The Thing Behind Hell’s Door by Robert Silverberg

The room was small and obviously hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in last decade, but Robert Harris decided it wasn’t bad for the price. And he needed a to stay. A place where he could study without being disturbed.

The landlady stood behind him, a withered crone who, like the room, had a faintly musty odor. She grinned, showing the puckered redness of her toothless gums. Her teeth, Robert thought sourly, were probably downstairs in a glass of water.

“Like it?” she asked in her hoarse croak of a voice, eagerly.

“It’s–very nice,” Robert said without enthusiasm.

A twelve–by–fourteen room, a rickety bed, a dirty window whose g’ass was so warped he could hardly see through it, a single tiny closet–it wasn’t much of a room at all. But he couldn’t argue with a price of six bucks a week. Until he found work here in San Francisco, he was going to have to practice economies. Cheap eating-places, cheap movies, cheap hotel rooms.

The landlady—Mrs. Garvey, that was her name—walked to the window. Dust was thick enough to draw pictures in on the pane. “Lovely view you have from here,” she gabbled, indicating the fog-bound street with het twisted forefinger, Robert smiled and nodded. The view was of the other side of the street, a dozen close–packed old ramshackle houses just like this one, here in San Francisco’s North Beach district. Some view. Robert shrugged. For six bucks a week, what did the view matter?