by Jack Ketchum
It was a bathroom. He turned the water on and let it run while he leaned closer to the mirror hanging above the sink. He examined his wound carefully. "Damn," he said. "This better not scar."
An orange Tabby cat slinked up next to the doorframe. It stretched its neck out and rubbed against the jamb. It looked up at me, arched its back, and hissed. Ray spun around and kicked the cat down the hall. "Boris! You stupid fucking cat." It took off with a yowl. Ray turned and faced the sink again. He pumped a couple squirts of soap into his palm then washed his face and hands. When he was done he pulled a small towel from a wall hook and gently patted his cheek dry. The slash was split apart like a fissure. Yellow glossy ooze filled it, and inflammation surrounded its edges.
"Thanks Boris," he said to his reflection. "We really can't have psychotic scratching cats running amok with the girls around, now can we?"
He left the bathroom, went back down the hall, then headed up a flight of stairs. To the right of the landing there was a door decorated with butterflies and flowers. He held his hand on the doorknob for a second, appearing to ponder a deep thought. He turned it slow, careful not to make a sound. I wondered what his intentions were. He was obviously capable of murder, but maybe he could do worse things too—horrible things. My thoughts filled with gruesome images of his victims. He did say there would be more. Maybe I was supposed to stop him in the act, and yet, I still did not feel the urge to kill him.
The door opened and he stepped inside with me at his heels. A child's night light was on. It was one of those kinds that spin around and projects moons and stars on the walls. Eerie rainbow lights and shadows danced around the room in a carousel nightmare. Two little beds were also in the room. One was against the far wall and the other closest to the door. They were separated by stacked bins filled with toys. A small table stood in the middle with two small chairs pushed in on either side. A miniature tea setting was laid out on top. Above one of the headboards, in big bubble letters read the name Caitlin. The other one spelled Candice.
Something inside me began to stir, but it was not scorn or rage. Strangely enough, it felt more like hunger, which made no sense considering I was dead. I waived it off and continued stalking Ray's every move. He walked over to the bed by the door then leaned down.
A little girl lay sound asleep. She had rosy lips and cherub cheeks—an angel. Some of her curly blonde locks matted around her temples with sweat. I hovered directly above the both of them in case I had to stop him from attacking her. He moved closer to the child and I drifted down a little lower. I waited for the impulse to strike, but it did not come. All I felt was starved. He puckered his lips, kissed the child softly on the forehead, and pulled the covers up. He walked over to the other bed, and did the same thing with the other little girl.
I waited, stunned at the nothing-but-hunger I felt. I held my place, not knowing quite what to do, but knew I couldn't leave just yet. Ray did though, and shut the door behind him. I tried to go after him, but was unable to move. Instead, I drifted down even more and hovered only a few inches above the little girl, Caitlin. That was when I smelled it—an irresistible aroma that called to me. It was somewhere on the child, and I had to find it. I moved in closer and sniffed her hair, her forehead. I even smelled her breath. As I was about to move away and dismiss it as nonsense, she opened her eyes. The overpowering scent seemed to be emanating from there. I came in a little closer and sniffed her eyes. Yes, that was it! What was in there making me want it so badly? The aroma was indescribable. It's a mouthwatering smell that binds your insides into knots. I could think of nothing else, and would not be satiated until I had it.
Her eyes widened into big blue saucers, she took in a deep breath, and I could tell she was about to scream. I blanketed her with my shadow ash body, and she could not move. I forced my thumbs into her mouth to keep her quiet. She bucked and writhed underneath the weight of the monster I had become. I thought I might be crushing her, but I could not let go. Still driven by the maddening aroma and unnatural curiosity, I moved my index fingers close to her eyes and quickly poked one just a little. A clear fluid rose through the surface of her cornea and I lapped at it with a forked tongue of dark mist. It only accentuated the delectable smell, and I could no longer hold back my uncontrollable urge. She squeezed her eyes shut, and thrashed her head from side to side. Crazed, I thrust my thumbs deeper into her throat, pinning her head down while she gagged and choked. I pried her eyelids open with my middle and index fingers. She twitched a few times then finally stopped. Her little body went still underneath me. Simultaneously, I prodded both of my fingers straight down into each one of her eyeballs. I slowly pulled my finger out of her right eye and put it in my mouth. Good god, nothing was ever so right and wrong! I put my lips over the puncture wound and suckled out the substance. When I couldn't get any more, I moved my tongue inside and scooped up the last little bit.
Ah...the soul...a gelatinous ocean behind the eyes, right down to the salty organic taste it left in my mouth. Powerless to stop, I pulled my finger from the left eye then repeated the grisly act. Overwrought with violent hunger, I crossed the room to the bed with the bubble letters Candice above the headboard, and devoured her the same way. She hardly put up a struggle compared to her twin, and my technique had become swifter and more concise.
When I was through savagely dining on their vitreous jelly souls, I looked up and gasped at the gore I had left strewn across their angelic faces. Four, small, flesh sockets appeared to gaze blankly at the ceiling. It struck me all at once—I had just killed two little girls! This should not have happened. Killing Ray—should have happened. I felt deceived. Infuriated, I left the girls' room in search of the master bedroom.
I moved down the hall and shifted through a door, where I saw two figures lying motionless under a king-sized comforter. A single, smaller form clung to the edge of one side, while Ray was miles away on the opposite side. He killed me so he could come home and sleep so far from the woman that he loved more? It didn't look at all like love to me.
I floated over to his wife and hovered a foot above her. She was on her side with a pillow scrunched between her hands. Her hair was long and dark, like mine. I waited to feel the hunger, but it didn't come. I simply felt the urge to kill her. I spread a black ash hand over her mouth and nose then lowered my body onto hers. I clung to her like layers of heavy plastic wrap. She struggled and squirmed, which only fortified my hold. I speared her side with two fingers from my other hand. Her eyes opened wide, and I looked straight down into them. She could not see me. Her children did though. They had the horror of me in their eyes.
His wife's fight for life was as futile as mine. The thought made me drive my fingers in deeper, and then deeper still. I jabbed my fingers into her the same way he did to me with his knife. I stabbed and twisted them into her organs. When her death throes ceased, I moved my hand from her face, put my head down close, and listened to the last breath rush from her mouth.
"He loves you more," I whispered.
It was done. I removed my fingers then floated over to Ray. They will blame him for this.
Outside on the curb, the shadow people waited for me. I felt a fleeting remorse for what I had done. "When I was alive, I was a good person," I told them. "I was supposed to go to Heaven when I died, and I prayed to see angels."
"And you have," they replied. "We are angels of death, creatures of the darkness. If you had only taken the souls of the children, you would have gone to Heaven. Now you must suffer our fate."
"Shadow people," I whispered to myself, recalling my childhood memory of them. Even though they had left, I always knew they were still waiting—waiting for me in the dark.
—Gary McMahon
Gary McMahon's short fiction has been reprinted in both The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror and The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. He is the British-Fantasy-Award-nominated author of the novels Hungry Hearts from Abaddon Books, Pretty Little Dead Things and Dead Bad Things from Angry Robot/Os
prey and The Concrete Grove trilogy from Solaris. You can find more at www.garymcmahon.com
—Road Flowers
By Gary McMahon
"Wow!" Tom's voice rose from the front seat of the Freelander, hanging uncertainly in the muggy air before floating out of the open side window. "That's a bit special."
Marge sat up and turned her head, staring out at the display that adorned the roadside. At first her eyes failed to take it all in, but slowly the finer details began to emerge and engaged her senses. It was indeed a bit special—there was no denying that fact. But it was also rather eerie.
A curved metal crash barrier wound along the blind curve of the road, and decorating this fiercely functional structure were literally hundreds of fresh flowers. Daisies. Lilies. Tulips. Fat-headed roses. It was an arresting sight, and the sheer sentimentality of the impromptu arrangement took Marge's breath away...until she realised what it was the floral tributes represented.
"Oh," she said, simply, bluntly.
"What's that, love? Something wrong?" Tom was nothing if he wasn't sensitive to her needs, especially these days. In the past, empathy had not been one of his stronger virtues, but now he paid more attention to her emotional state.
"It's just...well, you know. Those things—those flowers—have been put there to remember an accident. They're a tribute to someone who was killed on this stretch of road."
Silence. Darkness. Lights blinking in the distance: the peering eyes of twin headlamps as they emerged from the blackness ahead, watching from another vehicle somewhere up the road.
"I know. Sad, isn't it?"
Marge nodded, knowing that he could not see her. She repositioned herself on the wide back seat, feeling a dull ache driving into the base of her neck, right between the shoulder blades. She'd slept for at least a couple of hours; the last lingering scraps of daylight had still hung in the sky when she'd lain down to rest her eyes.
"You know what's funny?" asked Tom, glancing into the rearview mirror. He waited for her to prompt him, and when she failed to do so, he carried on anyway, in love with the sound of his own voice, the weight of his argument. "You never actually see anyone placing the posies at the kerb. They just seem to appear there, laced to road signs, leaning against barriers, scattered along the verge like lost children. And when they die, they're put out again."
The headlights far ahead of them had vanished; they must have been on the back of another vehicle, and the car or lorry had sped away from Marge and Tom, leaving them behind. Leaving them in the dark.
Marge twisted in her seat and looked out of the tinted rear window. The diminishing view of the flowers seemed to glow for a moment with phantom light, like the gases above a swamp; and then the light died, swallowed by all that darkness swarming down from the hills like a pack of hungry wolves. Marge thought she saw someone—remarkably thin, unusually flexible—bending down towards the flowers, perhaps adding to the arrangement. But the view did not last; it, too, was soon eaten up by the night.
She glanced over at two-year-old Heather, who was sleeping fitfully in the baby seat. The girl's eyes were still half-open, as if she were peeking at the world, but her head was tilted, her small pointed chin resting on one shoulder. Heather's mouth was agape; drool spilled in a thick swathe from between her slack lips.
Marge took a tissue from her blouse pocket and gently wiped her daughter's face. Then she kissed the sleeping toddler on the bridge of her freckled nose.
"I hope we find this place soon." She leaned forward, her hands going up and wrapping around Tom's thick neck. His flesh was warm to the touch, it stirred beneath her fingers; she could feel his pulse as it beat out a secret rhythm of life deep inside the sanctity of his muscular body.
"I'm sure it's just up ahead. We should see a sign pretty soon."
Summoned by Tom's words, a sign jerked up from the ground as if on springs: ROSEGRAVE 3 MILES.
Tom chuckled, his chest hitching; Marge felt strangely afraid, as if someone was playing games from which she'd been excluded for a reason she did not understand.
***
The streets were empty as they drove into the outskirts of the village. The green spaces held dark corners; all the houses and shops were doused in black. It felt to Marge that a heavy lethargy had enveloped the entire town, sending even the buildings into a deep and dreamless slumber. Her skull seemed to writhe and expand, as if filling with a soft and doughy matter, and an intense drowsiness slowed her thoughts and movements.
"The hotel's up here. I can see a sign." Tom guided the big vehicle through the narrow entrance and parked it close to the main doors—the better to carry little Heather inside without disturbing her.
White light pressed against the glass doors, trapped inside the foyer; thin stalks of people moved in lazy patterns beyond, like fat bluebottles held in a jar. Marge shook her head, felt cobwebs drift from her brow. Clarity remained just out of reach, but she managed to focus on the warm bed that waited for them indoors.
Tom carried their bags to the reception desk and registered while Marge struggled to release Heather from her seat; she cradled the youngster's head against her breastbone, acutely aware of the sharpness of bone beneath her moist skin. Heather murmured in her sleep: nothing but meaningless babble; somnambulistic babytalk.
"Thank you, we'll be fine." Tom was just finishing up at reception, and he dangled a key from his thumb and pointed towards the lift doors situated beneath a huge framed watercolour of familiar hills and a long straight stretch of road bereft of crash barriers.
Marge smiled and pressed the button to summon the lift. Hidden machinery hummed. The pretty receptionist whispered something that sounded like "Always, more of them come" and somebody laughed just before her heels clattered loudly and threateningly in the large open space of the lobby.
Marge looked sidelong at Tom, but he was concentrating intently on the lights of the control box, counting off the floors as the lift descended to meet them. He looked tired; it had been a long drive from London and despite having been born in Yorkshire, he was lost in the countryside in more ways than could be accounted for by mere geography. The hushed whisper of leaves and the shrill tone of birdsong were alien to his ears, like lyrics sung in a foreign tongue.
The lift arrived; the doors opened and inhaled them inside.
***
At first she thought she was truly waking, but then the certainty that she was still inside the confines of a dream coated her like a thin residue, a tacky nectar from a secluded grove situated somewhere outside her usual realm of experience.
When she opened her eyes, the room was filled with flowers. A sea of colour filled her vision. The smell of them invaded her nostrils, suddenly drowning out all other senses. It was dizzying in its intensity.
Flowers lined the walls, the ceiling, were lain waist-deep on the floor; they spilled onto the bed and gathered between her bare feet. The surface of this floral ocean soon began to writhe and undulate, and she became afraid of what might emerge from beneath the buds and blossoms and stems and petals. She did not want to see what was under there, concealed for now by the temporary beauty; the corruption that dwelled under the attractive façade...
The scrawny shapes of wasted bodies twisted and turned beneath their sheet of flora; faces formed of stamens, pollen sacs, and the dusty flesh of pulpy petals threatened to break through. Just before the figures sat up, announcing their presence, the flowers falling away like discarded suits of clothing, she opened her eyes again—
***
The next morning the sky was leaden; streaks and striations of grey decorated this sullen expanse and feathery clouds broke apart in wispy streamers, like bands of smoke from a chemical fire. They'd planned to go for a long walk, perhaps even follow a local nature trail, but the weather prohibited such activities, so they decided instead to explore the village centre.
As Tom picked up a few brochures from a stall in the lobby, Heather chuntering away like a scratched CD at his side, Marge
approached the front desk. There were no other guests in evidence, and the receptionist looked bored. It was a different member of staff from the one on duty last night; she was shorter, quite plain, and held an aura of sullenness.
"Can I help you?" The girl's voice was deep and intimidating in timbre, but once she smiled that surly manner evaporated and she looked keen to please.
"Yes. I was wondering about all those flowers on the main road into the village. Beside that crash barrier. Did someone lose their life there, in a road accident?"
The girl seemed unsure of how to answer: her brow furrowed, her eyes went dull, losing interest. "No, madam, Not that I know of."
Marge persisted: "But all those floral tributes, like a mat of flowers on the verge. Quite beautiful...and so very sad."
"I'm sorry, madam, but I really have no idea what you're talking about. There hasn't been a serious incident out here for ages. People tend to drive safely on the roads around the village. This is a small, quiet community; we look after each other." These last words were weighted with an intractable element of threat; they could easily have been meant as a warning.
Marge smiled, but the expression was nothing more than a weak mask. Was this girl deliberately deceiving her, or had she simply not been informed of the accident?
"I can check, if you'd like. It's easily done." The girl's mouth was hard, set in stone; her cheeks were rigid, the muscles there visible beneath the taut skin.
Nodding her head, Marge turned away. She was suddenly desperate to hold her daughter, to feel the warmth of her cheek and the heaviness of her body. The solidity of her presence.
***
The morning was a wash-out. The museum was little more than a small front room filled with badly painted portraits and sketches of local dignitaries, past and present. The Roman fort was a couple of old stones and a crooked plaque. The teashop was closed for refurbishment.