The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2002, Volume 13

by Stephen Jones

  ‘Good luck,’ I said over my shoulder.

  The kid had a couple of household items in his hands. He must have wanted to do the pots and pans or something as soon as he got home. So he was going to try and make up after all. He could hardly wait. The poor bastard. I went out while he was paying for his stuff.

  The mousemobile was gone. Now a pool-cleaning truck was parked next to me, the kind I’d seen in the marina, sometimes in front of my own house even though our pool wasn’t finished yet. I wondered if it was the same one. If it was maybe I could do something right here before I drove off and took care of the rest.

  Let’s see, I thought.

  I hadn’t figured on this part and didn’t have the right tools for the job. It wouldn’t take much to give him the message, say a screwdriver stuck in a sidewall or the radiator, like a note on his windshield only better. He’d know what it was for and look around and I’d be gone. Or I could wait for him to come out and see what his sorry ass looked like. Was he inside? I hadn’t noticed. What should you do to her lover? (a) Make his life a living hell (b) tie him up and torture him (c) castrate him or (d) kill him. But this was his lucky day. I wasn’t sure.

  Time to go.

  The kid walked around and opened the passenger door like he wanted to get in.

  ‘One question,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I swallowed hot coffee, put the cap back on and took out my keys.

  ‘Can I get on the show?’

  ‘I don’t have anything to do with that,’ I said, revving up.

  ‘But if you put in a good word . . .’

  ‘I’m out of here,’ I said. The sky went black like a shadow had passed over the earth. Night was ready to fall. I could feel it in my head. ‘Close the door.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said and got in.

  Now he thought we were friends. He was really innocent. Like the Fool in a deck of cards, too busy smelling the flowers to notice that he’s walking off a cliff. I didn’t want to tell him the whole truth. He wouldn’t be able to handle it.

  ‘I guess you have to be pretty smart, anyway.’

  ‘Do you watch the show?’

  ‘Every week!’

  ‘Then you know the rules,’ I snapped. We were driving again and traffic was heating up. I couldn’t waste any more time. ‘It’s not what you know. It’s what—’

  ‘’You don’t know!” he finished for me. ‘That’s so cool. All those other shows, you have to get the right answer. But on Green, one right answer and you’re—’

  ‘History,’ I said. ‘Look, I have to be somewhere.’

  ‘Sony Studios, Culver City, seven o’clock. Right?’

  ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘But this is Friday . . .’

  ‘We tape the shows in advance.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Five a day. I just flew in from Hawaii. Yesterday San Francisco, Atlanta the day before, New York on Monday. A month in a week.’

  ‘Jesus, when do you sleep?’

  ‘It’s been a while.’

  He held out his hand. ‘Ray Lands, right?’

  ‘Lowndes.’

  ‘I thought you were live.’ He tried to give me some kind of brotherhood handshake but I got out of it.

  ‘I used to be. Now they want it every night. We had to get some shows in the can.’

  ‘’Cause it’s so popular?’

  ‘Right.’

  He put his bag of household crap in the back seat, cheered up already, sure everything was going to work out. It didn’t take much. Even if she threw him out again he could sleep under a blanket of stars and eat dates off the palm trees while he figured another way to get her back. That would be cool. Somebody needed to burst his bubble but I didn’t want to be the one. I had things on my mind.

  What is the best way to obtain satisfaction? (a) Catch her in the act and take pictures (b) expose her betrayal on national television (c) beat her within an inch of her life or (d) tie her up and burn the house down.

  ‘All ri-i-ght!’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  He was still leaning over the seat and now he had his hand on the plastic bag from the hardware store. ‘You go to B&B, too! Over on Washington, right? They have everything. It’s great, huh?’

  ‘Great.’

  He reached into my bag and took out the long butane lighter. It balanced across his palm like a combat knife. He fingered the switch, ready to test it.

  ‘I like these babies. For when you have to start a barbecue.’

  ‘Leave it,’ I told him.

  ‘Duct tape, nails, rope . . .’ He put the bag back down next to his. ‘Need to fix something?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘At your place?’

  I stopped the car at the last corner.

  ‘You better get out now.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ He took his bag from the back seat, then hesitated. ‘Need any help?’

  ‘No.’

  A private security patrol car nosed out of the alley by the gate and sat there idling, the guard watching me from behind tinted glass. I hovered for a minute while I downed the rest of the coffee and let it absorb into my bloodstream.

  I could see the stars already through my eyelids and then the streaked sky over Waikiki Beach, the way it was outside the window of the hotel room when the storm started moving in, and my hand as I picked up the phone to call her for the hundredth time. I felt the rumbling of the surf. It sounded like a car engine. I opened my eyes and checked the mirror.

  So far there were no other patrol cars rolling up to block the way, only the one in the alley and while my eyes were closed he had camouflaged the front end so it looked like a trash can in the shadows. I saw waves churning in the marina. The water was blood red.

  ‘You sure?’ the kid said. ‘I’m good with my hands.’

  I would have bet that he was. I considered. If she was alone I could handle it and if she was out that would give me time to get set up while I waited for her to come home. But if she was not alone there might be complications.

  ‘Still want to be on the show?’ I said.

  ‘Sure. Ten million greenbacks!’

  ‘It’s easy. All you have to do is give the wrong answer. Prove that you’re an asshole, in other words, like everybody else.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘If I gave you something to hold, could you do that, and not ask any questions?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘What would you do if you saw a rat?’

  ‘Um, kill it, I guess.’

  ‘That’s right. You’ve got to kill them, don’t you?’

  ‘Hell, yeah.’

  ‘Then come on.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I want you to meet my wife.’

  He swung his legs back in and closed the door. ‘You’ll put in the word?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next week.’

  ‘Cool!’

  We drove around to the multi-level ranch houses at the end of Circle Vista.

  ‘Uh, one thing,’ he said, ‘just so’s you’ll know. I’m not into anything weird.’

  ‘That’s cool,’ I told him. ‘Neither am I.’

  Her lemon-coloured car was in the driveway. I took the hardware store bag from the back and as I climbed out a curtain flapped shut in an upstairs window. The bedroom.

  ‘Wait here,’ I said.

  ‘You got it.’

  I started along the flagstone walk to the side of the house. Better check it out, I thought, before you bring the red can from the trunk, just to be sure. Before I got very far the front door squeaked open and I heard a voice.

  ‘Ray . . . ?’

  I backtracked, holding the bag casually at my side.

  ‘Hi, honey.’

  I waited for her to ad lib an excuse to keep me outside. Her eyes were puffy, almost swollen shut. She hadn’t been getting much sleep, either.

  ‘Ray, I’m so glad you’re here!’

&nb
sp; ‘Are you?’

  ‘You don’t know . . .’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Mother.’

  I nodded knowingly. ‘Your mother? I see. Is she still “sick”?’

  ‘She’s . . . gone.’

  ‘Oh, really? Where did she go?’

  ‘She passed away last night. This morning. I tried calling you from Kaiser but you’d already checked out. I don’t know what to do. I have to make the arrangements . . .’

  I dropped the plastic bag and held her off, feeling her wrists trembling, so thin I could snap them like chicken bones. She came at me again and struggled as I pushed her away. Then her face twisted up and she started sobbing. I grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off her feet, carrying her out of the yard before the neighbors could see our hysterical little scene. The only one who saw was the kid. He watched from the car, taking it in.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she screamed as the sirens started closing in.

  Why is a mouse when it screams I thought. (a) Still shitting me (b) scared shitless (c) full of shit or (d) shit out of luck . . .?

  The next thing I remember is this:

  She got her arms around my neck and then I wasn’t fighting her anymore. I stood there feeling her lips against my neck and her breath was hot like a child’s from the crying and my eyes finally closed all the way. And when they opened again it was like I was waking up.

  I smelled her hair and tasted her skin and knew where I was. Everything else had been a dream. The sirens receded and there was only the quiet lapping of blue water behind our house. The weight lifted and the sky opened and there was light again and the pounding in my ears was her heart beating in my chest. Then her legs went out from under her and I had to hold very tightly to keep her feet from dragging as I pulled her inside.

  I was sorry the kid had to witness any of this. He would have to walk home from here. I had a vague recollection of the bitter, twisted things I had said to him and felt ashamed. Someday he would understand how burned-out a man can get when he’s really exhausted and wired and how bent out of shape things seem when you’re like that, and maybe he’d forget this day. I had been out of my head. It can happen to anybody, I told myself.

  Her clothes were so wrinkled she must have slept in them for days on a cold bench somewhere and her hair had come loose and there was no makeup on her pale face. I set her on the couch.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said and kissed her forehead.

  ‘I have to call the funeral home . . .’

  ‘Let me.’

  ‘And my brother—’

  ‘I’ll take care of it. Rest.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘The phone. I’ll be right there, in the kitchen. Okay?’

  She nodded.

  I found her brother’s number by the phone. No answer. He was probably on his way. I’d try again in a few minutes if he didn’t show up. The next thing would be to call the funeral home. I didn’t know which one it was. I started back to the living room and heard her cry out suddenly, louder and more desperate. The sound stopped before I got there.

  The kid moved in front of the couch to block my way.

  ‘Everything’s cool,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  Across the room the front door was still open. There were spatters on his clean white T-shirt. His bag from the convenience mart lay on the carpet with the contents spilling out: a blister pack of cheap steak knives, a roll of twine and a dispenser of wide package-sealing tape. In his hand was a pizza cutter.

  She was where I had left her, only now her ankles were bound together with the twine, a piece of the tape covered her mouth and one of her arms dangled to the floor. Blood dripped from the wrist.

  ‘I was gonna save my stuff,’ the kid said, ‘for when I get home. But I could tell you needed a hand.’

  I tried to get past him before the room became any blacker.

  He stepped aside and grinned.

  ‘You really got it down, man, about the bitches. I guess I always knew. There just ain’t no other way . . .’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘What you said,’ and he winked at me, his eyes dancing wildly in his skull. ‘I mean, like, you got to kill them all. Right?’

  LYNDA E. RUCKER

  No More A–Roving

  LYNDA E. RUCKER WAS BORN IN BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA, grew up in north-east Georgia, and made her way to Portland, Oregon, by way of Ireland, Nepal and the Czech Republic. (She has since found a better map.) She has held (and continues to hold, much to her dismay) the usual motley assortment of writers’ jobs, among them waitress, ESL teacher, research assistant, burrito maker, receptionist, proof-reader and monitor for the postal exam.

  Her two other published stories have both appeared in Britain’s The Third Alternative magazine.

  ‘With “No More A-Roving” I was thinking of the kind of people you meet sometimes when you’re travelling,’ explains the author, ‘people who have been on the road for too many months or years and seem to have lost any sense of where they’re going or why. Their lives have become little more than a random, disconnected series of occurrences, and they seem so jaded and dulled by their experiences, yet it’s as though they don’t know what else to do with themselves any longer.

  ‘I wondered what would happen if some of these people were mysteriously drawn to the same place – and what sort of place that would be. Parts of the western Irish coast feel like the end of the world to me.

  ‘Also, I wanted to write something in the spirit of Robert Aickman, whom I admire greatly. I hope I succeeded.’

  THE SEAGULL HOSTEL WASN’T MENTIONED in Paul’s battered copy of Let’s Go, but the Australians he’d drunk with back in Cork had recommended it to him, as had his last lift across the Dingle Peninsula. Now dusk had come and gone and a good Irish mile or two out from town he’d begun to wonder if he hadn’t been misled. The wind and the chill rain had redoubled their efforts against him, and the couple of cars out on the roads had flown past him in a spray of water. The backpack had seemed so light the first time he’d packed and hefted it. Now it sat like a ton of bricks across his shoulders and lower back. Perhaps he should hike back into town, before it got too late, and blow his budget on some cramped, overpriced bed-and-breakfast; but there it was, after all, a signpost pointing him down a muddy lane to a rambling wooden structure. In the dark of the night it was merely an outline. It looked deserted.

  Paul swore under his breath as he approached it, but just as he was stepping up onto the porch the door swung open before him. ‘Come in, love, you’ll catch your death,’ and the dumpy middle-aged woman was pulling him in out of the elements. Paul’s eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the room before him: hostel-sparse and dingy, a few old chairs and a black and white television in one corner playing the theme to a soap opera, sunny Australian voices ringing incongruously across the gloom.

  ‘Awful night for it,’ the woman commented needlessly. ‘Lucky you weren’t knocked down by a car with no moon out there. Will you be wanting your own room or a bed in the dormitory, then?’

  ‘Dorm,’ he said. He’d get a night’s sleep and head out in the morning. The Seagull, he realized now that he’d finally found it, was too far from town to suit him. Even a trip to the pub would require him to slog back through that endless wet rainy night. Hadn’t the Australians described it as being closer in? Perhaps the name hadn’t been the Seagull at all, perhaps it had been the Seabreeze or the Seaview. He might have missed his intended destination entirely in the storm. All the same, he might find someone interesting to talk to here, even a travelling companion.

  ‘Right, dear. Six pound fifty. I’m Mrs Ryan and my girl Laura works from time to time too. Kitchen’s through that door there.’ She pointed. ‘We don’t lock you out during the day, but we ask that if you’ll be staying you’ll let us know by noon.’

  Wandering past her, down a short passageway and into the kitchen, he saw why he�
��d thought the place deserted. All the lit rooms were here at the back. Two girls sat giggling at a rough wooden table in the bare narrow room, spooning yogurt from tiny Yoplait containers. Paul lowered his backpack gratefully to the floor. He nodded at them and they giggled in return.

  ‘I’m Paul,’ he said. ‘What’s your names?’

  They were from Cork, they told him, come here for work. Day in, day out, they gutted fish at one of the warehouses. Seventeen years old and their faces were hard and flat, their accents so thick he had trouble understanding them. Their complacency depressed him. When he wasn’t directly addressing them, they whispered to one another and giggled more. At what, he wondered; his relentless American desire to strike up a friendly conversation? In the last year he had learned that things about himself that he had long imagined to be the very essence of Paul-ness were in fact culturally concocted mannerisms. The discovery was troubling, as though something vital had been stolen from him.

  At last he got to his feet and retrieved his backpack, meaning to retreat to the dormitory. If no one there proved worth talking to either, at least he could read for a while before he went to sleep. Reading would distract him from thoughts of Alyssa; she’d stood him up in Scotland where they’d planned to catch the ferry to Ireland together. He’d even stayed two extra days in Stranraer, dull port town, waiting for her to arrive. Somehow, her behavior, though unexpected, hadn’t surprised him. Presumably she’d gone on ahead of him, was most likely somewhere in Ireland still. Had he been Alyssa, he wasn’t entirely certain he’d have waited for himself either; the real surprise was that she’d not ditched him earlier. And now he’d been travelling so long he found himself running out of reasons not to go home.

  The dormitory was at the end of the hallway, past some doors he assumed were private rooms. Stocked with eight bunk beds, it was deserted save for a large young man snoring atop one. The bare walls and windows threw the harsh overhead light back at him. A door at the other end, open slightly to the outside, concealed the couple on the other side of it, a male and female speaking something that sounded like German, or maybe it was Dutch. The scent of hashish drifted languorously across the room.