The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant Volume 1: Nightmare Seasons (Necon Classic Horror)

by Charles L. Grant

Finally, refusing to give way to the swell of frustration that was building in his chest, he ransacked the small storeroom for Harv’s tools and methodically broke them all as he tried to pry open the rear door, the restroom window, dig through the plaster to the outside brick.

  He lifted the heaviest mail sack he could find and tossed it almost effortlessly through the frosted glass, grinning when he heard the crystal tinkling on the marble floor. He threw another one. Another. Continued to lift and throw until there was nothing left but the spiraled bars of the cages thin-framed in oak. Then he walked through the office to the front door and stared at the riders.

  2:40 A.M.

  The first biker on the left moved. It half rose and kicked down. The Harley sputtered and caught, and the grumbling was lulling in the quiet hours of the morning.

  2:45 A.M.

  The first biker on the right moved. It half rose and kicked down. The Harley sputtered and caught, and the grumbling was soothing ill the quiet hours of the morning.

  2:50 A.M.

  The three inside bikers moved. They half rose and kicked down. Their Harleys sputtered and caught, and the grumbling was beckoning in the quiet hours of the morning.

  3:30 A.M.

  Patrick finally wrenched away from the door and hurried into the office. He could not stand there waiting for the leader to start his machine too, could not bring himself to watch the faint plumes of exhaust lift into the air and hang there like fog. It was maddening, as he was sure it was meant to be, and he was not about to surrender to their madness now, not after waiting for so many hours for something to happen. At first there had been hope that they’d tire of the game, and at first he could not believe that he was listening to those engines. He’d thought they’d finally broken him until he’d heard Jack grunting as if urging them on, away, out of the night to let the dawn come unsullied. Then he had found patience to watch them and listen, until the watching and the listening became a weight on his shoulders and a band around his throat.

  He moved to the desk and switched off the lamp. The soft, weak glow was transformed into a greylight that curiously managed to rid the room of its shadows. He looked to the window. Jack was gone, and before he could search he heard Karen stirring. Remembering the anger he had felt and the kicks at her side, he almost broke into an apology as she lifted herself by stages to sit against the wall.

  “Are they . . .” She stopped, listened, and shook her head slowly. “It was a nice idea,” she said.

  “What was,” he said, sitting down beside her.

  “The dream. All that talk about me dreaming. It was a nice idea for a while, wasn’t it.”

  “Yeah,” he said, pulling the holder from his mouth and looking at it distastefully. He tossed it away, saw it bounce against the doorjamb and spin into the lobby, over the broken glass that glittered like lost stars. “Yeah, it was a nice idea, Karen. I wish to hell it was the answer.”

  “Have you figured it out yet?”

  He shook his head.

  She brushed at her shirt, and his gaze could not help lingering at the swell of her breasts, the shadows that writhed there as she repositioned herself. When he was drawn to her face he saw she’d been watching. Caught, then, he did not look away; it would only make it worse.

  “I heard noises,” she said.

  He explained what he had been doing over the past two or three hours, almost laughing at the sight of himself rampaging through the mail. And when he felt the grin on his face he held it, glad for any small thing that would temporarily mask his fear.

  Fear, he thought, and rubbed his arms briskly. It occurred to him then that he was not at all afraid. Not any longer. And that, in itself, was frightening enough.

  “I’ve decided,” she said quietly, without looking directly at him but rather in a sidelong gaze that also caught the front door, “that I’m going to die.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he said automatically. Then, with conviction: “Don’t be stupid, Karen! As long as we stay in here we’re not going to die.”

  “But how do we know they won’t come in after us?”

  “Because they would have done it long before this, right?”

  “How do you know?” she pressed. “How do you know that for sure?”

  He said nothing. He wondered where Jack had gone to, wondered suddenly if that slimy black-haired punk had found a way out and had taken it without telling his friends. Gratitude for you, damnit, he thought. There I was, breaking every regulation in the book and setting myself up for all kinds of charges and the sonofabitch lights out without showing me the way. Us, he corrected quickly; without showing us the way.

  He shifted his buttocks, and heard Karen moving slightly away from him. He looked over and stared, and saw the veil over her eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” he said. “You . . . are you all right?”

  “It just occurred to me,” she said, struggling to her feet to put the desk between them. “It just occurred to me that you killed them, Pat.”

  His mouth opened, closed; he looked to the doorway, to the window, to the ceiling. “What?”

  “You did!”

  A hand to his forehead, to his mouth, to his cheek. “Karen, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” He wanted to cry. She had returned to the Station with her mind broken by fear and scrambled by terror. He grunted and smiled. He almost said you’re crazy. “You don’t know what you’re saying. How could I kill them, huh? I was here all the time.”

  She shook her head, confused. “I don’t know. But it came to me while I was . . . while I was away. You had a part in it, Pat. You’re one of them, aren’t you.”

  He could not contain the disgust that he felt. “For god’s sake, Karen!”

  “But damnit, Pat, you enjoyed it! I saw you! You egged Tony and Harv on until they had to go out there and face them down. You forced them out there, and then you enjoyed watching them die. I saw you, Pat. I saw the look on your face.”

  The head snapped back . . . back . . . tearing loose from the neck and rolling to the curb; the flesh fell away to expose the bone and the eyes in the sockets were trapped and screaming.

  “Look at you, damn it! You’re actually grinning!”

  He swallowed, and lifted a hand in protest. But Karen let out a choked cry and bolted from the room. Into the lobby. Across the splinters and islands and icebergs of glass that slipped under her feet and tripped her. By the time he reached the threshold she had slid over the marble and had plunged through the door headfirst, her screams lifting to the vaulted ceiling and clinging there like burrs. He stared at the nearest caged window, listening to her screams; he clawed his hands into fists, and listened to her screams; he searched the dim back room for Jack . . . and listened to her screams.

  And he knew that as long as he refused to walk to the door and look out at the street she would lie there on the broad stoop and scream forever.

  He wanted to vomit, and remembered the look in his eyes after Harvey had died.

  He called out for Jack, and thought he saw movement back by the restroom.

  He jumped back into the office and sat at his desk, staring at Washington and covering his ears.

  3:50 A.M.

  Screaming.

  4:00 A.M.

  Screaming.

  4:30 A.M.

  Screaming.

  5:00 A.M.

  “NO!”

  He pounded at the desk until his hands were bloodied and the sight of the red brought knives to his eyes. They worked at the lids to keep them open, worked at the edges until he wept.

  5:10 A.M.

  “NO! NO! Goddamnit, NO!”

  5:15 A.M.

  He stood suddenly and kicked back the chair, shoved at the desk until it slid over against the wall. The way was clear to the lobby, and he took it. Stumbling over shadows. His stomach churning bile that would not rise to his mouth. His hands flapping uselessly at his sides, his elbows crooked and his neck at an odd angle. His tongue flicked at the air,
at his lips, and saliva slipped from the taut comer of his mouth to slide to his chin and gleam there unmoving. His hair was streaked with thin bands of dark brown; his cheeks had lost their hollowed depression.

  He kicked aside the shards of frosted glass.

  He saw that the doors were still slightly ajar.

  The head . . . and the bone.

  Karen’s left foot was keeping the doors open, and he could see through the narrow slit that she had tom off her nails clawing at the concrete while reaching for the iron railing that Harvey had grabbed. Her hair was matted with perspiration and blood, the backs of her hands stripped raw to the muscle.

  Her mouth was wide open, and he could still hear her screaming. Screaming while the engines still thrummed invitation.

  “Don’t.”

  He had reached down to grab for her shoe, to pull her in so she could see she was wrong.

  The warning came again: “Don’t touch it, Pat. Please don’t touch it.”

  He straightened involuntarily and turned. Jack had climbed to the top of what was left of the partition and was standing above him, hands in his pockets, his face cadaverous and saddened. Patrick gestured to the doors helplessly, and when his mouth groped for words he could feel the dried tears that had caked on his cheeks.

  Suddenly, he felt old.

  Jack leapt to the floor and landed without a sound, leaned against the remains of the wall and folded his arms over his chest. “Just leave it be, Pat. It’ll be over by dawn.”

  They both looked to the round-faced clock on the wall over the door. An hour at most of listening to her screaming.

  “I can’t.”

  Jack shrugged. “You have to.”

  “I don’t want her to die.”

  “She will whether you bring her in here or not. Sooner or later.” He grinned.

  Patrick bridled. “What the hell is it with you, anyway? How can you laugh when something like this is happening? What are you, some kind of monster? Are you one of them, Jack? Are you their . . . do you scout towns for them, victims, show them who to kill and who to keep alive?” He took a step forward, suddenly filled with righteous self-hatred. “Well? Answer me, youngster! What do I have to do, drive a stake through your heart?”

  “Which one do you want me to answer,” Jack said pleasantly.

  Patrick narrowed his eyes and took another step. “All of them,” he said, his voice low and warning.

  “Well . . . no, you don’t have to drive a stake through my heart. Or shoot me with silver bullets. Or say the magic word so I’ll disappear in a flare of sulphur and fire. No, Pat, I’m not the Devil or anything like him.”

  “But you are one of them,” he said, insisting now because it was finally the time to know.

  Jack hesitated and took out his comb. Patrick glared at it, took one final step and slapped it away. It scuttled over the floor and lodged against the baseboard; and for the first time he noted that Fawn seemed more than uneasy, more than discomforted.

  “Well?” His voice was stronger. Now it demanded. And still Karen screamed.

  Jack lowered his arms to his sides slowly, almost as if it pained him to do it. The pockmarks on his face had taken on shadows that added a darkness to his years that had not been there that morning, and his eyes had lost their perpetual sardonic glitter.

  “I’m not one of them,” he said, so softly Patrick had to lean closer to hear him. “But I used to be. For a long time, Pat, and I saw a lot of the country, saw a lot of people from San Francisco to New York and every damned place in between.” He stirred, and his voice took the hint of melancholy pride. “In fact, as long as you’re asking, I used to ride that lead bike once in a while. It was damned nice, riding into a town ahead of the others, watching for the faces you would know when you saw them.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Jack ignored him. “The trouble was, like all the rest of them sooner or later, I wanted something more. Oh, it was fun—”

  “Fun?”

  “—figuring out ways to do things to people. One time I remember putting a whole office building under. One at a time. Damn, but the night lasted long that day! One at a time, and everyone of them different. I’ll tell you one thing, Pat: it took a lot of imagination.”

  Patrick gestured at him in revulsion and disgust. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is this some kind of drug you’re talking about? How can you hold a whole office building without someone getting out?” But he turned away without waiting for an answer.

  Karen . . . screaming.

  Of course it could be done, he told himself as if he were lecturing to a stupid child. If they can keep five of us penned in here like sheep to the slaughter, why not fifty? Why not five hundred? Because, he thought as that last figure flashed, there had to be a limit to what they could do or they would take hold of a country and not bother with a village.

  But it still did not answer all of his questions, nor did it tell him why Karen had said all those horrid things to him. Certainly he had been watching when the other two had died; he had been right there, hadn’t he? And he knew he wasn’t any better or any worse than anyone else in the world, that just like all of them he would slow down when he passed an accident, would stop when he saw a jumper on a ledge . . . but he never urged the jumping nor thirsted after the blood-that was merely a symptom of the Roman circus mentality.

  No. At least he could say he never thirsted after the blood.

  And suddenly the evening telescoped to a sentence. He looked at Jack, who was looking at the doors. “You said something earlier. You said they used to be horses.”

  Jack nodded. “They did. Horses instead of bikes. Before that I don’t know. Walking, maybe. I don’t know, I wasn’t there.”

  “But you were there when they had horses?” Jack nodded again.

  Patrick grunted as Karen kept screaming, and he walked into the office to stare at the dead phone. Returned to the lobby to stare at the man.

  “It’s no joke,” Jack said.

  “Then how old are you?” He had wanted it to be a command; it had come out the whisper of a frightened old man.

  “Old enough to want out,” Jack said, refolding his arms. “The trouble is, you don’t get out.”

  “Out. Out. Get out from what?” He whirled to the door. “And why the hell doesn’t she stop that goddamned screaming?”

  “She will,” Jack said. “She will.”

  Patrick’s mouth dried, and swallowing was like forcing down straw.

  “Out from them,” Jack told him, lifting his chin in a sweep toward the front. Then he turned to him and smiled. “It’s the excitement, you see. Like running away to join the circus, only this time you run away to join . . . them. Thrills, adventure, the scent of the hunt and the close for the kill. Not everybody can do it, you know. There has to be something dead inside you, something that turns off the tears when you see someone you love die, or when a child is murdered, or when . . . well, you get the picture, Pat. Someone like me.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Yes you do, Pat. You believe it because you felt it a little a couple of times tonight. Karen was right. You’d better admit it, old man: you couldn’t help feeling just a little excited when you saw what they could do, when you saw what they did.”

  There were tears of shame that welled but would not run.

  “But you get tired of it after a while. I’ve been with them for . . . let’s just say years, all right? A lot of years, old man. I started young, before I was fifteen, and that’s a lot of years to grow older so slowly. I got tired, and I got out . . . and those damned riders found me.”

  Patrick could not help but ask: “To do what?”

  Jack shrugged. “Get me back or kill me.”

  “Why? Because you’d tell?” His laugh was bitter. “Who would believe you?”

  “You do.”

  “I’m in here. Out there in broad daylight, why they’d laugh you right into the funny farm, Jack.
You know that.”

  “I know a lot of other things, too.”

  Patrick nodded. “Yes, I suppose you do.”

  Karen . . .

  “Are you . . . are you going back?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind. There has to be eight, you know. That’s why Harv was able to get as close as he did. But they stopped him. Now they’re missing two, and they’ll have to find someone else.”

  “It must be hard.”

  Jack grinned, and his teeth took the greylight and made it shine. “Not that hard, old man. You don’t always know what you’re getting into. And once you’re into it . . . well, sometimes it can be fun.”

  The bile in his stomach lurched again, and he pressed a hand to his belt to calm it until it subsided. “What,” he asked then, “if you don’t come out by dawn? Will they come ill after you?”

  “When everyone’s dead, yes.”

  Patrick sagged against the wall, his palms spread beside him to keep him from falling. He had asked one question and had received the answer to the one he couldn’t form. Then, suddenly, he could no longer stand the death screams of the woman and he bolted for the door as Jack shouted at him hysterically. He grabbed the shoe and began pulling, tugging hard until he realized the doors were wedged and he would have to open one wider. He reached out and pushed, and the shoe slipped from his hand.

  Karen screamed once, and was silent.

  Patrick dropped to his knees and saw her slip over the stoop to the steps, slide down them to the sidewalk. A dark red stain was left behind her. When she reached the leader he lifted his booth eel over her head. And held it while Karen twisted around to catch the plea in Patrick’s eyes.

  Jack bellowed incoherently and slammed through the other door.

  The boot came down.

  Patrick heard the skull crack loudly.

  Then he scrambled to his feet just as Fawn lunged for the nearest rider, toppling it from its seat and grappling with it on the roadway. He stepped outside without realizing it, became suddenly aware of his position and turned around to reenter. Paused. Looked back over his shoulder at the gleam of the chrome and the promise of the black.