The Best Horror of the Year Volume Eleven

by Ellen Datlow

  Suddenly I was out in the open. I didn’t stop running. I didn’t even look back. I just kept on going. My terror replaced by a sense of euphoria. Cool, fresh air swirling through my lungs. The very idea that I could run with the forest and mountains in my lungs, and even taste a hint of the sea, sent waves of energy through my body. Only after hundreds and hundreds of meters did I bend over, due to the stings drilling my gut.

  The road behind me was empty. The mouth of the tunnel was dark. For a second or two I thought I could still hear a buzzing. A faraway cry from a baby. But it didn’t take long for me to figure it was a mere echo in my mind. It was quiet, underneath Mount Ucka.

  I would have given anything to sleep in my own crib that night. The next morning, I’d wake up and assume it had all been a bad dream. But then I would have to go back inside the tunnel.

  Whether you end up having the money for a hostel is just a matter of priorities.

  Five months later, I returned to the Ucka Tunnel for the first time. It was on a sunny afternoon in August, but once you’re underground that doesn’t buy you anything. I tasted metal in my mouth as the bus entered the hollowed-out dark. I kept telling myself there was nothing foul inside the tunnel. It was just a motorway. Nothing else. Hundreds of thousands of cars had passed since that night. Avoiding Ucka was just me feeding into my own fear. They say when you fall off a horse, you need to climb back on right away. I didn’t.

  The morning after the incident I called my dad and he picked me up in Opatija. Told him I had a severe migraine and had spent the night in a hostel. When my dad slowed down for the A8 turnofff, I asked if he could take the mountain road instead. Said I needed the fresh air. The whole way across Ucka I wondered if deep down inside the tunnel, the blue Prius was still waiting. Did they drag it away? Or had it simply not been there? Afterwards, I spent the whole spring and summer in Istria. Trying to convince myself it had just conveniently worked out that way. Coming back was a loaded impulse. I think I wanted to see if there was anything there.

  There was nothing there. As I had expected.

  Still, I don’t sleep well without my prescrip Zinodin since last March. Sometimes I wake up at night seeing that concrete pillar coming right for me, in that yellow, sickening light. Or I hear a voice whisper: Now I’m stuck in the dark. And I admit there have been times I imagined seeing her. The lady from the car. The problem is I can’t always tell for sure if it’s imagination. One time I saw her in the parking lot behind the sound studio where I’m doing swing shifts. It edges onto woodlands. She was standing at the tree line. She didn’t move and was looking my way. Too far for me to see her face. I can never see her face. I mean, I haven’t seen her often. Only a few times. But I hate when it happens. She doesn’t do anything. She’s just standing there. Watching me. Why is she there?

  I tried to relate the whole thing in the tunnel to my imagination. What else could I do? There was nothing to verify. Nothing to account for. This isn’t what a therapist will tell you to do, but I started reading obsessively about last November’s accident and, after a while, I started believing I had been doing so even before the incident. I reached a point where I realized how destructive my behavior was. I had to let go. If you can’t grasp a certain something, it’s better to forget. That doesn’t leave room for doubt.

  But each time I try, I see the student’s face before me. The student from Rijeka. Igor Rendić was his name. His picture was in the Nova List. He’s a friendly-looking guy. Thin-framed glasses, his black ponytail whipping behind him like some miracle visitation, he wears traces of a smile around his lips. I feel there’s a connection between us. He could have been me. I could have been him.

  What did she tell him, during the last moments of his life? Did she put that hand with these pale, nailless fingers on his thigh, right before they crashed into the concrete?

  About two weeks ago, I saw the lady again. She was standing at the foot of my bed without saying anything, for what felt like ages. Her bent arms reaching below her knees. When you wake up and cannot move due to sleep paralysis, such abstractions can seem very real.

  So that’s my ghost story. You know how these stories go. I’m afraid there’s no such thing as a symbolic implication or satisfactory payoff. It is what it is. Like all urban legends, it counts as a warning. Except this is not an urban legend. It may look like it, but up close things are very different. Like a dog on a leash in a barn can seem perfectly all right at first, but upon close inspection is nothing but a deflating heap of flesh being eaten alive.

  I’m going to post this online in a minute. If you’re reading these words, chances are you’re like me. You don’t believe in ghost stories. Chances are also you’re not from Croatia. Even when your subconscious leaves room for doubt—let’s be honest, it does—you think you’re double safe.

  That’s where you’re wrong.

  Knowing how these stories go, you’d assume a ghost is loyal to the place she died. The question is: Who says it happened here?

  Last night I stumbled upon this story on Reddit. There was a link to an article on NewsOnline, about a deadly car crash that happened the night before at the Weston Hills Tunnel in Hertfordshire. Just north of London. The car had lost a one-on-one with the concrete center column at the entrance. This article, it reported that the driver was catapulted through the windshield and killed instantly. He’d been the only victim. No details were provided about his identity.

  I clicked on the photo. Zoomed in. Becoming inconveniently aware of my heartbeat thump-thump-thumping behind my temples. It was impossible there was a connection. And still. The car in the picture was a blue Toyota Prius. Blue Crush Metallic.

  I didn’t see it. Not right away, at least. I was too absorbed by my gunfire heartbeat. There was a large, circular hole on the left side of the windshield. It looked like a hole in an ice-covered lake, through which a skater had disappeared. Around it, a spider’s web. And there I am, scrolling down the comments on Reddit. Looking at the picture again.

  Of course.

  In Britain, the wheel was on the other side. It would have been physically impossible for the driver to be thrown out the windshield on the left side, and leave a hole like that. Dude must have been sitting in the shotgun seat. That’s what the fuss was about on Reddit.

  And that’s not all. I was up all night. Digging. Doing my own private detective shit. I had trouble keeping my hands from trembling. Clicking links, each time half-expecting to see her. A grainy image. A dash-cam pic. But I had to be sure. Collect evidence.

  Over the last six months alone, similar fatal accidents have happened in the Belchentunnel in Switzerland, two in the Lefortovo underpass in Moscow, and at the Pontianak Tunnel on the E8 Expressway in Malaysia. What they have in common is that they all happened after midnight. It’s always a blue Toyota Prius. And it’s always unclear who was behind the wheel. The authorities in Malaysia are the only ones admitting the driver’s missing. As are the parents of the baby who happened to be on board, for that matter. In Switzerland and Russia, certain facts seem to have been deliberately withheld, despite public outcry.

  None of these cases have been solved. But the victims are always hitchhikers.

  That’s why I repeat: Do not hitch a ride after midnight.

  Stay away from tunnels.

  And beware of the Tall Lady.

  You know how the story goes: The dead have highways. The dead travel fast. This lady, she’s always looking for company. She doesn’t like to drive alone at night, you see. She can hear the rain inside her head. It sounds a bit like the buzzing of a wasp.

  On such nights, you know where she’s heading.

  To Udur. In the dark.

  BACK ALONG THE OLD TRACK

  SAM HICKS

  It’s funny, but I can’t remember how the game ended, or if it ended at all, but I do remember that I had just set my last but one domino on the old wooden counter, and that Tom Ranscomb was chuckling softly as he looked at the piece he held shielded in hi
s hand. I don’t remember if he was amused by victory or defeat, because then someone said, “There they all go,” and in such comically doom-laden tones that I turned from our game to see what was meant. Outside the deep bay windows of the Old King’s Inn a hearse was rolling past. It was moving at little above walking pace, slow enough to accommodate the black clad mourners following on foot. A dense tumble of greenery, mainly ivy I think, was heaped over the coffin, piled so high that a great deal had spilled into the cavity around, snaking up the windows as if it were growing still. Ten people followed the car, amongst them two small children, heads bowed and hands clasped tightly, prayer-like, in front.

  There was a stir of interest in the public bar and some whispered comments that I couldn’t quite catch.

  “Whose funeral?” I asked Tom.

  “That’ll be old John Sleator’s.” He leaned on the counter with his arms straight and the fingers of his big hands spread, watching the procession with narrowed eyes. “About time too, some would say.”

  Tom was the landlord of the pub and of the holiday cottage I was renting—and a man whose words you listened to. He was intelligent, well read, and possessed an air of calm sagacity, born, I liked to think, of a lifetime’s study of the human dramas played out in his domain. So although I was surprised to hear him make such an unkind comment I was prepared to believe it wasn’t lightly said. He continued: “They’ll be in here later for the wake, in the back room. Sleators have always held their wakes at the Old King’s.”

  “How long’s always?” I asked.

  “This pub’s been here since 1453 and so have the Sleator family, though they were here even before then. That’s how long always is, young man. Now—do you need another drink, because I’d better get those sandwiches laid out? Best pack the dominos away. Don’t want them catching us engaged in madcap frolic.”

  I ordered another beer. I had been meaning to leave after our game, but now I wanted to stay and take a look at the Sleators. After ten minutes or so Tom reappeared and said to me: “Now, when they come in, make sure you don’t catch any of their eyes.”

  “Right. Are they really that bad?”

  “Not always, but I’d advise caution where Sleators are concerned. Just in case. Everyone in here knows about them, but you, being a visitor, don’t.”

  One of the old men playing cards at a corner table, and clearly not hard of hearing, spoke up. “You’ll do well to listen to Tom, young’un. I still got some lively scars from the day I looked at a Sleator wrong. Here—you know you can see their farm across the field at the back of your cottage?’

  “That place? That’s theirs?”

  “Oh, yes,” Tom said. “Lucky for you there’s a field in between. You’re out of harm’s way, don’t worry.”

  “Is it their field?”

  “Oh, yes. But you’ve seen it. They don’t pay it much mind. Mainly they raise goats and brew cider from their orchard. We sell it in here, the cider. People come from miles around to drink Sleator Special.”

  “Knock your socks off, that will,” said a grizzled man sitting on his own near the door.

  “And you’d know all about that, Arthur,” said Tom.

  The public bar of the Old King’s Inn was small, making a private conversation difficult when, as on that day, so few people were there. I wanted to question Tom further about this notorious family, but was held back by the thought of being overheard. Had it been the weekend (which was when I’d first arrived) it would have been a different matter. Then the pub would be packed with people from surrounding towns come to enjoy its unchanging rustic charms, the low beamed ceilings, the thick cave-like walls, open stone fireplaces and the barrels of beer stacked up behind the bar. Then, even the back room would be lively with shouts and laughter, and the Sleators and their funereal gloom would be far from anyone’s mind.

  As Tom said, I was a visitor, yet even an outsider could sense the tension growing in the room. No one left and little was said. Tom took to wiping things down behind the counter and quite unnecessarily, I suspected, to counting the takings in the till, filling small bags with the coppers and silvers and replacing them in the drawer with an impatient sigh. Then a blast of March air put an end to the vigil, as the door swung open so abruptly that it bounced off the frame with a splintering crack. Tom winced.

  “Everything’s ready,” he said. “Just go through.”

  I didn’t turn my head after the warning I’d received, but I watched the party as they trooped past the end of the counter, through the low door and into the crooked passage that led to the back room. There was no missing the family resemblance in the three generations, although it was split between two types. The three younger men, one of the older men, and a woman I placed in her late sixties, represented one branch of the clan. They had heavy, prominent, simian jaws which didn’t quite fit with the high narrow foreheads and small sunken eyes above. The other older man and the two younger women had flat, mask-like faces with squashed noses and thick-lidded, watery eyes. The children, perhaps aged five or six, had these same liquid eyes and already a marked thickening around their chins. An unpleasant thought occurred to me and when they were all safely out of hearing I said to Tom in an undertone: “Close-knit lot, aren’t they?”

  Tom raised an eyebrow and leaned across the counter. “So you noticed that, eh? Sleators marry Burchards and Burchards marry Sleators and if your cousin is your third or your second or your first or even your half-sister, well who’s counting? The little ones haven’t become one or the other yet, but they always do. They don’t combine, you see. One side always gets the upper hand and then the face comes out. The Sleators have that Cro-Magnon look and the Burchards look like fish. Oh yes, you see it all out here. And you thought all the excitement was to be had in the city.”

  For all Tom’s counsel, a few minutes later I did just the thing he had warned me not to. Before leaving I needed to pay a visit to the gents’, which were situated perilously close to the back room, just off the connecting passageway. When I emerged from that tomb-like chamber, I simply couldn’t resist a glance through the open door. Emotions were clearly running high. One of the older men, he with the Sleator looks, had pulled one of the younger male Sleators towards him by the lapels of his funeral jacket and was shouting in his befuddled face. “You should know what to do by now you mangy idiot! You’re less use than a turd! I’ll have to take care of it myself then, won’t I?” The rest of the party looked on, not shocked by the man’s behavior but rather approving of it, it seemed to me. The senior Sleator tossed the younger one aside, sending him crashing into the table where Tom had set up plates of sandwiches and bottles of cider and beer. Then, swearing loudly, he pushed his way out of the room, only to meet the eye of the puny stranger cowering just beyond the threshold. If it weren’t for his obvious distraction, I am certain he would have punched me in the face there and then, but as it was, he shoved past me, uttering something like a growl. I was shaking when I returned to the bar.

  “You just met Jacob Sleator, didn’t you?” said Tom, when he saw me. “Cheer up. You’re still alive.”

  I took the scenic route back to the cottage, over a field and through Larke Woods, the box of dry food that Tom had given me for Sanderson rattling in my bag as I went. Sanderson was a big bruiser of a ginger cat who lived in the wood shed behind the house. Tom Ranscomb fed and cared for Sanderson, a stray, but had utterly failed to persuade him to move into his flat on the first floor of the Old King’s Inn. Sanderson preferred his independence and his bed in an orange crate full of rags and wadding to life as a bachelor’s companion. Tom said he hoped Sanderson might change his mind when he got to be an elderly cat, that he might see the wisdom of pooling resources, but that for now he was resistant to logic. As soon as I was back, I filled Sanderson’s enamel bowl with the food and called for him. But then I spotted him over near the dustbin by the kitchen door. He was hunkered down, patting lazily at some small creature in the grass, so completely possessed by that f
eline mix of playfulness and cruelty that he was oblivious to my presence. I shouted at him and advanced, hoping to rescue the bird or mouse from a slow death by torture. Sanderson looked up, amazed to see me there, and scooted away through the hedge into what I now knew to be the Sleator’s field. I squatted down to assess the condition of his prey, then leapt straight back up with a yelp. Armed with a stout twig, I approached again. It wasn’t easy to say what it was. It was as white as squid, with the same slimy gloss, but as thick and muscular as a steak. The shape I can only compare to a hugely magnified wheat berry, pointed at the ends and fatter in the center, slightly convex at its widest point. It lay oozing a thin grey liquid that shimmered as it leaked into the grass. Perhaps Sanderson had got his claws on the afterbirth of some farm animal, I thought. I prodded it with the twig then lifted it towards the dustbin. As I dropped it in, it twitched. Retching a bit, I banged down the lid and wiped my hands on my trousers even though I had not actually touched the thing.

  I had by then cancelled my plans to drive into the nearest town for dinner that night. It struck me as far too much effort, and I was instead looking forward to a cozy night basking in the warmth of the cast iron wood burner, some soup and bread, maybe a glass or two of wine and bed before ten. That, after all, was the idea of staying there—I’d intended walks on the High Weald, early nights, wholesome food, peace and quiet. I could just as easily have had a couple of weeks in Italy or Greece or France instead of the safe option of rural Kent, but I felt tired just thinking about airports and taxis and museum crowds and hire cars and other languages and trudging along endless dusty, incomprehensible streets. I needed, at that particular time, familiarity, snugness, ease. I’d been working too hard for too long and after one incident too many of losing my temper with someone I shouldn’t have, I finally took my head of department’s advice to have some time away. A friend of mine recommended the cottage in the hamlet of Mardham. She’d stayed there one Christmas. “It was bliss,” she said. “One pub, one church, one shop. Houses that really look like gingerbread. And everyone was so nice.”