In fact, it was only the intrusions of nature that had made the place look so dismal. Someone left a window open, and that had given small animals their run of the cabin long enough to make a mess. But it was all superficial. No real harm done.
Jennifer got everything looking pretty good, but when George cooled off from his run, he kicked her out of the kitchen, and she had to turn her attention to the combination living and bedroom while he cooked supper.
She started by scraping the empty beer cans and food wrappers off the low table in the middle of the room. In their place she set out one of the bottles of bourbon George had bought on their way out of the city, and beside it three bowls and as many glasses, which she managed to liberate from the kitchen with only minimal objection from the chef. A candle in an old Chianti bottle became the table’s centrepiece. And Jennifer topped the setting off with a loaf of bread on a piece of wood she’d found in the kitchen and assumed was a bread board.
She had just finished arranging everything for the best effect when Lee came in from outside. As usual, he seemed a little wrapped up in something private; didn’t start a conversation or offer to help with the housework. Instead, he took his guitar out of its case and after giving it a few minutes to adjust to the room’s atmosphere started playing a tune Jennifer hadn’t heard before.
Apparently it was something he was trying to learn. He kept getting stuck part way through and spent most of his time looking for a chord that fitted. But it still sounded good, and Jennifer listened to it as she finished her work.
The cabin had several boxes of candles - more than she thought it really needed - so she appropriated a dozen and placed them strategically around the living room. And when everything outside was dark, she lit them and stood back to admire what she’d done. Somehow the candles seemed a perfect accessory for the cabin. They gave it a warm glow that blended with the smells of George’s stew to make the place seem every bit as much a home as her own apartment.
It was as if she’d managed to bring in some of the nocturnal wonderland from outside. And that was no small accomplishment.
‘This cabin isn’t so bad, really,’ she said, looking around to survey the results of her labour one more time.
‘We like it,’ George answered as he brought in a large pot of non-vegetarian stew and set in on the table.
‘No. I’m serious. It looks like a dung heap from the outside, but once you get settled in, the place feels pretty comfortable.’
‘That’s because it’s lived in,’ Lee said, without looking up from the strings of his guitar. ‘We’ve been coming here for decades...’
‘Since you were an infant, I suppose?’
‘Very funny.’ He finally gave up and laid the guitar aside. ‘I mean “we” as a group.’
‘I was pretty young when I first came here,’ George said. ‘An old guy picked me up in the Y when I was sixteen. I used to hang out there, hoping to find someone else like me. Then he found me. He brought me here for a week that summer.’
‘Does he own the place or something?’
‘No, I don’t think anyone owns it. And he’s dead now.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right,’ George said, though something at the edge of his voice hinted that it wasn’t. ‘We were close for a while, but those days were long ago. I guess that’s the way it goes. Everyone dies. Anyway, he told me how his uncle brought him here when he was just a pup.’
‘Did they bring up the pagoda?’
George looked confused.
‘On the path.’
‘Oh, that. They may have. I think someone just put it there to dress the place up. After that, other guys brought up the rest of the stuff over the years.’
Jennifer dished up the food. She ladled out a bowl of stew for George, passed one to Lee and served herself. Then she settled back into a pillow and stirred hers with a piece of bread.
‘That’s the way this place is,’ George went on, pouring some bourbon into his glass. ‘The old guy told me I could use it any time I wanted. So I brought Lee here about five years ago. Now we’re bringing you. Someday you’ll bring a friend. And years from now they’ll bring others.’
‘Everyone who stays here makes the place a little more lived in,’ Lee added.
‘Living’s better than the alternative, I suppose.’ George took a gulp of whiskey and pronounced his approval by pouring another shot.
‘You know what I mean,’ Lee insisted.
‘Sure, but a house is just a house. You got your roof, you got your bed, and if you’re lucky you got your whiskey glass.’
‘What ever happened to him?’ Jennifer asked.
‘Who?’ Now George looked a little frustrated, as if he wished Jennifer would stick to one subject and ask questions he could grasp the first time out.
‘The man who brought you here.’
‘Oh. He’s buried out back.’
Jennifer didn’t ask. She wanted to, but the circles she ran in had an unwritten rule. Everyone was expected to sense which topics were too personal to talk about, and guessing wrong meant getting slapped down.
She wasn’t sure, but she suspected she’d drifted into one of those topics. So she didn’t ask.
They finished the meal in silence. Then they drank and talked and played harmless games. But it didn’t take long for the mountain air and the day’s exercise to take their toll, and they were all asleep before midnight.
* * * *
Sunday started gradually on the mountain. Even in the city, there would have been no need to rush. But here it was unthinkable.
They slept late and woke slowly. There was plenty of time for coffee and doughnuts, which led them out to the porch where they sat for hours, watching the people in the valley emerge in small groups from their tiny dwellings and gather at their big white church and, after a respectable interlude, drift away from it to return home. There was little activity in the town after that, no visible motion at any rate, to show whether the people were doing anything important.
Most of the day on the mountain was like that, too. It passed without incident.
Then came the morose drinking that’s often a symptom of being away from home and having too much time to think.
It began in the late afternoon. At least, that’s when whatever the guys had been holding in came to the surface.
Jennifer had decided to set the kitchen table for supper, just to add a touch of class. She appropriated some half burned candles from the living room, arranged them at the centre of the table and set out some of the matching Doulton she’d found tucked away at one end of the kitchen cabinets.
But this time, no one wanted to help. After setting the table, she had to cook while the guys stayed outside hacking up firewood they weren’t going to use and tinkering with the station wagon, which had run perfectly all the way up from the city. Then when they finally decided to come in, she had to serve the meal.
And when everything was on the table, they didn’t appreciate the effort. They passed up the wine she’d set out, drinking straight whiskey instead. The rare steak and scalloped potatoes she’d worked on so hard didn’t suit them. Nor did they bother to compliment her table even once. She could accept that kind of behaviour from George, but Lee certainly knew better.
To make things worse, after supper they both refused to leave the kitchen, even when Jennifer snatched the dishes away and whisked the crumbs off the tablecloth. They just sat there, sliding a half-gallon jug of bourbon back and forth between them and swigging it with that macho attitude men seem to adopt when they’re feeling down.
Jennifer saw what was coming and did everything she could to stay aloof. First, she busied herself with the dishes - it was her turn anyway - and when everything was dried and put away, she took the scraps outside to scatter them on the ground for the animals.
But when she got back, things had taken a nasty turn. During the thirty seconds she was outside, one of the guys had taken an old Smith & Wesson
revolver out of a drawer in the living room. Now it was sitting on the kitchen table beside the jug. That was when Jennifer really wanted to disengage.
She took a glass of wine to the living room, built a nest for herself in front of the fire and started playing solitaire with a dog-eared deck of cards that had shared the drawer with the Smith & Wesson. Different games for different folks, she reckoned.
For more than two hours the scene changed gradually but predictably. It started with a little self-pity and a round of whiskey. Then it progressed to questioning the wisdom of the Almighty, who’d obviously made a mistake when he made the world the way it was, followed by another drink. Then more self-pity, this bout steeped in slurred introspection followed by agreement that most parents are ill-equipped for the job.
‘I wish you guys would grow up,’ Jennifer finally said, speaking over her shoulder but refusing to look around.
‘Maybe we have ... at long last,’ Lee mumbled, his words punctuated by the scraping sound of the gun sliding across the table and the less metallic sound of the jug being set down hard.
Jennifer turned her head just enough to see what was going on in the kitchen. She hoped the guys wouldn’t notice. She didn’t want to encourage them.
George spun the cylinder and raised the gun to his temple. He cocked the hammer, left his thumb on it and tugged at the trigger until the action released. Then he let the hammer down very slowly.
‘You know you’re betraying your heritage,’ Jennifer said, turning back to the cards and shuffling the deck nervously. ‘Just accept what you are.’
‘That’s the hardest part,’ George sighed.
‘Then gut it out. If I can do it, you can. I’m just a dumb old girl, remember - the weaker half of the species. Isn’t that the way you put it once, George?’
She thought if she could provoke them, maybe they’d come into the living room and get their minds on something healthier. But it didn’t work.
‘Let’s do it,’ George said.
‘Why not.’ Lee’s voice no longer sounded like him. It was low and tense, with a bitter, icy edge.
Jennifer heard the sound of the cylinder spin and spin again. Then a second of silence followed by a raspy, metallic click and a loud sigh.
She refused to look but heard the ritual repeated twice more. Each time the harsh sounds grated on her nerves. And each time they seemed slower, further apart, as if the guys were losing their nerve. But it was probably just her apprehension that had thrown everything into slow motion.
After the third time, she turned and stared, but she quickly wished she hadn’t. The scene was more than she’d bargained for. Lee was pale, his face dotted with beads of sweat. George held the gun. His eyes were closed and his mouth slightly open. He sat completely motionless except for his left hand. It was resting on the table, beside the jug, and moving mechanically up and down in tight jerks.
‘I can’t believe you two.’ That was all she said. She wanted to say more, but it was obviously too late.
George laid the gun on the table, and Lee picked it up. He spun the cylinder and raised the old Smith & Wesson to his head.
Jennifer turned away, unwilling to watch any more of their sick game. To steady herself, she picked up her wine glass and started to take a long pull from it.
The explosion was sharp and much too loud. She jumped so hard the wine splashed all over her blouse, and through the ringing in her ears she thought she heard a short, desperate laugh from George.
She closed her eyes and didn’t open them again for a long time. She neither needed nor wanted to see what had happened.
Eventually, a wave of nausea came over her. It’s hard when your own kind dies, not like seeing a rabbit or a squirrel lying in the road. When it’s one of your own, it becomes a very personal thing.
Her stomach tightened so much she thought she was going to throw up, but it didn’t happen. That was good. She needed to be strong, at least for the rest of the night. There was still more to endure before she could go home again.
* * * *
The last morning at the cabin was beautiful, though sad. By the time Jennifer awakened, most of the shock had worn off. Her hands still trembled a little, but that was normal for the morning after. For the most part, she was able to put it out of her mind while she watched the sun rise and helped load the station wagon.
She and George had run all night. He showed her the path through the rolling hills that led down to the valley. They explored the woods, ate their fill at one of the farms and even circled the town from a safe distance.
The valley was fantastic in the monochrome light of the full moon. All the sounds were happy, while the mingled scents of fireplace smoke and slowly cooking dinners floated on a gentle breeze that made Jennifer’s body feel cool and strangely liberated.
It was nearly dawn when they returned to the cabin. They got a few hours of sleep then jump-started with a pot of black coffee, cleaned up and prepared for the drive back to the city.
They laid Lee to rest in the graveyard behind the cabin. He had no relatives, nor anyone who would really miss him, and there was no reason to take him anywhere else.
The revolver still lay on the table in the kitchen. The last thing George did, after he’d packed their things and loaded the car, was to put it in the drawer it had come from and carefully place the box of silver-tipped bullets beside it. Both would be safe there until someone decided to use them again.
While George drove along the winding road that led down to the city, Jennifer curled up in the back seat and tried to get some sleep. The purr of the engine and the gentle beating of tyres on the old blacktop helped her relax. And she consoled herself by holding on to the thought that it would be a month until the next full moon.
Perhaps things would be different then.
C. Bruce Hunter lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The preceding story marks his return to horror fiction after an absence of several years, but he has not been completely idle. He has spent the intervening time exploring esoteric subjects with his colleagues, Andrew and Alison Ferguson. The fruits of their work have appeared in such publications asRenaissatice, The Philalethes and Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, and in a new book,The Legacy of the Sacred Chalice, which traces the origins of the masonic ritual to the twelfth century. The author denies any personal knowledge of the events related in this story. Without elaborating, he does admit that it has something to do with experiences he had with a former girlfriend, and adds: ‘I hope the readers understand that “Changes” is merely a sensitive and insightful tale about a young woman’s monthly cycle. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that there’s anything supernatural in the story . ..’
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* * * *
The Abortionist’s Horse
(A Nightmare)
TANITH LEE
Naine bought the house in the country because she thought it would be perfect for her future life.
At this time, her future was the core upon and about which she placed everything. She supposed that was instinctive.
The house was not huge, but interesting. Downstairs there was a large stone kitchen recently modernised, packed with units, drawers, cupboards and a double sink, with room for a washing machine, and incorporating a tall slender fridge and an electric cooker with a copper hood. The kitchen led into a small breakfast room with a bay window view of the back garden, a riot of roses, with one tall oak dominating the small lawn. At the front of the house there was also a narrow room that Naine christened the parlour. Opposite this, oddly, was the bathroom, again very modern, with a turquoise suite she would never have chosen but quite liked. Up the narrow stair there were a big linen cupboard, and three rooms, the largest of which was to be Naine’s bedroom, with white curtains blowing in fresh summer winds. The two smaller rooms were of almost equal size. One would be her library and workroom. The third room also would come to have a use. It, like the larger bedroom and the parlour, faced to the front, over the lane. But there
was never much, if any, traffic on the lane, which no longer led down into the village.
A housing estate had closed the lane thirty years before, but it was half a mile from the house. The village was one mile away. Now you reached it by walking a shady path that ran away behind the garden and down through the fields. A hedgerow-bordered walk, nice in any season.
The light struck Naine, spring light first, and almost summer light now, and the smells of honeysuckle and cow parsley from the lane, the garden roses, the occasional faint hint of hay and herbivorous manure blowing up the fields.
You could just hear the now and then soft rush of cars on the main road that bypassed the village. And church bells all day Sunday, sounding drowned like the ones in sunken Lyonesse.
Dark Terrors 5 - The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Anthology] Page 19
