The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2002, Volume 13

by Stephen Jones

  ‘Yes,’ she lied again. ‘At Oxford. I’m on sabbatical right now. But I live near here, and so I thought I might—’

  She shrugged, opening her hands; looked over at him and smiled tentatively. ‘Make myself useful?’

  The man waited a moment, nodded. ‘Well. Do you have a few minutes now? I’ve got to do something with these, but if you want you can come with me and wait, and then we can see what we can do. Maybe circumvent some paperwork.’

  He turned and started across the room. He had a graceful, bouncing gait, like a gymnast or circus acrobat: impatient with the ground beneath him. ‘Shouldn’t take long,’ he called over his shoulder as Janie hurried to catch up.

  She followed him through a door marked AUTHORISED PERSONS ONLY, into the exhibit laboratory, a reassuringly familiar place with its display cases and smells of shellac and camphor, acetone and ethyl alcohol. There were more cages here, but smaller ones, sheltering live specimens – pupating butterflies and moths, stick insects, leaf insects, dung beetles. The man dropped his net onto a desk, took the jar to a long table against one wall, blindingly lit by long fluorescent tubes. There were scores of bottles here, some empty, others filled with paper and tiny inert figures.

  ‘Have a seat,’ said the man, gesturing at two folding chairs. He settled into one, grabbed an empty jar and a roll of absorbent paper. ‘I’m David Bierce. So where’re you staying? Camden Town?’

  ‘Janie Kendall. Yes—’

  ‘The High Street?’

  Janie sat in the other chair, pulling it a few inches away from him. The questions made her uneasy, but she only nodded, lying again, and said, ‘Closer, actually. Off Gloucester Road. With friends.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Bierce tore off a piece of absorbent paper, leaned across to a stainless steel sink and dampened the paper. Then he dropped it into the empty jar. He paused, turned to her and gestured at the table, smiling.

  ‘Care to join in?’

  Janie shrugged. ‘Sure—’

  She pulled her chair closer, found another empty jar and did as Bierce had, dampening a piece of paper towel and dropping it inside. Then she took the jar containing the dead brimstones and carefully shook one onto the counter. It was a female, its coloring more muted than the males’; she scooped it up very gently, careful not to disturb the scales like dull green glitter upon its wings, dropped it into the jar and replaced the top.

  ‘Very nice.’ Bierce nodded, raising his eyebrows. ‘You seem to know what you’re doing. Work with other insects? Soft-bodied ones?’

  ‘Sometimes. Mostly moths, though. And butterflies.’

  ‘Right.’ He inclined his head to a recessed shelf. ‘How would you label that, then? Go ahead.’

  On the shelf she found a notepad and a case of Rapidograph pens. She began to write, conscious of Bierce staring at her. ‘We usually just put all this into the computer, of course, and print it out’, he said. ‘I just want to see the benefits of an American education in the sciences.’

  Janie fought the urge to look at him. Instead she wrote out the information, making her printing as tiny as possible.

  Gonepteryx rhamni cleopatra

  UNITED KINGDOM: LONDON

  Regent’s Park Zoo

  Lat/Long unknown

  21.IV.2001

  D. Bierce

  Net/caged specimen

  She handed it to Bierce. ‘I don’t know the proper coordinates for London.’ Bierce scrutinized the paper. ‘It’s actually the Royal Zoological Society,’ he said. He looked at her, then smiled. ‘But you’ll do.’

  ‘Great!’ She grinned, the first time she’d really felt happy since arriving here. ‘When do you want me to start?’

  ‘How about Monday?’

  Janie hesitated: this was only Friday. ‘I could come in tomorrow—’

  ‘I don’t work on the weekend, and you’ll need to be trained. Also, they have to process the paperwork. Right—’

  He stood and went to a desk, pulling open drawers until he found a clipboard holding sheaves of triplicate forms. ‘Here. Fill all this out, leave it with me and I’ll pass it on to Carolyn – she’s the head volunteer coordinator. They usually want to interview you, but I’ll tell them we’ve done all that already.’

  ‘What time should I come in Monday?’

  ‘Come at nine. Everything opens at ten, that way you’ll avoid the crowds. Use the staff entrance, someone there will have an ID waiting for you to pick up when you sign in—’

  She nodded and began filling out the forms.

  ‘All right, then.’ David Bierce leaned against the desk and again fixed her with that sly, almost taunting gaze. ‘Know how to find your way home?’

  Janie lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Enjoying London? Going to go out tonight and do Camden Town with all the yobs?’

  ‘Maybe. I haven’t been out much yet.’

  ‘Mmm. Beautiful American girl, they’ll eat you alive. Just kidding.’ He straightened, started across the room towards the door. ‘I’ll you see Monday then.’

  He held the door for her. ‘You really should check out the clubs. You’re too young not to see the city by night.’ He smiled, the fluorescent light slanting sideways into his hazel eyes and making them suddenly glow icy blue. ‘Bye, then.’

  ‘Bye,’ said Janie, and hurried quickly from the lab towards home.

  That night, for the first time, she went out. She told herself she would have gone anyway, no matter what Bierce had said. She had no idea where the clubs were; Andrew had pointed out the Electric Ballroom to her, right up from the Tube station, but he’d also warned her that was where the tourists flocked on weekends.

  ‘They do a Disco thing on Saturday nights – Saturday Night Fever, everyone gets all done up in vintage clothes. Quite a fashion show,’ he’d said, smiling and shaking his head.

  Janie had no interest in that. She ate a quick supper, vindaloo from the take-away down the street from the flat; then dressed. She hadn’t brought a huge number of clothes – at home she’d never bothered much with clothes at all, making do with thrift-shop finds and whatever her mother gave her for Christmas. But now she found herself sitting on the edge of the four-poster, staring with pursed lips at the sparse contents of two bureau drawers. Finally she pulled out a pair of black corduroy jeans and a black turtleneck and pulled on her sneakers. She removed her glasses, for the first time in weeks inserted her contact lenses. Then she shrugged into her old navy peacoat and left.

  It was after ten o’clock. On the canal path, throngs of people stood, drinking from pints of canned lager. She made her way through them, ignoring catcalls and whispered invitations, stepping to avoid where kids lay making out against the brick wall that ran alongside the path, or pissing in the bushes. The bridge over the canal at Camden Lock was clogged with several dozen kids in mohawks or varicolored hair, shouting at each other above the din of a boombox and swigging from bottles of Spanish champagne.

  A boy with a champagne bottle leered, lunging at her.

  ‘ ’Ere, sweetheart, ’ep youseff—’

  Janie ducked, and he careered against the ledge, his arm striking brick and the bottle shattering in a starburst of black and gold.

  ‘Fucking cunt!’ he shrieked after her. ‘Fucking bloody cunt!’

  People glanced at her but Janie kept her head down, making a quick turn into the vast cobbled courtyard of Camden Market. The place had a desolate air: the vendors would not arrive until early next morning, and now only stray cats and bits of windblown trash moved in the shadows. In the surrounding buildings people spilled out onto balconies, drinking and calling back and forth, their voices hollow and their long shadows twisting across the ill-lit central courtyard. Janie hurried to the far end, but there found only brick walls, closed-up shop doors and a young woman huddled within the folds of a filthy sleeping bag.

  ‘Couldya – couldya—’ the woman murmured.

  Janie turned and followed the wall until she found a door leading
into a short passage. She entered it, hoping she was going in the direction of Camden High Street. She felt like Alice trying to find her way through the garden in Wonderland: arched doorways led not into the street but to headshops and blindingly lit piercing parlors, open for business; other doors opened onto enclosed courtyards, dark, smelling of piss and marijuana. Finally from the corner of her eye she glimpsed what looked like the end of the passage, headlights piercing through the gloom like landing lights. Doggedly she made her way towards them.

  ‘Ay watchowt watchowt,’ someone yelled as she emerged from the passage onto the sidewalk, and ran the last few steps to the curb.

  She was on the High Street; rather, in that block or two of curving no-man’s-land where it turned into Chalk Farm Road. The sidewalks were still crowded, but everyone was heading towards Camden Lock and not away from it. Janie waited for the light to change and raced across the street, to where a cobblestoned alley snaked off between a shop selling leather underwear and another advertising ‘Fine French Country Furniture’.

  For several minutes she stood there. She watched the crowds heading towards Camden Town, the steady stream of minicabs and taxis and buses heading up Chalk Farm Road towards Hampstead. Overhead, dull orange clouds moved across a night sky the color of charred wood; there was the steady low thunder of jets circling after takeoff at Heathrow. At last she tugged her collar up around her neck, letting her hair fall in loose waves down her back, shoved her hands into her coat pockets and turned to walk purposefully down the alley.

  Before her the cobblestone path turned sharply to the right. She couldn’t see what was beyond, but she could hear voices: a girl laughing, a man’s sibilant retort. A moment later the alley spilled out onto a cul-de-sac. A couple stood a few yards away, before a doorway with a small copper awning above it. The young woman glanced sideways at Janie, quickly looked away again. A silhouette filled the doorway; the young man pulled out a wallet. His hand disappeared within the silhouette, re-emerged; and the couple walked inside. Janie waited until the shadowy figure withdrew. She looked over her shoulder, then approached the building.

  There was a heavy metal door, black, with graffiti scratched into it and pale blurred spots where painted graffiti had been effaced. The door was set back several feet into a brick recess; at the top there was a metal slot with a grille and a flat steel strip inside that could be slid back, so that one could peer out into the courtyard. To the right of the door, on the brick wall within the recess, was a small brass plaque with a single word on it.

  HIVE

  There was no doorbell or any other way to signal that you wanted to enter. Janie stood, wondering what was inside; feeling a small tingling unease that was less fear than the knowledge that even if she were to confront the figure who’d let that other couple inside, she herself would certainly be turned away.

  With a skreek of metal on stone the door suddenly shot open. Janie looked up, into the sharp, raggedly handsome face of a tall, still youngish man with very short blond hair, a line of gleaming gold beads like drops of sweat piercing the edge of his left jaw.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said, glancing past her to the alley. He wore a black sleeveless T-shirt with a small golden bee embroidered upon the breast. His bare arms were muscular, striated with long sweeping scars: black, red, white. ‘Are you waiting for Hannah?’

  ‘No.’ Quickly Janie pulled out a handful of five-pound notes. ‘Just me tonight.’

  ‘That’ll be twenty, then.’ The man held his hand out, still gazing at the alley; when Janie slipped the notes to him he looked down and flashed her a vulpine smile. ‘Enjoy yourself.’ She darted past him into the building.

  Abruptly it was as though some darker night had fallen. Thunderously so, since the enfolding blackness was slashed with music so loud it was itself like light: Janie hesitated, closing her eyes, and white flashes streaked across her eyelids like sleet, pulsing in time to the music. She opened her eyes, giving them a chance to adjust to the darkness, and tried to get a sense of where she was. A few feet away a blurry greyish lozenge sharpened into the window of a coat-check room. Janie walked past it, towards the source of the music. Immediately the floor slanted steeply beneath her feet. She steadied herself with one hand against the wall, following the incline until it opened onto a cavernous dance floor.

  She gazed inside, disappointed. It looked like any other club, crowded, strobe-lit, turquoise smoke and silver glitter coiling between hundreds of whirling bodies clad in candy pink, sky blue, neon red, rainslicker yellow. Baby colors, Janie thought. There was a boy who was almost naked, except for shorts, a transparent water bottle strapped to his chest and long tubes snaking into his mouth. Another boy had hair the color of lime jello, his face corrugated with glitter and sweat; he swayed near the edge of the dance floor, turned to stare at Janie and then beamed, beckoning her join him.

  Janie gave him a quick smile, shaking her head; when the boy opened his arms to her in mock pleading she shouted ‘No!’

  But she continued to smile, though she felt as though her head would crack like an egg from the throbbing music. Shoving her hands into her pockets she skirted the dance floor, pushed her way to the bar and bought a drink, something pink with no ice in a plastic cup. It smelled like Gatorade and lighter fluid. She gulped it down, then carried the cup held before her like a torch as she continued on her circuit of the room. There was nothing else of interest; just long queues for the lavatories and another bar, numerous doors and stairwells where kids clustered, drinking and smoking. Now and then beeps and whistles like birdsong or insect cries came through the stuttering electronic din, whoops and trilling laughter from the dancers. But mostly they moved in near-silence, eyes rolled ceiling-ward, bodies exploding into Catherine wheels of flesh and plastic and nylon, but all without a word.

  It gave Janie a headache – a real headache, the back of her skull bruised, tender to the touch. She dropped her plastic cup and started looking for a way out. She could see past the dance floor to where she had entered, but it seemed as though another hundred people had arrived in the few minutes since then: kids were standing six-deep at both bars, and the action on the floor had spread, amoeba-like, towards the corridors angling back up toward the street.

  ‘Sorry—’

  A fat woman in an Arsenal jersey jostled her as she hurried by, leaving a smear of oily sweat on Janie’s wrist. Janie grimaced and wiped her hand on the bottom of her coat. She gave one last look at the dance floor, but nothing had changed within the intricate lattice of dancers and smoke, braids of glow-lights and spotlit faces surging up and down, up and down, while more dancers fought their way to the centre.

  ‘Shit.’ She turned and strode off, heading to where the huge room curved off into relative emptiness. Here, scores of tables were scattered, some overturned, others stacked against the wall. A few people sat, talking; a girl lay curled on the floor, her head pillowed on a Barbie knapsack. Janie crossed to the wall, and found first a door that led to a bare brick wall, then a second door that revealed a broom closet. The next was dark-red, metal, official-looking: the kind of door that Janie associated with school fire drills.

  A fire door. It would lead outside, or into a hall that would lead there. Without hesitating she pushed it open and entered. A short corridor lit by EXIT signs stretched ahead of her, with another door at the end. She hurried towards it, already reaching reflexively for the keys to the flat, pushed the door-bar and stepped inside.

  For an instant she thought she had somehow stumbled into a hospital emergency room. There was the glitter of halogen light on steel, distorted reflections thrown back at her from curved glass surfaces; the abrasive odor of isopropyl alcohol and the fainter tinny scent of blood, like metal in the mouth.

  And bodies: everywhere, bodies, splayed on gurneys or suspended from gleaming metal hooks, laced with black electrical cord and pinned upright onto smooth rubber mats. She stared open-mouthed, neither appalled nor frightened but fascinated by the conundru
m before her: how did that hand fit there, and whose leg was that? She inched backward, pressing herself against the door and trying to stay in the shadows – just inches ahead of her ribbons of luminous bluish light streamed from lamps hung high overhead. The chiaroscuro of pallid bodies and black furniture, shiny with sweat and here and there red-streaked, or brown; the mere sight of so many bodies, real bodies – flesh spilling over the edge of tabletops, too much hair or none at all, eyes squeezed shut in ecstasy or terror and mouths open to reveal stained teeth, pale gums – the sheer fluidity of it all enthralled her. She felt as she had, once, pulling aside a rotted log to disclose the ants’ nest beneath, masses of minute fleeing bodies, soldiers carrying eggs and larvae in their jaws, tunnels spiraling into the center of another world. Her brow tingled, warmth flushed her from brow to breast . . .

  Another world, that’s what she had found then; and discovered again now.

  ‘Out.’

  Janie sucked her breath in sharply. Fingers dug into her shoulder, yanked her back through the metal door so roughly that she cut her wrist against it.

  ‘No lurkers, what the fuck—’

  A man flung her against the wall. She gasped, turned to run but he grabbed her shoulder again. ‘Christ, a fucking girl.’

  He sounded angry but relieved. She looked up: a huge man, more fat than muscle. He wore very tight leather briefs and the same black sleeveless shirt with a golden bee embroidered upon it. ‘How the hell’d you get in like that?’ he demanded, cocking a thumb at her.

  She shook her head, then realized he meant her clothes. ‘I was just trying to find my way out.’

  ‘Well, you found your way in. In like fucking Flynn.’ He laughed: he had gold-capped teeth, and gold wires threading the tip of his tongue. ‘You want to join the party, you know the rules. No exceptions.’

  Before she could reply he turned and was gone, the door thudding shut softly behind him. She waited, heart pounding, then reached and pushed the bar on the door.