The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant Volume 1: Nightmare Seasons (Necon Classic Horror)

by Charles L. Grant

  She didn’t want to open her eyes. It was nice where she was; it was snowing again outside and there were wreaths on all the doors and Sam was still chasing after her in his own, wonderfully clumsy way.

  “Mel, come on, you can’t hide in there forever.” “Oh yes I can.”

  The two men laughed quietly.

  “Mike?”

  “Right here, Mel.”

  She felt her other hand covered, turned it over and squeezed his tightly. “Sam . . . is he . . .”

  “A massive coronary,” Paul said. “From what we can gather, he was trying to lift that stupid typewriter when it hit him.” A pause. “It was quick, Mel. He was gone before he hit the desk.”

  It wasn’t quick, she thought. It was slow. It was painful. He was torn apart and he was bleeding . . . she felt herself drifting, recalling then that someone, a doctor (Paul?) had given her a shot once Mike had brought her home. She wouldn’t have the hospital; she had insisted on her own house, her own bed, and no one had argued.

  Drifting ...

  “I have to leave now, Mel. Tammy sends you her love.”

  She tried to nod but the effort was too great. Instead, her eyelids fluttered, stilled when she felt him kiss her forehead. A moment later she heard him leave, another minute and the front door closed.

  “Mike?”

  “I haven’t left, love. In fact, I’m going to sleep in the spare room.”

  “That bed’s lumpy. Use the couch.”

  “Mel, I’m six four. That thing will cramp me for life.”

  She grinned. Sweet Michael. How sweet Michael is.

  She wanted to speak his name, but the drifting snared her.

  She had no dreams. But when she woke the next morning the man in the black raincoat was standing in the driveway.

  She wanted to duck away from the window, to hide behind the curtains and examine the darkman without him seeing her.

  She did not move.

  She placed her palms on the sill and leaned forward, squinting against the sun’s glare off the snow. There was a fascination, fearful and exciting, and she had to know who the kid was, who the man was, before she screamed for Michael to get the police.

  The scream never came.

  A cloud sifted the sunlight from gold to grey, and she could see through the darkman to the shrubbery behind him.

  When she woke again it was late afternoon, the house was silent and gooseflesh had broken out over her arms. She shivered as she remembered stumbling back to the bed, but did not know if it was the drug or her fear that had driven her to sleep. She yawned and rubbed her arms. Slipped off the mattress and pulled a bathrobe from her closet, covering the nightgown that rustled barely to her knees. Mules with pink tassels warmed her feet. She wondered who had undressed her-Michael, or Paul. Then, when she could think of nothing else to stop her, she walked to the window . . . and the darkman was gone.

  Enough, she thought, annoyed to exasperation. This is quite enough, thank you.

  When she checked the spare room, Michael was gone, a note on the pillow telling her he would call her tonight. Or come over if she wanted.

  She didn’t.

  She wanted to be alone. She needed time to think.

  Down in the kitchen she made herself some coffee and sat at a tiny round table with the cup between her palms. Twilight made the house seem cold, and she worked the collar of her robe close around her neck. The furnace grumbled on in the cellar. A draught kissed her ankles, and she crossed them under the chair.

  One step at a time, she told herself then; let’s take this nonsense one step at a time.

  Number One: Somebody was watching her, following her, and she didn’t think now that it had anything to do with any of her students. She didn’t know why; it was a feeling, nothing more.

  Number Two: It wasn’t a ghost. The fact that she had seen through the darkman this morning was conclusive of nothing except that the light was bright and she was still woozy from the sedative. And she had already decided he’d been standing in the gutter, which is why she and Michael found no prints on the ground.

  Number Three: It was as unnerving as hell; nevertheless, she did not feel threatened. Again, she didn’t know why. The darkman had done nothing but watch her, at a distance, not even bothering to reveal his face.

  Number Four: The darkman killed Sam.

  Slowly, she lowered the cup to the table and bit at the inside of her cheek. She reached around behind her to the counter and picked up the jar of instant coffee, reached again and grabbed the kettle. The water was tepid, but she drank it anyway.

  It killed Sam Litten.

  There had been no shadow (as she’d heard Paul say), and the .evidence of the struggle had been all over the room. Somehow, in some way, that had all been set right—except for the typewriter—before help arrived.

  It had killed Sam.

  And now Sam’s body was flying back to his family in South Carolina, and tomorrow there would be a service in the chapel. She wouldn’t go. Nothing could make her listen to the pieties and the homilies without her remembering those claws, that blood . . .

  Which brought her to Number Five: She had lied when she told Michael she wasn’t under any stress. She was. And most of it, she knew, was stress of her own making. Since she had returned to the Station she had done nothing but try to make those who remembered her mother and her dying forget it all in the brilliance of her own achievements. She was also trying to show them how damned happy she was, in spite of the past, in spite of the fact that her brothers were buried in the Memorial Park on the other side of town. This, plus Sam and those tenure threats of his (recognized at last for what they had really been), was enough to send anyone round the bend, over the edge, into the deep, down into the dark.

  It was possible, then, that she might be going crazy. From Paul she knew full well that saying you’re crazy really meant you were sane was nothing more than a myth. It was possible, then, she was. Or at least staggering on her way.

  And the darkman would be the outward symptom of whatever psychosis her stress was brewing.

  Paranoia. The feeling that somewhere out there someone was trying to do you harm.

  The trouble was, the darkman wasn’t. She already knew that. He wasn’t trying to hurt her.

  The telephone rang, and the cup slipped from her fingers to shatter on the floor. She stared at it for several rings until it became little more than a bright yellow blob clinging to the wall next to the refrigerator. Then she rose, stepping around the shards of ironstone, pushing aside a chair, reaching for the receiver.

  A voice said: Be happy, Melissa.

  And the dial tone burred.

  An hour later it rang again.

  Be happy, Melissa. Be happy. Be happy.

  She wanted to say, “Who are you?” but again she heard the dial tone, and a faint crackling on the line.

  When Michael called at nine she told him she was fine, that she was going to bed, and tomorrow she would be going over to Harley to pick out a last-minute gift for Tammy and Paul. He queried again, and again she reassured him. And when he rang off she went into the study to find a bottle of wine.

  When the phone rang at midnight she slapped it off the hook.

  Stumbled up the steps to her bed and fell on the quilt. She belched, hiccoughed, and thought “paranoia” once more. But what kind of a threat was be happy, Melissa?

  Thursday Mel did as she promised Michael: she took the car and drove to Harley and bought gifts for her friends. Then she spent the rest of the day riding through the Connecticut countryside, marveling at what the snow had done to the fields, to the hills, to the houses and barns almost too perfect for pictures. She crossed the line into Massachusetts and had lunch at an inn. Swept back into her home state bloated, red-cheeked, and listening to Handel on her car’s FM.

  It was full dark by the time she reached Quentin Avenue, and her mood had grown so cheerful she was even ready to kiss the darkman. But apparently the ride was exactly
what she needed: there were no shadows or blobs or blotches in the air. Only Michael’s car at the curb, and Michael waiting on the porch.

  She gave him no time for scolding. She grabbed him, kissed him, brought him inside, and they sat in front of the television until Christmas was official. Then they opened their gifts (his to her, gloves; hers to him, a cashmere scarf) and ate a leisurely meal before going to bed.

  At dawn he tried to persuade her to come with him to spend the day in Hartford. His parents would love her, he insisted, and they’d love to have her join them. But the day was too special. She wasn’t at all sure this was the time for them to examine her, prod her, poke into her past and listen to her speculate on her future. That would have to come at an ordinary time; just in case, she told him, they did not approve.

  Michael pouted, grumbled, fumbled into his clothes and told her he wouldn’t be returning until Sunday. Would she call him? No; but he’d better call her or his life would be in danger. He laughed and left her, and just before nine she called Paul Prescott to see if the invitation was still open, and she was welcome.

  The Prescotts lived on High Street, just off Mainland Road, Their home was new by the Station’s standards, and the living room was long, narrow, everything in such extremes of decor that the red brick fireplace with its gilded glass screen seemed just about perfect. Mel sat in a canvas-slung chair and watched with less contentment than she would have wished as Paul fussed expertly with pine logs and kindling, and Tammy made one of her interminable adjustments to the tinsel on the aluminum tree. Two large speakers, affixed deep in the vaulted ceiling, whispered seasonal music to the overly warm air. She listened to it for a while, then slowly (so slowly she would have sworn it was the room moving and not her) turned her head to look out the picture window. Much of the snow had gone, or had turned to black-grey slush at the curbs, but enough stubbornly remained on shrubs and tree bark to give the morning its proper traditional touch.

  A swoop of children raced by, dragging behind them freshly waxed sleds. A car honked at them, and they waved, their shrill laughter just audible as they rounded the comer and vanished.

  “More, dear?”

  Mel glanced down at the teacup in her hand, blinked, then looked up at Tammy and shook her head with a grin. “No, thanks. I think I’ve had enough to float a Liberty ship.”

  Tammy smiled quickly (nervously? Mel wondered) and hurried out of the room. Mel watched her leave, then looked to Paul, whose back was still toward her, muttering to himself because his matches wouldn’t light. He yanked hard at his mustache, shook a fist at the logs, and it was all Mel could do to keep from laughing. And that made her frown. Ordinarily, she would have laughed, would have teased Paul unmercifully, and Tammy would have joined her. But though neither had said anything directly to her, she could tell the moment she walked through the door that in the time it had taken her to dress and drive over the invitation had . . . not quite soured, but lost its hearty welcome.

  Neither of them had said anything to her about her collapse at school, or of the service she had skipped. In fact, Sam’s name hadn’t been mentioned at all. So what was the matter, her irritation demanded; did they think she was crazy or something, that she would contaminate them both? She would have killed, then, to know what Paul had told his wife about the darkman.

  And that was something else that had not been mentioned.

  It could have been the holiday, of course. This was hardly the time to talk about matters unpleasant and minds near unbalanced. But somehow she didn’t think that was the case here at all.

  Tammy returned, then—bright in black leotards edged with silver, with an overskirt of green that hushed when she walked—and broke into the ceremony of exchanging their gifts.

  Her present was an exquisite gold compact engraved with her name; Tammy’s a lamb’s-wool coat; Paul’s a volume of Dickens’ short stories. And they laughed more than necessary when she realized she’d left her own presents at home.

  “Absentminded,” Paul said to her, grinning and chuckling.

  “The stereotype reborn, right here in this very house.”

  “It’s a far, far better thing you do,” Tammy said, one arm flung high, the other across her face. “It was probably toilet water.”

  “Hey,” she said, “don’t knock it. It was fresh from my tap.”

  Laughter again, until Mel saw Paul virtually fondling his hook. “Do you watch that movie every year, A Christmas Carol, I mean?”

  “Are you kidding?” Tammy said. “Every chance he gets. He’s an expert, you know. Just ask him to explain which is the bcttn Scrooge, Alistair Sim or Reginald Owen.” Paul blushed, and Mel blew him a kiss. “And every time poor Tiny Tim dies, when you see the crutches there by the fireplace, you know what I mean? Every time that happens, the old sot cries.”

  “I most certainly do not,” he said, though he smiled over the denial.

  “I’ll bet you do, too,” Mel accused with a laugh. “And ten to one you’re scared to death of the Ghost of Christmas to Come.”

  Tammy scoffed. “Nuts. That man there isn’t afraid of anything. I tell you, Mel, he’s no fun at horror movies, no fun at all.”

  “Not even when there’re ghosts?”

  “No such thing,” Paul said. “Not, that is, if you mean people who’ve died and have come back to haunt us.” He frowned, then, and looked at her sideways. “Why? Are you seeing ghosts, Mel?”

  “Hey, Paul, come on!” Tammy said. “It’s Christmas, for crying out loud.”

  “No,” Mel said. Then she tried to find a way to get comfortable in the chair, surrendered with a shrug and slid to the floor, where she crossed her legs and lay her hands on her knees. She was wearing a green blouse and dark slacks, was fully aware that her position drew the material snug over her curves. Was aware, too, that Paul didn’t miss a rounding. “But isn’t that the only kind there are?”

  “Nope. You’ve got the mind kind, too.”

  “The mind kind?”

  “He means,” Tammy said, “the kind that people think they see but are only in their minds. Guilt, desire, stuff like that. Now can we stop talking about it?”

  “Is that what you mean, Paul?” she said.

  When he nodded she felt ice at the back of her neck.

  Still felt it after lunch and almost didn’t hear Paul excuse himself from the table. But when they were alone, she saw Tammy looking hard at her, and not at all kindly.

  “What?” she said.

  Tammy, flustered, began fussing with her hair. “Nothing, really. I was just wondering something, that’s all.”

  Mel smiled. In spite of the ice, in spite of the setback, she’d not had a more pleasant day in weeks. Nothing, she thought, could spoil her present mood. “Come on, dear, what’s bothering you?”

  “If you must know ... you are.”

  Mel wasn’t sure she had heard her friend clearly. “Me? Are you talking about me?”

  “We’ve been married nearly fourteen years, you know,” Tammy said, taking a fork and twirling it slowly in her hands. “It isn’t my fault we couldn’t have children, but he never seemed to mind. He had his work, and I had the stage, and everything seemed to be moving along just great, you know what I mean?” She put the fork down, picked up a spoon. “About two years ago he started staying late at the office, both downtown and at the college. He was still writing that book, so I didn’t think anything of it. But . . . well, it just hasn’t been the same between us. There’s a distance there, Mel, and I don’t know how to cross it.” The spoon fell to the carpet, and she took hold of a knife. She smiled wanly. “He talks a lot about you and Mike, you know. He thinks you’ll make the perfect pair once you get together. Is it going to be soon, Mel? Have you set the date yet?”

  The ice slid around to her chest, penetrated and took hold of her lungs, her heart. The brightness of the room dimmed, and the twinkling of the snow outside became nothing more than a glare.

  “Tammy,” she said quietly, “ther
e isn’t anything to worry about.”

  “I . . . god, I hope not.”

  “There never was.”

  Tammy pushed away from the table and walked out of the room, but Mel discovered that her legs would not work. She wanted to stand, but neither her arms nor her knees wanted to cooperate. But it’s Christmas, damnit! she wanted to call out; what the hell are you talking about, me and Paul! What the hell are you talking about?

  The words would not come. She could only sit there, gripping hard the edge of the table, watching her friend slump sadly to the floor in front of the fireplace and stare forlornly at the flames that snapped at the chimney. Sand crawled into her eyes, and she rubbed them hard with her knuckles. She could not believe it; she was invited into this house, and suddenly, without any warning, accused of having an affair with a friend who happened to be the husband of a friend.

  What was wrong with everyone today?

  Don’t they know what day it is?

  First Paul gave her those looks when he was talking about ghosts (and admittedly it was a dumb thing to bring up in the first place), and now there was Tammy. There was something more to this; there had to be. They’d known each other too long for such childish nonsense to come between them like this. My god, wasn’t it Paul and Tammy—and especially Tammy—who’d helped her get started when she’d come back to Oxrun? Wasn’t it Tammy who showed her the ropes, the politics, the hazards in each department? What kind of game was she playing? It occurred to her that perhaps Tammy wasn’t really happy with Paul at all and was searching for an excuse—it didn’t matter which one, which kind—any excuse to get out from under. But that didn’t wash either. If there had been any tension, any signs of breaking, she would have noticed something long before now.

  Paul stepped into the living room, looked at his wife, looked to Mel and took several paces toward her.

  “What,” he asked, “did you say to Tammy.”

  “Nothing,” she said flatly. “I said nothing at all.” As Paul turned away she stopped him with his name. “She, on the other hand, wanted to know if we were still . . . seeing each other. On the sly, as it were.”