A Graveyard for Lunatics

I half stepped in.

The office was illuminated only by a light over a painting on the far west wall. I moved across the floor, quietly.

There were all the empty sofas, empty chairs, and the big empty desk with only a telephone on it.

And the big chair, which was not empty.

I could hear his breathing, long and slow and heavy, like that of some great animal in the dark.

Dimly I made out the massive shape of the man lodged in that chair.

I stumbled over a chair. The shock almost stopped my heart.

I peered at the shape across the room and saw nothing. The head was down, the face obscured, the big arms and pawlike hands stretched out to lean against the desk. A sigh. In-breath, out-breath.

The head and the face of the Beast rose up into the light.

The eyes glared at me.

He shifted like a great dark yeast settling back.

The massive chair groaned with the shape?s turning.

I reached toward the light switch.

The wound-that-was-a-mouth peeled wide.

?No!? The vast shadow moved a long arm.

I heard the phone dial touched once, twice. A hum, click. I worked the switch. No light. The locks in the door sprang in place.

Silence. And then:

There was a great suction of breath, a great exhalation: ?You came? for the job??

The what?! I thought.

The huge shadow leaned across the dark. I was stared at, but saw no eyes.

?You?ve come,? gasped the voice, ?to run the studio??

Me! I thought. And the voice sounded syllable by syllable:

??No one now is right for the job. A world to own. All in a few acres. Once there were orange trees, lemon trees, cattle. The cattle are still here. But no matter. It?s yours. I give it to you??

Madness.

?Come see what you?ll own!? His long arm gestured. He touched an unseen dial. The mirror behind the desk slid wide on a subterranean wind and a tunnel leading down into the vaults.

?This way!? whispered the voice.

The shape elongated, turning. The chair swiveled and squealed and suddenly there was no shadow in or behind the chair. The desk lay as empty as the decks of a great ship. The uneasy mirror drifted to shut. I jumped forward, afraid that when it slammed the dim lights would extinguish and I would be drowned by the dark air.

The mirror slid. My face, panicked, shone in its glass.

?I can?t follow!? I cried. ?I?m afraid!?

The mirror froze.

?Last week, yes, you should have been,? he whispered. ?Tonight? Pick a tomb. It?s mine.?

And his voice now seemed the voice of my father, melting in his sickbed, wishing the gift of death but taking months to die.

?Step through,? the voice said quietly.

My God, I thought, I know this from when I was six. The phantom beckoning from behind the glass. The singer, the woman, curious at his soft voice, daring to listen and touch the mirror, and his hand appearing to lead her down to dungeons and a funeral gondola on a black canal with Death at the steering pole. The mirror, the whisper, and the opera house empty and the singing at an end.

?I can?t move,? I said. It was true. ?I?m afraid.? My mouth filled with dust. ?You died long ago??

Behind the glass, his silhouette nodded. ?Not easy, being dead, but alive under the film vaults, off through the graves. Keeping the number of people who really knew small, paying them well, killing them when they failed. Death in the afternoon on Stage 13. Or Death on a sleepless night beyond the wall. Or in this office where I often slept in the big chair. Now??

The mirror trembled; with his breath or with his hand, I could not say. Pulses jumped in my ears. My voice echoed off the glass, a boy?s voice: ?Can?t we talk here??

Again the melancholy half-sighed laugh. ?No. The grand tour. You must know everything if you?re going to take my place.?

?I don?t want it! Whoever said??

?I said. I say. Listen, I?m good as dead.?

A damp wind blew, smelling of nitrate from the ancient films and raw earth from the tombs.