The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories

by Stephen Jones

  “If you’re sure.”

  He nodded.

  Salinger watched her as she walked down the corridor to the kitchen, turning the lights on as she did. Jen and he were friends now, though there had been a time, back in their early twenties, when a more romantic friendship had come to an end and they’d drifted apart with some bad feelings. Jen had gone off to study medicine at the University of Western Australia, while he had been doomed to stay where they’d grown up, later to be trained more locally to join the police force.

  She had returned, still single, but by then Salinger had married Leslie and had started to build a family. Things had been awkward for a while, though they’d gotten over it and embraced a more platonic relationship, given time. Yet even after Leslie’s death, the romance had not returned.

  Sometimes he looked at her, though, and her familiar beauty, unaggressive intelligence and kind, altruistic nature would nudge him to pursue a more passionate intimacy. But he couldn’t do it. Something in him resisted. Something in him had died with Leslie and Nataly that day. He had survived the crash, but not intact.

  By the time Jen returned with a cup of tea, Salinger had managed to at least partially rebuild the wall he mentally constructed to keep the dark emotions contained. He didn’t want to forget the sorrows of his past, but he didn’t want to relive them on a daily basis either. Of course, the wall had holes in it and dark leakage would seep through eventually. Especially tonight.

  “You okay?” asked Jen, sinking into the nearest chair. “Nataly’s chair,” the dark wind hissed.

  “I guess the Halloween gag was a bit insensitive, eh?” she continued, with a sympathetic frown. “My bad. I forgot for a moment. Sorry.”

  He nodded and silently waved away the apology.

  Jen continued. “Doing Halloween seems to be on the rise—a bunch of kids were trick-or-treating along Lawson Street. I haven’t seen that before around here.”

  “Yeah. I noticed them earlier. They haven’t made it out this far, have they?”

  “Relax. They were heading back into town.” She paused. “Actually, Halloween has come to the morgue, too, as you suggested.”

  “What?”

  “That corpse you wanted me to look at… .”

  “What about it?”

  “It doesn’t make sense—and is positively creepy, even for me. Nothing about it is normal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her light hazel eyes had a strange intensity to them. “Just tell me where it came from. I noticed you didn’t write a report.”

  “I had a headache.”

  “Sure, but I need to know the details.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  He grumbled, but emptied the beer bottle into his mouth, got up to fetch another and returned to drop onto the sofa again. Jen scowled at him. “You’re drinking too much.”

  “Not enough, if you ask me,” he said, and downed another mouthful.

  “So are you going to tell me?”

  He gave her a rundown of the day’s events, leaving out the mine, Doogan’s fairy tales, and his own emotional reactions to it all—which, to be fair, were where the real issues lay. In the end, he could tell from the look on her face that she knew there was much more to it than that.

  “So what’s your problem?” he asked.

  “My problem,” she said in a serious tone, “is that it doesn’t make sense. From a forensic point of view, that corpse is a completely impossible anomaly. Some indicators suggest death occurred in the past few weeks, others that it is ancient. Was the corpse placed in a coffin immediately upon death? Perhaps, though from what you say there was no evidence of that—but even so, it’s not right. It shows no signs of having gone through the normal bloating stages nor has it decayed, except for some external patches. It has dried out and shrunk somewhat, but minimally—the shrinkage is what gives it the skeletal appearance. Likewise, there’s no sign of embalming of any kind. Other indicators—including the lack of moisture and active decay in its remaining flesh and skin—would suggest it was chemically embalmed or some other preservation method was used, though there’s no other sign of it. Has it been underground for decades? Even longer? Maybe. Probably. Yes and no. It’s all contradictory. I would have to guess it has not been exposed to bacteria or insects at all during that time, though once again, how could that be?”

  “It is pretty dry out here—and if it was originally buried deep in the bedrock—”

  “What’d you mean in the bedrock? You said it was more or less out in the open.”

  He had to back off. “Anyway, from the look of it, I thought it was more a job for an archeologist than us.”

  “I’d agree. But at the same time… .” She shrugged, then looked at him intently, her eyes pinning him to his seat. “Where did it really come from, Jim?”

  Salinger had been hoping the whole thing could be filed under “weird shit” and left at that. But of course, Jen was much less of an emotional coward than he was. Sighing, he gave in without fuss and told her about the mine in which the corpse had been entombed (according to Doogan), even the motive behind Doogan’s attempts to distance it from that location.

  “It’ll have to be investigated,” Jen said.

  “Why? What does it matter? The body has obviously been dead for longer than we could possibly investigate. Did you find any indication of cause of death? A knife wound maybe? Indented skull?”

  “Nothing. Closer investigation might reveal something. But there’s more to it—”

  “I’m for burying it again and forgetting about it.”

  “It could have considerable historic importance, Jim. There may be a lot more evidence to be found.”

  “Doogan says there’s nothing.”

  “How deeply has he investigated?”

  “I don’t know.” He took another swig and discovered the bottle was empty. “But I still don’t see why it matters. My gut tells me we should leave it alone.”

  Jen reached for her handbag and pulled out a sealed forensic specimen bag. “Did you notice this?” she said, holding it up. Inside the bag was the medallion he’d held for long enough to be overwhelmed by the bleak emotions that seemed to emanate from it. Once again he felt echoes of a distant, but profound despair. He took it from her grip.

  “Can you feel it?” he whispered staring intently at the object.

  “Feel what?”

  He looked into her eyes, but saw only curiosity.

  “Nothing. So, what about it?” he said.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s an ancient, very early Old Norse artifact—a Viking pendant or talisman of some kind. As far as I can tell, it’s genuine. If what Doogan told you is true, it might date from … God knows how long ago, well before Australia was visited by Captain Cook and even before either the Portuguese or Dutch stumbled upon the place—”

  “A Viking pendant? You mean the Vikings got to Australia first?”

  “Long after the Aboriginal People, of course, but ahead the others, yes. Could be. Various scholars have been speculating about the possibility for a good many years. And a team of archeologists from the University of Sydney recently excavated what seems to be a Viking settlement on the northern coast near Derby. Not too far from here, really. It dates from the eleventh century, they reckon.”

  “And this—” Salinger held up the medallion in its forensic bag. “This proves the dead man was a Viking?”

  “Maybe. Both that and the corpse will have to be subjected to a more sophisticated examination than I can manage. DNA tests, for one thing, but historical stuff, too. The pendant and its design for another. And I suspect what’s left of the man’s clothing will prove to be important, too. But I’m a pathologist, not a historian.”

  “Sure, though—”

  “God knows what’s still in the mine. And none of it can explain the contradictory state of the body.”

  Salinger gave her a tired, even despairing look, placing the artifact on the table
next to his chair.

  “You know, just to make things weirder,” Jen added, “I’m convinced that pendant was actually embedded into the surface layers of the dead man’s chest.”

  “What?”

  “There’s an indentation just over his heart, the exact size of the medallion. It fits into the skin and muscles there, right down to the ribcage, which was dented, with some cracking.”

  “Is that what killed him?”

  “I don’t think so. Looks like it settled into him over time, as though it was much heavier than it actually is. Another oddity. From what you told me, you would have pulled it out of the indent when—”

  “—I yanked on it.”

  “Yep. I think it may be some sort of magical charm, probably intended to keep the corpse from rising.”

  “Who the hell was this guy? What did he do to deserve this?”

  “We’ll probably never know. Something pretty bad, I’d guess, given the effort they went to. Incidentally, did I mention his heart is still there, not beating, of course, but neither decayed nor damaged?”

  “Surely that’s impossible.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying.” She shook her head, noticed that her red-tinged hair had come loose from the bun it had been forced into to accommodate her work-cap, and flicked it aside. “I think I might need a beer after all.”

  Salinger watched her stand.

  “Jen?” he said. “Am I right in remembering that you studied some ancient languages in uni?”

  “Only as an aside, as part of my undergrad work. Mostly Latin and Greek.”

  “Old Norse?”

  She shrugged, with a faraway look, as though remembering. “A short course on Old Norse sagas. A nice diversion from all the body-horror of forensic studies.”

  “So, do you know what ‘Einn Saman, Myrkvar Grímur’ means? Is it Old Norse?”

  A puzzled look spread over her face. “Well, normally I wouldn’t, but that’s a famous one. Yes, it’s Old Norse. It’s from The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise. It’s often quoted.”

  “So what’s it mean?”

  “Translates as ‘a man totally alone’ or ‘a man all alone,’ depending on which version you read. The whole sentence goes ‘Foolish he seems to me, who goes there, a man totally alone, through dark night.’” She shrugged. “Once upon a time, I knew the entire sequence. In Old Norse. Used it in a psych paper I wrote.”

  “I’m amazed you knew as much as you did.”

  “So where did you come across it? Been reading Nordic sagas in your spare time?”

  “Just something I heard on the radio. Go get your beer.”

  Salinger watched as she strode off into the kitchen. “Hey, bring me one, too, will you?”

  “Haven’t you had enough?” her voice echoed along the short corridor.

  “Define ‘enough.’”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Jen?”

  Salinger waited for a few minutes, but she neither replied nor reappeared.

  “Jen? What are you doing in there?”

  Again, no response. He looked down at the pendant, reached out against his better judgement, and picked it up. A strange chill settled over the room, the sort of feeling he had experienced earlier—a debilitating emptiness that nearly overpowered his ability to breath, to move. Unnerved, Salinger tried to cry out, to stand, to do anything. But it felt as though his legs were paralyzed and the room was collapsing inwards. Lights appeared to dim, threatening to flicker out completely. Shadows gathered around the walls.

  A movement sensed out of the corner of his eye made him jerk around. Two areas of darkness were forming as the gray shadows that were engulfing the room became denser, darker. Heart racing, he stared, trying to focus his eyes. The blurred patches of shadow gradually solidified. Took the form of human figures. Two women, one shorter than the other. They slid toward him and as they did, they clarified further, uncertain edges becoming clearer, features becoming three-dimensional. He recognized who they were.

  But it was impossible.

  “No,” he whispered, “You’re not here.”

  The taller of the two reached out to him.

  Don’t let it engulf you. He didn’t so much hear the words as feel them resonate, fully formed, in his mind. It’s all tricks. Only tricks. Don’t feed it.

  “I don’t know what you mean. You’re not real. This is all in my head.”

  Just don’t give it what it wants.

  “Leave me alone. Go! Please. I can’t believe you’re real.”

  A heavy pounding sound echoed through the house.

  Salinger blinked, startled, glanced toward the door where the pounding had come from, then looked back. The human shadows of Leslie and his daughter were gone.

  Another knock thudded into his head.

  Now what? he thought. Those trick-or-treating kids, I bet. Just what I need.

  Knock. Knock.

  “Get lost!” he yelled. The effort made the headache he hadn’t been able to shift flare up and pound against his temples.

  Knock. Knock.

  He cursed and staggered toward the door. Another heavy pounding vibrated through him as he reached for the doorknob. He paused, swore again, then finished the movement, gripping the knob and flinging open the door.

  “There’s nothing here for you lot—” he began.

  “Einn Saman, Myrkvar Grímur,” whispered a skeletal shape that stepped out of the darkness. Its withered hand moved toward him.

  Only then did Salinger realize what it was he was still holding in his left hand.

  “Einn Saman, Myrkvar Grímur.”

  He felt the empty spaces within expand to engulf him completely.

  “Was that someone at the door?” Jen said as she walked back into the lounge, carrying two beers. A strange haziness hung around the edges of the space, though the lighting was as strong as ever. When she looked to where she expected Salinger to be, she realized he wasn’t on the sofa where she’d left him only a few minutes before. A quick glance toward the open front door told her where he’d gone.

  He was lying sprawled there, unmoving.

  “Jim!” she cried, nearly dropping the bottles. She put them down on the nearest table with exaggerated care, and rushed toward him. “Jim! Are you all right?”

  He didn’t respond. She checked for a pulse and found one, though it was barely detectable. As she lowered his hand she realized he was still holding the forensic specimen bag that had contained the pendant. It was torn and empty, and she couldn’t find the artifact itself anywhere around him.

  She glanced out the open door into the darkness of the street, vaguely afraid of what might be there. But she saw nothing. Nothing unusual. No trick-or-treaters. No phantoms.

  She glanced back at her comatose friend. “Jim,” she whispered, “What did you do?”

  His eyes were open, staring into a world that lay far distant from this one, a dark world inhabited only by himself.

  “Jim, can you hear me?”

  No response. She felt for his heart, but if it was still beating, it was too weak for her to detect.

  Forcing her emotions aside, she closed the door. Then, feeling no safer, she fetched her phone to ring for help.

  BLEED

  RICHARD CHRISTIAN MATHESON

  Richard Christian Matheson is an author, screenwriter, and producer. He has created, written, and produced acclaimed television series, movies, and mini-series, including an adaptation of Stephen King’s Battleground, which won two Emmy Awards. He has had fifteen movies produced, and has worked with Steven Spielberg, Dean Koontz, Roger Corman, Tobe Hooper, and many others.

  Matheson’s dark, psychological stories have been collected in Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks, Dystopia, and Zoopraxis, and his work has been featured in more than one hundred anthologies, including many “Year’s Best” volumes. He is also the author of the suspense novel Created By and the Hollywood novella The Ritual of Illusion.

  Most recently, J
oe Dante directed Matheson’s “Mirari” for the anthology movie Nightmare Cinema. A professional drummer, he studied privately with Cream’s Ginger Baker and has two blues/rock albums forthcoming.

  About the following story, the author observes:

  “Children are always the first to suffer.

  “And Halloween is the perfect time to make them hurt.

  “It’s like giving candy to a baby.”

  I

  BIG MOON. LOUD wind.

  Pumpkins growl. Flames for brains.

  Mommy said trick-or-treaters will be here. I’m too sick to go out. Mommy says it’s the flu. My tummy is mad at me and wants to throw everything out.

  My Daddy is dead. One year.

  They put him in the ground and sent him away. Mommy said God has a subway down there. He waits till all the people in black leave.

  Then, the box revs like a car and leaves and keeps going until it gets to Heaven.

  When the children came tonight, I saw them from my window. They all had on costumes and I liked the astronaut best with silver skin and glass head. Then, I started to throw up. And the big tree outside scraped the house like it wanted it to bleed.

  I fell asleep.

  When I wake up, Mommy is next to me. Sitting on my bed. My tummy aches and burns. She smiles. Dabs blood from my mouth.

  “How was your first Halloween?” she asks.

  I smile and she strokes my forehead, tucks me in more.

  She is happier now. She was sad until she met the new man. I like when Mommy is happy.

  II

  “Good boy,” she says, turning off the light.

  My room is dark. It starts to rain and I close my eyes. I think about Daddy. I miss him. My stomach hurts more. I hear Mommy in the kitchen. She sings softly, making sure not to wake me. She is on the phone with the new man. They whisper.

  The apple Mommy gave me is on my plate. I could only eat half. Mommy says apples are good for me. Says candy wrecks my teeth. Says Daddy always ate apples. But it feels like something is cutting me inside.