The Press: A Halloween Short Story by Graham Masterton Page B

full of tarnished cutlery, so I took out a dinner-knife and tried to pry the doors open with that. They still refused to open. Both John and Fionnula were hammering and kicking on them, but they were so solid that they didn’t even shake. 
    It was then that I heard two more sounds. A high-pitched squeaking, like a screw turning, and then a sliding noise. 
    “John!” I shouted. “John, are you all right? I’m going into the garden, see if I can find a shovel or a pick or something!” 
    But John yelled, “The ceiling! The ceiling’s coming down!” 
    “What?” 
    “The ceiling’s coming down! It’s going to crush us!” 
    The squeaking went on and on. I ran into the rainy garden and came back with an iron fence-post, and I beat at those doors until the fence-post almost bent double. John and Fionnula were both screaming and then I heard something break, and John crying out in agony. “ Oh Mary Mother of God save us ! Oh Mary Mother of God forgive me !” 
    After that there was nothing but a slow complicated crunching. I stood outside the press with my eyes filled with tears, trembling with shock. Eventually the squeaking stopped, and then I heard ratchets and cogs, and the doors to the press slowly opened themselves. Inside, there was nothing at all. No John, no Fionnula. 
    For a moment I couldn’t understand what had happened to them. But then I saw blood dripping from the edge of the drawer at the bottom of the press. I took hold of the demon’s-head handles and slowly pulled it open. 
    If you have never seen human beings compressed until they are less than an inch thick, it is almost impossible to describe them to you. The most horrible thing is their faces, which look like pink rubber Halloween masks, with scarlet lips and empty, liquid eyes.  
    But John and Fionnula’s bodies weren’t the only remains in the drawer. Underneath them were the crushed remains of several other people, their skin as papery and desiccated as wasps’ nests.  
    I could only guess how Padraic Rossa had persuaded his critics to step into his cupboard. Perhaps he had pretended to be conciliatory, and invited them up to his house to explain the mysteries of Halloween to them. Then perhaps he had suggested that they examine the Celtic incantations at close quarters. Whatever had happened, he had made sure that they, too, had a very bad press. 
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
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