The Best New Horror 1

by Stephen Jones

  I don’t know if it was just the signal, or whether there was room for anything beyond obsession in the dark, tangled worm-pit of what was left of her mind; but she lurched stiffly upright and then, like a dead ship drawn to some distant beacon, she set off in what she thought was the direction of the sound.

  The blade of the snowplough hit her square-on as she stepped out into the road.

  She wasn’t thrown; it was more like she exploded under gas pressure from within, a release of the bottled-up forces of five years’ worth of corruption. She went up like an eyeball in a vacuum chamber, and the entire blade and windshield of the plough were sprayed with something that stuck like tar and stank like ordure. Rags of foul hide were flung over a hundred-yard radius, showering down on to the snow with a soft pattering sound. The destruction was so complete that nothing would ever be pieced together to suggest anything remotely human. The plough had stopped and I could see men in orange day-glo overjackets climbing out, stunned and uncertain of what they’d seen, and I managed to get up to my knees and to wave my arms over my head.

  “Anybody else with you?” they asked me when we were all inside and I was holding a thermos cup of coffee so hot that it could have blanched meat. “No sign of anybody?”

  I’d told them that I’d seen some kind of a bird fly into the blade, and it had all happened so fast that nobody had a better story to offer. They’d told me their names, and I’d recognised them from the tea mugs back in the hut that they’d been forced to abandon as a base for a while. I said that I hadn’t seen anybody else. Then one of them asked me how long I’d been out there and I said, it seemed like forever.

  “You know the police have jacked it in and closed the road for the night,” one of them said. “We wouldn’t have come out at all if it hadn’t been for somebody hearing your horn solo one time when the wind dropped. You’ve got no idea how lucky you are.”

  I raised my face out of the steam. We all swayed as the big chained wheels turned the snow into dirt beneath us as we swung around for the return journey, and somebody put a hand out to the seat in front to steady himself. They’d find Mick and David when the thaw set in, and I’d say that I didn’t know a damn thing about either of them. And did I really have no idea of how lucky I was?

  “No,” I said pleasantly. “I don’t expect I do.”

  ALEX QUIROBA

  Breaking Up

  “I AIN’T NO Clive Barker or Ramsey Campbell,” reveals Alex Quiroba, “but I know horror.” And that noble sentiment is certainly borne out by the harrowing story of mental disintegration that follows.

  Quiroba, who not too surprisingly hails from Los Angeles, California, has been published twice in West/Word, the literary magazine of The Writer’s Programme at UCLA Extension. He once (briefly) belonged to a religious cult whose leaders tried to convince him that he was Edgar Allan Poe in one of his previous reincarnations. He cites those horror writers who have affected him most as Camus, Dostoevski, Orwell, and Charles Bukowski.

  He adds: “I live a boring life—reading the names in the telephone book excites me.” At the moment he is working on a first novel.

  THEYRE IN NANCYS BEDROOM and shes just crawled under the covers in her long flannel gown with her tiny feet buried in thick grey ski socks and she scratches herself like a cat settling into its nap. Max stands in the bedside lamps weak light after doing fifty pushups and he peels off his black bikini briefs leaving salmon-colored lines cut into his flesh. His limp penis and wrinkled scrotum stick together and the cool air pimples his skin and he smells his own staleness as he climbs into bed to face Nancy whos on her stomach with her arms tucked under her and her eyes are closed. In a while she opens her eyes and their grey irises flecked with green make him want her—funny how its the little things that make him want her—funny how its the little things that make you want someone—but tonight he reads something different in her steady gaze.

  He reaches over and with his thumb finds and presses the hard knot of muscle next to her right shoulder blade which usually has the effect of making her writhe with pain/pleasure and beg him to press harder. It took them weeks of inch by inch selfsurrender before they allowed any kind of vulnerability between one another so that they could share the secret knotted places in their bodies and in their lives.

  Tonight she doesnt move and its as if he werent touching her and finally she shrugs off his hand and says I guess Im turning off to you. He watches her eyes with aching and he thinks Im going to remember this for a long time.

  Because its been two months and were not going anywhere together. And when Im with you I feel too comfortable to look around for a husband. She closes her eyes. Im going to be thirty-eight this month and I havent got time to mess around and feel good. I want to get married and have a baby and I cant do those things with you because youre just not the kind of man I want you to be.

  He peers at the smile wrinkles in her unsmiling face and then closes his eyes and after a while he feels shes watching him. His turn to say something but nothing comes to mind. He draws an empty sigh and gets up to begin dressing and his skin pimples again but he cant feel the cold. I think youre awfully dumb doing this just before you get your apartment painted he says through his sweater as he pulls it over his head. Thats a joke: he was going to paint her apartment the next weekend.

  After he ties his Nikes with Nancy watching his back he goes into the kitchen for a glass of water because his mouth is suddenly so dry. Under the harsh naked light bulb Max has to support himself against the sink with the glass halfway to his mouth because it feels like his chest is caving in on itself. His body is being pulled downward and with the obscene reflected glare from the sink in his eyes he blindly grasps with his free hand to pull himself up and it fumbles into the Rubbermaid dishdrainer filled with dishes he washed tonight before Nancy got home and his fingers close comfortably around the rough cracked wood handle of the butcher knife and its solidity is somehow reassuring. He brings the knife to his face as close as a lover and the cold light from the blade calms him and the glass slips from his other hand to crack in the sink. Nancy walks up behind him. Max are you all right? You can stay the night on the sofa if you dont . . . quick as a flash he turns and the cold sharp light in his hand slices the air. First he sees her graygreen eyes go round like two little mouths saying oh! and then beneath her chin a red mouth opens in a ridiculous smile and Nancys flannel breasts are soaked in glistening crimson. Her hands flutter up like pale birds trying to hide her new smile and she turns and staggers off making wet choking sounds and still holding the knife he follows her telling her its all right she shouldnt be embarrassed with him because he loves her.

  Max blinks slowly and finishes tying his Nikes and hes aware Nancy is watching him. He walks into the livingroom where his jacket is tossed over an arm of the sofa and Nancy follows him out. Max you dont have to leave right away if you want to talk about it. Nope gotta go says a strange and distant voice and then hes out the door and walking in a dream down the street until hes standing beside his parked Datsun. He gets in and sits wondering what he should do now. He tries thinking about whats just happened but hes preoccupied with the night outside and the sounds of passing cars and talking pedestrians that are muffled by the glass and metal of his Datsun to the point he cant tell if they are imagined or real. Shadow and light and sound are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle lying next to each other but not interlocked. Time passes—out there—but in his little car it is waiting and still and he imagines he could stay in here for years without getting hungry or without having to pee.

  Max knows its cold but he cant feel it. When I feel the cold—he tells the cars dark and silent interior—Ill start the engine and drive home. After a while though its obvious the cold is teasing him by staying barely out of reach crouching down in the darkness as touchable as a rainbow and all Max can feel is the sucking emptiness in his chest. He leans forward putting his forehead against the steering wheel but there is no comfort there.

  Max star
ts up his car and drives to the freeway where he heads west and hes aware that the car is really driving itself. Hes not surprised by this but hes curious about how the car knows where to go and how it manages to stay between the broken white lines. But of course—as a BMW scoots past on his left—its the lights, the lights! Ahead of him are scores of little red dots teasing his car forward and in his mirrors are the bright headlights pushing him along. He closes his eyes a couple seconds experimentally and opens them and yes the lights have kept him on course. He relaxes and flicks on the radio and pale green numbers in the dash sing to him—make me feel like paradise—while he cruises through the night. The song ends and the SoCal deejay comes on and Max wonders just how completely the lights are in control. He tightens his grip on the wheel to feel its resistance and then he cleverly relaxes his hold as if hes been lulled into sleep by the singing revolutions of the wheels on the pavement—and he jerks suddenly with his left arm. His Datsun streaks across two lanes to hit the concrete divider and it flips over onto its roof with a sickening crunch in the oncoming lanes. The car still echoes from the impact when Max observes through his shattered windshield distorted headlights growing larger and he hears brakes squeal over human screams and then a tremendous slam sets his car on its side. Max is also on his side and hes broken in pieces and held together only by his clothing and his pain. Theres a flash of light and heat near him and with great effort he turns his head in time to see a hungry tongue of flame snake towards him and as the fire licks its way over his clothes and across his face and as he hears the pop and crackle and smells his own flesh cook he realizes theres a pain worse than the emptiness in his chest and he screams.

  Max shakes his head and hes been staring at the Toyota parked in front of him. He starts his engine and drives to the freeway where he heads west following the red tail-lights of other cars until he comes to his exit and soon hes in his own apartment looking dumbly around at the clutter as if he were a stranger here. He trudges dreamily into his unlit bedroom where he sits heavily on the bed and he manages to pull off his Nikes before falling over onto his side. He thinks maybe hell cry but theres nothing there so he gives it up and for a few minutes he just watches the sidewise world of his room with a streak of light from the living room dividing the dark floor and then everything goes away.

  He wakes early next morning long before grey light filters through his bedroom window. Not much point getting up and doing all that silly crap he does every weekday morning so he just lays there watching the light against the curtain go from grey to rose to pale yellow and then he gets up and calls into work sick.

  That night Max parks his car under a streetlamp in Venice that gives off a weird unworldly light that makes shadows more impenetrable and treacherous looking. He walks down the side street and turns the corner and walks into the porno theater and every pore in his body exudes alcohol because hes been staining his teeth and tongue since late morning with Gallo burgundy. Drinking wine didnt make sense then and coming here doesnt make sense now; but then theres nothing much seems to make any sense. An idea has occurred to Max: that if he does enough things sooner or later one of them will make sense and everything will fit together and the hole in his chest will be filled.

  Max pushes a five under the window and gets back two quarters (that makes cents he thinks smiling madly) and he pulls open the door when it buzzes and he walks into the theater. Its a small room with a hundred seats in ten rows and the ceiling is high and the air is fetid with cigarette smoke and male sex sweat. Theres a screen the same size as the ones they had in school high on the front wall and on it are a man and a woman fucking in lurid color. On each side of the screen are hung stereo speakers from which come sounds of a womans tremulous moans almost synchronized with the in and out thrusting on the screen and disco music plays behind the thrusting of cock into cunt. Max looks nervously as the faces in the audience washed pale by the light from the screen turn toward him and hes reminded of how cats jerk their heads when they hear a can being opened. Sexual tension that is electric and heavy at the same time hangs in the room along with the smoke and sweat smells and from the far corner comes the rhythmic squeaking of a seat needing oil. Max sits midway in an empty row of seats and hears the whispers and sighs of restless vipers loose in the Stygian shadows around him and when he looks up he sees Nancy being pronged by a big-cocked stud. In the corner of his eye a ghost in the row behind stands and walks around the end of the seat-row and comes to sit down beside him. A hand finds his crotch and fingers like white worms probe urgently and without gentleness and as Max looks down in bewilderment they unzip his fly to burrow inside and surface grasping another pale worm. Max looks up at the screen trying to focus on Nancy so he can tell her this is all her fault but when he does focus its not Nancy but some blonde up there straddling eight inches pushed up her twat. Max is confused and he looks at the face next to him thats made grotesque by the shadows and flickering fleshlight and wonders if his face also looks so monstrous. The worms leave his lap and the man nods meaningfully and rises and walks to the end of the row where he goes to the front and disappears through a curtained doorway beneath the screen. Max zips up and also rises. He sidles clumsily to the aisle where he considers walking out of the theater but then he thinks theres really no use fighting whats happening and he too steps through the curtains beneath the screen. Hes in a tiny room lit by the lights from the softdrink and candy machines and an electric water fountain stands opposite the vending machines and beside it waits the man with the wormfingers. At the far end of the room is the door to the restroom and Max figures thats where theyre going so he walks up to the door and opens it. Inside are two men bathed in red light with one on his knees sucking the other ones cock and Max slams the door on this scene of worship because hes embarrassed with the guy by the water fountain watching him. He crosses the room to the fountain and bends over to feel the chilled splash of water on his tongue. The stranger is quickly behind him to reach arms around and undo Maxs jeans and shuck them down along with his briefs while Max holds onto the fountain now and then pressing the button to feel the reassuring cool water as he hears the man unzip behind him and then fingers are roughly spreading his butt and the guys other hand is pushing his hard thing against him but it wont go in—then theres the sound of spitting and he feels it split him open and it goes in. While the guy is pumping into him Max looks to the side and theres a good-looking young man watching them with his fly open and one hand on his prick and the other holding a vial to his nose and he thinks: Im not really here.

  Max pushes his money under the window and gets back his change and he walks into the theater where he finds an empty seat far from anyone else. He falls into a drunken sleep and wakes to find someones hand on his thigh. He picks the hand off like a dead fish and exits the theater.

  Back in his apartment he eases himself onto the floor with the deliberate carefulness of a drunk and he gazes up at his cottage cheese ceiling. A longlegged brown spider makes its upsidedown way across the rough terrain and Max watches but he has no inclination to get up and kill it as he normally would. Either from his pain or from his apathy he has learned compassion—live and let live—and anyhow it would take too much effort. The phone rings and he doesnt feel like answering but then a thought comes to him. He tells the spider maybe somebodys hurting and needs talking to. He pushes himself up off the floor muttering Im not a selfish man. Max? Well this is a surprise Nancy; what the hell can I do you for? Max are you okay?—you sound strange. Thats because I am strange—anyway you gotta reason for calling or you just feelin kind? He looks up and winks at the spider and sits back on the sofa. Dont be that way Max. She draws a rattling breath and he says nothing. Im not changing my mind about any of this Max but when you left last night you seemed so strange and Im worried about you. Thats the second time in thirty seconds youve called me strange—thats significant. He takes off his shoes. Dont do this Max—I really care for you and we can still be friends. We can still be friends he ech
oes and he pulls off one of his socks and picks at the black fuzz caught under his big toenail. Is that really what you want Nancy? Long silence. No thats not what I want—I really miss you even after what you did to me. He looks up from his toes. And I love you but thats just not enough because there are other things than love. Like what? There are practical things like income and ambition. I have practical things: remember youd come home dead tired and Id make you feel better and you can tell me things you cant tell another living soul? Max . . . And I have ambition because I want you after all and I dont know how a man can be more ambitious than that. Another silence. I could change you know. I dont know Max. Theres a change in her voice and he leans forward. Just say youre willing to try because if we both try we can do something but Christ dont just throw us away. Shes breathing hard and maybe crying and she says something he cant understand. What—whatre you saying? Its the blood—its so hard to talk with all the blood. He says nothing. All right maybe we can try it—she sighs wetly—but no promises.