Derek licked blood from his fingers and then slowly did a tour of the train. It was empty. No driver. No passengers. And the driver’s compartment was as tightly locked as every outer door on the whole train. There was no apparent means of escape.
By the time he had finished his tour the train was pulling into Sleights station again. The screaming, which now seemed to be with him all the time, was harsher and louder and more deliberate—except for a brief spell when the train passed the group on the way out of the station, and all five of them turned to face him and, instead of crying out, they all laughed, their lips twisting into ghastly grins and grimaces as he shrank away from them.
After the train had pulled out of Sleights for the fifth or sixth or seventh time, Derek sat in his seat, cold and alone, trying to convince himself that he would eventually wake up. It was impossible, he insisted, for a human being to find himself locked in someone else’s memory: in the mind of a mad woman. Impossible, he told himself as he looked at the screeching faces for the tenth or the twentieth time. Impossible to be locked in the mind of the insane.
But was he?
Mrs Martin was discharged from hospital early in January after doctors had said she had made an amazing and unexpected recovery. She no longer complained of living with the horror of her children’s screams or the sight of their faces twisted in pain. She told her family that she would not like anyone to suffer the torments she had suffered, the horror of that terrible screaming, the anguish of those agonised faces; although she did confess, long afterwards, that in one of her saner moments in the month before she left hospital she had prayed to God or the devil to pass her misery on to someone else. Anyone else.
Derek Benzies?
COMPETITION by David Clayton Carrad
I have often made the observation that the horror story is a ubiquitous literary form, unlike most category fiction which is more or less restricted to publications exclusively devoted to one particular genre. Yet another proof of this is “Competition,” which appeared in Running Times—not exactly the sort of magazine one looks to for a good frightening read.
David Clayton Carrad is a successful divorce lawyer, currently practicing in Wilmington, Delaware. Born May 19, 1944 in Englewood, New Jersey, Carrad earned a B.A. in English at Trinity College in Connecticut, an M.S. in journalism at Columbia University, and a J.D. at Harvard Law School. He has written numerous articles on family law for newspapers and professional publications and is co-author of Winning Equitable Distribution Cases Under the New Divorce Code (Law-Trac Seminars, 1981). “Competition” is only his second published work of fiction, the first being “one very bad short story published in my college literary magazine in 1965.”
“Competition” is about running, and Carrad is himself a runner—a solitary runner who finds this pursuit a welcome release from the intense stress of legal practice. The story was written during a rare vacation at Hilton Head Island in the summer of 1980. Carrad writes: “I have a couple of ideas which continue to simmer on the back burner for other stories, and perhaps, someday, a novel about Vietnam where I served as a company commander and AVRN advisor in 1968-69.” I wish him longer vacations; fifteen years between stories is a bit much.
The screen door slammed behind him, shattering the predawn calm like a starter’s gun. Michaelson loped into the motel parking lot, punching the start button of his wrist stopwatch with his right thumbnail. Let the door slam and start him off; one of the reasons he had picked the motel was that at this time of the year it was virtually deserted.
No breeze yet. The oceanside road in front of the motel was poorly lit, and he negotiated the curb carefully, turning south. The buzzing of the motel’s fluorescent sign was gradually replaced by the low mumble of the surf off to his left. The tentative and pale light which would soon become the dawn glowed dimly over the Atlantic, and the morning star glowed brightest of all against its backdrop. Just right.
Had he unplugged the heating coil after his second cup of instant coffee? He thought back over his movements, from his fumbling for the alarm clock’s button, through stumbling out of the tangled sheets and into the bathroom. Cold washcloth over the face to wake up. Plug the heating coil into the socket over the shaving mirror. Red lid of the instant coffee jar off, dented and dull spoon into coffee. Deciding to shave later. First cup of water boiling, unplug the heating coil. Bedside lamp on, white shorts, purple shirt, socks, awkwardly tightening the shoelaces. Someday he was going to remember to buy one of those metal hooks which ice skaters used to pull their laces tight for those early mornings when his fingers seemed so thick and fumbling.
Fingers full of blood.
Where did that come from?
2:28. Eyes down a bit for the potholes.
Drinking his first cup of coffee during his stretching exercises. Cup on the shag rug next to him, sips between situps. Plugging the coil in again while brushing his teeth. Leg stretches with his heel propped up on the edge of the cheap bureau, coffee cup on the right. Wall push-ups at the edge of the circle of light cast by the bedside lamp. Last sip of coffee. Back into the bathroom to empty his bladder. Rinsing out the cup. Strapping on the stopwatch. Unplugging the coil. He had.
Glance at the stars in the east.
Don’t think about heating coils. Who cared if it all burned down? One cheap suitcase, four pairs of running shorts, four T-shirts, casual old clothes for the non-running hours, two paperbacks ... all of it put together wasn’t worth his stopwatch. 4:22. Let it burn, start life from scratch. One solitary man, running along the edge of the sea, from nowhere to nowhere, with no baggage but what he wore on his body.
5:11.
Michaelson yawned at the beginning of an inhale. Funny. He’d never yawned while running. Didn’t think you could. Something about the rhythm of breathing. He dropped his forearms below his waist, shook them like a dog shedding water, swung them behind his back a few times, and picked up the pace.
5:45. Looking at the stopwatch too often.
At least thinking about the heating coil had gotten him through the first six minutes. Like thinking about baseball statistics or conjugating Latin verbs while making love. Checking his breathing and his stride, he found he had run through his body’s early morning stiffness. His body was warmed up now, and the cobwebs brushed aside. Thinking about the heating coil was good for something, he told himself. Anything that gets you through those first few minutes is good for something. Useful.
There was a solitary pine tree up ahead to Michaelson’s left. The morning star floated along with his running body as the pine tree drew nearer. The morning star brushed the tree’s outer branches and hid. The shoulder of the two-lane coast road was a firm mixture of packed sand and crushed shell with an almost imperceptible slope to the left, away from the road. Michaelson could feel his right foot striking a minute fraction of a second earlier than it would on level ground. The star came out from behind the pine tree, a little dimmer in the first faint blush of the dawn behind it. The road ahead was still black, forcing him to look down and to his front.
Counting to ten with his breaths, then starting over with one. One breath for every four strides. Numbers always soothed him, distracting him from the negative thoughts that could ruin any run, anchoring his mind until it was ready to float gently away. Sometimes he counted in binary numbers, a system he had not even thought about since high school until it popped into his mind from nowhere during a run six months ago. Computer numbers, mindless and impersonal, requiring an extra mental effort and consequently offering an extra measure of distraction, when 1, 2, 3, 4 became automatic. He liked the cold, precise pattern the binary numbers made before him when he half closed his eyes and visualized them.
1
10
11
100
101
110
111
1000
1001
-
-
-
Binary numbers were one of the reasons
he liked the purple T-shirt he had on. From the ads in the back of his running magazines, he occasionally sent away for five randomly assorted T-shirts; manufacturer’s overruns offered at bargain prices. Three or four of every lot he threw out on the grounds of ugliness or taste (rock groups were the worst), but a few appealed to him for reasons he did not even try to fathom. One showed the green silhouette of an antelope leaping forward against a pale brown background.
The shirt he had on was cryptic. The deep purple background was the most beautiful shade of that color he had ever seen, almost imperial. And in pure white numerals across the front, the legend:
10001
7:00
10,001 was what in binary numbers? 10 was 2, 100 was 4, 1000 was 8, 10000 must be 16. Plus one. 17. What was the 7:00 below it for? Numbers, and who cared what they meant. He bought and kept T-shirts because their bright colors and shapes pleased him for the same reasons they would please a child; the sensations of color and form on the eye, without concern for meaning or status. Not for him the racer’s trophy shirts, or Acapulco, or St. Moritz, or Barbados. He took an equal pleasure in knowing that he was capable, in running as in no other part of his life, of taking delight in childish things. A green antelope springing across his chest, royal purple he could see with a brief downward glance.
8:59. The coast road curved in to the right ahead and began a gentle downhill slope. Check stride. A little short, lengthen it slightly, adjusting the angle of both legs to make sure the heels were planted firmly, striking the ground first. Check arms. Too high. Wrists below the waist, shake them loose, forearms back up but not too high. Thumbs should brush the sides of his shorts. Check breathing. Yes, I am breathing.
Michaelson laughed. No one to hear it before dawn, by the empty sea. Laugh again, and run.
Yesterday morning there had been a dead opossum flattened on the roadbed when he reached this point. Today there was nothing but a faint, discolored stain on the highway. Poor bastard, thought Michaelson, it’s almost happened to me a few times. Damned cars.
9:20. Ten minutes—a little more—to the causeway.
Headlights about half a mile ahead, slowly turning onto the coast road and coming at him, high ones like a truck’s. The sound of its gear changes carried over the surf.
Michaelson made himself drift a few inches closer to the center of the road, just over its white edge line. Eyes up, tracking the approaching headlights. You could sense whether an oncoming driver saw you. There was usually a momentary hesitation as the driver’s foot came off the gas pedal. Then, if there was no opposing traffic, a swing out over the center line of the road. Look away, briefly, from the headlights so they don’t blind you. Very close now. Bright. The purple shirt wasn’t the best color for visibility in the dark. A glance down to see if the white shorts were showing; they were. Bright headlights. Look away, but not too long. He saw me. Truck swinging out over the center line as Michaelson angled back to the edge of the roadway, yielding the few inches of road he had taken earlier. If the drivers didn’t pull over, at least they allowed for that extra space you would suddenly vacate just before they passed.
The truck went by with a soft whoosh of air. Red tail lights. Michaelson’s night vision was gone, destroyed by the glare of the headlights, and he narrowed his eyes as close to shut as he could to regain it. The truck’s diesel engine was barely audible now, shifting into a lower gear. Must have turned inland, uphill.
When his night vision came back, the morning star was dimmer. The palest possible pink backlit the sky behind it. What star was it? Arcturus? Betelgeuse? Sirius? Beautiful names. Don’t know a damned thing about astronomy, but beautiful names. Or—wait—wasn’t the morning star really a planet? Venus? What difference does it make? The morning star is the morning star. Running is running; nothing more, nothing less. This is this. Don’t try to make it something it isn’t.
Still, it would be nice to know some more names of stars. And whether the morning star was a planet. Get a book out of the library when he got back?
17:02.
No, he would not get a book out of the library and study astronomy when he got back. That was exactly what he was trying to shake loose from in his running, a good part of the reason he was here. Look at the morning star. Feel your lungs breathing. Feel your feet moving, your legs, your hips, the swing of your arms. This is this, not something else. Look at that star. You can look at that star, and take pleasure from it, and run, or you can sit in a library and research it.
Or could you do both?
No you can’t. Not if you want to see the star and just be with it the way he wanted to.
Enough. Run away, run away, he sang silently to himself. Just run away, before dawn, before anyone else is up or stirring. Look at the star, be the star, run to the star, anything, but for God’s sake don’t analyze the star. Be an antelope, a green antelope on a pale brown field, running in the dawn, looking at a star. Think about the star the way an antelope would think about the star. See as an animal sees, not a man.
18:32.
And tomorrow the damned stopwatch was going. Throw it off the causeway and watch it plunge a hundred feet into the sea. Never should have bought it. Never should have started racing. Run away from competition, not in it. Who’s first? Who’s last? How did I measure up? Further tomorrow, faster tomorrow, who’s number one? Blank it out; let it go. Drift.
One of the reasons Michaelson was here was to forget all that. He had been running for two years and had found himself a few months ago crying in exhaustion and anger, second in a half-marathon. He rolled in agony on the ground at the exit from the chute, cursing himself for having ripped his body apart trying vainly to stay with the leader, despite knowing that he was much too far under his usual pace, ripping his body, tearing down what all his training had built up. Groaning and swearing, first at the winner and then at himself.
He had rested for a full week, then gradually started running again. Deliberately going out for less time than he knew he could. Breaking the training regimen he had carefully learned and practiced over the years, unlearning as much as possible. In the beginning it was a serious struggle to force himself to bring a run to an end when he knew his body was capable of more. But every day he ran less, forcing himself to stop, until that too became a habit. Now he had broken it all up, setting pace and distance randomly, and in the process had found a new way to cut through it all. When his mind settled into thoughts too rational, involving too much planning, he visualized his thoughts floating above his head in a comic book dialogue balloon, darting like quick silver fish inside a bowl. Gently he made the balloon absorb the pointed tail leading down to his head, like a tadpole absorbing its own tail, until the balloon full of thoughts was a perfect sphere disconnected from his own mind. He filled it, slowly, with helium and gave it a gentle mental push upward. Slowly at first it would float away, like a child’s lost balloon soaring over a county fair, until the winds caught it and swept it away. It pleased him to give the thoughts inside the balloon shriller and quicker voices as they faded in volume, until the balloon winked into invisibility against the distant, distant sky.
There.
Just running ...
No dogs today. Usually there were three of them, identical German Shepherds, penned behind that wooden barrier on the right side of the road. It was topped with a chain-link fence. On the other mornings he had run the causeway their three heads had appeared, pressed closely together, over the wooden barrier, snapping and snarling in unison. Even though the barrier and fence seemed sturdy, the three dogs were clearly vicious enough to make Michaelson tighten up in apprehension every morning. But today there was only a chilly silence.
To take the edge off his apprehension of the dogs’ dark lair and the silence, Michaelson stuck his tongue out at them.
Just running ...
Then, around the sweep of the road to the right, was the entrance to the causeway.
And two bright yellow lights. A car’s parking lights
.
Set close to the ground like feral eyes, unblinking and sharp. Glowing at him. Crouched behind them was a low, dark shadow.
As he drew closer the shadow resolved itself into a car. He could hear the motor idling. Right at the entrance to the causeway, blocking it. Something was wrong with the shape, though, too high on the top, and now he could see the blue and white paint and the word—
Damn.
No causeway today.
SHERIFF.
Suddenly he was blind from the harsh white glare of the spotlight, stabbing out from the side of the Sheriff’s car. Reluctantly he slowed, walking the last few feet to the window on the driver’s side. The spotlight swivelled to follow him. His breath was ragged.
“Good morning,” he said, trying to peer over the glare of the spotlight into the dark interior of the police car.
“Morning,” came a deep voice from the shadowy figure inside. “Help you?”
“Just running, Sheriff.” Still struggling to catch his breath for speech, Michaelson gestured with his right arm toward the causeway. “All right to run out here?”
The only sound was the low idle of the Sheriff’s car, and the surf breaking over the rocks at the entrance to the causeway. Damned fool question. There were permanent wooden barriers across the entrance carrying an enormous “No trespassing” sign. The dark figure inside the car was absolutely still.
“That’s a long run,” the Sheriff said, finally.
Michaelson kept silent.
“From out of town?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Never seen you run out here before,” said the Sheriff.
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