Herbert van Thal: The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories

I could order one whiskey, take it over to that table, drink it and come back for five refills. But that would be wearing on my legs, which after the fourth glass need as much rest as they can get, and a lot of work for you.'

He grinned and said he agreed, but I don't think he was happy, for one thing I'm not what you might call a snappy dresser and they were used to dinner jackets and off the shoulder dresses, or at least a decent Jounge suit. But corduroy trousers and roller neck jersey is my stock in trade, for a writer isn't looked up to these days if he dresses like everyone else, and damn it all, my money is as smart as the next man's. I carried my drinks on a tray the barman gave me to a table a little way from the bar, and after emptying the first glass, I sat back and took in the scenery.

The tables were little islands and most of them deserted, but here and there a few castaways sipped their nourishment and looked as miserable as most people do in bars, so I turned my attention to the tall stools that lined the bar, and thought they looked like the things in circus rings for seals to perch on. On the one nearest to my table was a girl, and I wondered how I'd missed her, but thought perhaps she'd come in when I wasn't looking, but she was there now and was presenting one of the most tasteful bare backs that I've ever seen. Now all men have their various tastes when it comes to admiring feminine beauty, some rave about legs, others breasts, although believe me, a lot of deception is practised in that direction these days, but for myself, show me a flawless white back and I'd raise my hat, always supposing I wore one, which I don't. This girl knew what she'd got, and made the most of it, for her dress was a mere tape that supported the legal amount of material at the front and nothing at all above the waist line at the back. She must have felt my gaze, which isn't surprising, for she turned her head, and I saw a pair of cornflower blue eyes set in a pale, beautiful, if characterless face, surmounted by a pile of artistically dressed hair. Then she winked, and without so much as by your leave, came and sat at my table. I sighed deeply and downed my second whiskey to wash away my disillusion, for surely the strangest part of man's make-up is that he will pawn his soul for what he thinks he cannot have, but will turn his head in disgust when he learns it is well within his means to buy it. She sank down in the chair opposite mine, and said in a low, husky, carefully cultivated, seductive voice:

'Aren't you going to buy me a drink?'

I said: 'Why not? But you will have to fetch it yourself, I never stir before the sixth drink and by then it's a risky business.'

She took my pound note, making a small grimace, and the small sherry must have been exorbitantly expensive, or she was very forgetful for I never saw my change. When she came back and reseated herself, and the third whiskey was doing its bounded duty so that the sharp edges of the bar were becoming nicely rounded, and a faint mist was obscuring the far end of the room, for if truth must be told, and I can see no reason why it shouldn't, this was not the first bar I had visited that evening; she said:

'You're cute, you know that don't you, you're cute.'

I nodded slowly, for I was in the mood to agree to anything. 'Yes, I know. Whenever I look into a mirror I get a shock.'

She giggled and took a ladylike sip from her glass, and I wondered if the people who owned this place knew what she was up to, or if the smart young barman who had a suspicion of a knowing smirk on his face was receiving his cut.

'What's a nice looking fellow like you doing on your own?'

'Getting drunk,' I said briefly, 'it's a hobby. Some people collect stamps, others milk bottle tops, but I get drunk. I do it very well.'

She giggled again, and there was something horrifying about that beautiful mask; she looked like an animated shop window dummy, or a body from which the soul had been sucked out.

'You're funny. I like witty men. Say something else.'

I grinned and felt my face crinkle, like a deflated balloon pressed by a child's destructive fingers. 'A fool is funny because he dare not think, for thought is the pathway to truth, and beyond truth lies madness.'

She shrugged her shapely shoulders and they gleamed in the bright light like white clouds on a winter's day, and for some reason I felt sad, which was strange for usually I am a cheerful drinker.

That's not funny, it's rather frightening. I say, you're not squiffy, are you?'

How I would have answered this insulting insinuation I do not know, for let it be recorded, never in fifteen years of heavy drinking have I been drunk, or as my uncle (the one knocked down by a bus in the Fulham Road) would have aptly expressed himself: 'been seen the worse for strong drink', for at that moment there was a sudden influx of people who came into the room, chattering and babbling and in less than no time the place was crowded, and I was troubled by the thought that I might not have time or opportunity to buy my second consignment. But there came in with this human flood, like a piece of driftwood cast ashore by the tide, a young man who for some reason that I could not at that time understand, stood out from the crowd and claimed my complete attention. He was young, younger than he should have been, for although there were lines about his eyes and mouth, and a certain tautness of his facial muscles that suggested maturity of years, yet he wore an air of youthfulness that did not flatter him, for one was reminded of a fruit that had hung on a tree for a whole summer but was still unripe; a soft green skin full of corruption, that will fall to the ground at the first breath of autumn. He clung to the bar like one who has walked through life looking for props, and his weak handsome face turned slowly, the pale blue eyes were lifeless blue chips of broken glass, and his full lips were moist and sagged pathetically as though he were about to cry. His neat dark suit was rumpled, and his long fingers toyed with the buttons, then, like a startled bird, the right one flew up to the striped tie and jerked it from side to side, then abruptly he turned his back and suddenly I was aware that he was not alone.

He who drains the wine jug to its bitter dregs sees strange visions, at least so it is said, but speaking for myself, although I've seen the world through many an empty bottle, I've yet to meet a pink elephant, but of course I'm still comparatively young, and all things come to him that waits. But I knew, and don't ask me how or why, that what stood behind the young man did not come out of a bottle, but it wasn't the kind of thing you usually met in a bar either. I'll tell you something else, I was pretty certain that I was the only person who saw it, because no one else paid it the least attention and they would have if. Let me describe the Thing, because that is what it was — a Thing. Imagine something that has the shape of a man; a tall man at least six foot two, dressed in a long black robe that encased the entire figure from neck to feet, only the feet weren't too substantial, I could not be sure they were actually there; then imagine a dead white face; a face made of white wax, then give the face a pair of black gleaming eyes; eyes filled with a terrible hunger, that a thousand years of sated lusts will not satisfy, then crown the face with a mop of coarse hair and watch a pair of thin lips as they mouth silent obscenities, or whisper unfulfilled longings into the victim's ear, and you have a fiend that is begging someone to share its hell.

'What's the matter, honey,' the girl spoke and her pale beauty seemed to bear a faint resemblance to that dreadful face, 'you look as though you've seen a ghost.'

'The man at the bar,' my voice betrayed nothing and I marvelled that this was so, 'do you see anything unusual about him; the young one — there?' I pointed, and she turned with little interest for I suppose I was already beginning to bore her and a more promising client would soon draw her away. Then her face flushed for a moment, then turned paler than before, her eyes glazed with sudden fear, and one hand tightened its grip about the wine glass so that I found myself watching the whitened knuckles.