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

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  “Oh, yes. A Reverend Dale, I believe.”

  “That’s right. He’s getting on, but pretty spry. A wise old bird.”

  I said that I might not have the time, but thanked Johnson all the same. What, after all, did I want to know? My Grandfather’s forays in the East did not interest me, and all the rest seemed decline, disease, and death. Charming points of conversation -besides, the bubbling Mrs Gold had already rejoiced me with enough of all that.

  “Incidentally, Johnson,” I said, as I saw him to the door, “I suppose there is some use of photography in your business.”

  “There is,” he agreed.

  “I wonder if you’ve ever heard of- alcohol making a burn on a photograph?”

  “Well, I never have,” he said. He thought deeply. “It might, perhaps. But not anything pure, I wouldn’t have thought.”

  “Whisky,” I said.

  “From a still, maybe. Not the stuff in a bottle. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, something a friend told me of.”

  Johnson shrugged and laughed. “A waste of a good beverage,” he said.

  When he was gone, I made a decision. It was because I had begun to feel angry.

  Mrs Gold was not to come today until three, but she had left me another cold plate. This I tried to eat, but did not really fancy it, although I had had no breakfast.

  Eventually I took the largest soup tureen I could find from the kitchen, and the whisky decanter, and went up to the library. The quickest way to be rid of my “monster” was to carry out an experiment. It was quite simple. I would place a selection of photographs in the tureen and pour over them enough whisky to cover them entirely. Either nothing would happen to them, or they would burn - burn all over into yellow and red. And that would be that. No random marks, no possible coincidences of shape. No doubt the pictures that I spoiled underwent some flaw in their reproduction, or there was some weakness in the material on which they were printed. I was confident, to the point of belligerence, that by this means I should be free of the horror I had unwittingly unleashed. As for ruining more photographs, if I did so, there comes a point where one must put oneself first.

  I set the tureen down on the big table in the library. Outside, the birds were singing. There was a view of the lawn, and the big oaks, golden and crimson in the dying of the leaves. It is a sunny day.

  I took three photographs from the box more or less at random, a scene of my Uncle and his son by the little summer house, the two boys playing some game under the trees when they were small. To this selection I added one of the former casualties, the photograph of my Uncle pruning the tree. One thing I had made sure of, the three new scenes were of different dates, and had therefore been processed on other paper.

  Dropping the four into the bowl, I poured in a generous measure of the whisky. A waste, as Johnson had said.

  I have come away to write this, leaving a proper space of time, and now I am going back to look. There will be nothing, I believe, or complete obliteration. I am already beginning to feel I have made an idiot of myself. Perhaps I will tear out these pages.

  ==========

  11th September: 6:00p.m.

  The walk down to the village, just under a mile and a half, took me longer than it should have. I arrived feeling quite done up, and went into the little pub, which had some quaint name I forget, and had a brandy and soda.

  Across the green was the vicarage, a picturesque building of grey stone, and behind it the Norman church, probably of interest to those with an historical concern. When I got to the vicarage door, and knocked, a homely fat woman came and let me in, all smiles, to the vicar’s den. It was a nice, masculine place, redolent of pipe smoke, with a big dog lying on the hearth, who wagged his tail at me politely.

  The Reverend Dale greeted me, and called for tea, which the fat nymph presently brought with a plate of her own shortbread. This tasted very good, although I am afraid I could eat no more than a bite.

  The vicar let me settle myself, and we talked about ordinary things, the autumn, elements of the country round about, and of London. At last, leaning forward, the old man peered at me through his glasses.

  “Are you quite well, Mr Martyce?”

  “Perfectly. Just a trifle tired. I haven’t slept well at the house.”

  He looked long at me and said, “I’m afraid people often don’t.”

  I took a deep breath. “In what way?” I asked.

  “Your family, Mr Martyce, has been inclined to insomnia there. The domestics have never complained. Indeed, I never heard a servant from there that had anything but praise for the house and the family. Mrs Allen, the former cook, retired only when she was seventy-six and could no longer manage. She was loath to go.”

  “But my family - there has been a deal of illness.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid that is so. Your Grandfather - he was before my time, of course. And his wife. Your father was long from home, and his brother, Mr William, was sent out into the world at twenty… before there was any - problem at the house. The two brothers did not at first choose to come back. And your father, I think, not at all. He lived to a good age?”

  “He was nearly eighty. There was quite a gap between him and William - my Grandfather’s travels.”

  “Eighty - yes, that’s splendid. But poor William did not do so well. He was, as you know, only sixty-two when he succumbed. His wife was a mere fifty, and your Aunt in her forties. But, in later life, she had never been well.”

  I tried a laugh. It sounded hollow. “That house doesn’t seem very healthy for the Martyces.”

  Reverend Dale looked grave. “It does not.”

  “And what explanation do you have for that, sir?”

  “I fear that, although I am a man of God, and might be expected to incline to esoteric conclusions, I have none.”

  I said, flatly, “Do you think there is a malevolent ghost?”

  “I am not supposed to believe in ghosts,” said the Reverend Dale. “However, I can’t quite rid myself of a belief in - influences”

  A cold tremor passed up my back. I deduce I may have gone pale, for the vicar got up and went over to his cabinet, from which he produced some brandy. A glass of this he gave me - I really must put a stop to all this profligate drinking! I confess I downed it.

  “You must understand,” he said, “I’m speaking not as a man of the cloth, but simply - as a witness. I’ve seen very clearly that, in the Martyce family, those who spend much or all of their time at the house, sicken. Some are more susceptible, they fail more swiftly. Some are stronger, and hold at bay or temporarily throw off the malaise, at first. Your Grandfather lived into his nineties, yet from his sixties he had hardly a day without severe illness. Perhaps, in a man of advancing years, that is not uncommon. And yet, before this time, he was one of the fittest men on record, apparently he put the local youth, who are hardy, to shame. Again, some who aren’t strong, also linger in a pathetic, sickly state - your Aunt was one of these. She succumbed only in her adult years, but then her life was a burden for her. One wondered how she bore with it. Even she, at length…” he sighed. “Her end was a release, I am inclined to think. A satisfactory cause of death meanwhile has never been established. In your Grandfather’s case, necessarily it was put down to old age. As with his wife, since she died in her sixties. In the cases of others, death must be questionable. Or unreasonable. As with your Uncle’s two sons. They were fourteen and nineteen years.”

  “I assumed some childish malady -”

  “Not at all. Clemens was their doctor, then. I will reveal, he confided in me somewhat. He was baffled. The same symptoms -inertia, low pulse, some vertigo, headache, an inclination not to eat. But no fever, no malignancy, no defect. You will perhaps know, William’s health was poor enough to keep him out of the War. He was utterly refused.”

  I said, briskly, “Well, I’m leaving tonight.”

  “I am glad to hear that you are.”

  “But, I had intended to put the house
up for sale -”

  “I think you need have no qualms, Mr Martyce. Remember, no one who has lived there, who is not a member of your family, has ever been ill. If anything, the reverse.”

  “A family curse,” I said. I meant to sound humorous and ironic. I did not succeed.

  The Reverend Dale looked down upon his serviceable desk.

  “I shall tell you something, Mr Martyce. You are, evidently, a sensible man. I can’t guarantee my words, I’m afraid. The previous incumbent of the parish passed them on to me. But he was vicar in your Grandfather’s time. It seems your Grandfather, always a regular churchgoer when at home, asked for an interview. This was about three years after his final return from the East. He was getting on in years, and had recently had a debilitating bout of illness, but recovered, and no one was in any apprehension for him, at that time.” The vicar paused.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Your Grandfather it seems posed a question. He had heard, he said, of a belief among primitive peoples, that when a camera is used to take a photograph, the soul is caught inside the machine.”

  “I’ve heard of this,” I said. “There is a lack of education among savages.”

  “Quite. But it appears your Grandfather asked my predecessor - if he thought that such a thing were truly possible.”

  I sat in silence. I felt cold, and wanted another brandy, but instead I sipped my tepid tea.

  “What did he say, your predecessor?”

  “Naturally, that he did not credit such an idea.”

  “To which my Grandfather said what?”

  “It seems he wondered if, rather than catch a human soul, a camera might sometimes snare… something else. Something not human or corporeal. Some sort of spirit.”

  Before the eye of my mind, there passed the memory of how my Grandfather had photographed so many exotic things. And of the pictures taken inside the ancient and remarkable tomb. I am not given to fancies. I do not think it was a fancy. Like a detective, I strove to solve this puzzle.

  I stood up before I had meant to, I did not mean to be rude.

  The old man also rose, and the dog. Both looked at me kindly, yes, I would swear, even the dumb animal had an expression of compassion.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “I have to hurry to be sure of my train.”

  “You’re not returning to the house?” said the Reverend Dale.

  “No. It’s all locked up. The cleaning lady has been and gone. I promised her she’d be kept on until any new tenants take over. They must make their own arrangements.”

  “I think you have been very wise,” said the vicar.

  He himself showed me to the door of the stone house. “It’s a lovely afternoon,” he said. “You look rather exhausted. That cottage there, with the green door. Peter will drive you to the station. Just give him something towards the petrol.”

  I shook his hand, and like some callow youth, felt near to tears.

  In future I must take more exercise. It is not like me to be so flabby. Thank God, Peter was amenable.

  I have written all this down in the train. It has not been easy, with the jolting, and once I leaned back and fell fast asleep. I am better for that. I want to make an end of it here, and so return into London and my life, clear of it.

  No, I cannot say I know what has gone on. When I put the four photographs into the tureen and poured in the whisky, I thought myself, frankly, an imbecile.

  I had left them for perhaps twenty minutes, possibly a fraction longer. I approached the table with no sense of apprehension. Rather, I felt stupid.

  Looking in, I saw at once, but the brain needs sometimes an interim to catch up with the quirkiness of the eye. So I experienced a numbing, ghastly dread, but even so I took out the photographs one by one, and laid them on the newspaper I had left ready.

  The original had not altered. That is, the photograph, already damaged, of my Uncle by the tree. It had not changed, nor the mark, the yellow and red mark, that had the shape of a horned creature with forelegs and the hind body of a giant slug. There it still was, quite near to him but yet not close. There it was with its blind red dots of eyes, brilliant on the black and white surface of that simple scene.

  The other three images are quickly described, and I should like to be quick. The whisky had affected them all only in one place. And in that place, always a different one, exactly similarly. The demon was there. The same. Absolute.

  Where the two boys are playing as children, it is some way off, among the trees. It is coiled there, as if resting, watching them, like a pet cat.

  In the photograph of William and his wife and sister - my Aunt - the thing is much nearer, lying in the grass at their feet - again, again, like some awful pet.

  But it is the last picture, the most recent picture of my Uncle William’s younger son, it is that one - They are standing by the summer house. The boy is about thirteen, and the date on the back, that the whisky has blurred, gives evidence that this is so.

  They do not look so very unhappy. Only formal, straight and stone still. That is probably the very worst thing. They should be in turmoil - and the boy - the boy should be writhing, flailing, screaming -

  The demon is close as can be. It has hold of the boy’s leg. It is climbing up him. Its tail is coiled about his knee - Oh God, its head is lying on his thigh. The head has tilted. It gazes up at him. It has wrapped him in its grip. He does not - he does not know.

  I shall write no more now. I do not want to open this diary again. The lights of London will be coming soon, out of the autumn dusk. Smells of smoke, cooking, and unhygenic humanity. Thank God. Thank God I have got away. Thank God. Thank God.

  ==========

  From a letter by Lucy Wright to her friend J.B.:

  1st November 195-:

  Your letter did cheer me up a bit, though I cried a bit after. Yes, I’d love to come for a visit, and it would help to get my mind off -this. Then, I feel guilty. But what can I do? I was totally in the dark. I didn’t know. He never confided in me. I don’t understand. I’d always known Gordon was a bit of an old stick-in-the-mud. But he was kind and hardworking, and I did hope he’d get round to popping the question one day. No one else has made any offers. And of course, he was well-off. Not that that was my main reason. But, well, I’ve never been rich, and it would be nice, not to worry all the time, where the rent’s coming from, or if you can afford a new pair of nylons.

  The funny thing was, when he came back from that house of his uncle’s in the country (and strangely he wouldn’t discuss that at all), he couldn’t see enough of me. We were out every night, like a couple of twenty-year-olds. The pictures, concerts, even dinners in a lovely little restaurant up West. And he made a real fuss of me. He even bought me roses. I thought, this is it. He’s going to ask me now. And I thought, I can change him, get him to brighten up a bit. But then - well it was a funny thing that happened. It was really silly and - nasty. Peculiar.

  It was my birthday - that was the time he gave me the roses -and one of my cousins, Bunty, well she sent me a really lovely present. It was a little camera. What do you expect -1 wanted to use it. And one night when Gordon and I were in that nice restaurant, I was showing him the camera, and the manager, who knows Gordon, came up and said, “Let me take a picture of you, Mr Martyce, and your young lady.” Well I was a bit giggly - we’d had some lovely wine - and I was all for it, but Gordon got really funny. No, I mean he got he really angry, sort of well - frightened, red in the face - but the manager just laughed, and he took the photograph anyway, with me very nervous and Gordon all hard and angry and scared. The manager said Gordon would have to be less camera-shy, for the wedding.

  I thought, Gordon’s angry because he feels he’s being forced to think about that, about getting married. And he doesn’t want to. And that depressed me, because things had seemed to be going so well. So it ended up a miserable evening. And he took me home. And - well. That was the last time I saw him. I mean, the last time I saw him. Because I
don’t count the funeral. How can I? They had to close the coffin. Anyway. He was dead then. I’m sorry. Look, a tear’s fallen in the ink. What a silly girl. Crying over a man that didn’t even want me.

  Of course, I did speak to him just once more, on the telephone.

  He rang me up about a week after the dinner, and he said he was going to collect the films - the photographs, you see. And I was glad he’d rung me, so I said yes. I was a bit embarrassed, because the rest of the film was all of my family, dad and mum, and Alice and the babies, and it was the first time I’d taken any photo-graphs, and I was sure they’d be bad.

  But then I didn’t hear again, and the next thing was, the policeman coming round in the afternoon, just as I was trying to get money in that rotten meter that’s so stiff. My washing was everywhere - it was Saturday - but he didn’t look. He helped me with the meter and then he put me in a chair, and he told me. Gordon had gone out on the Northern Line and - well, you know. He’d fallen under a train. Well they said, he’d thrown himself under. People had seen him do it. But how can I believe that? I mean, Gordon. It must be a mistake. But then, where was he going? He doesn’t have any relatives, and no friends out that way. Didn’t have. Well.