The Best New Horror 2

by Ramsay Campbell

  When poised for an assault on a barricaded house or apartment, my heart is always in my mouth right before the door goes down. We never know what we’ll find inside. When the door gives and we rush in, I go dead cool. Instinct and training kick in and, one way or the other, it’s all over in a matter of minutes. Afterward, just like after a ballet performance, I experience an intensely gratifying rush of physical and emotional satisfaction we call the “afterburn” back in the squad room. It’s what drives me, makes me push myself to the very limit of my capabilities, what clouds my judgement at times, but always, always satisfies . . . for the moment.

  Zaluta says everyone is chasing the afterburn in one form or another, and I think he’s right.

  Sometimes I worry that I have some kind of weird attraction to brutality. Violence is integral to police work, of course, but not many people recognize the inherent self-inflicted violence of the ballet. Ballerinas look like fragile, fairy-like creatures who rest on satin pillows when not dancing—that’s the illusion. Pink satin toeshoes and opaque tights usually conceal feet that look like raw hamburger and ugly surgical scars criss-crossing sprung knees and ankles.

  Personally, I’m terrified of injuries and pain, but I keep running head-on at the possibility, nonetheless. I don’t know, maybe there’s something wrong with me. I’ve never been a particularly introspective woman, but after what happened last night . . . everything has changed. I’ve changed.

  I had just showered up and was busy stowing gear in my squad locker yesterday evening when the call came in. It’s unusual for an off team to get called back on duty since there are three other teams working on rotating shifts. When we arrived at the scene, it was already dark and cruelly cold as only a Detroit winter night can be. A large crowd of spectators had gathered across the street from a five story tenement building, brilliantly hideous against the black winter sky lit by rows of huge, smoking kleig lights. The crowd was clearly agitated, surging behind the phalanx of uniformed police officers who were having some difficulty keeping them in order.

  “They’ve got my Momma!” A young black man wearing a flimsy grey sweatshirt shouted, trying to break past the sawhorse barrier.

  An elderly woman shrieked, “Help me, God!” and collapsed in a faint, disappearing into the rippling sea of bodies.

  It struck me as odd that none of the people who had assembled across the street were behaving like the usual gawkers who always turn out for a barricade. Instead of the typical good-natured spectators looking for a little excitement, each appeared to have something personal at stake. Most of the women and a good number of the men were sobbing and moaning; none took their eyes from the floodlit building.

  I knew then that it was going to be bad. Very bad.

  When I heard Lieutenant Brophy summoning our squad for a briefing, I almost didn’t want to hear what was going on. Christ, I thought, just let me do my job and get out of here. Then, as I was turning to join my team, the crowd stopped their frantic milling and shoving all at once. It made my flesh creep the way they stood like zombies, faces pale and distorted as they stared up at the building.

  When I turned, I entered a waking nightmare.

  Wailing in terror, little Carmelita Esposito, my nightmare child, was being dangled three stories above the sidewalk by a wild-eyed man. There was no doubt in my mind that the man was her father, Ralph Esposito, the man I’d killed two years before.

  I went hot all over despite the frigid night wind. I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds, petrified.

  I might still be standing there if Zaluta hadn’t gripped my arm and started shouting, “Holy Jesus, Larkin! It’s the old woman I told you about! Mother of God, her head’s on backward and she’s still alive! Oh, Jesus!”

  I swung around and looked at Zaluta. His face was twisted in anguish as he watched the building. I shook his arm hard and he looked at me. I don’t know how long we stood holding onto each other, but when we turned our eyes back to the building, whatever it was we’d seen had vanished.

  All hell broke loose. The crowd behind us became a hysterical mob, screaming and pushing against the barriers, demanding that something be done. A two-way radio in a nearby squad car squawked something about assembly of a riot control unit. Curling clouds of frosty vapor rose before our faces as we breathed into the numbingly cold air, my own lungs pumping fast and heavy. A couple of teenage boys broke through the police barrier and made a run at the building, but were stopped and strong-armed back behind the line by one gigantic uniformed officer.

  “I don’t see any of the other assault teams around,” I remarked to Zaluta as we headed for the equipment truck to pick up our gear. “I thought we were all supposed to be out here.”

  “I overheard the Chief telling Brophy that the other units were getting in place and ready to go. They’re just waiting for a signal from the point team.”

  “Who’s on point?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’m glad it’s not us.”

  I nodded as we pulled on our armor. “I’d like to know what the hell’s going on. We’re hallucinating or something worse. I feel like I’m dreaming.”

  “I wish you were dreaming,” Zaluta said, hoisting his Heckler and Koch 9mm submachine gun, a real brute of a weapon that was just too heavy for me to handle. “If you were dreaming, we’d all be at home.”

  While we were adjusting our radio headsets, the rest of our team, Brophy, Parks and Channing, climbed into the back of the truck and joined us, their faces grim and pasty behind frosty crimson lips and noses.

  “This is the deal,” Lieutenant Brophy said, rubbing his hands together. “Something fucking weird is going on in that building.”

  Everyone snickered but Brophy, who cracked a sideways grin. Having successfully loosened us up, his mouth fell into a frown and his eyes narrowed. “Nobody knows what we’ve got in there. I guess I don’t have to tell you that whatever is happening, we’re all witnessing some pretty strange stuff.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Okay. Here’s the plan. Earl Cook’s unit is the point team. They’re going to make an assault in a few minutes. We’re last up, so we’re just here for backup. We won’t be called out unless the other teams fail to resolve this situation.”

  We all fell silent for a long moment.

  “Here’s what I know,” Brophy continued. “Around six this evening, the department started receiving frantic calls from a number of hysterical people, all claiming to have seen a different event occurring at this address. Four uniformed officers entered the building shortly after six-thirty. Evidently, they never came out.”

  Carefully adjusting the armor protecting his groin, Brophy said, “Let’s not bust our nuts worrying until we get a reconnaissance report from the point team, okay?” He looked up at me. “And you, Larkin, don’t bust whatever it is you got to bust.”

  We laughed and shook our heads, then slowly filed out of the truck. Parks went to get everyone some hot coffee, and the rest of us took positions behind the rows of squad cars parked in a semicircle in front of the building. Then we waited. And waited. The tension was bone-crushing. There was a lot of fidgeting, shifting, and dry-throated coughs.

  Behind us, the crowd rumbled like thunder, their collective growl a continual roar that rose and fell, punctuated by shrill cries and hoarse shouts. At the time, I considered that unruly throng as much of a threat to life and limb as the situation inside the building.

  As it turned out, I was very much mistaken.

  Then things started popping. The first team went in like gangbusters, detonating a number of small, grenade-shaped devices called Thunder Flashers that explode harmlessly, but mimic miniature atomic bombs. You can’t help but be disoriented momentarily, even when you know it’s coming. Under cover of this diversionary blitzkrieg, they entered the building.

  When the sound of the flash-bombs finally stopped reverberating in my ears, I could hear what was going on inside through the command radio hooked into the teams’ t
wo-way sets. There was gunfire mixed with the most gut-wrenching shrieks and screams I have ever heard, and which I suspect I’ll be hearing in my head for a long, long time. I clenched my fists so tightly my fingernails punctured my palms. Wedged in between the screams were a few frantic words that I could just barely make out:

  “. . . outta here!” one of them yelled in a high-pitched squeal.

  “. . . fuckin dogs! . . . No! . . . Jesus! . . .”

  The gunfire finally ceased, but the screams continued for at least another minute. Then there was a crackling silence.

  After that terrible pause, everyone starting talking at once, and Brophy had to shout us down to make himself heard. Once we quieted, he said simply, “Unit Two is preparing to enter,” and turned away.

  Whispering close to my ear, Zaluta said, “That was Kellerman screaming about dogs on the radio. He’s been scared shitless of dogs since a crack dealer holed up in a motel released a doberman on him a few years back.”

  We stared at each other. Everyone in the vicinity was experiencing his or her own private nightmare.

  “Are we being purposely manipulated? Is this even real?” I asked, hearing my voice becoming shrill.

  Zaluta shrugged his shoulders wearily and patted me on the arm. He was only in his late thirties, but he already looked like an old man. “I don’t know, Larkin. I don’t know.”

  The crowd was working itself into another frenzy when the second assault team silenced them by plunging into the building amid another round of booms and flashes.

  Again, the radio crackled with shouts and gunfire. But this time, when the chaos died down, one distinct voice rose out of the background hiss, a trembly but jubilant voice declaring victory.

  “I got the murdering bastard!” he cried. “I’m bringing him back alive, folks, so don’t blow my ass off when we come out. And send in the medics stat, people. We’ve got a slaughterhouse in here. Okay, hold your fire now, we’re exiting the building.”

  Hot relief swept over me. I spun around to face the building and began to cheer and clap with the others when two figures emerged.

  “It’s Delroy Stanton,” Parks said.

  The wild applause dwindled and died away slowly when it became apparent that something was amiss. Instead of driving a suspect at gunpoint, Stanton was dragging an inert, profusely bleeding man by the tattered collar of a midnight-blue shirt—an assault team shirt.

  The prisoner appeared to be a member of his own unit.

  “See?” Stanton shouted deliriously as a pair of medics rushed him and pulled away his prisoner. A group of officers, including Lieutenant Brophy, swarmed around him. His eyes were wild, rolling back to show white. “It’s the boogeyman!” He fell to his knees and started to sob. “Oh, God! It’s not even human!”

  Too quickly for anyone to stop him, Stanton raised his handgun and placed it in his mouth.

  “No!” Brophy shouted, charging at Stanton, hands stretching for the pistol.

  I squeezed my eyes shut a split-second before the crack of the gun discharging racketed into the night, echoing through the cold streets.

  Beside me, Zaluta moaned.

  Complete pandemonium ensued. The crowd behind the lines went berserk, shrieking and throwing empty bottles and other debris as the policemen fought to hold them back. In our own camp, professional decorum evaporated. Angry demands for full disclosure raced through our ranks. Two of us were known dead, twelve more lives were probably lost inside the building.

  A tenured officer named Detrick clambered atop a squad car with a bull horn and blared, “Assault teams three and four report to command post at once!”

  “That’s us,” Zaluta said.

  Following behind Zaluta, I was struck by the surreal quality of my perceptions. Even the shiny black heels of Zaluta’s boots flashing and ebbing as he walked ahead of me looked strange somehow. Brighter . . . more textured. Sounds lost their sharp edges and became rounded, hollow.

  When we arrived at the Command Post, a jerry-rigged open-air office on the far side of the police lines, Lieutenant Brophy and his Team Three counterpart were busy talking with the Chief and his people. Amidst the chattering department personnel was an odd little man dressed in a long black tunic covering tightly fitted black trousers. He stood solemnly, clutching a battered leather portfolio case to his narrow chest. As I stared at him, he swiveled his head and looked directly at me, pegging me to the spot with his luminous dark eyes.

  We surveyed each other for a long moment, until the spell was broken by the strident voice of Mel Anderson, a flashy, balding department spokesman whose job it was to deal with the media.

  “All right, people,” Anderson called out, waving his arms and making his storm jacket bunch up around his neck. “Let’s have some quiet! I have some information to pass along to you assault personnel, so listen up.”

  Lieutenant Brophy, standing behind Anderson, rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly, affirming his widely known dislike of the man we privately called “Captain Video”.

  “Now what we’ve got is this,” Anderson continued, referring to a yellow legal pad in his left hand. “Two officers confirmed casualties, twelve officers missing in action and an unknown number of tenants inside the building, condition unknown. Identity of suspect or suspects unconfirmed. Causative factors, unconfirmed.” He paused, delivering his patented Concerned Countenance, which I’d often seen him wear on the evening news. “We don’t know exactly what’s going on, so what we’ve done is bring in an expert on paranormal occurrences.”

  Putting his hands up to quell the rising buzz of indignant murmurs, he added, “Now, you all know that Homicide Division occasionally employs the services of psychics when they’ve hit a wall with their inquiries—”

  “Oh, come on, man!” someone shouted.

  “We ain’t no Ghostbusters!” someone else yelled.

  “Look!” Anderson said angrily, pointing a finger at us. “If any of you hotshots have the answer to what’s going on in that goddamned building, step right up!”

  Silence.

  “Fine,” he said, adjusting his tie. “Now shut up and listen.” He extended an arm toward the little man in the black tunic, who walked over and stood next to Anderson. “Mr Chase has graciously consented to lend his expertise to the department and to work with us on this case. And it is therefore expected that all personnel will treat Mr Chase with the utmost dignity and respect.” Turning a baleful eye toward us, he growled, “Is that understood?”

  This is getting too weird, I thought, thanking Channing as he handed me a styrofoam cup of bitter-smelling coffee.

  “I would like to speak to the young lady,” Chase said in a thin voice tinged with an rolling accent.

  Like everyone else, I started looking around for the alleged “young lady”, but when my eyes returned to the strange little man the department had brought in, I was surprised to find that he was pointing at me.

  I touched my chest and Mr Chase nodded. “Oh, Christ,” I said under my breath, gulping my coffee down in three swallows.

  Amid much hooting and laughter from the guys, I followed Mr Chase, Lieutenant Brophy and Mel Anderson to one of the squad cars and climbed into the back seat with Mr Chase.

  “This is Corporal Larkin,” Brophy said, twisting around in the front seat to face me. I noted the silent apology in his eyes. “What do you want with her?”

  “She is the only person I saw with the aptitude to remedy this unfortunate occurrence,” Mr Chase responded measuredly.

  “What do you mean, ‘aptitude’?” Anderson asked. “We’ve got plenty of men out there.”

  “My point exactly,” Chase said. “Corporal Larkin’s obvious aptitude, in this case, is her gender.”

  “Now, wait just a minute—” Brophy started, but was interrupted by Anderson.

  “Mr Chase,” Anderson said, “We need some answers here. We’re laying the department’s credibility on the line by inviting you into this matter, so if you can tell
us something, please be clear.”

  The little man nodded his head politely and cleared his throat. “It is my firm belief that this disturbance is being caused by a drude,” he announced. “‘Drude’ is an Old English expression for a nightmare fiend. According to most authorities, a young witch becomes a drude when she reaches the age of forty and then assumes the power to haunt any victim she chooses with terrible visions. Sometimes, this new power drives them mad, which is precisely what I believe has occurred here. And in order to put an end to her malicious activity, she must be destroyed. That is your answer, gentlemen.”

  He inclined his lips slightly, apparently amused by our dumbstruck expressions. He patted my forearm and added, “Males are powerless against drudes. You are therefore chosen, Corporal.”

  “Oh, this is nuts!” Brophy shouted. “Do you think I’m going to allow Larkin to go in there after two heavily armed squads have failed?”

  Anderson had just opened his mouth to respond when every single window in the barricaded building exploded outward with a terrible shattering sound and sprayed a hundred foot perimeter with glittering shards of broken glass.

  “Maybe we ought to hear Mr Chase out,” Anderson said.

  After we’d listened to Chase’s incredible plan, Brophy looked at me with tired eyes and said, “It’s up to you Larkin. It’s your ass—you call it. I’m telling you right now that I think it stinks, but like Anderson says, the Chief will overrule me on this one for sure.” He sneered at Anderson. “You guys will try anything to protect your public image, won’t you?”

  Anderson ignored him. “Our next best alternative is to send the two remaining squads anyway, Larkin. What if Mr Chase is right? All those lives . . .?”

  “Hey!” Brophy said, his face red with rage. He grabbed Anderson roughly by the collar.