James Jenkins - The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories. Volume 1

He never imagined what would be waiting for him at home.

He opened the apartment door. Señor Ligotti was inside, clinking his rings against a steaming cup of coffee.

After the initial shock came the anger. Adela looked at Esteban, blurted out a Get him out of here, I don’t ever want to see him here again , and shut herself up in the bedroom. Señor Ligotti sipped his coffee with a carefree air, as if his presence were the most natural thing in the world, something which infuriated Esteban even more. He stood in front of him, containing his desire to hit him.

‘This time you’ve gone too far. How did you get in? The neighbors helped you with that too?’

The old man shook his head no. Then he smiled, amused.

‘I have a set of keys. And since you didn’t want to fulfill your part of the bargain, I felt obliged to use them.’

‘What bargain?’

‘We agreed that I would visit you. It was the pact we made before signing the contract.’

‘You’re crazy. Don’t you get it? Nobody wants you here. Get lost or I’ll call the police.’

‘That’s no way to treat a guest.’

Señor Ligotti stood up, but instead of going to the exit he headed towards the kitchen, where he served himself another cup of the coffee he had made.

Esteban went after him, furious.

‘Get out of here! I’ll have you thrown in jail, I swear it!’

The old man rested his hip against the kitchen sink; he took a sip of his beverage while he looked at him challengingly.

Esteban turned around, went to the telephone and dialed the emergency number. ‘Home invasion,’ he said, raising his voice so that the elderly man would hear him.

He went back to the kitchen. Señor Ligotti gave a cackling laugh.

‘Home invasion? Seriously? That’s the problem with not writing. Writing is like a muscle, and if it’s not used, the language atrophies. I urge you to get back to your keyboard. What’s more, it would do you good to write longhand: the sentences flow better that way.’

The doorbell interrupted his discourse. The police had arrived quickly.

Esteban looked at the old man cruelly.

‘You won’t be laughing about this.’

He went to open the door. He led the officers to the kitchen. There was nobody inside, only the steaming cup. They searched the rest of the house: nothing.

Señor Ligotti had vanished. Just like a ghost.

The next person to ring was the locksmith. Esteban asked him for a new, high-­security lock. He also thought about changing the one on the building’s front door, but first he had to consult the neighbors. Where the hell were they hiding? He was overrun with a mixture of feelings. On the one hand, rage; on the other, embarrassment. He had made a fool of himself with the police. The officers looked at him with suspicion, no doubt they considered him paranoid, even a prankster. Adela was no help. Instead of serving as a witness, she turned against him: it hadn’t been a good idea to buy that apartment. I TOLD YOU SO. The police finally left without taking their statements.

The following days were even stranger. Esteban slept fitfully, awakened by nightmares in the early morning hours. On one occasion he opened his eyes in the midst of the darkness, overcome by a feeling of anxiety. It was raining. He lay there listening to the sound the drops made striking the window glass. Suddenly he made out a silhouette sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed. A flash of lightning lit up the room, allowing him to recognize Señor Ligotti. He realized that the sound he heard was produced by the old man’s rings tapping the cup he held between his hands.

Si non oscillas, noli tintinnare.

He awoke with a stifled scream. It was morning. Adela was in the bathroom. The sound of the shower could be heard through the door.

The certainty grew that he was losing his mind. That dream had been too real; he was starting to have problems telling whether he was awake. Things got worse days later, when he found Señor Ligotti’s ring on the desk. The birds on the National University logo spreading their wings like a menace. Adela tried to calm him down: surely he left it the day he let himself in with his keys and you hadn’t realized it. Despite his confusion, Esteban had one certainty: he couldn’t count on his wife. She was only thinking about the baby, she refused any additional worries. He opted not to tell her anything for now. He kept silent about each new discovery, each message – he was sure that’s what they were – that the old man was leaving him: a visiting card (he gave it to you when you met him, don’t be paranoid, Adela would have said), a little glass bell that he had never seen in the house, more rings . . .

Señor Ligotti was a demiurge, there was no other explanation. A demiurge or a demon, and the solution was to call a priest to exorcize the house. His mind was made up to go to the neighborhood church to explore the possibility when he made another disturbing find.

He was trying to read in the living room without being able to concentrate. He felt a cold draft coming from the floor. Esteban crouched down and approached the fireplace on all fours. The frozen air hit him in the face. He stretched out his hand to touch the back and it gave way, revealing an opening behind it. The fireplace had a metal plate the same color as the wall, an effective camouflage. Esteban went through the hole. It turned out to be a passage, full of leaves and branches, which led to the building’s side courtyard. There was another removable plate there through which it was possible to exit to the exterior.

Señor Ligotti was not a specter. He was something worse: a dangerous madman.

A mason took care of covering the hole in the fireplace. He laid bricks and mortar and afterwards added a coat of paint. Meanwhile, Esteban decided to go over the house inch by inch in search of more passages. He checked closets, the flooring, under the sink. Also doors and windows: he wanted to close off any possibility whatsoever of intrusion. Adela waited patiently while he did all this and then said they needed to talk. She didn’t want to fight or argue, she told him. Things had gotten out of control. She wanted to get out of there as soon as possible . . .

A sound coming from the door interrupted them. With a gesture of his hand, Esteban asked his wife to wait. He went towards the entrance armed with a kitchen knife. On the floor he saw an envelope. He bent down to pick it up and opened it with trembling hands.

It was an eviction order.

Esteban had a moment of clarity. One where the events of the past few days fit perfectly, where his stupidity and indolence played a central role. In the desk drawers he found the contract that he had signed with Señor Ligotti. He tried to read it, but he couldn’t: the letters became blurry, wobbly. He scanned it, emailed it to Clemente and urgently asked him to review it. You’re the expert in legal questions, he told him in the message.

The telephone rang minutes later. His friend’s first sentence disturbed him even more:

‘You sent the wrong document.’

‘What?’

‘The purchase contract you sent me is incomplete and therefore invalid. The last sheet is a different contract, to publish a book.’

Esteban took the document he had scanned: it was that one, there was no question. In the first paragraph he could read: ‘Ligotti Industries declares that . . .’ He felt nauseous, on the verge of fainting.

‘It’s the one I signed.’

‘The old man screwed you. For legal purposes, you didn’t acquire an apartment: you promised to write a book within one year.’

‘He’s very clever. He got me to sign without my noticing the trick . . .’

Esteban summarized the recent happenings for his friend.