The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 10 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  But she said nothing.

  And in the next moment, the water covered her head and she was gone.

  I wasn’t aware that I’d fallen to my knees.

  For a long, long time I just knelt there, staring out across the moonlit water, listening to the wind.

  When dawn began to creep up behind me, I staggered to my feet and headed for the rough path that wound up the cliffs. My car was parked up there, crude oil smeared on the back seat.

  I didn’t look back at the sea when I climbed into the car and headed home.

  So there you have it.

  End of story.

  And all I have are the bad dreams and the unanswered questions. Was it Amy? Or was it something that only looked human when it wanted to, and could pretend to be anyone it wanted to be by reading minds? Was it my sister, a grown woman thirty years later? Or one of those whom Ulysses had heard, when he was lashed to the mast of his ship while his companions’ ears were filled with wax? In the darkest moments, I wonder if those who drown become what I saw and experienced that day.

  Come let me taste your tears, she had said.

  What did she find there that prevented her from doing what she was created to do?

  Stay away from Deep Water. My sisters and I feed there.

  Why did she spare me and warn me?

  The beaches are clean again. I spend a lot of time down at Tynemouth, on the beach and looking out to sea. Usually at night. The water has a strange attraction for me. I know that one day soon, I’ll have to go out there, no matter what she said.

  Tonight, I heard sounds across the dark water. That’s why I’ve written all of this down.

  It sounded like whales, calling to each other.

  But perhaps it was just another siren-song as the sisters moved through the deep.

  They’ve demolished the swimming pool now. It was sealed and drained before the work could commence. No one expected what they found in there. It was the Captain of the Edda Dell’Orso and one of the crew. Sucked in through the sluices with the oil slick. They say their faces were eaten away by fish. Except that there were no living fish in that black morass.

  So many unanswered questions.

  And as much as I used to hate the song my sister sang, there are times when I stand on that beach in the moonlight and with the sea-wind coming in cold and harsh from the east, I pray with all my heart that I might hear it again. Sung in that strange, echoing voice.

  Some day soon, I’ll find out whether it really did happen, or whether I’ve just lost my mind. I’ll hire a skip, and head for Deep Water. Maybe then, if she’s watching and she can still taste my tears, she’ll have to do what she refrained from doing that day.

  I won’t be afraid, I won’t resist.

  Because perhaps. . . just perhaps. . . I’ll have the answers to all those questions before the waters close over my head and I submit to her caress.

  <>

  * * * *

  KIM NEWMAN

  A Victorian Ghost Story

  Kim Newman’s novels includeThe Night Mayor, Bad Dreams, Jago, The Quorum, Back in the USSA (with Eugene Byrne), Life’s Lottery, An English Ghost Story and his multiple award-winning epic historical vampire novel, Anno Dracula, plus its sequels The Bloody Red Baron and Judgment of Tears (aka Dracula Cha Cha Cha). A fourth book in the sequence is planned, titled Johnny Alucard.

  His short fiction is collected inThe Original Dr Shade and Other Stories, Famous Monsters and the forthcoming Seven Stars and Unforgivable Stories, while two recent chapbooks are Andy Warhol’s Dracula and Where the Bodies Are Buried. Recent non-fiction volumes from the author include Millennium Movies: End of the World Cinema and BFI Classics: Cat People.

  * * * *

  A

  mong the blessings of civilisation,” began Ernest Virtue, his shrewd glance passing over us, one by one, “can any be more profound and yet simple than oak paneling? Its humble stoutness, derived from the most English of trees, serves us as our forefathers were served by the blockstones of their castles. Observe the play of firelight upon the grain. Does it not seem like armour? In a room lined with oak panels, one is safe, shielded from all harm, insusceptible to all fear. If not for oak paneling, I would not have the fortitude to tell you this story.

  “Wondrous indeed is it to plump oneself in a comfortably-stuffed leather armchair in the heart of a metropolis and find oneself at peace, the raucous sounds of the outside world muffled, the pestilential fogs of the capital banished. Add to the picture a roaring fire providing both light and warmth, the after-effects of a hearty meal, generous measures of fine old brandy and healthy infusions of pungent cigar smoke, and one might think oneself transported from the cares of the quotidian world to a higher realm even than that ruled over by our own dear Queen, God rest the soul of her beloved Prince Consort Albert. Without such an Elysian refuge, a man might be maddened by London. For this city is the most haunted place on Earth.”

  In the club-room, the topic of the evening had turned to the beyond, and we were telling ghost stories. Colonel Beauregard had conjured the hill-spirits of far-off India, detailing the unhappy fate of a degenerate officer who meddled with the native women and incurred the wrath of a little brown priest. The Reverend Mr Weeks had countered with a story of phantoms in a ruined abbey on an abandoned isle in the Hebrides, and of an unwary delver after treasure driven out of his wits by an intelligence that seemed composed of creeping, writhing kelp.

  We were pleasantly stirred from the torpor that follows a substantial meal, awakened by brandy and terror, thirsty perhaps for more of both.

  I had not expected Virtue - Mr Ernest Meiklejohn Virtue, of the brokerage firm of Banning, Clinch and Virtue - to enter into the field and contribute a story. I had written him up for the illustrated press some months earlier and had formed the opinion that he was a man entirely of this world. Somewhat past middle age, with a barrel of a body and a generosity of grey whiskers about his chops to compensate for a growing expanse of baldness upon his dome, he was a man of substance. If not for the quality of his clothes, he might pass as an ageing prize-fighter or the chucker-out in a rowdy hostelry. It was said that many who confronted him on the floor of the Exchange yielded for fear that he would extend his financial attacks into the arena of physical assault. Needless to say, away from the bearpit of the stock market, he had a reputation as the most charitable and mild-mannered of souls.

  “I have in these last months become victim to a particularly pernicious species of apparition,” Virtue continued. “Gentlemen, you see before you a man persecuted beyond endurance, persecuted by spectres.”

  I drew in breath. From his solemn countenance, I could tell Virtue was not joshing us. The Colonel and the Reverend had passed on tales given them by colleagues who were themselves not the primary parties in the events recounted. Both had endeavoured, in the spirit of the thing as it were, to embroider, to add their own details, increasing the horripilating effects of their anecdotes. In comparison, Virtue seemed to offer the uncut, unpolished stone of experience.

  Even in the warmth of the club-room, I felt a chill. The brandy I sipped stung my mouth.

  “London is full of fog,” Virtue continued. “Sulphurous, clinging, lingering, choking fog. As you know, it makes the streets seem like river-beds and turns us all into bottom-crawlers, probing blindly, advancing step by step. A moment’s lapse of concentration and one is lost. All this is familiar to you. But I tell you there are creatures in the fog, unperceived by all but a few. These entities harbour a singular hostility, a resentment almost, for those of us who enjoy the comforts of the living.”

  The Reverend Weeks nodded sagely. Colonel Beauregard’s hand went to his thigh, where, were he in uniform, his pistol would have been.

  “I first became aware of these infernal spirits some months ago. I was, I confess, particularly pleased with myself that day. I’d concluded a nice piece of business, manipulating the market in an especially cunning manner so that my own cau
se was victorious and my rivals routed. I need not trouble you with details, but Weeks - who profited not a little from being let in on my machinations - can testify to the neatness of the trick. It would not be overstating the situation to say that fortunes changed hands that afternoon. The Times noted, somewhat predictably, “Virtue is Triumphant”.

  “While I indulged in a celebratory tot with my allies, accepting in all good grace the muttered tributes of fallen foes, the first real fog of autumn gathered in the streets. It rose like a tide of soup around scurrying pedestrians, washing against the thighs of the cabmen perched on their seats, closing over the backs of their horses. It is my custom to walk from the Exchange to my house in Red Lion Square, abjuring the comfort of a hansom for the sake of exercise. It is important to maintain the body, for flesh is the cloak of the soul and clothes should always make a statement, testifying to the man who wears them. I set out, flushed with my success . . .”

  “. . . and with good spirits, I’ll be bound,” said Beauregard.

  Virtue inclined his head. “A dram of whisky, no more. I have, of course, considered that my experience might have been shaped by an intoxication unperceived by myself. Indeed, this is what I later tried desperately to tell myself. However, that came afterwards.

  “I am familiar with my route home. I was often given to expressing the sentiment that I daresay I could find my way to my front door blindfold. This sudden fog, which you might remember being of remarkable consistency, put my rash boast to the test.

  “I must have made a misturn, for I walked for some considerable time, far longer than it should have taken me to return myself safely to my own doorstep. The outlines of the buildings that I perceived through the yellow wafting curtain of the fog did not resolve themselves into the familiar contours of Red Lion Square. I was going over and over in my mind the triumph of the day, allowing myself something of the sin of pride in appreciating my own cleverness. Strategic minor purchases like the opening feints of a fencing match diverted those who opposed my interests until I was ready to deliver the elegant killing thrusts that secured my victory. I saw columns of figures piled up like heavenly bricks, and neglected to pay attention to the earthly stones beneath my feet.

  “At length, I brought myself up short and looked around.

  “It is a very queer sensation indeed to find oneself utterly alone in the middle of London. The fog hung so thickly as to be impenetrable, seeming almost to have coalesced about my person. If I reached out, my hand grew indistinct and then disappeared entirely from my sight. The effects of the fog were by no means restricted to the obscuring of my sense of sight. It was of that singular texture, that dampness and stickiness, that clings to one’s clothes and can sometimes never be washed away, that gums up your eyes and makes your nostrils flow, that tickles the throat, that seems to invade your anatomy and clog your chest and heart. That taste we Londoners can never entirely be free of was strong in my mouth, to the point of vileness. It was as if the fog had targeted me of all the millions of the city, and wrapped me in its woolly, stinking shroud, isolating me from my fellows, holding me fast in one spot.

  “I would have continued to walk, but in my unlovely gloating I had lost all sense of direction. The sun was setting, and the yellow of the fog turning to a darker hue, tendrils of brown and black winding through it. But this change of light was general, not from a specific direction that would have enabled me at least to fix a compass point. Dread fingertips touched my heart, coldly caressing. Terror sparked in my brain. It was my impulse to move, to run from the spot, to career blindly into the opaque cloud that clung to the streets, to keep running until I was free of this gathering gloom. Yet I was still Ernest Meiklejohn Virtue, Lion of the City, Master of the Exchange. I have iron in my soul. I resisted the impulse to panic, recognising it from many a hairy moment on the market floor, knowing that if I held fast I would prevail.

  “I felt them, first.

  “Something brushed past me, about the size of a big dog but clad in damp ragged cloth not sleek smooth fur. Something that went on two shod feet, yet was not what I would consider a child. Something that was all bones and hurry. I was molested slightly, poked and prodded, and had good cause to clamp a protective fist about my gold watch. Then the creature was gone. All I saw of it was a mop-head of twiggy hair, like a flying bird’s nest, at about waist-height, zooming away into the fog. I heard footfalls clatter, and then it was gone.

  “What had it been?

  “There were others. It was at an intersection, it seems, and these creatures passed every which way at will, jostling me one way and another. I glimpsed sparkling eyes, and felt hard little shoulders. I heard their mewlings, which were not the cries of animals and yet bore little resemblance to the patterns of civilised speech. I was possessed, I admit, with a loathing that went deeper than my intellect. An instinctive revulsion that made me shrink inside my clothes with each rude touch. I was sure their touch left deposits upon my person, and that these substances would prove even less susceptible to cleaning away than the miasmal filth of fog. They chattered and stank and jeered and passed by.

  “It could only have taken a minute or so. The creatures were soon gone. I found myself breathing hard, sucking into my lungs yet more of the ghastly fog, which made me cough and splutter all the more. I bent double. I was drowning in the city’s visible stench.”

  Virtue took a swig of brandy and sloshed it around his mouth, trying to wash away the remembered taste. He had become quite agitated in the recounting of his experience, offering none of the eye-rolls and leers with which the Colonel and the Reverend had punctuated their tales. His ghost story was of a different quality. I found myself feeling a little of the horror Virtue claimed to have felt, but tempered by a distance, a quarrelsome need to question. I bit my tongue, and let him continue.

  “When I straightened up, a miraculous transformation was taking place, as if in answer to a prayer I had not dared to voice. The fog was thinning, as it sometimes does. Good clean transparent air rushed in from somewhere and diluted the muddy clouds, reducing it to streamers of ropy substance and a ground-covering of thin white mist. A draught hurried the worst of the stuff away, and I could again make out something of the situation in which I found myself.

  “Naturally, I felt a surge of joy at my deliverance. But it froze in my breast. The scene disclosed was not that which I had expected.

  “Simply put, I was transported. From the London we know to another realm entirely, a Stygian parody of the city, entirely loathesome in its crepusculence.

  “I stood on a street washed with filth. More mud than stone, more ordure than mud. Buildings stood all around, walls stooped over to make a tunnel of this thoroughfare. The ill-fit bricks bulged in places, allowing foul water to dribble. There were smashed street lamps, none lit. Fires burned in the night, within the buildings or in barrels set on the street, but heat and light were swallowed by the darkness and cold of this unnatural place. A nearby sign was splashed with dirt, unreadable. I knew that I was, in a more profound sense than I could imagine, lost.

  “This place was inhabited. That is the worst of it.

  “The first ghost I got a good look at inspired me not to horror but to pity. It was a waif-like thing, with huge liquid eyes and a tiny knot of a mouth, clad only in a vest-like singlet that disclosed wasted arms and grubby bare feet. I was unsure of its sex, for it wore a shapeless cap of some rough material over its hair, but I knew that it was not alive as we are. This was some poor lost soul, wandering.

  “It saw me and stretched out a hand, palm up, beseeching.

  “I had much this creature wanted, I was sure, but nothing I could give. Its eyes grew wetter and its head angled to one side. I heard its painful moan, a wordless begging. I stifled the pity that sprang up unwanted in my breast, and was on my guard against this ghostly thing. I fancied malice in its eye. That this creature loved me not, would do me harm if it could, was not to be trusted.

  “There were others, roug
hly in the shapes of men and women, but clad as even the lowest savage of India would never clothe himself, in the meanest of rags. I was assaulted by details. Rotten teeth, marbled eyes, grimy clawnails, fungus swatches of hair, great scabs, mismatched buttons.

  “Had these once been people?

  “They came out of their dwellings and gathered around me, like a pack of dangerous dogs.

  “You are spirits,” I declared, “and you cannot harm a Christian soul. Begone!”

  “My words gave them pause. My mental strength returned. I was better than these creatures. I was alive. They could only touch me if I let them. My moment of weakness was past.