on four, yes four, smooth and faceless faces.

"These are the wrong ones, you little idiot," says someone who is standing in the shadows by the fence. And Noss can only stare dumbly as a hand s.n.a.t.c.hes up the masks and draws them into the darkness. "We have no more use for these!" the voice shouts.

Noss runs in retreat towards the shop, the five masks striking his narrow back and falling face-up on the ground. For he has gained a glimpse of the speaker in the shadows and now understands why those masks are no good to them now. Once inside the shop, Noss leans upon the long counter to catch his breath. Then he looks up and sees that the shopkeeper has returned.

"There were some masks that I brought out to the fence. They were the wrong ones," he says to the shopkeeper.

"No trouble at all," the other replies. "I'll see that the right ones are delivered. Don't worry, there's still time. And how about you, then?"

"Me?"

"And the masks, I mean."

"Oh I'm sorry to have bothered you in the first place. It's not at all what I thought... That is, maybe I should just-"

"Nonsense! You can't leave now, you see. Let me take care of everything. Listen to me, I want you to go to a place where they know how to handle cases like this. You're not the only one who is a little frightened tonight. It's right around the corner, this-no, that way, and across the street. It's a tall grey building, but it hasn't been there very long so watch you don't miss it. And you have to go down some stairs around the side. Now will you please follow my advice?"

Noss nods obediently.

"Good, you won't be sorry. Now go straight there. Don't stop for anyone or anything. And here, don't forget these," the shopkeeper reminds Noss, handing him an unmatching pair of masks. "Good luck!"

Though there doesn't seem to be anyone or anything to stop for, Noss does stop once or twice and dead in his tracks, as if someone behind him had just called his name. Then he thoughtfully caresses his chin and smooth cheeks; he also touches other parts of his face, frantically, before proceeding to toward the tall grey building. By the time he reaches the stairway on the side of the building, he cannot keep his hands off himself. Finally, Noss puts on one of the masks-the sardonically grinning one. But somehow it no longer fits him the way it once did. It keeps slipping, little by little, as he descends the stairs, which look worn down by countless footsteps, bowed in the middle by the invisible tonnage of time. Yet Noss remembers the shopkeeper saying this place hadn't been here very long.

The room at the bottom, which Noss now enters, also looks very old and is very... quiet. At this late stage of the festival the room is crowded with occupants who do nothing but sit silently in the shadows, with a face here and there reflecting the dull light. These faces are horribly simple; they have no expression at all, or very slight expressions and ones that are strange. But they are finding their way back, little by little, to a familiar land of faces. And the process, if the ear listens closely, is not an entirely silent one. Perhaps this is how a garden would sound if it could be heard growing in the dead of night. It is that soft creaking of new faces breaking through old flesh. And they are growing very nicely. At length, and with a torpid solemnity, Noss removes the old mask and tosses it away. It falls to the floor and lies there grinning in the dim glow of that room, fixed in an expression that, in days to come, many will find strange and wonder at.

For the old festival of masks has ended, so that a greater festival may begin. And of the old time nothing will be said, because nothing will be known. But the old masks, false souls, will find something to remember, and perhaps they will speak of those days when they are alone behind doors that do not open, or in the darkness at the summit of stairways leading nowhere.

One Thousand Painful Variations Performed Upon Divers Creatures Undergoing The Treatment of Dr. Moreau, Humanist (1985).

First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994 Dr. Moreau is examining the manwolf strapped to the operating table. He has worked very hard on this one, tearing him by slow and torturous degrees away from his b.e.s.t.i.a.l origins.

Today Dr. Moreau is curious. He sees the manwolf gazing at his pretty a.s.sistant. He first tries to read the truth in the manwolf's eyes but cannot. Now he must resort to an empirical test.

Very casually Dr. Moreau loosens the straps binding the wrists and ankles of the manwolf and then, quietly, leaves the room. He waits a few moments in the hallway, anxious to allow them enough time. Finally, opening a thin crack in the door, he peeks inside with one eye.

Well so much for that, he thinks, and suddenly steps into the room to confront his two subjects-the a.s.sistant; standing rigid with terror; the manwolf: down on one knee like a delirious knight before the manaced lady he would gladly save.

"Idiot," screams Dr. Moreau, knocking the manwolf's head a good forty-five degrees to one side with the back of his hand. "We've got a long way to go with these beasts," he tells his a.s.sistant. "It's for their own good!"

Then, with disgust, he takes a little gold key from his vest pocket and walks toward a huge door, behind which is a perplexing array of powerful drugs and instruments of unimaginable pain.

The Excruciating Final Days of Dr. Henry Jekyll, Englishman (1985).

First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994 Dr. Henry Jekyll has been locked in his laboratory off a busy London bystreet for almost a week now, trying to find the formula that would destroy the insatiable Edward Hyde forever, or at least dissolve him into a few chemicals harmlessly suspended in one's system. Late Sunday morning Dr. Jekyll awakens on the floor and discovers, to his amazement, the shrunken form of Hyde stirring half-consciously beside him.

They are both a little groggy, and Dr. Jekyll is the first to make it to his feet. For a moment they just stare at each other. Dr. Jekyll can see that Hyde's ferocious being has been rendered innocuous and tame, the lingering effects, no doubt, of his debauched life.

"I have just the thing," says Dr. Jekyll, cradling Hyde's head with one arm and forcing a beaker of bubbling fluid to his lips. Then Dr. Jekyll backs away and watches Hyde being overtaken by wrenching convulsions from the poison he has unwittingly ingested.

Someone is now knocking at the laboratory door (the one that leads into the house). "Dr. Jekyll, sir, there's a young lady here asking for Mr. Hyde. What should I tell her?"

"Just a minute, Poole," answers Dr. Jekyll, smoothing out his crumpled cravat and preparing to deliver the regrettable news that Hyde died days ago in an unfortunate accident of science. The man would drink anything he could get his hands on, and he knew nothing of chemistry!

But before seeing the young lady, Dr. Jekyll wants to examine the corpse of his evil twin. My G.o.d, this poor creature is practically immortal, he thinks as he drags the faintly gasping body of Edward Hyde toward the gaping and fiery incinerator.

The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein, Citizen of Geneva (1985).

First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994 Victor Frankenstein has died on board a s.h.i.+p caught in seas of ice near the North Pole. His body has been sent back to his native Switzerland, where, however, there is no one to receive it. Everyone he ever knew has already died before him. His brother William, his friend Henry, his wife Elizabeth, and his father Alphonse Frankenstein, among others, are no more. A minor official in the Geneva civil service comes up with the suggestion to donate the corpse, still very well preserved, to the university at Ingolstadt, where the deceased distinguished himself in scientific studies.

Hans Hoffmann, a prodigy in comparative anatomy at the University of Ingolstadt, is conducting a series of experiments in his apartment. He has a.s.sembled, and is quite sure he can vivfy, a human being from various body parts he has bought or stolen. To consummate his project, which to his knowledge has never been attempted and would certainly make him famous, he still needs a human brain. He has heard that the body of a former student at the university at Ingolstadt is preserved in the morgue of the medical school. He has heard that the man was a brilliant student. This would be the perfect brain, thinks Hans Hoffmann. Late one night he breaks into the morgue and helps himself.

"Well," says Hans Hoffmann on the spectacular evening when the creature first opens its eyes, "aren't you a beauty!" This is intended ironically, of course; the creature is quite hideous. What Hans Hoffmann now notices is that the creature is gazing around the room, as if expecting to see someone who, for the moment, is absent.

"Oh ho," says the scientist, "I can see I'm going to have trouble with you. You'll be begging me one of these days to make you a companion, someone of your own kind. Well, look here," says Hans Hoffmann holding a handful of entrails and part of a woman's face. "I've already tried to do it, perhaps a little halfheartedly, I admit. It's not the same, making a woman, and I don't have much use for them anyway."

Hans Hoffmann cannot tell whether or not the creature has understood these words. Nevertheless, it has an extremely desolate expression on its face (just possibly due to a few collapsed muscles). Now the creature is staggering around Hans Hoffmann's apartment, inadvertently breaking a number of objects. Finally, it stumbles out the door and into the streets of Ingolstadt. ("Good riddance!" shouts Hans Hoffmann).

But as the creature wanders into the darkness, searching for a face it remembers from long ago, it is unaware that the only being in the entire universe who could possibly offer him any comfort has already incinerated himself on a furious pyre deep in the icy wasteland of the North Pole.

The Insufferable Salvation of Lawrence Talbot the Wolfman (1985).

First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994 According to ritual the wolfman has just been shot with a silver bullet by the one who loved him, and whom he loved. He falls to the ground and a thick layer of autumn leaves absorbs much of the impact. The woman is still pointing the revolver-using both hands-when the others in the hunting party arrive, summoned by the gunshots they heard.

A tall man in a tweed sportcoat puts his arms around the woman. "Don't worry, he can't harm you anymore," the tall man says to her. But the wolfman never even touched the woman to begin with. Literally.

Lawrence Taylor was the human name of the wolfman. He was in his late thirties, unemployed (with prospects), and unmarried. While traveling through Eastern Europe, hiking about forests much of the time, he was attacked by a large wolf and bitten once or twice. After being examined by a doctor, he didn't give the incident a great deal of thought... until the following month, when he saw the full moon through the diamondpaned windows of an English country house where he was a guest.

He had fallen in love with the daughter of the man who owned the house, and he was secretly intending to ask her to marry him. But after the first full moon opened his eyes to what he had become, he knew his life was over. He was a murderer, however involuntarily. Before the next full moon he made the woman promise that if anything should happen to him, well, his one wish was to be interred in the mausoleum on the grounds of her father's estate. "I promise," she said solemnly, though she understood neither the promise itself, nor the solemnity with which she uttered it.

Lawrence Talbot wanted to know he would still be close to this woman after his death. But he never imagined that he would also be able to hear her voice, and other voices, while unfortunately being unable to respond.

"Aren't we supposed to cut out its heart now?" asked one of the men in the hunting party. (Well, so what if they do? He loved her with every part of himself and would still be capable of sensing her presence on the frequent visits she would undoubtedly make to the mausoleum.) "No, nothing to do with the heart," says another. "I think we're supposed to burn up the whole thing right away, and then scatter the ashes."

"Yes, that's quite true," adds the tall man. "But what do you say?" he asks the woman. She is weeping, "I don't know, I don't know. What does it matter anymore?" (No, it does! The promise, the promise!) Some of the men complain about how hard it is to turn up decent tinder in a forest where it has rained so much that autumn. Every leaf, every twig they find seems to be slick and damp, as if each one has been stained with some beast's oily s...o...b..r.

The Intolerable Lesson of the Phantom of the Opera (1985).

First published in The Agonizing Resurrection Of Victor Frankenstein And Other Gothic Tales, 1994 The Phantom of the opera is a genius. Before he became the phantom of the opera he was a composer of only average talent, a talent that was taken advantage of by a greedy swindler who stole the young composer's music. He tried to get revenge on the villain, and in the process his face was severely disfigured by some chemicals which splashed into it and caught fire. Afterward he moved into the sewers directly beneath the opera house, and he also became a genius.

In the middle of the opera season the phantom kidnaps a rather mediocre soprano and devotes many weeks to training her voice down in the resonant caverns of the Paris sewer system. He tells the girl to sing from the heart, rapping his chest once or twice to make her aware she is singing from his heart too, and maybe other people's. This is the basic message of his instruction, though he still exasperates his student with hours and hours of scales, ear training, and so forth.

One day she gets fed up with all the agony this man is putting her through, and out of despair, not to mention curiosity, rips off the mask that hides his hideous face. She screams and faints. While she is pa.s.sed out, the phantom takes this opportunity to return her to the upper world of the opera house. For whether she knows it or not, she is now a great singer.

When the girl regains consciousness from the terrible shock she experienced, her days with the phantom of the opera seem like no more than a vague dream. Later in the season she is starring in an opera and gives a brilliant performance, which the phantom watches from an empty box near the stage. Over and over he raps his chest with satisfaction and a sadness so personal and deep as to be incomprehensible to anyone but himself.

After the opera is finished and the star is taking her bows, the phantom notices that one of the heavy walkways above the stage is loose and about to come plummeting down right on his student's lovely head. He leaps onto the boards, pushes her out of the way, and is himself thoroughly crushed by the falling wreckage.

The phantom of the opera is bleeding freely and behind his mask his eyes are drowning. "Who's that?" someone asks the girl whom the phantom of the opera taught to sing so well. "I'm sure I don't know!" she answers as her strange and tormented teacher dies.

But her words do not contain a hint of the inexplicable emotion she feels. Only now will she really be able to sing from the heart. But she realizes there is no music on earth worthy of her voice, and later that night her monstrously heavy heart takes her to the bottom of the Seine. The phantom of the opera is a genius.

The Unbearable Rebirth of the Phantom of the Wax Museum (1985).