The Pan Book of Horror Stories

FLIES Anthony Vercoe

Here is the story as I got it from the tramp himself, an ex-university don, I believe, who had come down in the world through some misadventure, and who now lay close to death’s door in the workhouse infirmary.

It was sickening weather—a typical English summer. All day long the rain had pattered on the rooftops and poured in a gurgling stream into the street gutters of the City. The dome of St Paul’s lay enveloped in a great black cloud, and the whole sky to the westward was angry and dark with foreboding.

Towards the dusk the rain ceased for a while, and I crept out from the crude shelter of an arch to find some more tempting spot in which to spend the night.

Not that it was cold—far from it! The atmosphere was almost tropically oppressive, and grew worse as still the thunder held off; but I was sick and faint from want of food, and longed with all the fever of despair for a clean soft bed and palatable fare before I finally handed in my checks.

It was while I dragged myself painfully in the direction of High Holborn that I first saw—the house! Would that I had been mercifully obliterated at that moment by some passing lorry rather than live to repeat this tale!

It was a little old-fashioned dwelling, like many that are to be seen in that district—relics of Elizabethan times. It smirked at my misery through its diamond-paned windows, challenging me. A notice was plastered across a signboard protruding above the portal, bearing the heaven-sent words ‘To Let’. The hour was late, the street practically deserted, and my head seemed to reel under the weight of the unexploded storm. As if to aid me in making up my mind, a large splash of rain as big as a penny fell with a soft plop on to my forehead. It was warm and sticky, like the night outside, and I hesitated no longer. Within that smirking, self-satisfied, wise old house lay refuge from the deluge which threatened.

Cautiously I approached the door. It was locked, of course. I examined the window fastenings of the ground-floor window and cursed my usual bad luck. Then a weakness in the lead round one of the diamonds caught my attention. I glanced quickly to right and left. The policeman at the corner had his back to me. Two couples hurried by. Another quick look; I was unobserved; a tinkle of breaking glass, a thrust of the arm, a turn of the wrist—and the window was open.

Open—and beckoning.

I scrabbled with my hands on the window ledge and painfully drew myself up. The effort cost me what little strength I had left; but at last I lay exhausted, though triumphant—inside.

I don’t know how long I remained there gasping on the floor, my heart hammering in my breast, my temples knocking. It may have been an hour or only a few moments. Perhaps I fainted. Remember, I had had no food for three days! But at last I rose, closed the window again to avoid suspicion, and felt in my pockets for an odd match.

I struck it. Then at what its light revealed I nearly dropped it.

The room was furnished—splendidly furnished in a style three centuries old! A sevenfold candelabra gleamed metallic on the mantel, and I hurriedly applied my wavering match to it that I might see better.

I held my hand over the flame, thinking that my weakness was playing tricks with me—but no. It was true! I, a hungry, homeless vagabond, had found sanctuary in a home beyond my wildest dreams. An antiquary’s paradise!

Carrying my candelabra, I advanced to the door, then on the threshold I halted. A sudden fear had shaken me. The house I had seen from the outside had looked bare and empty, and there had been that ‘To Let’ sign to confirm its appearance. This house, on the contrary, was comfortably, even sumptuously, furnished, and it had the feel of a house that is lived in! Suppose I had made a mistake!

Suppose in my feeble and overwrought state I had broken into the wrong house? I could expect little mercy at the hands of the occupants. There was a policeman at the corner, and I was virtually a burglar—I realized how tame my excuses would sound as he hauled me off with him to the station.

Prison? Yes, there was always shelter there, but my old pride had always forbidden me to avail myself of it. Pride? I laughed a little mirthlessly, remembering my condition—and then I first heard it.

It seemed to come from within my brain—a low-pitched buzzing—and I began to wonder what new trick my failing strength was playing me. The sound droned on, sometimes increasing, sometimes decreasing, in volume, but never finally abating—like the noise of a distant aeroplane performing gyrations over the house. I shook my head stupidly as I stood by the door, hoping thereby to stop it as one stops the sound of singing in one’s ears—but to no avail. The clamour persisted until I felt as though my head was resting against a hive of busy bees.

Then, as this simile occurred to me, I became conscious that the room was growing warmer. I swayed a little and stretched out my hand to the door. It opened easily, and a moment later I stood in the hall. Almost immediately I realized that the buzzing had stopped.

By the light of my candles I marked a little door in the passage which presumably led to the kitchen and staggered towards it—there might food lie! The long flight of oak stairs, trending upwards, I disregarded for fear of waking the householder.

Cautiously I pushed open the little door and stepped through. I was in a kind of parlour, and beyond, through another door, I could see the kitchen.

I lifted my candelabra and gazed about me. To my right a second door showed me where the housekeeper slept. I looked to my left and nearly cried out with excitement at what I saw!

Spread on a small oak table was the most delicious repast I could have hoped for. I stumbled towards it, and setting down my light began to eat ravenously. All moral scruples vanished at the sight of food—I was a man, I was starving—surely none would deny me the means to stay those gnawing pangs?

And then it came again—a low, continuous buzzing. But not in my head this time—my head was clear. I set down my glass which I had filled from a beaker with some sweet wine and listened.

The sound seemed to come from the housekeeper’s room. I filled my mouth, and, approaching the door, bent my head to the crack.

Buzz—zz—zzz!

Yes, unmistakably it came from within. I put my eye to the keyhole, but the room was in darkness. A queer temptation came to me to trace this sound to its source, and at risk of waking anyone who might be sleeping inside I placed my hand on the knob and cautiously turned it.

Almost immediately the sound of buzzing stopped. Slowly, very slowly, I opened the door and peeped inside. Then I think my heart froze!

Supported across two chairs was a long wooden box whose shape filled me with an unnameable dread. Two three-branch candelabra stood with their fuel guttered out upon the floor, and in a corner of the room was a four-poster bed with tumbled clothes. The lid of the coffin was off.

At first, by my candlelight, I thought that the occupant of the coffin was a Negro. Then, as I peered, horror-stricken by my gruesome discovery, the ghastly buzzing recommenced.

It seemed as though a veil was plucked simultaneously from the corpse’s face, leaving what had been mercifully hidden bare in all its festering corruption to my revolted gaze. I stifled a cry and stepped backwards to the door, shutting my eyes to the white baldness of that putrefying thing in the coffin, while I held my breath to withstand the stench that arose from it. Something got in the way of my foot and I stumbled. The door knob flew out of my I hand, and I heard the door slam behind me, then the next I instant I was battling frenziedly with the monstrous droning, buzzing cloud of blowflies which had been feasting on the corpse!

Madly I beat at them with my fists, but with little impression. The whole room seemed alive with little hairy legs, with tiny, sticky feet, trying to settle on my skin. And all the time they kept up that hideous buzzing sound as they beat furiously with their wings on the fetid atmosphere. One, larger than the rest, to judge by its weight, settled on my lip and sought to insert its leprous body into my mouth. The thought of the thing it had just been feeding off flashed into my mind, nauseating me, and as I struck savagely at it with my bare hand I felt its huge, fat body squelch on my cheek and drop.

Somehow I gained the door and opened it. I had dropped my candelabra in my panic, and now, panting and sweating with fear, I half crawled, half rolled into the parlour. As I heard the door of the bedroom slam to after me I breathed a prayer of relief for my escape. There had been something unnatural in the behaviour of those flies, something almost wickedly intelligent in the way they had attacked me. Their assault had had the appearance of being carefully organized by a superior brain—by the mind of some great leader or general.

Deprived of my light, I groped in the darkness for the little door which led into the hall. My fingers closed on the knob and turned it. Round and round it went, meeting with no resistance from the lock, while all the time a chill fear crept up my spine paralysing my very thoughts. Something had happened to the catch—the knob was useless. I was locked in!

Madly I shook and rattled at the door knob. Time and again I flung the pitiful weight of my wasted body against the sturdy oak of that small, relentless door, exhausting my newly gained strength in useless effort. Then, when all hope had nearly left me, with a flash of illumination I remembered the kitchen.

“Fool!” I cursed my stupidity as stumblingly I fumbled across the pitch-dark parlour to the kitchen door. Here, surely, would be a way of escape! I turned and shook my fist in the direction of those half human flies buzzing maddeningly behind that shut door—that other door—the door of death!

It was my body they wanted—to drink live blood and taste live flesh! I had felt it—known it—there in that room while I had fought them. But I would cheat them yet!

I laughed hysterically as I staggered across the threshold into the kitchen and made my way to the back door. A big window yawned to the right of it, flooding the place with a queer white moonlight. I tried the latch—O Blessed Virgin! it turned, and then—I ceased to laugh. Not a fraction of an inch would the door move either way! I strained and tugged and pulled. At last I felt round the edges of the door, and the mystery stood revealed. Sharp points of nails placed at regular intervals touched my fingers—my exit had been nailed up from the outside!

But why?

Even as I wondered I heard the clanging of a bell somewhere in the street. I peered through the window. Queer how different London looks by moonlight!

I realized I was gazing at a part of the City I had not dreamed existed. The houses opposite seemed almost to invade those on my side of the road, so narrow was the thoroughfare between. Decorative, too, they were—their black beams ornamented here and there with fantastic designs, while their gables lowered menacingly above my head, leaving but a strip of sky.

Clang-a-clang! Clang-a-clang!

Again that bell—nearer this time—and with it I could fancy I heard the scrape and bump of heavy wheels over cobbles. A voice was calling something—a hoarse, melancholy voice, but the words eluded me.

Who could be selling things in Holborn at this time of night? But at least he might render me assistance if only I could attract his attention. I clambered on to a table which stood by the window and looked down. Here the street was on a lower level than at the front of the house—to jump would be difficult, even dangerous.

The cart—for cart it was—rolled into view, drawn by a great black horse. A man was leading it, ringing a bell and occasionally shouting his melancholy cry, while behind him on the cart itself another man was sitting, queerly silent, his whole attitude indicative of the deepest despair.

There was a lantern on the table beside me, and, finding another match, I lit it, moving it slowly from side to side in front of the window. Soon they would see it—would stop their cart below me—and let me jump to the clean comfort of the open street. Anything rather than stay another moment in the evil silence of this uncanny house.

Ah! He had seen me and was looking up at the window. What was that he was calling? I smiled and nodded, beckoning him nearer.

Now his words came clearer. Was I mad? I knew nothing of the corpse in the other room, yet why did he point up at me like that, why chant that unearthly cry of his: “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!”

He pointed to the back of his great, ponderous cart. It was full—heaped high with—with what? Shuddering, I saw that the tortuous tangled mass in the back of the cart was human freight, and as a shaft of moonlight fell for an instant across them—that some were not dead—yet!

Scarce understanding even then what it meant, I looked across at the darkened doorways of the houses opposite—and gasped. Each door was marked with a large cross—the cross of despair, the cross of humanity, the cross of the plague!

The cart rumbled on and I let it go. I was dazed with the meaning of it all. Had I stepped back through three hundred years when I broke through the window of the house in Holborn? Had I died outside when I lay under that arch in the pouring rain, and could this be my hell? And even while I clasped my tortured head in my hands I heard again that dread buzzing of the flies.

Fearfully I tiptoed to the kitchen door and held my lantern aloft. The droning from the death chamber swelled louder than a swarm of bees. They were angry at being baulked of their prey—the living prey that was so much rarer than the dead!

The atmosphere in the parlour was stifling, and I longed for something to drink. I thought of the wine and food on the table in the corner, then, seeing it, recoiled. Had I really eaten that writhing mass of great white worms? Or had the food putrefied during the few minutes I had been out of the room?

Something hummed triumphantly round my head and out of reach. I turned and stared, hypnotized at what I saw.

Watching me from its perch on a piece of rotten meat on the table was an enormous fat blowfly. There seemed to be something malevolent about its very immovability. As I looked it was joined by another and yet another, and now the buzzing became apparent within the parlour itself.

I turned my head and stared at the bedroom door—and then I screamed my fear. From under a crack in the bottom of the door came an endless wriggling stream of fat, black bodies as big as nutmegs. One by one they spread their wings and hummed clumsily up on to the table, where they settled and fixed me—a motionless dark mass behind the three leaders.

The noise of the buzzing filled the thick atmosphere of the room—and into it crept a new note—a note almost of exultation—of fiendish delight at the way they had outwitted me. They formed up in companies awaiting the signal to charge, while I could only stare—held spellbound by their uncanny discipline.

For a moment there was a complete stillness as the last of them joined the watching army—then in a mass they rose, and the room echoed to the shrill, savage beating of their wings.

With a wild yell I dropped the lantern and fled into the kitchen, while all about me the disease-carrying vermin buzzed and whirred, settling on my face, my neck, my ears. I fought them off blindly and leaped on to the table by the window. It was a sixteen-foot drop at least down to the street, but I did not hesitate. The plague was in the house—the flies carried the plague, the food I had eaten had been infected—I could feel a lump under my arm and a curious feeling of nausea overcame me.

With my bare arm I smashed the glass of the window, tearing and beating down the leads between the panes like a maniac. Though I had the dread scourge I’d cheat the buzzing pest. They might feast on my carcass, but never whilst I drew breath.

“Bring out your dead!” I cried. “Bring out your dead!”

Then I crashed headlong down into the street below!

Here the tramp left off, and the doctor added his portion to the tale when I met him outside the ward and walked with him to the infirmary door.

“He was picked up in a street off Holborn—run over by a lorry—broken legs. Nearly dead with starvation, poor fellow, and naturally light-headed. Can’t get that nonsense he’s just told you out of his head!”

But that night at home I found myself wondering if it was ‘nonsense’. There was no sign of a house such as he had described in that particular corner of Holborn which the ambulance driver pointed out to me was the spot where the tramp was found—but a well-known authority informed me that the road there crosses the site of on of the many plague pits which harbour the bodies of the victims who died as a result of the Great Plague!