“Huh?” I said, for the sake of consistency.
“I’ve played enough games. Basically, I’m ready to settle down now, so I try to get out and meet people.”
“You come to bars to meet serious people?” I sneaked a glance at her.
She smiled viciously. “I met you, didn’t I?”
“Hardly,” I said. I started admiring myself in the mirror some more.
After a while I heard voices next to me and sneaked another look. Some guy from the back had come up to speak to her. The longer I listened, the weirder she sounded. I had heard that pleading tone and seen the searching look on other occasions, but only when small children were lost and seeking their parents. I was glad her attention had been drawn off.
I paid for the Seven-Up and left the place. As I passed the bar, Alice was saying to the other guy, “He’s just a friend. I’ve played enough games. Basically, I’m ...”
Outside, I trudged through the snow, staring at the packed footprints. I wandered aimlessly down the smalltown street and eventually plunged my hands into my pockets. Puzzled, I brought one of them out again holding a strange glove.
It was a gray woman’s glove, for the left hand, with a note in it: “Meet me at the old oak tree in two hours. This guy’s just a friend. Love, Alice.”
I threw away the note and kept the glove. The next establishment I came to was a games parlor, where I sank all of my quarters into video machines. I sideswiped spaceships, gunned down hockey players, strafed racing cars, and torpedoed small children. As usual, I beat all but one of them; the World War I biplanes sank my sled. When my change was gone, I stood and watched other people destroy the silent, fluid images—never mind the background noises. The magical screen is silent.
After an hour and fifty minutes, I asked somebody where the old oak tree was. Without taking his eyes off the screen or his hands off the controls, the guy inclined his head quickly in a discernible direction. I thanked him and started walking. Snow was falling lightly outside.
This side of town was fairly old. It was the only area that had not been recently built up and furnished with saplings. However, a large public park out this way was the only place for a landmark called the old oak tree. I remembered that a large, fast river flowed through the center of it. Then, in the distance, down in a sort of hollow, I could see one huge old black tree with dead brown leaves standing out against the snow, with its back to the running river.
As long as I was walking along the edge of town, I remained among the light and sounds of all the places open to customers, among all the people out for a Saturday night fling. Once I started down the slope toward the river bank, I found myself alone in a desolate white expanse broken only by the bare black branches of trees and the one great oak straight ahead. It was surrounded by footprints in the snow.
The river ran deep and murky here. A small whitecap churned over one wide root of the big oak that extended into the muddy water. The white snow reflected so much light from the town that I could see all the way across the river to the other bank. It only held more snow, though, and more young naked trees.
The old oak tree seemed to be a common meeting place, judging by the footprints. Then I noticed a small glove lying at the base of the tree. I picked it up. It was the mate of the one I had with me. A piece of paper crackled inside and I pulled it part way out.
The note was written in ink that had been smeared, apparently by someone who had arrived earlier and contributed to the footsteps around me. The first part of it was illegible, but the end was clear: “I just couldn’t tell you that guy was just a friend. He wasn’t. Goodbye forever. Love, Alice.”
I dropped the glove on the snow in disgust. It was a stupid joke and I didn’t like being suckered. Then I wondered. I glanced once more at the little glove with the paper sticking out of it. Then I stepped carefully around the big wide trunk of the old oak, with the river wind whipping tears into my eyes.
Two shapes looked back from the swirling murky depths. One was a frowning lonely face with tears in his eyes and lank hair tossed in the wind. Underneath it lay a calm sleeping face with closed eyelids, bobbing stiffly from under the root of the old oak.
When white women like slanted ...
I glanced up quickly, as though trying to catch a grinning Death Angel by surprise. Are you somewhere up there?
I swallowed and stepped back. Alice had been sick long before I had met her, but she hadn’t drowned herself until now. I wondered if I had been some sort of last straw, but of course I would never really know. Anyhow, logic meant nothing to someone like her.
I want my ... No, I don’t.
I looked around. No one was watching. I hurried back up the slope, out of the park.
Where oh where can my—never mind. I knew where; they were all dead and planted. Sometimes, though, I still wondered where I might find romance.
I found romance ten years after Cyn got herself smeared across the railroad tracks. I ran into Gail early one summer when we were both back in town visiting our parents—I had known her in high school, and had been interested, but she had been seeing someone else. She was very pretty, with deep-set hazel eyes and short light brown hair. Her build was stocky yet very appealing. She mentioned that she was married but getting divorced. I asked her out to dinner.
The evening grew weird from the moment I got into my daddy’s car—his current one, that is. Since I had flown into town, I had had to borrow it for the night. As I drove quietly through the old familiar residential streets, breathing the humid air and smelling the lush lawns that I knew so well, I realized that I was back in a situation like dating in high school. I grinned to myself. It had been a long time.
I pulled up in front of Gail’s parents’ house. The sun, behind a layer of clouds, was just starting down below the treetops. A summer storm was gathering over the prairie country here. I got out and walked across the bluegrass on the lawn.
I stood on the porch smelling the rain to come, and knocked on the screen door. It rattled. Gail’s mother came to the door, also stocky and rather appealing. The was carrying a copy of The Big Knockover by Dashiell Hammett, with one finger in the book to mark her place.
Gail’s mother smiled nicely. “Come in.” She pushed the screen door open.
“Thanks.” I followed her into a small living room, where she put the book down open-faced on an end-table.
“Sit down, John. Gail will be down in a few minutes. She’s late, of course. How have you been?”
We sat down on opposite ends of a couch. “Okay,” I said. We had met a few times ten or eleven years ago. I looked around. Gail was making noises upstairs, but no one else seemed to be home.
“I’m not funny any more,” I said.
“You what?”
“I used to be snide and clever. Sarcastic and sardonic. Dry wit and disgusting metaphors. Snappy comebacks.”
“I, um, don’t think I knew that.”
“Well, I am no longer capable of this. My life has been a nearly-endless succession of tragedies. I’m jaded and bitter.”
“Oh, I see.” She smiled and stood up. “Excuse me, won’t you?”
“Sure.”
She walked out of sight to the foot of the stairs I had seen near the door and screamed fiercely in a hoarse stage whisper. “Gail you goddamn inconsiderate bitch! Get down here!” Then she came back, smiled pleasantly, and sat down again. “Well, really, John. What are you bitter about?”
“Dead women.”
“What?”
“Dead white women. Every time I meet a new woman, she croaks on me.”
“Oh. Well ...” She smiled again, but her voice was hesitant. “I certainly hope that, uh, won’t happen to Gail. Of course, you’ve known her for years.”
“Of course.”
Still smiling, she looked her lap. Then she started using one of her thumbnails to clean the other one.
In the silence, I looked out the big picture window at the darkening sky. A random thought
crossed my mind: Death Angel, sing me a song.
Gail hurried down the stairs, still fastening one earring. She looked gorgeous.
“Sorry I’m late.” She giggled. “I’ve always been late; I can’t help it. Shall we go?”
“Let’s go,” I said. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” said Gail’s mother. “Drive carefully, all right?”
“All right,” I said.
We crossed the lawn toward the car. The wind was chilly and I could feel a very faint drizzle beginning. The cool of the evening was going to take all the moisture from the summer air.
We got into the car just in time. The rain wasn’t too heavy, but it was rain and not drizzle. “It’s going to be wet all night,” said Gail. “Well, I don’t mind. Are we still going to be on time for the reservation?”
“Yeah. I made it for plenty of time after I was going to pick you up.” I started the car and turned on the wipers. “Remember, I’ve known you a long time.”
She laughed. “Oh!” She punched the side of my arm.
“Whoa! That’s my drivin’ arm.” I pulled on the headlights and got us underway.
“Oops, sorry.”
I drove through the darkness, watching the rain slant through the white beams of the headlights. The inside of the car felt warm and oozy. I slowed down for a red light. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”
“Well, thank you. It feels sort of funny, you know, after being married for so long—or maybe I shouldn’t talk about that.”
I laughed as I accelerated from the intersection. “I don’t mind. If something comes up in the conversation, go ’head and say it.”
“Oh, okay. Anyhow, it’s been a long time since I went out with a man who wasn’t my husband.”
I could tell she was smiling, so I glanced over and smiled back. “It’s been a long time for me since I was out with anyone.”
I rounded a sharp curve and then slammed on the brakes. There in the road, straight ahead, a car was stalled. My car began to skid on the wet pavement. I couldn’t stop, so I yanked the wheel to the right.
White women and slanted eyes.
At the last second, I saw the big white side of a building in my headlights. Then the tires cried, the metal shrieked, and glass shattered. Gail screamed—
I woke up watching a downpour against the windshield. With something warm and sticky in my eyes, I was lying on a front seat that was sharply tilted to the left. I could feel the weight of Gail against me. People were standing all around, at some distance, and I could see police cars in the rearview mirror, parked to block traffic. I could not have been out long. A tow truck pulled up as I wiped blood out of my eyes. Police officers came running toward us.
I could see people shouting and tugging at the doors, but I could not hear them. Gail’s eyelids were moving slightly, so I maneuvered around to where I could raise her head. Beyond the windshield, an ambulance came floating into view, the image rippling through the rain on the windshield. Paramedics jumped out and ran toward us, leaving the big red light on the van swinging, throwing its beams at us in a deadly, silent rhythm.
Gail was trying to speak, but I couldn’t understand her. I held her close instead, watching the swinging light from the ambulance cross us. Her injuries were not visible. The only blood on her face was mine, but the face was not hers.
In the shadows, her features were hard to see, but every time the red light of the ambulance swung our way, she changed, in a constant steady rhythm, still beating; Cyn’s brown hair, Ann’s red curls, Alice’s frizz, Gail’s deepset hazel eyes, Cyn and Ann and Alice and Gail, faces changing every time. Cyn now Ann now Alice now Gail. One and two and beating, beating.
Gail died in my arms. I could feel it. As crowbars began prying open her door, I tilted my head up toward the sky, trying to see through the rain on the windshield. My real lover had been with me all along.
Crowbars tore open the door. Cold rain and wind slashed inside, with sirens wailing their tragic song.
Death Angel: Am I still your own true love?
And the harsh voice whispered sweetly in the tearing, chilling gale: See you in September.
I want—
I woke up in a hard bed, staring upward at a white ceiling. It had thousands of tiny cracks, like the magic in my soul. Something was wrapped around my head. The place smelled of isopropyl alcohol.
At first I didn’t remember what had happened. When I did, I sat up suddenly and started to get out of bed. Inside my skull, bowling balls smashed into pins. Tiny scorekeepers started marking Xs.
As I dangled my legs over a metal railing, trying to clear my brain, something stabbed the inside of one elbow. An IV was hooked into me. Carefully, to avoid the certainty of ripped flesh, I pulled off the tape and withdrew the needle. Then I slid off the bed. “For observation” was written on my chart, along with “concussion.”
I was in a big ward, but stained white curtains separated me from the adjacent beds. I spent several minutes steadying myself. My knees were quivering, and my head seemed to waver around like a rotting apple about to drop. The flow was cold; I wore only a hospital gown. In front of me, a mirror reflected my image clearly, without waves or ripples. My head was bandaged, scarred, and pale, with lank hair lying flat.
Getting out was easy, after I retched twice in the room. My stomach had nothing to throw up, though. I found my clothes in a drawer and put the hospital gown back on over them. A little comb was in the packet of toilet articles supplied by the hospital. I walked out of the building like I owned the place, with my t-shirt casually draped over the spot where my i.d. tag should have been. Since no one looked closely, they all thought I was an Asian hospital worker of some kind, I supposed, wearing an ugly lab coat.
Or maybe no one noticed me.
A small gust of wind would have blown me over, but I clung to parking meters and old people as I moved down the sidewalk. On the outside, I learned that three days had passed—it was the first of September, late in the afternoon. Gail had just been plowed under.
I hitchhiked to my folks’ place, made excuses, and went out again. In the garage, I heaved a shovel into the trunk of my mommy’s car and took off. At the nearest fast food vendor, I ate a garbage burger and drank something resembling stagnant pond water. Then I threw up for real, ate another burger, and kept it.
At sundown, I pulled up to the top of the hill and stopped at the little cemetery hidden among the suburban homes that had been built around it. It was far older than even the suburban city itself: some of the worn tombstones held vague indentations representing dates from the Civil War. I could hear television sets from inside some of the houses. A phone rang.
I took the shovel from the trunk. It was an old one, with a long handle worn smooth and gray over years of use. The heavy heart-shaped blade was all reddish-brown with rust. I climbed over the chainlink fence into the graveyard in the graying roseate light, hoisting the shovel overhead like a quarterstaff. The chirping of crickets was deafening.
I found the new grave easily, even in the gathered darkness. Yellowish light leaked from houses and streetlights, showing me fresh sod cut into distinct rectangles. The grass was wet from being watered all day. I wondered if Gail’s mother had cried over it. Humidity made the air thick and heavy.
I wondered if slugs favored graveyards.
The sod peeled back easily. The dirt underneath had been tamped down, but was not packed very hard. I bit the shovel into it and stepped hard with one foot. It only went down a little; I was weak and underweight from living off the IV. So I moved the dirt slowly, in small loads on the tip of the shovel.
Hours later, I sat collapsed at the bottom of a relatively deep hole in the ground, soaked with sweat and half-eaten by mosquitoes. It was not deep enough.
The late summer stars above me were clear and bright. Dirt clung to the sweat on my face, arms, and back. My head was pounding with the rhythm of a searchlight. Little unseen creatures were starting to crawl on me.
Blackness gaped beneath the lid. The smooth padded satin of the coffin’s interior only glistened on the sides; the bottom of the coffin, and its contents, were gone. I stood bent over the opening, motionless, staring into a deep hole.
Harsh, whispered laughter blew cold into my ear. I spun and then stiffened in horror. Above me floated the bare grinning skull, the death’s head ringed with just enough scalp to hang wispy golden hair, of the Death Angel. She hovered in my face on ratty white wings, with a smudged and tattered white gown flapping empty beneath her chattering jaw. Her breath sounded like a phonograph needle sliding across an old 45.
Stepping back in revulsion, I gripped the handle of the shovel and swung it hard, giving it all the strength I had left, pulling on the swing like a home-run slugger. The huge old blade of the shovel shattered the skull like it was cheap plastic and a faint whimpered cry escaped on the night wind. Yet on the slopes of soil around me, tiny bits of bone began to wriggle and grow anew.
I dropped the shovel into the hole and heard it land somewhere below the coffin. A high, melodic, peaceful singing came from within the earth. I jumped.
I hit cold, packed earth not far down. The shock of landing hurt both my legs, and I fell. Pale light streamed down from above. A huge darkened tunnel stretched before me.
The serene singing was clearer now and I thought I recognized the voices. As they approached, they stopped singing in unison and began to take turns.
“I wanted my baby ...”
“I miss him ...”
“I can’t live ...”
Four vague shapes were walking toward me in the dim yellow light. A cool breeze floated from them, smelling foul to the point of sweetness.
The Year's Best Horror Stories 15 Page 8