“Where are you calling, please?”
This was sharp enough for a warning. Presumably the speaker was ensuring he was heard. “Peacehaven,” Marsden said. “Taxis.”
“Where is that, please?”
“Peacehaven,” Marsden pronounced loud enough for it to grow blurred against his ear before he realised that he wasn’t being asked to repeat the name. “Somewhere near Manchester.”
In the pause that ensued he might have heard movement outside the passage. His hectic pulse obscured the noise, which must have been the tall grass scraping in a wind, even if he couldn’t feel it. He was relieved when the voice returned until he grasped its message. “Not listed,” it said.
“Forgive me, I wasn’t asking for Peacehaven Taxis. Any cab firm here will do.”
“There is no listing.”
Was the fellow pleased to say so? He sounded as smug as the worst sort of priest. “The nearest one, then,” Marsden persisted. “I think that might be—”
“There are no listings for Peacehaven.”
“No, that can’t be right. I’m in it. I’m at the railway station. You must have a number for that at least.”
“There is none.”
Marsden was aware of the dark all around him and how many unheard lurkers it could hide. “Is there anything more I can do for you?” the voice said.
It sounded so fulsome that Marsden was convinced he was being mocked. “You’ve done quite enough,” he blurted and slammed the receiver on its hook.
He could try another enquiry number, or might he call the police? What could he say that would bring them to his aid yet avoid seeming as pathetic as he was determined not to feel? There was one voice he yearned to hear in the midst of all the darkness, but the chance of this at so late an hour seemed little better than infinitesimal. Nevertheless he was groping for change and for the receiver. He scrabbled at the slot with coins and dragged the indistinct holes around the dial. The bell measured the seconds and at last made way for a human voice. It was his own. “Ray and Marjorie Marsden must be engaged elsewhere . . .”
“I am. I wish you weren’t,” he murmured and felt all the more helpless for failing to interrupt his mechanical self. Then his distant muffled voice fell silent, and Marjorie said “Who is it?”
“It’s me, love.”
“Is that Ray?” She sounded sleepy enough not to know. “I can hardly hear you,” she protested. “Where have you gone?”
“You’d wonder.” He was straining to hear another sound besides her voice – a noise that might have been the shuffling of feet in rubble. “I’m stuck somewhere,” he said. “I’ll be late. I can’t say how late.”
“Did you call before?”
“That was me. Didn’t you get me?”
“The tape must be stuck like you. I’ll need to get a new one.”
“Not a new husband, I hope.” He wouldn’t have minded being rewarded with the laugh he’d lived with for the best part of fifty years, even though the joke felt as old as him, but perhaps she was wearied by the hour. “Anyway,” he said, “if you didn’t hear me last time I’ll sign off the same way, which as if you didn’t know—”
“What was that?”
For too many seconds he wasn’t sure. He’d been talking over it, and then she had. Surely it had said that a train was about to arrive; indeed, wasn’t the noise he’d mistaken for thin footsteps the distant clicking of wheels? “It’s here now,” he tried to tell her through a fit of coughing. By the time he was able to speak clearer, the train might have pulled in. Dropping the receiver on the hook, he dashed for the platform. He hadn’t reached it when he heard a scraping behind him.
The storeroom was open again, but that wasn’t enough in itself to delay him. His eyes had grown all too equal to the gloom in the passage, so that he was just able to discern marks on the floor, leading from outside the station to the room. Could someone not be bothered to pick up their dirty feet? The trails looked as if several objects had been dragged into the room. He didn’t believe they had just been left; that wasn’t why they made him uneasy. He had to squint to see that they were blurred by more than the dark. Whatever had left them – not anybody shuffling along, he hoped, when their feet would have been worse than thin – had crumbled in transit, scattering fragments along the route. He thought he could smell the charred evidence, and swallowed in order not to recommence coughing, suddenly fearful of being heard. What was he afraid of? Was he growing senile? Thank heaven Marjorie wasn’t there to see him. The only reason for haste was that he had a train to catch. He tramped out of the passage and might have maintained his defiant pace all the way to the bridge if a shape hadn’t reared up at the window of the storeroom.
Was the object that surmounted it the misshapen head of a mop? He couldn’t distinguish much through the grimy pane, but the idea was almost reassuring until he acknowledged that somebody would still have had to lift up the scrawny excuse for a figure. It hadn’t simply risen or been raised, however. A process that the grime couldn’t entirely obscure was continuing to take place. The silhouette – the blackened form, rather – was taking on more substance, though it remained alarmingly emaciated. It was putting itself back together.
The spectacle was so nightmarishly fascinating that Marsden might have been unable to stir except for the clatter of wheels along the tracks. He staggered around to see dim lights a few hundred yards short of the station. “Stop,” he coughed, terrified that the driver mightn’t notice him and speed straight through. Waving his arms wildly, he sprinted for the bridge.
He’d panted up the stairs and was blundering along the middle of the wooden corridor when he thought he heard a noise besides the approach of the train. Was he desperate to hear it or afraid to? He might have tried to persist in mistaking it for wind in the grass if it weren’t so close. He did his utmost to fix his shaky gaze on the far end of the corridor as he fled past shadow after crouching shadow. He almost plunged headlong down the further stairs, and only a grab at the slippery discoloured banister saved him. As he dashed onto the platform he saw that both doors in the passage out of the station were open. The sight brought him even closer to panic, and he began to wave his shivering arms once more as he tottered to the edge of the platform. “Don’t leave me here,” he cried.
The squeal of brakes seemed to slice through the dark. The engine blotted out the view across the tracks, and then a carriage sped past him. Another followed, but the third was slower. Its last door halted almost in front of him. Though the train was by no means the newest he’d ridden that day, and far from the cleanest, it seemed the next thing to paradise. He clutched the rusty handle and heaved the door open and clambered aboard. “You can go now. Go,” he pleaded.
Who was the driver waiting for? Did he think the noises on the bridge were promising more passengers? There was such a volume of eager shuffling and scraping that Marsden almost wished his ears would fail him. He hauled at the door, which some obstruction had wedged open. He was practically deaf with his frantic heartbeat by the time the door gave, slamming with such force that it seemed to be echoed in another carriage. At once the train jerked forward, flinging him onto the nearest musty seat. He was attempting to recover his breath when the announcer spoke.
Was a window open in the carriage? The voice sounded close enough to be on the train, yet no more comprehensible. It was no longer simply unctuous; it could have been mocking a priest out of distaste for the vocation. Its only recognisable words were “train now departing”, except that the first one was more like Ray – perhaps not just on this occasion, Marsden thought he recalled. He craned towards the window and was able to glimpse that both doors in the exit corridor were shut. Before he had time to ponder any of this, if indeed he wanted to, the train veered off the main line.
“Where are you taking me?” he blurted, but all too soon he knew. The train was heading for the property behind the station, a turn of events celebrated by a short announcement. There was no question that
the speaker was on board, though the blurring of the words left Marsden unsure if they were “Ray is shortly alive.” The swerve of the train had thrown open the doors between the carriages, allowing him to hear a chorused hiss that might have signified resentment or have been an enthusiastic “Yes” or, possibly even worse, the collapse of many burned objects into the ash he could smell. As the train sped through a gateway in the railings, he read the name on the sign: not Peacehaven Motors at all, or anything to do with cars. Perhaps the route was only a diversion, he tried to think, or a short tour. Perhaps whoever was on the train just wanted somebody to visit the neglected memorials and the crematorium.
DAVID BUCHAN
Holiday Home
DAVID BUCHAN DISCOVERED horror fiction as a teenager and began writing short stories in his early twenties, leading to his first publication on the website Whispers of Wickedness.
Since then his work has appeared in a number of small press publications on the both sides of the Atlantic, including the Sam’s Dot Publishing magazine Champagne Shivers. He is currently working towards an undergraduate degree in Humanities with the Open University.
“I am often struck by the manner in which some killers transport their victims from the scene of the crime,” says Buchan, “and the method used in this story is, somewhat inevitably, inspired by real-life cases.”
IT WAS LAST week he moved his family into the next cottage. I’d asked him if he needed a hand with the luggage. He shook his head and smiled. Just glad to get some peace and quiet, he laughed, hauling the bulging suitcases from the car.
We could see them inside whenever we walked by: the wife and kids slumped in the same chairs, like mannequins; the husband moving about, his form rendered ghostly by the steamed-up window pane and the flies bouncing off its surface.
At the time, it never occurred to me.
STEPHEN JONES
& KIM NEWMAN
Necrology: 2011
AS WE ENTER THE second decade of the twenty-first century, we are losing many of the writers, artists, performers and technicians we grew up with and who, during their lifetimes, helped shape the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres . . .
AUTHORS/ARTISTS/COMPOSERS
Best-selling British children’s author Dick King-Smith OBE (Ronald Gordon King-Smith) died in his sleep on 4 January after a long illness. He was eighty-eight. The former farmer’s more than 100 books included the 1983 novel The Sheep-Pig, which was filmed as Babe (1995), and The Water Horse (which was made into a film in 2007). His other titles include The Invisible Dog and The Witch of Blackberry Bottom.
Ruth Evelyn Kyle, who was married to SF fan/writer/publisher David A. Kyle for fifty-three years, died after a brief illness on 5 January, aged eighty-one. The couple met at a science fiction convention. Ruth Kyle was Secretary of the 14th World Science Fiction Convention held in New York City in 1956.
American author and dealer Jerry Weist died of multiple myeloma after a long illness on 7 January, aged sixty-one. Initially inspired by Famous Monsters of Filmland in the late 1950s, he began publishing the fanzines Nightmares and Movieland Monsters, and in 1967 he founded the famed EC comics fanzine Squa Tront, which ran until 1983. His books include three editions of The Comic Art Price Guide, The R. Crumb Price Guide, The Underground Price Guide, Bradbury: An Illustrated Life and The 100 Greatest Comic Books, and he contributed (with Robert Weinberg) a bibliographical index to the revised editions of From the Pen of Paul: The Fantastic Images of Frank R. Paul. In 1974 Weist opened The Million Year Picnic in Boston, one of the first specialty comic stores in the US.
American SF artist and illustrator Gene Szafran (Eugene Szafran) died on 8 January, aged sixty-nine. During the late 1960s and early ’70s he painted more than seventy-five covers for books by Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Ray Bradbury and others. His work also appeared in numerous magazines, including Playboy. Szafran’s career was curtailed in the late 1970s when he developed multiple sclerosis.
Prolific American SF, mystery and Western author Edward [Paul] Wellen died on 15 January, aged ninety-one. He began contributing to the SF digest magazines in the early 1950s (including Galaxy, Imagination, Science Stories, Universe and Infinity), while his 1971 novel Hijack was described as “The Mafia takes to space”.
British occultist Kenneth Grant, who claimed to be the “heir” to “the wickedest man in the world”, Aleister Crowley (1875– 1947), died the same day, aged eighty-six. After Crowley’s death, he edited and published many of his mentor’s works, but he also became involved in a lengthy controversy over his succession to Outer Head of Crowley’s self-styled Order of the Ordo Templi Orientis. Grant liberally borrowed from Crowley and H. P. Lovecraft in his own novels, poems and occult treatises.
American writer, poet and artist Melissa Mia Hall died of a heart attack on 29 January, aged fifty-five. A former creative writing teacher at the University of Texas Arlington’s Continuing Education programme, she started publishing in 1979, and her more than sixty stories appeared in such magazines and anthologies as Twilight Zone, Shayol, Realms of Fantasy, Shadows 12, 100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories, Masques 3 and Cross Plains Universe. Hall also collaborated on stories with Douglas E. Winter and Joe R. Lansdale, edited the 1987 anthology Wild Women, and wrote hundreds of reviews and interviews for Publishers Weekly.
John Barry [Prendergast] OBE, perhaps Britain’s finest and most influential film composer and arranger, died of a heart attack in New York on 31 January. He was seventy-seven. Among many memorable scores, Barry is perhaps best known for his work on the James Bond movies Dr No (uncredited), From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, Octopussy, A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights. The four-time Oscar winner’s numerous other credits include They Might Be Giants, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972), The Day of the Locust, King Kong (1976), The White Buffalo, The Deep, Starcrash, Disney’s The Black Hole, Raise the Titanic, Somewhere in Time (based on the novel by Richard Matheson), The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Murder by Phone, Svengali (1983), Howard the Duck (aka Howard: A New Breed of Hero) and Peggy Sue Got Married. He also composed the theme music for the 1973 TV series Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries. The second of Barry’s four wives was actress Jane Birkin.
Children’s fantasy writer and radio broadcaster [James] Brian Jacques died following emergency heart surgery on 5 February. He was seventy-one. He was best known for his popular “Redwall” animal fantasy series, which began in 1987 and ran for more than twenty books. The series, which sold twenty million copies around the world and was translated into almost thirty languages, was adapted into a Canadian animated TV series in 1999. Jacques also published various picture books, “Redwall” spin-offs, and the “Castaways of the Flying Dutchman” series, while his short fiction was collected in Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales and The Ribbajack & Other Curious Yarns.
American TV writer Donald S. Sanford died on 8 February, aged ninety-two. His many credits include episodes of Thriller (including “The Incredible Doctor Markesan” starring Boris Karloff) and The Outer Limits, and the 1979 post-apocalyptic movie Ravagers (set in 1991).
Joanne Siegel (Jolan Kovacs) died on 12 February, aged ninety-three. As a teenager in the late 1930s she advertised her availability in a local newspaper and became the model for “Lois Lane” in the Superman comic book series cartoonists Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel were hoping to sell. She married Siegel in 1948 and in later years campaigned to reclaim her husband’s copyright in the character after he sold all rights to DC Comics in 1937 for just $130.
American children’s book editor and publisher Margaret K. (Knox) McElderry, who created her own eponymous children’s imprint in 1971, died on 14 February, aged ninety-eight. In 1952, while working for Harcourt Brace and Company, she became the first editor to publish both the Newbery and Caldecott award-winning books in the same year. Her authors i
ncluded Mary Norton, Susan Cooper, Andre Norton, Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Mahy.
Sixty-seven-year-old German SF author, editor, translator and literary agent Hans Joachim Alpers (aka “Jurgen Andreas”) died of hepatic cancer after a short illness on 16 February. He edited around fifty anthologies, published numerous juvenile novels under a variety of pseudonyms, and co-edited several reference works, including Lexicon der Science Fiction Literatur (1980).
Comics and animation writer Dwayne McDuffie died on 21 February, the day after his forty-ninth birthday, from complications due to a surgical procedure. He was a co-founder of the Milestone Media imprint, a coalition of African-American comics writers and artists, through which he helped create such characters as “Static Shock” and “Icon”. He also worked for DC and Marvel on such titles as Damage Control, Fantastic Four, Justice League of America, Firestorm and Beyond. In the field of animation McDuffie’s credits include episodes of Static Shock, Ben 10: Alien Force, Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans, What’s New Scooby-Doo? and the cartoon features Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and All-Star Superman.
American author Lisa Wolfson (Lisa Kay Madigan), who published YA novels as “L. K. Madigan”, died of pancreatic cancer on 23 February, aged forty-seven. Her books include the 2010 fantasy The Mermaid’s Mirror.
Brazilian literary fantasy author Moacyr Scliar, who had more than seventy books to his credit, died on 27 February following a stroke. He was seventy-three.
Dutch fantasy and SF author Wim Stolk, who wrote as “W. J. Maryson”, died of heart problems on 9 March, aged sixty. An artist and musician, his books include the six-volume “Master Magician” series and the “Unmagician” trilogy.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23 (Mammoth Books) Page 57
