“You’re okay, sir.” Ralph stared into the pimply face of an ambulance attendant. He was not confused. He remembered what had happened. They had been in an accident.
“We’re going to get you into Redemption, to the hospital.”
A rainbow of harsh lights lit up the accident scene. Some flashed on-&-off like the neon beer signs at Besserman’s Gas & Grocery. Ralph was on a stretcher. He stared straight-up into the black night sky.
“They hit a buffalo,” someone said.
“Got loose, wandered onto the highway,” someone else said.
“Belongs to Charley Birdsong,” the first voice said. “He raises them for meat.”
“That damned Indian.”
Ralph shuddered beneath the blanket. He strained against the belts that held him to the stretcher. He hadn’t been alone in the car. They hadn’t mentioned Jane or Bobby.
“My family,” he said, “what about my wife and son?”
“She’s okay,” the attendant said. There was a pause. “Don’t worry about the boy. He’s in good hands, the best hands.”
Ralph stared straight-up into the black night sky.
A raindrop splashed on his forehead. He had seen it coming, then another and another. They fell out of the black night into the garish dome of light.
Bobby was dead.
A clap of thunder was followed by a downpour. The icy-cold rain washed the blood from his face. Bobby was dead and it was raining.
“Next stop Redemption,” someone said.
Ralph almost laughed at the irony of that.
The stretcher was lifted from the ground and slid into the ambulance.
Ralph heard the rain drumming on the roof.
He tried to block the sound out of his mind.
He clenched his teeth.
He prayed that Bobby was still alive, that Jane was still beautiful, that none of this was happening.
“There’s been a drought for months, for years,” the ambulance attendant said. The pimply-faced kid paused, getting himself comfortable next to Ralph. “Thank God for the rain.”
Never Grow Up by John Gordon
There seems to exist some unwritten rule against including more than one story by any one author in an anthology (unless under the disguise of a pseudonym). This taboo has never been a problem with The Year’s Best Horror Stories, inasmuch as a good writer may well publish several outstanding stories within a given year. In the past, Harlan Ellison, Ramsey Campbell, and Brian Lumley have each appeared twice in the same volume of The Year’s Best Horror Stories. John Gordon has now joined that distinguished list of authors who have written two of the year’s finest horror stories.
“Never Grow Up” is another story from Gordon’s collection, Catch Your Death and Other Ghost Stories. By no means a children’s book, the collection deserves recognition as a superior book of horror stories—ranging from “The Pot of Basil” (a story M.R. James would have been proud to have written) to the disquieting psychological horror of “Never Grow Up” (which would be quite at home in Charles L. Grant’s noted Shadows series).
Me mum is very good looking. Everyone say so. ’Specially me dad. And it ain’t just men, but men mainly. She love it when she see a man. I see her eyes go blacker when a man come along—it don’t matter who he is or how old he is, or even if he’s a kid like me, her eyes go black black—know what I mean?—with a kind of sparkle they’re so deep black, and her mouth go squashy. It do. It used to go squashy for me when I was very little. Not now.
“You changed,” she say to me one day. “You changed the instant you was thirteen.”
“Well I can’t help that, can I?” I say to her. “Everyone get older. Even you.”
That had her. She didn’t like that.
“Trouble with you is,” she say, “you gone all bony and ugly, I see that the instant you come to be thirteen. And another thing,” she say, “you still got baby ways.”
Just a minute, me nose is running. I can’t stick it this close to the crack without it getting a dribble. Seems to steam up. Don’t worry, I ain’t going away. There’s nobody coming to chase me away, and there ain’t likely to be, not at this time of night. Not here.
I ain’t afraid to be in a graveyard, Sarah Graham. Not with you. I told you I cleaned all the moss out of your name and them dates. Eighteen-eighty is a long time ago, Sarah, but you was only twelve when it happened so I suppose you ain’t gone on from there in a way. You never did get to be thirteen and bloody ugly—anyway you wasn’t a boy, so it was different for you.
It must be funny being buried. Especially if you’re fairly posh. I mean you can’t expect to die when you’re a kid if you live in a big house an’ all. That’s why they put this big stone box thing over you, I expect, and the railings all round. They didn’t like the idea of you being dead in the same way as other people. Won’t happen to me. Wish it would. Me own little stone house. I should be the same as you. I’d get behind them cracks and listen.
I should think you was good looking, Sarah. Probably a blondie. Long hair and all that. I bet you died of consumption like the rest of ’em. But I don’t expect you enjoyed it much. Sorry I spoke.
Me mum have black hair like her eyes and she do it different practically every day. Boring it is. She’s always got her head over the sink, washing it. We got a bathroom but she use the sink because she needs the space. Then there’s wrapping it up in towels and drying it, and combing it and looking at herself. Takes hours. And she goes on at me about being childish.
I got a train set, Sarah. I expect you know what a train is. You went in there a hundred years ago and I know you was only twelve but you must have seen trains. Mine’s electric—it don’t matter what that means because mine looks just the same as yours. Funnels and that, just like it was still steam, because I like it. I go back and back into the past when I run that. And that’s not all. I go little. That’s what she don’t like, me lying on the floor and imagining I’m a right tiny little man and can climb up them little steps over the wheels and stand on that tin platform and feel it rocking under me feet.
“I don’t know why I ever bothered to have you,” she say. “Why don’t you grow up?”
There ain’t no need, Sarah Graham, is there? You never bothered getting old and all that. Not that you had much choice, I expect. Me dad didn’t either.
And he weren’t really old. Not really. Thirty-three—just over twice your age. I seen that on the death certificate. You got one of them somewhere, Sarah. I ain’t. Not yet. I should like to see mine; must be interesting. I suppose I could find yours in a museum or something and read it to you. But there ain’t time; not now. I seen me dad’s. Cause of death and all that. Couldn’t understand it, but I know what it was.
I got to stand up for a minute. Me legs is stiff. But if I keep saying things I expect you’ll hear because being dead is different. It’s got to be, or else there ain’t no point. I know you ain’t come out yet, but I reckon you could see things out here I can’t. All this long grass and them black trees, they’re thick with things. Things standing there, thinner than paper. Curtains and curtains of ’em. You can feel them touch as you move.
Your mum and dad might be there, except they ain’t buried here. That’s a mystery to me, Sarah, when they spent so much money on stones for you. I reckon that’s why I cleaned up your name, because you was by yourself. Me dad ain’t here either. I don’t know where he is.
Christ!
Oosh, that made me jump. Bloody old owl went by like a ball of black fluff. Couldn’t hear the old sod till he was practically on me bloody shoulder.
Listen, Sarah, I’ll put me breath through the crack and you’ll hear. I don’t want to say it. I don’t. I don’t.
I don’t know where me dad is. They cremated him. Rose bush, that’s all he’s got. And his name on a sign stuck in the ground. He ain’t got a place like you, Sarah, with moss and stuff. And he ain’t where they put him. I can’t find him. They should’ve scattered him on the re
ccy; on the football pitch. He weren’t bad in goal. A bit slow, but big. I would’ve known where to go for him if they scattered him there. And I would’ve kept a little pinch of him and put him in me train.
I seen his certificate but nobody know what he really died of, except me. And her. She ought to. She done him in, Sarah. Nobody say it, but she done it.
Him and me used to get on the floor when I had me train running. We used to look at each other through the train wheels as it went by. We put our ears on the carpet and you could hear it rumble like it was huge and heavy.
We was doing it that day when she came in and seen us. I wasn’t paying much attention to her, but I should’ve. First thing I noticed was her voice.
“Look what I married,” she say. “Bloody great kid. Playing with his little train set.”
That begun it. I never see a row to match that one. Me dad went mad. He jumped up and kicked me train over. Then he stamped on it. And he yelled at her.
“I don’t give a bugger about train sets!” he said. “And I don’t give a bugger about you!”
She didn’t say nothing. Not for a long time. She just looked at him until all the glitter had gone out of her eyes, then she say, “I’m going out.” She was all quiet like she had gone solid. It was only her face that was saying the words.
I didn’t cry, Sarah. But I seen me dad cry. He was picking up me busted train and telling me he’d get a new one. He did an’ all. Sometimes he fling his money about like he hate the stuff. He got me a new train. Just the same. And some new track and stuff. It was better than before, and he should’ve loved it but he never come down on the floor with me after that.
He sat and watched telly a lot, and she went out.
Me mum ain’t a tart, Sarah. Jeff Black say that once and he was sorry he ever opened his mouth. I just about wiped him out. His face was one mass of blood when I finished with him—except I didn’t finish. They pulled me off, else he’d be dead. Like me dad. I wish it was him instead of me dad.
Stone’s getting wet again, Sarah. Got to wipe it, and me nose. Is it nice and dry in there? Must be, because there ain’t no cracks in the top, just this one down the side. I bet it’s peaceful. Well it is out here, I suppose, and the long grass is all right for lying down in. I could live here, Sarah. Well, stay here, anyway.
What was your parents like? Don’t bother to tell me; it don’t matter. I know what you was like with your blondie hair all spread out on the pillow when you was dying. They was watching you and crying like mad, I expect. And then the house all dark, and you in your coffin, and flowers. That’s the one thing I can’t stand about funerals, the flowers. The smell make you feel sick like it’s wrapping up the dead person as if there was something wrong with him and they wanted to hide it.
Me dad’s funeral was pretty quick when it happened. Nobody wanted to know about him once they’d all made their minds up what he done. They never knew about the tablets. That never come up. Hardly likely it would. They was her tablets.
She kept them in her handbag, didn’t she, because she always say they was dangerous. So they was, but for a long time I never knew what was going on. He was just getting drunk every night. He was all right when he got drunk, mostly. She used to like it because he chucked his money about more than ever. But sometimes she go hard and say that’s why we live where we do because we ain’t got nothing. But after they had that row she got to letting him get drunk on his own, and then instead of being happy down the pub he’d sit and watch the telly and when he was really drunk he start to cry. That’s what I didn’t like. He were too big to do that, but he done it.
I’m getting sleepy, Sarah, lying here, but I got to tell you.
I see him get the whisky bottle out every time the front door bang and she were gone, and he sit in the same place and I knew what were coming. I got so used to it I used to yawn. But then I see something else. Every time she went out, them tablets was on the telly. That little brown bottle sat there by itself, and it should have been in her handbag.
Every morning it was gone, but every night it was there when the whisky bottle come out and he was on his own. I kept watching it. I hardly dare leave the room. That little bottle were like a bomb; that were like a little brown man squatting there, or looking like it was crawling forward like in that story with a label round it saying “Eat me, eat me” every time he was sorry for hisself. And that was every time he got drunk.
I watched her. I never say nothing. She always put them tablets down on the telly like it were casual, and a couple of times I handed them back to her, and she say, “Thank you, I better not be so careless.”
But then it kept turning up in different places, close to him, and I was frit. I searched and searched every time she went out and when I found it I hid it till she came home.
I felt sick, Sarah. I feel sick now. She knew what I was doing, and she knew I couldn’t say nothing. Not to her. I couldn’t talk to me mother about something like that, could I? She never done nothing like she was being wicked or anything. She never let on, but that little bottle was always there somewhere and I was getting ill looking for it.
And it was my fault, Sarah, what happened. I made a mistake. I got so worried that what I done one night was pinch that bottle from her handbag, and when she found out she come at me in front of him.
“You little devil,” she say. “I know what you done.” And she put out her hand, twitching her fingers. “Give it over.”
I didn’t do nothing.
Me dad say to her, “What you on about?”
She say, “He been pinching from my handbag, that’s what.”
She held out her hand, and me dad watched. He hate people who nick things, do my dad. He near killed me when I done something like that once before. But I couldn’t take out that bottle, not in front of him. That were what she wanted me to do. Draw attention to it, so he see it next time she put it out, and next time he was drunk and crying he’d get ideas. So you know what I done, Sarah? It were terrible.
I let myself down in front of him. I made out I was a thief. I had a quid in me pocket and I took it out and I handed it to her. I didn’t see me dad because I couldn’t look at him; I just stood there with the quid, holding it out, like it was something rotten and filthy and I done it.
“See?” she say to him. “See what a nasty ugly little devil you got for a son. What use was it ever having him when he pinch from his own mother? It’s you what done it. Playing with him like a kid. Bloody train sets, that’s all you’re good for. Call yourself a man? Bloody kid that’s what you are.”
My dad’s big; he have tattoos and all that on his arms. He have a fist that can punch a brick in two; I seen him do it. I ain’t never seen a man get nasty with him, but she done it.
It was like her lips pushed her nose out of the way. She was all gob. “You ain’t a man,” she say. “Never have been. I never thought you was a proper man, never. King o’ the kids, that’s you. King o’ the bleeding kids.”
I thought he was going to hit her then, but he never. I see his face and it was like a kid’s just then. He have short hair, and it stuck up all bristles like a boy who have just had a haircut. He busted my heart, Sarah, that’s what he done. Because he didn’t even look at me. He just turned round and walked out.
“Good riddance!” she yell, and he just went out quiet as a mouse.
I never see him again, Sarah. They wouldn’t even let me look.
She had my quid. She put it in her handbag and shut it. I didn’t care, because she’d forgotten about them pills.
Sorry, Sarah, I just can’t help laughing. She took my quid and on top of that she didn’t have no need of them pills no more; not for him—they done their work and he never even seen them.
They done their work all right, and now they’re doing it again. I never gave them back to her. She’ll never get ’em now, because that’s what I been scrunching while I been talking to you, Sarah. But you know that, because you been through it, and see what’
s happening to me. I reckon it’s time you come out to fetch me, Sarah, while I’m looking up at the stars.
I still can’t help laughing. I worried all the time about them pills and me dad, but he never needed them. They found him on the allotments. In a shed. He used a bit of old rope, did my dad. He never had need of pills.
Deadlights by Charles Wagner
Charles Wagner is one of the students who have had the good fortune to take Dennis Etchison’s creative writing class at U.C.L.A. Perhaps there’s something to the idea that horror writers take delight in helping along new horror writers—much the same as vampires are always looking out for fresh blood.
Of himself, Wagner writes: “I was born December 8, 1957 in Beloit, Kansas, where I lived until finishing high school. For reasons that have become vague, I studied electrical engineering at the University of Kansas, receiving my degree in 1979. Quickly tiring of work in the field, I took writing classes in my spare time, finally moving to Los Angeles in 1982 where I began writing in earnest. It was with Dennis Etchison’s help that my work began to pay off, and it was in his class that I met my wife, Margaret Coleman, who also writes. Presently my goal is to leave engineering forever. ‘Deadlights’ is my first published work and I am pleased that it was chosen to appear here—and no, the editor of this anthology is not my uncle.”
“Deadlights” first appeared in Twisted Tales, one of the independently produced comic books that today continue the E.C. horror tradition. Interestingly, the same issue also features an adaptation of Etchison’s story, “Wet Season.” I think this is the first time that a prose version of a story from a comic book has appeared in an anthology.
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