Black Static Horror Magazine #1 Read online

  Charousek stared deeply into his palms, as if the story of his detention might be there. “Indeed I was taken away. And who sends pretty young ladies to coerce such stories from me? Prokop, perhaps..."

  I nodded. “I write reports for Prokop's journal. An underground journal. Stories have been circulated during your incarceration, most of which we took to be apocryphal. I see it as my duty to separate truth from fiction."

  Charousek laughed a ragged laugh at that. “Well, I see it as my duty to bring both together, so that none could tell the difference.” He squinted up at me. “It's only in fiction that we find ourselves, wouldn't you say?"

  "I'm afraid,” I said, “I only deal in facts, Mr Charousek."

  He looked past me into the twilight. “Then I'm afraid we are at an impasse."

  I couldn't think of an appropriate response, and when I hesitated, he smiled again. “Come,” he said finally. He got stiffly to his feet and gathered up his stool. “Bring in my carvings and we shall see if we can sift through the ashes and discover some facts among my fictions."

  Charousek's rooms were tiny and cramped, and smelt of a workshop; the heady aroma of glue and petrolatum, lacquer, varnish and acrylic paints greeted my nose. Beyond the instruments of his craft, however, there were no adornments. And while this paucity of contents could suggest a diminished personality, or a creative mind who'd reduced his world of distraction, I imagined it more likely that, when the Puritans had come for him, they'd simply confiscated his possessions. There was a thin carpet of sawdust over everything; the chairs, the rugs ... I only hoped that he didn't offer me a drink.

  When he let me into the front room, I halted, surprised. Initially, I supposed that Charousek had guests, if in fact those guests were all entertaining their own solitary pursuits. But as I stepped over the threshold, I realised my mistake. They were only Charousek's marionettes, life-sized, dressed in shabby cast-off clothes, their hard features covered in a film of dust.

  Charousek re-seated himself and watched, bemused at my open-mouthed curiosity at his house guests. Despite the splinters in their joints, the knots in their wooden bodies, and the glassiness of their eyes, they were perfect in detail and anatomy.

  One was seated on a chair beside the window with an impossibly sad look of longing on his face, another appeared to be asleep beneath the covers of a cot in the corner of the room, the sheets tangled about its legs. In the kitchen area I spied one seated in an iron tub full of water, frozen in the act of scrubbing its armpits; one watched a clock on the wall; another hung its head, seemingly in despair. When I noticed one to my side, half curled in a corner, nursing an erection, staring nakedly at me, I stopped looking.

  "Many of them have left now, of course,” Charousek said, as he contemplated a pipe and a bottle of Laudanum beside it on a table. His voice seemed consumed by the room's emptiness.

  "Left?"

  An almost imperceptible nod. “Left. Departed. Grown up. They found their identities and left.” He sniffed. “Don't we all?"

  "I'm not sure I understand,” I said.

  Charousek sighed. “When we're faced with questions to which we have no readily available answers, then perhaps we have to dig at our own roots and go in search of ourselves."

  I hesitated at the window and glimpsed the procession winding its way through the narrow lanes; I glimpsed a face made of sun; pearls flashing at a woman's neck; a child, cartwheeling on the cobbles between the crowd; confetti, tossed into the air, catching the breeze and dispersing about their hats.

  "You're thinking now: did the Precisemen confiscate his mind when they incarcerated him, yes?"

  "Perhaps just your marionettes..."

  Charousek seemed to bristle at the very thought of calling them ‘marionettes'. But I wasn't here to indulge an old man in his caprice. If he was afraid of the truth, of what the Puritans had done to him, what they might do again, then there was no point to my staying.

  "What do you think you wish to hear?” Charousek said then, as if reading my thoughts, or more likely, my suddenly stiff posture. “That they held me captive in a filthy sanitorium and left me listening to the other lunatics and schismatists sing and scream? That they shaved my skull and placed leeches upon it to bleed out my insanity? That they stuck needles into my eyes, immersed me in ice cold water when I protested? That they sent electric currents under my fingernails, and into my veins?” He smiled but the smile was false. “Is that what you want to hear?"

  "I'd rather like to know why they incarcerated you,” I said.

  He slipped on a pair of wire-framed spectacles, and suddenly looked very old. “I am a revolutionary, my dear. A magician and an artist,” he began, a bitter smile playing across his face. “Art and magic is revolution, art and magic is questioning. And for that kind of heresy, they took my wife as a caution, as a punishment."

  This was the first I'd heard mention of a wife, and was reticent to pursue it, but I imagined I must, however painful it might be on the old man.

  But then he continued: “Before, I lived outside of the town walls, happily. Once I lived for my wife, my family, and my art hadn't such urgency, but after she'd gone, and I had nothing but the memory of her face to console me, my art was all that I had left. It was all that motivated me. It's strange, no, that they inadvertently instilled in me more power."

  I glanced around again at the empty shelves and mantelpiece. There were no pictures. “They took all trace of your wife?"

  "All trace. I set my son free before they could get to him. Now all I have are these ... But then they will leave too."

  I glanced around at the marionettes. Their stillness was unnerving. I fancied that they'd moved incrementally in the dusty gloom, but it was only my mind, playing tricks. “And where is your son now?"

  Charousek shrugged. “A rented loft on the other side of the town. The further away, the safer he and I shall be."

  That begged another question. “What's to stop the Puritans coming back for you if you continue to create?"

  He paused and the question lingered in the silence for a time. “What indeed?” he said finally, bitterly. But there was something in his eyes, a spark that made my belly flutter and my heart race.

  * * * *

  It took me some time to find the son Charousek spoke of. I slept and searched, and slept again, while the procession marched on, leaving posies on the graves of the departed, singing and dancing in the streets that flickered with candlelight. Fading in and out of the fog like the ghosts they represented.

  I asked around on the other side of town. I mentioned Charousek's name to watchmakers and pawnbrokers and butchers and tailors, but gleaned no clues. No one knew (or was telling) of a son of the (in)famous puppeteer, nor indeed a wife. After that I asked after the landlords, many of whom were reluctant to divulge any kind of information, let alone that of their tenants. But eventually I managed to narrow my search to lofts rented by young men, and was led to a narrow, filthy street, much of it cluttered with the tools and old iron of a junk dealer. At the end of the street, a narrow passage led to some worn steps, which I climbed with weary limbs. Once inside the grubby little building, all I could smell was cooking fat and stale tobacco. I held my breath as I made my way up to the highest part, where I could hear a loose shutter crashing in the silence.

  When I knocked on the door, I thought I heard a brief sound from within, but then I was left waiting, and no one came to answer. I knocked again. Again. I felt my heart sink. I was unused to defeat. To dead-ends. I glanced about me and was confident that I was alone. I closed my hand around the door handle and twisted.

  To my surprise, the door swung open easily. I hesitated, let out a breath of euphoria, and paused to gather my nerves. Then I stepped inside.

  Initially I could see nothing. The window shutters had been pulled closed. I kept my fist closed around the door handle so that some of the light from the corridor would find its way inside. But even then, all I could make out were the faint outlines of wh
at I took to be furniture. I had to let go of the door in order to investigate further. But I could hear something: very faint, but constant. A creaking that was as persistent as clockwork. I ventured inside, finally relinquishing the handle, stretching out my other hand like a blind man. I groped around and felt the back of a chair, a table. I skirted around them, squinting into the darkness for some partial illumination from the window, but could see none. When my feet kicked against something on the floor, I flailed briefly, almost losing my balance. Once I was steady again, I crouched down and felt a chair on its side. I picked it up and righted it. As I did, my head struck something hard above me. It swung outwards then struck me again. I reached out, my chest tightening in fear, and grabbed at the object. When I had it in my hands I let out a cry that cracked in my throat.

  I had taken hold of someone's feet.

  I stumbled backwards and, as I did, I heard a sigh from above me. I could see a faint outline swinging to and fro before me.

  "Light a candle,” it said to me in an impatient throaty rasp.

  My body was frozen for a moment that seemed like an eternity. Then, forcing myself to move, I turned and stumbled out of the room and into the corridor, where I took hold of the first lamp I could find. I slid out the candle, cupping my hand around the flame and stepped hesitantly back into the room.

  The light shifted about its corners, illuminating first the table and its chairs, turning their shadows huge across the ceiling. And then the light found him—Charousek's son—hanging from a tight noose, flung over the rafters. His head, tilted at a grotesque angle, shifted slightly until his eyes met mine.

  "You might as well cut me down,” he said, with a note of defeat in his voice.

  * * * *

  I admit, I was reluctant to admit the truth of things in my mind. Perhaps it was some kind of elaborate joke, played by the old master, Charousek. Or perhaps I was still asleep, with the shutters drawn, and I was merely dreaming.

  But then I heard Charousek, saying ... Left. Departed. Grown up. They found their identities and left ... How many more might there be?

  I'd righted the chair and stood upon it, let Charousek's son's weight fall into mine while I reached up and loosened the noose from his neck. We left it there, as a reminder of his folly. I set about in the kitchen, making him warm sweet tea, although I had no idea what he might do with it. When I returned, he was sat, rather like one of Charousek's marionettes had, his face staring at his feet, lost in some reflective turmoil. I set down the tea and sat opposite him at the table.

  "What is your name?” I asked.

  "Jaromir."

  "Why were you trying to kill yourself, Jaromir?” I asked. I tried not to stare at the whorls and knots, the grain on his face, his arms. The joints at his neck, his elbows, his wrists. His eyes, like bright marbles.

  He glanced up briefly, but didn't meet my gaze. “What else should I do? What else is there?"

  I couldn't answer that for him. What indeed was there? The new sun rising, finally? The promise of a new day? The promise of love? Of beauty? “So many things...” I began, but I knew there would be no consoling him. How could someone such as he be consoled? Instead I tried another avenue. “I saw your...” (I admit, at this I faltered) “...your father. He has finally been released by the Puritans. He spoke of you."

  His gaze had become fixed at some point in the corner of the room, but I sensed him start a little at Charousek's name. “He will not see me any more,” he said finally. “It isn't safe. We met once, then he sent me away. It isn't safe with the Puritans watching us all."

  "When did you see him, before that?” I asked.

  "A long time ago,” he said. “When we lived beyond the town."

  "What was it like—outside of the town?"

  His gaze seemed to fold inwards, and he glanced at me. Suddenly I wanted to touch him. I wanted to feel his face in my palm, to see how emotions could live in something so artificial.

  "We lived in the forest,” Jaromir began. “That was where I was born. My father was a woodcutter, and at the end of the day he would carve pieces of wood beside the fireplace to entertain us. Soon he became proficient. My father was quite the artist. He had a library of texts he kept under lock and key, that he claimed he'd learnt everything from. He wrote stories for me and enacted them with the puppets he made. Then he took them out to other towns and mounted larger productions with them."

  "Were you happy then?"

  He smiled. Nodded. “Very much so. I was a child. All children are happy. Or they are until awful things befall them. Families are fragile things to hold together."

  "What was your mother like?"

  "Very beautiful. Her hair was like spun gold. Her eyes were like the sky when it was blue. But then she was taken."

  "By the Puritans?” I ventured.

  He looked up then, and gripped the table. “Yes. Although my father told me she had been taken by wolves. Or a wolf that walked on its hind legs. My father said she would never return."

  "What happened after she was gone?"

  "We went on as before. But my father wasn't the same. He spent time away from the forest, researching the tales he wrote, and mounting productions with his marionettes. When he was away, I was forced to survive on my own. But then one time he came back in the night and woke me. He told me that I must leave alone. He told me of a town that he knew of, not far from our home, where I would be safe. He'd arranged everything for me—lodgings and money and work ... But I didn't want to go. He said I must. The Puritans were close by and he would be taken away and punished for what he was."

  "And what was he?"

  Jaromir glanced away for the answer then shrugged. “An angry old man with power that he'd stolen."

  I couldn't help but close a hand over his. He stared at it for a moment, but of course, his expression didn't change.

  "What did he say to you when he was released and came to you?” I asked gently.

  "Only that he was pleased that I was still well. And also disappointed, to see...” At this, he broke off and looked away at the wall.

  "To see what?” I urged. “Please tell me, Jaromir."

  He turned back to me and closed his other hand over mine. “Do you feel that?” he asked. “Is it warm?"

  I wanted to lie but I felt he wouldn't appreciate my deceit. “No, you are quite cold I'm afraid..."

  He nodded. “He wanted to see if I still believed I was ‘real'. He said, ‘Once upon a time, there was a piece of wood...’ I thought he was mocking me, but he told me that I was not human and probably never would be. What do you think of that?"

  I could see that he still wanted to believe that the old man was lying to him, that this was another elaborate tale that he was spinning. I didn't know what to say. Instead I just sat there, not withdrawing my hand. Letting his rest on mine while we sat in the silence.

  * * * *

  Later, when I was at home, I slept and dreamt of the forest that Jaromir had spoken of. I was approaching the cottage from the shade of the trees. When I stepped beyond their protection, I could feel the sunlight on the grass beneath my bare feet. There was a cottage in the near-distance, smoke curling up from its chimney. Outside, a man I recognised as a youthful Charousek was chopping wood. I could see the sweat on his brow. His sleeves were rolled up tightly over his biceps. I watched, hypnotised by the rhythmic motion of the axe as it described an arc in the air and swung downwards to slice the blocks of wood on the stump in front of him.

  I quickly made my way around the perimeter of the clearing and approached the open door, while Charousek's attention was focused on the work before him. Inside I could smell the heady aroma of cooking: a whole hog on a spit in front of the fireplace. On a chair beside the window, a woman was running a thread through a piece of brightly coloured material. She had already completed a tiny shirt and some socks, which sat on the table before her.

  I realised that I was listening for the sound of a child somewhere in the cottage; the im
age of Charousek's son running through the fields or sprawled out on the rug, drawing a picture of big, bad wolves on some paper. But none of that happened. For as I lingered at the doorway, my attention was drawn to another chair on the opposite side of the table, where a small wooden boy was sat, mute and immobile, waiting for his new clothes.

  * * * *

  While I had slept, flyposters for Charousek's new production had appeared on every street corner and lamp post. In the gloom, small knots of people were surrounding them, and a swell of interest had begun to spread like a common cold from townsperson to townsperson. With the procession streets away, it was as if the End of Darkness had been momentarily forgotten.

  I unpeeled a poster from the dirty window of a house that squatted side by side with other similarly run-down houses, and studied it as shop fronts lit up with candles and lamps to herald the start of another dark day. It read:

  TO CELEBRATE OUR END OF DARKNESS, MASTER OF MAGIC AND MYSTERY, TRUTH AND LIES, CHAROUSEK RETURNS WITH A NEW PRODUCTION AT THE KISHUF THEATRE: BURY THE CARNIVAL COME ONE, COME ALL!

  I folded it and shoved it into my pocket and hurried on. Prokop, the editor of the underground journal I wrote for, was expecting my article on Charousek. I'd fallen asleep at my desk after returning from Jaromir's loft, unable to bring the story to a satisfactory close. I couldn't help wondering about Charousek's remark about his ‘children’ having left, departed, grown up ... I'd already found myself staring at people's faces for signs of artificiality; at the cobbler I'd passed on my street, with his sleeves rolled up, his elbows slightly irregular, his motions a little jerky ... But I knew I could never recall seeing anyone like Jaromir.

  What I had managed to write was also stuffed into my pocket, and I harboured hopes that Prokop would allow me further time to interview Charousek, and perhaps his son, again. Although surely he would only scoff at what was there on the page, and would think me mad. Perhaps I would have to persuade Jaromir to accompany me to Prokop's office to prove otherwise. Perhaps even with proof of my findings, he would still believe that my senses had taken leave of me. But I felt sure Jaromir would not come anyway.