The Best New Horror 3

by Stephen Jones

  He awoke feeling bloated and lethargic the next morning, but he was resolved to make up for lost time. At ten-thirty Casper appeared on his doorstep, carrying a bag of chocolate-covered raspberry jelly doughnuts.

  “Do you know how many mice it takes to screw in a light bulb?” Casper asked, helping himself to coffee.

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Two—but they have to be real small!” Jelly spurted down Casper’s beard as he guffawed. Keenan had never before heard someone actually guffaw; he’d always assumed it was an exaggerated figure of speech.

  Casper left after about two in the afternoon, unsuccessful in his efforts to coax Keenan into sharing a pizza with him. Keenan returned to his desk, but inspiration was dead.

  And so the daily routine began.

  “Why didn’t you just tell him to stay away and let you work?” Martine interrupted.

  “Easy enough to say,” Keenan groaned. “At first I just felt sorry for him. OK, the guy is lonely—right? Anyway, I really was going to tell him to stop bugging me every day—and then I had my accident.”

  A rain-slick curve, a telephone pole, and Keenan’s venerable VW Beetle was grist for the crusher. Keenan fared rather better, although his left foot would wear a plaster sock for some weeks after.

  Casper came over daily with groceries and bottles of beer and rum. “Glad to be of help,” he assured Keenan as he engulfed most of a slice of pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza. Sauce obscured his beard. “Must be tough having to hobble around day after day. Still, I’ll bet you’re getting a lot of writing done.”

  “Very little,” Keenan grudgingly admitted. “Just haven’t felt up to it lately.”

  “Guess you haven’t. Hey, do you know what the difference is between a circus and a group of sorority girls out jogging?”

  “I give up.”

  “Well, one is a cunning array of stunts!” Casper chortled and wiped red sauce from his mouth. “Guess I better have another beer after that one!”

  Keenan missed one deadline, and then he missed another. He made excuses owing to his accident. Deadlines came around again. The one novel he did manage to finish came back with requests for major revisions. Keenan worked hard at the rewrite, but each new effort was only for the worse. He supposed he ought to cut down on his drinking, but the stress was keeping him awake nights, and he kept having nightmares wherein Casper crouched on his chest and snickered bad jokes and dribbled salsa. His agent sounded concerned, and his editors were losing patience.

  “Me,” said Casper, “I never have trouble writing. I’ve always got lots of ideas.”

  Keenan resisted screaming at the obese hulk who had camped on his sofa throughout the morning. Instead he asked civilly: “Oh? And what are you working on now?”

  “A follow-up to my last book—by the way, my publisher really went ape-shit over that one, wants another like it. This time I’m writing one that traces the rise of Nazi Germany to the Druidic rites at Stonehenge.”

  “You seem to be well versed in the occult,” observed Keenan, repressing an urge to vomit.

  “I do a lot of research,” Casper explained. “Besides, it’s in my blood. Did I ever tell you that I’m related to Aleister Crowley?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I am.” Casper beamed with secret pride.

  “I should have guessed.”

  “Well, the name, of course.”

  Keenan had been thinking of other similarities. “Well, I really do need to get some work done now.”

  “Sure you don’t need me to run you somewhere?”

  “No, thank you. The ankle is a little sore, but I can get around well enough.”

  At the door, Casper persisted: “Sure you don’t want to go get some barbecue?”

  “Very sure.”

  Casper pointed toward the rusted-out Chevy wagon in Keenan’s driveway. “Well, if that heap won’t start again, just give me a call.”

  “I put in a new battery,” Keenan said, remembering that the mechanic had warned him about the starter motor. Keenan had bought the clunker for three hundred bucks—from a student. He needed wheels, and wheels were about all that did work on the rust-bucket. His insurance hadn’t covered replacement for his antique Beetle.

  “Heard you had to return your advance on that Zenith contract.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Keenan wanted to use his fists.

  “My editor—your old editor—brought it up when we were talking contract on my new book the other day. She said for me to check out how you were getting along. Sounded concerned. But I told her you were doing great, despite all the talk.”

  “Thanks for that much.”

  “Hey, you know the difference between a sorority girl and a bowling ball?”

  Keenan did not trust himself to speak.

  “No? Well, you can’t stuff a sorority girl into a bowling ball!”

  After the university informed Mr Bauduret that his services would no longer be required as instructor of creative writing at the evening college, Keenan began to sell off his books and a few antiques. It kept the wolves at arm’s length, and it paid for six-packs. Editors no longer phoned, and his agent no longer answered his calls.

  Casper was sympathetic, and he regularly carried over doughnuts and instant coffee, which he consumed while drinking Keenan’s beer.

  “Zenith gobbled up Nazi Druids,” he told Keenan. “They can’t wait for more.”

  The light in Keenan’s eyes was not the look of a sane man. “So, what’s next?”

  “I got an idea. I’ve discovered a tie-in between flying saucers and the Salem witch burnings.”

  “They hanged them. Or pressed them. No burnings in this country.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, I bought a bunch of your old books on the subject at the Book Barn the other day. Guess I won’t need to borrow them now.”

  “Guess not.”

  “Hey, you want some Mexican for lunch? I’ll pay.”

  “Thank you, but I have some work to do.”

  “Good to see you’re still slugging away.”

  “Not finished yet.”

  “Guess some guys don’t know when they’re licked.”

  “Guess not.”

  “Hey”—Caster chugged his beer—“you know what the mating cry of a sorority girl is?”

  Keenan gritted his teeth in a hideous grin.

  Continued Casper in girlish falsetto: “Oh, I’m so-o-o drunk!” His belly shook with laughter, although he wasn’t Santa. “Better have another beer on that one!”

  And he sat there on the couch, methodically working his way through Keenan’s stock of beer, as slowly mobile and slimy gross as a huge slug feasting its way across the garden. Keenan listened to his snorts and belches, to his puerile and obscene jokes, to his pointless and inane conversation, too drained and too weak to beg him to leave. Instead he swallowed his beer and his bile, and fires of loathing stirred beneath the ashes of his despair.

  That night Keenan found the last bottle of rum he’d hidden away against when the shakes came at dawn, and he dug out the vast file of typed pages, containing all the fits and starts and notes and revisions and disconnected chapters that were the entirety of his years’ efforts toward the Great Southern Novel.

  He had a small patio, surrounded by a neglected rock garden and close-shouldering oak trees, and he heaped an entire bag of charcoal into the barbecue grill that rusted there. Then Keenan sipped from the bottle of Myers’s, waiting for the coals to take light. When the coals had reached their peak, Keenan Bauduret fed his manuscript, page by crumpled page, onto the fire; watched each page flame and char, rise in dying ashes into the night.

  “That was when I knew I had to kill Casper Crowley.”

  Martine wasn’t certain whether she was meant to laugh now. “Kill Casper? But he was only trying to be your friend! I’m sure you can find a way to ask him to give you your space without hurting his feelings.”

  Keenan laughed instead. He poured out the la
st of her gin. “A friend? Casper was a giant grotesque slug! He was a gross leech that sucked out my creative energy! He fed off me and watched over me with secret delight as I wasted away!”

  “That’s rather strong.”

  “From the first day the slug showed up on my doorstep, I could never concentrate on my work. When I did manage to write, all I could squeeze out was dead, boring, lifeless drivel. I don’t blame my publishers for sending it back!”

  Martine sighed, wondering how to express herself. She did rather like Keenan; she certainly felt pity for him now. “Keenan, I don’t want to get you upset, but you have been drinking an awful lot this past year or so . . .”

  “Upset?” Keenan broke into a wild grin and a worse laugh, then suddenly regained his composure. “No need for me to be upset now. I’ve killed him.”

  “And how did you manage that?” Martine was beginning to feel uneasy.

  “How do you kill a slug?”

  “I thought you said he was a leech.”

  “They’re one and the same.”

  “No they’re not.”

  “Yes they are. Gross, bloated, slimy things. Anyway, the remedy is the same.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

  “Salt.” Keenan seemed in complete control now. “They can’t stand salt.”

  “I see.” Martine relaxed and prepared herself for the joke.

  Keenan became very matter-of-fact. “Of course, I didn’t forget the beer. Slugs are drawn to beer. I bought many six-packs of imported beer. Then I prepared an enormous barbecue feast—chickens, ribs, pork loin. Casper couldn’t hold himself back.”

  “So you pushed his cholesterol over the top, and he died of a massive coronary.”

  “Slugs can’t overeat. It was the beer. He drank and drank and drank some more, and then he passed out on the patio lounge chair. That was my chance.”

  “A steak through the heart?”

  “Salt. I’d bought dozens of bags of rock salt for this. Once Casper was snoring away, I carried them out of my station wagon and ripped them open. Then, before he could awaken, I quickly dumped the whole lot over Casper.”

  “I’ll bet Casper didn’t enjoy that.”

  “He didn’t. At first I was afraid he’d break away, but I kept pouring the rock salt over him. He never said a word. He just writhed all about on the lounge chair, flinging his little arms and legs all about, trying to fend off the salt.”

  Keenan paused and swallowed the last of the gin. He wiped his face and shuddered. “And then he began to shrivel up.”

  “Shrivel up?”

  “The way slugs do when you pour salt on them. Don’t you remember? Remember doing it when you were a kid? He just started to shrivel and shrink. And shrink and shrink. Until there was nothing much left. Just a dried-out twist of slime. No bones. Just dried slime.”

  “I see.”

  “But the worst part was the look in his eyes, just before they withered on the ends of their stalks. He stared right into my eyes, and I could sense the terrible rage as he died.”

  “Stalks?”

  “Yes. Casper Crowley sort of changed as he shriveled away.”

  “Well. What did you do then?”

  “Very little to clean up. Just dried slime and some clothes. I waited through the night, and this morning I burned it all on the barbecue grill. Wasn’t much left, but it sure stank.”

  Keenan looked at his empty glass, then glanced hopefully at the empty bottle. “So now it’s over. I’m free.”

  “Well,” said Martine, ignoring his imploring gaze, “I can certainly see that you’ve regained your imagination.”

  “Best be motivating on home now, I guess.” Keenan stood up, with rather less stumbling than Martine had anticipated. “Thanks for listening to my strange little story. Guess I didn’t expect you to believe it all, but I had to talk to someone.”

  “Why not drive carefully home and get some sleep,” Martine advised, ushering him to the door. “This has certainly been an interesting morning.”

  Keenan hung on to the door. “Thanks again, Martine. I’ll do just that. Hey, what do you say I treat you to Chinese tomorrow for lunch? I really feel a whole lot better after talking to you.”

  Martine felt panic, then remorse. “Well, I am awfully busy just now, but I guess I can take a break for lunch.”

  Martine sat back down after Keenan had left. She was seriously troubled, wondering whether she ought to phone Casper Crowley. Clearly Keenan was drinking far too heavily; he might well be harboring some resentment. But harm anyone . . . No way. Just some unfunny attempt at a shaggy dog story. Keenan never could tell jokes.

  When she finally did phone Casper Crowley, all she got was his answering machine.

  Martine felt strangely lethargic—her morning derailed by Keenan’s bursting in with his inane patter. Still, she thought she really should get some work done on her sculpture.

  She paused before the almost finished marble, hammer and chisel at ready, her mind utterly devoid of inspiration. She was working on a bust of a young woman—the proverbial artist’s self-portrait. Martine squared her shoulders and set chisel to the base of the marble throat.

  As the hammer struck, the marble cracked through to the base.

  MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

  The Dark Land

  1991 WAS A good year for Michael Marshall Smith. Not only did his story “The Man Who Drew Cats” win the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, but he was also presented with the Icarus Award for Best Newcomer.

  Smith was born in Knutsford, Cheshire, and grew up in the United States, South Africa and Australia, before returning with his family to England in 1975. His stories have appeared in Dark Voices 2 and 4, Darklands 1 and 2, and Best New Horror 2, and his first novel, Only Forward, will be published by HarperCollins in 1993. He is currently working on more short stories, gearing up for a second novel, co-writing a situation comedy for BBC-TV and developing a feature treatment based loosely on the very strange story that follows . . .

  FOR WANT OF ANYTHING BETTER TO DO, and in the spirit that keeps my room austerely tidy when there are other things I should be doing, I decided to move my bed. After returning from college I’d redecorated my room, as it had been the same since I’d been about ten, and I’d moved just about everything round except for the bed. I knew it was largely an excuse for not doing anything more constructive but pulled it away from the wall and tried it in another couple of positions.

  It was hard work, as one of the legs is rather fragile and the thing had to be virtually lifted off the floor, and after half an hour I was hot and irritated and becoming more and more convinced that its original position had been the optimal, and indeed the only, place to put it. And it was as I struggled to shove it back up against the wall that I began to feel a bit strange. When it was finally back in place I sat down on it, feeling light-headed and a bit ill and I suppose basically I just drifted off to sleep.

  I don’t know if the bed is part of it in some way. I only mention it because it seems important, and because I guess that it was while I was asleep on it that it all began. After a while I woke up, half-remembering a dream in which I had been doing nothing more than lying on my bed remembering that my parents had said that they were going to extend the wood panelling on the downstairs hall walls. For a few moments I was disorientated, confused by being in the same place in reality as I had been in the dream, and then I drifted off again.

  Some time later I awoke again, feeling very sluggish and slightly nauseous. I found it very difficult to haul my mind up from sleep, but eventually stood up and lurched across the room to the sink to get a glass of water, rubbing my eyes and feeling very rough. Maybe I was going down with something. I decided that a cup of tea would be a good idea, and headed out of the bedroom to go downstairs to the kitchen to make one.

  As I reached the top of the stairs I remembered the dream about the panelling and wondered vaguely where a strange idea like that could have
come from. I’d worked hard for my psychology paper at college, and was fairly confident that Freud hadn’t felt that wood panelling was even worth a mention. I trudged downstairs, still feeling a bit strange, my thoughts dislocated and confused.

  Then I stopped, open-mouthed, and stared around me. They really had extended the panelling. It used to only go about eight feet up the wall, but it now soared right up to the front hall ceiling, which is two floors high. And they’d done it in exactly the same wood as the original panelling: there wasn’t a join to be seen. How the hell had they managed that? Come to that, when the hell had they managed that? It hadn’t been there that morning, both my parents were at work and would be for hours and . . . well, it was just impossible, wasn’t it? I reached out and touched the wood, marvelling at how even the grain was the same, and that the new wood looked just as aged as the original, which had been there fifty years.

  As I struggled to get my still sluggish mind in gear surprise suddenly gave way to astonishment. Wait a minute, I thought, that isn’t right. There hadn’t used to be any panelling in the hall. It used just to be white walls. Sure, the stairs were panelled in wood, but the walls were just plain white plaster. How the hell could I have forgotten that? What had made me think that the front hall had been panelled, and think it so unquestioningly? I could now remember that I’d recently noticed, sensitised to these things as I was by having recently repainted my room, that the white paint in the hall was rather dirty, especially round the light switches. So what was all this panelling doing here? Where had it come from, and when, for Christ’s sake? And why had I been so sure that at least some of it had always been there?

  I walked slowly into the kitchen, casting bewildered backward glances at the walls. I heard a soft clinking sound outside and walked to the back door, too puzzled about the front hall to even notice that it was rather late for a milk delivery. The back door, which like the front door opens out onto the driveway, is in a little corridor full of gardening implements, shoes and tools which leads off the kitchen to the garage. I threaded my way through these and wrenched the stiff door open.