When I reached my studio, I did not turn on the lights. I opened the curtains, letting moonlight flood in. They say that not even the light of a full moon is enough to discern colors by, yet even so, the pigments were more vivid to me than ever before. I tore the canvas I had worked on so long from the board, and stapled a new one to the stretcher bars. Each shade and color seemed almost luminous as I set to work.
Since this night was the same as all nights, then it would also be the night in which they found me. But I knew that this would not happen until the last stroke was laid. And I was right; it was not until I laid the brush down that I heard the knock on the door, the gruff identification.
I took down Courtenay’s prints; they had served their purpose. I did not answer the knock. The landlady let them in at last and turned on the light. I had to shut my eyes against its glare, and so was unable to see their reaction. I could hear their gasps, of horror and disgust, however; could hear the landlady turn and run from the room. It was only then that the relief, the release, which I had been seeking for so long flooded over me. An artist’s work is incomplete, after all, until it is experienced by others.
I smiled at them. “I call it Samantha in the Night,” I said.
CEREMONY by William F. Nolan
William F. Nolan has written some 45 books, 90 short stories, numerous teleplays and screenplays, and something like a thousand essays, articles and reviews. Despite all this, Nolan is best known to science fiction and fantasy fans as the co-author (with George Clayton Johnson) of Logan’s Run. Perhaps this is because Nolan’s far-ranging enthusiasms have spread his output over too many genres. For example, his most recent output: a book on Max Brand, a book on hard-boiled detective fiction (The Black Mask Boys), a collection of horror stories (Things Beyond Midnight), and an NBC Movie-of-the-Week about Jack the Ripper (Bridge Across Time).
Born March 6, 1928 in Kansas City, Nolan has lived in the Los Angeles area since 1953, where he has written full-time since 1956. His first science fiction book, a collection of stories entitled Impact 20, was published in 1963. He is author or editor of several other books in this genre, as well as the compiler of the annotated bibliography, The Ray Bradbury Companion. His stories have appeared in more than 120 anthologies, but this is his first appearance in The Year’s Best Horror Stories. “Ceremony” was inspired by a forced bus ride to Providence, Rhode Island where he attended a World Fantasy Convention. Nolan feels that it is his best story: “For me, it is the end product of thirty years of pro fiction.” Have a look.
He hated riding cross-country in a bus almost as much as he hated driving cross-country, but the problem was he’d missed his rail connection getting into Chicago and just couldn’t wait for the next train. He had to be in Providence by Thursday evening to meet the Sutter woman. So it was the bus or nothing.
Mrs. Sutter was leaving that same night for Europe, and when she returned she expected her husband to be dead. The contract had to be settled before she left and the advance paid him. He didn’t ice rich, unfaithful husbands unless he was well paid for the job, half down, the other half after the hit. Funny part of this one, he would have done old Sutter for free. Because of the total. He’d dispatched 13 people (would joke sometimes about “working as a dispatcher”) since he’d gone into this business and he needed to break the total.
It wasn’t that he was superstitious. Never had been. But, in plain, hard truth, that damned number 13 was unlucky for him. No question about it. He was 13 the time his father had split out for good, when they were living in that crummy, red-brick, coldwater flat in St. Louis. Not that he loved his old man. Not that bum. It was just that his father was usually able to keep his mother from beating the crap out of him. She beat him senseless twice that week, after the old man had split. Took it out on him. Way she took everything out on him. Always had. He was missing three teeth because of her. Good ole Mom.
That was the same week he ran off to Kansas City and got a job as a stacker in a paper-box factory after lying about his age. He’d looked a lot older than 13.
Then there was a double-13 on the license plate of that big, pink Lincoln convertible the blonde had driven when he’d hitched into Boulder City a few winters back. The blonde had been fun, sure, but she was coked out of her gourd when she flipped the car on a hairpin turn in the mountains and almost killed both of them. She thought it was funny, having a double-13 on her plates. Yeah, funny.
And, in Nam, there was a transport number, 13-something, painted on the tail of that lousy chopper that went down in the rice paddy. He’d been sent back to the States after that, with a Purple Heart, but the crash had killed his best buddy—the one real friend he’d ever trusted. He didn’t trust people as a general rule. People screw you up when you trust them. But he’d trusted Eddie ...
There had been a lot of 13s in his life, all tied into hard times, bad breaks, heavy losses. And now, by Christ, his job total was 13. Bad luck. But Mr. Sutter would make it fourteen and everything would be okay again. Life was fine, so long as he stayed away from the 13s.
“The bus will get you into Providence by late Thursday afternoon,” the train clerk had assured him in Chicago. “But it’s a long trip. Rather exhausting. We’d suggest a flight.”
“I don’t take planes,” he told the clerk. He didn’t tell him why.
It wasn’t the chopper crash in Nam. Not that. It was the dream. About a commercial airliner, a big 747. Falling, with him strapped inside, staring out the window. Going down fast, people screaming, a jet engine on fire with the right wing burning. Paint cracking and peeling in the fierce heat, with the flames eating at a number on the trailing edge of the wing. A number ending in 13.
The one job he’d had trouble with, killing Wendl, that banker in Tucson, when a piss-ass schoolkid had seen him come out of Wendl’s house after the job and called the cops, that one had been the 13th. He originally planned it for the fourteenth, but when he found out Wendl’s family was returning from their trip a day early, he was forced to make the hit. But never again. No more jobs on the 13th, no matter how much he got paid. He’d learned a lesson there, in Arizona. Cops had almost nailed him for sure.
So now he was on a bus in late October, heading for Providence, Rhode Island, ready to eliminate Mr. James T. Sutter at the personal request of his loving wife, Jennifer. He’d get the advance from Mrs. S. and spend a week in Providence, then ice the old fart before taking a train back to the Coast.
Bringing his job total to fourteen.
He grinned, closing his eyes ...
... and woke with a jolt, feeling cold glass strike his forehead. He’d nodded off, lulled by the rocking motion of the bus, and his head had bumped the window. He straightened, coughing, and wiped a small trickle of saliva from his chin. That’s how it was on a long bus ride, with those fat tires hypnotically thrumming the road, setting up a measured vibration in your body, making you drowsy. Your eyelids get heavy, slide down; your mouth gapes, and you doze. And wake. And blink. And doze again.
Time is meaningless. You don’t know where you are, what town you’re passing through. Don’t care. Your back aches, and your feet are swollen inside your shoes. Your clothes itch, tight and sweaty around you. You smoke, but the cigarettes taste sour.
Hours of travel along strange highways, suspended in a surreal vacuum between night cities and day cities, looking blankly out at hills and rivers and passing traffic, chewing on stale Clark bars from paint-chipped vending machines in musty-smelling depots. Riding endlessly through country you’d never seen and never wanted to see.
It was early afternoon on Highway 95. Sun half down along a rolling horizon of green hills. They’d just crossed the state line from Connecticut. He’d seen the big sign with a girl’s smiling face painted on it ...
WELCOME TO RHODE ISLAND!
A Nice Place to Visit.
A NICER Place to Live.
He suddenly remembered a song he’d heard when he was very young. His old man had this classic re
cording of the Andrews Sisters—Patty, Laverne and somebody—singing energetically about “poor little Rhode Island, smallest of the forty-eight ...” There had been only forty-eight states when the Andrews Sisters had made the record, and he remembered feeling sorry for the place. He’d been a little kid, shorter than most of his schoolmates, and he identified with smallness. One summer he’d found an abandoned pup, a real little guy, obviously the runt of the litter, and had taken it home. But his mother strangled it. She didn’t like pets.
Poor little Rhode Island ...
They were passing through farm country in the western part of the state. Lots of big rocks, with dirt-and-gravel roads branching off into fields (what were they growing?—he sure as hell didn’t know) and with pale white Colonial farmhouses off in the distance. He spotted some apple orchards, and there were plenty of elm and oak trees along the road, all fire-colored. Like passing a circus. He wasn’t much for scenery, but this was special—New England in October, putting on a class show for the customers.
How many hours had it been since they’d left Chicago? Twenty, at a guess. At least that long. It seemed like weeks, riding these endless gray highways.
The bus was nearly empty. Just him in the back section and an elderly couple up front. It had been crowded at first—but people kept getting off. More at each depot stop. Finally, it was just the three of them and the driver. Well, nobody in his right mind rode a bus for twenty hours. But it was almost over. Not long now into Providence.
He closed his eyes again, let the singing tires take him into sleep.
He woke to darkness. Thick black Rhode Island night outside the glass, an interior dark inside the bus. He’d been jarred awake by rough road under the wheels. Narrow and bumpy. Why had they left the main highway? Jesus! He’d been due into Providence before dark.
He got up numbly, bracing himself against the seat back, then walked forward unsteadily along the aisle past the elderly couple (godawful bony-looking people) until he reached the driver.
“Where are we?” he asked, squinting into the night. “Why aren’t we on 95?”
The driver was a thin character, with gaunt, stretched skin. He stared intently ahead at the narrow road, illuminated in floury-white patches by the probing lights. “Sorry, buddy, I had no choice.”
“What’s that mean? How late are we going to be getting into Providence?”
“Won’t be there till morning,” said the driver. “You’ll have to spend tonight at the Mill. We’ll be coming in soon. Maybe another ten minutes.”
“The hell you say!” He leaned over to grip the driver’s thin shoulder. “Turn this thing around and get us back on the main highway! I’m due in Providence tonight, and by God you’d better get me there!”
“No can do, buddy. Engine’s fouled up. Overheating real bad. May be the carburetor, dunno. Only place to get ’er fixed is at Doour’s Mill. They got a garage there. You ask me, lucky we made it this far. Gotta admit it sure beats being stuck someplace out on the road.”
“Is there a phone at the garage?”
“Oh, sure. You can call from the Mill. No problem.”
He started back toward the rear of the bus, thinking it’s 13 again. That’s why this job has gone sour. He checked his watch. “Damn! Won’t do any good to call Providence now. She’s gone. Off to sunny Italy. Figured it for a chicken job; figured I didn’t want the contract. She’ll hire it out later, after she gets back.
Unlucky.
Okay, he told himself, ease down. You can score another contract in New York. Just have to put off going back to the Coast for a while. Plenty of action in New York. He had some good contacts there. He’d make it fourteen in New York. Just relax. What’s done is done. Don’t fight it.
“Happy Holiday!” said the couple, one after the other, both saying it to him as he passed them on the way to his seat.
He paused, gripping an upper handrail as the bus shuddered over a deep cut in the gravel road. “Uh, yeah ... same to you.”
When he reached his seat in the SMOKING PERMITTED section, he slumped down heavily, got out his cigarettes. Dead pack. He tossed it away, dug out a fresh one. He lit a Salem, drew in smoke, sighed, settled back into the cushion.
He’d forgotten; tonight was Halloween! This was it, all right, October 31st. As a kid, it had been his favorite holiday.
He never got presents for Christmas, or for his birthday, and Easter was a drag. But Halloween was nothing but great—the one night in the year when people gave you things. Free candy ... cake ... apples ... doughnuts ...
He smiled, remembering.
The bus lurched to a creaking stop. Doors hissed open.
They were at the garage, a weathered building with light seeping from its fogged windows. A dented Ford pickup was parked in front with the words HARLEY’S REPAIR SERVICE painted on the side.
“All out, folks! Doour’s Mill.”
He stepped down onto the gravel roadway. The driver was helping the elderly couple from the bus. They moved slowly, cautiously, their bones like breakable china. That’s how you get if you stick around long enough, he thought.
The garage owner, Harley, began talking to the driver. Very tall, in baggy trousers and a torn denim work jacket. Then the driver came around to open the luggage door on the bus.
He reached in for his travel bag. Light, compact, good leather. Had it custom-made to fit his needs. With a hidden compartment for the short-barrel .357 Magnum. Sweet piece of equipment. He’d started with a Browning .380 automatic, but he’d never trusted it. The Mag he trusted. Always got the job done. Easy to carry, with a real kick to it.
“You wanna use the phone, one’s right inside.”
“No, it’s too late now. Forget it. There a cafe around here?”
“Straight ahead. Two blocks up. If it’s open.”
“Thanks.” He checked his watch. Nine-thirty. “What time do we leave in the morning?”
“Be here by six,” said the driver. “She’ll be ready to roll by then.”
“Okay.”
He passed the dim-lit garage. In the smoked gloom, standing next to a high-piled stack of discarded truck tires, a lean, unshaven mechanic in greased blood-dark coveralls stared out at him.
He continued along the street. The gravel gave way to concrete, but the ground was still uneven. Tufted grass spiked up from wide cracks in the surface. The ancient Victorian houses along the street were in equal disrepair, their gabled bay windows cracked and shadowed. Porches sagged. Roofs seemed hunched against the night. Doour’s Mill had gone to seed, a time-worn New England relic of a town that seemed totally deserted.
It wasn’t. A pair of teenagers, holding hands, came toward him, heads together, talking quietly. They looked underfed. The girl had no figure at all. “Happy Holiday,” they said to him as they passed.
He didn’t answer them. No point in it. Terrific town for a holiday.
He had no trouble finding the cafe. It was the only building along the main street with a neon sign. MA’S PLACE. Reminded him of his mother. He didn’t like that. When he got closer, he saw that the first two letters had burned out. It was ALMA’S PLACE. Several other letters in the sign were dying, slowly dimming, flickering and buzzing in the air above his head like trapped insects.
He opened the door, stepped inside.
He was the only customer.
The waitress behind the worn linoleum counter was obviously young, but she looked like an anorexic. Pasty skin. Long, bony face with watery brown eyes. She blinked at him. “Hi, mister.”
He said hello, asked if she was serving hot food.
“Sure, till ten o’clock we do. I mean, no steaks or specials this late, but I can fix you some eggs.”
“Okay, that’ll do. Scrambled easy, with hash browns and wheat toast.”
“Easy it is,” she said, and walked back to the kitchen to fix his order.
He sat down on one of the counter stools, laid his travel bag over another, and glanced idly around. A few
greenish-colored tables, some crooked wooden chairs, an old brokenfaced jukebox in one corner. Dark, not working. Near the antique cash register somebody had tacked a paper plate to the wall. On it, scrawled in black crayon: HAPPY HOLLOWEEN!
He chuckled. They can’t even spell Halloween in this godforsaken town.
The waitress ambled out of the kitchen with eggs and toast. “Sorry, no more hash browns,” she said. “But I can give you some sliced tomatoes. As a substitute, no extra charge. Not too fresh, though.”
“This’ll be all right,” he told her. “With coffee.”
She nodded, pouring him a cup. “It’s kinda strong. You use cream?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s kinda strong.”
“It’ll be fine,” he said, spooning sugar into the cup.
“I hope the toast is okay. I tried not to burn it.”
“It’s fine,” he said.
He began to eat. One thing you can order safely in a joint like this, he told himself, is eggs and toast. Hard to screw up eggs and toast. These were all right.
He sipped the coffee. Ugh! Bitter. Damn bitter. He spooned in more sugar. Helped some, but not much.
“I toldja it was strong,” the girl said.
He didn’t say anything.
“Guess you wonder, this being Alma’s Place, who’s Alma, huh?”
“Hadn’t thought about it.”
“Alma was my mother.”
“Was?”
“She died. Little over a month ago. Just didn’t last till the Holiday.”
He looked up. “You mean—until Halloween?”
“Right. She just didn’t last.”
“Sorry.”
“Well, we all gotta go sometime. Nobody lives forever, right? It’s like the Indians used to say—about how when it’s your time an’ all.”
He spread butter on his toast. It was burned. “Guess you don’t get much business around here.”
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