The Best British Fantasy 2013

by Steve Haynes

  Holly wasn’t sure what to say. Yet she felt compelled to say something. In the end she muttered, ‘You felt threatened?’

  ‘More than that. I was scared . . . terrified . . . every minute of every day of my life.’

  His voice had dropped to a whisper. Suddenly he shook himself, like a dog. His head jerked up and his eyes were bright and black again.

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you seen anything? Since you moved in? Anything . . . unusual?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head angrily. ‘What do you expect me to have seen?’

  He half-smiled. ‘I used to see . . . even after he died . . .’

  ‘He died?’ said Holly. ‘Your dad, you mean?’

  He nodded. ‘His car was hit by a lorry on the motorway. I was eleven. I cried, and Mum cried, but secretly . . . I was glad. Relieved. I think she was too, but she didn’t say so. But then . . .’ His eyes drifted, not to the window, but to the corner of the room beyond the window, the one where Holly kept her exercise bike when she wasn’t using it. His voice had dropped to a whisper again, and his eyes were full of fear now. ‘Then he came back. I’d see him at night. I’d wake up and he’d be standing there. A dark shape in the corner. Watching me.’

  ‘It was just your imagination,’ said Holly carefully. ‘You felt guilty, and afraid.’

  He looked bewildered. ‘So you haven’t seen him?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘I couldn’t wait to get away. When I did, when I moved out, I thought it’d be over, that I’d never see him again.’ He gave a sort of sob, and his face twisted for a moment, an expression of fearful anguish. ‘But it was no good. He followed me. Wherever I went, wherever I lived, I’d wake in the night, and he’d be there, standing in the corner, watching me . . .’

  He swayed, as though about to collapse. Standing beside the window, framed by the light, he looked ethereal, as though the blaze of his own fear was corroding him, devouring him.

  Against her better judgement, Holly stepped forward, raising her hands as though to grip his elbows, hold him upright.

  ‘He’s not real, Rob, don’t you see?’ she said. ‘You only think you saw him because he was such a presence in your life, because he frightened you, and because you felt guilty for being relieved when he died. But you mustn’t let him haunt you any more. He’s gone. You’re free of him.’

  Rob shook his head. ‘I thought if I came back, I might be able to bring him with me, leave him here, lay him to rest.’

  ‘Do that,’ said Holly decisively. ‘Leave him here. He has no power over me. I don’t believe in him.’

  Rob barely seemed to hear her. His eyes were wild, distracted. ‘But it’s no good,’ he said. ‘He’ll always be with me. I see that now.’

  ‘No he won’t,’ said Holly. ‘You just have to -’

  Her words dried in her throat, her body jerking in horror. Rob had produced a black-handled kitchen knife from his pocket and was now holding it uncertainly in front of him.

  Holly’s voice, when she rediscovered it, was eerily calm, far calmer than she felt. ‘Rob,’ she said, ‘put that away. You don’t need it.’

  ‘He won’t leave me alone,’ he said miserably.

  ‘But that won’t solve anything, will it? By . . . by using that . . . you’d be letting him win.’

  Though she said it, she had no idea how he intended to use it. On her? On himself? On his non-existent father? She backed towards the door, not deliberately, almost subconsciously.

  He looked at her and his face was wretched. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Then he rammed the blade of the knife in his own throat and jerked it sideways.

  It was like puncturing a high-pressure hose. There was a hiss and a fan of blood spurted from him, rising high in the air and coming down with a spatter like falling raindrops. He reeled and tumbled sideways, his legs simply folding beneath him. Blood continued to gush and jet from his neck as his body bucked, staining everything – the sand-coloured carpet, the walls, the bookcases, the laptop on the desk, even the ceiling – with streaks and spatters.

  Holly crammed her fists to her mouth and screamed. She felt a wrench and a wave of dizziness, as though some instinctive, essential part of her was so appalled by what it was witnessing that it was trying to flee, to tear itself from the unresponsive lump of flesh in which it was housed. Barely aware of what she was doing, she turned and stumbled, almost fell, down the stairs. The air felt thick and heavy as soup, and yet at the same time vibrant and piercing, as if filled with a thousand screeching alarms.

  ‘Ohmygod,’ she whispered, barely aware that she was doing it. ‘Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.’

  She couldn’t think straight. Her only thought was to get away, to put as much distance as possible between herself and the terrible thing that had happened upstairs. She felt contaminated, poisoned by it. She rubbed and clawed at her arms, at her clothes, as if she was covered with crawling things that were biting her, trying to burrow under her skin.

  At the bottom of the stairs she made instinctively for the light falling in fractured waves through the stippled glass of the front door. Her hand felt large and clumsy as she grasped the door handle, but somehow she managed to twist it, tug it open. She staggered outside, and the light hit her like a slap, causing her to spin around – or perhaps it was the world that was spinning. Next thing she knew her feet somehow became tangled together, and suddenly she was on the ground. She lay there sobbing.

  When hands began to tug at her she screamed, but the voice that accompanied them was soft, soothing.

  ‘Now, now, dear, it’s all right. You’re perfectly safe.’

  Holly looked up. Mrs. Bartholomew was crouching beside her, the sun turning her feathery grey hair into a halo of white fire.

  ‘You’ve got to . . . need an ambulance,’ Holly spluttered.

  ‘An ambulance?’ Mrs. Bartholomew looked her over quickly. ‘Are you hurt? What happened?’

  ‘Not me – him,’ Holly wailed.

  ‘Who, dear?’ asked Mrs. Bartholomew.

  Holly’s thoughts were racing, hurtling through her head at such a speed she could barely communicate. Forcing herself to think, to concentrate, she said, ‘You know him. His name’s . . . Rob Norton. He used to . . . used to live here.’

  A strange look came over Mrs. Bartholomew’s face. ‘Rob,’ she said. ‘So he’s come back, has he?’

  ‘Yes, but he’s . . . hurt. Maybe dead. He had a knife and he. . .’ unable to say the words she mimed stabbing herself in the throat.

  Slowly Mrs. Bartholomew rose to her feet, wincing as her knees cracked. She took hold of Holly’s hand, and with a tug she encouraged her to stand.

  ‘Come with me, dear.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I want to show you something.’

  Holly stood shakily, but resisted when Mrs. Bartholomew started to pull her back towards the open front door that Holly had just tumbled out of.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I can’t. He’s in there. I don’t want to see.’

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ Mrs. Bartholomew said. ‘Come on, dear.’

  Such was the gentle authority in her voice that Holly allowed herself to be led. Inside, though, when Mrs. Bartholomew tried to persuade her to go upstairs, she shrank back again.

  ‘No, I can’t,’ she said again.

  ‘All right, dear,’ Mrs. Bartholomew said gently. ‘All right, I’ll go. You wait here.’

  She went upstairs. Holly waited, slumped against the wall – the one that Rob had told her used to be covered in sheets of chipboard made to look like real wood – panting as though she had just run a five-miler.

  Eventually Mrs. Bartholomew appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Come up, dear,’ she said.

  Holly
shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘There’s nothing to see,’ Mrs. Bartholomew said. ‘Trust me.’

  Such was the conviction in her tone, combined with a note of reassurance, that Holly sidled across to the foot of the stairs and crept up them like a timid child ready to bolt at the slightest sign of threat. When she reached the top Mrs. Bartholomew took her hand.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said gently.

  The door to the room in which Rob Norton had cut his own throat was ajar. Holly flinched, and almost cried out, as Mrs. Bartholomew stepped towards it, holding her at arm’s length, and pushed it open.

  The door swung back. The room was empty. Holly stared. There was no blood, no body. Everything was as it should be.

  She felt her mind flex. That was honestly how it felt.

  ‘I’m going mad,’ she whispered.

  Mrs. Bartholomew shook her head. ‘No, dear, you’re not.’

  ‘But he was there. I saw him. I spoke to him.’

  ‘I’m sure you did. But he died a long time ago. 1997 to be exact. He never got over his father’s death, and he came back and killed himself in his childhood bedroom. I expect it was the only place where he felt safe.’

  ‘No.’ Holly shook her head. ‘He didn’t feel safe here. He said it was the scariest place in the world.’

  Mrs. Bartholomew looked sad. ‘He’s been back several times. Everyone who’s lived here since Kath Norton moved out has seen him – spoken to him too. Only once, mind,’ she added hastily. ‘He never visits the same person twice.’

  Holly looked round the room. The pristine laptop, its cursor blinking languidly on the last word she had written. The sand-coloured carpet. The white ceiling, fresh and newly painted. Her eyes moved past the window to the corner, where her exercise bike stood at an angle.

  Who will I see at night, she thought. Who will I see standing there?

  She didn’t believe in that sort of thing. She didn’t believe in ghosts. But from now on, whenever she came in here in the dark, she would see someone. She felt certain of it. She would see a tall, dark shape, standing there, watching her.

  She knew that she would never be alone again.

  SIMON KURT UNSWORTH

  Qiqirn

  Becker wasn’t what Pollard expected. He was younger for one thing, baby-faced and clean-shaven and without a tie, and there was no desk or drawers in the room, just the chairs and a small table that held a jug of water, a box of tissues and a small vase containing a single flower. Becker sat in an easy chair in front of the window and indicated that Pollard should sit in the chair on the other side of the room, a leather wingback that looked old and proved comfortable. He made no notes as they spoke and referred to no paperwork, simply steepling his fingers and looking at Pollard over the spires he had created, listening as Pollard talked.

  It took a while, because at first Pollard found it hard. His voice had dried, to catch like dust in his throat, and he drank three glasses of water from the jug as he told Becker about what had happened, about the panic and the running and the cold. About the fear, and the thing that had taken up residence in his home. Becker kept nodding, not interrupting, not moving apart from those little bobs of his head, and when Pollard had finished, he said, ‘So this has been happening for a few weeks?’

  ‘Months, really,’ said Pollard. ‘Building up. The last few weeks have been the worst.’

  ‘Tell about the first one again.’

  Pollard had been coming down his stairs when he first felt it, a prickle across his skin as though something had exhaled along the hallways of the house. Gooseflesh rose on his arms despite the warmth of the day and he shivered, suddenly cold. A quick, reassuring glance told him that the front door was still closed, things were in their places; nothing appeared amiss. So, why was his heartbeat increasing? Getting faster, harder, more urgent? Why was the hair across his body refusing to lie back down, the follicles tightening further so that his skin felt covered by hard little nodules like scales? Why did he feel cold? He took another step, down off the stairs and onto the carpeted floor, uncomfortably aware of the rub of his flesh inside his clothes, of the accelerating movement of his heart, of the way his hand, holding his empty cup, was shaking. What was this? The hallway was empty, the sunlight dropping into it through the open doorway from the kitchen, the house as silent as it had been these last months.

  There was something in the kitchen.

  As soon as he thought it, Pollard knew it was true. Something was in the kitchen, something awful, hiding just on the other side of the doorway, out of sight and waiting for him. He gasped, unable to help himself, his hand flexing sharply, opening and closing so that he dropped his cup. It bounced on the thick carpet, unharmed, knocking against his foot, and the cold porcelain bite made him scream and the next thing was, he was running.

  ‘And you stopped where?’ asked Becker.

  ‘At the end of my path. I was barefoot and I must have trodden on something. It, I don’t know, startled me back into myself or something because suddenly I wasn’t scared or cold anymore, and I couldn’t remember quite why I’d felt the way I had.’

  ‘How did you feel?’

  ‘Embarrassed, mostly, in case any of the neighbours saw me; I was only dressed in my pyjamas. They all pity me anyway, and I don’t want to give them other reasons to talk about me. The sympathetic looks and little nods of concern are bad enough.’

  ‘And when you went back in the house?’

  ‘It was fine. The feeling that something was in the kitchen was gone. Everything was normal.’ Pollard paused before saying the word normal, and then wondered if Becker had noticed. What’s normal any more, he thought? There’s no such thing.

  ‘Good. Mr Pollard, what you’re experiencing isn’t pleasant, but I can tell you, it is entirely typical. The feelings and reactions you describe are symptomatic of panic attacks and phobic reactions; in your case, although it’s unusual, I’d be inclined to treat this as a phobia. Your panic is related to a specific thing, to a fixed point, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Each time?’

  ‘Yes. Every time, there’s something that frightens me, terrifies me, and it’s specific. It’s in the kitchen, or the lounge, or the hallway or landing, just out of my sight. I just don’t know what it is.’

  ‘Then, for all intents and purposes it’s a phobia, and we’ll deal with it as such. There are two main ways for dealing with phobias: flooding and graduated hierarchies. Flooding involves, essentially, placing you somewhere with the thing causing your phobia and not letting you leave until you simply can’t sustain the panic any more and you calm down. Quite apart from the fact it’s not at all pleasant, it’d be hard to achieve with you because we don’t know what specific thing the phobia is focused upon, so that leaves graduated hierarchies. We approach the thing that’s causing the feelings small step by small step until you have the ability to deal with it, to not panic any more.’

  ‘That’d be good,’ said Pollard, remembering the fear he had felt, the sheer terror. ‘I’d like to not be frightened any more.’

  ‘There’ll be homework each week, a new step to take’ said Becker, ‘things for you to think about and come prepared to talk about. This process will only work if you’re honest, you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you next week, and we’ll talk a bit more about how these phobic attacks make you feel, what happens to you when they’re occurring.’

  Pollard had risen, was at the door, when Becker said, ‘And Mr Pollard? I know we’ve not talked about your wife at all, but we will. Next week, Mr Pollard.’

  ‘So, how have things been?’

  ‘Awful,’ said Pollard, ‘much worse. I’ve had three attacks, each worse than before.’ The office was warm and bright again, Becker in the same place and the same position, everything the same except for the ad
dition of a piece of folded paper on the occasional table, held down by a small glass paperweight. Becker made no mention of the paper.

  The worst of the attacks had been the previous evening. Pollard had been making himself a cup of tea when, standing at the counter waiting for the kettle to boil, he suddenly knew that something was behind him. Its head was just at his shoulder, its breath against the back of his neck, cold and fetid. The temperature in the room dropped violently and he shivered, and then he had been at the door, knocking it open and dashing hectic and thoughtless into the hallway, accelerating along it and to the front door and out. Running had been automatic, uncontrollable, driven by something that came before thought, by an unwillingness, a desperation not to see the thing behind him.

  ‘And you stopped running at the end of the path again?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And when you went back in?’

  ‘Nothing. There was nothing there, no feelings of anything. I made my drink and went to bed.’

  ‘Tell me about your wife,’ Becker said.

  ‘Mary? She died,’ Pollard said automatically, ‘seven months ago.’ His standard response, the emotions practiced out of it.

  ‘I know. Did you love her?’

  ‘Yes. I still do.’

  ‘Did you get on well? I mean, were you friends?’

  ‘Yes.’ Pollard was unsure were the questions were going, where they were taking him. Becker was leaning forwards slightly now, his hands no longer steepled but crossed loosely over his lap.

  ‘Tell about how the phobia makes you feel.’

  ‘Frightened,’ said Pollard. ‘Out of control, threatened. In danger.’

  ‘Tell me the three things you miss most about Mary.’

  Pollard didn’t answer. Thinking of Mary was hard, painful, but he tried and eventually found things he could verbalise. ‘Her smell after she’d showered,’ he said, ‘it was so clean and fresh and nothing else ever smelled that way. Her laugh, how loud it was, too loud for someone so petite but never intrusive. The way she felt when I held her in bed and we talked.’