Whispers: An anthology of Fantasy and Horror

A WEATHER REPORT FROM THE TOP OF THE STAIRS (for Gahan Wilson) by James Sallis and David Lunde

Darkness is streaming down the bare branches of elms, blackening their trunks against the snow.

The boy’s feet scuff going upstairs to bed as he fits them into the worn half-moons of the wooden steps, trying to avoid the creaky ones.

The darkness mingles with smoke from the chimney, intricate open-lace patterns, blue behind gray. It seeps into the pond behind the house and turns it, beneath the willow, to mush, the mush to bluewhite slate. Cars like colored appendages of the clouds move silently at the ends of long umbilicals of exhaust. The pale sun closes its petals on the horizon: blue deepening, the sky turns the color of plums.

Like one of those fragile, tableau nativities built of colored sugar, soft pastels in half an eggshell, Mr. Wilson and his wife sit on a nubby couch in the old wooden house. The couch is gently yellow, the room done in burnished golds and blue, the rug a ripe wheat. Now the colors change and flicker, shifting with the light of the fire, with the firefly lights of the Christmas tree in the corner beside it, with the triumphant trumpeting of the angel at the top. Around them in dimness, corners are softened, angles bundled in shadow. Light flushes from a phone booth across the street.

(In silence: the wet hiss of cars passing, a clatter of trelliswork on the back porch, the sigh and creak of an old house walking through itself, an old house that dreams of snow, a cool white bed for sleeping.)

The uneven tideheat of the fire before them, washing up in waves, reddening, receding. From the bare white kitchen, mixing with the resinous tang of evergreen, comes the sweet nutmeg smell of eggnog, of coffee done and warm, waiting. Fire crackles like cellophane, wood shifts on a slope of embers.

(His arm around her shoulder.)

And outside, a face passing the window. A man trudging slowly home from pushing dirt across floors, warm pipe steaming, smoke eddying white against the darker gray. Streetlights shelled in rainbow. And other lights (rouge, ochre, pale soft blue) blinking open in windows, in stiff green limbs. Angels regarding the street.

(A feeling told without words, told by an arm around a shoulder, by being together now, by a shared brandy.

“Last year . . .”

“Yes . . .”

By a smile.)

And outside, gently, quietly, it begins to snow. First a flourish, then small flakes, then larger and quicker, till the sky is boiling with whiteness, till it is like a fine dust of flour filling the air, falling. Falling.

(His arm around her shoulder.

Talking now. About the morning.

“Will he like it?”

“Of course. For a while, at least . . .”

Country music on the radio.

Nostalgia. Reminiscence of things done, of those not done, a life. Images of a child growing, so young yet, so much before him, but so much of the shaping done already. Looking back, looking forward.)

Snow stipples flat gray air, slurs the streets, shuts people into their rooms behind their windows. And suddenly with the bright snow it is:

Night . . .

“What will it be this time?” said a voice from one of the shelves.

“Not a firetruck. Not a cherry-red, shiny-metal firetruck,” said another. “That was last year.”

“Not roller skates with two keys.”

“Nor a stuffed brown Koala.”

And there in the attic it echoed among them, all the things it wouldn’t, couldn’t be.

“A train with a caboose the color of red fire.”

“A steamshovel for backyard digging.”

“A service station with pumps that pump.”

“A terrycloth clown.”

“A machine to make flavored, bright icicles.”

“A candy bank.”

“A box that moos when you turn it over.”

“A popcorn machine like the ones at movies.”

“A tiny man with rivets for joints.”

“A purple cow with a balloon udder you can fill and milk.”

“A whistle made of milkwhite glass.”

“A disintegrator ray gun that shoots colored sparks.”

“A scale model cannon.”

“A toy soldier all scarlet and blue.”

They were quiet then; the house was calm. His footsteps faded out of memory and the boy slept. The fire died low, the radio faded, talking moved through the house and upstairs to the bedroom. Softened, softened, hushed. (Listen closely: snow brushes against the roof, nothing more.) Now, softly, quietly, while they’re sleeping . . .

“They’re giving him a gun this year.” It was a voice sawdust might have, the sound sawdust would make if wind blew across it.

“Gun?” Rust popping off an iron bar. The toy soldier.

“A small one. Pellets.”

“So he can hunt with his father; so his father can teach him to hunt.”

The snow went on, came on, snow like puffy eiderdowns wrapping the houses like German grandmothers bundling children . . .

“No. That was two years ago.”

“He still has it downstairs.”

“Imagine. Two years . . .” That was the stuffed, cinnamon-colored Koala, the teddy, “Theodore Bear” (blind now, his black button eyes gone).

The rockinghorse reared creakily, paint peeling in strips like tatters of last summers circus signs.

“What will it be this time?”

“What . . .”

“This time . . .”

“This year . . .”

Outside, the snow began to smack as it hit, then while they listened grew soft again and drifted, drifted. Breezes made a game of the flakes, scattering them from one another. A million white fireflies all floating, all flitting to the ground . . .

“You know what we’ll do?” It was the sawdust voice, the toy with peeling paint. “Someday when it’s raining, someday this summer, he’ll want one of us and come up here. Or he’ll be all full of sadness, and he won’t know what it is, and he’ll come up here, to us, to find out.” Phrases galloped as once upon a time long ago the toy had itself, a cockhorse on its way to Banbury Cross. “Then! Then we’ll gang up on him, we’ll get him!”

Horns tooted. Whistles shrilled, trilled. Music boxes strummed across their cylinders, producing impromptu ensembles of triumph, victory. Animals brayed and cheered. The clown laughed and laughter rolled among them, rippling, ringing waves of laughter. A small box tipped off into the air, turning top over bottom, top over bottom, top over bottom. It mooed twice before it struck the floor.

“No!” The tiny man with rivets for joints, stiff, rusting. He waited for them to listen. Snow whispered around the roof, a few flakes slipping through cracks to splash on the attic floor. “No. We’ve got to give him another chance, just one more. We have to wait, have to be patient. He hasn’t forgotten completely. I know. That’s why we’re being kept here. Another chance . . .”

Snow for a moment sifted down sideways, sweeping angels in itself. Frost painted grins on the windowpane.

“No! Don’t listen to him.” The toy soldier. “We can’t wait any longer, we can’t! Soon we won’t be able to move any more. Look at him; he’s so stiff he can’t walk. Teddy can’t see. And me, my arm is gone, my bayonet is dull now, before it’s too late. Tomorrow morning, tomorrow! We’ll all march down the steps, we’ll take sticks and guns, we’ll march right into his room. Catch him by surprise! Demand our rights! Fight for them if we have to!” Scarlet and blue. “Drive him down to bloody ruin . . .”

“Tear his head off!”

“Kick him!”

“Rip off an arm!”

“Pull out his eyes!”

“See how he works!”

The music boxes struck up martial airs: “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Dixie,” “Marching Through Georgia.”

“We’ll teach him.” The soldier again. “It’s the only way. The only thing he understands is force. We’ll make him surrender!”

Snow outside went Shhhhhh and a hush settled on the toys. They listened to the snow, the million crystals, ring down in the night. Listened on shelves in the attic at the top of the stairs.

“Tomorrow, do you hear!”

Soft, soft broom sweeping at the house.

“Tomorrow!”

But the others were asleep, all the ghosts of Christmas past.

And below them the boy slept, and his dream rode a prancing cockhorse at the head of candy-bright armies crashing and clashing, guns and drums and blood black as licorice in the soldiering snow.

Gahan Wilson’s comments on this first version were: “I enjoyed the Sallis-Lunde piece. Very nice Bradburian feel to it, although the implication that the toys won’t ‘get him’ after all on account of their decay is contrary to what I believe will happen. In my world, Stuart, they get him, and they get him good—Yessir.”

And, thus, this second, slightly altered version was born.

Horns tooted. Whistles shrilled, trilled. Music boxes strummed across their cylinders, producing impromptu ensembles of triumph, victory. Animals brayed and cheered. The clown laughed, and laughter rolled among them, furious, frenzied waves of laughter. A small box tipped off into the air, turning top over bottom, top over bottom, top over bottom. It mooed harshly before it struck the floor.

“No!” The tiny man with rivets for joints, stiff, rusting. He waited for them to listen. Snow whispered around the roof, a few flakes slipping through cracks to splash on the attic floor and vanish. “No, we can’t. We’ve got to give him another chance, just one more. We have to wait, have to be patient. He can’t have forgotten us, he loved us once, we made him happy!”

Hoots and catcalls drowned his tiny voice.

“You’re a fool!” The toy soldier. “What made him happy was tormenting us. How long did you lie out in the rain and dirt before his mother brought you here, how many months of rain and pain? Look what he did to Teddy’s eyes! And he broke my arm and Horse’s leg! You know how he is. We can’t wait any longer, we can’t! Soon we won’t be able to move any more. You’re already so stiff you can’t walk. No, he’s had his chance. We have to strike now, before it’s too late. In an hour or two when they’re all asleep. We’ll all march down the steps, we’ll take sticks and guns, we’ll march right into his room. Take him by surprise! We’ll teach him!” Scarlet and blue. “Drive him down to bloody ruin . . .”

“Tear his head off!”

“Kick him!”

“Rip off an arm!”

“Pull out his eyes!”

“See how he works!”

The music boxes struck up martial airs: “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Dixie,” “Marching Through Georgia.”

“He’ll be sorry!” The soldier again. “It’s the only way. The only thing he understands is force. We’ll show him how it feels. We’ll make him suffer.”

Outside the wind laid a shroud of snow across the blackened earth. They listened to it wail and keen, alert as sentries as they waited in the dark. Waited on shelves in the attic at the top of the stairs.

“Soon, do you hear!”

Snow blowing hopelessly back and forth.

“Soon . . .”

And they waited, silent, motionless, more alive than they had ever been.

And below them the boy slept, and his dream rode a prancing cockhorse at the head of candy-bright armies crashing and clashing, guns and drums and blood black as licorice in the soldiering snow.

Accompanying this rewritten version, was the following letter:

Well, dear reader, good luck with your decision.