The Year's Best Horror Stories 1

by Richard Davis (Ed. )

  "No. But—she was a wealthy and influential woman. Had I refused, she could have ruined me."

  "Supposing," asks Duval slowly, "the child had been born malformed—would you have destroyed it?"

  "God! No!" cries Morney, shocked.

  Ah, such indignation! thinks Duval sadly. But what is the difference? Before or after birth—it was still a living child. It was still murder! But he does not say these things. He knows that Morney has divined his thoughts.

  "But why," asked Duval, "the pretence of birth?"

  "Without an heir, the Wellborn estate would have been forfeit to the government."

  "But there could have been other children!"

  "No. The abortion put paid to that."

  "And Lord Wellborn—how did you explain to him?"

  "A miscarriage."

  "And the false registration of birth—did he know of that?"

  "No. He died soon after the child . . . died. Lady Wellborn kept to the house until the time when the child would have been born. Then I registered the birth and helped in other ways to establish belief in her son's existence. I set up the management of the estate, then she closed the house and left for Tasmania, ostensibly taking the child with her."

  "So," says Duval grimly, "for thirty-four years she lived out a lie, on money that was not rightfully hers."

  "It was a penal law," protests Morney, "that left a childless widow penniless when her husband died! Morally, the money was hers, the estate hers!"

  "Morally?" Duval's mouth twists in an ironic smile.

  Morney takes his meaning. He sighs heavily. "She died," he says softly, "regretting it. I lived regretting it."

  Duval looks at him curiously. "Where did you live? As I remember, you yourself left the country soon after Lady Wellborn."

  Morney nods. "She paid me well for my services. I—put every penny into a Home for the malformed in—well, it doesn't matter where. It was a grim, lonely place, but I did what I could for them . . . a kind of atonement for—" he stumbles—"for murder."

  The word is out. It lies between them in heavy silence. Morney's grey face becomes greyer, older. Duval's heart twists with compassion for this man.

  "What's done is done!" he says briskly. "But it is not too late to do something about this impostor." He frowns. "How could he have known about the abortion, that there was no heir to the Wellborn estate? None but yourself and Lady Wellborn knew about it, yet immediately she died he took over the estate and entered politics—just as the real Wellborn would have done—if he had lived."

  Morney turns desperately towards him. "Tell me, Duval, have I—could I—have altered destiny? If the real Wellborn had been allowed to live—might things have been different? I mean . . . all those who were killed before birth because of this impostor's law . . . all those who were not even conceived—would these have known life—if I had let him live?"

  Duval hesitates, seeing the grey tortured face, the haunted eyes.

  He says: "I doubt it—I doubt it very much. You know as well as I do that it is a tradition with the Wellborns to ensure a good world—for their kind! Their family motto is 'Who cannot be well born shall not he born!' . . . and 'The unfit shall not conceive!' . . . and 'The useless shall die!' " He laughs, without humour, dryly, harshly. "The motto gets longer with each succeeding Wellborn. No—alive or dead—born or aborted—the Right Honourable Sir William Wellborn would have been true to the faith of his fathers!"

  He is quiet for a moment, appalled by his own words. He didn't really believe that. The laws of heredity were not that rigid. Men's souls were not necessarily patterns of the past, a man's spirit was not the blueprint of his ancestors. Maybe—who knows—if the real Wellborn had lived—so many would not have died!

  But he is glad that he has said it. Some of the greyness departs from Morney's face. The load has been lightened, the guilt does not cut so cruel, so deep.

  "What shall we do?" he asks.

  Duval's eyes hardened. "Tomorrow, in the height of his power, in his moment of triumph, we'll strike him down! By the time we've finished with him, he'll wish he'd never been born!" He hesitates, looks at Morney. "I will need you. Will you come?"

  "I will come," says Morney. "It is time—my time . . . and his!"

  "We can do this quietly, Morney. Not for his sake . . . but for yours."

  Morney's eyes are grateful with relief.

  Duval looks at the clock. "Stay here tonight. Tomorrow, we'll get to the House early . . . he's always there first. We'll face him with it. He'll get out of politics . . . and the country . . . faster than he came in! Once again, the Right Honourable Sir William Wellborn is due for a disappearance—and this time he won't be coming back!"

  He stands uncertainly beside his car. His legs tremble still. He decides to walk, give himself time to explain the inexplicable—for explanation there must be.

  His steps make lonely echoes on the night pavements. He casts no shadow, for the quiet streets are dark. He walks alone in a silent world . . . thinking . . . thinking . . .

  Gradually his heartbeat steadies in the crisp sweetness of the air, his legs feel part of him once more. He is almost himself again.

  He turns suddenly, and wonders why. He had heard nothing. He sees nothing. He walks on, angry with himself.

  He has reached a decision. Tomorrow, when the Bill was Law, he would take a holiday—it was all he needed. He was fit—always had been—as far back as he could remember . . . He frowns. There had been those periods when his memory played him up . . . and there had been dreams . . . disturbing dreams . . . Signs of strain, he could see that now. He should have heeded the warning. Well, he would now.

  Meanwhile . . . a good night's sleep . . . that's all he wanted to see him through the following day. His mind turns to Duval. Have to do something about that damned churchman! It would be tricky, for he had quite a following in high places—heaven, mostly! He grins delightedly at his joke. The old fool had been right though—euthanasia was his next move. And Duval would be one of the first to go!

  He walks on . . . thinking . . . planning . . .

  It felt good, the night—the clear air, the crisp lonely streets. Felt good to walk alone, as if he owned it all—the street, the houses, the people, the city. They were his, in a way. He had made them what they were, and many cities like this one. He had improved people's lives. And his influence was spreading, his laws, his ideas, were being adopted by other countries. There was more food, more work, more leisure, more room—because there were less people. It was the Wellborn answer—always had been. But it had taken him to get things this far.

  He breathes deeply, drinking in the night. Yes, it was good to be alive!

  He comes to a row of mean, tightly packed little houses. They would go soon, he'd see to that! At least his compulsory contraception law had considerably lessened overcrowding in this area, raised the general level of living. Take this place, for instance. It would be swarming with poor, underfed children—imbeciles some of them—uneducable most of them. Misfits, drains on the community.

  He draws level with the first house. Its grubby-curtained windows reflect dully in the cold starlight. He passes it . . . and the next . . . before the sound reaches him.

  A soft sighing, a low lamenting, riffles through the silence. He stops, listens, straining to catch it, so faint it is. As he listens, it loudens, rises in pitch, grows in volume, a collective cry of mourning, of human misery, of grief and despair. It strikes at his heart, chilling it, stopping it. Would no one hear it . . . waken . . . come out of their houses? Surely they must hear it—such wailing, such . . .

  He remembers suddenly that the houses are empty, their owners evicted months ago. A sullen, low-class group, all of them subject to the compulsory contraception laws which none had dared to break.

  A memory forces itself into his mind—something Duval had said in one of his diatribes. Something about Rachel . . . a voice . . .? 'A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and sweet mourning; R
achel bewailing her children and would not be comforted because they are not.' BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT!

  He moves away from the houses, striding swiftly, as if he would walk away from his thoughts, from the sound. He walks desperately, blindly, forcing his mind into blankness, until the row of houses is far behind him. But the sound follows—the moaning, the crying, the . . . lamentation . . . He is almost running now, running without thought, except one—to be home.

  He stops. The last wail has died away. Silence all about him. Deep silence. The streets are void. Blackness. Everywhere blackness.

  Then a sound.

  A footfall. Soft as a flake of snow upon snow. But he hears it clearly in the empty soundless night. He turns. No one.

  He urges on. Nearing home now. He sees the iron gates, his driveway, the distant light in the house porch.

  Again the sound. He turns. Something small, something grey . . . no, not grey . . . no colour at all, really. No form either. It was nothing! He reaches for the gates, opens them, slips inside. His feet scrunch on gravel—a heartening, homely sound. He begins to walk. Stops. Is stopped. A barrier before and around him. Nothing that he can see or feel or know. But it is there, as before. Like a steel trap.

  "Who is it? Who is it?" He calls out, but he cannot hear his voice—only the silence, sees only the blackness, the empty soundless blackness. He tastes the panic in his mouth, does desperate battle with it. He will keep calm, sane . . . he will!

  Suddenly the darkness is full of shadows—grey shadows . . . no . . . no colour at all, really . . . and no form that he can recognise. They are coming out at him from the blackness, a throng of moving, gliding nebulous shapes that are shadows, shadows that are shapes.

  Something detaches itself from the greyish mass . . . something small, very small . . . so very small.

  His heart beats in his dried up throat. Something speaks, yet does not speak. But he hears.

  "Come! Come! Come!"

  He thinks he is running, but he is not running. He is borne through dark streets like a rush of wind in the still air, past silent, sleeping houses, by the black waters of the river, in a scurry of time that has no part with time.

  A huge dark shape stabs the sky above him. He stands before the House. He is alone. All is darkness. Nothing but quiet darkness.

  He waits . . .

  And something that is very small moves in the darkness, and a voice that is not a voice says: "Come!" And he has no time for thought . . . no time for terror . . . no time . . .

  Now he has time for terror. He is aware of himself, of where he is. He stands within the House! How? How? How? And why?

  Pale moonlight shafts through the high windows. He looks about him, at the emptiness, the silence. Yet he is conscious of movement, of life . . . somewhere . . . all around him, close-packed in vast emptiness, filling every speck of space with life . . . crowding him . . . suffocating . . .

  He tries to fling himself to the floor, but a force unseen, unfelt, holds him upright.

  "Who are you? Why am I here?" he wants to shout, but he does not. Anger, pride, assert themselves, smothering his fear. He would not speak with ghosts, with non-existent things! He'd be damned if he would! But then . . . His fear returns. Might he not be damned if he didn't?

  Anger again overcomes him. That he, Sir William Wellborn, should even think of damnation and ghosts! He'd had dreams before. They passed. Morning brought its relief and release. Patience. This dream will pass. Like the others . . .

  Sound breaking silence. A voice . . . a familiar word: "Herod."

  He shouts then: "Let me see you! Let me see you!"

  Silence. An eternity of moment, then:—"You see us! You see us!" A clear voice, ringing, echoing . . . and another . . . and another . . . voice upon voice, from every part of the great House.

  His head spins this way . . . that way . . . up . . . down . . . around, as each voice takes up the cry: "You see us! You see us!"

  And he sees!

  His trembling hand goes to his forehead, as if he would brush this nightmare from his sleeping eyes. But his eyes do not sleep. They look . . . see . . .

  They hang suspended in air, like tiny curled clouds floating in a void. They drift lower, nearer . . . to him. They pass before him, above and behind him, until they are a cage about him. And he sees into the transparent, tiny curled clouds.

  Yet still his mind says: Wait! It will pass . . . fade away with the night. Soon be over . . . when morning comes!

  Then he hears the voice that is not a voice, that speaks yet does not speak, and it is as the sound of many whispers, saying: "These are the womb-dwellers, the unborn. These are they who were and are not, who lived, but had no chance to live! Look well on these who are slain in the womb!"

  "Slain in the womb! Slain in the womb!" The sound fills his ears, his head, as from the mass of clouds about him the phantom foetuses take up the cry. Then the voices cease. They drift away from him, melting into the shadows.

  Revulsion mingles with his terror as others take their place—tiny, grotesque parodies of human form that swirl in clouds around him.

  Again, the voice that is not a voice: "These are the malformed, the cripples, the idiots. These are the unfit, who wanted to live, but are not. Look well on these who wanted to live!"

  There is a violence upon him. "To live?" he mocks. "You're dead, you're dead, you're dead! You don't exist because you're not fit to live!"

  "Not fit to live! Not fit to live!" The wailing chills the anger in him. He stands, like a stone, waiting for it to cease, for them to pass.

  And, as before, in silence they fade, and the darkness is filled with larger shadows and from the mass something moves forward, stands before him. Light shines through it, yet it has shape—perfect human shape, full-grown—and it is beautiful and he cannot look upon it. Its voice, too, is beautiful, clear-toned, ringing: "We are the unconceived—who never were and will never be. Among us are the great ones, whom the world never knew and never will know. They are the world's lost heritage, her glory that never was and will not be. Among us too are the souls that wait to be conceived, but do not know if they await in vain."

  He laughs: high, cracked, desperate laughter. He cannot hear his laughter, and he is glad. That proves it is a dream! He would cheat them—yes, even in his dreams he could, would prove himself the master!

  "Wait then—wait forever!" he screams. "Wait for bodies that will never come, because I won't let them come! Mourn then for bodies lost, because I killed them—I, Herod . . ." He chokes. No, not Herod, he hadn't meant to say that . . . not even in a dream! "I, Wellborn, will go on preventing them, preventing you, from peopling our world! There'll be others never born—many others! This world is not for you! Not for the freaks, the idiots, the cripples, the fools! You can't come into it as you like, taking our food, our jobs, cramming our country, sharing our wealth, stealing our happiness! There's no room for you! No room, no room!"

  "No room, no room!" they chorus in echoing cry.

  He shouts above them lashing out in savage oratory: "Who cares what—or how many—great men may be lost!"

  "Who cares? Who cares?" they echo.

  "We have to take that chance—we take that chance—we will always take that chance!" Familiar words—words which formed some of his answers to Duval—Of course! All this was his doing!

  "Duval!" he cries. "He sent you, didn't he! Sent you into my dreams to torment me, to curse me, to cause me to waken sweating, trembling, conscience-stricken! Well, I'll waken all right—but not sweating, trembling, conscience-stricken! I'll waken tomorrow and come to this House, and you'll be gone, and I'll get my way and they'll pass my Law and there's nothing—nothing—that you or that meddling churchman can do about it! And it won't be a dream! When morning comes—you'll see, you'll see! My word stays, my Law stays—because I live! You don't! Do you hear me, ghosts of the unborn? YOU DON'T EXIST! YOU NEVER WERE! Just figures in my dream . . . ghosts in a living man's dream!"

  His
voice fades, trailing in the still air. He is alone. He is exultant. He had banished them from his dream—Dream? He had heard his own voice! He fights his panic. So what? One could actually talk—shout—in a dream, especially a vivid dream, such as this. Patience! he tells himself. All he had to do was wait until morning . . . wait until morning . . .

  The House lies hushed, empty, in the deep night. He waits for the dream to end, that he may drift in quiet sleep towards the inevitable dawn.

  Something in the shadows moves. He groans, shudders. The dream is not yet over. A voice calls out of the shadows: "You are nothing! You never were! Like us, you are nothing!"

  Ice grips his heart as he breathes in the cry.

  "One of us! One of us! One of us!"

  His head spins this way, that way, all around, as the clamour and the crying grows. He flings wide his arms, flaying the dark emptiness around him.

  "No! No! I am! I live! It is you who are nothing!"

  His voice thunders out, filling the House with its sound and its fury. Abruptly, the clamour and the crying ceases. Not an echo remains. He is alone. In silence. In darkness. Even the moon has bowed before the night.

  And the darkness and the nothingness move in upon him. He is seized by a mighty force that lifts and sweeps him upwards . . .

  He stands on the edge of the visitors' gallery, high above the House. Aware of himself and yet not aware, alive and yet not alive. He waits as if before Creation, when all was nothing and earth a void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

  Then moonlight trembles through the windows and they come and fill the House before him. Host upon host of them—shapes that are shadows, shadows that are shapes, formless yet having form. And the womb-clouds, transparent in moonlight, fill the air above them and hang, unmoving, in the stillness.

  Now he no longer sees them. For there is a wall around him—soft, yielding but impenetrable; a wall he has no desire to break or reach beyond, so safe is he in its warm and gentle bounds. A calmness dwells within him, and a peace, that has no part with sleep.

  And he is not ready for the tearing, rushing sound that breaks him from the soft warm darkness and rips him into terror.