Ghosteria Volume 2: The Novel: Zircons May Be Mistaken, Tanith Lee [classic fiction txt] 📗

Week three dawned bright andsunny with a splash of golden late summer weather. I’d planned to start on someof the very oldest books that day, tomes of colossal size and inclined to damp,for which, probably, they would have to be professionally treated elsewhere.The weather though delayed me. I went for my walk rather early, and ratherlong, and admired rabbits bounding through the slightly overgrown kitchengarden, their nice round mouths full of pilfered lettuce. The damsons were comingon well, I remember, and I ate a crimson windfall apple. Yes, my old strongteeth had stayed good enough for that. They used to say that how your teethare, your bones go too. Although I’ve known plenty who lost their teeth and hadbones of steel. Perhaps it was the reverse, in my case, but I’d had no troubletill then, aside from the odd slight twinge of winter rheumatism.

I drank a glass of wine with mylunch. But then, in this house, I often did. Then I returned, about two-thirty,to the library, and started in again on those grand damp old books.

It was the grandest, biggest anddampest, I’m afraid. A great monster of a volume, about one foot by one and ahalf, and a good four inches thick, covered in stained tobacco-brown leatherwith light mould in verdigris patches. I could just reach it without needingthe library step – even in my nineties I was still just on six feet. I tried tobe gentle, but it wouldn’t come, you see. The book seemed to want to stayexactly where it was, and rot in its own good time. You leave me alone, youold fool, it might have said. I’m almost two centuries older than you.Defer to your elders and betters. Somehow feeling this from it, Iaccordingly stepped back, and then maybe it changed its mind. Or I’d justdislodged it enough, I suppose. Right then it seemed like enemy action.

Off the shelf it charged,straight at me, and into my upturned face. It crashed against my nose, and thenthere was an instant of nothing, only there seemed to have been a huge sound,rather than a blow, and next came the second blow as – thrown backward – myskull hit the thinly-carpeted stone paving of the library floor.

I came to, as I thought, in theearly evening. The windows were glowing twilight blue.

At first I was dazed, thenfrightened. Any staff that were at the house knocked off about three o’clock,leaving me to my own devices. And here I had lain, unnoted, and presumably concussed,and with a broken nose – Yet, to my complete surprise, I was in no pain, couldsee perfectly well, was not even dizzy. To my anxious hands my face feltexactly as ever, and when, cautiously, I sat up, and then got to my feet, Iseemed to have suffered no injury, let alone any trauma. I walked carefullyacross the floor, flexing my arms and legs, moving my head, breathing, Ithought, deeply – and all was well. I was fine. Entirely still myself.

It was only when I turned round tosee what had happened to the huge old book that had attacked me, that I sawinstead my own dead body lying, broken, on the Turkish rug.

Situation Report

TheTerror began at the very end of 2019 – New Year’s Eve. By February of 2020, itwas established and, seemingly ‘non-negotiable’. Who, after all, can reasonwith a corpse? Even a pseudo-living one. But by then I had, evidently, beenfor nearly nine years, a ghost – not remotely therefore in any way like acorpse. I seemed, to myself, or those portions of myself I was by now to see,(a view in a mirror no longer being possible), as I had become in my nineties. Iwas also the same height, ostensibly the same apparent weight, and of the usualgaunt if big-boned frame.

The others too, visually, arelike the selves they were in the days immediately before their deaths. But I’llcome to that.

Meanwhile, what we could see ofthe Terror, and the – things – they that the Terror had coined, they were justas corpselike as all our own corpses must have become, after being carted off,(as mine was on the morning following my demise, once one of the poorhouse-staff had stumbled over my remains in the library), to a handy grave.

There is a name for the creaturesof the Terror, of course. They had been current for hundreds of years invarious forms, but were thought to be a supernatural legend, an idearather than a likelihood. Admittedly, quite early on in the 21st century, as Irecollect – rather an amount of Science Fantasy literature, and even films (or‘movies’) had been produced, based on the premise.

However, it was quite anothermatter when one saw for oneself, and was reliably told it was real. Even thecalm and frequently pragmatic Elizabeth let out a cry when first we glimpsedthe advent on one of the house TVs. The TV, (like most of its kind), had amultitude of channels. In the old days these mostly conveyed a lot of pure rubbish,or – even when worthy in themselves – programmes drained of all sense or powerby endless over-explanation, over-celebrity appearance, and attention-deficitediting – which meant any decent scene was over in fifteen seconds or lesswhile, where commercially run, approximately thirty minutes of advertising hadto accompany twenty-five of actual content. I had seldom bothered with any TVfor years, unless I could access an old film – the original version of ThePostman Always Rings Twice, or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy from theearlier 2000’s. These, I hasten to add, on non-comm-channels. Post death, Ithought I would not even be able to activate a button. For I had quickly foundthat, though I could touch my own body, this same body would pass through mostobjects of substance, from a table to a tree. But it seemed one could perform atype of telekinetic trick with electronics, which Elizabeth demonstrated howto perform, (she too did not trouble with the computers; she had missed theiradvent). For this reason of (presumed) telekinetics, we were able to turnlights on and