The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror

by Stephen Jones

  The flowers tied to the lamp-standard were soaked in orange light. Most of them were blackened by it, looking rotten. Though the concrete post was no wider than her hand, a shape was using it for cover. As she took a not entirely willing step a bunch of flowers nodded around the post and dodged back. She thought the skulker was using them to hide whatever was left of its face. She wouldn’t be scared away from her own house. She stamped towards it, making all the noise she could, and the remnant of a body sidled around the post, keeping it between them. She avoided it as much as she was able on the way to her gate. As she unlocked the door she heard a scuttling of less than feet behind her. It was receding, and she managed not to look while it grew inaudible somewhere across the road.

  The house still smelled rather too intensely floral. In the morning she could tone that down before she went for lunch. She made up for the dinner she’d found unappetising last night, and bookmarked pages in the travel guide to show Helena, and even found reasons to giggle at a comedy on television. After all that and the rest of the day she felt ready for bed.

  She stooped to peer under it, but the carpet was bare, though a faint scent lingered in the room. It seemed unthreatening as she lay in bed. Could the flowers have been intended as some kind of peace offering? In a way she’d been the last person to speak to Keanu. The idea fell short of keeping her awake, but the smell of flowers roused her. It was stronger and more suggestive of rot, and most of all it was closer. The flowers were in bed with her. There were insects as well, which didn’t entirely explain the jerky movements of the mass of stalks that nestled against her. She was able to believe they were only stalks until their head, decorated or masked or overgrown with shrivelled flowers, lolled against her face.

  SIMON STRANTZAS

  Cold to the Touch

  SIMON STRANTZAS’ MOST RECENT short-story collection, Cold to the Touch, was published by Tartarus Press in 2009. Meanwhile, his first collection, Beneath the Surface, has recently been reprinted by Dark Regions Press. The author’s work has also appeared in the previous two volumes of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, as well as Cemetery Dance, PostScripts and elsewhere.

  “Stories often find their origins in unexpected ways,” Strantzas reveals. “I was inspired in this case by a photograph of a Zen garden I once used as my computer’s desktop background. After staring at it day-in and day-out while I worked, I began to wonder about that dark circle of rocks and just what its true purpose might be.

  “There was something there in the coldness of the photograph, something that brought to mind the barren vistas of the Canadian Arctic, which ended up being the perfect setting for my tale of tested faith.”

  Along with its appearance here, “Cold to the Touch” will appear in Holy Horrors, a two-volume anthology of religious horror edited by T.M. Wright and Matt Cardin, from Ash-Tree Press.

  ANDREW LAUZON STOOD surrounded by his equipment on the tarmac of a small airport just beyond Iqaluit. He had gone as far north as aeroplanes could take him, but he still needed to go further, deep into the Nunavut Territory, to the edge of the Arctic itself.

  He shivered uncontrollably as he waited for Luis to arrive. The cold October wind scratched his face like sandpaper and, beneath his crossed arms, he felt the shape of the small book pressed into his ribs.

  God, at least, had a plan for him.

  Andrew spotted the truck moving towards him through the greyish landscape of the northern brush, and when it arrived it was mottled with a haze of salt and snow. Behind the wheel the thick dark-skinned Inuk was barely older than Andrew himself, yet his face was broad and wrinkled, as though a lifetime of icy wind had dug grooves into his features. Those deep crags did not move when he spoke.

  “You weren’t waiting long,” Luis said. It wasn’t a question. He glared at the young scientist, while behind him blue fumes of sweet poison filled the air.

  Andrew introduced himself. Luis said nothing, and scratched the coarse stubble along his chin.

  “Should we . . . um . . . where should the bags go?” Andrew said. Luis sighed and got out of the dirty truck to unchain the tailgate.

  “Right here. All you had to do was open your eyes.”

  The inside of the truck smelled of old vinyl and stale cigarettes and beer. The two travelled along a solitary road northward, with nothing on the horizon before them but flat brush. Even that slowly thinned, and the ground gradually became whiter. Luis smoked cigarettes one after the other, and tossed each finished butt through a cracked window, while Andrew read quietly from his Bible. He could feel Luis’ periodic scowl, but the man said nothing. Andrew eventually put away the book, and only then did Luis return his full attention to the road. After an hour, Andrew struggled for something to say.

  “Have you seen it?”

  “Seen what?” Luis took the cigarette from his mouth and spat carelessly until a small piece of tobacco landed on the dashboard.

  “The anomaly I was sent to study. The satellite photos were very unclear about what I’d see.”

  “No. What the hell do you do, anyway?”

  “I specialize in abnormal weather patterns, in climate fluctuations.”

  Luis tossed another cigarette through the window. “You can remove your hood; the climate in here doesn’t fluctuate.” Andrew smiled uncertainly and removed the fur-lined hood.

  Luis pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Is that what all the equipment’s for?”

  “Yes. It’s primarily thermometers and temperature sensors. Some seismic monitors, too.”

  “Sounds fascinating,” Luis said, feigning interest poorly.

  Andrew looked out the window at the shifting landscape. He could see how perfect it all was, even when the Arctic weather was coldest, when the sun hung just on the precipice of the horizon yet refused to fall off for months, and time itself seemed to stand still.

  “Everywhere I look, I can see the hand of God.”

  Luis scoffed. “There’s nothing out there but nothing.”

  “How can you say that? I thought the Inuit saw the North as sacred?”

  “Yeah, and we all ride dog-sleds. Don’t worry, the igloo’s well heated.”

  Andrew touched his Bible through his coat.

  It took two more hours to reach their destination, though Andrew didn’t realize at first they had arrived. He expected something bigger, more settled, than a single cabin. There was no one around to greet them, but he thought he saw a shadow move behind the murky window. Smoke rose from the tiny chimney, trying desperately to keep the cold at bay.

  Luis pulled the truck off the road and parked it beside a pair of snowmobiles at the rear of the building.

  Andrew unlocked the door to the small cabin. The place was little more than a room with a large iron stove and two cots, and whoever had lit the fire for them was no longer there.

  The two men unloaded the equipment from the truck bed, and carried it into the cabin. When they stepped back outside another Inuk, shorter and wider than Luis, waited by the snowmobiles for them. Andrew said hello, and the man nodded, then let loose a stream of grunts like nothing Andrew had ever heard.

  “His name’s Akiak,” Luis said, and kicked his steel-toed boot against the doorframe. “Nobody speaks English up here, and they don’t do much talking, especially to a qallunaat like you. They’re all outcasts; they don’t fit in anyplace else, and they don’t like being disturbed.”

  “Is that what you are? An outcast?”

  “No,” Luis said, and paused to light another of his cigarettes. “I’m a heathen. And I’m too poor to live anywhere else.”

  Andrew cleaned his hands in the small washroom at the opposite end of the cabin, happy to be rid of the dirt he had managed to accumulate over the past day of travelling. He already felt exhaustion creeping into his mind, and he found it difficult to focus. The buckled laminate that covered the walls and floor made the whole place seem unreal, as though part of some dream. Behind everything a generator droned, powering ineffectual li
ghts that were unable to prevent the dim shadows from crowding at the window. Andrew felt claustrophobic, and he closed his eyes and prayed until he felt safe again.

  The cots faced each other from opposite sides of the room: one caught in the yellow light from the window, the other beside the old iron stove. Luis settled on the warmer cot and stretched out until his dripping feet hung over the edge. His cigarette pointed straight into the air, and a thin column of smoke twisted upward. He coughed then snorted, and wondered aloud, “When do we start?”

  Andrew put down his bag to consult his watch. He had been travelling for almost twenty hours straight. “I think we ought to get some sleep. We can start work in the morning.”

  “Morning isn’t coming,” Luis said. He sat up, and plucked the cigarette out from between his lips. He looked straight at Andrew, then flicked the butt at the iron stove. It slipped through the grate and into the fire. “Don’t forget to shut the blinds when you’re done praying,” he said. “That sun isn’t going anywhere soon, and I don’t like God watching me sleep.”

  If Andrew slept, he did not remember doing so. Even if light hadn’t continued to slip past the closed blinds and into his eyes, the odour would have been enough to keep him awake. It was like wet leather and old sweat, like a dampness that would never dry no matter how hot the stove burned. Luis remained unaffected; instead, he was splayed across the bed, and the creak from his throat filled Andrew’s mind.

  Andrew prayed for silence, but it was in those moments, alone and in the dark, that he feared no one was listening, that if he didn’t do all he could to hold his faith together, everything would fall apart.

  He put the thought out of his mind and sat up. His eyes felt thick, and he rubbed his lower back where the cot’s metal frame had pressed into it. He sighed heavily and checked his watch in the light from around the edges of the wooden blinds.

  Upon the wall by the door hung a painting Andrew hadn’t registered the day before. It was about two feet square and depicted a sea of white scratched with greys and blues. Within this blizzard sat a large rounded figure, curled and grey, featureless but for the large hands that it held cupped. They were one above the other, and between them swirled clouds of red and yellow. The figure was painted with thick black lines and rounded joints, very much like the native art he had seen before, but the painting held no Inuit totems. There was nothing but the curled figure, and the light between its hands that danced like millions of glowing red men.

  Andrew first sensed, rather than heard, the sound emanating from the wall before him. It was a slight vibration, a hum, which progressively increased in volume. The timbre, the rhythm, sounded like a voice echoing from the painting, more than one in fact, as if the painting spoke to him, but he couldn’t understand what it was saying. He leaned closer, his breath on the canvas, and he jumped when, behind him, Luis spoke.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I thought – I heard voices!”

  “What? Are you Joan of Arc, now?” Luis sat still a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t hear squat.”

  A sharp knock made them both jump.

  At the door, stood Akiak, his fur-lined jacket embroidered with the pattern of sprinting animals. He said something, and Luis grunted back and got out of bed.

  “Grab your ‘Good Book’,” he said. “It’s time to go.”

  The two snowmobiles idled outside the cabin, though only one had a small sled attached. After they loaded the equipment on to it, Luis pointed a gloved finger at Andrew’s face. “You’ll go with Akiak. Try not to fall off.”

  There was a moment of hesitation, and Akiak beckoned Andrew impatiently. Andrew sat on the back of the vehicle and put his hands around the Inuk’s chest, closed his eyes, and nodded. Akiak put the snowmobile in gear and Andrew was yanked back. Then they were moving across the snow.

  The snowmobile vibration rattled Andrew’s teeth, and he ducked his head to keep his face from freezing. After a while, he opened his eyes to nothing but white. Snow lay everywhere, great plains of it, and it would have been impossible to tell where it met with the grey sky if not for the giant yellow orb that sat on the horizon, halfway between night and day.

  When the snowmobile finally began to slow down, it came to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Andrew’s legs vibrated as though he were still moving, and for a moment he didn’t trust them. Akiak stepped off without pause, and was already unloading the sled when Luis pulled up beside them.

  “This is as far as we can go. We’re walking the rest of the way. Unless you don’t think you can make it.”

  Andrew furrowed his brow. “Why here?”

  Luis pointed ahead, and then Andrew understood.

  The white surface of snow before them dipped into the ground and formed a crater at least five miles wide. In the distance, Andrew could see a darkness at its centre: some blackened rocks that stood out from the ground, in relief against the white of the crater walls. Akiak swung the equipment cases on to his back, then carefully stepped to the edge of the crater. He hesitated, then hiked his load further and started down. Luis followed, then Andrew.

  The walk was harder than Andrew had expected; the muscles in his legs burned after only a few minutes. Luis and Akiak had already left him behind as they effortlessly moved through the snow. Andrew tried to remain unconcerned – they couldn’t do much without him, after all – but he couldn’t shake his sense of dread. Even the prayer he said under breath didn’t help; the cold of the snow was sneaking through the soles of his boots, and he wondered how long it would take to die if he were left out there alone.

  As if on cue, Luis and Akiak stopped and looked back at him. “We’re almost there,” Luis shouted, then said something to the guide that Andrew couldn’t hear over his own heavy breathing.

  As they came nearer, Akiak grunted something that slowed Luis. He stopped and looked around, then he stuck out his arm to prevent Andrew from going further. “Watch out,” he said.

  Andrew looked down and found himself one creaking step from a deep fissure in the ice. It stretched about ten feet long, and the snow from Andrew’s halted footsteps was swallowed by the darkness.

  “There’s about three miles between us and the actual Earth,” Luis said. “The rest is ice, and sometimes it cracks. Nothing to worry about. Unless you step in one.”

  “What happens then?”

  “You go straight down to hell.”

  Luis and Akiak laughed. Andrew looked out across the ice and snow and saw more cracks, dark marks like fingerprints upon the empty whiteness.

  Andrew was careful to watch the ground as they proceeded, and planted his feet on firm snow. He didn’t see the dark rock formation until he was almost upon it.

  In the snow towered five black stone monuments of various heights arranged roughly in a circle almost twenty feet across. The tallest measured at least ten feet, and each was about three feet wide. Their surfaces were rough and uneven, yet covered in a swirling pattern of shallow grooves.

  And all five stood incongruous in the icy tundra.

  Andrew’s eyes widened. “It can’t be,” he muttered. “Those rocks are completely dry.”

  Akiak spoke, and Luis translated. “He says these rocks have always been here, but he avoids this place. It’s bad luck.” The Inuk didn’t seem comfortable in the ring of stones. He kept glancing at them, though, and ran his hands across the leg of his pants.

  “Why?”

  * * *

  “This place is called Okralruserk, and no one is allowed to come here, not even Torngasak, the spirit of Good. It’s just a superstition,” he said, and began to reorganize the empty equipment cases.

  Andrew placed sensors and instruments around the stones. It felt no warmer within the circle than elsewhere, but the thermal satellite photos indicated otherwise. He was determined to discover the cause. While Andrew worked, Akiak appeared mesmerized by the five monuments. He stared for some time, then approached one cautiously, and stopped inches from
its rocky surface. With a sense of wonder on his face, he let his eyes follow the swirling grooves. Akiak rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, then removed his glove. Whispering something, he slowly raised his arm, fingers spread wide, and laid his palm upon the rock. Andrew thought he heard the man sigh.

  When Luis yelled, Akiak snatched his hand back and Andrew dropped the thermosensor he’d been holding; it smashed to pieces on the frozen ground. Luis said something in a stern voice and Akiak simply nodded, then went to help Luis with the cases, doing his best to ignore the five monoliths.

  When Andrew finished setting up the equipment, and they were preparing to leave, Andrew asked Luis what the yelling was about.

  “I was trying to scare the love of God into him.”

  There was only the sound of wind and ice creaking underfoot during the long walk back to the snowmobiles. Andrew was tired, lost in contemplation, and he felt the effects of the twilight sun upon his body. Akiak suffered the burden of the equipment wordlessly while Luis, cigarette hanging from an exposed lip, ignored them both. As snow fell from the dark amber sky, Andrew wondered what kind of a man would willingly spend his life so far from everyone and everything.

  Perhaps all Luis needed was a little salvation.

  Andrew had trouble with his dinner. He had never tasted deer meat before, and the caribou was sweeter than he expected. He paused after the first bite, unsure what to do, and Luis laughed. “I guess you’d rather have a hamburger and some fries,” he said, and took a large piece of steak from Andrew’s plate.

  “It’s just new to me, that’s all.”

  Luis chewed on this a moment, then said, “I don’t see any reason why you think you’re wanted up here; the weather’s fine.”

  “It’s not, not really. We’re sitting on one of the largest stores of methane and carbon dioxide on the planet, and it’s trapped in the ice. The temperature here over the last forty years has gone up almost six degrees! That means it’s only a matter of time before the gases are released back into the atmosphere. Once that happens, the chain-reaction will make the hole in the ozone layer look like a pinprick. Something’s happening, and everyone’s in a panic. Global warming makes people jittery; they all think Armageddon’s coming.”