The toll of midnight drew on, but not via the electric beep of his watch…
It now sounded as a deep, sonorous bell.
I haven’t heard bells ringing here, have I? He felt certain, in fact, that the town’s church had no bell.
When he momentarily lowered the glass to think…the beep of his watch continued.
And the bell-peals disappeared.
What on earth?
He put the glass back to his eye, then felt a chill, for the peals somehow revitalized themselves. Each toll, though heavy, deep, sounded oddly brittle as well, the way bells sometimes sounded on still, hot nights.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
Then silence. His attention, splayed as it may have been, switched back to the visuaclass="underline" the town.
His mouth fell open.
What he saw now was impossible, yet he saw it just the same…
The town was different.
Haver-Towne not only appeared darker in the sheen of moonlight, it appeared smaller. A power failure? he considered. A brownout? But no, half the buildings on Back Street weren’t there, and those that were did not coincide with his memory. And were there no street lights burning at all now? He zoomed and squinted, then with an incredulous realization saw that there were no street lamps. And the light in the few windows that remained lit shone duller, less intense, and somehow flickering, like…
Like candles, he realized.
Looking again to the inn, he scrutinized the walls, the gables, and the roof. This is crazy… The once-clean white walls looked streaked now, shoddy, as if whitewashed or painted with inferior product. Flaws, splits, and cracks were apparent in the wall-slats, and on the roof…
The shingles were definitely not the same as they had been.
Fanshawe squeezed his viewing eye shut, rubbed it, then shook his head as if to dislodge some cerebral misfire. I’m tired, I’m burned out, he forced the idea. And I’m pissed off at myself for relapsing. Certainly the stress of such things combined could urge eyes to play tricks on their owner, that and the crisp blocked out shadows that the bright moonlight generated about the town.
He took a heavy breath. I’ll look again and everything will be normal—
He looked again.
Fanshawe’s heart seemed to squeal, like some small, agitated animal in a trap. The town did not look normal.
Impossible…
Haver-Towne looked corroded now. As Fanshawe stared, he let his eyes adjust, then could’ve sworn that Main Street was no longer paved, and in it a lone figure walked slowly, hesitantly, holding what had to have been a candle-lantern. Fanshawe trembled in place, then homed the looking-glass again on the Wraxall Inn.
Abbie’s window hung dark now, but then some peripheral light elsewhere urged his instincts to raise the glass, to the top floor. Another window was indeed alight when it hadn’t been a moment ago. The bow window on the end…
That’s not…MY room, is it? No, no, that’s impossible. He was sure he hadn’t left the lights on. Why would he? Next, Fanshawe froze.
A part in the curtains formed a wide cleft of light in the window; Fanshawe was sure that these curtains were darker and more ragged than the curtains he knew the room to have. And it was candlelight—he was sure—that wanly filled the cleft.
Suddenly the back of a naked woman appeared in the window—his window. He focused closer and thought that her hair was a shimmering deep red. When she turned, he felt a jolt. The woman’s large, bare breasts jutted—more voyeur’s pay-dirt—but he scarcely paid the image mind, for there was something else much more paramount that he’d noticed first.
The woman was pregnant, very pregnant, undoubtedly close to term.
Her great, white belly stretched out pinprick tight, the navel inverted like a button of flesh. Was she talking to someone in the room? Her movements indicated an anxious expectation, though Fanshawe couldn’t imagine why he believed this. Moreover, he couldn’t believe any of what he was seeing.
How could he?
I must be dreaming, he tried to convince himself. Though nothing of the past few minutes seemed at all like a dream. The looking-glass’s eyepiece felt connected to him now. As he continued to stare into the window that could only be his, the pregnant woman began to crudely caress herself, and then—
The window turned pitch dark, like a candle being blown out.
Fanshawe lowered the glass; he was too afraid to look anymore. What he’d seen, or thought he’d seen, made his mind feel like it was shredding. He shoved the looking-glass back into his pocket and stalked away down the path.
I think there’s something seriously wrong with me…
(IV)
His eyes felt peeled open when he returned to town. Both Back and Main Streets stretched out charming and quaint as always. Only a few passersby were about, evidently on their way to or from the tavern, or one of the late-night cafes. What bothered Fanshawe most was the vibrancy of the street lamps—
Street lamps that weren’t there a little while ago. But his unease toned down in a moment. He was a logical man, so there had to be a logical explanation.
Unsure steps took him back into the hotel. He crossed the near empty atrium, thought of putting the looking-glass back into the display case—though he still didn’t remember ever taking it out—but changed his mind when a pair of professors loped drunkenly out of the pub. I’ll put it back tomorrow, he resolved, and I better make damn sure no one sees me. A quick glance into the pub showed him Mr. Baxter, not Abbie, idly tending the bar, but then he remembered seeing her: undressing, getting ready for bed. Yep, I’m a scumbag, all right—peeping on a girl I’ve got a DATE with tomorrow… He thought of stopping in to say hello but realized that conversation was the last thing he desired just now.
What the hell was I seeing back there?
He hastened for the elevator, hoping Baxter hadn’t noticed him. What a day. A dead body and now…this… He couldn’t have gotten to his room faster; the hall’s muffled silence seemed to chase him inside like a pursuer.
The pursuer, he knew, was guilt.
Not too long ago, he’d been spying on some women on this very floor.
He locked the door behind him, then sat on the high bed with a nervy sigh. Only now did a flattened sensation at his groin tell him that he’d masturbated on the hill. Disgust drew lines in his face. Probably while looking at Abbie. What a sick slob. Ordinarily his mind would be swimming in all those delectable images, but now his anguish sabotaged them. Other images struck him now, images not of Abbie or the other women he’d seen, but images of the town.
Fanshawe took out the looking-glass, noting again how heavy it felt for such a small object. Acid trickled in his stomach.
Images of the town. The town…changed…
Yes, just after he’d spied Abbie naked in her room, her abundant breasts so apparent as she removed her contacts, his eyes showed him that the town had indeed changed. And it had seemed to change at the precise stroke of midnight—
From a bell that doesn’t exist.