New Fears--New horror stories by masters of the genre

by Mark Morris

  The glass door of the building banged open as we entered—and now, from my peripheral vision, I could see that we had entered a bar-diner. It was brightly lit and something inside told me that Swan could have brought great darkness inside with us, but he had chosen not to.The lights flickered, a bulb popped somewhere and someone said, “Fuck!” The tiled floor beneath me was cracked and stained; anonymous rock music was playing on a radio somewhere and I was aware of figures hunched over Formica-covered tables. Swan walked to a corner bench table and sat with his back to the room. Still holding his hand, I dutifully sat next to him.The black cloak that covered him pooled on the bench beside me so much like liquid that I expected it to run off the edge and drip on the floor.

  “What’s the word I’m looking for?” asked a male voice from somewhere behind.

  “Faggot?” replied another.

  “No, man. That’s the American word for men who hold hands.”

  “Men? I don’t think so. No—the word you’re looking for is ‘gay’.”

  “Gay? They look happy to you? Don’t look happy to me. Look fucking miserable if you ask me.”

  “Queer.That’s the word.”

  “Nah. Homo.That’s the word.”

  “Hey, you two! What’s the word for people like you?” When there was no answer, the first voice said: “I think the word is deaf!” The others in the diner laughed.

  Suddenly there was a presence by my side. I turned to see a young man in a kitchen apron. His face was white and hard, as if the blood had been drained from him.

  “Listen,” he said in a quiet voice, his lips hardly moving. “I’ll take your order if you want. But if you’ll take my advice, you’ll leave now. I know what those fellas are like.” I wanted to speak, but couldn’t. And why wasn’t he reacting the way the boiler-suited guy on the Bottle Bank slip road had reacted to my companion? Had he somehow made himself less frightening?

  “I mean it, man.You and your pal best leave now.”

  “I’m not calling the cops,” continued the waiter. “That’d be three times this week, and I’ll lose my licence.You better be getting out of here…”

  “Leave them alone,” said the first disembodied voice again. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you see that the lovebirds want to be left alone?” I heard the sound of seats scraping back from tables.The waiter made a moaning sound—“Don’t say I didn’t warn you”—and vanished from sight.

  I screwed my eyes shut, acutely aware of the approach of several threatening presences from behind.

  “Tell you what?” said another voice. “Why don’t you show us how it’s done?”

  “Yeah. Boy-girl action—we know how that goes.”

  “And girl-girl,” a new voice sniggered.

  “Yeah, that as well. But boy-boy, that’s something else. Why don’t you show us how it’s done…?” I don’t know how many of them there were, but I knew that they were standing right behind us now.

  “I think you two have been knobbing each other so much that you really have gone deaf.” Now there was impatient shuffling.

  “You better speak. Bad manners not to speak when you’re spoken to.” Another snigger.

  “Hey, you! Big man in homo black! You turn around when I’m speaking to…” I felt a rough hand on my shoulder, just as Swan’s grip on my left hand was released. It felt more like something dissipating than being let go. I could feel Swan slowly turning to face our antagonists.

  Someone drew in their breath with a loud hiss.

  Someone said:“Fucking… hell!” And when the screaming started, I hunkered down so that my head was almost in my lap, my hands tight over my ears.

  Swan was no longer sitting beside me.

  Glass shattered, and the screaming went on and on.

  The bench on which I sat juddered, but I hunkered down even tighter.

  I felt something fly over me into the table at which I was sitting. Something crashed and the rock and roll music screeched to a halt. I swatted hard at my head when sparks landed on me from above, then quickly resumed my position, willing myself to wake up or be somewhere else; anywhere but here, anywhere but now. Someone close by me was making choking sounds and something wet and warm splashed across my hands. I kept them held tight to my ears, not wanting to hear; not wanting to be any part of the hell that was taking place in that diner.

  Only one person was screaming now, but it was so high, shrill and horrifying that I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman.And each individual shriek was matched equally by the sound of something gradually being torn. Inch by inch. It was a rough and terribly wet sound, and also somehow obscenely intimate.The shrieking became an insane babbling and God, oh God, I didn’t want to hear any more. I prayed for it to stop but it just went on and on.

  I have no idea how long the hellish sounds continued but when they did eventually stop, I realised that I was rocking back and forth like a small child trying to console itself. I stopped rocking—and gingerly took my fingers away from my ears.

  Glass crunched on the floor behind me.

  I flinched, but before I could clap my hands to my ears again, Swan said: “Open your eyes and look at the table.” All of the diner’s ceiling strip lights had been shattered except one that gave enough light to show the littered and glittering crimson pool before me. I did not—dared not—look around me, but I could tell that the diner had been completely wrecked.

  “Put your hands in the blood, Elton.” I did as I was told, making ripples spread to either end of the Formica table; heard it dripping and splashing from the ends onto the floor.

  “Make hand prints.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere. Everywhere.”

  I was like an eager child at a finger-painting competition, splashing my hands and then patting the dry patches of table, the bench on which I was sitting, on myself.

  “Enough,” said Swan.

  I waited for further instruction, trying not to see Swan’s reflection in the smeared crimson pool on the table.

  “Do you know why I asked you to do that?” I could feel the reverberation of Swan’s voice in the tabletop, making ripples shimmer and spread.

  “My fingerprints?” I heard myself reply.

  I could feel Swan smile. “And your DNA. Now—we have to personalise things.”

  “Personalise?”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Apartment 12a, Arbon Buildings on—”

  “Oh yes, West Jesmond.”

  “How do you know?”

  “With me, Elton, a little goes a long way. By the time we’re at your home, I will know a lot more.” I saw the dark, indeterminate reflection of Swan’s arm in the bloodied table as it stretched towards me. I flinched even from the sight of that, not wanting to see its details. But I knew that he wanted me to take his hand again. I did so. Again, I felt my hand taken but was unaware of any physical sensation.

  I allowed myself to be led out of the ruined diner, my head always down and looking at the details underfoot. I tried to make sense of a curious, ragged image that I had to step over. It was only when we had walked outside again into the cold night air that I realised it had been a severed human head, its face matted with straggling hair.

  “Would you like me to sing to you?” asked Swan.

  “No thank you.”

  “Very well.” Again, my world tilted and I screwed my eyes shut as I was taken into that awful embrace. It seemed to me that I was not breathing—that I had not been breathing before when Swan had enfolded me this way—as if the act of breathing was not required when it happened. Another thought came to me. Was this what it was like when you plunged into the River Tyne, and the shock of it made you gasp water into your lungs instead of air—so that you didn’t breathe, just gasped in water until you drowned? It was somehow like that, and somehow not. I’m sorry, I know that isn’t clear, but Swan’s embrace contained the terrible essence of what I’m trying to convey.The awful flapping began again and we were
travelling once more.

  I willed myself unconscious. I’d done it before, years ago, when I was writhing in pain on a hospital trolley waiting for a hospital bed to become free. I was suffering with bacterial pneumonia and every joint in my body was screaming with pain. I’d somehow made myself black out to escape from it. I did that again now.

  I’m not sure whether what followed was a dream but it seemed like a dream.There had been none of that sickening suffocation this time, none of that feeling of being transported through the night and the terrible flapping and buffeting that accompanied it. But now I was on the shadowed internal staircase of my apartment block in West Jesmond. The communal door in the hallway was shut and I had no awareness that I had used my pass key to come through it. But I was halfway up that first flight of stairs and a small, shrinking part of me wanted to believe that I would be able to wake up completely now; perhaps begin to understand that I’d suffered some kind of mental breakdown and that if I could only get to my apartment, everything would be all right again.

  When I began to turn to look up the stairs, it was as if the whole stairwell was underwater, suffused with blue undersea light; my turning was in slow motion as if I was an underwater swimmer. In that moment, I knew that any chance of awakening was hopeless and that Swan was up there—on the stairs.

  Waiting for me.

  I hoped that Mrs Abermont, who lived on the first floor landing, didn’t “accidentally” open her front door as usual when she heard someone on the stairs so that she could engage in a brief and trivial conversation with whoever was there.

  Because if she did, she would die.

  “No she won’t,” said an unseen Swan from the darkness up ahead of me.

  “Why?” My voice seemed slow and dragging.

  “Because you like her.”

  I ascended.

  Was I indeed dead and at the bottom of the River Tyne? Was this why I felt as if I was swimming up from the depths; as if the worn carpet on the stairs was swirling like mud beneath my feet as I ascended?

  Mrs Abermont did not appear on the landing, thank God.

  I did not look up on the second or third flight of stairs as I kept onwards and upwards. But I knew that Swan was up there, leading the way to a place that he could not possibly know existed—but somehow did.

  I heard my apartment door open.

  I entered that deeper underwater darkness, and made my way to the living-room sofa. Swan was ahead of me, but somehow the door closed of its own volition and locked.

  I sat, head down, and listened to Swan—his presence somehow all-consuming in that living room; moving in the dark like liquid, picking up and examining ornaments and framed photographs from the shelves and tables. Dried flowers from a vase beside the television were scattered absently at my feet, and I heard the telephone jiggle in its cradle, followed by the pages in my personal telephone book riffling and turning.

  “Ah,” said Swan at last. “Now I understand.”

  “You do?” Again, my voice sounded like a small, frightened child wanting desperately to be understood.

  “Oh yes. Come here.” I stood, not looking, like the naughty boy at the back of the classroom, now called to the front for punishment. I took two steps, a third—then hesitated.

  “I really don’t want to look at you.”

  “It’s best that you don’t, Elton.Two more steps, if you please.” I did as I was told, and now was close to the telephone table.

  Suddenly, the telephone was in my hand.

  “Does it have to be her?”

  “Yes.Tell her to come over.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes.Tell her to come over alone.”

  “But she won’t come over alone. She’ll bring him as well.”

  “I know. But tell her anyway.” I dialled the number.

  For a moment, I couldn’t get my breath.

  The telephone continued to ring as I struggled to control my breathing. I could feel my heart hammering and my throat constricting.

  “What?” When she answered, her voice was sharp and sleep-blurred—but heartbreaking in its familiarity. “What the hell…?”

  “Susan?”

  “What? Wait—bloody hell. Is that you, Elton?”

  “Is he with you?”

  “Have you any idea what time it is, you stupid bastard?”

  “Is he with you?”

  “You’re drunk. Fucking typical. Ringing me at this time of the morning. I’ve told you before. If you—”

  “Do you want those papers signed or not?” There was a pause at the other end. I needed it. I could hardly get my words out. Finally, I broke the silence.

  “Well do you?” Swan whispered beside me. It was like a cold and foetid wind in the room, making the curtains swirl. Papers and magazines rose and flapped to the floor. “I’ve signed them.” Even that whisper made cups and saucers shiver and rattle on the kitchen table.

  “I’ve signed them,” I said, as instructed.

  “But you’ve got to come and get them…”

  “But you’ve got to… got to come and get them.”

  “Say:‘Come alone.’”

  “Come alone…”

  “Well…” Susan cleared her throat on the other end of the line. “Well, all right. Good. Not before time. I’ll come by later.”

  “You’ll come now.”

  “You’ll come now…”

  “And you’ll come alone.”

  “…and you’ll come alone.”

  “I’m at my place.”

  “I’m at my place.”

  “But if you don’t come now—come alone now—I’m going to burn those papers and you can forget all about the divorce.You and lover boy will have to wait your time out before you can do it without me.”

  I repeated what Swan whispered. A plate crashed and tinkled in the kitchen.

  “All right, you bastard. I’m coming. But they better be signed.”

  “They’re signed,” I said, without prompting.

  “Oh, and, Susan,” whispered Swan.A news circular flapped in front of my face. I swiped it away.

  “Oh, and, Susan…”

  “You’re a bitch.”

  “You’re a bitch.” I gave the last word added emphasis as darkness was laid on my hand and I put the phone down.

  “Now she definitely won’t come alone.”

  “I know.”

  “They’re not signed.” I kept my eyes on the telephone. “The divorce papers.They’re not signed.”

  “I know they’re not.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “It’s what we want.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “Go.Wash. Change.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re covered in blood, Elton.”

  “Oh.”

  I did as I was told, like an automaton.There was no room for thought.

  “Go sit on the sofa and wait.” I did as I was told.

  “Switch on the television.” I did so.

  It was football. Newcastle United were playing an away game. Normally, I would have been at the pub, watching the game with friends. Or here at home, watching with a couple of cans.

  “You’re a Newcastle United fan,” said Swan from somewhere in the apartment.His voice seemed constantly near, constantly reverberating in the walls, the floor and ceiling—but he could be in any part of the room. He’d made a matter-of-fact, ridiculously mundane statement, requiring no response. A mere detail, but I knew that Swan now knew all about me. I don’t know how long I’d been watching the television, taking in no details of the game or the action, when Swan said: “They don’t stand a chance this year.Their defence is all wrong. Not enough aggression from the forwards.” The other side scored a goal and the crowd exploded in response.

  “See?” said Swan, matter of fact.

  And then the doorbell rang.

  How long could it have been since I made that telephone call? There was no way of kn
owing, but surely it couldn’t have taken what seemed to be such a short time. Time in Swan’s presence seemed to lose all meaning.

  Swan was not in the living room. I had no sensation of him physically leaving, but his presence was no longer there—and I knew that I could look up safely.

  The doorbell rang again and I waited for an instruction, wherever Swan might be. No such instruction came and now there was an angry knocking at the door.

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  There was no answer. No instruction.

  Now the doorbell was ringing continuously and the angry knocking became more impatient.

  “What do I do?”

  “Elton!” Susan’s muffled but furious voice came from the landing outside.“You better open this door!”

  “Please?” I begged, now daring to look around the room. Papers lay scattered everywhere, ornaments examined and discarded. Football pundits were analysing the now-finished game on the television.

  “I can hear you,” threatened Susan. “Open the door!” I rose tentatively from the sofa and made my way to the front door as if walking on thin ice. The ringing, banging and angry words continued. When I unlatched it, the door instantly flew open against me with a crash, the edge catching me painfully on the elbows as I instinctively threw up my hands to protect my face.

  And, of course, Greg the nightclub bouncer—with whom my soon to be ex-wife had taken up—was the first to come through that door. He slapped my arms down and took me with one hand by the throat, propelling me back across the room to the sofa that I had just left.With one brutal shove, I was sprawled backwards, choking for air—as Susan slammed the door shut and came in behind Greg, ready to launch herself at me.

  Greg stopped her.I saw Susan’s arms flailing as he prevented her from getting at me and tried to calm her down.

  “Stop, stop, stop…” Greg tried to get her to look at him. And then, finally:“Stop!” She stopped.

  Susan stepped around him, giving him the kind of glare that she usually reserved for me. She had no make-up on, hadn’t had time to get ready—and I knew that in itself would have infuriated her. Her hair was not as perfectly attended as usual, and she angrily snatched back a wayward strand as she turned her familiar glare back to me.