The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16

by Stephen Jones

  “I expect it’ll turn up,” Maddie said. Her eyes slid away from her mother’s face and returned to the window.

  “How’s Pammy’s present coming along?” Margaret asked, speaking to that white reflection in the dark glass, trying to make her daughter turn back to her. She picked up Maddie’s work-bag. And stared. One of the place mats had been completed. But the figure of the lady had been embroidered in shades of black and it was standing in the midst of scarlet roses and tall purple lilies. It was cleverly done: every fold and flounce was picked out . . . but Margaret found it rather disturbing. She was glad that the poke bonnet hid the figure’s face . . . She looked up to realize that Maddie was looking at her almost slyly.

  “Don’t you like it?” she said.

  “It’s – it’s quite modern isn’t it?”

  “What, lazy daisies and crinoline ladies, modern?” How long had Maddie’s voice had that lazy mocking tone? She sounded like a world-weary adult talking to a very young and silly child.

  Margaret put the work down.

  “You will be all right, darling, won’t you?” Margaret said, rushing into her daughter’s room one cold December afternoon. “Only I must do some Christmas shopping, I really must . . .”

  “Of course you must, mummy,” Maddie said. “You’ve got my list, haven’t you? Do try to find something really nice for Bunty, she’s been so kind . . .”

  And what I would really like to give her, Maddie thought, is a whole parcel of jigsaws . . . and all the time in the world to see how she likes them . . . She leaned against her pillows, watching her mother scurry down the street. She would catch a bus at the corner by the church, and then an underground train, and then face the crowded streets and shops of a near-Christmas west-end London. Maddie would have plenty of time to herself. She knew (although her mother did not) that cook would be going out to have tea with her friend at Mrs Cresswell’s at half-past three, and for at least one blessed hour she would be entirely alone in the house.

  She pulled herself further up in the bed, and fumbled in the drawer of her bedside table to find the contraband she had managed to persuade Elsie to bring in for her. Elsie had proved much more useful than Bunty or Cissie or any of her kind friends. She sorted through the scarlet lipstick, the eye-black, the face-powder, and began to draw the kind of face she knew she had always wanted on the blank canvas of her pale skin. After twenty minutes of careful work she felt she had succeeded rather well.

  “I’m old, I’m old, I’m ever so old,” she crooned to herself. She freed her hair from its inevitable pink ribbon, and brushed it sleekly over her shoulders. Then she took off her lacy bed-jacket and the white winceyette nightie beneath it. Finally she slid into the garment the invaluable Elsie had found for her (Heaven knows where, although Maddie had a shrewd suspicion it might have been stolen from another of Elsie’s clients – perhaps the naughty Mrs Monkton). It was a night-dress made of layers of black and red chiffon, just a little too large for Maddie, but the way it tended to slide from her shoulders could have, she felt, its own attraction.

  All these preparations had taken quite a long time, especially as Maddie had had to stop every so often to catch her breath and once to take one of her tablets . . . but she was ready just before sunset. She slipped out of bed, crossed the room, and sat in a chair beside the window. So. The trap was almost set (but was she the trap or only the bait . . .?) Only one thing remained to be done.

  Maddie took out her embroidery scissors, and, clenching her teeth, ran the tiny sharp points into her wrist . . .

  The bus was late and crowded. Margaret struggled off, trying to balance her load of packages and parcels and hurried down the road, past the churchyard wall, past Mrs Monkton’s redbrick villa, past the post-box – and hesitated. For a moment she thought she had seen something – Maddie’s strange man with the beautiful skull-like face? But no, there were two white faces there in the shadows – no . . . there was nothing. A trick of the dark . . . She dropped her parcels in the hall and hurried up the stairs.

  “Here I am, darling! I’m so sorry I’m late . . . Oh, Maddie . . . Maddie darling – whatever are you doing in the dark?”

  She switched on the light.

  “Maddie. Maddie, where are you?” she whispered. “What have you done?”

  LESLIE WHAT

  The Mutable Borders of Love

  LESLIE WHAT LIVES in Oregon, where she is married and has two children, both taller than she is. A Nebula Award-winner writer and the author of the comic novel Olympic Games, she has published more than sixty short stories in such magazines and anthologies as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, The Third Alternative, SciFiction, The Mammoth Book of Tales from the Road, Bending the Landscape: Horror, All-Star Zeppelin Stories and Polyphony. Her work has been translated into Greek, Spanish, German, Japanese and Klingon.

  “It’s hard to think of anything more terrifying than love,” admits the author. “A friend commented that breaking-up with her partner was like watching her true love die and was surprised by the depth of her grief.

  “It got me thinking about how we’re haunted by our failed relationships and the metaphor climbed the next step once I sat down to write. The game goes on every day. Players know the risks.

  “My thanks to Dave Gross for his excellent editing suggestions. Also, this is not my first story featuring scary fabric.”

  THOUGH MARIETTA’S EYES ARE closed, she is wide-awake, fingering the new sheets she gave Asher as part of his six-month anniversary present. The other parts were dinner, followed by multiple sexual favours. She has already thought ahead, to the seven-month anniversary, when she will trade dinner for breakfast, a languorous night of sex for a quickie. She worries to be thinking so far ahead, to have expectations about things she cannot fully control. Is this the way love is supposed to feel?

  Asher’s bed is a California King. It is out of place, too big for the eight-by-ten room. The sheets cost almost double the price of her queen-size, but she bought these for herself as much as him. Asher’s new sheets are crisp and cool dense cotton that makes them feel shiny. Marietta is obsessed by their smooth texture, the fine weave. She can’t stop fidgeting with the fabric between her forefinger and thumb. The old sheets were a remnant from a previous relationship. No matter how many times they were laundered, the Hawaiian ginger scent favoured by the woman Marietta has replaced lingered like old smoke. Marietta hated sleeping over, until tonight.

  Asher snores contentedly beside her, something she calculates will continue another ten minutes before he fades into a deep and heavy sleep, at which time he might call out names of women he dated before she met him. Marietta knows these women are all dead, just as her past sweethearts have all died, but it bothers her all the same, maybe because it’s an unwelcome reminder that not everyone is strong enough to survive love.

  In most relationships, someone wins and someone loses. Marietta has been fortunate, so far, to have won them all. She gazes over at the lump in the bed that is Asher. He has been fortunate, too. They are successful competitors in the contest of love. She isn’t jealous, just insecure. Is love ever worth the risk? So far, for both of them, the answer has been no.

  Street lamplight filters through the shaded windows of his apartment. In the dim light, the delicate pastel blue of the sheets dulls to computer grey. Outside, the wind rattles branches and pushes cool air through cracks in the window frames. Go to sleep, she tells herself, sweet dreams. It takes every effort to keep her eyes shut and lie motionless. She’s waiting for what seems inevitable, for a ghost to appear as he has nearly every night for the past few weeks.

  Her ghost’s name is Lenny; he was her first lover. They were eighteen – late for her, early for him. If she were honest, she would admit that she used him, that she saw him as a means to an end. She was anxious to get it over with, to cede her virginity to her past. It wasn’t until long after that she realized Lenny viewed her deflowering with more
gravity.

  Asher murmurs something in his sleep, a name perhaps, but not one that she recognizes. Asher is dark-skinned and dark-haired, stocky enough to spill over onto her side of the bed. The California King is oversized, and he’s used to taking up more than his share. She doesn’t mind. Lying beside him is oddly comforting, given that he has passed out and she is fretting. They are both naked; the warmth from their bodies forms a placid layer that stays trapped between the sheets.

  The weather has changed to those days just before fall, the only time of year an apartment feels comfortable without either heat or air conditioning. It is man-messy here, with a ring around the toilet bowl, no counter space, and a yeasty aroma leeching from bags filled with beer bottles, bottles unsuccessfully hidden in the closet, awaiting redemption. Asher doesn’t leave much room for her to fit into his life. In this way they’re well suited. She doesn’t understand women who sacrifice their independence for their men. Women like that die young. Asher’s apartment reminds her of a foreign country, one she’s welcome to visit, so long as her belongings fit inside a backpack.

  “Go away,” Asher says in his sleep.

  A tickle of doubt crosses her mind that he might be thinking of her, but she tells herself that that’s out of the question. They have been together long enough that she’s certain she loves him, yet short enough that she worries things might fall apart, that one of them will move on, that their time together will be defined by memories and smells loitering in the furniture and bedding. Marietta is twenty-six and ready for this to be the real thing. She thinks Asher feels the same, especially since he is thirty-three, at that age where many men think it’s now or never.

  Her ghost, Lenny, is late. Maybe he’s decided to respect the mutable borders of love and not show up, here, in her lover’s bed, in the new sheets that mark a new beginning. The waiting makes her anxious. She’s about to give up on sleep, slip into the other room to watch television, when she feels a slight sensation tugging at the covers just below her left foot. Her gut twists, relaxes. Her eyes flick open and adjust to the darkness. A ghost perches on the edge of the bed, staring at Asher. Marietta knows that it’s a ghost because she can see through its lithe body to a cherry wood chest of drawers propped against the wall. Transparency is a ghostly quality she greatly admires. Mystical, yet honest. Intriguing. There is no human equivalent.

  This is not her Lenny. This ghost is a woman she doesn’t know, no doubt one of Asher’s old lovers. The apparition looks to be in her early twenties, wearing a sheer negligee that’s about as thick as a window screen. She sits as if posing for an art class, hands crossed at the knee, torso twisted slightly. She’s a lovely thing, only the littlest bit scary because of her ghost-white hair, which is thin and patchy like the packaged spider webs sold at Halloween. Her face is bathed in fluorescent green light and she’s smiling, a beatific, disarming expression. Marietta isn’t sure what to say to someone else’s ghost. “Hi,” she says at last. “You didn’t wake me.”

  The ghost answers with a condescending look that conveys both boredom and disapproval at finding her ex-boyfriend in bed with another woman.

  “This is awkward,” Marietta whispers, because it’s always better to acknowledge a problem instead of ignoring it. Obviously, this affair is over and Asher succeeded in moving on. Too bad about the woman, but these things happen when love doesn’t go your way. Should she wake Asher? Or would that just make things worse?

  The ghost shrugs. “He doesn’t like to be awakened,” she says.

  “Can you read my thoughts?” asks Marietta.

  “Sorry about that,” says the ghost. “I forgot how that spooks y’all.”

  Keeping her mind blank takes concentration. Marietta is slightly afraid, an emotion only a step up from vague anxiety. “When did you two hook up?”

  “Two-thousand two,” says the ghost.

  The answer provides relief because it’s unlikely that the latest set of sheets belonged to this ghost. “Did you love him?” Marietta asks.

  “More than you can understand. He really hurt me.”

  He must not have loved her much, Marietta thinks, or things would have worked out.

  “I was better than you in bed,” the ghost whispers.

  It shouldn’t, but this boast hurts and Marietta cannot keep from fretting that the ghost is speaking the truth. She pushes back her insecurity. “You’re dead now,” she retorts. “So how good could you be?”

  “Don’t underestimate me,” says the ghost, rising from the bed. When she stands, her body extends from the floor nearly to the ceiling, elongated, like she is made of taffy.

  Marietta hears primitive noises, growling and snorts. At first she thinks the sounds emanate from the ghost, but the growling moves closer, accompanying a change in the texture of the sheets. The fabric roughens from smooth water to broken glass. The growling and snorts are sound effects, a cheap parlour trick. Ghosts are good at effects, better than people. Marietta’s arms itch – the more she scratches, the worse it gets – until hot, itchy bumps crop up through her skin. The temperature in the room rises; Marietta breaks into a sweat. Sandy granules cling to her skin.

  “What do you want from me?” Marietta asks. She climbs from the bed, sweat dribbling down her face, temporarily blinding her. Her shoulders grow raw from scratching. Her skin burns. It itches behind her ears, between her thighs, inside her mouth. She can’t stop raking herself with her nails. “This isn’t fair,” she protests. “Take it out on him. I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “Good point.” Ghosts enjoy showing off their powers. They’re quite human in that respect. “Listen,” the ghost says. “Sorry, things got out of hand. I just came to warn you. So you don’t end up like me.”

  “Don’t worry,” Marietta says. “I won’t end up like you.”

  “There are worse things,” the ghost says with a dismissive wave.

  Marietta’s skin dries and the itchy feeling passes as quickly as it began. She’s annoyed. This ghost isn’t from her past; she’s from Asher’s. Marietta shouldn’t be responsible for his mistakes, as well as her own. As if on cue, Asher calls out in sleep, “Inez!”

  “It’s good to know he still thinks about me,” says the ghost.

  “No,” says Marietta because Asher should be thinking of her. “It’s just a dream.”

  “Yes, of course,” says Inez. “I didn’t mean to hurt you or get you so worked up.”

  “Is that an apology?” asks Marietta.

  Inez laughs. “Sure,” she says. “Sort of.”

  Marietta cracks a smile and senses some barrier breaking between them. She trusts this ghost, senses she means well. “ ‘Inez’ is rather old-fashioned.”

  “It’s a family name.”

  Family names seem like gloating. Marietta thinks of all the family lines she’s ended by being the lone survivor. How sad. She’s sorry to have been so inconsiderate.

  “Asher is afraid of commitment. You two will have another week, two at most. He’ll win, you know. Asher’s very strong. He’s never lost.”

  “Neither have I,” says Marietta.

  “You haven’t played against Asher.”

  “It’s not a game.”

  “Not exactly, no. But there’s always a loser. Don’t you worry that your luck will run out?”

  Inez is right: rarely do both parties survive intact. But it can happen, if both want it enough. Maybe it’s not the norm, but she knows of people who love for keeps. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “It’s complicated,” says Inez.

  “You’re still angry.”

  “Not with you. Just with him. I can’t forgive what he did to me.”

  “It won’t happen to me,” says Marietta. “I’m strong.”

  “That’s what I used to say,” says Inez. “By the time you understand it all, you’re already dead.”

  “I’m fairly experienced,” Marietta says.

  “Experience doesn’t help,” says Inez.

&nbs
p; “I asked you before: why are you telling me?”

  “I don’t want you to die,” says Inez. “This might sound funny, but I’ve found someone else.”

  “Good to know there’s love after death.”

  “The weird thing is you knew him. His name’s Sheldon Perricone.”

  “I know him,” says Marietta. She corrects herself. “Knew him.” Good old Sheldon. Somewhere between Lenny and Asher. It turns out that a man she abandoned on the altar has found love with Asher’s old girlfriend. “Small world,” says Marietta.

  “Sheldon loves me, but I can’t take a chance that he loves me more than you. Not just yet. If you die . . . We need more time to make it work. That’s why I want to warn you. I’m not being nice – just cautious.”

  Marietta nods. This makes sense, in a weird, metaphysical, lovesick sort of way.

  “Promise you’ll be careful. Asher is sneaky,” says Inez.

  “So am I.”

  Next, there’s a loud yawn and a stirring as Asher lifts himself to a sitting position on his side of the bed. He rubs his eyes. “Are you talking to someone?” he asks.

  They are alone.

  Inez has vanished.

  “What’s the matter?” Asher asks.

  Marietta snuggles beside him and wraps her long legs around his muscular ones. She kisses his neck, while he strokes her back. He’s so warm, so dark and substantial, nothing like a ghost. Her body-warmth returns. “It was nothing,” she says. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I don’t mind,” he says, and she can feel him growing hard beneath her touch.

  The next morning, while in her office catching up on e-mail, Marietta gets an instant message from someone named SP. Caught off guard, she answers and soon finds herself corresponding with her old, dead boyfriend, Sheldon Perricone, the ghost who is now partnered with Inez.

  So, do you have a fast connection up there?