The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

by Jeff Vandermeer; Ann Vandermeer

  Then he was awake again. The light was on once more, and Maybury supposed that he had been awakened deliberately, because Bannard was standing there by his bed. Where and how had he found a new light bulb? Perhaps he kept a supply in a drawer. This seemed so likely that Maybury thought no more of the matter.

  It was very odd, however, in another way also.

  When Maybury had been at school, he had sometimes found difficulty in distinguishing certain boys from certain other boys. It had been a very large school, and boys do often look alike. None the less, it was a situation that Maybury thought best to keep to himself, at the time and since. He had occasionally made responses or approaches based upon misidentifications: but had been fortunate in never being made to suffer for it bodily, even though he had suffered much in his self-regard.

  And now it was the same. Was the man standing there really Bannard? One obvious thing was that Bannard had an aureole or fringe of red hair, whereas this man’s fringe was quite grey. There was also a different expression and general look, but Maybury was more likely to have been mistaken about that. The pyjamas seemed to be the same, but that meant little.

  ‘I was just wondering if you’d care to talk for a bit,’ said Bannard. One had to assume that Bannard it was; at least to start off with. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you up. I was just making sure.’

  ‘That’s all right, I suppose,’ said Maybury.

  ‘I’m over my first beauty sleep,’ said Bannard. ‘It can be lonely during the night.’ Under all the circumstances it was a distinctly absurd remark, but undoubtedly it was in Bannard’s idiom.

  ‘What was all that screaming?’ enquired Maybury.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Bannard. ‘I suppose I slept through it. But I can imagine. We soon learn to take no notice. There are sleepwalkers for that matter, from time to time.’

  ‘I suppose that’s why the bedroom doors are so hard to open?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ said Bannard, but he then added. ‘Well, partly, perhaps. Yes, partly. I think so. But it’s just a knack really. We’re not actually locked in, you know.’ He giggled. ‘But what makes you ask? You don’t need to leave the room in order to go to the loo. I showed you, old man.’

  So it really must be Bannard, even though his eyes seemed to be a different shape, and even a different colour, as the hard light caught them when he laughed.

  ‘I expect I was sleepwalking myself,’ said Maybury warily.

  ‘There’s no need to get the wind up,’ said Bannard, ‘like a kid at a new school. All that goes on here is based on the simplest of natural principles: eating good food regularly, sleeping long hours, not taxing the overworked brain. The food is particularly important. You just wait for breakfast, old man, and see what you get. The most tremendous spread, I promise you.’

  ‘How do you manage to eat it all?’ asked Maybury. ‘Dinner alone was too much for me.’

  ‘We simply let Nature have its way. Or rather, perhaps, her way. We give Nature her head.’

  ‘But it’s not natural to eat so much.’

  ‘That’s all you know,’ said Bannard. ‘What you are, old man, is effete.’ He giggled as Bannard had giggled, but he looked somehow unlike Maybury’s recollection of Bannard. Maybury was almost certain there was some decisive difference.

  The room still smelt of the woman’s perfume; or perhaps it was largely Bannard who smelt of it, Bannard who now stood so close to Maybury. It was embarrassing that Bannard, if he really had to rise from his bed and wake Maybury up, did not sit down; though preferably not on Maybury’s blanket.

  ‘I’m not saying there’s no suffering here,’ continued Bannard. ‘But where in the world are you exempt from suffering? At least no one rots away in some attic – or wretched bed-sitter, more likely. Here there are no single rooms. We all help one another. What can you and I do for one another, old man?’

  He took a step nearer and bent slightly over Maybury’s face. His pyjamas really reeked of perfume.

  It was essential to be rid of him; but essential to do it uncontentiously. The prospect should accept the representative’s point of view as far as possible unawares.

  ‘Perhaps we could talk for just five or ten minutes more,’ said Maybury, ‘and then I should like to go to sleep again, if you will excuse me. I ought to explain that I slept very little last night owing to my wife’s illness.’

  ‘Is your wife pretty?’ asked Bannard. ‘Really pretty? With this and that?’ He made a couple of gestures, quite conventional though not aforetime seen in drawing rooms.

  ‘Of course she is,’ said Maybury. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Does she really turn you on? Make you lose control of yourself?’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Maybury. He tried to smile, to show he had a sense of humour which could help him to cope with tasteless questions.

  Bannard now not merely sat on Maybury’s bed, but pushed his frame against Maybury’s legs, which there was not much room to withdraw, owing to the tightness of the blanket, as Bannard sat on it.

  ‘Tell us about it,’ said Bannard. ‘Tell us exactly what it’s like to be a married man. Has it changed your whole life? Transformed everything?’

  ‘Not exactly. In any case, I married years ago.’

  ‘So now there is someone else. I understand.’

  ‘No, actually there is not.’

  ‘Love’s old sweet song still sings to you?’

  ‘If you like to put it like that, yes. I love my wife.

  Besides she’s ill. And we have a son. There’s him to consider too.’

  ‘How old is your son?’

  ‘Nearly sixteen.’

  ‘What colour are his hair and eyes?’

  ‘Really, I’m not sure. No particular colour. He’s not a baby, you know.’

  ‘Are his hands still soft?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Do you love your son, then?’

  ‘In his own way, yes, of course.’

  ‘I should love him, were he mine, and my wife too.’ It seemed to Maybury that Bannard said it with real sentiment. What was more, he looked at least twice as sad as when Maybury had first seen him: twice as old, and twice as sad. It was all ludicrous, and Maybury at last felt really tired, despite the lump of Bannard looming over him, and looking different.

  ‘Time’s up for me,’ said Maybury. ‘I’m sorry. Do you mind if we go to sleep again?’

  Bannard rose at once to his feet, turned his back on Maybury’s corner, and went to his bed without a word, thus causing further embarrassment.

  It was again left to Maybury to turn out the light, and to shove his way back to bed through the blackness.

  Bannard had left more than a waft of the perfume behind him; which perhaps helped Maybury to sleep once more almost immediately, despite all things.

  Could the absurd conversation with Bannard have been a dream? Certainly what happened next was a dream: for there was Angela in her night-dress with her hands on her poor head, crying out ‘Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!’ Maybury could not but comply, and in Angela’s place, there was the boy, Vincent, with early morning tea for him. Perforce the light was on once more: but that was not a matter to be gone into.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Maybury.’

  ‘Good morning, Vincent.’

  Bannard already had his tea.

  Each of them had a pot, a cup, jugs of milk and hot water, and a plate of bread and butter, all set on a tray. There were eight large triangular slices each.

  ‘No sugar,’ cried out Bannard genially. ‘Sugar kills appetite.’

  Perfect rubbish, Maybury reflected; and squinted across at Bannard, recollecting his last rubbishy conversation. By the light of morning, even if it were but the same electric light, Bannard looked much more himself, fluffy red aureole and all. He looked quite rested. He munched away at his bread and butter. Maybury thought it best to go through the motions of following suit. From over there Bannard could hardly see the details.

>   ‘Race you to the bathroom, old man,’ Bannard cried out.

  ‘Please go first,’ responded Maybury soberly. As he had no means of conveying the bread and butter off the premises, he hoped, with the aid of the towel, to conceal it in his skimpy pyjamas jacket, and push it down the water closet. Even Bannard would probably not attempt to throw his arms round him and so uncover the offence.

  Down in the lounge, there they all were, with Falkner presiding indefinably but genially. Wan though authentic sunlight trickled in from the outer world, but Maybury observed that the front door was still bolted and chained. It was the first thing he looked for. Universal expectation was detectable: of breakfast, Maybury assumed. Bannard, at all times shrimpish, was simply lost in the throng. Cécile he could not see, but he made a point of not looking very hard. In any case, several of the people looked new, or at least different. Possibly it was a further example of the phenomenon Maybury had encountered with Bannard.

  Falkner crossed to him at once: the recalcitrant but still privileged outsider. ‘I can promise you a good breakfast, Mr Maybury,’ he said confidentially. ‘Lentils. Fresh fish. Rump steak. Apple pie made by ourselves, with lots and lots of cream.’

  ‘I mustn’t stay for it,’ said Maybury. ‘I simply mustn’t. I have my living to earn. I must go at once.’

  He was quite prepared to walk a couple of miles; indeed, all set for it. The automobile organisation, which had given him the route from which he should never have diverged, could recover his car. They had done it for him before, several times.

  A faint shadow passed over Falkner’s face, but he merely said in a low voice, ‘If you really insist, Mr Maybury–’

  ‘I’m afraid I have to,’ said Maybury.

  ‘Then I’ll have a word with you in a moment.’

  None of the others seemed to concern themselves. Soon they all filed off, talking quietly among themselves, or, in many cases, saying nothing.

  ‘Mr Maybury,’ said Falkner, ‘you can respect a confidence?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maybury steadily.

  ‘There was an incident here last night. A death. We do not talk about such things. Our guests do not expect it.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Maybury.

  ‘Such things still upset me,’ said Falkner. ‘None the less I must not think about that. My immediate task is to dispose of the body. While the guests are preoccupied. To spare them all knowledge, all pain.’

  ‘How is that to be done?’ enquired Maybury.

  ‘In the usual manner, Mr Maybury. The hearse is drawing up outside the door even as we speak. Where you are concerned, the point is this. If you wish for what in other circumstances I could call a lift, I could arrange for you to join the vehicle. It is travelling quite a distance. We find that best.’ Falkner was progressively unfastening the front door. ‘It seems the best solution, don’t you think, Mr Maybury? At least it is the best I can offer. Though you will not be able to thank Mr Bannard, of course.’

  A coffin was already coming down the stairs, borne on the shoulders of four men in black, with Vincent, in his white jacket, coming first, in order to leave no doubt of the way and to prevent any loss of time.

  ‘I agree,’ said Maybury. ‘I accept. Perhaps you would let me know my bill for dinner?’

  ‘I shall waive that too, Mr Maybury,’ replied Falkner, ‘in the present circumstances. We have a duty to hasten. We have others to think of. I shall simply say how glad we have all been to have you with us.’ He held out his hand. ‘Good-bye, Mr Maybury.’

  Maybury was compelled to travel with the coffin itself, because there simply was not room for him on the front seat, where a director of the firm, a corpulent man, had to be accommodated with the driver. The nearness of death compelled a respectful silence among the company in the rear compartment, especially when a living stranger was in the midst; and Maybury alighted unobtrusively when a bus stop was reached. One of the undertaker’s men said that he should not have to wait long.

  It Only Comes Out at Night

  Dennis Etchison

  Dennis Etchison (1943–) is an American writer and editor of fantasy and horror fiction. His novels include Darkside (1986), Shadowman (1994), and California Gothic (1995). Etchison’s stunning short stories have been especially well-regarded by critics and genre fans, receiving the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award. Stories like ‘It Only Comes Out at Night’ (1976) demonstrate the effectiveness of Etchison’s minimalist approach – naturalistic but still undeniably strange, unease becoming horrific sometimes in the span of a single paragraph. Etchison helped influence and shape the US horror boom of the early 1990s, while remaining sui generis.

  If you leave L.A. by way of San Bernardino, headed for Route 66 and points east you must cross the Mojave Desert.

  Even after Needles and the border, however, there is no relief; the dry air only thins further as the long, relentless climb continues in earnest. Flagstaff is still almost two hundred miles, and Winslow, Gallup and Albuquerque are too many hours away to think of making without food, rest and, mercifully, sleep.

  It is like this: the car runs hot, hotter than it ever has before, the plies of the tires expand and contract until the sidewalls begin to shimmy slightly as they spin on over the miserable Arizona roads, giving up a faint odor like burning hair from between the treads, as the windshield colors over with essence of honeybee, wasp, dragonfly, mayfly, June bug, ladybug, and the like, and the radiator, clotted with the bodies of countless kamikaze insects, hisses like a moribund lizard in the sun…

  All of which means, of course, that if you are traveling that way between May and September, you move by night.

  Only by night.

  For there are, after all, dawn check-in motels, Do Not Disturb signs for bungalow doorknobs; there are diners for mid-afternoon breakfasts, coffee by the carton; there are twenty-four-hour filling stations bright as dreams Whiting Brothers, Conoco, Terrible Herbst – their flags are unfamiliar as their names, with ice machines, soda machines, candy machines; and there are the sudden, unexpected Rest Areas, just off the highway, with brick bathrooms and showers and electrical outlets, constructed especially for those who are weary, out of money, behind schedule…

  So McClay had had to learn, the hard way.

  He slid his hands to the bottom of the steering wheel and peered ahead into the darkness, trying to relax. But the wheel stuck to his fingers like warm candy. Off somewhere to his left, the horizon flickered with pearly luminescence, then faded again to black. This time he did not bother to look. Sometimes, though, he wondered just how far way the lightning was striking; not once during the night had the sound of its thunder reached him here in the car.

  In the back seat, his wife moaned.

  The trip out had turned all but unbearable for her. Four days it had taken, instead of the expected two-and-a-half; he made a great effort not to think of it, but the memory hung over the car like a thunderhead.

  It had been a blur, a fever dream. Once, on the second day, he had been passed by a churning bus, its silver sides blinding him until he noticed a Mexican woman in one of the window seats. She was not looking at him. She was holding a swooning infant to the glass, squeezing water onto its head from a plastic baby bottle to keep it from passing out.

  McClay sighed and fingered the buttons on the car radio.

  He knew he would get nothing from the AM or FM bands, not out here, but he clicked it on anyway. He left the volume and tone controls down, so as not to wake Evvie. Then he punched the seldom-used middle button, the shortwave band, and raised the gain carefully until he could barely hear the radio over the hum of the tires.

  Static.

  Slowly he swept the tuner across the bandwidth, but there was only white noise. It reminded him a little of the summer rain yesterday, starting back, the way it had sounded bouncing off the windows.

  He was about to give up when he caught a voice, crackling, drifting in and out. He worked the knob like a safecracker, z
eroing in on the signal.

  A few bars of music. A tone, then the voice again. ‘…Greenwich Mean Time.’ Then the station ID.

  It was the Voice of America overseas broadcast.

  He grunted disconsolately and killed it.

  His wife stirred.

  ‘Why’d you turn it off?’ she murmured. ‘I was listening to that. Good. Program.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ he said, ‘easy, you’re still asleep. We’ll be stopping soon.’

  ‘…Only comes out at night,’ he heard her say, and then she was lost again in the blankets.

  He pressed the glove compartment, took out one of the Automobile Club guides. It was already clipped open. McClay flipped on the overhead light and drove with one hand, reading over – for the hundredth time? – the list of motels that lay ahead. He knew the list by heart, but seeing the names again reassured him somehow. Besides, it helped to break the monotony.

  It was the kind of place you never expect to find in the middle of a long night, a bright place with buildings (a building, at least) and cars, other cars drawn off the highway to be together in the protective circle of light.

  A Rest Area.

  He would have spotted it without the sign. Elevated sodium vapor lighting bathed the scene in an almost peach-colored glow, strikingly different from the cold blue-white sentinels of the interstate highway. He had seen other Rest Area signs on the way out, probably even this one. But in daylight the signs had meant nothing more to him than ‘Frontage Road’ or ‘Business District Next Right.’ He wondered if it were the peculiar warmth of light that made the small island of blacktop appear so inviting.

  McClay decelerated, downshifted, and left Interstate 40.

  The car dipped and bumped, and he was aware of the new level of sound from the engine as it geared down for the first time in hours.