From the time the Hernandezes arrived the evening became a blur for him. They seemed like perfectly nice people but he didn’t understand a thing they were talking about.
It seemed that Felix Hernandez had just acquired a new car, one of those boxy affairs with a small body and high ceiling. He used it to drive to the golf course, another habit newly acquired. Janet Hernandez talked endlessly about their son, an apparently always well-meaning young man who could not hold a job. Elaine commiserated and shared stories about Bryan which Sam was sure he had heard nothing about. A fall from a tree? When had that happened? Could Elaine possibly be making these things up in order to have something to share with the new neighbours?
They sat down girl-boy-girl-boy about an L-shaped portion of the dinner table, with Sam at the top of the L’s stem and Elaine at the end of the L’s arm. Sam wasn’t sure how this had happened, but it seemed to have been Felix’s idea.
Janet Hernandez was sitting next to Sam. He hadn’t realised before how tall she was—at least her torso was tall. She also seemed to have an unusually large head, although that might have been an illusion because her forehead was quite high, and white hair showered down the back of the skull to float just above her shoulders. She leaned forward over her food somewhat, as if afraid it might escape the plate. And she trembled slightly. He noticed because she was sitting right beside him. The profile of her face practically vibrated.
Sam was thinking then that the Hernandezes were older than them by a few years. He looked down the table, but his view of Felix was completely blocked. He tried to catch Elaine’s eye, but she was leaning over slightly, probably talking to Felix.
Suddenly Janet leaned back, her face pale, her expression puzzled. Felix seemed blurry and out of focus on the other side, but then Sam determined that something between Felix and Janet was making him difficult to see, something smearing the air, as if Sam’s vision had suddenly gone greasy.
The night doctor appeared to unfold from inside that black leathery coat of his, his shoulders going up like axe blades. He turned one globular eye Sam’s way. He tilted his elongated head slightly as if inviting Sam to protest. Sitting this closely, Sam could see small finger-shaped bits of flesh down around the end of the doctor’s snout. They stirred slightly. Some appeared corrupted by some sort of skin cancer.
Sam felt suddenly ill, his head slipping sideways. The night doctor disappeared, and Sam now had a clear view of Felix, who appeared to be in shock. Elaine was shaking the man’s shoulder in concern, saying his name. Then Sam moved his head again, and the night doctor was back in focus. Sam experimented, moving his head this way and that. He could see the doctor only at certain angles, the rest of the time the figure disappearing completely.
Suddenly Felix coughed explosively and a pale chunk of chewed-up food—at first Sam was convinced it was some damaged organ—bounced off the table and onto the floor. Sam thought he heard the cat scramble for it, then remembered they hadn’t had a cat in years.
Felix was laughing, tears rolling down his cheeks. Elaine was laughing as well, but Sam recognised it as the laugh she made when she was under great stress. Any minute now she would sob. Janet was pushing something around her plate with her fork. Sam saw that it was another piece of what had just come out of Felix’s mouth.
A sidelong glance brought the night doctor into focus again. He sat still and erect, as if listening, or at least sensing, things Sam couldn’t even begin to imagine. The night doctor’s skin was soft and translucent, slightly yellow. Sam thought he could see the sharp skeleton underneath, like a gathering of blades fashioned from bone and then covered in this somewhat transparent epidermal goop.
They all sat that way an uncomfortable period of time. Felix quietly shared his recent health issues with Elaine. Elaine shared things back, but with less detail. Janet continued to move things about her plate with her fork, but ate nothing. Sam watched them all. He wondered if he was the only one aware of the fifth presence at the dinner table—he was pretty sure he was.
Periodically the night doctor stroked the leather bag he wore hanging from his shoulder. It squirmed in various directions, as if containing more than one captive.
Felix was taken to the hospital a few days later. Sam and Elaine watched as Janet rode off with a young man Sam assumed was their son. They never saw any of them again.
For several weeks Elaine became increasingly frenetic. She cleaned the house constantly, and reorganised the medicine cabinets more than a few times. Sometimes Sam would wake up in the middle of the night and find the bed empty. He’d go downstairs and discover her at the table quietly drinking coffee or taking down notes. Usually the night doctor sat there with her.
Often she would work herself into exhaustion and sleep late the following morning. He would come downstairs by himself and find the night doctor already waiting for him, standing in a corner or staring out the window.
It dragged on this way for months. One night Elaine woke him up in the middle of the night, her pale face hanging over him. He gently lay his hand on her wet face—she’d been crying. “I don’t want to leave you by yourself,” she whispered hoarsely.
He glanced past her, his eyes scanning the room, finding the tall quiet figure with the large eyes and the too-narrow face, the squirming bag. “You won’t be,” Sam replied.
Derek John
THE DESECRATOR
DEREK JOHN is the author of the novella The Aesthete Hagiographer (Ex Occidente Press, 2012), and his stories have appeared in magazines such as Supernatural Tales and Ghosts and Scholars. His most recent appearance in print was in the anthology Dreams of Shadows and Smoke: Stories for J.S. Le Fanu (Swan River Press, 2014).
“Although I grew up in Dublin,” recalls the author, “I moved to England in my early twenties and spent several years living in Cambridge where I experienced first-hand many of the eerie locations from the stories of M.R. James, one of the acknowledged masters of the ghostly and strange.
“The anthology in which my story ‘The Desecrator’ originally appeared is the second in a series from Sarob Press (edited by the doyenne of Jamesian fiction, Rosemary Pardoe) where the remit for the authors was to compose a sequel or prequel based on one of James’ classic tales.
“I chose to write a sequel to one of James’ perhaps lesser-known pieces, ‘The Uncommon Prayer-Book’. Like many of James’ tales, there are plenty of questions left unanswered that invite speculation. Without wishing to completely remove the veil, in my story I ventured some answers to the various points that have perplexed me over the years: who is the mysterious Anthony Cadman and just what exactly is the significance of the blasphemous frescos in Brockstone Court? What was the nature of the awful ritual of execration chanted by Dame Alice Sadleir from the heretical prayer-book and who (or what) is the revenant that relentlessly pursues Mr Poschwitz to his doom?”
“AND THIS…,” SAID the tour guide, posing theatrically before the wall of the bedchamber, “is the secret priest hole of Gaulsford House!” With a deft gesture she pressed her fingers against a section of wainscoting which pivoted upwards to reveal a gloomy recess set into the thickness of the wall. One by one, the tourists took turns to peer inside as the guide played the beam of her torch around the dark and airless cavity.
“How awful!” said one. “Why there’s barely room for a person in there!”