The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23 (Mammoth Books)

by Jones, Stephen

  I shook my head. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

  He exhaled heavily, releasing a cloud of smoke. His mood was unreadable. Turning from me, he looked out toward the distant mountains, black beneath the hidden moon. A long minute elapsed, a silence spun from the murmur of crickets, the occasional scrap of bird song.

  He sighed. “Perhaps I had better explain.”

  The morning of 1 December, 1892 dawned cold and grey, promising an early snowfall. After breakfasting in his apartment, Lowell descended the back stair to his studio, where he was surprised to find that a shipping crate had been left for him with the first post. There was no return address, but he recognised the handwriting on the label and knew it to be from Patrick.

  Lowell had first encountered the boy on the streets of Providence some twelve years before. Patrick was no more than eight or nine at the time, one among hundreds of beggar children who had resorted to thievery and worse in order to survive. One night in October, Lowell returned to his studio to find the boy curled up in the doorway: soaked and shivering, delirious with fever. Lowell brought him inside and allowed him to spend the night.

  Days went by – Patrick’s health improved – but Lowell did not turn him out. The boy served as his apprentice for the next seven years, assisting in the darkroom in exchange for room and board. Their relationship was a close one, and in time, the unmarried Lowell came to regard the lad as his own son, only for Patrick to leave him – as sons will do – at the age of sixteen.

  Whatever its cause, their final parting, when it came, was not amicable. Lowell blamed himself for it. He sought shelter in alcoholism and later in the Church. Five years passed. His letters to Patrick went unanswered but from time to time he received word of his former apprentice from colleagues in New York.

  In 1892, Patrick was just twenty-one years old but already esteemed an expert in the field of portrait photography. He was said to possess an eye for hidden beauty and feeling that allowed him to reveal, with considerable skill, “the very soul” of his subject. Lowell admitted to a twinge of jealousy in this. Certainly, his own work had never inspired such hyperbole.

  He knelt before the shipping crate and lifted the lid, peeling back layers of straw and brown paper to reveal a view camera. It was a newer model, equipped with a built-in viewfinder and little used by its appearance. A length of ribbon had been fastened around the front standard, the ends tied up in an elaborate bow.

  Lowell plucked the camera out of the crate and tested the action of the shutter. Click. Hearing the sound, he exhaled, his anxiety evaporating like shadows at sundown. He hurried to the doorway and took down his hat and coat. His first client was not due for another hour, giving him plenty of time to walk to the post office and send off a telegram of thanks to New York.

  Outside, the weather was dismal, but the avenue bustled with the usual crowds of carriages and pedestrians. Clerks and scriveners scurried past Lowell en route to their respective offices while paperboys shouted the day’s headlines from every corner, their voices ringing shrilly above the rattle of wheels on cobble.

  A pair of young women proceeded down the pavement in his direction – sisters, evidently, their good humour unaffected by the wind and imminent snow. The two walked arm-in-arm, laughing, even as their guardian gasped and panted behind them, burdened by a picnic basket and a pair of canvas shopping bags.

  One of the sisters smiled at Lowell. The other tittered and tightened her grip on her sister’s elbow. Their treatment of their guardian showed them to be callous, even cruel, but Lowell grinned back at them all the same. He could hardly do otherwise: they were simply too young, too beautiful, too alive.

  He crossed the street to the next block and passed Saint Andrew’s church, where he had begun attending mass. Every Sunday morning, he knelt before the altar and prayed, rocked by yearning though he dared not take the Host. That morning, walking past, he let his fingers trail along the rough stones and sighed as the great bell struck the half-hour.

  At the post office, he composed a brief message to be wired to Patrick’s studio in New York. Rec’d camera, the wire read. Deepest thanks. Please write.

  He asked the clerk to contact him in the event of any delays and then hurried home to keep his first appointment, smiling first at the sisters, whom he passed once more, and then at the paperboy, unable to contain his elation, even in that late season, even as the first flakes of snow drifted down and settled in his hair.

  Mrs Lavinia Perkins was Lowell’s most reliable client, a middle-aged teetotaller of extraordinary vanity and peculiar habit – to wit, her insistence on having a new photograph of herself taken on the first of every month. She used these to chart the course and extent of her ageing, scouring each monochrome image for signs of greying hair. This was, of course, an impossible task, but perhaps this was why she preferred the photographer’s lens to that more ordinary (and less expensive) instrument: the mirror.

  On that morning she breezed into the room with the haughty assurance of a beloved monarch. She did not even wish Lowell good morning but instead assumed her usual pose against her favourite backdrop: a canvas sheet painted with a classical motif, three ruined columns like a row of broken teeth.

  Lowell had already positioned Patrick’s camera on the tripod and focused the lens. The plate was loaded, the flash box readied, and he wasted no time in going beneath the hood.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  Her pose spoke for itself. She stood perfectly erect, one arm draped over the Brady stand, and turned her face from the camera so that she appeared in profile.

  He lifted the flash box with one hand and sighted the widow through the viewfinder. He steadied his fingers over the triggers for flash and shutter and began to count down, whispering the numbers to himself in the blackness of the hood.

  Three. Two. One.

  The widow changed.

  Her brown curls turned wiry and grey even as her cheekbones sloped inward and stretched the mottled skin to breaking. From beneath her sallow flesh there emerged the outline of a skull, which threatened to burst from the tattered sinews of her once-beautiful face. Even her teeth, usually white, had become brown and stained by the corruptions of the grave.

  Lowell wanted to close his eyes but in the manner of a nightmare found that he could not – not even when the tail of a worm thrust out from behind her ear, puncturing the skin so that a shower of corpse dust drifted to the ground.

  “Well?” the widow inquired. Her voice, at least, was unaltered, but the coolness of her tone did nothing to dispel the image in the viewfinder. “Is something wrong?”

  “Ah – um?”

  Sweat poured from Lowell’s brow.

  “What is the delay?”

  The widow turned to face him. Her eyes were gone: the sockets empty, rimmed with pitted bone. A mass of white worms writhed within the hollow of her skull.

  He released the trigger on the flash box. The magnesium ignited and a wave of cleansing light flooded the room. Somehow he possessed the presence of mind to open and close the shutter, capturing the widow in a blast of white lightning.

  He wrenched his head from the hood and dashed to the side cabinet. There he found the brandy bottle, untouched in the days since his conversion. His heart galloped, fuelling his panic, and his lungs heaved in his chest – faster and faster, refusing to slow.

  He poured himself a glass. He gulped it down.

  “Whatever is the matter?” Mrs Perkins asked. “You’re acting most peculiarly.”

  The room shimmered, retreating from Lowell as the alcohol took hold. He clenched his eyes shut. He shook his head but could not speak.

  “Open your eyes,” she snapped. “Look at me!”

  It required all of his courage for Lowell to lift his head and address the widow. Her appearance had returned – mercifully – to normal. She peered at him through the lenses of her silver lorgnette, her magnified eyes more hawk-like than ever.

  “I’m – quite well,�
� Lowell gasped. “It’s the – weather. My gout—”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “I’m glad it’s nothing serious,” she said. “Did you get the picture?”

  He shivered. He poured another glass and drained it in a swallow. Tears leapt to his eyes as the familiar ache spread through his chest. Mrs Perkins sniffed in disapproval, but at that moment, he scarcely cared. Even the thought of that photograph chilled him to the marrow.

  “Well?” she demanded. “Shall we take another?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “There’s – no need.”

  “Good.” She cast a scornful glance at the glass in his hand. “I shall come by later this week to collect it. Good day.”

  She proceeded to the door and let herself out.

  The catch slammed behind her.

  Lowell gulped down another drink. The alcohol steadied his hands somewhat but could not drive out the images that crowded about him. When he shut his eyes, he saw the widow as she had appeared through the viewfinder: gaping eye-sockets, the skull that surfaced from beneath her thinning skin. Other images too. Blue eyes, bruises. A palm-print on white skin.

  He poured a fourth glass and contemplated the liquid for a full minute before returning it to the bottle. Already he regretted this return to his old habits. Guilt rose like a tumour in his throat, an ever-familiar gorge he could not spit out or swallow.

  He mopped the sweat from his brow. Turning his attention to more material concerns, he replaced the bottle in the side cabinet and went into the darkroom to ready the developer.

  In the years since his conversion, Lowell had come to see the development process as a kind of miracle. While he was familiar with the various chemical principles at work, he could not but marvel at the thing itself, which he understood as a singular indicator of God’s grace. To watch a human face form on albumen paper, to see it slowly assume shape, its fine lines betraying either hope, or grief, or pain—

  In those moments, Lowell admitted, his very soul ached, and he imagined the birth of the planet from the void, the first word of light like the flash of torched magnesium.

  But that morning he found no joy in developing the plate. His hands shook with fright, and his fingers kneaded the flesh of his palms, his nails drawing blood as the positive image formed on the albumen.

  His fears proved baseless. The widow Perkins appeared looking much as she always did. While her pose was slightly different – for here she looked directly into the camera, confusion playing on her features – the photograph closely resembled the three dozen he had already taken of the widow. In no way did it hint at the horror he had witnessed through the viewfinder.

  He made a second print of the photograph and left the darkroom, feeling neither terror nor relief – only a persistent unease. He settled himself down in a chair beside the window and allowed his gaze to stray into the street.

  Snow continued to fall. Nearly an inch had accumulated in the last hour, covering over muck and dirtied straw. The clustered roofs and gambrels of the block opposite bore a fine dusting, as iridescent and fine as a poplar’s cotton. Even the soot-black stacks of the distant metal-works appeared white and pure, standing like twin ghosts against the horizon, holding back the early dark. Soon the city would be covered, first by snow and then by night – all beauty and squalor erased by the whispered sough of white on black.

  * * *

  His sleep proved shallow and troubled, haunted by visions of blazing cities and crumbling churches, the worm-filled skull of the widow Perkins. To his relief, he was roused by the sound of the bell. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and went to answer.

  He opened the door to reveal a clerk from the post office. The young man was clearly possessed of a nervous disposition. His eyes darted furtively from side to side, settling on Lowell seemingly by accident.

  “Your wire, sir—”

  “Yes?”

  “It came back, sir.”

  “Came back?”

  “Could not be delivered, sir.”

  “Has he moved?” wondered Lowell, half to himself.

  “I don’t know, sir,” said the clerk, miserably.

  “Then find out!” snapped Lowell. “Wire New York and see what you can learn from them. Then try sending the message through again. It’s – important.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

  “Good.”

  The clerk looked down at his feet. His natural nervousness grew more apparent with every second he lingered on the stoop.

  Lowell sighed, regretting his outburst. “Go on then,” he said, as gently as he could manage. “I’ll try and drop by later. That should save you the trip.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The clerk donned his hat and shuffled from the stoop. Lowell watched him disappear down the alleyway and then looked up, finding the sky in a crack between two buildings. The blizzard had intensified since morning, leaving the heavens snow-filled and sunless, iron-grey but for a varicose network of dark veins and fractures.

  He turned from the doorway. A quick consultation of his watch showed the time to be a quarter to three. He pushed shut the door and returned to the studio to ready it for his next appointment. Less than an hour remained before Arthur Whateley and his young wife, married in November, were due to arrive.

  He unrolled the pastoral background on which they had already agreed, arranged two chairs before it, and fell to the task of readying the camera – Patrick’s camera. While the results of the development process had not put his earlier terror to flight, they had at least given him courage, and he resolved to confront his fears. To this end, he positioned Patrick’s camera at the appropriate distance from the canvas and drew a breath before lifting the flaps over his head.

  He peered through the viewfinder at the wall of his studio. His palms were slick – his breathing rapid – but no dread apparition materialised to confront him. Instead he saw only the painted trees of the familiar country scene. Their leaves wavered, delicate and still, as though waiting for the first breath of wind, a summer storm sure to come.

  Arthur Whateley was one of those rare men upon whom Fortune has never ceased to smile. Wealthy, well groomed, and recently wed, his generosity was matched only by the honeyed warmth of his voice and by the kindness of his demeanour. He was handsome, notably so, but his dusky good looks were more than equalled by the beauty of his wife Gertrude, a noted heiress. She was, like him, dark of hair and eye, but blessed with a delicate complexion, with cheeks that flushed to a subtle rose-colour and would not tolerate the sun.

  Whateley himself was in all respects a consummate gentleman. Lowell had met him for the first time two weeks before when the young tycoon first came to the studio to make arrangements for his formal wedding portrait. Lowell had found him as charming and personable as any man he had ever met, well versed in an array of subjects ranging from architecture to the theatre and indeed most topics one could name.

  He was also exceedingly punctual. At half-past three, the bell sounded, and Lowell hurried to the door to admit the happy couple. Arthur grinned broadly and offered his hand. Mrs Whateley blushed to meet Lowell’s gaze and wished him a soft “how do.” She wore an unusual amount of face powder and the skin surrounding her eyes was strikingly pale.

  “Please come in,” said Lowell. “Everything’s ready.”

  “Excellent!” Arthur exclaimed. “But I’m afraid we cannot stay long. My wife and I are expected at the Grand in half-an-hour’s time.”

  “I understand perfectly,” said Lowell. “This will not take a minute.”

  “Have you been?”

  “To – to the Grand?”

  “No? Then you must join us there sometime.”

  “Why – of course,” said Lowell, taken off guard. “I would be honoured.”

  “It’s settled, then. Shall we take the picture?”

  “By all means.” Lowell gestured in the direction of the prepared background. “I believe we agreed on a seated portrait?”

&
nbsp; “Indeed we did,” said Arthur.

  He steered his wife across the room and helped her settle into a chair before taking the seat beside her, one hand thrust into his jacket, the other resting lightly on her knee.

  “Ready when you are,” said Arthur.

  Lowell approached the tripod. “And you, Mrs Whateley?”

  Her husband answered. “Oh, you needn’t worry about Gertie,” he said cheerfully. “Isn’t that right, darling?”

  Mrs Whateley nodded but said nothing.

  “Shall we proceed?” asked Arthur.

  “Of course,” said Lowell, nodding. He had already prepared the collodion mixture and adjusted the lens. All that remained was to open the shutter. Taking up the flash box, he slipped his head under the cover and placed his eye against the viewfinder.

  The powder had vanished from Mrs Whateley’s brow. In its place he noted the swelling of an under-skin bruise. As Lowell watched, the colours continued to deepen and spread, leaching through flesh and tissue to collect in a series of purple bruises down her neck, forming the imprint of a man’s hand around her throat.

  Lowell’s stomach clenched. The air left his lungs, and he gasped for breath that would not come. She looked up at him then – perhaps only to wonder what was taking so long – and in her eyes he saw a silent suffering, such as he had once glimpsed in the eyes of another, and all at once, he understood everything.

  Whateley had come to him seeking concealment. Like many clients, he wanted an image of false happiness, another mask for the violence and cruelty they both strove to hide – he with his airs and false benevolence and she with her daubs and powders. Mrs Whateley gazed back at Lowell through the viewfinder, her eyes bloodied and sightless.

  He swallowed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He withdrew from the hood and stepped away from the camera. “But I’m afraid I cannot take the picture. You will have to go elsewhere.”

  “You’re sorry?” erupted Whateley. “What in God’s name are you talking about? Is there some kind of – problem – with the camera?”