He has to respond, though the smile feels as if his swollen lips are tugging at his hot stiff face. “Three and twenty,” the man at the lectern intones. “There’ll be plenty.”
Mark’s grandmother hunches over the table. He could think she’s trying to evade the phrase or the coos of delight it elicits from the rest of the players, but she’s marking the number on her card. She seems anxious to win, staying bent close to the card as the bingo caller consults the next ball. “Six and thirty,” he says, and a roguish grin twists the left side of his mouth. “Let’s get dirty.”
He pokes at the grin with a finger as if he wants to push the words back in, although they’ve raised appreciative squeals throughout the auditorium. The fleshy woman falls to her card so eagerly that every visible part of her wobbles. “That’ll do me,” she cries.
Presumably she means his suggestion, since she hasn’t completed her card. Mark sees his grandmother glance nervously at it and then stare at her own as though striving to conjure up a number. “Four and four,” the caller says and almost at once “There’s the door.”
The moustached woman rubs her upper lip so hard that Mark fancies he hears the hairs crackle. “Never mind that,” she tells the caller.
He blinks at her and stares around the hall. Mark feels more out of place than ever, as though he’s listening to jokes too old for him – beyond his comprehension, at any rate. The caller’s drooping face grows defiant as he identifies the next ball. “Ninety-five,” he says. “Leave alive.”
This brings no laughter, just a murmur that falls short of words. At least Mark’s grandmother has found the number on her card. She needs three more to win, and he’s surprised by how much he hopes she will. He puts the wish into his eyes as he gazes up at the stage. “Number fifty,” the caller says in a tone that seems almost as mechanical as the dispenser. “He’ll be nifty.”
“Aye,” several women respond, and the quivering woman gives Mark another wink.
“Eighty-one, nearly done.”
“That’s me,” the nodding woman agrees, bowing to her card as if the motion of her head has overtaken the rest of her.
Perhaps she means her age, since the irregular cross she makes doesn’t finish off the card. “Twenty-nine,” the caller says, keeping his eyes on the ball he’s raised between the fingertips of both hands. “See the sign.”
If the players do so, they keep quiet about it, not even greeting the number or bemoaning their luck. The caller displays the next ball like a magician and puts a finger to the edge of a grin that’s meant to appear mysterious. “Sixty-three,” he says. “Time to flee.”
The murmur this provokes is unamused, and he concentrates on the ball that rolls out of the dispenser. “Twenty-four,” he says. “Can’t do more.”
His gaze is drifting towards Mark when the fleshy woman emits a shriek that jabs deep into the boy’s ears. “We’re done,” she cries. “It’s mine.”
The caller shuts the globe and extends a hand. “Give us a look.”
As she mounts the steps to the stage a series of tremors passes through her body, starting at her veinous legs. Having checked her numbers against those that came up, the caller says “We’ve a winner.”
She snatches the card and plods back to the table, where Mark sees how the crosses resemble sketches of gravestones, at least until she turns the card the right way up. She lowers herself onto her creaking chair and says “I claim the special.”
The caller doesn’t look at her or anywhere near her. “It’s not time yet,” he tells whoever needs to hear.
While he leans on the lectern to say so he puts Mark in mind of a priest in a pulpit, though the comparison seems wrong in some way Mark doesn’t understand. He’s distracted by his grandmother, who lays down her pencil next to the card scattered with the kind of crosses all the women have been drawing. “I’ll do without my luck tonight,” she says and grasps his arm to help her stand up. “Time someone was at home.”
“Don’t be like that,” the fleshy woman says. “You can’t just go running off.”
“I won’t be running anywhere.” As Mark wonders whether that’s defiance or the painful truth his grandmother says “I’ll see you all another night.”
“See us now and see yourself.” The speaker nods so violently that her words grow jagged. “You’re still one of us.”
“I’m not arguing,” Mark’s grandmother says and grips his arm harder. “Come along now, Mark.”
He doesn’t know how many women murmur as she turns towards the exit. While he can’t make out their words, they sound unhappy if not worse, and all of them are closer than the exit. Nobody moves as long as he can see them, and he finds he would rather not look back. His grandmother has almost led him out, clutching his arm so tightly that it throbs, when the lanky woman who first greeted him plants a hand on her breast again. Though she could be expressing emotion, Mark has the unwelcome fancy that she’s about to bare the wizened breast to him. His grandmother hurries him past, and the doors to the foyer are lumbering shut behind them when a woman says “We aren’t done.”
Mark hopes she’s addressing the man on the stage – urging him to start the next game – but he hasn’t heard the caller by the time he and his grandmother emerge onto the steps. The street is deserted, and he suspects that the couples who followed him from the cinema are long gone. Outside the clubs the doormen keep their faces blank at the sight of him and his escort, who is leaning on him as much as leading him. She’s quiet until they reach the shops, where she mutters “I wish you hadn’t gone there tonight, Mark. We’re meant to be responsible for you.”
He feels guiltier than he understands. She says nothing more while they make their increasingly slow way home. She’s about to ring the doorbell with her free hand when Mark produces the key. “Isn’t he in?” she protests.
“He went to the pub.”
“Men,” she says so fiercely that Mark feels sentenced too. She slams the door by tottering against it and says “I think you should be in your bed.”
He could object that it isn’t his bedtime – that he doesn’t know what offence he’s committed – but perhaps he isn’t being punished, in which case he isn’t sure he wants to learn her reason for sending him to his room. He trudges up the narrow boxed-in stairs to the decidedly compact bathroom, where every item seems too close to him, not least the speckled mirror that frames his uneasy face. The toothpaste tastes harsher than usual, and he does his best to stay inaudible while spitting it into the sink. As he dodges into the smaller of the two front bedrooms he sees his grandmother sitting at the bottom of the stairs. He retreats under the quilt of the single bed against the wall beneath the meagre window and listens for his grandfather.
He doesn’t know how long he has kept his eyes shut by the time he hears the front door open below him. His grandmother starts to talk at once, and he strains to catch her words. “Did you send Mark to fetch me tonight?”
“I told him to stay clear,” Mark’s grandfather says not quite as low. “What did he see?”
“It isn’t what he saw, it’s what they did.”
“Are you still up to that old stuff ? Makes you all feel powerful, does it?”
“I’ll tell you one thing, Len – you don’t any more.” Just as righteously she says “I don’t remember you crying about it too much when it was your turn.”
“Well, it’s not now.”
“It shouldn’t be our house at all.” This sounds accusing, especially when she adds “If there’s any talking to be done you can do it.”
Apparently that’s all. Mark hears his grandparents labour up the stairs and take turns to make various noises in the bathroom that remind him how old they are. He finds himself wondering almost at random whether they’ll take him to the celebrations tomorrow on the town green; they have on other May Days. The prospect feels like a reward if not a compensation for some task. The door of the other front bedroom shuts, and he hears a series of creaks that mean his gran
dparents have taken to their bed.
For a while the night is almost quiet enough to let him drift into sleep, except that he feels as if the entire house is alert. He’s close to dozing when he hears a distant commotion. At first he thinks a doorman outside a club is shouting at someone, perhaps a bunch of drunks, since several people respond. There’s something odd about the voice and the responses too. Mark lifts his head from the lumpy pillow and strives to identify what he’s hearing, and then he realises his efforts are unnecessary. The voice and its companions are approaching through the town.
Mark does his best to think he’s misinterpreting what he hears. The voices sound uncomfortably close by the time he can’t mistake them. “Seventy-four,” the leader calls, and the ragged chorus answers “Knock on his door.” Mark is additionally disconcerted by recognising that the caller isn’t the man who was on the stage. However large and resonant it is, it’s a woman’s voice.
“Number ten,” it calls, and the chant responds “Find the men.” The chorus is nearly in unison now, and the performance puts Mark in mind of a priest and a congregation – some kind of ritual, at any rate. He kicks the quilt away and kneels on the yielding mattress to scrag the curtain and peer through the window. Even when he presses his cheek against the cold glass, all of the street that he can see is deserted. His breath swells up on the pane and shrinks as the first voice cries “Sweet thirteen” and the rest chant “While he’s green.”
They sound surer of themselves with every utterance, and they aren’t all that troubles Mark. Although he knows that the houses opposite are occupied, every window is dark and not a single curtain stirs. Is everyone afraid to look? Why are his grandparents silent? For a few of Mark’s breaths the nocturnal voices are too, but he can hear a muffled shuffling – the noise of a determined march. Then the caller announces “Pair of fives,” and as her followers chant “We’re the wives” the procession appears at the end of the road.
It’s led by the fleshy woman. As she advances up the middle of the street she’s followed by her moustached friend and the nodding one, and then their fellow players limp or trot or hobble in pairs around the corner. The orange glow of the streetlamp lends them a rusty tinge like an unnatural tan. Mark doesn’t need to count them to be certain that the parade includes everybody from the bingo hall except the man who was onstage and Mark’s grandmother. As his grip on the windowsill bruises his fingers the fleshy woman declares “Ninety-eight.”
She has a handful of bingo cards and is reading out the numbers. “We’re his fate,” the procession declares with enthusiasm, and Mark sees eyes glitter, not only with the streetlight. The moustached woman wipes her upper lip with a finger and thumb while her partner in the procession nods so eagerly that she looks in danger of succumbing to a fit. “Eighty-nine,” their leader intones as if she’s reading from a missal, and the parade almost as long as the street chants “He’ll be mine.”
They’re close enough for Mark to see the fleshy woman join in the response. He sees her quivering from head to foot with every step she takes towards him, and then his attention is caught by the lanky woman in the middle of the procession. She’s by no means alone in fumbling at a breast as though she’s impatient to give it the air. That’s among the reasons why Mark lets go of the curtain and the windowsill to huddle under the quilt. Once upon a time he might have believed this would hide him, but it doesn’t even shut out the voices below the window. “Twenty-four,” the caller shouts and joins in the chant of “Here’s the door.”
This is entirely too accurate for Mark’s liking. It’s the number of the house. As he hugs his knees with his clasped arms and grinds his spine against the wall he hears a muffled rumble close to him. Someone has opened the window of the next bedroom. Mark holds his breath until his grandfather shouts “Not here. Like Lottie says, you’ve been here once.”
“That was a long time ago, Len.” Mark can’t tell whether this is reminiscent or dismissive, but the tone doesn’t quite leave the fleshy woman’s voice as she says “It’s either you or him.”
After a pause the window rumbles shut, and Mark finds it hard to breathe. He hears footsteps padding down the stairs – whose, he doesn’t know – and the front door judders open. This is followed by an outburst of shuffling, first in the street and almost at once to some extent inside the house. As it begins to mount the stairs Mark hears the caller’s voice, though it’s little more than a whisper. “Number one,” she prompts, and a murmuring chorus responds “Let’s be mum.” Is it proposing a role to play or enjoining secrecy? Mark can’t judge, even when the procession sets about chanting in a whisper “Mum, mum, mum . . .” The repetition seems to fill the house, which feels too small for it, especially once the front door closes behind the last of the procession. The chorus can’t blot out the shuffling, which sounds like the restlessness of an impatient queue. All Mark can do is squeeze his eyes so tight that the darkness throbs in time with his pulse, and he manages not to look until he hears a door creep open.
THANA NIVEAU
The Curtain
THANA NIVEAU lives in the Victorian seaside town of Clevedon, Somerset, where she shares her life with fellow writer John Llewellyn Probert, in a Gothic library filled with arcane books and curiosities.
This is her third appearance in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror series. She is the author of the collection From Hell to Eternity, where “The Curtain” originally appeared. Other stories have been published or are forthcoming in Exotic Gothic 5, The Burning Circus, Sorcery and Sanctity: A Homage to Arthur Machen, Steampunk Cthulhu, Sword & Mythos, The 13 Ghosts of Christmas, Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane, Terror Tales of the Cotswolds, The Black Book of Horror (volumes 7, 8, 9 and 10), Death Rattles and Delicate Toxins.
“I started this story after my first experience of scuba diving,” explains the author, “but I wasn’t able to finish it until years later, when I’d been diving many more times. Shipwrecks are some of my favourite sites to dive. They have an unearthly beauty and I’m never able to shake the feeling that ghosts are watching me, touching me as I glide through the wreckage. There’s a sense of Lovecraftian awe without the cosmic terror.
“The Thistlegorm, resting in her watery grave at the bottom of the Red Sea, is one of the eeriest places I’ve ever been. Time stands still there, and you’re literally surrounded by history. You also hear strange things while diving. Fish nibbling on reefs, bubbles and your own breathing all conspire to make the experience even more otherworldly than it already is. Sometimes you even hear voices. I was sure I heard whispering on the Thistlegorm.
“As I was drifting through the holds of the ship, I imagined peering into one of the rooms and seeing rows of bodies just like the ones Martin sees. It wasn’t a frightening thought at all (which in itself is probably frightening), but it was so vivid it almost seemed like a vision. I had the sense that I had passed between worlds, that while I was there, I was a ghost myself.”
“MEET ME BY the pinnacle,” Martin said as he spat into his mask and rubbed the lenses. “And save me some beer.”
Carlos tossed his empty bottle into the floor of the boat and yawned. “Better whistle. I might be asleep.”
“Then you’d better wake up. I’m not swimming all the way back.”
Martin fitted his mask and looked out across the bay between Laberinto Island and the mainland. The water was unusually still and the early hour lent a sickly quality to the light. Or perhaps it was just the aftermath of the storm.
“Looks weird, doesn’t it?” Carlos said, as though reading his brother’s thoughts.
“Yeah. But maybe it always looks like that. I can’t remember the last time I watched the sun come up.”
Martin tested his regulator and tightened the straps on his fins. “Okay,” he said. “Fingers crossed for some nottoo-buried treasure. Want anything while I’m down there?”
“Bring me a mermaid,” Carlos murmured sleepily. “Preferably a blonde.”
Martin grinned. “See ya.” With that he rolled backwards into the water with a splash. The sea closed over his head and he became weightless as he slipped beneath the waves.
Martin pinched his nose through the mask and blew to equalise the pressure in his ears. A high squeee sound filled his skull as his ears popped and then he was alone with his breathing. Each deep sibilant inhalation was followed by a soft stream of bubbles as he released the breath. The bubbles rose like thousands of tiny balloons racing into the sky. Above him the boat was a vague oblong shadow belonging to a different world. Down here he was part of the silence.
Greenish cloudy water engulfed him as he descended. For two days the hurricane had sat just off the coast, churning the sea and damaging the reef. Then, like an angry god, it had swept across Laberinto Island, knocking aside anything in its path as it headed inland.
Although the island had been evacuated, the hardier residents had stayed put, refusing to be driven out by what was only the second storm of the season. Laberinto was their home and livelihood and they weren’t about to abandon either one to the elements or the looters who would follow. Let the tourists seek shelter on the mainland; the locals would take their chances, as they had year after year.
Martin had been in the water the day before the storm hit, fascinated by the curious behaviour of the fish that seemed to know something was coming. They darted erratically, oblivious to his presence. Wide-eyed gulping groupers drifted as if in a daze, ignoring the frantic smaller fish flitting all around them. Easy prey, ignored. A line of crabs saluted him from behind the waving fingers of an anemone, then disappeared so quickly Martin wondered if he’d even seen them at all.
Today only murky clouds of debris and pulverised coral drifted around the disfigured reef. The underwater world felt as deserted as the island.
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