T
he little man slept for an hour, a sleep of utter exhaustion, while around him at the edge of the cliffs the group for the most part aired their views.
Turnbull had recently suggested: “How do we know this isn’t our world? For all we know, this could be somewhere in South America, or Africa, maybe.” He looked at Bannerman (whom he’d already looked at several times, but cautiously, out of the corner of his eye) and tried to draw him into the conversation. “What do you say, Jon?”
The other shrugged. “You could be right,” he said, in an even tone. “I wouldn’t know, for I’ve never been there. But it strikes me that wherever we are, we’re lost.”
Excited, Anderson jumped to his feet. “I go along with the idea, Jack,” he said. “Why do we keep on assuming that this is some weird, alien world? Maybe the Castle has simply spat us out again not in a different world but a different place! I mean, so far as I can tell this grass is more nearly grass; the sun is
the
sun; this water is absolutely real.” He stooped, dipped his hand into a clear pool, slaked his thirst.
But Varre shook his head. “Botany was a hobby of mine,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I jumped at the chance of seeing Ben Lawers: rare plants grow on its slopes. But none so rare as these. Oh, the grass is grass—but I’ll wager it’s not our grass. And the trees back there in the forest. They weren’t too different, but different enough that I’ve never seen anything like them before. Also, I’ve been watching the birds. They’re not quite right. Neither were the small creatures in the forest. No, this isn’t our Earth. Now that isn’t guesswork; it’s science. But even without it, I’d know we were still in the Castle—or the House of Doors, as Gill prefers. Why don’t you ask him? I’m sure he’ll verify what I’m saying.”
Angela said, “How about it Spencer?” It was the first time she’d called him that.
“Varre’s right,” he answered simply. “Leave it at that. I can’t explain the inexplicable.”
Turnbull nodded, grew gloomy in a moment. “You’re both right,” he grunted. “Sleeping beauty there knows it well enough. I should have realized. When we came through that door he showed no sign of relief, pleasure, joy. He’d seen it all before, or something very much like it. He
knew
he wasn’t home and dry.”
Anderson sighed, shrugged, and sat down again. He glanced at his watch. “Stopped,” he announced. “It hasn’t worked since the start of all this.”
“Nor mine,” said Clayborne. “A classic sign of paranormal interference.”
Gill said nothing but turned away in disgust. He took off his own watch and hurled it over the rim.
“Why did you do that?” Clayborne asked.
“Something for the spooks,” said Gill. “When you’re invited to a party, it’s impolite to go empty-handed!”
“It will soon be noon,” said Angela. “A few more hours and we’ll all be hungry.”
“I’m hungry now,” Varre answered. “There were fruits on some of those trees. Nuts too.” He glanced at the redhead where he slept on between the boulders. “Maybe this fellow knows which ones are edible.”
Gill nodded. “That’s something we’ll have to ask him. Me, I have a couple of other questions.”
Turnbull cocked his head enquiringly. “Go on?”
“What he remembers prior to finding himself here,” Gill answered. “He was genuinely surprised when he learned where we believe ourselves to be, so I want to know how he got here.”
“What else?” said Anderson.
“Why he shouted ‘warm’ as the door opened. He seemed worried about it. He sobbed, ‘Oh, Jesus, no—warm!’ And then he jumped right in. Also, I’d like to know more about this crab something or other he’s scared of. He seemed afraid it would follow us here. Does that mean it’s intelligent? An intelligent crab? Oh, there are a few things he can tell us.”
“His name might be nice for starters,” said Turnbull.
Right on cue, the little man started awake and jerked into a seated position. “What?” he gasped. “Where … ?” Then he saw them all looking at him, relaxed, and fell back again. And after a little while: “How long was I out?”
“About an hour,” Angela told him. “Are you okay?”
He looked at her, brushed sleep from the corners of his eyes, and managed something of a smile. Gill considered it more a leer. “I’m okay,” said the redhead. “Going a bit short of … all sorts of things. But okay. And you? You going a bit short, are you?”
He smiled again and she saw the bad, crooked teeth behind his puffy lips. She wasn’t close enough to tell, but she guessed his breath would be foul. She looked away.
Anderson said, “We let you get your rest, what you could. Now that you’re awake, however, there are some things we’d like to know.”
“Oh, yes?” said the other. “Well in my old game as was, I’d get paid for valuable information. So what have you got that I might want, eh, Mr. Anderson? See, we’re all pretty much in the same boat here—in the shit, that is. Except some of us are likely to be more in it than others. And some of us have learned a bit about how to keep out of it. Knowledge like that has to be worth something.”
Anderson frowned. “You have us as a group,” he answered. “You’re one of us now. Safety in numbers, you know? Also, there are some keen minds here, Mr.—er, whatever your name is. What you know, plus what we might deduce from it, could make all the difference.”
Gill spoke up. “What is your name, anyway?”
“Haggie,” said the other. “Alec Haggie. ‘Smart’ Alec Haggie, they called me. Born and bred in Mile End, East London. But not so bloody smart after all, as it turns out!”
“How long have you been here, Alec?” This was Angela again, determined to be pleasant and make the best of an entirely unpleasant situation.
“The time would have flown if you’d been here with me, darling,” he drawled, leering again. But then, when he saw her expression, he turned sour. “About a week, near as I can judge it.” He scowled. “Seven, eight days, maybe. Days as was. But here it’s hard to keep tabs. I’ll tell you about it, if you like. Maybe your gaffer there is right.” He glanced at Anderson. “Maybe those ‘keen minds’ he mentioned can make some sense of it. Damned if I can!”
“Before you start,” Varre cut in, “is there anything here that’s safe to eat? You must have lived on something.”
Haggie looked the Frenchman straight in the eye and grinned again. He tapped the side of his pug nose with his right index finger, said, “Now that has to come under the heading of very valuable information, right? We’ll get to that later—maybe. Anyway, from where I’m sitting, I don’t see too many hunger pangs. Not yet. If you want to know what hunger is, then you’ll just have to hang on a bit.”
Varre pursed his lips. “Have it your own way,” he said. “It will make no difference in the long run. What you eat, I shall eat.”
“One other thing, before you start,” said Clayborne. “You say you’ve been here for a week or more. In your judgement, what is this place, this … experience? Is it an alien world or the spirit world? Is this a visitation from some other planet, or from some underworld, some parapsychological hell?”
Haggie looked at him for a long moment. “I don’t know.” He finally shook his head. “I’ve thought about it, but I just don’t know. There is something like a ghost here, I can tell you that much. A jelly thing. Something strange and clever. But I never really believed in spooks and I don’t care to start now. Alien? You mean spaceships and like that? I don’t know about that either. It’s just like everything is out of joint here. And the worst of it is not knowing where bloody ‘here’ is! At first I thought I’d gone off my head. I thought if I just sat still I’d wake up one morning in a padded cell. And another time I thought I’d died and this was hell. But then along came the crab—and I ran! I’ve been running ever since. And now along comes you lot, in the same boat, so I suppose I’m not crazy after all …”
As he had spoken, so Haggie’s eyes had gradually taken on a sort of glaze. Now he snapped out of it, said, “Anyway, do you want to hear about how I got here or not?”
“Just one more thing first,” said Gill. “After that, no more interruptions. What did you mean when you shouted ‘warm’? I mean, when you opened the door and came through into this place. You shouted, ‘Oh, Jesus, no—warm!’”
“Warm?” Haggie repeated him. “Did I do that? See, I’d started talking to myself, I know that.” He shrugged. “Maybe I did it out loud sometimes, too. But I think I know what I meant. It’s this: the jelly thing—the spook, if you like—doesn’t much like the cold places. I know that for a fact ’cos I’ve never seen him in a cold place. So me, I
prefer
the cold places—except there’s usually not much to eat there.” He looked at Varre. “So it’s a choice of two evils: a warm place and food, but probably the spook will be there; or a cold place and nothing to eat, but no spook to bother me. See what I mean? Nothing’s easy here.”
Gill slowly nodded. “I’m getting something of the picture,” he said. “So you were on the run from the crab, and took the first door that was available, even knowing it was warm and that the spook might be in there. Has he—it—ever threatened you?”
Haggie shook his head. “It usually just sidles away from me, runs off somewhere. But I know it’s, well,
thinking
things. I know it’s clever—and weird!”
Gill nodded again and looked at the others. They were all very quiet.
Finally Anderson cleared his throat and said, “Maybe you’d better tell us your story … .”
“S
eems I’ve always been on the run from one thing or another,” Haggie commenced, “even as a kid. My Old Man, my stepfather, was a real bastard. I was often on the run from him! Never did know my real father, and I don’t reckon my mother did, neither.
“I got in with the gangs early, knew all the really bad ones, too. Most of ’em are gone now—paid the price in full, or locked away—or under new management, you know? But I survived. I was never big stuff, eyes and ears mainly. Smart enough not to get in too deep, not hard enough to demand my fair share when it was due. And not so stupid I’d ever stick my neck out. Nobody was frightened of me, and so I didn’t need to be frightened of anyone. But I knew it all, everything there was to know about gangland, and bought and sold information for a living. Bought it cheap, or stole it, and sold it to the highest bidder. That’s why they called me Smart Alec. It’s pot easy to keep your fingers clean
and
make a living.
“But … a year ago the Specials got hold of me on a little thing. Well, maybe not too little. See, I’d made a fatal mistake and done lookout on a security vault job. And the Specials picked me up and said they’d fingered me for it. But I was only small fry, they said, and it wasn’t me they wanted really. So they’d give me a choice. Spill the beans—names, addresses, the lot, you name it—and go free. Or keep mum and eat slop in the cage for ten long ones. Not much of a choice, eh? And I’ve never much fancied porridge.
“So I gave them what they wanted. And they laughed in my face, said they hadn’t had anything on me anyway, tossed me out in the street! I tried to play it cool, but when the lads started to get picked up one by one … it was a nervy time. Thing is, my nerves were never too good for that sort of thing. All of the lads went away except one, and that was the Big One. He started asking around, putting two and two together, and finally came looking for me. I was the only one who’d been in on it who was still on the loose, see? Him and me. And he knew he hadn’t let anything slip, nor any of the lads inside. After all, if one of them had wanted to do him up, he’d be right in there with ’em.
“Looking back, that was my one mistake. I should have fingered that big bastard, too! But I hadn’t, because of his nasty ways with a hacksaw. You’ve heard of Harry Guffin? Hacksaw Harry? No? Well, of course you wouldn’t, would you? Upper-class types like you lot …
“Anyway, I ran for it, came north to Newcastle and laid low. That was a year ago. First time I’d been out of London in my life, it was. And lo and behold, I found Newcastle just like London as was ten or twelve years ago! The same gangs, con men, crooks. Maybe a bit harder, but playing all the same old games as used to be. And so I worked in with them, and things started to look up a bit.
“But Hacksaw Harry, he hadn’t given up on me. A month ago a carload of lads—big, sour-looking types—came up from the Smoke on a tip-off. Someone had mentioned to Harry that I was up North, and he’d sent this bunch to have a word with me. But when they started asking around after me, I got word of it. I looked ’em up—from a distance, you understand—and knew ’em straight off. I wasn’t likely to get any change out of that lot!
“I scarpered to Edinburgh for a fortnight, but the readies were dwindling pretty smartish. When I was skint there was nothing for it but to go back down again. There were lads in Newcastle who still owed me a few quid. Ah, but Harry’s boys had had a word with them, too.
“A couple of days I was down there—ducking and weaving, you know—before they caught up with me at my place. My place—
hah
! I’d settled for a smelly little hole on the river where you couldn’t swing a cat and life was a nightly battle with the silverfish! God only knows how they’d found it, but there they were, waiting for me that night.
“At first I thought it would be a concrete wellies job—the river was right next door—but that wasn’t the way of it. Harry had a house in Edinburgh and would be up there in a few days’ time on business. He pushed a bit of snuff now and then, you know? So they drove me up to his place to wait on his pleasure. Except I really would have preferred the river, ’cos from what they told me Harry would be bringing a couple of his hacksaws up with him. A couple of the rusty ones …
“I’ll cut it short. I got loose on the first night, nicked their car, headed north for this blip on the map called Crieff. They’d expect me to go south again, I thought—London’s a big place—and so I took the opposite direction. The chances were their car was dodgy anyway and they wouldn’t want to draw attention to themselves by reporting my little larceny to the police. But they were clever ones, those lads. Clean as whistles, they must have been, with no form to mention. And their car, too. They put the Law on me! Can you believe it?
“The next night the Filth came looking and I almost bumped into them in the foyer of the place I was staying. But I saw ’em in time and skipped it. But Harry’s lads were there, too, outside, waiting. It turned into a chase. I nicked another car and ended up in Killin. The lads were right on my tail. I had no choice but to hotfoot it cross-country. I knew that if they caught me again I was a goner—I mean there and then! And in fact I was nearly a goner anyway. What? The dead of night, and the middle of winter—up there, in those mountains?
“When I was just about done in, I saw a big house down there in the valley. I was up on the slopes of a mountain, and down there was this big dark place and a lake. There were some lights round the house, a high fence at the front, some figures moving about which I took to be Filth. Maybe it was a government place, a defence establishment or something. I didn’t know and couldn’t care less. By then I’d decided that the Law had to be better than Harry’s lot. I was ready to give myself up.
“Somehow I got down off the mountain without breaking my neck or tearing myself on the barbed wire—barbed wire, right! Like Fort Knox, the bloody place was!—and staggered up to the wall of the big house. And … bingo!” He paused.
“Bingo?” Anderson repeated him after a while.
Haggie looked at him and nodded. “That was it,” he said. “All there was to it. I figured I must have tripped and banged my head, ’cos when I came to, there was no big house and lake, no mountains, nothing like I’d ever seen before. I was in … oh, a place I can’t describe.” He shook his head, waved his arms helplessly.
“This big house,” said Gill. “It sounds like the Castle to me—as you’d see it from Ben Lawers after dark. As for the place you woke up in—try to describe it.”
Suddenly animated, Haggie screwed up his face and snarled at him, “But I just told you I
can’t
describe it—’cos it wasn’t like anything I ever heard of before! How do you describe a bad dream you can’t wake up from? How can I explain what it was like to feel legless drunk when I knew I was stone-cold sober?”
Gill smiled wryly, said, “Seems like you’re doing okay to me! Look, I’m not asking you for scientific terms or descriptions, Alec. Just tell it your way.”
The other scratched his head and thought about it. Finally he said, “Okay, I’ll try it. Do you remember when you were a kid and you looked in one of those tube things that made coloured patterns? Like a cardboard telescope, with a little hole for your eye? You just had to turn the end and the patterns would change, forming different shapes every time?”
“A kaleidoscope.” Gill nodded.
“That’s the thing. Well, it was something like that. But room size, and I was in it. Inside a damn big weird room. The floor was white, soft, spongy—I sank up to my ankles in it. It was like walking in snow. I mean it didn’t cling, but it was as tiring as walking in snow. Except it wasn’t anything like snow ’cos it was hot. In fact the whole damn place was like a sauna—almost too hot to bear! I thought I was going to dry up and blow away! The ceiling was one big light. I mean it was a sort of bright haze. You couldn’t see any actual ceiling for all the light up there. Not blinding light, like the sun, but just making everything up there indistinct. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” Gill answered. “What about the kaleidoscope effect? Where does that come in?”
“The walls,” Haggie answered. “That’s where
that
came in! The walls …
crawled!
It was like the kaleidoscope, yes, but underwater. Moving patterns, flowing, ever-changing. Like the walls were just big screens showing a lot of liquid movement. But they weren’t screens. It was like … I mean … can you imagine a television picture without the TV set, without the screen? That’s what it was like, on all sides. And I could walk through it all I liked and never seem to go anywhere. I thought I walked for a mile or more and nothing changed. Except the patterns, which changed all the time …” Haggie paused again and looked at the ring of faces all around him. “Is this crazy?”
“No,” Gill answered him, shaking his head. “I don’t think it’s crazy. So how did you get out of there?”
Haggie took a deep breath. “That happened the first time I saw the jelly thing,” he said. “See, every now and then, in this room, I’d come across things like pillars. I thought of them as pillars because they went straight up from the floor presumably to the ceiling. They were, I don’t know, maybe six feet right through. But as for their shape—square or round or whatever—don’t ask me. I can’t say what they were in cross-section because they were the same as the walls. Their surfaces were full of this coloured motion, which made them look like they were revolving or … or melting. Hey! That’s right!
That’s
what they looked like, the walls and the pillars; like a gang of crazy painters were melting colours onto them and blowing it in all directions, until the walls themselves were molten!”
“That’s a good picture,” said Gill encouragingly. “And the jelly-thing?”
Pleased with his description, Haggie had been grinning, however nervously. Now the grin slipped a little. “The spook?” His puffy lips trembled. “He was behind one of the pillars. I came round it … and I saw him. He was like—like—”
“Go on.” Clayborne was fascinated, bottom jaw hanging slack. “What was he like?”
Haggie swallowed and said, “There’s this stuff spooks are made of.”
“Ectoplasm,” said Clayborne, nodding.
“Yeah? Is that it? Like funny putty, or goo, or the slime of a jellyfish? Well, if you piled stuff like that up say four feet tall—but thin, very thin—and split its bottom half three ways—”
“Tripedal?” said Gill.
“Three legs, yes. And if you gave it four or five thin, ropy, dangling arms, all snaking down from its top … then you’d more or less have it. As for motion: it flowed like an octopus. I’ve seen them move the same way. Not jet-propelled, mind, but flowing sort of. But eyes, nose, mouth, any sort of face like we have—forget it. It was the same all over: blue-grey, a jelly, fluid as the walls. But … I knew it lived, and I knew it was thinking things. I mean, if you saw it you’d know it too. You’d know it was …”
“Sentient,” Gill prompted him. “It had intelligence.”
“Christ, yes! Sly too. Anyway, I saw it; it saw me; I took off. We probably both took off, I don’t know. But I’ve seen it a couple of times since then and I
think
it avoids me. Which is okay by me.
“Anyway, I ran. There were places where there were holes in the walls. I mean, you couldn’t
see
these holes, for there was nothing there. But that was just it: there was
nothing
there, surrounded by motion. Panicked, I ran into one of these spaces. Not deliberately, mind. I just sort of collided with it. And …”
“And?” Angela prompted.
“And the hole was a door.” Haggie shrugged helplessly. “A kind of door.”
Turnbull frowned. “What kind of door?”
Haggie jumped to his feet. “There you go again!” he accused. “I don’t bloody know what kind of door. Shit, when is a door not a door? When it’s a jar? Christ, I never understood
that
one, either!”
“Not a jar,” said Gill. “Ajar—when it’s half-open. It’s a play on words.”
“Oh, play on my dick!” Haggie scowled. “Anyway this bastard door was
fully
open. And I ended up … somewhere else.” He stepped carefully to the rounded rim of the cliffs and looked down. “Actually, I came out in this place.” His eyes focused on forests far below, and on a green plain that sprawled beyond them, maybe six or seven miles away.
“Right here?” Anderson got up and followed him. The others followed suit.
Standing there with the sun warm on his back, outlined against the sky and the curve of the world, Haggie’s shoulders were shuddering; he had started to cry; silent tears of frustration, of impotent rage, welled from his eyes and ran down his grimy, haggard face. He pointed out and down and his arm was visibly trembling. “No,” he sobbed, “not here. Not this very spot. It was down there, see?”
They looked, and they saw. Before, there had been nothing to see. But now there was. Down there on the green, distant plain, a great house like some airy country mansion.
A House of Doors …