New Fears--New horror stories by masters of the genre

by Mark Morris

  “How recently was that?”

  “Too recently. For most of our marriage I didn’t know about Dorothy’s childhood.”

  So we hadn’t strayed so far from his preoccupation after all. “What was it like?” I said.

  “I’ll tell you just one thing I won’t forget. When Dorothy was little, before she was even at school…” This time his gulp of ale seemed intended to fortify him. “If she did anything her mother thought was bad, and there was no predicting what that might be next,” he said, “she’d be locked in her room with no light, and she’d be told that something worse than she could possibly imagine would come for her if she dared to put the light on.”

  I felt bound to ask “Did she?”

  “Not till years later, and do you know what the old, do you know what her mother did then? Took the bulb out of the socket and wouldn’t let her have one in her room.”

  I was running out of questions I wanted to ask. “How did all that affect Dorothy, do you think?”

  “She told me not at all by then. She said she challenged whatever she was meant to be scared of to show itself, and of course nothing did. She assured me that toughened her up and she was never afraid of anything her mother imagined again.”

  “More power to her.”

  “If it was true. I’m just afraid she kept it hidden deep down in herself.”

  “Daniel, please don’t take this the wrong way, but at least you needn’t worry any more.”

  I thought he’d opened his mouth to speak, but he gave himself a drink instead. His throat worked before he muttered “You didn’t meet her mother.”

  “And if I had…”

  “Call me fanciful, but whenever she came into a room you’d feel as if she’d turned it dark.”

  “I suppose you might when you knew what she’d done to your wife.”

  “I felt like that before I knew.” Daniel reinforced this with a stare that looked trapped by the memory. “And I think having her committed brought everything back,” he said, “even if Dorothy tried not to show it did.”

  “Surely she’d have been relieved that her mother was being taken care of.”

  “You’d hope so.” With more conviction than I thought was warranted he said “She kept telling Dorothy that if we had her shut away she’d make sure Dorothy was with her.”

  “But she wasn’t, so I should think—”

  “It was all she talked about when she was dying. She said she’d wait for Dorothy in the dark, and she’d be made of worms.”

  “That’s second childhood stuff, wouldn’t you agree? I hope your wife thought so.”

  Daniel’s tankard stopped short of his mouth. “Whose childhood, Bill?”

  “You know I meant her mother’s. I never knew Dorothy to be anything but strong.”

  As he took a drink I saw him ponder how to go on. “You caught what I was saying earlier.”

  “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

  “I might have myself.” Even more like an apology he said “I wouldn’t ask this of anyone except a good friend.”

  With no idea where this was leading I could only say “Then you can ask me.”

  “Do you think Dorothy could hear me?”

  “When do you mean?”

  I was bracing myself to be told that he had her last moments in mind, and was nowhere near ready to hear him say “Now.”

  “We can’t know, can we?” In a bid to raise his spirits I said “In a way we’re keeping her alive by talking about her.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of you.” Though his smile winced in case he’d sounded rude, he carried on. “I mean when I’m speaking to her on the phone,” he said.

  I took all the care I could over answering. “You’d like to think so.”

  “Yes, but I’m asking what you think.”

  “I won’t say you’re wrong, Daniel.”

  “All right, Bill, you’re discharged. The ordeal’s over.” Humour deserted him as he said “I wonder what your wife would say. She’s the computer expert, after all.”

  I’d begun to wonder how potent our drinks were. “How did we get on to computers?”

  “They’ve been on my mind a good deal recently. I’m starting to believe they may have made a kind of afterlife.”

  “All the photos of Dorothy you’ll have, you mean.” When he didn’t respond I said “Her voice.”

  “That’s what I’ve kept, my wife in electronic form.”

  “And you still have all your memories of her.”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m being maudlin.” As I made to deny it he said “I just wonder how much of her that is.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not following.”

  “All of us are electronic where it counts, aren’t we? What they used to call the soul, that’s a mass of electronic impulses in the brain. Even if they didn’t have a place to go before, perhaps they have one now.”

  Though I might have liked to take a drink rather than speak I said “We’re still talking about computers.”

  “Yes, the Internet. That’s where everything we know is turned into electronic form. Perhaps I haven’t got it right, though,” Daniel said, and I was hoping rationality had overtaken him until he added “Perhaps it gives us access to a place that was already there.”

  I no longer knew how to respond. I was lingering over a mouthful of ale when Daniel said “I realise you aren’t going to accept it without proof.”

  “That would be a help.”

  He took out his phone at once. “There’s another message,” he said.

  He left a moist print on an entry in the list before turning the phone towards me. His wife’s voice sounded weaker or more distant than it previously had. “Are you there? You’re not there, are you? Don’t be—”

  I assumed she’d cut herself off by mistake, since I’d heard a trace of nervousness. “Was she asking you not to be long?”

  “I hope that’s it, but that isn’t the point. That’s her most recent message, Bill.”

  “I thought you told me the one you played yesterday was.”

  “It was then,” Daniel said and showed me the phone. “As you see, now this is top of the list.”

  “But it hasn’t got a date.”

  “And don’t you wonder how that could happen?” When I had no explanation, though I might have pointed out that the caller was unnamed as well, he said “Would you mind asking your wife?”

  “I’ll call you when I have, shall I?”

  “No need for me to trouble you so much. Next time we meet will be fine.”

  I thought he was doing his best to put the issue out of his mind, despite forgetting to make his accountancy joke. Instead he told me at considerable length how medicine and surgery would soon be able to prolong life, though I couldn’t tell whether he regretted that the developments came too late for his wife or was glad that they hadn’t been there for her mother. I felt as though his monologue was postponing what he was anxious to say, and then I grasped that I mightn’t be the person he was desperate to address.

  We’d hardly parted outside the pub when I heard him on his phone. Either he wanted me to hear or no longer cared whether I did. “Dorothy, I’m sorry I missed your call. I don’t know when it was, because I didn’t hear it ring. I’ll keep an eye on the phone whenever I can, just in case. I know we’ll be together again soon, and then we’ll have all the time there is.”

  He sounded like someone I hardly knew—as unlike the self he presented to the world as he’d said his wife differed from hers. As I headed for home the call I’d heard made the autumn night feel as cold as black ice. Jane was asleep, having driven fifty miles to revive all the computers in a large office. When I caught up with her at breakfast I found I was anxious to learn “Do you know if there’s a reason why a missed call wouldn’t show a date?”

  “You can’t withhold those, only the number.”

  “I thought so, but Daniel has one with no date.”

  “He’d have had to dele
te the information himself, though I don’t know how.” Jane abandoned the delicate frown that had narrowed her keen eyes and said “How was he this week?”

  “I’m not sure he’s coping that well. He’s kept all the messages his wife left on the phone, but he seems to be convincing himself he can still hear from her.”

  “Maybe that’s how he’s coping. I don’t see the harm if it doesn’t put his patients at risk.”

  I couldn’t believe Daniel would let that happen. If he thought he was growing incompetent, surely he would take leave rather than risk botching an operation. Perhaps Jane was right, and his preoccupation was no worse than a comfort to him. However irrational it was, I came to accept it on his behalf as the week went on, until Samira stopped me as I returned from convincing a client to keep receipts for six years, not just one. “A Dr Hargreaves was asking for you, Bill,” she said. “You aren’t sick, are you?”

  “No, he’s a friend.”

  “It was only that it sounded urgent. He says don’t call unless you have to, otherwise he’ll see you tonight as usual.”

  Friday was by no means usual, and if Jane hadn’t gone away overnight to deal with an office-wide computer crash I would have felt unreasonable for leaving her alone two nights in a week. I reached the pub earlier than normal, only to find Daniel already at a table. He’d been drinking fast or for a while, since his tankard was less than half full, and when he brought me a pint of Mohammed’s Prohibition he treated himself to its twin. “There’s another message,” he said.

  His smile looked determined not to yield but close to meaningless. When he brought out the phone I saw that the new message was undated and unidentified. “Jane doesn’t know how there can’t be a date,” I said and risked adding “Don’t you think that means it needn’t be new?”

  “It wasn’t there before. I’d have listened if it was.”

  “I’m saying it could have been delayed. Maybe there’s a glitch that left out the date as well.”

  His only response was to set the message off and turn the phone towards my ear, waving my hand away when I made to take the mobile. Even when I ducked towards it I could scarcely hear for the mass of unchecked conversations in the pub. The voice was feebler than before, barely recognisable as Dorothy’s. “I don’t like this. I don’t know where I am.” I could have thought it was as small as a child’s. “It’s dark and wet,” Dorothy protested. “I think it’s wriggling, or I am. Can’t you hear?”

  A hiss of static followed, which sounded as if some kind of collapse had overwhelmed the call. Once he’d pocketed the phone Daniel gazed expectantly if not beseechingly at me, but I was loath to share my first thought—that Dorothy had inherited her mother’s mental problem, which had overtaken her at her lowest ebb. I compromised by saying “Do you think that’s how she felt when she was waiting for you at the hospital? She wasn’t like that once you got there, was she?”

  “She was barely conscious. She hardly seemed to know I was there.”

  “I’m sure you must have made the feelings go away, so she couldn’t have had them at the end.”

  His smile had begun to look less studied. “You’re suggesting she made this call from the hospital.”

  “I’m sure that has to be it. I’ve had calls that got lost in the ether for days. I’ll ask Jane what’s the longest delay she knows about if you like.”

  “I’ve already spoken to the hospital. They say she wasn’t capable of phoning once they’d run the tests.”

  “That proves they’re wrong about this call then, doesn’t it? She’d already made the one asking you not to be late.”

  “I don’t believe she did say that, or from the hospital.” His smile was making itself plain now—amusement so wry it was more like regret. “I don’t think she was cut off,” he said. “She was saying someone wasn’t there, if you remember. I think she was telling them not to be.”

  “Come on, Daniel,” I said, perhaps too heartily. “Who could she have been talking to on your phone except you? And you’re the last person she would have wanted to put off.”

  Either this persuaded him to some extent or he preferred not to answer. Soon he was expounding on the merits of euthanasia and assisted suicide. I suspect that he sensed I was glad to be spared more of his obsession, because when we left the pub he said “I should think you’ve had enough of me for a week.”

  “I’d be less of a friend if I had. Let’s make it Monday as ever,” I said and was relieved not to see him take out his phone as he vanished into the dark.

  Jane’s task was more complex than she’d anticipated, and she wasn’t home on Saturday until I’d gone to bed. On Monday morning I was ashamed to realise I’d forgotten to quiz her on Daniel’s behalf. “How long do you think a call to a mobile could be held up?” I said.

  “Quite some time,” Jane said and poured herself a coffee even blacker than the one she’d just had. “A client of mine had a call turn up months late.”

  “I knew it,” I said and thought of phoning Daniel at once. “Daniel keeps getting calls from his wife that he thinks are new. You’d say they’re delayed, wouldn’t you? I’ll tell him.”

  “I don’t know if you should do that.” Jane took a sip so black that sensing its harshness made me wince. “I’ve never heard of staggered delays, if that’s what you’re describing,” she said. “I wouldn’t think it’s possible.”

  I decided against phoning Daniel. By the time I saw him that night I might have worked out what to say. I hadn’t when I reached the office, and meetings with clients left me no chance. I was at my desk and working on an email in which words were shorter and less abundant than numbers when the receptionist rang me. “There’s a gentleman to see you, Bill.”

  “Could you ask him what he’d like to drink? He isn’t due for half an hour.”

  “He isn’t your appointment. He says you’re a friend.” With a hint of doubt Jody said “Dr Hargreaves.”

  For a moment I was tempted to declare myself unavailable, and then I felt worse than remorseful. I hurried into the lobby to find Daniel crouched on a chair. He was consulting his phone or guarding it, and his stance looked close to foetal. When he glanced up I thought he was struggling to remember how to smile. “Can we talk somewhere private?” he said almost too low to be heard.

  Six straight chairs faced six more across a bare table in the nearest conference room. Daniel slumped onto a chair while I shut the door, and as I sat opposite him he said “She’s there again, Bill.”

  “Jane says calls can be delayed for months.”

  “I don’t think they were calls in the first place.” He laid his phone between us on the table and rested his distressed gaze on the dormant screen. “I’m sure this one isn’t,” he said.

  “What else could it be?”

  “I believe I’ve made some kind of connection.” He planted his hands on either side of the phone, and moisture swelled under his fingers. “Maybe keeping her on the phone helped, and I’m sure trying to speak to her did,” he said. “I think we’re hearing her as she is now.”

  I might have preferred not to listen to the evidence, but I was determined to help if I could. “Let me hear then, Daniel.”

  The marks of his hands were still fading from the table when he brought up the latest entry on the list. This one was bereft of details too. Even though he’d switched the speaker on, the voice was almost inaudibly faint. “It’s dark because I’ve got no eyes. That’s why the dark is so big. Or it’s eating its way in because it’s made of worms. They’re all I’m going to be…”

  Daniel dabbed at the phone with a moist fingertip once the thin diminished voice fell silent. Though I was appalled by the way Dorothy’s terrors had reduced her to the state of a fearful child, I tried my best to reassure him. “It has to be an old call, Daniel. It’s sad, but it’s only more of the thoughts you cured her of by being with her at the end.”

  “You haven’t heard it all yet.” He raised a finger, and a qualm plucked at my guts
as I realised he had only paused the message. “Tell me what you hear,” he said like some kind of plea.

  “That’s me. It’s only me, or it’s the dark. I can’t really feel it, it’s only dark. Like being asleep and dreaming. Just dark and my imagination.” The voice might have been drifting into a reminiscent stupor, but then it grew louder. “Who is that?” it cried, and a rush of static unpleasantly suggestive of moisture seemed to end by forming an answer. “Me.”

  Daniel clasped the phone protectively, to no effect I could imagine. “You heard, didn’t you? You heard the other voice.”

  “I heard Dorothy, Daniel.” However sharp and shrill the final word had been, surely that signified no more than impatience. “She was saying what she said before,” I insisted. “Don’t let it upset you, but she meant she was by herself. And then you came and stayed with her till the end.”

  “I wish I could believe that.” Although he was staring at me, he appeared to see a sight considerably less welcome than I hoped I was. “I’m afraid I didn’t just bring her by calling,” he said. “I think I attracted something else.”

  I could have argued but confined myself to saying “Do you mind if we discuss it tonight? I need to get ready for a meeting soon.”

  “I’ll give tonight a miss if you don’t mind. I have to be prepared as well.”

  I imagined him sitting alone at home with the phone in his hand while he waited for yet another tardy message. Should I have insisted he came out for a drink? All I said was “Next Monday, then.”

  “Monday,” Daniel said as though the prospect was irrelevant if not unimaginably remote.

  He scarcely seemed to hear me wish him well as I saw him out of the building. Interviews and official phone calls took up my afternoon, and a job kept Jane away overnight. Our empty house felt like an omen of a future in which one of us would be on our own, and I was more than glad when she called me at breakfast to say she was starting for home. “And here’s something to tell Daniel if you think you should,” she said. “I’ve found a case where somebody made several calls in an hour but the person they were calling kept receiving them for most of a week.”