The Year's Best Horror Stories 22

by Karl Edward Wagner (Ed. )

  He still had the keys to the front door in one hand, along with his balled-up tie. “I knew you were drunk when I saw you with your socks on. Every fucking time, man. Socks, shorts, and shirt.”

  The man who was a twenty-seven-year beat copper dropped the gun to the ground. The hose sucked up part of his lime-green sport jacket, the one he wore for St. Patrick’s Day parties.

  “Fuck you swear me.” He thumped his chest like a cave man.

  “Snap out of it,” his son said, pulling off dog hairs. “Shit, I don’t want to start counting your phenobarbs every night again.”

  Sounding like his mother, the candy-ass. He tried to say, Go take one of your mother’s Valiums, that’s okay, but I can’t have one lousy beer. What came out of his mouth was something like a voice box dropped into a well of baby shit.

  “Gwa ma can lib.”

  Wobbled, weaved, kept himself in control.

  It was okay for his son to take drugs because it hurt his arms and his head to write the stories, but it was wrong for him to drink in order to face his own job. Working the projects since ’86, thirty murders a month in his district alone. His wife hiding all the beer in the cabinet with the window cleaner, he had to go out and drink quickie shots that no one could enjoy when he went to buy his lottery tickets.

  Let’s see Mr. Candy-ass live through a stroke.

  “Dad. C’mon.” Minimalist as possible.

  He pushed his son down again, the glare from the overhead light hurting his head.

  He swatted the maggot-shaped bulb away.

  Stumbled from the closet, tripped over his son and back to the real oblivion. No more Federal Street, no dreams or nightmares or sweaty pillows.

  Nothing.

  He had started to snap out of it, the scene swimming into focus, when the paramedics were standing over him in the dining room. Overhead candelabra-style lights on at three in the morning. Like a sunburst.

  “Tom. Tom.” They said it over and over, litanizing his name. By the time they had bundled him against the late October cold and bumped the stretcher down the front steps, one solitary neighbor watching because it was something to see, the policeman were aware.

  His eyes were scared and knowing.

  Later that night, the policeman’s son sat in the waiting room of Mercy Hospital. His wadded-up tie was still in his possession, a lucky charm of sorts, stuffed into a pocket. Which one, exactly, he wasn’t even sure.

  He watched “Zombies on Broadway” on the overhead Zenith television. WLS; Channel Seven’s Insomniac Theater. Couple of second string Abbot and Costello types bringing back one of Boris Karloff’s zuvembis to do a lounge act in Sheldon Leonard’s nightclub.

  He was there alone, would be alone until the doctors came in with news good or bad. He had lied to his dad about mother coming home; she had left her husband, as promised, after his second alcoholic relapse in 1988. It had been springtime then. His mother lived on the northside now.

  A full-time writer, the cop’s son had traveled around until his money ran low; his dad was more than willing to let him come back home. It was good to have somebody to clean up and cook.

  The movie would play for about eight minutes, cut away to a trailer card of spotlights over a pale blue Chicago skyline. Then he would endure three minutes of ads for G-rated phone sex—“Hi! I’m bored! Call me now at 1-900-Hot-Love”—and bankruptcy lawyers.

  Nobody ever seemed to proofread the trailers: once, at a friend’s place up north, he was watching “The Saint in New York.” The trailer card had eliminated the first word, making the movie sound like bastard Injun talk. Saint in New York. Ugh! He had pulled out his notepad then, adding apostrophes, and writing S’AINT IN NEW YORK, S’IN CHICAGO. Never wrote a story with that title yet, but maybe one day.

  The movie came back on, always with the volume lower than that of the commercials. A family of blacks entered the room, an entire entourage. Sons, daughters, aunts. From what he could pick up, they were waiting to hear if their male relative had survived three bullets in a gang drive-by shooting.

  Or ten bullets as an innocent bystander, the cops shooting him as he lay there on the corner of 42nd and Drexel, depending on one family member’s point of view.

  The son waited for the neurologist to come tell him whatever he had to tell about his father.

  He waited again, six months; another lapse of judgment, this one compounded by a pin stroke and dementia. Subtle signs of Parkinson’s Disease in a man not even sixty.

  He didn’t make his pension because of the new mayoral administration’s campaign promises.

  The writer and his ex-policeman father in Midland Nursing Home, Christmas Eve 1991. A woman in the room telling him, telling the writer, that she recognized his uniform. Taken aback momentarily, then realizing he was wearing a Bears jacket. Orange and blue. His father’s mouth gaped like a fish.

  Wanting water.

  The woman then told him that she was thirty-nine and her mother was forty-one. Another woman in the room kept up a chant in Polish, most likely swear words.

  The writer’s father wore a Posey gait belt now, so that the attendants could lift the bloated body from wheelchair to bed.

  He let his father look out the window, at suburban Fallon Ridge. An ozone horizon lit by used car lots and bars with Old Style signs swinging in the winter wind above their doorways, advertising carry-outs in bottles and cans.

  His father saw himself reflected in the window.

  Reflected in a bar window. Green and red Christmas lights, deck the halls. Division had transferred him to an easier district; the 8th, at 63rd and St. Louis. He was off-duty, at the bar down by the GTW tracks.

  And his candy-ass son was tending bar.

  “Here, pop. It’s on the house.” The writer, lighthearted. The woman whose mother was two years older than her again commented that she recognized the writer’s uniform. The other woman said dupa yash nothing head and blew an angry spit bubble.

  The water cups at the nursing home were a cross between jigger glasses and urine specimen cups; ridged plastic and opaque. The writer steadied his father’s hand by wrapping the Posey belt around his wrist, like a slice of gauze. By pulling on the belt, his father’s hand was raised to his mouth.

  “Okay, pop. Good job.”

  His father thinking on how he had always expected his son to end up doing something like this, working at a gas station or tending bar like he was now.

  Working at places where he could tell his stories.

  Stories that only drunk people would believe to be true.

  DAVID by Sean Doolittle

  I get the strangest things sent along with submissions and contracts, T.E.D. Klein sent me a photo of Bill Clinton and Al Gore in swimsuits. Sean Doolittle sent me a photo of a hand with “a really cool blister.” If I ever decide to resume my practice of psychiatry, I’ll know where to find patients.

  Doolittle is another of the younger group of authors who are beginning to find their voice; not too long ago, their voices were beginning to crack. Speaking for himself, Doolittle says: “I’ll be 23 on July 20. Born in Lincoln, 1971. I’ve sold fiction to anthologies Northern Frights 2, Young Blood, magazines including Cavalier, Deathrealm (obviously), Palace Corbie, Cyber-Psycho’s AOD, and a couple handfuls of other small press publications. I co-edited the short-lived magazine Vicious Circle, and am currently in the Master’s Degree program in creative writing at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.” Part of the vicious circle, Sallee’s story just before this is reprinted from Vicious Circle.

  David first saw him on the bus. Not the six-oh-five crosstown, that was just it. He’d gone straight to Nabob’s after work and had already come up with a table (fireside, of course, he would finally get the fireplace tonight of all nights) when Christina had called the restaurant, apologized a blue streak and scampered off to OR to clean up after the appendix-bomb that had gone off in some poor kid’s stomach twenty minutes earlier. Not having the spirit to engage in any real m
eaningful battle over a cab, David hopped aboard the seven-twenty, which was loading on the corner just as he left the restaurant.

  The guy was one seat up and across the aisle. He glanced back once early on, then again, a light in his smoky gray eyes that David recognized as a particular kind of uncertainty. I know you, I think. Do I know you? A youngish guy, maybe a little younger than David himself. Late twenties. Dark hair and soft features, a day’s worth of stubble, and besides looking only vaguely like the guy David had seen on a Grape Nuts commercial, completely unfamiliar. When he looked back the third time, David decided to give him the nod—that polite and general one that covers those situations where eye contact has been made with a stranger and something seems like it should be done. Then he unfolded the evening edition he’d grabbed from the machine outside Nabob’s and turned to the comics.

  The guy looked back again right around thirty-fourth and Warburton, started to stare.

  By the mid-fifties, it was time for another decision. Look up? He toyed briefly with the idea of screaming “What?” into the guy’s face, decided ultimately to give social cues another chance and stay with the comics. Try to look really engrossed. See, man? I’m reading. I’m reading so hard that I don’t even notice you.

  They pulled up to the stop, a six-block stroll from his apartment building, ten minutes later. The guy watched him all the way off the bus.

  Ike’s was on the corner, and after getting off the bus David looked at his watch, saw that it wasn’t even eight, and decided to duck in for a beer. It turned out to be Karaoke Nite inside, as luck would have it. He downed a Heineken and made it out just as a middle-aged couple in matching sweaters began bellering “Unchained Melody,” staring drunkenly into each others’ eyes and holding the mike between them.

  He was pressing the button at the crosswalk when a voice just behind him said, “Hi.” David turned and saw the Grape Nuts guy from the bus looking at him intently.

  “Hi,” he said, and realized he was pushing the button repeatedly. He made himself stop.

  The guy continued to watch him, saying nothing. David glanced at him again. He was wearing a sweater, fraying but bulky. Jeans. Sneakers. The night was cool enough that David could see vague tendrils of breath wisping from the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Do I know you?”

  The guy kept looking at him, expression pleasant, deep gray eyes revealing nothing. Just interest. David looked back and then, with a mental slap to the forehead, thought, Christ. I’m being picked up, here. He almost smiled.

  “I saw you on the bus.” The guy gave a small smile, as if in explanation.

  David just nodded, slowly. The way you nod to someone telling you about the poltergeist in their laundry room. “I ... yeah. I noticed that.”

  The guy nodded back and they just stood there, nodding at each other, two people who don’t share the same language giving each other directions.

  The light was what saved the moment. It turned, and David gave a final nod and started across the street. The guy came right along with him. When they hit the other curb and David turned right, heading up the walk in the direction of his apartment, the guy didn’t miss a stride.

  David gave a sigh of exasperation and stopped dead in his tracks. “Look, can I help you with something?”

  At last, the gray eyes filled with warmth. The guy took a step closer. “Kill me.”

  David felt his eyes fly open like window shades and he almost tripped backing up. “What?”

  The guy repeated what David had thought he’d heard. Soft and definite. “Kill me.”

  David began walking away very quickly. He kept one eye over his shoulder as he did. The guy jumped to catch up.

  “Get away from me, man.”

  “You can do it.”

  David walked on, increasing his pace. The guy, whose stride was shorter, had to work at it a little. But he kept up. They covered the next block, and David stopped again. He faced the guy and tried to make his voice calm and friendly.

  “Look. I’m sure you are a very nice person, but I’m seriously warning you, here. Get. The hell. Away from me.”

  The guy just blinked and kept staring with that maddeningly passive gaze. Well, I’d like to, really. But I can’t do that. How come? Because I’m a raving fucking psychotic, see?

  David shook his head and started on again, and when the guy stuck with him for another block he said, “Don’t make me break your goddamn nose, okay? Just leave.”

  The guy put a gentle hand on his shoulder. David shrugged it off like it was something with maggots.

  “Don’t break my nose. Break my spine. Kill me. You can.” He locked his gaze on hard, and the next time he said it he was whispering. “Kill me.”

  David heard sharp footsteps up the block, their echo clock-clocking in and out of the alleyway between Fritz’s and The Golden Carrot. Beat cop.

  Thank you, God.

  “Officer,” he shouted. “This man is bothering me.”

  The cop turned, cocked his head, and began walking in their direction. David felt himself cringe.

  Beautiful. How very damsel-in-distress of you, Dave.

  The cop strolled up, eyebrow suspiciously arched. At him. That was when David noticed the guy had gone.

  Again. Beautiful.

  “What’s that?” The cop looked to his right, then his left, all around them. A heavyhanded little piece of sarcasm, David thought, if ever there was one.

  “Nothing. Never mind. Thanks,” he said, and walked on quickly, feeling the cop watch him all the way to the next block before the hollow clock-clock started up again.

  David caught himself looking back every second or two, realized he was watching his back for the Grape Nuts guy.

  I’m sure somebody’ll kill you, sport, he thought, then prayed as he reached the front steps of his building at last that there would be aspirin. Weirdness gave him a headache.

  There were no aspirins, as if he couldn’t have guessed that, but there was a single, lonely Heineken in the fridge, which he uncapped and took with him to the shower. He cranked the thing onto Nearly Unbearable, closed the door and let the place fill with steam, stood under the spray, setting the head on massage and letting it bombard his forehead, the back of his neck. He stayed until the water began cooling in incremental shades.

  Worked, by God. And the beer hit the spot well enough that he decided to throw on jeans and a sweatshirt, hop down the block to Sammy’s for another six. Saturday tomorrow, and if he was forced to spend Friday night Christinaless, might as well assemble himself in front of the tube and buzz the evening happily away. He made it back in roughly eight minutes, had popcorn ready in ten, and plopped into the sofa group, with blankets and pillows, in twenty minutes flat.

  He had three dead soldiers and nothing but unpopped kernels in the bowl when he heard a key snick into the doorknob. Letterman was just getting underway.

  In a few moments, Christina dragged herself through the door and leaned back heavily against it. Her sandy hair was hanging into her eyes, and it looked like she could pack for a weekend in the bags under her eyes.

  “You look like hell,” he said.

  She smirked at him. “Your hair is thinning.”

  “Poor baby.” He patted the cushion next to him, held open the blankets. She batted her eyes in something like relief and left her coat and purse in a pile by the door. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and let her snuggle in. He smelled her hair, kissed the back of her head. “How’s the kid.”

  She yawned. “Still groggy, lucky for him. He’s gonna hurt.”

  “How’re you?”

  She craned her head around and kissed him. “Exhausted. Sorry about dinner.”

  “No sweat whatever. Beer?”

  She already had one open.

  He squeezed her. “I’m glad you came, babe.”

  Christina wiggled around to face him, wickedness dancing in her eyes. “I haven’t yet,” she said, kissing him ag
ain, “but I thought we could work on it.”

  David bugged his eyes at her in mock amazement. “I,” he said, “am shocked at you. You kissed your mother with that mouth?”

  And that was when he heard the bedroom door open and a small, sleep-drugged voice say, “David? Who are you talking to, hon?”

  David almost launched Christina into the coffee table as he scrambled out of the pit and wheeled around, hitting their freshly popped beers and vaguely hearing them empty into the carpet in glugs. Then he heard Christina gasp.

  Grape Nuts was ambling into the living room, hair mussed, eyes drowsy, scratching the side of his jaw and yawning. He was wearing David’s robe.

  “I’m Roy,” he said, blinking as if to clear the sleep from his eyes and coming around the couch toward Christina. “I don’t think we’ve met. David?”

  Christina’s lower jaw could not have drooped farther without dropping off into the carpet with a dull sort of thud.

  What the fuck?

  “How did you get in?” he roared. It was the first thing out of his mouth once he remembered how to make words.

  The guy winked at him slyly as he sauntered over, patted him on the crotch before David knew what was happening. “I almost asked you the same question earlier, big guy.” He looked back at Christina playfully.

  She was already heading for the door.

  “Jesus, Christina, wait!”

  She grabbed her things and opened the door.

  “Christina, this isn’t ...”

  “Look, David ...” she started, hands up, eyes wide and filled with something like horror, something like disgust. Then she was out. The door slammed.

  David whirled on the guy, whose face had become passive once again.

  “Kill me.”

  David went for the phone and dialed the police. By the time he’d botched it twice and then managed the first three numbers without missing, Grape Nuts was coming out of the bedroom once more, dressed. He gave David a last, long look and then left, closing the door softly behind him.

  David hung up the phone.