Horror Library, Volume 5

by Boyd E. Harris R. J. Cavender

  “Mama, why wouldn’t you…say…something…when I was…knocking?”

  Lisbeth felt a wave of nausea.

  Mama’s hair was no longer grey. It was dark now, smooth and shiny. She stood erect in her flannel nightgown, her back straight.

  “Muh-ma…ma?”

  Mama stopped running the brush through her hair and slowly turned around. Her face was smooth and unlined, even pretty. Her eyes were clear and alert. The corners of her mouth were turned downward.

  “You’ve been gone a long time, young lady,” she said in a clear, full voice. A healthy voice. “I hope you’ve got a good explanation for yourself.”

  Lisbeth heard a small, childlike whimpering sound, and a moment later, realized it was coming from herself. Her knees felt weak, her throat tight and something like a fist seemed to be squeezing her heart.

  Mama would not be dying anytime soon.

  Ray Garton is the author of more than 60 novels, novellas, short story collections, movie novelizations and TV tie-ins. His work spans the genres of horror, crime, suspense, and even comedy. His 1987 erotic vampire novel Live Girls was called “artful” by the New York Times and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award®. In 2006, he received the Grand Master of Horror Award. His acclaimed 2001 comedy thriller Sex and Violence in Hollywood is being developed as a cable TV miniseries. You can see his bibliography and keep up with new releases at his website, www.RayGartonOnline.com. He lives in northern California with his wife Dawn.

  -The Oldest Profession

  by Tracie McBride

  “Later,” I say. I’m breaking Rule Number One. “We’ll talk about payment later.”

  * * *

  I never come when I’m with a client, but his bare skin sliding on mine magnifies the feeling of prescience until I reach a climax of a kind, a glorious mind/soul fuck that stops just this side of agony. I stifle a scream, digging teeth and nails into his shoulders. Seconds later he finishes, rolls off me and looks at his watch.

  “Oh, shit,” he says. “I’ve gotta go. How much do I owe you?”

  “The placenta of your first-born child,” I say. “The baby girl that will be born in six days and seventeen hours.”

  He stares at me, his hand frozen in midair over his wallet. I am suddenly very tired. Tired of fucking strangers for money, of trying to explain myself to guys like this, and of this intermittent foresight that only brings me grief.

  But it’s no use fantasizing about a nice safe office job. I was literally born for this life, courtesy of my mother’s bloodlines. For countless generations, the women in my family have worn the tainted labels of our calling. Witch. Sorceress. Prophet. Bitch goddess. Harlot. Whore.

  “Look,” I say. “I’m only trying to help. Your baby has a serious illness. The doctors won’t be able to do anything, but if you bring me that placenta, I can cure her.”

  He has one leg in his trousers and hops frantically around the room looking for his shoes.

  “If that baby dies, your wife Gail will never get over it. And neither will you, Michael.” He is almost out the door. I mention their names only to convince him that I am legit, but it comes out sounding like a threat.

  “What will you do if I don’t do what you want?” he says.

  “Nothing.” I’m so very, very tired…“But you will do it. When you see how sick your baby is, you’ll do it.”

  * * *

  Thankfully, my week has been free of flash-forwards, but come Friday night, I get that familiar tingling on the back of my neck. That’s just great, my client hasn’t even made it into the room yet, and I’m already feeling it. The tingling starts to prickle, and then it turns into a burning sensation. I was wrong. This is not the beginning of a prescient episode. This is something far worse.

  He comes in without knocking. His features are indistinct, and it’s not just the tears of pain that are blurring my vision; he shimmers with a dark glamour. He is tall and powerfully built, and he moves with preternatural speed as he crosses the room and pins me face down on the bed. His tongue flickers against my earlobe, leaving a searing pain in its wake. I smell charred flesh, and I squirm uselessly under his weight.

  “I’ve been lonely without you, Wendy. Please…take me back.”

  It’s no surprise he was able to stroll through all my protective spells as if they were walls of tissue paper, because, in a sense, he is me. He’s the ugliest parts of my psyche made manifest. I cast this demon out of myself years ago, yet here he is, bigger and stronger than ever. I wonder what, or who, he’s been feeding on during our time apart.

  He trails sharp fingernails up the back of my thigh, rips my panties aside, and tries to regain admittance in the crudest way possible. Despite the pain, I almost laugh. Rape? Like that’s going to work. He forces his way into every orifice, as if he has suddenly grown two extra pairs of appendages, poking and scratching and tearing. He plugs my nostrils shut, and forces something large and pulsating down my throat. I gag and flail against the bed, wasting the last gasps of air in my burning lungs.

  Then he is gone. I drag myself to the head of the bed, push the panic button on the wall, and sit, breathing deeply and dripping blood. It takes approximately twenty-five seconds for the bouncers to burst through the door. I wince when I see the slideshow of emotions play across their faces at the sight of me–horror, revulsion, anger, and a trace of pity. This is going to hurt like fuck in the morning.

  I’m not surprised to hear that they didn’t pass anyone in the hallway. One of them calls for an ambulance, while the other heads off to check the security cameras, but I already know they will show nothing but haze.

  * * *

  Michael arrives outside the brothel just after 11 pm the next night. He clutches a small cooler to his chest. I step out of the alleyway and grab his arm.

  “Over here,” I whisper. My throat is still raw from the night before. Michael jumps and starts to pull away, until he sees my face.

  “Jesus!” he says. “What happened to you?”

  “Jesus had nothing to do with it,” I say. “What did you call her?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your daughter. What did you call her?”

  Even though he has obviously had a shit of a day, with no sign of improvement, he smiles. “Sophie.”

  “Sophie,” I repeat to myself. I get a flash of foresight, an image of a smiling, dark-haired girl sitting on a swing, her little sandaled feet brushing the earth on each downward arc. You must be Sophie. She turns her head as if she hears me.

  “She looks like you,” I say as I take the cooler from his arms and limp away.

  * * *

  I don’t know on a conscious level how this shit works. Like the visions, the knowledge comes to me when it wants to. I just stand back and let my body do what it is told. For years I’ve been saving a little something from every client I’ve ever serviced, without knowing why. Usually it’s semen, but I’ve also got strands of hair, and even dried blood. No fancy cauldrons for me–I gather up all the samples and put them into an electric frying pan. As they start to sizzle, I take the placenta from the cooler bin, slice it up into bite-sized pieces, and add them to the mix. Gibberish pops into my head, and the back of my neck begins to burn again, but I ignore it, concentrating on repeating and pronouncing the nonsense words correctly.

  My front door gives way with a huge whomph, as if it’s been hit with a percussion bomb. He’s here, and he’s not pissing around. I’ve recited enough of the spell to create a barrier around myself, and the placenta gives it sufficient potency to hold him at bay. He throws himself against the invisible wall and howls with rage, no longer bothering to conceal his true appearance. I look away, choke back the vomit rising in my throat, and stir faster.

  “Wendy! Wendy!”

  He’s not howling now. He’s begging, pleading for his life, and his voice is familiar. Against my better judgment, I turn to look.

  Oh, you bastard.

  No wonder I recognize the voice. He’s
taken the form of my brother Nigel. He holds his arms outstretched, palms upward. Blood drips onto the floor from deep gashes in each wrist. His eyes are wide with pain.

  “Help me, Wendy!”

  “Nigel’s dead. Nice try, asshole.” I stab my palm with a paring knife and hold it over the frying pan, adding another ingredient to the stew. He morphs into a monster, then back to my brother, then through a kaleidoscope of forms, all crying, all bleeding.

  The spell is complete, or at least it should be. I see Sophie on her swing again. She’s not smiling anymore; she looks sad and resigned. As I raise my fingertips to give her a little wave, she turns away, and the vision begins to fade.

  I don’t have enough power to make the spell work. Overcome with exhaustion, I slump to the floor and press my cheek against the cool floorboards. On the other side of the barrier, my personal demon mirrors me. We eye each other across the invisible divide.

  Correction…I don’t have enough power to make it work, on my own. What I am about to do might be my last act of decency, so I may as well make it a good one.

  I crawl through the dust, open up my arms, and welcome him back in.

  Tracie McBride is a New Zealander who lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and three children. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in over 80 print and electronic publications, including FISH anthology and the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated anthologies Horror Library Volume 4 and Horror for Good. Her debut collection Ghosts Can Bleed contains much of the work that earned her a Sir Julius Vogel Award in 2008. She helps to wrangle slush for Dark Moon Digest and is the vice president of Dark Continents Publishing. Visitors to her blog are welcome at http://traciemcbridewriter.wordpress.com/.

  -The House That Sang

  by Andrew Stockton

  Randolph almost regretted breaking the comfortable silence that had existed between them for the last half hour.

  “Perhaps–” Eleanor replied, letting her hands and the darning fall slowly into her lap, “perhaps it knows.”

  Randolph smiled. Perhaps it did. The house…well, it seemed to know. That wasn’t quite the right word though. “Perhaps it doesn’t know,” said Randolph. “Perhaps it understands.”

  Understanding came so naturally and easily to Randolph and Eleanor, that it shocked them how other people reacted when they heard the house sing. Down the long years no one had ever understood.

  “Ain’t the house singing, that’s just the wind,” they’d say. “Y’all sure y’ain’t hearing things?”

  And Randolph would get annoyed, and Eleanor, upset. And the people would leave, and more often than not, never come back.

  Even when Tommy Bones had come to stay he had not tried to understand. When he turned up at the farm asking for work, Tommy Bones was a derelict; a vast, rusting chassis of a man. When he was younger and fitter he had worked at the blacksmith’s in town, but his temper had been even bigger than he was and he couldn’t control it. He couldn’t control the drink either. By the time the blacksmith’s had evolved into the town’s first garage Tommy had argued and fought with everyone. Slowly, inevitably, he was forced out, and in his older years he scratched a living moving from farm to farm doing whatever jobs the farmers trusted him to do.

  “I don’t hear nothin’,” he’d say, when he stayed at the farm. “Nothin’ but the wind.”

  There was one particular night, a sky black-spangled with stars scattered like seeds on rich dark soil and a wind that scurried down from the mountains, when the house sang loudly with its strange, haunting not-quite-melodies.

  “You cannot seriously deny that!” an angry Randolph insisted.

  “I don’t hear nothin’. Nothin’ but the wind,” Tommy Bones repeated, over and over and over again. “I don’t hear nothin’.”

  That was the last anyone heard of Tommy Bones.

  Randolph shook his head. He didn’t like to think of that time. Even though he had been an outsider like Randolph and Eleanor, Tommy Bones seemed to embody the stupid intolerance and misunderstanding of others. And Randolph had hated him for it. He and Eleanor were far better off now on their own, sharing the house and their solitary lives.

  Eleanor smiled now, her eyes twinkling. Instinctively she knew what her brother was thinking, and his shaking head and clenching and unclenching fists confirmed it. But those days were past. She was thankful that Randolph appreciated the secret they shared in this old house, and she valued the fact that he understood both her and the house.

  “It’ll be very soon now,” said Eleanor, as she reached out her hand.

  Randolph took it. It was much frailer now than it had been years ago, and seemed to have become almost insubstantial over the last few months. The bones were fragile under the age-spotted skin; the nails were yellowing with the years. They reminded him of the peeling paint on the outside of the house, which had once been white and lustrous too, before time had taken its monstrous toll.

  They had lived on this farmstead for more years than they cared to remember. He had moved from Boston to West Virginia with his parents when he was seven, and Mom had been pregnant with Eleanor then, so that was all of sixty-odd years ago. That was long enough to nurture sensitivity to a place, especially since much of the time they spent alone in the house. They liked it like that. Understanding came easy then.

  “The house is waiting for us,” Randolph said.

  “They are waiting for us,” corrected Eleanor, and they both smiled.

  * * *

  They sat on the upstairs balcony of the house, on either side of a small rattan table, as the sun began to drop behind the mountains. The wind raced down from the distant, otherworldly peaks and across the interloping fields. It felt between the wooden rafters, making the rotten and broken eaves twitch and jerk, and raising a musical resonance as it did so.

  It was only at this time of year, only when the wind blew in this direction that the house sang. And now the season was beginning to change; summer was giving way to autumn and then the wind would shift and the house would fall silent again for long months. That was why it had to be soon.

  Randolph remembered when they finally made their decision. He had half expected Eleanor to break down in tears, but quite the opposite happened. She seemed strengthened by it, looking forward to it, almost relishing it.

  “It will be nice to be together,” was all she had said, and she had hugged him because he had looked a little surprised, and more than a little lost, like a small boy who needed reassurance that he was doing the right thing. She knew beyond doubt that it was right.

  They both retired early that night. The next day was spent tidying the house and putting everything in order. Randolph had taken the long journey into town a few days earlier to put their affairs in order, so all that was necessary now was to potter about, cleaning and straightening. Eleanor cleaned with more energy than she had known for many years, and outside Randolph collected the accumulated rubbish and closed it behind the rickety barn door. When they sat down for supper everything was ready.

  They took their food out onto the balcony as they usually did. They both agreed it was important to maintain their routine. Though the air had lost much of its summer heat, it was still far from chilly. And when Eleanor took the dishes back inside, the evening wind was starting up, raising a gentle humming from the house.

  When she came back, the wind was stronger and the harmonious musical sounds that came from the building sang out loud enough, so that she had to raise her voice when she asked “Tonight?” The question was unnecessary, as Randolph was already nodding in agreement.

  “Let’s enjoy the sunset and the singing,” he said.

  She sat down quietly and, like Randolph, was soon lost in thought.

  Of the beautiful sunsets to which they had become accustomed at this time of year, this was surely the most stunning. Red fingers of light splayed across the sky, purple tinged the tops of the distant peaks, and the shadows that lengthened along the intervening fields were almost lumin
escent, rippling pink, blue and green at their edges as they reached out towards Randolph and Eleanor. Then the wind dropped, and the house fell silent.

  * * *

  It was an evening such as this, so many years ago, that Eleanor hesitantly handed the baby to Randolph. For a first child the delivery had been surprisingly quick–only a few hours, after some false alarms during the previous week. The pregnancy had been hell though, Eleanor remembered. Sickness, dizziness, most of the time spent in bed, especially towards the end when she was too ill even to stand. Perhaps how the pregnancy began had been an omen.

  Randolph had returned in the early hours, drunk and noisy after his visit to town, but instead of falling into his own room and snoring the night away as usual, he crashed into her bedroom and took her by force. Shocked, half asleep and confused, her attempts to stop him were weak and futile. His eyes were wild, his actions brutal but brief.

  Immediately afterwards he broke down, sobbing helplessly, and she took his head in her arms and comforted him. Between sobs and with shaking breath he spoke of how he loved her as a sister, and of his shame and loathing for what he had done. But she told him that there was no place for shame when love was in his heart, or when love empowered his actions. Eventually his tears stopped and together they decided they would never, ever, speak of this night again.

  Until a few months later, when she had to reveal that she was pregnant.

  Randolph was supportive throughout, but they both knew what had to be done when the time came. He took the child, screaming and bawling and bloody, and wrapped it in a sheet. Eleanor looked at it for a few moments then closed her eyes. Her hands spoke for her, reaching out, drawing back, her fingers opening and closing in a torment of love and indecision. Then she put her hands over her face in one final act of repudiation. He took the baby into the attic, touched it softly on the head and laid it on the dusty wooden floor. To the squeal of its piercing cry, he turned his back and left it.