Visitants-Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts

by Stephen Jones (ed)

  It wasn’t only the top floor she wanted to leave behind. She’d remembered what she’d once done to her sister. The war had been over at last, and she’d been trusted to look after Cynthia while the adults planned the future. The sisters had only been allowed to play with their toys in the hall, where Jacqueline had done her best to distract the toddler from straying into any of the rooms they weren’t supposed to enter by themselves—in fact, every room. At last she’d grown impatient with her sister’s mischief, and in a wicked moment she’d wondered what would catch Cynthia if she tossed her high. As she’d thrown her sister into the air with all her strength she’d realised that she didn’t want to know, certainly not at Cynthia’s expense—as she’d seen dwarfish shrivelled figures darting out of every corner in the dark above the stairwell and scuttling down to seize their prize. They’d come head first, so that she’d seen their bald scalps wrinkled like walnuts before she glimpsed their hungry withered faces. Then Cynthia had fallen back into her arms, though Jacqueline had barely managed to keep hold of her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she’d hugged her sister until she’d felt able to risk seeing they were alone in the vault of the hall.

  There was no use telling herself that she’d taken back her unforgivable wish. She might have injured the toddler even by catching her—she might have broken her frail neck. She ought to have known that, and perhaps she had. Being expected to behave badly had made her act that way, but she felt as if all the nightmares that were stored in the house had festered and gained strength over the years. When she reached the foot of the stairs at last she carried on out of the house.

  The poplars stooped to greet her with a wordless murmur. A wind was rising under the sunless sky. It was gentle on her face—it seemed to promise tenderness she couldn’t recall having experienced, certainly not once Cynthia was born. Perhaps it could soothe away her memories, and she was raising her face to it when Brian appeared in the porch. “What are you doing, auntie?”

  “Just being by myself.”

  She thought that was pointed enough until he skipped out of the house. “Is it time now?”

  Why couldn’t Cynthia have kept him with her? No doubt she thought it was Jacqueline’s turn. “Time for what?” Jacqueline couldn’t avoid asking.

  “You said you’d give me a throw.”

  She’d said she wouldn’t then, not that she would sometime. Just the same, perhaps she could. It might be a way of leaving the house behind and all it represented to her. It would prove she deserved to be trusted with him, as she ought not to have been trusted with little Cynthia. “Come on then,” she said.

  As soon as she held out her arms he ran and leapt into them. “Careful,” she gasped, laughing as she recovered her balance. “Are you ready?” she said and threw the small body into the air.

  She was surprised how light he was, or how much strength she had at her disposal. He came down giggling, and she caught him. “Again,” he cried.

  “Just once more,” Jacqueline said. She threw him higher this time, and he giggled louder. Cynthia often said that children kept you young, and Jacqueline thought it was true after all. Brian fell into her arms and she hugged him. “Again,” he could hardly beg for giggling.

  “Now what did I just say?” Nevertheless she threw him so high that her arms trembled with the effort, and the poplars nodded as if they were approving her accomplishment. She clutched at Brian as he came down with an impact that made her shoulders ache. “Higher,” he pleaded almost incoherently. “Higher.”

  “This really is the last time, Brian.” She crouched as if the stooping poplars had pushed her down. Tensing her whole body, she reared up to fling him into the pendulous gloom with all her strength.

  For a moment she thought only the wind was reaching for him as it bowed the trees and dislodged objects from the foliage—leaves that rustled, twigs that scraped and rattled. But the thin shapes weren’t falling, they were scurrying head first down the tree-trunks at a speed that seemed to leave time behind. Some of them had no shape they could have lived with, and some might never have had any skin. She saw their shrivelled eyes glimmer eagerly and their toothless mouths gape with an identical infantile hunger. Their combined weight bowed the lowest branches while they extended arms like withered sticks to snatch the child.

  In that helpless instant Jacqueline was overwhelmed by a feeling she would never have admitted—a rush of childish glee, of utter irresponsibility. For a moment she was no longer a nurse, not even a retired one as old as some of her patients had been. She shouldn’t have put Brian at risk, but now he was beyond saving. Then he fell out of the dark beneath the poplars, in which there was no longer any sign of life, and she made a grab at him. The strength had left her arms, and he struck the hard earth with a thud that put her in mind of the fall of a lid.

  “Brian?” she said and bent groaning to him. “Brian,” she repeated, apparently loud enough to be audible all the way up the house. She heard her old window rumble open, and Cynthia’s cry: “What have you done now?” She heard footsteps thunder down the stairs, and turned away from the small still body beneath the uninhabited trees as her sister dashed out of the porch. Jacqueline had just one thought, but surely it must make a difference. “Nothing caught him,” she said.

  THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW MY FATHER KNEW

  Peter Crowther

  PETER CROWTHER is the recipient of numerous awards for his writing, his editing and, as publisher, for the hugely successful PS Publishing imprint.

  As well as being widely translated, his short stories have been adapted for TV on both sides of the Atlantic and collected in The Longest Single Note, Lonesome Roads, Songs of Leaving, Cold Comforts, The Spaces Between the Lines, The Land at the End of the Working Day and the upcoming Things I Didn’t Know My Father Knew.

  He is the co-author (with James Lovegrove) of the novel Escardy Gap and author of the Forever Twilight science-fiction/horror cycle (Darkness, Darkness and Windows to the Soul are already available, with Darkness Rising forthcoming). His short Halloween novel, By Wizard Oak and Fairy Stream, is published by Earthling.

  Crowther lives and works with his wife and business partner, Nicky, on Britain’s scenic Yorkshire coast.

  “I confess I’ve never understood when genre writers say they don’t believe in the stuff they’re writing,” reveals the author. “Me, I believe it all—vampires, werewolves, ghosts, goblins, aliens, Santa, monsters frozen in the ice, fairies, the perfect pint of Guinness ... the whole schtick. And I’m particularly strong on the belief that, one day, I’ll see my parents again.

  “So, impatient as ever about waiting to find out first-hand, I indulge myself every once in a while and I write something that’ll enable me to spend some time with them ... at least on paper.

  “‘Things I Didn’t Know My Father Knew’ is the product of one of these selfish little jaunts, written at a time when I desperately wanted to see my dad again and give him a big hug. Needless to say, it’s dedicated to him and to all fathers taken prematurely from their kids. Plus it’s for the kids who, although maybe grown up a little, still miss ’em like crazy.

  “Love ya, Dad!”

  If there is an afterlife, let it be a small town gentle as this spot at just this instant.

  —“In Cheever Country” by Dana Gioia

  SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT.

  Bennett Differing opened his eyes and listened, and tried to pinpoint what was wrong. Then he realized. He couldn’t hear his wife’s breathing.

  He shuffled over, pulling the bedclothes with him, and stared at the empty space beside him on the bed. Shelley wasn’t there. He looked across at the clock and frowned. It was too early for her to get up. She always stayed in bed until he was out of the shower. Why would she be getting up at this time?

  Then he remembered. She was meeting her sister, going to the mall for their annual shop-till-you-drop spree.

  As if on cue, Shelley’s voice rang out. “Honey?”

  “Yeah, I’m up,” Be
nnett shouted to the ceiling.

  “Well, I’m on my way. Lisa gets in at 8:15.”

  Bennett nodded to the empty room. Around a yawn, he said, “Have fun.”

  “Will do,” she shouted.

  “Take care.”

  He could hear her feet on the polished wooden floor of the hallway downstairs, going first one way and then another—Shelley suddenly remembering things, like car keys, house keys, purse.

  “Will do,” she shouted. “It’s a lovely morning.”

  Bennett flopped back onto the bed. “Good.” The word came out as a mutter wrapped up in another yawn.

  “What?”

  “I said, good. I’m thrilled for you.”

  The feet downstairs clumped back into the kitchen. “I’ll be home around eight. Lisa’s getting her bus at seven.”

  “Okay.”

  The sound of feet stopped and then he heard them coming quickly up the stairs. “Can’t go without giving you a kiss,” Shelley said as she ran into the bedroom. Now that the door had been opened he could hear the radio downstairs.

  She leaned across him and kissed him on the forehead, making a smacking sound. He knew she had made a lipstick mark, could see the mischievous glint in her eyes as she surveyed her work with a satisfied smile.

  She ruffled his hair lovingly. “What are you going to be doing today?”

  Bennett shrugged, yawned and turned his face away from her. He could taste the staleness of sleep still in his mouth.

  “Oh, this and that.”

  “Words!” Shelley snapped at him, jabbing a finger in his stomach. “Make sure you do your words before you deal with e-mails.” She smiled and rubbed his stomach—another sign of affection. “Will you be okay?” The question came complete with inflection and frown.

  “Sure,” Bennett said. “I’ll be fine. I’ll get lots done.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.” He raised his clenched fist to his head and tapped two fingers against his temple. “Scouts’ honor, ma’am. I’ll do my words.”

  She stood up and picked up her watch from the table by her side of the bed. Strapping it onto her wrist, she said, “Well, have a good day. There’s a sandwich in the refrigerator.”

  “Great.”

  She stopped at the bedroom door and scrunched herself up excitedly. “You know ... ,” she said, rubbing her hands together, “... you can smell it.”

  Bennett shuffled up and rested his head on his hand. “Smell what?”

  Shelley frowned. “Christmas, of course.” She straightened her sweater where she had rucked it out of her skirt. “You can smell it everywhere: the cold ... and the presents, eggnog, warm biscuits. The skies are clear and the air is crisp ...” Bennett half-imagined he could hear sleigh bells and his wife nodded as though in response to his thoughts. “And I think we’re going to have some snow,” she added with a devilish smile—she knew Bennett hated snow.

  Bennett groaned. “Oh goody.”

  She waved a hand at him. “You know, you’re turning into Scrooge.”

  He flopped his head onto the pillow. “Bah, humbug!”

  Shelley smiled. “Okay, I’m on my way. See you tonight.”

  “Yeah, see you,” he said to the slowly closing door.

  It seemed like no time at all before the front door slammed and he heard the Buick’s engine fire into life. Then three soft pips on the horn as Shelley pulled out of the driveway.

  Suddenly the house was quiet, the only sound the sound of the car moving off along the street. Then, around the silence, drifting through it like a boat across a still lake, the sound of the radio gave a sense of life, albeit muffled.

  Bennett could hear a funky jingle and the weatherman distantly telling anyone in Forest Plains who was bothering to listen at this time in the morning just what the weather was doing. Rain coming in from the west, heat coming in from the east ... all elemental life was there: winds, twisters, cold fronts circling, warm fronts sneaking up for the kill, maybe even a tremor or two.

  “Maybe even snow!” he said to the pillow.

  But there was something else, too. Even he could smell it. Smell it in the air. Was it Christmas? Did Christmas have a smell ... a smell all of its own, not just the associated things that society had tacked onto it?

  Bennett sat up in bed and looked at the clock. It was a little before seven, two minutes to his alarm ringing, the clock dancing side to side like on the cartoon shows, demanding attention like a family pet, craving a human touch to let it know its job was done for another night. He leaned over and hit the switch.

  The clock seemed to settle on its curlicued haunches and Bennett half-imagined it pouting because he had robbed it of its daily chore.

  He yawned, scratched places that itched, and threw back the sheets.

  It was cool. Cool but not cold.

  Bennett slid his legs out of bed and rested his feet on the floor. It was part of the getting-up process, a kind of airlock sandwiched between sleep and wakefulness. The first ritual of the day.

  He sniffed a bear-sized sniff and drew in everything and anything.

  Somewhere in that sniff, alongside the fresh coffee and toasted bread smells that Shelley had left behind in the kitchen and which were now threading their way through the house, were the smells of his bedroom and his clothes, the wood grains and varnish of the furniture, the oily odors imbued by the machines that had stitched the mosaic linen of the curtains and stamped the twists and whorls on the bedside lampshades; old smells, new smells. Unknown smells. Smells from near and faraway ... smells of other people, other places, other times.

  And small-town smells. Plenty of those ... so different to the smells of the city, New York City, where Bennett had worked as an insurance adjuster for twenty years before turning to writing full-time and hiding himself and Shelley away in Forest Plains ... a town as close to all the picket-fenced and town-squared small towns as could possibly exist outside the pages of an old well-thumbed Post, particularly in these dog days of the second millennium.

  He sniffed again and glanced at the window.

  Outside, over the street, gulls were circling. On the wires running across the posts that stood sentry-like alongside the grassy lawns, the neighborhood regulars—sparrows, chaffinches and thrushes—were perched ... like hick locals lazing on a front porch watching an invasion of bike riders crazy-wheeling and whooping around the square.

  Bennett frowned and got to his feet, finding new places to scratch as he staggered to the window. Now he could see what was happening.

  “Huh!” was all he could think of to say. Someone had taken the world while he had been dragging himself from his bed. Someone had stolen everything that was familiar and had covered it with gauze. But this was a moving gauze, a diaphanous graveyard mist that, even as he watched, was drifting along Sycamore Street, swirling around the tree trunks, twisting itself like ribbons through the leafless branches, washing up the sidewalks to the polished lawns and onwards, stealthily, reaching, conquering and owning, pausing every now and again to check out a crumpled brown leaf before moving on.

  He leaned on the sill and yawned again.

  It was the mist he could smell. He wondered why Shelley hadn’t mentioned it. He’d have told her to take special care. In fact, if he had known it was this bad—because it was getting bad ... thickening by the second, it seemed—he’d have driven her over to the train station at Walton Flats. And anyway, hadn’t she said that the skies were clear? He looked both ways along the street. Maybe it had been clear when she looked out, but that must have been some time ago.

  Bennett frowned. Well, whatever it had been ... it was foggy now.

  Now the mist was pooling all around, settling itself onto the trees and the pavement, resting on the sidewalks and the dew-covered lawns, investigating the promise of warmth offered by his partly open window.

  The mist had a clean, sharp smell, snaking across the sill and around him into the room, sliding beneath the bed and inside the
louvered wardrobe doors, checking out the threads, evaluating the labels. Evaluating him.

  Bennett watched it.

  Soon it would make its way out of the bedroom door and onto the landing. It would find the spare bedroom—nothing here, boys ... let’s move on—and then the stairs leading down to the kitchen and the tinny radio sounds.

  Bennett stretched and threw the window wide.

  A boy appeared out of the mist, dodging the tendrils that grasped for but never quite caught hold of his bicycle wheels. The boy was standing on the pedals, pumping like mad, a cowlick pasted down on his forehead, a brown leather sack crossed across his chest and filled with news and stories, comments, cartoons and quotes. The boy reached into his sack, pulled out a rolled-up paper and made to throw, his arm pulled back like a Major League pitcher. As the paper left his hand, spinning through the milky air, he caught sight of Bennett and smiled.