David Sutton: The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror

Behind her head, like an embryo born of the breeze, the curtain swelled. A thrust of air created cheekbones from its folds. Above them hollows might harbour whatever expression he called forth. The line which linked the hollows fell away into an arch. As the curtain swayed a wrinkle smiled, but shyly.

His wife followed the line of his gaze. ‘Oh, the curtain,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you say it was crumpled?’

She shook it straight. For a moment it was sucked against the window-frame, as if clutched in panic and relinquished. The tips of a tree were veiled, then sprang bright.

The table shook at his clutch. ‘Won’t come back,’ he muttered.

‘Sorry?’ But his face was frozen as a portrait. ‘You look so lost tonight,’ his wife said. ‘Can I give you something?’

The planes of the kitchen were flat as the untinted tiles. He would never know what colour of dress the girl had worn; nor thatonly skulls lack a nose. He peered through a wavering mist at the table. His hand closed on a carving-knife. ‘This’ll do,’ he said.

NIGHT FISHING. There was nothing quite like it. There was nothing quite like sitting in the darkness at the edge of a black lake, torch in hand, and watching the luminous tip of the float on the dark surface of the water. Nothing like the thrill of watching the tiny tip flip with a sudden motion before vanishing beneath the surface with a tiny "pop!" as the carp took the bait. Nothing like striking, heaving the rod sideways with a swish, and feeling the sudden fighting weight, invisible, on the other end.

Albert Jordan loved to fish at night. By day he’d tried fast-running streams and meandering rivers, but, as far as he was concerned, there was something special, something strangely fascinating about the bright tip of a plastic float on the slack, black waters of a night lake. No one else of his acquaintance could quite understand this fascination; every one of his angling friends derived their pleasure from sitting at the edge of a green swim, gently touched by the bright daylight sun, with a soft tumble of bird-song in the background, and the faint hoot of a water-fowl (faint for distance, so as not to disturb the waters of an angler’s swim, of course!) hanging on the warm air. Albert, in turn, could never sympathize with this attitude. To him the pleasure of being alone at night at the water’s silent edge was a wonderful thing, something to be worshipped with an almost religious fervour. In short, night fishing was his idea of the ultimate in pleasure.

It was in anticipation of this pleasure that Albert smiled to himself as he walked across the fields late on one particular evening. Midnight was approaching and the night was black as a cavern; all day the sky had been overcast, and now neither moon nor stars broke through the complete darkness. His gum-booted feet swishing heavily through the dew-laden grass, Albert Jordan headed in the direction of the invisible line of trees which marked the water’s edge, the narrow beam of light from his torch probing faintly ahead of him, lighting the way for his feet. Hanging down from his shoulders, his basket and rod-bag bumped and rubbed against his raincoated back as he walked.

Soon he was among the trees and he half-walked, half-slid down the bank, one hand on the wet ground for support. And then the ground was horizontal once more as he found himself standing in pitch-blackness on a shelf of baked, tramped mud right at the water’s edge, on which, with relief, he dropped his heavy tackle. Not a sound, not a motion besides his own, disturbed the complete darkness. He opened his basket, unfolded his canvas stool, and with experienced hands he began to tackle-up, needing no light to aid him.

At last he was ready. With an expert motion he cast, the bait falling with a quiet splash in the darkness. The float bobbed as if waving to him, moving slowly up and down a few times, and was then still, the luminous tip like an eye in the blackness in front of him. Albert sat on the stool to wait.

Minutes passed. The darkness, except for the tip of the float, was complete. Everything was still and silent.

Albert waited, warm with the knowledge of his own patience. For a long while he didn’t move, he sat as if frozen, his gaze intent on the tip of the float in front of him.

Presently a soft gentle breeze, like a shiver, sprang up quickly and was gone in a second; the only sign of its passing was the brief hiss and rattle of invisible reeds somewhere nearby.

More minutes passed. Still the tiny dot floating in front of him did not move. And neither did anything else.

Soon Albert began to fidget. His fingers twitched. He swallowed. After awhile the realization dawned on him that the pleasure he had anticipated for tonight was missing. For no reason he picked up his rod and reeled in the line. With his fingertips he checked that the lobworm was still securely on the hook, and then he re-cast. The float bobbed again, silently on the black water, and was then still.

The silence and the darkness were once again filled with an intensity which crept like a ghost around him. The whole world seemed to be silently shrouded in a black, invisible cloak.

Albert suddenly realized he was nervous. Now why, he asked himself, should that be? He had never been at all afraid of the dark in his entire life. What was wrong tonight?

The stillness. That’s what it was; that must be what it was. Never before had he been out on a night which was so dark and so completely still. Even the usual tiny watery sounds of the fish rising for food were missing.

He shivered. The blankness of such a night tended to inspire one’s imagination to invent all kinds of weird and horrible things; he’d be well advised to occupy his mind with thoughts of familiar things, keeping outside of his immediate awareness the unnatural stillness of this incredibly dark night.

He began to concentrate on his fishing rod. He reached down, feeling the reassuringly familiar shape of its handle with his fingertips. The rod. It was comprised of three sections, made of fibreglass, and had metal ferrules through which the line passed. The line. Nylon: through the ferrules of the rod and down; down to the luminous float which glowed happily in front of him, a pale dot in the blackness, and then down still farther, laden with shot, to the hook.

And, impaled on the hook, was the worm.

Albert’s hands kneaded each other in his lap as he thought about it. The worm writhing and squirming, the hook through its body; the hook sharp and barbed, preventing its escape as it wriggled in the cold black water. Albert shuddered. He could almost imagine himself as the worm, could almost feel the sharp, fiery pain of the hook as it pierced his body, and the icy coldness of the water as he struggled to escape, needles of pain lancing through his chest as the hook pulled at him…

Suddenly he laughed. What a strange notion. A worm indeed! Grinning, he returned his thoughts to his fishing. He squinted in the darkness and concentrated on the tip of his float.

There! Had it moved? No, it must have been his imagination. Still, he had plenty of patience: he’d surely have a bite before long.

With frightening suddenness, moonlight shone abruptly down through a break in the clouds. The glow touched the branches of the nearby trees and fell across the bank and the reeds. The lake was calm, the water a flat sheet of lead in the faint, eerie light. Albert looked up as a quick flitting movement touched the corner of his vision.

Bats!

He shuddered involuntarily. Horrible things! In the waxy light he watched the tiny black silhouettes weaving to and fro, up and down, singing silently through the air: umbrella shreds, black shadow-patches of night, dropping and swooping with incredibly quick, furtive motions above him.