Horror Library, Volume 4

by Bentley Little

  (A six letter-word for encounter: impact.)

  She used to call herself Stone. I have to look twice, but no, she's not a figment of my imagination. She's dressed just well enough to go unnoticed. Long sleeves, high collar, no surprise there. She's brunette now, wearing gold-rimmed glasses she probably doesn't need. A gym bag and a coat over her arm. It's strange to see her shifting her own luggage; her assigned bodyguard usually did it for her. I remember him, vaguely. How she killed him is anyone's guess.

  She never told her clients her real name. I wanted to know, but most of us didn't. Her pimp said the alias came from the old saying, You can't get blood from a stone.

  Don't believe it: she bled like nobody's business.

  The ticket clerk wakes up as she says, "Hello?" A whiskey alto, never pitched higher than necessary, and always the first thing I recall about her. "I'd like a place on the next bus, please."

  "How far?"

  "End of the line."

  I could have guessed–Stone's heading for Andu. Where else? Me, too. There'll be a few stops before we get there, but most people headed that way tend to keep going. It's the end of the line in more ways than one; a good place for people who want to disappear. Not good for the faint-hearted, though—what gets you arrested here barely raises eyebrows in Andu.

  The only crime there is getting caught.

  Stone is the most frightening woman I've ever known. She'll do well, I'm sure. She always had a way about her: gracefully feral, treacherously kind. She left as many scars as she got, but deeper. I can still feel them all.

  They say you never forget your first love.

  ***

  I try not to stare, but fail. After all this time she's still horribly beautiful. But when she goes to the ladies' room I glance around.

  I like people-watching. A bus station is a good place for it any time. This late at night it's perfect. The wind's picking up; there's rain on the way. It's a fit night for leaving this life, one way or another. We won't all take the same route, of course.

  On the bench across from me a young woman shakes a half-dozen capsules from a bread bag and washes them down with Styrofoam-flavored coffee. She casts one cautious glance at the security guard, who's maybe the only unarmed person here, and ignores the rest of us. The businessman beside her is more modest. He opens his briefcase for cover, but a little coke still blows off his hand and dusts his leather shoes. Nobody cares.

  Or almost nobody. The young mother beside me hoists her baby closer and takes a firmer grip on her purse. The child is nursing. A carefully-arranged fold of blanket hides the act. I don't find it offensive, but for whatever reasons, some do. My mother once said she stopped nursing me because I wouldn't stop biting, but this woman doesn't have that problem. She seems content, if watchful. The baby's quiet.

  I've heard it said that a woman's breasts are the hardest pillow.

  They're not.

  A middle-aged man carries his bag-wrapped bottle off to a dim corner. I could be wrong about the middle-aged part, but the young aren't usually so discreet about indulging their appetites. Certainly not the boy at the snack machine, eating his fifth candy bar.

  I enjoy seeing people feed their cravings. The only one I indulge in public is a penchant for crossword puzzles. I love learning new words.

  Only one person knows what I hunger for in private. And Stone doesn't care.

  ***

  (A six-letter word meaning common occurrence: cliché.)

  Uninitiated young man, experienced older woman. How much older I don't know; to me, Stone seemed timeless. But naked she looked ancient.

  Her clothes rustle softly as she sits beside me now. I remember every seam of the body under them. I was far from her first. She had scars the first time I met her. She wore them like gold leaf.

  They were actually that expensive.

  I slide down the bench to make room. "Excuse me, you probably shouldn't leave your bag on the floor. Sometimes things go missing."

  She sets it between us. "All right. Thank you." There's no recognition in her brief smile. I didn't expect it. I was nothing to her but another serrated blade. But even those few words take me back. Stone speaks as if she's waiting to tell you a secret or trying to hold back laughter. She was always more courtesan than hustler.

  I've met other women who sold their bodies, but none with Stone's verve. Her clients sliced and sawed. They stapled and stitched. They ornamented her with teeth marks. Once I saw a woman take a bite out of her upper arm, chew, swallow, and smile.

  "Another satisfied consumer," Stone quipped as her surgeon patched the wound, and even he chuckled. Her indifference was charming.

  She had a patron skilled in trapunto, a craft usually practiced on fabric. Objects are inserted under folds of cloth to make patterns. Most tailors use cotton batting. This one used screws and roofing nails.

  "Lovely," Stone breathed. "Will I scar like that when you remove them?"

  She did. This refined creature beside me is adorned with puckers like white orchids.

  So many kinds of sex, and she accommodated them all. My favorite memory is of the night a client came in with a gang rape fantasy. Stone didn't have enough holes for everyone, so they cut a couple of new ones. She was blonde at the time. Redhead when they were done.

  (Whore is an active verb.)

  Stone in a bus station. I'd laugh, but I don't want to be noticed any more than she does. I can't resist a grin, though: a private joke between Stone and me. Very private, in fact, since she doesn't know I'm in on it. At one time kings sent private jets to fetch her. She plied her trade on yachts. Nobody would think to look for her here.

  But someone is looking. The police, maybe. Business associates. Her pimp would never release a money-maker like Stone unless she cut her way loose. Probably with a straight-razor; she always did like those. She'd have to vanish now even if she didn't want to.

  People with Stone's malady have a short life expectancy. For her, paranoia would be both habit and virtue.

  Somewhere she has money stashed. Cash, maybe; diamonds, certainly. We gave her hundreds of them. It would have been an insult to give her mere roses. She could live well on blackmail for the rest of what's left of her life; but you can't commit blackmail and go unseen. She has her escape planned too well for such risks to be necessary.

  The bus pulls in and a slow flutter of movement curls through the waiting room. Stone nods her thanks as I hold the door for her. As she passes I catch a whiff of mild soap, probably antibacterial.

  When the last passenger gets off, we board to find seats. And a terrible wonder occurs, a reminder of Stone's particular grace. She packs her bag in the overhead compartment while stepping out of the young mother's way, and doesn't notice when the door slips and drops hard on her fingers.

  She starts as I cover her hand with mine. "Please, sit down. You're hurt."

  "Oh, it's just a scratch."

  "May I sit here?"

  "Of course."

  I wrap my handkerchief around her hand as the bus fills. "You're going to have a bruise."

  "I'll be fine. It won't bother me."

  It would be rude of me to say, "I know."

  Stone feels no pain. Her pimp once tried to explain the syndrome that afflicts her. An insensibility to hot and cold, an inability to cry. I brushed him off. It was better not to know. We paid for the mystery.

  But a woman who'll sell her breasts to the highest bidder is a magnificent rarity.

  I still have them.

  ***

  Before tonight I was a highly visible man. Vice-president of a company that makes nutritional supplements. I know something about appetites.

  And about dropping out of sight when necessary.

  This is the last time I'll go missing. I'm ready for it—just weathered enough to look ordinary; grey enough to look proper; dressed well enough to go unnoticed. Anonymity has its privileges. The unnamed can dine at their leisure. They have a whole world of experience at their finge
rtips.

  I glance down at Stone's. They're starting to swell. It was really her hands I wanted back then, but they weren't for sale. Her hands and face were never touched during sex, allowing her to pass in the outside world. Intimacy was always followed by surgery, but even that had its appeal.

  (Seven-letter word for sex: variety.)

  Stone's breasts are as smooth now as the day I took them. Her only reaction to their loss was a slight wince at the sound of the electric carving knife.

  It was erotic as hell.

  You never forget your first time—the sighs, the anticipation, those first delicate drops of blood. I wanted it to last. I licked every crease and ridge, memorizing her ruined skin. My hands were actually trembling as I held her breasts, warm, soft.

  Oh, soft. The others could tell it was my first cut, but I didn't care.

  Stone didn't do private service, was never without a doctor and a bodyguard. It would have been like leaving the Star of India unprotected. Public sex isn't usually one of my kinks, but I was as indifferent to it then as Stone is to pain. And, it depends on the circumstances. I had a public persona to protect. That didn't stop me because no one in that particular audience could afford to talk.

  I've often felt the need for discretion since then.

  "I'm okay," she murmurs. She's caught me looking at her hands. "They don't hurt."

  "Good."

  "Are you meeting someone in Andu?" she asks politely. She knows. The last stop was an hour ago.

  "Yes. You?"

  "No, I'm just passing through."

  I've heard there are places on the other side of Andu, but you won't find them on any map and you'd have to be mad to go. Could be. I believe there's always something beyond the end of the line–and I've always known Stone was insane. But it's an elegant madness.

  I wasn't lying to her about meeting someone. I'm sure I will eventually. I'd hoped for a blonde at first, but now, after seeing Stone again, I believe I'd prefer wavy dark hair.

  No other woman has ever quite measured up to her. Some have lasted longer than others, but I've never found in another woman what I found in her. I've left quite a trail of broken hearts in the search, I admit. But still, a first love is just that: your first.

  ***

  The rain silvers the windows, turning them into mirrors. Everyone finds something to do; no one wants to look at themselves too closely.

  I start my second crossword. (Ten letters for witch: seductress.)

  (Five letters, to punish a sorceress: stone.)

  I saw her burned with cigarettes, hot steel, dripping wax. I watched needles pierce silky anatomy; soldering irons crinkle flesh like ugly snowflakes; pliers extract uncommon souvenirs. And not a cry from Stone, not a whimper or a sigh. Once, an exquisite, unrehearsed yawn. Her "Excuse me" drew applause.

  The man pulling her toenails was thrilled.

  Her pimp had rules, but not many, and none of them unreasonable—no extraction of internal organs, no marring of hands and face. They left us leeway. Only once did a client step out of line. He wanted her tongue, and drew his razor too quickly for the guard to react.

  His own tongue was flopping in Stone's fist before he could scream. He screamed afterward, of course, as her guard threw him out. I remember it was raining that night, too. I don't think I ever loved her more.

  He was stupid, trying to take more when Stone already allowed us so much. Some people never know when to quit.

  I know.

  I've traveled; I've indulged my cravings. I've collected enough treasures to create a physically perfect woman, if my talents included needlework. I've collected enough words to teach several languages. Perhaps in Andu I'll try both.

  Stone knows when to quit. Behind those new glasses her eyes live up to her name. If they're the windows of the soul, hers look in on a place I don't care to revisit.

  But there's no need. I've learned almost everything I ever wanted to know about her. No one asks a whore why she whores, but I don't need to.

  There's so little of her body left to identify her as human, much less female. She sold it for exorbitant sums. I'll bet the price of her breasts she got out of the life because she ran out of saleable parts. No one goes through that for new shoes.

  Stone's craving for money was born of hunger. Not long ago, curious, wondering if she could feel hunger—isn't it a kind of pain?—I did a few minutes' research. Yes, Stone can feel it—and I'm sure she did. She simply refused to give in.

  When faced with starvation, the body will consume itself rather than succumb. I believe at some time in her youth Stone went mad with hunger.

  But, I could say that of so many people.

  ***

  The driver says, "Andu in ten minutes."

  There's one more word I've always wanted to learn.

  I unwrap her hand. My handkerchief is flawlessly stained. "Not too bad. Maybe the bruise will fade quickly."

  "I'll be careful." I take down her gym bag as the bus pulls in. "Thanks for your help." She moves as if to shake hands, and stops in mid-reach. It's the only time I recall seeing her flustered. I'm enchanted.

  Boldly, I bow and brush my lips across her fingers, kissing them better. "It was a pleasure meeting you." I look her in the eye, and lie. "My name is Thomas."

  "My name is Jade."

  I let her exit first, out of courtesy and the urge not to be caught grinning. How could I not appreciate such a play on words? She vanishes into the rain like a ghost, this woman who taught me to love. This mystery who craves security more than affection.

  Who still didn't tell me her real name.

  (A four-letter word for whore: jade.)

  But it's still a beautiful stone.

  Nova Scotian writer Catherine MacLeod has published short fiction in On Spec, TaleBones, Black Static, and several anthologies, including The Living Dead 2 and the upcoming Tesseracts Fourteen. She shares a birthday with Bram Stoker, a fact which delights her to no end.

  She's always loved jade.

  —CAMPBELL'S POND

  by Brian Knight

  Lester was a fat, pale, pimply boy. Sixteen years old, and he had made only a few friends in his life.

  Girlfriends? None.

  As bad as things were for him at his old home in Missoula, city living had its advantages. He could always trade the hostile faces at his school or neighborhood for the merely indifferent ones a few blocks away where no one knew him.

  Then came Uncle Frank.

  Uncle, right.

  Uncle Frank was an Indian of no tribe in particular, at least none he'd admit to, and fancied himself a Medicine Man. His medicine was meth, and after Lester's mom was thoroughly hooked on the shit Frank cooked, their house had become his house.

  The arrangement had started with Frank crashing and eating there and Lester's Mom would get free product. But it wasn't long before Frank was living there full time, cooking his product and treating Lester's mom like a fuck doll.

  Then came the bust, which was good because it meant no more Uncle Frank, but bad because it meant no more Mom.

  Now Lester lived with his real uncle in Pierce, and his already troubled social life had taken a definite turn from bad to worse.

  Pierce was a speck of a town in the mountains of northern Idaho, and had nothing to interest him. No arcades, no music stores, no bookstores. . .even the closest Wal-Mart was almost a hundred miles away.

  What Pierce did have was a small grocery store, a bar, a single convenience store/gas station, another bar, a lodge with two dozen new cabins built in anticipation of Lewis & Clark Centennial tourists who never came, a sports shop (for hunting and fishing supplies) next to a third bar, and a small, rickety hotel, with a bar in the lobby.

  Pierce also had approximately five-hundred residents, almost half of them unemployed since the local plywood mill closed down, all of whom spent the bulk of their time drinking and getting into each other's business.

  His real uncle, not a Frank but a Larry, didn't h
ave cable TV, so Lester spent most of his time in his room reading and re-reading the same dog-eared books he'd brought with him.

  Lester had no friends in Pierce, which was nothing new, but in a small town there was no place to hide from the local kids, who had taken an instant dislike to him. Their favorite new sport was pounding Lester whenever they caught him outside, so he only went out at night if he could help it. His uncle was usually gone at night, his preferred haunt was the The Flame Bar and Grill, and he slept through most of the day, so Lester didn't have to spend much time with him.

  Sunday nights were the exception. By state law the bars stayed closed on Sunday, so after waking some time in the early afternoon, Lester's uncle spent the rest of the day sulking around the small house, yelling at anyone who called on the telephone, yelling at the evening news, and yelling at Lester to walk to the Mini-Mart and pick him up his beer.

  Uncle Larry had a special relationship with the woman at the Mini-Mart, one that prohibited him from going within a hundred yards of her. She was happy to break the 'no beer to minors' rule to keep Uncle Larry safely away from the Mini-Mart.

  These trips usually happened at twilight, so Lester would take a long route through cluttered, dusty alleys to avoid the town boys, and once at the little store he hurried to get out before one of them happened to stop by. This approach had been largely successful, much to his relief. He didn't want to know how Uncle Larry would react if someone stole his beer on the return trip.

  It was on one of these Sunday trips that Lester got the surprise of his life from a girlfriend of one of his most enthusiastic tormentors.

  ***

  "Having a party?" She stepped from behind the chip rack as Lester heaved a case of Keystone from the cooler.

  Lester closed his eyes and prepared for the worst. He knew that voice, everyone knew it. Every penis-equipped person in Pierce wondered what it would be like to hear it moan into their ear or shout his name in the height of ecstasy. It belonged to the hottest girl in town. The girl, Samantha Zenner, belonged to Rick Durham, the person Lester least liked to hear saying his name.