The Shapes of Midnight by Joseph Payne Brennan

Author:Joseph Payne Brennan [Brennan, Joseph Payne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: horror
ISBN: 9780425045671
Amazon: 0425045676
Goodreads: 1757657
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 1953-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Who

Was He?

* * *

Several months ago while I was in the hospital recovering from a coronary attack, I underwent a bizarre and frightening experience which I am at a loss to explain. But I want to get the facts down before they begin to fade as most events seem to do.

After I was released from the intensive care unit, I was put in a small single room near the end of what I referred to as “coronary corridor.” This corridor was long, rather narrow, and not particularly well-lighted. There were about a dozen other single rooms situated along both sides of it.

After a day or two I usually kept my door shut in order to muffle the racket of radios and television sets which came from the other rooms. I preferred to read quietly.

One day as I was reading, the door softly opened. I didn’t hear it open; but I was perfectly aware, even before I looked up, that someone was standing in the doorway.

I had hoped it might be a visitor, but I saw with disappointment and a twinge of annoyance that it was only a hospital barber. He wore a thin alpaca cloth jacket which looked a bit seedy, and he carried a small, rather disreputable black bag. Instead of speaking, he merely formed a wordless question by lifting his thick black eyebrows.

I shook my head. “Not right now. Perhaps later on.”

He looked inordinately disappointed, and he lingered in the doorway a moment. Finally he turned, closing the door quietly.

For some reason I could no longer concentrate on my book. I admitted to myself, at length, that he had startled me and that this had made me angry. Not a proper state of affairs, I realized, for a coronary patient. I took a tranquilizer and tried to sleep—unsuccessfully.

I slept reasonably well that night however (with the aid of a sleeping tablet), and after various ablutions, bed-changings, temperature-takings, etc., the next morning, I settled back to my book. But I found that I was still unable to concentrate on it although it had held my attention well enough the day before. At length, as I glanced around the small room, frowning with fretfulness, I realized what the trouble was.

My door was again closed as I had requested, but now I found that I no longer wanted it closed. For the life of me, I couldn’t say why. Since I was still forbidden to walk, I rang for the nurse.

A nurse’s aide, a rather breezy, flaxen-haired Swedish girl, swept in. “Tired of being a hermit already? I thought you’d change your mind!” I smiled, rather sheepishly I suppose, and she went out, leaving the door open.

I returned to my book, but some buried part of my mind kept mulling over the business about the door. I finally had to admit the truth: I definitely did not want that shabby-looking hospital barber to open the door while I was reading and startle me again. The raucous screech and blare of television and radio continued to irritate me, but I tried to read over it.

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