The Best Horror of the Year Volume 3
Author: Ellen Datlow
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Short Stories; Anthologies; Fiction; Collections; Fantasy; Weird Fiction; Zombies; Paranormal; Short Story Collection
Description: A doctor makes a late-night emergency call to an exclusive California riding school; a professor inherits a mysterious vase... and a strange little man; a struggling youth discovers canine horrors lurking beneath the streets of Albany; a sheriff ruthlessly deals with monstrosities plaguing his rural town; a pair of animal researchers makes a frightening discovery at a remote site; a sweet little girl entertains herself... by torturing faeries; a group of horror aficionados attempts to track down an unfinished film by a reclusive cult director; a man spends a chill night standing watch over his

THE BEST
HORROR OF THE YEAR

VOLUME THREE

Edited by Ellen Datlow

Night Shade Books

San Francisco

The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Three

© 2011 by Ellen Datlow

This edition of The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Three

© 2011 by Night Shade Books

Cover art by Allen Williams

Interior layout and design by Amy Popovich

Photo of Ellen Datlow by Gregory Frost

Introduction, story notes, and arrangement © 2011 by Ellen Datlow.

First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-59780-217-8

E-ISBN:978-1-59780-326-7

Night Shade Books

Please visit us on the web at
www.nightshadebooks.com

I’d like to dedicate this volume to all the horror readers out there.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Peter Coleborn, Gary Couzens, Andrew Alford, Nick Mamatas for recommending stories to me.

Special thanks to Eugene Myers who has been my invaluable reader for the past several years.

I’d like to acknowledge the following magazines and catalogs for invaluable information and descriptions of material I was unable to obtain: Locus, Publishers Weekly, Dead Reckonings, and Prism (the quarterly journal of fantasy given with membership to the British Fantasy Society). I’d also like to thank all the editors who made sure I saw their magazines during the year, the webzine editors who provided printouts, and the book publishers who provided review copies in a timely manner. Also, the writers who sent me printouts of their stories when I was unable to acquire the magazine or book in which they appeared.

Thanks to Merrilee Heifetz and Jennifer Escott at Writers House.

And a very special thank you to Jeremy Lassen, Jason Williams, and Ross Lockhart.

SUMMATION 2010

The twenty-one stories, novelettes, and one poem chosen this year were published in anthologies, collections, chapbooks, magazines, and as part of an e-book. The contributors hail from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Six stories and the poem are by writers whose work I’ve never before taken for a Year’s Best.

In addition, although I didn’t reprint stories by them, I found several extremely promising writers of dark fiction (although not necessarily exclusively) whose work is well worth searching out: Angela Slatter, Stephen Bacon, and Genevieve Valentine.

Awards

The Bram Stoker Awards for Achievement in Horror are given by the Horror Writers Association. The awards for material appearing during 2009 were presented at the organization’s annual banquet held Saturday evening, March 27, 2010 in Brighton, England.

2009 Winners for Superior Achievement:

Novel: Audrey’s Door by Sarah Langan; First Novel: Damnable by Hank Schwaeble; Long Fiction: “The Lucid Dreaming” by Lisa Morton; Short Fiction: “In the Porches of My Ears” by Norman Prentiss; Fiction Collection: A Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O’Neill; Anthology: He Is Legend edited by Christopher Conlon; Nonfiction: Writers Workshop of Horror by Michael Knost; Poetry Collection: Chimeric Machines by Lucy A. Snyder; Lifetime Achievement Award: Brian Lumley, William F. Nolan.

Richard Laymon, President’s Award: Vince A. Liaguno; Silver Hammer Award: Kathryn Ptacek; Specialty Press: Tartarus Press.

The Shirley Jackson Award, recognizing the legacy of Jackson’s writing, and with permission of her estate, was established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. The awards were announced at Readercon 21, Sunday, July 11 2010, in Burlington, Massachusetts.

The winners for the best work in 2009:

Novel: Big Machine by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau); Novella: Midnight Picnic by Nick Antosca (Word Riot Press); Novelette: “Morality” by Stephen King (Esquire); Short Story: “The Pelican Bar” by Karen Joy Fowler, Eclipse 3 (Night Shade Books); Single Author Collection: Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson (Harper Perennial) and Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman (Big Finish Productions); Anthology: Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe edited by Ellen Datlow (Solaris).

The World Fantasy Awards were announced November 1, 2000 at the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary, Alberta. Lifetime Achievement recipients were previously announced.

Winners for the best work in 2009:

Life Achievement: Brian Lumley, Terry Pratchett, and Peter Straub; Novel: The City and the City by China Miéville (Macmillan UK/ Del Rey); Novella: “Sea-Hearts” by Margo Lanagan, X 6 (Coeur de Lion Publishing); Short Story: “The Pelican Bar,” by Karen Joy Fowler, Eclipse 3, (Night Shade Books); Anthology: American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny: From Poe to the Pulps/From the 1940s to Now edited by Peter Straub (Library of America); Collection: There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Penguin) and The Very Best of Gene Wolfe/The Best of Gene Wolfe, Gene Wolfe (PS Publishing/Tor Books); Artist: Charles Vess; Special Award Professional: Jonathan Strahan for editing anthologies; Special Award Non-Professional: Susan Marie Groppi for Strange Horizons.

Notable Novels of 2010

Moonshine by Alaya Johnson (Thomas Dunne Books) is a charming dark fantasy set in an alternate New York City of the 1920s. Miss Zephyr Hollis comes from a family of Defenders, humans who hunt down and kill all vampires, no matter whether they’re dangerous or not. Zephyr, a suffragette who fights for the rights of vampires, teaches night school to immigrants, many of them “Others”—non humans including vampires, skinwalkers, fairies, and even the occasional genie. Johnson does a good job incorporating the looseness of the roaring twenties with the viciousness of a vampire gang aided by the corruption of Jimmy Walker’s mayoralty.

The Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett (Alfred A. Knopf) is not as good as Burdett’s first three Bangkok novels featuring Thai police detective Sonchai Jipleecheep but it still makes for entertaining reading. It opens with the bizarre murder of an American movie director in Bangkok and moves to Tibet where there are so many twists that I’m still not completely certain I know whodunit.

But the author’s sense of place plus the weirdness and humor in the series will keep fans engrossed.

Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit) takes place in the dustbowl during the US’s Great Depression. An evil man is cutting a swathe of death throughout the country. A small group of those whose loved ones he’s murdered hunts him, and as the story continues, the reader begins to realize that in this worldview, almost every bit of progress American civilization has made was wrought literally in blood and sacrifice. While the ending doesn’t live up to the novel’s promise, the book is a good read.

A Dark Matter by Peter Straub (Doubleday) is an elegant, enjoyable gem of a novel by one of the best horror stylists working in the field today. The book, which reads much quicker than its 416 pages would suggest, is about the aftermath of a cataclysmic event that took place in the sixties when a group of teenagers were led by their self-styled guru into a mystical miasma for which none of them were prepared, with dire consequences for all of them. Now, years later, the one member of the group who did not fall under the spell of the guru is driven to investigate what exactly happened in the meadow to his friends.

A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files (Chizine Publications) is the debut novel (and first of a trilogy) by the very talented Canadian short story writer. Soon after the US Civil War a former reverend, now hexslinger (witch), and his outof-control lover and their outlaw gang are about to bring death and destruction on a monumental scale with the “help” of ancient gods. The two main characters are monsters in their disregard for human life and, initially, I found that plus their satyrism off-putting. The latter I gradually came to accept as part of the sex-magic engine of the plot.

Kraken: An Anatomy by China Miéville (Ballantine Books) is charming, funny, disgusting, inventive, and just plain entertaining. A young man working in the British Museum becomes enmeshed in a cult that worships a giant squid and someone’s plan to end the world in a final conflagration. This London is a living, breathing city with every part of it, from the sea to its masonry, taking part in the final battle. A few too many characters and extrusions off the main plot, but still satisfying.

Horns by Joe Hill (William Morrow) is the author’s masterful second novel in which a young man awakens after a drunken night, with horns growing out of his forehead and a strange power of persuasion and the ability to perceive the deepest desires of those around him. From there the book moves back in time, portraying the character’s happy youth up to the murder that ruins his life, and then back to the present as he tries to discover why he’s suddenly developed his weird powers. There’s a sense of wonder, humor, and horror that runs throughout this fine novel.

Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey (Eos) is the excellent sequel to Sandman Slim, and is about the continuing adventures of James Stark (aka Sandman Slim), a former denizen of Hell who is hired as Lucifer’s bodyguard while the Prince of Darkness is in Hollywood overseeing a movie of his life. I’ve heard some call it “pulp” but it’s way too well-written to describe it that way. It’s fun, bloody, and fast moving.

The Millennium Trilogy [The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Vintage), The Girl Who Played with Fire (Vintage), and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Knopf)] by Stieg Larsson creates one of the most memorable heroes of modern fiction: Lisbeth Salander, a young woman systematically abused by the Swedish social system from childhood, who has, despite this, grown into a brilliant computer hacker (although she’s lacking “people” skills). The three books make up a fascinating fictional study of government-wide corruption and truly live up to the first book’s original title Men Who Hate Women. The books are dark, violent, sexy and riveting.

The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster) is, as are all the Dave Robichaux novels, concerned with corruption, the arrogance of the remains of the aristocracy of Louisiana, and evil. I always enjoy this series, primarily because Burke has created such a wonderful set of characters. This time around his daughter is under threat as she becomes involved with an older man who has taken up with some exceedingly bad influences.

The Whisperers by John Connolly (Atria) is the Irish author’s ninth novel featuring former policeman Charlie Parker, a man both haunted and driven by the murders of his wife and child. This novel begins in war-torn Iraq, where a team of American soldiers returns home with a plan initially intended to aid their wounded brethren. Unfortunately, they’ve also brought back a supernatural relic that proves to be their undoing, as one by one they succumb to its violent suggestions. In addition, the seductive “Pandora’s box” attracts all sorts of unsavory attention, including from someone linked to Parker’s past.

So Cold the River by Michael Koryta (Little, Brown and Company) is an absorbing modern gothic about Eric Shaw, a failed moviemaker who gets a second chance when he’s hired by Alyssa Bradford to make a documentary about her husband’s father. Journeying to the Indiana spa town of West Baden Springs, Shaw is caught up in a clash of past and present as a result of the strange visions imparted to him by the mineral waters running beneath the town.

It Came from Del Rio: Part One of the Bunnyhead Chronicles by Stephen Graham Jones (Trapdoor Books) is a marvelous hard-edged, sometimes bloody, modern western about a widowed drug smuggler forced to abandon his young daughter when he’s tripped up by something really bad that he’s pressured into carrying across the Mexican-US border. Dodd Raine’s voice and plight engaged this reader totally. How can you not pick up a novel in which the legendary chupacabra is crucial to the plot?

Also noted

This is not meant to be all inclusive but merely a sampling of dark fiction available in 2010.

H. P. Lovecraft’s the Old Ones make another devastating appearance in Melinda Snodgrass’s The Edge of Ruin, sequel to The Edge of Reason (Tor). The Lovecraftian is also present in the reissue by Hippocampus Press of H. B. Drake’s 1928 novel The Shadowy Thing, with an Introduction by S. T. Joshi. Charles Stross’s The Fuller Memorandum (Ace) is a Lovecraftian dark fantasy in his Laundry Files series.

Zombies are still popping up all over—as in Mira Grant’s Feed (Orbit), first of a trilogy about life fifteen years after the outbreak. Linda Watanabe McFerron’s Dead Love is an international thriller taking place mostly in a Japan rife with yakuza and global conspiracy (Stone Bridge Press). Night Shade published Amelia Beamer’s first novel The Loving Dead, about a group of jaded hipsters living in Oakland, and the mashup, Harrison Geillor’s The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten. Married with Zombies by Jesse Petersen (Orbit) is about a couple breaking up in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. In Robin Becker’s Brains: A Zombie Memoir (Eos) the zombie protagonist just wants to bring peace to zombies and humans. Chasing the Dragon, a short novel by Nicholas Kaufmann (Chizine Publications), has zombies in it too, although these are animated by a dragon that reincarnates over many lifetimes and is always hunted by a “George” (of St. George and the Dragon). This George is female and a mess—a junkie who can barely keep herself together, let alone save the world. Pulpy fun, full of viscera. Bob Finger-man, whose Bottomfeeder was a clever satiric take on vampires, has now written Pariah (Tor), a novel about zombies coming to New York. Dust by Joan Frances Turner (Berkley) is about a fifteen-year-old girl killed in a car accident. Seven years later she’s a member of a zombie “family” that hunts, fights, and takes care of one another. Desperate Souls by Gregory Lamberson (Medallion) is a zombie mystery set in New York. Jonathan Maberry’s YA novel Rot and Ruin (Simon & Schuster) is about a teenage boy trying to survive in a world taken over by zombies. No Flesh Shall Be Spared by Carnell (ZED Presents) is about zombie pit fighting. Paul Is Undead by Alan Goldsher (Gallery) posits three of the Beatles as zombies, Ringo as a ninja. Stephen Jones creates his own Zombie Apocalypse! (Robinson/Running Press) with the help of nineteen writers who build a novel of interlocking parts via emails, blogs, letters, diaries, and transcripts. Play Dead by Ryan Brown (Gallery) is a humorous novel about a high school football team brought back from the dead in order to play for the championship.

Werewolves still roam the bookshelves—The Frenzy Way by Gregory Lamberson (Medallion) features a police procedural in a New York City overrun by werewolves. Left for Undead by L. A. Banks (St. Martin’s Press) is the sixth in the author’s Crimson Moon series. Francesca Lia Block’s The Frenzy (Harper Teen) is about a teenage werewolf. Jonathan Maberry provided the novelization of The Wolfman movie (Tor). Overwinter: A Werewolf Tale by David Wellington (Three Rivers) is a sequel to his novel Frostbite. A newly turned werewolf must survive hunters and the dangerous snow and ice in the Canadian Northern Territories.

Tom Fletcher’s The Leaping (Quercus) is about what happens when a young woman buys an old, mysterious ruin in the British countryside and gives a house party that quickly goes out of control.

Vampire fiction remains as popular as ever as shown by the reception given Justin Cronin’s The Passage, a bestselling and critically acclaimed first novel of a forthcoming trilogy. There were plenty of other vampire novels out in 2010 including Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Fall (HarperCollins/Morrow), a sequel to The Stain, about a viral vampire plague. Blood Prophecy by Stefan Petruchka (Grand Central) is about a vampire seeking a cure for his condition during the Napoleonic period. Mario Acevedo’s Werewolf Smackdown (Eos) combines both werewolves and vampires as a vampire detective investigates a werewolf gang war. Christopher Farnsworth’s Blood Oath (Penguin) is the first book in a series about a secret agent who has protected American presidents for over 140 years. Vintage Soul by David Niall Wilson (Eclipse) is a mystery about the abduction of a three-hundred-year-old vampire and the investigator called in to find her.

Other monsters: The Curse of the Wendigo, a YA novel by Rick Yancy (Simon & Schuster) is a sequel to the author’s The Monstrumologist. Dr. Pellinore Warthrop and his apprentice travel from Canada to New York City in search of who—or what—is responsible for a gruesome series of murders. Killer plants are the monsters in The Caretaker of Lorne Field by Dave Zeltserman (The Overlook Press). Frankenstein’s Monster by Susan Heyboer O’Keefe is a sequel to Mary Shelley’s classic (Random House/Three Rivers Press). Adam Nevill’s Apartment 16 might not be the best flat to inhabit in London (Pan, UK) judging from its history. But of course, an innocent inherits it from her possibly mad aunt and chooses to live there anyway. John Everson’s Siren is about a grief-stricken man seduced by a mythical creature. A Gathering of Crows by Brian Keene (Dorchester/Leisure) is about demonic creatures that feed on a small town. Sparrow Rock by Nate Kenyon (Leisure/Bad Moon Books) sports mutant monsters after a nuclear war. Mr. Monster by Dan Wells (Tor), sequel to I Am Not a Serial Killer, is about what happens in a small town after a demon was killed. Empire of Salt by Weston Ochse (Abaddon Books) is about what comes out of the sea in the California town of Bombay Beach. If you’re afraid of clowns, you might want to avoid Terry Dowling’s Clowns at Midnight (PS Publishing). Lady Lazarus by Michele Lang (Tor) is about a woman descended from witches who, during WWII, might be all there is between us and a Nazi takeover of the entire world.

Bentley Little’s The Disappearance (Penguin/Signet) is about a student who disappears at a Burning Man celebration. Michael Shea’s The Extra (Tor) is a clever novel about a Hollywood director who discovers just how popular killing extras (for real) on screen is when making monster movies. Hell Hollow by Ronald Kelly (CD) is about a Southern town with an ancient secret. Black Hills by Dan Simmons (Little Brown/Reagan Arthur Books) is about a Sioux boy haunted by the ghost of Custer. Dog Blood, the second of the Hater trilogy by David Moody (St. Martin’s Press), is about a plague of sudden rages and killings. In Alexandra Sokoloff ’s Book of Shadows (St. Martin’s Press) a detective investigates a ritualistic murder. No Sleep Till Wonderland by Paul Tremblay (Henry Holt) is the fine sequel to The Little Sleep, about a narcoleptic detective. Ramsey Campbell had a new novel out from PS called The Seven Days of Cain about a photographer who starts getting email from a serial killer. Kaaron Warren’s second novel Walking the Tree (Angry Robot) is about a massive tree that takes up most of an island and its hold on the community that lives around it. The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle (Henry Holt) is a prequel to Wuthering Heights and speculates on the childhood of Heathcliff. Sideshow by William Ollie (Dark Regions Press) is about a dark carnival that draws in two young boys.

Some notable debuts: The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin (Doubleday) of Australia is about a man cursed with second sight. Black and Orange by Benjamin Kane Ethridge (Bad Moon Books) is about the real purpose of Halloween. The Castle of Los Angeles by Lisa Morton (Gray Friar Press) is about a haunted theater and its new owner. Spellbent by Lucy A. Snyder (Del Rey) is about a young mage who, after barely surviving a fight with a demon, journeys to rescue her lover, who may be in Hell. Madigan Mine by Kirstyn McDermott (Picador Australia) is about a young man haunted (or possessed) by a woman who committed suicide.

Anthologies

The Bleeding Edge: Dark Barriers, Dark Frontiers edited by William F. Nolan and Jason V. Brock (Cycatrix Press/Dark Discoveries Publications) is a non-theme horror anthology with nineteen stories, skits, teleplays, screenplays, and one essay. The best pieces are the collaboration by Richard Matheson and R. C. Matheson, plus stories by Steve Rasnic Tem, Kurt Newton, Nancy Kilpatrick, Gary A. Braunbeck, Joe R. Lansdale, and a terrific story by Cody Goodfellow, reprinted herein. With a foreword by S. T. Joshi.

The Bitten Word edited by Ian Whates (Newcon Press) commits two sins from the get-go: no contributor bios and it includes a story by the editor. The only excuse for an editor including her own story is if the publisher demands it because said editor/author is a prominent writer whose name will sell the book. That out of the way, this collection of seventeen new vampire stories by mostly UK writers is entertaining, with the best stories by Sam Stone, Gary McMahon, Storm Constantine, Donna Scott, and Chaz Brenchley.

The Sixth Black Book of Horror is one of two volumes of this non-theme anthology series published in 2010, and both are of mixed quality, with the best of the fifteen stories in volume six by R. B. Russell, Reggie Oliver (reprinted herein), and Stephen Bacon. The Seventh Black Book of Horror contains seventeen stories this time out, with a few truly awful and some very fine ones. The strongest were by Oliver again, Joel Lane, Tony Richards, and Rog Pile. Both volumes are edited by Charles Black for his Mortbury Press. Neither book has contributor bios.

The End of the Line edited by Jonathan Oliver (Solaris) is a terrific anthology of all original (but one) stories about the Underground, Metro, or subway, as it’s called in various countries. Most of the nineteen new stories relate to the London underground and the variety and quality is admirable. One of the best of the year, with Mark Morris’s contribution reprinted herein.

The New Dead edited by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Press) is chock full of contributors from outside the usual genre box, and most of these nineteen new zombie stories are good ones. The most interesting were by Aimee Bender, Stephen R. Bissette, Mike Carey, Max Brooks, Joe Hill, Rick Hautala, Tim Lebbon, David Liss, Derek Nikitas, David Wellington, and Tad Williams.

Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology edited by Michelle McCrary and Joe McKinney (23 House) is not quite as successful as The New Dead. Most of the stories are retreads but there are a few notable for their originality and/or voice by Bev Vincent, Lee Thomas, Joe McKinney, and Mark Onspaugh. Each editor has a story in the anthology.

The Living Dead 2 edited by John Joseph Adams (Night Shade Books) follows up the editor’s popular 2008 all-reprint anthology, The Living Dead, with a second volume of forty-four stories, this time more than half published for the first time. The strongest of the originals are by Adam-Troy Castro, Genevieve Valentine, Mira Grant, Simon R. Green, Jamie Lackey, Carrie Ryan, Sarah Langan, David Wellington, a collaboration by John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow, and Karina Sumner-Smith, the last reprinted herein.

Dead History: A Zombie Anthology edited by Anthony Giangregorio (Living Dead Press) presents thirteen historical zombie stories. Unfortunately most add nothing new to the subgenre.

The Book of the Living Dead edited by John Richard Stephens (Berkley) collects more than four hundred pages of classic gothic stories of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries including over-anthologized stories such as “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” and more obscure works by writers such as Jack London, William Butler Yeats, and Amy Lowell.

Best New Zombie Tales, volume one edited by James Roy Daley (Books of the Dead) is the first of a three-volume set of zombie tales featuring all reprints (but one) by Ray Garton, Jonathan Maberry, Kealan Patrick Burke, and others. The one original, by Kim Paffenroth, is a good one.

The Best of All Flesh edited by James Lowder (Elder Signs Press) reprints twenty-two stories culled from the three previous volumes of zombie stories in the series. The book includes stories by Tom Piccirilli, Scott Edelman, Jesse Bullington, Kris Dikeman, and others.

Hungry for Your Love edited by Lori Perkins (St. Martin’s) features twenty-one zombie romance stories. Although the publicity sheet says the stories are all new, at least one was originally published over ten years ago. The anthology was previously published electronically in 2009 by Ravenous Romance.

The Dead that Walk edited by Stephen Jones (Ulysses Press) mixes twenty-four reprints and original zombie stories. The strongest of the originals are by Robert Shearman, Gary McMahon, Lisa Morton, Scott Edelman, and Christopher Fowler.

Rigor Amortis edited by Jaym Gates and Erika Holt (Absolute Xpress) features thirty-four mostly very brief stories of zombie erotica.

EVolVe: Vampire Stories of the New Undead edited by Nancy Kilpatrick (Edge) features twenty-four stories and one poem, all original and all intended to bring the vampire into the twenty-first century. The strongest stories are by Claude Bolduc, Gemma Files, Tanya Huff, Claude Lalumière, Rhea Rose, Michael Skeet, and Bev Vincent, and the poem by Sandra Kasturi is a good one.

Cthulhu’s Dark Cults: Ten Tales of Dark & Secretive Orders edited by David Conyers (Chaosium) is an impressive anthology of original stories about the various cults that H. P. Lovecraft dreamed up. Most of the stories are true to their source yet bring something new to the material. Notable stories by John Sunseri, David Conyers, Cody Goodfellow, and David Witteveen.

Louisiana Vampires compiled by Lawrence Schimel and Martin H. Greenberg (Fall River) is a thirteen-story anthology with three originals.

Madness of the Mind edited by Chris Bartholomew (Static Movement) contains thirty-three original stories.

Blood Lite II : Overbite edited by Kevin J. Anderson (Gallery) is the second volume in this humorous horror anthology series produced under the aegis of the Horror Writers Association. Of the thirty-one stories only a handful are dark—alas the humor generally dissipates the horror. But there are some interesting stories by Sharyn McCrumb, Jeff Ryan, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Steve Rasnic Tem, whose story is very funny.

Crimes by Moonlight edited by Charlaine Harris (Berkley Prime Crime) consists of twenty new paranormal crime stories published under the aegis of the Mystery Writers of America. Several of the darker stories will be of interest to horror readers. The most interesting were by Brendan Dubois, S. W. Hubbard, Jeffrey Somers, Jack Fredrickson, Steve Brewer, and Parnell Hall.

Terrible Beauty, Fearful Symmetry edited by Wendy Brewer (Darkhart Press) is an erotic horror anthology with twenty-seven new stories, the strongest by Marcy Italiano, John Everson, April Grey, Weston Ochse, Jason Palmer, J.L. Comeau, and Ron Clinton.

Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror edited by S. T. Joshi (PS) is an excellent all-original anthology that intends to expand the notion of what comprises a Lovecraftian story, much as my own Lovecraft Unbound did in 2009. Joshi has put together an admirable collection of such with consistently impressive stories, particularly those by Michael Marshall Smith, Laird Barron, and Norman Partridge, the last reprinted herein.

Cthulhu’s Reign edited by Darrell Schweitzer (DAW) focuses on the aftermath of the Old Ones’ reclamation of Earth for themselves. The fifteen varied stories show just how ugly that could get, with strong stories by John R. Fultz, Laird Barron, John Langan, Gregory Frost, Mike Allen, and Fred Chappell.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I left out one of my horror anthologies from my 2009 summary: Lovecraft Unbound (Dark Horse Books), which was (as mentioned earlier) intended to showcase a variety of stories that, while Lovecraftian in theme and feel, eschewed the tentacles, ichor, and Cthulhuian names of the mythos. Four of the stories were reprints, the other sixteen stories were original. One story, a collaboration by Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud, was reprinted in The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Two.

Night Terrors edited by Mark Ciccarone (Blood Bound Books) is made up of stories chosen by a contest. The best are by Lawrence Conquest and Desmond Warzel.

Australis Imaginarium edited by Tehani Wessely (Fablecroft Publishing) is the debut offering by a new independent press dedicated to the future of speculative fiction in Australia. The twelve stories were originally published between 1990 and 2009 and includes stories by established writers such as Lucy Sussex, Sean Williams, Deborah Biancotti, and Margo Lanagan, plus newer writers such as Ian McHugh and Angela Slatter.

Horror Library Volume 4 edited by R. J. Cavender and Boyd E. Harris (Cutting Block Press) is a nicely varied all-original non-theme anthology of twenty-nine stories. The strongest stories are by Catherine MacLeod, Colleen Anderson, Matthew Lee Bain, Lee Thomas, Ennis Drake, M. Alan Ford, Nate Kenyon, Hank Schwaeble, and Bentley Little.

Two new original anthologies of werewolf stories came out around the same time: Running With the Pack edited by Ekaterina Sedia (Prime) features twenty-two entertaining werewolf stories, the strongest of the thirteen originals by C. E. Murphy, Samantha Henderson, Maria V. Snyder, Marie Brennan, and Genevieve Valentine.

Full Moon City edited by Darrell Schweitzer and Martin H. Greenberg (Gallery Books) also takes on the werewolf, with fifteen original tales, the darkest and best by Gregory Frost, Holly Phillips, Peter S. Beagle, and Tanith Lee. Curse of the Full Moon edited by James Lowder (Ulysses Press) is a mostly reprint werewolf anthology using stories from such varied writers as Jonathan Carroll, Harlan Ellison, Gene Wolfe, Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, and Ursula K. Le Guin, and with one original by Darrell Schweitzer.

Scary Kisses edited by Liz Grzyb (Ticonderoga Publications) was, alas, not very scary, but instead consisted of fourteen paranormal romances by Australian writers.

Twice the Terror: The Horror Zine (Volume 2) edited by Jeani Rector (BearManor Media) is compiled from material originally published on the zine’s website.

Brighton Shock! edited by Stephen Jones (PS) is a formidable anthology of fiction (reprints and originals), nonfiction, and art created for the World Horror Convention held in Brighton, England, in 2010. It’s hardcover, with over 400 pages of treasures. The stories by Christopher Fowler and Tanith Lee are reprinted herein.

Where the Heart Is edited by Gary Fry (Gray Friar Press) features nineteen horror stories taking place around Great Britain from London, Glasgow, and Birmingham, to the less well-known areas of Sunderland, Dewsbury, and Wigan. It’s a meaty anthology with strong contributions by Mark Patrick Lynch, John Travis, Stephen Bacon, Simon Bestwick, Paul Finch, Joel Lane, D. F. Lewis, Mike O’Driscoll, Gary McMahon, Carole Johnstone, and Simon Kurt Unsworth.

Macabre: A Journey Through Australia’s Greatest Fears edited by Angela Challis and Dr. Marty Young (Brimstone Press) is an ambitious, almost seven-hundredpage, thirty-eight-story historical overview of Australian horror from 1836 to the present day. The three sections are made up of Classics; Modern Masters; and the New Era, the last section using both reprints and originals. The most powerful originals are by Gary Kemble, Kyla Ward, Stephen M. Irwin, Kirstyn McDermott, Richard Harland, Susan Wardle, and a collaboration by David Witteveen and David Conyers. The Harland story is reprinted herein. But there’s one perplexing omission: Margo Lanagan, one of the most lauded horror writers produced by Australia in a decade.

Gothic Toronto: Writing the City Macabre edited by Helen Walsh (Diaspora Dialogues and Luminato, 2009) is a small anthology of six ghost stories centered around Toronto, Ontario. The volume was published in honor of the two hundredth anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth and came out during the Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity. Margaret Atwood wrote the foreword. The strongest tales are by Nalo Hopkinson and Michelle Wan.

When the Night Comes Down edited by Bill Breedlove (DarkArts Books) has sixteen stories by four writers: Joseph D’Lacey, Bev Vincent, Robert Weinberg, and Nate Kenyon. Each contributor is represented by four reprints and originals.

Haunted Legends edited by myself and Nick Mamatas (Tor) has twenty new reimaginings of some of the best-known urban legends and ghost stories from around the world. Joe R. Lansdale’s “The Folding Man” is included herein.

Close Encounters of the Urban Kind edited by Jennifer Brozek (Apex Publications), another original anthology using urban legends as its starting point, has twenty new stories. The best is by Nathan Crowder.

Dark Faith edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon (Apex Publications) is loosely based around the theme of “faith”—not necessarily religious. It’s a mixed bag with the strongest horror stories by Nick Mamatas, Ekaterina Sedia, Kelly Barnhill, Gary A. Braunbeck, Matt Cardin, and Catherynne M. Valente, whose story is reprinted herein.

Back from the Dead: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror Stories selected by Johnny Mains (Noose & Gibbet Publishing) features twenty-one stories of which sixteen are new and five reprints by writers whose work appeared in the famous series. The new stories range in quality from subtle creepiness to screamingly obvious pulp. In this the anthology perfectly emulates the series to which it pays homage. There’s also a foreword by Shaun Hutson, an historical overview of the series by David A. Sutton, and a biographical essay about its long-time editor Herbert Van Thal. The strongest stories are by John Burke, Nicholas Royle, Conrad Hill, Roger Clarke, Jonathan Cruise, J. P. Dixon, Christopher Fowler, Myc Harrison, and Tony Richards.

Dark Pages: Tales of Dark Speculative Fiction edited by Brenton Tomlinson (Blade Red Press) focuses on dystopian and other dark speculative fiction and contains some very good stories by Naomi Bell, Lucien E. G. Spelman, Joel L. Murr, Aaron Polson, Derek Rutherford, and Robert Neilson.

Festive Fear (no editor credited) (Tasmaniac Publications) is a dark fiction anthology with fifteen stories based around Christmastime. The best are by Lee Thompson and Tom Piccirilli, who contributes a wonderfully controlled crime novella.

Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts edited by Stephen Jones (Ulysses Press) is a terrific mix of reprinted and original stories, most of them dark. The strongest of the originals are by Richard Christian Matheson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Jay Lake, Robert Shearman, Ramsey Campbell, Conrad Williams, and Christopher Fowler. The Matheson is reprinted herein.

The Yith Cycle edited and introduced by Robert M. Price (Chaosium) is an all-reprint anthology of stories by H. P. Lovecraft and others about the planet Yith and of travel through time and space.

The Tindalos Cycle edited by Robert M. Price (Hippocampus Press) reprints Frank Belknap Long’s “The Hounds of Tindalos” plus other stories inspired by that aspect of Lovecraft’s mythos. Two original poems by Ann K. Schwader and Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. are included.

Pill Hill Press published at least ten all or mostly original anthologies in 2010 and the quality was decidedly mixed. I suggest that in the future the publishers concentrate on bringing out fewer anthologies of higher quality.

Werewolves and Shapeshifters: Encounters with the Beast Within edited and with commentary by John Skipp (Black Dog and Leventhal) is a big mixed reprint/original anthology with thirty-five stories and appendices with historical and popular culture overviews of werewolves and shapeshifters. The best of the original stories are by Violet Glaze, Steve Rasnic Tem, Adam-Troy Castro, Bentley Little, Erik Shapiro, and Melanie Tem.

She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror edited by Tim Lieder (Dybbuk Press) is, thematically speaking, like carrying coals to Newcastle considering how much darkness pervades the Old Testament. But these nine reprints and originals of retold bible stories makes the old stories darker.

Specters in Coast Dust edited by Michael Knost (Woodland Press) presents fourteen original stories about ghost coal mines or miners. Unfortunately, the theme seems too narrow to inspire the variety such an anthology needs. The most interesting stories are by Steve Rasnic Tem and Tom Piccirilli.

Legends of the Mountain State 4 edited by Michael Knost (Woodland Press) has thirteen new stories based on West Virginia legends. The best are by Steve Rasnic Tem and Alethea Kontis.

Four Rode Out by Tim Curran, Brian Keene, Tim Lebbon, and Steve Vernon (Cemetery Dance Publications) has four original weird and horrific westerns. With great cover art by Mark Chadbourne.

The Blackness Within: Stories of the Pagan God Moccus edited by Gill Ainsworth (Apex Publications) has thirteen original stories about the Celtic God of fertility.

Through the Eyes of the Undead edited by Robert Essig (Library of the Living Dead) presents thirty-one stories (mostly short-shorts) from the zombie point of view.

Dracula’s Guest: A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories edited by Michael Sims (Bloomsbury/Walker) has twenty-two vampire stories from pre-Victorian times up to the early twentieth century.

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 21 edited by Stephen Jones (Robinson) had nineteen stories with only one overlapping with my own Best Horror Volume Two. Jones includes an introduction and a necrology, plus a listing of “useful addresses” for horror readers. Jones’s The Best of the Best New Horror (Running Press) collects stories from each year that Jones has been editing his Best New Horror series. Real Unreal: Best American Fantasy, Volume 3 edited by Kevin Brockmeier (Underland Press) is apparently the last volume of this series. The book has twenty stories originally published during 2009. Paula Guran’s inaugural volume of The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2010 was published by Prime, and is a 500+ page anthology with thirty-nine stories and novellas, four overlapping with my Best Horror of the Year.

I edited several all-reprint anthologies in 2010 that were dominated by or included horror, including the over 200,000 word volume Tails of Wonder and Imagination: Cat Stories (Night Shade Books) featuring horror stories by Stephen King, Kelly Link, Nancy Etchemendy, Graham Joyce, Neil Gaiman, Michael Marshall Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, and many others; The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Two (Night Shade Books), including an Honorable Mention list and Summary of the Year in Horror; Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror (Tachyon) showcasing twenty-five stories published between 1984—Clive Barker, to 2005—Joe Hill; and Digital Domains: A Decade of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Prime), a representation of the types of fiction I published in OMNI Online, Event Horizon, and SCIFICTION, with horror stories by Karen Joy Fowler, Nathan Ballingrud, and Richard Bowes.

Mixed-Genre Anthologies

Clockwork Phoenix 3: New Tales of Beauty and Strangeness edited by Mike Allen (Norilana Books) is a notable addition to the series with fifteen stories, some dark. The best of those are by Gregory Frost, Gemma Files, Georgina Bruce, and C. S. E. Cooney. Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics edited by Denise Hamilton (Akashic Books) has reprints by fifteen writers including James Ellroy, Leigh Brackett, Chester Himes, James M. Cain, Walter Mosley, and others. Son of Retro Pulp Tales edited by Joe R. Lansdale and Keith Lansdale (Subterranean Press) is ideal for fans of pulp fiction with ten original (and one reprint by Harlan Ellison) science fiction, fantasy, and horror adventure tales, with the strongest by Joe R. Lansdale and Cherie Priest. Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio (William Morrow) is composed of twenty-seven stories by science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and mainstream writers. The intent is two-fold: show (yet again) that good writers write good stories, no matter what genre (or not) they write in. And that the success of a story is to get the reader to turn the page. So how well does the book succeed with its self-imposed challenge? There’s a surprising lack of verve and voice that makes a story memorable and most I forgot as soon as I read them. However, some are memorable (not all horror): those by Joe R. Lansdale, Jeffrey Ford, Al Sarrantonio, Roddy Doyle, Lawrence Block, Neil Gaiman, and particularly Elizabeth Hand’s (which is barely fantastical). More Stories from the Twilight Zone edited by Carol Serling (Tor) features eighteen original stories (and one reprint) of fantasy and dark fantasy inspired by the classic television series. Sprawl edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press) is an excellent mixed-genre anthology of seventeen stories and one poem, with standouts of dark fiction by Paul Haines, Kaaron Warren, Simon Brown, Dirk Flinthart, Ben Peek, and Angela Slatter, plus excellent non-horror stories by Anna Tambour and Cat Sparks. The Dark End of the Street edited by Jonathan Santlofer and S. J. Rozan (Bloomsbury) showcases a strong selection of nineteen new crime stories usually tinged with sex. The darkest are by Lynn Freed, Jonathan Lethem, Val McDermid, Abraham Rodriguez, Jr., and S. J. Rozan. Songs of Love and Death edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (Gallery Books) is an enjoyable original anthology of science fiction, fantasy, and horror with seventeen stories by mostly bestselling authors. Varied in tone and subject and most of the stories are quite readable. The strongest dark stories are by Neil Gaiman, M. L. N. Hanover, and Marjorie M. Liu. The Company He Keeps edited by Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers is volume 22/23 of the magazineturned-anthology from PS Publishing. The stories run the gamut, including science fiction, fantasy, surrealism, ghost stories, and horror. The strongest of the darker stories (some mixed with sf) are by Chris Beckett, Steve Rasnic Tem, Gregory Norminton, James Cooper, Peter Hardy, Jack Ketchum, Don Webb, Joel Lane, Catherine J. Gardner, and Lucius Shepard. The Best of Talebones edited by Patrick Swenson (Fairwood) is a tribute to a consistently interesting small press magazine that published science fiction, fantasy and horror for thirty-nine issues. Requiems for the Departed edited by Gerard Brennan and Mike Stone (Morrigan Books) is an all-original anthology of crime stories based in Ireland, with some of the stories containing supernatural elements. For a crime/suspense anthology, some of the stories are surprisingly devoid of plot, suspense, or denouement. The best are by Arlene Hunt, John Grant, and Stuart Neville. Null Immortalis, Nemonymous Ten is the last volume in the experimental series Des Lewis has been publishing over the past several years. Scott Tullis won a competition to be named in each of the twenty-six stories of Null Immortalis and so he is, sometimes as a major character, more often in passing. The best darker stories are by Reggie Oliver, Stephen Bacon, Tim Nickels, Rachel Kendall, Marge Simon, S. D. Tullis, Joel Lane, Daniel Pearlman, and Gary Fry. Warriors edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (Tor) mostly features historical and contemporary fantasy, but a few stories of psychological horror might appeal to aficionados of the dark. There are notable stories by Lawrence Block, David Ball, James Rollins, Steven Saylor, and Peter S. Beagle. Kiss Me Deadly edited by Trisha Telep (Running Press Teens) has thirteen tales of paranormal love for young adults. The best is Daniel Waters’s powerful, horrific, and poignant tale of the zombie-like revival of teens who died in a car accident. Bites of Passion edited by Cecelia Tan (Red Silk Editions) is an anthology of eight stories of vampire erotica. Crimewave Eleven: Ghosts edited by Andy Cox (TTA Press) is the first volume published since 2008 of the original mystery/crime anthology series that evolved from the magazine Crimewave. This one’s filled with fourteen fine stories. Those that are the darkest and might be of most interest to horror readers are by Alison J. Littlewood, Nina Allan, Ilsa J. Bick, Richard Butner, Christopher Fowler, Joel Lane, and Mikal Trimm. Darkness on the Edge: Tales Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen (PS) is an interesting concept anthology, with stories a motley mix of genres. The dark stories that worked best for me were by Guy Adams, Kurt Dinan, and Lawrence C. Connolly. Scenes from the Second Storey edited by Amanda Pillar and Pete Kempshall (Morrigan Books) is another original anthology of stories inspired by music. This time the band is The God Machine, an alternative rock band from San Diego, popular in the early ’90s, and each of the thirteen contributors takes a track from the album Scenes from the Second Storey. The best of the darker stories are by Robert Hood, Felicity Dowker, and Andrew J. McKiernan. Never Again: Weird Fiction Against Racism and Fascism edited by Allyson Bird and Joel Lane (Gray Friar Press) presents twenty-three reprints and original stories about various kinds of intolerance. Some of the stories are a bit heavy-handed and a few are so oblique that it's difficult to see how they relate to the theme, but on the whole it’s a good anthology. The best of the originals is by Alison J. Littlewood. Sympathy for the Devil edited by Tim Pratt (Night Shade) has thirty-five reprints about the devil, with a roster including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Natalie Babbitt, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Holly Black. Classics Mutilated edited by Jeff Connor (IDW) features thirteen new mashups of classics of literature with horror tropes, creating a strange brew of concepts and stories that sometimes work, sometimes don’t—and rarely generate disquiet or dread. The best are by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Joe R. Lansdale, and Nancy A. Collins. Tesseracts Fourteen: Strange Canadian Stories edited by John Robert Colombo and Brett Alexander Savory (Edge) is an annual—this one had very little horror except for stories by Michael Lorenson, Catherine MacLeod, Susan Forest, and Leah Silverman. The End of the World edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Skyhorse) has nineteen reprints about the apocalypse. Sing Sorrow Sorrow: Dark and Chilling Tales edited by Gwen Davies (Seren) are twenty-two mysterious and sometimes weird tales with a fairy tale/mythic feel but only a few are dark or chilling. The strongest are by Anne Lauppe-Dunbar, Imogene Rhia Harrad, Deborah Kay Davies, Niall Griffiths, Cynan Jones, Roshi Fernando, and Tristan Hughes. Fangs for the Mammaries edited by Esther Friesner (Baen) is an original anthology about suburban vampires. Best American Noir of the Century edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) contains thirty-nine stories published between 1923 (starting with “Spurs,” by Tod Robbins, the source material for Tod Browning’s classic film Freaks) and 2007. Contributors include Harlan Ellison, Charles Beaumont, David Morrell, Patricia Highsmith, Ed Gorman, Jeffery Deaver, Joyce Carol Oates, and others. My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales edited by Kate Bernheimer (Penguin) has both retold and brand new fairy tales, and is a mixture of reprints and originals. Some of the contributors who often write genre fiction are Brian Evenson, Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link, Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, and Katherine Vaz. With a foreword by Gregory Maguire. Wilde Stories 2010: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction edited by Steve Berman (Lethe Press) has twelve stores of sf/f/h (including “Strappado” by Laird Barron). Kaiki: Uncanny Tales from Japan, Volume 2: Country Delights selected and introduced by Higashi Masao (Kurodahan Press) with a foreword by Robert Weinberg and Masao about the rise of Japanese weird fiction. The volume covers 1776 to 2005 with ten stories.

Single-Author Collections

Occultation by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books) is the second collection by a writer with a sure hand and a memorable voice. If you want literary horror with a fair share of visceral chills and the occasional shock, you’ll find no better. The three originals—two novellas and a short story—are all excellent. One of the originals, “--30--” is reprinted herein. Several of the other stories have been reprinted in my earlier Year’s Best anthologies. One of the best horror collections of the year.

The Ones That Got Away by Stephen Graham Jones (Prime) is an important collection containing eleven powerful stories published since 2005 and two new ones. Jones’s work is visceral, violent, and disturbing. With an insightful introduction by Laird Barron and story notes by the author. Several of the stories were reprinted in various Year’s Best anthologies, including my own, and one of the originals, “Till the Morning Comes” is reprinted herein.

Lesser Demons by Norman Partridge (Subterranean Press) collects ten stories written since 2000, one brand new. Partridge is a writer who is equally at home in whatever genre his tale falls: hard-boiled western, contemporary noir, or monster tale. The title novelette, the Lovecraftian “Lesser Demons” is reprinted herein (it’s also in S. T. Joshi’s 2010 anthology Black Wings). Cemetery Dance published Johnny Halloween: Tales of the Dark Season, a second, briefer collection of work by Partridge. In it are seven stories, one new and an introduction by the author.

Lost Places by Simon Kurt Unsworth (Ash-Tree Press) is an excellent debut collection with eighteen stories, fourteen of them never before published. The stories are varied in tone, setting, and character. Several are particularly creepy. One of the best of the year.

Tenebrous Tales by Christopher Barker (Ex Occidente Press) is another fine debut collection that showcases the author’s talent for both the formality of the traditional gothic tale and for depicting disturbing graphic violence in more contemporary types of horror. Four of the ten stories are original to the collection.

The Bride Stripped Bare by Rachel Kendall (Dog Horn Publishing, 2009) is an amazing debut collection of twenty-three very brief but powerful and disturbing tales. More than half appear for the first time.

Undertow and Other Laments by Michael Kelly (Dark Regions Press) is number four in the publisher’s New Voices of Horror Series. Kelly’s work in this, his second collection is often quite effective and he’s a writer to watch. There are eighteen stories, four published for the first time.

Tragic Life Stories by Steve Duffy (Ash-Tree Press) showcases nine stories by a talented writer whose work has been published in various Best of the Year anthologies (including my own). I’ve often marveled at his fine writing and varied stories but this time out I feel there’s too much emphasis on the grim, bleak, and gray, and too much focus on brittle, deteriorating relationships. Six of the stories are new and they’re all worth reading—just not one right after the other. My favorite of the lot is the one that is the most different from the others: the novella, “The First Time.”

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King (Scribner/Cemetery Dance) is King’s third novella collection and his most recent since 1990’s Four Past Midnight. The four novellas are “1922,” “Big Driver,” “A Good Marriage,” and “Fair Extension.”

The Juniper Tree and Other Blue Rose Stories by Peter Straub (Subterranean) contains the four stories related to Straub’s Blue Rose trilogy of novels. The book includes an interview with the author by Bill Sheehan.

Stranger in the House: The Collected Short Supernatural Fiction, Volume One by Lisa Tuttle (Ash-Tree Press) covers stories written between 1972 and 1985 and is organized chronologically by the dates they were written. With an introduction by Stephen Jones.

Pieces of Midnight by Gary McMahon (Ash-Tree Press) is a fine collection of seventeen stories of contemporary supernatural fiction filled with the pain of loss, due to abandonment or death. Seven of the stories are original to the collection. There’s an introduction by Steve Duffy and McMahon has supplied notes for each story.

The Terrible Changes by Joel Lane (Ex Occidente Press) is an excellent collection published in 2009, but which I only received in 2010. It contains fourteen stories, twelve previously uncollected, two published for the first time. Lane’s foreword describes his evolution as a writer of weird fiction and the stories range over his so-far twenty-five-year career.

Futile Efforts by Tom Piccirilli (Cemetery Dance) is a big (almost 500 pages) collection of sixteen stories, one novella, and forty-five poems. Each story is introduced by a notable writer. Piccirilli writes hard-edged, sometimes bloody stories in an always engaging voice. The one original story, while not horror, should still please his fans.

Literary Remains by R. B. Russell (PS) is the second collection of stories by a writer who in the past few years has been making a name for himself with his well-written weird and dark fiction, although he's still better known for being the publisher of Tartarus Press. The ten stories, eight new, are all well worth reading.

Souls Along the Meridian by Bill Congreve (Blade Red Press) features thirteen stories by the noted Australian editor, publisher, and writer, published between 1987 and 2010 in mostly Australian magazines and anthologies. One gruesome little tale is original to the collection.

The Old Knowledge & Other Strange Tales by Rosalie Parker (The Swan River Press) is a lovely little hardcover debut with eight uncanny stories, five of them published for the first time. The stories are more odd than frisson-producing and I felt some of the endings needed a bit more oomph to them. But still, a very readable collection.

This Way to Egress by Lawrence C. Connolly (Ash-Tree) has eighteen stories of horror, ghost, and mystery, plus a retrospective overview of the author's thirty-year career. One story is original to the collection.

Pelican Cay & Other Disquieting Tales by David Case (PS) is the author’s first collection in more than a decade. In it are seven stories, two of them previously unpublished novellas, one a new, very well-told conte cruel. Stephen Jones edited the collection and has provided an introduction. Randy Broecker’s black and white illustrations run throughout the book.

John Llewellyn Probert had two collections out in 2010: Wicked Delights (Atomic Fez), collecting eighteen stories, seven new, and Against the Darkness (Screaming Dreams), featuring Mr. Massene Henderson, a detective of the supernatural and his lovely assistant Samantha Jephcott in eleven entertaining stories, five of them new. The concluding novella is both horrific and charming, in equal measure.

Paul Finch had a productive year with three collections out in 2010: Craddock (Ghostwriter Publications) is an e-book collection of four novellas about a Victorian detective of the supernatural. The one original, “The Coils Unseen,” is very strong. One Monster Is Not Enough (Gray Friar Press) has eight novellas and novelettes, four original, and Walkers in the Dark (Ash-Tree Press) features five very good original stories and novellas.

Dark Regions published two collections by Paul Melniczek: A Haunted Halloween, with twelve tales, five original. Cover and interior art by Frank Walls and Monster, containing eight monster stories, all but two originals.

Slag Attack by Andersen Prunty (Eraserhead Press) features four interconnected stories about a grim, surreal post-apocalyptic world.

Seven Deadly Pleasures by Michael Aronovitz (Hippocampus Press) is a debut collection consisting of six stories and a long novella, four published for the first time. The best new story is “How Bria Died,” which was also published in the summer issue of Weird Tales. With a foreword by S. T. Joshi.

Nightmare-Touch by Lafcadio Hearn (Tartarus Press), edited and introduced by Paul A. Murray, is a fine introduction to the writer’s work and life. In addition to writing horror stories, world traveler Hearn wrote many books on Japanese culture and translated Japanese ghost tales. Included in the volume are thirty-five stories of fantasy, Chinese and Japanese ghost stories, “strange literature,” and a couple of Creole tales.

What Will Come After: The Complete Zombie Stories by Scott Edelman (PS) collects nine of the author’s zombie stories, with one new one, the title story, which is the strongest. Several of Edelman’s stories are quite poignant, as he delves into the emotional lives of those that return from death.

Wait for the Thunder by Donald R. Burleson (Hippocampus Press) has twenty-seven short stories, most published between 1974 and 2009, with two original to the collection.

Sub Rosa by Robert Aickman (Tartarus Press) is a reprint of the collection of eight tales originally published in 1968. With an introduction by Tartarus publisher Ray Russell. The volume is the first in a projected series of reprints of Aickman’s stories.

Unbound & Other Tales by David Dunwoody (Library of Horror Press) has a short novel and eight stories, five published for the first time.

The Beautiful Red by James Cooper (Atomic Fez) is the author’s second collection and contains twelve stories, five original to the collection. The others were mostly published in Black Static.

Do-Overs and Detours by Steve Vernon (Dark Regions Press) is part of their New Voices of Horror series. The volume has fifteen stories, five new. Some are dark, some weird.

Deadman’s Road by Joe R. Lansdale (Subterranean) is collection of five stories featuring the Rev. Jebediah Mercer, from his first appearance in Dead in the West to one new story called “The Dark Down There.”

As the Worm Turns by Brian Rosenberger (Blue Room Publishing) has twenty-two stories, seven of them published for the first time. Songs from Spider Street by Mark Howard Jones (Screaming Dreams) has twenty-five short shorts by the author, most new. Breaths in Winter by Donn Burgess (Naked Snake Press) has thirty-one stories, eight new.

Dark Awakenings by Matt Cardin (Mythos Books) follows his first collection Divinations of the Deep by presenting six formerly uncollected stories (with one original) along with some of his scholarly work about the genre, including two previously unpublished papers about George Romero’s Living Dead movies. Much of Cardin’s fiction focuses on cosmic horror.

Tempting Providence and Other Stories by Jonathan Thomas (Hippocampus Press) is the author’s second collection of twelve “strange”—rather than horror—stories. All appear for the first time.

In Concert by Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem (Centipede) is the second collection of collaborative stories by the Tems, including the award-winning novella “The Man on the Ceiling.” The book contains twenty-one pieces that cross genres from horror to sf to mainstream fiction. One novelette is new and it’s a good one.

In the Mean Time by Paul Tremblay (Chizine), with fifteen stories, presents a good and varied selection of the author’s short fiction since 2004, most of it dark. Four of the stories are new.

Beneath the Surface by Simon Strantzas (Dark Regions Press) is an expansion of the author’s collection with the same title, originally published in 2008 by Humdrumming Press. There is one new story.

The Best of Joe R. Lansdale by Joe R. Lansdale (Tachyon) is a retrospective of Lansdale’s short stories and novellas from 1982 to 2007. It includes several of his Bram Stoker Award-winning stories plus The Big Blow.

The Secret Backs of Things by Christopher Golden (Cemetery Dance) is the author’s first collection and contains seventeen stories and one novella published between 1994 and 2007. The book is illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne and has a dust jacket by Alan M. Clark. With an introduction by Tim Lebbon.

Seven Ghosts and One Other by C. E. Ward (Sarob Press) heralds the welcome return of the press that shuttered its doors in 2007. The stories are M. R. Jamesian in tone and two are new. The volume comes with an afterword and brief story notes by the author.

Dear Dead Women by Edna W. Underwood (Tartarus Press) showcases the nine stories making up the supernatural and decadent fiction oeuvre of this American writer, who lived from 1873–1961. The book includes a story that has never been reprinted since its first publication in 1920. Introduction by S. T. Joshi.

Last Exit for the Lost by Tim Lebbon (Cemetery Dance) showcases over 550 pages of the British author’s work since 1999. In addition to seventeen reprints there are two new pieces, one a powerful novella about a woman taken prisoner by not so heavenly creatures who are convinced only she can save the world from apocalypse.

Cities of Night by Philip Nutman (Chizine Publications) collects ten stories published between 1990 and 2010, two original to the collection.

Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories (The Library of America) brings together into one compact volume the novels We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House, plus all the stories from her collection The Lottery, and twenty-one additional stories and sketches of the macabre and of domestic life selected by Joyce Carol Oates.

Quill & Candle by Scott Thomas (Ghost House) is a collection of seventeen ghost stories about New England, all new, all taking place during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Darkness, Mist & Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper, Volumes One and Two edited and with an introduction by Stephen Jones (PS Publishing) as a set comes in at over twelve hundred pages.

In Sickness by L. L. Soares and Laura Cooney (Skullvine Press) has six stories by Soares, five by Cooney plus one novella-length collaboration. Three of the stories and the collaboration are new.

Wine and Rank Poison by Allyson Bird (Dark Regions) is Bird’s second collection and is concerned with revenge. There are three reprints, seven original stories, and one excerpt from a forthcoming novel.

Skull Full of Kisses by Michael West (Graveside Tales) has ten stories, two published for the first time.

The Collected Connoisseur by Mark Valentine and John Howard (Tartarus Press) brings together all the stories from two previous Tartarus volumes, In Violet Veils and Masques and Citadels, about an aesthetical detective and adds four, previously uncollected tales.

Nocturnal Emissions by Jeffrey Thomas (Dark Regions Press) has nine stories and novellas, three of them original to the collection.

Hellfire and Damnation by Connie Corcoran Wilson (Sam’s Dot) is thematically based on Dante’s Inferno and contains fifteen original and reprinted tales.

The Disappeared and Other Stories by Ray Garton (Camelot Books) contains four novellas and a new short novel. The book has two dozen black and white illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne.

Frank Belknap Long: Masters of the Weird Tale edited by John Pelan (Centipede Press) is a giant (over 1,000 pages) omnibus of Long’s work, with many of the stories reprinted for the first time. Profusely illustrated throughout with new illustrations by Allen Koszowski, Randy Broecker, and Gwabryel, and classic illustrations by Lee Brown Coye, Harry Clarke, Hannes Bok, and Virgil Finlay.

Occasional Demons by Rick Hautala (Cemetery Dance) is the author’s second collection. Its twenty-nine stories includes three collaborations and one original, each illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne. A good-looking collectible for fans of the author’s work.

Little Things by John R. Little (Bad Moon Books) features twenty-three stories, all but six previously published. With an introduction by Mort Castle and story notes by the author.

Blood & Gristle by Michael Louis Calvillo (Bad Moon Books) has twenty stories, each illustrated by Daniele Serra.

A Host of Shadows by Harry Shannon (Dark Regions Press) is Shannon’s first collection in almost a decade. It contains twenty-five stories—a few of them new—an introduction by Rick Hautala, and story notes by the author.

Bone Soup by T. M. Wright (Cemetery Dance) subtitled, “This and That and Bric-A-Brac,” is an accurate title, mixing some of Wright’s poetry, his art, and his fine short stores in this first collection. Although better known for his novels and novellas, his best stories are powerful gems.

Mixed-Genre Collections

The Hair Wreath and Other Stories by Halli Villegas (Chizine Publications) is an impressive debut collection of magic realism, dark fantasy, and even one eerie and creepy science fiction ghost story. Although a few of the stories are open ended in a way that suggests that the author didn’t know how to finish them, this certainly heralds a fresh new voice. All but one of these sixteen short stories are published for the first time. The extremely talented Angela Slatter had two collections published in 2010: Sourdough (Tartarus) and The Girl with No Hands (and Other Tales) (Ticonderoga Publications). Many of Slatter’s stories are dark retellings of classic fairy tales, following in the tradition of Angela Carter and Tanith Lee. In The Girl with No Hands (and Other Tales) there are sixteen stories, three original to the volume. Sourdough has sixteen stories, only four previously published. Each stands alone, even though the stories and characters are often related to previous stories. Going Back by Tony Richards (Dark Regions Press) is an expansion of a collection that was originally published in 2007. This edition has four additional stories written and published since then. Tales from the Fragrant Harbour by Garry Kilworth (PS Publishing) is divided into two sections—one filled with non-genre stories and the other half supernatural stories. The horror stories have all been published previously, the mainstream stories are new. Kilworth writes really well about different places and cultures. Holiday by the remarkable M. Rickert (Golden Gryphon) is a beauty of a book with illustrations for each of the eleven holiday-themed stories (the one original—quite dark—is reprinted herein). Rickert’s work has mostly been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and runs the gamut of fantastic genres including science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror. Although her stories are sometimes grim, they’re always worth reading. Several of the stories were chosen for Best of the Year anthologies. How They Were Found by Matt Bell (Keyhole Press) is an impressive debut by a writer better known in literary circles than in genre. Of the thirteen stories, three were first published during 2010 and those three are good and dark. A name to look out for. Animythical Tales by Sarah Totton (Fantastic Books) is a first collection of ten stories (two published for the first time) by a promising newcomer whose work has been published in such magazines and anthologies as Realms of Fantasy, Black Static, Writers of the Future, and The Nine Muses. The Third Bear by Jeff VanderMeer (Tachyon Publications) is an absorbing mixed bag of fourteen stories and novellas including one powerful original about a talking rabbit. The Mascarons of the Late Empire & Other Studies by Mark Valentine (Passport Levant) features four original weird tales. Boarding Instructions by the entertaining master of whimsy, Ray Vukcevich (Fairwood Press), features thirty-three stories, a few of which are dark, one new to the collection. SIN & ashes by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (Hippocampus Press) is a deliciously varied and ambitious collection of mostly new stories and poems of dark fantasy, weird fiction, and horror by a writer who is quickly making a name for himself. One poem is reprinted herein. The Man Who Collected Machen & Other Stories by Mark Samuels (Ex Occidente Press) is, overall, full of weird rather than horrific stories but is a treat for readers with that interest. More than half of the twelve stories appear for the first time. The Ammonite Violin and Others by Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Press) collects twenty pieces of varying lengths and mixed genre, all originally published between December 2005–October 2007 in the Sirenia Digest, Kiernan’s monthly email subscription journal. This volume is a wonderful peek into the creative mind of a major dark fantasy/ horror writer. A Web of Black Widows by Scott William Carter (PS) is #7 in the publisher’s mini-collection series and has six stories, four new, by a promising new writer. The Library of Forgotten Books by Rjurik Davidson (PS), #8 in the publisher’s mini-collection series, presents six dark fantasy/sf stories in this upand-coming Australian’s first collection. Four of the six stories are new. Two new Ray Bradbury collections (of previously collected material) were published by Subterranean Press and PS. There is no overlap, although “Long After Midnight” appears in both volumes (as a novella in the Subterranean Press edition and as a short story in the PS edition). A Pleasure to Burn by Ray Bradbury (Subterranean Press) collects sixteen stories related to Fahrenheit 451 and although it’s got gorgeous jacket art by Joseph Mugnaini, there are no editorial notes, no introduction, and not even copyright or first publication information. PS’s Long After Midnight has twenty-two stories, each with a black & white illustration, but again no copyright/first publication information. However, there is an introduction by Ramsey Campbell. Florida Gothic Stories by Vicki Hendricks (Kitsune Books) is the first collection of a writer known for her fierce, brutal noir novels including Miami Purity, Iguana Love, and Voluntary Madness. Dead Sea Fruit by Kaaron Warren (Ticonderoga Publications) is the perfect showcase for one of the brightest stars in recent Australian dark fiction, whether it be science fiction or out-and-out horror. The twenty-seven stories aptly demonstrate Warren’s range. Two new stories are included. Unpleasant Tales by Brendan Connell (Eibonvale) has twenty-two stories, most reprints, from magazines and anthologies including Redsine, Dark Horizon, Polyphony, Strange Tales, Nemonymous, and Darkness Rising. Ventriloquism by Catherynne M. Valente (PS) is, surprisingly, the author’s first collection, surprising because Valente seems remarkably prolific and because she’s been writing marvelous short stories and novels for several years. The book features thirty-two stories published between 2005 and 2010. Several of the stories are dark, all are luscious. Surprising too that The Poison Eaters and Other Stories by Holly Black (Small Beer Press/Big Mouth House) is this author’s first collection, as she’s played an important part in young adult literature for at least a decade. The twelve stories are mostly reprints (two originals, one a very good horror tale) and they are by turn clever, funny, and scary (sometimes all three at the same time). With illustrations by Theo Black. Leviathan Wept and Other Stories by Daniel Abraham (Subterranean Press) is the author’s first collection and has nine stories, one original. Abraham writes sf, fantasy, and horror. Fungus of the Heart by Jeremy Shipp (Raw Dog Screaming Press) is the author’s second collection. These thirteen stories (seven published for the first time) are more surreal and weird than dark or horrific and occasionally the strangeness veers into anarchy, creating incoherence rather than an actual believable story. Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories by Fritz Leiber, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Charles L. Brown (Night Shade Books), is, at seventeen stories, just a sampling of the great short story writer’s oeuvre in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The stories, published between 1941 and 1983, were chosen to demonstrate Leiber’s range in subject matter and tone. Neil Gaiman provides an introduction. Boneyard Babies by Alan M. Clark (Lazy Fascist) has sixteen short stories that are just too goofy or nonsensical to be very horrific. More than half are new, some are collaborations. Beneath the Surface of Things by Kevin Wallace (Bards & Sages) has twenty-four brief tales, fifteen new, and some exceedingly dark. Slow Sculpture, Volume XII of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, covering 1970–1972, contains the stories from Sturgeon is Alive and Well, adding two others, one previously unpublished. Case and the Dreamer, Volume XIII of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon covers 1973–1983, adding one previously uncollected story from 1960 and three previously unpublished stories (both are from North Atlantic Books). Although most of Sturgeon’s short fiction writing is science fiction and fantasy, some of his stories are very dark indeed. Cate Gardner’s collection, Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits and other curious things (Strange Publications) is filled with twenty-four exceedingly strange tales of an alien with a fishbowl head, an undead carnival, mechanical firefighters, and other marvels. Sometimes dark, certainly original. Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman (Big Finish-2009) as with all his fiction, provides an interesting mix of the humorous and grotesque in these eighteen new and reprinted stories. A Life on Paper by George-Olivier Châteaureynaud, translated from the French by Edward Gauvin (Small Beer Press), presents twenty-three whimsical, strange, and darkly fantastic tales.

Journals, Newsletters,
Magazines, and Webzines

It’s important to recognize the work of the talented artists working in the field of fantastic fiction, both dark and light. The following artists created art that I thought especially noteworthy during 2010: David Gentry, Ben Baldwin, Jim Burns, Arthur Wang, Hanna Glöd, Inna Hansen, Russell Dickerson, Keith Minnion, Steven C. Gilberts, Ming Doyle, Lizard, Chris Nurse, Robert Dunn, Dave Senecal, Mark Pexton, Howard Watts, Paul Sizer, Timothy Truman, Aaron Paquette, Stephen J. Clark, Pierre Smit, Vincent Sammy, Alan Beck, Ric Rawling, Matt Bissett-Johnson, Andrew Saltmarsh, Stacy Drumm, Alex McVey, Glenn Chadbourne, Jill Bauman, Vincent Castiglia, George Cotronis, Garret Dechellis, Daniele Serra, Joachim Luetke, Alberto Seveso, David G. Barnett, Lynne Taylor Fahnestalk, David Schembri, Shawn Kavanaugh, James Owen, Vincent Chong, Andrew J. McKiernan, Russell Morgan, John Banitsiotis, and Mara Sternberg.

Because of the annual turnover in small-press magazines—most rarely last more than a year or two—it’s difficult to recommend buying a subscription to those that haven’t proven their longevity. But I urge readers to at least buy single issues of those that sound interesting. Most magazines have web sites with subscription information, eliminating the need to include it here.

Some of the most important magazines/webzines are those specializing in news of the field, market reports, and reviews. The Gila Queen’s Guide to Markets, edited by Kathryn Ptacek and emailed to subscribers on a regular basis, is an excellent fount of information for markets in and outside the horror field. Market Maven, edited by Cynthia Ward, is a monthly email newsletter specializing in professional and semi-professional speculative fiction market news. Ralan.com and Duotrope.com are the web sites for up-to-date market information. Locus, edited by Liza Groen Trombi and Amelia Beamer, and Locus Online, edited by Mark Kelly, specialize in news about the science fiction and fantasy fields, but include horror coverage as well.

The only major venues specializing in reviewing short genre fiction are Tangent Online, Locus Magazine, and Locus Online, but none of them specialize in horror.

Of the three nonfiction magazines I read that specialize in movies, my favorite is Video Watchdog, a bi-monthly edited by Tim Lucas. It specializes—some would say obsesses—over minute details of all kinds of movies, and is erudite yet entertaining. In addition to reviews of movies, it has a regular audio column by Douglas E. Winter, a book review column, and a regular column by Ramsey Campbell. Fangoria, edited by Chris Alexander, is the daddy of the existing magazines that cover horror movies of all types, and, overall, it’s superficial but entertaining, covering big budget and independent horror productions, the grislier the better. The magazine also features regular columns on news, DVD releases, video games, horror music, comics, and books. And lots of gore. In 2010 there was a good two-part piece by Stephen King on “What’s Scary?” analyzing some of his favorite movies (including a description of The Blair Witch Project that makes me want to watch it again). Rue Morgue, edited by Jovanka Vuckovic, is another monthly media magazine covering horror in all its bloody glory (with the still photos to prove it) but unlike Fangoria, in between the gore there are often thoughtful articles and columns. The 13th anniversary Halloween issue focused on Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (happy 50th birthday!), with a panel convened about the movie’s influence, plus articles about the movie’s score, its development from novel to screenplay, and its sequels. One of the best things about Rue Morgue is its regular “Classic Cut” column on the last page of the magazine, which covers excellent, often obscure horror sources such as John Webster’s seventeenth century play The Duchess of Malfi.

Dead Reckonings: A Review of Horror Literature, edited by S. T. Joshi and Tony Fonseca and published twice yearly by Hippocampus Press, is a fine review journal focusing on contemporary work while also considering the classics. Ramsey Campbell’s entertaining columns, “Ramsey Campbell, Probably,” are reprinted.

Machenalia: The Newsletter of the Friends of Arthur Machen is free to members, along with the twice-yearly journal Faunus. The organization’s main purpose is to encourage a wider recognition of, and foster familiarity with, Machen’s work, and to provide a focus for critical debate. For more information: www. machensoc.demon.co.uk

New Horizons edited by Andrew Hook for members of the British Fantasy Society is tuned more toward fantasy than horror but its sister publication, Dark Horizons, edited by Stephen Theaker, takes care of that. There were good horror stories by Mike Chinn, Ian Hunter, Philip Meckley, Neill Boyce, and Ralph Robert Moore. Both magazines also contain interviews, profiles, and nonfiction articles.

Weird Fiction Review edited by S. T. Joshi is a new, hefty annual journal with fiction and nonfiction. The first issue, published in fall 2010, is quite promising with six original stories, five poems, eight essays, and a color gallery of artist David Ho’s work. The fiction is very strong, with standouts by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. and Jason C. Eckhardt.

Cemetery Dance edited by Richard Chizmar came out with its Halloween issue in May. There were interviews with Al Sarrantonio and Ronald Kelly, book reviews, columns on Stephen King and on the horror world in general, and eight pieces of fiction. The second 2010 issue came out in the fall, with a tribute to Bentley Little featuring two new stories, an interview, a capsule description of each of his books, and a review of his most recent novel. The issue also had a roundtable discussion with some of the contributors, and snippets of several stories from Christopher Golden’s zombie anthology The New Dead. Every issue also has book reviews and several regular columns.

Black Static, edited by Andy Cox, is always a joy to read, not the least because it looks good, inside and out. During 2010, the bi-monthly featured interviews, book and movie reviews, publishing and media news, and commentary in addition to fiction. During the year there was notable fiction by Lynda E. Rucker, Mike O’Driscoll, Tim Casson, James Cooper, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Ray Cluley, Nate Southard, Norman Prentiss, M. G. Preston, Sarah Singleton, Daniel Kaysen, and Allison J. Littlewood. The Cluley story is reprinted herein.

Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer focused on steampunk in its spring issue. There was very little horror but the best of it was by Kater Cheek. The summer issue's (published in November) theme was “Uncanny Beauty: A Celebration of the Eerily Sensual” and had an eclectic mix of nonfiction and fiction, with the standouts in horror by Lauren Beukes, Catherynne M. Valente, and Mike Aronowitz.

Supernatural Tales edited by David Longhorn is a handsome and consistently entertaining, long-running gothic horror magazine. There were two issues published in 2010 with several reviews and a total of fourteen stories. The stories I liked best were by Ian Rogers, Martin Hayes, Peter Bell, Sam Dawson, Mark Patrick Lynch, Gemma Farrow, Michael Kelly, and Michael Keyton.

Midnight Echo, the Magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association, brought out its fourth issue in June and there were notable stories and poetry by Patty Jenson, Daniel Braum, Graham Fielding, Holly Day, and a collaboration by Geoffrey Maloney and Andrew Bakery. It was edited by Lee Battersby.

Shadows & Tall Trees edited by Michael Kelly debuted in the autumn with a simply elegant digest-sized format and consistently good supernatural, ghost, and weird fiction. The first issue’s topnotch stories were by Joel Lane, Sandra Kasturi, Simon Strantzas, and a novella by Geordie Williams Flantz. Also included were book and movie reviews by Kelly. This looks to be the perfect magazine for aficionados of low-key horror. Bravo.

Dark Discoveries edited by James R. Beach published two issues in 2010, both containing a generous mixture of fiction and nonfiction, with multiple interviews per issue plus essays, profiles, tributes and reviews. There were notable stories by John Shirley and Ronald Malfi.

Chizine edited by Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi is a long-running webzine dedicated to dark fiction and poetry. It’s always a reliable source of good fiction. Those I found the most interesting in 2010 were by Nadia Bulkin, Brenta Blevins, Dave Chua, Arlene Ang, Carrie Laben, and Heath Lowrance.

Mixed-Genre Magazines

Albedo One edited by John Kenny, Frank Ludlow, David Murphy, Roelof Goudriaan, and Robert Neilson brought out two issues in 2010 and published strong dark fiction by Allison Francisco, Priya Sharma, J. L. Abbott, Martin McGrath, and Matthew F. Perry. Realms of Fantasy edited by Shawna McCarthy specializes in fantasy but occasionally dips into horror. The darkest stories in 2010 were by Euan Harvey and Bruce Holland Rogers. Cabinet des Fées: A Fairy Tale Journal edited by Helen Pilinovsky and Erzebet YellowBoy is the third volume in this irregularly published series. It’s always a perfect entertainment for lovers of fairy tales variations. The darkest tales were by Helen Ogdon, Kim Kofmel, Rebecca W. Day, and Catherine Knutsson. Kate Bernheimer edited the Red Issue of The Fairy Tale Review, which comes out annually and is “devoted to literary fairy tales and to contemporary writers working with the aesthetics and motifs of fairy tales…. Fairy Tale Review also seeks to celebrate and preserve traditional fairy tales through its initiatives.” There were two issues of Aurealis out in 2010, and the second, Aurealis 44, was the twentieth anniversary issue of the Australian magazine, which is currently edited by Stuart Mayne. Of the seven stories in the issue, a number were quite dark. In this special issue there was a history of the magazine written by co-founder Dirk Strasser. The strongest dark stories during the year were by Bill Congreve, Jason Fischer, Christopher Green, Kirstyn McDermott, and Lachlan Huddy. Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine is another Australian mixed-genre magazine. There were dark stories and poetry by Debi Carroll, Christopher Green, Danny Stone, Simon Messingham, and a collaboration by John Dixon and Adam Browne. Minnetonka Review edited by Troy Ehlers is published twice yearly. The fall issue had worthwhile dark poetry by Temple Cone and Mary Crow, and a very good story by Noah Milligan. Something Wicked: Science Fiction and Horror Magazine edited by Joe Vaz is published in South Africa. It seems to have gone on hiatus after its tenth issue, which is a shame as there were very good horror stories by Abigail Godsell, Paula Stiles, and two collaborations by William Meikle and Graeme Hurray and Sean and Craig Davis. Sybil’s Garage edited by Matthew Kressel had excellent darker stories by E. C. Myers, Cheryl Barkauskas, and Terence Kuch. Zahir edited by Sheryl Tempchin has moved from print to online, but all the stories were collected in a print anthology at the end of the year. There was very little horror but a couple of strong dark tales by Trent Hergenrader and Jennifer Griffin Graham. Not One of Us is the long-running magazine edited by John Benson with “otherness” as its theme. In 2010 two issues and one special one-off called “Hidden” were published, with good dark stories and poetry by Sonya Taaffe, Tim L. Williams, Jennifer Crow, and Alison J. Littlewood. GUD (Greatest Uncommon Denominator) edited by Debbie Moorhouse is a good-looking, twice-yearly magazine of mostly science fiction and fantasy, with some darker fiction. In 2010 there were notable dark stories by Steven J. Dines, Caroline Yoachim, Ian McHugh, and Lavie Tidhar. Needle edited by Steve Weddle is a new crime magazine specializing in noir. Although there’s no out-and-out horror the darker stories might appeal to horror readers. From the three 2010 issues I recommend the stories by Stephen Blackmore, Sophie Littlefield, and Kieran Shea. The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction edited by Jeff Burk published four issues. The fiction is less horrific than just plain weird but there were good dark stories by Livia Llewellyn, Violet Glaze, and James Steele. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet edited by Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link had two issues out in 2010 and strong work by Sean Melican and Lindsay Vella, and a fantastic story (although only very slightly dark) by the collaborative team of Harvey Welles and Philip Raines. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction edited by Gordon Van Gelder publishes horror in its mix. The best darker stories in 2010 were by Dean Whitlock, Kate Wilhelm, Ken Altabef, Robin Aurelian, Dale Bailey, Richard Bowes, Albert E. Cowdrey, Alexandra Duncan, Michael Libling, Ian R. MacLeod, Sean McMullen, Michael Reaves, Michaela Roessner, Aaron Schutz, and two by John Langan, both reprinted herein. Asimov’s Science Fiction edited by Sheila Williams only rarely publishes horror, but in 2010 there were notable dark stories by Felicity Shoulders, Allen Steele, Kate Wilhelm, Caroline M. Yoachim, Sara Gene, and Will McIntosh. Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine edited by Linda Landrigan had notable dark stories by Stephen Ross, Abdón Ubidia, and Mark Patrick Lynch, and its sister, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine edited by Janet Hutchings had notable dark stories by Martin Edwards, Judith Merchant, and Stephen Ross. Clarkesworld, the webzine edited by Neil Clarke, occasionally runs horror and in 2010 the best dark stories were by Kelly Barnhill, Robert Reed, and a terrific one by Peter Watts. Subterranean, edited by William Schafer had fine dark fiction by Livia Llewellyn, Maureen McHugh, Rachel Swirsky, and William Browning Spencer.

Poetry

The best fantasy and dark fantasy poetry being published today on a regular basis is in the quarterly webzine Goblin Fruit, edited by Amal El-Mohtar, Jessica P. Wick, and Oliver Hunter. The best dark poems during 2010 were by Nicole Kornher-Stace, Ruby Katigbak, Jacob Garbe, Carolee Sherwood, and Lisa Bradley. But all the poems are excellent.

Dreams and Nightmares edited David C. Kopaska-Merkel has been around since the beginning of 1986 and during 2010 had a very good dark poem by Robert E. Porter.

Star*Line edited by Marge Simon is the bi-monthly journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association and publishes fantasy and horror, along with science fiction poetry. During 2010 there was good dark poetry published by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Polenthe Blake, Adrienne J. Odasso, J. C. Runolfson, and Wade German. Mythic Delirium edited by Mike Allen published three issues in 2010. Issue 22 was guest edited by Amal El-Mohtar and Jessica P. Wick, the co-editors of the aforementioned Goblin Fruit. Throughout the year there was strong dark poetry by Kelly Rose Pflug-Back, Sonya Taaffe, Darrell Schweitzer, Jane Yolen, Anna Tambour, Jeannine Hall Gailey, F. J. Bergmann, and Shawna Lenore Kastin. Paper Crow edited by Angela Charmaine Craig is a new poetry magazine with two issues published in 2010. There were notable poems by Joshua Gage, Scott Pearson, and Edgar H. Hix.

The 2010 Rhysling Anthology edited by Jaime Lee Moyer (Science Fiction Poetry Association) contains all the sf/f/h poetry nominated for the Rhysling Award, as the best published in 2009 by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Savage Menace and Other Poems of Horror by Richard L. Tierney (P’rea Press) spans fifty years of the poet’s career, richly evoking the worlds of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, and others in more than seventy poems, several published for the first time. S. T. Joshi provides a preface and there are eight interior black and white illustrations by Andrew McKiernan. Diary of a Gentleman Diabolist by Robin Spriggs (Anomalous Books) is a series of wellwrought interconnected prose poems of the ghostly and uncanny. Halloween: New Poems edited by Al Sarrantonio (Cemetery Dance) consists of forty-one poems about the season horror writers and readers love, by Steve Rasnic Tem, David Niall Wilson, Elizabeth Massie, T. M. Wright, Melanie Tem, Tom Piccirilli, Joe Lansdale, and others. Vicious Romantic by Wrath James White (Bandersnatch Books) collects eighteen poems published for the first time by a writer known for the liberal use of grue in novels. Yet his poetry, while certainly not gentle, is restrained. Rich Ristow provides a preface about the skill of writing poetry. Dark Matters by Bruce Boston (Bad Moon Books) collects almost fifty poems (six new) of science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror by one of the best-known poets in the field. Love Craft by Bryan D. Dietrich (Finishing Line Press) is a well-written collection of thirteen dark poems inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. The Ultimate PerVERSEities by Kurt Newton (Naked Snake Press) is a combination of two earlier poetry chapbooks by the poet plus twenty new poems. Sharnoth’s Spores and Other Seeds by Leigh Blackmore (A Rainfall Publication) contains poetry inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, and Lin Carter.

Stanza Press, a new poetry imprint from PS Publishing, brought out The Complete Poems from Weird Tales, a series of books by three important figures who regularly published in Weird Tales—all three compiled and with an introduction by Stephen Jones: Songs of the Necromancer & Others by Clark Ashton Smith features thirty-nine poems published in Weird Tales between 1923 and 1953; The Singer in the Mist & Others by Robert E. Howard has thirty-seven poems originally published between 1927 and 1939; Hallowe’en in a Suburb & Others by H. P. Lovecraft has forty-one poems published between 1918 to 1952 (several were first published in The Vagrant then reprinted in Weird Tales). The imprint also published Off the Coastal Path: Dark Poems of the Seaside edited by Jo Fletcher, with thirty poems by Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Weldon Kees, Jo Fletcher, Joel Lane, and others, plus Not Quite Atlantis: A Selection of Poems by Donald Sydney-Fryer, with thirty-six poems. All volumes are produced in a beautiful hardcover format.

Nonfiction Books

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zombies and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Werewolves, both by Nathan Robert Brown (Alpha), are reference guides to lore and popular media on zombies and werewolves respectively, each including a chapter on literature. American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture by Kyle William Bishop (McFarland) provides a cultural and critical analysis of the cinematic zombie tradition, starting with its origins in Haitian folklore and tracking the development of the subgenre into the twenty-first century. Dario Argento by James Gracey (Kamera Books) is a concise introduction to the filmmaker’s work. Top 100 Horror Movies by Gary Gerani (Fantastic Press/IDW) will engender violent disagreements among fans for the movies he leaves out and some that he includes as he rates his favorites in ascending order. Confessions of a Scream Queen by Matt Beckoff (BearManor Media) is a series of interviews with actresses associated with horror films (using a very loose definition of the term “scream queen”). Wild Unrest: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Making of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz (Oxford University) draws on writings by Gilman, her first husband, and the prominent neurologist who Gilman turned to during her nervous breakdown to argue that the story was a protest against traditional marriage (not a new theory). Monsters, Mutants and Heavenly Creatures by Tom Weaver (Midnight Marquee) is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of classic movies such as The Blob and It Came From Outer Space. The Shrieking Sixties: British Horror Films 1960–1969 edited by Darrell Buxton (Midnight Marquee) features reviews of 150 movies, including Brides of Dracula, Scream and Scream Again, and Witchfinder General. The Literary Monster in Film: Five Nineteenth Century British Novels and Their Cinematic Adaptations by Abigail Burnham Bloom (McFarland). With notes, bibliography, and index. Richard Matheson on Screen: A History of the Filmed Works by Matthew R. Bradley (McFarland) is an overview of Matheson’s mostly horror scriptwriting for television and films. Wanted Undead or Alive: Vampire Hunters and Other Kick-Ass Enemies of Evil by Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman (Citadel) is an entertaining, far-ranging guide to popular culture’s romance with evil. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead (third edition, originally titled The Vampire Gallery: A Who’s Who of the Undead) by J. Gordon Melton, Ph.D. (Visible Ink). Popular Ghosts: The Haunted Spaces of Everyday Culture edited by Maria del Pilar Blanco and Esther Peeren (Continuum) has twenty-two essays about ghosts in popular culture. Fantastic Spiritualities: Monsters, Heroes, and the Contemporary Religious Imagination by J’annine Jobling (Continuum/ T&T Clark) is a critical exploration of religion in fantasy and dark fantasy. Lilja’s Library: The World of Stephen King by Hans-Ake Lilja (CD) is a 500+ page compilation of material from the Stephen King fansite. Thrillers: 100 Must Reads edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner (Oceanview Publishing) is a guide to thrillers from ancient times to 2003, ending with Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, with members of the International Thriller Writers such as F. Paul Wilson, Joe R. Lansdale, Douglas Preston, and Lee Childs writing essays about their favorite thrillers. Included are Frankenstein, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Beowulf. Akin to Poetry: Observations on Some Strange Tales of Robert Aickman by Philip Challinor (Gothic Press) is a chapbook of eight essays on the fiction of Robert Aickman. Touchstones of Gothic Horror: A Film Genealogy of Eleven Motifs and Images by David Huckvale (McFarland) explores the origin of Gothic cinema in art and literature, tracing its connection to the Gothic revival in architecture, the Gothic novel, Egyptology, occultism, sexuality, the philosophy of Hegel, and a host of other aspects of the Romantic and Symbolist movements. When There’s No More Room in Hell: The Sociology of the Living Dead by Andrea Subsissati (Lambert Academic Publishing) outlines the underlying social critique that underscores Romero’s entire series. Asian Horror by Andy Richards (Kamera Books) is a guide for the casual viewer. Real Zombies, the Living Dead, and Creatures of the Apocalypse by Brad Steiger (Visible Ink) is an unfocused catchall guide to vampires, ghouls, mummies, wendigos, and zombies. Shadows over Florida by David Goudsward and Scott T. Goudsward (BearManor Media) is an entertaining little guide to hauntings and other supernatural events in Florida (including horror movie scenes that take place in the state). Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside by Brad Steiger (Visible Ink) collects over two hundred and fifty “true” monster stories. When Werewolves Attack: A Field Guide to Dispatching Ravenous Flesh-Ripping Beasts by Del Howison (Ulysses Press) provides a lot of the usual information about werewolves but does it informally with an engaging voice and liberal touches of humor. Poe in His Own Time edited by Benjamin F. Fisher (University of Iowa Press) is a compilation of early notices and criticism of Poe's work. The Ghost Story from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century edited by Helen Conrad O’Briain and Julie Anne Stevens (Four Court Press) includes essays on writers ranging from M. R. James, Margaret Oliphant, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Allan Poe to Shirley Jackson, New Zealander Keri Hulme, and Chuck Palahniuk. Down Among the Dead Men: A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician by Michelle Williams (Soft Skull Press) is a riveting memoir of a young British woman’s year in what she calls “one of the most amazing jobs you can do.” And reading about her experiences you believe her. Against Religion by H. P. Lovecraft (Sporting Gentlemen Publishers), edited and with an introduction by S. T. Joshi and with a foreword by Christopher Hitchens, contains Lovecraft’s major nonfiction writing on religion. The book is divided into: “Some Personal Reflections,” “General Thoughts on God and Religion,” “Religion and Science,” and “Religion and Society.” Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance by Robin Furth (Cemetery Dance) is a massive 850+ page volume meant to be the definitive guide to the series’ characters, themes, timeline, cultural, and political references, and anything else an interested reader could dream of. The Devil’s Rooming House by M. William Phelps (Lyons Press) is the true back-story to the play and movie Arsenic and Old Lace. Four years after a rooming house for the elderly and chronic invalids opened in 1911 in Windsor, Connecticut, a reporter noticed a sharp rise of obituaries for residents of the rooming house. On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Greatest Fears by Stephen T. Asma (Oxford University Press-2009) is an engaging, wide-ranging cultural history of monsters including imaginary ones, genetic mutations, psychological monsters, and possible future monsters, like robots and cyborgs. The Philosophy of Horror edited by Thomas Fahy (The University Press of Kentucky) is an absorbing examination of why horror fascinates us (mostly concentrating on filmic horror rather than literary) by “exploring the social, moral, and artistic statements of the genre.” The fourteen original essays cover everything from “The Justification for Torture-Horror: Retribution and Sadism in Saw, Hostel, and The Devil’s Rejects” to “Hobbes, Human Nature, and the Culture of American Violence in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.” The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti (Hippocampus Press) is the author’s philosophical treatise on the human condition and as such is erudite and utterly bleak.

Chapbooks and Limited Editions

Humpty’s Bones by Simon Clark (Telos) includes the title novella and a short story. The novella is about a young woman forced to stay with nasty relatives in the Yorkshires, where her aunt has begun to dig up what they believe are Roman bones. Turns out, the bones are way older than that. Nicholas Royle’s Nightjar imprint brought out four chapbooks: Black Country by Joel Lane about a policeman sent to investigate a mysterious outbreak of violence perpetrated by young people near where he grew up in the west midlands of England. Subtle and dark. When the Door Closed, It Was Dark by Alison Moore is about an English au pair stuck in a foreign country with an unpleasant and rather scary family. The Beautiful Room by R. B. Russell is a chiller about a house-hunting couple in an unfamiliar land. A Revelation of Cormorants by Mark Valentine follows a compiler of quotations about birds on his journey to encounter the real thing. Bleed by Peter M. Ball (Twelfth Planet) is a hard-boiled detective story in which the private eye is a woman resurrected from death by her former lover, the Queen of Faerie. In this masterful tale, PI Miriam Aster has had far too much contact with the faerie world to want to become involved in yet another case related to it. But when she’s asked to rescue a woman from Faerie by the woman’s twin, she finds herself drawn into sticky, dangerous rivalries among those faeries exiled to earth after an ill-fated insurrection. Temporary Monsters by Ian Rogers (Burning Effigy Press) is a fast-moving dark mystery about actors, murder, and supernatural creatures. The story could use more background about the Black Lands, a dark alternate dimension from which some of the horror comes. Also, the finale lacks urgency. The Ash Angels by Ian Rogers (Burning Effigy Press) is a follow-up to Temporary Monsters with investigator Felix Renn still haunted by his experience in the Black Lands. He Stepped Through by Nate Southard (Bloodletting Press) is a powerful kick of a tale about crooked cops and crazed gangbangers in Los Angeles caught up in a tide of sickening violence when a gang boss makes a play for power. Black Wind by Cody Winchester Goodfellow (Perilous Press) is a fast-moving western/Lovecraftian horror story about a half-breed bounty hunter tracking a missing child in Indian country. Curtain Call, the Rolling Darkness Revue 2010 by Peter Atkins, James K. Moran, and Glen Hirshberg (Earthling) is the annual chapbook created by Atkins and Hirshberg to accompany their reading tour. This year there’s a framing playlet by Atkins and Hirshberg and three terrific stories, the one by Hirshberg, reprinted herein. Invisible Fences by Norman Prentiss (Cemetery Dance) is a novella about a man whose worldview is a product of the “invisible fences” his parents metaphorically created in order to protect him and his sister as children. But he continues to be haunted by the childhood accident caused by his crossing one of those fences. Although a common trope in horror, Prentiss’s writing is strong enough to overcome the feeling that we’ve read this before. The Harm by Gary McMahon (TTA Press) is a novella about the aftermath of the violent abuse suffered by three eight-year-old boys. Twenty-seven years later the harm done to them continues to infect everything they do. Christmas with the Dead by Joe R. Lansdale (PS Holiday chapbook 6) is a charming story about a zombie holocaust survivor who, after losing his beloved wife and daughter, tries to celebrate the holidays. A Special Place: The Heart of A Dark Matter by Peter Straub (Pegasus Books), spinning-off from Straub’s novel A Dark Matter, is a chilling novella about the birth and evolution of a psychopath. Keith Hayward is entranced by his Uncle Till—who is dapper, charming, and has a dark side that twins Keith’s own blossoming one. Pain by Harry Shannon (Dark Regions) is about a mountain town’s hospital emergency room being attacked by zombies and those humans who fight to defend it. Sally Pinup by T. M. Wright (Squid Salad Press) is a surrealist murder mystery. The Corpse King by Tim Curran (Cemetery Dance Publications) is about eighteenth-century “resurrectionists” (aka graverobbers) meeting up with a surprise inhabitant of the graveyards in which they prey. Catching Hell by Greg F. Gifune (Cemetery Dance Publications) is about three young actors and a stagehand stranded and menaced in a small town in Maine. Rewind by Ian Faulkner (Ghostwriter Publications) is a harrowing account of the making of a monster. A young British soldier is severely wounded in Belfast. What happens afterward scars his psyche far more than his body and the repercussions continue to echo seventeen years later. Blockade Billy by Stephen King (Cemetery Dance/Scribner) is a dark novella set in 1957 about an eccentric catcher who joins the N. J. Titan baseball team. The Inner Room by Robert Aickman (Halifax Ghost Story Festival/Tartarus Press) is one story from Sub Rosa, the first of a series of reprint collections of short stories by Aickman. The trade paperback was printed for the festival, in advance of publication of the entire collection. The Samhanach by Lisa Morton (Bad Moon Books) is about a family curse and a demon appearing on Halloween. Monsters and Victims by Charlie Bondhus (Gothic Press) is about an undergraduate in New Hampshire and his unhealthy obsession with a serial killer. Mischief Night by Paul Melniczek (Bad Moon Books) is about a Halloween visit to a local haunted house. Within His Reach by Steve Gerlach (Tasmaniac Publications) is about a man forced to live out his life in an iron lung during the 1950s polio epidemic. Dreams in Black and White by John R. Little (Morning Star) is about a photographer who suffers from insomnia until one night he sleeps for four hours straight and dreams of a car accident… The Thief of Broken Toys by Tim Lebbon (CZP) is about a man who has lost his son and whose wife then leaves him. Despondent, he wanders with the toys he never fixed for his son until he meets the thief of the title. The Black Sun Set by Lee Thomas (Burning Effigy Press) is about an aging hired muscle for a crime organization who gets in too deep when the boss’s wife seduces him and his boss’s occult activities attract unwanted attention. The Painted Darkness by Brian James Freeman (Cemetery Dance Publications) is about a man who, as a child, was witness to something awful behind his home and has been using his painting to sublimate the trauma ever since.

Odds and Ends

The Mütter Museum Calendar 2011(Blast Books) is a wall calendar made up of photographs from the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The museum itself is a wonderful adventure, with pathological specimens of a giant colon, plaster casts of the conjoined twins Chang and Eng, and the Chevalier Jackson Collection of objects swallowed and removed. The 2011 calendar’s photographs are by Max Aguilera-Hellweg, Scott Irvine, Mark Kessell, Olivia Parker, Rosamond Purcell, and Arne Svenson.

The Horror the Horror: Comic Books the Government Didn’t Want You to Read (Abrams ComicArts), selected, edited, and with commentary by Jim Trombetta. This is a fabulous oversized trade paperback heavily illustrated with comics not seen for nearly sixty years because of their censorship by Congress in 1954. Crime, gore, sex galore, the pre-code comic books were colorful, flamboyant, and considered a very bad influence on juveniles. With an introduction by R. L. Stine and a bonus DVD of Confidential File, a half-hour television show from 1955 about the “‘evils’ of comic books and their effects on juvenile delinquency.”

Horrors: Great Stories of Fear and Their Creators, a graphic novel written by Rocky Wood and illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne (McFarland), entertains with graphic renderings of the dark literature created by Mary Wollstonecraft, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, and Shakespeare, while providing brief overviews of how their lives might have influenced their art and vice versa.

And if you must have something more about vampires, werewolves, and zombies you could do worse than picking up (or giving as a gift) the adorable Peter Pauper Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies: Compendium Monstrum from the papers of Herr Doktor Max Sturm & Barong Ludwig Von Drang collected and arranged by Suzanne Schwalb and Margaret Rubiano. The book is profusely illustrated with classic paintings and drawings plus illustrations by Bruce Waldman, foldout maps showing where each supernatural creature can be found, instructions on vampire indicators, werewolves in literature, helpful phrases for the Creole vampire hunter, a bibliography, and an index.

Dracula adapted by Nicky Raven, illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert (Templar Books) is intended for young adults. The story is cut to the minimum yet still works as adapted by Raven. The cross-hatched pen and ink illustrations both complement the text beautifully and are macabre when necessary. A lovely gift book for young adults.

Zombiewood Weekly: The Celebrity Dead Exposed by Rob Sacchetto (Ulysses Press) is a silly but fun illustrated parody with snippets of scandal about zombified celebrities ranging from actors Christopher Walken and Marilyn Monroe to Sarah Palin and George W. Bush.

An Eyeball in My Garden: And Other Spine-Tingling Poems selected and edited by Jennifer Cole Judd and Laura Wynkoop with illustrations by Johan Olander (Marshall Cavendish Children) is a cute, not too scary poetry book for kids.

The Honey Month by Amal El-Mohtar (Papaveria Press) is a charming, weird, sensuous little oddity of vignettes and poetry about each of twenty-eight days of honey tasting and appreciation. Artwork by Oliver Hunter. As one who has an appreciation for honey, I’d love to try all twenty-eight different types myself. For the honey lover in your life.

Spectrum 17: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art edited by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner (Underwood Books) continues the tradition of showcasing some of the most beautiful art of 2009. The Grand Master Award was given to Al Williamson. Arnie Fenner provides an overview of the art field in his “The Year in Review” but of course the meat of the matter is the art. The range is astonishing and it’s always wonderful to discover artists with whose work I’m not familiar.

Dream Spectres: Extreme Ukiyo-E: Sex, Blood, and the Supernatural by Jack Hunter (Shinbaku) presents some of the best and most extreme types of ukiyo-e, that is, images of the “floating world,” the most popular art-form of the Edo period in Japan (1600–1867). The “floating world” is the term for the culture of leisure and entertainment. The more than 250 full color images by over fifty artists are beautiful, in all their pornographic or grisly glory. The complete “28 Famous Murders in Verse” by Yoshitoshi and Yoshiiku are full of blood-drenched gore drawn from both mythical and historical murders. The final section concentrating on the supernatural and ghosts is eerie and creepy.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer: A Collection of Photographic Evidence with stories by Neil Gaiman (Eight Foot Books) is an intriguingly photographed portfolio of murder scenes, all with Palmer, former member of the Dresden Dolls, posed as the victim. Great looking macabre coffee table art book. Kyle Cassidy and Beth Hommel took many but not all of the photographs.

Altered Visions: The Art of Vincent Chong (Telos) is an impressive little hard
cover book of Chong’s work for book, magazine, and music album covers, with his commentary on the genesis of each piece.

Ghosts by Jon Izzard (Spruce) is an illustrated book exploring what ghosts may actually be, the different aspects of ghosts, their use in movies and text, hunting them, etc.

They Live by Jonathan Lethem (Soft Skull) is an entertaining free-form critique of John Carpenter’s movie of the same title. It makes marvelous reading.

AT THE RIDING SCHOOL

by Cody Goodfellow

One

“Come quick,” she said, in a voice so leaden each word took a year off my life. “Bring the black bag… There’s been an accident.”

The call woke me up, and I knocked over a water bottle getting out of bed. For an instant, the glimmer of my ex-husband’s terrified countenance flashed through my murky thoughts. Shaking his horrible visage off, I realized that the cabin was freezing, then I began to worry about what really mattered: getting to Madame fast enough…

I had only been in town six months, struggling to make a name for myself when Madame Dioskilos had called the first time. I had already heard that she owned a large barn and twenty-four horses, but that she was a rather difficult client, and stingy. She and her charges did all the routine medical work, and she’d had the same blacksmith since opening the Academy.

I found her to be demanding, but fair; I kept her secrets, and she—so far—kept mine.

I was all packed before I woke Tonio. He had only been with me for a few months, and I was afraid of spooking him, but he got dressed and helped me load the truck, then climbed in with his sketchpad and box of colored pencils. I told him only that we were going to see a sick animal. A ward of the state for almost all of his ten years, he was well trained to follow directions. I knew Madame Dioskilos would become irate about the boy—no men were allowed on the estate after dark, unless sent for—but I was more worried about him waking up alone in an empty house.

Anyway, it was time, if this was what I thought it was, for Madame to see—

I brought my special kit bag, though I doubted if it would do any good. She would have the only sure cure loaded and propped beside the stable door, like always.

We didn’t pass any cars going through town to the coast road. My windshield was frosted over, and it was freakishly cold for Big Sur, even in winter. The lights were out at the Yogic Retreat at the end of Main Street and the few streetlamps lit only coronas of sleet, but I had to keep myself from driving too fast. The road spilled out of the trees and clove to the sheer cliffs over the Pacific, surfing the uneasy edge of the land for sixty unlit white-knuckle miles. The state hadn’t replaced the guardrail where the last car had gone over, only a week before. Nearly ten years prior, I’d learned, Greta Spivak, a local vet who’d worked for Madame Dioskilos before me, drove over the edge during a winter storm. They found no body in the truck, and it was blithely assumed that the sharks got her before she could drown.

Tonio fell asleep, rocked by the swaying, serpentine highway. I turned the radio on as loud as I dared to keep myself from thinking.

Only four other emergencies had called me up to Madame Dioskilos’s house after dark in the whole seven years that I had worked for her. That first time, she had explained our situation: she had found me out, and we both understood that her leverage meant that I could be trusted with what I must do.

There are many veterinarians between Big Sur and Monterey who would have done the work and had no qualms about it—bitter, middle-aged divorcees; born-again pagans; misanthropic bull-dykes… but, they were all too clean for her. Just as I needed her, she needed someone like me.

The entrance to her estate is nestled in one of the box canyons that the highway wanders into, seeking an escape from the sea, only to veer away in a panicky hairpin turn. The gate itself is formidable, shrouded in veils of coastal live oak and laurels, wrought-iron barbs ten feet high, a press conference’s worth of cameras fixed on the road.

I always paused to look at the sculpture in the grove, just outside the gate. Most thought it was a modern piece, the angular severity shaming the mathematical fascism of the Italian Futurists; but the sculpture was symptomatic of Madame Dioskilos herself: so easy to completely misread. Like her, it came from the Cyclades Islands, and was a forgotten relic before Athens had erected its first temple.

It depicted a lithe blade of a human figure—somehow, undeniably a girl—riding the back of a rampant chimerical beast Madame told the curious was a centaur, though its hindquarters seemed to be broken off and lost to posterity. It might have been Nessus’s abduction of Alcmene, the bride of Hercules, but when you got to know Madame Dioskilos, you figured it out. The centaur was not broken, and it wasn’t a centaur, and the myth depicted was not in any storybooks.

The gates were swinging open as I turned up the drive, braking cagily on the slippery driveway, one arm out to brace Tonio. They’d let me adopt him with no problems, glad to empty a bed at the struggling group home in Oakland where we met. Though they did a thorough background check, the authorities never found any red flags in the short, happy life of Ruth Wyeth. Of course, they hadn’t dug half as diligently as she had…

Two

Artemisia Dioskilos, Madame’s mother, was a fiery vamp and celebrated equestrian from a tiny Greek island. She married an ancient Italian Count who died in WWI, then fled to California with his wealth and title. The Countess ran a riding school in the Hollywood hills until 1926, when she retreated from society under a shameful cloud and purchased an estate on the Central Coast of California to raise her only daughter, Scylla. No inquiry was ever made into the identity of the child’s father.

Alone on the estate with her mother and servants, the young Scylla Dioskilos must have pined for friends as a child. When her mother died in 1960, she went back to the Old Country to live for three years. When she returned, Scylla opened a new private school.

For forty years now, she’d run the Delos Academy, and if there were occasional problems with the state, no one had ever raised an eyebrow. She boarded no more than twelve children at a time, taught them to read, do sums, and shoot arrows at deer from the back of a horse. She could have charged ten thousand a semester to the snots in Carmel and gotten it, but she didn’t need money, and she avoided publicity like the plague.

She selected abandoned and orphaned girls from Bay Area cities, and she didn’t discriminate by race, so they tried to stuff kids into the trunk of her Rolls Royce as she drove away. They were all smart, strong little girls; the rest she could make over.

A certified teacher educated the girls, who had only each other for society. Most stayed through puberty, and came out fearless, aglow with eerie confidence and destined for bright futures. The whole West Coast was peppered with Madame’s prodigies; a sorority that had helped girls obtain scholarships and entry into ivy-league schools, interviews with Fortune 500 companies, and even temporary financial assistance once they graduated university. Counted among the Delos alumni were many powerful women: one of San Francisco’s most successful defense attorneys; a sitting Assemblywoman in Sacramento; even a U.S. junior Senator. They also help keep the secret. Madame Dioskilos wanted no awards, no media attention; most people in town didn’t even know about the riding school.

Three

I rolled up the drive and past the whitewashed Cretan villa with its showcase equestrian stables, over the ridge at the top of the canyon and around the front of the austere pine-log hunting lodge. The garage was locked down, motion-detector lights and security cameras triggering each other. Seeing no lights on, I drove on down into a stand of oaks, where I knew she would be, in the other stables…

I parked under the awning and told Tonio to stay in the truck. I gave him my cell phone and told him what to do if it rang, then got out and stumbled through the dark to the golden glow of a lantern over the stable door.

Only the oldest girls at the school came anywhere near here, the ones who had been initiated into what Madame called “the Mysteries.” I didn’t pretend to know what she meant, but I sensed what lay at the root of her fanaticism.

I pushed open the stable door and stepped into Mediterranean heat and the awesome stink of Madame Dioskilos’s steeds.

“Ms. Wyeth?” Her voice, from the tack room. I responded and went to the little door beside the corridor that led to the indoor arena. If there’d been an accident at this hour, it would have happened there. I didn’t see the shotgun anywhere about, and was both more and less uneasy as I ducked into the tack room.

Madame sat in a rocking chair in a corner of the tack room, beside a mountain of dusty blankets. She was wiry and much stronger than I was for her age and size. Her hands clutched each other, shaking.

“What happened?”

“An accident,” Madame Dioskilos murmured, “an ill omen.”

“Which one was it?”

“I was a fool to trust her with him! I thought, in her, I saw something… Ah! Actaeon,” her wounded voice faltered, and I felt my own heart race with distress. Her prized stallion—

“Well, where is he? What can I do for him here?”

“He is… unharmed. I will deal with him later, myself. But I need your help with another matter… It is not for him, that I call you.” She leaned forward as if to get up again, and pulled back the top blanket from the pile.

A girl lay curled up on her side with her knees tight against her chest, and bound up by her arms. She wore a few rags of the short white chitins that the girls always wore when riding. Blood smeared the inside of her legs down to her knees, soaking the blanket under her.

“Oh God! What do you want me to do?” I felt sick to my stomach with the tragedy of it; I say tragedy, because it was so inevitable.

Clearly, she’d already been sedated, or was in shock; her eyes half-lidded, her tongue protruding from her teeth. She was twelve, maybe thirteen, with caramel skin, and straight, shiny black hair in a boyish bob. Her elbows and knees were torn and blotted with sawdust, her lip split, and bruises bloomed on her neck and shoulders. The horrible wound between her legs still bled. She was ready for an ambulance—

One had to look very long and hard to see her breathe.

I wasn’t breathing at all. “He—he did this?”

“Trista is a vigorous rider, a natural hunter… When her first bloodletting came, she embraced the Mysteries, and hunted the hunter. She rode Minos like a high priestess—but she trained too hard. Such girls, one cannot always see it, they are wanton…”

“Where is he now?” I demanded. It was only for the girl’s sake that I didn’t shout. “Where is the shotgun?”

The other ones had never done anything like this, but the others were all geldings. They’d only wounded each other or been lamed in accidents. Although they were bred for the steep terrain and rocky cliffs of Greece, there were other dangers here. One was bitten by a rattlesnake; another snarled in razor wire. Madame always went back to Greece and got more, though how she got them into the country always puzzled me.

The lights were dim in the arena, but I heard him, snorting and pawing the muddy turf. I couldn’t find the shotgun, but I wasn’t to be denied: I found a shovel.

In the Greek myths, Actaeon was a hunter who stumbled on Diana bathing in a sacred pool. For stealing a glance at her divine nakedness, the hunter was transformed into a stag, and ripped to shreds by his own dogs.

I went into the dark faster than I could see through it, with the shovel cocked over my shoulder. I followed the wall of the big round arena, wary of the hidden obstacles the girls jumped to train for the Hunt.

I heard him before I saw him, chains rattling as he came charging out of the shadows, but it gave me no advantage. The chains ran back to stout rings in the wall, giving him more than enough slack to get me. I swung the shovel as hard as I could, but he ducked under it and drove his head and massive shoulder into my gut. I fell hard on my back and lost the shovel.

I curled into a sobbing ball, with no breath to do anything else. His eyes reflected the moon glow from the skylight as he looked me over, trying to decide what he wanted most.

He was still saddled. His bridle was twisted around so it hung from his muzzle, which he’d already half-chewed through. His silver fighting spurs glittered in the moonlight.

A whip cracked between us, the tip raking his face so he leapt back and barked, submissive.

“Is not his fault!” she cried. “Trista rode him too hard… Her sisters say there is—carnality—in her, but I pay no heed; they are jealous, naturally. She rides him too hard on the course, driving with her hips, but with ulterior motivations: she pleasures herself upon the saddle! Such girls often break their maidenhood on the pommel, and this she did… nature ran away with them both. It is not his fault—the blood—”

“Well, what the fuck did you expect, Madame?” She looked as if she’d never been yelled at before, so I resolved to make it memorable for her. “He’s a man, for God’s sake!”

“No!” She shouted, and crossed her arms in negation between us.

“Not a man: a beast…”

“All men are beasts,” I said. And most women, I thought.

“Let me tell you,” she growled, and approached Actaeon. He shifted from foot to foot and studied us both. They’d always been sedated or sequestered when I came before. I had no problem killing them. I did not see their faces in my dreams. Thanks to them, I hardly ever dreamed about my husband.

Madame Dioskilos coiled the whip taut around one gloved fist as she spoke. “When my ancestors came to the island of Dioskilos three thousand years ago, they were set upon by beasts in the shape of men, who killed and ate our men, and raped our women. The drunken gods often rutted with animals, and sired monsters such as these, here and there in the dark corners of the earth.

“The goddess Diana heard our prayers and appeared to the girls of the tribe, who alone could tame them, so long as they remained chaste. And they did tame them, Mrs. Slabbert, but they have ever been beasts.”

Throwing my real name in my face, Madame untangled Actaeon’s reins and tugged his huge anvil of a head down to the dirt. He bowed with a snort, one sturdy knee extended out, and Madame stepped up on it, swung her leg over the saddle and sat erect with her boots in the stirrups. At a clipped shout from Madame, Actaeon rose to his full height. His hooded eyes leered at me over his bloody muzzle.

She could make a good argument for her case without words. Though he stood on two legs and had hands, he had no thumbs, whether from selective breeding or post-natal surgery, I didn’t care to guess. His barrel torso was rudely muscled, covered in sleek black hair like a goat’s, and his shoulders were broad enough to carry a full-grown woman up a mountain on the elaborate saddle perched upon his slightly hunched back. That those mighty shoulders produced such puny, almost flipper-like arms screamed selective breeding over hundreds of centuries from proto-human stock, perhaps even the last Neanderthals. A Greek myth that Bulfinch left out, for better or worse, though Madame’s ancestors might’ve been the grain of sand that grew so many pearls: the Amazons, who made impotent slaves of their men; Circe, who made pigs and asses of Odysseus’s crew; satyrs and centaurs—

“This one, you will not kill.” From the saddle, Madame reclaimed her regal bearing. The whip uncoiled, now, for me. “It is his nature.”

“How many girls will you let him rape?”

“This has never happened before… It will never happen again. The girls will be trained—”

I raised the shovel. “Get down off him, Madame—”

“When you kill them, Phyllis, do you imagine that they are your husband?”

That stopped me cold, but I didn’t take the bait. I could see where she was leading this, and I brought it back. “What’s to become of the girl? When’s the ambulance due?”

Actaeon took a few hopping steps, stalking in a lazy, tightening spiral around me. He balanced himself and Madame effortlessly on the balls of his feet—splayed, talon-tipped toes like a mountain lion, the heels augmented with curved bronze stiletto spurs, like a gamecock; and, peeking out of the blood-matted black thicket between his powerful legs—the weapon. He couldn’t have gotten his chastity belt off by himself—nature ran away with them both…His monstrous appendage bobbed and lengthened visibly as he circled; slavering and twitching to have done with Madame’s games.

She dug her heels into his scarred flanks and tracked my eyes with hers, stroking the back of his head. “She ran away from us, went back to the city, where—small surprise—she was attacked. We will be heartbroken, but resolute. She brought this upon herself. The heart of it is the truth.”

“So I—you want me—” It was beneath words. “But when she talks—”

“You are not to hurry, Mrs. Slabbert.”

Actaeon gave a gibbering gurgle from deep in his throat and strained with his stunted forelegs to stroke his cock, still crusted with Trista’s blood. I tried to stare him down. Menopause makes you think you can pull shit like that.

He shook his head. His muzzle slipped off. He grinned at me. Each yellow tooth was the size of a big man’s toenail, and the moray eel of his tongue lurking behind them. His breath raised welts on my skin.

I still had the shovel. “Hey, cut this shit out! I am not going to help you kill that girl!”

“Of course not, but you are going to get yourself out of what we are both in, no?” She snapped the reins and Actaeon reared up, his spurred feet kicking in the air, flinging sod and sweat. He bent down low, craning his neck until his head was between his knees to sniff my crotch. Madame dismounted to stand between us. “I know that what you have done for me in the past was not wholly out of necessity. You knew how others would judge you. You are a part of the Mysteries, now.”

I stepped around her and reached out to stroke Actaeon’s bristly black mane. He twitched and unfolded warily from his rigid dismounting stance, and an alarmingly powerful musky scent suddenly filled the arena. Madame gripped his reins in one hand, the whip in the other.

I scratched behind his ears and the base of his skull, where all animals like it. His jaw went slack, but his eyes never left mine. I leaned in closer, holding my breath. I knew what I’d find, but it was the least dangerous way into the subject.

“What do you do?” Madame Dioskilos demanded, jerking his head back by the reins.

“Nothing… I was only counting his teeth. You told me once that they have four more than us—”

Actaeon obliged by baring his fierce dentition. The extra bicuspids and molars were there. Along with the outsized mandible muscles and projecting palate, they were made to crack open seeds, shellfish and bones. I wondered who had given him his four gold fillings.

“Like jackals,” Madame said and led Actaeon away from me. She didn’t know where this was going, and so it had to stop.

“Eskimos and American Indians have different dentition from Europeans. How much ‘less human’ does that make them?” I should have gone to the girl. Madame trusted me to let her die, it would have been so easy to save her and deliver her to the hospital, and we would both get what we deserved. But first, I had to show her—

She flicked her whip at me by way of dismissal and led Actaeon to the grooming stalls. I went to look at the girl. Her breathing was shallow, pulse shocky, and she still bled. If I dumped her out in the cold somewhere up the coast, like Madame ordered me to, she’d never revive. Madame would never dirty her patrician mind with an explicit request that I help her along, but when you work for someone long enough, you learn to read them.

Cruel, surely, but in Madame’s world, nature was a serial rapist, and unfit children were left out for the wolves.

I tried not to think about it. I had treated Madame Dioskilos’s livestock—her men—for seven years, and put down four of them, and I knew that what I did wasn’t the worst of it. I knew about the High Hunt at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and what they hunted. Drifters, illegal aliens, men nobody missed. Anybody with a gun would have killed all of her creatures because they were less than human, but I had let her use me to kill only the useless ones, because they were men.

Madame’s school—the Hunt and the Mysteries—made these cast-off girls into women the rest of the world respected, envied. It empowered them to reach for undreamed of heights, and liberated them from ever becoming a man’s creature. And I guess I was one of them, from the day I killed my husband.

We had a thriving vet practice in Maryland—clients in Chevy Chase, contracts with stables that bred Triple Crown contenders. For such a smart man, Dan Slabbert got very, very stupid around money. He did things for it, just to get close to it, to dream of belonging to it. They let him think he could someday be one of them, so he started doping horses for them. Whatever they promised him was enough that, eventually, he killed a champion thoroughbred for them. Insurance paid off, and Dan must’ve got a healthy cut in a hidden account. He started getting consultant work across the country from rich friends who could afford to fly in a witch doctor to see to their sick investments.

He killed three more before I found out, but I didn’t do anything. I found out he was fucking call girls the clients threw his way, but I said nothing. Then I found out what they’d promised him, in return for becoming their equine hit man: they were going to make him a rich widower.

I confronted him with the insurance policies and the rest of it, and he took it like a man; he tried to kill me himself. We fought; I won.

I left the country, laying a convincing trail to nowhere, then quietly snuck back in under an assumed name I’d bought with Dan’s blood money. I knew my new identity wasn’t airtight when somebody deposited fifty thousand dollars into Ruth Wyeth’s new checking account. I suppose, in the end, I did the horsey set a favor.

In Big Sur, I was just another dumpy misfit who had sublimated her miserable lack of sex appeal into a gift for animal husbandry. I thought I could start over. It took Madame Dioskilos to show me how fucking mad I still was, how many times I still wanted to kill him.

I packed surgical gauze into Trista’s wound and wrapped her up in a blanket. I left the tack room and found Madame locking her prize stallion in his stable. I hit the speed dial on the spare cell phone in my coat pocket and went to meet her.

“I’m ready to take her,” I said.

The barn door creaked and a solemn ten-year-old black girl in a spotless white tracksuit slipped in through the crack, a big flashlight in one hand, my phone ringing in the other. Looking back at someone outside, she bowed and whispered, “Madame, there’s a boy—”

Madame Dioskilos hissed in outrage and reached for the bullwhip coiled on the wall. I moved to stop her.

“He’s mine, he’s just a little boy. I adopted him. Leave him alone—” The girl swung the flashlight at me. It smashed my forearm and the arm went limp.

“A boy, here?” Madame Dioskilos spat, eyes locked imperiously on mine until I looked away. “And on this night, of all nights!”

“I didn’t know I’d be dumping a—” He was on the other side of the barn door. I begged, “Oh God, let me see him, please!”

“You know my rules!”

“You must’ve rubbed off on me,” I pleaded. “I took him in to have somebody to teach the trade… I couldn’t leave him at home, could I?”

“If you have taken in a boy, you have learned nothing from me.” Her strong-gloved fingers worried at the silver lunular clasp holding her long white hair. She never looked so old to me before. I thought it was fear over what happened; it had never occurred to me she was disappointed in me.

“Let him come in, please, Madame. I want you to see him.”

The door opened wider and Tonio crept in, hugging his pad and pencils to his chest. He looked scared to death, and I started to cry, but when I went to him, the girl brandished the flashlight. A lithe little Latina girl came in with a bow stretched and a silver-tipped hunting arrow nocked.

I screamed at them to back off. Tonio cried, and I hugged him. “Tonio, it’s okay, honey, you scared them as bad as they scared you.”

I turned him around to face the old woman. “Tonio, I want you to meet Madame Scylla Dioskilos. She’s one of the ladies whose horses I take care of. She runs a school for girls, kind of like a foster group home, but… nicer. Madame, this is Tonio. Smile big for the nice lady, Tonio.”

Scared, Tonio yet managed a thin smile at Madame Dioskilos, who barely glanced at him. “Hi,” he whispered.

“Show her your drawings, honey,” I said, but he only hugged the pad tighter.

Madame scowled and made some ancient cursing gesture with her fingers.

“You see, Tonio was born with severe cognitive disabilities, so bad that his mother surrendered him to the state. He grew up in a special group home in Oakland. I had a hard time tracking him down. There are so many, many children that nobody wants. I wanted you to meet him—”

“You have defiled my house with this—”

“They’re beasts, then, and can never be more?” I demanded, and Madame nodded.

“What is your point?” she snapped.

“Please, Tonio, show her your drawings, I want her to see what a good artist you are.”

Tonio looked warily around the barn, then slowly unclenched and opened the pad. Shy, slow, autistic, whatever the ignorant might call him, he could draw. Horses leapt across the pages like a storm, filling and spilling off the paper, rendered in every color in his box, and some others he’d cleverly blended by smudging them with his little fingers.

“So you were wrong,” I started, “and you lied to me before…”

Madame made a gesture of water flowing off her face. “You did the right thing bringing him,” Madame said. “You must be made to see.” She advanced on Tonio until she stood between him and me. Something she took out of her belt made him scream.

From somewhere in the barn came an answer. The lowing roar and crash of wood and metal froze the room. My heart leapt into my mouth. The jaundiced whites of Madame’s eyes gleamed all around her violet irises. The knife flashed in her hand.

“Chandra, go and see to the beasts!” Madame ordered. “Marina, shoot her if she moves.” The black girl edged around the awkward scene and stalked into the stables. The girl behind Tonio aimed the arrow at me and drew the string back. Tonio sank to the ground, took out a pencil and began to draw.

Madame hovered over Tonio, the knife behind her back, intrigued. “You adopted this boy? Do not tell me lies, Phyllis Slabbert.”

“You lied to me, when you said this had never happened, before…”

Madame blinked at me. Tonio whimpered and sketched. The bowstring creaked.

“Look at him, Madame: I want you to count his teeth.”

Madame whirled on me and brought the knife up to my chin so quickly I couldn’t even flinch. “What is this game?”

My muscles locked up and I just stared at her. “Actaeon’s done it before, hasn’t he? Maybe you even let it happen, part of the ‘rituals,’ or a breeding experiment? And you made Greta Spivak, your old vet, dump the girl—”

“Who is this? I know no one by this name!” Madame’s wounded innocence was silent movie acting at its finest.

“Bullshit! She worked for you! I think it was because you both knew the girl was pregnant—”

“You lie!” The knife slashed at my face. I ducked away, but the edge flayed my scalp. A big flap of skin with hair on it came away in my hand as I cradled the wound.

Sobs of pain welled up in my throat, but I gagged them back. Whether or not I could go on, it had to come out. “The girl was only twelve, you remember? She couldn’t keep him, so they put him up for adoption, but nobody wanted him. He’d retreat and draw on everything, then have violent fits of rage. His hormones are all screwed up and no one’s ever tried to reach him, let alone love him, but he’s a sweet, sensitive little boy.”

Madame looked from Tonio to the bloody knife in her hand. “Look at his teeth, Madame. He’s a strange little boy, no doubt, but is he an animal? Do you want to put a saddle on him?”

Madame bent down and took Tonio’s jaw, almost tenderly, in her gloved hand. Tonio was too far gone to resist her. Still looking into his mouth as the silence dragged on, she called out, “Chandra, come here.”

In the stables, a metal pail hit the ground. The stable door groaned as it swung open. The darkness beyond yawned, absolute. Marina’s fingers grew sweaty and tired on the bowstring, and she lowered it. Blood stung my eyes, soaking my hand when I wiped it away. I needed to lie down. I had to get Tonio out of there. I wanted to show her, but I never meant for things to get so out of hand—

Madame seemed, all of a sudden, to decide. She rose and turned on Tonio with the knife out: he didn’t see it coming.

I dove after her, screaming. I grabbed her arm, but she slipped out of my blood-slick grip to stab him.

The knife scythed through Tonio’s down parka and came out amid a flurry of feathers. I’d fouled her attack, but she cocked her arm to stab him in the throat. I stepped inside her reach and shoved her as hard as I could. Tonio rolled away shrieking and threw his pad at her. Marina shouted, “Madame!” and raised her bow at me, loosed her arrow.

It never hit me. Sailing past my eyes, it hit Actaeon in the shoulder, but didn’t slow him down.

He came so fast I could only fall before him. Leaping over me, he dealt Marina a brutal kick to the chest. The girl slammed into the barn door and slumped to the ground. Almost in the same movement, he lunged after Madame who, in turn, dove after Tonio. His jaws snapped at her and she hung, howling, in midair, caught by his teeth in her long white hair.

Tonio crab-walked backwards into a corner between two walls of hay bales. Hanging by her hair, Madame roared commands in Greek, but Actaeon stood frozen, unable to parse the sticky situation with the stunted brute mind his mistress had given him.

Sounds of shuffling feet behind me made me turn, and I gasped. The rest of them had broken loose, and skulked out of the dark like madhouse inmates on Judgment Day, knees skinned and spurs bloodied from kicking down their stable doors. Their big black eyes rolled and they began to hoot, deep in their barrel chests, nostrils flared as they scented blood on the air.

Tonio’s blood. A trickle stood out on his green parka, studded with white down feathers, radioactive in its effect.

I knew, then, why Madame Dioskilos had always had someone else treat and put down her beasts. The smell of their own blood, the sounds of their pain, drove them mad. I thought, then, that I would die, and I laid still as death on the ground, but I did not exist for them. They stampeded over me and converged on Madame Dioskilos.

I got up, pointedly not looking at them as I crawled along the wall to Tonio. He pressed his face against the wall and chewed his lips, too scared to make a sound as I bundled him up in my arms and shuffled with my eyes closed for a thousand years to the barn door.

I raced home and packed bags in a panic. Tonio had fallen asleep in the truck. I was ready to flee again, when exhaustion set in. I had enough strength to bring Tonio into the house and lay him in his bed, before I passed out myself.

I awakened at dawn, and no sirens wailed, no police broke down the door. We would leave, but not in a hurry, not as fugitives. I couldn’t understand how the world couldn’t sense something so wrong happening, but then, how could it not have sensed how wrong things had been, all along? The sisterhood would smother it in secrecy, and that would be best. No one needed to know—

I only went back once, that morning. Of the beasts there was no sign, nor of any of the girls. Trista was gone, and there were opened pill packets and gauze bandage wrappers on the floor of the tack room. I still worry about them, but I think they will make out all right. After her fashion, Madame Dioskilos prepared them well to face the world.

I won’t detail what they did to her body, or where I found the head. The bloody paintings they made on the walls of the barn, in their stables, in the chapel of the Goddess at the barn’s heart, were what I will always remember. Though they had only one color to work in, the delicacy of the shapes of centaurs, satyrs and nymphs sporting across, filling and spilling off the cedar beam walls, spoke as no words could of what they might have been, in another life.

I burned the place down. I buried what I could find of Madame Dioskilos under the laurel tree behind the hunting lodge. I said a prayer for her, after I counted her teeth. Her extra bicuspids were filed down and the jaw surgically rebuilt, but she still had too many molars to pass for human, in her own book. I hope God sees it differently.

MR. PIGSNY

by Reggie Oliver

I

It was, I suppose, a typical gangster’s funeral. There were the extravagantly insincere floral tributes: TO REG, A DIAMOND GEEZER in white carnations; there was “My Way” played by the reluctant organist; there was the coffin borne by six burly, black-coated thugs into a church which Reg would never have entered in his lifetime except to marry or to bury.

And why was I, Housman Professor of Classical Epigraphy at Cambridge University, there? Well, my sister, in some unaccountable hour of rebellious madness, had once married the late Reg McCall’s younger brother Den and borne him two sons, before finally divorcing him and marrying a Merchant Banker instead. Because my sister Gwen “simply could not face” the funeral, and it was still the vacation, I had been deputised to accompany my two teenage nephews Robert and Arthur to the obsequies. Reg had no living children. His daughter Janet had predeceased him in a dreadful drug-fueled car crash some years previously, so Robert and Arthur were possible heirs. It would have shown “disrespect,” that great gangland sin, had they not been present at their uncle’s interment.

To be honest, I had rather liked Reg on the few occasions I had met him. Certainly, I always preferred him to Den, a “cold fish” if ever there was one. Of course I knew that Reg had been a ruthless underworld tyrant of the old school. I knew that he had had people “slapped,” the criminal’s euphemism for beaten up, and even “cut” (knifed) for betraying him. I knew that he had run protection rackets and brothels, and masterminded bank raids, and that he had once personally killed a man. The victim’s name apparently was Maltese Percy, and the deed hadbeen done in the cellars of the Dog and Gibbet in Hoxton. Everyone knew it had happened, but there had been, of course, no witnesses. I had also discovered that his proud boast that he never had anything to do with drug dealing was a lie, given out for the benefit of journalists, eager to perpetuate the myth of the loveable rogue. Nevertheless, I had liked him.

Because our paths would never have crossed other than for family reasons, Reg and I could take a dispassionate interest in one another. I heard that Reg used to boast about me to his cronies—“my brother-in-law, you know, the Cambridge Professor”—and I must admit that I have occasionally dined out at high tables on him. At family gatherings Reg was a lavish and attentive host with the kind of courtesy, when he had a mind to it, that had earned him the sentimental East End reputation of being “a real gentlemen.” In my experience real gentlemen don’t have people cut or slapped, and rarely kill petty criminals in pub cellars, but let that pass. He was genial and friendly towards me, unlike his brother Den, “the quiet one,” the backstairs fixer of the outfit, who always gave the impression of harbouring a grudge against the world.

I had been hoping, rather unrealistically perhaps, that once we had seen the body safely interred in the little Essex churchyard, my nephews and I could slip away. But of course, it was not to be; we were “asked back to the house” and it would have been disrespectful to refuse. We were even offered a lift in Reg’s widow’s stretch limousine because we had arrived at the church by train and taxi.

Even before we entered the limousine, I sensed an atmosphere. Den was already there, and Reg’s widow Maureen was tucked into a corner. She was a small, neat woman who had retained her figure and her striking blonde hair with a strenuousness that showed in her face. Though she was barely in her mid-fifties, it looked ten years older, withered and pinched by anxiety. She glared at us from her corner while Den explained the situation briskly to her.

“Larry here and the boys are coming up to the house with us. All right Maureen?” That last question expected no reply and got none. (My name incidentally is not Larry and never has been: it is Lawrence, Professor Lawrence Chibnall.)

I knew the reason for the atmosphere and could, to some extent, sympathise with her. Now that Reg was dead, from natural causes incidentally, what little importance Maureen possessed in the McCall family hierarchy would dwindle to nothing. Den had already assumed a greater measure of control over the firm after Reg’s first stroke eighteen months before; now the takeover was complete. Maureen would be comfortably off, but she would be ignored. Had she had sons as Den had, the role of matriarch might still be hers.

My nephews Robert and Arthur were behaving well. They did their best to ignore Maureen’s resentful, tear-stained stare and talked quietly to each other about neutral subjects. They were both at good public schools. Though they had been taught by their mother to hate Den they had the sense never to show any hostility. I was amused to learn from them that the fact that their father was a notorious underworld figure was regarded as “cool” by their school fellows and they were more than happy to take advantage of the fact.

Just before we set off for the house, someone else joined us in the limousine. Though there was plenty of room Den tried to prevent it on the spurious grounds that the car was reserved for close family only, but Maureen, for once asserted herself.

“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s Mr. Pigsny.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“He was very close to Reg when he was dying. Let him in, Den.”

The man who clambered aboard was very small, almost a dwarf, with a disproportionately large head. Long strands of sparse red hair had been combed across his domed cranium and lay there lank and damp, like seaweed on a rock after the tide has retreated. He wore a neat black suit and black tie, and, somewhat incongruously, a dark red rose in his buttonhole. He sat himself beside Maureen, smiling and nodding at the rest of us.

Den had decided to ignore him altogether, so I introduced myself and the boys. Mr. Pigsny shook hands smilingly with all three of us, but, as far as I can remember, said nothing. The drive to the house took place in the purring near silence of the great black limousine, punctuated only by the occasional sniffle from Maureen.

Reg’s house was a detached mock Tudor mansion in an avenue of similar leafy refuges just outside Thurrock, that part of Essex being the place where all good criminals go to die. The lawns were clean shaven, the gravel deep in the drive, the Leylandii high and dense enough to frustrate any casual intruder. When we arrived a number of suited men with thick, impenetrable faces were clustered importantly on the drive, like staff officers before a battle.

Inside, the house was spacious and, though Sir Terence Conran might have shuddered, the decor did not reek of the kind of vulgar ostentation so often favoured by the criminal fraternity. There was however something of a clash of styles. Maureen had gone in for prettiness of the glazed chintz variety. The drawing room was in light pastel shades and the porcelain figurines on the mantelpiece were complemented by the pink Dresden shepherdesses on the wallpaper. Reg’s study and other parts of the house showed his more manly taste for dark oak and cherry-coloured leather. He owned one or two genuinely good pictures and antiques; in particular a magnificent blue and white Ming vase, about four feet high, decorated with dragon motifs. I had once expressed my admiration for it.

“You’re not going to ask me where I got it or how much I paid, are you?” he said.

“My dear Reg, I wouldn’t dream of asking such sensitive questions,” I answered. For some reason Reg found my reply extremely funny. I think he found me extremely funny sometimes. I don’t resent that, but I am slightly baffled. Very few of us are good at finding ourselves funny.

Our stretch limousine was one of the first vehicles to arrive at the house, but very soon people were coming thick and fast for the wake, and Reg’s mansion began to feel uncomfortably small. Cups of tea were being drunk, sweet sherry sipped, sandwiches devoured. My nephews were very soon engulfed by the crowd. I had tea accidentally spilled over me by a huge man with a shaven head. Almost immediately after the accident he was being berated by a little black-eyed woman in spectacles who then turned to me.

“I’m so sorry, Professor.” She appeared to know who I was. “My hubby can be very clumsy sometimes,” she said. “Now you apologise nicely to the professor.”

I accepted a mumbled apology from the man.

“Introduce yourself properly, Horace,” she said to him. “You know what I keep telling you about manners. This is my husband Horace, and I’m his better half, Enid.”

“I’m the Hoxton Strangler,” said the man.

“That’s right, Horace,” said his wife, “you’re the Hoxton Strangler, aren’t you? But that’s just, like, his stage name. He’s a wrestler, you see: professional. We decided to call him the Hoxton Strangler.”

I shook a warm, sweaty, hand that felt like a padded leather glove, and would have liked to talk to him about the world of professional wrestling, but it was not to be. The Hoxton Strangler had a very rudimentary grasp of the art of conversation and soon the tide of people tore us apart.

I wanted to go home, but my nephews were nowhere to be seen. To escape the noise and the heat I decided to take refuge if possible in some less crowded part of the house. I peered into various rooms, only to find them noisily occupied. Eventually I tried the door of Reg’s study, which I had expected to be locked. It was not.

It looked like the study of a cabinet minister. The furnishings were rich and sombre, the books on the shelves were mostly leather bound, doubtless bought (or stolen) by the yard. I had been in this room before but I had never before realised how pretentious it all was. Reg had been fooling himself that he was a man of consequence, a statesman of some kind; though probably he had kept up the pretence as much to impress others as for his own egotistical benefit.

“Hello! What the fuck are you doing here?”

I started and looked round to see that Den was sitting at the desk in the window bay. He had been sorting through papers. Naturally he was not pleased to see me.

He said: “I suppose you’ve come for your vase, have you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The vase, that bloody blue thing.” He pointed to a shelf where stood the exquisite Ming vase, innocent, untainted by the surrounding vulgarity and deception.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t give me that! You know perfectly well Reg left it to you in his will. Here,” he said, waving a sheaf of papers in his hand. “It says so here.”

“How very generous of him. I had no idea.”

“Yes… Well… Just take the thing and eff off, will you.”

“I can’t do that. It should go through probate and… So on…”

“Look, mate, what do you want?”

I was beginning to find my ex-bother-in-law extremely irritating. I said: “I don’t want anything. I just want to find my nephews and take them back to their mother as soon as possible.”

“Well, they’re not here. And I’ve got work to do.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Bloody hell!” said Den. This was apparently taken as an invitation to enter because the door opened and in came Mr. Pigsny. He was carrying a black portfolio case which had not been with him in the limo.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, short-arse,” said Den. “What do you want?”

“I’ll leave you gentlemen to it,” I said, making for the door. But Mr. Pigsny barred my way holding up his hand palm outwards, like an old-fashioned traffic policeman. Though small, there was a curious air of solidity and authority about the man.

“If you don’t mind, Professor Chibnall, I would prefer you to stay,” said Mr. Pigsny. “After all you are, as I understand, coexecutor of the late Mr. McCall’s will with Mr. Dennis here?”

I looked at Den in amazement. He made a face.

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. I was going to tell you, only I didn’t think you’d want to be bothered with all the detail.” I sat down in one of Reg’s masculine leather armchairs, too astonished to say anything.

“I also understand,” went on Mr. Pigsny, “that I am mentioned in the will.”

“If you’re expecting any money,” said Den aggressively, “you’re out of luck, chummybum.” Mr. Pigsny sat down uninvited in the chair opposite Den.

“I was not expecting any remuneration. Mr. McCall and I agreed about that before his decease.”

“All right,” said Den. “There’s something in the will about retaining you as an adviser and that, but it’s not legally binding. I could have my brief overturn it just like that—” he snapped his fingers. “And you’d be out on your arse, mate.”

Mr. Pigsny sat quite still for a moment, apparently quite unmoved by Den’s threat; then he said: “I have something to show you gentlemen.”

He opened the portfolio and took out what looked like an unframed and unmounted black and white engraving, printed on heavy art paper roughly the size of an A3 sheet. He then rose from his chair and walked over to a circular table in the centre of the room. Having swept the books and papers on it unceremoniously to the floor he laid out the print on it with almost reverential care.

Den and I had been too astonished to move until Mr. Pigsny beckoned us over to examine the item. For a good thirty seconds we both looked at it in silence. I doubt if we so much as breathed. From behind Reg’s thick study door came the faint lugubrious murmur of the wake.

It was indeed a monochrome print of some kind, though whether it was an engraving, an etching or even a lithograph I am simply not qualified to say. The style of it was vaguely antique, possibly Victorian, but no particular artist sprang to mind. Perhaps there was a hint of Gustave Doré about it, but it was certainly not by him. Whoever had done it possessed an extraordinary skill and power. All these reflections I give as afterthoughts because what possessed me at the time was the image itself.

Under a lowering sky of thick, dirty cloud was stretched a vast frozen lake. Its distant edges were fringed with jagged pitiless mountains whose peaks and ridges were laced with snow. In the middle distance a number of figures were skating aimlessly about on the surface of the lake. They were human apart from their heads which were those of birds, reptiles or insects. The foreground was dominated by a single figure standing rather unsteadily on the ice in his bare feet. He wore a shapeless baggy overall that vaguely resembled an ancient prison uniform. What shocked us most was the face of the man, because it was Reg McCall to the life.

The expression on his face was not so much of horror as of resentful despair. He looks out of the picture directly at us. Perhaps he pleads.

“What is this shit?” said Den. “Who did it?” There was menace in his voice, as if he were threatening to punish the artist responsible.

“I wonder if you gentlemen could be seated once more,” said Mr. Pigsny. I obeyed and so, to my surprise, did Den.

Mr. Pigsny said: “The picture was commissioned by Mr. McCall before his death. It depicts his present existence in Hell.”

I saw Den’s mouth gape. I am sure he wanted to say something, but he was as incapable of speech as I was. He looked at me and I felt a tiny spark of fellow feeling pass between us.

“Naturally, this is not a precise and naturalistic depiction. That would be impossible given the circumstances, but it does represent a reality. Was it not Picasso who told us that art is a lie which tells us the truth?”

“Piss off, Pigsny,” said Den, and again I felt at one with him. I could not have put it better myself. “Who’s the little shit who drew that crap? I’ll ring his bastard neck for him.”

“The artist in question is beyond even your reach, Mr. McCall,” said Pigsny, putting the print back into his portfolio and preparing to leave the room. Den barred his way.

He said: “What’s the point of all this, Pigsny? Tell me what you want. Come on, out with it, and don’t mess me about. I warn you, I don’t like being messed about.”

“Surprisingly few people do, in my experience, Mr. McCall. As to what I want, I want nothing. It was your late brother who wanted you to see the picture. You may wish to reflect on it, as he intended you to do. Good afternoon, gentlemen.

I will be calling on you both in due course.” With that Pigsny left the room unhindered by Den who seemed shattered by the whole experience.

“Fuck me!” he said eventually, after a long silence. As I could not contribute anything more cogent myself I remained silent until my nephews Robert and Arthur burst into the room.

“Is it okay if we go now, Dad?” said Arthur. “We’ve said our goodbyes to Auntie Maureen and she’s now gone into a huddle with that ghastly Piggy man who was in the limo with us.”

Den waved us away wearily, almost graciously.

II

Within a month or so my rooms at Cambridge were graced by the Ming vase. I rang to thank Den for its safe delivery. He dismissed my gratitude quickly.

“Has that Pigsny been onto you?” he asked.

“No. Have you seen him, then?”

“No! So, what’s the fucker up to?”

“I can’t say I’m bothered.”

“Yeah. Right. But that’s all very well. I mean… He must be up to something. I mean, who is he? Where’s he come from? What’s his bloody game?”

I had no answers for him, so the conversation ended inconclusively, but by the end of it he had managed to infect me with some of his unease.

It was May, and in the gardens of King’s College some undergraduates were performing the Orestes in its original language. I like to keep my acquaintance with Greek literature in good repair, and encourage it in others, so I went. It was a warm evening, and I must admit my attention wandered. The diction of the actors, somewhat hampered by masks, was not good enough to hold me, and I began to lose the thread of the Greek. The words transformed themselves from meaningful sentences into an alien music.

The wooden seating for the audience was tiered and in a horseshoe shape, like an ancient auditorium. I was seated near to the bottom of one extremity of the horseshoe so that I had as good a view of the audience as I did of the action on stage. I began to watch the watchers.

About halfway up the other side of the auditorium, almost directly opposite me, but higher, sat a man I thought I recognised. I had spotted him first because he was dressed differently from the rest of us. Instead of loose summery clothes he wore a dark suit and a tie. He was short and he covered his baldness with a rather nasty “combover” of greasy reddish hair. It was Mr. Pigsny.

His appearance at such an event seemed to me so bizarre that it took me quite some time before my mind would authorise what my senses told me. After that I ignored the play completely and divided my time between taking furtive glances at him, and speculating on his possible motives in attending an undergraduate performance of a play in Greek.

His whole attention was fixed on the action on stage, and it did not look as if he had noticed me. Eventually there was another chorus about vengeance and the guilt of the house of Atreus, and an interval was declared. I toyed with the idea of leaving, but I was too curious about Mr. Pigsny.

I found him over by the makeshift bar in the cloisters, sipping tomato juice.

“Hello, Professor Chibnall. Fancy seeing you here!” He spoke to me with a condescension I had expected to use towards him.

“I didn’t know you were a devotee of Classical Drama,” I said.

“Oh, yes. These olden time Greeks, they knew a thing or two, didn’t they?”

“You’re finding the Euripides easy to follow?”

“Oh, not so bad,” he said, and he proceeded to quote in Greek from the chorus we had just heard, those lines about blood upon blood, murder upon murder not leaving go of the two sons of Atreus. There was something odd about his pronunciation. It was far from barbarous—all the quantities were correct—but I had never heard anything quite like it before. He spoke in a hieratic tone, as if pronouncing a liturgy. His style reminded me most of a performance I had once seen in Tokyo of the Nō drama.

I was too astounded to react in any way other than to bow respectfully. After a moment of silence I said: “Were you wanting to see me about something?”

“I left an envelope for you with the porter at your college,” said Mr. Pigsny and then, quite pointedly, turned his back on me.

On returning to my own college, St Jude’s, I asked at the porter’s lodge if there was anything for me and our porter, George, handed me a large manilla envelope. Usually George has plenty to say for himself but on this occasion, for some reason, loquaciousness had deserted him.

In my rooms I opened the envelope and took out a print similar, but not identical, to the one Mr. Pigsny had shown us on the day of the funeral

There was the lowering sky of dirty cloud, the frozen lake, the distant horned peaks. The figure of Reg was still on the ice in the foreground, but something had happened to him. The lower part of his body had begun to deliquesce into a dark, slug-like shape that seemed fixed by frozen bonds to the lake. The body’s dark viscosity was beginning to extend into the features of the face, stretching and distorting them in strange ways. The head was still recognisably Reg’s, and his expression was that of a drowning man just about to go under for the last time, and knowing it.

As before, the scene was depicted with a meticulous graphic accuracy, and a touch of genuine artistic flair which only made it more obscene. I could not bear to look at it, but at the same time I felt somehow that to destroy it would amount to a betrayal of the trust Reg had placed in me. I rolled up the print and placed it carefully in Reg’s Ming vase.

My bedroom in college looks over one of the quads and usually I sleep soundly, but that night I was restless. I did eventually fall asleep, but, it seemed to me, I woke up again almost immediately. I listened. Was it a noise that had woken me? No, all was silent.

Then the silence was disturbed by a faint sound. It was not one of the usual ones that occasionally afflict a Cambridge quadrangle late at night, like drunken laughter or argument, or a sudden blast of pop music. It was the sound of a single flute playing a lively dance tune. Its note sequences were vaguely familiar: sometimes Irish in feel, sometimes gypsy-like or mid-European, perhaps even Middle Eastern at moments, but ultimately belonging to none of these cultures. The rhythm was a kind of jig, I think, but I am no musical expert. Its tone was cold as if blown not through reed and wood, but granite and cold steel, and it was compelling enough to make me get up to look out of my window and into the quad.

The world outside my window was flooded with moonlight and on the grass at the centre of the quadrangle was a short man in a suit dancing and blowing on some sort of instrument. I knew it at once to be Pigsny, even though his strange coppery hair was not lying flat on his cranium but sticking up from it in ragged peaks. They shimmered slightly as if he had covered them with gel.

Because he was on grass it was only to be expected that his leaps and capers should be entirely silent, but still it seemed strange. He had a grace, and an extraordinary vitality for a little fat man.

The flute music stopped, Mr. Pigsny made one final leap into the air, landed with a kind of pirouette and then bowed low in my direction, as if he had known all along that I was watching. I hurried down from my rooms to catch him, but, as I had expected, he had gone when I reached the quad. The college gates had been locked for well over an hour. Who had given him a key?

The following day I rang Den to ask if he had seen Mr. Pigsny and found myself on the receiving end of a torrent of bad language at the conclusion of which he said:

“What is that fucker playing at, eh? Eh? Went to the Dog and Gibbet the other night. Need to show my face there now and again to stop them getting out of order. Horace—you know, the Hoxton Strangler—and Enid were having a knees up to celebrate their silver, and there was a céilidh band, and bugger me if that Pigsny bastard wasn’t in it playing the flute. Then he did one of those Irish, step dance things. Doing a fucking step dance at my effing pub! If it wasn’t for Horace and Enid, I’d have had him slung out on his arse. Did you put him up to this?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what are you calling me for?”

I briefly told him of my recent experiences. Den said: “Yeah, I had one of those stupid prints. I mean, what’s it all about? It must be some kind of a windup. I mean what is this Hell crap? Eh? What the bloody hell is all that about. Eh? When you’re dead, you’re bloody dead. End of story. It’s all a piss-take and I seriously do not like having the piss taken.”

Den was not going to be of help to me; I could see that. My irritation with Mr. Pigsny was no less than his but I needed some kind of explanation. As an epigraphist I am, in my own way, a man of science. Mr. Pigsny may have been a madman, but even madness has its reasons. I rang up my sister to see if she could help me.

Once a wayward and slender beauty, Gwen had grown over the years into a rather solid woman, a stalwart on all the committees in the Buckinghamshire village where she lived. She came to the phone rather breathlessly.

“Hello! Sorry about that. We’re in the middle of a garden crisis. I’ve called in Parker who does our garden on Fridays usually. There’s a slug invasion, so it’s all hands to the pumps. I’ve even got the boys setting beer traps.”

She sounded hearty and conventional. Marriage to a Merchant Banker had undoubtedly changed her, but not necessarily for the better. I told her what I wanted, which was the telephone number of Reg’s widow, Maureen.

“Oh, really, Lawrence! Can’t you get it off Den? Frankly, Lawrence, I do not want to know. That wretched little Maureen woman has been ringing me up and saying that I should meet a friend of hers called Mr. Piggy or something. He sounds perfectly dreadful. Apparently he’s a kind of spiritualist. I couldn’t really understand what she was saying. Well, I told her very firmly that we were all Church of England here which shut her up, but I mean, really!”

Patiently, I asked her again for the number and she went off to get it. When she had given it to me she said: “Don’t you get me involved again with that awful little woman; I have quite enough to contend with, what with these slugs. What they have done to my courgettes is quite literally unspeakable.”

III

It took me some days before I had the courage to ring Maureen. It was not her I was afraid of, naturally, but what she might tell me. And what might she tell me? I had no idea. That was the problem: fear is the shadow of the unknown. When I finally got round to phoning her, I came straight to the point and asked her about Mr. Pigsny.

Maureen is one of those people who finds it hard to answer any question directly. I had to disentangle the information she gave me from a litany of complaints about Den’s handling of Reg’s estate; how so few people had been in touch with her after Reg’s death; how she was not receiving the respect she felt she was owed. Apparently the one person who had behaved himself to her satisfaction had been Mr. Pigsny; though, like Den, and for that matter myself, she was not at all sure what he was “up to.”

She told me that about a year before he died Reg had begun to take an interest in spiritualism and the afterlife. Ostensibly his main object was to get in touch with their daughter Janet who had died in a car crash, though Maureen suspected that the knowledge of his own impending death had played a part. He had visited various psychics and spiritualist churches and it was at one of these meetings that he had encountered Mr. Pigsny. As far as she knew Pigsny was not an established psychic, or medium with a following; but he had impressed Reg with his wide understanding of occult matters. Reg had once told her that Mr. Pigsny knew more about the spirit world than “all those other bullshit artists put together.” For the last few months of Reg’s life the two men had been virtually inseparable. Mr. Pigsny had come to stay in their house, though he had always made himself scarce when other people, like Den, came visiting. As far as she knew there had been no financial transactions between Reg and Pigsny, though she did think that Reg had “signed some sort of document.” Maureen said that after Reg’s death, Mr. Pigsny had continued to come to the house. He was able to reassure her that Reg was “doing all right” in the afterlife and had met up with his daughter Janet.

“I don’t know though,” said Maureen finally. “I mean, I don’t hold with this afterlife business, do you? It’s so—like—unnecessary, isn’t it? I mean this life’s bad enough really, you don’t want any more of it after. Do you know what I mean? The whole thing gives me the creeps. I told him straight. He seemed to understand and he told me he was arranging things so I wouldn’t have to worry. Then he wanted me to sign something, so he could guarantee no worries.”

“Sign what exactly?”

“Well, I don’t know really. It was all in funny writing, like the olden times. I said I wasn’t sure about this signing business. Anyway he took the paper away, saying he’d come back another time.”

I said: “Before you sign anything, tell Mr. Pigsny I want to see him and talk to him.”

She agreed at once to this, and appeared to be relieved that I had taken the matter out of her hands.

A few days later I was taking a short cut across the Fellow’s Garden on my way to a seminar. There was enough time, I thought, to greet Nickolds, the college gardener, who I thought was looking rather disconsolate. I asked him what was the matter.

“We’ve been invaded, that’s what,” he said in his distinctive, laconic fashion. He pointed to the bed of gloxinias and hostas in which he took a special pride. Even I could tell they were in a bad way. The leaves had been gnawed into shreds by some creature or other.

“Slugs,” said Nickolds, pointing to an unusually large specimen, dark and glutinous. With one neat thrust he bisected it with a spade.

“I’ve put down beer traps and caught dozens, but they keep coming. Where are they from?”

I expressed bewilderment and sympathy in the best way I could and began to move off to my seminar.

“If you see one of them bastards, Professor, you bloody well smash ’em,” said Nickolds. I said I would not fail him, hoping devoutly that the eventuality would not arise.

As I was returning from my seminar across the main quad, our porter George approached and informed me that there was someone at the lodge asking to see me. Something about his look told me he was more than usually troubled. I was therefore not surprised to find little Mr. Pigsny pretending to study a notice board under the great entrance arch of St Jude’s.

“Come to my rooms,” I said.

As we walked there Mr. Pigsny trotted beside me, chatting inconsequentially about the weather and other trivial topics. I was conscious of him deliberately keeping the talk light and free of significance, perhaps to tease or torment me in some way. One thing he said, however, struck a different note.

“Your college here, St Jude’s. It’s always been a favourite of mine.”

“Really?” I said. “In what way?”

“Oh, I’ve been familiar with it over the years. Did you know about Dr. Barnsworth committing suicide in your rooms?”

I was shocked. Yes, I had heard about Barnsworth, but it was well before my time, over sixty years ago. “What about Barnsworth?” I said angrily.

“Oh, nothing,” said Mr. Pigsny. “Some people have claimed it was some sort of erotic strangulation, but it wasn’t, you know.” After that we walked to my rooms in silence.

It was a bright hot day and the windows of my rooms were open, so that the faint murmur of normality could be distinctly heard from the quad below. I offered Mr. Pigsny a sherry, the only drink I had available, but he refused, so I then asked him for an explanation. Of what? he asked. I repeated the catalogue, from his appearance in my quad and at the Greek play to the prints and the paper he was wanting Maureen to sign.

“You people, always want an explanation, don’t you?” said Mr. Pigsny. “Well, what if there isn’t an explanation? Or what if there is one, but I couldn’t make you understand it, not in a million years? What if just there aren’t words in the poxy English language to express a meaning, you bone-headed little shit?”

I think there was a long silence after this, or perhaps it was the shock I felt which made it long in my memory. When he began again, his speech was low and level again, almost too quiet to hear, but not quite.

“Your friend Reg wanted an explanation, so I gave him what he wanted. He wanted to know if there was life beyond death, so I told him that he might never die. But he wanted a guarantee that he would never die, so I gave it to him. He signed and he had it. He wanted folks here to go on worrying and thinking about him. He wanted people to go on saying he was a diamond geezer, so I gave it to him. What a muppet! What a moron! As if anybody gives a damn!”

“I do!” I said.

“No, you don’t. You’re like the rest! You couldn’t give a toss. All you care about is that stupid Ming vase he gave you. Anyway, what’s it to you? He got what he wanted , didn’t he? Got what he deserved. He’ll never die! He’ll never, never die! He’ll crawl on his knees through shit, begging for death, fucking begging for it, but he’ll never, never bloody die!”

By this time Mr. Pigsny’s voice had risen to a shrill scream and he was dancing about the room, thundering on the floorboards so that I could feel them bowing under his weight.

“Stop!” I shouted. He did so, and for a long time we stood staring at each other without speaking while the breath went rasping in and out of Mr. Pigsny’s stunted little body.

Then Mr. Pigsny opened his mouth wide but this time out of it came no speech or noise, only a vast writhing darkness. His mouth widened still further and I saw that it was filled with slugs, boiling and wriggling like the tormented souls they were. Soon they were spilling onto one of my precious rugs in great vomited legions, some great, some small, all of a blackish colour but carrying a faint iridescent sheen of red and green and blue. The larger slugs had faces which bore the semblance of humanity, traces of the cruelty and lust they had once fondled in life. There was no sound but the rustling, seething sound of Mr. Pigsny’s possessed souls, as he belched them into my Cambridge study.

Did I really see this? Or did I see it with the eyes of madness and illusion. I only know that I saw and nothing else. I only know that what I saw filled me with white rage and the strength of seven men, so that I picked up little Mr. Pigsny almost without effort and threw him out of my open window into the quad.

For some seconds I was in a daze, horrified at what I had done. I did not dare look out of the window but stared only at the floor where the writhing slugs were slowly evaporating into foul-smelling smoke leaving behind several dark, glutinous stains on my lovely Bokhara rug. The college servant who cleans my rooms has complained to me bitterly about it several times, but I have offered him neither apology nor explanation.

When finally I looked out of the window I saw that a crowd of curious undergraduates had gathered round the place where Mr. Pigsny must have fallen. It was onto the flagstone path that surrounded the grass of the quadrangle and not onto the soft earth. Mr. Pigsny could not have survived the fall without, at the very least, suffering very serious injuries.

The crowd looked up and saw me, and, as they did so, I caught a glimpse of what they were surrounding. It was not the body of Mr. Pigsny at all. On the pavement lay the shattered fragments of the Ming vase that Reg had left me in his will.

“Dear me,” I said fatuously for the benefit of the spectators. “What a terrible thing,” and hurried down stairs to clear away the shards.

By the time I reached the quad most of the crowd had dispersed. Cambridge takes eccentricity in its stride and, if my conduct in throwing a priceless vase out of my window was regarded as odd, no one happily thought it warranted more than a raised eyebrow. I began to pick up the fragments of the vase and put them in a plastic bag I had thoughtfully grabbed on the way out of my rooms. As I did so I heard flute music. My heart seemed to stop, but then I noticed that it was coming from the open window of our organ scholar. I could even see him innocently playing, a tall, thin young man with incipient baldness. I returned to my gathering of the shards. It was then that I discovered a roll of paper lying on the grass beside the shattered Ming. It was the print that I had put inside the vase, the print which Mr. Pigsny had left for me at the porter’s lodge after the Greek play.

I took it up with me to examine at leisure in my rooms. The picture was in many ways as before. Under a lowering sky of thick, dirty cloud was stretched a vast frozen lake. Its distant edges were fringed with jagged pitiless mountains whose peaks and ridges were laced with snow. But there were no figures on the frozen lake neither in the foreground nor the middle distance. Nothing now relieved the perfect desolation and loneliness of the scene.

I might even have thought of framing it and hanging it up as a curiosity; but the condition of the print was marred irrevocably. It was crisscrossed by lines of some dark viscous, oily substance which looked to me like the trails of slugs.

CITY OF THE DOG

by John Langan

I

I thought it was a dog. From the other side of the lot, that was what it most resembled: down on all fours; hair plastered to its pale, skeletal trunk by the rain that had us hurrying down the sidewalk; head drawn into a snout. It was injured, that much was clear. Even with the rain rinsing its leg, a jagged tear wept fresh blood that caught the headlights of the cars turning onto Central—that had caught my eye, caused me to slow.

Kaitlyn walked on a few paces before noticing that I had stopped at the edge of the lot where one of the thrift stores we’d plundered for cheap books and cassette tapes had burned to the ground the previous spring. (The space had been cleared soon thereafter, with conflicting reports of a Pizza Hut or Wendy’s imminent, but as of mid-November, it was still a gap in the row of tired buildings that lined this stretch of Central Ave.) Arms crossed over the oversized Army greatcoat that was some anonymous Soviet officer’s contribution to her wardrobe, my girlfriend hurried back to me. “What is it?”

I pointed. “That dog looks like it’s pretty hurt.” I stepped onto the lot. The ground squelched under my foot.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know. I just want to see if he’s all right.”

“Shouldn’t you call the cops? I mean, it could be dangerous. Look at the size of it.”

She was right. This was not one of your toy dogs; this was not even a standard-sized mutt. This animal was as large as a wolfhound—larger. It was big as Latka, my Uncle Karl and Aunt Belinda’s German shepherd, had appeared to me when I was seven and terrified of her, and more terrified still of her ability to smell my fear, which my cousins assured me would enrage her. For a moment, my palms were slick, and I felt a surge of lightness at the top of my chest. Then I set to walking across the lot.

Behind me, Kaitlyn made her exasperated noise. I could see her flapping her arms to either side, the way she did when she was annoyed with me.

Puddles sprawled across the lot. I leapt a particularly wide one and landed in a hole that plunged my foot into freezing water past the ankle. “Shit!” My sneaker, sock, the bottom of my jeans were soaked. There was no time to run back to the apartment to change. It appeared I’d be walking around the QE2 with one sopping sneaker for the rest of the night. I could hear Kaitlyn saying she’d told me to wear my boots.

The dog had not fled at my approach, not even when I dunked my foot. Watching me from the corner of its eye, it shuffled forward a couple of steps. The true size of the thing was remarkable; had it raised itself on its hind legs, it would have been as tall as me. There was something about the way it walked, its hips high, its shoulders low, as if it were unused to this pose, that made the image of it standing oddly plausible. Big as the dog was, it didn’t seem especially menacing. It was an assemblage of bones over which a deficit of skin had been stretched, so that I could distinguish each of the oddly shaped vertebrae that formed the arch of its spine. Its fur was pale, patchy; as far as I could see, its tail was gone. Its head was foreshortened, not the kind of elongated, vulpine look you expect with dogs bred big for hunting or fighting; although its ears were pointed, standing straight up, and ran a good part of the way down the side of its skull. I was less interested in its ears, however, than I was its teeth, and whether it was showing them to me. It continued to study me from one eye, but it appeared to be tolerating my presence well enough. Hands out and open in front of me, I stepped closer.

As I did, the thing’s smell, diluted, no doubt, by the rain, rolled up into my nostrils. It was the thick, mineral odor of dirt, so dense I coughed and brought a hand to my mouth and nose. The taste of soil and clay coated my tongue. I coughed again, turned my head and spat. “I hope you appreciate this,” I said, wiping my mouth. I squinted at the wound on its leg.

A wide patch of the dog’s thigh had been scraped clear of hair and skin, pink muscle laid bare. Broader than it was deep, it was the kind of injury that bleeds dramatically and seems to take forever to quiet. While I doubted it was life-threatening, I was sure it was painful. How the dog had come by this wound, I couldn’t say. When we were kids, my younger brother had been famous for this sort of scrape, but those had been from wiping out on his bike in the school parking lot. Had this thing been dragged over a stretch of pavement, struck by a car, perhaps, and sent skidding across the road? Whatever the cause, I guessed the rain washing it was probably a good thing, cleaning away the worst debris.

I bent for a closer inspection.

And was on my back, the dog’s forepaws pressing my chest with irresistible force, its face inches from mine. There wasn’t even time for me to be shocked by its speed. Its lips curled away from a rack of yellowed fangs, the canines easily as long as my index finger. Its breath was hot, rank, as if its tongue were rotten in its mouth. I wanted to gag, but didn’t dare move. Rain spilled from the thing’s cheeks, its jaw, in shining streams onto my neck, my chin. The dog was silent; no growl troubled its throat; but its eyes said that it was ready to tear my windpipe out. They were unlike any eyes I had looked into, irises so pale they might have been white surrounded by sclerae so dark they were practically black, full past the brim with—I wouldn’t call it intelligence so much as a kind of undeniable presence.

As fast as it had put me down, the thing was gone, fled into the night and the rain. For a few seconds, I stayed where I was, unsure if the dog were planning to return. Once it was clear the thing was not coming back, I pushed myself up from the sodden ground. “Terrific,” I said. My wet sneaker was the least of my worries; it had been joined by jeans soaked through to my boxers; not to mention, my jacket had flipped up when I’d fallen, and the back of my shirt was drenched. “So much for the injured dog.” Although doing so made me uncomfortably aware of the space between my shoulders, I turned around and plodded across the lot. This time, I didn’t worry about the puddles.

That Kaitlyn was nowhere to be found, had not waited to witness my adventure with man’s best friend, and most likely had proceeded to the club without me, was the sorry punchline to what had become an unfunny joke. Briefly, I entertained the idea that she might have run down the street in search of help, but a rapid walk the rest of the way to the QE2 showed most shops closed, and the couple that were open empty of a short woman bundled into a long, green coat, her red hair tucked under a black beret. At the club’s door, under the huge QE2 sign, I contemplated abandoning the night’s plans and returning to my apartment on State Street, a trek that would insure any remaining dry spots on my person received their due saturation. I was sufficiently annoyed with Kaitlyn for the prospect of leaving her to wonder what had become of me to offer a certain appeal composed of roughly equal parts righteous indignation and self-pity. However, there had been a chance we might meet Chris here, and the possibility of her encountering him with me nowhere to be found sent me to the door to pay the cover.

Inside, a cloud of smoke hung low over the crowd, the din of whose combined conversation was sufficient to dull the Smithereens throbbing from the sound system. The club was more full than I would have expected for the main act that Wednesday, a performance poet named Marius Elliott who was accompanied by a five-piece rock band, guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, the whole thing. Marius, who favored a short black leather jacket and tight black jeans onstage, was an instructor at Columbia-Greene Community College, where he taught Freshman Writing. He was a lousy poet, and a lousy performer, too, but he was the friend of a friend I worked with, and the band was pretty good, enough so that they should have ditched him and found a frontman with more talent. This was Marius’s second show at the QE2; I couldn’t understand why the owner had booked him after hearing him the first time. While the club did feature poets, they tended toward the edgier end of the literary spectrum, in keeping with the place’s reputation as the Capital District’s leading showcase for up and coming post-punk bands. (That same friend from work had seen the Chili Peppers play there before they were red hot.) Marius wrote poems about eating breakfast alone, or walking his dog in the woods behind his apartment. Maybe the owner’s tastes were more catholic than I knew; maybe he owed someone a favor.

In his low, melancholy voice, the Smithereens’ lead told the room about the girl he dreamed of behind the wall of sleep. I couldn’t see Kaitlyn. Given the dim light and number of people milling between the stage and bar, not to mention that Kaitlyn was hardly tall, there was no cause for my stomach to squeeze the way it did. Chris wasn’t visible, either. Trying not to make too much of the coincidence, I pushed my way through to the bar, where I shouted for a Macallan I couldn’t really afford, but that earned me a respectful nod from the bartender’s shaven head.

The Scotch flaring on my tongue, I stepped away to begin a protracted circuit of the room in quest of my girlfriend. The crowd was a mix of what looked like Marius’s community college students, their blue jeans and sweatshirts as good as uniforms, and the local poetry crowd, split between those affecting different shades of black and those whose brighter colors proclaimed their allegiance to some notion of sixties counterculture. Here and there, an older man or woman in a professorial jacket struggled not to let the strain of trying to appear comfortable show; Marius’s colleagues, I guessed, or professors from SUNY. The air was redolent with the odors of wet denim, cotton, and hair, of burning tobacco and pot, of beer, of sweat. I exchanged enough nods with enough faces I half-recognized for me not to feel too alone, and traded a few sentences with a girl whose pretty face and hip-length blond hair I remembered but whose name eluded me. The Smithereens finished singing about blood and roses and were replaced by the Screaming Trees, their gravelly voiced lead uttering the praises of sweet oblivion.

At the end of forty-five minutes that took me to every spot in the club except the Ladies Room, and that left the Macallan a phantom in my glass, I was no closer to locating Kaitlyn. (Or Chris, for that matter, although I was ignoring this.) Once more at the bar, I set the empty glass on its surface and ordered another—a double, this round. A generous swallow of it was almost sufficient to quiet the panic uncoiling in my chest.

I was about to embark on another, rapid circuit of the crowd before the show began when I caught someone staring at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought the tall, pale figure was Chris, just arrived. I was so relieved to find him here that I couldn’t help myself from smiling as I turned to greet him.

The man I saw was not Chris. He was at a guess two decades older, more, the far side of forty. Everything about his face was long, from the stretch of forehead between his shaggy black hair and shaggy black eyebrows, to the nose that ran from his watery eyes to his narrow mouth, to the lines that grooved the skin from his cheekbones to his jaw, from the edges of his nostrils to the edges of his thin lips. His skin was the color of watery milk, which the black leather jacket and black t-shirt he wore only emphasized. I want to say that, even for a poet, the guy looked unhealthy, but this was no poet. There are people—the mentally ill, the visionary—who emit cues, some subtle, some less so, that they are not traveling the same road as the rest of us. Standing five feet away from me doing nothing that I could see, this man radiated that sensation; it poured off him like a fever. The moment I had recognized he was not Chris, I had been preparing the usual excuse, “Sorry, thought you were someone else,” or words close enough, but the apology died in my mouth, incinerated by the man’s presence. The Screaming Trees were saying they’d heard it on the wing that I was going to die. I could not look away from the man’s eyes. Their irises were so pale they might have been white, surrounded by sclerae so dark they were practically black. My heart smacked against my chest; my legs trembled madly, all the fear I should have felt lying pinned on my back in that empty lot finally caught up to me. With that thing’s teeth at my neck, I hadn’t fully grasped how perilous my position had been; now, I was acutely aware of my danger.

Two things happened almost simultaneously. The lights went down for the show, and Chris stood between the man and me, muttering, “Hello,” unwrapping his scarf, and asking where Kaitlyn was. The pale man eclipsed, I looked away. When I returned my gaze to where he’d been standing, he was gone. Ignoring Chris’s questions, I searched the people standing closest to us. The man was nowhere to be found. What remained of my drink was still in my hand. I finished it, and headed to the bar as Marius Elliott and his band took the stage to a smattering of applause and a couple of screams. Chris followed close behind. I was almost grateful enough for him appearing to buy him a drink; instead, I had another double.

II

In the late summer of 1991, I moved to Albany. While I swore to my parents I was leaving Poughkeepsie to accept a position as senior bookseller at The Book Nook, an independent bookstore located near SUNY Albany’s uptown campus—which was true; I had been offered the job—the actual reason I packed all my worldly belongings into my red Hyundai Excel and drove an hour and a half up the Hudson was Kaitlyn Bertolozzi. I believe my parents knew this.

Yet even then, the August morning I turned left up the on-ramp for the Taconic north and sped towards a freedom I had been increasingly desperate for the past four years of commuting to college—even as I pressed on the radio and heard the opening bass line of Golden Earring’s “Twilight Zone,” which I turned up until the steering wheel was thumping with it—even as the early-morning cloud cover split to views of blue sky—the sense of relief that weighted my foot on the gas pedal was alloyed with another emotion, with ambivalence.

At this point, Kaitlyn had been living in Albany for a little more than six months. After completing undergrad a semester early, she had moved north to begin a Master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at the University Center. We had continued to speak to one another several times a week, and I had visited her as often as my school and work schedules permitted, which wasn’t very much, once a month, if that. It was on the first of those visits, a couple of weeks after Kaitlyn had moved to the tiny apartment her parents had found her, that she introduced me to Christopher Garofalo.

He was not much taller than I was, but the thick, dark brown hair that rose up from his head gave the impression that he had a good few inches on me. His skin was sallow, except for an oblong scar that reached from over his left eyebrow into his hairline. When Kaitlyn and I met him at Bruegger’s Bagels, his neck was swaddled in a scarf that he kept on the length of our lunch, despite the café’s stifling heat. He shook my hand when he arrived and when he left, and each time, his brown eyes sought out mine. In between, his conversation was sporadic and earnest. Kaitlyn and he had attended the same orientation session at the university for students starting mid-year. Chris was studying to be a geology teacher; after trying to find a living as part of a jazz band, he said, he had decided it was time for a career with more stability.

Once he had departed, I commented on his scarf, which I’d taken as the lingering affectation of a musician; whereupon my girlfriend told me that Chris wore the scarf to cover the scar from a tracheotomy. While my face flushed, she went on to say that he had been in a severe motorcycle accident several years ago, in his early twenties. He hadn’t been wearing a helmet, and should have been killed; as it was, he’d spent a week in a coma and had to have a steel plate set in his skull, which was the origin of the scar on his forehead. As a consequence of the trauma, he’d experienced intermittent seizures, which had required months of trial-and-error with different medications and combinations of medications to bring under some semblance of control. He was a sweet guy, Kaitlyn said, who was (understandably) self-conscious about the reminders of his accident. I muttered a platitude and changed the subject.

I wasn’t especially concerned about my girlfriend having become friendly with another guy so soon; as long as I had known her, Kaitlyn had numbered more men than women among her friends, just as my circle of friends consisted largely of women. She had always had a weakness for what I called her strays, those people whose quirks of character tended to isolate them from the rest of the pack. Driving home that night, I was if anything reassured at a familiar pattern reasserting itself.

Three weeks to the day later, I listened on the phone as Kaitlyn, her voice hitching, told me she’d slept with Chris. While I’d made the same sort of confession to previous girlfriends, I’d never been on the receiving end of it before. I moved a long way away from myself, down a tunnel at one end of which was the thick yellow receiver pressed to my ear, full of Kaitlyn crying that she was sorry, while the other end plunged into blackness. Dark spots crowded my vision. I hung up on her sobs, then spent five minutes furiously pacing the bedroom that had shrunk to the size of a cage. Everything was wrong; a sinkhole had opened under me, dumping my carefully arranged future into muddy ruin. Before I knew what I was doing, the phone was in my hand and I was dialing Kaitlyn.

The next month was an ordeal of phone calls, two, three, four times a week. After the initial flourish of apologies and recriminations, we veered wildly between forced cheerfulness and poorly concealed resentment. Once Kaitlyn started to say that Chris was very upset about the entire situation, and I told her I wasn’t interested in hearing about that fucking freak. Another time, she complained that she was lonely, to which I replied that I was sure she could find company. Rather than slamming the receiver down, she cajoled me, told me not to be that way, she missed me and couldn’t wait until she could see me. However, when I at last drove to see her one Thursday afternoon, Kaitlyn was reserved, almost formal. I wanted nothing more than to go straight to bed, to find in her naked body some measure of reassurance that we would recover from this. Kaitlyn demurred, repeatedly, until I left early, in an obvious huff.

Strangely, Kaitlyn’s infidelity and its jagged aftermath only increased my desire to move to Albany. Those moments regret and anger weren’t gnawing at me, I told myself that, had I been there with her, this never would have happened. I could just about shift the blame for her sleeping with Chris onto us having been apart after so long so close together. There were times I could, not exactly pardon what Chris had done, but understand it. Underwriting my effort to reconcile myself to events was my desire to escape my home. As far as I could tell, my father and mother were no worse than any of my friends’ parents—and, in one or two cases, they seemed significantly better—but I was past tired of having to be home by twelve and to call if I were going to be later, of having to play chauffeur to my mother and three younger siblings, of having to watch what I said lest my father and I begin an argument from which I inevitably backed off, because he had suffered a heart attack ten years earlier and I was deeply anxious not to be the cause of a second, fatal one. Although I was their oldest child, my parents had a much harder time easing their hold on me than they did with my siblings. My younger brother was already away at R.P.I., enrolled in their Bio-Med program, while my sisters enjoyed privileges I still dreamed of. When I had started at SUNY Huguenot, my father had assured me that, if I commuted to college the first year, I could move onto campus my sophomore year; during a subsequent disagreement, he insisted that the deal had been for me to remain home for two years, and then he and my mother would see about me living in a dorm. After that, I didn’t raise the issue again, nor did he or my mother.

Albany/Kaitlyn was my opportunity to extricate myself from the life that seemed intent on maintaining my residence under the roof that had sheltered me for the last two decades. Every awkward conversation with Kaitlyn shook my hopes of leaving the bed whose end my feet hung over, while the arguments, aftershocks of that original revelation, that struck us shuddered my dream of Albany to rubble. That I went from the black mood that fell on me after Kaitlyn and I had concluded our latest brittle exchange, when I was convinced I would live and die in Poughkeepsie, to driving to my new apartment and job was a testament to almost brute determination. In the end, I had to leave my parents’, which meant I had to do whatever was necessary to slice through the apron strings mummifying me, and if that included working through things with Kaitlyn—if it included making peace with Chris, accepting him as her friend—then that was what I would do.

Not only did I make peace with Chris, he was to be my roommate. What would have been impossible, inconceivable, a month before became first plausible and then my plan when I failed to find a place I could afford on my own, and the guy with whom Chris had previously been rooming abruptly moved out. Enough time had passed, I told myself. According to Kaitlyn, Chris was a night owl; he and I would hardly see one another. (I didn’t dwell on how she knew this.) I decided I would stay there only until I could find another, better place, and then fuck you, Chris.

As it turned out, though, after more than a year, I was still in that apartment on State Street, in what I referred to as student-hell housing. Ours was the lower half of a two-storey house wedged in among other two-storey houses, the majority of them family residences that had been re-purposed for college students. My room was at the rear of the place, off the kitchen, and was entered through a kind of folding door more like what you’d find on a closet. Chris inhabited the front room, next to the combination living room-dining room; between us, there was an empty room opposite the bathroom. For reasons unclear to me, that room had remained unoccupied, though I didn’t object to the extra distance from Chris. Kaitlyn had been right: he was up late into the night, sequestered in his room, which he did not invite me into and whose door—a single solid piece of wood some previous tenant had painted dark green—he kept closed. Probably the longest conversation I had with him had come when he’d showed me the basement, whose door, outside mine, was locked by a trio of deadbolts. The stairs down to it bowed perceptibly under my weight, the railing planted a splinter in the base of my thumb. A pair of bare bulbs threw yellow light against the cement walls, the dirt floor. The air was full of dust; I sneezed. Chris showed me the location of the fuse box, how to reset the fuses, the furnace and how to reset it. After I’d been through the procedures for both a couple of times, I pointed to the corner opposite us and said, “What’s down there?”

Chris looked at the concrete circle, maybe two and a half feet in diameter, set into the basement floor. A heavy metal bar flaked with rust lay across it; through holes in either end of the bar, thick, heavily rusted chains ran to rings set into smaller pieces of concrete. He shrugged. “I’m not sure. The landlord told me it used to be a coal cellar, but that doesn’t make any sense. Some kind of access to the sewers, maybe.”

“In a private residence?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know.”

When he wasn’t in his room, Chris was at SUNY, either in class or at the library. Despite this, I saw him a good deal more than I would have wished, especially when Kaitlyn stayed over, which she did on weekends and occasional weeknights. I would be in the kitchen, preparing dinner, while Kaitlyn sat on the green and yellow couch in the living room, reading for one of her classes, and I would hear Chris’s door creak open. By the time I carried Kaitlyn’s plate through to the folding table that served as the dining room table, Chris would be leaning against the wall across from her, his arms crossed, talking with her about school. Although they stiffened perceptibly as I set Kaitlyn’s plate down, they continued their conversation, until I asked Chris if he wanted to join us, there was plenty left, an offer he inevitably refused, politely, claiming he needed to return to his work. During the ensuing meal, Kaitlyn would maintain a constant stream of chatter to which I, preoccupied with what she and Chris had actually been discussing, would respond in monosyllables. If the phone rang and Chris happened to answer it, he would linger for a minute or two, talking in a low, pleasant murmur I couldn’t decipher before calling to me that it was Kaitlyn. I knew they met for coffee at school every now and again, which seemed to translate into once a week.

Of course the situation was intolerable. Forgiving Chris—believing that what had occurred between him and Kaitlyn was in the past—accepting that they were still friends, but no more than that—all of it had been much easier when I was eighty miles removed from it, when it was a means to the end of me leaving home. As a fact of my daily life, it was a wound that would not heal, whose scab tore free whenever the two of them were in any kind of proximity, whenever Kaitlyn mentioned Chris, or (less frequently) vice-versa. Had I known him before this, had we shared some measure of friendship, there might have been another basis on which I could have dealt with Chris. As it was, my principle picture of him was as the guy who had slept with my girlfriend. No matter that we might share the occasional joke, or that he might join Kaitlyn and me when we went to listen to music at local clubs and bars, and try to point out what the musicians were doing well, or even that he might cover my rent one month I needed to have work done on my car, I could not see past that image, and it tormented me. I was more than half-convinced Kaitlyn wanted to return to him, and her protests that, if she had, she would have already, did little to persuade me otherwise.

One night, after I’d been in Albany six months, in the wake of a fierce argument that ended with Kaitlyn telling me she was tired of doing penance for a mistake she’d made a year ago, then slamming her apartment door in my face, and me speeding home down Western Avenue’s wide expanse, I stood outside Chris’s room, ready for a confrontation twelve months overdue. I hadn’t bothered to remove my coat, and it seemed to weigh heavier, hotter. My chest was heaving, my hands balled into fists so tight my arms shook. The green door was at the far end of a dark tunnel. I could hear the frat boys who lived above us happily shouting back and forth to one another about a professor who was a real dick. I willed Chris to turn the doorknob, to open his door so that he would find me there and I could ask him what it had been like, if she’d pulled her shirt over her head, pushed down her jeans, or if he’d unhooked her bra, slid her panties to her ankles? Had she lain back on the bed, drawing him onto her, and had she uttered that deep groan when he’d slid all the way up into her? Had she told him to fuck her harder, and when she’d ridden him to that opening of her mouth and closing of her eyes, had she slid her hand between them to cup and squeeze his balls, bringing him to a sudden, thunderous climax? A year’s worth of scenes I’d kept from my mind’s eye cavorted in front of it: Kaitlyn recumbent on her bed, her bare body painted crimson by the red light she’d installed in the bedside lamp; Kaitlyn, lying on top of a hotel room table, wearing only the rings on her fingers, her hands pulling her knees up and out; Kaitlyn with her head hanging down, her arms out in front of her, hands pressed against the shower wall, her legs straight and spread, soapy water sluicing off her back, her ass. In all of these visions and more, it was not I who was pushing in and out of her, it was Chris—he had spliced himself into my memories, turned them into so much cheap porn. Worse, the look I envisioned on Kaitlyn’s face said, shouted, that she was enjoying these attentions far more than any I’d ever paid her.

While I desperately wanted to cross the remaining distance to Chris’s door and smash my fists against it, kick it in, some inner mechanism would not permit me to take that first step. My jaw ached I was clenching my teeth so hard, but I could not convert that energy into forward motion. If Chris appeared, then what would happen, would happen. In the meantime, the best I could do was maintain my post.

Perhaps Kaitlyn had called to warn him, but Chris did not leave his room that night. I stood trembling at his door for the better part of an hour, after which I decided to wait for him on the living room couch. I had not yet removed my coat, and I was sweltering. The couch was soft. My lids began to droop. I yawned, then yawned again. The room was growing harder to keep in focus. There was a noise—I thought I heard something. The sound of feet, of many feet, seemed to be outside the front window—no, they were underneath me, in the basement. The next thing I knew, I was waking to early morning light. I could have resumed my position outside Chris’s door; instead, I retreated to my room. That was the closest I came to facing him.

Had a friend of mine related even part of the same story to me—told me that his girlfriend had cheated on him, or that he couldn’t stop thinking about her betrayal, or that he was sharing an apartment with the other guy—my advice would have been simple: leave. You’re in a no-win situation; get out of it. I was in possession of sufficient self-knowledge to be aware of this, but was unable to attach that recognition to decisive action. In an obscure way I could perceive but not articulate, this failing was connected to my larger experience of Albany, which had been, to say the least, disappointing. Two weeks into it, I had started having doubts about my job at The Book Nook; after a month, those doubts had solidified. Within two months of starting there, I was actively, though discreetly, searching for another position. However, with the economy mired in recession, jobs were scarce on the ground. None of the local bookstores were hiring full-time. I sank three hundred dollars into the services of a job placement company whose representative interviewed me by phone for an hour and produced a one-page resume whose bland and scanty euphemisms failed to impress me, or any of the positions to which I sent it. I wasted an hour late one Tuesday sitting a test for an insurance position the man who interviewed me told me I was unlikely to get because I didn’t know anyone in the area, and so didn’t have a list of people I could start selling to. (He was right: they didn’t call me.) I lost an entire Saturday shadowing a traveling salesman as he drove to every beauty salon in and around Albany, hawking an assortment of cheap and gaudy plastic wares to middle-aged women whose faces had shown their suspicion the moment he hauled open their doors. That position I could have had if I’d wanted it, but the prospect was so depressing I returned to The Book Nook the following day. When I heard that their pay was surprisingly good and their benefits better, I seriously considered taking the exam that would allow me to apply for a job as a toll collector on the Thruway, going so far as to find out the dates on which and the locations where the test was being offered. But, unable to imagine telling my parents that I had left the job that at least appeared to have something to do with my undergraduate degree in English for one that required no degree at all—unwilling to face what such a change would reveal about my new life away from home—I never went. I continued to work at The Book Nook, using my employee discount to accumulate novels and short story collections I didn’t read, and for which I soon ran out of space, so that I had to stack them on my floor, until my room became a kind of improvised labyrinth.

Nor did the wider world appear to be in any better shape. In addition to its reports on the faltering local and national economies, WAMC, the local public radio station, brought news of the disintegration of Yugoslavia into ethnic enclaves whose sole purpose appeared to be the annihilation of one another through the most savage means possible. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, which had promised brighter days, an end to the nuclear shadow under which I’d grown up, instead had admitted a host of hatreds and grievances kept at bay but not forgotten, and eager to have their bloody day. On EQX, the alternative station out of Vermont, U2 sang about the end of the world, and the melodramatic overstatement of those words seemed to summarize my time in Albany.

By that Wednesday night in November, when I fumbled open the door to the apartment and stumbled in, the Scotches I’d consumed at the QE2 not done with me yet, I had been living in a state of ill-defined dread for longer than I could say, months, at least. I had attempted discussing it with Kaitlyn over dinner the week before we went to see Marius, but the best I could manage was to say that it felt as if I were waiting for the other shoe to drop. “What other shoe?” Kaitlyn had said around a mouthful of dumpling. “The other shoe to what?”

I’d considered answering, “To you and Chris,” but we’d been having a nice time, and I had been reluctant to spoil it. To be honest, though there was no doubt she and Chris were part of the equation, they weren’t all of it: there were other integers involved whose values I could not identify. To reply, “To everything” had seemed too much, so I’d said, “I don’t know,” and the conversation had moved on.

Yet when I saw that the apartment was dark, and a check of my room showed my bed empty, and a call to Kaitlyn’s brought me her answering machine, I knew, with a certainty fueled by alcohol and that deep anxiety, that the other shoe had finally clunked on the floor.

III

For the next couple of days, I continued to dial Kaitlyn’s number, leaving a series of messages that veered from blasé to reproachful to angry to conciliatory before cycling back to blasé. I swore that I was not going to her apartment, a vow I kept for almost three days, when I used my key to unlock her door Saturday night. I half-expected the chain to be fastened, Kaitlyn to be inside (and not alone), but the door swung open on an empty room. The lights were off. “Kaitlyn?” I called. “Love?”

There was no answer. The apartment was little more than a studio with ambition; it took all of a minute for me to duck my head into the bedroom, the bathroom, to determine that Kaitlyn wasn’t there. The answering machine’s tally read thirty-one messages; I pressed Play and listened to my voice ascend and descend the emotional register. Mixed in among my messages were brief how-are-you’s from Kaitlyn’s mother, her younger brother, and Chris. When I recognized his voice, I tensed, but he had called to say he had missed her at the show the other night, as well as for coffee the next day, and he hoped everything was okay. After the last message—me, half an hour prior, trying for casual as I said that I was planning to stop by on my way home from work—I ran through the recordings a second time, searching for something, some clue in her mother’s, her younger brother’s words to where she had spent the last seventy-two hours. That I could hear, there was none. An hour’s wait brought neither Kaitlyn nor any additional phone calls, so I left, locking the door behind me.

Two days later, I asked Chris to call Kaitlyn’s parents. He was just in from a late-night library session; I had waited for him on the couch. He didn’t notice me until he was about to open the door to his room. At my request, he stopped pulling off his gloves and said, “What?”

“I need you to call Kaitlyn’s parents for me.”

“Why?”

“I want to find out if she’s there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t seen her since the other night at QE2.”

“Maybe she’s at her place.” He stuffed his gloves in his jacket’s pockets, unzipped it.

“I checked there.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to talk to you.”

“No—I have a key. She isn’t there. I don’t think she has been since Wednesday.”

“Of course you do,” Chris muttered. “So where is she—at her parents, which is why you want me to call them. Why can’t you do it?”

“I don’t want to worry them.”

Chris stared at me; I could practically hear him thinking, Or look like the overly possessive boyfriend. “It’s late,” he said, “I’m sure—”

“Please,” I said. “Please. Look, I know—we—would you just do this for me, please?”

“Fine,” he said, although the expression on his face said it was anything but. He hung his jacket on the doorknob and went to the phone.

Kaitlyn’s father was still awake. Chris apologized for calling so late but said he was a friend of hers from high school who’d walked through his parents’ front door this very minute—his flight had been delayed at O’Hare. He was only in town through tomorrow, and he was hoping to catch up with Kaitlyn, even see her. A pause. Oh, that was right, the last time they had talked, she had told him she was planning to go to Albany. Wow, he guessed it had been a while since they’d spoken. Could her father give him her address, or maybe her phone number? That would be great. Another pause. Chris thanked him, apologized again for the lateness of his call, and wished Kaitlyn’s father a good night. “She isn’t there,” he said once he’d hung up.

“So I gathered.”

“The number he gave me is the one for her apartment.”

“Okay.” I stood from the couch.

“I’m sure everything’s all right. Maybe she went to visit a friend.”

“Yeah,” I said. “A friend.”

“Hey—”

“Don’t,” I said. I started towards my room. “All because I stopped to help a fucking dog…”

“What?”

I stopped. “On the way to the club. There was this stray in that lot over on Central—you know, where the thrift store used to be. It looked like it was in
rough shape, so I went to have a look at it—”

“What kind of dog?”

“I don’t know, a big one. Huge, skinny, like a wolfhound or something.”

Chris’s brow lowered. “What color was it?”

“White, I guess. It was missing a lot of fur—no tail, either.”

“Its face—did you see its eyes?”

“From about six inches away. Turned out, the thing wasn’t that hurt, after all. Pinned me to the ground, stuck its face right in mine. Could’ve ripped my throat out.”

“Its eyes…”

“This sounds strange, but its eyes were reversed: the whites were black, and the pupils were, well, they weren’t white, exactly, but they were pale—”

“What happened with the dog? Were there any more?”

I shook my head. “It ran off. I don’t know where to.”

“There wasn’t a man with it, was there?”

“Just the dog. What do you mean, a man? Do you know who owns that thing?”

“Nobody owns—never mind. You’d know this guy if you saw him: tall, black hair. He’s white, I mean, really, like-a-ghost white. His face is lined, creased.”

“Who is he?”

“Don’t worry about it. If he wasn’t—”

“He was at the club, afterwards. Right before you arrived.”

“Are you sure?”

“I was about as far away from him as I am from you.”

Now Chris’s face was white. “What happened?”

“Nothing. One minute, he was standing there giving me the heebie-jeebies, the next—”

“Shit!” Chris grabbed his jacket from the doorknob. “Get your coat.”

“Why?”

“Do you have a flashlight?”

“A flashlight?”

“Never mind, I have a spare.” His jacket and gloves on, Chris shouted, “Move!”

“What are you—”

He crossed the room to me in three quick strides. “I know where Kaitlyn is.”

“You do?”

He nodded. “I know where she is. I also know that she’s in a very great deal of danger. I need you to get your coat, and I need you to get your car keys.”

“Kaitlyn’s in danger?”

“Yes.”

“What—how do you know this?”

“I’ll tell you in the car.”

IV

For all that I had been resident in the city for over a year, my knowledge of Albany’s geography was at best vague. Aside from a few landmarks such as the QE2 and the Empire State Plaza downtown, my mental map of the place showed a few blocks north and south of my apartment, and spots along the principle east-west avenues, Western, Washington, and Central. I had a better sense of the layout of Dobb’s Ferry, Kaitlyn’s hometown, to which I’d chauffeured her at least one weekend a month the past twelve. Chris told me to head downtown, to Henry Johnson. Once I’d scraped holes in the frost on the windshield and windows, and set the heater blowing high, I steered us onto Washington and followed it to the junction with Western, but that was as far as I could go before I had to say, “Now what?”

Chris looked up from the canvas bag he was holding open on his lap while he riffled its contents. Whatever was in the bag clinked and rattled; the strong odor of grease filled the car. “Really?” he said. “You don’t know how to get to Henry Johnson?”

“I’m not good with street names. I’m more of a visual person.”

“Up ahead on the left—look familiar?”

“Actually, no.”

“Well, that’s where we’re going.”

“Well okay.”

I turned off Western, passed over what I realized was a short bridge across a deep gully. “What’s our destination?”

“A place called the Kennel. Heard of it?”

I hadn’t.

“It’s…you’ll see when we get there.”

We drove past shops whose shutters were down for the night, short brick buildings whose best days belonged to another century. Brownstones rode a steep side street. A man wearing a long winter coat and garbage bags taped to his feet pushed a shopping cart with an old television set canted in it along the sidewalk.

“How far is it?”

“I don’t know the exact distance. It should take us about fifteen minutes.”

“Enough time for you to tell me how you know Kaitlyn’s at the Kennel.”

“Not really. Not if you want the full story.”

“I’ll settle for the Cliff ’s Notes. Did you take her there?”

“No,” he said, as if the suggestion were wildly inappropriate.

“Then how did she find out about it?”

“She didn’t—she was brought there.”

“Brought? As in, kidnapped?”

Chris nodded.

“How do you know this?”

“Because of the Keeper—the man you saw at the club.”

“The scary guy with the weird eyes.”

“You noticed his eyes.”

“Same as the dog’s.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t—how do you know this guy, the what? The Keeper?”

“Ahead, there,” Chris said, pointing, “keep to the left.”

I did. The cluster of tall buildings that rose over Albany’s downtown, the city’s effort to imitate its larger sibling at the other end of the Hudson, were behind us, replaced by more modest structures, warehouses guarded by sagging fences, narrow two- and three-storey brick buildings, a chrome-infused diner struggling to pretend the fifties were alive and well. As I drove through these precincts, I had the sense I was seeing the city as it really was, the secret face I had intuited after a year under its gaze. I said, “How do you know him?”

“He…” Chris grimaced. “I found out about him.”

“What? Is he some kind of, I don’t know, a criminal?”

“Not exactly. He’s—he’s someone who doesn’t like to be known.”

“Someone…all right, how did you find out about him?”

“Left. My accident—did I ever tell you about my accident? I didn’t, did I?”

“Kaitlyn filled me in.”

“She doesn’t know the whole story. Nobody does. I didn’t take a corner too fast: one of the Ghûl ran in front of me.”

“The what? ‘Hule’?”

“Ghûl. What you saw in that lot the other night.”

“Is that the breed?”

Chris laughed. “Yes, that’s the breed, all right. It was up towards Saratoga, on Route 9. I was heading home from band practice. It was late, and it was a New Moon, so it was especially dark. The next thing I knew, there was this animal in the road. My first thought was, It’s a wolf. Then I thought, That’s ridiculous: there are no wolves around here. It must be a coyote. But I had already seen this wasn’t a coyote, either. Whatever it was, it looked awful, so thin it must be starving. I leaned to the left, to veer around it, and it moved in front of me. I tried to tilt the bike the other way, overcompensated, and put it down, hard.”

In the distance, the enormous statue of Nipper, the RCA mascot, that crowned one of the buildings closer to the river cocked its head attentively.

“The accident itself, I don’t remember. That’s a blank. What I do remember is coming to in all kinds of pain and feeling something tugging on my sleeve. My sleeve—I’m sure you heard I wasn’t wearing a helmet. I couldn’t really see out of my left eye, but with my right, I saw the animal I’d tried to avoid with my right arm in its mouth. My legs were tangled up with the bike, which was a good thing, because this creature was trying to drag me off the road. If it hadn’t been for the added weight, it would have succeeded. This wasn’t any Lassie rescue, either: the look on its face—it was ravenous. It was going to kill and eat me, and not necessarily in that order.

“Every time the animal yanked my arm, bones ground together throughout my body. White lights burst in front of my eyes. I cried out, although my jaw was broken, which made it more of a moan. I tried to use my left arm to hit the creature, but I’d dislocated that shoulder. Its eyes—those same, reversed eyes you looked into—regarded me the way you or I would a slice of prime rib. I’ve never been in as much pain as I was lying there; I’ve also never been as frightened as I was with that animal’s teeth beginning to tear through the sleeve of my leather jacket and into the skin beneath. The worst of it was, the creature made absolutely no sound, no growl, nothing.”

We passed beneath the Thruway, momentarily surrounded by the whine of tires on pavement.

“Talk about dumb luck, or Divine Providence: just as my legs are starting to ease out from the bike, an eighteen-wheeler rounds the corner. How the driver didn’t roll right over me and the animal gripping my arm, I chalk up to his caffeine-enhanced reflexes. I thought that, if I were going to die, at least it wouldn’t be as something’s dinner. As it was, the truck’s front bumper slowed to a stop right over my head. Had it been any other vehicle, my would-be consumer might have stood its ground. The truck, though, was too much for it, and it disappeared.

“When the doctors and cops—not to mention my mother—finally got around to asking me to relate the accident in as much detail as I could, none of them could credit a creature that wasn’t a coyote, that wasn’t a wolf, which caused my crash and then tried to drag me away. I’d suffered severe head trauma, been comatose for five days—that must be where the story had come from. The wounds on my forearm were another result of the accident. Apparently, no one bothered to ask the truck driver what he’d seen.

“For a long time after that night, I wasn’t in such great shape. Between the seizures and the different medications for the seizures, I spent weeks at a time in a kind of fog. Some of the meds made me want to sleep; some ruined my concentration; one made everything incredibly funny. But no matter what state I was in, no matter how strange or distant my surroundings seemed, I knew that that animal—that what it had done, what it had tried to do to me—was real.”

To the left, the beige box of Albany Memorial Hospital slid by. I said, “Okay, I get that there’s a connection between the thing that caused your accident and the one I ran into the other night. And I’m guessing this Keeper guy is involved, too. Maybe you could hurry up and get to the point?”

“I’m trying. Did you know that State Street used to be the site of one of the largest cemeteries in Albany?”

“No.”

“Till almost the middle of the nineteenth century, when the bodies were relocated and the workers found the first tunnels.”

“Tunnels?”

“Left again up here. Not too much farther.”

To either side of us, trees jostled the shoulder. They opened briefly on the left to a lawn running up to shabby red brick apartments, then closed ranks again.

“So why are these tunnels so important?”

“That concrete slab in the basement, the one that’s locked down? What if I told you that opens on a tunnel?”

“I’d still want to know what this has to do with where Kaitlyn is.”

“Because she—when we—all right.” He took a deep breath. “Even before my doctor found the right combination of anti-seizure meds, I was doing research. I probably know the name of every librarian between Albany and Saratoga. I’ve talked to anyone who knows anything about local history. I’ve spent weeks in the archives of the State Museum, the Albany Institute, and three private collections. I’ve filled four boxes worth of notebooks.”

“And?”

“I’ve recognized connections no one’s noticed before. There’s an entire—you could call it a secret history, or shadow history, of this entire region, stretching back—you wouldn’t believe me if I told you how far. I learned things…”

“What things?”

“It doesn’t matter. What does is that, somehow, they found out about me.”

“The Keeper and his friends.”

“At first, I was sure they were coming for me. I put my affairs in order, had a long conversation with my mom that scared her half to death. Then, when they didn’t arrive, I started to think that I might be safe, even that I might have been mistaken about them knowing about me.”

“But you weren’t. Not only were they aware of you, they were watching you, following you. They saw you with Kaitlyn. They figured…”

“Yeah.”

My heart was pounding in my ears. A torrent of obscenities and reproaches threatened to pour out of my mouth. I choked them down, said, “Shouldn’t we go to the cops? If you’ve gathered as much material on this Keeper as you say you have—”

“It’s not like that. The cops wouldn’t—if they did believe me, it wouldn’t help Kaitlyn.”

“I can’t see why not. If this guy’s holding Kaitlyn, a bunch of cops outside his front door should make him reconsider.”

We had arrived at a t-junction. “Left or right?”

“Straight.”

“Straight?” I squinted across the road in front of us, to a pair of brick columns that flanked the entrance to a narrow road. A plaque on the column to the right read ALBANY RURAL CEMETERY. I turned to Chris. “What the fuck?”

He withdrew his right hand from the bag on his lap, his fingers curled around the grip of a large automatic handgun whose muzzle he swung towards me. “Once this truck passes, we’re going over there.” He nodded at the brick columns.

The anger that had been foaming in my chest fell away to a trickle. I turned my gaze to the broad road in front of me, watched a moving van labor up it. The gun weighted the corner of my vision. I wanted to speak, to demand of Chris what the fuck he thought he was doing, but my tongue was dead in my mouth. Besides, I knew what he was doing. Once the van was out of sight, Chris waved the gun and I drove across into the cemetery.

Even in the dark, where I could only see what little my headlights brought to view, I was aware that the place was big, much bigger than any graveyard I’d been in back home. On both sides of the road, monuments raised themselves like the ruins of some lost civilization obsessed with its end. A quartet of Doric columns supporting a single beam gave way to a copper-green angel with arms and wings outstretched, which yielded to a grey Roman temple in miniature, which was replaced by a marble woman clutching a marble cross. Between the larger memorials, an assortment of headstones stood as if marking the routes of old streets. A few puddles spread amongst them. Tall trees, their branches bare with the season, loomed beside the road.

As we made our way further into the cemetery, Chris resumed talking. But the gun drew his words into the black circle of its mouth, allowing only random snippets to escape. At some point, he said, “Old Francis was the one who finally put it all together for me. He’d found an Annex to the Kennel during a day-job digging graves. A pair of them came for him that night, and if there hadn’t been a couple of decent-sized rocks to hand, they would have had him. But he’d played the Minor Leagues years before, and his right arm remembered how to throw. Even so, he hopped a freight going west and stayed out there for a long time.” At another point, he said, “You have no idea. When the first hunters crossed the land bridge to America, the Ghûl trailed them.” At still another moment, he said, “Something they do to the meat.” That Chris had not dismounted his hobby-horse was clear.

All I could think about was what was going to happen to me once he told me to stop the car. He wouldn’t shoot me in it—that would leave too much evidence. Better to walk me someplace else, dispose of me, and ditch the car over in Troy. He didn’t want to leave me out in the open, though. Maybe an open grave, shovel in enough dirt to conceal the body? Too dicey: a strong rain could expose his handiwork. One of the mausoleums we passed? Much more likely, especially if you knew the family no longer used it. When he said, “All right: we’re here,” in front of an elaborate marble porch set into a low hill, I felt an odd surge of satisfaction.

I had the idea this might be my time to act, but Chris had me turn off the engine, leaving on the headlights, and hand him the keys. He exited the car and circled around the front to my side, the automatic pointed at me throughout. Standing far enough away that I couldn’t slam my door against him, he urged me out of the car. I wanted—at least, I contemplated refusing him, declaring that if he were going to shoot me, he would have to do it here, I wasn’t going to make this any easier for him. I could hear myself defiant, but his shouted, “Now!” brought me out in front of him without a word.

“Over there,” he said, pointing the gun at the mausoleum. “It should be open.”

That sentence, everything it implied, revived my voice. “Is this where you took Kaitlyn?” I said as I walked towards the door.

“What?”

“I’ve been trying to figure out how you did it. Did you meet her at the club and whisk her out here? What—did you have a cab waiting? A rental? I can’t quite work out the timing of it. Maybe you brought her somewhere else, first? Some place to hold her until you could take her here?”

“You haven’t heard a single thing I’ve been saying, have you?”

“Were you afraid I’d discover it was you? Or was this always your plan, kill the girl you couldn’t have and the guy she wouldn’t leave?”

“You asshole,” Chris said. “I’m doing this for Kaitlyn.”

That Kaitlyn might be unharmed, might be in league with Chris, was a possibility I had excluded the second it had occurred to me as I drove into the cemetery, and that I had kept from consideration as we’d wound deeper into its grounds. There would be no reason for her to resort to such an extreme measure; if she wanted to be with Chris, she could be with him. She already had. All the same, his statement was a punch in the gut; my words quavered as I said, “Sure—you tell yourself that.”

“Shut up.”

“Or what—you’ll shoot me?”

“Just open the door.”

The mausoleum’s entrance was a tall stone rectangle set back between a quartet of pillars that supported a foreshortened portico. On the front of the portico, the name UPTON was bordered by dogs capering on their hind legs. Behind me, there was a click, and a wide circle of light centered on the door. There was no latch that I could see. I put out my right hand and pushed the cold stone. The door swung in easily, spilling the beam of Chris’s flashlight inside. The heavy odor of soil packed with clay rode the yellow light out to us. I glanced over my shoulder, but Chris had been reduced to a blinding glare. His voice said, “Go in.”

Inside, the mausoleum was considerably smaller than the grandiosity of its exterior would have led you to expect. A pair of stone vaults occupied most of the floor, only a narrow aisle between them. The flashlight roamed over the vaults; according to the lids, Beloved Husband and Father Howard rested to my left, while Devoted Wife and Mother Caitlin took her repose on the right. (The woman’s name registered immediately.) Under each name, a relief showed a nude woman reclining on her left side, curled around by a brood of young dogs, a pair of which nursed at her breasts. Beyond the stone cases, the mausoleum was a wall of black. The air seemed slightly warmer than it was outside.

With a clatter, the light tilted up to the ceiling. Chris said, “I put the flashlight on the end of the vault to your left. I want you to take two steps backwards— slowly—reach out, and pick it up.” I nodded. “And if you try to blind me with the light, I’ll shoot.”

When I was holding the bulky flashlight, I directed its beam at the back of the mausoleum. A rounded doorway opened in the center of a wall on which the head of an enormous dog had been painted in colors dulled by dust and time. Eyes whose white pupils and black sclerae were the size of serving plates glared down at us. The dog’s mouth was wide, the door positioned at the top of its throat. A click, and a second light joined mine. “In there,” Chris said.

“I was wondering where you were going to do it.”

“Shut up.”

I stepped through the doorway into a wide, dark space. I swept the light around, saw packed dirt above, below, to either side, darkness ahead. There was easily enough room for me and Chris and a few more besides, though the grey sides appeared to close in in the distance. The air was warmer still, the earth smell cloying. Chris’s light traced the contours of the walls, their arch into the ceiling. It appeared we were at one end of a sizable tunnel. “All right,” Chris said.

“Where’s Kaitlyn?”

“Shut up.”

“Aren’t you going to let me see her?”

“Shut up.”

“Oh, I get it. This is supposed to be the icing on the cake, isn’t it? You bring me to the place you killed my girlfriend, but you shoot me without allowing me to see her.” I turned into the glare of Chris’s flashlight, which jerked up to my eyes. I didn’t care. Tears streaming down my cheeks, I said, “Jesus Christ: what kind of a sick fuck are you?”

Chris stepped forward, his arm extended, and pressed the automatic against my chest. My eyes dazzled, I couldn’t see so much as feel the solid steel pushing against my sternum. The odor of soil and clay was interrupted by that of grease and metal, of the eight inches of gun ready to bridge me out of this life. Between clenched teeth, Chris said, “You really are a stupid shit.”

“Fuck you.”

The pressure on my chest eased, and I thought, This is it. He’s going to shoot me in the head. My mouth filled with the taste of, not so much regret as sour pique that this was the manner in which my life had reached its conclusion, beneath the surface of the city of my disappointment, murdered by the broken psychotic who’d spoiled my relationship and fractured what should have been the start of my new life. It’s only a moment, I thought, then you’ll be with Kaitlyn. But I didn’t believe that. I would be dead, part of the blackness, and that was the most I had to look forward to.

“Here you are.”

Not for an instant did I mistake this voice for Chris’s. It wasn’t only that it was behind me—the instrument itself was unlike any I’d heard, rich and cold, as if the lower depths of the tunnel in whose mouth we stood had been given speech.

Ignoring Chris, I spun, my light revealing him, the white man with the shaggy black hair and seamed face who’d held me with his strange eyes in QE2, the man Chris had dubbed the Keeper. He’d exchanged his black leather jacket for a black trenchcoat in whose pockets his hands rested. Chris’s flashlight found that long face, deepened the shadows in its creases. The man did not blink.

Chris said, “You know why I’ve come.”

“Yes?”

“I’m here to offer a trade.”

“What do you offer?”

“Him.”

“What?” I looked over my shoulder. Chris still held the automatic pointed at me.

“Shut up.”

“You’re going to trade me for Kaitlyn?”

“Shut up.”

“So whatever this guy and his friends—you think—this is your solution?”

“Shut up.”

“Jesus! You’re even worse than I thought.”

“This’ll be the best thing you’ve ever done,” Chris said. “I’ve lived with you long enough to know. It’s the best thing you could ever do for her.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but the Keeper coughed, and our attentions returned to him. He said, “For?”

“The woman you took six days past.”

“A woman?”

“Damn you!” Chris shouted. “You know who I’m talking about, so can we cut the coy routine? In the names of Circë, Cybele, and Atys, in the name of Diana, Mother of Hounds, I offer this man’s life for that of the woman you took and hold.”

“Let us ask the Hounds,” the man said. From the darkness behind him, a trio of the same creatures I’d crossed a vacant lot to help on a rainy night emerged into the glow of our flashlights and slunk towards me. Big as that thing had been, these were bigger, the first and largest as tall at the shoulder as my chin, its companions level with my heart. Each was as skeletally thin as that first one, each patched with the same pale fur. At the sight of them, my mind tilted, all my mental furniture sliding to one side. Everything Chris had said in the past hour tumbled together. Inclining their heads in my direction, the Hounds walked lazily around me, silent except for the scrape of their claws on the tunnel floor. Their white skin slid against their bones, and I thought that I had never seen creatures so frail and so deadly. The leader kept its considerable jaws closed, but its companions left theirs open, one exposing its fangs in a kind of sneer, the other licking its lips with a liver-colored tongue. Their combined reek, dirt underscored with decay, as if they’d been rolling in the remains of the cemetery’s more recent residents, threatened to gag me. I concentrated on breathing through my mouth and remaining calm, on not being afraid, or not that afraid, on not noticing the stains on the things’ teeth, on not wondering whether they’d go for my throat or my arms first, on not permitting the panic that was desperate to send me screaming from this place as fast as my legs would carry me from crossing the boundary from emotion to action. The trio completed their circuit of me and returned to the Keeper, assuming positions around him.

“The Hounds are unimpressed.”

I could have fainted with relief.

“What do you mean?” Chris said. “In what way is this not a fair trade?”

“The Hounds have their reasons.”

“This is bullshit!”

“Do you offer anything else?”

“What I’ve offered is enough.”

The man shrugged, turning away.

“Wait!” Chris said. “There are boxes—in my room, there are four boxes full of the information I’ve collected about you. Return the woman, and they’re yours, all of them.”

The man hesitated, as if weighing Chris’s proposal. Then, “No,” he said, and began to walk back down the tunnel, the things accompanying him.

“Wait!” Chris said. “Stop!”

The man ignored him. Already, he and his companions were at the edge of the flashlights’ reach.

“Me!” Chris shouted. “Goddamn you, I offer myself! Is that acceptable to the Hounds?”

The four figures halted. The Keeper said, “Freely made?”

“Yes,” Chris said. “A life for a life.”

“A life for a life.” The man’s face, as he revolved towards us, was ghastly with pleasure. “Acceptable.”

“What a surprise.”

“Leave the light—and the weapon.”

Chris’s flashlight clicked off. The clatter of it hitting the floor was followed by the thud of the automatic. His shoes scuffed the floor and he was stepping past me. He stopped and looked at me, his eyes wild with what lay ahead. He said, “Aren’t you going to stop me? Aren’t you going to insist you be the one they take for Kaitlyn?”

“No.”

He almost smiled. “You never deserved her.”

I had no answer for that.

When he was even with them, the Hounds surrounded him. From the tense of their postures, the curl of their lips from their teeth, I half-expected them to savage him right there. The straightening of Chris’s posture said he was anticipating something similar. The Keeper bent his head towards Chris. “It’s what you really wanted,” he said, nodding at the blackness. One of the smaller things nudged him forward with its head, and the four of them faded down into the dark. For a time, the shuffle of Chris’s feet, the scrape of the things’ claws, told their progress, then those sounds faded to silence.

His gaze directed after Chris, the Keeper said, “Leave. What’s left of him won’t be too happy to learn the life he’s bartered for was yours.”

I didn’t argue, didn’t ask, What about Kaitlyn? I obeyed the man’s command and fled that place without another word. In my headlong rush through the mausoleum proper, I ran my left hip into the corner of Howard Upton’s vault so hard I gasped and stumbled against his wife’s, but although the pain threatened to steal my breath, the image of what might be stepping into the mausoleum after me propelled me forward, out the still-open entrance.

My car was where we’d left it, its headlights undimmed. I fumbled for my wallet and the spare key I kept in the pocket behind my license. As I lowered myself into the driver’s seat, my hip screaming in protest, I kept checking the door to the mausoleum, which remained ajar and in which I continued to think I saw shadowy forms about to emerge. The car started immediately, and in my haste to escape the way I’d come, I backed into a tall tombstone that cracked at the base and toppled backwards. I didn’t care; I shifted into first and sped out of the cemetery, stealing glances in the rearview mirror all the way to my apartment.

V

Despite the bruise on my hip, the increased pain and difficulty moving that sent me to the emergency room the next day with a story about colliding with a doorstep, to learn after an x-ray that I had chipped the bone, I half-expected Chris to walk in the front door as usual the following night. It wasn’t that I doubted what had happened—I was in too much discomfort—it was more that I couldn’t believe its finality. Not until another week had passed, and the landlord appeared wanting to know where Chris and his rent were (to which I replied that I hadn’t seen him for days), did the fact of his…I didn’t have the word for it: his sacrifice? his abduction? his departure? Call it what you would, only when I was standing at the open door to his room, which was Spartan as a monk’s cell, watching the landlord riffle through Chris’s desk, did the permanence of his fate settle on me.

The week after that brought a concerned call from Kaitlyn’s parents, asking if I’d seen their daughter (to which I replied that I hadn’t had any contact with her for weeks). This began a chain of events whose next link was her father driving to Albany to ask a number of people, including me, the last time they’d seen Kaitlyn. Within a couple of days, the police were involved. They interviewed me twice, the first time in a reasonably friendly way, when I was no more than the concerned boyfriend, the second time in a more confrontational and extended session, occasioned by the detective’s putting together my disclosure that Kaitlyn and Chris had been briefly involved with the fact that both of those people had gone missing in reasonably close proximity to one another. There wasn’t any substantial evidence against me, but I had no doubt Detective Calasso was certain I knew more than I was saying. Kaitlyn’s mother shared his suspicion, and during a long phone call before Christmas attempted to convince me to tell her what I knew. I insisted that, sorry as I was to have to say it, I didn’t know what had happened to Kaitlyn. I supposed this was literally true.

Not that I hadn’t dwelled on the matter each and every day since I’d awakened fully dressed on my futon, my hip pounding, a trial of muddy footprints showing my path from the front door to the refrigerator, the top of which served as a nominal liquor cabinet, to my room, where the bottle of Johnny Walker Black that had plunged me into unconsciousness leaned against my pillows. That Kaitlyn should be at the far end of that dark tunnel, surrounded by those things, the Hounds, the Ghûl, was unbelievable, impossible. Yet a second stop at her apartment failed to reveal any change from my previous visit. I sat on the edge of her bed, the lights out, my head fuzzy from the painkiller I’d taken for my hip, and struggled to invent alternative scenarios to the one Chris had narrated. Kaitlyn had met another guy—she was in the midst of an extended fling, a romantic adventure that had carried her out of Albany to Cancun, or Bermuda. She’d suffered a breakdown and had herself committed. She’d undergone a spiritual awakening and joined a convent. But try as I did to embrace them, each invention sounded more unreal than the last, no more than another opiate-facilitated fantasy.

I weighed going after her, myself, returning to the mausoleum suitably armed and equipped and braving the tunnel to retrieve her. I even went so far as to browse a gun store on Route 9, only to discover that the weapons I judged necessary if I were to stand any kind of chance—a shotgun, a minimum of three pistols, boxes of ammunition for each—cost vastly more than my bookstore salary would allow. Trying to buy guns on the street was not a realistic option: I had no idea where to go, how to open any such transaction. On a couple of occasions, I found myself driving north through the city, retracing the path Chris and I had followed to the cemetery. When I realized what I was doing, I turned onto the nearest side street and headed back towards my apartment. Some nights, I unlocked the deadbolts on the basement door and descended the stairs to stand staring down at the cement circle sunk in the floor. The chains securing the bar across it looked rusted right through; with a little effort, I ought to be able to break them, heave the cover up, and…I made sure to lock the basement door behind me.

On the morning of February 2, 1993, as the sun was casting its light across the apartment’s front window, I stuffed every piece of clothing I owned, all my toiletries, whatever food was in the cupboards over the sink, into a green duffel bag that I struggled out the front door, down the front steps, and through my Hyundai’s hatchback. The apartment’s door was wide open, the place full of my possessions, but I started the engine, threw the car into gear, and fled Albany. I didn’t return home to my parents; I didn’t head north or west, either. I wanted the shore, the sea, someplace where the earth was not so deep, so I sped east, along I-90, towards what I thought would be the safety of Cape Cod. I didn’t stop for bathroom breaks; I didn’t stop until Albany was a ghost in my rearview mirror and the Atlantic a grey sheet spread in front of me.

All the way to Provincetown, while I pressed the gas pedal as near the floor as I could and maintain control of the car, I kept the radio at full volume, tuned to whatever hard rock station broadcast clearest. “Highway to Hell” bled into “Paranoid” became “Lock Up the Wolves.” Although the doors, the dash thrummed with a bass line that changed only slightly from song to song, and my ears protested another shrieking singer, guitar, none of it was enough to drown out the sound that had drawn me from my bed the previous night and rushed me to the basement door, hands shaking as I unsnapped the deadbolts and turned the doorknob. Some kind of loud noise, a crash, and then Kaitlyn—I had heard her voice echoing below me, calling my name in that low, singsong tone she used when she wanted to have sex. I had thought I was in a dream, but her words had led me up out of sleep, until the realization that I was awake and still hearing her had sent me from my room, kicking over several stacks of books on the way. The door open, I switched on the light and saw, at the foot of the stairs, shielding her eyes against the sudden brightness, Kaitlyn, returned to me at last.

At the sight of her there—the emotion that transfixed me was some variety of, I knew it. I knew she hadn’t really vanished, knew she wasn’t lost under the earth. She was wearing the oversized army greatcoat, which was streaked with mud. Her feet were bare and filthy. Her skin was more than pale, as if her time underground had bleached it. Her hair was tangled, clotted with dirt, her mouth flaked with something brown.

I was on the verge of running down the stairs to her when she lowered her hand from her eyes and I saw the white centers, the black sclerae. A wave of dizziness threatened to topple me headlong down the stairs. Kaitlyn smiled at my hesitation, reached over, and pulled open her coat. Underneath, she was naked, her white, white flesh smeared with dirt and clay. She called to me again. “Here I aaa-mmm,” she half-sang. “Didn’t you miss me? Don’t you wanna come play with me?”

A bolt of longing, of desire sudden and intense, pierced me. God help me, I did want her. My Eurydice: I wanted to bury myself in her, and who cared if her eyes were changed, if her flesh bore evidence of activities I did not want to dwell on? I might have, might have crossed the dozen pieces of wood that separated the life to which I clung from that which had forced itself on me, surrender myself to sweet oblivion, had a large, bony shape not stumbled into view behind Kaitlyn. Of the Ghûl I had seen previously, none had given so profound an impression of being unaccustomed to walking on all fours. It held its head up too high, as if unused to the position. Its weird eyes were rheumy, its gums raw where its lips drew back from them. It curled around Kaitlyn from behind, dragging its muzzle across her hip before nuzzling between her thighs. She sighed deeply. Eyes lidded, lips parted, she extended her hand towards me while the other pressed the Ghûl’s head forward.

The thing pulled away long enough to give me a sidelong glance, and it was that gesture that sent me scrambling backwards, grabbing for the door and slamming it shut, throwing myself against it as I snapped the deadbolts. It kept me there while I listened to the stairs creak under the combined weights of Kaitlyn and her companion, who settled themselves on the opposite side of the door so that she could murmur tender obscenities to me while the Ghûl’s claws worried the wood. They left with the dawn. Once I was sure they were gone, I ran into my room and began frantically packing.

If the far end of Cape Cod was not as secure a redoubt as I might have thought, hoped, if Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket proved no more isolated, they were preferable to Albany, whose single, outsized skyscraper was an enormous cenotaph marking a necropolis of whose true depths its inhabitants remained unaware. I fled them, over the miles of road and ocean; I am still fleeing them, down the long passage that joins now to then. That flight has defined my life, is its individual failure and the larger failures of the age in sum. I see the two of them still, down there in the dark, where their wanderings take them along sewers, up into the basements of houses full of sleeping families, under roads and rivers, to familiar cemeteries. Kaitlyn has grown more lean, her hair long. She has traded in her old greatcoat for a newer trenchcoat. The Ghûl lopes along beside her, nimble on its feet. It too has become more lean. The scar over its left eye remains.

For Fiona and for Ellen Datlow, who knows about Albany

JUST OUTSIDE OUR WINDOWS,
DEEP INSIDE OUR WALLS

by Brian Hodge

Somewhere in our early teen years it’s inevitable that our parents become sources of great embarrassment to us, held accountable for everything they are and aren’t, could’ve been or should never be.

Before things can get to that stage, though, it sometimes goes the other direction. We realize, even if we can’t articulate it with the same sharpness with which we sense it, that once the bloom is off the earliest years of childhood, we stand revealed as something our parents are mortified to have created.

I always knew a lot more about the latter than the former.

It was spring when she moved into the house next door. It must have been spring, because my window was open, and, directly across from it, so was hers, and had been for at least a day, as though the neighbors were expecting her and had to flush the stale winter air out of the room or maybe the entire uppermost floor.

Everything there was to know about life on the third floor, I understood it inside and out by this point, and had for over two years.

I knew she was there to stay because she sang. Not at first, though. At first there was just bumping and thudding, the sounds of luggage and boxes, and three voices, their words too faint to make out, but only two were familiar. I knew the sounds of my neighbors. This new female voice sounded higher and younger than the other, entirely unfamiliar, although for all that, it seemed to me that she sounded just as tired.

She only sang later, when she thought she was alone.

Whatever the words were, it wasn’t a happy-sounding song, not the kind of song you might hear sung by a group of people crowded around my parents’ grand piano downstairs and someone who knew how to play it. I listened awhile, then dropped to the floor and crept like a spy toward the window until I was underneath it, careful not to make any noise because she still had no way to know I was there, and I didn’t want her to until I’d had a chance for a closer listen and to figure out what she was up to. In the way her voice started and stopped and started again, as though she were pausing between each line or two, the song seemed to require effort. It made me think of a song sung in tribute of someone who has died, only not in a way that sounded, in my word at the time, churchy.

I popped up into the window only when she seemed to have quit, not so much finishing the song as abandoning it, and called to her across the space between our houses: “What’s that you were singing?”

Until now, all I’d seen of her was a silhouette, a thin shape moving around in a room and beyond the reach of the sun. But now she came to the window and smacked her elbows down onto the sill and scowled across at me. Her straight brown hair swept past both wrists as if to whisk her agitation at me, and one hand darted up to grab the bottom of the window and flexed as though she were going to slam it down, but then she kept looking at me and stopped herself, although when she spoke she sounded no less furious.

“Have you been there the whole time?”

“I was here first,” I said. “I’ve always been here first.”

“Well… you should announce yourself, is what you should do.” She told me this as if she suspected she might be speaking to an idiot. She looked very much older to me, twelve or maybe as old as thirteen, and this hurt deeply, because it meant she must have been very worldly and knowledgeable when it came to idiots. “It’s the polite thing to do.”

I told her I was sorry, then asked about the song again.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t mean anything to you. I’m sure you don’t speak the language.”

“What language?”

“The language the song’s in.” Now she sounded convinced beyond all doubt of my idiocy. Then her scowl lifted and she appeared to relent in her harsher appraisals. “It’s not from here.” After another moment, “It’s not for here.”

“Oh,” I said, as if this made sense to me. “Then what are you doing here?”

She seemed not to have heard me even though I knew she had, and I started to feel bad for asking it at all. While at first I’d found her not very nice to look at, I began to wonder if I wasn’t wrong, because now it seemed I’d only been misled by a trick of light and her annoyance. I wondered, too, if she might jump from the window, or lean forward and let herself fall. In that other world three floors down, the neighbors’ house was ringed with square slabs of stone to walk on. Nobody could survive a fall like that.

“I draw,” I told her, volunteering a distraction to save her life. “Want to see?”

I’d sneaked up some old ones, at least, even if I couldn’t make new ones.

“Later, maybe,” she said, and pulled away. Like before, her hand went to the bottom of the window, lingering a few moments, but as she moved back into the room she again left it open.

That night after the lights were out I lay in my bed and imagined her doing the same. I fought to stay awake as long as I could in case there were other songs to hear, or a repeat performance of the first one. Barring that, it seemed possible that she might cry instead, because that’s what I’d done the first night they’d moved me up here, but just before I fell asleep I wondered if the reason I hadn’t heard anything from her was because she was lying in the dark listening for some sound out of me.

The distant future I imagined for myself must have been inspired by something I’d seen on TV, which helped assure me that it was possible to turn my fascinations into a life that could take me far away, where I would be loved by thousands. For what will become obvious reasons, I wanted to be a magician.

I would spend many hours planning what my stage show would be like, and soon grew bored with the idea that I would merely escape from deadly traps and make elephants disappear. This admission seemed to unlock something deep inside, an openness to possibilities that would be mine alone to explore.

While I don’t believe they came while I was asleep, they were more than just flights of imagination. I began to experience long afternoons of waking dreams in which I would take stage assistants, full of smiles and trust and with no thought of doing anything other than surrendering to my will, and I would lock them into cabinets. The blades would come next, whirring and rasping through the cabinets and cutting them into four, five, even six sections, which I would separate with a flourish before moving on to the next. It would take a while, because my audience and I could never be satisfied with my rendering just one assistant into pieces. That would only be the same old trick.

Once the assistants were in pieces and scattered around the stage, smiling and waving and tapping their feet from the separate remnants of the cabinets, I would begin to reassemble them, although never the same way they’d been. They were meant for better things. I would start simply, swapping an assistant’s arms for his legs, and vice versa, or grafting her grinning head onto the middle of her body. Then, after I had basked in the applause for that trick, I would combine the parts of one assistant with those of another, and finally give one or two several more parts than they’d started with, creating human spiders, which would leave others armless and legless, to wriggle across the stage like caterpillar prey.

But the waking dreams of my performance would always end with the assistants dancing like puppets on the stage to prove to the audience how happy they were with their new bodies, and that whatever dramas had played out a few minutes earlier were just theatrics. And so everyone could go home safe and secure in the knowledge that sometimes harm was nothing more than an illusion.

Her name was Roni, I found out a couple days later, which was short for Veronica, and by now short for Ronnie, too. She claimed that there had been a time, lasting for years, when she wanted to be a boy, and so Ronnie was how she had insisted on signing her name, writing it over and over when she was alone, just her and a pen and a piece of paper, and she didn’t have to tell me why.

But while I understood the business with the paper, I didn’t understand why she would need to in the first place. Why would she want to be a boy? I had to ask her this many times before she gave me any kind of an answer.

“You’re a boy,” she said from her window. “What have you killed?”

Bugs, I told her. And fish, because I remembered catching some once with my grandfather, and we hadn’t thrown them back, so I supposed that had to count. And a couple of birds, when I had gotten to play with the pellet rifle a friend had been given for his birthday. Those were all I could remember. Except for the other times. But it seemed like those shouldn’t count, because to really do something like that you have to mean it.

Roni seemed to be hoping for more, but before I could make up anything else, some stupid meaningless thing that wouldn’t scare her away from the window forever, she asked me another question. “Wasn’t it easier to do it because you’re a boy than it would’ve been if you weren’t?”

“I don’t know,” I told her, because I had no experience being a girl. Although, yes, I could imagine them being more squeamish about murderous activities. “I guess so. Probably.”

“Well, there you go.”

I was glad then that I wasn’t a girl, because it seemed that they talked in riddles. Then again, if I were a girl, maybe I would have understood everything she was telling me by not coming right out and saying it.

“I heard about something in school,” she said.

I nodded, and sort of remembered what that was like.

She pointed to her right, beyond the front of the houses and toward the park that our block faced. It was bright green in there now, and people were finally going there again the way they used to, little specks of color on the paths and between the trees, and every so often, when the air was just right, a laugh would carry over, and I wished I knew what was so funny.

“What I heard was that back in the winter, after Thanksgiving, three different people, on three different days, were found with their heads off,” Roni said. “It wasn’t any girl who did that. She wouldn’t even think to do it.”

“She wouldn’t?” By now I was just comfortable enough with Roni to think I might be able to get away with challenging her a little. “Who says?”

“Well, she might think it. But she’d never do it.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t have the hands for it, for one thing.” She craned her neck forward, angling to see as much of the room behind me as she could. “You’ve got windows in there, don’t you, that look out the front? And you don’t go to my school and you never seem to leave. So … did you see anything?”

For a moment I was suspicious. Maybe the police had sent her, and the next-door neighbors weren’t really her aunt and uncle. Maybe she hadn’t really come to stay with them until further notice because of … well, she hadn’t actually said anything about why. But I didn’t believe this. If the police had sent her, they would have sent her with a better lie that she could actually tell. I knew that much from TV.

“If I did see something,” I said, “what would you want to know about it?”

She turned serious, thinking, as if she hadn’t planned this far. Then she knew. “Most people would want to know why there wasn’t any blood. But what I’d rather know is if the person who did it ran away, or just walked, like it was any other day.”

This was very weird to me. “What would that matter?”

Her face became a riddle then, and she knew it, and seemed to like it that way.

“Maybe he didn’t do either,” I said. “Walk or run.”

She burst out laughing. “Well, he didn’t fly!”

I realized then how much more I liked her when she laughed. I never got to see anyone laugh any more, only hear it, and not very often, only when I was lucky. After three days this was the first time she’d laughed, too, but it didn’t seem likely to happen again any time soon. I remembered school, and how it could be bad enough at the start of the year, and she was getting here toward the end of a school year, and that couldn’t have been easy.

So I told her maybe she wouldn’t have to go to the new school if she didn’t want to, that I had a governess who came most days and, if Roni wanted, she could listen at the window. The idea met with instant disdain—not because it was a bad idea, just that the offer was meaningless.

“What’s she going to teach you that I don’t already know?”

I began to wish the spring away… that summer would hurry up and arrive, so the schools would lock their doors and I wouldn’t have to wait for late afternoons. While the waiting didn’t get any easier, at least as spring went on the days got longer, with more light filling the space between the houses. Even though we could lean in the windows and talk to each other any time of the night, it was better when I could see her, because otherwise she wouldn’t seem as real. She’d tell me what they were trying to teach her at school, and I’d tell her what the governess was trying to teach me, and there didn’t ever seem to be much in common, and eventually I realized something was missing.

“What about art class?” I asked. “Don’t you ever go to art?”

“Of course not. It’s middle school.”

The way she said this made it sound horrible.

“Don’t you miss it? Art class?”

“I guess. I don’t know.” She sounded as if nobody had ever told her that she could miss it.

“Could you do me a favor anyway? Could you bring back some paper for me? And pencils or something?” Crayons or colored markers seemed too much to ask for at this stage, but if this first part went well, I could get to those later.

“What kind of kid doesn’t have paper and pencils of his own? Everybody has those.” Roni appeared not to believe me, and who could blame her. “You say you have a governess. How do you do your lessons, then? How do you do your math problems?”

“I do them in front of her. I just don’t get to keep the paper and pencils. They make her take everything away when she leaves.”

Roni realized I was serious, and froze for a moment with her mouth half open and one eye half shut. No one would ever make up a thing like this. “Why?” she said, as if she’d never heard of anything so ridiculous.

“Because I draw.”

“Only you and a billion other gradeschool lower life-forms. So?”

I shut my eyes for a moment and sighed, and when I opened them, I think maybe, just for an instant, she saw someone else she’d never realized lived here.

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“I never said I wouldn’t, did I?” She blinked a few times, startled. “I’ve already got all the pencils I can ever use in this lifetime. You can have a couple of those.” She briefly disappeared from the window. “Knock yourself out.”

She took aim and sent them flipping end-over-end, across the space and through my window. Two bright yellow pencils lying on the rug, with no one to take them away. At first I didn’t dare touch them. I just wanted to look at them.

“Are you okay?” she called. “I didn’t sink one in your eye, did I?”

I turned back around and remembered to thank her. Saying thank you is very important, especially when you’re a prisoner.

“I’ve got a notebook here you can have, too. Just let me rip a few pages out first.”

It was tempting. But no.

“I’d rather have blank paper. Totally blank.” I’d waited this long. I could wait another day. “I hate lines.”

“And speaking of lines, did you ever hear the one about beggars and choosers? That’s a good one.”

“I still hate lines.”

She nodded, getting it. “They really don’t let you have paper and writing utensils of your own. They really don’t.”

I shook my head no.

“What about toilet paper?” She was smirking. But she wasn’t serious, although at first I thought she was, and she laughed. “Let me see what I can come up with,” she said, and seemed to take a new satisfaction in it now. Something wrong to do, a law to break, and if she was lucky she might even get to steal, and it must have been then that everything changed between us, and each of us didn’t just have a neighbor to pass the time with, but maybe the closest thing either of us could find to a friend.

She came through a couple days later, way beyond anything I believed I could hope for. I’d been thinking she would bring, at best, a few dirty sheets of unwanted paper with shoe prints on them. Instead, that evening, she popped up in her window, grinning, and when I couldn’t stand it anymore she held up an unopened package of copier paper.

“Five hundred sheets. I got it from a teacher’s supply closet,” Roni said. “Are you ever gonna owe me big time. Like maybe for the rest of eternity.”

Except then we had to deal with the problem of transferring it from her room to mine. Throwing pencils was one thing. For this, she didn’t trust her arm. I didn’t trust her arm.

“Why can’t I just bring it over under my clothes?” she said. “What are your parents going to do, search me?”

No, I told her. She’d never get through. I never had visitors, except for the governess, and there were locks. Besides, the paper may have come from downstairs, but it belonged to the upstairs world now. It could never go downstairs again.

But I had a dart gun, the kind with the suction cup tips. And I had string. And Roni found some rope, a little thicker than twine, that she could tie to the string I shot over. And a wicker basket her aunt no longer used in the garden, whose handle she could slip the rope through. By the time it got dark, I’d used the string to pull the rope back, first one end and then the other, and we’d looped it around our bedframes, like pulleys. I tied the ends together with one of the best knots I remembered from scouting, when they still used to let me go out, and then all we had to do was keep the handle from slipping along the rope and we could pull it back and forth, from room to room, all we wanted.

That’s how she sent me the paper.

It took me even longer to touch this than it did the pencils. I knew I’d be up half the night, finding the best possible hiding place for it. Nobody could know. Nobody could ever know. If they found this, I’d never have a window again, just walls.

“Hey,” she called over after the sky had gone dark, and she hadn’t seen any sign of me for a while. “You have to tell me why. What did you do? Draw a bunch of dirty pictures once and it fried their brains?”

I leaned on the sill for a long time. In her window, she was a silhouette, a mystery lit from behind, and if I’d been a little older then, I might have wanted to draw every single strand of hair that cut the light into ribbons. She’d done the kindest thing for me that anyone ever had, and we’d never even been in the same room, or closer than twelve feet.

“Sometimes I draw things and they come true,” I told her. Because she’d asked, and I had no one else to tell and couldn’t imagine a day when I ever would. “Sometimes I draw things and it makes them happen. Or makes them change.”

She didn’t say a word. Liar … I might’ve expected that. Might’ve even hoped for it. The longer the silence, the more I wished she’d just make fun of me. My fingers hung onto the windowsill the way bird claws hold branches.

“You’re not going to go away now, are you? You’ll still come to the window?”

“It depends,” she said.

“On what?”

“How does it work? Do you just draw anything, and whatever happens, happens? Or do you have to want it to, first?”

“I think I have to mean for it to. Even if I don’t know that at the time.”

And even if I wanted it to happen, sometimes nothing did. Otherwise, the park would’ve been full of T-rexes and a brontosaurus herd. Which had made me think I was limited to working with what was there already, not making something out of nothing.

“Interesting,” she said. “Listen. They tell me I’m going to have to have braces starting next year. The last thing I want is a big shiny metal mouth. If I gave you a really good look at them, do you think you could fix my teeth?”

I’ve always wondered what her dentist would have said if he’d ever gotten a chance to see her teeth again.

It wasn’t a hard thing to do, and I was able to get a closer look at her mouth than she expected, because I had a telescope, all the better to see everything on the earth and sky I was missing. Roni stood in her window and smiled a wide, crazy smile, and I let it fill the telescope’s eyepiece, and first drew her teeth the way they were, how the ones around the side tilted in and one in the front overlapped the other. Then I concentrated really hard and started changing the lines a little at a time. Twice she said it hurt, but didn’t want to stop.

After we were done, it took a while before she came back from the bathroom mirror. But she said I’d done a good job.

It wasn’t the first time I’d fixed something, and I was better at it by now than I was before, when I was smaller and my fingers didn’t move as well, and this was all new to me, and something my parents didn’t understand. All I’d done until that time was little things around the house, like switch the arms and legs on a dancing figure that spun around on top of my mother’s music box. They never suspected, not until the night they had a party, for Christmas, I think, and they marched me around to all the guests, and had me show off things I’d drawn so everyone could see what a great artist they had here.

One of the guests asked me to draw his portrait.

So I did.

Except I drew him the way I wanted him, because I didn’t like him. He was loud and his breath stank and he spit when he talked and it hurt my ears to be around him, so first I drew his ugly flapping mouth, and then I smeared it out,
and his eyes, too, to stop him from looking at me the way he was starting to.

That changed the party in a hurry.

My parents figured things out, finally, and made me put him back together again, but I was scared by then, and didn’t draw as well, and it was the first time I’d tried to make anything the way it was before. A few days later, when I was eavesdropping on my parents as they argued about what to do with me, I heard them say the man was going to be having surgeries for years.

So it was good to help Roni.

But there wasn’t much else that needed changing, so the rest of the time I just drew without any other reason behind it, mostly other places I would rather be, if only I knew how to get there.

The school year ended for everyone but me, and summer got hotter. Whenever I wasn’t having lessons and Roni wasn’t somewhere else, we lived at our open windows, so our top floors got warmer, too, and we wore the windowsills smooth with our elbows.

Plus we’d never taken down the rope.

“Do you think we should?” I asked one night.

“No. Definitely not,” she said. “They never paid any attention to what’s going on over their heads before, so why would they start now?”

So we used the basket to pass stuff back and forth, like books and magazines and comics and music and other things we liked, plus things we made. I sent her drawings, some to keep, and she sent me some stories she was working on, not only to read but for me to draw pictures for them.

She admitted they were all set in the place where the songs came from.

Roni had never stopped singing after that first night. I was glad of it, and by now she didn’t seem to mind if I heard or not. I still didn’t understand the language, and she wouldn’t tell me what the words meant, but I began imagining what they must’ve been about from the sound of them. And from her stories, which I did understand. These were mostly about girls who killed trolls and ogres, or held them captive forever, or held them captive awhile and then killed them. At first I felt sorry for them, because as a fellow prisoner I knew what they were going through, but then I realized each one of them had done something terrible to the girls, so it was probably for the best when the princesses and peasants and warrior girls started by cutting off the monsters’ hands.

Then, one evening, when the sky was soft and purple and fireflies flickered close to the ground, she peered at me with her head cocked at a curious tilt. “It was you, wasn’t it?” she said. “Those people in the park, in the winter. You did that, didn’t you?”

I’d been waiting for this for weeks. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

“Three different times it was an accident?” She laughed the way you laugh when you don’t believe something, but didn’t sound mad. She hadn’t known them, so what was it to her if their heads had come off. “How did you do it without paper?”

I asked if she ever had known what it was like to want to do something so bad, only not be able to, that you thought you were going to explode. She didn’t have to think about it. Well, that was me without paper. Until I’d noticed a layer of frost on the inside of the windows overlooking the park.

“All I did was look through the glass and use my fingernail to scratch an outline around them.” And then flick my fingernail across their necks. “I didn’t mean anything. The first time I didn’t even know it would happen.”

She looked confused. “When I first asked you how it worked, you told me you did have to mean it.”

Right. I had. So maybe I was mad at the people for being able to be out while it was snowing and I had to stay inside. Maybe I’d done it the second time to make sure the first was really my fault. Maybe a third time just because I could. Mostly I remembered the way they fell, first one part and then the other, straight down into the snow without any sound.

“Is it something you’ll always be able to do?”

“I guess so,” I told her. “But I heard my parents talking once and they were wondering if I might grow out of it someday.”

She nodded, very solemn, very serious. “I have to think about this.”

“Are you mad at me?”

But she was already gone from the window. I still heard her voice, though, and it gave me hope: “I’ll never tell on you, if that’s what you mean.”

Later that night I was awakened by the basket clunking at the window. I turned on a light, the only light burning in the whole world, and got out of bed to see what she’d sent me. It was a picture, Roni and two boys, one obviously older and one who looked younger, plus a woman and a man. Roni wasn’t smiling, at least not so you could see her teeth and whether any of them were crooked or not, and I sort of remembered what it was like, having to pretend to smile that way.

Her voice was a whisper now, floating like a mist across the space between our rooms.

“If someone was going to come over, and I told you what time, and you knew who to look for, and you saw him, could you do it then?” she said. “The trick with the head?”

I rubbed my eyes and looked at the picture some more. “Who to?”

She made a sound I’d never heard. “Don’t make me say it.”

A little later I turned out the light because maybe it would be easier on her that way, and I listened to her breathe and leaned in the window in the moonlight so she could see I would stay there for as long as it took.

“The one in the middle,” she finally said.

It was early August when I heard her crying. I didn’t even know she did that, because she seemed very much older to me, twelve or maybe as old as thirteen, and I thought nothing could get to her that bad any more.

I suppose I’d always been afraid that all of this would only be for the summer, or a year, anything but forever, that it was too good to last. I’d made a friend and so had she, and as far as I knew, no one else in the downstairs world was even aware of it, and this was just the way we liked it. But tomorrow she would be going away again. They would be coming to pick her up and take her home again.

“Nothing will change there,” she told me. “They say it will this time, but I know it won’t.”

It was a long time before I understood what she really meant by that. At the time, all I knew was that it meant a lot to her, meant everything to her.

“You could come over here,” I said. “I’ll hide you.”

She laughed through her tears. It had been a long time since I’d heard it, the you’re-such-an-idiot laugh. “You don’t think your parents will notice me down there looking for the keys?”

“That’s not how I mean. Just come across. Like we did with the paper and everything else.”

“On the rope? It’ll never hold me.”

It could. I was very sure of this. I told her how it could.

I didn’t mean for this to make her cry even harder, but it did.

I stayed awake the rest of that night, pinching myself whenever I got sleepy, in case Roni changed her mind. It was kind of fun, because I hardly ever got to see the sunrise, and now I had a reason, something important to do for once.

“Okay,” she said when the sky was first beginning to go pink and orange. “I think I trust you.”

We started with her legs.

Had I ever drawn anything this carefully before? Never. Never in my whole life.

She tied each one to the rope by the ankle, and once I’d pulled them across I unfastened them and rested them side-by-side on my bed, toes up, the way they’d be if she were lying there whole, and I never knew she had a birthmark the size of a quarter on one thigh.

Now we had to start planning more carefully, because once we did the first arm, she wouldn’t be able to tie things very well with just one hand, so she had to start tying parts of herself to the line ahead of time. The last thing she did was lean over to one side with her head in the basket and wait for me to take care of the rest.

After I had all her parts laid out in place I thought of my assistants, my human spiders, and how happy we made the audience and how loudly it clapped for us. I really wanted to try it, except Roni hadn’t agreed to this, and probably wouldn’t like it, and I could see how impatiently her head was staring at me from the pillow.

So I just drew her back together again like normal.

“What did it feel like?” I wanted to know. “Did it hurt?”

“Not much.” She thought awhile longer. “Cold, though. It felt cold.” She looked around at all the space I had, a whole floor to myself. “This is nice. This is really, really nice.”

We cut the rope and pulled all of it over, then cut it into little pieces so she would never have to go across again. Some of the pieces we threw out the window, down to the ground and up on the roof, and the rest we hid. I knew where to hide anything.

I knew where to hide her when they brought breakfast up, and we shared it even though it wasn’t enough for two of us. I knew where to hide her when the governess came, so she could listen without being heard. I just wasn’t sure where to hide her if anyone really came looking. And they would, I was sure of it. It wouldn’t matter that there were locks on the door at the bottom of the stairs. They’d still come looking. Because they knew there was something different about me.

But for as long as it lasted, it was the best day of my life.

In between the fun stuff, we kept watch at the window, and listened, and late in the day a car stopped in front of the house next door. People got out and I recognized them from the photo she’d sent me, including the one in the middle.

I held up paper and a pencil. “Do you still want me to? The trick with the head?”

We watched them walk closer, and I was glad all over again that I wasn’t a girl, because I couldn’t ever imagine myself looking that confused over a simple question.

“No,” she finally whispered. “I couldn’t really do that.”

I sort of remembered what that was like.

It was less than an hour before they came, but before then we heard people calling outside and watched them troop over to the park and back again. Eventually the doorbell rang downstairs, big bonging chimes you could hear all the way up here.

It was time.

And I knew where to hide her now. It could work. I was very sure of this. I told her how it could, and this time she didn’t cry.

I drew myself first, getting everything just right because this was the trick that mattered most of all. Then I waited while we looked at each other, because I knew now that I loved her, even if I didn’t know as what, and there was nothing more to say, just listening for the voices and footsteps to get closer, until the keys began to click in the door, and Roni closed her eyes and nodded.

Back to the paper, concentrating very hard, blocking out everything else.

I drew her inside me.

And when I looked up again she was gone.

That was a long time ago, in a house I hardly remember, except for every square inch of the top floor, and the views. The house isn’t standing anymore.

But we’d pulled it off, waiting there innocent while they looked for her. It wasn’t as if they had to tear the place apart. Even with an entire third floor to search, there are only so many places something the size of a person can hide. I think they were a little afraid of me by this time, too. There’s what you know, and what you suspect, and what you don’t know, and they realized what they didn’t know was the biggest part of it, and so they must have decided it would be safer not to grill me too hard.

Inside, I could feel her moving, but later on she went to sleep, the way you can sleep when you’re with someone you trust.

We waited a long time, weeks and then months, for the search and suspicions to die down.

“Aren’t you ready to come out now?” I’d ask every so often.

“Just a little longer,” she’d tell me. “This is nice. This is really, really nice.”

Never in a hurry. So I asked less and less often.

Until there was no point asking anymore.

Of all the things my parents were wrong about when it came to me, why did they have to be right about this one: that the thing with the paper was something I’d grow out of someday. I don’t even know when it happened. It just did, and while whatever I put down on paper looked better than ever, it just sat there doing nothing, empty and lifeless and inert.

By now I must have gone through forests of trees, trying to remember what it was like, to recapture what once seemed so easy, so I could draw her back out of me again. But the results are always the same. One more crumpled wad of paper, one more curl of ash.

Yet still, she’s close, so close I can almost touch her.

But now her voice comes from so far away.

LESSER DEMONS

by Norman Partridge

Down in the cemetery, the children were laughing.

They had another box open.

They had their axes out. Their knives, too.

I sat in the sheriff ’s department pickup, parked beneath a willow tree. Ropes of leaves hung before me like green curtains, but those curtains didn’t stop the laughter. It climbed the ridge from the hollow below, carrying other noises—shovels biting hard-packed earth, axe blades splitting coffinwood, knives scraping flesh from bone. But the laughter was the worst of it. It spilled over teeth sharpened with files, chewed its way up the ridge, and did its best to strip the hard bark off my spine.

I didn’t sit still. I grabbed a gas can from the back of the pickup. I jacked a full clip into my dead deputy’s .45, slipped a couple spares into one of the leather pockets on my gun belt and buttoned it down. Then I fed shells into my shotgun and pumped one into the chamber.

I went for a little walk.

Five months before, I stood with my deputy, Roy Barnes, out on County Road 14. We weren’t alone. There were others present. Most of them were dead, or something close to it.

I held that same shotgun in my hand. The barrel was hot. The deputy clutched his .45, a ribbon of bitter smoke coiling from the business end. It wasn’t a stink you’d breathe if you had a choice, but we didn’t have one.

Barnes reloaded, and so did I. The June sun was dropping behind the trees, but the shafts of late-afternoon light slanting through the gaps were as bright as high noon. The light played through black smoke rising from a Chrysler sedan’s smoldering engine and white smoke simmering from the hot asphalt piled in the road gang’s dump truck.

My gaze settled on the wrecked Chrysler. The deal must have started there. Fifteen or twenty minutes before, the big black car had piled into an old oak at a fork in the county road. Maybe the driver had nodded off, waking just in time to miss a flagman from the work gang. Over-corrected and hit the brakes too late. Said: Hello tree, goodbye heartbeat.

Maybe that was the way it happened. Maybe not. Barnes tried to piece it together later on, but in the end it really didn’t matter much. What mattered was that the sedan was driven by a man who looked like something dredged up from the bottom of a stagnant pond. What mattered was that something exploded from the Chrysler’s trunk after the accident. That thing was the size of a grizzly, but it wasn’t a bear. It didn’t look like a bear at all. Not unless you’d ever seen one turned inside out, it didn’t.

Whatever it was, that skinned monster could move. It unhinged its sizable jaws and swallowed a man who weighed two-hundred-and-change in one long ratcheting gulp, choking arms and legs and torso down a gullet lined with razor teeth. Sucked the guy into a blue-veined belly that hung from its ribs like a grave-robber’s sack and then dragged that belly along fresh asphalt as it chased down the other men, slapping them onto the scorching roadbed and spitting bloody hunks of dead flesh in their faces. Some it let go, slaughtering others like so many chickens tossed live and squawking onto a hot skillet.

It killed four men before we showed up, fresh from handling a fender-bender on the detour route a couple miles up the road. Thanks to my shotgun and Roy Barnes’ .45, all that remained of the thing was a red mess with a corpse spilling out of its gutshot belly. As for the men from the work crew, there wasn’t much you could say. They were either as dead as that poor bastard who’d ended his life in a monster’s stomach, or they were whimpering with blood on their faces, or they were running like hell and halfway back to town. But whatever they were doing didn’t make too much difference to me just then.

“What was it, Sheriff?” Barnes asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You sure it’s dead?”

“I don’t know that, either. All I know is we’d better stay away from it.”

We backed off. The only things that lingered were the afternoon light slanting through the trees, and the smoke from that hot asphalt, and the smoke from the wrecked Chrysler. The light cut swirls through that smoke as it pooled around the dead thing, settling low and misty, as if the something beneath it were trying to swallow a chunk of the world, roadbed and all.

“I feel kind of dizzy,” Barnes said.

“Hold on, Roy. You have to.”

I grabbed my deputy by the shoulder and spun him around. He was just a kid, really—before this deal, he’d never even had his gun out of its holster while on duty. I’d been doing the job for fifteen years, but I could have clocked a hundred and never seen anything like this. Still, we both knew it wasn’t over. We’d seen what we’d seen, we’d done what we’d done, and the only thing left to do was deal with whatever was coming next.

That meant checking out the Chrysler. I brought the shotgun barrel even with it, aiming at the driver’s side door as we advanced. The driver’s skull had slammed the steering wheel at the point of impact. Black blood smeared across his face, and filed teeth had slashed through his pale lips so that they hung from his gums like leavings you’d bury after gutting a fish. On top of that, words were carved on his face. Some were purpled over with scar tissue and others were still fresh scabs. None of them were words I’d seen before. I didn’t know what to make of them.

“Jesus,” Barnes said. “Will you look at that.”

“Check the back seat, Roy.”

Barnes did. There was other stuff there. Torn clothes. Several pairs of handcuffs. Ropes woven with fishhooks. A wrought-iron trident. And in the middle of all that was a cardboard box filled with books.

The deputy pulled one out. It was old. Leathery. As he opened it, the book started to come apart in his hands. Brittle pages fluttered across the road—

Something rustled in the open trunk. I pushed past Roy and fired point blank before I even looked. The spare tire exploded. On the other side of the trunk, a clawed hand scrabbled up through a pile of shotgunned clothes. I fired again. Those claws clacked together, and the thing beneath them didn’t move again.

Using the shotgun barrel, I shifted the clothes to one side, uncovering a couple of dead kids in a nest of rags and blood. Both of them were handcuffed. The thing I’d killed had chewed its way out of one of their bellies. It had a grinning, wolfish muzzle and a tail like a dozen braided snakes. I slammed the trunk and chambered another shell. I stared down at the trunk, waiting for something else to happen, but nothing did.

Behind me… well, that was another story.

The men from the road gang were on the move.

Their boots scuffed over hot asphalt.

They gripped crow bars, and sledge hammers, and one of them even had a machete.

They came towards us with blood on their faces, laughing like children.

The children in the cemetery weren’t laughing anymore.

They were gathered around an open grave, eating.

Like always, a couple seconds passed before they noticed me. Then their brains sparked their bodies into motion, and the first one started for me with an axe. I pulled the trigger, and the shotgun turned his spine to jelly, and he went down in sections. The next one I took at longer range, so the blast chewed her over some. Dark blood from a hundred small wounds peppered her dress. Shrieking, she turned tail and ran.

Which gave the third bloodface a chance to charge me. He was faster than I expected, dodging the first blast, quickly closing the distance. There was barely enough room between the two of us for me to get off another shot, but I managed the job. The blast took off his head. That was that.

Or at least I thought it was. Behind me, something whispered through long grass that hadn’t been cut in five months. I whirled, but the barefoot girl’s knife was already coming at me. The blade ripped through my coat in a silver blur, slashing my right forearm. A twist of her wrist and she tried to come back for another piece, but I was faster and bashed her forehead with the shotgun butt. Her skull split like a popped blister and she went down hard, cracking the back of her head on a tombstone.

That double-punched her ticket. I sucked a deep breath and held it. Blood reddened the sleeve of my coat as the knife wound began to pump. A couple seconds later I began to think straight, and I got the idea going in my head that I should put down the shotgun and get my belt around my arm. I did that and tightened it good. Wounded, I’d have a walk to get back to the pickup. Then I’d have to find somewhere safe where I could take care of my arm. The pickup wasn’t far distance-wise, but it was a steep climb up to the ridgeline. My heart would be pounding double-time the whole way. If I didn’t watch it, I’d lose a lot of blood.

But first I had a job to finish. I grabbed the shotgun and moved toward the rifled grave. Even in the bright afternoon sun, the long grass was still damp with morning dew. I noticed that my boots were wet as I stepped over the dead girl. That bothered me, but the girl’s corpse didn’t. She couldn’t bother me now that she was dead.

I left her behind me in the long grass, her body a home for the scarred words she’d carved on her face with the same knife she’d used to butcher the dead and butcher me. All that remained of her was a barbed rictus grin and a pair of dead eyes staring up into the afternoon sun, as if staring at nothing at all. And that’s what she was to me—that’s what they all were now that they were dead. They were nothing, no matter what they’d done to themselves with knives and files, no matter what they’d done to the living they’d murdered or the dead they’d pried out of burying boxes. They were nothing at all, and I didn’t spare them another thought.

Because there were other things to worry about—things like the one that had infected the children with a mouthful of spit-up blood. Sometimes those things came out of graves. Other times they came out of car trunks or meat lockers or off slabs in a morgue. But wherever they came from they were always born of a corpse, and there were corpses here aplenty.

I didn’t see anything worrisome down in the open grave. Just stripped bones and tatters of red meat, but it was meat that wasn’t moving. That was good. So I took care of things. I rolled the dead bloodfaces into the grave. I walked back to the cottonwood thicket at the ridge side of the cemetery and grabbed the gas can I’d brought from the pickup. I emptied it into the hole, then tossed the can in, too. I wasn’t carrying it back to the truck with a sliced-up arm.

I lit a match and let it fall.

The gas thupped alive and the hole growled fire.

Fat sizzled as I turned my back on the grave. Already, other sounds were rising in the hollow. Thick, rasping roars. Branches breaking somewhere in the treeline behind the old funeral home. The sound of something big moving through the timber—something that heard my shotgun bark three times and wasn’t afraid of the sound.

Whatever that thing was, I didn’t want to see it just now.

I disappeared into the cottonwood thicket before it saw me.

Barnes had lived in a converted hunting lodge on the far side of the lake. There weren’t any other houses around it, and I hadn’t been near the place in months. I’d left some stuff there, including medical supplies we’d scavenged from the local emergency room. If I was lucky, they would still be there.

Thick weeds bristled over the dirt road that led down to Roy’s place. That meant no one had been around for a while. Of course, driving down the road would leave a trail, but I didn’t have much choice. I’d been cut and needed to do something about it fast. You take chances. Some are large and some are small. Usually, the worries attached to the small ones amount to nothing.

I turned off the pavement. The dirt road was rutted, and I took it easy. My arm ached every time the truck hit a pothole. Finally, I parked under the carport on the east side of the old lodge. Porch steps groaned as I made my way to the door, and I entered behind the squared-off barrel of Barnes’ .45.

Inside, nothing was much different than it had been a couple of months before. Barnes’ blood-spattered coat hung on a hook by the door. His reading glasses rested on the coffee table. Next to it, a layer of mold floated on top of a cup of coffee he’d never finished. But I didn’t care about any of that. I cared about the cabinet we’d stowed in the bathroom down the hall.

Good news. Nothing in the cabinet had been touched. I stripped to the waist, cleaned the knife wound with saline solution from an IV bag, then stopped the bleeding as best I could. The gash wasn’t as deep as it might have been. I sewed it up with a hooked surgical needle, bandaged it, and gobbled down twice as many antibiotics as any doctor would have prescribed. That done, I remembered my wet boots. Sitting there on the toilet, I laughed at myself a little bit, because given the circumstances it seemed like a silly thing to worry about. Still, I went to the first-floor bedroom I’d used during the summer and changed into a dry pair of Wolverines I’d left behind.

Next I went to the kitchen. I popped the top on a can of chili, found a spoon, and started towards the old dock down by the lake. There was a rusty swing set behind the lodge that had been put up by a previous owner; it shadowed a kid’s sandbox. Barnes hadn’t had use for either—he wasn’t even married—but he’d never bothered to change things around. Why would he? It would have been a lot of work for no good reason.

I stopped and stared at the shadows beneath the swing set, but I didn’t stare long. The dock was narrow and more than a little rickety, with a small boathouse bordering one side. I walked past the boathouse and sat on the end of the dock for a while. I ate cold chili. Cattails whispered beneath a rising breeze. A flock of geese passed overhead, heading south. The sun set, and twilight settled in.

It was quiet. I liked it that way. With Barnes, it was seldom quiet. I guess you’d say he had a curious mind. The deputy liked to talk about things, especially things he didn’t understand, like those monsters that crawled out of corpses. Barnes called them lesser demons. He’d read about them in one of those books we found in the wreck. He had ideas about them, too. Barnes talked about those ideas a lot over the summer, but I didn’t want to talk about any of it. Talking just made me edgy. So did Barnes’ ideas and explanations… all those maybe’s and what if’s. Barnes was big on those; he’d go on and on about them.

Me, I cared about simpler things. Things anyone could understand. Things you didn’t need to discuss, or debate. Like waking up before a razor-throated monster had a chance to swallow me whole. Or not running out of shotgun shells. Or making sure one of those things never spit a dead man’s blood in my face, so I wouldn’t take a file to my teeth or go digging in a graveyard for food. That’s what I’d cared about that summer, and I cared about the same things in the hours after a bloodfaced lunatic carved me up with a dirty knife.

I finished the chili. It was getting dark. Getting cold, too, because winter was coming on. I tossed the empty can in the lake and turned back toward the house. The last purple smear of twilight silhouetted the place, and a pair of birds darted into the chimney as I walked up the dock. I wouldn’t have seen them if I hadn’t looked at that exact moment, and I shook my head. Birds building nests in October? It was just another sign of a world gone nuts.

Inside, I settled on the couch and thought about lighting a fire. I didn’t care about the birds—nesting in that chimney was their own bad luck. I’d got myself a chill out at the dock, and there was a cord of oak stacked under the carport. Twenty minutes and I could have a good blaze going. But I was tired, and my arm throbbed like it had grown its own heartbeat. I didn’t want to tear the stitches toting a bunch of wood. I just wanted to sleep.

I took some painkillers—more than I should have—and washed them down with Jack Daniel’s. After a while, the darkness pulled in close. The bedroom I’d used the summer before was on the ground floor. But I didn’t want to be downstairs in case anything came around during the night, especially with a cool liquid fog pumping through my veins. I knew I’d be safer upstairs.

There was only one room upstairs—a big room, kind of like a loft.

It was Barnes’ bedroom, and his blood was still on the wall.

I didn’t care. I grabbed my shotgun. I climbed the stairs.

Like I said: I was tired.

Besides, I couldn’t see Barnes’ blood in the dark.

At first, Roy and I stuck to the sheriff ’s office, which was new enough to have pretty good security. When communication stopped and the whole world took a header, we decided that wasn’t a good idea anymore. We started moving around.

My place wasn’t an option. It was smack dab in the middle of town. You didn’t want to be in town. There were too many blind corners, and too many fences you couldn’t see over. Dig in there, and you’d never feel safe no matter how many bullets you had in your clip. So I burned down the house. It never meant much to me, anyway. It was just a house, and I burned it down mostly because it was mine and I didn’t want anyone else rooting around in the stuff I kept there. I never went back after that.

Barnes’ place was off the beaten path. Like I said, that made it a good choice. I knew I could get some sleep there. Not too much, if you know what I mean. Every board in the old lodge seemed to creak, and the brush was heavy around the property. If you were a light sleeper—like me—you’d most likely hear anything that was coming your way long before it had a chance to get you.

And I heard every noise that night in Barnes’ bedroom. I didn’t sleep well at all. Maybe it was my sliced-up arm or those painkillers mixing with the whiskey and antibiotics—but I tossed and turned for hours. The window was open a crack, and cold air cut through the gap like that barefooted girl’s knife. And it seemed I heard another knife scraping somewhere deep in the house, but it must have been those birds in the chimney, scrabbling around in their nest.

Outside, the chained seats on the swing set squealed and squeaked in the wind. Empty, they swung back and forth, back and forth, over cool white sand.

After a couple months, Barnes wasn’t doing so well. We’d scavenged a few of the larger summer houses on the other side of the lake, places that belonged to rich couples from down south. We’d even made a few trips into town when things seemed especially quiet. We’d gotten things to the point where we had everything we needed at the lodge. If something came around that needed killing, we killed it. Otherwise, we steered clear of the world.

But Barnes couldn’t stop talking about those books he’d snatched from the wrecked Chrysler. He read the damned things every day. Somehow, he thought they had all the answers. I didn’t know about that. If there were answers in those books, you’d have one hell of a time pronouncing them. I knew that much.

That wasn’t a problem for Barnes. He read those books cover to cover, making notes about those lesser demons, consulting dictionaries and reference books he’d swiped from the library. When he finished, he read them again. After a while, I couldn’t stand to look at him sitting there with those reading glasses on his face.

I even got sick of the smell of his coffee. So I tried to keep busy. I’d do little things around the lodge, but none of them amounted to much. I chainsawed several oak trees and split the wood. Stacking it near the edge of the property to season would also give us some cover if we ever needed to defend the perimeter, so I did that, too. I even set some traps on the other side of the lodge, but after a while I got sloppy and began to forget where they were. Usually, that happened when I was thinking about something else while I was trying to work. Like Barnes’ maybe’s and what if ’s.

Sometimes I’d get jumpy. I’d hear noises while I was working. Or I’d think I did. I’d start looking for things that weren’t there. Sometimes I’d even imagine something so clearly I could almost see it. I knew that was dangerous… and maybe a little crazy. So I found something else to do—something that would keep my mind from wandering.

I started going out alone during the day. Sometimes I’d run across a pack of bloodfaces. Sometimes one of those demons… or maybe two. You never saw more than two at a time. They never traveled in packs, and that was lucky for me. I doubted I could have handled more than a couple, and even handling two… well, that could be dicey.

But I did it on my own. And I didn’t learn about the damn things by reading a book. I learned by reading them. Watching them operate when they didn’t know I was there, hunting them down with the shotgun, blowing them apart. That’s how I learned—reading tales written in muscle and blood, or told by a wind that carried bitter scent and shadows that fell where they shouldn’t.

And you know what? I found out that those demons weren’t so different. Not really. I didn’t have to think it through much, because when you scratched off the paint and primer and got down to it those things had a spot in the food chain just like you and me. They took what they needed when they needed it, and they did their best to make sure anything below them didn’t buck the line.

If there was anything above them—well, I hadn’t seen it.

I hoped I never would.

I wouldn’t waste time worrying about it until I did.

Come August, there were fewer of those things around. Maybe that meant the world was sorting itself out. Or maybe it just meant that in my little corner I was bucking that food chain hard enough to hacksaw a couple of links.

By that time I’d probably killed fifteen of them. Maybe twenty. During a late summer thunderstorm, I tracked a hoofed minotaur with centipede dreadlocks to an abandoned barn deep in the hollow. The damn thing surprised me, nearly ripping open my belly with its black horns before I managed to jam a pitchfork through its throat. There was a gigantic worm with a dozen sucking maws; I burned it down to cinders in the water-treatment plant. Beneath the high school football stadium, a couple rat-faced spiders with a web strung across a cement tunnel nearly caught me in their trap, but I left them dying there, gore oozing from their fat bellies drop by thick drop. The bugs had a half-dozen cocooned bloodfaces for company, all of them nearly sucked dry but still squirming in that web. They screamed like tortured prisoners when I turned my back and left them alive in the darkness.

Yeah. I did my part, all right.

I did my part, and then some.

Certain situations were harder to handle. Like when you ran into other survivors. They’d see you with a gun, and a pickup truck, and a full belly, and they’d want to know how you were pulling it off. They’d push you. Sometimes with questions, sometimes with pleas that were on the far side of desperate. I didn’t like that. To tell you the truth, it made me feel kind of sick. As soon as they spit their words my way, I’d want to snatch them out of the air and jam them back in their mouths.

Sometimes they’d get the idea, and shut up, and move on. Sometimes they wouldn’t. When that happened I had to do something about it. Choice didn’t enter in to it. When someone pushed you, you had to push back. That was just the way the world worked—before demons and after.

One day in late September, Barnes climbed out of his easy chair and made a field trip to the wrecked Chrysler. He took those books with him. I was so shocked when he walked out the door that I didn’t say a word.

I was kind of surprised when he made it back to the lodge at nightfall. He brought those damn books back with him, too. Then he worked on me for a whole week, trying to get me to go out there. He said he wanted to try something and he needed some backup. I felt like telling him I could have used some backup myself on the days I’d been out dealing with those things while he’d been sitting on his ass reading, but I didn’t say it. Finally I gave in. I don’t know why—maybe I figured going back to the beginning would help Barnes get straight with the way things really were.

There was no sun the day we made the trip, if you judged by what you could see. No sky either. Fog hung low over the lake, following the roads running through the hollow like they were dry rivers that needed filling. The pickup burrowed through the fog, tires whispering over wet asphalt, halogen beams cutting through all that dull white and filling pockets of darkness that waited in the trees.

I didn’t see anything worrisome in those pockets, but the quiet that hung in the cab was another story. Barnes and I didn’t talk. Usually that would have suited me just fine, but not that day. The silence threw me off, and my hands were sweaty on the steering wheel. I can’t say why. I only know they stayed that way when we climbed out of the truck on County Road 14.

Nothing much had changed on that patch of road. Corpses still lay on the asphalt—the road gang, and the bear-thing that had swallowed one of them whole before we blew it apart. They’d been chewed over by buzzards and rats and other miserable creatures, and they’d baked guts-and-all onto the road during the summer heat. You would have had a hell of a time scraping them off the asphalt, because nothing that mattered had bothered with them once they were dead.

Barnes didn’t care about them, either. He went straight to the old Chrysler and hauled the dead driver from behind the steering wheel. The corpse hit the road like a sack of kindling ready for the flame. It was a sight. Crows must have been at the driver’s face, because his fishgut lips were gone. Those scarred words carved on his skin still rode his jerky flesh like wormy bits of gristle, but now they were chiseled with little holes, as if those crows had pecked punctuation.

Barnes grabbed Mr. Fishguts by his necktie and dragged him to the spot in the road where the white line should have been but wasn’t.

“You ready?” he asked.

“For what?”

“If I’ve got it figured right, in a few minutes the universe is going to squat down and have itself a bite. It’ll be one big chunk of the apple—starting with this thing, finishing with all those others.”

“Those books say so?”

“Oh, yeah,” Barnes said, “and a whole lot more.”

That wasn’t any kind of answer, but it put a cork in me. So I did what I was told. I stood guard. Mr. Fishguts lay curled up in that busted-up fetal position. Barnes drew a skinning knife from a leather scabbard on his belt and started cutting off the corpse’s clothes. I couldn’t imagine what the hell he was doing. A minute later, the driver’s corpse was naked, razored teeth grinning up at us through his lipless mouth.

Barnes knelt down on that unmarked road. He started to read.

First from the book. Then from Mr. Fishguts’ skin.

The words sounded like a garbage disposal running backward. I couldn’t understand any of them. Barnes’ voice started off quiet, just a whisper buried in the fog. Then it grew louder, and louder still. Finally he was barking words, and screaming them, and spitting like a hellfire preacher. You could have heard him a quarter mile away.

That got my heart pounding. I squinted into the fog, which was getting heavier. I couldn’t see a damn thing. I couldn’t even see those corpses glued to the road anymore. Just me and Barnes and Mr. Fishguts, there in a tight circle in the middle of County Road 14.

My heart went trip-hammer, those words thumping in time, the syllables pumping. I tried to calm down, tried to tell myself that the only thing throwing me off was the damn fog. I didn’t know what was out there. One of those inside-out grizzlies could have been twenty feet away and I wouldn’t have known it. A rat-faced spider could have been stilting along on eight legs, and I wouldn’t have seen it until the damn thing was chewing off my face. That minotaur thing with the centipede dreadlocks could have charged me at a dead gallop and I wouldn’t have heard its hooves on pavement… not with Barnes roaring. That was all I heard. His voice filled up the hollow with words written in books and words carved on a dead man’s flesh, and standing there blind in that fog I felt like those words were the only things in a very small world, and for a split second I think I understood just how those cocooned bloodfaces felt while trapped in that rat-spider’s web.

And then it was quiet. Barnes had finished reading.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Wait right here.”

I did. The deputy walked over to the Chrysler, and I lost sight of him as he rummaged around in the car. His boots whispered over pavement and he was back again. Quickly, he knelt down, rearing back with both hands wrapped around the hilt of that wrought-iron trident we’d found in the car that very first day, burying it in the center of Mr. Fishguts’ chest.

Scarred words shredded, and brittle bones caved in, and an awful stink escaped the corpse. I waited for something to happen. The corpse didn’t move. I didn’t know about anything else. There could have been anything out there, wrapped up in that fog. Anything, coming straight at us. Anything, right on top of us. We wouldn’t have seen it all. I was standing there with a shotgun in my hands with no idea where to point it. I could have pointed it anywhere and it wouldn’t have made me feel any better. I could have pulled the trigger a hundred times and it wouldn’t have mattered. I might as well have tried to shotgun the fog, or the sky, or the whole damn universe.

It had to be the strangest moment of my life.

It lasted a good long time.

Twenty minutes later, the fog began to clear a little. A half hour later, it wasn’t any worse than when we left the lodge. But nothing had happened in the meantime. That was the worst part. I couldn’t stop waiting for it. I stood there, staring down at Mr. Fishguts’ barbed grin, at the trident, at those words carved on the corpse’s jerky flesh. I was still standing there when Barnes slammed the driver’s door of the pickup. I hadn’t even seen him move. I walked over and slipped in beside him, and he started back towards the lodge.

“Relax,” he said finally. “It’s all over.”

That night it was quieter than it had been in a long time, but I couldn’t sleep and neither could Barnes. We sat by the fire, waiting for something… or nothing. We barely talked at all. About four or five, we finally drifted off.

Around seven, a racket outside jarred me awake. Then there was a scream. I was up in a second. Shotgun in hand, I charged out of the house.

The fog had cleared overnight. I shielded my eyes and stared into the rising sun. A monster hovered over the beach—leathery wings laid over a jutting bone framework, skin clinging to its muscular body in a thin blistery layer, black veins slithering beneath that skin like stitches meant to mate a devil’s muscle and flesh. The thing had a girl, her wrist trapped in one clawed talon. She screamed for help when she saw me coming, but the beast understood me better than she did. It grinned through a mouthful of teeth that jutted from its narrow jaws like nails driven by a drunken carpenter, and its gaze tracked the barrel of my gun, which was already swinging up in my grasp, the stock nestling tight against my shoulder as I took aim.

A sound like snapping sheets. A blast of downdraft from those red wings as the monster climbed a hunk of sky, wings spreading wider and driving down once more.

The motion sent the creature five feet higher in the air. The shotgun barrel followed, but not fast enough. Blistered lips stretched wide, and the creature screeched laughter at me like I was some kind of idiot. Quickly, I corrected my aim and fired.

The first shot was low and peppered the girl’s naked legs. She screamed as I fired again, aiming higher this time. The thing’s left wing wrenched in the socket as the shot found its mark, opening a pocket of holes large enough to strain sunlight. One more reflexive flap and that wing sent a message to the monster’s brain. It screeched pain through its hammered mouth and let the girl go, bloody legs and all.

She fell fast. Her anguished scream told me she understood she was already dead, the same way she understood exactly who’d killed her.

She hit the beach hard. I barely heard the sound because the shotgun was louder. I fired twice more, and that monster fell out of the sky like a kite battered by a hurricane, and it twitched some when it hit, but not too much because I moved in fast and finished it from point-blank range.

Barnes came down to the water. He didn’t say anything about the dead monster. He wanted to bury the girl, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea. She might have one of those things inside her, or a pack of bloodfaces might catch her scent and come digging for her with a shovel. So we soaked her with gasoline instead, and we soaked the winged demon, too, and we tossed a match and burned the both of them together.

After that, Barnes went back to the house.

He did the same thing to those books.

A few days later, I decided to check out the town. Things had been pretty quiet… so quiet that I was getting jumpy again.

They could have rolled up the streets, and it wouldn’t have mattered. To tell the truth, there hadn’t been too many folks in town to begin with, and now most of them were either dead or gone. I caught sight of a couple bloodfaces when I cruised the main street, but they vanished into a manhole before I got close.

I hit a market and grabbed some canned goods and other supplies, but my mind was wandering. I kept thinking about that day in the fog, and that winged harpy on the beach, and my deputy. Since burning those books, he’d barely left his room. I was beginning to think that the whole deal had done him some good. Maybe it was just taking some time for him to get used to the way things were. Mostly, I hoped he’d finally figured out what I’d known all along—that we’d learned everything we really needed to know about the way this world worked
the day we blew apart the inside-out grizzly on County Road 14.

I figured that was the way it was, until I drove back to the house.

Until I heard screams down by the lake.

Barnes had one of the bloodfaces locked up in the boathouse. A woman no more than twenty. He’d stripped her and cuffed her wrists behind a support post. She jerked against the rough wood as Barnes slid the skinning knife across her ribs.

He peeled away a scarred patch of flesh that gleamed in the dusky light, but I didn’t say a word. There were enough words in this room already. They were the same words I’d seen in those books, and they rode the crazy woman’s skin. A couple dozen of them had been stripped from her body with Roy Barnes’ skinning knife. With her own blood, he’d pasted each one to the boathouse wall.

I bit my tongue. I jacked a shell into the shotgun.

Barnes waved me off. “Not now, boss.”

Planting the knife high in the post, he got closer to the girl. Close enough to whisper in her ear. With a red finger, he pointed at the bloody inscription he’d pasted to the wall. “Read it,” he said, but the woman only growled at him, snapping sharpened teeth so wildly that she shredded her own lips. But she didn’t care about spilling her own blood. She probably didn’t know she was doing it. She just licked her tattered lips and snapped some more, convinced she could take a hunk out of Barnes.

He didn’t like that. He did some things to her, and her growls became screams.

“She’ll come around,” Barnes said.

“I don’t think so, Roy.”

“Yeah. She will—this time I figured things out.”

“You said that when you read those books.”

“But she’s a book with a pulse. That’s the difference. She’s alive. That means she’s got a connection—to those lesser demons, and to the things that lord it over them, too. Every one of them’s some kind of key. But you can’t unlock a gate with a bent-up key, even if it’s the one that’s supposed to fit. That’s why things didn’t work with the driver. After he piled up that Chrysler, he was a bent-up key. He lost his pulse. She’s still got hers. If she reads the words instead of me—the words she wrote with a knife of her own—it’ll all be different.”

He’d approached me while he was talking, but I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t stand to. I looked at the bloodface instead. She screamed and spit. She wasn’t even a woman anymore. She was just a naked, writhing thing that was going to end her days cuffed to a pole out here in the middle of nowhere. To think that she could spit a few words through tattered lips and change a world was crazy, as crazy as thinking that dead thing out on County Road 14 could do the job, as crazy as—

“Don’t you understand, boss?”

“She digs up graves, Roy. She eats what she finds buried in them. That’s all I need to understand.”

“You’re wrong. She knows—”

I raised the shotgun and blew off the bloodface’s head, and then I put another load in her, and another. I blew everything off her skeleton that might have been a nest where a demon could grow. And when I was done with that little job I put a load in that wall, too, and all those scarred words went to hell in a spray of flesh and wood, and when they were gone they left a jagged window on the world outside.

Barnes stood there, the girl’s blood all over his coat, the skinning knife gripped in his shaking hand.

I jacked another shell into the shotgun.

“I don’t want to have this conversation again,” I said.

After Barnes had gone, I unlocked the cuffs and got the bloodface down. I grabbed her by her hair and rolled her into the boat. Once the boathouse doors were opened, I yanked the outboard motor cord and was on my way.

I piloted the boat to the boggy section of the lake. Black trees rooted in the water, and Spanish moss hung in tatters from the branches. It was as good a place as any for a grave. I rolled the girl into the water, and she went under with a splash. I thought about Barnes, and the things he said, and those words on the wall. And I wished he could have seen the girl there, sinking in the murk. Yeah, I wished he could have seen that straight-on. Because this was the way the world worked, and the only change coming from this deal was that some catfish were going to eat good tonight.

The afternoon waned, and the evening light came on and faded. I sat there in the boat. I might have stayed until dark, but rain began to fall—at first gently, then hard enough to patter little divots in the calm surface of the lake. That was enough for me. I revved the outboard and headed back to the lodge.

Nothing bothered me along the way, and Roy didn’t bother me once I came through the front door. He was upstairs in his room, and he was quiet… or trying to be.

But I heard him.

I heard him just fine.

Up there in his room, whispering those garbage-disposal words while he worked them into his own flesh with the skinning knife. That’s what he was doing. I was sure of it. I heard his blood pattering on the floorboards the same way that rat-spiders’ blood had pattered the cement floor in the football stadium. Sure it was raining outside, but I’d heard rain and I’d heard blood and I knew the difference.

Floorboards squealed as he shifted his weight, and it didn’t take much figuring to decide that he was standing in front of his dresser mirror. It went on for an hour and then two, and I listened as the rain poured down. And when Deputy Barnes set his knife on the dresser and tried to sleep, I heard his little mewling complaints. They were much softer than the screams of those cocooned blood-faces, but I heard them just the same.

Stairs creaked as I climbed to the second floor in the middle of the night. Barnes came awake when I slapped open the door. A black circle opened on his bloody face where his mouth must have been, but I didn’t give him a chance to say a single word.

“I warned you,” I said, and then I pulled the trigger.

When it was done, I rolled the deputy in a sheet and dragged him down the stairs. I buried him under the swing set. By then the rain was falling harder. It wasn’t until I got Barnes in the hole that I discovered I didn’t have much gas in the can I’d gotten from the boathouse. I drenched his body with what there was, but the rain was too much. I couldn’t even light a match. So I tossed a road flare in the hole, and it caught for a few minutes and sent up sputters of blue flame, but it didn’t do the job the way it needed to be done.

I tried a couple more flares with the same result. By then, Roy was disappearing in the downpour like a hunk of singed meat in a muddy soup. Large river rocks bordered the flowerbeds that surrounded the lodge, and I figured they might do the trick. One by one I tossed them on top of Roy. I did that for an hour, until the rocks were gone. Then I shoveled sand over the whole mess, wet and heavy as fresh cement.

It was hard work.

I wasn’t afraid of it.

I did what needed to be done, and later on I slept like the dead.

And now, a month later, I tossed and turned in Barnes’ bed, listening to that old swing set squeak and squeal in the wind and in my dreams.

The brittle sound of gunfire wiped all that away. I came off the bed quickly, grabbing Barnes’ .45 from the nightstand as I hurried to the window. Morning sunlight streamed through the trees and painted reflections on the glass, but I squinted through them and spotted shadows stretching across the beach below.

Bloodfaces. One with a machete and two with knives, all three of them moving like rabbits flushed by one mean predator.

Two headed for the woods near the edge of the property. A rattling burst of automatic gunfire greeted them, and the bloodfaces went to meat and gristle in a cloud of red vapor.

More gunfire, and this time I spotted muzzle flash in the treeline, just past the place where I’d stacked a cord of wood the summer before. The bloodface with the machete saw it, too. He put on the brakes, but there was no place for him to run but the water or the house.

He wasn’t stupid. He picked the house, sprinting with everything he had. I grabbed the bottom rail of the window and tossed it up as he passed the swing set, but by the time I got the .45 through the gap he was already on the porch.

I headed for the door, trading the .45 for my shotgun on the way. A quick glance through the side window in the hallway, and I spotted a couple soldiers armed with M4 carbines breaking from the treeline. I didn’t have time to worry about them. Turning quickly, I started down the stairs.

What I should have done was take another look through that front window. If I’d done that, I might have noticed the burrowed-up tunnel in the sand over Roy Barnes’ grave.

It was hard to move slowly, but I knew I had to keep my head. The staircase was long, and the walls were so tight the shotgun could easily cover the narrow gap below. If you wanted a definition of dangerous ground, that would be the bottom of the staircase. If the bloodface was close—his back against the near wall, or standing directly beside the stairwell—he’d have a chance to grab the shotgun barrel before I entered the room.

A sharp clatter on the hardwood floor below. Metallic… like a machete. I judged the distance and moved quickly, following the shotgun into the room. And there was the bloodface… over by the front door. He’d made it that far, but no further. And it wasn’t gunfire that had brought him down. No. Nothing so simple as a bullet had killed him.

I saw the thing that had done the job, instantly remembering the sounds I’d heard during the night—the scrapes and scrabbles I’d mistaken for nesting birds scratching in the chimney. The far wall of the room was plastered with bits of carved skin, each one of them scarred over with words, and each of those words had been skinned from the thing that had burrowed out of Roy Barnes’ corpse.

That thing crouched in a patch of sunlight by the open door, naked and raw, exposed muscles alive with fresh slashes that wept red as it leaned over the dead bloodface. A clawed hand with long nails like skinning knives danced across a throat slashed to the bone. The demon didn’t look up from its work as it carved the corpse’s flesh with quick, precise strokes. It didn’t seem to notice me at all. It wrote one word on the dead kid’s throat… and then another on his face… and then it slashed open the bloodface’s shirt and started a third.

I fired the shotgun and the monster bucked backwards. Its skinning-knife nails rasped across the doorframe and dug into the wood. The thing’s head snapped up, and it stared at me with a headful of eyes. Thirty eyes, and every one of them was the color of muddy water. They blinked, and their gaze fell everywhere at once—on the dead bloodface and on me, and on the words pasted to the wall.

Red lids blinked again as the thing heaved itself away from the door and started toward me.

Another lid snapped open on its chin, revealing a black hole.

One suck of air and I knew it was a mouth.

I fired at the first syllable. The thing was blasted back, barking and screaming as it caught the door frame again, all thirty eyes trained on me now, its splattered chest expanding as it drew another breath through that lidded mouth just as the soldiers outside opened fire with their M4s.

Bullets chopped through flesh. The thing’s lungs collapsed and a single word died on its tongue. Its heart exploded. An instant later, it wasn’t anything more than a corpse spread across a puddle on the living room floor.

“Hey, Old School,” the private said. “Have a drink.”

He tossed me a bottle, and I tipped it back. He was looking over my shotgun. “It’s mean,” he said, “but I don’t know. I like some rock ’n’ roll when I pull a trigger. All you got with this thing is rock.”

“You use it right, it does the job.”

The kid laughed. “Yeah. That’s all that matters, right? Man, you should hear how people talk about this shit back in the Safe Zone. They actually made us watch some lame-ass stuff on the TV before they choppered us out here to the sticks. Scientists talking, ministers talking… like we was going to talk these things to death while they was trying to chew on our asses.”

“I met a scientist once,” the sergeant said. “He had some guy’s guts stuck to his face, and he was down on his knees in a lab chewing on a dead janitor’s leg. I put a bullet in his head.”

Laughter went around the circle. I took one last drink and passed the bottle along with it.

“But, you know what?” the private said. “Who gives a shit, anyway? I mean, really?”

“Well,” another kid said. “Some people say you can’t fight something you can’t understand. And maybe it’s that way with these things. I mean, we don’t know where they came from. Not really. We don’t even know what they are.”

“Shit, Mendez. Whatever they are, I’ve cleaned their guts off my boots. That’s all I need to know.”

“That works today, Q, but I’m talking long term. As in: What about tomorrow, when we go nose-to-nose with their daddy?”

None of the soldiers said anything for a minute. They were too busy trading uncertain glances.

Then the sergeant smiled and shook his head. “You want to be a philosopher, Private Mendez, you can take the point. You’ll have lots of time to figure out the answers to any questions you might have while you’re up there, and you can share them with the rest of the class if you don’t get eaten before nightfall.”

The men laughed, rummaging in their gear for MREs. The private handed over my shotgun, then shook my hand. “Jamal Quinlan,” he said. “I’m from Detroit.”

“John Dalton. I’m the sheriff around here.”

It was the first time I’d said my own name in five months.

It gave me a funny feeling. I wasn’t sure what it felt like.

Maybe it felt like turning a page.

The sergeant and his men did some mop-up. Mendez took pictures of the lodge, and the bloody words pasted to the living room wall, and that dead thing on the floor. Another private set up some communication equipment and they bounced everything off a satellite so some lieutenant in DC could look at it. I slipped on a headset and talked to him. He wanted to know if I remembered any strangers coming through town back in May, or anything out of the ordinary they might have had with them. Saying yes would mean more questions, so I said, “No, sir. I don’t.”

The soldiers moved north that afternoon. When they were gone, I boxed up food from the pantry and some medical supplies. Then I got a gas can out of the boathouse and dumped it in the living room. I sparked a road flare and tossed it through the doorway on my way out.

The place went up quicker than my house in town. It was older. I carried the box over to the truck, then grabbed that bottle the soldiers had passed around. There were a few swallows left. I carried it down to the dock and looked back just in time to see those birds dart from their nest in the chimney, but I didn’t pay them any mind.

I took the boat out on the lake, and I finished the whiskey, and after a while I came back.

Things are getting better now. It’s quieter than ever around here since the soldiers came through, and I’ve got some time to myself. Sometimes I sit and think about the things that might have happened instead of the things that did. Like that very first day, when I spotted that monster in the Chrysler’s trunk out on County Road 14 and blasted it with the shotgun—the gas tank might have exploded and splattered me all over the road. Or that day down in the dark under the high school football stadium—those rat-spiders could have trapped me in their web and spent a couple months sucking me dry. Or with Roy Barnes—if he’d never seen those books in the backseat of that old sedan, and if he’d never read a word about lesser demons, where would he be right now?

But there’s no sense wondering about things like that, any more than looking for explanations about what happened to Barnes, or me, or anyone else. I might as well ask myself why the thing that crawled out of Barnes looked the way it did or knew what it knew. I could do that and drive myself crazy chasing my own tail, the same way Barnes did with all those maybe’s and what if ’s.

So I try to look forward. The rules are changing. Soon they’ll be back to the way they used to be. Take that soldier. Private Quinlan. A year from now he’ll be somewhere else, in a place where he won’t do the things he’s doing now. He might even have a hard time believing he ever did them. It won’t be much different with me.

Maybe I’ll have a new house by then. Maybe I’ll take off work early on Friday and push around a shopping cart, toss steaks and a couple of six packs into it. Maybe I’ll even do the things I used to do. Wear a badge. Find a new deputy. Sort things out and take care of trouble. People always need someone who can do that.

To tell the truth, that would be okay with me.

That would be just fine.

WHEN THE ZOMBIES WIN

by Karina Sumner-Smith

When the zombies win, they will be slow to realize their success. Word travels slowly on shambling feet.

It will take years to be sure that there aren’t still humans hiding in high mountain camps or deep within labyrinthine caverns; that the desert bunkers are empty, the forest retreats fallen; that the ships still afloat bear no breathing passengers.

And then: victory. Yet the zombies will not call out to each other, or cry in relief, or raise their rotting hands in triumph. They will walk unseeing beneath telephone wires and over cell phones, computers, radios. They will pass smoldering rubble without thinking of smoke signals, trip on tattered bed sheets and not consider making flags.

They are zombies; they will only walk and walk and walk, the word spreading step by step across continents and oceans and islands, year by year. And the word, to them, will feel like hunger.

When the zombies win, their quest to eat and infect human flesh will continue unabated. They will have known only gorging, only feasting; they will not understand the world as anything other than a screaming buffet on the run.

Yet there will be only silence and vacant rooms where once there was food, and the zombies, in their slow and stumbling way, will be surprised. Stomachs once perpetually distended will feel empty and curve inward towards their spines, the strength of even animated corpses beginning to fail without fuel. They will look about, cloudy eyes staring, and they will groan, unbreathing lungs wheezing as they try to push out enough air to ask slowly, hungrily, “Brains?”

But there will be no one left to find. Only each other.

Zombies, they will learn, do not taste good.

When the zombies win, they will become restless. There is little to do when one is dead.

Their old pastimes—their favorite pastimes—will hold no satisfaction. They will shamble down streets, arms outstretched as they groan and wail, yet inspire no fear. Together they will pound on doors, beat on windows with decaying hands until the glass shatters, hide in rivers and lakes, stumble after cars on the highway. But the cars will all be stopped, forever in park; the breaking glass will elicit no screams; and no swimmer’s hands or feet will break the water’s surface to be grabbed. When the doors burst open there will be no one cowering behind.

There will be no people to stalk, no food to eat, no homes to build, no deaths to die. Lost and aimless they will turn as if seeking a leader’s guidance, and find none. With zombies, the only leader is the one who happens to be walking first.

So they will walk alone, all of them alone, with no destinations, only the need to keep putting one unsteady foot in front of the other, over and over without end. The world is a big place to wander, even when inhabited only by the dead.

When the zombies win, they will not think of the future. There will be no next generation of zombies, no newborn zombie children held in rotting arms. The zombies will not find comfort in each other, will not rediscover concepts like friendship or companionship, will not remember sympathy or empathy or kindness. They will not learn or dream, or even know that they cannot.

They will build no buildings, fix no cars, write no histories, sing no songs. They will not fall in love. For zombies, there is only an endless today—this moment, this place, this step, this need, this hunger, this hunger unrelenting.

And the streets will begin to crumble, and windows break, and buildings fall. Cities will burn and flood, towns will be reclaimed by grassland and forest, desert and ocean.

The human world will go to pieces, decaying to nothing as empty eyes stare.

When the zombies win, they will not fear. They will not laugh or rejoice, they will not regret, they will not mourn. And the world will turn and turn, seasons burning and freezing across the landscape, the sun flashing through the sky, and they will continue.

When they zombies win, they will not stop. They will still moan and cry and whisper, on and on until the lips rot from their faces, their vocal cords slide away. They will never truly think again, never know the meaning of the words they try to utter, only flutter endlessly on the edge of remembering. Still they will try to speak, bone scraping on bone as their ruined jaws move, and they will not know why.

One by one they will fall. In the streets they will fall, legs no longer working, arms too broken to drag them forward. Inside buildings they will fall, tumbling down stairs and collapsing in hallways, slipping behind beds and in closets, curling into the gap between toilet and wall, not knowing, not seeing, not understanding these trappings of the places they once called home. They will sink to the bottoms of rivers and oceans, and lie down in fields, and tumble from mountainsides, and fall apart on the gravel edges of highways.

One by one they will stop moving, flesh and bone and brain too broken to do anything more. And in that silence and stillness they will struggle—trapped and ruined, they will still yearn, still hunger, always reaching for that which was taken from them. That which they granted to so many of us, in such great numbers.

To stop. To sleep. To rest, just rest, and let the darkness come.

--30--

by Laird Barron

You know how this is going to end.

—What? He woke, although it was only a slight shift between states of consciousness, an emergence from a lucid dream state. His eyes were already open and focused on a flickering panel. In his ears, rapidly ascending to inaudible decibels, Dracula’s organ music, the wheedling peep of a theremin, now the gentle hiss of air through the vents.

—Yes? she said. She didn’t look up from the exposed circuit board on her lap. She gripped a soldering gun like a real weapon. Her hatred wasn’t fixed upon him at the moment.

—What did you say?

—I didn’t say anything.

—I thought—

—Let’s see. An hour ago I asked for a caliper. Had to get it myself.

—An hour?

She set aside the soldering gun and waved her hand to disperse the coils of rising smoke. —Forty-eight minutes and change. Sorry.

—You are not. He said this under his breath.

—Excuse me?

All six security feeds went dark. He toggled switches, then tapped the nearest screen with his ring, as if that made any sense.

—Problem? she said.

—I’ve lost all video.

—Ooo-weee-ooo, she said in a sinister voice. —Starring Keith David and Jessica Lange: In a world gone mad, two scientists spend six months in the badlands, haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Past—

—Laugh now. He smacked the screen again. —You’re no Jessica Lange, honey-pie. Me, I’m Sidney Poitier. Except badass.

—Poitier was badass. You’re more like Poitier if he were scary-looking.

Feed One remained down, but the others revived in sequence. Feed Two displayed a keyhole perspective of the southeastern quadrant—a sloping field of short, dry grass and scrub brush wavering in the breeze. Feed Three, a vista of pebbly ground and small boulders, Four through Six, a line of trees. Feed One would’ve revealed the module, their little habitat itself. But the monitor was still dead. It bothered him that Feed One wouldn’t work and he kept flipping the switch. Slow-moving clouds passed over the translucent dome and reflected a diamond pattern of shadows on the control boards, the fabric of his coat sleeves.

—Funny thing, she said. —I dreamed this would happen. A couple of nights ago.

—Dreamed what? Flip, flip, flip.

—The video monitors went on the fritz. You screwed them up, somehow.

—Did I spill a glass of scotch into the works?

Now she did look at him. —Tell me you smuggled in a bottle of single malt.

—In fact, I did. We’ll save it for a special occasion. Anyway, I meant that Tommy Billings and his love of booze might’ve been responsible for the Siberian debacle.

—You’re kidding, she said.

—Listen, this is good. I’m surprised you haven’t heard. The team was partying at three o’clock in the morning and TB got a little crazy and dumped a full glass of liquor into some circuitry. It started an electrical fire and whoom! The site went up like a torch.

—Color me dubious. That’s too convenient.

—Less titillating than the espionage rumors, alas.

—Who told you?

—I don’t recall. And I was sworn to secrecy.

—The jerk was probably drinking vodka. What with it being a joint project with the Russians. That adds a nice touch of verisimilitude, don’t you think?

—Sure, why not? We’ll never know. None of them are around anymore. They froze pretty quick.

—If there was no one left to tell the tale…. she said.

He said, —…then how come we have the legend of the Manitou? Boy follows stag up a mountain—

She said, —…boy discovers stag ain’t no stag. That’s easy—it’s a story. As in a bedtime story. Just like TB killing everybody with a glass of hooch. Although.

—Yeah?

—Accepting the hearsay as true for a moment, if Tommy really did something like that, it might’ve been on purpose.

—Where do you get that?

—I met him once at a cocktail party. Doctor Toshi Ryoko and the boys had just gotten back from Japan—the Devil Sea thing, I think—and the department threw them a shindig.

—Oh. I wasn’t invited.

—I’m shocked! You’re such a people person!

—You think Tommy was working for another team?

—Sure, why not? He struck me as the type.

—The type?

—Yeah, you know, an asshole. He was a farm boy who made good.

—No call to hack on farm boys. They’re the backbone of this great union.

— Give me a break. Those days are history. One driver on a machine does it all. It’ll be robots in a few years. Steelworkers are where it’s at.

—I’m sure, I’m sure. “Allentown” was a mighty sexy song. So why do you think ill of the late, lamented Tommy Billings? Did you catch him exchanging passwords with an FSB operative by the punch bowl?

—No, it was just subtle things. TB stumbled around all night with a bottle in his fist, dopey as a cow. He was too stupid to be true…he had a shifty glint in his eyes. Toshi loved him. Toshi collects guys like that. These days he’s got this Aussie goon named Beasley to carry his spears. Ex-rugby star, or something. Ugly, but sort of beautiful too. I know a girl in the Denver office who balled him. She was pretty high on the whole experience.

—Toshi. You’re on a first name basis with him? Cozy. Got a key to his chateau, do you? No wonder you’re on the fast track.

—Don’t be jealous. I don’t think Toshi likes girls. He’s married to the media frenzy, and busting the chops of all those academic enemies he’s made.

—Jealous? I’m so far beyond all that, you don’t even know. Since they’d broken it off after the job in the Sierras, he’d said this very thing to himself so many times it had become a fact.

—Getting your money’s worth out of your therapist?

He laughed again. It was growing harder not to match her naked antipathy, and it had only been eighteen days. Twenty, if one counted the flight from Seattle to Yakima and the interminable briefing, then the ninety-minute chopper transport into the hills. He said, —She keeps the top two buttons of her blouse undone. I cannot complain.

—Liar. You’ve been watching those straight-to-video flicks starring Shannon Tweed. You poor lonely bastard.

—I’m going to retrieve the footage at B5 and B6. He stood and stretched, and opened the gun cabinet. He checked the action on the rifle, a sleek 7mm with a Leopold scope, and slung it over his shoulder. —Be back in a jiffy.

—Do try to return before dark, or I won’t let you in. —I’ll hustle. Gonna be chilly tonight. She wasn’t listening.

The module was a hemisphere nestled in a clearing among sagebrush and junipers. It was constructed of composite plastic with viewports of thick, shatterproof glass, and segregated into several compartments. The module was designed to function as a self-sufficient habitat, sturdy enough to withstand vast temperature swings and powerful winds that howled out of the northwest from the high desert. Lights and surveillance equipment were powered by a pair of generators and, because this was an inordinately sunny part of the state, a battery of solar panels. Thus, all the comforts of home: TV, microwave dinners, solitaire on the sadly outdated computer, even very brief showers. A thousand gallons of water sat in storage. The chemical toilets were designed to separate solid and liquid waste. Garbage was incinerated, composted in the tiny hydroponics cubicle, or packaged to be shipped home during resupply. This was a minor, but long-term operation. The pair would stay for six months conducting field work, then rotate with the next team.

He shut the entry hatch. He wore a camouflage jumpsuit with a heavy belt. On the belt: canteen, knife, walkie-talkie, and a pouch containing waterproof matches, a screw-on flashlight, a compass, antivenin, and trail mix. In his left hand he carried a rucksack containing batteries and tapes for the remote cameras.

The Family’s ranch sprawled for thousands of acres under skies that, come sunset, darkened like blood edged in molten gold. Homesteaders grabbed every parcel they could lay hands on during the 1880s when dirt was cheap. Not that it resembled a ranch—nor had it functioned as one since the 1960s when the Family took it over. Cowboys would refer to the vista as rough country, an expanse of rocky steppes, and canyons, and in the near distance, limestone ridges that gradually built into mountains. A coyote behind every bush, a rattlesnake under every rock. At night, the stars shone bright and cold, and he could count the pits and cracks in the moon, it hung so full and yellow.

Not far south, things were greener, softer; the original settlers raised cattle and horses, once upon a time. Headquarters provided him an assortment of area maps—according to these, a road cut the property in half and connected it to the nearest town, forty-five kilometers south. HQ told him not to worry about ground transportation. Supplies would be brought in by helicopter and, in the event of emergency, he and she would be airlifted to safety.

He adjusted the timer on his watch and headed northeast, toward the mountains. A horse would’ve been nice—a big, soft-eyed pinto to carry him through this Howard Hawks landscape. At least he’d the smarts to bring an appropriate hat instead of the god-awful baseball caps and sun visors the CSIs wore. The hat was of crumpled, sun-bleached leather and it once belonged to a vaquero who worked in Texas. The vaquero went home to Mexico to be with his wife when she gave birth, and bequeathed him the hat as a token of friendship. It chafed his ears because it was hard as an old leather football left to dry in the mud. He took it off and beat it against his knee, used it to sop the sweat streaming from his face. Once the oils of his flesh got in there, it would loosen and fit his head.

He walked.

The coyote den was located amid the root system of a copse of shaggy pines. Its size and elaborateness still surprised him. Generally, coyotes chose to lair among rocks if they couldn’t co-opt the abandoned shelters of other animals. His work here proved a bit more intrusive than he preferred. He’d installed cameras to monitor den entrances. The cameras were encased in waterproof boxes and mounted on trees. After days of zero activity, despite his squirting synthetic musk on nearby bushes, he resorted to inserting a probe into the den—the probe was a flexible tube attached to a braincase. The case was affixed to a wooden stand. He spent hours manipulating the device, mapping the labyrinthine interior via the infrared eye ring. Ultimately, he positioned the eye in a central burrow and programmed the VCR to record at certain intervals throughout a twenty-fourhour cycle.

The company spared no expense for equipment, and he’d lain awake the past two and a half weeks turning that over in his mind. In his experience, corporations were loath to part with a penny more than circumstances absolutely required—the crappy computer in the module, and the lack of a jeep or four-wheeler, as exhibits A and B. The exception to this rule being the opportunity for great profit, or in the interest of mitigating some potential risk to their reputation. The government wanted people here, had selected his company of all the best North American subcontractors, to perform studies and collect data, but their motives remained unclear. Need to know, they said. It was enough for him to track and film and file the reports. The whole thing was likely on the level. What else could it be, anyway? Nonetheless, he found it simplest to distrust people until proven wrong, a product of spending most of his adulthood dwelling alone in shanties and shacks, of lying motionless in a thousand lonely coverts, spying upon the beasts of the woods.

He changed the batteries on all of the cameras and swapped out the cassettes. There was still time, so he withdrew the probe and spent an hour navigating it into an entrance on the opposite flank of the den. Then he sat in the shade and drank some water and chewed a handful of trail mix, and wondered why, despite the heat, a chill tightened the muscles in his shoulders and neck. He glanced around with affected casualness. The trees shifted in a mild breeze. A cloud partially occulted the sun.

Without question, spoor indicated several coyotes lurked in the vicinity. Bizarrely, the tracks didn’t approach the den, but rather circled it, and he envisioned them creeping about the bushes, fearful, yet inexorably drawn and entrapped by simple fascination. This was beyond his twenty years of experience in the wild. Certainly one would expect an extended family to dwell inside such a massive den. He found its desertion, the haunted house quality, disquieting to say the least.

This disquiet, this aura of strangeness, permeated the entire northern sector of the range. The patterns were off, the behaviors of fauna uncharacteristic. The other day a hawk fell from the sky, stone dead. He’d seen gophers curled up in the middle of a field, oblivious; a murder of crows had slipped from hidden roosts and followed him for several kilometers as he scouted the surroundings. The birds swooped and circled in utter silence. The preceding CSI team had witnessed even more disturbing things—a pack of coyotes sitting patiently beyond the campsite, and a black bear that watched from the cover of a juniper. After a couple of days stalking them, the bear walked right into camp, grabbed one of the techs by the arm, and tried to drag him away. They shot it and sent its head to the lab. The CSI team decided it must be rabid. No rabies, though. Just a fat and healthy five-year-old bear with devilry on its mind. And that’s why he carried a rifle.

The canyon wasn’t far. Its jagged walls averaged a height of ten meters. A stream trickled along its floor where squirrels and mice nested in the heavy clusters of brush; numerous bird species, including thrush, gray catbirds, and canyon wren, occupied the mossy crevices above. Red-tail hawks and great horned owls hunted the area.

He picked his way through the boulders and alder snags. Sunlight was blocked by the narrow walls and overhanging bushes. It was cold. The open range, its long sweeps of baked dirt, seemed a world removed as he traveled farther into the shadows. He carried the rifle in his right hand, against his hip. He would’ve been happier with a shotgun in the brush where matters could escalate in seconds. There was no bear sign—and he’d been most scrupulous in ascertaining that detail. Still, he couldn’t shake his unease. He’d noted it from day one, put it down to heebie-jeebies from the stories in the paper, the briefings and the short film recovered from Site 3. After all that, he went to a bar and drank the better part of a bottle of Maker’s Mark, as if that might obliterate what he’d seen. Site 3 lay a kilometer west where the foothills verged on mountainous. The forensics people referred to the area as The Killing Grounds. The excavation had dragged on for three weeks and the teams only verified the presence of half a dozen bodies. The forensics experts estimated more, probably many more, victims had decomposed beyond detection, much less retrieval. Eleven sites total, but the economy was crashing like the Hindenburg and the state was too broke to keep digging. He thought maybe afraid to keep digging was closer to the truth.

He’d left a pair of cameras trained on a small pool. There were significant animal signs in the immediate vicinity—they’d captured footage of mice and birds, and a bobcat on its nightly prowl. The bobcat sat there by the water, its eyes shiny and strange, and finally it zeroed in on the second camera, which was fairly well camouflaged, and stared—stared for exactly eleven minutes until the machine clicked off. He could only speculate how long the cat waited in the dark. Then he thought of the bear and tightened his grip on the rifle.

When he reached the covert, the cameras were missing.

He arrived home after dark, and she had indeed locked the hatch. He knocked and she let him in anyway. The central space, their work area, was lighted by the warm, mellow glow of three accent lamps she stowed in her luggage. Fluorescent lighting made her edgy—she claimed to have suffered a near breakdown during an expedition into a remote region of the Pyrenees.

He unpacked the cassettes and piled them on her desk for processing. Processing film was her main task, although as a geologist with specialties in zoology and insect ecology, it likely chafed. As the amount of data to sift was paltry thus far, she spent a portion of her days investigating the immediate environs. She showed him one of a series of jars she’d collected that afternoon.

—Even the insects are acting weird, she said. She slowly turned the jar, and the wasps slid across its killing floor, wings fluttering. The glass stifled their complaints, a ghostly buzzing.

—How weird are they?

—Completely, totally fucked up.

He considered mentioning the missing cameras. The idea dissolved even as it formed. —How so?

—Their hive is in the trees south of here. Huge sucker. Cecidostiba semifascia crawling everywhere. On the trees, the bushes, all over the ground. Thousands and thousands. Millions. It’s like a nest of driver ants exploded. None of them fly. Scores were clumping together and dropping to the ground, like ripe apples. So creepy.

—What the hell is that about? he said.

—Beats me, man. It only gets screwier.

—Wonderful.

—When I first started watching, I was repulsed. Recalling them squirming over each other kind of sickens me too. Only thing is—for a few minutes, all that discomfort morphed into…well, fascination. I was—Christ, how do I explain. I was attracted to the scene. Being a passive observer wasn’t enough. Suddenly, I had to participate in the, well, in the whatever thing these insects were doing. Goddamned orgy. I scooped a whole bunch of them into the specimen jars…and then….

He leaned into the counter. The rhythm of her voice enervated him. He said, —What did you do?

—Man, I sat down at the edge of their swarm. The fuckers started climbing on me. They found pant openings, cuffs, my collar, and crawled inside, got tangled in my hair. I had to pinch my nose to block them, close my mouth to keep them out.

—Hmm, he said.

—I should’ve been stung to death. She pressed her cheek to the jar and tilted it so the wasps seemed to spill over her eye. Her hand shook. —Then, it was getting dark. Cold. They peeled from me, crawled away to their tree, the hive. Some just burrowed into the pine needles. Pretty soon, every last one was gone.

The enormity of the situation hit me. I ran the whole way back here.

He watched her play with the jar until she set it aside and stuck her hands into the pockets of her coat. He said, —I’m going to make myself a sandwich. Want me to open you a can of something?

—Peanut butter crackers, she said.

—We’ve Spam, and more Spam.

—We don’t have peanut butter?

—You gobbled up the bucket. I don’t think HQ could’ve anticipated your peanut butter fetish.

—Spam and crackers. There’s another thing.

—The wasps aren’t enough?

—I’ve heard knocking on the hatch. Two nights this week. Woke me from a dead sleep. Very soft, kind of tapping. Yeah, probably my imagination. Only problem with that is, I know what knuckles on metal sound like.

—Okay, he said, rolling his eyes.

—Oh, yeah? I’m not an idiot.

—I’ll reserve judgment until we check the perimeter footage. Somebody’s sneaking around, we’ll see.

They didn’t screw, which initially was a bit of a surprise to him until he heard her vibrator buzzing one night. Their sexual rift was acceptable—some of her kinks unnerved him. So he fiercely masturbated to images of early Playmate-era Shannon Tweed, and fell asleep.

He dreamed of his fellow scientist sitting lotus style among the torpid wasps. Her jumpsuit was dark with them. The sun hid behind the mountains and stained the sky a rich red that was almost black—the color that wells from a deep wound. The red light spattered her, dripped from her. She began stuffing handfuls of wasps into her mouth.

He awoke and lay on his cot, overcome by a sense of claustrophobia. Horrors skittered and scuttled at the fringes of his consciousness, feverish impressions that afflicted children with a fear of the dark. He listened to her working on the other side of the thin fabric wall. She clicked steadily at a keyboard and the dim, blue light from her monitor flickered on his ceiling.

She gasped, and said, —Holy shit. What the fuck.

He almost rose, almost went into the other room to ask what she’d seen. Another wave of weariness bore down upon him and his eyelids fluttered, and he was gone again, falling into a sea of red.

In the morning he made good on his promise to troll for suspicious activity on the tapes. There was nothing, of course.

He darted a mule deer and tagged it with a GPS chip. That was the most excitement he’d had since his arrival, and it was short lived. Within hours, the deer traveled deeper into the hills beyond his research radius. He waited three days and then moved the cameras at the den to sector C1, a prairie rife with rabbits and groundhogs. The backbreaking job left him caked in dirt and exhausted. He returned to the module and fixed a huge meal, chewed aspirin, and drank a quart of water. He sprawled on the floor, dressed in shorts, feet propped on a chair.

She said, —What’s it called when you can’t remember if you dreamed an event, or if it actually happened?

—Crazy?

—Yesterday I was lying in the hammock—

—I saw you’d strung one over there by that fir. Must be nice to have free time. I’ll think of you whenever I’m travois-ing three hundred pounds of shit across the rocks.

—No, no, I’ll be swinging in my hammock thinking of you, she said. —I made myself a pitcher of pink lemonade. Yummy.

—There you were, lying naked in your hammock—

—Sure, why not? There I was, sipping lemonade, watching the clouds, and someone called my name. I almost peed myself. Probably for the best I don’t pack heat—I’d have blasted the living crap outta some bushes.

—If you thought the bushes were talking to you, I think we should analyze the lemonade.

—I’m telling you, somebody stage-whispered my name from behind a juniper. Heard it clear as can be. I sort of froze, not quite accepting the situation. Of course it occurred to me you were playing one of your practical jokes. I also knew in the next instant it wasn’t. This was way different. It didn’t sound friendly, either. Whoever it was snickered.

—Are you kidding? You thought it was me? I’m hurt.

—For a second or two. Who else? Don’t get your nose out of joint.

—It’s a common phenomenon, the phantom voice. That’s your subconscious looking for attention. Happened to me a lot when I got rummy, scrunched into a blind or tree stand. Get tired enough, you see and hear things that aren’t there.

—But, I’m not tired.

—Yeah, however, we are isolated. Like I said, the mind gets bored and plays games. Don’t sweat it too much.

She said, —I had another dream last night.

—A wet one?

—Don’t be nasty. Yeah, okay, maybe. The other one—not so nice. It was sunset. Just about the most hideous redness covered everything. Made my eyes hurt. The light seeped from the sky, cracks in the earth, until I couldn’t see anything but shadows and blurry outlines of figures. People sort of appeared and gathered around me. Maybe they weren’t human.

—It being a dream, he said.

—My God, you are a jerk. I hate smug guys.

—If you were a model you could file that under turnoffs: smug guys!

—I was a model.

—Really?

—No. My sister was, though. I’m way better looking than her.

—Meh, you’re all right. Your teeth are too big.

—Jerk, jerk, jerk! Why did I say yes to this stupid assignment?

—The obvious answer would be…

—Grow up. We had a thing and so what? I bet you’ve humped a half-dozen sleazy little bitches since we called it quits.

—At least.

—At least?

—I lost count after ten.

—That’s a hell of a lot of money to blow on whores, so to speak. Besides, you’re a liar. I doubt half your stories come close to the dreary, mundane truth. The man, the myth. I call bullshit.

He laughed. —Tell me more about your dream, he said in a thick accent. —Vas your mudder involved?

—No. I didn’t recognize anyone. I was terrified, so I ran. The red light blinded me and I tripped and fell into a pit. Kept falling and falling until the sky became a pinhole, and finally not even that.

—Is that when you woke?

—I don’t think I ever did, she said. —Everything went black. Like the movies.

He limped across a plain that stretched beneath a wide, carnivorous sky. He’d run a great distance and was on his last legs; his breath was ragged, his boots crunched on gravel. Red light flooded the horizon. This was the light of a thin atmosphere, Martian light. He stumbled upon a cluster of low, earthen mounds. The mounds were brown and covered in fine, white dust. He thought this might be a native burial ground, a sacred place, and that had to be the cause of his fear. He’d trespassed and the spirits were furious, the spirits were going to punish him.

He realized his mistake soon enough when he came to a crater. Someone had stuck a shovel in the nearby pile of fresh dirt. At the bottom of the pit were arranged scores of plastic tarps, each wrapped around an object the size and shape of a human form. Among these forms were ruined bicycles, discarded coats, hats, and backpacks. Dresses, bits of costume jewelry, handbags, and wallets.

She said, —Psst! I wasn’t being straight with you earlier.

The bloody light of the sky winked out of existence. His sleeping cubicle was pitch black. He shuddered at the sound of her breathing nearby. His chest hurt and he massaged his ribs, thinking, here came the heart attack that felled his father, and his father’s father, and several uncles, hardy woodsmen all. Like them, he smoked and drank too much. Like them, he suffered night terrors.

—I did hear a voice, she said, her mouth centimeters from his own. —Not a phantom voice, either. Whoever it was, whatever I heard, it whispered my name. Then it asked me where you were. Where’s your friend? Where’s your friend? Where’s your friend?

His eyes watered. He put his hand over his mouth to stifle a sob, shocked at the power of his compulsion to scream. He couldn’t remember if his dream was only a dream, or the reenactment of something he’d witnessed and immediately repressed. His father shot several people in Vietnam and said that he couldn’t always separate his nightmares from things that really happened. She didn’t say anything else and exhaustion descended like a club and smashed him into unconsciousness.

He climbed a ridge and stood in the shade of an oak. Its leaves were broad and dusty. Near the toe of his left boot was a snare of barb wire still attached to a post. Ants boiled from the rotten core of the wood. He removed his hat and hung it on a branch. Flies buzzed, drawn to the moisture. He sipped canteen water and scratched the deep itch at the center of his skull. The longer he watched the ants, the more intensely his brain itched.

He unsnapped the protective covers of his field glasses and used one hand to cup them to his eyes. Below the ridge, a basin spread for a half-kilometer to the foot of the mountains. Washboard ruts, decayed remnants of several abandoned roads, zigzagged through scrub and rocks. A stream ambled its crooked way toward the lowlands. His map designated this area as the infamous Site 3. The original ranchers lived to the extreme southern extents of the property—their homes nearest the city were converted to low-income housing, or bulldozed for school soccer fields and parks. After the last of the ranchers’ lines died off in 1965, the cattle and horses were auctioned and the vast acreage returned swiftly to wilderness. The Family hadn’t arrived until 1969 or 1970 and their presence wouldn’t have altered much. The shacks they’d squatted in had long since fallen apart, and they’d moved from place to place, migrating like nomads across the property in a pair of antiquated school buses.

—Oh, the places we’ll go, he said, lowering the glasses.

—Eh? What are you on about? she said.

He didn’t recall dialing her on the cell, but there the phone was pressed to his ear, and her sounding belligerent on the other end. —I’m looking at Site 3. Nice place to build a house, raise some kids. A tad on the dry side.

—A tad on the creepy side, you mean. Seems like you’re the one with idle hands now. Shouldn’t you be staking out a coyote den, or sniffing deer droppings?

—I’m munching on some at this very moment, he said. —Did I mention my great-great-great grandfather rode with Kit Carson? Why’d you call? Everything okay?

—You called me, silly. Yeah, I’m going through the tapes. There’s not much on them. Three, count ’em, three freakin’ coyotes in B5 and B6. No further visuals on the bobcat, and not a single bear. Did you scare all the animals?

—You sure are ornery today.

—I’m ornery every day; you’re too busy playing Boy Scout to notice, is all.

—Ri-i-ght—I’m tramping through the woods while you’re barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. How’s supper coming?

—Spam and beans. You’ll get it cold if you don’t take a shower, buster.

He touched the post and a few ants scurried onto his fingers. —Don’t get rid of the packing jelly.

—Ugh. You like the Spam afterbirth? I can’t believe I let you kiss me on the mouth.

—Spam placenta, if you please. He raised the binoculars. A brown shape separated from the cover of sage and trotted across open ground. The coyote was a scrawny specimen. —Fuck. Maybe there is a rabies outbreak.

—The ones on tape are definitely off. You gotta take a look. My theory is rabies, or a man-made agent. Something toxic. Hunters might’ve poisoned the water. There’s a bounty on coyote heads in this region.

—We’ve lived here, what, a month? You spot any hunters? Nobody’s coming this far into the boonies to bag a few coyotes.

—There’s another possibility. Government isn’t above testing its latest bio weapons on animal populations. The risk to humans is low. The Army could’ve dosed the area five, ten years ago. Now we’re here checking on their work, all unwitting like.

—Thanks for brightening my day, sunshine.

—My advice is, don’t drink the water.

—Got it.

—Super. Back to the horrors. She broke the connection.

He slipped the phone into his pocket and shook his wrists, flinging ants into oblivion. His lips were cracked. Thick, coarse stubble covered his jaw. He kept forgetting to shave. Personal hygiene was the first thing to go when he settled into the bush. Animals could smell chemical products all too readily. Gun oil was trouble enough.

A half-hour later, he’d carefully picked his way down the hillside and walked across the basin to the former CSI team campsite. The team pulled stakes months before. Signs of its presence were mostly erased by the elements, the proliferation of weeds. He flipped an empty soda bottle with the side of his foot. There was a fire pit, its ashes washed to gray mud and baked hard, and nothing else. This was where the team of fourteen men, women and dogs spent the better part of a month taking core samples and ground X-rays, sniffing for elements of organic decay, and snapping a thousand photographs. Yes, she was right—definitely creepy. He was glad their own camp was at a good, safe distance. It was irrational, and that didn’t bother him. In the animal kingdom, paranoia equaled sanity.

Why had he come to Site 3? No reason except curiosity, an overwhelming urge to reconcile his curiosity and fear. Fear was such a strong word, yet an appropriate one. That he carried a weapon and was trained to survive any conceivable scenario, that there was no visible threat, did nothing to pacify his mounting anxiety.

He was alone in the wilderness, yet when he spied the set of human tracks, he wasn’t surprised. He followed for a while—the prints of a large male in boots were made within the last seventy-two hours. The trail eventually led into the hills. The Family’s hideout lay in that direction: long-gone tepees, tarpaper shacks, and caves. He looked at the sky. Sunset creeping along, it would arrive within forty-five minutes. He told himself discretion was the better part of valor and turned away.

Later that night a storm rolled in as he lay awake, listening to the wind tear at the module. —You fool, he said. —There’s not a damned thing to be afraid of. He closed his eyes and slept. In his dreams, he stood in a field and regarded the carcass of a black bear. The bear lay on its side in several inches of jellified gore. Green rot wafted and a cloud of blowflies orbited the remains. From his angle he couldn’t tell if the head had been chopped off. A woman laughed and her hand clamped upon his shoulder. The hand was all rawhide and bone.

He spent the next day in a tree on the ridge overlooking Site 3. The branches were steamy from rain, but the stony earth had already drunk the puddles and pools. A hawk circled so far overhead it was a black grain against the superheated blue sky. A couple of coyotes padded along the basin floor. He contemplated shooting one, removing its blood and tissues and shipping them to HQ for analysis. He replaced the bunting lens caps on his rifle scope, and drowsed. When the light thickened and dimmed he lowered himself to the ground and walked back to camp.

—There’s no video of…of you know what, she said.

Stars cluttered the sky and the air was almost too crisp. They sat on lawn chairs at the edge of a dying fire. They smoked cigarettes from her carton of Pall Malls and drank many tumblers from his bottle of Laphroaig. A light wind swirled from the mountains and stirred the fire, occasionally scattering cinders upon their clothes. The wind tasted sweet, like ashes of a green tree.

—Of what happened at S3? A guy showed it to me, all right, he said. A third of the scotch was in his belly. He didn’t care if she believed him. He thought about the two ragged coyotes, the circling hawk, the coyote den empty as a forgotten mausoleum. He thought about the lone set of boot prints winding among the rocks, impressions coagulated in the soft earth. He wondered what it all meant.

—A guy? What guy?

—I don’t remember his name. He was with somebody. Oh, yeah, Bleeker, or Blecher. One of the CSIs. I think.

—Bleeker showed you a video.

—Not Bleeker. The guy with Bleeker. Lab rat type. Pasty, soft.

—Bleeker’s pal showed you a video.

—The Site 3 home video that those freaks shot in ’72.

She puffed on her cigarette. The light from the fire glowed red in her eyes.

—When did this happen? We were sitting together at the briefing.

—During the lunch break. He took me to an empty conference room and played it against one of those pull-down screens.

—The dude was walking around with the tape in his pocket?

—Maybe he’s stalking Michael Moore. Gotta be ready to demo at the drop of a hat, right?

—The Religious Freaks and Me. But, the lunch break was like only fifteen minutes.

—The film was a short-short.

—Well, hell. Now I know where you went to smoke a cigarette. Wish I’d followed you.

—No, you don’t.

—The Family didn’t film anything. That’s an urban legend. No photographs, either. Buncha dirt-munching, tree-hugging druids. I hear one of ’em worked in the Army motor pool before he got a Section Eight. Crazy fucker kept the school buses running. Otherwise, homeboys didn’t have a pot to piss in, much less a camcorder. If you actually watched anything, it was a fake. Guy was yanking your chain.

—It looked authentic. Really horrible.

—Um-hm. She extended her glass and he poured. —I take it there was some Dario Argento-style mayhem going on.

He filled his own tumbler until whiskey quivered at the rim, and closed his eyes and considered her voice, how it lately came to him deep in the darkness when he was alone on his cot. Her voice was breathy and harsh, like a breeze combing through dry leaves, a raspy lullaby. He said, —You’re right. It was a hoax. Hamburger and catsup in papier-mâché dummies. Smack that shit with a sledgehammer, watch it splat against a wall. Fooled the hell out of me.

—Catsup?

—Corn syrup and chocolate, he said. —I was a baby when the Family made the scene. Rabbits and wolves are more my thing. Starvation, predator/prey dynamics, I understand. Rabies, I understand. This psychobabble, religious bullshit, not a damned bit.

—Not me. I loooved my psych classes. People, bugs. Step back far enough, it’s all the same. I did a midterm paper on the cult. Honestly, I was kinda sweet on the D.A. He came to the university and lectured us about the case. Real sexy older guy. I wasn’t paying much attention to what he said, but luckily my dorm mate was pathological about taking notes. Anyhow, what they did was lure kids from parks and concerts. The Old Man sent his followers to train stations and bus depots on the lookout for runaways, war vets, anybody down and out and desperate for a meal, a place to crash. The Family brought ’em here, to the ranch.

—And then?

—And then? She smiled and threw back her head so her hair fanned over one shoulder. —I dunno. Mostly sat around eating peyote buttons and reading those anti-establishment pamphlets Father wrote by the bushel. Fucking and dancing to wild flute music. Some of the visitors converted, joined the cause. The shit
that went down in Portland—

—At the retirement home.

—The Pleasant View Massacre. Yeah. Three of the four killers had joined the Family the preceding year. Probational members. A lot of the indigents stayed awhile and then moved on. How many wound up getting tortured and murdered? A few. Gets a mite boring in these parts, I reckon.

He watched her closely, drawn to the way she rubbed the glass against her collarbone, how perspiration gleamed there. The whiskey in his own glass lay black as blood. He gritted his teeth and took it all in a gulp.

—You figure, the Family had a following in the hundreds during the late ’60s. At least double that left or disappeared. I think, in my heart of hearts, you can take all the death scores by Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, that crowd—and add ’em together. What’s buried on this range is probably way worse. Plain old math.

—But why?

—Thrills. The core group were anarchists, the kind who want to watch the world burn. I bet a lot of unpleasant talk occurred around the campfire. Those who heard the gospel and acted squeamish got the ax, literally. I also think the Family was paranoid about Fed narks infiltrating the ranks. Motive enough to bury a few.

—Could be another reason. You called them anarchists. They weren’t anarchists, they were a cult. Satanists.

She finished her whiskey and regarded the glass. —Damn, you had to go and do that, didn’t you? Here we are, miles from civilization and you gotta suggest those freaks were sacrificing people to the Devil.

—Would it have been more acceptable if they were splitting people open to satisfy Jehovah? Wasn’t thrill-killing scary enough for you?

—I hadn’t thought of it like that. Satanism freaks me the fuck out.

—No need to be scared, baby. We’ve the computer, a radio, cell phones. We’re wired.

—Lot of help that shit will be if cultists sneak in and cut our throats in the dead of night. I don’t need any more nightmares.

—Wanna cuddle? I’ll protect you from the bogeymen.

—Thanks anyway. Sadist.

The coals faded and after a while, the two sat hunched, separated by a gulf of darkness. She began to reminisce about the good old days in college, how her parents disapproved of her career in biology; lawyers both, they’d expected her to attend an Ivy League school and carry on the family tradition. Her mother had died last year of complications from diabetes and her father remarried a drunken witch who really, really enjoyed money. Stepmom was evil incarnate, of course.

—I always hated my real mom, she said. —Worse than evil stepmom, even. You haven’t asked about the puppy you gave me. Rex. I named him Rex.

He wasn’t listening.

—Look at this, she said. Neither had dressed after breakfast; just a plain white t-shirt and shorts for him; an Army gray sports bra and faded green panties for her. Rain spackled the dome and the humidity didn’t do much to soothe his hangover. —I meant to play this for you earlier.

—Well, why didn’t you?

She frowned at the blurry image on her computer monitor. —I dunno. This is footage from the probe at B5. Watch closely, ’cause it happens fast.

His temples throbbed. The image shot by the infrared eye ring was static, taken long after he’d positioned the device. The picture stuttered, revealed a ghostly vista of roots and rock of the den interior. Five or six seconds in, a shape entered the frame. A mud-encrusted human face. The person grinned or snarled, perhaps aware of the lens, perhaps not. Either way, he was worming along on his belly. Then the recording ended. —Don’t try telling me that’s a man, he said.

—Here it comes again. And…freeze.

—No way, he said. —No way. The lighting is so poor. It’s a coyote.

—I don’t think so, she said.

—Fuck that noise. He leaned over her and killed the recording. —You’re going stir crazy. Hit the trail with me today. We’ll have a picnic.

—That’s a person.

He stroked his beard, mastering the impulse to smash the monitor. He said, —I’ve spent many precious hours of my life wiring that den. If a human being came within a hundred meters, I would’ve seen their tracks. I would’ve seen evidence at one of the entrances. There’s nobody hiding in that den.

—For Chrissake, run it again. You’ll see.

—Oh, we’re gonna run it again.

She flipped her chair and paced to the opposite end of the enclosure. —Somebody’s crazy, and it’s you.

He started the recording and set it to loop. —Say it with me: It’s a coyote.

—I know how to process film and I know what that is.

—Come here.

—Kiss my ass I’m coming over there.

—Come on.

Her eyes brightened. She went through the hatch and let it slam behind her. He unclenched his fingers and whistled. The creature in the den sneered at him, then vanished, over and over. After a while he decided it actually resembled a feral woman, her lank hair obscuring vulpine features, a mouth twisted in rage. He couldn’t tear his gaze away.

She returned a few minutes later and dressed. She stood next to him and stared at the monitor. Her jaw twitched. —You’re right. It’s a coyote.

—Exactly.

Her face was dark with sunburn and this magnified the shine of her eyes.

Her pupils were black holes eating the whites. She said, —Where do you go all day?

The supply helicopter landed in the field at daybreak. The pilot, a wiry man who wore yellow-tinted aviator glasses, briskly unloaded three crates of supplies and handed over a manifest list. The pilot glanced around, nervous as a dog accustomed to dodging rocks. —Cripes, this place is spooky. Good luck. He jumped into the helicopter and zoomed away.

He watched the helicopter make a broad arc. He could grab a rock and chuck it at a rotor. What would happen? In the movies, there’d be a fireball. Shrapnel would sizzle past and shred the module, leaving him unscathed. In the real world? Probably nothing, even in the unlikely event he could actually throw a rock that far. He wondered if he ran inside and got the rifle how many rounds he could fire before the helicopter escaped. It was a bolt action. The magazine held five rounds.

He sighed and hefted his crowbar and began levering apart the crates. She stared after the helicopter until it vanished into the horizon.

Today he changed the tapes in his remote cameras. He carried the tranquilizer gun. He’d decided to zap the first coyote he saw. Unfortunately, none ventured from their lairs by early afternoon, so he enjoyed a long siesta under his favorite tree above the killing grounds. Ants scuttled across his legs. None of them bit him.

He walked into camp a few minutes before sunset and saw it there, leaning against a boulder. He removed his hat and fanned his face, and stared. —I don’t understand, he said.

—It’s my revenge, she said.

—Revenge about what? he said.

—You’re treating me with disrespect. Your asshole-ishness. I’m sick of your eccentricity. Up to here. She made a slashing motion under her chin.

—That’s good. Let it all spew out. I really think we’re making progress.

She laughed and strode to her trophy. She braced her foot next to it on the boulder and said, —Look at this freakin’ thing. I stumbled upon a footpath that leads to a gulch, a bit west of here. A secret path, beaten hard like pavement and screened in juniper and thorn bushes. The trail ended at a cave. Not so much a cave as a deep, vertical crevice. They held ceremonies there. Fuckers left kerosene lanterns hanging from branches and in niches. Wrote a bunch of crazy occult symbols on the walls in chalk and paint. Foul, foul shit, too. I went inside. This was lying, broken, near a big, ugly rock with a groove chiseled into it.

—Must have been a bitch dragging it all the way here, he said. The horn appeared petrified; yellow and gray with streaks of black, like a rotten tooth. Balanced on end it reached his breastbone, and at its thickest, he estimated a circumference equal to his own muscular thigh. —Gotta weigh fifty kilos, easy.

—You aren’t the only one who knows how to make a travois, she said.

—I assume you took photographs.

Her mouth ticked in a smile, or a grimace. —Once I saw it, I lost my head… Everything is a blur.

The weird horn, her inconceivable lapse of protocol, stymied his inclination to argue. —So, what else?

—They’d hacked this free from the wall of the cave. There’s a glaciated curtain of stone farther back. I didn’t bring a flashlight and it was dim…man, there’s something huge fossilized in that wall. Maybe ten feet tall. A statue. Has to be. This horn came from whatever’s in there.

He brushed his fingers across the horn. His cock stiffened. Saliva poured down his throat. He stepped away from the horn fast. —Good fucking God….

—Yeah, exactly, she said.

He studied the sky, the emerging stars. —Let’s grab a lamp and mosey over to this cave of yours.

—No chance in hell, buddy. I won’t go back there. Not in the dark.

—Why not?

—Take a good look at that thing. It’s obscene.

—Fine. In the morning.

—Okay.

She unzipped his sleeping bag and crawled inside. They fucked. She howled into the pillow, hands locked on the frame of the cot. He rode her in a haze, arm around her hips, lifting her into each slow, savage thrust. It was so good he spent a few dizzy moments in the afterglow confused as to why he’d let the relationship die, and fell asleep while still puzzling. His eyes popped open a bit later when she nuzzled his ear and stuck her finger in his asshole, exactly as she’d done one too many times during their previous affair. He smacked her hand away. She snored, occasionally mumbling. He lay uncomfortably wedged against her, his heart thudding, useless anger kindling in the pit of his gut.

The first knock was faint and he didn’t realize what it was until the second one came, slightly louder; a distinct rap against the hatch. He stopped breathing, mouth wide, his entire body an antenna tuned to this most unwelcome vibration at the entrance of the habitat. Then, three sharp knocks. He was on his feet and fumbling for the hunting knife he kept hanging in its sheath. She didn’t stir, although her muttering became querulous.

Conscious of his nakedness, he crept through the module, navigating the obstacle course of chairs, benches, and crates by the ethereal glow from the monitors. He quickly toggled the security feeds, but they crackled with snowy interference, revealing nothing of the perimeter. He ventured to the mud room, a cramped chamber inside the entrance, designed for removing outdoor gear prior to entering the central compartment. His tongue was thick as leather, and his hands shook, yet a sense of grim exultance drove him forward. Of all the biologists a creep, or creeps, might choose to pick on, he was likely to be the most hostile, if not the most capable of retaliating in a vicious manner.

He crouched against the hatch, pressing his ear to the metal while testing the bar with his free hand. Locked tight. He waited, ticking off the seconds as they built into minutes, and his legs started to cramp. Something scratched against the steel door—nails, a stick. He scuttled on his haunches from the door, knife held reflexively before his eyes. The rifle was nearby in its cabinet and he decided now was an appropriate instance to consider deadly force. Someone laughed and he froze. The scratching came again, then the laughter, farther away. It sounded like two voices. He couldn’t be sure and the darkness became thick and suffocating.

After a while, he gathered the courage to unlimber the rifle and slip outdoors. He padded in a stealthy circuit of the module, stalking from shadow to shadow, finger heavy on the trigger. Wind scuffed up little puffs of dust. When he began to crash from the adrenaline high, he went inside, locked the hatch, and settled in to keep watch until daylight.

She found him sleeping in the fetal position under the table, the rifle clasped to his breast. —Get laid and go back to the Stone Age. Why the hell are you letting all the bugs inside?

The hatch hung ajar. Gnats swarmed in the cold white light of the opening. —The world is large and unknowable, he said.

She stepped into the threshold, her form rendered a black shadow limned by fire. —I lied about the horn, she said. —I made up that stuff to scare you, piss you off. I like telling tales. Whatever. It was lying in the bushes near an ant nest I’ve been studying. Been there so long it looked like petrified wood. Animals dug it up, probably. Freaky as fuck no matter how you slice it. She closed the hatch and its clang reminded him of a cage locking.

The only tracks around the module belonged to him and her. As expected, the surveillance footage went offline in conjunction with the nocturnal visitation and the recordings were useless. He waited until she’d gone into the field to check on her ants, or wasps, or what-the-hell-ever she did instead of analyzing tape, and dialed his supervisor in Seattle to deliver the weekly report.

His supervisor was intrigued by the theory that the aberrant wildlife behavior could be linked to poison, although he dismissed the idea of military testing. Hunter activity, on the other hand, was sexy. —I’ll send a chopper in next week. Have some water samples ready.

He cleared his throat and said, —My partner may not be handling the stress.

—How so? Are you two having problems?

—She’s cracking. He was grateful they weren’t speaking via satellite video, acutely aware of his wild, matted hair and beard. —Nothing serious, yet.

—If it’s not serious, than what?

—Look, it’s difficult to describe. Her work hasn’t been stellar. Make a note, is all I’m saying. We get back to civilization, I don’t want the blame for shoddy data.

His supervisor sighed. —The Sierras rumor is true, huh? I’m not much of a marriage counselor, but my best advice is if you ever get another opportunity to spend six months stranded in the wilds with an ex, pass.

—Thanks. Never mind. An insidious thought surfaced: What if hooking him up with his ex-lover and stranding them in the wilds was the whole point of the exercise?

His supervisor said goodbye and good luck.

He sat for a while, observing her on Feed One. She was insubstantial, wandering across the foreground with a stick, flipping over rocks. Looking for bugs. Innocently or not, erasing clues. He thought about the scratching against the hatch, the faint unearthly lullaby his mother sang when he was a baby and before she left forever. He switched the camera off. He took his rifle and left, muttering about checking his traps as he passed her.

He didn’t go far, perhaps two hundred meters into a copse of alder on a nearby hill with a clear view of the camp. Burrowed like a tick deep into the leaves and the dirt, he tenderly wiped moisture from the scope and snugged it to his eye. There she was. A blurred patch of shadow. When he looked through the scope it was as if the largest part of him dissolved and what remained was the kernel everything sprang from. The cathode stole everything, rendered him nameless, a seed floating on a vast cosmic tidal current.

—Where’s your friend? he said. Sweat poured into his eyes until the world doubled and distorted like a kaleidoscope. —Where’s your friend? Where’s your friend?

—You believe in God? She was snapping pictures of the cryptic horn, working it from multiple angles.

He remembered with clear and explicit detail his father walking with him through the reeds where the buck had dropped in its tracks. The buck was alive, its eyes warm with a last, candescent surge of vitality. The marsh was cold and dim. Their collective breath rose like smoke into the black sky. His father handed him the knife.

—Which one? I can get behind the idea of one of those evil cocksuckers the ancients kowtowed to. A few years ago a lost temple was discovered beneath some rainforest. There were caverns with altars to a hideous anthropomorphic beast. Researchers documented dozens of enormous slabs with sluices, for what was literally rivers of blood. There was a primitive sewage system built to handle the gore. Could be they gathered up slaves and enemies and sacrificed thousands at a time during festivals. There’s the real deal. That’s how a real super being would roll.

—I mean the our Father who art in Heaven.

—Oh, that guy. The Old Testament dude, sure. He’d slept the entire day and dreamed of fleeing through a barren, red-lit landscape. He wore the form of the buck and his father was the hunter.

The afternoon had been brutally hot, and stars undulated as though through warped glass. He felt mentally and spiritually torpid, helpless to make meaningful decisions. It was as if a low-grade sedative pumped through his veins, robbing him of volition; it was the sensation of being trapped in quicksand, or paralyzed in a permanent nightmare. Everything around him was television, and he was acting from a script. He should call HQ and tell them the project had gone off the rails in a major way. He would make that call. In a few minutes, once he gathered the ambition to rise from the lawn chair and stumble inside.

She half-straddled the prodigious horn. Her sinewy back gleamed. She’d worn only his hat and a pair of panties the last two days. The sun had scorched her bronze, except for slashes of ivory at her hips and the creases of her buttocks. He too went shirtless since that morning. She chuckled and called him a Nubian stud and flirted with unbuckling his belt until he pushed her away and retreated into his sleeping berth. He didn’t think either of them had bathed in several days. Her cheeks were smudged with grime. She appeared wild as an ancient Celt, naked, her hair lank and stiff as if limed for battle. His nails were black and he smelled the ripe sourness of his own body.

—Did you hear the knocking? I bet you did.

He wished for another bottle of scotch. —Yeah.

—Someone wants in.

—I know, he said. —Who?

She grinned at him over her shoulder. She stroked the horn’s ridges, dug the inside of her thigh against them until blood welled and ran in a thin rail toward her ankle.

His head felt light and empty. Static hissed like windblown sand somewhere in the depths. —We should bag this job and head home. I’m getting a bad feeling. He turned his gaze from her legs, regarded the stars.

—A bad feeling? You’re so primal, so in touch with your roots. I can see you and your homies with spears and loincloths on the savanna.

—Go on, let your hair down, he said. —You’re among friends.

—Don’t be touchy. It’s a fucking compliment.

—Shut up.

She chuckled.

—It’s not as if every single nut case that followed the cult went to the slammer, he said. —What if some of those crazy bastards have come home to the ol’ stomping grounds? Makes me very uncomfortable.

—We’re alone, she said.

—Are we?

—You’ve said so at least a hundred times. Don’t change your story now.

—Only fools and the dead never change their mind.

She turned and walked over and sat beside him. —I haven’t even heard a plane since we got here. Might as well be on the moon. There’s a certain aura, something in the fabric of the land. Feels like an acid trip. Whatever happened to the farmers who settled these parts?

—Ranchers.

—Right, ranchers.

—The original parcel got split and sold to a bunch of local interests. The hardcore folks dwindled, moved away. The grandkids weren’t eager to carry on with the Old West lifestyle. I’m sure they’ll put in a mall or a parking lot. Haha, condos and a retirement center.

—No, she said. —Nothing will be built. They’ll be sorry if they do. I think you’re wrong about the ranchers, by the way. Did you research it, or just accept what we got spoon fed at the briefing?

—I was a baby bird. Cheep, cheep.

—Me too, buddy-boy. Me too. I’ve been pondering it lately. I bet anything, if you were to dredge up a hundred and twenty years’ worth of newspaper articles, county documents, federal reports and local folklore, you’d get a completely different perspective. Murder, lynching, rape….

—Which would be typical of much of rural, agricultural America, he said.

—Oh, sure. Except here, you’ll find it was epidemic. The cowpokes and their kin were probably crazy as shithouse rats by the time the second generation outgrew diapers. Society kept its mouth shut, of course. Glossed over the frequency, downplayed all but the most sensational atrocities. I’ve seen it in more genteel settings. This shit’s happened since when. I think the Family came because like attracts like. They were drawn by lunatic music only the Devil’s own can hear. Yeah, man, no way to ever be sure, but I’d put money that the sickos were nothing more than the latest victims of Hell Range.

—Pretty insane, he said.

—That’s how this would go if it was a horror flick, she said.

—Scripting one?

—There’s this producer in L.A. who says I’m talented.

—Him fucking you and you actually being able to write are two different things.

—Nah, he’s ugly as sin. My sister, the model, he did fuck her. Got her a gig doing hand lotion spots. Silly bitch’s face only appears for like two milliseconds. I believe in God.

—Yeah?

—Because I know who that horn belongs to. Can’t have one without the other.

He didn’t say anything.

—C’mon, can’t you feel it? she said.

—Can’t you feel it when something should remain unspoken? Most cultures consider that a survival trait.

—Beware of Things Man Is Not Meant to Know? I don’t fear the immensity of the universe. Some things are too big to worry about. I’m highly credulous.

Once, when he was much younger, he’d walked across an ice-locked expanse of the Bering Sea and comprehended his insignificance. —Chickens have a twenty-minute memory. We primates cope through booze and denial. Dial up more of that denial part, you’ll last longer.

—We all end up in the fire, anyway. This friend of mine told me a story. He was raised in Kansas on a farm. He told me his older brother met Satan. Billy Bob was riding his tractor one miserably hot afternoon and the Devil was sitting on a stump at the end of a row. Fire engine red, horns, tail, pitchfork stuck in the ground. The Devil said, Hi, Billy Bob.

—And? I’m on the edge of my seat here.

—I dunno. My pal couldn’t get anything else from his brother. His bro was one of those sullen, salt o’ the earth types. You, know, the kind I despise. He only mentioned it when he was drunk as a skunk and preached the Rapture.

—Probably didn’t know what came next because he’d cooked his brains sitting on the tractor one too many summers. Now full darkness was upon them and they were two lumps of shadow, side by side.

—When I saw the horn, kinda peeking out of the dirt, ants swarming over it, this feeling, a shock, hit me. A moving picture, a sick, sick black and white movie, clicked on in my mind. I wanted to sit in the dirt and keep replaying it. This morning I watched you sleeping and the movie started again. For a few seconds I got why our cult friends went to the nursing home and went wild. I really, really understood.

He couldn’t see her face. He didn’t know what to do with her, so he pretended not to hear. —My father was a woodsman, he said. —After Mom died, he disappeared into the Olympic National Forest with a backpack and his dog. He made a ramshackle camp in the heart of the forest and lived there about eighteen months. He had cancer and a bum ticker and he didn’t want to go on without his wife, so he did what the mountain men used to do. He went into the wilderness to die. Animals ate him. Only the bones were left.

—That’s a beautiful story, she said. —My dad’s fat as a cow and farts his way through CNN and tournament poker sixteen hours a day. I wish a wild animal would eat him.

The buck, the knife. Him trudging across the ice, in the distance a steel-gray wall closing fast. There wasn’t anything left to say, so they sat as if shackled to their chairs until the full moon floated to the surface of the sky like a corpse buoyed and bloated by its decomposition. The moon was yellow as a skull. He imagined it resembled the skulls of any of the people who’d ended their days at the bottom of a hole on this ranch. The skull moon resembled their own future selves, he was certain.

It rained hard for two days and they cooped in the module, she entering reports into the computer, he descaling the live traps and foothold traps he’d left hanging outside from a rack. The climate was harsh and limescale built quickly. She didn’t say much, didn’t come into his compartment again. She’d gone cold. Her eyes were strange and she sat for hours staring into the monitor, hands motionless on the keyboard. He realized he’d become afraid of her. This paranoia was exacerbated by flu symptoms, the sense of terrible vulnerability. His muscles ached, the strength drained from them. He spent hours on the toilet, bowels convulsing. The damned pilot had obviously brought them the gift of plague from town.

On the third morning, the weather cleared and he slipped away and lit out for the hills without saying goodbye. Crows roosted in the trees, and they alighted on the wet earth as he passed. The birds hopped from bush to bush in dreadful silence, following him in a dark train. He plodded directly to the coyote den, tranquilizer gun in hand, his mind mostly blank. Coyotes had been in the vicinity; their sign was sparse, but recent. He leaned against a tree and concentrated on blending into the scenery, willing one of his furry friends to make an appearance. His brain itched for a cigarette and he bought himself time by promising to smoke at least two if he remained stoic for an hour, three should he strike gold and nail his quarry.

It wasn’t like him to fidget, to chafe at the sweat on his neck, to twitch at every gnat bite and mosquito prick. Dad taught him better, taught him to sink into himself and leave the body an insensate shell, a blind within a blind. He was going to pieces. Inside of twenty minutes his nerve endings were on fire. A coyote appeared, moving unhurriedly, nose to the ground. He raised the gun without hesitation and fired. The coyote yelped, jaws snapping at its flank where the dart penetrated. He chambered another round and the little beastie was gone, fled like smoke into the shadows of the trees.

—Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! He leaped to pursue, charged into the underbrush, and this too was contrary to a lifetime of character. Branches gored his arms, drew blood from his cheek. He shouted more obscenities, roared like a bull. The coyote had vanished, and after half a kilometer, he stood on the edge of a prairie, lungs burning, sparks pin-wheeling across his vision. He bellowed at the sky, seized the gun by its stock and hurled it with all his might. The gun arced, end over end, like a tomahawk, and smashed to pieces against the hard ground.

He kept walking, tears stinging the scratches on his cheek, matting his beard. The chopper had crashed behind a hill in a shallow ravine. He recognized the vehicle instantly. There hadn’t been a fire and it was largely intact. Crows perched on the bent tail rotor, and the mangled struts, pecked and preened among the glittering bed of shattered safety glass. The cockpit was empty. One of the flight seats lay a few meters from the wreck.

He uncapped his canteen and drank, then screwed the cap on again and dialed HQ. He reported the accident to an anonymous functionary who advised him law enforcement would be apprised and rescue personnel dispatched directly. He closed the phone and walked away from the crash site. The crows stayed.

He tracked his own footprints toward the mountains. The pilot’s tinted glasses twinkled where they hung from a sage bush. He stuck the glasses into his shirt pocket and kept moving, hardly bothering to glance down now; instinct dragged him forward. He came to a low rise. The ground was trampled. A long, sloping slab of carved rock dominated. A strange misshapen skull was transfixed on a wooden pole; the skull of an impossibly large ram missing a horn.

Two men stood at either end of the rock. The pilot’s flight suit was torn and grimy. —Give those back. The pilot pointed at the glasses. In the near distance, a column of deadly black storm clouds mounted vertically, its interior shot with brief flares of lightning.

The other man wore a toga open at the chest. His flesh glowed blue-white like the wings of a moth. The man looked at him and said, —Hello, Billy Bob.

He awakened, cross-legged, the bole of a pine digging into his back. Red, evening light filtered through a scrim of clouds. The coyote den remained silent, lifeless. His canteen lay beside him, open so that most of the water had leaked and made a small, mucky depression. He poured what remained over his cracked lips, then spat, stomach recoiling at the acrid taste; bitter grains he couldn’t identify lingered on his tongue. A beam of light illuminated the canteen so that it fractured like a prism and continued along his optic nerve and into the recesses of his brain where something turned over. A crow’s shadow flitted and fluttered, and danced away.

—You crazy bitch, he said, staring at the canteen with mounting horror. This couldn’t be happening. He dropped the canteen, then with bleary resolve, retrieved it and hooked it on his belt. He’d need evidence.

The module glistened red and orange, then winked out, a blown match head, as he walked into the yard. Simon and Garfunkel sang about darkness, their old friend, on the intercom. She was in a far better mood. She hummed while industriously clacking away at the keyboard, occasionally stirring a spoon in her tin cup. He stowed the tranquilizer gun, undressed, then went to the toilet, pushed his fingers down his throat, and retched. He clutched the sides of the toilet and listened to her chuckle in the other room. She sounded like a witch, he thought. Cackling and rubbing her knuckles as she plotted his doom.

He eventually emerged from the stall and took a can of beans from the shelf and cleared a space at the table. He sat, head in his hands, gazing numbly at the can of beans, realizing he’d forgotten the can opener, a plate, or a spoon.

—Want me to fix you something? she said. —You look weak as a kitten.

He licked his lips and smiled until they cracked and bled. —Don’t worry about me. I jogged three kilometers after a coyote. I’m winded, is all.

—Know what my favorite story is? The Landlady, by Roald Dahl. Great story. My sister read it to me when we were kids. Scared the shit outta me, but I loved it. It stuck with me. Do you know the story I’m talking about?

—Sounds familiar. He tasted blood. —I feel as if I should recall it because it’s famous. Like Tyson and Holyfield.

—Hee, hee, that’s so funny. You have a hell of a sense of humor, lover boy.

—There’s a dog that doesn’t move. A bird sitting in its cage. He closed his eyes, concentrating. Bitter almonds. The acrid silt at the bottom of his canteen, burning his throat.

—The old lady was into taxidermy. Once you figure that part out, you know what a train wreck is coming. Not one drop of blood is spilled and it’s the creepiest, ickiest story ever. Dahl was the shit.

—Why are you angry? he said. —This is about what happened with us back when, isn’t it? My God, girl, it wasn’t a thing. He had difficulty enunciating. —Not worth this. Not worth this.

—I’ve spiked your water for two weeks. O mighty hunter that you are, it’s pathetic. I thought it’d be so much harder. I almost feel guilty; it’s like strangling a child.

—Not worth this, he said.

—Do you even know what this is? Her chair squeaked as she rose, and her bare feet scuffed on the floor as she crossed the space between them. —I wondered where you went all day. You’ve been doing some heavy thinking at long last, haven’t you? But I’m sorry to say, it’s too late, motherfucker. Too late for you.

He looked up and saw she was holding the tin cup. She pinched her nostrils between thumb and forefinger, smiled and twitched her wrist, and dashed the contents of the cup into his face. He knew it was muriatic acid from the smell. He blocked with his left arm and twisted partially away, lurching from the chair, but some went into his eye and reality was eclipsed by a sudden blizzard of white.

—Oh, honey, are you okay? she said. —Did you get any on you?

Meanwhile, his eye bubbled into its socket, cooked like an egg white. He punched her with the can in his fist, not aiming, not thinking, because the acid was searing him, eating him alive, flesh and thought alike. The can smashed edgewise into her temple, and the tremor reverberated through his arm as bone gave way. She stepped backward, then sat abruptly in one of the plastic chairs. He threw the can at her, but his remaining vision flickered wildly and he couldn’t see whether he struck her or not. His lungs began to burn. Pain was a clothes hanger twisting into his soft gray matter. He shrieked and plowed through tables, chairs, a wooden partition; he tripped and sprawled on his belly. He curled into himself, writhing and retching, and slammed his head against the floor until he lost consciousness. The agony followed him down.

The Sierras team had camped near a hot spring and everyone leaped in naked and shouting. Someone brought booze, someone else a bag of grass, and it was a hell of a party beneath the full moon. After the others had drifted to their tents, drunken and singing, rough-housing and playing grab-ass, he took her on a flat white rock by the light of a dying fire, slick from the water, steam boiling from them as they clinched. An owl screamed as she screamed and dug her heels into his ribs. Two weeks of smoldering glances and glancing touches had led to this apocalyptic moment.

They took a vacation that began in Kenya and rambled south. He wanted to see the lions. Six weeks of safaris and relentless fucking in every hostel and two-star hotel along the Barbary Coast. She was recently divorced from a fellow geologist who worked in Washington D.C. as the head of a department in a small, but respectable museum. She described her ex-husband as a soft, lovely man. She was on top of him when she said this, hands flat on his chest, nude but for the thick belt she wore on her hiking breeches. The buckle scraped his belly as she fucked him. He wasn’t listening. His head hung off the bed and he stared through a set of billowing curtains at the clouds.

He found the puppy, an orphaned mix, in an alley in Denver. He took the pup to the vet for shots and worming. While he stood at the counter, bemused by his impulsiveness, one of his long-lost contacts, a buddy from college days, called with a job offer; a nine-month gig in Alaska. He said yeah, and put the puppy in a box and took it to her apartment. She fell in love, as he expected. He asked her to watch it for him during the Alaska trip. They had dinner at a French restaurant, stumbled home high on a bottle of Chablis, and made sweet, tearful love while the puppy whined and scratched at the door. The next day she drove him to the airport and told him to write. He didn’t write, not once in nine months, didn’t speak to her again, and a couple of years later he heard she was dating some guy who snuffed fires on oil rigs. The guy died in one of the fires, but whoever told him didn’t know what she was doing or where she lived.

Sometimes, especially when he was very drunk, he’d awaken and smell her scent on the pillow. He’d think about her and the dog. Eventually, he didn’t.

She was still sitting in the chair when he regained his senses. Her head lolled and her legs splayed crudely, the way men often sat, crotches exposed. She’d pissed herself. A fly preened on her thigh.

The module was full of red shadows, or his head was full of red shadows. His left eye was gone, a crater leaking gelatin. He felt it sliding around. His forearm and hand were blistered; they resembled microwaved hamburger. The flesh of his cheek seemed to be sloughing, and when he touched his head, a hank of hair came free. The interior of his mouth was spongy, and his throat felt as if she’d dragged a rusty fork down his esophagus and then stabbed his lungs repeatedly. Pain broke over him in waves and when he coughed, blood and mucus shot forth. He gibbered and rocked with his head in his hands until finally he regained enough sense to find the first aid kit and take a half bottle of aspirin and a shot of morphine. Through it all, she watched him, one eye slightly higher than the other, the corner of her mouth downturned. He went to the radio, afraid to turn his back on her, but there wasn’t much choice.

He keyed the mike and made the call. The answer, when it finally came, surfaced from dead static. The voice was garbled, made unintelligible by the white noise and gain distortion. It responded to his cries for help with bursts of vaguely menacing gobbledygook until a red light on the radio’s console blinked and the machine shut down and went cold. His cell phone couldn’t locate a signal. He slumped in the corner, gnawing his wrist bloody to quiet the ravening fire consuming his brain. He heard himself whimper and was vaguely ashamed and horrified at how abruptly a man could be reduced to an animal.

Sometime later the power died and the interior of the module went dark. Moonlight trickled in and illuminated her face. Had her neck twisted slightly so she might focus upon him with her glistening eyes? Had her hand shifted position? He summoned the courage to stir from his niche and crawl like a wounded beast to the next compartment. He locked the door and wedged a mop from the supply locker under the handle and propped himself against the wall.

He’d dozed for several minutes when the noises began in the main area. It was a stealthy sound, the scrape and scuffle of feet navigating wrecked furniture. The relentless throbbing in his eye dulled his senses, rendered him effectively inert as he listened to the floor squeak closer, ever closer. Why hadn’t he grabbed the gun? Or his work belt with the big hunting knife? A thick, scummy layer of foam had curdled in a ring around his mouth. He scratched it, bit down hard on his fingers, trying in vain to shock himself into action. How many times had he watched a coyote or a cougar in a leg-hold trap, dying by inches until it caved in and lay there, impassive and docile, awaiting the end? It was too dim for him to see the door handle jiggle, but he heard it clearly enough and thought maybe this was his turn to skip from the face of the Earth.

—Honey, unlock the door.

He gibbered and chewed his fingers. It wasn’t her voice and he didn’t know how to assess that fact beyond the terror of the situation. The voice was soft and guttural, sexless and abominable in its alien timbre. The voice emanated pure malice, and it wanted him. Oh yes, it wanted him.

—Open the door. We can help you.

We, it said. What the fuck was we? Where had he heard that? From what trash book, from what horror flick? The Bible, the Old Testament. Almighty God had occasionally referred to Himself in the plural. Demons, too. But it wasn’t an angel or a devil on the other side of the door. No way, and he nodded his head to reinforce the assertion. There was a fucking cultist standing there. He’d been correct to suspect one or more of those creeps lurked in the brush, spying and plotting, poised for the moment he could move in for the kill. Either that or his sweet ex-girlfriend could alter her voice, or her ability to form words was severely impaired from her fractured skull.

—Let us in. You aren’t well. We can smell you. You’re burned. Your flesh is suppurating. It’s rotting. It’s falling from the bone.

He covered his good eye, trying to make his pain and fear subside, the voice to leave him in peace. He was caught in his own kind of leg-hold trap, except he couldn’t chew his leg off to escape.

—Come, open up. Let us help.

—Go to hell! he said, first in a mumble, then a hoarse shout. —Get the fuck away! He repeated this until his voice cracked to pieces and the only sound he could make was a dry, pathetic whine.

—Help me, she said. Not the guttural voice, but hers. She sounded afraid.

He wept.

Pale light filtered through the window. His cheek was pressed against the floor, gummed to the surface by its own juices. Light pooled around his limp hand. The skin was scorched and ruined and a dark scab covered his knuckles. The tendons had tightened like violin strings and he couldn’t make a fist.

He peeled himself free, unlocked the door and surveyed his world. Deranged chimpanzees had redecorated the interior. Every bit of equipment was smashed. Dust leaked through a gash in the hull. The hatch was missing, in its place a ragged hole. She was gone too.

A bomb had detonated in the yard. Canned goods, wiring, bits of wood and silverware and crushed glass twinkled in the dirt. The hatch lay nearby, twisted and deformed. He wanted to call for her, but his throat was stripped. The air was hot and sickeningly bright. His good eye didn’t seem reliable. Everything shimmered like a photograph negative. Everything glowed white or oozed darkness. There was no telling the time; the face of his watch was blank. He scrabbled about the yard, tears and pus rolling down his cheek.

He wrapped a sliver of glass in cotton and went forth on hands and knees with his nose to the earth like a dog. Her trail started at the edge of camp. It was easy to follow the broken twigs, the gore-splattered needles and leaves, and though it wound serpentine through brush and trees, he quickly guessed the destination. She’d been dragged by her hair, like a carcass.

It was a long, bloody crawl to the den.

He lay on his side, panting, fixated on her sandal. The sandal was caked in black grime and wedged between split halves of a stone. He’d seen the other shoe a ways back, dangling from a bush. The sun fell below the jagged rim of the mountains. Heat rapidly dissipated, sucked into the advancing red shadows. He mumbled and whined to himself, incoherent except for flashes of insight that urged him to slice his throat and be done, and he would’ve committed the act, except when the moment came, he realized he’d dropped the improvised blade, that it was lost. And so all was lost. The moon crept up from its lair and grinned its devil grin. She cried out, muffled and faint. Or a coyote yipped over the ridge. He trembled from head to toe, galvanized to pitiful life by the image of her screaming, buried alive.

He coughed and pulled himself, hand over hand, among the roots, smelling her blood mixed with the cool dust, husked leaves and dead needles. The entrance was narrow, but he forced his head through, then his shoulders. He wriggled like a snake and his flesh scraped raw, and his hips were past the threshold and he coiled in the rank, decaying warmth of the den. The mountain breeze tickled the soles of his feet in a lingering caress, then he squirmed fully inside.

For an eon he floated in perfect darkness, listening to insects burrowing through wood and bark. He wasn’t surprised when something larger stirred. A cold, hard hand touched his cheek and clamped his mouth, stifling any sobs, or shrieks of terror or joyous exclamation. He relaxed, too weak for the struggle. He was home.

Her tongue went into his ear like the worm into the apple.

A coyote sneaked from the trees and crouched near the ancient den, the forbidden ground, sniffing at the fresh furrows in the earth, at the blood and the piss and the acrid stench of fear musk. The coyote had roved far from its normal haunts tonight. It was very young and didn’t understand why none of the packs lived here, why the only scents were the scents of sickness and death.

The animal’s ears pricked forward, and it froze, head cocked toward the mound. A cloud rippled across the face of the moon, and when it passed, the coyote bolted, racing from shadow to shadow, and vanished into the silvery gloom. Farther off, the pack howled, their cries echoing along hidden canyons in a damned chorus.

FALLEN BOYS

by Mark Morris

When the child screamed, Tess Morton felt guilty for having to repress the urge to snap at it. She was aware that it wasn’t Matthew Bellings who should be punished, but his tormentors, and yet the boy’s cry of pain or distress was so whiny that it grated on her nerves.

The reason she felt little compassion for the child was because she knew it took almost nothing to provoke a wail of complaint from him. Matthew would cry out whenever someone barged into him in the school corridor; whenever a football was kicked towards him in the playground; whenever a classmate flicked a paper pellet at him, or snatched a text book out of his hand, or pushed in front of him in the lunch queue. Indeed, the merest slight would cause Matthew’s red-cheeked, strangely wizened face to crumple, his mouth to twist open and that familiar, toe-curling bleat to emerge.

Tess liked children; she truly did. Unlike many of her more world-weary colleagues, she was still young enough, and optimistic enough, to regard teaching as a noble and worthwhile profession. She looked back on her own school days fondly, and regarded many of her former teachers with great affection. And as such she liked the idea of feeding and enthusing young minds, of equipping her pupils for the trials of life that would inevitably lie ahead.

All of which made her feel doubly bad for the way she felt about Matthew. He wasn’t a naughty boy. He wasn’t disruptive or snide or cruel. He was just… unlikeable.

Physically, he was stick-thin and uncoordinated. When he ran his limbs resembled a collection of slender twigs loosely bound together. He had no real friends, and as far as Tess could tell had made no particular efforts to acquire any. Breaks and lunchtimes he could most commonly be found in the library, cowering behind an open book, as if hiding from pursuers. He was the sort of child whose parents—of whom Tess had only ever met his nervous, birdlike mother—did him no favours whatsoever. Whereas the other boys carried rucksacks or sports bags, Matthew had been provided with a satchel of gleaming, conker-brown leather. Additionally, his shoes were too shiny, his trousers too short, and his old-fashioned crew cut gave him the look of a child actor in a wartime drama series.

For a while Tess had taken pity on the boy. She had put herself out, spent extra time with him, in an effort to prise him from his shell. Matthew, however, had remained not only unresponsive, but so sulky and ungrateful that in the end she had given up. She still felt a bit ashamed of abandoning the cause, but she consoled herself with the thought that at least she wasn’t as downright hostile towards Matthew as some of her colleagues. The other teacher on this year eight field trip, for instance, Yvonne Harrison, who most of the kids loved for her friendliness and good humour, frequently referred to Matthew Bellings as “that snivelling little shit.”

Turning now, Tess saw that Jason Hayes, his back to her, was hopping from foot to foot, waving his arm in the air. Her immediate thought was that Jason had snatched something of Matthew’s and was taunting him, holding whatever-it-was out of reach. Then she saw Jason lunge forward, lowering his arm in a thrusting motion, which made Matthew squeal again. Some of the other children, especially the girls, squealed too, though there was laughter in their voices.

“Eew, you are so gross!” one of the girls (Tess thought it might be Francesca Parks) shrieked delightedly.

Muttering at the child behind her to halt, Tess strode towards the knot of pupils at the back of the queue. “What is going on here?”

Jason Hayes looked over his shoulder guiltily, and then flicked his arm, tossing away whatever he’d been holding. Because of the other kids milling around, Tess couldn’t tell what it was, though she got the impression of something black and ragged sailing over the edge of the metal walkway and disappearing into the scrubby bushes below.

“Nothing, miss,” Jason said innocently, turning to face her.

“Nothing,” Tess repeated. “Do you honestly think I’m stupid, Jason?”

Jason was a sporty, thick-set boy with spiky hair. Often cheeky and excitable, but essentially a good kid.

“No, miss. No way.”

“I’m very glad to hear it. So perhaps you’d like to tell me what you were doing to Matthew?”

Tess still couldn’t see the smaller boy. It was as if the other children were purposely shielding him from view.

“Nothing, miss,” Jason said again, and then added quickly, “I was just showing him something.”

Tess sighed inwardly. She knew that to get to the heart of the onion you had to patiently peel away the layers one by one. “I see. And what were you showing him?”

“Just something I found, miss.”

Tess stared at him silently for a moment, and then very deliberately said, “Do you want to go on the Mine Railway, Jason?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Because it’s no skin off my nose to take you back to the coach. For all I care, you can sit there for the rest of the afternoon, writing an essay on how important it is to be a positive representative of the school. Would you like that?”

“No, miss.”

Francesca Parks, a precocious thirteen-year-old with a pierced navel, shrilled, “You can’t do that, miss.”

“Can’t I, Francesca?” Tess said coolly. “And why’s that?”

“You can’t leave Jace on his own. It’s against the law.”

“He wouldn’t be on his own,” Tess said. “Mr Jakes would be there.”

Mr Jakes was the school coach driver. He was a scrawny man in his early sixties who always stank of cigarettes. He had a collapsed cavern of a mouth and bad teeth.

Francesca’s eyes, still bearing the trace of the eyeliner she applied every afternoon the instant she stepped out of the school gates, widened. “You can’t leave him with that old perv.”

Tess stared at her unblinkingly. “I beg your pardon?”

Francesca’s eyelids flickered and she bowed her head. “Sorry, miss,” she mumbled.

“I don’t want to hear another word from you, Francesca. Not one. Do you understand me?”

Francesca’s head jerked in a single, sullen nod.

Tess paused just long enough to allow her words to sink in and then she focused on Jason again. “Now, Jason,” she said, “I want you to tell me exactly what you were tormenting Matthew with, and I want the truth. This is your one and only chance to explain. Don’t blow it.”

Jason braced himself. “It was a bird, miss.”

“A bird?”

He nodded. “I found a bird on the path back there, miss. A dead one. It was a bit manky.”

Tess could guess what had happened. Jason had picked up the bird, waved it in Matthew’s general direction, and Matthew, as ever, had overreacted. It wasn’t much more than boyish high jinks, but Matthew’s response—and the fact that Jason must have known from experience exactly how his classmate would re-spond—meant that she couldn’t be seen to condone his behaviour.

Curtly she said, “What did I tell you before getting on the coach today, Jason?”

“You told us we were representing the school and we had to be on our best behaviour, miss,” he replied dutifully.

“Correct,” said Tess. “And would you say you’ve adhered to those stipulations?”

“No, miss.”

“No,” she confirmed. “You’ve let us all down, haven’t you?”

“Yes, miss. Sorry, miss.”

“I appreciate the apology,” Tess said, “but it’s not me you should be apologising to.”

“No, miss.”

Raising her voice, Tess said, “Step forward please, Matthew.”

The gaggle of Jason’s classmates, who had been hovering in the background, now half-turned, shuffling aside to create an aisle. Revealed at the end of the aisle, crouching against the chain-link fence which enclosed the metal walkway leading to the mine entrance, was Matthew Bellings.

Tess immediately saw that Matthew was trembling and that he had something dark on one cheek. She wondered whether the incident had been more serious than she had thought. Surely Jason hadn’t punched Matthew, knocked him down, bruised his face? Despite the antipathy that the other children felt towards the boy, she couldn’t believe that any of them would actually resort to violence. As Matthew shakily straightened up, Tess saw one of the girls—Charlotte McDonald—silently hold something out to him. Something small and white. A tissue. And immediately Tess realised what was really on Matthew’s face.

It wasn’t a bruise. It was blood.

It wasn’t his own blood, though; she was sure of that. His face wasn’t cut or swollen, and the blood was too thin and brownish to be fresh. As Tess looked at Matthew staring at the tissue but not taking it, her brain made another connection.

It wasn’t human blood. It was the bird’s blood. Jason must have swung the dead and rotting creature—whether intentionally or not—right into Matthew’s face. The thought of it made her feel a little sick.

However, the fact that Matthew was doing nothing to help himself, that instead of taking the proffered tissue and cleaning himself up he was simply cowering against the fence, elicited in Tess a wave not only of revulsion, but of an almost contemptuous irritation towards the boy. Marching forward, she snatched the tissue from Charlotte’s hand and brusquely applied it to Matthew’s cheek. Matthew was so surprised that he half-twisted away, releasing another of his plaintive squeals.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Tess muttered, “don’t be a baby.”

Instantly she knew she’d overstepped the mark, shown too much of her true feelings. She was aware of shrewd eyes on her, could almost hear the identical thoughts forming in half a dozen thirteen-year-old heads: Miss doesn’t like him either.

“Jason,” she snapped, trying to make amends, “didn’t you have something to say?”

“Er… yeah. Sorry, Matthew,” Jason said, but there was a smugness in his voice that left Tess in no doubt that the damage had already been done. Despite his behaviour, Jason knew he was still the popular choice, even with his teacher, and that could only mean more trouble for Matthew further down the line.

“Everything okay?”

Tess turned briskly and straightened up. Her friend and head of department, Yvonne, older and more experienced by five years, was standing behind her. Yvonne had returned from collecting their pre-booked group ticket from the kiosk at the foot of the walkway.

“Just a little incident with a dead bird,” Tess said. “All sorted now.”

She glanced at Matthew, who stared resentfully back at her. The boy still had a faint brown stain on his red cheek. If she had been his mother she would have spat on the tissue and rubbed it until it was gone.

“I don’t want to know,” Yvonne said jovially. She was a large, rosy-faced woman with a mass of red hair. Raising her voice, she looked up and down the queue and called, “Right, you lot, nice, straight line. No pushing or shoving. Who’s looking forward to a terrifying plunge into the centre of the earth?”

Most of the kids cheered and raised their hands. A few of the girls looked gleefully terrified.

“Excellent!” Yvonne said. “Come on then.”

For the next few minutes, Tess and Yvonne busied themselves handing out yellow hard hats and getting the children settled into the wooden seats of the open-sided train which would transport them underground. Aside from the bird incident, it had been a good day. Even the weather had held up, though the clouds were gathering now and a few spots of rain were beginning to patter on the plastic canopy of the walkway overhead.

They were at Porthellion Quay, a tin mining museum and visitor centre surrounded on three sides by towering Cornish cliffs. The museum was a sprawling affair, set in two hundred acres of hilly countryside, and consisting of a long-abandoned (though beautifully preserved) mining village, and a small quayside and docks beside the fast-flowing River Tam. The children had been given a tour of the village and assay office, had had a lesson in the Victorian school (after first dressing up in period costume, much to their embarrassment and hilarity), had made rope on the “rope walk,” and had enjoyed a picnic lunch down by the quayside. Now it was the highlight of the trip—a journey on a rickety narrow-gauge railway into the tin mine itself.

“Everybody wearing their hard hats?” asked the driver, a grizzled, wiry man dressed in blue overalls and an old miner’s helmet with a lamp on the front.

Tess glanced at Francesca. She was the only one who had protested about the headgear, but even she was now perched sullenly in her seat, the strap tightly fastened beneath her chin.

“All ready, Mr Hardacre!” shouted Yvonne, looking around and raising her eyebrows in gleeful anticipation.

“Let’s be off then,” Mr Hardacre called.

He gave an unnecessary double-blast on the whistle, which made several of the children jump, and then, to a smattering of cheers, the train chugged jerkily forward.

Tess settled back, enjoying the rattling motion and the feel of wind on her face. She knew that the train cut leisurely through half a mile of woodland before plunging downhill into the mine itself, and she half-closed her eyes, relishing the sensation of light flickering across her vision as it forced its way through the gaps in the passing trees and bushes.

Raising his voice above the noise of the train, Mr Hardacre began to deliver what was obviously a well-rehearsed spiel, providing them with various facts about mining and the mine itself. Tess listened as he told them how arsenic was a by-product of tin smelting, and how one of the often lethal jobs given to women and children was scraping the condensed arsenic off the walls of the calciners, which drew toxic fumes up from the smelting houses.

She phased out when he started to quote facts and figures relating to ore production and the length and depth of the mine’s various shafts, and only knew that the mine entrance was coming up when several of the children sitting near the front of the train began to whoop. Opening her eyes, Tess saw the glinting thread of track, like a long zip, disappearing into the centre of an approaching black arch. Dazzled by the flickering sunlight, the arch seemed to her to be not quite there; it was like an absence of reality into which they were being inexorably drawn, its edges fuzzy, its heart of darkness utterly impenetrable.

She blinked fully awake just in time to be swallowed by blackness. A palpable ripple of fearful excitement ran through the group at the sudden claustrophobic chill emanating from the rocky walls, and at the way the light from Mr Hardacre’s lamp slithered and fractured across the tunnel’s myriad planes and surfaces. Tess swallowed to ease the sudden pressure in her head, but even after the silent pop in her eardrums the previously guttural rumble of the train’s engine sounded thick and muffled. She imagined the thick, dusty air clogging her throat and had to make a conscious effort not to cough. After a couple of minutes of travelling downhill, Mr Hardacre eased back on the brake and brought the train to a grinding halt.

He gestured towards a tableau on their left. Illuminated by the light of a number of ersatz Davy lamps, fuelled not by oil but by electricity, was a family of mannequins. There was a father, a mother, a boy and a girl, all dressed in the drab clothes of a typical mid-nineteenth-century mining family. The father’s shiny, chipped face was streaked with black paint, evidently intended to represent subterranean grime. Like Mr Hardacre, he wore a mining helmet and was resting a pickaxe on his shoulder.

“They’re well creepy,” Tess heard one of the girls whisper. She glanced in the direction of the voice and placed a finger to her lips, though she couldn’t disagree.

The wide, painted eyes of the family seemed to stare blankly at the newly arrived group. The little girl was missing a chunk of plaster from the centre of her face, which gave the impression that some hideous skin disease had eaten away her nose and part of her mouth.

Mr Hardacre told them about life underground, about how the father would toil away for ten or twelve hours at a time in stifling conditions, while the children would sit waiting, often in pitch darkness, looking after his food and matches and whatever ever else he might bring down the mine with him. Meanwhile the women—if they weren’t scraping arsenic off the walls of the calciners—would be at home, cleaning and washing and cooking the Cornish pasties that their husbands ate every day.

“Any questions?” Mr Hardacre asked finally.

For a long moment there was silence, and then Simon Lawson tentatively raised a hand.

“Is the mine haunted?”

The shadows occupying the wrinkles in Mr Hardacre’s face deepened as he frowned. “Haunted?”

“Yes… I mean… well, people must have died down here. Accidents and that. So I just wondered whether there were any, like, stories or legends or anything…”

Tess glanced at the boy, but in the gloom he was nothing but a hunched shadow.

“Ghosts, eh?” Mr Hardacre said, and this time he smiled, the shadows flocking to his widening mouth. “Well, I don’t know about that, but have you come across the story of the fallen boy on your travels today?”

There was a general shaking of heads.

“There’s a bench with a plaque on it outside the sweet shop,” Mr Hardacre said. “It’s dedicated to Michael Rowan, who died at the age of thirteen on March 16th, 1865. Did anyone see that?”

A few hands went up, though Tess herself had not noticed the plaque.

“Well, there’s a strange little story associated with him,” Mr Hardacre said. “Not a ghost story exactly, but still… sad. And a bit creepy.

“The mine, as I told you earlier, was founded in 1832. However there’s a secondary shaft, which we’ll see in a few minutes, which was created in 1865. The reason for this was that after thirty years of mining, the seams on this level were all but exhausted. It was decided, therefore, to mine deeper—and so the secondary shaft was created, in the hope that further seams would be discovered on a lower level.

“One of the most prominent miners at that time—he was a sort of manager, answerable directly to the mine owner—was a man called William Rowan. By all accounts, Rowan was not popular. He was a bear of a man, and something of a bully, and he had a son, Michael, who was apparently much the same.

“One of the victims of Michael’s bullying was a young lad called Luke Pellant. The story goes that Michael chased Luke into the mine one night and that in the darkness Michael ended up losing his way and falling down the secondary shaft.

It was just a big hole in the ground at that point, and back in those days there were no safety barriers or anything like that. Anyway, when Luke told everyone what had happened, a rescue operation was mounted, but of course it was too late—the lad had fallen eighty feet or so onto solid rock and was pretty much smashed to pieces.

“Although Luke claimed that Michael had fallen, Michael’s father, William Rowan, didn’t believe him. He accused Luke of pushing his son down the shaft, of murdering him, and he swore he’d see the boy brought to trial and punished. The general view, however, was that Michael’s death had been nothing but the result of a terrible accident, and one that he had brought on himself. When nothing came of Rowan’s campaign to see Luke brought to justice, Rowan was furious.

“A few weeks later, Luke disappeared, and it seems that although Rowan was initially suspected of having had something to do with it, Rowan himself put it about that the boy had fled out of guilt or shame for what he had done. In any event, nothing ever came of the incident—until about twenty years ago, when they were excavating the ground down by the quayside to lay the foundations for the information centre. During the excavation some bones were found—an almost entire skeleton, in fact—which tests revealed were about a hundred and fifty years old, and were those of a boy somewhere between the ages of ten and fifteen.” Mr Hardacre shrugged. “It’s never been proven, but the general consensus is that William Rowan abducted and killed Luke Pellant and buried his remains down by the river. Of course, the Rowan family, who are still quite prominent in the area, refuse to accept it, and had the bench erected as a sort of… well, a sort of statement of defiance, I suppose.”

“Are there any members of the Pellant family still about?” Tess asked.

Mr Hardacre shook his head. “Not that I know of. Not in these parts anyway.”

“So the bad kid gets remembered and the good one gets forgotten,” one of the girls piped up. “That is so not fair.”

Mr Hardacre shrugged. “I don’t think it makes much difference after all this time. Although if it’s any consolation, Michael Rowan, despite the commemorative bench, is not regarded fondly around these parts. The locals call him the ‘fallen boy,’ not only because he fell down the shaft, but also because, in their eyes, he—and his father—had fallen from grace.”

“So does Michael Rowan’s ghost haunt the mine then?” Simon Lawson asked.

Mr Hardacre smiled. “Not that I know of. Shall we carry on?”

He started the train up again and they went deeper, the engine creaking and grinding as they chugged downhill. The tunnel became narrower, the walls more jagged and uneven, and Tess had to suppress a wave of claustrophobia when she looked up at the black ceiling and got the impression that it was crushing down on them, closing them in.

She was relieved several minutes later when the tunnel abruptly widened and they found themselves in a natural arena-like cavern, the walls and ceiling sloping away on all sides, giving a sudden disorientating sense of space. Once again, Mr Hardacre eased back on the brake and the engine groaned to a halt.

“Right,” he said, “who fancies a bit of mining?”

This time the response was not quite as enthusiastic. Tess and Yvonne ushered the children out of the train and ordered them to follow Mr Hardacre, who led them across to what looked like a huge, squared-off well, surrounded by a metre-high wall. The shaft of the “well,” a raft-sized square of impenetrable blackness, had been overlaid with a sheet of thick but rusty wire mesh.

“This is the secondary shaft I was telling you about,” he said.

“The one that the boy fell down?” one of the girls asked.

“That’s right. This shaft has been unused since the mine closed a hundred years ago. Even before then it was prone to floods and cave-ins.”

“Are there any plans to open the shaft up again?” asked Yvonne.

Hardacre shook his head. “It would cost too much money. And there’s nothing to see down there that you can’t see up here.” He raised a finger. “Now, remember I told you that children often used to sit down here for hours in the darkness, waiting for their fathers to finish work? Well, when I said darkness, I meant darkness. I was talking about the kind we don’t usually experience in this modern age. The kind where you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face. How many of you want to know what that kind of darkness is like?”

Tess glanced around. Most of the hands were going up, though some of the children looked nervous.

“All right then,” Mr Hardacre said. “But when the lights go off, I want you all to stand absolutely still. We don’t want any accidents. Okay?”

There was a murmur of assent.

Mr Hardacre crossed to a chunky plastic box on the wall, which had once been white but was now grimed and smeared with black fingerprints. The box had a single switch in its centre, and thick black wires snaked out of the top of it, leading to the ceiling of the tunnel, along the length of which, Tess noticed, were a series of dimly illuminated light bulbs. Mr Hardacre switched off the lamp on his miner’s helmet and then looked around at the group and smiled, evidently relishing the moment.

“Ready?” he said, and before anyone could answer he pressed his finger down on the switch.

There was a loud click, like a bone snapping, and the world vanished. Around her, Tess heard a brief, shrill chorus of alarmed squeals, which then seemed to abruptly cut off, leaving a silence and a darkness that felt skin-tight, constrictive. For a few seconds Tess was convinced that she could no longer move; she felt her throat closing up, her chest tightening. She couldn’t shake the notion that she was all at once utterly alone. With an effort she raised her hand in front of her face, but she couldn’t see it, she couldn’t see anything.

She didn’t realise she was holding her breath, waiting for something to happen, until she heard a scuffle of movement to her left. Then, for the third time in twenty minutes, Matthew Bellings cried out, his familiar, teeth-grating mewl of protest echoing jaggedly in the confined space. Immediately the light clicked back on and the world was restored. Blinking, somewhat dazed, Tess looked around her.

The children were standing in little groups, all except for Matthew. He was standing alone, in their midst but isolated. Tess focused on him, and her heart gave a sudden lurch. Matthew’s face was scored with streaks of blackness. It was as if the darkness had not allowed him fully to return, as if it had eaten part of him away.

But of course that was nonsense. The black streaks were not darkness; they were simply dirt. Clearly someone had stepped up behind Matthew when the lights were out and had smeared begrimed hands across his cheeks. The question was–

“Who did this?” Yvonne snapped, stepping forward.

Tess’s colleague was quivering with rage, pointing at Matthew but sweeping her burning gaze around the rest of the class. The children stared back at her silently or looked down at the floor.

“What did Mr Hardacre tell you?” she continued. And when again she was met with silence, she shouted, “Well?”

“He told us to stand still so there wouldn’t be any accidents, miss,” replied Julie Steele, whose dark fringe half-obscured her chubby face.

“Yes he did, Julie. So why did one of you decide to be an idiot and do the exact opposite?”

Again, silence. Angrily Yvonne said, “Right, well there’s only one way to resolve this. Everyone hold out your hands.”

There was a shuffling, a collective glancing around, and then hands appeared, palms up, for inspection. Tess looked from one pair to the next, her gaze skittering. As far as she could see, they were all white, unsullied.

But not all the children had complied with Yvonne’s instructions. At the back of the largest group, partly concealed by their classmates, were two crouching, whispering figures. They appeared to be facing each other, holding hands. And then Tess realised that they were not holding hands, but that one was cleaning the hands of the other.

“You two,” she shouted, pointing, striding across.

Two guilty heads snapped up. Beneath the yellow bulbs of their hard hats, Tess recognised the faces of Jason Hayes and Francesca Parks.

Yvonne had joined her now. With her curly red hair streaming from beneath her own hard hat, she looked faintly ridiculous, but no one was laughing.

“Come here!” she hissed, her furiously sibilant voice echoing around the cavern.

Jason and Francesca shuffled forward. Francesca was holding a begrimed Wet Wipe.

“Jason Hayes, show me your hands,” Yvonne ordered.

Jason hesitated, but the expression on his face was almost resigned. Slowly he turned over his hands, revealing his palms. Despite Francesca’s ministrations they were still mostly black.

And so, a split-second later, was everything else.

Just as they had a couple of minutes before, the lights in the tunnel suddenly went out. This time, caught unawares, the screams from some of the children were louder, edged with panic. There was shuffling movement and someone called out; from the sounds they made, either they or someone else appeared to stumble and fall. Yvonne’s furious voice rose above the melee:

“Everyone just stand still! Mr Hardacre, what’s going on?”

Tess heard the click-click, click-click of their guide testing the light switch.

“Must be a power cut,” he said. “Hang on a sec.”

There was a smaller click and suddenly a thin beam of white light cut through the blackness. It was the lamp on Mr Hardacre’s helmet. The beam bobbed and shivered, playing across the walls and the faces of the children as he moved his head.

“No need to panic,” he said. “We’ll just get back on the train. I’ll soon have us out of here.”

“Miss?” said a voice in the darkness.

Tess turned, but the children were little more than shadowy shapes.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Jason’s gone, miss,” the voice said, and now Tess recognised it as belonging to Francesca Parks. “He’s not here.”

“What do you mean—gone?” snapped Yvonne.

“I don’t know, miss,” said Francesca. “He was standing right next to me. But when the light came back on, he’d… disappeared.”

Yvonne huffed. “Oh, this is ridiculous. What is that little idiot playing at?”

“Matthew Bellings has gone too, miss,” one of the boys said.

Tess felt as though the situation was spiralling out of control. “What?” she said. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, miss. He was right there.” A shadowy shape raised an arm, pointing at the spot where Matthew had been standing a few seconds before.

“Matthew?” Tess called, looking around. “Jason?”

There was no response. Tess and Yvonne looked at each other. Tess saw a flicker of fear in her colleague’s eyes.

“Let’s get the other children on the train,” Yvonne said. “Count them to make sure we haven’t lost anyone else.”

They did it as quickly as the darkness would allow, while Mr Hardacre did a quick recce of the tunnels leading off from the central cavern, shining his helmet-mounted light down each one and calling the boys’ names.

Finally he returned, shaking his head. “I’ll put a call through to the main office,” he said. “Find out what—”

“Listen,” said Tess.

“What—” Yvonne began, but Tess held up a hand for silence.

“I heard something… There it is again!”

They all listened now. From somewhere ahead of them and to their left came a scraping, a shuffling, as if someone or something was emerging from a burrow, scrabbling towards the light. Mr Hardacre walked slowly forwards, placing his feet with care on the uneven ground, the beam of light from his helmet sweeping across the cavern walls.

Several of the children gasped as something suddenly tumbled out of one of the side tunnels. Tess saw white hands clawing at the ground, eyes flashing as a face turned towards them.

“Matthew!” she shouted and ran forward, ignoring Mr Hardacre’s warning about minding her footing.

Matthew was on his hands and knees, shivering with fear, his eyes wide and staring. His face was black with dirt. His mouth was hanging open, and as Tess approached him a string of drool fell from his lips and spattered on the ground.

She dropped to her knees, gathered him up in her arms. He flinched and then relaxed, clutching at her as though craving her warmth.

“Matthew,” she said softly. “What happened? Do you know where Jason is?”

Matthew looked up at her. He was clearly dazed, confused.

“He called me Michael,” he whispered.

“Who did?” asked Tess. “Jason, you mean?”

Matthew shook his head. “He called me Michael. He thought… he said…”

Suddenly his face crumpled and he began to sob.

As Tess hugged him tight, trying to comfort him, Hardacre slipped past her, into the tunnel. Yvonne, bringing up the rear, panting a little, crouched down beside her. Before Yvonne could say anything, Tess gently transferred Matthew into her colleague’s arms and muttered, “Look after him.”

She stood up shakily. She could still see the white light from Hardacre’s lamp shimmering across the walls of the side tunnel—and then he turned a corner and all at once they were plunged into blackness again.

Tess stepped forward, feeling her way into the tunnel. She moved sideways, crablike, her hands sliding along the rocky walls, her feet probing ahead. With every step she couldn’t help but imagine a precipice in front of her, a gaping abyss. She told herself she was being foolish, but she couldn’t shake the idea from her mind.

Then she rounded a corner and suddenly saw thin slivers of ice-white light limning the jags and crevices of the tunnel ahead.

“Mr Hardacre, wait!” she called and hurried towards him.

She flinched as he turned towards her, the light from his lamp flashing across her vision, blinding her.

“What are you doing here?” he said almost angrily. “You should have stayed in the cavern with the children.”

“Yvonne’s with them,” Tess said. “Jason is one of my pupils. I couldn’t just wait around in the darkness, doing nothing.”

Hardacre made an exasperated sound, but he said, “Come on then. But be careful.”

They moved on down the tunnel, Hardacre leading the way, his lamp light sliding across the glossy walls. Down here the world was stark and primal. A world of rock and silence, of harsh white and deep black, nothing in between.

“How deep does this tunnel go?” Tess whispered.

Hardacre’s shoulders hunched in a shrug. “A mile maybe.”

“Will it—” Tess began, but then she stopped.

There was a figure crouching in the tunnel ahead.

It was on its haunches, bent forward, its back to them. It was naked, its forehead resting against the rocky wall. It reminded Tess of a child playing hide-and-seek, counting to a hundred before standing up and shouting, “Coming, ready or not.”

Hardacre had halted too. Tess stepped up beside him.

“Jason?” she said.

The figure didn’t respond. Tess slipped by Hardacre, moving towards it.

“Be careful, miss,” Hardacre said.

“It’s all right,” Tess replied, though her stomach was crawling with nerves. “There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

She was within arm’s reach of the figure now. She could see the nubs of its vertebrae, the white skin streaked blackly with grime.

“Jason,” she said again, and reached out to touch the figure’s shoulder. It was freezing cold.

Unbalanced by her touch, the figure rocked backwards. It tumbled over like a turtle on to its back, still in a crouching position, its hands crossed in front of its belly, its knees drawn up.

When she saw what had been done to Jason’s face, Tess screamed. She screamed and screamed, the sound echoing off the walls. Forever afterwards she would see the image in her mind. She would see black dirt spilling from the gaping cavern of Jason’s mouth and tumbling from his empty eye sockets like thick dark tears.

WAS SHE WICKED?
WAS SHE GOOD?

by M. Rickert

She leaves the small creatures in tortured juxtapositions. Her mother and I find them on the porch steps, in the garden, drowning in small puddles, the green hose dripping water from the copper nozzle, guilty as blood. For a few weeks we are able to believe that these tragedies have nothing to do with our little girl whose smile breaks each morning like the sun. We scrape them up, gently, with the edge of leaves or blades of grass (once I cut one in half that way, a horrible accident and it bled while Sheilah laughed, I thought at some imaginary play) but we save none. Sometimes, we have to take them out of their misery, the slow agony of dying they suffer, we step on them, hard, and later scrape their squashed remains from the soles of our shoes.

It has been a long, hot summer. The flowers wither on exhausted stems. We almost regret our stance against air conditioning. We place fans throughout the house, the hum is as annoying as the insidious hum of hornets that occasionally circle over us in the garden, like a threat.

Sheilah runs through the summer days in her nightgown, pale pink and ethereal, her white limbs and moon-white face protected by slatherings of coconut-scented sunscreen. At night, when she finally falls asleep, tiny beads of sweat dotting her pink lips, heat emanates from her blonde curls as if she, herself, were a season.

Had there been earlier signs that we ignored? Certainly, we tried to believe it was all accident and coincidence until, at last, she brought her game into the house. We found them in gruesome cups of strange concoctions in the kitchen, combinations of balsamic vinegar, Worcester Sauce, and food coloring, their tiny bodies floating in the noxious liquid, we found them in the ice cubes, fingers splayed against their frozen death, finally we find them in Sheilah’s bedroom, pinned alive to a bulletin board that displays her kindergarten graduation certificate, her blue ribbon for good citizenship, and a drawing of a horse. They are screaming but they are beyond being saved, we unpin them and hit them with the bottom of our shoes, feeling worse about the one who survived our repeated attempts at mercy killing only to die in agony. From this upstairs window we watch Sheilah. She is, once again, dressed in the silky pink sleeveless nightgown, sitting on a quilt under the oak tree. One second we are looking down at the golden haloed head of our child, her murmured voice rising up to us, pretty as the cardinal’s morning song, and the next, we are running out of the room, down the wooden stairs, through the meditation room, into the kitchen (with its bright windows and spider plants), down the concrete steps lined with terra cotta pots filled with geraniums, awkwardly running across the lawn to Sheilah, who sits on the old quilt beneath the ancient tree, plucking wings and severing limbs, the damaged and wounded writhing in agony while she sings.

With a moan, Anne scoops Sheilah up and runs back into the house, as though escaping a tornado, which leaves me to take care of the mess. I apologize to each and every one. I beg forgiveness. Their eyes lock into mine, infinitesimal eyes filled with the infinite suffering my daughter has caused. Later, when I go inside, I find Anne closing all the windows. “What are you doing?” I ask. “Isn’t this why we moved to the country? It’ll be a hundred degrees in here.”

She looks at me with bright eyes, as though she suffers a fever. “They aren’t going to let her get away with this,” she says. “You know they won’t.”

“You’re right,” I nod. “We need to punish her.”

Anne turns from the closed window, the air around us charged, like the feeling before a storm. “What are you saying?”

I step toward her but stop when I see the stone of her face, once beautiful, now set into the hard lines first etched three years ago. “Maybe we should reconsider. Maybe a little punishment—”

She turns away from me, she whirls out of the room. I stand there and listen to the sound of windows being slammed shut.

This is a difficult time for all of us. Anne makes jewelry in the basement studio, which Sheilah is forbidden to enter, while I work on my second book (The Possibilities for Enchantment in a World at War with the Self, the Other, and the Infinite) in my upstairs office, also forbidden. Sheilah follows this rule so completely that, one morning, I find her lying curled against the door, like a good dog.

“Why don’t you go play?”

She looks up at me, her eyes bright and wide as pennies. “You mean outside?” she asks.

I shake my head. Sadly. “No, Sheilah, not outside.”

She purses her lips into rosebud shape. “I wanna go outside.”

Every time she mentions the outdoors I picture the little bodies, the dark eyes, the strange combination of her singing and their small screams. “We’ve already
talked about this, Sheilah. No.”

“Why not why not why not?” she wails.

“You know why,” I say, and am surprised by how mean I sound. She stops her whining. She stares at me. I can’t tell if her expression is one of insolence, or horror. I step around her, carefully shutting the door behind me. My office window overlooks the backyard. I press up on the sash, hard. These are old windows, with screens and stormers that we change each spring and fall, a massive undertaking we had not considered when we bought the place, frantic to make our escape. I breathe in the scent of dirt, roses, leaves, grass, the green, loamy scent of summer, but my reverie is interrupted by droning, low and near. Hanging from the eave, like some dark tumor, is the hornet’s nest.

I am both repelled and fascinated by the hornets, their golden wings quivering as they work their way around the orb. Sheilah is no longer screaming, perhaps she’s gone to bother Anne, or maybe she’s actually playing with her crystals or her chemistry set. I breathe in until I become restless and can’t stand still any longer, then I pull down the sash. The effect is immediate; stifled in my own home. I inspect the room carefully, checking the corners, the ceiling, the hiding places behind the furniture.

We are striving for something like normal. The thought of having a “normal” child would once have struck us as a failing. Now it is our hope. The honey butter melts across the biscuits and we wash our hands under the tap as we stare out the closed window, remembering how we used to lick each other’s sticky fingers. When she comes into the kitchen, wearing that nightgown, her hair a wild cloud around her sleep-pink face, we greet her joyfully. She pushes us away with her tiny, dangerous hands. She sighs like an old woman. She demands white bread (who knows where she was introduced to this vile concoction) toasted and slathered with sugary peanut butter. She chews with her mouth open, her pearled teeth coated with oily brown, and squints at us. “I wanna go outside.”

We shake our heads.

“Why not why not why not,” she cries and flings the toast to the floor, where she follows it in a spectacular display of temper. “Why not why not why not?” We sit in the rays of morning sun, sealed in with her screams and the heavy moaning heat, and it does not escape me that, in a way, we have become her victims.

Many nights, after Sheilah falls asleep in mid-protest, Anne goes outside, only to return streaked with dirt and grass, her blue eyes bereft of even the memory of joy. She does not invite me to join her, but one night I follow, allowing myself the freedom we must deny our daughter. Anne sits in the garden on a rock large enough, just barely, for one. She does not acknowledge me. Once my eyes adjust, I see what she has done. Miniature tombstones stand in neat rows, flowers in acorn cups arranged before them. I glance at Anne, then lean closer. Each stone is carved with a symbol: a star, a moon, a little shoe, a feather, a clock.

“I didn’t know their names.”

“Anne, listen, we—”

“Don’t. Don’t try to make this right with words.”

What else do I have? I stand there at the foot of the fairies’ graveyard for a long time, hoping that Anne will speak, but she doesn’t. Finally, I turn around and walk back inside, immediately assaulted by the hot air, the droning fans, and Sheilah’s screams, wild with terror. I take the steps, two at a time, slipping on the braided rug, pushing against the floor as I call, “I’m coming! Daddy’s here.”

She is sitting in bed, tears streaming down her face, her mouth open, her hair blowing up and back as though she is possessed, but before I can take her in my arms, Anne swoops past. She turns to me, her eyes wide, her own hair blowing in the hot fan wind. “What happened?”

I shrug. Anne frowns as if I have failed her with this answer. (I have failed her with this answer.) She is holding Sheilah, swaying side to side. The room is stifling, too hot with its shut windows, and too stuffy with a vague, sour odor. Suddenly, I feel nauseous. I step into the hall to catch my breath. Anne follows. “You can’t do this right now. You have to make sure the room is safe.” Reluctantly, I step back into the bedroom. The windows are closed and locked. I check behind the door, look in the closet. I even look under the bed. Finished with my search, I follow the sound of Anne’s cooing, downstairs into the living room, where the standing fan gently hums, its great unwieldy head turning slowly in repeated surveyance of mother and daughter sitting in the flowered chair. The windows are locked against the black night as though it is something that will creep in and destroy us if we give it any quarter.

“Can you tell me what frightened you? Can you tell Daddy?”

Sheilah sits in her mother’s lap, her curls damp at the back of her neck. She glances up at me with her copper eyes and I see in them, for just a moment, the look of murder before her long lashes flutter down. “Wings,” she says.

“Wings?” her mother and I repeat.

She nods and, sniffling loudly, wraps her small arms around Anne’s neck. The fan blows over us while Anne gently rocks. “I told you they would come after her.”

“It was just a dream. A nightmare. Kids—”

“No. It was them. Do something, Michael.”

“We need to punish her.”

Anne holds Sheilah closer, as if I have suggested releasing her into the dark yard where those who seek revenge could have their way.

“We’ve already discussed this.”

“I’m not saying we do anything corporal, I’m just saying that we need to show her that what she’s doing is wrong. They won’t bother her if she stops hurting them.”

“No.”

“Anne, listen to me—”

“Why should I? Do you listen to me? Do you ever listen to me? I told you we should have taken her to a different doctor. I told you he didn’t understand
people like us. I told you—”

“When? No. You didn’t. You never said…”

Sheilah stirs against Anne, turning her head to reveal her profile, damp with sweat, wet curls plastered against her cheek.

“We’re not going to punish her,” Anne hisses. “She’s already been through enough.” She scoots to the edge of the chair and stands up, her eyes sharp on my face. “You’re obsessed with vengeance.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous,” she says as she passes me. It’s only when I hear the creaking of the stairs that I realize she was calling me a name.

The fissures have formed beneath us, and I am not so far gone that I don’t recognize we are falling. I stand there, I don’t know for how long, as if any movement would collapse the careful arc that keeps us suspended. The fan drones, how I hate that sound.

Sheilah is sleeping with Anne in our bed. I try to move quietly, but they both stir when I crawl in beside them. For a while I just lay there, watching them breathe.

Bright light streams through the lace curtains of the humming room, and I awake to the sound of Anne weeping. I wrap her in my arms. She tries to explain but the words are swallowed by her tears. I pat her gently on the back. Over her shoulder I see Sheilah standing in the doorway in her favorite nightgown. She watches with a cold, calculated expression, holding in her dimpled fingers a fairy, so small it is almost invisible. Careful to cover the tiny mouth with her pinky she pulls one wing off the poor creature, and then the other. I take a deep breath and hold Anne closer.

We’ve had this problem with windows before, when we lived in the city. I begged Anne to lock them at night but she “couldn’t feel closed in” and “had to have fresh air.” Eventually, I had boards cut to size so that the windows could be left partially open, but safe. She used them for a while, but then one night she “forgot,” or so she’s always said, and I never had the heart to confront her about it. Whether she forgot to close the windows or not, her intention had been to let in the breeze, not the night creatures, with their masks and guns.

“This happens every year. It’s like we’re all stuck in some kind of cycle.”

“We’re not stuck,” she says. “We moved. That’s one thing. I’m making jewelry again. You’re working on your book. We are making progress. Give me some credit.”

Over Anne’s shoulder, Sheilah pulls one leg off the poor fairy and then the other.

“No.”

Anne pulls away from me, her face hard. Behind her Sheilah tosses wings, legs, and corpse to the floor, then walks down the hall, humming.

“I mean, you’re right. Of course. We’re not stuck, we’re just, this is just a hard time of year for us and I was thinking that it might be nice for you to take a break.”

“But how can I leave her, so close to the anniversary?”

“She’ll be fine. She’ll be with me. Besides, we don’t even know if she remembers anything about that night.”

Anne shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter whether she remembers,” she says. “What do you think this is all about?”

It is disturbing, how eagerly she leaves. Sheilah and I wave from the open doorway, the scent of summer dying in the morning air, the brown lilacs withered on the bush, the squirrels scampering wildly through the yard, which is overgrown and dried out. Anne waves from the open car window, the graceful arc of her hand the last we see of her as she turns the corner. Sheilah starts walking across the porch, she turns and looks at me, wonder and fear in her small face. I nod. She breaks into that brilliant smile, and with a shout, runs free, a wild thing released. Later, I lay the quilt under the tree, and bring out a thermos of lemon aide, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She gulps the lemon aide, and tears into the sandwich. With her mouth full, she looks up at me, smiles, and plants peanut butter kisses all over my face.

She plays outside all day, and into the evening. When I call her in, she comes, tired and happy. She sits at the kitchen table and stares at the macaroni and cheese, her favorite food, but she cannot eat, instead she slumps forward, falling asleep, right there at the table. I carry her upstairs, and put her to bed in the clothes she played in.

I go from room to room opening all the windows and turning off the fans. The damp night air smells sweet, and reminds me of the scented candle Anne had in her bedroom when we first met. I stand at the open window of my office, breathing in the memory of those wild nights of limb and skin, when we discovered each other so thoroughly it was as though we were created by touch. I lean into the screen and it pops. I press just a little harder, it comes loose but doesn’t fall. I pound it with my fist, remembering, as I do, how I hammered the corners to make it secure. It’s an old house and we often found the screens fallen or dangling.

“What are you doing?”

“Go back to bed, Sheilah. I’m fixing something.”

“I’m thirsty.”

“Go back to bed. I’ll bring you a glass of water as soon as I’m finished.”

She looks at the open window. “Mommy’s going to be mad.”

“Yes, she is. If she calls and finds out that you are still awake she’s going to be very angry at you.”

Sheilah’s face contorts. I have confused her, taken advantage of her logic skills, rooted, as they are, in her six-year-old mind. “Go on now.”

Her eyes narrow as she glances from me to the window and back again.

“Go on.”

She shuffles out of the room, like a little old lady, weary with the wrongs of the world.

I hit the screen three more times, wincing with pain until, at last, it loosens, only to dangle by the bottom left corner. The hornet nest is silent, two hornets, the night guards, cling to its side.

“Daddy? I’m ready for my water now.”

It takes both hands to wrench the thing free. My knuckles are bleeding.

“Daddy!”

Finally it comes undone. I shove it away, approximating a throw, it crashes to the ground, followed by a sound of brush scattered, twigs broken. I have frightened some creature down there, a deer, or perhaps something more dangerous.

“Daddy!”

When I walk into Sheilah’s room her eyes widen. I hand her the glass of water. “Drink it,” I say, and then I say it again, in a gentle tone. “Drink it, honey.”

She shakes her head vigorously. “Don’t wanna,” she says.

I snatch the glass from her. Water slops out. “Go to sleep, now.” I lay my hand on her head, bend down to kiss her. As I leave the room I prop open the door with the big book of Grimm, the one with the fake gold edging on all the pages.

Downstairs, the rich scented summer air flows through the rooms. I sit in the flowered chair, sipping last year’s clover wine. It was on just such a night as this that we were ruined. I fall asleep remembering the screams, the terror, the open windows. Screams. I wake to her screams, my heart pounding like a trapped creature. She screams, and I run through the rooms brightened by morning sun. “I’m coming,” I shout, “Daddy’s here.” I race up the stairs and do not hesitate as I approach her room, abuzz with dark noise and screams. She is sitting up, covered by them as if she were made of honey, their golden wings trembling. I can see her halo of hair, though some alight there as well, her mouth, open but blackened by their writhing. I grab a blanket and swing it but this only heightens their attack, she screams and they sting me without mercy. “Daddy’s here, Daddy’s here,” I say even as I run out of the room, down the sunlit hall (but wait, what was that scurrying to hide in the corner) to the bathroom where I draw the water, which comes out languidly. I run back to the room, “Daddy’s here,” I say over and over again, wrapping her in the blanket. She screams at their new assault. Through the blanket I feel their squirming, their soft bodies, their stings. I rush down the hall to the bathroom, set her in the bath, she screams. I tear the blanket off, it is alive with wings, I press it, and her under the water, releasing her just long enough for screams and breath before I hold her under again. They fly at me, as if they understand what I am doing. The water is black with them. She struggles against my grasp, her mouth wide with screams, I dunk her one more time, then I carry her, heavy and wet and screaming, down the hall, slipping but not falling, down the stairs (and there, what was that behind the potted plant, and what just flew overhead) I hold her close even as they continue to sting. I grab my car keys from the kitchen counter, I run down the crooked path. They follow us, stinging again and again, she screams and I scream too as I set her in the car. A few of them follow, but only a few. I kill them with a rolled up atlas. At least now she understands, I think, now she knows not to harm a creature with wings.

Although it is late fall we are making up for lost time and spend much of our evenings outdoors. Anne is sitting in the garden, painting a small portrait of a fairy. She has never accused me of doing anything more than opening all the windows on a hot summer night. Why has she stayed, knowing even this? Well, why did I stay three years ago? I like to think it is love, this tendency to believe in each other’s innocence, but maybe it’s something else. I sit here, on the porch, writing in this notebook, sipping dandelion wine we bought from an old German fellow at the Farmer’s Market. Sheilah sits on the blanket beneath the oak. She is almost entirely recovered though she moves strangely at times, with an odd, careful slowness that you would expect from someone wounded, or very old. They had to shave her head. Her hair has grown in strange, bristly and sharp. The doctors say that it will likely fall out, this sort of thing happens sometimes as a result of trauma, and already there are a few patches of soft hair coming in behind her ears, no longer blonde, but pure white. She sits on her quilt, dressed in jeans and a cotton sweater, playing some sort of game with fallen leaves, they are scolding each other, their leafy voices brittle.

As the amber evening closes in around us, and the night fairies come out, carrying their tiny lanterns, whispering their dark thoughts, Sheilah continues playing, even when a parade of them crosses the patches of her blanket, even when several fly right past her, she pays them no mind at all. Anne and I have begun to suspect she no longer sees them, which is sad in a way, but given the choices we had, and what life made of us, we think we have done well by Sheilah. Now that we have a normal child, she will be safe in her normal world, and we will be safe in ours. We can hope, we can dream, we believe.

THE FEAR

by Richard Harland

It’s impossible to explain without visuals. You’d have to see the movie to know why it was so frightening. Think yourself lucky you never will.

It wasn’t like any other Lucas Roe film. If you’re a cult horror fan, you’ve probably seen his two most famous movies, Scream for Me and The Gravemaker. You can buy four other movies online as DVDs: My Brother Cain, What’s Wrong With Daddy?, Resurgents and The Return of Dr Dolly. For a video copy of The Hanged and the Hungry and This Child Shall Live!, you need to make contact with Lucas Roe fans in America.

All of those films are in the Lucas Roe style of campy, over-the-top, bucketsof-blood horror. That’s why we love them. But this one was different—and not only because it was in sixteen millimeter and black-and-white. I can’t tell you what it was called, because it launched straight into the first scene without titles or credits of any kind.

It started with six people paddling down a river in two canoes and disembarking at an old jetty. In the movie, the river was called “the Delaney,” but it was easy to guess where it had been shot.

“That’s the Hawkesbury, for sure,” said Dom.

“Shush!” we hushed him. But no one was taking the movie very seriously yet.

Next, the six people follow a trail through the bush up to a dilapidated house with grand verandas. One character, called Naomi, kicks at a fallen log that breaks open to reveal a mass of wriggling grubs.

“Like My Brother Cain,” said Dom, before we hushed him again.

We’d all recognised it—the very same image of corruption from the very same camera angle that Roe re-used twenty-one years later. If you’ve seen My Brother Cain, Merrilee kicks her log just moments before the supernatural dog pack appears.

We were waiting for a monster to jump out, perhaps some horror appropriate to the Australian bush setting. But no, nothing. This was a strangely realistic movie, a rambling, understated slice-of-life. It was almost cinéma vérité, like a movie by Ken Loach or Mike Leigh. You had the sense the actors weren’t acting, just being themselves. The only exception was Naomi, who turned out to be the lead character. Perhaps Roe had chosen her for her looks: blonde hair, heart-shaped face and long eyelashes that she batted nonstop. While the others were natural and relaxed, Naomi was teeth-on-edge brittle, always trying too hard.

The situation was a bit stagy too. Naomi, her two brothers and a half sister have come together at a house that belonged to their recently deceased grandfather. A lawyer accompanies them, because the will has to be executed at the house itself. The sixth character is a gardener who used to work for the eccentric old patriarch. All very gothic. The conditions of the will specify which character has to sleep in which room, and lays down certain activities to be performed at certain times, like going for a bushwalk, tidying an old outhouse, making a garden path. But the activities lead nowhere, the story refuses to take off. The characters pass the time sunbathing and reading, intriguing and quarrelling. The lawyer insists that the conditions of the will must be fulfilled and won’t read out the actual inheritances until the time prescribed.

Anyway, there we are watching, when something comes in out of left field. I say comes in, because it’s a sudden realisation—but at the same time, we half-remember it was happening earlier too. A bit like the cult classic, Nightfall at Noon, where you think you’re watching a heist story on the streets of New York, and it takes a long while before you realise that the figures in the background have been showing vampire fangs as they wait for taxis or buy newspapers. In Roe’s movie, we’ve been wondering about the lawyer’s motives and trying to work out how the gardener fits in, when suddenly we notice something or someone behind Naomi’s back.

Picture it: Naomi on the veranda listening to the lawyer… and there’s a faint ruffling in the ends of her hair. Without thinking, she brushes the blonde strands back, as if tickled by some troublesome insect. Then you see a shadow at the side of her neck, where the skin lies bare. The shadow of a finger? Or two fingers? It’s gone in a blink, as if it never existed.

I can’t explain what made it so chilling. Perhaps because it came in from outside the story, or perhaps because it’s such a basic fear, that something might be lurking right behind you. For Naomi, the thing was so close, it was as if clamped onto her back. When she turned, it turned with her. It was only visible when some part crept forward over her shoulder or around her waist. One time, there seemed to be a long sharp fingernail playing with her earring—though it might also have been an attached drop on the earring itself. Another time, something seemed to be pulling on the strap of her dress, sliding it sideways. But you could never be sure, the revelation was always withheld. Unlike Nightfall at Noon, the manifestations became more and more frightening.

For a while, it was as though two movies were running separately: the plot generated by the grandfather’s will and the thing emerging behind Naomi’s back. Then, in an unforgettable scene, Naomi finally becomes aware of the real horror herself. She half-wakes, lying on her side in bed, and the camera draws back to show a second dint in the pillow behind her head. Suddenly she jerks fully awake and turns to stare at the shape of the dint. Now we notice—as she notices—a single dark hair on the pillow that couldn’t have come from her own blonde head. She jumps out of bed, flings back the bedclothes, and there’s a dint in the sheets all the way down, right next to where she was lying.

After that, Naomi changes. She accuses her brothers and half sister of trying to frighten her off, which they deny. She’ll lose her share of the inheritance if she’s not around for the reading of the will—another clunky bit of plot. But Naomi herself starts to become less artificial as a character. Her fear isn’t so obviously “acted” as her previous emotions, and her stubborn determination not to be frightened off is also convincing. Even better, her body language changes in a subtle way: she pulls her shoulder blades forward and seems to shrink into herself.

No other Lucas Roe film has this sense of growing, tightening evil. By comparison, even This Child Shall Live! is an enjoyable romp. In one scene, a head starts to appear behind Naomi’s head: an outline of dark hair, the rim of an ear. It’s as if someone intends to peep out, then changes their mind and disappears again. In another scene, Naomi in her bedroom is facing the camera and we see her back reflected in a mirror. Only it’s not her back, not her bright print dress, pale legs and blonde hair. Instead, a shadow seems to cover her all over, a vague darkness shaped to her shape.

I swear we all jumped at that image. Hardened horror buffs, veterans of a thousand shocks—yet for a moment, we were like terrified ten-year-olds!

Then the film ran out. There was a scene where the lawyer was shown writing new sentences into the will—and suddenly the screen went white, the loose end of the reel went clacking round and round in the projector.

“No way!”

“What’s this?”

“Tell us there’s another reel!”

We looked towards Bryce, who stood up and turned off the projector. We were watching the movie in his house. He looked towards Aaron.

Aaron shrugged. “That’s all. No second reel.”

It was Aaron who had brought the movie to our meeting. He’s an archivist at the Australian Film Institute, so naturally the most respected member of our film group. We call ourselves the Six and meet in either Bryce’s house or Dominic’s house on the first Thursday of every month.

“I searched two days,” Aaron went on. “Roe never finished his first movie.”

“You should have told us!”

“You could have noticed there were no titles or captions. Remember?” Aaron pointed to the can he’d brought the movie in. “And the label only says The Fear,

L. Roe, 18.2.1969. Nothing about Reel 1.” “But it was edited,” Brooke objected. She’s the only female member of the Six. “Why edit half a movie? There must be footage for the rest.”

“Not necessarily.” Aaron can be infuriatingly superior at times. “Maybe Roe didn’t have the money to finish the shoot, so he did the editing while hoping a new backer would turn up. Who knows? There could be a hundred possible explanations.”

It was true, there could be a hundred possible explanations. But we didn’t want to admit it. We were lit up by adrenalin, still tingling from the effect of the movie.

“It would have to be his all-time best,” said Brooke, “if he ever finished it.”

“As good as anyone’s all-time best,” said Tate. “Up there with Night of the Living Dead.”

“No, up there with Psycho,” said Brooke, harking back to a well-worn argument.

We fell into a discussion of what the monster could be. Brooke claimed it was some sort of spirit from the bush that had latched onto Naomi’s back. Tate and Bryce said it was the ghostly presence of the dead grandfather. I argued it wasn’t as external as an ordinary ghost, more like a form of possession as in My Brother Cain. Aaron proposed that it was Naomi’s subjective paranoid nightmare, and her brothers and half sister were deliberately working on her mental instability. Dom partly agreed with Aaron, but blamed the lawyer as the arch-manipulator.

After half an hour, no one had been able to change anyone else’s mind.

“We have to find out,” said Brooke. “Even if there’s no more footage, there has to be a shooting script.”

“Or even if there’s no shooting script, Roe’s still alive, isn’t he?” said Bryce. “He must know what he meant the monster to be.”

“I’ve got a suggestion,” said Tate. “Why don’t we make this our project for the year?”

I should explain, we have a tradition in the Six to take on a special project every year. In 2004, we worked on a complete filmography of Roger Corman; in 2005, we made our own documentary on the settings used in Razorback.We still didn’t have a project for 2006.

“How do you mean?” asked Dom. “An investigation?”

“There has to be a product at the end,” I said.

“Okay.” Tate nodded. “We find out everything we can about Lucas Roe’s first
film, then we write it up in an article for Filmink.” “Yay!” Brooke waved a fist in the air. “We’ll call it ‘Lucas Roe’s Forgotten Australian Masterpiece’!” “Most people don’t even realise he was born in Australia,” Aaron commented. “Because he moved to the States and made his reputation there.”

“So we have an angle already,” said Tate. “Filmink will want to publish our article just on the fact that we’ve unearthed a film he made before he moved to the States.”

“I unearthed,” Aaron corrected.

“Shot on the Hawkesbury,” put in Bryce.

“But what we want is the rest of the movie,” said Brooke. “Or what was going to happen in the rest of the movie. We want to know what the monster was.”

A search on the web confirmed that Lucas Roe was still alive, but had turned his back on the film industry since the box office failure of The Return of Dr Dolly. For the last seven years, he’d been living in absolute seclusion. One of Aaron’s US contacts had a PO Box address for him, so we sent a letter snail mail, describing who we were and the film we’d unearthed.

“He might wish it had stayed forgotten,” said Bryce. “But he can’t ignore us now.”

In the meanwhile, we worked on clues of a different kind. The label on the can said 18.2.1969, and we knew from Roe’s biographical information that he’d attended Sydney University from 1966 to 1968. So the movie must have been shot during or immediately after his undergraduate years. It was a fair bet that his actors and film crew were university friends.

Brooke snapped her fingers. “There’ll be photos of students from those years preserved in college yearbooks and uni records. All we have to do is find a face that matches one of the actors.”

Our research was made easier because Tate was—still is—Vice President of the Sydney University Alumni Association. We’re a strange mix in the Six: at one end, Tate the nerve specialist and Dom the self-made businessman; at the other end, Brooke the penniless postgraduate and me, the part-time bookshop assistant. We have nothing in common except a love of cult horror movies. Anyway, Brooke and I did most of the research, since we had more free hours in the day, while Tate’s name and influence opened many university doors for us. Bryce helped out whenever he could; Aaron seemed to think he’d already contributed his share to the project.

So we searched college yearbooks and archived copies of Honi Soit, the student newspaper, and the various publications of the University Union. We hit lucky when Brooke found a photo of the 1968 student representative on the Union Board—who was identical to the half sister in the movie. She’d been called Alison in the movie, and her real name under the photo was also Alison: Alison Hiskens.

It was such an unusual surname that we took a punt and rang up the one and only Hiskens in the Sydney White Pages. The elderly woman who answered wasn’t Alison, but yes, she did have a daughter whose unmarried name had been Alison Hiskens, and who had once been elected to the Union Board at Sydney University. She was now Alison McPherson, and lived in Sorell, not far from Hobart. The mother, trusting soul, was happy to give us the phone number.

Brooke called an unscheduled meeting of the Six at Tate’s house and we agreed that nothing less than a face-to-face interview would do. While the rest of us clustered around, Tate phoned the number the mother had given us. We heard him explaining the situation half a dozen times; Alison seemed puzzled but not unwilling. In the end, the interview was set up for the coming weekend.

Brooke and I were the ones selected to go. Tate and Dom had no time to fly to Hobart, but were happy to fund our fares and accommodation.

“A weekend holiday for the two of you,” Dom said, almost winking. “Have fun.”

Maybe it’s a failing in me, but I don’t like to be pushed into things. Ever since Brooke came into the Six, everyone had been expecting her and me to become an item. I guess they thought we were well matched. Certainly, we were the young ones in the group. But it’s never happened.

I’m not sure why not. Maybe the right moment has never arrived. It’s not that Brooke isn’t attractive, with her curling brown hair and soft complexion. Perhaps she could lose a little weight, but hey, so could I. And we get on well together as friends. But does Brooke want it to turn into something more? Do I? I can’t make up my mind. I only know it won’t happen as long as everyone keeps pushing. A part of me rises up and resists the idea of falling in with what other people expect.

Anyway, we flew to Hobart and checked into our hotel, adjoining rooms. Brooke took care of the practicalities, she’s always said I’m a dreamer, with my head in the clouds. More accurate to say I’m a watcher, with my head in the movies. She’d brought along a digital recorder to tape the interview.

Alison McPherson lived in a typical suburban house looking out over Pitt Water. She was very different from the skinny, shorthaired Alison of nearly forty years ago. Now stout and matronly, she would never have suited the aggressive role of the Alison in the movie. Her husband left us to talk uninterrupted on the veranda.

“I’ve been thinking about it since your friend rang,” she told us. Brooke clicked on the recorder and placed it in the middle of the table. “I can’t believe you found that old film. I’d forgotten all about it. It was such a different time back then. You can’t imagine how different.”

She gazed out across the placid blue water. Sunlight danced and flickered over the surface, always changing yet always the same. Brooke and I were drinking beer, Alison drank apple juice.

“We’d just finished our final exams,” she went on. “Lucas had got hold of this old house on the Hawkesbury—some friend-of-a-friend kind of deal. You’ve seen it in the movie, of course?”

“Yes,” said Brooke. “Grand and stately. But broken down.”

“Like something out of the American South,” I added.

“Mmm.” Alison nodded. “Who knows what it was really like? We made it crazy and creepy. We transformed it. We were magicians.”

Brooke looked at me with a hint of a shrug. I didn’t understand either.

Alison took her time, reminiscing. “The weather was incredible that summer. So hot and heavy, the air was like treacle. The trees were in a dream, the water was in a dream, we were in a dream. It was our Summer of Love, you know.”

“Summer of Love?” Brooke’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought that was 1967?”

“Overseas, maybe. We probably took a while to catch up. We discovered pot… do you still call it that?”

“Er, yes. And dope.”

“We called it dope too. Not that we had much of it to smoke on the Hawkesbury. More alcohol—we carried in enough flagons to drown an army. But we were high in our minds, the mood was pot. It was the strangest, weirdest time. We thought we were special. We could do what had never been done before. We really believed we could change the world.”

“Very Sixties,” Brooke commented.

“Yes.” Alison smiled wryly. “You weren’t even born then.”

“But a horror film? That doesn’t go with my idea of the Love Generation.”

“There was a dark side to the Sixties too,” I put in. “What about the Doors? Or the Velvet Underground?”

“Lucas never called it a horror film,” said Alison. “Never. He called it a quest.”

“Quest for what?”

“He never said. Quest for a new kind of movie, maybe? We were making a revolution, the Battleship Potemkin of the Sixties. Throwing aside conventions, assumptions, moralities. Discovering new ways of seeing and thinking. ‘The end of the factory film,’ Lucas called it. I suppose it sounds silly now.”

“No, no.” I shook my head. “There was a change. Directors loosened up in the Sixties and Seventies, like Fellini and Godard. Letting a movie unfold by itself, working without a script.”

“Lucas would’ve spat at the word script. ‘The world takes care of itself, and so does my movie’—that was one of his favourite phrases. He liked to talk about film and reality as equal partners. Nothing controlled, no deliberate acting. We had to be our characters, all the time, whether or not the camera was rolling.”

“That’s how it comes across,” said Brooke. “Your characters are yourselves.”

“Yes. Lucas’s influence. He was half mad, but he had a kind of charisma. We all believed he was one of the great creative minds, and he made us share his dream. No movie would ever be the same after our movie.”

“What about the lead role, though?” I asked. “Naomi’s different. She’s deliberately acting.”

“Mmm.” Alison shook her head, a little sadly. “Naomi Preece. She was the outsider. The rest of us were friends at uni, but Naomi was North Shore, very rich family. We used to think her family must be funding the production, but Lucas swore he had his own sources. We never worked out why else he roped her in.”

“Perhaps the old casting couch?” I suggested.

“No, no, you don’t understand Lucas Roe. Nobody got to screw him. He was the inspired genius, he didn’t come down to our level. Not Naomi, not me, not even Mike.” She pulled an ironic face. “Mike was our gay cameraman, with a helpless crush on Lucas. But no, we couldn’t be so lucky.”

“So Naomi in the movie was Naomi Preece in real life?” asked Brooke.

“That’s right. She’d acted in plays at the Ensemble Theatre and thought she knew all about acting in movies. Lucas didn’t want acting from anyone else, yet he never tried to change her. He seemed to like her being so… so uptight and artificial. He called her his spun-sugar girl. She took it as a compliment, but the rest of us took it as a joke. We weren’t very nice to her.”

She paused and swirled the orange juice in her glass. A cloud had come up behind the house and the sparkle was going off the water.

“No, not nice wasn’t the half of it. We ripped her to shreds. I was one of the worst, because she took my role. I should’ve been the female lead, until Lucas turned up with her. We had all night talkfests making fun of her, after she went off for what she called her beauty sleep. We did it to her face too. Of course, we were smashed a lot of the time. And she almost asked for it. I mean, whatever we said, she’d just smile and brush it away. Like a flick of the wrist, dismissing us. Nothing we said could ever matter to her. I’m not saying that excuses us.”

“Lucas didn’t stand up for her?” Brooke asked.

“No, he sort of encouraged us. Not what we said to her, so much, but what we did.”

“Like what?”

“Well, you know the thing at her back in the movie?”

“The monster? Yes, who played the monster?”

“Anyone who wasn’t on set at the time. We all took a turn, even when you can’t see us.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s often someone behind her even when the camera doesn’t show it. Lucas said it made a difference psychologically. He said it’s like the way everything changes when people know there’s a dead body in the next room.”

“He borrowed that from Dreyer,” I said. “Carl Dreyer said it first.”

“Did he?” Alison had obviously never heard of the Danish director of Vampyr. “Anyway, he encouraged us to come up behind her all the time. Scene or no scene, camera or no camera. She never knew when. Never knew how to take it either. It sort of developed its own momentum, like a joke that wasn’t a joke. We enjoyed making her jump. Or not jump. She was always willing herself not to jump.”

“What was it going to be in the end?” asked Brooke. “The monster?”

“I don’t know.” Alison looked surprised. “I thought you’d seen the movie?”

“Not all of it. The last we saw was when Naomi stands in front of the mirror and we see the reflection of a shadow at her back.”

Alison nodded. “That was an old overcoat taped to her shoulders.”

I corrected Brooke. “The very last we saw was the scene where the lawyer adds bits to the will.”

“So you saw the edited stuff from the first week’s filming,” said Alison. “That was as far as I went too.”

“What?”

“I dropped out. You didn’t know that? I didn’t stay for the rest of the shoot. I’ve always wondered how Lucas covered for the half sister’s sudden disappearance.”

“The ending was what we were hoping to find out about,” said Brooke.

Alison shrugged. “Sorry, wrong person. You need to ask one of the actors who stayed.”

“Why did you drop out?” I asked.

“Oh, a stupid argument. After Lucas and Mike came back from editing that first part of the movie. Lucas had wangled free use of an editing studio over the weekend, so he and Mike went off on Friday afternoon and came back with the edited version on Sunday evening.”

“They edited all that in two days?” I shook my head. “Impossible!”

“You saw it. The footage they took was a total ramble of bits and pieces, about five reels of it. When they screened the edited version for us, they’d somehow turned it into a story. We were stunned, because we’d never realised there was any development from scene to scene. And now suddenly it was all heading somewhere, building up to some Godalmighty climax.”

“So where did the argument come in?”

“Later, after Naomi had gone to bed. I wanted Lucas to tell us what the climax was going to be. And he was dancing around and saying it was more than anyone could guess, the most frightening revelation ever. He was out of his head with success and exhaustion. I don’t think either of them had slept for the whole weekend. They were manic, beyond sleep. Lucas kept talking about his ultimate vision of terror, but he wouldn’t tell us what it was.

“In the end, I started to get seriously mad with him. It was like a tease. I didn’t see why he couldn’t tell us. All he would say was, ‘If I tell you, you’ll tell Naomi.’

“You see what he was doing? He wanted Naomi unprepared, so she would really freak out at his vision of terror. He wanted her to crack. Maybe that was why he’d chosen her, because she was the type that would break like an eggshell. For the first time, I actually felt sorry for her.

“I was the only one that understood it, though. The others were still dazzled by the edited film, Lucas was a god in their eyes. They didn’t see the cruelty in what he was doing. I just snapped and told them they were monsters. It turned into a yelling, screaming row.

“All I wanted was out. But I had to warn Naomi and give her the chance to leave with me. She was in her room at the back of the house, sitting up in her sleeping bag. The noise had woken her. I tried to explain what Lucas was doing and she didn’t believe me at first. Fair enough, since I’d been the number one bitch against her. But even when she believed me, she wouldn’t leave the shoot. ‘I’m a professional,’ she said, and stupid things like that.

“Oh, she had it bad. I could leave because I was only a minor role, she said, but she was the lead role and this was her big opportunity. Every successful movie star had faced a challenge like this, and they’d all seized their opportunity and come through in triumph. ‘I won’t break, I’m an actress,’ she said.

"I’d never realised before, because she seemed so shallow and pretty-pretty, but this sugar-spun girl had one rock-hard lump in her personality. Ambition. She was so ambitious, it was scary. She’d convinced herself she could be a star, and nothing else counted in her tiny brain. She turned on me as if I was part of a plot to prevent her succeeding.

“So what could I do? I left her to it. I paddled off in one of the boats, and that was the end of my movie career. My final exam results came through a few days later, top marks, and my family took me away on a holiday to celebrate.”

“Did you see Lucas again?” asked Brooke.

“No. Nor any of them. What happened to the movie? Was it ever distributed? I never saw it advertised.”

“Maybe never even finished,” said Brooke.

“Lucas did become a famous director, though,” I said. “Well, a famous cult director. Many years later, after he moved to America.”

Alison pursed her lips. “Cult would be right,” she said. “Crazy, dangerous man.”

Brooke took out pen and paper. “Can you give us the names of the other actors? Anything you can remember.”

We talked it over afterwards in Brooke’s hotel room. Sitting on the side of her bed, Brooke pounded a fist into the eiderdown.

“Of all the lousy luck! The one person we track down is the one who wasn’t there when it mattered!”

I sat in the room’s only chair, facing her. “At least we have some other names now. I think we should start with Naomi Preece.”

“Why her? Because she was the lead role?”

“And because we have a good clue on her. If she acted in plays at the Ensemble Theatre, she should be easy to trace.”

“And a wealthy family.” Brooke nodded. “Okay, I’m with you on that.”

There was a long silence. I think Brooke was looking at me, but I was busy with my own thoughts.

“I can’t help wondering,” I said. “What if they couldn’t finish the film because the end was too frightening?”

“Lucas’s ultimate vision of terror?”

“Yes. Something more than a ghost of the dead grandfather.” I remembered Brooke’s preference. “More than a spirit from the bush. So terrifying they couldn’t deal with it.”

“You think Lucas had it in him? His other movies are more gut-churning than serious terror.”

“Maybe he frightened himself off. Maybe he never wanted to revisit that vision.”

“Why keep on making horror movies at all, then?”

“A sort of control? You know, playing with nightmares until they’re no longer a threat. Make them harmless.”

Brooke thought about it. “Which is why he could finish those movies.”

“But not his first one.”

“Brrr!” Brooke put on an exaggerated shiver. “That’s a scary idea!”

For a moment, I thought she wanted me to go across and cuddle her. But of course it was only a humorous shiver. She’d do something less ambiguous if she really meant it.

But she never did. We talked on and on, and I tried to envisage every possible form of ultimate fear. Alison’s story had spurred my imagination. For the present, though, Brooke seemed to have lost interest. When she started to yawn, I knew it was time to leave.

As it turned out, we had to postpone the search for Naomi Preece. Back in Sydney, there had been a dramatic development. Lucas Roe had emailed in response to our letter, saying, visit me and bring the film with you. He included the address of his property near Agua Dulce, sixty kilometers from L.A.

Again, Brooke and I were selected to go, and, again, Tate and Dom provided most of the funds, with Bryce chipping in. Four days later, we flew into L.A. International Airport, caught a bus to San Fernando, then a taxi to Roe’s isolated property. The place was ringed by a high electric fence, and a security guard checked and confirmed our bona fides before letting us enter.

The house was a mansion, with marble columns and a fountain just inside the main door, like a hotel foyer. It seemed that even a non-mainstream Hollywood director could be worth a pile of money. A flunkey who also looked like a security guard showed us through to a room with thick carpets and easy chairs, where a projector and screen had been set up in readiness.

Compared to his surroundings, Lucas Roe might have been a hobo who had wandered in off the street. His clothes were scruffy, his hair unkempt, his chin grizzled with white stubble. His appearance wasn’t helped by a glass eye and a scar running back towards his ear—a feature never revealed in any photos we’d seen. Around his neck hung an ostentatious silver crucifix.

We soon found out that the crucifix was no tongue-in-cheek vampire allusion. Roe had got religion. And it was obvious where he had got it from. His wife, Danielle, sat beside him the whole time, patting his knee and controlling his temper. We never discovered exactly what sect she’d converted him to, but it seemed to combine New Age elements with hard Biblical fundamentalism.

Brooke set her digital recorder on the glass-top coffee table. “Is it okay if I tape this for our article?”

“No it is not!” Roe might have swept the recorder to the floor, if his wife hadn’t snatched it up first.

“Lucas doesn’t care to have his name in print.” She handed it back to Brooke with a smile. “We have something else in our lives these days.”

“It would be a very positive article,’ Brooke persisted. ‘We’re all great fans of your movies.”

“Yeah?” Lucas snarled. “But I’m not, see?”

“He’s turned his back on cheap, godless entertainment,” Danielle explained. “Those old horror films are all in the past now.”

Lucas pointed to the can, which I’d propped by the side of my easy chair. “Is that it?” He snapped his fingers and a couple of flunkeys came forward. “Put it on. Curtains.”

One flunkey drew the curtains, while the other threaded the film through the projector. Roe was as edgy as a cat on hot bricks. Whatever religion had given him, it certainly wasn’t inner peace.

The screen came alive with the scene of the two canoes gliding along the river; then the old jetty; then the six characters disembarking. We thought Roe would want to watch it all the way through, but instead he snapped his fingers again.

“Yeah, that’s it. Turn it off.”

We sat on in semi-darkness. The flunkey took the reel off the projector.

“You should be proud of that film,” Brooke told Roe. “We think it’s a masterpiece.”

For the first time, his voice wasn’t a snarl. “You’ve only seen the first reel.”

“Is there more?” Brooke and I jumped in simultaneously.

Roe and his wife exchanged glances, a whole conversation of meaningful looks. Only the last part was spoken aloud.

“You don’t have to do this,” Danielle said.

“They want to know.”

“Do you want them to know?”

“Yeah. That’s good, right?”

“For you. Yes.”

He rose and went off up a spiral staircase at the back of the room.

Danielle put her fingertips together and addressed us in a solemn tone. “You have to remember, they were all very young at the time. Misled by drugs and wild ideas. He’s a changed man now. Evil was done, but evil doesn’t last. Nothing is beyond His forgiveness.”

She actually raised her eyes towards the ceiling. Brooke and I were embarrassed for her.

“You’ve seen the rest of the film, then?” Brooke asked.

“He wanted me to. He needed someone who could know the worst and still be with him. He feels so bad about himself, he can hardly trust anyone. Yet he can’t bear to be alone.”

Roe came back down the staircase carrying six reels. “Enough of that, woman!” he growled.

Danielle frowned but didn’t bite back. Roe handed the reels to the flunkey by the projector.

“Did you finish it after all?” Brooke asked.

Roe shook his head. “Unedited footage. Just watch. You’ll understand.”

Danielle’s strange speech had left us understanding less than ever. Roe slumped back into his easy chair as the screen lit up.

The unedited footage was very unedited. I could see why Alison had spoken of a “total ramble.” There were a few scenes where the actors improvised around a loose narrative concept, but most seemed more accidental and spur-of-the-moment. A large part of the footage couldn’t be called “scenes” at all, just shots of the bush and the Hawkesbury, shots of the actors around the house. There were close-ups of momentary facial expressions, feet striding along corridors, hands hovering over the kitchen sink. Often the actors appeared unaware that the camera was rolling.

It was as though the frame had expanded. Instead of a story, the unedited footage conveyed a whole reality: the heavy torpid sunlight, the languor of summer, the dreamlike mood in the house. There were shots of the actors drinking wine, smoking joints, chatting and lazing around. For me, watching, it was a reality charged with anticipation, like a thunderstorm building up. I can’t say if the actors felt it that way.

The unedited footage also showed Roe’s technique as a director. For example, the camera would be filming one of the actors reading a book on the veranda, and Roe’s voice would suddenly cut in with instructions:

“Stand up. You’ve just heard a noise in the house. Strange, inexplicable noise. Move out of the sunlight into the shadow.”

Very avant-garde. Wherever Roe saw potential in a shot, he ran with it. Reality slid over into fiction and back again.

Even without Roe’s interventions, I could recognise real shots that would fit easily into the fictional story. For example, an actual argument filmed by the camera between Naomi and the two actors playing her brothers. They’re down by the jetty, where there’s now only a single canoe, and one of the males says something about the real Alison paddling off. The other male turns it onto Naomi and says, “Why didn’t you go too?”

It sounds like a jeer and Naomi flares up. “You’ll never get rid of me! Don’t think it! I don’t care whether you like me or not! I’m here to the end!”

The camera comes in close to capture her look of defiance and desperation, so hot and raw on her coolly refined features. She’s talking about staying on as the star of The Fear, of course, but it’s also exactly the expression Roe needs for his fictional Naomi, who’s determined to stay for the final reading of the will.

After a while, the difference between fiction and reality ceased to matter. In spite of the sudden jumps from one kind of shot to another, the film developed its own continuity. In a strange way, all the unedited bits and pieces were perfectly in order as they were. Even the short breaks, when the flunkey changed from reel to reel, didn’t matter. We were caught up in the momentum of Naomi’s gradual disintegration.

As she weakened, so the males circled around her. They were like a wolf pack bringing down a victim. Alison hadn’t mentioned it; perhaps the situation had been different when there were still two females on the set. When there was one, it became very plain that Naomi was marked out for hostility not only because of her North Shore mannerisms, but also because she was female. A female in a male world of horror. You could see them gloating over her attempts to disguise her fear. They spoke the student jargon of the time, full of hippy-ish, Love Generation phrases. But behind the words was something much older and more brutal: an urge to dominate, a sense of power.

It was disturbing to watch. In one scene, Naomi in her bedroom tries to study her own back in the mirror. She screws her neck to look over her shoulder, but her reflection shows no shadow attached behind. Perhaps she wishes she could see something, anything, rather than be tormented by uncertainty; at any rate, she sinks down on her bed in despair. At that point, Roe’s voice can be heard calling “Cut!” so the scene is over. Only it isn’t, because the camera keeps rolling. And the expression on Naomi’s face doesn’t change. Even outside the fiction, she looks haunted, persecuted, terrified.

But there was no way she was going to walk out on the movie. In some shots, you could almost hear her muttering to herself, “I’m a professional.” Roe must have been very sure of that rock-hard lump in her personality, because he even encouraged her to leave, just before the climax. It was one of their late-night talkfests, and Naomi must have stayed up later than usual. The camera recorded it all, from the moment when Roe announces that tomorrow is the day when the monster will be revealed. General excitement, which immediately focuses upon Naomi. Everyone starts questioning her: What does she think it will be? Isn’t she scared?

When she asks if they know what it is, they nod their heads—it’s all part of the game, the victimisation.

“My ultimate vision of terror,” Roe tells her. “Beyond any horror in any book or movie.”

“It’ll give you a heart attack, Naomi!” The actor who plays the gardener laughs.

“Worse than that!” cries Roe.

“Yes!” The actor who plays the older brother bangs his wineglass down on the table. “You’ll be lucky if you have your heart attack first!”

Naomi looks around the circle of faces. “You can tell me. It’s the ghost of the dead grandfather, isn’t it?”

The laughter redoubles. “As if!”

“That’s nothing!”

“What would be scary about that?”

Naomi directs her appeal to Roe. “Please tell me.”

This is Roe’s moment for turning the screws. “You really want me to tell you?”

“Yes,”

“But if I do, I’ll have to abandon the movie.”

“Why?”

“Because the shock won’t work if you know in advance. You can’t act it.”

“Why not?”

“Because you can’t act.”

“What?”

“You can’t act.”

Naomi takes on a glazed expression. “You don’t mean that. You’ve seen me.”

“That’s why I say it.”

“I’m going to be a great actress.”

“You’ll never be anything if you wreck tomorrow’s scene. Do you still want me to tell you?”

Naomi’s face is a window to her mind as she watches her future career flash by before her eyes. Her answer is a foregone conclusion.

“No.” She stands up, blinking. “Time for my beauty sleep. See you in the morning, everyone.”

The camera stopped rolling there. The next scene started with exactly the same setting, only now the morning sun comes in through the windows and lies in patches on the uncarpeted floor. On the dining room table is the same clutter of half-empty flagons, glasses and ashtrays.

Naomi is facing the lawyer and two brothers across the table. She speaks first, and her lines are clearly pre-prepared.

“I tell you, there is something after me. You all know what it is. Why do you keep hiding the truth?”

Even by her own standards, she’s never sounded more wooden. Her mind must be somewhere far far away.

The three males dismiss the accusation, of course. The lawyer turns to the brothers with questions of his own. “What’s wrong with your sister?” “Has she ever been like this before?” “Does the family have a history of instability?”

Naomi says a few more lines in the same unconvincing manner, then drops out of the conversation altogether. The others gather pace and momentum; talking between themselves, they become completely convincing, completely realistic. And gradually, the discussion about Naomi changes into a taunting of Naomi.

“Poor little Naomi!”

“Thinks she’s haunted.”

“She’s going to crack on us.”

“Pity about her share of the inheritance.”

Naomi isn’t listening. She sits strangely, chair pulled in very close to the table. An unconscious smile has appeared on her lips, disconnected and inappropriate.

The camera stops panning between faces, and fixes on her alone. She gives a sudden start and hunches forward. She’s become aware of the thing on her back. We can’t see it, but we can read it in her eyes, which take on an inward look. The sensations are spreading up her spine, widening out across her shoulder blades. It’s all there in her eyes—an effect no actor could fully reproduce.

The hint of a smile remains, but utterly out of control. Now it seems somehow childlike, an expression of helplessness, pathos and fear.

Then something invisible moves in her hair. Something sliding up the nape of her neck, pressing against the back of her scalp, displacing blonde waves of hair.

She manages to open her mouth. “See it now!” she whispers.

Looking straight at her, the lawyer and brothers see nothing at all.

“What did she say?”

“She’s really losing it.”

Naomi is locked rigid. She wants to swing round, but her muscles won’t obey.

She forces out another whisper. “What is it?”

But she’s alone. The others shrug and shake their heads. They can’t see what we see.

What we see are the fingertips emerging out of Naomi’s hair. Reaching upward, spreading wider, curling down towards the crown of her head.

Her face is a picture of absolute horror. Her body moves back as though pulled, as though a second hand has wrapped around her waist, out of sight below the level of the table.

But that’s not the only thing below the level of the table.

Suddenly she comes unlocked. There’s a glint of metal as she whirls around.

A warning yell. “She’s got a knife!”

The camera jerks for a moment, then steadies. Someone is falling backwards, someone who has been crouching right behind Naomi’s chair. It’s Lucas Roe, and he screams and clutches at his face. Blood spurts out between his fingers.

The actor playing the lawyer dives across the table to pin Naomi’s arms from behind. The camera jerks in every direction.

“Keep filming! Keep filming!” cries a voice.

The camera returns to the lawyer actor stretched full-length across the table. Perhaps he reached Naomi, but he failed to hold her arms. Now she’s stabbing, stabbing, stabbing him with a long-bladed kitchen knife.

She’s in a frenzy, hardly human. She stabs senselessly at every part of him: at his arms, his hands, his shoulders, his buttocks. It’s as though she can never kill him enough.

And all the time, with every blow, she screams as though she’s the one being stabbed.

Then sound and image blank out. End of scene, end of movie.

We sat there, stunned. No monster, only Naomi. The blank film on the last of the six reels continued to run through the sprockets until Danielle ordered the projector switched off. Roe waited for the second flunkey to open the curtains.

“Not what you were expecting, huh?” he said.

“No.” I recovered from the shock before Brooke. “That wasn’t a film, that was reality.”

Roe pointed to his glass eye and the scar between eye and ear. “Here’s the reality I got out of it.”

“What about the actor? The one she was stabbing?”

Danielle spoke up on Roe’s behalf. “He was hospitalised for several months. Made a full recovery, though. Believe it or not, she hadn’t hit a vital organ.”

“And Naomi?”

“Went voluntarily into a mental institution.”

Brooke came out of her shock and glared at him. “That was you, wasn’t it? That crazy voice: ‘Keep filming, keep filming!’”

“So?”

“Even after she stabbed you in the eye. The film still mattered more.”

“It would’ve been my masterpiece. You said it yourself. She wrecked my movie.”

“You wrecked her life. You’re the one who should be in a mental institution. You got what you deserved.”

Danielle put a hand on his knee. “Accept it, Lucas. For your own sake. For forgiveness.”

But Roe didn’t have quite the longing for forgiveness that his wife attributed to him.

“You don’t understand,” he snarled at Brooke. “I could have captured it. The ultimate darkness, the ultimate source of fear.”

I intervened before Brooke could respond. “What was it?”

“What?”

“The climactic revelation. Your vision of terror.”

“I never had one.”

“The thing on Naomi’s back, I mean. What was it going to be?”

“I don’t know.”

This didn’t make sense. “But Alison told us.”

“Alison?”

“She played the half sister in your movie. We’ve talked to her already.”

“Oh, her. The first quitter.”

“She said you had something planned for the ending.”

“No.”

“Tell us what it was,” said Brooke in a tight angry voice.

Roe jumped up from the divan and began pacing around. “It wasn’t that kind of vision. Yeah, I was playing with possibilities at the start—like, maybe the shadow could be a demon that had possessed the grandfather and now tried to possess Naomi. But I always wanted the movie to discover its own ending. It was a quest, see? And the more it developed, the more I knew the ending had to be beyond anything I could think up. It was a quest for absolute evil.”

“Such arrogance,” murmured Danielle. “Such arrogance and innocence.”

“My vision was a vision of where to find it.” Roe snapped his fingers. “Naomi. The answer was growing in her, the source of her terror. She was making it for us. Her deepest, darkest fears—the thing she was fighting not to recognise—that was our answer. I had to bring it out and get it on film.”

Brooke was speechless. The cruelty of it took even my breath away.

“So you built up her terror, just so you could find out what she was terrified of?”

“Right.” Roe didn’t miss a beat. “Sometimes I snuck into her bedroom and watched her asleep. I could see it there in the look on her face. Fighting down nightmares, frightened almost to death. Beyond anything I could have imagined.”

He seemed to be talking to himself, hardly aware of his audience. His wife clicked her tongue but didn’t speak.

Suddenly Roe kicked out at an unoccupied chair. “And then she escaped. She got away. She never confronted it.”

“She went berserk,” I pointed out.

“That was her escape. Her mind shut down. She cut out of being a victim. Now we’re all victims.”

Brooke rose. “I’ve had enough. Give us our film and we’ll go.”

“Enough?” Roe stared at her. “You don’t know what enough is! You think I haven’t had enough?”

He was raving. I rose too, and so did Danielle. She went across and put an arm around her husband.

“Don’t think about it. No more now. Calm down, dear.”

Roe’s voice dropped to a mumble. “What she had in her…” He continued to sweep his arms wildly this way and that. “I needed to capture it, I needed to get it on film.”

Danielle led him towards the back of the room, towards the staircase. “It’s all right, dear. You have faith. Always remember your faith. You have the greatest protection there can be.”

“Let’s go,” said Brooke to me.

She went to collect our film, which rested on top of its can beside the projector. The flunkey by the projector coughed and looked enquiringly towards Danielle.

“No.” Danielle shook her head. “We’ve got all the film now. That’s the end. Burn it.”

“Won’t do any good,” muttered Roe.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the flunkey.

Danielle ushered her husband up the stairs. The second flunkey came across to join the first.

“You heard.”

“You can’t do that,” I protested. “Our film is AFI property.”

It sounded feeble, even in my own ears. The flunkeys were huge men, built like all-in wrestlers. They could do anything they wanted.

For a moment, Brooke looked as though she might dart forward and snatch up the film. But what then? The flunkeys would simply take it off her again. Her shoulders sagged in defeat.

We let them escort us out of the house to where our taxi was still waiting in the forecourt.

Should I have put up more of a fight, even though I’d have been flattened? Brooke didn’t blame me, but I blamed myself. Aaron blamed both of us. He was furious about the loss of AFI property.

This was at an emergency meeting of the Six, straight after we got back to Sydney. Brooke told the whole story of what had happened, leaving the loss of the film to the end.

“Burn it?” Aaron was incredulous. “They can’t! There must be a way to stop them!”

Brooke shrugged. “They’ll have done it by now.”

Aaron went very pale. He turned on everyone, ranted and stormed out.

His departure cast a further pall of gloom over the meeting. We sat in Tate’s lounge room and nobody seemed to know what to do next.

“I’m sick of this project anyway,” said Bryce.

Brooke nodded. “I’m sick of Lucas Roe. I don’t want to write about him, I don’t want anything more to do with him.”

“Certainly not to enhance his reputation,” said Tate.

“We don’t have to enhance his reputation,’ I objected. ‘We could do the opposite. Expose him, reveal the facts. We’ve worked hard enough to uncover them.”

Dom disagreed. “We’d still be reviving interest in him.”

“But we haven’t even interviewed the other actors. Naomi especially. We can trace them now we know their names.”

“Leave Naomi alone,” said Brooke.

That was the general mood. They voted to kill off the project and I was the only one against. I can’t explain it, but I wasn’t satisfied. Naomi’s violence with the knife was the reason the movie had been abandoned, but there were still a dozen questions left unanswered. I couldn’t frame those questions, exactly, but I had a sense of anti-climax, of something unresolved.

I cornered Brooke after the meeting. We’d shared the investigation all the way, I couldn’t believe she was so willing to let it drop.

“You heard Roe. You know there’s more to it.”

“No, I don’t.”

“He said, ‘Naomi cut out of being a victim, and now we’re all victims.’”

“Just trying to blame Naomi. So no one could blame him.”

“What about what his wife said? ‘You have the greatest protection there could be.’”

“Let it end, okay?”

“No. I’m going to find Naomi and ask her what happened.”

Brooke stared at me. “What do you think you are? A detective in a movie? This is real life, people have been really hurt. Naomi most of all.”

“You won’t help, then?”

She shook her head, walked three steps away, then turned for a parting shot. “There’s something wrong with you, do you know? You can be so clever and yet so dumb. You think about everything except other people’s feelings. Something got left out in you, Mark.”

There was a deliberate finality about the way she said goodbye.

I’ve talked to Naomi Preece. I wish I hadn’t. Though maybe it was going to happen anyway…

I went to the Ensemble Theatre in North Sydney and found a very helpful publicity manager who delved back into the theatre’s archive of programs. In 1967, Naomi Preece had appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire, in 1968, she’d played in The Anniversary and Look Back in Anger. According to her blurbs, she was the daughter of James Preece, QC, and lived with her family in Mosman.

“James Preece died seven or eight years ago,” the manager told me. “Naomi was a bit before my time, but I heard the talk about her. She went into a psych hospital—Morisset, I think. Her sister’s a well-known writer of children’s literature. Evie Preece.”

Evie Preece turned out to be my lucky lead. Like most writers, she had a website, and the biographical pages of her website showed photos of her home at Leura in the Blue Mountains. In one of those photos, she was with her sister, named Naomi.

That was all I needed. I took a train up to Leura. The website hadn’t given a street address, but Leura’s not so big that its inhabitants don’t know about their more famous residents. I only had to mention the name of Evie Preece to be directed to a large old property on Mount Hay Road.

It was mid-afternoon, but there was already a nip in the mountain air. The house was surrounded by a garden like a park, with great spreading trees and rhododendron bushes. The front door was so imposing, it should have been opened by a butler. On a whim, I didn’t knock but walked round the side to the back. A sunlit lawn descended by tiers behind the house, and on the second tier down, Naomi Preece sat in a basket chair, looking out towards the valley.

I recognised her from the photo on the website. Her blonde hair had turned a brilliant white, and was done up in looped braids. I went straight down to talk to her.

Up close, her face gave me a start, because she had changed so little over thirty-six years. Apart from her hair, she was still the Naomi in the movie, with the same unlined features, the same prettiness.

I introduced myself. She seemed completely at ease with the fact that a stranger had come up to her in the back garden. I didn’t mention Lucas Roe’s movie straight away, but talked of what I knew about her acting career at the Ensemble Theatre.

She stayed very still, like a plaster statue, but she seemed to remember her roles in A Streetcar Named Desire, The Anniversary and Look Back in Anger. She didn’t ask the reasons for my interest. Only when I moved on to the topic of film acting did her memory fail her. She had no recollection of an experimental film shot by the side of the Hawkesbury, or a director called Lucas Roe. She didn’t frown or shrug, she just looked blank. Very, very blank.

That was when I realised the emptiness in her. The Naomi in the movie had always been a real live person, no matter how artificial her acting. But this Naomi was burned out inside. Although her eyes blinked and focused this way or that, they expressed no emotion, no personality, nothing at all. There was nobody home.

I fell silent. After a while, she asked, in the same flat voice, “Who are you?”

“I saw a movie where you were the star. An unfinished movie. Don’t worry, it was a long time ago.”

“A long time ago,” she echoed.

For a moment, I thought she might have made a connection, but it was only a meaningless echo. She turned and focused on my face. Or not exactly my face—my neck and left shoulder.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“What?”

“Turn. Let me see.”

I didn’t turn. I brushed my hand over the spot at which she was staring, just below my ear. I was wearing an open neck shirt and jacket. There was nothing there.

It was my own gesture that reminded me. So many times, in Lucas Roe’s film, Naomi had made exactly the same gesture, as the suggestion of a finger crept forward over her neck or shoulder. I shivered.

“I thought I saw something,” she said.

I looked into her face and saw no special concern, no fear, no reawakening of the past. She might have been talking about a flying insect that had landed on my shoulder.

“Who’s that?” another voice cut in. A stout, bustling woman came down the steps from the back of the house. White skirt, white blouse, solid shoes, hair pulled back—it wasn’t a proper uniform, but everything about her indicated nurse. A home care nurse protecting her patient.

“Who do you think you are?” She directed her bellow towards me. “Coming into people’s gardens! What gives you the right?”

I only wanted to get away, from the nurse, from the house, from Naomi. I hurried back the way I’d come, with the nurse’s fulminations still ringing in my ears.

I headed straight back to Leura station. Dark rain-bearing clouds had come up over the sky, and little flurries of wind were blowing leaves across the road.

Brooke, Brooke, Brooke… I wish I’d listened when you said “Let it end.” I wish I’d never seen that accursed film. Burning it was the right thing to do. If only Roe had done it long, long ago!

I was intending to go home, back to Central, then out to Enmore. But no, I don’t want to spend the night alone. You know the whole story, Brooke, you’re the only one I can trust. You can watch and tell me there’s nothing there. I’ll believe you…

People have been looking at me curiously. Perhaps it’s the state of my jacket, half shredded and scored with brick dust. Waiting for the train at the station, I felt a faint hint of a contact on my neck. You could say it was only the cold, making the muscles stiffen in my back, That’s what I told myself, but still I felt a tension creeping over my left shoulder, then my right shoulder, down my spine, then up to the nape of my neck again. I could trace every faintest movement of it. In the end, I found a corner of wall and grated my back against the rough brick, like a massage with sandpaper. The relief lasted for perhaps ten minutes.

Lidcombe, Flemington, Homebush. Two more stations to Burwood. Brooke lives in Seale St. in Burwood.

I keep brushing my hand over my neck and shoulder. Outside, it’s dark and raining. I can’t help watching my reflection in the carriage window. The rain sliding down the glass confuses the reflection, so that sometimes my back looks to be alive with a hundred wriggling shapes. Then the distortion passes and there’s nothing there.

I need a proper mirror.

I fight against the impulse to strike hard with my hand over my shoulder. I have an overpowering urge to knock something away. But it’s only in my mind. I’m struggling not to panic. What if I lock up rigid, like Naomi, until I can’t even turn my head to look?

Burwood is the next stop now. Half a kilometre to Brooke’s flat from the station. Brooke, Brooke, Brooke…

Her last goodbye was so final. Please don’t make it final.

I keep jumping and twitching every time I feel a sharper nip of claws. That’s what it is, claws. But only a pinpoint touch, exploring, testing, stroking the back of my neck, searching for the best possible grip.

And now plucking, pulling out folds of my skin with tiny hooks. Not painful, but so sharp it makes my breath catch in my throat.

The train slows, the train stops. I have to get out of here. At last. I must get out. Burwood station. Half a kilometre. Why can’t I get out?

TILL THE MORNING COMES

by Stephen Graham Jones

It was supposed to stop after that summer. My mom told me it would, and when she told my dad about it—him just home from third shift, his whiskers all grown back in already, eyes hungry for something none of us ever had for him—he just licked his lips and told me to get on back in there. That he wished he had the luxury of being scared.

Because my mom couldn’t help me then, because all she could do was sit on the couch, I’d do it, I’d walk down the hall to my room. Or, our room then, mine and Nicholas’s, my little brother, who my dad called Señor Accidento, like the Spanish was supposed to hide what he meant.

Before Easter that year, it had been my room and only mine. But that Good Friday, Uncle Jamison was at the door, smiling a guilty smile. He was just turned twenty-six. I only knew it because I heard my dad say to my mom that twenty-six was too old to be living like he was. My mom didn’t disagree, but still, Jamison was her little brother, and he didn’t have anywhere else to go. And anyway, his plan wasn’t to stay forever. He was just going to work for a couple of months, maybe get enough bread saved to move on to the next thing, whatever that was going to be.

I know I should have idolized him or something, let him be everything I planned on being, but already with Jamison you could tell he was a walking public service announcement. I guess I should thank him, really. I might never have gone on to college without the warning he’d been.

But I’m not going to thank him.

For his room, the one that had been Nicholas’s—the one that my dad had had pool table plans for, before Señor Accidento—Jamison unboxed all his old high school stuff that my mom had been keeping in the attic for him. It was mostly old crackly posters and flags and t-shirts too ratty to wear anymore, but—his words—“good for display,” to remind him who he was, to show that he was still being loyal to his old plans.

Four years after what happened happened, I’d find one of those memory t-shirts in the rag box in the garage, and hold it to my face and not let myself cry.

As for his posters, though, they’re gone. I burned them myself, especially the velvet ones that felt like the fur of some animal not quite from our world. Band posters, from when Jamison had been on the road, all over the country. They had intricate, stoned designs all over them, and always skeletons, skeletons, skeletons.

That summer I was twelve. The skeletons were the reason I was afraid to go back to my room anymore. To mine and Nicholas’s room. They didn’t glow, quite, but they held the light from the hall in a way that made me want to look away.

I knew they were just pictures, paintings, whatever, but still, the way Jamison had them on either side of Nicholas’s bed, like guards, they were always looking at me when I walked past, their mouths somehow smiling like they didn’t care at all about this "being dead" thing.

I’d tried walking close to Jamison’s side of the hall, then just darting across at the last moment for my room, but it didn’t help. And running—that was the worst. The one time I’d tried, I’d been sure those long spindly fingers were just skating down the back of my shirt, waiting for a bunch in the fabric to grab onto, pull me in.

I’d started wetting the bed again, yeah. After two years dry.

Every time it happened, Nicholas would be sure to announce it at the breakfast table. My dad’s bleary eyes settling on me, some Spanish name for me forming in his head, I knew: El Pissorino, Pancho Yellowpants, Señor Wetsheets.

I hated him.

But, my mom said, she’d had the same problem until fifth grade herself. It would pass, it would go away, and everybody would forget.

And Uncle Jamison, he was on her side about it, almost by default, just because my dad was tolerating him so poorly. Making such a show of it, how encumbered he was. How much he wanted to be playing pool. Every day he’d circle classifieds or advertisements for eight-foot tables, and leave them where we could all see how put upon he was being here. How Jamison was just one more nail in the coffin of my dad’s dreams.

But I’m not stupid, either. He was just a dad, like all the rest. You check your dreams at the door, pretty much.

Uncle Jamison, though.

The job he got, from his time in the Army, it was driving an ambulance. In a perfect world, he’d have worked the day shift, so been gone when my dad was home, then been home when my dad was working. But they both worked nights that summer. And every breakfast—dinner for them, in their backwards world—after Nicholas had announced that I’d “tee-tee’d the bed,” Jamison would draw what attention he could away from me, regale us with stories of the last night’s calls.

There were home abortions, there were knife fights, and, twice, there was a woman standing on the median with a human ear in a plastic baggie, like she was just the delivery girl.

But the story I remember most is about a family.

The call Dispatch got was second-hand somehow, just that somebody’d seen some headlights dying way down the hill, like maybe a drunk had missed the turn. But that was over by the tracks, where the ground just fell straight away like cliffs in the movies. You didn’t drive down there, you slammed down there, and only came back up on a towrope. According to Jamison, when the cars nosedived off there, after the riders had been declared dead, they’d wait until the car’d been winched back up to even peel the people up from the seats and headliners.

Anyway—you’ve got to picture Jamison telling it, his spoon full with eggs (he hated forks), the way he’d lean forward, his hair shaggy, his eyes hot and staring at all of us, trying to make it real—Jamison took his paramedic Robbie out there, and they found the headlights like they didn’t want to, and it was an old VW bus, all painted paisley with flowers. Hippies. Deadheads. Jamison’s old running buddies, pretty much. Where he was headed, anyway.

“And?” I heard myself saying, even though I had to pee again, bad.

He smiled, had me.

It wasn’t a busload of Deadheads at all, as it turned out. Well, just one, one who’d grown up, got out, had kids now, but just had never sold his old three-hundredthousand-mile bus, because that would be like cashing in his past, trading it for a used dishwasher. Not all dads leave their dreams at the door, I guess. Some hide them in the closet. And, Jamison, he was talking about this dad, sure, this Deadhead, but he was really making an argument for his posters, that he insisted to my mom would just scare me more if we packed them away with the sheets and towels. Better to leave them out on the wall, let me get used to them, let me beat them, learn to walk down that hall, right into manhood.

“You mean to tell me some of you actually and really grow up?” my dad said then.

Jamison grinned and looked the opposite direction.

It wasn’t a real grin. Not at all. More like he was giving my dad this one free, just because it was morning, just because the sun was shining.

My dad snorted and threw his balled-up napkin down onto his plate, clattered off to the morning news, the volume jacked as high as it would go.

“Jamison,” my mom said then, when it was safe. She was warning him about this story, about his audience here—us—but he held his hand up that it was harmless, that this was nothing.

“And when I turned the ambulance off, we could both like hear it,” he said, “coming through the window and all. Singing. Somebody down there was singing, man, just real light, real perfect like.”

“Singing,” Nicholas repeated, as if tasting it, hearing it like Jamison had.

“But when we got down there, that’s when we saw it,” Jamison went on, his voice dropping to a whisper now, because my mom was all the way over at the sink, with my dad’s dishes. “The two kids, this old reformed hippie’s two kids, they were in back, seatbelted in like they should have been, not hurt at all, hands in their laps just like they were at church, man.”

“‘Who was that singing, y’all?’ my medic Robbie he asked,” Jamison said, his face somehow even closer to us now, then he nodded, getting us to already believe the next part: “‘It was Dad,’ the kids said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.”

Only, as Jamison told it, the dad here, this old freeze-dried hippie out to show his kids the way it used to be, he’d been dead-on-impact five or six hours ago, the steering wheel coring his heart right out of his body.

But the song.

Here Jamison started snapping, just slow at first, and then humming it in his chest, and when I heard my own voice falling in—I knew the song from somewhere, must have heard it leaking under his door once—I pushed away from the table, tried to swallow whatever was in my mouth, and stifflegged it back to mine and Nicholas’s room, only—

This is the part I hate.

As I passed Jamison’s room, trying to avert my eyes from the posterspace above his bed, I saw something stepping neatly into his closet, something only still there because I wasn’t supposed to have walked down the hall as fast as I had.

A heel, bone white, no sound at all.

My heart fell into my stomach and I peed myself right there, started crying until my dad came back to stand over me, disappointed again, enough that it came off him in waves.

For the next week, I slept maybe four hours total, each minute of that by accident, so that I woke shuddering.

“Was it real?” Nicholas asked me once—Jamison’s story about the singing dad who was already dead—and I told him no, and then he asked why I was doing that, then?

“What?”

“With your—” He did his throat to show: I was humming. The song. It was the only way to keep myself awake.

Because Jamison worked at night, his room was empty, and because of the air conditioner in his window, my dad wouldn’t let my mom keep his door closed, so all night, sitting in my bed, I could see his room with the light off. Part of the room.

If it would have been school, my grades would have dropped, but as it was, the only thing that fell off was my eating.

“He’ll snap out of it,” my dad told my mom, staring at me over her shoulder because it wasn’t a prediction he was making here, but a threat.

“Sixth grade will be here before you know it,” my mom promised, whenever he was at work.

I hummed to myself instead of answering, and Jamison—sent by my mom— made the effort, tried to sit me down, tell me he’d just been joshing, that of course the music never stops, that it had probably been the radio, some old 8-track or another, the kids had been confused, in shock from losing their dad, but it was too late. I already knew the song. The words had even started to come to me, some, from a place inside me I didn’t even know I had.

Nine days after the breakfast story, deep in the watchful night, something crossed again, moving from alongside the bed to Jamison’s closet.

I couldn’t even pee myself this time.

And then my dad was standing there in the doorway.

He’d been drinking, was home early, too early.

He just stared down at me, lying there breathing all wrong, so obviously not asleep.

Nothing crossed behind him.

I wanted to sneak out, sleep in the living room, and did once, but woke to Nicholas tugging on my blanket. He’d got scared.

I went back and we both slept in my bed together, front-to-back, instead of him in the cot, and in the morning he told on me again, about having an accident, and this time I hit him. It was supposed to be on the side of the head but caught him on the neck. He held the pain down under his hand and glared at me, his lips tight, but didn’t tell. It was the end of him crawling into my bed, though. The end of me using him as a shield. The end again of anything like sleep.

At night my sheets, they were starting to feel furred, velvety, so that I’d have to turn my lights on to be sure they weren’t, then turn them off again, in case my dad pulled up, saw my window glowing, wasting electricity, trying to light the whole neighborhood.

By the time summer was halfway over, I’d convinced myself it was all made-up, that I was scaring myself, and even managed to sleep with my back to the door a time or two, but then I heard the humming again. The song. And it wasn’t coming from me.

Nicholas. In his sleep.

I shook him until he cried, never really waking up, then I was secretly relieved when my mom came to sit by his cot until he went to sleep again. She made it safe enough to close my eyes. Her feet swished on the carpet as she left.

Except, when I opened my eyes, she was still there, her head on Nicholas’s cot, her breath regular.

Meaning that those footsteps—

I shook my head no, no, and the days started to blur into the nights, the breakfasts into the dinners, my days and nights upside-down now too, and some afternoons I even stood right there on the edge of the doorway to Jamison’s room, and watched the skeleton faces watch me back.

What I was doing was willing myself to grow up.

But that was coming.

And my mom was right, probably: it would have all passed, been over with the summer, or at least with Jamison moving on to his next big scheme.

Except one night, the smell of urine rising from my bed again, me breathing harder than I should have been, I heard the footsteps again, that bone smoothness across the carpet.

It was Nicholas, groggy.

“I’m telling dad,” he said, and I reached out, grabbed his arm.

He looked down to it, up along it to me.

“No,” I told him, and then felt it for the first time: the breeze, the wind, the pull.

It was crossing me, moving towards Jamison’s room.

I breathed in, breathed out. Shook my head no but could still feel it.

“What?” Nicholas said, trying to pull away, and I closed my eyes, said it to him, what I never should have: “Just get me the extra sheets, okay?”

Our linen closet, it was the second closet in Jamison’s room. The far door.

To seal the deal, I promised him a little car I didn’t play with anymore, the one I always caught him playing with, had to hide.

“The red one?” he said, falling asleep again just standing there.

“The red one,” I nodded, and then he slouched away, stepped across the hall into the velvet darkness, and, moments later the air stopped crossing my bed, and the next thing I knew, my mom was shaking me, then my dad was, until he felt the stickiness on my skin, pulled back in disgust.

“Where is he?” my mom was saying, insisting.

My dad just looked at me, waiting.

I sat up, pushed back into the corner, and nodded across the hall, to Jamison’s room, and in two strides my dad was over there, turning it over, ripping it down, until Jamison got back, stood there, and that’s when my dad did what he did to Jamison, that the cops had to come stop, finally, and Jamison’s paramedic Robbie had to clean up even though it wasn’t his shift anymore.

And then all of us forgot how to sleep.

Me and my mom sat in the living room watching nothing on television, her crying in her chest every few minutes—her son gone with no explanation, her brother in a coma, her husband in jail for the weekend, her other son a bedwetter, a fraidy cat, a traitor.

Every light in the house was on.

Three nights later my dad knocked on his own front door, waited for my mom to open it back for him.

We went to see Jamison together, as a family.

His face was a mummy face, plastic tubes taped all over him, his life reduced to an electric green beep on a monitor.

“They shaved his beard,” my mom finally said.

It had been one of my dad’s complaints.

And as far as Nicholas, the police had nothing. They were waiting for Jamison to wake up, explain it all somehow, but were ready to write it off as another runaway too.

On the way back to the house we stopped at Nicholas’s favorite place, the hamburger joint that used to be the concession stand for the drive-in, when there’d been a drive-in.

We chewed the food and swallowed the food and never tasted any of it.

Halfway home, my mom motioned my dad to stop so she could throw up. He reached across, held her hair up for her, and in that moment it was good between them again. Good enough.

That night they ushered me back to my room in a way that I didn’t take to mean that my brother was gone, but that I’d lost him. That I’d traded him. And I had. Then my mom squeezed my hand goodnight, my dad patted my headboard, and they closed their bedroom door, chocked the chair under the knob like they did. I knew the sound, what it meant: another ritual. For Nicholas.

Usually, when they’d start—but this time was going to be quiet, I knew, both of them probably crying the whole time—I’d cross into Nicholas’s room, wrench the dial on the air conditioner over, to drown them out.

This time, though, it was already on, already blowing.

For maybe five minutes I made myself stand at the door, feeling that coolness wash past, staring into the wreck of Jamison’s stuff, but I still couldn’t cross over.

Instead, I got the wooden bat from my closet, held it backwards to hook the butt of the handle on the edge of the door, and pulled it shut. Told Nicholas I was sorry sorry sorry. Prayed at first that he could hear me, and then a more guilty prayer: that he couldn’t.

Before going to my bed, I stood over the toilet until I finally peed a trickle, like that was the trade I was offering.

It didn’t work.

Because my parents still had their door shut, I shut mine too, laid a pair of pants down along the bottom to hide the light I was leaving on.

I had to sleep, I mean.

Already there were fuzzy, moving things at the edge of the tunnels I was looking down. The tunnels that were getting skinnier and skinner, turning more into straws, pinholes, the world farther and farther away. Or maybe it was me who was backing away.

When the sounds started from my parents’ room finally, I rolled over on my bed, wound the sheets tight and pressed my pillow over my head, and somewhere in there, for the first time in I didn’t know how long, I fell asleep.

I didn’t know it, of course, or, only knew it in the past tense, when I woke up all at once staring not at the wall like I’d meant, like I thought was safe, but at my door.

What?

It was still shut, there was nothing wrong.

But there was.

I felt the yellow warmth pooling under me: the pair of jeans I’d stuffed along the bottom of the door, they were gone.

And the cold air I’d felt washing past me before, it was going the other way now. Again. Pulling.

And there was the humming, the song.

It was coming from me, I was making it without meaning to, but it was larger too. I was singing with the song that was already happening.

I shook my head no, pushed as far into the back wall as I could.

The light in the hall was on too. Or, worse, light was spilling from Jamison’s room.

“Mom,” I creaked, hardly even a whisper, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

There were two shadows on the other side of the door. Feet.

“Mom?” I said again, shaking my head no, my bladder emptier than it had ever been.

It was like I was at the old drive-in before they tore it down. Like I was watching the close-up of some doorknob starting to twist, everybody in their cars holding their breath, only watching through their fingers.

But there were no bugs dying in the cone of projected light here, and nobody was about to honk, kill the moment.

It was really happening.

“Dad,” I finally whispered, my last, lastmost resort.

It wasn’t him either, though.

When this door opened, it was Jamison standing there. Jamison with his shaggy beard, his too-long jeans like always, but different too. His skin loose on him somehow, and crackly, like paper that’s been rained on, then dried in the sun. His eyes already falling back into his sockets.

In his arms, sleeping, Nicholas.

I stood from my wet bed, faced him and shied away both at once. Wanted to hug him and scream at the same time.

Behind his beard, Jamison was mouthing the words of the song.

I nodded, understood somehow, hummed my part, filling the empty shapes he was making, the shapes he was leaving out there in the air for me to color in with my voice.

It was a kind of magic, I think.

The only way it could be.

“Tell Sissy, tell her—” he said, grinning that same grin from the day he’d first shown up, and then just held Nicholas across the threshold, like there was some rule about that too, that he could come no farther, that I was the one who was going to have to finish this.

I shook my head no, that I couldn’t, that I wasn’t stro—that Nicholas was too heavy.

But then he was my brother, too.

I crossed the room on robot legs, took him from my uncle’s arms, and only staggered under the weight a little at first, like I could do this impossible thing, but then it was too much, just all at once.

I turned for a place to lay him down, knew it couldn’t be my wet bed, knew his cot had all my little cars on it already, in offering, and I fell. First to one knee, then forward, trying to cradle Nicholas as best I could. Like a brother should.

It worked.

When he hit the carpet he came awake, looked up at me and then behind me.

I looked too but Jamison was already gone, the door across the hall sucking shut harder than should have been possible.

The next morning my dad found Nicholas and me sleeping back to front again, on the floor, and kept his boots on and laid down beside us, held us both so tight, nodding something to himself I think, wiping his face maybe, and at some point the phone started ringing.

My dad still didn’t let us go. The three of us listened to my mom’s footsteps crossing the kitchen, the phone cutting off mid-ring, the murmur of her saying okay to the hospital, of her thanking them for the call, for telling her this news that was probably for the best, and then we cringed from the sound of her hundred pounds falling into the stove, clattering down with the pans, not getting back up from that sheet of curled-at-the-edges linoleum.

“Jamison,” I said.

“Jamison,” Nicholas said too, but different than I had.

My dad just shook his head, pressed his closed eyes into my back, and did he start playing pool that next year, staying out later and later until he finally just stayed gone one night, and did Nicholas try twice to kill himself four years later, each time in the closet of his bedroom? Did my mom ever get up from the kitchen floor, let one of us pick the pans up for her? Years later, burning a pile of posters, would I think I saw Jamison, just hunched over real small in the velvet, walking away?

It doesn’t matter.

All that matters is right then, that morning, having Nicholas back, our dad with his arms around us like it should have been, and that my mom was right: after that summer, I never wet the bed even once, even when I wake in my own house with that hum in my chest some nights and feel my way to the sink, fumble the light on—always the light—and find there in the soap tray, or balanced on the lip of the medicine cabinet, a little red car that wasn’t there before.

Because they don’t know. Because they think that can still work.

You can hide them in boxes, though, if you want, the little cars, and then put those boxes in the attic or the basement, and not tell anybody, just walk through your life with a song in your head, one that scares you, but you can’t stop singing it either, because if you ever do—

Most nights, after fumbling for the light over the sink, I make it to the toilet, I mean, don’t have to explain anything to my wife.

For those other nights, though, I’ve tiled the bathroom floor, and in front of the sink, and when I finally make myself lie back down, I’m always sure to have left the closet door behind me open, so that if Jamison wants to stand there, keep me safe for one more night, he can. Please.

SHOMER

by Glen Hirshberg

“Melancholy can smile. Sorrow cannot. And smiling is the legacy of my tribe.”

—Friedrich Torberg, Tante Jolesch

“So you’ll do it?” Aunt Jessica asked, holding Marty’s hand, as they stood in a ring around Uncle El’s body.

“Of course I will,” Marty murmured. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from his uncle’s face. He’d never seen an unprepared corpse before, and what amazed him was how little like Uncle El the body already looked. His eyes had come open, right at the end, but crossed and out of alignment, like balloons that had drifted separately to the ceiling. His top lip, too, had slid sideways, and looked frozen halfway toward one of those twisted-mouth expressions Uncle El had used to crack up first his nephews, then his children.

On the other side of the hospital bed, El’s son Leo glanced up at Marty. Through his tears, a wicked smile spread. El’s smile. “Want any of us to tell you what it is you’re doing first?”

An hour later, over blintzes in the deli where El used to sneak Marty and then, in succession, the rest of his nieces and nephews and finally his own children off to midnight meals, Leo told him.

“Shomer,” Marty repeated through a mouth full of sweet cheese and sour cream. Outside, the drizzle drifted down through the dark and shrouded passing cars, the bus stop across the street, a pedestrian hurrying up his row-house stoop, so that everything looked wavy, wrapped in plastic.

“It means guard,” said Leo, who’d taken one bite of his blintz and then sat staring into his plate.

“What am I guarding?”

“Dad,” Leo said, and Marty stopped eating. “My dad.”

Marty stared at his cousin, then at his cousin’s reflection superimposed in the dark window, wavering like everything else.

“I hadn’t really heard of Shomers either,” Leo said. “The synagogue asked, and Mom thought it sounded nice.”

The fact that Leo also hadn’t known about it was a little reassuring. Every time Marty came east, he left aware of yet another blessing or ritual he didn’t know, which made him feel yet again like a pretend Jew and, more surprisingly, made him care. But this word he’d never even heard.

In the diner light, Leo looked more hollow-cheeked than usual, his dark, curly hair even greasier against his dress-shirt collar. Of course, at twenty-four, already a featured Salon.com columnist, Leo could still claim the look as a style and mean it. Whereas Marty—now thirty-five, with his freelance technical drawing accounts drying up in the recession and the gallery that had shown and occasionally even sold his paintings shuttering its doors, and with his last relationship long enough ago that his mother had started asking if there were any “cute baristas” at his local coffee shop—Marty’s ongoing inability to hit each belt loop or get a tie knot all the way up under his neck just gave him away. At least, that’s how it felt to Marty.

“The synagogue has a guy they pay to do it,” Leo said. “Most synagogues do, did you know that?”

“Don’t tell my mom,” said Marty. “She might ask about the salary. On my behalf.”

Leo glanced up from his plate, his half-smile quick and grateful and his eyes full of tears again. For a moment, Marty felt like the cousin he’d always meant to be to El’s children, and hadn’t quite become, somehow. That cousin. Because El had certainly been that uncle. At least for a while.

“Professional shomer,” Leo said. “It’d be a conversation starter.”

“What do you mean, guard your dad?”

“His body. Someone’s supposed to sit with his body every second until it’s in the ground.”

“Like, in the embalming room?”

“Jews don’t embalm, moron.”

“Oh, yeah.” Marty blushed and scooped up another forkful of blintz but didn’t lift it. “I knew that, actually.”

“Remember Grandpa in his coffin? With all that makeup on him?”

“The Grandpa Action Figure,” said Marty, and this time, Leo smiled all the way.

“I forgot about that.”

At his death, their grandfather had weighed well over 350 pounds, and his prepared body had looked so little like him, the face so rosy-cheeked but devoid of even one of his thousand trademark expressions, that Marty’s father had said he looked like a G.I. Joe. And for the rest of the shiva week, as mourners brought soup and kugel and sat on Grandpa’s couches under the soaped-over mirrors and told Grandpa stories, the cousins had holed up in bedrooms or basement corners, imagining Grandpa Action Figure adventures. Grandpa Action Figure leaps from the fifteen-foot upstairs balcony, creating a crater in the floor and a tsunami in Chesapeake Bay. Grandpa Action Figure climbs the Shot Tower. Grandpa Action Figure waits until all the mourners have left, and then comes home.

“We’re not even supposed to have visitations like that, are we?” Marty asked. “Open coffins?”

“Nope. I have no idea whose idea it was. My dad hated it.”

Abruptly, Leo put his face in his hands. Leo didn’t generally leave even his laughter unguarded, and Marty wasn’t sure how to react. Raindrops rilled down the window. It was possible, Marty realized, that he would never eat another blintz. He’d never really liked them. Or, he’d only liked them sitting across from Uncle El, in Baltimore, in the middle of the night.

“So where do we sit?” he finally asked. “Your dad and I?”

“At the funeral home.” With a visible effort, Leo lifted his head, steadied himself. “It’s just because it’s Shabbat. The Shomer Pro was already on his way to Virginia for the weekend. He’ll be back tomorrow. And the Blank says he’ll come early in the morning and spell you.”

“Robbie the Blank?”

“You know any other Blanks we’re related to?”

That jabbing tone was an inheritance from Uncle El. How old had Marty been before realizing he didn’t actually like it?

“So I go to the funeral home once the body gets there, and I just sit?”

“I think you’re technically supposed to recite Psalms. Obviously, you don’t have to do that. You just…guard him.”

“From what? Embalming?”

“I don’t know, Marty, I’ve never done it, all right? I’ve never heard of doing it. It’s just my dead dad, and apparently someone’s supposed to guard him, and immediate family aren’t allowed, and my mom thought of you. Do it or don’t.”

Taken aback—again, by the nakedness of the emotion more than the emotion itself—Marty shifted in his seat, waved a hand in the air. “Of course I’ll do it, Leo. I already said I would. I’m honored.”

“It’s a mitzvah, supposedly.”

“I’d do it if it were a mortal sin.”

“Thank you, Marty. Just guard him, okay? Stay awake. Be with him. Ferry my dad to the afterlife.”

“Do we believe in the afterlife?”

“Since when does Judaism require belief?”

Ninety minutes later, armed with his sketchpad, a Tanakh, and a travel Boggle set—“You’ve got a pretty good shot at beating him, for once,” Leo said as he handed it over—Marty let his mother drive him to the Rosenberg Funeral Home. As he opened the passenger side door, she grabbed his hand and said, “My little brother is going in the ground. I’m glad you’re going to be with him.” And then, when Marty’d kissed her sopping cheek, “I bet someone in there could find you a razor and some shaving cream.”

Marty held his mother’s hand. “They probably have really good tie tie-ers, too.”

“That’s just morbid,” his mother said, smiled, sobbed, and left him in the rain.

For just a moment, turning to the building, he thought there’d been a mistake. The Rosenberg Home was low and rectangular and long, flanked on both ends by poplar trees and fronted by a wide, circular driveway. Before the front doors, lined up single file, hearses sat silent, their back curtains drawn, reminding Marty disconcertingly of taxis cuing for airport passengers. So, a funeral home, alright. But a deserted one, judging from the utter lightlessness in there. And a Chinese one, if the character-covered, hand-painted signs in the black windows were any indication.

Midnight dim sum? Marty thought vaguely, the weight of the day—of watching his uncle die, his cross-country trip, his mother’s tears and his cousins’ and his aunt’s—all settling over him. That would certainly be a proper way of performing Shomer—Shomering?—for Uncle El. Dazed, with chilly water droplets creeping into his collar and down his back, Marty moved up the steps, between the hearses. He half-expected to see drivers snoozing at the wheel, or poring over tomorrow’s Racing Form for Pimlico. But the hearses were empty. Reaching the front doors, he raised a hand to his eyes and squinted into the blackness. The new face appeared so fast that Marty mistook it at first for his reflection.

Which was kind of funny, given that the tiny man who opened the door wore a white robe, had white hair tied back in a ponytail, and was Chinese. Chinese-American, as it turned out.

“Mister…Burnstein?” the man said, bowing slightly.

“What? Oh. No. But, yes, I’m here for him. For El Burnstein. My name’s different. Marty.”

The white-haired man just stood in the doorway, still the only visible form in the sea of blankness behind him, studying Marty’s face. Even with the door open, Marty heard no sounds from inside the home.

“But you are the Shomer, yes?” The white-haired man pronounced the word perfectly, Hebraically. At least, it sounded that way to Marty. Bowing again, the white-haired man said, “I am sorry for your loss. This way.” Turning, he moved into the dimness, his robe seeming to float on it like a paper lantern.

Marty followed. Halfway across the long foyer, or whatever it was, his eyes began to adjust, and he started to make out shapes. A circular reception desk. Rooms to the right, one with a door wide open. A single room to the left, with larger double doors, also open. To the left of those doors stood a single, large vase of long-stemmed flowers. Drained of their color by the dimness, they looked like scratches in the dark, gestural impressions of flowers, as in Chinese scroll painting. The rug beneath Marty’s feet felt deep and soft and dark. Like earth, he thought. Which was appropriate enough. Jewish funerals were about returning, as quickly and simply as possible, to the clay from which we were made. Ahead of him, the white robe descended down a staircase draped in even deeper shadow, and Marty hesitated at the edge of it. As usual, he felt ill-prepared, and also, he had to admit, a little nervous. And then ridiculous. If he were indeed a ferryman, well…what had he thought this river would look like? He started down.

Only after he’d reached the bottom did the Chinese man switch on the overhead fluorescents. They didn’t twitch or hum, just revealed the long, sterile hallway. No carpet here, no flowers, only hospital-gray linoleum, open doorways spaced quite a ways apart, a couple of empty gurneys tucked neatly against the blank, white walls.

One gold-filigreed coffin, empty and unlatched, standing upright.

Not his uncle’s coffin, then. If El had had his way, he’d have gone in the ground naked, without any box whatsoever, to speed his return to the earth. It’s what Jews did, apparently. But neither his sister nor his wife had been able to stomach that idea, so they’d gone for the simple, pine receptacle.

“This way, please,” said the Chinese man, and led him directly into the first room, where again he waited until Marty was beside him to turn on the light. The door swung shut automatically behind him.

All at once, Marty closed his eyes. He wasn’t ready to see his uncle’s body again, or rather his face. What had been his face and so obviously wasn’t anymore. But when he opened his eyes, he saw a square, small, closet-like room. Wedged not quite lengthwise—because it wouldn’t fit—against one wall sat someone’s old, green couch, the middle pillow squashed down almost level with the frame but the other pillows puffed up and brighter green, as though no one had ever sat on them. In front of the couch sat a low coffee table with a single reading lamp and a scattering of books on it. One of them, at least, was a Tanakh. The spine said so in plain, transliterated English.

“Do not please open the door,” the Chinese man said. And before Marty realized what was happening, could formulate even one of his half-dozen questions or even ask which door, because there were two in there other than the one through which he’d come, the Chinese man left.

For the first few minutes, Marty just stood in the center of the room. Before it had become the Shomer Pro’s office, or whatever it now was, this had clearly been a closet. It was too small, the walls too bare for it to have been anything else. Adjacent to the couch, almost completely blocking the wooden door at the back of the room, sat a squat bookcase, with a few more books lying haphazardly atop each other, halfway leaning out of themselves. On the wall facing the couch, he was surprised to see a square window at eye-level. But whatever it looked out upon—not the parking lot, surely, because there were more rooms in that direction, and because he had to be at least ten feet underground—Marty had no view of it, because on the other side of the glass, heavy blue curtains had been drawn all the way closed. Beside the bookshelves sat another low table upon which sat a single, empty glass and a full pitcher of water. The glass looked pitiful, standing there, and disconcertingly like a vessel in a ritual: the Elijah cup, placed just so, in what Marty was certain was the precise center of the table. Underneath the table stood a small stack of magazines. Slowly, carefully, as though afraid of disturbing something, Marty leaned closer, then blinked in surprise. Almost laughed.

Crossword Master Challenges? Either the Shomer Pro kept a private stash down here for between-Psalm entertainment, or this room really had been prepared specifically with Uncle El in mind.

From somewhere deep in the bowels of the Rosenberg Home, far away from the Shomer room, something metallic tapped. And tapped again. Then came a rattling clatter, not loud, but startling in the absolute silence that had preceded it, like bare feet racing down a hall. Marty opened the door through which he’d come, stuck his head out, but the Chinese man had turned off the lights out there again, and he could see nothing. He put out his hand, felt around for the switch, couldn’t find it. The stairs were just to the right, he knew. He wasn’t as far from the drizzly, dreary outside world as he felt. Nor was he alone in the building, clearly, despite the silence rushing back in around him, filling his ears completely, as if he’d suddenly sunk into water.

Only as he retreated back into the Shomer room and the little bubble of light from the single, overhead bulb, did the question he really should have asked occur to him: Where was Uncle El?

The answer seemed obvious enough. He was behind the blue curtain. In the room with the door Marty wasn’t supposed to open. Unless that was the other door, and he was meant to go straight through this one, sit down next to the coffin, assuming his uncle was in the coffin, and…

No. The tools of the Shomer’s trade—the Tanakh, the couch, the water, the light—were in this room. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Marty thought inanely. Except that there was no man behind the curtain. Not anymore. And his job was to make sure no one else paid any attention to whatever was left behind.

Abruptly, another thought surfaced, dragging with it emotions Marty had forgotten were down there, or convinced himself he’d buried, and he sat hard on the depressed pillow and gripped his knees with his hands. The irony was not lost on him, was in fact unmistakable. For twenty years—more—he’d longed for just one more night alone with Uncle El. Like when he was a kid, and El had taken the train down from college and spirited Marty away to the diner for blintzes, to some minor league baseball stadium he’d never been able to find since where fans hooted every time their Owls scored or threatened to score, to the Delaware shore in the dark in the middle of winter to swim for thirty seconds in their underwear and then drive straight back home, shivering, singing along to awful country songs on El’s old car radio. So much of the code Marty used for processing the world—the numbers and slashes for transcribing baseball games in scorecard boxes, the slanting or adjacent –ing and –ed and –er and –un combinations that signaled opportunity on a Boggle board, the squiggles and dots of trop in Torah portions in prayer books that indicated changes of pitch or chances to make the secret pretend-farting noise with your lips—he’d learned from El, on those nights. And now his wish had been granted. They were going to spend one more night alone together.

Did you know, he found himself mouthing, almost saying, into the empty room? Straight to the blue curtain, while he imagined his uncle sitting up just on the other side, leaning his ear to the glass. Did you ever understand, all those years you made fun of me for being resentful when you started bringing Robbie and Leo and my sister along, how hard that was, for me? What a jolt that was? Realizing that those nights, that magic, wasn’t between us like I’d always thought, it was all you? That what you were great at—what you loved—wasn’t showing the magic to me, just showing it to kids? Any kids?

It wasn’t quite true, Marty knew, wasn’t so simple, certainly wasn’t fair and never had been. He was weeping anyway. Feeling every bit the selfish brat El had made him feel he was, later, sometimes, without ever saying so. But it wasn’t selfishness, Uncle El, Marty thought, wiping viciously at his face. Not only. I just don’t think you ever understood what it meant to have a companion like you…then realize that that companion wasn’t really for you…that there aren’t anywhere near enough companions in the world to go around…that there aren’t enough freezing, free nights to swim in…that you actually didn’t have that much to say to me once I was old enough to start wanting to share my wonders with you…

That wasn’t fair either, although it was at least a little true. By the time Marty had been old and fully formed enough to want to show his uncle his discoveries, El had kids of his own, work responsibilities, dry cleaning and milk to stop for on the way home, his aging parents’ endless little illnesses, the thousand tiny obligations of adult life that Marty had learned, much later, stole away all but the most essential friends and interests and nephews simply by eliminating the time for them.

Nevertheless, Marty mouthed, not quite daring to whisper, but speaking directly to the blue curtain. In the end, you were less interested in me than I was in you, Uncle El. Weren’t you?

Without realizing he was doing it, Marty found himself opening his sketch book, slipping a charcoal pencil out of its case, starting to make quick, gentle strokes across the top of a page. These were softer strokes than his usual, made with twitches of his fingers, as though he were brushing lint off a suit coat rather than drawing. His uncle’s bumpy, bald head slowly took shape under his pencil, so that Marty’s hands seemed to be cradling it as they created it. The tears he was crying were grateful ones, now. Not angry. Not sad. Not anymore. Thank you, Uncle El, he was thinking. Thank you. For so many things.

The tapping started again, startling him, even though it still sounded far away. And then—from even farther—he heard a long, high-pitched, unmistakably human sigh. And another. Except it wasn’t a sigh. Only the distance made it seem like one. Marty could tell by the hitch in the voice, the way it wavered, soared upward, choked off. Somewhere in the Rosenberg Home, someone was wailing.

“Baruch ata Adonai,” he found himself saying, setting the sketch pad on the table. He started singing, softly but out loud, now. He sang the blessing all the way to the end. “Shehechianoo, v-keymanoo, veheegianoo…” Only as he finished did he realize how wrong his choice of blessing was. Thank you, God, for letting us reach this day? Well. Maybe it wasn’t completely wrong. He was grateful. Or at least, there was nowhere else he’d rather have been.

Another wail. Two taps. Then a thunderous rattle, much closer, that launched Marty off the couch, toward the door next to the blue curtain, then out into the hall. Which was still dark. Silent, the second he emerged.

Or, almost silent. Not quite. Somewhere, not too far, something—a bunch of somethings—were rustling. Low and steady. Like closeted clothes in hanging bags, with a hand moving through them.

“Hello?” Marty said. Naturally, he’d forgotten his cellphone. He had no idea what time it was.

The wailing, when it came, was clearer out here. A woman’s voice, saw-edged and exhausted, rushing at him through the dark. He ducked back into the Shomer room, pushing the door closed rather than waiting for it, and stood a moment with tears drying on his face while the wail faded, slowly, to an echo. Only several long seconds later, when the wail had faded completely, did Marty realize the rustling was in the room with him.

If there had been light in the hall, he might have bolted, right then. He almost did anyway. But something held him rigid, absolutely still. A weight, a grip on both his arms. Carefully, he swung his head around to look.

What he saw was the couch with its sunken middle pillow. The bare walls. His sketch pad with his uncle’s head just taking shape there, featureless, yet already unmistakably El’s. At least, it was unmistakable to Marty.

Nothing else. The grip on his arms lessened a little. Slipped away, and Marty heard himself say, “No. Wait.”

It’s just my dead dad, Leo had said. Someone’s supposed to guard him.

In one step, Marty moved to the window and pressed his face to the glass, trying to locate a slit in the curtains. He wanted to see, to perform his assigned task for Uncle El. But whoever had arranged those curtains had done so with purpose. They weren’t just pinned together but sewn shut down the center, then tacked in place at the corners. No light from this room spilled into that one. And no hint of what was in there filtered through to Marty.

He hesitated one moment longer, and only then because the rustling started again. It wasn’t in the Shomer room. It was in the walls. Or else it was behind the blue curtain. With El. The resumption of the rattling clatter drowned it out, even though the clatter came from farther away, and when it ceased, the rustling did, too. Marty heard the tailing, sobbing end of a wail. Just what sort of training, he wondered, did a professional Shomer receive? Then he reached out, grabbed the knob on the door next to the window, and turned it.

Locked.

More rustling.

It’s in there, Marty thought. It’s with El. With a snarl, he threw himself at the door, twisting the knob, which wasn’t locked after all, just a little stuck. The realization flooded him with simultaneous relief and horror as the door swung open. Air rushed out, stale and old. Too late, he wondered if he should maybe have grabbed a Tanakh or something, Did he know any Psalms? “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow,” wait, did Jews say that one?

The light switch, this time, was where it should have been, on the wall right next to the door. Marty fumbled, flipped it. He stared. Then, through his tears and the heart-hammering that threatened to splinter his ribcage, he started to laugh. He couldn’t help it.

Marty Action Figure braves the closed door, flings it free…and liberates the bathroom.

When his breathing had calmed and his tears had stopped for the time being and the uneasy, spasm-like laughter had quieted in his throat, Marty washed his face in cool water, dried his hands on the neatly hung towel. No mirror. But then, there wouldn’t be in a Shomer’s room. Or else the glass would be soaped over. Leaving the bathroom door open but switching off the light, he returned to the couch.

For a long time, he sat and sketched. He didn’t think more about Uncle El, or at least didn’t think anything specific. In his heart was a weight. But the weight came from accumulated memories, thirty-five years of everyday, bedrock love, not loss. Or rather, bedrock love and loss had become synonymous, now, maybe more than synonymous: different words for the same feeling. Maybe that’s why Jews almost seemed to celebrate this experience. Mark it with food and ritual storytelling. Clutch it to their breasts.

Intermittently, like wind through window-cracks, wailing floated down the hall and through the door. The clatter came almost regularly, every five or six minutes. Every time, it startled Marty, made him look up, but mostly because whenever it stopped, he thought he heard rustling again, just for a second. Then Marty would glance at the dark bathroom, or over to the door he hadn’t opened, the one almost completely blocked by the bookcase. But he made himself stay put. This was his post. He was sure of it. Almost sure.

Much later, the drawing not done but shaped, Marty put his pad aside, considered doing a solo Boggle round in El’s honor. The idea, though, of clattering the lettered dice-cubes in their little cage in the suffocating near-silence unnerved him. He reached for a Tanakh, opened to the Psalms. But those proved less than soothing, strangely savage. Almost none were about grief or even comfort. Mostly, they were brutal, or heartbroken. “You break the teeth of the wicked.” “I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my kin.” “It is for your sake that we are slain all day long.”

But after a while, the words did seem to knit themselves together before his eyes, form a sort of blanket or gauze that Marty could feel wrapping him. Maybe the Psalms really did have power, to keep too much of himself from bleeding away, or else to hold at an almost-safe distance his dawning understanding of what other people’s deaths, even more than one’s own, really mean to the living.

“You are my help and my rescuer; do not delay…”

He had no idea how he fell asleep, or for how long. But the screaming woke him up.

Heart thundering, he lurched up, swaying, clenching his fists as the screams silenced themselves. His eyes shot to the blue curtains, then to the door behind the bookcase. He’d failed. Let his guard down. And now Uncle El…

With a cry, he moved toward the bookcase, intending to shove it aside so he could get through that second door. But a new round of rattling stopped him in his tracks. He held still, listening not to the rattle, but for the moment just after it, the rustling. And there it was. Or was it? Was that even a sound?

Abruptly, he turned and walked out into the hall. A wail greeted him, piercing, shot through with breath. Again, he felt behind and all around him for the light switch, couldn’t find it. Only after a few seconds did he realize there were more sounds. Not rattling, exactly, but clicking. Sliding sounds. And murmurs. He was almost sure he could hear murmurs, now. Exhaling long and low, and with a single, uncertain glance back into the Shomer room, Marty started down the hall into the dark.

He could sense—smell—the open doorways when he passed them. Antiseptic, pine-scented wax, metal. His knee bumped a gurney, sending it squeaking a few feet ahead until it bumped something—the open coffin—and causing Marty to freeze, his own hairs crawling up his back, shoulders hunching as though he expected to be grabbed. Edging more toward what he assumed was the center of the hall, he continued on.

Only when he’d reached the T at the very end did Marty start to see light. Only a little, and far to his left. A strip of flickerless yellow under the bottom of a closed door. He waited until the next round of rattling. The murmuring that accompanied it. It was coming from right there. Breathing through pursed lips as though that might slow his heart, Marty moved toward the light. He stopped outside the door.

The sounds weren’t actually intermittent. Not here. There were constant sliding noises, clicks and taps. Very occasional muttering. Marty flung the door open.

As one, the three Chinese men leapt to their feet, Mah Jongg tiles spilling off their holders and scattering across the table. All these men were older, old in fact, two in jeans and neatly tucked button-up shirts, plus the white-robed man who’d let Marty into the funeral home. The surprise on that man’s face looked completely incongruous, brand new, and almost lost, as if it had wandered onto the wrong face by accident.

“Mister Burn…” the man started, then corrected himself. “Marty. Mr. Marty. Did you need something?”

Behind and above them, another wail bloomed. Much closer. Much harder to listen to, from here. Operatic in its anguish.

Marty waited until it finished. The men still stood, staring. All he could think to ask was, “What are you guys doing?”

Though he couldn’t have been sure, Marty thought the look they all exchanged had amusement in it. Certainly, it was kind.

“The same as you, I think,” said the white-haired man. “In our way.”

“Shomer-ing?”

“That is not what we call it. But…”

“It’s not what we call it either,” Marty said, slipping into an exhausted, lonely smile. “I don’t think.”

The wail again. Again, Marty waited until it passed.

“She’s with you, isn’t she?” he asked.

The old guy on the left nodded. He had a red ribbon pinned to his shirt, and some sort of outlandishly large belt buckle. “She is performing her part. We perform ours.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Marty.

“We are sorry for yours.”

“Need a fourth?” he asked, earning himself a set of strangely satisfying startled glances. The only way the moment might have been better would be if El had taught Marty the game. But that had been his grandfather, years and years ago.

The white-haired man smiled. “You know how to play?”

“I’d need a card.”

“Card?” Then understanding dawned on the white-haired man’s face. He shook his head. Again, he looked kind. “Ah. Of course. Jew Mah Jongg. Entirely different game.”

His companions were nodding, too. The guy with the belt buckle said, “Completely different. Very frustrating. So few ways to win. So many to lose.”

Yet again, Marty felt tears well in his eyes. His uncle’s absence seeping in. “Yep,” he said. “Sounds like a Jewish game, alright.”

He left them to it. Not until he reached the T and turned into the dark corridor did he hear the rustling. Much louder, now, even though it was coming from way down at the end of the hall. From the closed room where he should have been sitting. Where El lay helpless. Ignoring the dark, the coffin on the wall, the warnings shooting off in his brain, that grip again seizing both his arms, Marty shot down the corridor.

When he reached the door to the Shomer room, he paused for a split second. Long enough to make sure. To hope he’d been wrong again. But there was no mistaking it, this time. The rustling. He pushed open the door, half-expecting full dark, but the light was as he’d left it. So was the couch, the open Tanakh, the Elijah glass on its table, his sketchpad with El’s half-formed face. Of course it was. Because El wasn’t in here. He was back there. Unguarded, where Marty had abandoned him.

Marty strode straight to the other side of the room, reached over the bookcase, twisted the doorknob—which was cold, like a fistful of ice—and shoved at the door, scrambling atop and over the bookcase as he pushed. Then he really did freeze. Stopped scrambling, blinking, breathing. He held absolutely still.

Or…let himself be held. Later, when he had time to think about it, he decided that was more accurate. Because he really could feel that grip on his arms. And around his waist. Even more, he knew that grip. But he couldn’t let himself process it yet.

On a gurney, in the center of a blank, tiled, windowless, featureless room, under a single white sheet that covered neither his face nor his feet, lay Uncle El. Frigid air poured down over him, a fall of faintly glowing blue, like an iceberg calving. The blue swept and swirled around him, nuzzled along his chest, as though cuddling up, or sniffing for signs of life. Constantly, it washed away, but then reformed in the air. Marty hovered in that doorway for barely a blink, less than a second, just long enough to realize that air, no matter how cold, doesn’t glow, or have any sort of head, let alone that long, wolf-like, sniffing thing atop El’s chest. And that whatever lights there were in this room, they weren’t on. And that the blueness hunched on El’s chest was turning now, right toward Marty.

Then he felt himself yanked backward, falling over the bookcase and landing hard on his ass on the floor of the Shomer room, the door swinging shut—had he done that?—as he scrambled to his feet, turned to run, turned back, thought of his uncle, nearly collapsed in a flood of guilt and then grabbed for the couch as the guilt drained out of him, as quickly as it had come. He could feel that grip on his shoulders again, turning him toward the hallway, could feel the push in his back, the weight so familiar. El’s hands.

Staggering forward, he threw open the door and ran smack into Robbie the Blank, who had just reached it, the Chinese man in white flowing behind him.

“In there,” Marty babbled, shaking, pointing, as his overweight and preternaturally becalmed cousin drew him to the couch, sat him down. “It’s in there.”

“Of course it is,” Robbie said, as though he knew.

“Of course he is,” said the Chinese man. “You did not go in, did you? It’s so cold, to protect the body.”

Marty started to argue, wanted to protest, to grab them both, to scream. But the understanding he’d already had was spreading through him, now. No—nothing so grand or certain as understanding. But he knew what he’d seen. He could hear it in there, still, though he was sure the Chinese man would say it was simply the sound of the air. He let Robbie pour him a glass of water, and drank it. The liquid tasted tepid, flat, so plain and of this world, and warmed him like whiskey.

Robbie even gave Marty his car keys, saying he’d arranged for his own ride home. Moments later, Marty was out in the still-drizzly gray of early morning, watching the wet drip off the poplar trees. He sat for a long time in Robbie’s car, thinking of Robbie down there in that room. Of El in the room beside him. Standing guard.

Because that was it. Wasn’t it? Maybe. It made a sort of sense. How Jewish, really, to provide an opportunity for one last mitzvah, performed not for the dead, but by them, for the living. During the week of his grandfather’s shiva, Marty had asked every one of his older relatives why all the mirrors had been soaped over. And he’d gotten a different answer every time. “Because we should not be thinking of ourselves this week.” “Because we can no longer see what your grandfather saw.” It was Robbie’s father, Marty realized, who had said, “Because the Angel of Death was just here. And he might still be close. And you don’t want him to see you.”

He’d said that winking, but not quite as if he were kidding. And if Marty was right, and really had seen what he’d seen in that room, then the blue thing—Angel of Death, or whatever it was—was right where it was supposed to be, because El was keeping it there. And away, therefore, from anyone else whose grief and pain might draw it. No wonder immediate family couldn’t be Shomrim. Their wounds were too raw, too easily detected. The dead would be too weak to hold the Angel’s attention.

But a nephew, perhaps, or a friend. Someone at risk, but not quite as much risk. Someone the dead, or the memory of them, might still be able to help, to push for just a little longer out of harm’s way…

Marty’s tears were quiet ones, now. Not bothering to wipe his face, he set Robbie’s car in motion and drove through the empty streets to El’s house, where the first well-wishers had already arrived, and where they’d all spend the next week eating kugel on paper plates, gathering in quiet corners, telling El stories all day long, under mirrors carefully soaped to spare his uncle’s loved ones, for those first, awful days, their first true glimpse of the world without him in it.

OH I DO LIKE TO BE
BESIDE THE SEASIDE

by Christopher Fowler

Toby pushed the nail deep inside the piece of bread, placed it in his steel catapult and fired it high over the side of the pier. A seagull dropped from the steel-grey cloudscape, its yellow beak agape, and swallowed it.

“Choke, you fucker,” Toby yelled. He turned to Harry. “Got any more?”

“That was the last one,” said Harry. “We’re wasting our time. They can eat broken glass without dying. They’ve got special stomachs.”

“What about barbed wire?”

“Same. My dad’s got some rat poison in the shed. He saved it from when he was in the military. They’re not allowed to sell it in shops.”

“Nah.” Toby kicked at the railing until a chip of blue paint came off. “Do you think the pier would burn?”

“The one in Brighton burned.”

“Let’s get something to eat.” He cast a cheated look back at the gull, which had alighted on a post further along the pier. It gave a healthy shriek as he passed. He threw a pebble at it and missed.

The funfair was empty. A boy with a Metallica tattoo across his shoulders was mopping patches of rainwater from the steel plates on the bumper car floor. Everyone teased him because the tattooist had spelled the band’s name wrong, with two Ts and one L.

“Oi Damon, you wanna be careful, you’ll electrocute yourself,” Toby called.

“Fuck off,” Damon shouted back. “It only works if you touch the ceiling.” He raised his metal broom handle and thrashed the mesh above his head, spraying sparks, forgetting he had bare feet. “Fuck!” He hopped back and swung the broom at them.

“What a moron.” Toby and Harry laughed together. Damon had ingested so many drugs during his clubbing years that he could barely remember his own name.

They passed Gypsy Rosalee the fortune teller, who was actually a secretary at Cole Bay Co-Operative Funerals, making a bit of money on the side by building sales pitches for lay-away burial plans into the predictions for her elderly clients.

Once Toby had paid to have his palm read, and she had told him he would go to the bad. “You’re not satisfied with your lot,” she had said, sitting back and folding her arms. “You think you’re too good for us. Lads like you always come unstuck.”

“You’re not a real fortune teller.”

“I know enough to recognise someone living under a curse when I see one.” She dug out his money and threw it back at him. “Go on, fuck off.”

Now he skirted the helter-skelter, where rain had removed so much lubrication from the slide’s runners that it was common to see someone getting off their mat halfway down and giving it a push. Ahead was the big dipper that had been closed ever since a pair of toddlers were catapulted into the sea when their carriage braking system failed. Apparently one of them was still in a coma.

He hated the pier even more than he hated the rest of the town.

Cole Bay, population 17,650, former fishing village, was like a hundred other British seaside resorts, a by-word for boredom, a destination that might have amused the Victorians, but was hopelessly outpaced by the expectations of modern day-trippers, who wanted something more than rip-off amusements, a few chip shops, some knackered beach donkeys and a floral clock. By day sour-faced couples huddled in shelters unwrapping sandwiches and opening thermos flasks. By night every teenager in town was out in the back streets, getting pissed and goading their friends into punch-ups. Where the land met the sea, all hopes and ambitions were drawn away by the tide.

Ahead, a bored girl was rolling garish pink spider-webs of candy floss around a stick. Her name was Michelle, and she had originally planned to work at the fair on Saturdays until she could get away to London, but now she seemed to be on the Pavilion Pier every day. As she blankly swirled the stick, strands of reeking spun sugar flicked onto her bare midriff.

“What the fuck are you lookin’ at?” she said, popping a pink bubble of gum at Toby.

“Why do you keep making that shit when you haven’t got any customers?” Toby stuck his finger in the tub and allowed sugar to cover it.

“It gets bunged up if I stop. We get flies in it and all sorts. The punters don’t notice. I’m not going out with you so don’t ask.”

“Wasn’t going to. You’re too old for me, and you’re getting fat. Anyway, I thought you were leaving Cole Bay and going to London.”

“Changed my mind, didn’t I. Went full-time. It’s easy work ’cause there’s no one here mid-week.”

“Boring, though.”

“Not as boring as being at school. Which is where you and your mouthy mate are supposed to be.”

“Double games period. We bunked off. We’re going to see a horror film.”

“The living dead thing? You don’t need to watch a movie for that, just hang around here. And you ain’t gonna pass for eighteen, neither of you.”

“The ticket guy goes out with my sister. If he doesn’t let us in I’ll put the blocks on his chances.”

The first fat drops of rain spattered on the pier’s floorboards. “Go on then, take your grubby fingers out my tub and fuck off to your film.” Michelle tugged at the striped awning of her stall, dismissing them.

They ran back along the pier, past pairs of shuffling pensioners in plastic rain-hoods. They still had an hour to kill before the film started.

The Punch and Judy Man was on the beach packing up his theatre. They called down as they passed. “No show today, Stan?”

“Fucking weather,” Stan called back. “I’d make the effort and stay open, but we had a gang of kids in earlier, right tearaways, the little bastards were making fun and chucking stuff. Puppets not good enough for them now there’s video games.”

“You should try putting in some new material,” said Toby.

“I’ve tried that. Blue jokes, new songs. I had Mr Punch perform a yodelling number, but the last time I tried it I swallowed me swozzle.”

They headed up to the promenade, where the old folk sat in hotel greenhouses trying to ripen like tomatoes. The air reeked of doughnut fat and seaside rock. Outside the Lord Nelson, a drunk fat girl in a tiny halter top was sitting on the kerb, stoically attempting to be sick between her spread legs.

Dudley Salterton was sitting on a bench outside the Crow’s Nest playhouse, looking more than ever like a tramp. He pulled the withered roll-up from his lips as the boys stopped before him and coughed hard, spitting a green globule onto the pavement.

“You all right, Dudley?” asked Toby. “You got a piece of cigarette paper stuck on your lip.”

“Fuck off, will you? I’m on in a minute.”

“You’re not in the panto, are you? I thought it started ages ago.” Toby looked up at the poster for Aladdin, which starred someone from Steps and a runner-up from Big Brother. Dudley was the resident compère at the Crow’s Nest’s variety nights, filling the gaps between acts with lame magic tricks and banter he had first used in the years after the war, half-heartedly updated to include jokes about modern TV personalities. Not that his elderly audience cared; they came to catch-up with each other, to wave and eat and chat. They came because it was raining, because there was nothing else to do in Cole Bay on a wet Wednesday afternoon, because they were afraid of dying alone.

Dudley was ancient and yellow with nicotine, but vanity required him to dye his hair and eyebrows a peculiar shade of chestnut. He never shaved properly, and had been living in a single room in a bed-and-breakfast joint on the front ever since his wife killed herself. He smelled of sweat, rolling tobacco and Old Spice.

“I’m doing a guest spot in the second act because their comic got fired for always being pissed during rehearsals. But I told them I’m not doing it Chinese, I’ll play it straight, thank you very much. I sing ‘Windmills of Your Mind,’ do some newspaper tearing and balloon animals, let Barnacle Bill tell a couple of off-colour jokes, then I’m off over the Lord Nelson for a pint.”

Barnacle Bill was Dudley’s ventriloquist’s dummy. Quite what he was doing in Aladdin was anyone’s guess. With its lascivious wink, rolling eyes, peeling lips and dry, startled hair, the dummy tended to have a terrifying effect on children. Lately, Dudley had been dying his hair darker and was starting to look more like his dummy than ever. Both had been at their peak of popularity during the war, and were soon to be shut up in boxes.

“What’s it like, being in a panto?” Harry asked.

“Fucking awful. Widow Twankey went to prison for child molesting a few years back. How he got the job here I’ll never know. Must know someone on the council. It’s not right. We have to get children up on stage and make them do a dance. Barnacle Bill shouted at one of them last week and the little fucker pissed himself. I gave his arm a right good pinch as he left the stage. It stinks up there.”

“Do you get comps?”

“I wouldn’t bother, there’s nobody in except a party of spastics from Rhyll, and they’re making a hell of a noise. I don’t think they’re getting any of the jokes. They’re probably throwing shit at each other by now.”

“You’re not supposed to say spastics.”

“Who fucking cares down here? It’s not exactly the London Palladium, is it?”

“Is there an orchestra?”

“No, Eileen’s on the piano and there’s a bloke with a drum kit. But he’s only got one arm.”

“Shark?”

“Thalidomide. There’s a wiggly little hand at the end. Gives me the creeps.”

Toby and Harry kept walking. They passed the rock shop, where stretches of sickly peppermint folded back and forth on metal spindles like elasticated innards. The window was filled with edible novelty items: giant false teeth, bacon and eggs, an outsized baby’s dummy, a bright pink penis. Behind the counter an enormously fat girl in hoop earrings and a tiny skin-tight top stared at them as if she was wondering how they might taste.

At the next corner, four old people stood watching while a fifth attempted to park his car. The car was small and the space was huge, but the driver managed to hit both the vehicle behind and the one in front several times over. The pensioners stood there watching, without offering any advice or help. Finally the car was parked two feet from the kerb and the group crept on, their excitement over.

“You know that Morrissey song, ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’?” asked Harry. “Do you think he wrote it about Cole Bay?”

“What, ‘…the coastal town they forgot to close down’? Yeah, probably. How much longer?”

Harry checked his mobile. “Forty-five minutes. Wanna go in the funfair?”

“Not really, but we’re here now.” They walked in beneath the broken coloured bulbs of the Cole Bay Kursaal and headed for the ghost train. The Kursaal used to be called Funland, but the council changed the name after too many accidents gave the place a bad reputation.

The ghost train’s plywood frontage had been painted with crude copies of Scooby-Doo characters, along with some skeletons and demons cribbed from old Marvel comics. From within came a shriek of unoiled metal and a wail like a ghost calling through a hooter. Toby and Harry bypassed the deserted ticket counter—Charleen, the girl who worked there, was around the back having a fag—and flicked on the power as they passed the ride’s main junction box.

Jumping into the first narrow carriage, they rolled off, banging through the doors into darkness. An acrid tang of electricity and damp cloth filled their nostrils. The car twisted about on its miniature track, its wheels crackling with errant voltage as they passed a dummy of Dracula that looked more like a leprous orchestra conductor.

“So, are you in?” Toby shouted as they juddered around a day-glo graveyard.

“It’s up to you,” said Harry, who always followed Toby’s instructions. “I guess so. Are we really going to the pictures?”

“No, of course not. Go home and get your stuff, then meet me at the arcade.” That was it. Toby’s mind was made up. Harry felt a pitch in his stomach, and knew it was real now. They would run away and leave this miserable cemetery behind for good.

When the ghost train carriage returned to its station at the front of the ride, it was empty.

Harry knew what he had to do. He ran back along the street toward his parents’ house. Meanwhile, Toby walked into the Paradise Penny Arcade. He passed the old man who spent his life rhythmically shovelling coins into the Penny Rapids, passed the Skee-Ball slides, the Driving Test, the Flick-A-Ball slots and came up against the creepy Jolly Jack Tar in its wooden case.

The damned thing was a museum piece, and had been giving him nightmares ever since he was a baby. Its skin was just plaster, its rictus smile mere painted wood, but it looked leathery and cancerous, like an embalmed corpse. When a ten-pence piece was inserted, it rocked back and forth squealing with laughter while a crackly organ recording of “I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside” played. The sailor grinned and eyed him from the side of its head, as if to say I know
what you’re up to.

He carried on past banks of beeping, squealing money-stealers and jerky outof-date video games, to the change booth. He knocked on the scratched, filthy glass, startling Winfrey.

“Fuck off, Toby, you nearly gave me a fucking heart attack,” Winfrey complained, wiping mustard pickle from his T-shirt. He set down his sandwich and stared blearily through the glass. There was a red spider-web tattooed across his forehead and he had several teeth missing, so that at first glance it looked as if he had fallen through a plate-glass window. “What do you want?”

“What time are you cashing up?”

“My shift ends in twenty minutes, but Michelle can’t get here until half-past. You gonna mind the booth for me?”

“What’s it worth?”

“I’ll give you a quid. If you’re gonna hang around, don’t fuck up the machines with plastic.”

“Yeah, all right. I’m waiting for Harry anyway.” He made his way over to a one-arm bandit, watched until Winfrey had turned his back and inserted a coin-shaped piece of plastic into the slot. He waited for the tumblers to trip, then removed it. While he was playing, he checked the railway timetable in his pocket.

He became aware that a gigantic woman was standing beside him. She looked like something from a seaside postcard. She was wearing a red and white spotted cap the size of a Christmas pudding above a shiny purple wig, a billowing green and yellow gown with metal saucepans fixed over breasts like beach balls, union-jack bloomers and striped leggings. She pursed bee-sting lips and batted her false eyelashes at him. Her doughy face was coated in Belisha beacon-coloured make-up that ended in a line across her wobbly chin.

“I hope you’re not trying to cheat the machines, little boy,” she said in a bizarre falsetto.

Toby turned to look at her. “Who are you supposed to be?” He took an involuntary step back.

“I’m the Widow. All the little boys and girls come to see me. Haven’t you been to see me?” Widow Twankey fluttered and simpered, waggling her padded hips. She had come off stage between numbers to have a couple of ciggies and a few slugs of scotch from her hip flask. “Aladdin’s singing his ballad. He’ll drag it out for twenty minutes at least. Thinks someone from the telly will spot him and make him a star. Fat fucking chance.”

Twankey’s voice had dropped to a normal male register now, but still retained an unpleasantly theatrical sibilance. “Show me what you’ve got in your hand.” Pudgy beringed fingers slapped his knuckles. Toby opened his fist to reveal the clear plastic coin.

“Perhaps I should tell old Winfrey what you’re up to, stealing his money?”

“No, don’t.”

“Then come and give your old auntie a kiss.”

“You’re not my auntie.”

“No, but you can fucking pretend for a minute, unless you want Winfrey to call the cops on you.” The Widow came close enough for Toby to smell whisky on her breath. She wetly pursed her lips. Toby grimaced and allowed her to plant a kiss on his cheek. As she did so, she slid her hand over the top of his right thigh and the crotch of his jeans.

“You’ve got some good muscles on you for a young ’un,” she hissed, giving his cock a squeeze. “Big for your age. Come and see matron after the show and I’ll take you backstage if you like. I keep special presents there for my favourite boys and girls back there.” The Widow gave a slow, exaggerated wink and released him. “Now run along and play.”

Harry ran in with the duffel bag and was holding it high. “I’ve got it,” he said excitedly as the pantomime dame sailed past him.

“For Christ’s sake stop waving it around.” Toby snatched it away and dragged him into the shadows behind the machines, beyond the range of Winfrey’s convex ceiling mirrors. He pulled open the bag and checked its contents.

“It belonged to my brother. Do you know how it works?”

“Of course I know. Give me a minute, will you?”

“I brought you something else as well. It’s at the bottom.”

Toby pulled up a rusty tin and examined the label. It read: GOVERNMENT ISSUE IMPERIAL BRAND RODENT EXTERMINATOR. CAUTION: CONTAINS WARFARIN AND CAUSTIC SODA.

“How old is this?”

“Really old. But it should still work on seagulls. Are we going back on the pier to try it out?”

“No,” said Toby. “We’re never going back on the pier.”

“Never? But I thought we could kill loads of them before we left.”

Toby ignored him. He pocketed the items he needed and passed the bag back to Harry. “Come on.”

Stepping from the shadows, he made his way over to Winfrey’s booth. Winfrey was picking his way through a pile of filthy ten pound notes that had been softening with over-handling. As soon as he saw the boy he snapped a red rubber band around the bundle and slid it into his bank bag. Winfrey’s takings at the arcade weren’t high, but his lads sold amphetamines around the town and used him to launder the cash for a cut.

“If you want to get off, I’ll cover for you,” said Toby.

“Hang on, I haven’t finished me tea yet.”

Behind them, Harry was banging on the Penny Falls to make the coins slip from the steel shelves. “Oi, you little fucker,” Winfrey shouted, fumbling his way out of the booth.

Toby slipped inside and pulled the lid off the rusty tin Harry had brought along. He thrust his hand into the white powder, emptying as much as he could into Winfrey’s tea, which reeked of whisky. The powder went everywhere, but he managed to blow it off the counter and wipe the rim of the mug before Winfrey came back.

The cashier grabbed his nylon jacket and pulled it over his shoulders. “Your little pal is going to get into trouble and end up inside, like his brother,” he warned. “Fucking rubbish, that whole family.”

As Winfrey drank down his tea, Toby watched blankly, wondering if he could taste any difference. Apparently not. He couldn’t imagine the cashier had any taste buds left, given the amount he drank. Winfrey drained his mug completely, leaving a rime of white powder around his cracked lips.

Toby retreated to the far side of the arcade, keeping one eye on the booth. “Unbelievable,” he muttered, “he can’t even taste rat poison. I put half the pot in.”

Harry hadn’t heard. He had been hypnotised by a two pound coin that was hovering on the edge of a narrow metal platform in the Coin Cascade machine. Toby craned back at the booth, watching for signs of pain and death.

“Hello, Toby.”

He whirled around to find Michelle standing beside him.

“I thought you two were off to the flicks?”

“There’s still time. You’re early.”

“I was looking for you. I know you’re up to something, both of you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t fuck me about. You’re going somewhere. You’re getting out.”

“Who said that?”

“I hear everything that’s going on. Take me with you.”

“What?”

“Take me with you. I have to leave this place, Toby. I’m going mental. I can’t stay here any longer. I can’t even go home because of my folks.”

He looked at her bare midriff. “Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m trying to get air on it. My belly button ring went septic. Of course I’m not cold. I’m never cold anymore. I’m fucking pregnant.”

“I didn’t know.”

She looked to the sky, blinking. “That’s a surprise, everyone else in this shithole town does.”

“Who’s the father?”

“What am I, psychic? Maybe I should go and ask Gypsy Rosalee?” She shifted her weight to the other foot and looked at him with desperation in her eyes. “So what do you think? Can I come?”

“I can’t, Michelle. Especially not if you’re pregnant.”

“But you and Harry are going.”

“I’m not taking Harry with me.”

“Does he know that?”

“No. I just decided.”

“But you can’t leave him behind. He worships you. What’s he going to do without you?” She peered over at the booth. “Shit, what’s wrong with Winfrey?”

Toby looked around and saw Winfrey’s face pressed hard against the glass, as if he was trying to force his way through it. He was drooling and spitting, grinding his forehead.

“Stay here a second,” he said, panicked, and ran over to the booth as Harry picked up that something was wrong and followed after him.

Toby knew exactly where to kick the booth door to open it. Winfrey had thrown up over himself, the counter, the till, his paperwork. He must have eaten a couple of pizzas earlier, because everything was red. He clutched feebly at Toby as the boy tore the bank bag from his grip and popped it open. The takings weren’t inside.

“Where’s the money?” Toby asked.

“My guts are killing me.” Winfrey spat again. “Give me a hand outside.”

“The takings. They’re gone.”

“No, I gave ’em to Eddie to bank for me.”

“Eddie? Who’s Eddie?”

“The Widow. Widow Twankey.” He coughed and licked at his lips, wiping up the remains of the powder. Dark blood leaked over his lower teeth, onto his T-shirt. He tried to stand and slipped from his stool. There was a terrible smell. Winfrey had soiled himself.

“What are you doing?” Michelle called. “What’s going on?”

But before she could reach them, Toby had grabbed Harry’s hand and was dragging him away towards the rear exit.

The boys found themselves in the stinking trash-filled alleyway behind the arcade that was meant to be kept clear in case of fire. “Toby, you’re taking me with you, aren’t you?” Harry asked anxiously.

“I can’t, Harry. You’re too young. You’d get us caught.”

“I’m only two years younger than you.”

“I’m sorry, mate.”

“You said I could come with you.”

“Listen.” Toby stopped in the alley and squeezed his eyes shut, not turning around. “You can’t come because I don’t want you with me. You’re just a kid. You’d be a drag on my style, all right? Go on home.”

“But Toby—”

“Look, just fuck off, will you?”

He bit his cheek, waiting and listening, refusing to turn. He heard a whimper like a dog being kicked, followed by footsteps stamping away. Part of his heart went with Harry.

Toby pushed open the unguarded fire door of the Crow’s Nest theatre and climbed the concrete steps in darkness. The show had finished—he had seen the clusters of homebound children drifting past the arcade. The building smelled of fresh-cut wood, cheap scent, mildew. He followed the only light source to another short staircase and found himself in the backstage area. Passing between the flats of Wishee Washee’s laundry house, he entered an artificial forest that owed more to the Sussex Downs than the China steppes.

“There you are, you little scamp,” drawled Widow Twankey. She was sitting on a giant polystyrene toadstool leisurely smoking a cigarette. She wore a hat with a miniature line of union jack knickers suspended across it. “This is the only time I can bear this fucking place. When the tinies have all fucked off home. It’s the screaming that does my head in. It sounds like pigs being slaughtered in here some afternoons.”

Toby looked about. A backpack sat beside the widow’s stockinged right ankle. The dame was studying the glowing tip of her cigarette. “I suppose you’ve come for your gift?”

“Why are you still in that outfit?”

“Aladdin’s fucking Cinderella in my dressing room. Well, she’s the Emperor of China’s daughter in this production, but if she thinks she’s doing Cinderella at Christmas she’s another thought coming. The bitch couldn’t carry a note in a bucket. Besides…” He hitched up his bosom. “…I like being in drag. It’s a good place to hide.”

Twankey rose to his feet. “Christ, my knees are fucking killing me. Come on then, let’s go to Ali Baba’s cave.” She sailed back into a darkened area of the stage.

Toby followed and found himself surrounded by plywood treasure chests filled with gold-painted plastic trinkets, as if the genie’s fabled cavern had fallen on hard times and had been reduced to a pound store.

“Winfrey lent us this lot from his arcade. What a load of shit.” The dame plonked herself down on a stack of money-bags marked with cartoon dollar signs. “Come here. Want to see what the Widow’s got for you?” Twankey pulled him close and began fumbling in her red, white and blue bloomers.

Toby pulled the gun from his pocket, took aim and shot the dame in the balls. It wasn’t a very powerful weapon and made hardly any noise, but Twankey released an incredible scream, so Toby made sure to aim the next shot into his mouth, which shut her up.

Her purple wig skewed over her left ear, revealing a sweaty bald pate. She thrashed about on the money-bags, spitting crimson teeth, her pudgy fingers digging into the bloody patch between her legs.

Toby emptied the remainder of the clip into her stomach and face, then snatched up the backpack and checked its contents. The money was inside.

The dame had torn down his union jack bloomers and was scrabbling blindly at his flopping scarlet cock, as if trying to recover his original identity in his dying moments.

Toby crashed out of the stage door and passed the rear of the arcade. It was raining in hard squalls as he emerged from the end of the alley and dashed across the empty road, heading toward the station. The promenade was completely deserted now, the pier lost behind grey skeins of rain. The only living thing in sight was a single bedraggled donkey on the beach, tethered and facing stupidly
into the downpour.

He swung his arm high and threw the gun far into the grey sea.

The train to London was due to leave in just over seven minutes. In London no one would ever find him. There, he could be anyone he wanted to be. He increased his speed but the pavement was dangerously slick, and he did not want to risk a fall. The town would try any old trick to keep him back.

He was getting soaked. Ahead he could just make out an odd figure approaching through the downpour. There was something about it he recognised. It was short and stumpy, and was walking as if it had broken its legs. At first he thought Harry had come after him. But as its appearance became more defined, Toby’s thumping heart rose in his chest.

The thing crystallised from within the hammering clouds of rain, and he saw now that it was a truncated sailor the size of a child, dressed in navy blue, its hands flapping uselessly at its sides, its knees rising and falling like a puppet’s. The peals of recorded laughter grew louder as it approached. It rocked from side to side and rolled its eyes.

The awful Edwardian seaside song warped and wavered through blasts of wind as it ran faster towards him. The music was distorted and sinister now, less a celebration of holiday pleasure than a Satanists’ chant.

The Jolly Jack Tar slammed into Toby, winding him, sending him to his knees. As it threw its arms around his neck, he felt wood through coarse material, then realised that its wooden limbs were held together with wires that were cutting into his skin. He could feel them in its fingertips as it tightened its embrace, digging into his flesh.

The dummy’s eyes rolled and its grin widened. It rocked back and forth, knocking against Toby’s head with a look that said I told you so. It was a museum piece, a doll, nothing more, but how like a living thing it was, filled with ancient sea-wisdom, preserved and trapped in a glass case for the amusement of others.

Toby rolled over onto his side, the dummy clinging tight, then tighter still. He dropped the bag as its death-grip stopped his breath and the wires from its wooden fingers jabbed into his chest, as if trying to worm their way to his heart.

It bit him with a strangely flat wooden mouth, but bit down hard and would not be dislodged, and he knew that he was destined to fall and remain here beside the seaside, beside the sea.

His last clear sight was across the desolate beach to the tethered donkey standing stoically in the rain, doomed like the rest of them—in the arcades and ticket booths, in the filthy glass cases and crumbling beach shelters—to live out its days at the end of the land.

THE OBSCURE BIRD

by Nicholas Royle

‘The obscure bird clamour’d the live-long night’

—William Shakespeare, Macbeth

It was late. Gwen spent ten minutes helping Andrew tidy up the kitchen and then put her arms out for a hug and said she was going up to bed.

“I won’t be long,” Andrew said as he released her with a kiss.

Gwen smiled.

“Of course not,” she said.

It was a ritual. She knew it would be at least an hour, probably two, maybe more, before he joined her.

Outside, an owl hooted.

Andrew’s eyes were dark behind the round lenses of his glasses, unfathomable.

He turned to the sink as she walked towards the door to the hall, where she stopped and looked back at him. With his hands resting on the edge of the basin he appeared to be staring out of the window into the garden, which was cloaked in darkness. She watched him for a moment before turning to go.

Gwen lay in bed thinking about Andrew, worrying. She remembered one night earlier in the week when she had got up to go to the bathroom. Andrew’s side of the bed had been empty, cold. She had presumed him to be in his study, or downstairs, but when she had chanced to look out of the bathroom window she had seen him standing in the middle of the lawn, his pale round face upturned, staring at the mature trees at the end of the garden. As she lay in bed she remembered thinking that the right thing to do would be to go down and speak to him, perhaps gently guide him back into the house as you would a sleepwalker, but she had done neither. She had returned to bed instead and fallen back to sleep. When Gwen had woken in the morning, Andrew had been beside her as normal.

She heard him climbing the stairs and reached for the switch to turn her bedside light off. Lying in the darkness, she heard his carefully weighted footsteps approach their bedroom door, stop for a moment and then continue past. She heard him stop outside the baby’s room, where he would be listening for the sound of Henry’s breathing, and then continue on down the landing to his own study at the rear of the house. She heard the door click shut and imagined him sitting at his desk, raising the lid of the laptop and then staring alternately at the screen and out of the window. She had stood at his open door one night, watching him divert his attention from one to the other and back again, until he had caught sight of her reflection in the window and spun around on his chair, blushing. She had allowed her eyes to drop to his computer screen but instead of the lurid insult of pornography she had seen nothing more unsavoury than the boxy iconography common to social networking sites.

“You know, you really should get more sleep,” Gwen murmured in the morning as Andrew brought her a cup of tea.

“I know, but… you know,” he said.

“What?”

“The professorship thing. I might not get it anyway, but I certainly won’t if I don’t get these papers done.”

“Mmm.”

In the bathroom, Duffy the cat lay on her back on the bath mat. Legs extended at either end of her glossy black body, she looked like a giant skate egg case. Gwen tickled her tummy and Duffy’s head darted forward to nibble at her wrist.

Gwen checked in the baby’s room and then went downstairs. A floorboard creaked as she entered the kitchen. Andrew had paused in the act of emptying the dishwasher and was staring out of the window at the garden. She went up behind him and threaded her arms under his and held him tightly around the chest, resting her chin on his shoulder.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Gwen said.

Andrew’s head swivelled around on his neck.

“About Henry,” she said, pulling back.

“Oh,” he said. “No. I know.”

They disengaged and Gwen watched Andrew’s back as he continued to empty the dishwasher. His shoulders were tense, hunched up. When he had finished, he closed the door of the machine with a quiet snap.

“It’s all going to go, you know. All that,” he said, looking out of the window again. “Not our trees obviously, but everything beyond, in the old railway cutting.”

He turned to look at her. She didn’t know what to say.

“I mean, I know it’s a good thing,” he continued, “extending the tram system, or at least I thought it would be, but now I’m not so sure. Not now I think of the ecological cost. All those trees. Countless nesting sites.”

She looked at him without speaking for a moment before saying, “I’ve got to go to work.”

At the hospital, Gwen sat in the canteen with Angela.

“How’s Henry?” asked Angela.

“We won’t know for a while,” Gwen answered. “Thanks for asking.”

“Fingers crossed, love.”

“Thanks.”

“What about Andrew?” she asked.

“He’s under pressure at work. Going for a professorship.”

“Ooh, professor, eh?”

“Doesn’t half make him sound wise.” Gwen thought for a moment. “Andrew’s changing, though,” she said. “Whether in response to Henry or what, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

Gwen looked at the fine lines fanning out from the corners of Angela’s eyes, which deepened as she smiled.

“I saw an exhibit in the Didsbury Arts Festival,” Gwen said. “It was in that new food shop on Burton Road. There was a bamboo cage hanging from the ceiling with a tiny little screen in it playing a video of birds filmed in Beijing. Apparently, according to the artist’s blurb—Daniel Staincliffe, his name was—old men meet up in the mornings to play chess all over Beijing and they take their songbirds with them in little cages. They hang the cages up in the branches of nearby trees and while the old men play chess the birds sing to one another.”

“Aah.”

“Yeah, cute, isn’t it?” Gwen said. “But it made me think of Andrew. He’s like one of those birds stuck in his cage tweeting to other lonely people trapped in their own cages.”

“Tweeting?”

“You know, Twitter, Facebook.”

“Waste of time.”

“I know.”

“Something’s happening to him. He’s changing. We hardly talk any more; we never have sex. I almost wish he’d raid the savings account and buy a sports car or have an affair.”

Angela laughed.

Gwen looked at her watch.

“Better get on,” she said.

Gwen was standing at the kitchen table checking through the post.

“Anything?” said a voice behind her.

“Christ!” She spun around. “You made me jump. You creep around so bloody quietly these days.”

“Sorry.”

Duffy joined them in the kitchen.

“She’s got something,” Andrew said, bending down.

Duffy opened her jaws and dropped a dead mouse on the wooden floor.

“Well done, Duffy,” Gwen said. “That’s a good girl.” She knelt down to tickle her and stroke her.

“You make more of a fuss of the cat than you do of me—these days,” Andrew said.

Gwen gave him a look and he smiled weakly.

“Sorry,” he said.

“What do you want to eat?” she asked him.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, Duffy knows what she wants, don’t you, Duffy?” she said, as if speaking to a baby.

The cat closed her nutcracker jaws around the mouse’s head and bit down with a sustained audible crunch. They both watched as Duffy worked on the mouse, tearing at the skin and cracking its tiny bones. After a short while, the remains on the kitchen floor were no longer identifiable. Gwen wondered if Duffy would leave the guts and the legs and the tiny feet, but she swallowed every last shred, the bristly tail slipping down her throat last of all. Gwen realised she was grimacing; she felt a little sick. Previously when Duffy had brought in birds or mice, either Gwen or Andrew had taken them off her and, if they were still alive and not too badly damaged, freed them outside.

Knelt down next to her, Andrew turned his head through ninety degrees to look directly at Gwen. His black eyes were expressionless.

Gwen rose to her feet, knee joints popping. She went to the fridge and got out a plastic container of leftover homemade soup.

“We’ll have this,” she said and pressed the button to open the door of the microwave. She gave a small cry and dropped the container of soup. It landed on its corner, dislodging the lid, and most of the soup splashed out on to her stockinged feet and on to the floor, quickly spreading.

“What the fuck is that?” she shouted, pointing inside the microwave.

“Ah, sorry,” Andrew answered, getting down on his knees with a roll of kitchen paper and a couple of tea towels, and mopping ineffectually at Gwen’s feet. “That’s an owl pellet.”

“What the fuck is an owl pellet and what is it doing in the microwave?” she yelled.

“Owls regurgitate the parts of their prey they can’t eat. Bones and fur and stuff. It all comes out in a little bundle, all carefully wrapped up like that. It’s called an owl pellet.” As he explained, Andrew wiped the floor. He filled a bowl with soapy water and started scrubbing.

“Why is it in the microwave?”

“Oh, because if you want to dissect one you should sterilise it first and the best way to do that is in the microwave. Otherwise the pellet can still be carrying
rodent viruses or bacteria.”

“Jesus!”

Gwen left the room.

Dinner that night was a strained affair. Afterwards they sat at opposite ends of the sofa watching something on television that neither of them wanted to watch. As soon as it was over, Gwen announced she was going to bed.

“It’ll give you a chance to dissect your owl pellet,” she said. “Where did you get it, anyway?”

“In the cutting. I climbed over our back wall and had a bit of a look around. It’s amazing. It’s completely overgrown. There must be so much wildlife there that will all be left homeless when they clear everything for the tram tracks.”

“It was a railway line in the first place.”

“I know, but that was forty or fifty years ago and an entire ecology has grown up there since, and now that’s going to be destroyed, for what? So that we can take the tram to Chorlton? No one’s going to use it to go all the way into town. It’s a long and roundabout route. It’ll take forever and cost a fortune. They should have had the bottle to take it up Wilmslow Road and get rid of all those awful buses.”

She looked at him and shrugged her general agreement with his argument.

“I found the owl pellet at the base of one of the trees. There must have been an owl roosting there.”

“Right,” she said, softening. “See you later. Will you look in on Henry?”

“Yes, of course. Goodnight.”

Gwen fell asleep straight away. Sometime in the night, she was aware of the duvet being lifted on Andrew’s side and cold air wafting over her arm. Then the draught was shut off and she felt the warmth of his body next to hers. As she started to drift back to sleep, she heard him softly speak.

“It’s because of the serrations on my remiges.”

“What?” she said, confused, half-asleep.

“That’s why I move so silently. From room to room.”

“Go to sleep, Andrew. Please.”

He fell silent.

Gwen woke again and felt anxiety’s talons seize her immediately.

Andrew’s side of the bed was cold, empty.

She got up and walked onto the landing. The darkness told her it was still night-time. She checked her watch; it was almost three am. She opened the door to Henry’s room. She saw his blue-and-white-striped babygro stretched out in the cot. Andrew was not in the room. The door to Andrew’s study was open; he was not inside. Slowly she descended the staircase and turned left at the bottom to stand in the kitchen doorway. Andrew was standing in front of the sink staring out of the window. She took a step forwards and one of the wooden boards creaked. Andrew’s head started to turn.

And continued to turn. It turned through ninety degrees and kept turning.

She stood absolutely still, scarcely breathing.

Andrew had not turned his body from the sink, but his gaze was now directed towards the fridge just to her left. Another few seconds and he would have twisted his neck through a hundred and eighty degrees.

Gwen felt the hairs on her arms rise. She backed out of the room and walked quickly but quietly upstairs.

She lay in bed and did not hear any movement from downstairs. At some point she fell asleep.

In the morning, making the bed, she found a feather on the bottom sheet. She inspected the pillows and plumped them up.

Andrew was in the kitchen. They tiptoed around each other.

At work, Gwen logged out of the hospital intranet and on to the internet. She looked up “remiges,” trying various spellings until she found the right one.

“Tiny serrations on the leading edge of their remiges help owls to fly silently,” she read.

She decided they needed to talk.

When Gwen arrived home, the kitchen was in darkness, but the light at the top of the stairs was on. She hung up her coat and stowed her bag. She wondered about making a drink and waiting in the kitchen. At some point, he would have to come down. And she would ask him to explain himself.

Instead, she found herself walking up the stairs. She was halfway up when she heard him cough. He coughed again, abnormally, as if he was trying to clear his throat. Then there was a series of choking sounds. Her brother had once choked on a piece of meat when they were small and their mother had saved him by performing the Heimlich manoeuvre, sending a scrap of roast beef shooting out of his mouth, but it had been the choking sound that had stayed with Gwen. She was hearing it again now, a desperate, almost metallic squawking, mechanical and animalistic at the same time. She ran up the remaining stairs and stopped on the landing.

Andrew was standing in the middle of the bathroom, bent over at the waist. There was a small, indistinct bundle on the floor in front of him and a string of drool hanging from his mouth. The bundle—the pellet—was rounded, tapered at one end and bristly with hair. Under the brightness of the bathroom light, the whiteness of bone gleamed.

She turned away. On the floor outside the baby’s room at the other end of the landing she saw something she thought she recognised. She took a step towards it.

Even in the half-light she could make out the blue and white stripes.

TRANSFIGURATION

by Richard Christian Matheson

It is easy to become disoriented here. Snow is everywhere and the corners of the world soften and vanish. Sometimes when I dream, I watch myself drilling the thick, blue ice. I bore a large opening and stand over it, then slip through, sliding into the ancient sea beneath. As currents gently sweep me away, my pained thoughts ease and I look up, through the ice, to see a place I never belonged, that never wanted me. Then, I close my eyes and fall asleep. I am finally home.

Angels come out at night, restless and far from Heaven.

We like to move about when the sun dies and we can more easily pass for human. The night hides our secret and our tasks. It is not known where we dwell—whether in the air, the void or the planets, as some have noted, but whether by thrones or dominions, we were created to convey His will to men. We like cold places and are not subject to death, or any form of extinction, extradition or censure. As divine soldiers, we keep order in an impure, Godless world, and I do what I must to serve Him. No matter the cost.

I am seventy miles north of Fairbanks, where pavement dead-ends and the Alaskan Highway turns into Dalton Highway; a hypnotic, gravel throat that stretches 414 miles across vast, plains of snow, all the way to Deadhorse, on the remote North Slope oil fields, at Prudhoe Bay. Bluish ice and dry snow surround the two-lane I’m on, as if infinite square miles of suffocated flesh and, at indefinable horizon, it collides with white-capped peaks that rise up from the bleakness like paralyzed waves.

Dalton is the “haul road” for eighteen-wheelers like mine and when it isn’t trying to kill you, the road takes you straight to where North America, for good or bad, finally runs out of land and surrenders to frigid sea. Along the way, I pass “Coldfoot” and “Beaver Slide” and, at mile 75, “Roller Coaster,” where the icy, two-lane goes down steep, fast, then up steeper, making big rigs like mine slip and lose their grip. They’ll tumble sideways, over and over, crushing the cab and driver, and when you come upon the mangle it makes you sick. People should die for a better reason.

These plains are violent and primitive and it’s a killing field when winter hits. I’ve seen bad ones at Avalanche Alley, near mid-point; a man-eating gust of winter flipped a married couple’s rig and shoved them through the windshield onto hard ice. Wolves finished them off. The weather’s usually out to get you, so freezing to death is the easy way out. You can feel it. Arctic skies stare down at you, on the two-lane, where spruces huddle and the frozen Yukon River is still as sculpted glass. When I drive beside it, I imagine fish posed motionlessly in the frozen river like you see them sometimes in modern paintings. There is an incompleteness to this place that makes your mind fill things in. A gloom and need. But that isn’t why I come.

To get to Deadhorse, I tank up a grand of diesel, two big thermoses of black coffee and some candy bars. Sugar and caffeine wind me just right. I always have my notebook, too. I like to keep track. Dates; descriptions. My ride is a thirteen-speed, dual-stack, diesel Kenworth. Whole shebang grosses out at 88,000 pounds fully packed. 475 horsepower, eighteen aluminum wheels, tandem axles, Ultra-Shift, Air-Suspension. Sleeper, too. Only home I ever had and a hell of lot better than what I was born into. But even when a man dies inside, it’s only the beginning. Hebrews 12:22–23 says that when we get to Heaven we will be met by a myriad of angels, and spirits of righteous men will be made perfect. Myths of hopelessness are just that and do no one good.

My twin, thirty-foot trailers get filled with groceries, medicine, cars; anything you can’t get where it drops to fifty below. Deadhorse trucks in everything life in a lifeless place needs, maybe some it doesn’t. Truckers are a transfusion for the isolated workers of the Conoco Philips North Slope facility, every one of them trapped like cubes in an ice tray. As for the road, the Dalton has strict rules:

1) ALWAYS DRIVE WITH HEADLIGHTS ON.

2) WATCH THE ROAD AHEAD AND BEHIND FOR PLUMES OF DUST OR SNOW SIGNALING ANOTHER VEHICLE.

3) BEFORE PASSING, MAKE SURE OPERATORS OF OTHER VEHICLES KNOW YOU’RE THERE.

4) DO NOT STOP ON THE ROAD. IF YOU CAN’T GET OFF THE ROAD, PULL FAR TO THE RIGHT AND ACTIVATE YOUR HAZARD LIGHTS.

5) RESPECT THE SPEED LIMIT BECAUSE IF A RIG GOES TOO FAST, ITS WEIGHT WILL CREATE WAVES UNDER THE ICE THAT WILL MAKE THE ROAD BUCKLE AND COLLAPSE.

Now and then, overweight rigs driving over the limit drop through the cracking road, where it thins, and disappear like they were never there; I’ve seen huge carriers devoured by a big, jagged mouth in the road, the sloshing, polar sea beneath. Sometimes God needs a sacrifice. Sometimes the road is complicit. No life is sacrosanct.

Visibility is always an issue out here and when reflector posts vanish in whiteouts, we chain our rigs together and ride it out, sitting in our cabs, listening to starved winds trying to get in. Snow can fill up the air intakes and choke you to death, so I keep my engine running even though the truck heater doesn’t keep me warm. In bone-deep cold, blood slows and you can hear it throb in your ears like a dying heart.

Out here, no one knows you, no one cares, no one takes an interest. We come, we go. There’s no cameras, no checkpoints. I could be anybody. Do anything. God’s work requires the clandestine and though angels may have flesh which resembles polished metal or faces like lightning, I wander free of such telling detail.

During the ’74 oil crisis, the Dalton got carved in six months, borne of lies and avarice. It was clawed from denuded nowhere and runs alongside the massive veins of the 800-mile Trans Alaska Pipeline that runs from Deadhorse to the port at Valdez. Long-haulers do the four hundred miles, but they all know it’s a bad road, a bad bet. Some don’t make it. The oil company doesn’t care. There’s always vultures. Ask me, people like that don’t deserve to live. Add them to the fucking list.

Driving the ice-road seems to go on forever; like being lost at sea. You can’t get a cell phone to work past mile 28, but there’s no one I want to talk to. People waste my time. Exploit my best intentions. I prefer being alone, in my rig, not having to talk or listen. I’ve heard it all. Lies disguised as prayers, lust masqueraded as faith. We live in dire times and I am sanctioned by our Father to do something about it. All things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. For He shall give His angels charge over earth.

Those who forget that cannot die enough times.

Going down a slope, my dual stacks belch scarves of exhaust and when weather’s decent, I get lost in the locomotive hum of my tires on gravel. It puts me in a trance and lets me forget bad things; at least try. The worst nights, you come across accidents. Agonized faces, pinned under steel, begging for relief. Jack-knifes, rear-enders, head-ons. I kneel and calm them as life seeps from their scared eyes.

Near the three-quarter mark, my rig strains through Atigun Pass, at 4,752 feet. Air gets thin and birds and animals don’t come out much. The tundra is a sheet of uncrumpled, white paper as I stare at amber halogens, drink my fourth cup of black. Long-haul truckers are ants who never looked up, escorting cargo through frozen wasteland, and they don’t realize that angels can take on the appearance of men when the occasion demands and so they are imprisoned. It is said a book must be “the ax for the frozen sea within us” referring certainly to the Scriptures. Half-frozen seas surround any life, threatening to wash people away. Life is a condemned promise and someone must pay.

They say drivers see things out here.

Apparitions or ghosts or the lingering energy of those who have died or whatever word you can live with. Once, on a brutal run, when I hadn’t slept in almost forty hours, I saw my dead father standing bloodied in the middle of the road, grinning in that hateful way he did the day he was taken from this world. But he was one of those people who never totally die because they leave a terrible dent inside you and your mind can’t let go.

The aboriginal people up here say the dead seek salvation, but it is not because they are spirits that they might be angels; they become angels when they are chosen. And only the chosen are raised up. The rest burn; their debased souls punished, their flesh disemboweled.

Last month, snow flurries were hammering me from all directions, and I swore I saw my brother beside the road in the white mayhem, screaming and running from something that terrified him, his long legs getting stuck in the deep drifts as he looked over at me with pleading eyes. He mouthed my name though I couldn’t hear it with my windows up. But the way he died all came back. Another day I’d like to forget. But those are the days you can’t.

Out here, wait long enough, everything comes back.

I’ve seen other people, too, in the hungry, falling snow, even though I know they’re long gone. They stare at me, helplessly, as they dart in front of my headlights and the grille smashes their flesh and bones and they’re swept under the truck. I know they were just mirages.

The Big Blank.

That’s what long-haulers call it up here. It’s when the outside world and your thoughts merge, a perilous weave that undermines sanity. Sometimes the soft powder takes on human shape. Milky silhouettes, without detail, who somehow want something. Fatigue breeds dark thoughts; every big-rigger and long-hauler knows it. The mind is a complicated thing and a childhood like mine is no help. Even angels suffer. God sees to that for his own reasons.

Things do bother me.

When I’ve been awake for too long, my mind loosens and sometimes I imagine skidding off the road and dying in the crush of my overturning rig. I quietly bleed in the cold, and the snowy shapes circle me until I can’t breathe. I fight them, but it is always too late. Angels can’t die yet I imagine it.

A psychiatrist at that place once told me it was a projection. Like with movies. Light passes through the film and it gets bigger on the screen. I guess he was saying thought and faith have that kind of power. But he had no fucking idea who he was dealing with.

I reach the Ice-Cut grade, a steep climb with sheer drops on both sides, and grip the wheel tightly. When I’m going fast, my tires hiss on the frosted flatness, like a monster’s sled, and tire tracks disappear as ice instantly re-seals. I rumble across the road, bite into a Butterfinger and watch the speedometer. I stay ahead of schedule so I can stop if I need to. Lick chocolate off my fingers and watch for approaching headlights in my rear-views and ahead. Scan for plumes of white, jutting and hovering over roadway, see none and know I’m alone.

I slowly pull over in the solitude.

There is something sad out here. Sometimes I hear wolves, mourning in the desolation. If I’m very quiet and still, I feel sleepless tides roaming under the ice. Mostly, I hear nothing until the winds anger, shoving my eighteen-wheeler like it’s in their way. I glance at my watch and know I must move quickly. I pull on leather gloves, parka and goggles, leave the engine idling and get out.

The air freezes my face, as winds howl and tangle and my amber halogens leave orange-peel streaks on falling flakes. Diesel ghosts from the chrome stacks as I lean down, unlock the storage space under my driver’s door, and withdraw my rechargeable ice-fishing drill. I remove it from its case, quickly find a patch of thinner ice beside my rig, trudge toward it. Fifteen miles behind me, headlights flare on a far rise; another rig will be here in ten minutes.

I re-check my watch, grip the drill with both gloved hands, press the five-foot-long bit onto the frozen ground. The high torque and fast rotation allow me to work quickly before the other rig shows. The bladed teeth bite into the hard ice and, as winds rake, I begin to drill a fifteen-inch diameter opening. The grind of the motor makes my arms shake and curlicues of ice cover my waterproof boots. The whirling bit finally reaches the sea, five feet below, and I reverse the drill, pull it out, check the opening. Replace the drill in its case, toss it back into the storage compartment. Then, I grab the cinched canvas bag beside it.

I open it and begin to empty its contents into the hole.

I am at home out here. Angels have authority over the natural world, even when people don’t realize their time has come. Hell is a self-inflicted state of mind and people get what they goddamned deserve whether they like it or not.

As I work, I like it best when the snow falls audibly; a hushed downpour. Sometimes, what I drop in goes easily, sliding into the water beneath the ice road. Sometimes, I have to use a knife to cut it to size. Once the bag is empty, I fill the opening back up with snow, kicking it in, and pack it down with my heavy soles. It disappears fast in the cascading white, as if miraculously healed, and I get back in my idling rig.

I watch stars fight for their moment in overcast sky. Thank the Holy Father. In Genesis 18, Abraham welcomed angelic guests who appeared to be nothing more than common travelers. Truth disguises itself when necessary.

I flip on the overhead fog lights and they cast sick glow as the other truck finally passes, with a high-beam nod, and I lower my visor to block the glare. But I never look at myself in the hinge-down mirror. Prayer cannot repair flesh so ravaged. I have learned to accept shame and rage. There have always been sightings of angels who appear to be a man with unusual features. But I hate God for allowing this to fucking happen to me.

My tires leave grimy waffle marks on the road and snow carpets the ground behind me like I was never there. Snow is like time. It covers whatever it touches with a new layer of meaning that replaces the previous one and the one before that. Out here, it paints over everything and this 414 mile, barren forever is a place of temporary fact; evidence erased.

Except for more headlights that approach from miles ahead, the Big Blank is shiny and black now, drawing me to Prudhoe Bay. I stare at the wide beams, the rushing dotted line. Long-haulers call it the Zipper and swear if you look at it too long, it gets inside you; does bad things. As I near Deadhorse, it’s 3:36 a.m. and seventeen below. Tall, sodium-vapor lights spill on the road and there are no trees, only machines, mechanical shadows. There isn’t even a church. It tells you everything. Where there is no God, impulse and pain rule. I have seen it.

Steam blasts from industrial structures and workers are up, walking around in parkas; shifts that come and go twenty-four hours a day, an exhausted army of detached, clock-less zombies, deserted by friends and families who loathe them. Most are liars. None can love. Thousands come and go, less than twenty-five live here. It is a soulless, transient dungeon and if they knew who I was, they would fall to their knees, ask for forgiveness.

Let them die for sins they relish.

I drop my haul at the transportation yard, get paid, buy a hot meal at the diner, check into the Prudhoe Bay Hotel, a one-story outcropping that squats in this gulag.

The frozen Atlantic Ocean nearby is mostly slush without visible tide and the local hardware store operates out of a thrashed doublewide. It’s open 24/7, even during white-outs, and their policy is if they don’t have it, you don’t need it. I drop in to buy replacement gloves, hacksaw blades. Go back to my room.

Try to sleep.

Snowdrifts are up to the windows, and I drink scotch and watch the septic swirls of smoke from the refineries. Listen to arguments in the street spilling from bars. The laughter and alcohol madness. The frantic despair of the voices, their pathetic, greedy noise. They are all damned. They will get sick and become empty and agony will ravage them.

Poison seeks itself.

From my window, I stare at the anemic expanse that leads back to Fairbanks. I measure the numbing monotony with bloodshot eyes. The undetected things beneath. Terrified expressions, twisted limbs, torn flesh. The couples and the ones who were alone. I imagine them all under the vast ice, finally where they should be. Here, they will always look the same, forever preserved, unable to make bad decisions, demolish lives. I saved them. If they could, they would spiral from the countless openings I drilled, vaporous and sorrowful, wanting to be forgiven. But it’s too late. Salvation is not given to the irredeemable.

I can feel the scotch and my skin hurts where scars seam my scathed features.

Sometimes when I dream, I watch myself drilling the thick blue ice. I make a narrow opening and stand over it, then slip though, sliding into the ancient sea beneath. As currents gently sweep me away, I finally relax. My bad thoughts and fears stop and I Iook up through the ice, and see a world I never belonged in, that never wanted me.

People don’t care.

They do what they want. They ruin their life. They ruin yours. They take and take. Smother everything good, give nothing back. Like my family did. It’s the same everywhere I go. Every truck route across this fucked-up country. I bring them here, where no one will find them. But none are missed. When I give them back to the sea, maybe there is some balance in this damaged, indifferent world.

I remember the one from last week. Refinery worker. Nervous. On his way to Deadhorse. Black oil under his fingernails, unslept eyes. We pulled out of Fairbanks as the weather got bad. The windshield iced over and my rig’s steel wipers ground at it. He glanced over at me, thanked me for the lift. I offered him coffee from my thermos and he said yes, in a polite voice. But I could tell he was a person who hurt others and derived pleasure when they begged. I could detect in his casual conversation that he cared only for himself and that anyone stupid enough to get close to him would suffer. As he sipped, he glanced at my pistol mounted on my door bracket. Looked back at me. We hit a rut, duct tape rolled from under the seat and the blizzard swallowed us whole.

That was that.

Just like the ones I met in San Diego. And down south. Back east. Tulsa. So many voices and faces. I get people talking while we drink coffee so I can write down the details later. Otherwise, I lose track. They’re all narcissists. Bullies. All 361 of them talked about themselves, only a handful ever asked me a question about myself or faith or where their soul might be bound. Vain, worthless assholes.

The longest recorded night in Prudhoe was fifty-four days. The shortest was twenty-six minutes. No matter where you are, it is a world of extremes. Each must make peace with that somehow, each in their own way. Heaven and Hell are not so different. Sometimes, in summer, when mosquitoes swarm, it gets warm here and the Aurora Borealis makes you swear you can see your whole life in its randomness. Time and places. Hurts. The faces of people who never cared. The strangers who did you wrong. The rape and torture.

The world is a diseased zoo.

As I listen to them laughing like banshees, on the icy street outside, I’m exhausted and sore. When generators die, and lights go out and my room turns black, I stumble hard against the small dresser and hear its mirror fall and shatter. I always turn mirrors around in my motel rooms, even tape blankets over them so I never have to see. But after a minute, the generator starts back up, the lights flicker and I glance down, without thinking, to avoid shards in my bare feet.

As the bulbs twitch, I see splinters of a terrible face I had forgotten. A scarred mosaic of every face in my family, the mouth an ugly slash like my father’s, the eyes filled with sick contempt and futility like my mother’s. The nose crammed and broad and common like my brother’s. I stare at myself, reflected in vicious jigsaw fragments, and weep.

And though I fight its truth, I understand, at that instant, that I am guilty and damned. I am not of Heaven but Earth. I take. Give nothing back. I am no better than anyone. Sadism and suffering is all I know; I was raised with it. I am one of them. My heart is an Inquisition, my thoughts are vile. God has abandoned me and I am forsaken.

I have been drinking sand.

When day breaks in Deadhorse, I am broken. Betrayed. I dress and shower and tell the front-desk man I will pay for the mirror and he tells me it is seven years of bad luck. He smiles like a lizard and I want to put a bullet in his head. Outside, engines are freezing up, plans changing. Workers need to get across the Big Blank, some with no means. I walk to the diner for coffee and a young woman with willing eyes asks me for a lift to Fairbanks. I refuse and tell her I’m not going all the way through. She doesn’t know what I mean since the road ends where it ends and nowhere else.

Fuck her. Fuck everyone. Fuck God most of all. For his lies; for making me believe them.

I get in my rig and head toward Fairbanks, thinking about how the world is worthless and can never be saved. Like my family. Like me. The psychiatrist was right but I couldn’t understand. He came to my ward and led me out into the garden and tried to help me. I thought he was evil, trying to cure an angel. I cut out his tongue with shears, got out of that place and moved on. We all have regrets.

The falling snow starts to wall me in and I drive faster, ignoring the speed limit. I reach a stretch of the Dalton with thin ice and push the engine harder, speeding over the slick surface. My steering wheel shakes as the rig starts to create waves under the road that will make it buckle ahead, the undulations like a massive blanket slowly shaken in the wind.

As my tires wobble, I look over and see my brother on hillocks of white, with the sawed neck I gave him; a gory joker’s collar. Beside him is my murdering father and my sadistic mother. Both staring, unblinking, waiting for me because they know I am no better than they are and never will be, and that I belong in the icy water with them for what I did.

I feel the sea shuddering below the road as the waves roll thicker and begin to break the ice and the two-lane starts to crack under the weight of my truck. It suddenly ruptures like a pane of broken glass and my engine is a roaring, wounded creature as a wide crack races toward me. Then, another. Then, more, wider and faster, the erupting waves tearing the road open.

The massive tires spin, I downshift and my rig abruptly stops, hitching into the dark slush. My seat belt holds me tight against the sudden lurch and my fog lights shine on the collapsing road as it cracks apart, the water churning beneath, leaking upward. The rig begins to make hideous, scraping noises and the huge front tires and grille nose into the shattered roadway as the massive engine slowly dies and sea sloshes up to my doors, wanting me. I watch it without reaction and know I deserve this.

I slowly open my windows.

The freezing water gushes in, lapping at me, and I gasp at the aching cold, drinking in icy saltiness that fills me. I watch my belongings move, in slow motion, in the inundated cab, the inked pages in my notebook running, details and names washed off the paper; my pious, repellent spree. The truck creaks and tilts, huge trailers wrenched and twisting, and I look up through the windshield as sea submerges us and we slowly descend into green-black Ocean.

My dreams were premonitions. But they were wrong.

As we drown, I see murky images, drifting closer.

I can just make them out and am afraid as they move toward me with gunshot faces, slashed throats, many without legs or arms, mouths duct-taped. Pale crowds of them emerge through kelp, mutilations fresh, bloody clothes billowing. Wanting to hurt me as I hurt them.

They tear at me and I look up to see a place I never belonged; that never wanted me.

The sea goes red and I am finally home.

THE DAYS OF FLAMING
MOTORCYCLES

by Catherynne M. Valente

To tell you the truth, my father wasn’t really that much different after he became a zombie.

My mother just wandered off. I think she always wanted to do that, anyway. Just set off walking down the road and never look back. Just like my father always wanted to stop washing his hair and hunker down in the basement and snarl at everyone he met. He chased me and hollered and hit me before. Once, when I stayed out with some boy whose name I can’t even remember, he even bit me. He slapped me and for once I slapped him back, and we did this standing-wrestling thing, trying to hold each other back. Finally, in frustration, he bit me, hard, on the side of my hand. I didn’t know what to do—we just stared at each other, breathing heavily, knowing something really absurd or horrible had just happened, and if we laughed it could be absurd and if we didn’t we’d never get over it. I laughed. But I knew the look in his eye that meant he was coming for me, that glowering, black look, and now it’s the only look he’s got.

It’s been a year now, and that’s about all I can tell you about the apocalypse. There was no flash of gold in the sky, no chasms opened up in the earth, no pale riders with silver scythes. People just started acting the way they’d always wanted to but hadn’t because they were more afraid of the police or their boss or losing out on the prime mating opportunities offered by the greater Augusta area. Everyone stopped being afraid. Of anything. And sometimes that means eating each other.

But sometimes it doesn’t. They don’t always do that, you know. Sometimes they just stand there and watch you, shoulders slumped, blood dripping off their noses, their eyes all unfocused. And then they howl. But not like a wolf. Like something broken and small. Like they’re sad.

Now, zombies aren’t supposed to get sad. Everyone knows that. I’ve had a lot of time to think since working down at the Java Shack on Front Street became seriously pointless. I still go to the shop in the morning, though. If you don’t have habits, you don’t have anything. I turn over the sign, I boot up the register—I even made the muffins for a while, until the flour ran out. Carrot-macadamia on Mondays, mascarpone-mango on Tuesdays, blueberry with a dusting of marzipan on Wednesdays. So on. So forth. Used to be I’d have a line of senators out the door by 8:00 a.m. I brought the last of the muffins home to my dad. He turned one over and over in his bloody, swollen hands until it came apart, then he made that awful howling-crying sound and licked the crumbs off his fingers. And he starting saying my name over and over, only muddled, because his tongue had gone all puffy and purple in his mouth. Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin.

So now I drink the pot of coffee by myself and I write down everything I can think of in a kid’s notebook with a flaming motorcycle on the cover. I have a bunch like it. I cleaned out all the stores. In a few months I’ll move on to the punky princess covers, and then the Looney Tunes ones. I mark time that way. I don’t even think of seasons. These are the days of Flaming Motorcycles. Those were the days of Football Ogres. So on. So forth.

They don’t bother me, mostly. And okay, the pot of coffee is just hot water now. No arabica for months. But at least the power’s still on. But what I was saying is that I’ve had a lot of time to think, about them, about me, about the virus—because of course it must have been a virus, right? Which isn’t really any better than saying fairies or angels did it. Didn’t monks used to argue about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin? I seem to think I remember that, in some book, somewhere. So angels are tiny, like viruses. Invisible, too, or you wouldn’t have to argue about it, you’d just count the bastards up. So they said virus, I said it doesn’t matter, my dad just bit his own finger off. And he howls like he’s so sad he wants to die, but being sad means you have a soul and they don’t; they’re worse than animals. It’s a kindness to put them down. That’s what the manuals say. Back when there were new manuals every week. Sometimes I think the only way you can tell if something has a soul is if they can still be sad. Sometimes it’s the only way I know I have one.

Sometimes I don’t think I do.

I’m not the last person on Earth. Not by a long way. I get radio reports on the regular news from Portland, Boston—just a month ago New York was broadcasting loud and clear, loading zombies into the same hangars they kept protesters in back in ’04. They gas them and dump them at sea. Brooklyn is still a problem, but Manhattan is coming around. Channel 3 is still going strong, but it’s all emergency directives. I don’t watch it. I mean, how many times can you sit through The Warning Signs or What We Know? Plus, I have reason to believe they don’t know shit.

I might be the last person in Augusta, though. That wouldn’t be hard. Did you ever see Augusta before the angel-virus? It was a burnt-out hole. It is a burnt-out hole. Just about every year, the Kennebec floods downtown, so at any given time there’s only about three businesses on the main street, and one of them will have a cheerful We’ll Be Back! sign up with the clock hands broken off. There’s literally nothing going on in this town. Not now, and not then. Down by the river the buildings are pockmarked and broken, the houses are boarded up, windows shattered, only one or two people wandering dazed down the streets. All gas supplied by the Dead River Company, all your dead interred at Burnt Hill Burying Ground. And that was before. Even our Wal-Mart had to close up because nobody ever shopped there.

And you know, way back in the pilgrim days, or Maine’s version of them, which starts in the 1700s sometime, there was a guy named James Purington who freaked out one winter and murdered his whole family with an axe. Eight children and his wife. They hanged him and buried him at the crossroads so he wouldn’t come back as a vampire. Which would seem silly, except, well, look around. The point is life in Augusta has been both shitty and deeply warped for quite some time. So we greeted this particular horrific circumstance much as Mainers have greeted economic collapse and the total disregard of the rest of the country for the better part of forever: with no surprise whatsoever. Anyway, I haven’t seen anyone else on the pink and healthy side in a long time. A big group took off for Portland on foot a few months ago (the days of Kermit and Company), but I stayed behind. I have to think of my father. I know that sounds bizarre, but there’s nothing like a parent who bites you to make you incapable of leaving them. Incapable of not wanting their love. I’ll probably turn thirty and still be stuck here, trying to be a good daughter while his blood dries on the kitchen tiles.

Channel 3 says a zombie is a reanimated corpse with no observable sell-by date and seriously poor id-control. But I have come to realize that my situation is not like Manhattan or Boston or even Portland. See, I live with zombies. My dad isn’t chained up in the basement. He lives with me like he always lived with me. My neighbors, those of them who didn’t wander off, are all among the pustulous and dripping. I watched those movies before it happened and I think we all, for a little while, just reacted like the movies told us to: get a bat and start swinging. But I’ve never killed one, and I’ve never even come close to being bitten. It’s not a fucking movie.

And if Channel 3 slaps their bullet points all over everywhere, I guess I should write my own What We Know here. Just in case anyone wonders why zombies can cry.

What Is a Zombie?

by Caitlin Zielinski

Grade…well, if the college were still going I guess I’d be Grade 14.

A zombie is not a reanimated corpse. This was never a Night of the Living Dead scenario. The word zombie isn’t even right—a zombie is something a voudoun priest makes, to obey his will. That has nothing to do with the price of coffee in Augusta. My dad didn’t die. His skin ruptured and he got boils and he started snorting instead of talking and bleeding out of his eyes and lunging at Mr. Almeida next door with his fingernails out, but he didn’t die. If he didn’t die, he’s not a corpse. QED, Channel 3.

A zombie is not a cannibal. This is kind of complicated: Channel 3 says they’re not human, which is why you can’t get arrested for killing one. So if they eat us, it wouldn’t be cannibalism anyway, just, you know, lunch. Like if I ate a dog. Not what you expect from a nice American girl, but not cannibalism. But also, zombies don’t just eat humans. If that were true, I’d have been dinner and they’d have been dead long before now, because, as I said, Augusta is pretty empty of anything resembling bright eyed and bushy tailed. They eat animals, they eat old meat in any freezer they can get open, they eat energy bars if that’s what they find. Anything. Once I saw a woman—I didn’t know her—on her hands and knees down by the riverbank, clawing up the mud and eating it, smearing it on her bleeding breasts, staring up at the sky, her jaw wagging uselessly.

A zombie is not mindless. Channel 3 would have a fit if they heard me say that. It’s dogma—zombies are slow and stupid. Well, I saw plenty of people slower and stupider than a zombie in the old days. I worked next to the state capitol, after all. Sometimes I think the only difference is that they’re ugly. The world was always full of drooling morons who only wanted me for my body. Anyway, some are fast and some are slow. If the girl was a jogger before, she’s probably pretty spry now. If the guy never moved but to change the channel, he’s not gonna catch you any time soon. And my father still knows my name. I can’t be sure but I think it’s only that they can’t talk. Their tongues swell up and their throats expand—all of them. One of the early warning signs is slurred speech. They might be as smart as they ever were—see jogging—but they can’t communicate except by screaming. I’d scream, too, if I were bleeding from my ears and my skin were melting off.

Zombies will not kill anything that moves. My dad hasn’t bitten me. He could have, plenty of times. They’re not harmless. I’ve had to get good at running and I have six locks on every door of the house. Even my bedroom, because my father can’t be trusted. He hits me, still. His fist leaves a smear of blood and pus and something darker, purpler, on my face. But he doesn’t bite me. At first, he barked and went for my neck at least once a day. But I’m faster. I’m always faster. He doesn’t even try anymore. Sometimes he just stands in the living room, drool pooling in the side of his mouth till it falls out, and he looks at me like he remembers that strange night when he bit me before, and he’s still ashamed. I laugh, and he almost smiles. He shambles back down the hall and starts peeling off the wallpaper, shoving it into his mouth in long pink strips like skin.

There’s something else I know. It’s hard to talk about, because I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it because I’m not a zombie. It’s like a secret society, and I’m on the outside. I can watch what they do, but I don’t know the code. I couldn’t tell Channel 3 about this, even if they came to town with all their cameras and sat me in a plush chair like one of their endless Rockette-line of doctors. What makes you think they have intelligence, Miss Zielinski? And I would tell them about my father saying my name, but not about the river. No one would believe me. After all, it’s never happened anywhere else. And I have an idea about that, too. Because people in Manhattan are pretty up on their zombie-killing tactics, and god help a zombie in Texas if he should ever be so unfortunate as to encounter a human. But here there’s nothing left. No one to kill them. They own this town, and they’re learning how to live in it, just like anyone does. Maybe Augusta always belonged to them and James Purington and the Dead River Company. All hail the oozing, pestilent kings and queens of the apocalypse.

This is what I know: One night, my father picked up our toaster and left the house. I’m not overly attached to the toaster, but he didn’t often leave. I feed him good hamburger, nice and raw, and I don’t knock him in his brainpan with a bat. Zombies know a good thing.

The next night he took the hallway mirror. Then the microwave, then the coffeepot, then a sack full of pots and pans. All the zombie movies in the world do not prepare you to see your father, his hair matted with blood, his bathrobe torn and seeping, packing your cooking materiel into a flowered king-size pillowcase. And then one night he took a picture off of the bookshelf. My mother, himself, and me, smiling in one of those terrible posed portraits. I was eight or nine in the picture, wearing a green corduroy jumper and big, long brown pigtails. I was smiling so wide, and so were they. You have to, in those kinds of portraits. The photographer makes you, and if you don’t, he practically starts turning cartwheels to get you to smile like an angel just appeared over his left shoulder clutching a handful of pins. My mother, her glasses way too big for her face. My father, in plaid flannel, his big hand holding me protectively.

I followed him. It wasn’t difficult; his hearing went about the same time as his tongue. In a way, I guess it’s a lot like getting old. Your body starts failing in all sorts of weird ways, and you can’t talk right or hear well or see clearly, and you just rage at things because everything is slipping away and you’re never going to get any better. If one person goes that way, it’s tragic. If everyone does, it’s the end of the world.

It gets really dark in Augusta, and the streetlights have all been shot out or burned out. There is no darker night than a Maine night before the first snow, all starless and cold. No friendly pools of orange chemical light to break the long, black street. Just my father, shuffling along with his portrait clutched to his suppurating chest. He turned toward downtown, crossing Front Street after looking both ways out of sheer muscle memory. I crept behind him, down past the riverside shops, past the Java Shack, down to the riverbank and the empty parking lots along the waterfront.

Hundreds of zombies gathered down there by the slowly lapping water. Maybe the whole of dead Augusta, everyone left. My father joined the crowd. I tried not to breathe; I’d never seen so many in one place. They weren’t fighting or hunting, either. They moaned, a little. Most of them had brought something—more toasters, dresser drawers, light bulbs, broken kitchen chairs, coat racks, televisions, car doors. All junk, gouged out of houses, out of their old lives. They arranged it, almost lovingly, around a massive tower of garbage, teetering, swaying in the wet night wind. A light bulb fell from the top, shattering with a bright pop. They didn’t notice. The tower was sloppy, but even I could see that it was meant to be a tower, more than a tower—bed-slats formed flying buttresses between the main column and a smaller one, still being built. Masses of electric devices, dead and inert, piled up between them, showing their screens and gray, lifeless displays to the water. And below the screens rested dozens of family portraits just like ours, leaning against the dark plasma screens and speakers. A few zombies added to the pile—and some of them lay photos down that clearly belonged to some other family. I thought I saw Mrs. Halloway, my first grade teacher, among them, and she treated her portrait of a Chinese family as tenderly as a child. I don’t think they knew who exactly the pictures showed. They just understood the general sense they conveyed, of happiness and family. My father added his picture to the crowd and rocked back and forth, howling, crying, holding his head in his hands.

I wriggled down between a dark streetlamp and a park bench, trying to turn invisible as quickly as possible. But they paid no attention to me. And then the moon crowned the spikes of junk, cresting between the two towers.

The zombies all fell to their knees, their arms outstretched to the white, full moon, horrible black tears streaming down their ruined faces, keening and ululating, throwing their faces down into the river-mud, bits of them falling off in their rapture, their eagerness to abase themselves before their cathedral. I think it was a cathedral, when I think about it now. I think it had to be. They sent up their awful crooning moan, and I clapped my hands over my ears to escape it. Finally, Mrs. Halloway stood up and turned to the rest of them. She dragged her nails across her cheeks and shrieked wordlessly into the night. My father went to her and I thought he was going to bite her, the way he bit me, the way zombies bite anyone when they want to.

Instead, he kissed her.

He kissed her on the cheek, heavily, smackingly, and his face came away with her blood on it. One by one the others kissed her too, surrounding her with groping hands and hungry mouths, and the moon shone down on her face, blanching her so she was nothing but black and white, blood and skin, an old movie monster, only she wept. She wept from a place so deep I can’t imagine it; she wept, and she smiled, even as they finished kissing her and began pulling her apart, each keeping a piece of her for themselves, just a scrap of flesh, which they ate solemnly, reverently. They didn’t squabble over it, her leg or her arm or her eyes, and Mrs. Halloway didn’t try to fight them. She had offered herself, I think, and they took her. I know what worship looks like.

I was crying by that time. You would, too, if you saw that. I had to cry or I had to throw up, and crying was quieter. Your body can make calculations like that, if it has to. But crying isn’t that quiet, really. One of them sniffed the air and turned toward me—the rest turned as one. They’re a herd, if they are anything. They know much more together than they know separately. I wonder if, in a few decades, they will have figured out how to run Channel 3, and will broadcast How to Recognize a Human in Three Easy Steps, or What We Know.

They fell on me, which is pretty much how zombies do anything. They groped and pulled, but there were too many of them for any one to get a good grip, and I may not have killed one before but I wasn’t opposed to the idea. I swung my fists and oh, they were so soft, like jam. I clamped my mouth shut—I knew my infection vectors as well as any kid in my generation. But they didn’t bite me, and finally my father threw back his head and bellowed. I know that bellow. I’ve always known it, and it hasn’t changed. They pulled away, panting, exhausted. That was the first time I realized how fragile they are. They’re like lions. In short bursts, they’ll eviscerate you and your zebra without a second thought. But they have to save up the strength for it, day in and day out. I stood there, back against the streetlamp, fingernails out, asthma kicking in because of course, it would. And my father limped over to me, dragging his broken left foot—they don’t die but they don’t heal. I tried to set it once and that was the closest I ever came to getting bitten before that night on the river.

He stood over me, his eyebrows crusted with old fluid, his eyes streaming tears like ink, his jaw dislocated and hanging, his cheeks puffed out with infection. He reached out and hooted gently like an ape. To anyone else it would have been just another animal noise from a rotting zombie, but I heard it as clear as anything: Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin. I had nowhere to go, and he reached for me, brushing my hair out of my face. With one bloody thumb he traced a circle onto my forehead, like a priest on Ash Wednesday. Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin.

His blood was cold.

After that, none of them ever came after me again. That’s why I can have my nice little habit of opening the Java Shack and writing in my notebooks. These are the days of Punky Princesses, and I am safe. The mark on my forehead never went away. It’s faint, like a birthmark, but it’s there. Sometimes I meet one of them on the road, wandering dazed and unhappy in the daylight, squinting as if it doesn’t understand where the light is coming from. When they see me, their eyes go dark with hunger—but then, their gaze flicks up to my forehead, and they fall down on their knees, keening and sobbing. It’s not me, I know that. It’s the cathedral, still growing, on the banks of the Kennebec. The mark means I’m of the faith, somehow. Saint Caitlin of the Java Shack, Patroness of the Living.

Sometimes I think about leaving. I hear Portsmouth is mostly clean. I could make that on my bicycle. Maybe I could even hotwire a car. I’ve seen them do it on television. The first time I stayed, I stayed for my father. But he doesn’t come home much anymore. There’s little enough left for him to scavenge for the church. He keeps up his kneeling and praying down there, except when the moon is dark, and then they mourn like lost children. Now, I think I stay because I want to see the finished cathedral, I want to understand what they are doing when they eat one of their own. If it’s like communion, the way I understand it, or something else entirely. I want to see the world they’re building out here in the abandoned capital. If maybe they’re not sick, but just new, like babies, incomprehensible and violent and frustrated that nothing is as they expected it to be.

It’s afternoon in the Java Shack. The sun is thin and wintry. I pour myself hot water and it occurs to me that apocalypse originally meant to uncover something. To reveal a hidden thing. I get that now. It was never about fire and lightning shearing off the palaces of the world. And if I wait, here on the black shores of the Kennebec, here in the city that has been ruined for as long as it has lived, maybe, someday soon, the face of their god will come up out of the depths, uncovered, revealed.

So on. So forth.

THE FOLDING MAN

by Joe R. Lansdale

They had come from a Halloween party, having long shed the masks they’d worn. No one but Harold had been drinking, and he wasn’t driving, and he wasn’t so drunk he was blind. Just drunk enough he couldn’t sit up straight and was lying on the back seat, trying, for some unknown reason, to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which he didn’t accurately recall. He was mixing in verses from “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the Boy Scout oath, which he vaguely remembered from his time in the organization before they drove him out for setting fires.

Even though William, who was driving, and Jim, who was riding shotgun, were sober as Baptists claimed to be, they were fired up and happy and yelling and hooting, and Jim pulled down his pants and literally mooned a black bug of a car carrying a load of nuns.

The car wasn’t something that looked as if it had come off the lot. Didn’t have the look of any car maker Jim could identify. It had a cobbled look. It reminded him of something in old movies, the ones with gangsters who were always squealing their tires around corners. Only it seemed bigger, with broader windows through which he could see the nuns, or at least glimpse them in their habits; it was a regular penguin convention inside that car.

Way it happened, when they came up on the nuns, Jim said to William at the wheel, “Man, move over close, I’m gonna show them some butt.”

“They’re nuns, man.”

“That’s what makes it funny,” Jim said.

William eased the wheel to the right, and Harold in the back said, “Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon. Show them the Grand Canyon… Oh, say can you see…”

Jim got his pants down, swiveled on his knees in the seat, twisted so that his ass was against the glass, and just as they passed the nuns, William hit the electric window switch and slid the glass down. Jim’s ass jumped out at the night, like a vibrating moon.

“They lookin’?” Jim asked.

“Oh, yeah,” William said, “and they are not amused.”

Jim jerked his pants up, shifted in the seat, and turned for a look, and sure enough, they were not amused. Then a funny thing happened, one of the nuns shot him the finger, and then others followed. Jim said, “Man, those nuns are rowdy.”

And now he got a good look at them, even though it was night, because there was enough light from the headlights as they passed for him to see faces hard as wardens and ugly as death warmed over. The driver was especially homely, face like that could stop a clock and run it backwards or make shit crawl uphill.

“Did you see that, they shot me the finger?” Jim said.

“I did see it,” William said.

Harold had finally gotten “The Star-Spangled Banner” straight, and he kept singing it over and over.

“For Christ sake,” William said. “Shut up, Harold.”

“You know what,” Jim said, studying the rearview mirror, “I think they’re speeding up. They’re trying to catch us… Oh hell. What if they got the license plate? Maybe they already have. They call the law, my dad will have my mooning ass.”

“Well, if they haven’t got the plate,” William said, “they won’t. This baby can get on up and get on out.”

He put his foot on the gas. The car hummed as if it had just had an orgasm, and seemed to leap. Harold was flung off the backseat, onto the floorboard. “Hey, goddamnit,” he said.

“Put on your seat belt, jackass,” Jim said.

William’s car was eating up the road. It jumped over a hill and dove down the other side like a porpoise negotiating a wave, and Jim thought: Goodbye, penguins, and then he looked back. At the top of the hill were the lights from the nuns’ car, and the car was gaining speed and it moved in a jerky manner, as if it were stealing space between blinks of the eye.

“Damn,” William said. “They got some juice in that thing, and the driver has her foot down.”

“What kind of car is that?” Jim said.

“Black,” William said.

“Ha! Mr. Detroit.”

“Then you name it.”

Jim couldn’t. He turned to look back. The nuns’ car had already caught up; the big automotive beast was cruising in tight as a coat of varnish, the headlights making the interior of William’s machine bright as a Vegas act.

“What the hell they got under the hood?” William said. “Hyperdrive?”

“These nuns,” Jim said, “they mean business.”

“I can’t believe it, they’re riding my bumper.”

“Slam on your brakes. That’ll show them.”

“Not this close,” William said. “Do that, what it’ll show them is the inside of our butts.”

“Do nuns do this?”

“These do.”

“Oh,” Jim said. “I get it. Halloween. They aren’t real nuns.”

“Then we give them hell,” Harold said, and just as the nuns were passing on the right, he crawled out of the floorboard and onto his seat and rolled the window down. The back window of the nuns’ car went down and Jim turned to get a look, and the nun, well, she was ugly all right, but uglier than he had first imagined. She looked like something dead, and the nun’s outfit she wore was not actually black and white, but purple and white, or so it appeared in the light from head beams and moonlight. The nun’s lips pulled back from her teeth and the teeth were long and brown, as if tobacco stained. One of her eyes looked like a spoiled meat ball, and her nostrils flared like a pig’s.

Jim said, “That ain’t no mask.”

Harold leaned way out of the window and flailed his hands and said, “You are so goddamn ugly you have to creep up on your underwear.”

Harold kept on with this kind of thing, some of it almost making sense, and then one of the nuns in the back, one closest to the window, bent over in the seat and came up and leaned out of the window, a two-by-four in her hands. Jim noted that her arms, where the nun outfit had fallen back to the elbows, were as thin as sticks and white as the underbelly of a fish and the elbows were knotty, and bent in the wrong direction.

“Get back in,” Jim said to Harold.

Harold waved his arms and made another crack, and then the nun swung the two-by-four, the oddness of her elbows causing it to arrive at a weird angle, and the board made a crack of it’s own, or rather Harold’s skull did, and he fell forward, the lower half of his body hanging from the window, bouncing against the door, his knuckles losing meat on the highway, his ass hanging inside, one foot on the floorboard the other waggling in the air.

“The nun hit him,” Jim said. “With a board.”

“What?” William said.

“You deaf, she hit him.”

Jim snapped loose his seat belt and leaned over and grabbed Harold by the back of the shirt and yanked him inside. Harold’s head looked like it had been in a vice. There was blood everywhere. Jim said, “Oh, man, I think he’s dead.”

BLAM!

The noise made Jim jump. He slid back in his seat and looked toward the nuns. They were riding close enough to slam the two-by-four into William’s car; the driver was pressing that black monster toward them.

Another swing of the board and the side mirror shattered.

William tried to gun forward, but the nuns’ car was even with him, pushing him to the left. They went across the highway and into a ditch and the car did an acrobatic twist and tumbled down an embankment and rolled into the woods tossing up mud and leaves and pine straw.

Jim found himself outside the car, and when he moved, everything seemed to whirl for a moment, then gathered up slowly and became solid. He had been thrown free, and so had William, who was lying nearby. The car was a wreck, lying on its roof, spinning still, steam easing out from under the hood in little cotton-white clouds. Gradually, the car quit spinning, like an old-time watch that had wound down. The windshield was gone and three of the four doors lay scattered about.

The nuns were parked up on the road, and the car doors opened and the nuns got out. Four of them. They were unusually tall, and when they walked, like their elbows, their knees bent in the wrong direction. It was impossible to tell this for sure, because of the robes they wore, but it certainly looked that way, and considering the elbows, it fit. There in the moonlight, they were as white and pasty as pot stickers, their jaws seeming to have grown longer than when Jim had last looked at them, their noses witchlike, except for those pig-flare nostrils, their backs bent like long bows. One of them still held the two-by-four.

Jim slid over to William, who was trying to sit up.

“You okay?” Jim asked.

“I think so,” William said, patting his fingers at a blood spot on his forehead. “Just before they hit, I stupidly unsnapped my seat belt. I don’t know why. I just wanted out I guess. Brain not working right.”

“Look up there,” Jim said.

They both looked up the hill.. One of the nuns was moving down from the highway, toward the wrecked car.

“If you can move,” Jim said, “I think we oughta.”

William worked himself to his feet. Jim grabbed his arm and half pulled him into the woods where they leaned against a tree. William said. “Everything’s spinning.”

“It stops soon enough,” Jim said.

“I got to chill, I’m about to faint.”

“A moment,” Jim said.

The nun who had gone down by herself, bent down out of sight behind William’s car, then they saw her going back up the hill, dragging Harold by his ankle, his body flopping all over as if all the bones in his body had been broken.

“My God, see that?” William said. “We got to help.”

“He’s dead,” Jim said. “They crushed his head with a board.”

“Oh, hell, man. That can’t be. They’re nuns.”

“I don’t think they are,” Jim said. “Least not the kind of nuns you’re thinking.”

The nun dragged Harold up the hill and dropped his leg when she reached the big black car. Another of the nuns opened the trunk and reached in and got hold of something. It looked like some kind of folded up lawn chair, only more awkward in shape. The nun jerked it out and dropped it on the ground and gave it a swift kick. The folded up thing began to unfold with a clatter and a squeak. A perfectly round head rose up from it, and the head spun on what appeared to be a silver hinge. When it quit whirling, it was upright and in place, though cocked slightly to the left. The eyes and mouth and nostrils were merely holes. Moonlight could be seen through them. The head rose as coat-rack-style shoulders pushed it up and a cage of a chest rose under that. The chest looked almost like an old frame on which dresses were placed to be sewn, or perhaps a cage designed to contain something you wouldn’t want to get out. With more squeaks and clatters, skeletal hips appeared, and beneath that, long, bony, legs with bent back knees and big metal-framed feet. Sticklike arms swung below its knees, clattering against its legs like tree limbs bumping against a window pane. It stood at least seven feet tall. Like the nuns, its knees and elbows fit backwards.

The nun by the car trunk reached inside and pulled out something fairly large that beat its wings against the night air. She held it in one hand by its clawed feet, and its beak snapped wildly, looking for something to peck. Using her free hand, she opened up the folding man’s chest by use of a hinge, and when the cage flung open, she put the black, winged thing inside. It fluttered about like a heart shot full of adrenaline. The holes that were the folding man’s eyes filled with a red glow and the mouth hole grew wormy lips, and a tongue, long as a garden snake, dark as dirt, licked out at the night, and there was a loud sniff as its nostrils sucked air. One of the nuns reached down and grabbed up a handful of clay, and pressed it against the folding man’s arms; the clay spread fast as a lie, went all over, filling the thing with flesh of the earth until the entire folding man’s body was covered. The nun, who had taken the folding man out of the car, picked Harold up by the ankle, and as if he were nothing more than a blow-up doll, swung him over her head and slammed him into the darkness of the trunk, shut the lid, and looked out where Jim and William stood recovering by the tree.

The nun said something, a noise between a word and a cough, and the folding man began to move down the hill at a stumble. As he moved his joints made an unoiled hinge sound, and the rest of him made a clatter like lug bolts being knocked together, accompanied by a noise akin to wire hangers being twisted by strong hands.

“Run,” Jim said.

Jim began to feel pain, knew he was more banged up than he thought. His neck hurt. His back hurt. One of his legs really hurt. He must have jammed his knee against something. William, who ran alongside him, dodging trees, said, “My ribs. I think they’re cracked.”

Jim looked back. In the distance, just entering the trees, framed in the moonlight behind him, was the folding man. He moved in strange leaps, as if there were springs inside him, and he was making good time.

Jim said, “We can’t stop. It’s coming.”

It was low down in the woods and water had gathered there and the leaves had mucked up with it, and as they ran, they sloshed and splashed, and behind them, they could hear it, the folding man, coming, cracking limbs, squeaking hinges, splashing his way after them. When they had the nerve to look back, they could see him darting between the trees like a bit of the forest itself, and he, or it, was coming quite briskly for a thing its size until it reached the lower-down parts of the bottomland. There its big feet slowed it some as they buried deep in the mud and were pulled free again with a sound like the universe sucking wind. Within moments, however, the thing got its stride, its movements becoming more fluid and its pace faster.

Finally Jim and William came to a tree-thickened rise in the land, and were able to get out of the muck, scramble upwards and move more freely, even though there was something of a climb ahead, and they had to use trees growing out from the side of the rise to pull themselves upward. When they reached the top of the climb, they were surprised when they looked back to see they had actually gained some space on the thing. It was some distance away, speckled by the moonlight, negotiating its way through the ever-thickening trees and undergrowth. But, still it came, ever onward, never tiring. Jim and William bent over and put their hands on their knees and took some deep breaths.

“There’s an old graveyard on the far side of this stretch,” Jim said. “Near the wrecking yard.”

“Where you worked last summer.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. It gets clearer in the graveyard, and we can make good time. Get to the wrecking yard, Old Man Gordon lives there. He always has a gun and he has that dog, Chomps. It knows me. It will eat that thing up.”

“What about me?”

“You’ll be all right. You’re with me. Come on. I kinda of know where we are now. Used to play in the graveyard, and in this end of the woods. Got to move.”

They moved along more swiftly as Jim became more and more familiar with the terrain. It was close to where he had lived when he was a kid, and he had spent a lot of time out here. They came to a place where there was a clearing in the woods, a place where lightning had made a fire. The ground was black, and there were no trees, and in that spot silver moonlight was falling down into it, like mercury filling a cup.

In the center of the clearing they stopped and got their breath again, and William said. “My head feels like its going to explode…. Hey, I don’t hear it now.”

“It’s there. Whatever it is, I don’t think it gives up.”

“Oh, Jesus,” William said, and gasped deep once. “I don’t know how much I got left in me.”

“You got plenty. We got to have plenty.”

“What can it be, Jimbo? What in the hell can it be?”

Jim shook his head. “You know that old story about the black car?”

William shook his head.

“My grandmother used to tell me about a black car that roams the highways and the back roads of the South. It isn’t in one area all the time, but it’s out there somewhere all the time. Halloween is its peak night. It’s always after somebody for whatever reason.”

“Bullshit.”

Jim, hands still on his knees, lifted his head. “You go down there and tell that clatter-clap thing its all bullshit. See where that gets you.”

“It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Grandma said before it was a black car, it was a black buggy, and before that a figure dressed in black on a black horse, and that before that, it was just a shadow that clicked and clacked and squeaked. There’s people go missing, she said, and it’s the black car, the black buggy, the thing on the horse, or the walkin’ shadow that gets them. But, it’s all the same thing, just a different appearance.”

“The nuns? What about them?”

Jim shook his head, stood up, tested his ability to breathe. “Those weren’t nuns. They were like… I don’t know… Anti-nuns. This thing, if Grandma was right, can take a lot of different forms. Come on. We can’t stay here anymore.”

“Just another moment, I’m so tired. And I think we’ve lost it. I don’t hear it anymore.”

As if on cue, there came a clanking and a squeaking and cracking of limbs. William glanced at Jim, and without a word, they moved across the lightning-made clearing and into the trees. Jim looked back, and there it was, crossing the clearing, silver-flooded in the moonlight, still coming, not tiring.

They ran. White stones rose up in front of them. Most of the stones were heaved to the side, or completely pushed out of the ground by growing trees and expanding roots. It was the old graveyard, and Jim knew that meant the wrecking yard was nearby, and so was Gordon’s shotgun, and so was one mean dog.

Again the land sloped upward, and this time William fell forward on his hands and knees, throwing up a mess of blackness. “Oh, God. Don’t leave me, Jim… I’m tuckered… Can hardly… breathe.”

Jim had moved slightly ahead of William. He turned back to help. As he grabbed William’s arm to pull him up, the folding man squeaked and clattered forward and grabbed William’s ankle, jerked him back, out of Jim’s grasp.

The folding man swung William around easily, slammed his body against a tree, then the thing whirled, and as if William were a bullwhip, snapped him so hard his neck popped and an eyeball flew out of his skull. The folding man brought William whipping down across a standing gravestone. There was a cracking sound, like someone had dropped a glass coffee cup, then the folding man whirled and slung William from one tree to another, hitting the trees so hard bark flew off of them and clothes and meat flew off William.

Jim bolted. He ran faster than he had ever run, finally he broke free of the woods and came to a stretch of ground that was rough with gravel. Behind him, breaking free of the woods, was the folding man, making good time with great strides, dragging William’s much-abused body behind it by the ankle.

Jim could dimly see the wrecking yard from where he was, and he thought he could make it. Still, there was the aluminum fence all the way around the yard, seven feet high. No little barrier. Then he remembered the sycamore tree on the edge of the fence, on the right side. Old Man Gordon was always talking about cutting it because he thought someone could use it to climb over and into the yard, steal one of his precious car parts, though if they did, they had Gordon’s shotgun waiting along with the sizeable teeth of his dog. It had been six months since he had seen the old man, and he hoped he hadn’t gotten ambitious, that the tree was still there.

Running closer, Jim could see the sycamore tree remained, tight against the long run of shiny wrecking yard fence. Looking over his shoulder, Jim saw the folding man was springing forward, like some kind of electronic rabbit, William’s body being pulled along by the ankle, bouncing on the ground as the thing came ever onward. At this rate, it would be only a few seconds before the thing caught up with him.

Jim felt a pain like a knife in his side, and it seemed as if his heart was going to explode. He reached down deep for everything he had, hoping like hell he didn’t stumble.

He made the fence and the tree, went up it like a squirrel, dropped over on the roof of an old car, sprang off of that and ran toward a dim light shining in the small window of a wood and aluminum shack nestled in the midst of old cars and piles of junk.

As he neared the shack, Chomps, part pit bull, part just plain big ole dog, came loping out toward him, growling. It was a hard thing to do, but Jim forced himself to stop, bent down, stuck out his hand, and called the dog’s name.

“Chomps. Hey, buddy. It’s me.”

The dog slowed and lowered its head and wagged its tail.

“That’s right. Your pal, Jim.”

The dog came close and Jim gave it a pat. “Good, boy.”

Jim looked over his shoulder. Nothing.

“Come on, Chomps.”

Jim moved quickly toward the shack and hammered on the door. A moment later the door flew open, and standing there in overalls, one strap dangling from a naked arm, was Mr. Gordon. He was old and near toothless, squat and greasy as the insides of the cars in the yard.

“Jim? What the hell you doing in here? You look like hell.”

“Something’s after me.”

“Something?”

“It’s outside the fence. It killed two of my friends…”

“What?”

“It killed two of my friends.”

“It? Some kind of animal?”

“No… It.”

“We’ll call some law.”

Jim shook his head. “No use calling the law now, time they arrive it’ll be too late.”

Gordon leaned inside the shack and pulled a twelve-gauge into view, pumped it once. He stepped outside and looked around.

“You sure?”

“Oh, yeah. Yes, sir. I’m sure.”

“Then I guess you and me and Pump Twelve will check it out.”

Gordon moved out into the yard, looking left and right. Jim stayed close to Gordon’s left elbow. Chomps trotted nearby. They walked about a bit. They stopped between a row of wrecked cars, looked around. Other than the moon-shimmering fence at either end of the row where they stood, there was nothing to see.

“Maybe whatever, or whoever it is, is gone,” Gordon said. “Otherwise, Chomps would be all over it.”

“I don’t think it smells like humans or animals.”

“Are you joshin’ an old man? Is this a Halloween prank?”

“No, sir. Two of my friends are dead. This thing killed them. It’s real.”

“What the hell is it then?”

As if in answer, there was the sound like a huge can opener going to work, and then the long, thin arm of the folding man poked through the fence and there was more ripping as the arm slid upwards, tearing at the metal. A big chunk of the fence was torn away, revealing the thing, bathed in moonlight, still holding what was left of William’s ragged body by the ankle.

Jim and Gordon both stood locked in amazement.

“Sonofabitch,” Gordon said.

Chomps growled, ran toward it.

“Chomps will fix him,” Gordon said.

The folding man dropped William’s ankle and bent forward, and just as the dog leaped, caught it and twisted it and ran its long arm down the snapping dog’s throat, and began to pull its insides out. It flung the dog’s parts in all directions, like someone pulling confetti from a sack. Then it turned the dog inside out.

When the sack was empty, the folding man bent down and fastened the dead, deflated dog to a hook on the back of what passed for its ankle.

“My God,” Gordon said.

The thing picked up William by the ankle, stepped forward a step, and paused.

Gordon lifted the shotgun. “Come and get you some, asshole.”

The thing cocked its head as if to consider the suggestion, and then it began to lope toward them, bringing along its clanks and squeaks, the dead dog flopped at the folding man’s heel. For the first time, its mouth, which had been nothing but a hole with wormy lips, twisted into the shape of a smile.

Gordon said, “You run, boy. I got this.”

Jim didn’t hesitate. He turned and darted between a row of cars and found a gap between a couple of Fords with grass grown up around their flattened tires, ducked down behind one, and hid. He lay down on his belly to see if he could see anything. There was a little bit of space down there, and he could look under the car, and under several others, and he could see Gordon’s feet. They had shifted into a firm stance, and Jim could imagine the old man pulling the shotgun to his shoulder.

And even as he imagined, the gun boomed, and then it boomed again. Silence, followed by a noise like someone ripping a piece of thick cardboard in half, and then there were screams and more rips. Jim felt light-headed, realized he hadn’t been breathing. He gasped for air, feared that he had gasped too loudly.

Oh, my God, he thought. I ran and left it to Mr. Gordon, and now… He was uncertain. Maybe the screams had come from… It, the folding man? But so far it hadn’t so much as made breathing sounds, let alone anything that might be thought of as a vocalization.

Crawling like a soldier under fire, Jim worked his way to the edge of the car, and took a look. Stalking down the row between the cars was the folding man, and he was dragging behind him by one ankle what was left of William’s body. In his other hand, if you could call it a hand, he had Mr. Gordon, who looked thin now because so much had been pulled out of him. Chomps’ body was still fastened to the wire hook at the back of the thing’s foot. As the folding man came forward, Chomps dragged in the dirt.

Jim pushed back between the cars, and kept pushing, crawling backwards. When he was far enough back, he raised to a squat and started between narrower rows that he thought would be harder for the folding man to navigate; they were just spaces really, not rows, and if he could go where it couldn’t go, then—

There was a large creaking sound, and Jim, still at a squat, turned to discover its source. The folding man was looking at him. It had grabbed an old car and lifted it up by the front and was holding it so that the back end rested on the ground. Being as close as he was now, Jim realized the folding man was bigger than he had thought, and he saw too that just below where the monster’s thick torso ended there were springs, huge springs, silver in the moonlight, vibrating. He had stretched to accommodate the lifting of the car, and where his knees bent backwards, springs could be seen as well; he was a garage sale collection of parts and pieces.

For a moment, Jim froze. The folding man opened his mouth wide, wider than Jim had seen before, and inside he could glimpse a turning of gears and a smattering of sparks. Jim broke suddenly, running between cars, leaping on hoods, scrambling across roofs, and behind him came the folding man, picking up cars and flipping them aside as easily as if they had been toys.

Jim could see the fence at the back, and he made for that, and when he got close to it, he thought he had it figured. He could see a Chevy parked next to the fence, and he felt certain he could climb onto the roof, spring off of it, grab the top of the fence, and scramble over. That wouldn’t stop the thing behind him, but it would perhaps give him a few moments to gain ground.

The squeaking and clanking behind him was growing louder.

There was a row of cars ahead, he had to leap onto the hood of the first, then spring from hood to hood, drop off, turn slightly right, and go for the Chevy by the fence.

He was knocked forward, hard, and his breath leaped out of him.

He was hit again, painfully in the chest.

It took a moment to process, but he was lying between two cars, and there, standing above him, was the folding man, snapping at him with the two dead bodies like they were wet towels. That’s what had hit him, the bodies, used like whips.

Jim found strength he didn’t know he had, made it to his feet as Mr. Gordon’s body slammed the ground near him. Then, as William’s body snapped by his ear, just missing him, he was once more at a run.

The Chevy loomed before him. He made its hood by scrambling up on hands and knees, and then he jumped to the roof. He felt something tug at him, but he jerked loose, didn’t stop moving. He sprang off the car top, grabbed at the fence, latching his arms over it. The fence cut into the undersides of his arms, but he couldn’t let that stop him, so he kept pulling himself forward, and the next thing he knew, he was over the fence, dropping to the ground.

It seemed as if a bullet had gone up through his right foot, which he now realized was bare, and that the tug he had felt was the folding man grabbing at his foot, only to come away with a shoe. But of more immediate concern was his foot, the pain. There hadn’t been any bullet. He had landed crooked coming over the fence, and his foot had broken. It felt like hell, but he moved on it anyway, and within a few steps he had a limp, a bad limp.

He could see the highway ahead, and he could hear the fence coming down behind him, and he knew it was over, all over, because he was out of gas and had blown a tire and his engine was about to blow too. His breath came in chops and blood was pounding in his skull like a thug wanting out.

He saw lights.

They were moving very quickly down the highway. A big truck, a Mac, was balling the jack in his direction. If he could get it to stop, maybe there would be help, maybe.

Jim stumbled to the middle of the highway, directly into the lights, waved his arms, glanced to his left—

—and there it was. The folding man. It was only six feet away.

The truck was only a little farther away, but moving faster, and then the folding man was reaching for him, and the truck was a sure hit, and Jim, pushing off his good foot, leaped sideways and there was a sound like a box of dishes falling downstairs.

Jim felt the wind from the truck, but he had moved just in time. The folding man had not. As Jim had leaped aside, his body turned, through no plan of his own, and he saw the folding man take the hit.

Wood and springs and hinges went everywhere.

The truck bumped right over the folding man and started sliding as the driver tried to put on brakes that weren’t designed for fast stops. Tires smoked, brakes squealed, the truck fish tailed.

Jim fell to the side of the highway, got up and limped into the brush there, and tripped on something and went down. He rolled on his back. His butt was in a ditch and his back was against one side of it, and he could see above it on the other side, and through some little bushes that grew there. The highway had a few lights on either side of it, so it was lit up good, and Jim could see the folding man lying in the highway, or rather he could see parts of it everywhere. It looked like a dirty hardware store had come to pieces. William, Gordon, and Chomps, lay in the middle of the highway.

The folding man’s big torso, which had somehow survived the impact of the truck, vibrated and burst open, and Jim saw the birdlike thing rise up with a squawk. It snatched up the body of Mr. Gordon and William, one in either claw, used its beak to nab the dog, and ignoring the fact that its size was not enough to lift all that weight, it did just that, took hold of them and went up into the night sky, abruptly became one with the dark.

Jim turned his head. He could see down the highway, could see the driver of the truck getting out, walking briskly toward the scene of the accident. He walked faster as he got closer, and when he arrived, he bent over the pieces of the folding man. He picked up a spring, examined it, tossed it aside. He looked out where Jim lay in the ditch, but Jim figured, lying as he was, brush in front of him, he couldn’t be seen.

He was about to call out to the driver when, the truck driver yelled, “You nearly got me killed. You nearly got you killed. Maybe you are killed. I catch you, might as well be, you stupid shit. I’ll beat the hell out of you.”

Jim didn’t move.

“Come on out so I can finish you off.”

Great, Jim thought, first the folding man, and now a truck driver wants to kill me. To hell with him, to hell with everything, and he laid his head back against the ditch and closed his eyes and went to sleep.

The truck driver didn’t come out and find him, and when he awoke the truck was gone and the sky was starting to lighten. His ankle hurt like hell. He bent over and looked at it. He couldn’t tell much in the dark, but it looked as big as a sewer pipe. He thought when he got some strength back, he might be able to limp, or crawl out to the edge of the highway, flag down some help. Surely, someone would stop. But for the moment, he was too weak. He laid back again, and was about to close his eyes, when he heard a humming sound.

Looking out at the highway, he saw lights coming from the direction the trucker had come from. Fear crawled up his back like a spider. It was the black car.

The car pulled to the side of the road and stopped. The nuns got out. They sniffed and extended long tongues and licked at the fading night. With speed and agility that seemed impossible, they gathered up the parts of the folding man and put them in a sack they placed in the middle of the highway.

When the sack was full of parts, one nun stuck a long leg into the sack and stomped about, then jerked her leg out, pulled the sack together at the top and swung it over her head and slammed it on the road a few times, then she dropped the sack and moved back and one of the nuns kicked it. Another nun opened it and reached inside the sack and took out the folding man. Jim lost a breath. It appeared to be put back together. The nun didn’t unfold the folding man. She opened the trunk of the car and flung it inside.

And then she turned and looked in his direction, held out one arm and waited. The bird-thing came flapping out of the last of the dark and landed on her arm. The bodies of William and Gordon were still in its talons, the dog in its beak, the three of them hanging as if they were nothing heavier than rags. The nun took hold of the bird’s legs and tossed it and what it held into the trunk as well. She closed the lid of the trunk. She looked directly where Jim lay. She looked up at the sky, turned to face the rising sun. She turned quickly back in Jim’s direction and stuck out her long arm, the robe folding back from it. She pointed a sticklike finger right at him, leaned slightly forward. She held that pose until the others joined her and pointed in Jim’s direction.

My God, Jim thought, they know I’m here. They see me. Or smell me. Or sense me. But they know I’m here.

The sky brightened and outlined them like that for a moment and they stopped pointing.

They got quickly in the car. The last of the darkness seemed to seep into the ground and give way to a rising pink; Halloween night had ended. The car gunned and went away fast. Jim watched it go a few feet, and then it wasn’t there anymore. It faded like fog. All that was left now was the sunrise and the day turning bright.

JUST ANOTHER DESERT
NIGHT WITH BLOOD

by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

From nowhere

to nowhere…

Devouring yesterday. Dissolving innermost longings with blood… Walking. Not pointed. Not pressing. Slowly… carrying something that burns, a language not of the physical…

Walking… from the middle of a hole… remembering the devil… and dread… and the wings of the locust…

Slowly… walking…

With its long hours, night, large (sideways and up) and thick, again falls on the galleries of life…

He comes to it. Finds… Sometimes a storm. Sometimes a town—poor places… of shapes and floors and directions. Numbers and alleys. Glass—reflections and portraits, and bric-a-brac. Some things, different by day, open. Some entangled. (heartbreak against the horizon.) Never, in recent memory, a song of rain…

Stands in it. Face, body, breath, every demon-stern impulse, reaches for life… Good heart (strong and sound). That’s black—been dragged along the blade of night’s knife. A one trick pony out of work. Hands—sometimes an epidemic of fists—free, with nowhere to go…

Bend, man made slow, in the road. Traces and codes… Passing under windows, translating. Boarded-up wind out free on a walking holiday. Thinking of touching dreams.

Front-porch light bridge no witness. Sleeves, over hard ground. Slow. Hands of a blacklisted tiger (without love), red.

Permanently tilted-open gate, rust, slowly gnawing at its hinges. House. Needs painting and a few new screens. Waits at the knob. Tests its weight. (Locked the unlocked door behind him.) Stuffed with the smells of living. Valleys between the sofa of crowded, stuffed playmates and the chairs. Cataract fingers sweeping the spines of a fence of books. Takes one out—blackbird ruin haunts the cascading ivy woods crawling with lines… shadow foam corner to corner, what is real buried beneath… The itch. (language wrought of loneliness and sunder in his fists.) Steep stair trail… winter comes to the shoreline. Breathing. Hunting. Listening for yes or foliage or rivers or absolutes. Visualizing. Breathes in the false words hiding in dream.

The prickling. (language of fire and wind in his hands.) Curves. A nightgown (It’s been a while since he’s seen a nightgown). Sudden momentary anguish. Said and done hiding under the bed. No warnings. Thief of emptiness in the sheets. Mother (breezy thighs)—smoldering—fangs and wounds—scorched—lion’s rough teeth on her breast, no gift—can’t run, can’t run—(done with her)… and child, sized and overcome—a splash of fun (something in the eyes as she dies) (done with her)… and under wings and clouds a smaller child, snuggling satisfying Honey Bear, pushing at sleep, down and down with her tiny spring song of balloons. Happy little lips. The nape, sweet—candy dreams in the red hands… small shoulder, small elbow, tiny fingers, lost in the battle. (Done with her.) Despair, desire, in the wolf ’s eyes.

Blood on his shirt. On his belt buckle.

Wounds… no confessions. no notes. no ghosts.

Wounds… no poetry.

High… gets there for a few seconds…

The empty chain… a well-worn path…

Down among the rooms of day… Stood on the faded remnants of grape juice. Stood where the littlest one did the Snoopy dance—there was sunshine that morning. Moved, not curious. Stood where Mom and big sister laughed to tears, hugged. Stood where things started. Stepped over laughs that hadn’t been vacuumed up with the cracker crumbs. Walked through hollow air that would never again be filled with chainlinked hollers of Mom—Mom—Mom. But he didn’t care…

A long red finger on the white keys of a piano. A mysterious song of knives and misery… Walking… humming something that’s not warm.

Hungry.

A window with nothing to say but sand and sky. Clock noise. He eats a sandwich. Never turned on a light.

Sits and looks at horizons gone silent on the ceiling.

Chews. Sips from a bottle of cold water. Carves an X in the table top.

No dawn escapes his mouth…

Calm.

Drops a vase shaped like a fire hydrant on the hardwood floor on his way out. No answers in the jagged pieces. Never are…

Leaves the back door open… Deeds. Handprints. A mouth of secrets leaving.

Home, once common maybe. In the aftermath it’s quieter, a lonely place.

Out in the folds and contours of simple chilled black hung over everything.

Afterwards… tears and fire.

Slowly. Passing a black stone, echoes of a distant storm. Night, needle tapestry stars, no back and forth (the moon turns, bends gently away—off with some other song). Tears form.

(Raven apron night doesn’t taste like summer.) Evening disappeared before the blood. 10 passes. 11 comes swinging—48 . 49, trying hard . 50, knees buckling. 12 (watching—waiting) will be here for hours… transcendental and slow.

Lies. Landed. Lies. Here. In the open, under beds. Littering the scrub bramble… Glasses of blood and lies… lonely, but not the same…

Skirts a poor side of town trying to hold on… Austere parking lots and things that used to be girls. Ghosts bought and sold. Not a nickel and out of dimes. Below a cross that couldn’t hold on. What was pressed there—fast and spurs and comfort and forever and heat, gone.

The bells lie silent.

He slips away…

Moon-gray sand. Blown here to over there… common sand knows no doors… a patch of something with roots, holding out for September or water…

Crazy blood. Dust (between seasons) without explanations, repeating itself…

Demonic coyotes, weary of the truth dripping from the stars, have been around. Howling, lonely and mean. Took little. Left nothing in this long wheel of forever headed nowhere.

Out in the middle. Leaping bottles empty of gestures and earthquakes. Never thinking about it.

ACTION. Burn it all away…

By a large hole and a troubled-by-rust (and the crash) auto carriage, stripped of tires and chrome and silver bells, comes upon a frightened young woman with pale blue corpse eyes—a runaway from The PAIN and sadness and the ridicule. Not hidden well, but she’s trying. Her scent is a temple… And he just did.

Does it cold. Want, the lion’s fire, comes forth—all the thrashing (skin off the branches of the bride—not difficult after the face is kicked in)… as it tries hard… her cries are fire, but end is END. Heat to cool. Blood to sand. No one raises a glass. Tomb games of HATE/Love (fear) fast… and gone… Final here… and gone. (Done with her.)

Something outlived. Forever comes with no comfort.

Gravity takes the last of the blood.

His blood runs…

He drags a nursery rhyme from somewhere deep… it lives, spreads—an injured dream, until he snuffs it out. No stain or echo of the dance.

Looks to town… a difficult thing.

Walks (east tonight) the other way. The birds and the coyote and the insects and the desert sun will come hunting the dead. Lips will part. Bellies will be filled. Another night will come. It won’t cry. Waste or silver or precious gems, limb or bone, it won’t be impressed by the sight or the name.

Two vagrant cats and a solo moon. Dead brush. Hands in his pockets. Swaying. He sees constellations thrown wide. Hears the song of a different night—a night without saints. Can’t explain why it laughed. If he knew, then…

Pure sand. Cut with ghosts and pieces of time… nothing in it to spoil.

Sand with no offspring, too barren to be wild.

No lamps, lighthouses. Ears filled with empty fire and boredom. Hands paralyzed by whispers and names… red memories in his veins.

No bedtime. No reptiles (Do the snakes sleep? He wonders.)… no ladders or angels or crowns or tenderly… so tired… no water or sunshine… locked, smothered in this endless nowhere…

In the breath of starlight unleashed, a glimpse, a dead roadrunner that hasn’t disappeared yet… no more circles for the sleeping dead, blackened and finished…

A free man. No friends, no laughter left behind. Time his stage. Chance his key, his flood. Blood and cotton skirts on his mind…

Outwardly restless and… inbetween… No anchor in this grave ageless Nothing.

Takes in a view without solutions…

Laughs in the face of the leviathan…

Highway. Ditches full of seasons (and the cast-out containers of thirst quenchers). Winds traveling. Red taillights—moon sold souls—bound for somewhere (easy?). Night’s not going anywhere. Never does. The lies cooling. Not going anywhere… moth and spider goin’ nowhere… phone booth with a broken interior light… owl…clouds, not built or elaborate, flat on the dark rug of sky… asphalt—solid ground has no point… boots notch the dust on a road goin’ nowhere…

This nowhere land, a flat leviathan wearing blades and puddles and smudges of black, seamed with memories, holds no scavengers, no mirages, no vultures. No windows surging with lines or glows of wishing. No talisman or seed, or coat of arms. This solitude does not murmur…

Laughs at the 3 a.m. moon. No mirror, it don’t laugh back (but he thinks it would like to).

Walking… from nowhere to nowhere… devouring… A slow voyage of no real reason. A haunted man, swept up. Throwing loose questions, thick in sin, at the moon…

“So tired.”

No one hears.

No one answers.

All this empty space. No thin plants. No struggling flowers. Nothing upright. No color here to take in. Nothing cool but the bite of air, some nights…

Night (maybe soft, maybe not) after (always indifferent) night… walking the rim of the land of the living lost to their dreams… Blood… Blood that roars wild…

And open sky.

(lost in the rare beauty and haunted magic of Neko Case’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood and Blacklisted)

BLACK AND WHITE SKY

by Tanith Lee

Not for the first time—from an idea by John Kaiine.

I

Almost morning; it is early summer, not quite five o’clock. The sky has a colourless lightness, faintly golden in the east across the fields. In the woods birds sing in pale, clear sprinklings of sound.

From a copse one magpie rises. It flies straight upward.

There is a slight visual softness to all distances, perhaps mist, or haze. The air is fresh, but not unwarm.

A second magpie rises, this time not from the copse.

The golden edge of the sky intensifies, begins to dazzle. The sun is nearly free of the horizon.

A third magpie rises.

A fourth magpie rises.

The bird-chorus redoubles, eagerly encouraging the dawn. From the farm over towards the main road, some heavy vehicle or machinery rumbles.

A fifth magpie rises.

The sun rises.

A sixth magpie rises.

The sky floods with shell pink and golden lacquer.

A seventh magpie rises…

It was the day when Alice came to clean Cigarette Cottage. Of course, that was not the cottage’s proper name. After it was built in the 1930s someone pastorally minded had christened the place “Woodbine Cottage.” And following various renovations, and the removal of the name-plate above the door, “Woodbine” still stuck.

But George Anderton, moving in during 2003, coined his own private version of the name, in memory of those cigarettes he could recall his grandmother puffing at, in the days when smoking was a pleasant habit rather than a capital offence.

George himself had smoked, but no longer did so. He had never really been that serious a smoker. But, although having successfully given it up some twenty years before, he still occasionally missed them. The act perhaps, more than any hit.

“I’ve counted twenty-four magpies just as I was walking along the lane from the Duck,” said Alice, as she put down her bag and accepted a mug of coffee. “What do you think of that?”

“Triple hell,” said George, idly.

Alice laughed. She was only about forty, and very attractive. She made no secret of the fact she found George, a man more than ten years older, attractive too. But she was happily married and so would, hopefully, never impinge on George’s solitary country life. He had given up London rather as he gave up smoking, missed the act, or idea of it, but not constantly. Women he had not given up. But there had been plenty—too many, he supposed—in his previous life. To be truly alone at last was restful.

Once a fortnight Alice came in, to dust, hoover and bleach the bathroom and the cooker. Now and then she cleaned the windows unasked. She charged the going rate, damaged nothing, did not get on his nerves, and was out of the house in never more than three hours.

“Triple hell—why’s that?”

“The old rhyme,” said George. “One for sorrow, two for joy, that stuff. There are several versions. The ones I know all end at nine magpies. And one of them finishes ‘Seven’s for Heaven, and Eight’s for Hell.’ So: three times eight equals twenty-four—triple hell.”

“And what’s nine?”

“The Devil.”

“Oh, you,” she said, beaming at him and liberating the dusters.

He was a writer; novels, and even some stage plays put on at the Lyric and the Royal Court. Now all he seemed to turn out were short stories, but his reputation, if not major, was not quite non-existent. To Alice, he thought, he was a curiosity, maybe a sort of catch in the cleaning market. The rest of her clients were more usual, weekenders or locals with enough money, plus of course the Duck pub up the lane.

When he went upstairs to his workroom (his study, Alice called it), he glanced from the window. Downstairs by now the trees in the small front garden, and the woods to the back, were thickly leafed, obscuring much of the sky. From the cottage’s upper story however, he could see out across the shorter trees to the fields, as far as the farm. So he noticed a magpie fly up at once. And then, about half a minute later, another. And then, approximately equally spaced, several more. They rose singly, each from a different area, from behind the ring of trees on the fields’ edge, from the fields themselves, from over the farm, out where the main road to Stantham cut ugly through the curve of the landscape.

Downstairs Alice was gently clinking something. George stood at the window and watched the magpies rising, he thought at first every one from a different spot, yet now and then another one would go up later from the same spot. There seemed always a similar interval, though he did not bother to check it exactly. It was curious. He wondered briefly what had caused it, so many of them, and so regular in rising. But then he told himself to stop prevaricating and go back to the computer. Most writers used almost anything, he knew but too well, to absent themselves from work.

It is midday. The church clock in the village a mile off chimes out twelve. The light is very bright now, metallic and clear. It shines on the hills that rim the distance, and sparks up the windows of the cottage. A woman has cycled away about an hour before. The man is working diligently in the room on the upper story, drinking his fourth mug of coffee now. He is on a roll with the story he writes, does not wish yet to stop for lunch.

A sluggish car lurches along the lane, heading for the pub. Bees buzz, and a few grasshoppers creak in the hedge. A grey squirrel performs acrobatics in the garden trees, then bounds overland for the wood.

A magpie rises.

It is now the most recent example of hundreds. The man in the cottage might have seen, if he had been looking.

It flies straight upwards, straight up into the glare of the zenith sun. Light digests it. It has vanished.

Smaller birds flutter about their business, wood pigeons, finches, a robin, a blackbird. Some are already teaching their young to fly. They quarter the lower air, flit past the oak trees and the now-wild apple that cast its last blossom only a week before. None of these birds heads directly upward. Not even the crow which abruptly wings over, cawing harshly, black as computer ink.

A magpie rises. Half a minute or thereabouts ticks away.

A magpie rises.

Soon after 6:00 p.m., George Anderton backed up the day’s work, checked for e-mails—none—and switched off the computer.

Downstairs, lingering over a drink, he made a swift mental foray into the fridge, and promptly decided to visit the Duck for dinner.

At seven he opened the door of Cigarette Cottage, and stood, gazing through the trees into the glowing upper sky. It was blue, and feathered only by faint eddies of cloud, that seemed to foretell a fine tomorrow. The sun was westering towards the hills, visible in gaps, molten yet filmy. At least another hour before it set. This place. He had never regretted coming here. The lack of unnecessary human noise, beyond the intermittent legitimate agricultural sounds from the farm, the bird-song, the notes of various wildlife, the silences. Absorbed, he filled his ears with blackbird music, filled his eyes with the light. He had forgotten the magpies.

Then one rose, straight up, from the copse across the lane. Straight up and into the heart of the westered light, vanishing, as if dissolved.

George was startled. He returned to himself, refocussed his eyes, and waited.

Another magpie rose. This one was further over towards the hills, framed in a gap, a small pinpoint of darkness. Perhaps it was not a magpie.

He looked at the hands of his watch, counted off the seconds—lifted his eyes…I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills—nothing. No magpie had risen. Crazy, why would it?

Behind him. George turned around, moving almost too fast for himself. He saw this next magpie already high above, in the last moment before the light devoured it.

Had they gone on rising, continuing to rise, all day? Why? Where were they going? To the top of the sky?

In the Duck the usual evening crowd was sitting over its drinks. George Anderton had lived here long enough by now that two or three regulars greeted him. In the dining room beyond the front bar, a handful of summer visitors sat, lightly tanned and animated. George scanned them cautiously.

(He had once been trapped here by a mad-ish young-ish woman who was a fan of his work, and had apparently previously met him in London at a book signing. Her recalled London intentions were not strictly literary, but he was then involved elsewhere. Besides she was hardly his type, whatever that really meant. Age had not improved her, or her intentions, or his inclinations. It had been difficult to shake her off without being rude. He had finally only managed to by telling her he did not want to be rude, which did the trick.)

Tonight there was no visitor who appeared to recognise him, or care about him in any way.

George went to the bar and ordered his meal and a bottle of Bex.

“What do you think it is, then?” Colly asked him, as he rattled a bottle from the fridge.

“What’s that?” George felt curiously oppressed. He knew already what that would be. He was correct.

“Them barmy birds.”

“Which birds?” My God. George realised he was pretending he had not noticed. Why on earth?

But Colly, handing him a glass, explained, “Bloody magpies. Going up like rockets all the time.”

“Are they?”

“I s’pose you ain’t seen it, mate,” said Colly, who like George hailed from London, and had kept his accent with him though in situ here for more than eighteen years.

“Well, I’ve seen some flying over. But so what?”

“Here,” said Colly to Amethyst, as she came from the kitchen with two plates, “old George ain’t bloody seen them magpies going up all day. One every thirty-seven seconds Arnold reckons.”

“It’s true,” said Amethyst, widening her eyes at George through the pleasant steam of one meat and one vegetarian lasagne.

From along the bar a couple of the other men joined in. They told George, and the room in general, how Arnold Weller had timed the darn things. Between thirty-two and thirty-eight seconds. He had counted them for a whole half-hour. Over forty-three magpies, though old Arny had lost count, he thought, by a little—not much—forty or forty-three or even forty-eight. Near enough. And still flying up, one by one. One after another. And all of them from different places, or from the places no other bird was then rising from.

An elderly voice spoke from the corner, under the oil painting of Ducks in Flight. “Was on the one o’clock news. I heard it. They made a joke about it. Then someone else came in—some politician. Said he saw ’em too, in Sussex or whatever, that morning, and coming into London all the way.”

“Reports all over the country,” someone else said.

George turned to Amethyst. “No, thanks. No fries. Just the steak and salad.”

“You’re, like, clever,” said Amethyst. She was in her earliest twenties, bright, respectful, a non-reader who unusually and wrongly seemed to believe writing a novel or play was the act of a wise, well-educated person. “What do you think’s causing it?”

“I don’t know.”

“But it’s—like it’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Is it? Maybe not.”

“Maybe it’s global warming,” said one of the dining room visitors, moving in to ask where the gents was. Once told, he added, amused, over one shoulder, “Jude says she saw them from the car when we were driving down. I didn’t notice. But Jude’s gimlet eye picked them out okay.”

“What’s a gimlet eye?” Amethyst asked George over the two cooling dinners.

“God knows,” he said. “I used to know. Can’t remember. Old age,” he added, smiling.

“You’re not, like, old,” Amethyst insisted so vehemently and staring in his eyes with her wide, and certainly un-gimlet-like ones, he felt a hint of random desire. But it passed. It was food he lusted after, he decided, as he walked through into the pub garden.

Dusk was coming now, gradual and inevitable. A moth flew towards him as if in greeting, then on into the lighted pub.

Night falls.

From the farm the lights blaze out, and along the main road the headlamps of the occasional truck, or group of fast cars, spangle up the cats’-eyes like broken glass. A badger crosses, pausing to snuff at the tainted tarmac. A lucky badger, meandering sluggish yet unscathed, in a lacuna of traffic, to the farther side.

A frog croaks from a hidden pool. The night wind stirs softly and brushes through the leaves and grasses.

A magpie rises, blanking out, in passing, the stars, which then reappear.

The moon, almost full, will rise later. It will show far better than the stars the rising magpies, thirty or forty or fifty, that passage upward during every half-hour within the radius of visibility.

The Duck burns like a golden lantern in the darkness. It is almost 11:00 p.m. A couple of vehicles glide down the lane, away to the side-roads that lie north and west of the main one.

Later the more dedicated drinkers emerge, taking various paths homeward. Two cross the fields, a young man and a girl, pausing to kiss among the new-beginning crops, like lovers from Hardy. Behind and sometimes before them, unseen, unnoted, magpies rise one by one, straight up into the stars.

The man who is a writer, and has sat in the pub garden until utter darkness beyond the lights closed up the sky, who afterwards had a vodka at the bar, listening with the publican and a few others to the ten o’clock news, the comments and views of a celebrity, a twitcher, and an eminent ornithologist, leaves the Duck, and himself goes back along the lane. In the doorway of the cottage he stands a moment again, studying the skyscape. Indoors, upstairs, he watches too a while at the workroom window. But he can no longer be certain they are rising. If they are, then not near enough for the lights of his house to catch the white pattern on their wings.

They are like ancient Egyptian birds, he thinks, magpies. Their markings seem primal and elder as the spectacle designs about the eyes of certain snakes.

In the deep hollow of the night, dreamless, he wakes. He hears the eruption of wings leaping at Heaven from the roof above his head. Then he gets up and crosses through again into his workroom. Against the yellow three-quarter face of the hot moon, he sees another magpie rise. Another magpie, more southerly, side-lit, half a minute, or thirty-six seconds after it. In other areas that the moon can find, presently another. Another. Another.

Back in bed he switches on the radio for the World Service. But all the BBC will give him now is war, famine and disease; misery, and a tiny bit of the tune called “Lily Bolero.”

He turns it off and falls asleep again, and dreams the young girl from the pub is stalking him as the mad-ish woman had tried to do. Nevertheless he lets the pub girl in. Then just inside the doorway, she turns into his cleaning woman. Before the dream can become properly erotic, unfortunately—or perhaps actually fortunately—it fades away from him. He does not wake until the alarm clock sounds at 7:00 a.m.

II

George Anderton no longer bothered regularly to read newspapers. Any allure they ever had for him had melted away in his forties. Two days after he saw the first magpie ascending from his window, two nights after hearing the other magpie clattering up, as if suddenly evolved from the very slates of the cottage roof, he walked to the village. Orthurst had its point-topped Saxon church and ancient yews, the scatter of shops and now-defunct post office, the bus-stop for Stantham Cross, and the other pub, the Cart and Plough, and some two hundred or so cottages, several dating way back. There was also the unfinished new estate, virtually builder-abandoned, that no one had wanted here, and was called the Lavvy.

At Rosie’s, now owned and operated by Pam, he bought some butter, lettuce, pears and bacon, the Independent and Guardian, and the local Stantham Spotter.

“It gives me the creeps,” said Pam. She was a nice, comfy old thing of thirtygoing-on-sixty-five. “My gran used to tell me they were unlucky. Ill-omened birds. If you saw one you had to say, ‘Good-morrow, Master Magpie.’ Or even, ‘Good-Morrow, Lord Magpie.’ Then it might be all right. But I tried not to see them, when I was a child. Once one flew right at me on my bike, when I was only seven, and five minutes after I fell off in a ditch. Broke my little finger. Look. It never came back straight. Doesn’t bend like it should, neither.”

“Poor you,” he said. He refrained from saying gran’s scare tactics had freaked Pam out enough that she had been bound to fall off the bike, after a close meeting with a magpie.

“Can’t avoid seeing the blessed things now, can I? Nobody can. And the telly news goes on and on about them. They’re everywhere. Going up. Did you hear about the plane at Heathrow last night? Yes, of course you did.”

But he had not heard, slept solidly last night and through the alarm, missed the news this morning, had only just now seen the Heathrow report, a secondary headline on the Guardian’s front page.

It seemed, rather than inhaling a flock of the birds—what usually happened— the Boeing had been struck repeatedly by magpies, rising as if blind and insane, directly in its path, therefore hitting or being hit by fuselage, wings, and next the undercarriage, as the plane descended. The pilot had lost his nerve, many of the passengers too. The co-pilot brought the plane in, but the landing was a bad one, the touchdown heavy, the Boeing slewing across the runway. Three people had died, and seventy were injured, five seriously.

Disliking his own pragmatism, George considered it could have been far worse.

“On TV Breakfast they said, in Scotland,” went on Pam, unhappy and excitable at once, “one plane there ditched in a loch.” She pronounced this “lock,” but he nodded. She expanded, “But at Manchester they’ve grounded them all. They’re going to ground all of them, unless they can shoot them out of the sky.”

He refrained, now, from asking if she meant the birds or the planes.

“No one can get home, then, except by sea. And they’ve closed the Chunnel, too. It’s on page two in the Mail—a train struck so many birds on the approach it had to stop—the wheels and the windows were all…” she hesitated, grimaced. “Black and red.”

He had, by then, seen the headline glaring on the Mail: WINGED DEATH RISES FROM THE TRACKS. A picture of the stalled train, surrounded by firemen and railway workers, was accompanied by a caption that began: They seemed to come up out of holes under the line, said driver Ken Rains.

Pam, shocking him slightly, abruptly started to cry. He had the urge to put an arm around her, tell her everything would be fine and would get sorted out. But he was unsure he himself believed this, going on the general everyday mess. And anyway, he had found out in the not-so-distant past where such gestures might land him.

“Don’t worry, Pam,” he temporised.

She said, “No, it isn’t that. I don’t know what it is. My age, I expect.”

Poor Pam, he thought again, but did not say it. To be gallant might also be misunderstood. He left the shop having bought the Mail as well, the price of an extra paper to appease her. Not much of a consolation.

All the way back, now downhill to the fields and woods, he could watch the magpies rising on all sides, and behind him should he turn round, and off towards the hills those specks which, now, he was sure were magpies too. On his way to the village, going uphill, a single magpie had sprung directly from a bush at the side of the path. And later another from about three metres ahead of him. They might, these two, indeed have been engendered out of holes in the ground. Out of holes in reality.

One minute non-existent, and then—existing.

It was overcast today. The patch of fine weather had disintegrated. Well, this was England. High up, cloud had settled, like a pale grey duvet. And the silence. How silent it seemed. Not even the magpies made a sound, beyond the abrupt clapping of their wings, when near enough. That signature rattling chatter of theirs was oddly always absent. There was a fitful, warmish wind. It carried a smell from the farm, he thought, not strong or really unpleasant; animal. Somehow depressing.

It’s my age, I expect, George told himself with dry mimicry. He had stuck too on the bloody story.

“Eyewitnesses are mistaken! It is entirely impossible that the huge number of birds people are claiming to have seen could even be found in the whole of the British Isles!”

An argument broke out at once between the four guests in the studio. The presenter tried to quieten them in vain.

George switched to another channel. A soap filled the eye and air with overexaggerated drama that, beside the theatre of the swarming magpies, seemed
ludicrous, laughable, and redundant.

The sun was low over the hills.

It had emerged from the duvet of cloud into a swollen vividity, murky orange, more like that of a wintry dawn.

The full moon had not been visible last night.

When the microwave disgorged the frozen pasty, presumably cooked, he started to eat it.

The next news told him, and showed him, men and women interminably shooting at rising magpies. Some birds fell at once. Some fluttered and spiralled away, mutilated and dying. Some, entirely missed, rose on into the overcast of the TV-recorded afternoon.

On the first channel they were still shouting, red in the face under their makeup tans. The presenter, unable to control the verbal fracas, shrugged wryly.

The phone sounded in the front room. George wiped his hands and went to answer it.

“Hi, George, darling. Have you seen the news?”

“Yes.” It was Lydia, an actress who had appeared in one of his plays. They had slept together at the time. Lydia was his own age, but beautiful in a way not often seen. He had always liked her voice very much. He found he accordingly tended, during her phone calls, to hear her voice rather than what she said.

“Ah—what, Lydia?”

“Yes, it’s an awful line, isn’t it. I’ve heard, half the lines are down.”

“How do you mean?” He thought once more he knew. Once more, he did.

“They fly right into them. Poor old birds, all tangled. Then the lines come off those pole things. It’s as if they can’t see. Or only see one thing—the upper sky. Do you have it there, Georgie?”

“Everyone has it everywhere,” he said, “it seems. At least, in Britain.”

“Sean told me it just stops at the sea.”

“What exactly stops at the sea?”

“The—what did he say they called it?—oh, I can’t remember. But it’s dire, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is.”

“The RSPB,” someone else said loudly. But it was the television in the other room. The sound for some reason had revved right up, then sunk away.

“…and I just sit at the window and watch them. It’s quite hypnotic. They just go up, straight up, and disappear in the clouds. I wonder why?”

“Yes, I think everyone wonders that.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a magpie in central London before. Not here.”

“No.”

“Everything else. Sparrows, gulls, pigeons—and pelicans and swans in the park. But magpies… None of the other birds are doing it, are they?”

He thought they were not. Then again, he had been noticing, or imagining, the other birds were rather quieter. There was less singing, less of the territorial tweets and cries. The dawn chorus—did that still happen? It was too early in the season for all birdsong to taper off. As for the magpies themselves, they made no sound, as he had been aware for a while. Aside from the flurry of their wings as they rose.

Through the window, in the small front garden, a magpie evolved from the rogue apple tree. It lifted straight up into the half-tone upper sky. He could have sworn it had not been there a second before.

“Lydia, are you still—”

“Hello?” she said. “Hello, darling? Oh bugger. I can’t hear you. Just a sizzle sort of thing. Never mind. If you can hear me, come up to town soon, won’t you? We can go to dinner at the Royal.”

The light in the other room flickered.

George heard the TV again, the new voice, a woman’s, was telling someone that the lower, or upper, stratosphere—he did not take it in—was full of birds, floating, only that, like a fleet at anchor. Updraughts or thermals carrying and supporting it, or them; hundreds, thousands. But when he went back into the room, the pasty, which going by the commandment on its label under no circumstances must anyone reheat, had congealed to a cold, gooey fudge, and the screen was blank. Only the woman’s impersonal and rather annoying voice talking of helicopter gunships, or ground-to-air missiles. Another programme then, about Afghanistan, or Pakistan.

George turned off the TV. Not with a bang, he thought, as if an alien authoritarian voice was speaking also in his head. Not with a bang, but with a feather.

During the night the battery-powered radio, which he had left on, woke him with a blast of between-items noise, some sort of militant jangle now representing the World Service, and obviously designed violently to awaken any insomniac who had managed to fall asleep. So he heard that an Italian plane, approaching Bournemouth airport, had found itself unable to land due to the maelstrom of birds. Having circled for some time, all the while with birds smashing into it, it headed back out to sea. An adjacent bulletin announced the plane had gone down in the water, not a mile out. All passengers and crew were feared dead. On the heels of this, came reports that European and US airlines were refusing to let their craft attempt landing anywhere on British soil, until the avian crisis was resolved. Countless Britons would be stranded. Perhaps they were glad? It seemed the Bird-Blanket, as one commentator called it, was limited to the British Island (also a recent coining), involving only England, Wales and Scotland. The radio then, despite having new batteries, began to fail. He switched it off. That the failure had nothing to do with batteries he understood perfectly.

Morning, noon, evening, night. Time has passed, is passing. Passes. Above the sky, they are to be visualised, the fleets, massed close and massing ever more closely, as more and more of the components rise up to fill them, pack them tight. A black and white expanded and expanding cumulous.

Spy planes have taken photographs. By now the phenomenon is visible from space. Satellites relay batches of curious pictures.

Fighter craft have also risen. They have blasted out gaps in the living, quasi-suspended, fluttering cloud-ceiling. There has been speculation as to what, precisely, keeps the bird cloud in place. Some oblique abnormal thermal, perhaps, some unforetold updraught, maybe created even by the birds’ own upward flight. Or else it is all some new facet of pollution, global warming, some scientific experiment that has—of course—misfired, gone wrong…human worthlessness and wickedness in general.

As for the aerial fighters, frequently their planes ingest the half-destroyed bodies of their composite black and white target. Then the planes fall too, like the dead and dying burning birds. Aerial activity is cancelled. And in any event, the endless streams of magpies continue to rise, one bird it has been estimated roughly every half or three-quarter minute. During an hour, a hundred, sometimes one hundred and sixty birds are reckoned to be lifting from every square mile of land. If that is at all conceivable, likely, possible. Eyewitness statements, even those of trained observers, vary precariously.

Beaters plunge for a while through fields, woods, gardens, along hillsides, over moors, by riverbanks, and guns blast like a never-ending soundtrack of war. In towns and cities, citizens are summonarily ordered off the streets, while rapacious bird-dogs and their handlers seek, and always find, their quarry, But for all the birds slaughtered, quick and clean, misjudged and horribly, for all the carnage and the debris and the stink, the pity of it all—poor things, poor things—new birds rise, and keep on rising. Fifty, a hundred, two hundred, to a square mile. They seem to burst from the concrete skin of the streets, the stony ground, the trunks of trees and walls of buildings, out of the impervious world itself, self-perpetuating, ineradicable, inexhaustible.

Feathers lightly, omnipresently, carpet the earth. Feathers are caught in trees, lie along windowsills, drift into offices, houses, shops, stations, subways, alleys and avenues, caves and churches, libraries and reservoirs. Along the side-roads, high streets and motorways the feathers drift, black and white (and red with recent blood), several scorched and many broken. Cars and other vehicles lie tumbled along these thoroughfares too. Broken, some of them also, from multitudinous collisions with the bodies of rising birds which—all dead now and decaying—are plastered against their sides, stuck in their mechanical entrails and between the teeth of their wheels. Feathers drop from the air as well, a thin drizzle of feathers, an autumn of feathers, always falling. Black as ink, white as snow, often sheened mysteriously, mystically blue. Down from the sky that, darkened over now, and made tomb-like after each invisible day’s end, reveals no sun, no moon, no single star. The magpie cloud, the blanket, an opaque dome, shuts everything out. Day is dusk, night an upside-down abyss. No more golden mornings, no more ruby settings of the sun.

Sometimes a feeble rain falls too. It is very warm and has a filthy taste, smelling of chickens and giving off a strange, sooty, chemical undertone.

There have been great rushings to and fro on the land, naturally. Flurries of anger and protest, crime and hoarding, as well as the useless bird-war. Then came escapings—towards the nearest coast, where the blanket, the dome, stops, and the fearful ceiling uncannily comes undone. But the road-long deserted ruins of cars and campers, buses and bikes, provide evidence of how few made it there. Or if they did, they will have managed it by other means.

To the majority left inside the trap of Britain, unable to reach any coast, the idea of that exit point is by now nearly a myth. Can it be true that the coast, any coast—is clear?

It is true. All coasts are clear, as glass. Just past the beaches or shingle or stones or rocks or cliffs, the river-mouths, estuaries, bays and sandbanks, the dunes, the spits, the coves—there, where the surf or the big rollers begin; at Eastbourne, Great Yarmouth, Whitby, Berwick-upon-Tweed, at Helmsdale and Melvaig, Aberystwyth, Weston-Super-Mare, and Plymouth—there—for there “it” finishes. To look up, there, standing in the fringes of the water, is to see suddenly the calmness or disturbance of actual sky, clouds, real weather, light; for there even the night is brilliant again with its stars and moon, with summer lightning, with distance. Open heavens. Open, open. And gulls fly over, in a graceful, ordinary way.

And beyond, out across the shining sky-lit sea, the islands. All of them are quite unclosed—the Orkneys, the Hebrides, Wight and Man stand sheer, like miraculous ghosts, like platinum pebbles on a horizon of pure glow, and the hem of Ireland, that too, and the longer strand of France: these are banks of deep blue smoke under a halo of sun-or-moonshine.

What then of the ones who managed an escape, who sped away from Britain’s edges, in the racing ferries, fishing boats, speedboats and yachts? Did they, having reached the shining other shores, glance back? Surely they did, surely they still do, for out of Britain now no television picture comes, no telephone call, no e-mail, no text. Britain, robbed of her masts of communication, of a sky through which signals can flow, has grown silent and primitive, secretive and supernatural, as in the ages of darkness. Nor is she to be penetrated, her airways shut, her roads and railway-lines negotiable only on foot, and that with vast difficulty.

And this shutness, this secret, is all that can be seen of her through the satellite cameras, telescopes, and other lenses trained on her, with flat and weary persistence. Not even the straining periscopes of nuclear subs, drawn in from the Atlantic to patrol her shores like voiceless wolves, can determine anything much, beyond her emptied coastline, her immobile interiors veiled by cobwebs of shadow. She is a darkling plain.

Except where, now and then, something surfaces through the dimness, like a fleck of flint in dirty water, a tiny black bubble in poisoned lemonade: a magpie rising, flying straight up. And then another. And then. And then.

III

The pub looked different by now. And, it went without saying, the pub was different. In the first weeks the soldiers, initially in multifarious vehicles, then on foot, brought oil, matches, lamps and candles, besides gas canisters to swell the store at the Duck. Out here, in the “heart of the country,” only electricity had formerly been available, and the series of chefs at the Duck always preferred, apparently, to cook with gas. Lucky. Electricity now, along with the phone, the TV and the radio, the computer and the World Wide Web, had all become things of the past, a recent past, but one which already seemed to have existed some centuries ago. Tap water was gone too. Reservoirs were polluted with incredible amounts of feathers, even by dilute disseminated bird crap, which had descended into them. For while the magpies had, and did, ascend, their innumerable castoffs, sometimes including their slaughtered bodies, fell down.

In certain parts of the woodland you came into a stretch where branches were thickly coated in feathers instead of leaves. But the leaves were dying anyway. The woods, the copses, even the fields, deceived by the constipated yet oddly defecating sky, believed winter had suddenly returned. Half the trees were bare, the rest shedding their parched, rusted foliage. The grass was also turning brown. Not much hope of grain or cereal, no promise of fruit; nothing really it seemed could grow.

But for now, some fresh foods persisted. Though the fridges and freezers had long since surrendered, they did not eat too badly at the Duck. Fresh meat—rabbit, chicken, beef and mutton. (They had been lucky there too, those nearer the big cities had had their flocks and herds sequestered by the army early on, before all transportation was understood to be impractical.) Fish, or ordinary low-flying birds, might be contaminated, and were off the menu, however. Tomatoes, salad, even potatoes, all these from hot-houses run off generators, were available. And certain canned, dry, or otherwise less perishable goods, brought from Stantham, currently a two-day trek, aside obviously from any extra time given to bargaining with, fighting off, or else eluding the Stantham locals.

They had boiled the water and put it through filters. Now everyone drank bottled. Alcohol, thank God, George Anderton thought, came with its own indigenous preservatives and antiseptics. He had even relearned a liking for warm beer.

Tonight he was sharing a long table with three of the refugee families now living at the “Lavvy,” the unfinished estate at Orthurst. They had been en route for the coast when their cars, spattered with birds, gave up the struggle. Some of the estate houses were not in too bad condition, floored, roofed and insulated, with closeable front doors and glazed windows. Their lack of electricity and plumbing hardly mattered either, of course. No one had any.

The refugees were all right, causing little trouble, only grateful not to be cast out. They had already lost their homes. And there had been Draconian rationing in London, and elsewhere, and plans for some type of peculiar military call-up of the young, that seemed to have no purpose. They took to Orthurst as the drowning take to solid land. And each communal evening, the Cart and Plough, like the Duck, did stunning business—if anyone had charged, or paid.

Over by the bar, Amethyst was laughing with one of the two soldiers who had stayed behind, when the rest were force-marched back to Stantham barracks. The young man leant forward and kissed her. An entirely normal scene, it took on instantly a look of utter abnormality.

“What worries me,” said Jeremy, from London-and-the-Lavvy, “is the nuclear power stations. How are they coping with this? Have they shut down, or are they just…”

“…leaking radiation,” concluded Liz from Chatham-and-the-Lavvy.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Dave, Liz’s partner, “they’ll have taken bloody good care of the oil-rigs off Scotland. Sea’s supposed to be clear there, innit. You can bet they’ve got those rigs well protected.”

“Who’d you mean?” asked Jeremy. “The so-called government? They’ll have scarpered straight down their bleeding bunkers. And they couldn’t run anything anyhow. Couldn’t run a piss-up in a toilet.”

A trio of children watched, wide-eyed. The eldest was only seven, and Sharron of Reigate-and-the-Lavvy quickly diverted their attention back to the pandas on the special kids’ napkins Colly had produced.

“What I miss,” said Sharron’s boyfriend—Rob, George thought he was called— “is the sport. All had to be stopped, didn’t it? Motor racing, rugby—even golf!”

Jeremy said in a light, grieving voice, “And that match—Arsenal versus Brighton—that would have been a cracker.”

Jim was plodding by to the bar. “Want another, anybody?”

They did.

It was handy, George thought, the way these people talked about this, regularly skimming their terrors, yet also distracting each other, with the pandas of political complaint, food and drink and company.

He was glad too, that the smell of oil and kerosene, and the candles, some of which were scented, the smell even of people now less-washed and over-deodorised in compensation, helped mask the insidious presence of that metallic chicken stench, that dropped with all else from the sky. But probably too they were all becoming used to it. Soon they would not even notice.

Outside it was a jet-black abyssal night, the only kind, finally. But the pub basked in its pre-electric flame-lit radiance. This was how faces, forms, suddenly moving hands and glasses might have looked in paintings from the Renaissance. Similar at least, he corrected himself, for constructed light was bound to have altered, somehow. You knew, even in the Victorian era, no oil-lamp had cast quite this sort of illumination, or shadow. Everything changed.

And the pub’s noise, chatter and clatter, and sometimes a singsong—were also like that. They stood to replace the notes of mobiles, recorded music, radio—and still did not make an elder noise but a modern one, anxiously filling up the void. Beyond which void loomed the agglomeration of silence the magpies had created. The magpies, that themselves no longer chattered or called, that made no sound. How silent then must be the upper skies where they clung or hung. Dumb and deaf, all questions futile, all answers obsolete.

As Jim put the new bottles on the table, George saw Alice come in out of the dark.

She paused a moment to speak to Amethyst, who nodded, while her soldier turned aside to light a roll-up; no one seemed likely to object to it now.

George could see Alice, too, had changed. She had lost weight, become oddly fragile and attenuated, her hair seeming blown about. There was a bruise on her left cheekbone. She put her hand to it absently. Amethyst was pouring Alice a glass of wine. No doubt one of the birds had struck her. In the last weeks that had begun to happen. Before, the birds had seemed, when rushing upward from the ground, or wherever it was they burst from, to strike only inanimate objects. But recently several people had some tale of a magpie springing abruptly past them inches away, the slap of a wing, long scratch of a claw, minor concussion of round body and hollow bones. Old Tim claimed to have seen one bird dash straight upward through the body of a cow that had been grazing on a slope behind the farm. She had not seemed hurt, just frightened. But later a bruised and reddened area had appeared along her ribs. They had decided it best to slaughter her quickly, and then remove the perhaps-contaminated meat when preparing her for eating. But Tim had always romanced, embellished facts. Even something like the thing that now went on might seem worth enhancing, to old Tim.

Alice raised the glass and drank. Her eyes connected with George’s. She seemed about twenty, he thought. An infallibly revealing illusion. She smiled a nervous little smile, as if she had never seen him before. But George smiled broadly back, and beckoned, getting to his feet, and Jeremy obligingly shoved himself and family, and their chairs, along the table to make room.

“Oh,” said Alice, very low, “I didn’t mean to—”

“You’re not. It’s nice to see you, Alice.”

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been up to the cottage—”

“Well. Cleaning the house doesn’t seem so important, frankly, do you think?”

“I suppose. I don’t know. Todd—” Todd was her husband, “always wants everything clean. Or until…” Alice stopped. She drained her glass. She glanced at George under her lashes. Their unexpected meeting had become a liaison of two spies, but what was the espionage Alice had in mind?

“It’s fine, Alice.”

Jeremy leaned over and refilled her glass. It was the same red wine, or near enough, and everything was free. She thanked Jeremy, but he had already turned tactfully away, leaving the spies to their clandestine conversation in code.

“How are you?” George asked.

This was a fatal, leading question, and he knew it.

She did not answer. Then she softly said, “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Alice. It’s awful.”

“I’m—scared,” she said.

He saw the oldest child take note, and an expression of fear creep into his face. George smiled broadly again. He said to her, “Why don’t we go back to the cottage? Talk there. I can walk you home later. I’ve even got some spare food.”

She too had noticed the child. She brightened, falsely but giving quite an actorly performance. “That would be—yes, let’s do that. Why not?”

As they were going out of the door. Colly appeared and handed George another bottle of wine. “Last of the best Merlot. Go on. Have a treat. You know, I knew a feller once, he always wanted a pub. Then he comes into some dosh, buys the pub, gets it done up, cracking, ace cook, full cellar, top class guest-rooms. What d’you think he does then?” George and Alice waited between light and night. A singsong had started, “Oliver’s Army” by Elvis Costello. Behind the bar Amethyst was snogging the soldier. “He locks everyone out, and keeps the place to himself, just for him, I mean. Nobody else let in, ever. The Bugle it’s called. Up Camden way. What do you think of that?”

“This mark on my face—it isn’t anything to do with the birds. He hit me. Todd.

He hit me.”

“Christ. When was this?”

“This morning. He just—did it.”

“Had it happened before?”

“No. Not…not really.”

“Where is he now?”

“With Pam Boys. You know, from the shop.”

They stood still in the lane, in the dark, among the alopecia of the trees, balancing on spent feathers. No car would try to drive through, not any more, and footsteps would be clearly audible. He had turned the torch off, because its batteries were running low. He had had a solar-powered torch too, but it went without saying it was unrechargeable.

He had an urge to touch her, hold her, comfort. But George grasped very well this was not gallantry or outrage—despite the fact that the image of her bastard husband hitting her incensed him. No, it was desire, lust. But then. What else was left? It puzzled George too, the manner in which, above all else, carnality survived, just as biological hunger and thirst, and an extraneous liking for the taste and effect of alcohol. Oh God. The Last bloody Days of Pompeii. Eat, drink and be merry before the volcano exploded, or the circus lions came to tear you limb from limb. Just as in the old “B” movies. But also, be fair, here at least, where some quiet remained, courtesy and camaraderie also persisted, a sort of familial gentleness. Be gentle then.

“I’m so sorry, Alice.”

She came into his arms, there in the near-blind blackness of the lane. She was beautiful, smooth and pliant, and her hair curiously rough and savage. Her mouth was as appetising as he had believed it would be. When they drew apart, she shuddered. “Can we get inside the house—I don’t like being out here, in the dark.”

He switched the torch back on.

Not until they reached the gate of Cigarette Cottage did it occur to him he had not heard, nor even in the ray of the torch seen, a single magpie. By some fluke they had somehow missed the ones that must have gone on rising all about, as they continually rose, as he had even seen them rising at six this evening. What power sex had, sex, (not love), that drove out fear.

During the night he went to get a bottle of water downstairs, and stood at the window looking out into the front garden. Three foxes grouped there, limned by the light of the candle. All males, he thought, young, healthy enough, but huddled on the wild lawn and staring in at him, exactly as he stared out at them. It was as if they wanted something from him. He wished he could offer something. But maybe what they asked for was what everyone wanted: an answer. Their eyes flamed, all surface, luminous in a spiritless way that made him think of rabies posters from the 1970s—or of demons.

Animals had been behaving oddly for days. You did not notice, then an especially unnatural event made you see, and so recall other incidents. He had first become aware of it with a cluster of robins, nine or ten, then almost twenty of them, a flock almost like that of starlings, flying round and round the copse, before dazzling off through the dirty dreary day-twilight towards the farm. Robins were generally solitary, just as foxes were, out of the mating season. But there had been the cats, too. Each screamed and cried and ran towards you, or from you, still calling. One he had met in the lane. It had a magpie feather in its mouth. The cat hurried up and down, up and down, not dropping the feather, not chewing it, growling low in its throat. Some animals had simply vanished. Consensus opinion had it they were hibernating, misled as were the trees. That—or they had got wise to the idea they also might be shot for food. The absence of all grey squirrel activity, squirrels that even in a real mid-winter were often about, was telling enough. He had not seen or heard any frogs, or pigeons, nor heard a single dog bark or howl for weeks, either. There were no insects. Even the clothes moths had gone away.

George turned from the foxes, collected the water, and went back upstairs.

Alice sat up in the bed, no longer sobbing. She had wept after they first made love. Then fallen suddenly asleep against him. Later she woke, and told him she had always wanted him, had fantasies about him. “But you’re better.” So there had been more sex, rich, brain-flooding orgasm. And then she had begun to sob again, could not stop. She said, “It isn’t about him. Sod him. He can fuck off. It’s the rest. It—reminds me of that Hitchcock film—”

“From the story by Daphne du Maurier?”

“Was it?”

George did not say that the short story had been far bleaker and more terrible than the film. “But those birds attacked, didn’t they,” he reminded her instead. “Our magpies—they just fly upward.”

“Oh,” Alice whispered, “what’s going to happen?” She knew he could not tell her, beyond the obvious, which was bad enough.

He said, “It’ll be all right, Alice.”

“Will it?”

“Yes.”

And then she had calmed, knowing, he supposed, (as he did) that either it would or it would not. Out of their hands. Better off also therefore out of their minds.

Now they drank the water.

“Can I stay?” she said, like a child.

“Please do stay.”

“I can leave once it gets—once it’s lighter. I don’t want you to feel—I know you like to be alone.”

“How do you know that?” he inquired, playfully.

“So you can write.”

“That,” he said. He visualised the unfinished story trapped there on the computer screen, now lost in space. Backing up had hardly mattered when the whole bloody lot went. He could have foretold, and printed it. But then, why write stories while Rome burned.

“Do you remember the PM talking, just before Radio 4 went off the air?” she surprised him by saying.

“I didn’t listen. He gets—got on my tits, frankly.”

“But that night he was so good, he was… It brought out the best in him.”

They laughed, bitterly. Then lay down to sleep, back-to-back. How long since he had felt that sumptuous comfort, female flesh against his? And for how much longer? Till the muffled sun rose behind the black and white sky? Until the food and bottled water were all gone? Tears ran also from his eyes. He cried then quietly, not to wake her. The pillow soaked them up, his tears, as eternity soaked up all such flimsy things, weeping, blood, the shells of beasts and men.

In sleep he felt rather than heard a vague amorphous rumbling. Thunder? Some storm created by the choking of the stratos—or a phantom train perhaps, once more enabled to run all those miles off in Stantham. Asleep, he did not care. He was dreaming of Lydia, faithless after all as Alice, (or Todd), Lydia in that hotel in Paris, thirteen years ago.

In the moments before daybreak, or what now passed for it, George’s dreams altered into a perfectly coherent recollection of researching magpie legends, which he had done about nine days before. The book was an old one, something he had picked up in London in the 1990s. A writer never knew, he had always maintained, what might or not ultimately be useful.

Birds of Ill-Omen and Evil Luck. This had been the heading. But at the end of the section came a concluding paragraph, with the sub-heading: Exonerating the Magpie:

The Magpie is often badly thought of, as reputedly it refused to don full (black) mourning at the death of Christ. However this would seem to be a misunderstanding of the story. In an older version, the Magpie donned half mourning, it is true, to show respect for Christ’s suffering and death. But the bird’s snow-white feathers were intended to indicate that life continues after death, and that indeed Christ Himself would rise physically from His tomb. Why else does the Magpie remain with the Zodiac sign of Virgo, the Virgin, which connects directly with the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ? At least, apparently, Jesus and Mary were sure that the Magpie was both innocent of all blame, and a witness to the Great Truth. And for that reason the Virgin herself added to his elegant attire the extraordinary sheen of blue, (Mary’s own sacred colour), which is to be seen most evidently on his wings.

Almost morning, technically; it is about twenty minutes short of five o’clock. The sky has a colourless darkness, but is strangely faded at a point near the zenith. Gradually this thinning of an upper canopy begins to fill with muffled, dulled, but undeniable light.

In the woods birds do not sing. Then a shrill chorus, not song but warning, surges up, fragments, and ends.

From the copse across the lane no bird rises. No magpie rises. All about nothing stirs. Silence is concrete, now. Stone.

To scan from horizon to horizon is to fail to detect any movement. Not an animal slinks or runs along the earth, let alone takes wing in the lower element of the sky.

No magpie rises. No magpie rises. Since 8:00 p.m. yesterday evening, as surprisingly only a very few have noted,
nowhere on the landmass of Britain has a single magpie risen, to fly straight upward. Or in any direction. Above, just east of the zenith, the hole, for so it is, continues dully to grow lighter. Perhaps too it perceptibly widens, just a very little. Then, to the north, another dim vague thinning seems to be taking place, another occult lightening appears to be wearing through.

Over the fields, miles up it seems, and in some other dimension, a loud indescribable crack bellows through the air. A splintering line, scribbled in silvery radioactive ink, careers across the masked dawn-dusk of the heavens.

A kind of storm, cloudshift and whirlwind, discourages darkness. The episodes of lights brilliantly flash now, knife-like. Then, the sky—is falling.

It is falling everywhere. Far off, near, immediately overhead.

It falls in masonry blocks which, as they descend, drop apart in chunks and waterfalls and tidal waves, and all is blundering and spinning downward. Bodies. The corpses of dead birds. A million million, a trillion trillion. Lifeless and almost weightless yet, in this unthinkable and unavoidable mass, a weight of unguessable and incorrigible proportions.

The air resounds to a type of steely scream. Whether voiced or only a by-product of the avian deluge, it swamps and pierces all and everything.

Death begins to slam against the earth.

The prelude impacts are awesome enough.

Before vision becomes only a mosaic, like scenes from an ancient and damaged film, it is feasible to see whole boughs snapped off from trees, on buildings a slide and tumble of slates and chimneys and TV aerials, satellite dishes, shattering and scattered—smashing with the white-black downpour of death to the ground below.

From the church in the village the clock is silent as its automatic hands approach ten to five, yet the bell in the tower, if barely audible, clangs dolefully. Part of the church roof has been riven open and, cascading by, the dead are striking the bell.

But now the next phase of impact is arriving. To this the prelude was nothing. In the woods the young trees reel, are toppling. Hedgerows and fences crumple and disappear. From the little pool huge gouts of water are displaced—who would have thought it could hold so much?

Whole roofs buckle now. Joists give way. Windows collapse. In the village street shop-fronts disintegrate one after the other as if bombed. The pavement and road are piled high, the gardens. At the half-built estate all the building is coming undone. Something is on fire at the farm, smoke curdling upwards, but blotted away almost at once as the rain of the dead pours on—the main road is hidden. Even the stranded cars are covered over. Fields, tracks, hills, landscape—all now under this thick white-black snow…

Through the cacophony of rushing, the whine and shrill of the great lost scream, no individual sound is to be deciphered.

The cottage on the lane is piled high, high as its roof, as if with discoloured sandbags. The pub is only a mound, a sort of heap of unclean washing, featureless and silent, a mashed tree lying against it.

The magpies fall. The ultimate gush of the volcano. They drop and strike and crush and break and are broken. They cover and they bury everything. They load the world like bandaging, like grave-wrappings. And still they are falling. The heads of distant oak trees—drowned. Eradicated.

And the stench, the thunder that seems never likely to end, tempest, tsunami, eruption. Poor things. Poor things. It is 5:00 a.m. The church clock does not chime, even if anyone could hear it.

High, high above the fall, from the widening, shining chasms in the darkness, light foams clear as clean water. And in the east the sun has risen, is visibly rising, like the pitiless eye of Man Himself.

AT NIGHT, WHEN
THE DEMONS COME

by Ray Cluley

You’ll notice these records have no dates. I don’t think anyone really knows what the year is these days anyway. The last one I remember is 2020. Everyone remembers 2020, but my point is I didn’t keep track after. Why bother? I only write this because of what happened recently, because someone taught me that others might learn if only I provided the opportunity.

There were four of us when Cassie came and she made six because she didn’t come alone and naturally we counted her last. She was female, next to useless, and a little girl at that, so totally useless. But the man she was with, he was worth having around. We had a couple of guys on our college football team, back when things like that mattered, who were as big as this man. A couple, as in put them together and you had the right size. Fuck knows where he got his clothes. If he wasn’t on your side your side was going to lose, and I’m not talking football anymore. His name was Frances, can you believe that? Jones called him a walking Johnny Cash song. I was never a fan, but I knew what he meant.

If it hadn’t been for the demon we probably would have hidden like we usually did and waited for the strangers to move on. We probably missed out on a lot of good people that way, but we sure missed out on a lot of bad ones too and that was fine with all of us. This time, though, we came out and stood in the road until they were near enough to talk to. Not that we knew they were a they at that time. We thought it was just him. Frances.

“Hello, traveller,” Jones said. It sounded stupid, like he was pretending to be someone else. We’d not had much practice talking to anyone but each other, and there was never much need for hello with us.

The man who would later tell us he had a girl’s name just stood, assessing the situation. He made no effort to hide it. He looked Jones up and down, then Frank next to him. He saw me easy enough, over by the pump, and he took in both windows looking for others. There was only George, who he saw up on the roof. George knew he’d been seen. He stood up, put one foot on the wall, leaned over and spat. Then he raised his rifle, just enough for it to be visible. George always acted like he was cool and calm, like some kind of movie hero. He did it with us even though we knew better. Even though nobody gave a shit about movies anymore.

“Just the four of you?” the big man asked.

Frank seemed surprised. “Yeah.”

“So no trouble.”

“That’s right,” Frank said, but I reckon he misunderstood. Frances meant he’d find the four of us no trouble, that’s what I reckon.

“What does he want?” George called down.

“Water, if you have it. Food, if you can spare it. Somewhere to sleep, either way.” He said it quietly, addressing those who had spoken to him directly. “The wind’s picking up and this place looks like it might have a storm cellar.”

“It does,” said Jones. “Only we haven’t been in there yet.”

The man waited for more but neither Jones nor Frank were eager to spill it. They looked at each other instead, then looked over to me. I was already heading over, breaking the shotgun open to show myself harmless.

“There was a demon,” I told him.

I swear he didn’t move, yet suddenly his empty hands weren’t empty anymore. It was like the guns just appeared there. Both were cylinder loaders and looked to be full, unless he’d fashioned fakes to make it seem that way. Fakes wouldn’t be much good against a winged bitch, though, which said to me the bullets were real.

“Quiet,” he said. Not to us. Then I thought I heard something else but he covered it with words of his own.

“When was it here?” he asked.

Me, I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun he was walking from and said, “Still is.”

Just like that, one of the guns was gone. “Dead?”

I nodded. Heard that something else again.

“Shh,” said the giant. Then, “You?”

I was flattered he’d think so. I was also glad George couldn’t hear else there’d be some preening and showmanship before we could cut to the honest answer. “No. She was dead when we got here.”

There was no need to ask if we were sure. We wouldn’t still be here otherwise.

“Show me,” he said.

“Alright,” said Jones, “but do you want to put that gun away first?”

“No. Not yet.”

“It’s dead.”

I thought I heard an echo of that, and judging from Jones and Frank and the way they frowned, so did they.

“Who you got with you?” I asked.

He said nothing, so it was up to her to make the introductions.

“I’m Cassie,” she called out from behind him. Her voice was high, with the enthusiasm of someone about to play. “This man is my friend. He’s called Frances.”

Frances squatted down in the road. There was the sound of metal on metal, the sound buckles make, and he stood again. From behind him emerged Cassie. A little girl about six years old. She reached up and his hand was there for her.

I stepped behind the man Frances but he recoiled to keep his back facing away from me. It was only a reflex action. He turned back after and I could see a system of harnesses strapped around him. The girl had been fixed in, completely out of our sight back there and protected by the mass of muscle that was Frances in front.

“This is Jones, Frank, that there’s George,” I said. “My name’s Charlie.”

Nobody shook hands.

We’d found the place at around twelve. It took the best part of an hour to get close enough to see it seemed empty, and another hour on that to make sure it was. A two pump gas station, dust blown and sun baked, with a workshop and store and a single shell sign squeaking in a building breeze. That building breeze was why we’d risked an approach in the first place. Oklahoma was not a nice place to be out in the open, unless you liked flying kites. Tornado valley, this stretch used to be called. I doubt there’s much of anyone left to call it anything anymore, but that wouldn’t stop the tornados from coming.

“Empty,” Frank had said and we’d all hushed him immediately.

George slapped him across the back of his head. “Idiot.”

“Sorry.”

Frank said empty last time, right before three women popped up from behind the sofa and started shooting. Lucky for us we were quicker, though Jones got some splinters from an exploding picture frame. The time before that, someone was hiding in the refrigerator. I got a gun rammed into my mouth because of that, which is why the front teeth aren’t pretty. I drew my knife and that stopped things getting worse. I knew I could save my bullets because I knew he had none, and I knew that because there was still a gun in my mouth and not my brains on the wall. After two seconds he was backing away with his hands up and I was feeling in my bloody mouth to straighten my teeth. When Frank said empty it meant it wasn’t and that someone who wasn’t Frank was going to get hurt. To be fair, though, there was food or water to be had both times.

“You go first,” Jones said to Frank.

And to be fair, Frank always did.

He backed out from behind the building. His gun was out but he wasn’t really pointing it at anything.

“Frank?”

“You should come and see,” he said. He pointed with his weapon. It trembled in his hand.

He showed us a demon nailed to a door.

She was an ugly bitch. None of us had ever seen one up close before. Obviously, because we were still alive. But we’d all seen them in the skies at some point, and I saw the carcass of one once in a ditch at the roadside but its wings had been pulled off and taken and so had the head and claws, so it wasn’t much more than a mutilated female torso. Seen that way the purple skin isn’t much different to mottled bruising. This one, the one Frank found, its skin still had a vibrant brightness even though it was dead, the pale lavender color of its body darkening into violet at the arms and legs. The wings were stretched out to full span and pinned to the door with knives, railroad spikes, and even a couple of forks. They were a rich purple. The claws, two big scoops where the hands should be, were a plum color so dark it was almost black. She was the colors of dusk given fleshy form, hairless and vile.

“Nice tits,” said George, trying to sound like the movie star tough guy he wanted to be.

The tits were plump and round and firm looking but they were hellish in that they were hers. All that suckled there was demon or doomed.

“She looks like your momma,” said Jones. I guess he was tired of George’s shit.

George knew better than to fight with Jones, though. “She’s got better teeth.”

Its teeth were like a shark’s, sharp triangles folding back from the gums in double rows. Too many teeth.

“What should we do with it?” Frank asked.

The door it had been impaled on had long ago been torn from its hinges and rested now against the sloping hatch of a storm cellar, maybe as some kind of warning, maybe as some kind of victory mark. Jones and I took a side each and pulled it face down into the dirt.

George jumped on it and we heard her bones crack. He lost his balance and fell on his ass and something else broke in the bitch under him. It was pretty funny.

“How did it die?” the big man asked, following us round.

“Various shots to the chest,” Jones was telling him. “A couple very close range.”

“You showing him our demon?” George called down from the roof, trying to take credit.

“Yeah.”

I waved him down.

“Here she is,” said Frank. He took hold of one edge and flipped it over, though that makes it sound easier than it was.

A bone stuck from its flank and its nose was broken flat, otherwise it looked much as it had. The skin had picked up some of the sandy dust from the ground.

I thought the stranger might shelter the girl from the sight, but he actually steered her towards it. They looked at it together.

“See,” said Jones, pointing to the chest area. Just beneath the breasts was a mess of bullet holes of different calibres. He pointed to where the skin was puffed and scorched. “Close range.”

George was with us by then. “Nice tits, huh?”

Everybody ignored him. He spat on the body. He liked to spit. “Give you nightmares, little girl.”

Frances pointed to the cellar doors. “You’ve not been in there?”

Frank shook his head.

“The demon was on it,” I said.

“You think there’s another one in there?”

It sounded ridiculous when he said it. “Maybe.”

George pulled back the slide of what he liked to call his piece, just for the dramatic impact of the noise. “Only one way to find out, eh?”

Jones said, “You weren’t so eager before.”

“If it’s loaded you can come,” said the giant. He was checking the barrels of his weapons, spinning them, snapping them shut. “That shotgun would be handy close range, too.”

I offered it to him.

“Going to have my hands full,” he said, raising his revolvers.

“God damn it,” I muttered, but I went to the doors.

“I’ll stay with the girl,” said Frank.

“Me too,” said Jones.

“Good,” said Frances. “Stick close to her down there, but keep her behind us.”

Frank looked at Jones. “She’s going too?”

Jones merely shrugged and turned the cylinder of his own thirty-eight, lining it up so the four shots he had left were ready to fire.

“I have to,” said the girl. “Frances might need me.”

Frank went to the left door, Jones to the right. Each grabbed a handle. Frances stood in the middle, both guns pointing down at where the stairs would be. George and I were on either side of him doing the same. The girl was behind us.

“Alright,” Frances said, “on three.”

But they were already opening the doors.

“Shit.” I brought the barrel close to aim, panicked by the sudden opening, and caught myself in the cheek with the stock.

Stairs led down into gloom. Nothing came out. Nothing moved. There was no noise.

Frances went in.

“Shit,” I said again and followed him down into the dark.

There were beds. About a dozen of them. We stood in the slant of sunlight that had come down with us, but the room went way back into a darkness black as oil. The beds we could see clearly were occupied. There was a woman bound
to each of them.

“Penitentary,” Frances said.

“What?”

We walked slowly, inspecting each bed just enough to tell us the person on it was dead. I said, “What?” again but nobody else said anything.

The women were drawn and wasted, skin over bone, dressed only in shadows where the flesh was sunken. They’d starved down here. All of them were manacled with homemade cuffs and chains, and all of them had deep dry lacerations that spoke of attempts to escape. One woman I saw had scraped her flesh down to the bone trying to pull her way out and I stopped looking at the others after that.

The girl was muttering prayers for them.

Pushed against one wall was a plastic crate filled with bottled water, the huge types that refilled office coolers. I hadn’t seen one in years and here there was four of them, plus one half-empty on its stand. Or half full, depending on your philosophy.

“Whoo!” George cried, and he did a little dance step. “Jackpot! Look at all that!”

At that moment we were attacked.

A woman leapt up from the foot of the cooler, not at all hidden but missed because of the distraction water is to thirsty men. I yelled for George. Jones grabbed at him, pulling him round just as the woman’s nails raked at his face. She’d been going for the eyes but thanks to Jones only managed to scratch thin strips across his cheeks.

“Fuck!”

“Don’t!” Frances called. I’m not sure who to.

I barrelled forward, pushed the shotgun firm into her stomach, and fired. Her back splashed against the wall and she flopped down in two pieces near enough.

“Was it one of them?” George cried. “Was it a demon?” He was patting at his wounds, probably hoping he weren’t poisoned.

“No,” said Frances, slipping his guns away and rubbing his face with his hands. “Just a woman.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Just a woman,” Cassie repeated, looking at me where I leaned against the wall taking shaky breaths.

Fucked if I was going to feel guilty.

The cellar doors had a place to slide a bar across but no bar. Up in the store section of the gas station we took down a regular door to saw into pieces the right size. The wind had picked up some by then. I’d started to clean up the mess I’d made but Frances pushed me away and said he’d do it. He was very firm about it. I think he was pissed at me for some reason.

“What if they’re taking the water?” George asked, laying the door in place across the counter. The slices down his face had dried into crusty lines.

“They’re not taking the water,” I said.

“He’s got that harness, he’d get one in that alright.”

“I don’t think even a guy his size would want to carry one of those on his back,” said Jones. “And Frank’s with him.”

“Oh, Frank. Great. Everything will be fine then.”

Just a woman. I kept hearing that in my head. The way the girl said it.

“She must have been crazy,” said Jones. “Down in the dark like that when she could have come out. Doors weren’t locked.”

“The demon was leaning against them.” George pushed and pulled at the saw. It bit its way through the wood reluctantly. It was old, that saw. We’d been carrying it around a while, blunt teeth and all.

“It don’t weigh so much you can’t push it down opening them doors out.”

“Maybe she was too weak,” I said, holding the door steady. “They looked starved.”

“She was just a woman,” George said. As if that explained everything. Or as if it didn’t matter so why keep talking about it.

These last unnumbered years have been hard for everyone of course, but the women got it hardest once the demons came. Maybe before then.

There was a group I used to belong to. They stuck together like we did, safety in numbers, and they gathered up women they found along the way. Mostly it was the purpose I alluded to earlier, but sometimes it wasn’t only that. There were other ways to fuck a woman, like calling her demon. They were always female, see, the demons, so it made sense that they were once women. Women who turned into hellish carnivores that flew with the wind-blown ash. Accuse a woman of turning, smack her around a bit for some convincing purple, and you had Salem all over again. I’ve seen women strung up worse than the demon we found on the door. Shit, I even believed it once.

“Hey, Charlie, where you going?”

I ignored George, but I told Jones on the way out I was going to speak with Frances.

Frances had seen places like this before but he wouldn’t tell me anything more until we had the place secure. That meant tossing the bodies outside, making barricades of the rusty metal bed frames, and taking an inventory of remaining ammunition. I thought that was a little pointless. I was the only one who’d fired.

“He does it every time we stop,” Cassie told me.

George and Jones managed to make a sturdy beam for the doors, halving the door from the store and binding the pieces together. I helped them carry it.

“Oh, now you decide to help,” said George.

“I’ve been busy,” I said. I pointed to the pile of bodies as Frances shrugged another two from his shoulders. We were going to burn them, the best funeral we could manage and more than most people got these days. The wind tossed his hair back with the tail of his long coat in a way I knew George must have envied. It was getting so we had to shout to be heard or our voices were snatched away too quickly. The gas sign rocked back and forth, screeching a rusty protest.

“How many more?” I called, but Frances ignored it. He stood looking up at the sky, letting the wind do its thing, and I thought oh shit, another George.

Cassie came up out of the cellar. She was dragging one of the bodies (just a woman). I heard it bump up the steps. Jesus, she was five years old.

“Frances,” she said.

“I know.”

All of us turned to see.

“Oh. Shit.” Jones wasted nothing, not even words.

Back the way we’d come from, crisscrossing the road in angry sweeps, was a twister. It spun its dust with quiet violence for now but it was going to be on us quick and then we’d hear it scream.

I ran to the girl and took the ankles from her hands. I dragged the corpse up the last steps and dropped it to the side of the doors.

“No, over here. We don’t want them feeding that close to the door.”

“What?”

Frances pointed again.

“Oh shit. Shit.”

Sailing in the winds of the storm were two demons. They dived and arced as if the cyclone was a large pet they played with.

I dragged the body over at a run. “Have they seen us?”

“Not yet.”

Frances grabbed me by the shoulder and ran me back to the doors.

“How can you tell?” I yelled against the wind.

“They’re still over there instead of here.”

George was feeding the door-block down into the cellar. “Quickly, quickly.”

Cassie was standing and clutching herself like she needed to pee. She stepped from one foot to the other in the rising dust, looking to where hell flew at us.

“Inside, little heart,” Frances said.

We followed her down, and George pulled the doors shut behind us.

Sitting in the dark, we listened to the wind howl. It wasn’t long before the howls were those of the things flying with it.

“I thought they only came at night?” Frank whispered. We all shushed him quiet.

Above us, something landed on the roof with a heavy thump. We heard it even in the cellar. It screamed, and the winds pulled the sound round and round in echo. To me it sounded like a woman in labour, giving birth to something stillborn. Jones said later it sounded like the slaughterhouse. I guess we hear what we can relate to.

“Maybe the other one will—”

Jones, whispering so quiet it was like I was thinking the words, was cut off by the sound of something landing on the dry ground outside. It, too, screamed. It screamed in short sharp shreds. This was no bestial cry of the hunt. It was communicating with the one on the roof. It was scratching its way around the pile we’d made out there.

The doors shook. I cried out but my throat was parched and the noise I made was only a cracked nothing. Frank stifled a yelp. The doors thumped. It was only the wind, lifting and dropping them in its frantic wrath.

There came next a wailing shriek I never in whatever life I’ve got left ever want to hear again. If that rooftop scream was a woman birthing death, this one sounded like the demon clawed her own abortion. The shards of it went through me like jagged porcelain and as it trailed off it thinned to a fiery hot needle in my ears. The way the wind whipped it into a ricochet pulled it through me like infected thread, yanking the line tight till I clutched my head against the pain. When the other one joined in I wished for death just so the chorus would end.

It stopped eventually, though the reverberations of those screams will be with me forever as a tortured background noise as permanent as thought. I can still hear it now when I close my eyes, finding myself in the same darkness.

“They’ve found their sister,” said Frances.

When the doors thundered again in their frames it was not the wind.

“Oh Jesus,” Jones moaned.

“Shh,” said Frances, “They don’t know we’re here.”

“Sounds like they know,” said George.

“Shh.”

Sure enough, after a while of pounding the doors we heard them demolishing the store above.

“They’ll tear the place apart just in case, but those doors are strong and we have water, even some tinned food. If we keep quiet, we can wait them out if we have to.”

“You know what else we got?” I said. I pointed to the bodies we hadn’t shifted yet. “Think they smell good now, wait a few days.”

“Good,” said Frances. “They’ll smell it too and figure the only humans down here are dead ones.”

The destruction above ceased. The only sounds we heard then were those of the wind as it tore its way over us.

“Think they’ve gone?”

“Maybe,” said Frances, but we could tell he didn’t think so.

“No,” whispered Cassie. “They’re still here.”

They stayed long after the cyclone had passed. The new quiet allowed us to hear the occasional heavy dragging outside. When the sounds became wet, thick, and guttural we knew they were feeding.

“There’s plenty bodies out there,” Frank whispered. “They could eat here for weeks.”

Nobody liked that idea.

Frances nodded his agreement and pointed across the room. We trod our way silently to the far end and huddled so we could talk quietly.

“There are only two of them,” Frances said.

“Only?”

He spared me a glance but otherwise ignored my comment.

“There are six of us,” he said. “If we’re quick, we can take them.”

Six. He’d counted the girl.

“Frances, you’re a big man,” said Jones. “You’ve probably survived by being a big man. Quick, too. But me, us, we’ve survived by keeping low, hiding out. Playing it safe, you could say, as safe as this new world allows. We’re not about to go at it with two demon bitches.”

It was a speech for Jones.

“Shit, Jones, you’re chicken.”

“Yeah, George, I am. Only a stupid person wouldn’t be.”

“I’m not,” George replied, apparently missing the implication.

Frances counted off our advantages on his fingers. “They’re feeding, so they’re distracted. They’re close, so we won’t miss. There’s only two of them, so they’re outnumbered. There’s a few hours of sun left, so they’re weak.”

I think he may have been making up the sunlight bit.

“Good enough for me,” said George, already moving to the doors.

Frances saw an opportunity for visual emphasis and moved over with him, the girl going too, leaving just three of us cowering in the shadows. Frank said, “I go where the big man goes,” and went.

“What about you, Charlie?”

I shrugged. “You make more sense,” I said.

“But you want to take them down,” Jones added.

“Yeah.”

Jones sighed. “Yeah,” he repeated, “me too.”

We joined the others. It took only a minute to plan our tactics.

Frank checked his gun in the light that slanted down from between the doors. “We’re all going to die,” he said.

He was wrong about that. They only got two of us.

Four days after that fight at the gas station, Frances told me about the demon he and Cassie had seen in Colorado. We were camping at the side of the road eating beans from a can.

“Her parents were still with us then,” he said.

Cassie nodded to herself, scraping at the sides of her tin.

“What happened to them?”

“People on the road,” said Cassie. “They tried to take my mom for their penitentary.”

“Penitentiary,” I said, pronouncing the “sh.”

Frances said, “No, she’s right. They call it a penitentary.”

I remembered he’d said the word in the cellar. Back when the others were still with us.

“Places where women are kept prisoner,” Frances explained. “Sometimes by religious nuts, sometimes by men who are scared. Sometimes by those who just like an excuse to hurt women.”

I nodded and put my can aside. Frances pointed at it with his spoon.

“Not hungry,” I said.

He gave the rest of my beans to the girl.

“Anyway, we’d crossed the Rockies hoping things would be different on this side of the mountains. They weren’t. We found a scrap yard, figured we might find a car. What we found was one of those things. It was flapping only in bursts, wings beating against the ground and hiding most of what it was hunched over.”

“It was Brenda,” said Cassie, as if I should know who she meant. I could guess why she wasn’t with them now. “She looked like she was having a bad dream with her eyes open.”

“We thought it was eating her at first but it wasn’t.”

“Was it turning her into a demon?” I asked.

The girl shook her head. “It was doing what adults do.”

I looked to Frances but he only nodded.

“It was fucking her?”

The girl sucked in a breath.

“What?” I reached for my gun.

“You said a bad word.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

Frances smiled and nodded again. “It was doing what adults do.”

“But…”

“They’re not all women,” Frances said. “Whatever you’ve heard, or maybe even seen, there’s at least one out there that isn’t female.”

“If we tell people they’ll stop hurting each other,” Cassie said. “They’ll be nice again and just hate demons if someone tells them.”

“You sure?”

Cassie misunderstood. “I saw its thing,” she said.

Frances held his hands out about a foot apart. He shook his head, either appalled or impressed.

“What did you do?”

“We hid and it flew away.”

“With the woman?”

“No, she came with us.”

Before I could ask, Cassie said, “She died having a baby.” She burped and covered her mouth.

Frances told Cassie to bury the cans a little way off and added quietly, “We did what we had to when we saw what was coming out of her.”

I thought of my poor Beth. All that futile pushing, a labour of pain that brought only death.

“Do you think we should give him something to eat?” Cassie asked, coming back before I could ask any questions.

We all looked at where Frank lay, his broken body strapped as tight as he could bear it. He was asleep, the only retreat he had from the pain.

“Wait until he wakes,” I said, knowing that he wouldn’t.

Cassie simply nodded. Maybe she knew it too.

“Why didn’t he shoot?” Frances asked, but I still didn’t have an answer for him.

We’d burst out of the cellar as one, but that was as much of the plan as we stuck to. After that, all tactics were abandoned in our response to the horror before us. We knew what we’d see, but confronted by it we could only react. Our reaction was to fire, fire, and fire again. We fired until our guns were empty, which didn’t take long. We all fired at the same one.

She was standing over a body, one clawed foot buried in the cavity of its chest whilst the other clawed at what flesh remained of the stomach. A line of entrails stretched up from the corpse to the creature’s mouth, its talon hands hooking more and more into a gathered mouthful as if balling twine. Its leathery wings beat just enough to add strength to its pulling.

We surprised it; that bit went to plan. Its mouth was a bloody slop of guts and when it screamed at us, chewed stinking mouthfuls dropped down its chest. It released the corpse anchoring it and took to the sky, managing only one sweep of its wings before we hit it. I ran to it firing and was satisfied to see a good chunk of purple thigh vanish in a spray of blood, the rest of the leg severed by the creature’s own attempts to flee, hooked as it was in the cadaver that had been its meal. Shots from George and Jones and Frank peppered the demon’s torso, each round a splash of blood and bile that hammered it back. Frances was more deliberate with his guns, hitting it three times in the head. Another blast from my shotgun blew its wing into tatters but it was already falling then.

The other one had been scooping handfuls of flesh from higher up the body pile and retreated behind the corpses the moment we started firing. Part of me registered that. Part of me knew it was there even as part of me knew the one on the ground was dead, yet that was the one I approached. I broke the shotgun open and reloaded as the demon body jumped and shivered with wasted rounds from the others. They were clicking empty when I put the barrel against the head and burst it like a melon.

“Charlie!”

I dropped, turned and fired all in one action but missed as the other one sailed over my head. It caught a tangle of my hair by chance, even short as it was, and tore it from my scalp as it passed.

Frances dropped his gun behind him and Cassie crouched to reload it whilst he fired with the other. It was a smooth operation that suggested practice and I wondered how many fire fights this little girl had been in. Her hands weren’t even shaking.

The demon wheeled in the air. A hole appeared in its wing but that seemed to be the only hit and it didn’t slow it down none. It dove towards us screaming.

That was enough to send me and George back to the cellar. We crouched on the steps and saw Jones fumble for his knife. He raised it quick enough to lunge once and then the demon had him, lifting him up with her talons as she shredded his legs and bowels with clawed feet. He screamed his agony till something broke in his throat. She cast him away, flying back and up as Jones flew forwards. He smacked into the corner of the building with a crack that broke his spine.

“Come here, you bitch!” George yelled, then ran out to her before she could take him up on the offer. He fired all the way, quick for a man with a rifle, but she only soared higher, a twisting shape in silhouette against the darkening sky.

“Reload!” Frances shouted. “While it’s up there, quick, reload!” He swapped his gun for the one Cassie offered.

Frank stood, shielding his eyes from the dying sun, watching as the creature hovered.

“Reload, Frank!” I told him, pushing two cartridges into mine. When that was done I ran to him and snatched his weapon from a limp grip. I ejected the magazine and slapped his arm for a fresh one.

“We made them,” he said, “when we did what we did to ourselves. They were born from the ashes that came after.” He pointed. “We made it.”

It was something I’d heard before, but not from Frank. Religious bullshit, like we didn’t have enough to feel guilty about. I shook him, keeping an eye on the demon. It arced left and right but remained distant.

“Get some more fucking bullets in this and unmake it then,” I said.

When he looked at me his eyes were empty, but he did as he was told.

“Spread out,” Frances called. He’d shrugged out of his coat and harness. If the demon grabbed any of us, I hoped it grabbed him. With his bulk he wasn’t being thrown anywhere, and with those arms he could tear this thing apart. Maybe that was why he only used crappy revolvers.

I put distance between me and Frank. George, for reasons known only to him, scrambled up the pile of corpses. He stood atop them with his arms out, daring the bitch to attack.

It did. It dived for Frank.

Frank levelled his gun at it calmly and had plenty of time to fire. But he didn’t. He faced his doom as it flew down at him. George popped a few shots, making more tiny holes in the membrane of its wing. Frances took one careful shot but only clipped it as far as I could tell. I didn’t dare from where I stood. It hurtled straight and hard, hitting Frank across the upper body and tugging him into the sky as it pulled up and away. I saw it rake a claw across his gun hand. The other sank into Frank’s fleshy shoulder and he swung one arc of a pendulum before the creature’s momentum took them both high.

I ran to where Frank had dropped his gun. A few of his fingers lay scattered around it like bloody commas.

Above us the demon screamed in play and tossed Frank away. He cartwheeled and fell a short distance but the bitch snatched him up again before he really began any decent, clutching him sharply around the ankle. A line of blood splashed down across my upturned face.

“Fucking shoot it!” I yelled. My own weapon was useless at this range.

“Might hit Frank,” said George. He was taking aim.

“I don’t think it matters now,” said Frances, also lining up for a steady shot. “Might be better.”

The demon swooped low, dragging Frank so he hit the ground and broke somewhere. Then it was diving away in an abrupt turn and Frank was thrown into our midst. He struck George across the legs and the two of them fell in a tumble of female corpses.

I fired both barrels as it passed me. A chunk of its hip blew out and it spun, only for Frances to hit it once, twice, three times in the side and breast. It crashed down into the dirt and flopped in a writhing mass of purple flesh.

I was reloading as I ran. Frances was still shooting as he came at it.

The creature was rolling and flapping and spraying its blood, clouds of dust billowing in the gusts of its attempted flight. Part of its sleek violet skull erupted, then another as Frances aligned his second shot by the success of his first.

I raised the shotgun to my shoulder but Frances, beside me, lowered it with his hand. “Save your ammunition,” he said.

We watched it twitch and spasm until it was still. Then Frances tore it to pieces with only his hands.

George, taken down by the thrown body of Frank, had fired another shot as he fell. It went in under his chin and opened the top of his head. Not the movie star end he would have wanted. Not the end many would have wanted, though I’ve known a few that have taken a similar route. I’ve thought about it myself from time to time. Only my fear that the demons will still come has kept me from that darkness.

George was dead. Jones was dead. Frank had lost a lot of one hand, which we bandaged, and most of one foot, which we amputated. Didn’t take much but a snip here and there. He was a crooked tangle of limbs, each one broken more than once. His chest rose and fell in an awkward shape as he made rasping shallow breaths. He only screamed once with the pain of moving him and that pain was enough to make him pass out. He was easier to handle after that.

“He’s my friend,” I said, “but he’s gone, Frances.”

“That’s not up to us,” he said.

We made a stretcher for Frank. It was agreed without conversation that we’d leave the gas station behind as soon as we could.

Cassie gathered our supplies. When the stretcher was done I went through the pockets of the dead and said my goodbyes.

We didn’t bury anybody.

Four days later they told me about demons with dicks, devil babies, and a mercy killing. I took a moral from the tale and smothered Frank that same night and in the morning we left him by the road still strapped to his stretcher.

We travelled south all morning. I learnt that Frances was a mechanic, and that for a short while he and Cassie had travelled by car. I learnt that Cassie had owned sixteen dolls and teddies and I was told each of their names. I learnt her father had been a school teacher and her mother a police officer, back when we needed such things.

I didn’t tell them anything about me other than a few stories about the others I’d travelled with. They figured it out on their own, though. Well, Cassie did. I’d travelled with Jones, George and Frank for the best part of a year and they never found out. Five days with this little girl and I’m asked, “Is Charlie short for Charlotte?”

Frances was as surprised as I was, and after the surprise it was too obvious to deny.

“Yeah.”

“Charlotte is pretty,” she said.

“Charlotte doesn’t want to be pretty,” I said back.

Which was why I’d cropped my hair right down to my scalp and let it grow everywhere else. I farted, belched, and scratched my crotch. Strapping down my chest wasn’t much of a problem because there wasn’t much there to begin with.

“Why don’t you want to be pretty?” Cassie asked. “My mom was pretty.”

Frances knew the answer. He told Cassie not to pry. Already he was looking at me different.

I didn’t know what these penitentary places were, but I knew places like them, and probably a few places worse. Before Jones and George and Frank I belonged to a group who used me by night and called me demon by day to feel better about it. Sometimes, when we met others, I’d be loaned out in exchange for food, water, ammunition. It wasn’t until I got pregnant that it stopped. Poor little Beth, spat from my poisoned loins in a flood of blood, reluctant to live in the world we’d given her.

They left me to die with her, and so I did.

And then Cassie came and reminded me of how things were, and how they could be.

“Left corner,” said Frances. Another fucking gas station. Like the one where we’d met, this one had a store and a bay for vehicle repair and two pumps out front, though one had been knocked down and lay like a blocky corpse in a dusty shroud. Unlike the other gas station, this one had people in it that were alive. One of them was leaning in the corner of the walled roof, a rifle pointing to where we stood in the road. The sun shone from his weapon in little winks of light, otherwise it was a good position.

“Seen,” I said, though there wasn’t much I could do about it from here.

Cassie was strapped in behind Frances, unseen. “We could move on,” she said softly.

“There’s another one in the repair well,” I said, watching the man carefully adjust the angle of his rifle so it pointed up for a head shot if he needed it.

“Charlotte, we could move on.”

I hissed at Cassie. “Shh.”

From behind the standing pump emerged a bearded man. He held a pistol down by his knee and raised his other hand slowly in greeting.

“What do you think?”

Frances looked around. “I think there’s a few more, maybe laying in ditches we can’t see. I think the ones we can see are distractions. But we’ll see what he has to say. Maybe they’re just careful, like us.”

“We ain’t careful if we stick around.”

“We need food.”

“And what are you thinking of trading for it?”

He met my stare. “Guns. We got empty guns they probably have bullets for. Even if they don’t, a man will miss a meal or two for another gun.”

“Hello!” the man called, nearing. His beard grew to the left as if blown by a wind we couldn’t feel. His shirt was open, his scrawny chest the canvas for a large drawn cross. Jesus sagged in tattooed crucifixion and behind him rose the purple form of a demon, wings open to full span creating a bruised background for Christ’s death.

“Not a word, little heart,” Frances warned.

From where I stood I saw her mime a lip-zipping gesture. She smiled at me. I’ll always remember that.

“I’ll talk to him, keep him away from you and the girl.”

I broke open my weapon and approached with it hooked over one arm. I could snap it closed quick enough if I had to. It was a gesture, that was all.

The tattooed man responded by holstering his.

“Dangerous road to be travelling in twos,” the man said, “unless you’re seeking some Noah I know nothing about.” He laughed, though he’d clearly thought it up on his walk over.

“It is,” I said. I gestured to my waist pocket and he nodded, making a lowering motion with one hand which I hoped was a signal to the others not to panic. I reached in and showed him what I had.

“Impressive,” he said, “You must walk the righteous path.”

“I do.”

I returned the talons to my pocket.

“So do we,” he said. “Got one of the bitches back there a way. She’d sniffed us out, found our haven.”

“Too bad.”

“Inevitable. What do you want, you want shelter?”

“Food, if you have spare.”

“No such thing, but we can spare some of what we have. What you got to spare us?”

I had something better than guns.

The food he traded took me into Texas and there I hooked up with some people heading east. I’ll go at least as far as Mississippi with them, depending how things go. They have paper and pens and keep leaving messages for others along the way, telling people where they’re going. I started writing this down so others might learn the truth when they got there, only I’m not sure what truth it is I want to tell. That some demons are men, there’s that, though I doubt you’ll believe me. I never seen one of those things that weren’t a bitch with wings, and I’ve seen a few now. Not all women are demons, but some are. I should admit that.

The men at that gas station thought so. They took me to the cellar and showed me.

“You have to whip them,” the man with the tattoo explained. “It stops the wings from growing.”

The women were tied face down over boards, their backs laced with red lines that ran in ribbons. He showed me what they’d done to stop demons being born, and then he showed me where the food was, piled high in tin towers. I began stuffing my pack with it, not sure how long I’d have before Frances tried something.

“They’ll find us again,” the bearded man said. “Sniff us out. When you take their chicks, the mothers come hunting. But people need to learn, and we provide the opportunity here. We can’t stop in our work.”

No, I didn’t think he could. And all the time there were groups like this, the person who Cassie called Charlotte would be in danger. It was only a matter of time before Frances saw me as a means to feed and clothe his adopted daughter, and who knew what he’d do to her when she got older.

“He’s going to be trouble, isn’t he?” the man with me said.

“If you give him time to be.”

He hadn’t believed me at first, this man, when I told him Frances was my prisoner. “He looks a little big for you to manage,” he’d said, “and he looks armed.”

“He is. But so am I and I walk behind.”

“And he carries his demon on his back,” the man added, liking the symbolism.

“You don’t need to take it,” the man said now as I forced my bag closed and hefted it over my shoulder. “You could stay.”

They’d had enough from me already.

“No. Thanks. I need to keep moving.”

“Alright.”

He walked me outside where Frances stood patient, trusting and careful.

“Want to say anything?” the man asked me.

“No.”

“Forgive him, Lord,” said the man. He signalled, and Frances fell, for a moment looking as if the man’s quick point had thrown him down. Then came the crack of the roof man’s rifle.

Cassie called for Frances from where she lay under him. The men around me heard a girl’s voice calling a man a girl’s name. If she later called me Charlotte they’d dismiss it as something the same.

“You want to stay for her cleansing at least?”

I shook my head, more to clear it of its images than as answer.

“Alright,” said the man, and clasped my hand.

I made sure my grip was hard and firm, then walked away.

There are demons everywhere. That’s what I’ve seen. That’s what the clarity of post 2020 vision shows me. You don’t need a harness to carry them, either. They come at night, tormenting my darkest hours and screaming when I try to sleep. I have a strip of wire for when they come and I whip my back to keep the wings away, lashing at my skin, scouring my flesh until they’re satisfied by the pain. They come and they scream and they know me for what I am, and they know it’s not just a woman.

THE REVEL

by John Langan

1. The Chase

Every Werewolf story—these days, at least—features a chase. This one is no exception.

Indeed, it may well be that the chase has become the heart of the story, its true heart, and not the scene of transformation, which, while certainly spectacular, cinematic, the opportunity for all manner of verbal pyrotechnics, is light on meaning. The change to wolf, the face opening into snout, the fingers erupting into claws, the voice rushing the register from scream to howl, is about the animal within, and, at this point in our post-Darwinian history, how new or shocking is this?—whereas the chase is about predator and prey, and so about power, and so about matters more subtle and problematic. Most likely we will, and should, identify with the prey, find the predator a figure of fear. Most likely.

It may help to imagine the chase—whose narrative purpose is to draw you into the story immediately—projected on a movie screen. So much of contemporary horror fiction references film either as a substitute for written precedents or as inspiration for elaborately gruesome descriptions that such a suggestion should not seem surprising. You will want to imagine yourself in a darkened theater, probably with a date or a friend (since who goes to a horror movie alone?). Perhaps you have a tub of popcorn, perhaps a box of Sour Patch Kids, perhaps you find food at the theater distracting and annoying. When the screen lights, the first thing you are aware of is motion, is a pair of blurred legs racing forward. You hear breath panting, feet rustling dead leaves and cracking dead branches. As the camera switches to a long shot, you see that we are in a forest, one in upstate New York if you are able to determine such matters—if not, the forest will look more or less familiar, depending on your location—and that it is late autumn. If you are the kind of person to be struck by such details, you may notice that the bare trunks, the occasional evergreen, have been photographed in such a way as to suggest a maze through which the man who owns the running legs is careening. At this distance, you can obtain a better view of him, as he bolts from left to right across the screen, almost tripping on a root. He is white, of average height, medium build, possibly mid- to late-thirties although it is hard to be sure, dressed in green camouflage pants, shirt, and baseball cap, brown boots, and a bright orange hunting vest. He does not appear to be carrying a gun of any kind. In the third shot, a close up of his face, you see that it is plain, undistinguished by anything more than the terror distorting it.

There is more, much more, that you could know about this man, the facts of an entire life. (Obviously, you would not have access to this in the opening scenes of a film.) For example, you could know that he is a graduate of Harvard University, at which he obtained his MBA and his wife. You could know that his older brother, Donald, first took him hunting when he was fourteen; it had to be Donald because their father had been killed the year before in a train wreck in Arizona (decapitated). You could know that, before he left to go hunting this morning, he changed his infant son’s sodden diaper and found the pungent smell oddly endearing. You could know that he likes country music, that he enjoys bacon, egg, and cheese on a hard roll, that he has season tickets for the Yankees that he does not use as much as he would like. You could know something very bad about him—that when he was fifteen, he crushed the skull of a neighbor’s Doberman with a baseball bat—you could know something very good about him—that recently, he has contributed half the cost of a new daycare center at his church (Methodist). You could know all of this but it is, in a sense, irrelevant. It’s not irrelevant to him, of course, or to the people in his life, but it’s of little matter to us, the audience. He is the sacrifice: he is here to be murdered, and rather horrifically at that, for our interest. His death begins the Revel. Certainly, there have been others before him, as we will find out later on, but he is the first we encounter, and the spilling of his blood consecrates the story’s opening.

It would be possible to cut between the man’s running legs and another set of legs, between his wide blue eyes and a pair of yellow eyes. Depending on the subsequent portrait of the Werewolf we mean to paint, we might dip into his consciousness at the outset, an effort also more easily realized in prose than on film. We might describe the copper blood on his tongue and lips, the sharp tang of the man’s fear in his nostrils, the joyful surge of his muscles as he runs smoothly and well across the forest floor. Yet such details seem to give away too much too soon, as overly heavy-handed soundtrack music, rather than heightening tension, tends to relieve it. For the moment, then, let us keep the Werewolf off stage; for now, let him be that clash of leaves that draws ever-closer.

Perhaps the man is talking as he runs, a half-sobbing chain of sound that includes numerous Please Gods, and a few Oh Jesuses, and a number of indistinguishable words. Perhaps he says something like, “My kids, God, please, my kids,” perhaps, “Blood, oh Jesus, blood.” If we want, we can flash back to the scene of carnage from which he is fleeing, to a ribcage laid open and scarlet wet, trees splashed with viscera, but again, there will be time for that later, and most likely, the man is trying very hard not to think of that, because if he did, he might find himself too afraid to run. Instead, he is trying to think of the red pickup truck that he drove out here four hours ago and that cannot be much further. In fact, there it is, at the foot of the hill he has crested.

Now comes the cruel part of the story—the first cruel part, anyway—and that is that the man is going to be killed, at last, within sight of escape and freedom. At this point, we do not know if such cruelty is deliberate on the part of the Werewolf, or an accident of fate, simply the point at which the predator brings down the prey. It is what you are expecting, your heart pounding despite yourself: you know the man is going to be caught and killed by what is racing up behind him; the only real question is, How exactly is it going to happen? Will he fumble open the door to the truck, throw himself inside, slam the door behind him, thumb the lock, and collapse across the front seat, panting furiously, only to have the windshield crash in on him? Or will he even make it that far?

In this case, he will not make it inside the truck, because as he is running down the hill towards it—half-falling would be more accurate, his boots kicking up great scuffs of dirt and leaves—he is jamming his hand in the right front pocket of his pants, attempting to locate his keys, which do not seem to be there. His effort continues as he sprints the space between the foot of the hill and the truck, his cap, which has been ever-more perilously perched atop his head, finally flying free, revealing a head of dark brown hair. He does not stop at the truck so much as slam into it, the loud thud jarring. He continues to shove his hand into his right, then his left pants pocket, his breath coming faster, his lips releasing a steady stream of “Oh come on,” and “Oh God, come on,” while in the background, the sound of the Werewolf ’s pursuit, as it tops the hill, bounds down it, and surges toward the truck, is steadily louder.

You will not see the Werewolf leap on the man and in one fluid motion tear out his throat. You will listen to it. What you will see is shot from underneath the truck. You watch the man’s boots, faced toward the truck at first then turning as something you cannot distinguish rushes closer. You hear the man’s scream, and a growl that becomes a roar, and the sharp sound of teeth ripping out a large chunk of meat. The scream halts. The boots wobble, then sway to the left as the man, already a corpse, topples to the ground.

This is the beginning. Should we mention that the man’s keys were in the left breast pocket of his bright orange hunting vest, tucked there by him because it had a button flap and so would keep them secure? This is just the kind of ironic detail that horror narratives love, isn’t it? No doubt the irony has its effect, but no doubt, too, such occurrences validate the secret sense we have—perhaps it is more a secret fear—that such little things as what pocket you put your keys in are what make the difference between life and death, and not such big things as your faith in God or your lack thereof. The narrative to come will embrace this savage irony, take it to its breast, to the extent that it will be tempting to read the Werewolf as the incarnation of this trope. But it isn’t, is it?

2. The Setting (A): The Village

Here we are with the Chief of Police as he’s driving along Main Street on his way to work. Slideshow, in rapid succession: shopping plazas, traffic light, animal hospital, traffic light, Indian restaurant, insurance agent, houses, churches (Episcopal and Methodist), gas station, bus station, florist, Chinese restaurant, bank, bars, barber, deli, boutiques, bookstores, Greek restaurant, record store, traffic light, bar, bank, police station, bridge (across the Svartkill), Frenchman’s Mountain (a long ridge stubbled with bare trees that walls the near horizon).

Of course the village he’s driving through is based on a real place, so much so that it might be more honest to call it the name that marks it on the map of upstate New York. You have wondered—who hasn’t?—to what extent the places you meet in stories and novels are tied to real locations. The answer is: more closely than you think. (The same is true of the people in them.) Nonetheless, we wish to preserve some freedom of movement, so that should we need the police station to be on the western edge of the village, as opposed to the center of downtown, we will be able to have it there. Let’s call this place Huguenot, which should be an obvious enough clue to anyone who lives in or around the actual village to its true identity—but please, hold it loosely in mind.

Interesting, isn’t it? how it has to be a village. It does seem as if much of horror fiction takes place in small communities, doesn’t it? Of course there are exceptions: you can name one or two or ten narratives that contradict such an assertion, but consider the vast tide that fulfills it. Horror thrives in community, and what embodies community better than a village? Large enough to contain a number and variety of people, yet small enough for the majority of them to know one another, the village is the place where the threat to one can be felt by all. Perhaps there’s a certain amount of nostalgia, too, in horror’s love for the village, a longing for a kind of ideal community we don’t experience anymore. Or perhaps not.

3. The Setting (B): The Forest

Imagine tall trees stretching back into gloom on every side of you. It is not important that you have much arboreal expertise: if you do, picture oak, maple, the occasional birch; if not, picture your generic tree. The majority of trees in this area are deciduous, and thus autumn-bare, but a few evergreens jostle for elbow room. The ground is a jigsaw of yellow, brown, red, and orange leaves. Huguenot, like so many other American settlements, was built within the great forest that once blanketed the North American continent, a blanket whose edges have steadily been pushed back, even as more houses, more buildings, have been constructed within the forest, in quest of the privacy that is supposed to be a mark of personal wealth and success. But the forest has not gone so far away as we might suppose. There are still groups of trees scattered throughout the village, and you do not have to drive very far—ten minutes, fifteen depending on the direction you choose—before you find one of the forest’s fingers.

It may be that you think of the forest as little more than an abstraction; it may be that you are one of the people who believe in the forest as a pristine natural paradise, Robert Frost’s woods so lovely, dark, and deep. If either of these is the case, take your car on one of those ten- or fifteen-minute drives, until you arrive at one of the digits the forest pokes into the world. Park your car. Leave your cell phone, your Blackberry, your iPod in the glove compartment. Lock the car. Be sure you put your keys someplace safe—someplace you can get to them quickly should the need arise—and walk out into the trees.

Don’t stop after ten or fifteen minutes: keep going for an hour, two, until you are deep in a place you have not seen before. Feel free, should you like, to lean against a tree, sit on a log—mind it isn’t rotten, though. Now, here, feel how far away you are from everyone and everything you know, feel to what distance your life—which is to say, the routines you inhabit—has receded. Look at the trees around you. They almost seem to form a maze, don’t they? Feel how exposed you are. Something could be watching you, couldn’t it? It sounds silly to say yes, but something out behind one of these trees could be watching you. Try not to jump when you hear that crashing in the undergrowth. Most likely, it’s a pair of squirrels chasing one another, or a fawn still clumsy. Do you think you can find your way back to your car? You did walk in a straight line, didn’t you? What direction was that from? Something could be watching you, couldn’t it? Can you feel the hairs on the back of your neck prickling? They really do that, you know.

What would you do if a tall, pale man in a soiled black suit stepped from behind one of the trees? What would you do when you saw that his eyes were yellow? Would you bolt? No one would blame you if you did. You would find, though, that an hour is a long time to walk, and the woods are perhaps not so friendly as you had thought. Branches tug at your feet as you run over them; tree limbs whip your face and arms. You might find that everything looks the same, that you cannot find the route that brought you here. A look behind—do you dare risk a look behind? You know what you hear: growling (which makes you think of that dog you were so afraid of as a child), tree limbs snapping as something large barrels through them. It does not matter where you put your car keys, does it? because like our friend at the beginning of this story, you aren’t going to have the chance to use them; you will not come close to finding your car. As you feel your pursuer closing in on you, you might as well scream, vent your rage and fear and frustration, empty your lungs. There is a deep laugh, the kind of laugh a big dog or a bear might make if such things could laugh, and then a lightning bolt of pain scores your neck as a massive paw strikes it open, almost separating your head from your body, which falls dead on the leaf-strewn ground. Your vision bursts white, and that is all you know. What remains of you will be found the following day, when the Police Chief is realizing that something very bad, an unprecedented bad, is on his hands.

The woods are dark and deep. Lovely?

4. The Characters (A): The Police Chief

Tall, six foot three, but more than height, he gives the impression of size, as his weight pushes the red needle on his bathroom scale ever-further from two hundred and fifty pounds and ever-closer to three hundred. His doctor has told him to slim down, which he fully intends, but he can still bench as much as he could in the Navy, experiences no shortness of breath or chest pains, and finds it difficult to accept that his health has been or in any way might be impaired by what he estimates a few extra pounds. His hands and feet are almost abnormally large, so much so that it is difficult for him to find shoes that fit in any of the local stores, and his face is similarly large. His eyes are blue and liquid, his cheeks crisscrossed by red nets of capillaries, his nose narrow and close to his face. He wears his hair crew-cut short. If he does not look particularly friendly, neither does he look particularly hostile; the principle impression he gives is of wariness.

He has held his position for the last half-dozen years, and he prides himself on knowing all of Main Street’s merchants, and all of the town’s clergy, by name. It is true that he knows not a few of them from various infractions of the law, ranging from Bill Getz—owner of Pete’s Corner Pub—passing out in the middle of Main Street at four on a Saturday morning after sampling a bit too much of the thirty-year-old Armagnac a friend brought him from the south of France, to Judy Lavalle—former manager of the White Orchid boutique—stabbing her husband in the leg with a packing knife after she uncovered his affair with her assistant manager.

The Police Chief has an almost surprisingly forgiving attitude toward such faults. This is because he believes that, at root, human beings are hopelessly corrupt, depraved, every one of us always ready to cross some law or code of behavior should the opportunity present itself. The Police Chief does not understand why humanity is this way; he just knows it is. He is rarely surprised by any of the crimes, small or large, to which he is called on to respond. That is about to change.

Is it necessary to say, the Police Chief is the narrative’s representative of order? In a horror narrative, it is rare for there not to be such a figure, either institutionally sanctioned or self-appointed. Such a character embodies the social structure(s) under assault from the monster. Close to the center of the story’s events, s/he has access to all manner of information, as a result of which, s/he serves as a kind of guide through the narrative’s winding corridors. (This figure may also have ready access to all manner of weaponry, the benefits of which are not to be underestimated.)

Nowadays, it is common enough to show this character flawed—perhaps to express our continuing unease with the powers that regulate our lives, our suspicion that the institutions attacked by the monster were already rotting; or perhaps in the interest of heightening narrative tension. In case the Police Chief ’s sour view of humanity is not sufficient instance of this, it may help to know that, two years ago, in his official capacity, he systematically harassed Harold Stonger, former bartender at Dionysus bar and grill, over the course of three months, to the point that Stonger attempted suicide by opening his wrists with a box cutter. The Police Chief ’s reason for doing so was a car accident involving his then-eighteen-year-old daughter, Chloe, who had used a fake ID to consume four margaritas before sliding behind the wheel of her 1990 Volvo. It was not the first time Chloe had used this ID, which was of almost professional quality; while the accident her drinking led to consisted in her driving her car off the road and into a small tree at a relatively slow speed; although the consequences at home were severe, Chloe walked away from her car unharmed. Nonetheless, the Police Chief made it his personal mission to allow Harry Stonger no peace. Persistent and involved traffic stops, several raids on Dionysus leading to one sizable fine, a handful of visits to Stonger’s apartment, left the man no doubt that the Police Chief wanted him gone from Huguenot. In all fairness to the Police Chief, he in no way encouraged Stonger to open his wrists, though when he learned of it, he could only express his disappointment that the EMTs had not arrived at Stonger’s apartment a little later.

5. The Characters (B): Barbara Dinasha

Proprietor of the Dippie Hippie mostly used clothing store on Main Street, she is mid-forties, her long hair more gray than blond. Currently she lives in the small apartment over her store, where she sits at a black table next to the bay window that overlooks Main Street. She wears a white terrycloth robe over a peach cotton nightdress. There is a mug of coffee on the table, beside a yellow legal pad on which Barbara draws the man whose face has filled her dreams every night for the past two weeks. She uses a blue ballpoint pen whose scratch on the paper is the only sound aside from Barbara’s breathing.

Barbara has resided in the apartment since last winter, when she moved there after having left her husband of fourteen years and their eight-year-old son, for reasons of which no one was sure but everyone had an opinion. Her husband—as yet, they remain legally separated, and when he has been drinking too much at Pete’s Corner Pub, Tom Dinasha still expresses hope of an eventual reconciliation—is a carpenter and handyman and well-liked, as is her precocious son, Brian, who is a star pitcher in the local Little League, but since Barbara draws most of her clientele from the SUNY college, her consequent dip in popularity with the village’s permanent residents has not appreciably decreased her store’s business.

Barbara likes the college students: she herself attended the State University twenty-five years before, which was how she came to Huguenot from Northport, Long Island. She majored in Studio Art before dropping out to spend the next seven years of her life on the Grateful Dead tour, which was not inconsistent with the reasons that had brought her upstate in the first place, namely, a desire to be at the school whose reputation was for maintaining the spirit and behavior of the sixties, in which Barbara was just old enough to regret not having been able to participate.

At a diner in Carbondale, Illinois, she met her future husband, who, as it happened, was a lifelong resident of Huguenot who was hitchhiking cross-country to see the Dead in St. Louis. They spent six months on the Dead tour, then returned to Huguenot, where Tom learned carpentry from his father and they lived together in an old barn that he gradually rebuilt into a house. Tom Dinasha became a fixture in Huguenot, first as the guy you could call on when your regular guy couldn’t make it, then as your regular guy. Barbara remained his elusive and somewhat aloof companion, observed taking the occasional art course at the college, but otherwise keeping to herself until a modest inheritance arrived after her father’s death and she decided to open the Dippie Hippie. By that time, a year had passed since she had found herself pregnant and she and Tom had married because, as each said to her and his close friends and relations, neither of them was brave enough not to. At the wedding, Barbara’s father had been well enough to give his daughter away; in six months, the cancer that had eaten one lung would have finished the rest of him. (Barbara’s mother left the house when Barbara was fourteen, and she has not heard from or about her since.)

She doesn’t care for the Chief of Police, who, from her interactions with him over the years, especially since opening the store, she has come to view as slow-moving, dull-witted, provincial and bigoted. She knows he sees her as little more than an aging, would-be hippie who likely burned out what little there was of her mind to begin with years ago. (She does not know, but would not be surprised to learn, that he also suspects her of moving some kind of drug, probably pot but possibly something harder, through her store. While he has only entered the Dippie Hippie once, when it opened, to wish Barbara well in her enterprise, he and his officers make it a point both to watch it and to make Barbara aware that they are watching it.)

This morning, though she has seen his car pass down Main Street on its way to the station, the Police Chief is far from her concern. She is thinking about her dreams—dream might be the better word, since it has been substantially the same thing every night: she and a tall, pale man wearing a soiled black suit walking side by side in the woods, somewhere, she knows with dream-certainty, on Frenchman’s Mountain (not that she has spent much time there). The man speaks to her, and this is where the variation in the dream occurs: every night, he says something different. One night, it was, “Do you know that Doors song?” Another, it was, “But you haven’t told them, have you?” A third time, he said, “I could help you.” She cannot remember all his utterances, although she has the sense that they tend to fall into one of two camps: either, “Break on through, Barbara, break on through,” or, “Let me help you. All you have to do is say yes.” Once he has spoken his piece, they stop and he turns to face her, extending his right hand in a gesture so familiar that she takes it without thinking. It feels strange, like holding a wet wire brush, and looking down, she sees that his hand with its slender fingers has become a large paw, covered in bristly fur and soaked in bright red blood, which dribbles over her skin. She starts to look up at the man, is on the verge of seeing something, something crowds the top of her vision, when she sits upright in bed, awake.

Barbara does not believe in this man/monster as having any objective existence. Despite the fear, the weirdness, occasioned by the recurrence of him in her dreams, she understands him to be no more than the manifestation of a subconscious feeling that has become lodged—temporarily, she had thought—in the theater of her unconscious. This emotion is guilt, its source her leaving her son.

Needless to say, we know better, don’t we? In a horror story, dreams, hunches, instincts—those parts of our lives we file under the headings of the Irrational, or the Atavistic—are keys with which the narrative presents its characters. Those who accept those keys, fit them to the locks of the doors in front of them, find their way through to the next part of the maze; those who let them drop to the floor will live long enough to regret their mistake. Of course, part of the function of these elements is to add to the sense of unease the story wishes to evoke in the reader by appealing to her or his own experience of them. In addition: 1) they move the narrative along; 2) they’re an economical way of introducing or incorporating the more fantastic elements of the story into it; 3) they form part of the springboard from which the protagonist(s) will take the leap into whatever impossible explanation is required for the horrors confronting them. In the end, the narrative will go beyond merely invoking this side of experience, it will validate it, privilege it, as if to say that it is in everything we do our best to suppress, to trivialize, that survival lies.

Barbara is our anchor; she is the character who stands for the rest of the village inhabitants. Unlike the Police Chief, the Werewolf, you, Barbara cannot go everywhere, see everything. As the Revel continues and the narrative veers from extravagance to extravagance, she stays in place, refusing the madness of the dance.

6. The Characters (C): The Werewolf

What about the Werewolf, then?

To be frank, it’s a dilemma. While it remains offstage, no more than a shadow cast across its victims, the monster is a blank, an empty space you fill with your fears, with whatever chases you from sleep and makes you sit bolt upright in bed at four in the morning, heart banging. At the moment, the Werewolf is your Werewolf; it is whatever you have conjured from hearing that word and reading about his depredations. (Might we go so far as to say that, right now, the Werewolf is you? [No, no, of course not.])

That won’t do, though, will it? You would like a photograph of him, wouldn’t you? over which you might linger. You would like to examine his face closely, pore over each and every detail of it, attempt to match what is outside to what is inside. Are you familiar with phrenology? It was a nineteenth-century science that tried to ascertain personality characteristics through mapping the shape of the skull. You laugh at such an idea—we all do—but how far away from it are we, truly? We search the newspaper and magazine pictures of the perpetrators of whatever outrage currently confronts us, desperate for a clue to their motivation in the set of their eyes, the curve of their mouths, the tilt of their heads. We stare at ourselves in mirrors, trying to see what it is in the mystery of our faces that makes us fail the way we do.

You would like a picture: Will a drawing suffice? Three drawings, actually: that’s what Barbara Dinasha has produced on her legal pad. Her work is rough, but there is a sureness to it that makes you wonder what would have become of her had she remained in the college’s Art program. The first shows the man’s head: squarish, its features sharply angled, so much so that it might remind you of a piece of cubist sculpture. In her dreams, the man has impressed her as made of edges, as if his face had been struck from a block of flint by quick blows from a hammer. The hair is lank, parted on the right side; Barbara has shaded it with her pen, seeing the blue ink as dark brown that does not appear to have been washed in the last two or three days. She has dotted the square jaw to indicate the dark stubble traversing it. The nose is broad and flat; the lips full and the mouth wide; the eyes wide and dark—brown, Barbara thinks, although they may be black.

Her second sketch is of the man’s hands, which are distinguished by long, thin fingers and particularly the ring fingers, which stretch longer than the middle fingers. Fine hair covers the back of the hands out along to the ends of the fingers. The edges of the nails are ragged, dirty.

Barbara’s final drawing is of the man in whole, a slender figure dressed in a dark suit and white dress shirt open at the collar. Like the others, it sufficiently resembles the man from her dreams that, were the police pursuing him—as they are, though they do not know it—they could do no worse than show these drawings to men and women on the street, post copies of them in conspicuous places. Barbara, however, is as unsatisfied with this one as she is with the two others. In part, her discontent arises from the limitations of her medium. There is no way for her to render the man’s voice, which lingers in her ears as if he had whispered there a moment ago. It is deep, more so even than her father’s, and he sang bass for the church choir, and it possesses a calm authority that she would find appropriate to a surgeon. The remainder of Barbara’s discontent is rooted in her inability to reproduce the feeling the man leaves in her. Were she to take up her pen once more and add a pair of goat horns to his head, goatee his chin, bedeck him with a barbed tail, pitchfork, and surround him with a corona of flames, the effect, while exaggerated and cartoonish, would more closely approximate the effect that he has on her.

Something more? Something more definite? How about this: there’s an old man, Mr. Dock, the former head librarian of the village library, who has retired to his bungalow halfway out to Frenchman’s Mountain. Were you to show him Barbara Dinasha’s sketches, his brow would contract, he would remove his glasses for a clean from a handkerchief, then inspect the drawings again. Unable to deny his recognition, he might tell you about a young man who left Huguenot to study medicine up in Albany when he, Mr. Dock, was thirteen, some seventy years gone. Alphonse Sweet, came of the Quebecois who moved into the region at the end of the nineteenth century; a bright lad, though cruel, terribly cruel. He didn’t return, Alphonse, killed, it was said, up in some sort of ghost town in Western Canada under dubious circumstances. He was buried there. No, Mr. Dock doesn’t know what Alphonse was doing there.

(Oh—and hungry: the Werewolf is always hungry.)

7. The Characters (D): You

Yes, you’re part of this. Do you even need to ask? You leap from character to character, a voyeur rifling through home movies of the most intimate sort:

—You’re the Police Chief receiving the call that Ed Cook, the County ME, has been found dead in the doorway to his apartment. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you listen to Shelley Jacobson struggling to keep her voice calm as she says that Ed had been torn open, there was blood all over the place, and while they aren’t sure, it looks as if certain…parts have been removed from the body. Bile burning at the back of your throat, you say, Let me guess: kidneys, part of the liver, and the tongue. That’s right, Jacobson says, the emotion in her words momentarily overwhelmed by her surprise. You don’t tell her that the same selection had been removed from each of the hunters found on Frenchman’s Mountain, that Ed Cook had phoned you to discuss this last night. Looks like we’ve got a gourmand on our hands, he’d said, almost his final words to you. You don’t repeat his attempt at witticism; instead, you tell Shelley that you’ll be right there and hang up.—

—You’re Barbara Dinasha, opening the latest letter from the oncologist, skimming his most recent plea to you to return for treatment; even if the cancer isn’t curable, there’s a decent chance that treatment could earn you another three months, possibly more. You remember your doctor telling you that your constant tiredness wasn’t chronic fatigue: it was your body exhausting itself on the invader that already had colonized most of it. You’re not that far away from the overwhelming panic that rose in you as you left the doctor’s office, that manifested itself in the desire to run, to escape, to leave the life you had and keep moving until nothing familiar remained—within a week, it was this impulse that would take you from your home and family to the apartment over the store, a flight that solved nothing, simplified nothing, that only made the situation of your dying worse. By the time you understood that you needed to talk to Tom, to Brian, things had reached the point that you could not see a way to do so. You drop the letter into the trash and, for an instant, hear a voice saying, “I could help you, Barbara. All you have to do is ask.”—

—You’re each and every one of the Werewolf ’s victims. You’re the quartet of hunters sitting around their early-morning fire, fighting the chill air with a flask of Talisker, your rifles propped against the logs you’re sitting on, less concerned with firing those guns than with maintaining an annual tradition fifteen years old, a kind of secular retreat, and if one of you should by luck take down a prize buck, that would be nice, but it’s not essential. You’re the single mother out for a morning jog who’s decided to take one of the paths on the Mountain, even though it’s hunting season and your mother has warned you about the idiots out who can’t tell the difference between a woman and a deer. You’re the ME, wishing you felt one-tenth as calm as you did your best to sound to the Police Chief, glad that at least you spoke with him before you opened the bottle of gin chilling in your freezer, which you already know will do nothing to dilute the images of those four men’s remains—and never has that euphemism been so accurate—but which may help to still the shaking that has seized your hands since you drew to the end of the final autopsy. You’re a pair of dancers leaving The Blue Belle out on Route 299, discussing whether to drive into the village for a drink at Peter’s Corner Pub, because although it’s close to two, Pete’s will still be open, and the two of you are wound tight from too many cigarettes and too many lap dances for too many freaks, who seem to have been drawn from their caves, their mothers’ basements, by the last few days’ carnage. You’re the chef, sous-chef, and waitress in early to the Toreador on Main Street to assemble salads, start soups, and decide on the day’s specials, the three of you unable to discuss much besides the killer who has chosen Huguenot as his theater, and about whom a host of rumors, most centered on what he’s taken from the bodies of those he’s butchered, are in heavy circulation.—

—You might even be the Werewolf, himself, which the hunters experience as something enormous, dark, snarling, that leaps into their midst and lays one of them open before any has registered its presence. For the single mother out on the mountain trail, the Werewolf is first the tall, pale man whose black suit is soaked with the blood of the man in whose exposed insides he’s rooting around, and then he’s something else, something she knows the moment she pivots away from she has no chance of outrunning, but maybe she can call for help before it’s too late. For the ME, the Werewolf is a tall, pale man in a soiled black suit standing outside his apartment door, who, when he grins, shows a mouth with too many teeth. For the dancers, the Werewolf is a rising growl in the backseat of the car. For the staff of Toreador, the Werewolf is a roar and shape too big for their narrow kitchen.—

8. Some Headlines (in Lieu of Successive Descriptions of, Essentially, the Same Thing)

HUNTERS KILLED: Four Men Found Murdered On Frenchman’s Mountain; Woman Who Notified Police Missing.

CORONER MURDERED: Was Working On Slain Hunters; Police Chief Refuses To Rule Out Connection To Previous Crime.

DANCERS MISSING: Were Seen Leaving The Blue Belle Two Nights Ago; Car Found Abandoned And Bloody.

RESTAURANT MASSACRE: Staff At Local Café Victims Of Horrific Crime.

HUGUENOT HORROR: Upstate New York Town Terrorized By Savage Murder Spree; Twelve Confirmed Dead, Additional Deaths Feared; Residents Panicked; Local And State Police Baffled.

9. A Small Town in the North

Where does he come from, the Werewolf? What drew Alphonse Sweet (it’s he: no need to play coy) to that ghost town in Western Canada? What did he find there? Why did he leave his studies at Albany in the first place? What was he looking for?

The answers lie on the other side of an experience that the monster himself cannot articulate; when he tries to bridge it to them, he sees images sparse and stark.

White. Whiteness. The town,

Distant on the tundra.

Words on white paper.

Two rows of buildings,

The town sits on the plain, lonely

Even of ghosts.

Wind whistles up Main

Street. Empty windows return

No reflections.

Snow breaks underfoot.

Wooden planks groan, protesting

The wind’s attention.

Flurries cloud the air.

At the heart of swirling snow,

Five figures standing.

Heavy fur robes drape

Bodies. Carved animal masks

Substitute for faces.

A plea, an offer,

A withered hand extended,

Taken. Whiteness. White.

10. Trees Painted on Plywood Walls

For Barbara, the narrative’s climax begins with a crash that jolts her from a (blessedly) dreamless sleep. Eyes wide, heart thwacking against her sternum, she sits up in bed, a single question, What was that? flashing in her mind in great neon blue letters. She does not know the answer. Was it a lamp? She doesn’t think so. This sound was not the dull clang of metal echoing off a hardwood floor: it was brittle, the sharp crack of glass breaking—one of her windows, maybe, or the full-length mirror hung sideways in the living room to give the space the illusion of increased size. Is there an intruder in her apartment? She listens for the floor creaking under the weight of an intruder’s sneaker, but hears nothing.

Barbara throws back her bed’s heavy quilt and rises from it, stooping to take the heavy flashlight she keeps under the bed in case of a blackout. The flashlight has a nylon loop at its end to slip around your wrist; Barbara does so, gripping the flashlight close to the end because she does not want it for illumination: she wants it for a weapon. Should there be anyone prowling her apartment, be he sociopath or drunken fratboy, she intends to beat him senseless first and ask questions later. She does not feel self-conscious or melodramatic in the least. Nor does she recognize her response to the noise within the context of a horror narrative as ill-advised, if not a mistake of the fatal variety; Barbara doesn’t care for horror stories—though no doubt she would know the scene she is in if you pointed it out to her.

She slides across the floor to the door, where she listens while counting to two hundred, time enough for any intruder to think that the noise he heard from her bedroom was nothing more than her turning over in her sleep. She leans her head out of the doorway far enough for her to see down the short hallway to the living room. The living room appears to be empty. She cannot see all of it from here, however, so, flexing her fingers on the flashlight and raising it, Barbara steps from her bedroom and crosses the distance to the living room, more calm than she would have predicted had you asked her to imagine herself in such a scene, yet still apprehensive lest one of the boards in the hall floor creak and betray her. None do. She halts at the threshold to the living room and tilts forward, peering from side to side. She still cannot see every last bit of the living room, but it appears empty; neither does she observe evidence of broken glass, either from the windows or the mirror on the wall. Taking a breath, Barbara steps into the room.

No one is there. Having established this fact through a series of quick glances, Barbara verifies it by turning in a slow circle, flashlight held at the ready. The room is empty of anyone save herself; nor have its contents been disturbed. Whatever she heard must have come from outside. Relaxing her grip on the flashlight, Barbara walks to the bay window and surveys Main Street. It’s quiet. A group of college kids, most of them underage, no doubt, stands in front of Pete’s Corner Pub, smoking and talking—given the presence of the killer, an exercise in collective bravado. A state police car cruises up the street, drawing glances from the kids. It would appear that none of the plate-glass windows opening into the shops along Main Street has been smashed. Barbara steps back and, with one more look around the living room, exits it.

She is at the doorway to her bedroom, which is to say, she has walked a short distance in a short time (though it has been time enough for her to wonder if the noise she heard was a vivid dream [not that she knows anything about those]), when there is another crack, louder than the first, the same crash of shattering glass, without a doubt from the living room. Barbara jumps, then turns and runs back into the living room, flashlight firmly in hand.

This time, she sees immediately that the mirror has fallen completely from its frame, which contains only darkness. “Shit,” she says, crouching to search for pieces of glass, which, she thinks, it’s a wonder didn’t slice her foot.

Although there are no lights on in Barbara’s apartment except for the nightlight in her bathroom, there is enough light streaming in through the front window for her to be able to see around the living room surprisingly well. As she slides her hand over the floor, that light dims, as if someone had his hand on a dial and turned it all the way to zero. It’s like the descriptions Barbara has read of losing consciousness: everything goes black; the only difference is that Barbara maintains awareness as the room vanishes around her. She is not afraid, only confused, wondering what has happened; some type of power outage, she supposes, which reminds her of her flashlight, whose switch she locates and slides on.

She is no longer in her living room. A corridor stretches in front of and behind her, its walls unstained plywood, its ceiling somewhere in the darkness overhead. Her apartment’s hardwood floor has been replaced by gray concrete. The plywood walls are decorated with trees painted in black, white, and gray, some thick, some thin, as if trying to suggest perspective. All of them have been painted with branches bare. Looking at them, Barbara thinks of her dreams, of standing with the tall pale man in the woods on Frenchman’s Mountain. Barbara points the flashlight from walls to floor, from floor to ceiling (undistinguishable), from ceiling to walls, from walls to ceiling, from ceiling to floor, unable to understand what she is seeing, the part of her brain that processes information jammed. The mundaneness of her surroundings only adds to her confusion. Were she to find herself transported to an alien jungle teeming with wailing blue flowers, slithering pink vines, a six-legged green beast with a mouth of curving fangs creeping towards her, the landscape and its inhabitants would be consistent with the strangeness of the shift; the weirdness of this move, however, strains against the ordinariness of her slapdash surroundings, the kind of thing you might expect at a low-budget haunted house at Halloween. Walls, floor, walls, ceiling, floor, walls, walls, walls: she jerks the flashlight from one to the other frantically, as if one of the surfaces is going to surrender the secret of what has happened to her. She drags her free hand through her hair, hoping the pain of her fingers tearing through its tangles will yank her out of this place and back to reality. But all the pain does is confirm the concrete cold beneath her, the painted trees shining on the coarse walls.

Barbara switches off the flashlight, plunging herself into darkness once more. She counts to ten, then turns the flashlight back on. When she does, she is again faced with the plywood walls and their arboreal decorations; this time, though, the sight of those walls prompts her to action. Perhaps a failsafe switch has been thrown somewhere in the depths of her brain; perhaps the neurons that had stalled have been bypassed. Barbara stands and approaches the wall to her right. It is solid, braced, it feels like, from the other side. Letting the flashlight dangle, she tries with both hands to move it, with no more luck. Annoyance prickles her skin, causes her to mutter, “What is this?” There is as much reason to walk forward as back, so Barbara starts walking forward. As she does, she sees a white light shining in the distance ahead. Thinking it might be the flashlight reflecting on a window or mirror, she slides the switch to off. When the light continues to shine, Barbara switches the flashlight on and hurries toward it. She keeps the beam on the floor in front of her, but the glow is strong enough for her to be able to see the walls on either side of her. The trees painted on them appear to writhe as she passes them; a trick of the light, she is sure.

As she moves ahead, Barbara notices that the corridor branches off on either side of her at irregular intervals. While she wonders where those branchings lead, she does not linger at any of them. Should this light in front of her be a disappointment, there will be time for her to return to them. It occurs to her that she is walking through a giant maze—being led through it, more like—and then she hears something. It is difficult to say what it is; it is one of those sounds that is so low, so soft, that you are not sure you even heard it in the first place; you are not sure it was not your mind whispering to you. If there is someone in the room with you, you will say, “Excuse me?” and the other person will look up from their book and say, “I didn’t say anything.” Barbara stops walking, and the sound appears to halt as well. Maybe it was only her feet echoing off the concrete and plywood. There it is again, faintly, a sound, a sound like, a sound like someone weeping, like someone at the hiccoughing end of hours of unrelenting crying. It seems to be coming from the other side of the wall to her right; how far back from it, Barbara cannot guess. Could it be another person, someone else trapped in here with her? What else could it be? Barbara takes a deep breath and calls out, “Hello! Is there anyone there? Can anyone hear me? Hello! I’m over here! Can you hear me? Hello?” Her voice slaps flat against the plywood. She looks at the wall, which is painted with a series of spectral white trees that remind her of birches. There is no answer. The weeping fades. Barbara repeats her call, receives no answer, tries a third time. When she judges she has waited a sufficient time for a reply and has had none, she continues toward the light. She does not hear the sound of weeping any more.

Before long, Barbara sees that the light in front of her is a single lightbulb, dangling at one end of a cord running into the darkness overhead. It marks the end of the corridor: a third wall connects those to either side of her, blocking her way. A single black tree, squat, enormous, its branches spreading out like a web of nerves, decorates the surface. Barbara’s pace slows as a combination of anger and unease seizes her legs. She is on the verge of turning around when she notices what appears to be the outline a door set in the wall, at the heart of the tree. Directing the flashlight’s beam at it, she sees that there is a door: there is the doorknob; there are the hinges. With her luck, she thinks, it’ll be locked.

She is wrong. When she grips the doorknob and turns it, the door swings open easily. Stepping through it, she finds herself in a large dark space, at the far end of which, a man sits at a table, lit by a source she cannot identify. When Barbara sees the man, her pulse quickens, sweeping the anger and unease from her. From her place at the door, she calls, “Hello? Hello?” and walks toward him.

“Barbara, welcome!” the man says.

11. A Cabin in the Woods

For the Police Chief, the narrative’s climax begins on Frenchman’s Mountain, to which he has driven this afternoon in order to revisit the site of the first murder—well, the first victim he discovered, when he pulled his cruiser up behind the dusty black pickup parked well back from the road up and over Frenchman’s Mountain in a makeshift lot favored mainly by occasional hunters. In twenty years on the job, the Police Chief can count on his fingers the number of cases he’s worked that have stymied him the way this one has, left him feeling he’s playing perpetual catch-up. Of all the unpleasant sensations that attend his job, this is the one he likes the least; in fact, he detests it. Things are bad enough that were the State Troopers, or even the Feds, who appeared yesterday, to untangle this mess, he could not only live with, but be happy about, it. As things stand, though, the smug attitudes the State Troopers brought with them melted away at the sight of the first group of victims; nor have they had any more success stopping, let alone catching, the killer than the Police Chief and his staff. For the first time, he actually feels a certain solidarity with the men and women he generally considers his rivals. Should things continue the way they have been, he expects even the Feds will seem more human.

However, the Police Chief doesn’t intend to let the situation progress any further, so he’s driven out here, to revisit the scene of that first discovery. He’s parked at one end of a dirt road that curves away from Route 299. To his right, the ground is straight for about fifty feet then rises in a steep hill down which the marks of the first victim’s run remain visible. To his left, the ground dips to a line of trees that stretches around in front of him and climbs the side of the hill. Directly ahead of him is the spot where the hunter’s boots and jeans were visible sprawled beside the truck over which the rest of him had been splashed. The ground remains dark from the blood that soaked into it.

Despite his belief in humanity’s innate depravity, the Police Chief has been shocked by what he has witnessed this last week. Like listening to a talk in a language he only partly understands, his mind cannot process everything it has taken in. He has not felt afraid so much as amazed, as if he has voyaged to a strange new country whose people follow customs utterly alien to him. Before now, the worst thing he had seen had occurred when he was in the Navy and serving on the flight deck of the Intrepid. In a moment of fatal carelessness, a sailor walked into the spinning propeller of an airplane. That had been worse than bad, but it had been an accident. The savagery of this past week reeks of intention, but an intention neither the Police Chief nor anyone of his fellows has been able to see to the bottom of. It’s the kind of over-the-top behavior you find in Hollywood melodramas, not daily life. And yet, here they are.

As a rule, the Police Chief is not afraid of the woods. Over the course of his life, he has spent a good deal of time in them, and he possesses the confidence that comes with experience; in addition, he is sufficiently large that most things he might encounter in the woods of Upstate New York have the good sense to avoid him, and any that do not, he has more than a fair chance of being able to handle, and well at that. (The handgun riding his hip doesn’t hurt his confidence.) Now, though, he feels a finger of fear tickle the base of his spine as he realizes that he is being watched. The forest is quiet, so much so that his breathing, the leaves crackling under his shoes, sound loud as thunderclaps. With the certainty of religious revelation, he knows that the killer, the monster behind the murders of twelve men and women, is standing about halfway up the hill to his right, just far enough back in the woods to prevent him from being seen. He is watching the Police Chief ’s actions with a keen and rapacious intelligence, a savage humor. Were the Police Chief ’s sense of the killer’s location a shade more definite, he could draw his gun and do his best to validate that hunch. Since it isn’t, there is nothing for him to do but sprint in that direction, certain that, by the time he arrives at the man’s position, he will long since have been reabsorbed by the trees.

As his quadriceps and calves burn with the effort of propelling him up the hill, as his hand grips the butt of his pistol, ready to haul it from its holster, the Police Chief realizes that the killer is not moving, that he can feel the man’s gaze on him still, a spotlight illuminating him as his feet push off soil that slides away beneath them. He knows that it can’t be this simple, that the killer isn’t just waiting for the Police Chief to take him in, that either he’s ready to bolt or this is a trap, but if the killer will wait until the Police Chief reaches the top of this hill—if he judges there’s no way this big a man could catch him, the Police Chief is ready to put that conceit to the test. If the man has laid some sort of trap, the Police Chief is ready to try that, too.

He gains the top of the hill and keeps going, pushes himself not to slacken, to slow. His lungs are bellows full of fiery air. Ahead and to the right, about fifteen feet into the trees, is that…? A tall figure regards his approach, its shadowed face broken by a bright grin, and the Police Chief ’s gun is out and in his hand. Now the killer turns, but it’s too late, even as he breaks into a run, the Police Chief is too close for him to escape. He considers dropping to a firing crouch, but there are too many trees, not to mention the possibility—though faint—of a random civilian out for a walk. It’s no matter: the sight of the tall man running has sent a tide of adrenaline through the Police Chief, and the prospect of closing his hands on this maniac fills his pounding heart with fierce joy.

The killer leads the Police Chief along a trail so faint as to be nonexistent, cutting right, left, right, left and left again. Leaves crash, sticks snap, the occasional stone shoots away from the toe of the Police Chief ’s boot. One misstep and he’s down with a broken ankle, but he doesn’t slow his pace. As the killer turns right, down a short rise, then left along a dry stream bed, the Police Chief stays on him. When he dodges right over a large mound and along another trail barely there, the Police Chief draws closer to him. He does not recognize the place to which he has been led. Rows of evergreens zigzag away like the walls of so many hallways. The air is full of the Christmas smell of pine. In front of the killer, a line of evergreens lock branches in a dark green wall.

Without breaking stride, the tall man plunges into the trees. The Police Chief follows. For a long moment, he can see nothing. Branches whip his face; he raises his forearms and lowers his head. The trees extend deeper than he had anticipated. He can hear the killer pushing through trees mere feet ahead of him. If the man wants to ambush him, coming out from this thicket offers a perfect opportunity: a second to gain your bearings, and then turn your attention on your pursuer. Guarding his face with his free hand, the Police Chief lowers his gun.

Events are moving too quickly for the Police Chief to articulate what he expects on the other side of these evergreens. Were it possible to slow time, he might say that he judges it most likely that the killer will be on the move once more; however, he would not be surprised to find the man standing off to one side or the other, a knife or hatchet in his upraised hand. Whatever he expects, it is not what confronts him as he bursts free of the trees at last. It is a cabin, the kind of slope-roofed box hunters use to insure they’re in proper position as the sun is on the rise. The entire structure sits a foot or so off the ground, raised by concrete blocks to discourage pests and keep seasonal floodwater out. Its walls are maybe ten feet to a side; the largest one holds a wide window. To the left of the window, a door hangs open.

Gun in front of him, the Police Chief circles the back of the cabin. It wouldn’t do for the killer to slip out a back or trap door while the Police Chief frets a possible ambush at the front. A quick duck to the ground to glance up under the cabin confirms the front door as the only entrance. The Police Chief pauses his survey as he approaches the front wall and its large window. No doubt the killer can hear him rustling the leaves out here, but sound can play tricks on you; no need to assist the man with a clear view of him. Stepping close to the cabin, the Police Chief lowers himself and eases around it, well below the bottom of the window. In front of him, the open door blocks his view of the cabin’s interior. The Police Chief has a vision of the killer standing in the doorway, a loaded shotgun in his hands. Or worse, a bomb, something that will reduce the two of them to burnt blood and carbon.

Never mind, he thinks as he creeps around the door. As long as the killing stops, never mind.

A glance shows the doorway empty, the edge of what might be a couch on the right. The Police Chief ’s best guess, the killer is hiding behind the couch, using it for cover. The Police Chief is reasonably certain his gun will find that couch little of an obstacle. He releases the safety, clears the door. On the floor, gun to the right. On the count of three. THREE!

12. Six Drawings Hung in a Coffeehouse

At last, the height of the Revel, the moment the characters gather to enact the story’s culmination. Here exposition, explanation, digression, flashback, analysis have ceased their usefulness; here we have reached the point of the pure image. How many such images does it take to convey a story’s climactic actions? Two, four? How about six?

You may want to imagine these as large drawings, each one done on paper eleven inches wide by fourteen inches long. They’re mounted on black cardboard that presumably intends to frame them, but each one has been placed slightly askew—apparently in error, since the misplacement adds nothing to each pic-ture—and it’s hard not to be annoyed by this. The pictures have been executed in pencil traced with pen and ink, colored in places with dabs of watercolor. Their style: if you know about such things, you will recognize the debt they owe to the early work of Bernie Wrightson, who illustrated the original Swamp Thing comic books; the figures display the same rubbery fleshiness that distinguishes Wrightson’s drawing from this time, the same feeling of texture.

This is not the kind of display you are likely to find in your local museum, unless you live near one of those institutions that prides itself on surfing the cutting edge. You are more likely to encounter these images at your neighborhood coffee shop, whether corporate or independent, alongside samples of other local art. To see them—to study them—you will have to lean over other patrons at their undersized tables, drawing the irritated glances of couples clasping hands over their lattes, businessmen flourishing their copies of the Wall Street Journal like personal banners. Ignore them.

In the first drawing, Barbara Dinasha, her back to you, stands in front of an unfinished wooden table at which sits a man with the head of a beast. She is wearing a long-sleeved nightdress that descends past her knees; the man has on a soiled black suit and a white dress shirt whose top button is open. Although Barbara’s face is not visible, the stiffness of her back, her arms close to her sides, indicate tension; while his face is visible, it is harder to read the expression on the man’s animal features, which could be described as those of a wolf but which also suggest both a bull and a goat. Barbara’s peach nightdress commands the center of the picture; to either side of the beast-headed man, blue-white semi-abstractions suggest open mouths.

The second drawing shows a hand cradling an apple. Its fingers are slender, their joints slightly enlarged, the thick nails that end them jagged, dirty. Fine hair covers the skin, thickens toward the wrist that extends from a white cuff. The apple is the apotheosis of the fruit: large, perfectly proportioned, its skin shining. The reflection of Barbara Dinasha’s face curves over the right side of the apple, foreshortened and distorted by the angle from which the artist has chosen to portray it, but the expression on her features appears to hover somewhere between horror and surprise. Dull yellow, the fingernails are the only color in this piece.

For the third drawing, the artist has turned the paper lengthwise. The Police Chief, in profile from the waist up, is at the left-hand edge of the picture. Together, his gun at hip level, his left hand outstretched, his eyes narrowed, suggest a man walking in little light. Behind him runs a wooden wall, the swirling grain of which composes figures twisting upwards, their mouths exaggerated screams. On the wall, a line of trees has been graffitied. Tall, thin, their branches bare, they would be easy to confuse with the writhing forms were it not for the fact that they have been painted. Gray, white, and black, they seem to recede into the paper.

Also done lengthwise, the fourth drawing is the most involved; perhaps this is why the artist has chosen to leave it in black and white. Set in the same space as the first, its left side is taken up by the man with the beast’s head. He is in motion, his left leg up and bent, his left foot on the wooden table, his arms out and slightly forward. His suit strains against his arms, his legs. Its fabric looks more ragged, worn, almost hairy. Lips peeled back from a forest of curved fangs, the beast mouth is open in a snarl you can almost hear. Above, behind the man, the air is turbulent, a chaos of swirls, as if full of something that is expressing itself through this figure. In the center of the picture, Barbara Dinasha is diving to the floor, her eyes shut, her mouth taut, her hands over her head. It is as if she is trying to leap free of the scene in which she has found herself. The picture’s right shows the Police Chief, his right arm straight out, braced with his left, his index finger already tightened on the trigger of his gun, which is just about to erupt with fire and noise. Lips drawn back from his teeth, the Police Chief ’s face is bright with rage. Above, behind him, the air is still, empty.

A single color, a deep, almost luminous red, splashes across the fifth drawing as if some terrific act of violence has burst across it. It’s blood, an explosion of it, on the left side of which is the right shoulder of the man with the beast’s head, and on the right side of which is the top of his right arm. His back is to you, the coat that looks even more rough, hairy, pierced by three holes surrounded by starbursts of blood. The beast head is thrown back, the eye you can see wide with pain, the mouth gasping at the wound being done to it. Behind him, the Police Chief leans forward and to his left, the pose of a man putting all his force into a throw. His eyes are shaded by the brim of his hat, but his mouth is open, his teeth clenched. Study the drawing and you will discern the fingers of his right hand gripping the right hand of the man with the beast’s head.

Drawn from the floor of this space looking up, the final picture shows Barbara Dinasha to the left, leaning against the unfinished wooden table with her right arm. Her nightgown, her hair, are wet with blood. She is not looking at the Police Chief, who stands on the right, bent slightly at the waist, still holding the hand of the man with the beast’s head’s right arm, the torn end of which rests in a pool of blood on the floor. The arm is sinewy, covered in thick, coarse hair. The Police Chief ’s uniform is also stained with blood. His eyes do not register Barbara; like hers, they are focused on the object in the drawing’s foreground, in its left-hand corner: an apple, only the right side of which is in view. It is impossible to tell whether the apple’s skin is undisturbed, or if the white of its flesh shows through a bite. The artist has painted the apple pale-green-going-to-red, but that isn’t what causes you to linger on this drawing, ignoring the customers shaking their newspapers at you, edging past you with weighted Excuse mes—no, it’s the reflection the artist has suggested on the apple’s shining skin. It’s you.

At first, you aren’t sure—actually, you are sure, almost before you realize what you’re seeing, but there’s no way it could be you, is there? A double-check of the artist’s name confirms that you do not know him. Yet there you are; it isn’t some quality of the paint making it a mirror. You’re in there with Barbara and the Police Chief. And the man with the beast’s head, too: he must be in there, even though you can’t see him. Well, his body must be. The expression on your face is difficult to read. Is it curiosity? Eagerness? Hunger?

For Fiona: eleven years and counting (and with thanks to John Skipp for the prompt)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Aronovitz, Mike “How Bria Died,” Weird Tales 356, summer.

Bacon, Stephen “Last Summer,” Where the Heart Is.

Bacon, Stephen “Room Above the Shop,” The Sixth Black Book of Horror.

Barron, Laird “Mysterium Tremendum,” (novella) Occultation.

Barron, Laird “Six Six Six,” Ibid.

Barron, Laird “The Broadsword,” Black Wings.

Barron, Laird “The Redfield Girls,” Haunted Legends.

Bell, Matt “The Receiving Tower,” Willow Springs 65/How They Were Found.

Bell, Matt “Wolf Parts,” chapbook Keyhole Press/How They Were Found.

Bestwick, Simon “Winter’s End,” Where the Heart Is.

Bick, Ilsa J. “Where the Bodies Are,” Crimewave Eleven: Ghosts.

Castro, Adam-Troy “The Anteroom,” The Living Dead 2.

Edelman, Scott “Tell Me Like You Done Before,” The Dead That Walk.

Edelman, Scott “What Will Come After,” What Will Come After.

Files, Gemma “The Underneath,” Shroud 8.

Finch, Paul “The Daftie,” Where the Heart Is.

Ford, Jeffrey “Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” Stories.

Freed, Lynn “Sunshine,” The Dark End of the Street.

Jones, Stephen Graham “Crawlspace,” (novella) The Ones That Got Away

Kasturi, Sandra “The Coming of Ghosts,” Shadows & Tall Trees, #1.

Langan, John “The Shallows,” Cthulhu’s Reign.

Lansdale, Joe R. “The Crawling Sky,” Son of Retro Pulp Tales.

Lansdale, Joe R. “The Stars Are Falling,” Stories.

Liss, David “What Maisie Knew,” The New Dead.

Little, Bentley “Jammers,” Horror Library volume 4.

Lynch, Mark Patrick “Jango Says,” AHMM, April.

Mamatas, Nick “The Last Words of Dutch Schultz Jesus Christ,” Dark Faith.

Mantooth, John “Walk the Wheat,” On Spec, spring.

McHugh, Maureen “The Naturalist,” Subterranean, spring.

Moran, James K. “Glimpses Through the Trees,” Curtain Call.

Oliver, Reggie “You Have Nothing to Fear,” Null Immortalis.

Pinborough, Sarah “When the Darkness Comes,” Brighton Shock.

Rucker, Lynda E. “The Moon Will Look Strange,” Black Static 16, April/May

Russell, R. B.” The Beautiful Room,” chapbook, Nightjar Press.

Sharma, Priya “The Nature of Bees,” Albedo One, #38.

Slatter, Angela “Brisneyland by Night,” Sprawl.

Slatter, Angela “Lost Things,” Sourdough.

Smith, Michael Marshall “Substitutions,” Black Wings.

Southard, Nate “Going Home, Ugly Stick in Hand,” Black Static 20.

Spencer, William Browning “The Unorthodox Dr. Draper,” Subterranean, fall.

Tem, Melanie and Tem, Steve Rasnic “Bees From the Hive,” In Concert.

Tem, Steve Rasnic “Chain Reaction,” Black Static 19, October/November.

Unsworth, Simon Kurt “Scale Hall,” Where the Heart Is.

Unsworth, Simon Kurt “The Pennine Tower Restaurant,” Lost Places.

Valentine, Genevieve “And the Next, and the Next,” The Living Dead 2.

Valentine, Genevieve “The Dire Wolf,” Running with the Pack.

VanderMeer, Jeff “The Quickening,” The Third Bear.

Watts, Peter “The Things,” Clarkesworld, #40 January.

AUTHOR BIOS

Laird Barron is the author of two collections: The Imago Sequence & Other Stories and Occultation, both from Night Shade Books. His work has been published and is forthcoming in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, Lovecraft Unbound, Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, Clockwork Phoenix, Haunted Legends, Supernatural Noir, and Blood and Other Cravings. It has also been reprinted in numerous year’s best anthologies. Mr. Barron lives in Olympia, Washington.

“--30--” was originally published in his collection Occultation.

Ray Cluley teaches English at college, in addition to writing fiction. He also teaches creative writing to young children. His fiction has appeared most recently in Black Static, and has been translated for French readers. “At Night, When the Demons Come,” is currently being developed as a graphic novel. He lives in Portsmouth, England.

“At Night, When the Demons Come” was originally published in Black Static, edited by Andy Cox.

Christopher Fowler has written over thirty novels and ten short story collections, and is the creator of the Bryant & May mysteries. He worked in film, creating movie posters, trailers, and documentaries, and fulfilled several schoolboy fantasies, releasing a terrible Christmas pop single, becoming a male model, posing as the villain in a Batman graphic novel, running a night club, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror and standing in for James Bond. He has written comedy and drama for the BBC, writes newspaper columns and reviews for national press, and his memoir Paperboy won the Green Carnation Award for best book. After living in France and the USA he now lives in King’s Cross, London. His award-winning blog can be found at www.christopherfowler.co.uk.

“Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside” was originally published in Brighton Shock! edited by Stephen Jones and created specially for the World Horror Convention held in Brighton, England.

Cody Goodfellow has written three solo novels—Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk, and Perfect Union—and three more—Jake’s Wake, The Day Before, and Spore—with John Skipp. His first collection, Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, received the Wonderland Book Award in 2010. He is also the editor and cofounder of Perilous Press, a micro-publisher of modern Lovecraftian horror. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters.

“At the Riding School” was originally published in The Bleeding Edge: Dark Barriers, Dark Frontiers, edited by William F. Nolan and Jason V. Brock.

Richard Harland was born in England but now lives in Australia, sixty miles south of Sydney. He has been a folk-rock musician, a university lecturer, and a poet who once read his poems at the Sydney Opera House. After twenty-five years of writer’s block, he finally finished his first novel at the age of forty-five. His more recent books are his most successful: the steampunk fantasy World-shaker and its sequel Liberator. Published in Australia in 2009, Worldshaker has also appeared in the US, France, UK, Germany, and Brazil. Liberator will be coming out from the same publishers in 2011. Richard has won five Aurealis Awards for his horror and fantasy novels and short stories. His author websites are at www.worldshaker.info and www.richardharland.net. He has produced a 145-page guide to writing fantasy and genre fiction, available as a free resource at www.writingtips.com.au.

“The Fear” was originally published in Macabre: A Journey Through Australia’s Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis and Dr. Marty Young.

Glen Hirshberg’s novelette, “The Janus Tree,” won the 2008 Shirley Jackson Award, and both of his collections, American Morons and The Two Sams, won the International Horror Guild Award. He is also the author of two novels, The Snowman’s Children and The Book of Bunk. His new collection, The Janus Tree and Other Stories, will be published by Subterranean in late 2011. He co-founded, with Dennis Etchison and Peter Atkins, the Rolling Darkness Revue, a traveling ghost story performance troupe that tours the west coast of the United States and elsewhere each October. His fiction has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Inferno, Dark Terrors 6, Trampoline, and Cemetery Dance, and has appeared frequently in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, and Best Horror of the Year.

“Shomer” was originally published in Curtain Call: The 2010 Rolling Darkness Revue Chapbook edited by Peter Atkins and Glen Hirshberg.

Brian Hodge is the author of ten novels, close to 100 short stories and novellas, and four full-length collections. Recent books include his second crime novel, Mad Dogs, and his latest collection, Picking the Bones, a 2011 release from Cemetery Dance Publications. He lives in Colorado, where he also frequently indulges in music and sound design, photography, Krav Maga, and mountain air. For more information check out the web site, www.brianhodge.net, on Facebook, www.facebook.com/brianhodgewriter, or follow his blog, Warrior Poet, www. warriorpoetblog.com.

“Just Outside Our Windows, Deep Inside Our Walls” was originally published by Darkside Digital as part of a digital chapbook.

Stephen Graham Jones has eight novels, including Demon Theory, It Came from Del Rio, and the Shirley Jackson Award finalist The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti, and two collections, Bleed Into Me and The Ones That Almost Got Away. His short fiction has been published in Cemetery Dance, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Weird Tales, and at least a hundred other magazines. He teaches in the MFA program at The University of Colorado at Boulder. More at http:// demontheory.net.

“Till the Morning Comes” was originally published in The Ones That Got Away.

John Langan is the author of the novel House of Windows and the collection of stories Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters. His stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and son.

“City of the Dog” and “The Revel” were originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Gordon Van Gelder.

Joe R. Lansdale has been a freelance writer since 1973, and a full-time writer since 1981. He is the author of thirty novels and eighteen short story collections and has received the Edgar Award, seven Bram Stoker Awards, the British Fantasy Award, and Italy’s Grinzani Prize for Literature, among others.

His award-nominated novella “Bubba Hotep” was made into a film that is now considered a cult classic, and his story “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” was a segment on Showtime’s Masters of Horror.

He has written for film, television, comics, and is the author of numerous essays and columns. His most recent work is Devil Red, a Hap and Leonard novel, forthcoming from Knopf in March 2011, as well as a collection of screenplays from Subterranean Press, including two written with his brother John L. Lansdale.

“The Folding Man” was originally published in Haunted Legends, edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas.

Tanith Lee has written nearly one hundred books and over two hundred and ninety short stories, besides radio plays and TV scripts. Her genre-crossing includes fantasy, SF, horror, young adult, historical, detective, and contemporary fiction. Plus combinations of them all. Her latest publications include the Lionwolf Trilogy: Cast a Bright Shadow, Here in Cold Hell, and No Flame but Mine, and the three Piratica novels for young adults. She has also recently had several short stories and novellas in such publications as Asimov’s SF Magazine, Weird Tales, and Realms of Fantasy, The Ghost Quartet and Wizards.

She lives on the Sussex Weald with her husband, writer/artist John Kaiine, and two omnipresent cats. More information can be found at www.TanithLee.com.

“Black and White Sky” was originally published in Brighton Shock! edited by Stephen Jones and created specially for the World Horror Convention held in Brighton, England.

Richard Christian Matheson is an acclaimed novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter/producer. He has worked with Richard Donner, Ivan Reitman, Joel Silver, Dean Koontz, Steven Spielberg, Bryan Singer and Roger Corman among others. He has written and produced mini-series, feature films, TV pilots and thirty network television series.

Matheson is considered a master of the short story. His over seventy-five stories have been published in major anthologies, including several best of the year anthologies and have been collected in Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks and Dystopia. His critically lauded novel, Created By, was a Bram Stoker Award nominee for best first novel and has been translated into several languages. He continues to publish new stories in prominent anthologies and just completed an original novella for a British publisher.

Matheson has worked as a ghost chaser with the UCLA Parapsychology Department and also been a professional drummer for over thirty years. He studied privately with legendary CREAM drummer Ginger Baker and continues to work as a studio musician. He plays in the band “As Above, So Below” with Preston Sturges, Jr.

Matheson runs his own production company in Los Angeles, and is president of MATHESON ENTERTAINMENT, a production company he founded with his father.

Mark Morris became a full-time writer in 1988 on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and a year later saw the release of his first novel, Toady. He has since published a further sixteen novels, among which are Stitch, The Immaculate, The Secret of Anatomy, Fiddleback, The Deluge, and four books in the popular Doctor Who range. His short stories, novellas, articles, and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of the highly acclaimed Cinema Macabre, a book of fifty horror movie essays by genre luminaries, for which he won the 2007 British Fantasy Award. His most recently published or forthcoming work includes a novella entitled It Sustains for Earthling Publications, a Torchwood novel entitled Bay of the Dead, several Doctor Who audios for Big Finish Productions, a follow-up volume to Cinema Macabre entitled Cinema Futura, and a new short story collection, Long Shadows, Nightmare Light.

“Fallen Boys” was originally published in The End of the Line edited by Jonathan Oliver.

Reggie Oliver has been a professional playwright, actor, and theatre director since 1975. His biography of Stella Gibbons, Out of the Woodshed, was published by Bloomsbury in 1998. Besides plays, his publications include four volumes of stories: The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini, The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler, Masques of Satan, and Madder Mysteries, and a novel The Dracula Papers (2011) from Chomu Press. An omnibus edition of his stories entitled Dramas from the Depths was published by Centipede in 2010. His stories have been republished in numerous anthologies. As an actor he is currently touring his one-man horror show Stage Frights, and his farce Once Bitten was the Christmas attraction at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, 2010-2011.

“Mr. Pigsny” was originally published in The Sixth Black Book of Horror, edited by Charles Black.

Norman Partridge’s fiction oeuvre includes horror, suspense, and the fantastic—“sometimes all in one story,” according to his friend Joe Lansdale. Partridge’s novel Dark Harvest was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the 100 Best Books of 2006, and two short story collections were published in 2010— Lesser Demons from Subterranean Press and Johnny Halloween from Cemetery Dance.

Other work includes the Jack Baddalach mysteries Saguaro Riptide and The Ten-Ounce Siesta, plus The Crow: Wicked Prayer, which was adapted for film. Partridge’s work has received multiple Bram Stoker Awards. He can be found on the web at NormanPartridge.com and americanfrankenstein.blogspot.com.

Joseph S. Pulver, Sr, is the author of the Lovecraftian novel Nightmare’s Disciple, and he has written many short stories that have appeared in magazines and anthologies. His short story collections, Blood Will Have Its Season and SIN & ashes, were published by Hippocampus Press in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

You can find his blog at: http://thisyellowmadness.blogspot.com/

“Just Another Desert Night With Blood” was originally published in his SIN & ashes.

Mary Rickert is the winner of the Crawford Award and two world Fantasy Awards. Her most recent collection, Holiday, was published by Golden Gryphon. She lives in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

“Was She Wicked? Was She Good?” is from that collection.

Nicholas Royle, born in Manchester in 1963, is the author of five novels— Counterparts, Saxophone Dreams, The Matter of the Heart, The Director’s Cut, and Antwerp—and two novellas—The Appetite and The Enigma of Departure. He has published over one hundred short stories and to date has one collection to his name, Mortality. Widely published as a journalist, with regular appearances in the Warwick Review and the Independent, he has also edited fourteen original anthologies including, most recently, The Best British Short Stories 2011. Forthcoming publications include: a new anthology of uncanny bird stories, Murmurations; a collection of Royle’s London stories, London Labyrinth; and a horror novel, Regicide. Since 2006 he has been teaching creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has won three British Fantasy Awards and his short story collection was shortlisted for the inaugural Edge Hill Prize. His small press, Nightjar Press, publishes signed, limited-edition short-story chapbooks.

“The Obscure Bird” was originally published in Black Static 18, edited by Andy Cox.

Karina Sumner-Smith is a Toronto-based author and Nebula Award nominee. Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies, including Children of Magic, Ages of Wonder, and Mythspring, and magazines such as Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and Fantasy. In addition to writing fiction, Karina works as a freelance proposal writer and performs with a local bellydance troupe.

“When the Zombies Win” was originally published in The Living Dead 2 edited by John Joseph Adams.

Born in the Pacific Northwest in 1979, Catherynne M. Valente is the author of over a dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpsest, the Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, and crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She is the winner of the Tiptree Award, the Mythopoeic Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Million Writers Award. She has been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, and Spectrum awards, and was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award in 2007 and 2009. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with her partner, two dogs, and one enormous cat.

“The Days of Flaming Motorcycles” was originally published in Dark Faith, edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS MADE FOR PERMISSION TO PRINT THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL:

“At the Riding School” by Cody Goodfellow. Copyright © 2010 by Cody Goodfellow. First published in The Bleeding Edge: Dark Barriers, Dark Frontiers, edited by William F. Nolan and Jason V. Brock, Cycatrix Press/Dark Discoveries Publications. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Mr. Pigsny” by Reggie Oliver. Copyright © 2010 by Reggie Oliver. First published in The Sixth Black Book of Horror, edited by Charles Black, Mortbury Press. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“City of the Dog” by John Langan. Copyright © 2010 by John Langan. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January/February issue. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Just Outside Our Windows, Deep Inside Our Walls” by Brian Hodge. Copyright © 2010 by Brian Hodge. First published in e-book format by Darkside Digital. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Lesser Demons” by Norman Partridge. Copyright © 2010 by Norman Partridge. First publis
ed in Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, edited by S. T. Joshi, PS Publishing. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“When the Zombies Win” by Karina Sumner-Smith. Copyright © 2010 by Karina Sumner-Smith. First published in The Living Dead 2, edited by John Joseph Adams, Night Shade Books. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“--30--” by Laird Barron. Copyright © 2010 by Laird Barron. First published in Occultation, Night Shade Books. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Fallen Boys” by Mark Morris. Copyright © 2010 by Mark Morris. First published in The End of the Line, edited by Jonathan Oliver, Solaris Books. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Was She Wicked? Was She Good?” by M. Rickert. Copyright © 2010 by M. Rickert. First published in Holiday, Golden Gryphon Press. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Fear” by Richard Harland. Copyright © 2010 by Richard Harland. First published in Macabre: A Journey Through Australia’s Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis and Dr. Marty Young, Brimstone Press. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Till the Morning Comes” by Stephen Graham Jones. Copyright © 2010 by Stephen Graham Jones. First published in The Ones That Got Away, Prime Books. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Shomer” by Glen Hirshberg. Copyright © 2010 by Glen Hirshberg. First published in Curtain Call: The 2010 Rolling Darkness Revue Chapbook, edited by Peter Atkins and Glen Hirshberg. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside” by Christopher Fowler. Copyright © 2010 by Christopher Fowler. First published in Brighton Shock! The Souvenir Book of the World Horror Convention 2010, edited by Stephen Jones, PS Publishing. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Obscure Bird” by Nicholas Royle. Copyright © 2010 by Nicholas Royle. First published in Black Static 18, August/September. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Transfiguration” by Richard Christian Matheson. Copyright © 2010 by Richard Christian Matheson. First published in Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts, edited by Stephen Jones, Ulysses Press. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Days of Flaming Motorcycles” by Catherynne M. Valente. Copyright © 2010 by Catherynne M. Valente. First published in Dark Faith, edited by edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon, Apex Publications. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Folding Man” by Joe R. Lansdale. Copyright © 2010 by Joe R. Lansdale. First published in Haunted Legends, edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas, Tor Books. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Just Another Desert Night with Blood” by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. Copyright © 2010 by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. First published in SIN & ashes, Hippocampus Press. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Black and White Sky” by Tanith Lee. Copyright © 2010 by Tanith Lee. First published in Brighton Shock! The Souvenir Book of the World Horror Convention 2010, edited by Stephen Jones, PS Publishing. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“At Night, When the Demons Come” by Ray Cluley. Copyright © 2010 by Ray Cluley. First published in Black Static #20, December/January. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Revel” by John Langan. Copyright © 2010 by John Langan. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August issue. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for over twenty-five years. She was fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and SCIFICTION and has edited more than fifty anthologies, including the horror half of the long-running The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Inferno, Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, Lovecraft Unbound, Naked City: New Tales of Urban Fantasy, Supernatural Noir, The Beastly Bride and Other Tales of the Animal People, Teeth: Vampire Tales, (the latter two with Terri Windling), and Haunted Legends (with Nick Mamatas).

Forthcoming are Blood and Other Cravings and After (the last with Windling).

She's has won multiple Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, World Fantasy Awards, and The Shirley Jackson Award for her editing. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for "outstanding contribution to the genre."

She lives in New York. More information can be found at www.datlow.com or at her blog: http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com

Table of Contents

- SUMMATION 2010
- Awards
- Notable Novels of 2010
- Also noted
- Anthologies
- Mixed-Genre Anthologies
- Single-Author Collections
- Mixed-Genre Collections

- Journals, Newsletters, Magazines, and Webzines

- Mixed-Genre Magazines
- Poetry
- Nonfiction Books
- Chapbooks and Limited Editions
- Odds and Ends
- AT THE RIDING SCHOOL
- One
- Two
- Three
- MR. PIGSNY
- I
- II
- III
- CITY OF THE DOG
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V

- JUST OUTSIDE OUR WINDOWS, DEEP INSIDE OUR WALLS

- LESSER DEMONS
- WHEN THE ZOMBIES WIN
- --30--
- FALLEN BOYS
- WAS SHE WICKED? WAS SHE GOOD?
- THE FEAR
- TILL THE MORNING COMES
- SHOMER
- OH I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE
- THE OBSCURE BIRD
- TRANSFIGURATION
- THE DAYS OF FLAMING MOTORCYCLES
- THE FOLDING MAN
- JUST ANOTHER DESERT NIGHT WITH BLOOD
- BLACK AND WHITE SKY
- I
- II
- III
- AT NIGHT, WHEN THE DEMONS COME
- THE REVEL
- 1. The Chase
- 2. The Setting (A): The Village
- 3. The Setting (B): The Forest
- 4. The Characters (A): The Police Chief
- 5. The Characters (B): Barbara Dinasha
- 6. The Characters (C): The Werewolf
- 7. The Characters (D): You

- 8. Some Headlines (in Lieu of Successive Descriptions of, Essentially, the Same Thing)

- 9. A Small Town in the North
- 10. Trees Painted on Plywood Walls
- 11. A Cabin in the Woods
- 12. Six Drawings Hung in a Coffeehouse
- HONORABLE MENTIONS
- AUTHOR BIOS

- ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS MADE FOR PERMISSION TO PRINT THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL:

- ABOUT THE AUTHOR: