The Mammoth Book of Terror

by Stephen Jones

  Whatever he asked for had to be something he wanted very badly. As quickly as the possibilities occurred, they faded away, leaving behind a fog of appalled anxiety. If it was so easy, why hadn’t Daz done it? Why was he still hanging out at his mother’s council flat?

  He punched out Daz’s number and asked him.

  Daz sounded surprised. “That’syour perception, Mats. I only feature in your world as some kind of sidekick, a support to the main act. But that’s not the way I see it from my side, compadre. I’m the big event – you barely exist. You see, once you’re really through to the other side, the digital world, that’s when you discover who you should really be, and you’re free. You get the life you always deserved, probably the life you have right now but simply can’t see. Figure it out, Mats, the answer’s right in front of you. Just help yourself.” The line went dead. Was he stifling a laugh as he rang off? It sure as hell didn’t sound like Daz talking. He couldn’t usually string two clear thoughts together without aid.

  Mats had walked the upper floor of the store half a dozen times before he understood what he was supposed to do. Gardens, buses, looks, girls, money, all small-time stuff, changing single elements, not rewriting the hard drive. He pulled the phone from his pocket, flipped it open and punched in the number again.

  7–2–8–2–6

  He watched as the letters came up once more.

  S-A-T-A-N

  A broadband hotline to the Devil, a kind of turbo-Satan, a programmer’s joke, not even that – a child’s idea of a secret, something so obvious nobody even thought to try it. You’re supposed to send it to yourself, he thought, that’s all you have to do, like making a wish. This time, instead of texting a request, he simply typed in his own phone number, then pressed SEND.

  MESSAGE SENT

  What now? The screen was teeming with colours once more, but now they were fading to mildewed, sickly hues; something new was at work. For a moment he thought he saw Daz outside the window, laughing wildly at something preposterous and absurd. He felt bilious, as if he had stepped from a storm-shaken boat. The pale beech wood floor of the store tilted, then started to slide away until he was no longer able to maintain his balance.

  He landed hard, jarring his arm and hip, but within a second the wood was gone and he had fallen through – he could feel the splinters brushing his skin – until the ground was replaced with something soft and warm. Sand on clay, earth, small stones, heat on his face, his bare legs. His eyes felt as if they had been sewn shut. He lay without moving for a moment, feeling the strange lightness in his limbs. Then he reached out a hand to touch his bruised thigh.

  Stranger still. It was not his leg, but one belonging to a child, thin and almost fleshless – and yet he could feel the touch of his fingers from within the skin.

  So bright. He could see the veins inside his orange eyelids. Yet there was something else moving outside. He sensed rather than saw them – dozens of black dots bustling back and forth.

  He ungummed his eyelids and opened them. Flies, fat black blowflies lifted from his vision in a cloud and tried to resettle at once. He brushed them away with his hand, and was horrified to discover the brown, bony claw of a malnourished child. The effort required to pull himself upright was monstrous. Looking down at his legs, he found that instead of the pre-stressed flares he always wore, his twisted limbs were encased in torn, ancient suit-trousers five sizes too small.

  He found himself sitting exhausted beneath a vast fiery sun on a ground of baked mud, waiting for the charity worker in front of him to dole out a ladle of water from a rust-reddened oil drum. Staring down into the opalescent petrol stains on the rancid liquid, he saw his opposite self: an encephalitic head, fly-crusted eyes, cracked thin lips, sore-covered ribs thrust so far forward that they appeared to be bursting from his skin; the knife of perpetual hunger twisting in his swollen stomach. Looking around, he saw hundreds of others like himself stretching off into the dusty yellow distance, the marks of hunger and disease robbing them of any identity. He would have screamed then, if his throat had not been withered long ago to a strip of sun-dried flesh.

  Daz made his way along the balcony of Montgomery House, avoiding pools from the dripping ceiling, swinging the cans of beer he had withdrawn from his secret stash behind the bins. He had half-expected Mats to trail him back to the flat, but perhaps he was off sulking somewhere about the phone joke. That was the great thing about people like Mats – you could tell them any old shit, and at some primitive level, even when they said they didn’t, they actually believed you. Heart and soul.

  DENNIS ETCHISON IS THE winner of two World Fantasy Awards and three British Fantasy Awards. The late Karl Edward Wagner described him as “the finest writer of psychological horror this genre has produced”.

  Etchison’s stories have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies since 1961, and some of his best work has been collected in The Dark Country, Red Dreams, The Blood Kiss and The Death Artist. Talking in the Dark is a massive retrospective volume from Stealth Press marking the fortieth anniversary of his first professional sale, and Fine Cuts is a volume of stories about the dark side of Hollywood, from PS Publishing.

  Etchison is also well known as a novelist (TheFog, Darkside, Shadowman, California Gothic and Double Edge) and has published the movie novelizations Halloween II, Halloween III and Videodrome under the pseudonym “Jack Martin”.

  As an acclaimed anthologist, he has edited Cutting Edge, Masters of Darkness I-III, MetaHorror, The Museum of Horrors and Gathering the Bones (with Jack Dann and Ramsey Campbell).

  More recently, Etchison has written thousands of script pages for The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, broadcast world-wide and available on audiocassette and CD. He also reads his stories “The Dog Park” and “Inside the Cackle Factory” on Don’t Turn on the Lights! The Audio Library of Modern Horror, Vol. 1.

  “In 2000 I was asked to assemble a retrospective collection of my stories,” remembers the author, “to be entitled A Long Time Till Morning. This required me to re-read forty years’ worth of short stories, and the experience was a shock to the system. They were not at all as I remembered them. Those I had believed were the best now seemed tedious and embarrassingly overwrought, and some of the minor pieces, while not very good stories, contained quirky, idiosyncratic material that surprised and fascinated in ways I could not have anticipated. All of which suggests that we are not reliable, objective judges of even the most important events in our lives at the time we live through them.

  “I lived through a lot, some of it not very pleasant, while this story was written at the beginning of the 1980s. But that could be said about any period of my life after the age of five or six, and I suspect the same applies to everyone. My stories usually reflect personal events and obsessions, either directly or metaphorically. I won’t bore you with autobiographical details, except to say that I felt very alone for several years and began to wonder when if ever my real life, the one I had always looked forward to, would begin. Poor me. But the feeling was very real.

  “It was difficult to talk about this in a way that might be entertaining or interesting to other people, who surely had problems of their own. Then one day, as is often the case, several unrelated entries from my notebooks suddenly came together, and I began to see a story that might convey some of what I had held inside for so long, in the manner of a song that serves as a vehicle for a singer’s deepest emotions. The working title was ‘The Sources of the Nile’, and it began with my recollections of a well-known (and benign) editor and personality in the science fiction field who once took a car trip across America for the sole purpose of meeting fans with whom he had corresponded over the years.

  “Victor Ripon’s name derives from two waterfalls located on the River Nile, and Gezira, the fictional town in which he resides, refers to a point where the two Niles, the blue and the white, come together, as well as to the school colours in my hometown, where my uncle Harold owned an ice cream parlour called ‘Th
e Blue and White’ across the street from Stockton High. The naive, painfully heartfelt words Victor writes to his favourite author, the imaginary Rex Christian, were inspired by actual letters sent to a very real horror writer, containing his readers’ comments about a non-fiction book he had published, after he asked me to read and evaluate them in case there were any factual errors that needed to be corrected for the revised edition.

  “And the ending is obviously influenced by Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, one of my favourite films from the 1970s. By the time my retrospective collection finally came out in 2001 I had refilled it Talking in the Dark, after another part of the quotation by Kenneth Patchen that provided the title of this story when it was first published in Charles L. Grant’s anthology Shadows 7.

  “I have since been told that this is a comic story rather than the tragic, heartbreaking metaphor I had intended. Perhaps so. Apparently I’m not the most reliable authority. You will have to go to the source of the Nile, if you can find it, for the final word . . .”

  IN THE DAMP BEDROOM Victor Ripon sat hunched over his desk, making last-minute corrections on the ninth or tenth draft, he couldn’t remember which, of a letter to the one person in the world who might be able to help. Outside, puppies with the voices of children struggled against their leashes for a chance to be let in from the cold. He ignored them and bore down. Their efforts at sympathy were wasted on him; he had nothing more to give. After thirty-three years he had finally stepped out of the melodrama.

  He clicked the pen against his teeth. Since the letter was to a man he had never met, he had to be certain that his words would not seem naive or foolish.

  Dear Sir, he reread, squinting down at the latest version’s cramped, meticulously cursive backhand. He lifted the three-hole notebook paper by the edges so as not to risk smearing the ballpoint ink. Dear Sir . . .

  First let me say that I sincerely hope this letter reaches you. I do not have your home address so I have taken the liberty of writing in care of your publisher. If they forward it to you please let me know.

  I am not in the habit of writing to authors. This is the first time. So please bear with me if my letter is not perfect in spelling, etc.

  I have been reading your Works for approximately 6 yrs., in other words since shortly after I was married but more about that later. Mr Christian, Rex if I may call you that and I feel I can, you are my favorite author and greatest fan. Some people say you are too morbid and depressing but I disagree. You do not write for children or women with weak hearts (I am guessing) but in your books people always get what they deserve. No other author I have read teaches this so well. I can see why you are one of the most popular authors in the world. I have all 6 of your books, I hope there are only 6, I wouldn’t like to think I missed any! (If so could you send me a list of the titles and where I might obtain them? A S.A.S.E. is enclosed for your convenience. Thank you.)

  My favorite is THE SILVERING, I found that to be a very excellent plot, to tell the truth it scared the shit out of me if you know what I mean and I think you do, right? (Wink wink.) MOON OVER THE NEST is right up there, too. My wife introduced me to your novels, my ex-wife I should say and I guess I should thank her for that much. She left me 2½ years ago, took the kids to San Diego first and then to Salt Lake City I found out later. I don’t know why, she didn’t say. I have tried to track her down but no luck. Twice with my late parents’ help I found out where she was staying but too late. So that is the way she wants it, I guess. I miss the kids though, my little boy especially.

  In your next book, THE EDGE, I noticed you made one small mistake, I hope you don’t mind my pointing it out. In that one you have Moreham killing his old girlfriend by electrocution (before he does other things to her!) while she is setting up their word processor link. Excuse me but this is wrong. I know this because I was employed in the Computer Field after dropping out of Pre-Med to support my family. The current utilized by a Mark IIIA terminal is not enough to produce a lethal shock, even if the interface circuits were wired in sequence as you describe (which is impossible anyway, sorry, just thought you might like to know). Also the .066 nanosecond figure should be corrected . . .

  And so on in a similar vein. Victor worked his way through three more densely-packed pages of commentary and helpful advice regarding Rex Christian’s other bestsellers, including Jesus Had A Son, The Masked Moon and the collection of short stories, Nightmare Territory, before returning to more personal matters.

  If you ever find yourself in my neck of the woods please feel free to drop by. We could have a few beers and sit up talking about the many things we have in common. Like our love of old movies. I can tell you feel the same way about such “classics” (?) as ROBOT INVADERS, MARS VS. EARTH and HOUSE OF BLOOD from the way you wrote about them in your series of articles for TV GUIDE. I subscribed so I wouldn’t miss a single installment. There are others we could talk about, even watch if we’re lucky. I get Channel 56 here in Gezira, you may have heard about it, they show old chestnuts of that persuasion all night long!!

  If you have not guessed by now, I too try my hand at writing occasionally myself. I have been working for the past 1½ years on a story entitled PLEASE, PLEASE, SORRY, THANK YOU. It will be a very important story, I believe. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to read it. (You are probably too busy, anyway.) Besides, I read WRITER’s DIGEST so I know where to send it if and when I succeed in bringing it to a satisfactory stage of completion. But you are my inspiration. Without you I would not have the courage to go on with it at all.

  He hesitated before the conclusion, as he had when first drafting it four nights ago. On the other side of the window pane the sky was already smoking over with a fine mist, turning rapidly from the color of arterial blood to a dead slate grey. The sea rushed and drubbed at the coastline a mile to the west, shaking and steadily eroding the bedrock upon which his town was built; the vibrations which reached the glass membrane next to him were like the rhythms of a buried human heart.

  There is one more thing. I have a very important question to ask you, I hope you don’t mind. It is a simple thing (to you) and I’m sure you could answer it. You might say I should ask someone else but the truth is I don’t know anyone else who could help. What I know isn’t enough. I thought it would be but it isn’t. It seems to me that the things we learned up until now, the really important things, and I can tell we’ve had many of the same experiences (the Sixties, etc.), when it came time to live them, the system balked. And we’re dying. But don’t worry, I’m a fighter. I learned a long time ago: never give up.

  I live in my parents’ old house now, so we could have plenty of privacy. In my opinion we could help each other very much. My number is 474–-2841. If I’m not here I’ll be at the Blue & White (corner of Rosetta and Damietta), that is where I work, anybody can tell you where to find it. I hope to hear from you at your earliest convenience.

  Meanwhile, I’m waiting with bated breath for your book of essays, OTHER CEDENTS, they mentioned it on “Wake Up, America” and I can hardly wait! If you care to let me read the manuscript prior to publication I promise to return it by Express Mail in perfect condition. (Just asking, hint hint.) In any event please come by for a visit on your next trip to the West Coast. I hope you will take me up on it sometime (soon!), I really need the answer. We Horror Fans have to stick together. As you said in your Introduction to NIGHTMARE TERRITORY, “It may be a long time till morning, but there’s no law against talking in the dark.”

  Faithfully Yours,

  VICTOR RIPON

  He sat back. He breathed in, out. It was the first breath he had been aware of taking for several minutes. The view from the window was no longer clear. A blanket of fog had descended to shroud all evidence of life outside his room. The puppies next door had quieted, resigned to their fate. Still a hopeful smile played at the corners of his mouth. He stacked and folded the pages to fit the already-stamped envelope. There. Now there wasn’t anything to do but wait.r />
  He stretched expansively, hearing his joints pop like dry bones, and his fingernails touched the window. So early, and yet the glass was chillingly brittle, ready to shatter under the slightest provocation.

  With any luck he wouldn’t have long to wait at all.

  The days shrank as the season contracted, drawing inward against the approaching winter. Trees bared stiffening limbs, scraped the sky and etched patterns of stars as sharp and cold as diamond dust above the horizon. Victor got out his old Army jacket. The main house became dank and tomblike, magnifying the creaking of dryrotted timbers. He took to sleeping in the guest cabin, though the portable heater kept him tight and shivering night after night.

  He pressed bravely ahead with his story, the outlines and preliminary versions of which by now filled two thick notebooks, reorganizing, redrafting and obsessively repolishing lines and paragraphs with a jeweler’s precision.

  But it was not good enough.

  He wanted the pages to sing with ideas that had once seemed so important to him, all and everything he knew, and yet they did not, and no amount of diligence was able to bring them to life. The story came to be a burden and weighed more heavily in his hands each time he lifted it out of the drawer. After a few weeks he was reluctant to open the desk at all.

  He stayed in bed more and slept less, dragging himself up for work each day only at the last possible minute. Nothing except Rex Christian’s books held any interest for him now, and he had read them all so many times he believed he knew them by heart, almost as well as his own stillborn effort. Channel 56 exhausted its library of late-night movies and sold out to a fundamentalist religious sect peddling fire and brimstone. The nights lengthened and the long winter closed around him.

  Each day, he thought, I die a little. I must. I get out of bed, don’t I?