The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23 (Mammoth Books)

by Jones, Stephen

  “What, you’re breaking up with me?” A thin crimson line of inflammation separated her eyes from their tightly wrinkled sockets.

  “No, that’s not what I meant at all. I mean try new things together, as a couple. Go places, do things.”

  “You have the only new thing I need, lover.” Her leer ended with a crusted tongue swiped over cracked lips.

  “It doesn’t feel healthy staying in the way we do. Maybe it’s okay for you, but it doesn’t work for me.”

  He pulled up in front of a little Italian place. It wasn’t very popular – the flavours were a bit coarse – but the food was always filling.

  “No,” she said, and closed her eyes. She was wearing so much eye make-up that it looked as if her eyelids had caved in.

  “All I’m asking is that you give it a try. If you don’t like it, okay. No problem. We’ll just go home.”

  She slapped his face then, and it felt as if she’d hit him with a piece of wood. She continued hitting him with those hands of so little padding, spitting the word “lover!” at him, as if it were some kind of curse.

  He had no idea what to do. He’d never been struck by a woman before. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a physical fight with anyone. And now she was screaming, the angular gape of her mouth like an attacking bird’s.

  “Hey! Hey!” The car door was open, and someone was pulling her away from him. Miri was beside herself, struggling, kicking. Rick was leaning back as far as possible to avoid her sharp-pointed shoes. Over her shoulder he saw Matt’s face, grimly determined, as he jerked her out of the car.

  She spat at both of them, walking back toward her apartment with one shoe missing, her clothes twisted around on her coat-hanger frame.

  “I should go get her, try to coax her back into the car,” Rick said, out of breath.

  “Glad you finally introduced us.” Matt was bent over, wheezing.

  Of course she had apologised in her own way, showing up at Rick’s door the next night, naked, crying and incoherent. He got her inside before anyone else could see. And then she would not leave for weeks, sleeping in his bed, watching him eat or stand before his easel unable to paint. Most of the time he slept on the floor, but sometimes he had to have something softer, and lay on the bed trying to ignore her mouth and hands all over him, in that fluttering way of hers, until she stopped and lay cold against him.

  “I’m glad you were able to join us today.” Matt stood at Rick’s office door, looking unhappy. “Were you really sick, or did you get Elaine to call in and lie for you every day?”

  Rick was unable to do anything but stare as Matt’s words rushed by him. He’d been in the office for only five minutes or so and already he was feeling disoriented. Papers were stacked all over his desk, and message notes were attached around his monitor, even to his lamp base. He never left things like this.

  Finally, he looked up at his old friend. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You haven’t been here in four days! I can’t keep coming up with excuses for you with the partners.”

  “Four days?”

  Matt stared at him. It made him uncomfortable, so he started sifting through the piles of papers. But these were piles of print on paper, black on white, black and white. Before he could turn away he was seeing the shadows of her eyes, the angles of her mouth in the smile that wasn’t a smile. “Maybe you are sick,” Matt said behind him.

  “You said Elaine called in every day?”

  “Right after the office opened, once before I even got in.”

  “Elaine never lies. That’s one of the best things about her. I don’t think she even knows how,” Rick said absently, looking around the office, finding more phone messages. Some appeared to be in his own handwriting.

  “Well, I know. Of course. Look, I didn’t mean—”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t someone who just pretended to be Elaine?”

  But then someone was softly knocking, or rubbing, on the door outside. And Rick couldn’t bring himself to speak anymore.

  “Ricky?” she had said. “Are you home?”

  But he couldn’t get out of his so well-cushioned chair. The doorknob rattled in its collar. He willed the latch to hold.

  “Ricky, we don’t have to do anything,” she said in her child’s voice, muffled by the door.

  “Ricky, I just need – are you too tired, Ricky? I just need—”

  After a few weeks she had stopped. Later he heard she’d killed herself, but he never saw a word about it in the papers. One afternoon a truck came and took away all the stuff in her apartment. A white-haired man came by, knocking on each door. But Rick hadn’t answered when the old man knocked on his. Later one of the other tenants would tell Rick the white-haired man had claimed to be her uncle.

  The next week was when the colour-blindness had come over him like some sort of virus, intermittently, then all at once. One of the doctors he saw said it appeared to be a hysterical reaction of some sort. Whatever the source, or the reason, he stopped painting, and she mostly left him alone for a long time after that, reappearing now and then to monochrome the world for a while, or to take a day or two, or to eat one of his new memories and leave one of the tired old ones in its place.

  And now it had looked as if he was going to be happy, or at least the possibility was there, and she couldn’t just leave that be.

  The bedroom was completely black, except for a few bright white reflections of window pane. And the side of Elaine’s face, as she slept on her back. Lovely and glowing and ghostly.

  The children were out there asleep in their own beds, or should be. At least he hadn’t heard them in hours. He prayed they were. Sleeping.

  But it was all so black, and white, and something was rubbing at the door.

  GEETA ROOPNARINE

  Corbeaux Bay

  GEETA ROOPNARINE WAS BORN in Trinidad and Tobago and now lives in Greece. She is also a visual artist and is currently working on her first novel, which does not deal with corbeaux but has one sitting on a fence.

  “There is an otherness about this bird which induces in me a feeling of disquiet, and a kind of admiration too,” says the author.

  “Corbeaux in Trinidad act as if they were almost civilised: at the seaside, they come within a foot or so of where you might be gutting a fish and wait patiently for the entrails. Yet if you see them sitting on the top of a coconut tree, there is a peculiar stillness about them – as though they are waiting for a sign, waiting to act in an unforeseen manner, as if they have a collective intelligence.

  “And it is really spooky coming upon them on a deserted beach . . .”

  IT IS THEIR summer holidays. He has gone for a run along the beach, early in the morning, every day except today. Last night he slept uneasily, disturbed by the peculiar sound of a night bird.

  Sunday, and the beach is already swarming with people gaily mapping their domains with rectangular pieces of scraggy matting. The fishermen have returned from their trawling and Christine is at work in the lean-to. She slits, disembowels, and segments strange sea creatures that she has picked up from the nets; they may not be marketable but they do make nourishing soups. She looks like a Pied Piper but with a flock of black scrawny corbeaux, turkey vultures, some as tall as their youngest son. She throws the inner parts of the head, the gills, and the shining entrails to them without looking and they eagerly scoop up the offal, their curved beaks slicing, spilling the juices of the soft material. They are fast eaters, intent on their portions and defensive of their territory, fiercely pecking.

  He is uneasy that she feeds the birds while the children watch from the balcony, but she laughs and says it is because he is from the city and does not understand the ways of nature, that when she was a girl her mother did the same and she sees no reason to change.

  As he hurries along the pathway to the garden, one of the corbeaux, intent on feasting, on staining the cement red, is unaware of his approach. He aims a kick at it. The
bird staggers a few feet away with a weird side-stepping gait and gazes at him. The flock also pause for a moment, their heads cocked to one side, and look up. Christine continues to pull, to stretch, to empty.

  When he is almost at the gate, she notices him in his sneakers and tells him to take his mobile phone.

  “What?” he says. “And have you calling every five minutes to tell me which child is using dirty words, or which one is making his kaka.” He goes back inside and puts away his phone and his watch.

  Then he bares his arm at her. “I am on holiday.”

  He goes for his run but soon returns. The sun is high in the sky and the people on the beach upset him, playing handball and shrieking as if the beach belongs to them. Tomorrow, he promises himself, he will leave early in the morning, and explore beyond the coconut trees on to the shoreline bordered by the jungle.

  The birds have gone and he is pleased that he doesn’t have to look at their bare wrinkled necks, their curved beaks, their staring eyes.

  Next day he leaves at 6 a.m., before the sun is up. He takes a small bottle of water, strapped to his waist. He picks up his mobile phone, remembers his conversation with his wife the day before, and puts back it down.

  The beach is white, pristine. There is not a soul in either direction. The sea is grey, untouched yet by the morning sun. It looks fresh, newly formed.

  He pulls off his socks, balls them up, places them in his sneakers and runs in the fine sand, his feet caressed by the soft swell of the water. He leaves no trail, and in front, the beach stretches out clean, unmarked.

  He goes further and further until he leaves the swelter of houses, humped together like ticks. After an hour he reaches the end of the long beach and the sand gives way to a rocky outcrop. Here, the coconut palms surrender to the tangled growth of the tropics. He dries his feet, puts on his socks and sneakers, and climbs the rocky incline. Another, shorter beach stretches out in front of him. In the distance, beyond a protrusion of blood-red rocks, a second bay shimmers.

  The small village has vanished behind the curve of the sea. He drinks the rest of his water and decides to go as far as the red rocks, maybe take a small sample for the boys. In the sky, a bird circles lazily.

  He jogs slowly, taking care. The sand is littered with debris: broken plastic, bottle tops, a single rubber flip-flop. He looks at the orientation of the shore, at an angle to the long beach, and it appears that the sea rages through here at intervals. As he goes on, it becomes rocky. He wonders whether he should turn back. The sun is already high and Christine would be looking towards the beach. Then he reasons it is a pity to come so far and not see what is on the other side.

  The liver-coloured rocks are jagged with thin spikes and he is amazed at the different shades of red, rust and brown that swirl through the small peaks. He is dizzy from the long run, not having had breakfast, and the hot sun, but he is determined to climb to the top, to master this wilderness.

  The top does not disappoint. It is wild and rugged. In the forest, the trees seem alive, listening. Here, too, he sees that the ocean comes in with a vengeance. Large logs are piled up at the edge of the narrow strip of beach as if protecting it from the forest or something unknown.

  The tip of the rocky outcrop is covered with huge globs of white with black feathers sticking out here and there. He looks up. More birds are circling but they are too far away for him to identify. Probably those damn corbeaux looking for another gullible housewife to feed them.

  He peers down. On a ledge cut into the rock, he sees nests with broken shells, but one has two eggs. They are large, speckled with grey. An image of Christine’s face, frowning, passes across his mind as she sees him with the egg, when her monopoly on nature is broken, and the boys touch the egg with their small, sensitive fingers.

  As he balances himself and stretches precariously to get at the egg, his attention is caught by some markings on the beach below like symbols in a strange language.

  He falls and as he moves through the air, slowly, he sees a multitude of black figures huddling under a projecting ledge. He hits one of the tall spikes in the rocks below and feels something ram into his stomach. Then, the spike breaking, he falls again.

  He is lying on the beach. He takes a deep breath. There is no pain yet. He sees himself take a hold of the spike with both hands and pull hard. He flings it away and at first there are no fluids, no blood, no acids.

  He rolls onto his stomach, closes his eyes and gives in to the pain, his face pressed against the sand. When he opens his eyes, the markings, the symbols, are no more than hundreds of V-shaped footprints of birds.

  A stain spreads across his T-shirt and he pulls it off, tears it and makes a bandage of sorts. He reaches towards his pocket and then his hand falls away; he pictures the mobile on the table where he left it.

  A movement above catches his eye. On the hidden ledge, something is causing the birds to stir. They raise their heads and seem to sniff at the air. Then they are quiet, watchful, their heads cocked to one side as if listening to some signal.

  They take to the air, fly high. He exhales slowly. He turns his head towards the forest. It looks dark, impenetrable. The only way is back over the cliffs. He tries to move forward, but the pain leaves him weak.

  He hears a movement and moves his head slowly. A corbeau is on the beach, side-walking like a bashful virgin, its beak contained, quiet.

  Another movement, and more feet making V-shaped symbols on the sand.

  His mouth is dry; the hot rays seem to pour down his throat.

  He wishes he could talk to his sons, listen to their little squabbles falling around his ears like soft rain.

  Then, a stirring of wings blots out the sun.

  MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

  Sad, Dark Thing

  MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH IS a novelist and screenwriter. Under this name he has published the modern SF novels Only Forward, Spares and One of Us, and is the only person to have won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story four times – along with the August Delerth, International Horror Guild and Philip K. Dick awards.

  Writing as “Michael Marshall” he has published six international best-selling novels of suspense, including The Straw Men and The Intruders, currently in development with the BBC. His most recent novel is Killer Move, while The Forgotten is forthcoming.

  He currently lives in Santa Cruz, California, with his wife and son.

  “This story was born out of two things,” explains the author. “The atmosphere of the forests of the Santa Cruz mountains – a place where I’d just vacationed – and a title, given by a friend. The two collided in my head and produced the story almost without any intervention on my part.

  “The strange thing is that I’m now living about fifteen minutes’ drive from the kind of place where the story is set. I hope the protagonist’s story will not become my own, however – hope so very much indeed.”

  AIMLESS. A SHORT, simple word. It means “without aim”, where “aim” derives from the idea of calculation with a view to action. Without purpose or direction, therefore, without a considered goal or future that you can see. People mainly use the word in a blunt, softened fashion. They walk “aimlessly” down a street, not sure whether to have a coffee or if they should check out the new magazines in the bookstore or maybe sit on that bench and watch the world go by. It’s not a big deal, this aimlessness. It’s a temporary state and often comes with a side order of ease. An hour without something hanging over you, with no great need to do or achieve anything in particular? In this world of busy lives and do-this and do-that, it sounds pretty good.

  But being wholly without purpose? With no direction home? That is not such a good deal. Being truly aimless is like being dead. It may even be the same thing, or worse. It is the aimless who find the wrong roads, and go down them, simply because they have nowhere else to go.

  Miller usually found himself driving on Saturday afternoons. He could make the morning go away by staying in bed an extra h
alf-hour, tidying away stray emails, spending time on the deck, looking out over the forest with a magazine or the iPad and a succession of coffees. He made the coffees in a machine that sat on the kitchen counter and cost nearly eight hundred dollars. It made a very good cup of coffee. It should. It had cost nearly eight hundred dollars.

  By noon a combination of caffeine and other factors would mean that he wasn’t very hungry. He would go back indoors nonetheless, and put together a plate from the fridge. The ingredients would be things he’d gathered from delis up in San Francisco during the week, or else from the New Leaf markets in Santa Cruz or Felton as he returned home on Friday afternoon. The idea was that this would constitute a treat, and remind him of the good things in life. That was the idea. He would also pour some juice into one of the only two glasses in the cabinet that got any use. The other was his scotch glass, the one with the faded white logo on it, but that only came out in the evenings. He was very firm about that.

  He would bring the plate and glass back out and eat at the table which stood further along the deck from the chair in which he’d spent most of the morning. By then the sun would have moved around, and the table got shade, which he preferred when he was eating. The change in position was also supposed to make it feel like he was doing something different to what he’d done all morning, though it did not, especially. He was still a man sitting in silence on a raised deck, within view of many trees, eating expensive foods that tasted like cardboard.

  Afterward he took the plate indoors and washed it in the sink. He had a dishwasher, naturally. Dishwashers are there to save time. He washed the plate and silverware by hand, watching the water swirl away and then drying everything and putting it to one side. He was down a wife, and a child, now living three hundred miles away. He was short on women and children, therefore, but in their place, from the hollows they had left behind, he had time. Time crawled in an endless parade of minutes from between those cracks, arriving like an army of little black ants, crawling up over his skin, up his face, and into his mouth, ears and eyes.