The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

by Stephen Jones (ed. )

  It squirmed, determined to reach me, the hate on its face giving it strength. Its snout had fresh blisters and burns. I grabbed the pitchfork. As the thing broke free from the window, landing on the floor, I charged with the pitchfork. A tine caught its throat. But the thing was as big as I was. Wrenching free, it snarled and lunged. I stabbed with the pitchfork, piercing one of its eyes. Twisting away, leaving a trail of blood, it braced itself, leapt, and caught the pitchfork straight in its chest. The force against the pitchfork’s handle knocked me down. The handle twisted this way and that as the thing snarled and writhed and bled.

  A noise brought me to my feet. I staggered and barely reached the shutter in time to slam it shut before something crashed against it, almost breaking the shutter’s hinges. The thing out there growled like the devil’s creature it was. Hearing a scrape behind me, I turned and saw the thing on the floor struggling to stand despite the pitchfork in it. I stepped back as it tried to crawl. Its eyes were red with fury, dimming, going blank. I vomited.

  For a time, I didn’t move. Then I went to the water pail, where I rinsed my mouth, spat into the fireplace, and drank. The water soothed my throat which was raw from screaming. Four dead, I thought. But I knew the last one was the smartest, and I decided it didn’t want me only for food now. I’d killed its companions. I’d destroyed its den. It hated me.

  Without shelter, it’ll freeze out there, I thought. I seemed to hear papa say, No. It’ll dig a cave in the snow.

  But if I don’t go out again, it’ll need to move somewhere else to find food, I thought. Again, I heard papa say, The stench of the decaying carcass will poison you. You’ll need to open the shutter to breathe. It’ll charge in.

  No, I told papa. I can stand anything. The shutter stays closed.

  I cooked more horsemeat. It tasted delicious. As shadows gathered beyond the cracks in the shutter, I decided that the thing on the floor was truly dead. I lit the lantern on the table, edged toward the carcass, and tugged the pitchfork from its chest.

  The roof creaked. Be clever, I heard papa say. I pushed away the rug on the wall and hurried to take the axe and the knife down the ramp to the root cellar. I carried down a pail of water. I rushed back to get the lamp and the rest of the tools, but I never got that far. With a massive crack, the roof collapsed. The crush of dirt and snow sent me rolling down the ramp. My head struck something hard.

  For a moment, colors swirled inside my mind. Then my vision cleared, and I saw that the top of the ramp was almost entirely blocked by wood, dirt, and snow. Dust made me cough, but as it settled, I saw a gap behind which flames rose. The collapsed roof had knocked the lamp over. The table was on fire.

  The flames will suck the air from the cellar, I thought. I climbed to the top. Because the shovel was still in the cabin, I had to use my hands to push dirt into the gap. As the space got small, I saw the flames grow brighter. Smoke filled the opening. Frantic, I pushed dirt until the space was closed. Surrounded by darkness, I retreated to the bottom, sat, and tried to calm myself. My breathing echoed. I shivered.

  Hunger woke me. I had no way of telling how long I’d slept. I was slumped against potatoes. My back ached. The cellar, which was about five feet wide and high had wood across the top to keep earth from falling. It smelled damp and like rotted leaves. Darkness continued to surround me. My hunger insisted. Papa used to say that raw carrots were bad for digestion. But it was either them or raw potatoes or squash, so after waiting as long as I could, I felt for a carrot and bit into it, its hardness making my teeth hurt. I didn’t choose the apples because they felt soft and wormy. I was afraid they would give me the runs. Continuing to shiver, I chewed until the piece of carrot was mush in my mouth. Only then did I swallow. I did that for a long time, hoping I wouldn’t get sick.

  I tried to count the passing seconds, but my mind drifted in the stale air. For all I knew, it was now day outside. I needed to relieve myself but forced myself to wait. Finally, I crawled up the ramp. About to dig through the blockade of dirt and snow, I heard noises beyond it. Where the gap had been, dirt began to shift. Stomach tightening, I backed away.

  At once, I saw a speck of daylight. A snout poked through, clustered with whorls and outcrops of scars and blisters. The thing growled. As the light widened and the head thrust into view, its ears merely nubs, I grabbed a potato, hurling it as hard as I could. It thudded off the creature’s snout. I threw a second potato and heard a snarl. The creature clawed to widen the hole, shoving its neck through as I grabbed the pail of water and threw its contents. Water splashed over the raging head but made no difference. Its eyes burned. I banged the empty pail against the head, but the creature was halfway through. The handle on the pail broke. The creature’s hind legs were almost free. I raised the axe but didn’t have room to swing, so I jabbed, but the thing kept coming, and abruptly it wailed.

  It snapped its head to the side, staring wildly behind it. Its wail became a savage yelp as it whirled and bit at something. The fierce motion widened the hole, allowing it to turn and bite harder. Daylight blazed in. I heard a noise like someone shaking a package of seeds. As the creature spun, the snake came into view, flopping like a whip, rattling, its fangs buried in the creature’s haunch. The snake must have fallen when the roof collapsed. The heat of the fire wakened it. It kept its fangs sunk in as the creature whirled and yelped. The poison made the creature falter. Breathing heavily, it steadied itself, as if it knew it was dying and had to concentrate on unfinished business. It took a step toward me. It opened its mouth to bite. I shoved the axe handle between its jaws and leaned forward, thrusting the handle down its throat.

  Choking, the creature thrashed. I struggled with the axe, pressing harder, feeling vibrations through the handle. Gagging, the thing frothed, wavered, slumped, trembled, and after a while lay still. Only then did the snake stop rattling. It released its fangs and dropped to the ground. Papa said, Its poison sacks are empty. For a while, it can’t hurt you. But I didn’t believe papa. As the snake slithered down the ramp, I pressed against the wall, trying to keep a distance. The snake crawled over the pile of squash and disappeared behind it.

  I edged around the carcass, fearing that any moment it would spring to life. The cold air smelled sweet. Wary of other snakes, I stood among the dirt and snow and surveyed the wreckage. Clouds hovered. Knowing I needed shelter before the next storm, I saw that beams had fallen on an angle in front of the fireplace, forming a kind of lean-to. I found the pelt that papa had cut from the creature he and Daniel shot. I secured the pelt over a hole between beams. I tugged down the scorched blanket from the entrance to the root cellar and hooked it over another hole between beams. I found other blankets and did more of the same.

  But there were still holes, and the blankets wouldn’t keep moisture out, so I clenched my teeth, went into the root cellar, found the knife, and skinned the creature. Damn you, I said all the time I cut away its pelt. I stuck it over other holes between beams. Then I skinned the carcass of the thing that had come through the window, and I crammed that pelt between beams. In time, I would look for the creature I had poisoned and use its pelt, but snow was falling, and I had to complete my shelter. A few embers glowed under charred wood in the fireplace. I layered kindling and logs and blew on the embers. I was almost out of breath before the kindling sparked and the logs began to burn.

  As the snow thickened, I went down to the root cellar and carried as many potatoes and carrots as I could, all the time keeping a wary eye on the pile of squash. While a potato cooked next to the fire, I bit a chunk from a carrot. Papa was wrong that uncooked carrots would make me sick. Maybe papa was wrong about a lot of things. Darkness settled, but despite the falling snow, my shelter felt secure. Tomorrow, I planned to make it stronger. I chewed another carrot and watched the potato sizzle. I thought about papa, about the many valleys in which we lived and how he was never satisfied and we always had to move past every town. I thought of the brother and sister who were buried in one of those valle
ys. I thought about the bark tea papa gave Judith for her fever. Papa always told us how clever he was, but maybe he didn’t know as much as he thought about bark, and it made her sicker. Maybe papa wasn’t so clever when he and Daniel chased after the things that took Judith. Maybe he should have kept control and stayed home and mama wouldn’t be dead and he and Daniel wouldn’t be dead.

  I think about that a lot. I sit in this tiny room and listen to motor cars rattling by outside. Eighty-eight years is a long time to remember back. You ask me what it was like living in the valley when I was twelve. The old days as you call them. For me, the young days, although I was never really young. Streets and houses and schools and churches are now where our farm was, where everyone died, where I spent the winter eating carrots, potatoes, and horsemeat. But never the squash. I never went near the squash. Damned stupid papa.

  F. GWYNPLAINE MACINTYRE

  The Clockwork Horror

  F. GWYNPLAINE MACINTYRE IS A NATIVE of Perthshire, Scotland, but spent his formative years in the Outback as one of the thousands of “child migrants” who were expatriated from post-war Britain to rural Australia. He now divides his time between homes in New York City and in Gwynedd, North Wales.

  Macintyre is the author of several novels (some of them published under pseudonyms) and dozens of science fiction, horror and mystery stories published in British and American periodicals. An artist as well as an author, he has illustrated number of his own works as well as some of Ron Goulart’s stories in Analog magazine.

  He is currently working on the illustrations for his next science fiction novel, which has the intriguing title The Lesbian Man.

  Although “The Clockwork Horror” is fiction, in writing the story Macintyre made a genuine addition to the known facts of the life of Edgar Allan Poe, as he reveals: “In 1836, while editing the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Virginia, Poe published an essay titled ‘Maelzel’s Chess-Player’, describing his recent encounter with an Automaton – an ostensible mechanical man – that was capable of playing chess and even defeating most challengers.

  “In his essay, Poe used observation and deduction to build a convincing case that the Automaton was a hoax, containing a human chess-player. Oddly, Poe’s essay does not reveal precisely when and where he witnessed the performance of Maelzel’s Automaton. His 1836 essay merely states that the machine was exhibited in Richmond ‘a few weeks ago’, giving neither a precise date nor an address for the exhibition.

  “When I started the research for this story, I was astounded to discover that no existing biography of Edgar Allan Poe gave a date or a location for Poe’s encounter with Maelzel’s Automaton. Determined to solve this mystery, I went to Virginia in search of further clues. In the archives of the Richmond Enquirer – a newspaper of the 1830s, published twice-weekly – I discovered several contemporary references to the activities of ‘Edgar Poe’, denizen of Richmond.

  “I also tracked down advertisements for Maelzel’s touring exhibition, verifying that the Chess-Player was exhibited in Richmond’s city museum from December 15th, 1835 through January 2nd, 1836. Somewhere within those eighteen days, the real Edgar Allan Poe encountered the authentic (fake) Automaton . . . although presumably not with the same results described in the story!”

  JANUARY 6TH, 1836

  RICHMOND! Unholy citadel, which both condemns me and exalts me! Grotesque city of the perverse, where black men’s bodies are sold at auction in Capitol Square, and white men’s souls are flung into the gutter. I am fettered to this Richmond: its destiny is enchained with my own, and both our fates are inescapable.

  As my name opens no doors and purchases no ease, I render it for your inspection. I am Edgar A. Poe, latterly a native of Richmond, now returned once more within this city’s gates. True! I was not born here, and I have been known to call myself a Bostonian. Yet it is Richmond, the resplendent carbuncle on Virginia’s hindquarters, that holds the mortgage to my flesh. The city of Richmond holds the pawnbroker’s ticket upon which I have pledged my immortal soul . . . and I no longer dare to hope that this pledge may be redeemed.

  My mother was English by birth, and my father a Baltimore scoundrel: Richmond held no claim upon the one nor the other. Still, it was Richmond where my parents conjoined in holy wedlock, although my father clearly saw fit not to honour the nuptial vows. My sainted mother was the ingenue Elizabeth Arnold. My alleged father was David Poe: son of the war hero General Poe who was quartermaster to Lafayette in the late War of Independence. Improvident actors, my mother and father were “starring” respectively as the heroine Sophia Woodbine and the scapegrace Villars in “The Blind Bargain” at the Haymarket Theatre, here in Richmond. I will show you their notices, if you like. The Easter weekend is always a slow season for actors, so between engagements – on Easter Monday, the seventh of April, 1806 – my father and mother got married in a Clay Street lodging-house.

  My parents found no outlet for their thespian endeavours in Richmond, so they soon joined Alexander Placide’s touring company in Boston, where I had the dubious privilege to be born. My actress mother was renowned for her talent and beauty. My father, aggrieved that his own theatrick talents were vastily inferior, abandoned us in the spring of 1811, during a repertory season in Philadelphia. Finding no compassion there, my mother returned with me to Virginia’s capital, where she briefly won acclaim at the Richmond Theatre on Shockoe Hill at East Broad Street . . . in a tragedian role as Angela in “The Castle Spectre”, dancing a hornpipe while disguised as a boy in “The Curfew”, and displaying her musical skills as the ingenue Letitia Hardy in “The Belle’s Stratagem”.

  Richmond murdered my mother. As she became too ill to travel with the departing troupe of actors, my mother Elizabeth Poe gained some meagre employment in the old Indian Queen tavern, at the northwest corner of Ninth and Grace Streets, engaged as the assistant to a Scots-born milliner. It was in this tavern’s cellar that my mother squandered her eyesight, stitching together the piecework of ladies’ shovel-bonnets by candelight. When I was scantly two years old – on Sunday morning, the eighth of December 1811 – my half-blind mother was carried off by an infectious fever, in the milliner’s room.

  Yet this dark city was not finished with me. My godparents, John and Frances Allan, took me into their home in Richmond, in rooms at Thirteenth and East Main Streets, abovestairs from the counting-house of my foster father’s business: the merchant firm Ellis & Allan. My mother, meantime, was buried nearby, in an unmarked grave in the eastern section of St John’s Episcopal churchyard. It was in this very church that Patrick Henry uttered his famous words – “Give me liberty, or give me death!” – while neglecting to mention that he was a slaveholder. I have visited this churchyard often, yet I cannot know the sure location of my mother’s grave.

  Richmond baptised me. Three days after my mother’s demise, with my own beliefs never consulted, I was conscripted into the Protestant faith in the Richmond home of Mr and Mrs John Richard. On this same day, rumours arrived of my father’s death in Baltimore.

  By long tradition, the night after Christmas is when theatres are most profusely attended. Eighteen nights after my mother’s death – December twenty-sixth, 1811 – the Richmond Theatre was utterly destroyed in a fire of unexplained source, while an audience of six hundred souls beheld Placide & Green’s tragedians in a performance of “The Bleeding Nun”. Seventy-three persons died, including Virginia’s governor. The scene of my mother’s greatest triumphs was burnt to ashes.

  Richmond was the place of my breeching: I refer to the ritual transition of early boyhood, when a lad is deemed at last mature enough to exchange his childish skirts for honest trousers. In the inexorable torrent of my helpless boyhood years, my adoptive parents the Allans compelled me to attend services with them at Monumental Church. By a perverse whim of the fates, this church had been erected on the very site of the burning ruins of the Richmond Theatre. Where the stage had once been consecrated to the gods of drama, now stood an altar. W
here bright lamps illumined in calcium carbonate gleamings had once served as footlights, now the guttering tongues of candelabra stood sentry-post. Oh! Sacred reader! I implore you to imagine the stark outline of my thoughts in 1815, as a sensitive lad of six years, huddled in Pew #80 of the Monumental Church, and aware that on this same spot – adjacent in space, separated in time – my mother had once danced upon the stage, singing her popular tune “Nobody Coming to Marry Me”, scarcely a month before her tragic demise.

  An exact fac-simile of the Richmond street directory could be transcribed from my life’s ordeals. At age eleven, I attended school in the upper room of Doctor Leroy’s store at Broad and Fifth Streets, where I learnt Ovid, Cicero and Xenophon. Aged thirteen, I played hoops and bandy in the gutters at Fourteenth Street and Tobacco Alley. After a quarrel with my foster father, I briefly lodged with his business partner Charles Ellis, in that gentleman’s house on the linden square, at the south side of Franklin Street between First and Second.

  Richmond clutches to me still, like a suckling leech that will not relinquish its prey. I have lived elsewhere – Baltimore, West Point, South Carolina, even London – yet it is incessantly to Richmond that my blood returns, drawing me along as if by Mesmer’s animal magnetism.

  In 1824 – when I was fifteen years of age – my paternal grandfather’s distinguished war record fetched me a place in the junior Morgan Riflemen, where I served as a member of the honour guard at Richmond’s Capitol Square, during the grand reception for the triumphal return of the Marquis de Lafayette. That noble Frenchman shook my hand before the vast assemblage, and in the presence of the throng he praised my grandfather whom I had never known: the war hero whose son was my cowardly father, the scoundrel who abandoned my mother.

  I deem, then, that my credentials as a resident of Richmond are satisfactory. This city and I are in each other’s pocket. If I unbosom myself in these pages, it is Richmond’s dark soul as well as my own that gains the shrift of my confession.