Christopher Fowler - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

“How the night winds howl, for death seems near to me.

Beware, Mr Hobson, do not drink that tea!

I fear my time is fleeting, and death comes in a rush.

Beware, Mr Hobson, do not sup that mush!

I fear my bad wife Hannah, and I fear my time has come.

Beware, Mr Hobson, do not drink that rum!

So stand back good Christian people, and do not heed her calls.

For to haunt my bad wife Hannah, I slink slowly through the walls!

Now Vlad and Jack were talking to Henry Wabershaw. “I’m named for my grandfather’s old Russian friend, Vladimir, for Smithville is full of Edgars, but how many Vlad Smiths are there?” said Vlad.

If, inside of Wabershaw’s great fat man’s body there was a thin man screaming to get out, the screaming was inaudible to either Vlad or Jack. “You fellows from The Committee?” asked Wabershaw, in a small voice almost stifled by his immense flesh.

“The committee?” asked Vlad. “That makes as much sense as ‘Larraby’s got one.’ “

Perhaps Wabershaw understood the nuances of the remark and perhaps he did not. What he said was, “So you know about Larraby, hmm?” He nodded the small face set inside the very large one, and gave them an odd look. After a moment he sighed and said, “I’m sorry I can’t ask you boys to have a bite to eat, but there’s not a bite in the house.” He gazed at them as if he had given a sign and were waiting for a countersign

Vlad and Jack had been warned that the way to Wabershaw’s heart and head was through his stomach, for he was surely eating himself to death. So they were prepared. Stewart now said, “As to that, Mr Wabershaw, as we hadn’t yet had our dinner, we took the liberty of bringing a little something along, and wondered if you’d have some with us.” He lifted the large paper sacks onto the table.

“Why, fried chicken! I always say that fried chicken is the friend of man. And how I love potato salad! Three kinds of bread, real butter, French mustard, and look at these tempting cold cuts! Oh, I am very fond of raspberry soda. And what might be in this other bag? Chinese food! Is there anything nicer than Chinese food?” Then he peeped into a cardboard box and exclaimed with almost erotic glee, “What a lovely cake!” Pieces of fried chicken were already on the way to his turtle-like mouth when he paused and said, “ You boys aren’t from The Committee. Catch any of them giving anything — they just take! Bagnell, Calloway, Zimmerman, Elbaum, Branch, and the rest of that bunch. They want it all for themselves.”

“Branch!” cried Vlad.

By and by the galloping consumption of food slowed down to a mere nibbling. Wabershaw surveyed the wreckage on the table with elephantine calm and said, “Happiest day in my life.”

“Which day was that?” asked Vlad.

“When I first realized that the Boss in the Wall was real! Why? Because on that day I knew for sure that I was not going crazy.”

“I can appreciate that,” said Vlad with heartfelt sincerity.

“When you’ve been hearing things you can’t see, and seeing things you can’t believe, why, a fear builds up inside you and your life sort of slumps sideways into a different universe. I tried staying away from home, sleeping in the office and sleeping in hotels. I tried getting drunk and staying drunk, and I lost my good job as State Historian. I was hospitalized twice for nervous breakdowns, and in the hospital I began to put on flesh. Then one day I realized I was not crazy, so I came home. And I found a man with trained ferrets, and we sent those ferrets into the walls. Then we heard a terrible thrashing sound in the storeroom, and by the time we got there it was dead — but it had bit some of the ferrets to pieces. The man was pretty mad, and made me pay plenty for the loss of his critters. But I rejoiced, for just the sight and smell of that House-Devil proved I wasn’t crazy. I burned it in the fireplace, for it was very dry. And now I keep openings in the walls for my cats, who can git to any part of this house, and who serve to give warning if needed. You can feel safe here, professors. This house has been purged. This house is pure.”

Vlad recalled Pappa John’s words to Uncle Mose. “Git you a cat.”

Then Wabershaw placed his vasty paw over Vlad’s very ordinary hand, in a reassuring way that persuaded Vlad that once upon a time, before he became an eccentric though harmless monster, Henry Wabershaw must have been a very nice fellow. He said, “So now I stay home, for I no longer fear for my sanity. And I don’t drink any more — I just eat.”

Vlad said, “You have come face to face with the same thing which persuaded us that this myth is no myth — namely, we have also seen the creatures. Now the question is how did they come to exist? For if we know what started them, maybe we’ll know how to stop them.”

Wabershaw shifted his great weight in his reinforced chair, reached in a drawer and handed Vlad a manila envelope. “Seen anything like this?” he asked, as Vlad removed a sheaf of papers labeled First Draft of the Interim Committee Report.

Vlad made a sound of surprise, for the papers were in the same format as those Bagnell had left behind in the nightstand of the Sumner College guesthouse. He began to read:

“. They are commonly known as Rattlers or Rustlers but, in places as far apart as San Francisco and St. Louis, the favorite term is Clickers. In certain border states, the obscure Hyett is found, which may be related to Rawheaded Bloody Bones. In Biloxi, the favored terms are Boss-Devil, or Devil in the Wall. Dr Allan Lee Murrow, the great Southern folklorist says this may be an extension of the zomby legends, or that the zomby may have its origins here. Dr Robert Allbright notes the Yazoo Delta fable that Hyetts died of yellow fever or plague, and eat human flesh.

“Hamling Calloway M. D. raises the question of whether there might be an unidentified retro-virus or microorganism, somehow associated with the great plagues (perhaps as a ‘fellow traveler’), which might in some way cause the phenomena that lie the bottom of these tales. Something which resembles life; some unrecognized viral wasting syndrome or plague which causes pseudo-life. And if so, is this plague still active — now?”

Vlad let the papers drop on the still-littered table, sighed and rubbed his eyes. “What do you think?” he asked Wabershaw.

“Professors, as near as I am confident, there is a disease, never diagnosed, which simulates death — and which then simulates life. And which still, from time to time, simulates it now. From the time when their normal body processes sink below a certain point, those old Paper-Men are neither alive as we know it, nor dead as we know it. They lie motionless behind countless walls, not crumbling to dust, until something disturbs them, and then they go clickin’ and clattering, and rustlin’ and rattling — until their clock runs down again. Then they go back inside the walls until something winds them up again. I have often wondered how many of those poor old derelicts we see nodding and mumbling in doorways of old buildings, are in fact suffering from Paper-Man’s disease. They wrap themselves in rags and newspapers to stay warm, and crawl into a niche in some wall. They keep themselves ‘alive’ with an occasional rat, for rats are known to run along walls, and they sink into a hibernating state until something wakes them — then they attack. I knew all this before those fancy committee fellows did. I tried to tell them, but they wouldn’t listen, they knew better. Well, hell with’m. Young Professor Stewart, there’s a gallon of sweet melk in the ice-box, if you’d be so kind to bring it out.”