The Best New Horror 1

by Stephen Jones

“Hey, Kevin, your mother licks armpits.”

  “Cheez. Hey, Jamie, you’re gay.”

  “You’re a fat slob, Kevin.”

  “You wet your bed, Jamie.”

  “You’re spastic, Kevin.”

  “Hey, Jamie, your mother eats dog boogers.”

  At this they both collapsed into wild laughter. When they had got their breath back, Kevin said, “Great about school bein’ closed, huh? What’re you doin’?”

  “Sitting here talking to you on the phone, what do you think I’m doing?”

  “Your folks home?”

  “No,” Jamie said. “Yours?”

  “Naw,” Kevin said, “they both had to go to work. Wicked neat bein’ home by yourself, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Jamie said, “yeah, I guess so.”

  Kevin guffawed so loud that Jamie had to back the phone off his ear an inch or two. “Whadda ya mean, you guess so? You scared bein’ alone, Jamie? Hah?”

  “No, no, I’m not scared. What’s there to be scared of?”

  “Yeah, I bet you’re not scared. I bet you’re gonna pee your pants.”

  “Up yours, Kevin.”

  “Bite my dong, Jamie.”

  “Hey.” Jamie had just realized that the radio was still going, in the kitchen. “Hey, hold on, I’m gonna go get the radio and bring it in here so I can listen to it in the bed.”

  “You in bed, Jamie? What a pussy.”

  Jamie put the receiver down on a pillow and went for the radio. When he had it plugged in and playing on the bureau, with the volume down a little so that he could hear Kevin, he resettled himself in the middle of the bed and picked the phone up. “I’m back.”

  “What did you have to go get the radio for?” Kevin asked.

  Jamie took another bite of the candy bar and talked with his mouth full. “Wanta listen to the cancellations.”

  “How come, you dumb ass? You already know they cancelled school. You’re home, ain’t you?”

  Jamie watched the snow falling ever harder and faster beyond the windowpanes. “I thought maybe if it got bad enough they might close the mill early and—”

  “And our dads would come home, right? I told you you were scared, you chickenshit.”

  “Stick it in your ear, Kevin.”

  “What station you listenin’ to?” Kevin asked. Jamie could hear him tuning a radio across the dial, a jumble of stations fading in and out.

  “It’s at 1360,” he said, “that Manchester station.”

  “Got it,” Kevin said, and Jamie could hear the radio sound over the phone slide into agreement with his own radio.

  “. . . as storm-related information continues to come in, so stay with us and we’ll keep you up to date on what’s happening here in southern New Hampshire on this miserable day. Have another cup of coffee for me, won’t you? Time now at Storm Center Radio is 7:28, and we have some basketball scores for you—ah, but first, this just in, schools in Londonderry are closed, that’s Londonderry, no school, all schools. And I’m told now that schools in Concord and Laconia have been closed after all. That’s Concord, no school, all schools, and Laconia, no school, all schools. Here’s another one just in—Saint Anselm’s College is closed today, both day and evening classes. We’ll update you on the whole list of cancellations at 7:40, but first here’s Tom Michaud with local sports news. Tell us, Tom, what happened with that basketball game at Rivier College last night?”

  “Hey, Jamie, this is neat. The whole town’s covered up with snow.”

  Jamie had been to Kevin’s apartment building across town several times after school or on Saturdays, and knew that you could see just about the whole town from Kevin’s fourteenth-floor living room window.

  “Kevin?”

  “Huh?”

  “Can you see Sanborn’s from there?”

  “Sanborn’s? Yeah. Of course I can see Sanborn’s. It’s got snow all over the roof. What’s the matter, puddin’-face’ oo miss oo mommy?”

  “Smell my farts, Kevin.”

  “Smell ’em yourself.”

  They were quiet for a while, their radios murmuring the same commercials, the same chatter. Jamie couldn’t think of anything to say, and apparently Kevin couldn’t either.

  “. . . cancelled, and also the meeting of the Franco-American Friendship Club scheduled for this evening has been cancelled. The Manchester Public Library is open this morning, but there is no bus transportation for the Tiny Tots Storytime, and the library will close at noon. Those are the newest ones in. Here’s a complete list of public school cancellations again now as we have them, we’ll be reading them again for the last time at 8:05. Here we go. Manchester, no school, all schools. Nashua, no school, all schools. . . .”

  “Hey, Kevin?”

  “Mm?”

  “Listen, you don’t have to hang on the line if you got things you want to do.”

  A moment of silence. Then: “Naw, I don’t have nothin’ I wanta do. I’ll stay on.”

  Jamie thought: I bet I know why, too. He said, “Sort of nice havin’ somebody to talk to, right?”

  “You sayin’ I’m spooked bein’ here by myself?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Jamie replied. “All I said was it’s good to have somebody to talk to.”

  More silence on Kevin’s end, then: “Yeah, I guess it is, kind of. Even if I have to talk to some numb-nuts like you.”

  They became thoughtful again, neither speaking for a good while. Outside Jamie’s parents’ bedroom window, the snow seemed heavier, more insistent, every minute. It brushed against the frosty panes with jittery fingers of white, worrying at the glass, whispering. He could scarcely see far enough out now to make out the pines, except when the snow would lift a moment, rearranged by the wind. He ventured a remark to Kevin, bracing for the taunting reply it would bring.

  “Something about the snow’s kinda eerie, isn’t it?”

  Kevin was slow in replying, and, surprisingly, he said, “Yeah. Kind of.”

  What do you know, Jamie thought—he feels it too. “Kevin, can you see the mill?”

  “Yeah, just barely. It’s a long way off. I can just see it. Looks like a ghost.”

  “. . . and Storm Center Radio will bring you all the details throughout the day, so stay tuned. I’m Rick Phillips for Radio 1360, Manchester, your information station for southern New Hampshire.” Then music, some whimpy-sounding song like the old-fashioned stuff grownups listened to.

  Odd.

  Odd, the way that voice had sounded. Something—different about it.

  “Kevin?”

  “Mm.”

  “Did you think that guy on the radio sounded kind of strange?”

  Kevin seemed to be thinking about this. “I guess I wasn’t payin’ much attention to him. I was watchin’ the snow.”

  “Well, let’s listen to him when he comes back on again.”

  “Okay,” Kevin said. Somehow Kevin seemed different too, now, more serious. Jamie had almost never known Kevin to be serious about much of anything. The music droned its way to a conclusion, and the voice was back.

  “A little hit of Mel Tormé for a snowy morning, nice, don’t you think? Time now is 8:25, that snow keeps coming on down. And do we have some new cancellations for you!”

  Jamie drew the sheets closer around his legs, feeling suddenly colder. The wind outside the window moaned and shifted the snow in crazy-looking patterns. That voice was different, and he didn’t like the way it sounded. It was—what? A little like some kind of cartoon-character villain, sort of half-mocking like. Sort of . . . unreal.

  “I see what you mean,” he heard Kevin say. “He’s . . .”

  “Shh, listen.”

  “Here’s the big one, friends, listen carefully.” He pronounced carefully the way Bela Lugosi might say it in a Dracula movie, drawing the first vowel out long with a final lilt. “Here it is. Merrimack Valley Mill is cancelled.” The radio went immediately to music again, some love song.

  For a long while neither b
oy spoke. It was Kevin who finally broke the silence. “Jamie?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Jamie, I’m lookin’ out the window and somethin’ looks funny.”

  “What do you mean, something looks funny?”

  Kevin waited a long time before answering, and when he did, he sounded awestruck. “This ain’t right. I can see Pennacook Park.”

  “So what’s the big deal about seein’ Pennacook Park?”

  “I never could see it before. Not from here.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Kevin, it’s as big as a football field. Bigger. You must of seen it.”

  “No, no, I’m tellin’ you, Jamie, I never could see it before. I can barely see it now, just when the snow lets up a second, but it’s there, all right. And”—Jamie could hear him draw in a shocked-sounding breath; Kevin, Kevin sounding shocked, Kevin who never sounded shocked—“and I just figured out why. It’s because the mill ain’t there.”

  Jamie laughed, but the laugh came out a little hollow. “Give me a break, Kevin. Of course the mill is there. What are you talking about?”

  “Look, Jamie, I ought to know where that mill is, from my own window, and I’m tellin’ you, it ain’t there. That’s why I can see the park, because the mill ain’t hidin’ it anymore.”

  Outside Jamie’s parents’ window, the wind whooped up into a deranged-sounding howl and threw snow against the panes. “Kevin, what are you saying? My dad works there.”

  Kevin was quiet for a long time, then said, “So does mine.”

  “Kevin, look—hey, ssh, the guy’s on the radio again.”

  “. . . hope you enjoyed that one by Dean Martin. At 8:39, this is Radio 1360, your voice of the storm.” The voice had that lilting, mocking tone again, more so than before. “And in case you thought we were through with cancellations, consider this one, my friends. This just in—Sanborn’s in Merrimack. Sanborn’s has been cancelled.” Immediately, more music.

  “Kevin?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Kevin, my mom works at Sanborn’s.”

  “I know.”

  “Kevin, can you see Sanborn’s?”

  After a moment, Kevin replied, “I can’t tell, there’s so much snow.”

  “Kevin, look, I’m going to hang up for a minute. I’ll call you back.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.” Jamie clicked the receiver down and raced to the living room and retrieved the envelope from the coffee table and returned to the bedroom. He punched out the digits his mom had scribbled on the envelope, feeling oddly moved by the sight of her handwriting. As he listened for the phone to ring on the other end, strained to hear that soft burring sound, he heard only a blank hissing on the line, and the murmuring of the wind outside, where, he could see, the snow was falling harder than ever. Finally he gave up and dialed Kevin back. Kevin answered before the first ring was finished. “Jamie?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Look, I tried to call my mom, but there’s was no answer. It doesn’t even ring.”

  Kevin coughed and seemed about to say something, when the voice returned to the radio.

  “We hope you’re staying tuned, because we have another update on the snow cancellations. Exotron Technologies has been cancelled. Compton Industries has been cancelled. Pennacook Mall has been cancelled.”

  “Jamie!”

  “I heard.”

  “Jamie, my mom works at Pennacook Mall.”

  “I know.”

  “Jamie—there’s somethin’ awful wrong. The downtown, out my window. There’s, like, parts of it gone. I mean, really gone. Like holes in it.”

  “Kevin, I’m getting sc. . .”

  “Shh. Jamie. Listen.”

  “. . . and still more Storm Center Radio update for you. Ready for this one?” The voice sounded thick, gloating, dreadful. “Reeds Ferry Apartments, in Merrimack, cancelled.” Music; some woman was singing, “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

  A brittle finger of ice wormed its way up Jamie’s spine. Kevin lived in the Reeds Ferry Apartments complex. He swallowed hard to get his voice back.

  “Kevin?”

  Nothing.

  “Kevin?”

  Nothing at all.

  “Kevin!”

  Nothing on the line at all but a dead, dry hissing, like the sound that might come out of the grinning and remorseless mouth of a reptile.

  “Kevin. Please be there. Please.”

  Silence. Silence on the phone, and the radio crooning along, unconcerned.

  He hung up the phone and sat looking out at the snow, which had grown into a nightmare whiteness pressing at the window, blotting everything out, swirling in the madness of the wind.

  He looked at the two remaining candy bars on the pillow, and at the envelope where his mom had written her phone number those eons ago. Pulling the sheets closer around him and pressing the envelope to his cheek, he sat in the bed and waited for the music to end.

  NICHOLAS ROYLE

  Archway

  NICHOLAS ROYLE was born in Sale, Cheshire, and currently lives in North London. He has published more than 35 stories to date in a wide variety of books and magazines, including Cutting Edge, Book of the Dead, The Year’s Best Horror Stories, The Truth, Reader’s Digest and Gorezone.

  He recently edited Darklands, an original anthology of horror stories by British writers, and currently has two novels looking for a publisher, Counterparts and Saxophone Dreams.

  Royle was unemployed and living in a poorly maintained rented flat when writing “Archway”: “While I could see a light at the end of the tunnel,” he explains, “many can’t. Because there isn’t always one. And since I wrote the story, conditions have deteriorated thanks to benefit changes and mishandling of the economy.”

  IN RESPECT OF THE WEATHER, as she would later discover, it was a typical Archway day, the Friday that Bella moved into the flat. How terribly British of her to talk about the weather, Bella’s sister wrote in reply to the letter Bella had sent a few days after moving in. Not at all like her, wrote Jan. What did she know? thought Bella. Jan had always sought arguments on trivial matters. Her provocations were best ignored.

  She crumpled up the letter and looked out of the kitchen window. The sun was casting sharp rectangles of light on the huddled walls and buildings; large black-grey clouds moved in from the south-west like airships to obscure the light. The weather followed the same pattern every day: bright intervals followed by the intrusion of these heavy grey clouds, which were soon blown over by the ever-persistent wind. Bella had become something of a weather-watcher, it was true, but not because she responded to the Britishness of the occupation; rather, it served as a distraction.

  She threw Jan’s letter in the bin and crossed the kitchen. Her finger alighting on the percolator switch, she froze. There was that noise again. She’d heard it a few times that week and had been able neither to locate it, nor with any certainty identify it. Sometimes it was like an asthmatic’s wheezing, sometimes an old man’s derisive laugh. Asthmatics and old men there may well have been in the upper and lower flats and on either side, but the noise sounded as though it came from within her walls. Just an acoustic trick, she assured herself, the source of which would no doubt one day soon come to light.

  “There you are then. You can have a day to think about it if you want,” the landlord had said after giving his lightning tour of the flat. “But the sooner you decide the better. I don’t know if you know what the present housing situation is like, but . . .”

  “I know exactly what it’s like,” she interrupted him. “I’ve been looking for over a month and some of the places I’ve seen, well, I wouldn’t live in them if you paid me.”

  “There’s plenty would. Can’t turn your nose up these days. Anyway, that’s another matter. This is a good flat and I’ll have no trouble finding someone for it. So, when can you tell me?”

  Bella thought quickly. It was the first flat she’d seen which satisfied all her requirements—self-contained,
own front door, bath fitted, telephone already in, adequately furnished, ten minutes from the tube, rent just within her means provided she got the housing benefit.

  “I’ll take it,” she said, surprised at how easy it was, not believing the search was over.

  “Right. You can move in on Friday. A month’s rent in advance, a month deposit. When can you let me have a reference?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Reference. From your employer.”

  “Oh, by the end of this week, I should imagine.” She should be able to get it by then. In fact, the matter of a reference had slipped her mind, but it was of course essential. She remembered the miles of cards in newsagents’ windows which repeatedly stressed “No DHSS” and “Professional people only”.

  Bella straightened the framed photograph which had drawn her attention. Now at the white wall she fingered the crack. It was nothing to worry about, the landlord had said in his booming voice. But she found she was able to slide her finger into the gap—she was sure she hadn’t been able to do that before. She heard the photograph move and reached to straighten it again. The crack widened a fraction and a solid lump of darkness fell into the room. Bella stooped to pick it up but it dissolved in her hand like it was nothing. Suddenly the light in the room dimmed as black light dribbled from the crack. The crack gaped and a great absence of light seemed to pour into the room, thick and viscous like tar, yet neither liquid nor solid.

  It laughed at her.

  Bella rose from contemplation of her breakfast, depressed after a bad night, and straightened the photograph on the wall. As she touched the frame she felt a tug of familiarity. She didn’t remember anything else until some time later when she was on her way out of the door and she heard somebody laugh where nobody could have been.

  *

  Lunch was busier than usual at the restaurant. Again she felt glad she was not a waitress, rushing around with never enough time to do all that was demanded. Bella was happier sitting at the cash desk, steadily working through hundreds of pounds and as many indecipherable bills. Not that she was content, however. The cash system at the restaurant she’d worked at before coming here had been much more straightforward, and her work as a result had been more efficient. But that restaurant had closed for refurbishment work only a couple of weeks ago, its employees effusively thanked and put out on the street. So she’d asked around and found a job here. The wages were better, which was good, now that she had the flat to pay for. As for the reference, she was sitting on it. The manageress had typed up a short note which was now in the back pocket of Bella’s jeans.