THE STEP by E.F. Benson

“…and there was the following step again, neither gaining on him nor falling behind;”

…and this story is thus the essence of the paradoxical Zenoist syndrome I have identified for myself in Aickman and many other writers in recent years. A wading, gluey, oily half of a half of a half forever. I shall not reveal the nature of ‘the step’ that hugs John Cresswell’s own steps in this way; perhaps a Levantine hag’s step in rhythm with his steps, or another’s step, if not the strict echo of his own steps as he earlier hoped it to be. Nor shall I even hint at the description of the horror that made this step outside in the street. Nor, in the laboured step of this step-by-step review, will I dare divulge what eventually faced him in the church, Coptic or whatever, wherein he seeks sanctuary from the step of steps still in beat to his own step-by-step of self-boosting persuasion, sanctuary, too, from Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria itself, sanctuary indeed from this city in which he once felt so confident while financially duping the ‘natives’ with his version of an “oily rigmarole”. Until he managed to dupe one dupe too far in the guise of the aforementioned ‘early old’ hag…
I’ll just leave you below with a tiny few of this story’s own samples of what still stalks a different reader’s step critically following my own … but, like Cresswell, I can’t quite isolate who is who among the many readers reading after me. The whole indistinguishably fleshy spread of treaders treading after me. That bell-push moment, that glimpse of truth.

“But there was this condition, half-way between waking and sleeping, when in the twilight chamber of his brain something listened, something feared. […] …fingers were pressed on some bell-push in his brain,… […] …he faced it just because he knew that some black well was digging itself into his soul. […] ‘I’ll give it a hundred beats,’ he said to himself, ‘and then I’ll say good night to Mr. Nothing-at-all.’”

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My other reviews of unconnected horrors: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2022/07/13/separate-horror-stories-from-many-years-ago/