The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2002, Volume 13

by Stephen Jones

  And then: Laura, crawling across the floor, holding on to Edgar’s leg, pulling herself up, her eyes fogged with what could only be ecstasy. Burying her face in Edgar’s crotch. Sarah had shrunk back from her daughter, horrified. She watched as Laura’s free hand travelled beneath her skirt and began to massage at the gusset of her knickers while animal sounds came from her throat. Edgar had grinned at her, showing off a range of tiny, brilliant white teeth. Then he had bent low, whispering something in Laura’s ear before charging out of the window with a speed that Sarah thought could only end in tragedy. But when she rushed to the opening, she couldn’t see him anywhere.

  It had been the Devil’s own job trying to get her daughter ready to flee Liverpool. Laura had grown wan and weak and couldn’t keep her eyes off the window. Sarah dragged her on to a dawn coach from Mount Pleasant. Laura had been unable to stop crying and as the day wore on, complained of terrible thirst and unbearable pain behind her eyes. She vomited twice and the driver threatened to throw them off the coach unless Laura calmed down. Somehow, Sarah was able to pacify her. She found that shading her from the sunlight helped. A little later, slumped under the seat, Laura fell asleep.

  Sarah had begun to question ever leaving Preston in the first place. At least there she had had the strength that comes with knowing your environment. Manser had been a problem in Preston but the trouble was that he remained a problem. At least back there, it was just him that she needed to be wary of. Now it seemed that Laura’s adolescence was going to cause Sarah more of a problem than she believed could be possible. But at the back of her mind, Sarah knew that she could never have stayed in her home town. What Manser had proposed, sidling up to her at Andrew’s funeral, was that she should allow Laura to work for him, whoring. He guaranteed an excellent price for such a perfectly toned, tight bit of girl.

  ‘Men go for that,’ he’d whispered, as Sarah tossed a fistful of soil on to her husband’s coffin. ‘She’s got cracking tits for a thirteen-year-old. High. Firm. Nipples up top. Quids in, I promise you. You could have your debt sorted out in a couple of years. And I’ll break her in for you. Just so’s you know it won’t be some stranger nicking her cherry.’

  That night, they were out of their house, a suitcase full of clothes between them.

  ‘You fucking beauty.’

  Manser depressed the call-end button on his Motorola and slipped the phone into his jacket. Leaning forward, he tapped his driver on the shoulder. ‘Jez. Get this. Cops found the bitch’s car in a fucking field outside Leicester. She’d totalled it.’

  He slumped back in his seat. The radio masts at Rugby swung by on his left, lights glinting through a thin fog. ‘Fuck London. You want the A5199. Warp Factor two. And when we catch the minging little tart, we’ll show her how to have a road accident. Do the job properly for her. Laura, though, Laura comes with us. Nothing happens to Laura. Got it?’

  At Knowlden’s assent, Manser closed his eyes. This year’s number three had died just before he left home. It had been a pity. He’d liked that one. The sutures on her legs had healed in such a way as to chafe his thigh as he thrust into her. But there had been an infection that he couldn’t treat. Pouring antibiotics down her hadn’t done an awful lot of good. Gangrene had set in. Maybe Laura could be his number four. Once Dr Losh had done his bit, he would ask him the best way to prevent infection. He knew what Losh’s response would be: let it heal. But he liked his meat so very rare when he was fucking it. He liked to see a little blood.

  Sarah woke up to find that her right eye had puffed closed. She caught sight of herself in a shard of broken mirror on the wall. Blood caked half her face and the other half was black with bruises. Her hair was matted. Not for the first time, she wondered if her conviction that Laura had died was misplaced. Yet in the same breath, she couldn’t bear to think that she might now be suffering with similar, or worse, injuries. Her thoughts turned to her saviours – if that was what they were. And if so, then why hadn’t she been rescued?

  She relived the warmth and protection that had enveloped her when those willowy figures had reached inside the car and plucked out her child. Her panic at the thought of Laura either dead or as good as had been ironed flat. She felt safe and, inexplicably, had not raged at this outrageous kidnap; indeed, she had virtually sanctioned it. Perhaps it had been the craziness inspired by the accident or endorphins stifling her pain that had brought about her indifference. Still, what should have been anger and guilt was neutralized by the conviction that Laura was in safe hands. What she didn’t want to examine too minutely was the feeling that she missed the rescue party more than she did her own daughter.

  Refreshed a little by her sleep, but appalled at the catalogue of new aches and pains that jarred each movement, Sarah made her way back to the larder where she found some crackers in an airtight tin. Chewing on these, she revisited the hallway and dragged open the heavy curtains, allowing some of the late-afternoon light to invade. Almost immediately she saw the door under the stairs. She saw how she had missed it earlier; it was hewn from the same dark wood and there was no door handle as such, just a little recess to hook your fingers into. She tried it but it wouldn’t budge. Which meant that it was locked from the inside. Which meant that somebody must be down there.

  ‘Laura?’ she called, tapping on the wood with her fingernails. ‘Laura, it’s mum. Are you in there?’

  She listened hard, her ear flush against the crack of the jamb. All she could hear was the gust of subterranean breezes moving through what ought to be the cellar. She must check it out; Laura could be down there, bleeding her last.

  Sarah hunted through the kitchen. A large pine table sat at one end of the room, a dried orange with a heart of mould at its centre. She found a stack of old newspapers from the early 1970s bound up with twine by a back door that was forbiddingly black and excessively padlocked. Ransacking the drawers and cupboards brought scant reward. She was about to give in when the suck of air from the last yanked cupboard door brought a small screwdriver rolling into view. She grabbed the tool and scurried back to the cellar door.

  Manser kept Knowlden still with a finger curled around his lapel. ‘Are you carrying?’

  Knowlden had parked the car off the road on the side opposite to the crash site. Now the two men were standing by the wreck of the Alfa. Knowlden had spotted the house and suggested they check it out. If Sarah and her daughter had survived the crash – and the empty car suggested that they had – then they might have found some neighbourly help.

  ‘I hope you fucking are,’ Manser warned.

  ‘I’m carrying – okay? Don’t sweat it.’

  Manser’s eyebrows went north. ‘Don’t tell me not to sweat it, pup. Or you’ll find yourself doing seventy back up the motorway without a fucking car underneath you.’

  The sun sinking fast, they hurried across the field, constantly checking the road behind them as they did so. Happy that nobody had seen them, Manser nodded his head in the direction of the front door. ‘Kick the mud off your boots on that bastard,’ he said.

  It was 5:14 p.m.

  Sarah was halfway down the cellar stairs and wishing she had a torch with her when she heard the first blows hammering at the door. She was about to return to the hallway when she heard movement from below. A lot of movement. Creaks and whispers and hisses. There was a sound as of soot trickling down a flue. A chatter: teeth in the cold? A sigh.

  ‘Laura?’

  A chuckle.

  The door gave in just before Knowlden was about to. His face was greasy with sweat and hoops of dampness spoiled his otherwise pristine shirt.

  ‘Gun,’ Manser said, holding out his hand. Knowlden passed him the weapon, barely disguising his disdain for his boss. ‘You want to get some muesli down you, mate,’ Manser said. ‘Get yourself fit.’ He checked that the piece was loaded and entered the house, muzzle pointing ahead of him, the grip held horizontally. Something he’d done ever since seeing Brad Pitt do the same thing in Se7en.

&nb
sp; ‘Knock, knock,’ he called out. ‘Daddy’s home.’

  Just before all hell broke loose, Sarah heard Laura’s voice, firm and even, say: ‘Do not touch her.’ Then she was knocked back on the stairs by a flurry of black leather and she was aware only of bloody-eyed, pale-skinned figures flocking past her. And teeth. She saw each leering mouth as if in slow motion, dark lips peeled back to reveal teeth so white that they might have been sculpted from ice.

  She thought she saw Laura among them and tried to grab hold of her jumper. But she was left clutching air as the scrum piled into the hallway, whooping and screaming like a gang of kids let out early from school. When the shooting started she couldn’t tell if the screaming had changed in pitch at all, whether it had become more panicked. But at the top of the stairs she realized she was responsible for most of it. There appeared to be some kind of stand-off. Manser, the fetid little sniffer dog of a man, was waving a gun around while his henchman clenched and unclenched his hands, eyeing up the opposition, which was substantial. Sarah studied them properly for the first time, these women who had rescued her baby and left her to die in the car. And yet proper examination was beyond her. There were four of them, she thought. Maybe five. They moved around and against each other so swiftly, so lissomely that she couldn’t be sure. They were like a flesh knot. Eyes fast on their enemy, they guarded each other with this mesmerizing display. It was so seamless that it could have been choreographed.

  But now she saw that they were not just protecting each other. There was someone at the heart of the knot, appearing and disappearing in little ribbons and teasers of colour. Sarah needed to see only a portion of face to know that they were wrapped around her daughter.

  ‘Laura,’ she said again.

  Manser said, ‘Who the fuck are these clowns? Have we just walked into Goth night down the local student bar, or what?’

  ‘Laura,’ Sarah said again, ignoring her pursuer. ‘Come here.’

  ‘Everyone just stand back. I’m having the girl. And to show you I’m not just pissing in my paddling pool . . .’ Manser took aim and shot one of the women through the forehead.

  Sarah covered her mouth as the woman dropped. The three others seemed to fade somewhat, as if their strength had been affected.

  ‘Jez,’ said Manser. ‘Get the girl.’

  Sarah leapt at Knowlden as he strode into the pack but a stiff arm across her chest knocked her back against the wall, winding her. He extricated Laura from her guardians and dragged her, kicking, back to his boss.

  Manser was nodding his head. ‘Nice work, Jez. You can have jelly for afters tonight. Get her outside.’

  To Sarah he said: ‘Give her up.’ And then he was gone.

  Slumped on the floor, Sarah tried to blink a fresh trickle of blood from her eyes. Through the fluid, she thought she could see the women crowding around their companion. She thought she could see them lifting her head as they positioned themselves around her. But no. No. She couldn’t accept that she was seeing what they began to do to her then.

  Knowlden slowed down as they ran towards the car. Manser was half-dragging, half-carrying Laura who was thrashing around in his arms.

  ‘I’m nearly ready,’ she said. ‘I’ll bite you! I’ll bite you, I swear to God.’

  ‘And I’ll scratch your eyes out,’ Manser retorted. ‘Now shut the fuck up. Jesus, can’t you do what girls your age do in the movies? Faint, or something?’

  At the car, he bundled her into the boot and locked it shut. Then he fell against the side of the car and tried to control his breathing. He could just see Knowlden plodding towards him in the dark. Manser could hear his gasping lungs even though the man had another forty metres or so to cover.

  ‘Come on, Jez, for fuck’s sake! I’ve seen mascara run faster than that.’

  At thirty metres, Manser had a clearer view of his driver as he died.

  One of the women they had left behind in the house was moving across the field at a speed that defied logic. Her hands were outstretched and her nails glinted like polished arrowheads. Manser moved quickly himself when he saw how she slammed into his chauffeur. He was in third gear before he realized he hadn’t taken the handbrake off and he was laughing harder than he had ever laughed in his life. Knowlden’s heart had been skewered on the end of the woman’s claws like a piece of meat on a kebab. Manser didn’t stop laughing until he hit the M1, southbound.

  Knowlden was forgotten. All Manser had on his mind now was Laura, naked on the slab, her body marked out like the charts on a butcher’s wall.

  Dazed, Sarah was helped to her feet. Their hands held her everywhere and nowhere, moving along her body as softly as silk. She tried to talk but whenever she opened her mouth someone’s hand, cold and rank, slipped over it. She saw the pattern in the curtains travel by in a blur though she could not feel her feet on the floor. Then the night was upon them, and the frost in the air sang around her ears as she was swept into the sky, embedded at the centre of their slippery mesh of bodies, smelling their clothes and the scent of something ageless and black, lifting off the skin like forbidden perfume. Is she all right now? she wanted to ask, but her words wouldn’t form in the ceaseless blast of cold air. Sarah couldn’t count the women who cavorted around her. She drifted into unconsciousness thinking of how they had opened the veins in their chests for her, how the gush of fluid had flooded over her face, bubbling on her tongue and in her nostrils like dark wine. How her eyes had flicked open and rolled back into their sockets with the unspeakable rapture of it all.

  Having phoned ahead, Manser parked the car at midnight on South Wharf Road, just by the junction with Praed Street. He was early, so instead of going directly to the dilapidated pub on the corner he sauntered to the bridge over Paddington Basin and stared up at the Westway, hoping for calm. The sounds coming from that elevated sweep were anything but soothing. The mechanical sigh of speeding vehicles reminded him only of the way those witches’ mouths had breathed, snakelike jaws unhinged as though in readiness to swallow him whole. The hiss of tyres on rain-soaked tarmac put him in mind of nothing but the wet air that had sped from Knowlden’s chest when he was torn open.

  When Manser returned, he saw a low-wattage bulb in the pub turning the glass of an upstairs window milky. He went to the door and tapped on it with a coin in a pre-arranged code. Then he went back to the car and opened the boot. He wrestled with Laura and managed to clamp a hand over her mouth. She bit down, hard. Swearing, he dragged a handkerchief from his pocket and stuffed it in her mouth, punching her twice to make her keep still. The pain in his hand was almost unbearable. She had teeth like razors. Flaps of skin hung off his palm; he was bleeding badly. Woozy at the sight of the wound, he staggered with Laura to the door, which was now open. He went through it and kicked it shut, checking the street to make sure he hadn’t been seen. Upstairs, Losh was sitting in a chair containing more holes than stuffing.

  ‘This was a good boozer before it was closed down,’ Manser said, his excitement unfolding deep within him.

  ‘Was,’ Losh said, keeping his eyes on him. He wore a butcher’s apron that was slathered with blood. He smoked a cigarette, the end of which was patterned with bloody prints from his fingers. A comma of blood could be mistaken for a kiss-curl on his forehead. ‘Everything changes.’

  ‘You don’t,’ Manser said. ‘Christ. Don’t you ever wash?’

  ‘What’s the point? I’m a busy man.’

  ‘How many years you been struck off?’

  Losh smiled. ‘Didn’t anybody ever warn you not to piss off the people you need help from?’

  Manser swallowed his distaste for the smaller man. ‘Nobody warns me nothing,’ he spat. ‘Can’t we get on?’

  Losh stood up and stretched. ‘Cash,’ he said, luxuriously.

  Manser pulled a wad from his jacket. ‘There’s six grand there. As always.’

  ‘I believe you. I’d count it but the bank get a bit miffed if they get blood on their bills.’

  ‘Why don�
�t you wear gloves?’

  ‘The magic. It’s all in the fingers.’ Losh gestured towards Laura. ‘This the one?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Pretty thing. Nice legs.’ Losh laughed. Manser closed his eyes. Losh said, ‘What you after?’

  Manser said, ‘The works.’

  Wide eyes from Losh. ‘Then let’s call it eight thou.’

  A pause. Manser said, ‘I don’t have it with me. I can get it tomorrow. Keep the car tonight. As collateral.’

  Losh said, ‘Done.’

  The first incision. Blood squirted up the apron, much brighter than the stains already painted upon it. A coppery smell filled the room. The pockets of the pool table upon which Laura was spread were filled with beer towels.

  ‘Soft tissue?’

  Manser’s voice was dry. He needed a drink. His cock was as hard as a house brick. ‘As much off as possible.’

  ‘She won’t last long,’ Losh said.

  Manser stared at him. ‘She’ll last long enough.’

  Losh said: ‘Got a number five in mind already?’

  Manser didn’t say a word. Losh reached behind him and picked up a Samsonite suitcase. He opened it and pulled out a hacksaw. Its teeth played with the light and flung it in every direction. At least Losh kept his tools clean.

  The operation took four hours. Manser fell asleep at one point and dreamed of his hand overpowering the rest of his body, dragging him around the city while the mouth that slavered and snarled at the centre of his palm cupped itself around the stomachs of passers-by and devoured them.