Then, nothing.
He searched with binoculars, found distant Los Angeles skyline, scanned surrounding hills. Nothing unusual. He breathed in, deeply, as leaves began to rattle in his sycamore. Closed fatigued eyes. He’d taken the shower and muscle relaxant but no sleeping pill; closing eyes would be a fatal mistake.
He breathed in, again. Maybe he’d imagined the smoke. He needed to be careful; after a fire, everything smelled of it. He tried to distinguish, isolating nuance, turning his head to find it.
Smoke.
The world was filling up with it; choking, flesh sweating, slick with fear. Flames crawling horizon, gobbling. Raving gusts of it, moving in for the kill. To sleep was to die. Awaken to sirens, evacuations. Screams in the night.
There was no stopping it.
It just got worse.
Boxes filled with personal belongings thrown into frantically idling cars. Children panicked, crying. He could see his collie, Jack. Ears flat, as the crackle of burning hillsides drew him, and he ran, whining, scared, into fevered skirts of smoke. David had heard his cries, pleading for a way out.
Then, nothing. Just houses and creatures and trees burning as flames took them like fast cancer.
He felt sick to his stomach. Remembered when he’d first seen the house, nestled atop mountain, overlooking a trance of water and land. Despite its helpless perfection, perched calmly in the middle of a fire path, he’d bought it. It had nearly burned in a ’94 firestorm that took 200 hillside homes; a hot, windy afternoon, when the sky bloodied to third-degree burn. The owner had decided to stay, as her world went red and black; listening to flames getting closer; starved for helpless things. She’d slit both wrists and, as they slowly drained, applied make-up and taken a cool bath.
At this elevation, the death winds found everyone.
He stared into the night.
Listening for sirens; desperate calls for help. Santa Ana winds began moving across the hills like rabid gangs and he saw himself on fire; insides blazing, smoke filling his throat like a chimney; drifting from his dying mouth. Ash silently fell and he thought he saw smoke spiralling just over one hill; furious crows of it moving closer.
He could hear ghouls in cars, racing up his narrow road, hungry to see the decimation. Cigarettes in idiot mouths. Teenagers on the beach, burning driftwood, paying no attention as embers twinkled fatally away. Hikers making campfires.
Arsonists. All of them.
He grabbed for his binoculars, again, and gasped as the rise on his shoulder blade moved. He instantly shed jacket and T-shirt to check and, to his shock, found more rises, on upper arm, forearm and chest; sheeted by flesh.
He rushed into the dark house, turned on the light and stood before bedroom mirror.
There were more.
He hesitated, afraid of what they might be and, after a moment, carefully poked at one on his chest. The rise responded, pushing outward, slowly straining against skin until finally splitting it open; a wound in reverse. David gasped at sharp pain as, one after another, the rises pushed, tearing through his flesh, each now visible in its own raw, puckered socket, slowly orbiting.
Lids lifted and the eyes stared intensely at him; brown like his own, unblinking, whites shining. They seemed neither trapped nor accusatory and each began to stare, alertly, in different directions, searching for something.
He felt them covering his back, blood trickling where they’d erupted, and frantically sifted through his hair to find more. When he touched them, the lids tightly shut, gradually re-opened; watching, pupils dilating. The ones on his forearms and palms studied the room, taking everything in with a detailed scan.
It was exhaustion; the trick of a traumatized mind. He knew it; thought about calling his doctor.
But it was pointless.
He’d recommend sleep, a hospital. There was no leaving the house now; death was everywhere. Hot winds howling, fire galloping closer.
Coming for him.
He moved out onto the deck, stared at pewter sky, heard sirens in the distance; bleak arias. Tree branches shuddered and he was sure he saw vicious orange coming over the hill, mowing towards sea.
He stripped off the rest of his clothes, saw more eyes covered him; vigilant, unblinking stares that swept the hills and ravines for danger. His arms slowly outstretched at his sides to allow them unimpeded view and, as they surveyed horizon with restless detection, he began to calm.
He stood, naked in warm, ominous winds, fears gradually easing, as the scores of eyes kept watch and his own slowly closed.
JOHN GASKIN
Party Talk
JOHN GASKIN WAS EDUCATED at the City of Oxford High School and Oxford University. In his early years, Gaskin worked for British Railways and as a banker before taking a lectureship at Trinity College, Dublin, where he became a Fellow and held a professional chair in philosophy.
Since 1997 he has mainly written fiction: his most recent publications include a volume of poems and two collections of short stories, Tales of Twilight and Borderlands: The Dark Companion (2001) and The Long Retreating Day (2006). Forthcoming is the non-fiction A Traveller’s Guide to Classical Philosophy and a full-length tale of murder and haunting, A Doubt of Death. The author lives in a remote part of Northumberland, and doubts that he will ever be connected to the Internet.
“A year or two ago I was planting roses against the wall of a village church, and found strange things,” recalls the author. “A little later I was at a lunch in one of the larger houses overlooking a deserted railway, and a river . . .”
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.
– Coleridge
SHE HAD THE SWEET SMELL of faded roses that I associate with polite mortality in decay. I would have preferred talking to someone else at the Selwoods’ lunch party – after all, buffets are designed to shuffle sheep and goats – but she held me with deep-set eyes that might almost have been blind, or perhaps they were focused upon something beyond me or the house. I could not politely escape.
“You write ghost stories,” she stated in a gravelly whisper that seemed to require no movement in the mask-like tightness of her face.
“I have published a few – not real ghost stories – mere tales of the uncanny – the boundaries between chance and significance, agency and accident, eidetic imagery and actual perceptions.”
“But you do not believe in ghosts, ‘real’ or otherwise.”
“No. I have to confess I don’t. At least not as the intention of dead persons bringing about new events in the world. But I believe in the power of the living brain to influence directly other physical things in the world with results it does not expect or always understand – like the poltergeist effect.”
My analysis elicited no comment.
She was sitting at the high-backed end of an expensive Victorian chaise longue, somewhat over-clothed (as I thought) for a well-heated house, even if it was January in the Cheviots. I was aware of a large and vague wrap of material round her shoulders, a grey headscarf of dusty silk drawn tightly over her head, a garment that might have been a jacket or a coat, and a long dark skirt. I could not see her feet, but there were smears of mud on the carpet near her that appeared to have been carried in from the garden, not from the gravelled forecourt of the house where I had entered. There were black gloves over her evidently thin fingers. She gestured towards the far end of the chaise longue.
“Sit down.”
For a moment I had sight of her open mouth. “I have a tale you must hear,” she said.
I mumbled something about not wishing to keep her from the rest of the company. But the rest of the company was receding from us, intent upon itself or upon food in the adjacent dining room, and there was no one at hand to offer rescue. I settled at the far end of our chair in a position that made it easy not to look at her too intently. I must have grimaced.
“Yes, you’ll find it as hard as stone – horsehair and leather under silk tapestry.
They always preferred show to comfort, even in Gosforth. It wouldn’t have been tolerated in my day. Everything was for comfort then - except for the bedrooms and the plumbing. I remember the chill of the bedrooms. I was eighteen. I’m accustomed to it now.”
She paused, as if looking back into a place to which I was not admitted. Then to my embarrassment I heard her say:
“You do not wish to hear me, Dr Smyth. But you have no choice now your glass is all but empty. Be still and I shall take you deeper than its emptiness.”
It was a ridiculous style of speaking, and I should have braced myself for a period of the sleepy half-attention in which one hopes to be able to say “yes”, “no”, “how nice” and “what a pity” in the right places – except that I was uncomfortable, it was cold near the window, and for some reason I was acutely wide awake. She was speaking again.
“I left school that spring and was supposed to be filling in time learning German before wintering at a finishing school in Switzerland where they only spoke French. I believe my father thought German might encourage me to listen to more Bach cantatas. German was not in fashion at the time and cantatas are some of the drearier manifestations of religion. I rebelled. The rebellion took the form of Thomas, the gardener’s boy who, unlike German irregular verbs, was beautiful and tempting. It was beyond my mother’s ability to come to terms with what she found us doing uncomfortably behind a hedge one afternoon.
“Tom was mercifully called up almost immediately afterwards. I was banished to the care of my mother’s aunt, a robust-minded woman of considerable experience of the world who had never married and lived in a lonely house several hundred miles away. My love was warm and strong. Home, as I discovered too late, was comfortable and safe.
‘‘Todburn Hall, as it was called before they rediscovered the old religious connection, was large and untenanted by youth or laughter. It seemed to me that my great aunt lived in a plush cocoon of velvet and chilly comfort. She tried to receive me well and be kind in the practical ways she understood, but I was vexed with life and gave her little help.”
The voice ceased, and I glanced sideways against the pale light of the window. The sun had disappeared behind winter clouds and the ribbon of river lay grey and cold a field or two away below the house. I could see only her vague silhouette against the blank glass. The spreading web of her clothes filled the end of our chair like a shadow.
But the voice had resumed – a penetrating whisper that was both clear and quiet, like listening inside the private world of some exquisitely engineered earphones.
“I was lonely, but it was not loneliness for people or company in general. It was the raw, torn-off space beside me that had been the fresh animal smell of Tom, the soft bloom of his skin, his talk, his touch, his strength. I walked by the river. I painted pictures in dark and fervent colours. I cried out in my heart. I was morose and withdrawn when my aunt tried to draw me out of myself. She knew more of life than I could then recognize or would ever know, but there were no words she could find to bridge the gap between us. Every generation thinks its own pain is unique. That is the glory and the pity of life.
“Her solution was to divert my attention with hearty activity. Having already drawn the garden and made a catalogue of its contents for her, checked the silver inventory, painted the view of the river in several unsuitable versions, and read to her a number of Oscar Wilde’s stories – the longest was missing from her collection. She later told me it was lost when she was in charge of the British Expeditionary Force’s hospital in Alexandria.
‘‘As I was saying, having completed all these tasks, I found myself one afternoon – about a month after my banishment – tidying a strip of garden against the south wall of the village church.
“A number of disused grave stones had been set close against the wall of the transept. They were old stones, much defaced, but they were close and I felt watched as I worked on my knees below them. A foolish fancy! It is the keeper of the gate that watches, not the gate.
“I was to prepare the ground and plant a dozen roses donated by my aunt – Rosa Mundi they were called. Yes, Rose of the Earth. Beauty from the dust. None survive now. Some did not survive my planting, particularly at the eastern end of the wall where the soil was mostly sand and fragments, like the ground at Xanthos. You do not know it . . .” Her voice faded away as if in exhaustion, and for a moment I hoped to see her fall asleep, but she resumed more strongly.
“Roses have deep roots, and I did not at first recognize what I was finding. The earth was dry, and in one area seamed with brown fibrous material like peat. It was in this that I dug up part of a bone. I was at the corner of the transept, where the wall turned back to join the chancel a few yards away. At the corner and just past it, one of the old headstones had been positioned leaving a few inches of dark space between its back and the church wall.
‘‘I threw the thing down there out of sight – and other bits that left no doubt at all concerning my finds. It was as I was disposing – with some distaste – of part of a broken bone with discoloured teeth still in place that a shadow moved on the wall in front of me. My back was to the path through the graveyard, and I turned sharply. I had heard no one approaching, and was feeling uneasy about concealing my finds behind someone else’s memorial. It was only a young clergyman who was watching me – probably the curate I thought. Those were the days when country livings were properly staffed.
‘‘ ‘What are you doing with those?’ he asked.
‘Planting them. My aunt, Miss Addison, is a member of the Select Vestry, and she has given them to the church. I’m doing it for her.’
‘‘ ‘No, I mean with the bones.’
‘‘ ‘I . . . well they’re only bits and pieces. I suppose they have been brought to the surface as other graves have been dug. I presumed that behind a gravestone would be a suitable place.’
‘‘ ‘Yes indeed,’ he said, before bending down to look, closer to me than appeared to be necessary. ‘You’ve finished planting?’
‘‘ ‘Yes. I’m tidying up.’
‘‘ ‘And this . . . brown stuff – it’s not like the rest of the earth.’
‘‘ ‘No. It’s a layer, about eighteen inches down. I hope the roots will reach it and gain some nourishment. Do you think I’ve gone too deep?’
‘‘ ‘I don’t know. Earth like that should not be near the surface. But your roses will certainly draw life from it.’
“He stood up and looked at the gravestone where I had concealed the bones. I had not been able to see the name earlier. The lettering was much eroded and it was the angle of the sun, now flush with the face of the stone, that showed up the antique lettering as shadows. The name was Elenor Ward. There was no mention of family or husband, merely the year of her birth and that she had died at the age of sixteen. She was commended to the mercy of God. I sensed before I was told the mercy she might have needed from men, and almost certainly did not get.
‘‘ ‘An old parishioner learnt her story when she was a child, and told me about her one day when I was standing here,’ he said. ‘She was . . .’ he hesitated, ‘to have a child by one of the village labourers, an unrepentant sinner. She wasn’t the first he’d got into trouble, but she was the last – at least in this place. He went away before the child was born. That’s her grave, not just a moved stone like the rest. She’s under there. But I’m sorry. This is morbid talk and I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Thornton, Peter Thornton. I’m assisting here for the summer.’
“I told him my name and that I was staying at Todburn Hall.
‘‘ ‘Good gracious!’ he exclaimed with what seemed to me contrived and certainly unnecessary concern. ‘That’s almost three miles away. Have you transport?’
“I explained that I had not. I preferred walking along the south side of the river and crossing at Pauperhaugh.
‘‘ ‘May I have the pleasure of walking with you a part of the way?’ he enquired. I could find no reason to refuse
his company, and we strolled along pleasantly enough in the August sunshine. He showed me a short cut over the railway. It was probably forbidden, but trains were few and could be heard long before they came round the bend and could see anyone on the rails. As we walked, some dark worm of curiosity made me return to the story of Elenor Ward.
‘‘ ‘Did her child survive?’ I asked as if it were the most natural question in the world.
‘‘ ‘I was told not. None of the creature’s offspring survived. There was something wrong about him. They were stillborn. I suppose there are tales like that in most old parishes if one listens, tales embellished by time and the desire for justice in this world.’
‘‘ ‘And the father – what happened to him?’
‘‘ ‘As I said, time does not relate. My informed source was not that well-informed.’
“Then we spoke of other things. He was interested in hearing about Todburn Hall, having visited my aunt there on parochial business.
‘‘ ‘It’s a lovely reuse of Hanoverian ideas,’ he said. ‘Perhaps a little heavy in details, but so much better than that damp museum of a place the original family had down by the river. But it’s a pity, if I may say so without offence, that the main front faces north, and is so near to the road. It can gain very little light and only a lot of dust on that side.’
‘‘ ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘but upstairs, like the ground floor, it’s almost entirely corridors and landings on the north – apart from maids’ bedrooms. I have a delightful room at the head of the stairs looking south. I can get the sun there all day if I want, and see it setting up the river every evening, and the morning train puffs away quite prettily in the distance round Pike Hill. It tells me the time if I’m not already up.’
‘‘ ‘Are you staying long?’ he asked as we reached the bridge.
“I said I did not know.
‘‘ ‘I hope I’ll see you again – at church on Sunday I mean.’ But that was not what he meant.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Page 32
