Things Beyond Midnight (20 page)
00:11
DEAD CALL
Swapping compliments with authors whose work you admire and who admire your work is one of the many pleasant ego-boosting aspects of attending a World Fantasy Convention. And let’s face it, all of us in the writing game need our egos boosted from time to time.
In 1979, at Providence, Rhode Island, it was a swap between me and Stephen King. This was the first time we’d met, and I told him that
The Shining
was one of my favorite horror novels—and he told me that “Dead Call” was one of his favorite short stories.
I wrote this one for Kirby McCauley’s anthology,
Frights
, in 1974. I’d always wondered how I’d react if the phone rang and I found that a dead man was on the line.
Just what do you say to a corpse?
Len had been dead for a month when the phone rang.
Midnight. Cold in the house and me dragged up from sleep to answer the call. Helen gone for the weekend. Me, alone in the house. And the phone ringing.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Frank.”
“Who is this?”
“You know
me.
Its Len... ole Len Stiles.”
Cold. Deep and intense. The receiver dead-cold matter in my hand. “Len Stiles died four weeks ago.”
“Four weeks, three days, two hours and twenty-seven minutes ago—to be exact.”
“I want to know who you are?”
A chuckle. The same dry chuckle I’d heard so many times.
“C’mon, ole buddy—after twenty years. Hell, you
know
me.”
“This is a damned poor joke!”
“No joke, Frank. You’re there, alive. And I’m here, dead. And you know something, ole buddy... I’m really glad I did it.”
“Did... what?”
“Killed myself. Because... death is just what I hoped it would be. Beautiful... gray... quiet... no pressures.”
“Len Stiles’ death was an accident... a concrete freeway barrier... His car—”
“I
aimed
my car for that barrier,” the phone-voice told me. “Pedal to the floor. Doing over ninety when I hit... No accident, Frank.” The voice cold... cold. “I
wanted
to be dead. And no regrets.”
I tried to laugh, make light of this—matching his chuckle with my own. “Dead men don’t use telephones.”
“I’m not really using the phone, not in a physical sense. It’s just that I chose to contact you this way. You might say it’s a matter of ‘psychic electricity’. As a detached spirit I’m able to align my cosmic vibrations to match the vibrations of this power line. Simple, really.”
“Sure. A snap. Nothing to it.”
“Naturally, you’re skeptical. I expected you to be. But... listen carefully to me, Frank.”
And I listened—with the phone gripped in my hand in that cold night house—as the voice told me things that
only
Len could know... intimate details of shared experiences extending back through two decades. And when he’d finished I was certain of one thing:
He
was
Len Stiles.
“But, how... I still don’t...”
“Think of this phone as a ‘medium’—a line of force through which I can bridge the gap between us.” The dry chuckle again. “Hell, you gotta admit it beats holding hands around a table in the dark—yet the principle is the same.”
I’d been standing by my desk, transfixed by the voice. Now I moved behind the desk, sat down, trying to absorb this dark miracle. My muscles were wire-taut, my fingers cramped about the black receiver. I dragged in a slow breath, the night dampness of the room pressing at me.
“All right... I don’t... believe in ghosts, don’t... pretend to understand any of this, but... I’ll accept it. I
must
accept it.”
“I’m glad, Frank—because it’s important that we talk.” A long moment of hesitation. Then the voice, lower now, softer. “I know how lousy things have been, ole buddy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just know how things are going for you. And... I want to help. As your friend, I want you to know that I understand.”
“Well... I’m really not...”
“You’ve been feeling bad, haven’t you? Kind of down’, right?”
“Yeah... a little, I guess.”
“And I don’t blame you. You’ve got reasons. Lots of reasons. For one... there’s your money problem.”
“I’m expecting a raise. Shendorf promised me one—within the next few weeks.”
“You won’t get it, Frank. I
know.
He’s lying to you. Right now, at this moment, he’s looking for a man to replace you at the company. Shendorfs planning to fire you.”
“He never liked me... We never got along from the day I walked into that office.”
“And your wife... all the arguments you’ve been having with her lately... It’s a pattern, Frank. Your marriage is all over Helen’s going to ask you for a divorce. She’s in love with another man.”
“
Who,
dammit? What’s his name?”
“You don’t know him. Wouldn’t change things if you did. There’s nothing you can do about it now. Helen just... doesn’t love you any more. These things happen to people.”
“We’ve been... drifting apart for the last year—but I didn’t know why. I had no idea that she...”
“And then there’s Janice. She’s back on it, Frank. Only it’s worse now. A lot worse.”
I knew what he meant—and the cold ness raked along my body. Jan was nineteen, my oldest daughter—and she’d been into drugs for the past three years. But she’d promised to quit.
“What do you know about Janice? Tell me!”
“She’s into the heavy stuff, Frank. She’s hooked bad. It’s too Lite for her.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I’m saying she’s lost to you... She’s rejected you, and there’s no reaching her. She
hates
you... blames you for everything.”
“I won’t
accept that
kind of blame! I did my best for her.”
“It wasn’t enough, Frank. We both know that. You’ll never see her again.”
The blackness was welling within me, a choking wave through my body.
“Listen to me, old buddy. Things are going to get worse, not better. I know. I went through my own kind of hell when I was alive.”
“I’ll... start over... leave the city—go East, work with my brother in New York.”
“Your brother doesn’t
want
you in his life. You’d be an intruder... an alien. He never writes you, does he?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Not even a card last Christmas. No letters or calls. He doesn’t want you with him, Frank, believe me.”
And then he began to tell me other things... He began to talk about middle age and how it was too late now to make any kind of new beginning... He spoke of disease... loneliness... of rejection and despair. And the blackness was complete.
“There’s only one real solution to things, Frank—just
one.
That gun you keep in your desk upstairs. Use it, Frank. Use the gun.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“But why not? What other choice have you got? The solution is there. Go upstairs and use the gun. I’ll be waiting for you afterwards. You won’t be alone. It’ll be like the old days... we’ll be together... Death is beautiful, Frank. I
know.
Life is ugly, but death is beautiful... Use the gun, Frank... the gun... use the gun... the gun... the gun...”
I’ve been dead for a month now, and Len was right. It’s fine here. No pressures. No worries. Gray and quiet and beautiful.
I know how lousy things have been for you. And they’re
not
going to improve.
Isn’t that your phone ringing?
Better answer it.
It’s important that we talk.
00:12
THE UNDERDWELLER
This is, by far, my most frequently reprinted story. It has been available to readers, in one form or another, for over forty years under its present title or as “The Small World of Lewis Stillman.” Isaac Asimov has called it a “classic about the struggle to survive.”
The story was first printed in the August 1957 issue of the digest-size magazine,
Fantastic Universe.
Since then, it has been reprinted in Europe, selected for ten anthologies (including
Modern Masters of Horror
), and for a school magazine (
Read
), has appeared in three of my collections, has been broadcast on radio, sold to television, and adapted for a comic book. (My teleplay version, in script format, was printed in the book of the 1980 World Fantasy Convention,
A Fantasy Reader.
)
Originally it was my intention to write a novel about a man who lived under, not in, Los Angeles. The novel never materialized. Instead, I wrote “The Underdweller.” The city storm drains, as I have described them here, are quite real and exist today beneath the concrete skin of Los Angeles (although I’ve never tried living in one). Pickwick’s Bookshop, in Hollywood, was also just as I have described it, but is, alas, no longer in business.
Here’s my under-city story of a man who loves books, and about the personal price he pays to obtain them.
In the waiting, windless dark, Lewis Stillman pressed into the building-front shadows along Wilshire Boulevard. Breathing softly, the automatic poised and ready in his hand, he advanced with animal stealth towards Western Avenue, gliding over the night-cool concrete past ravaged clothing shops, drug and department stores, their windows shattered, their doors ajar and swinging. The city of Los Angeles, painted in cold moonlight, was an immense graveyard; the tall, white tombstone buildings thrust up from the silent pavement, shadow-carved and lonely. Overturned metal corpses of trucks, buses, and automobiles littered the streets.
He paused under the wide marquee of the Fox Wiltern. Above his head, rows of splintered display bulbs gaped—sharp glass teeth in wooden jaws. Lewis Stillman felt as though they might drop at any moment to pierce his body.
Four more blocks to cover. His destination: a small corner delicatessen four blocks south of Wilshire, on Western. Tonight he intended bypassing the larger stores like Safeway and Thriftimart, with their available supplies of exotic foods; a smaller grocery was far more likely to have what he needed. He was finding it more and more difficult to locate basic foodstuffs. In the big supermarkets, only the more exotic and highly spiced canned and bottled goods remained—and he was sick of bottled oysters!
Crossing Western, he had almost reached the far curb when he saw some of
them.
He dropped immediately to his knees behind the rusting bulk of an Oldsmobile. The rear door on his side was open, and he cautiously eased himself into the back seat of the deserted car. Releasing the safety catch on the automatic, he peered through the cracked window at six: or seven of them, as they moved towards him along the street. God! Had he been seen? He couldn’t be sure. Perhaps they were aware of his position! He should have remained on the open street, where he’d have a running chance. Perhaps, if his aim were true, he could kill most of them; but, even with its silencer, the gun might be heard and more of them would come. He dared not fire until he was certain they had discovered him.
They came closer, their small dark bodies crowding the walk, six of them, chattering, leaping, cruel mouths open, eyes glittering under the moon. Closer. Their shrill pipings increased, rose in volume. Closer.
Now he could make out their sharp teeth and matted hair. Only a few feet from the car... His hand was moist on the handle of the automatic; his heart thundered against his chest. Seconds away...
Now!
Lewis Stillman fell heavily back against the dusty seat cushion, the gun loose in his trembling hand. They had passed by; they had missed him. Their thin pipings diminished, grew faint with distance.
The tomb silence of late night settled around him.