The Year's Best Horror Stories 22

by Karl Edward Wagner (Ed. )

  “Okay, okay, okay. But just listen to me. Just listen.”

  She did. Not at first, though. It took years.

  Long Liz reverted to her birthname and became Pam Jones, a wildly successful session drummer. Her shaved hair grew back and she groomed it into a fashionable mohawk. She left Atlanta and took an apartment in Los Angeles, where Gary managed to get her some work right away doing percussion for the soundtracks of low budget movies. She played drums on two songs recorded for a Peter Gabriel tribute album, cut a hit single with Madonna, did a few sessions with Aerosmith, and filled in for an ailing drummer at a Barbara Streisand date when she happened to be hanging around the studio one afternoon. Sometimes she got credit on the records; sometimes she didn’t. But she always got paid. Handsomely.

  She met a lot of people, and offers came in all the time. Would she like to join this band or that? Some years it seemed that any girl group—from lightweight popsters to heavy metal sirens—who needed to replace a departed member would call her before they’d try anyone else. She always refused.

  Liz made plenty of money off studio work. Concerts, tours, clubs—she didn’t need them. She was rich and successful. Musician magazine even featured her on its cover and did a seven-page article about her career, with a full checklist of her recorded output and a small sample CD—bound right into the magazine—which demonstrated two of her specialized melodic drum licks.

  Liz found that she’d become a living legend. Her name was a recurring feature in music magazines’ annual polls of outstanding drummers. Her style was widely imitated, and her halting efforts at songwriting—the occasional filler track on another artist’s album—were invariably given prominent mention in reviews.

  Significantly, however, there were no cover versions of either “Lonely Nights in Whitechapel” or “Pretty Maids All in a Row.” Not even one.

  Not even Muzak—that omnivorous corporate consumer of musical compositions, that ubiquitous purveyor of “elevator music” which homogenized everything from The Rolling Stones and Iggy Pop to The Strawberry Alarm Clock and The Clash—not even Muzak would re-record them.

  Liz discovered that a rumor had spread though the industry. A dark, ugly rumor. A rumor whispered—never spoken aloud—by everyone from studio janitors to the major recording artists of the day: The two songs on Jackie and the Rippers’ single were cursed. So while the single became a radio airplay standard and eventually went triple-platinum, no musician ever dared to record their own version of either of its sides.

  It was 11 years before Liz and Gary saw each other again.

  The occasion was a show Gary promoted at Madison Square Garden. Opening that night was a new, all-female supergroup called Raincoat Brigade which featured former members of Girlschool, Mystery Date, and the Carrie Nations. It was their debut performance, and they were all quite nervous. Gary had invited Liz as a special backstage guest. He’d hoped her presence would give the band some encouragement.

  Raincoat Brigade’s debut was sensational. They went over as well as Jackie and the Rippers had done a dozen years earlier, but this was a much larger venue. Thousands of people were standing and cheering for them—for them, a new band without even a CD in release yet. Liz watched from the edge of the stage curtain, her heart racing as the show brought back bittersweet memories of her own performing debut so many years before.

  And then it was over.

  The audience demanded more. “We want the Raincoats!” they chanted. “We want the Raincoats!”

  Strutting back onstage to the shrill cheers of the crowd, Raincoat Brigade’s lead vocalist seized the microphone and motioned for silence. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said once the crowd was calm again, “we have a special visitor here tonight and I’m sure you’d all love to meet her. Some of you know her as Pam Jones, the little lady who’s put the kick in hit records by more bands than I’ve got time to name.”

  The audience stirred with excitement.

  Liz felt her heartbeat quickening. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, “I hope she’s not going to—”

  “But you older rock’n’rollers out there will remember her by another name. Folks, everyone please give a great big New York welcome for the former drummer of Jackie and the Rippers, Miss Long Liz!”

  Liz looked around in panic. “Am I supposed to go out there?”

  The crowd went wild. The cheering was even greater than that which had greeted Raincoat Brigade. It was a thundering ocean of shrieks, clapping, floor-stomping, airhorns, and firecrackers. It was infectious, hypnotic, more powerful than anything Liz had ever experienced. Someone pushed her gently from behind and she stepped slowly out onto the stage, her eyes widening at the scene. A constellation of flashbulbs lit up.

  And then, in the midst of the uproar, a familiar chant emerged.

  “We want the Rippers! We want the Rippers!”

  Inebriated with the excitement, only dimly aware what was happening, Liz was led over to the drumkit. Raincoat Brigade’s drummer yielded her seat and handed Liz a set of sticks.

  “We want the Rippers! We want the Rippers!”

  In that instant, twelve years melted away.

  Liz smiled, raised the drumsticks high in the air, brought them down hard on the floor toms, then up at the cymbals.

  Raincoat Brigade recognized the intro at once—the classic “Pretty Maids All in a Row.” A nervous glance passed between the band members. The bass guitarist shrugged, picked a note, and began to play. The others joined in where appropriate, providing the minimal accompaniment necessary to re-create the tune from the single. The group’s vocalist even did a passable imitation of Jackie’s sole lyric, “Catch me if you can, Mister Lusk!”

  About 40 seconds shy of the tune’s finale, as Liz was dealing jackhammer blows to the bass drum while setting up a countermelody with cymbal splash, she noticed the scene in the front of the crowd.

  There was a surging mob crushed right up against the edge of the stage, partially obscured by the row of black monitors. The jumble of bodies was so thick it would have been impossible to count them. Moving as one writhing, throbbing, dancing, jumping waving mass of arms and heads, they crashed against the border of the stage like ocean waves on a rocky coastline—but with the surreal speed of a fast-motion film.

  And somewhere in this chaos of shaking flesh, almost lost in the confusion of limbs, was a large human hand.

  The instant she saw it, Liz could not take her eyes off it.

  It was a dark hand, olive in complexion with heavy patches of thick black hair on its back. The fingernails were sharpened, long and hooked at their tips. The hand bounced with the music, following the motion of the crowd.

  As she continued to play, Liz noticed that the hand seemed to emerge from a long, black sleeve somewhere out there, and that there was a wide white cuff between the hand and sleeve. The hand was held straight up, shaking with the music’s beat. And then, as the song crashed to its finale, the hand descended. It angled down toward the stage, the thumb and the three lower fingers folding back gradually while the index finger remained extended.

  It was a left hand, and it was pointing directly at Liz.

  ONE SIZE EATS ALL by T.E.D. Klein

  T.E.D. Klein returns to The Year’s Best Horror Stories after an absence of far too many years. Meanwhile he has been busy, as he notes: “Founding editor, in 1981, of Twilight Zone (whose total lifespan, eerily enough, coincides with the Reagan years: our first issue came out shortly after RR’s inauguration; the final issue, under Tappan King, came out around the time of Bush’s inauguration, or thereabouts). Founding editor, in 1991, of CrimeBeat, a true-crime monthly (of a decidedly law-and-order persuasion) which expired last spring.”

  A native New Yorker, Klein was born there in 1947 and now lives in Manhattan. Somehow during the 1980s he found time to write a novel, The Ceremonies, and a collection, Dark Gods—both highly acclaimed. Just now, he is laboring over a new novel, Nighttown. Of other projects: “I was hired to write the
script for Dario Argento’s Trauma, shot in Minneapolis in 1992 and (thankfully) still unreleased in the U.S.”

  The words had been emblazoned on the plastic wrapper of Andy’s new sleeping bag, in letters that were fat and pink and somewhat crudely printed. Andy had read them aloud as he unwrapped the bag on Christmas morning.

  “ ‘One size eats all.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jack, his older brother, had laughed. “Maybe it’s not really a sleeping bag. Maybe it’s a feed bag!”

  Andy’s gaze had darted to the grotesquely large metal zipper that ran along the edge of the bag in rows of gleaming teeth. He’d felt a momentary touch of dread.

  “It’s obviously a mistake,” Andy’s father had said. “Or else a bad translation. They must have meant ‘One size fits all.’ ”

  He was sure that his father was right. Still, the words on the wrapper had left him perplexed and uneasy. He’d slept in plenty of sleeping bags before, but he knew he didn’t want to sleep in this one.

  And now, as he sat huddled in his tent halfway up Wendigo Mountain, about to slip his feet into the bag, he was even more uneasy. What if it wasn’t a mistake?

  He and Jack had been planning the trip for months; it was the reason they’d ordered the sleeping bags. Jack, who was bigger and more athletic and who’d already started to shave, had picked an expensive Arctic Explorer model from the catalogue. Nothing but the best for Jack. Andy, though, had hoped that if he chose an obscure brand manufactured overseas, and thereby saved his parents money, maybe they’d raise his allowance.

  But they hadn’t even noticed. The truth was, they’d always been somewhat inattentive where Andy was concerned. They barely seemed to notice how Jack bullied him.

  Jack did bully him—in a brotherly way, of course. His bright red hair seemed to go with his fiery temper, and he wasn’t slow to use his fists. He seemed to best the younger boy in just about everything, from basketball to campfire-building.

  Which was why, just before they’d set out for Wendigo Mountain, Andy had invited his friend Willie along. Willie was small, pale, and even less athletic than Andy. His head seemed much too big for his body. On a strenuous overnight hike like this one, Andy thought, it was nice to have somebody slower and weaker than he was.

  True to form, Willie lagged behind the two brothers as they trudged single-file up the trail, winding their way among the tall trees that covered the base of the mountain, keeping their eyes peeled for the occasional dark green trail-markers painted on the trunks. It was a sunny morning, and the air had begun to lose some of the previous night’s chill.

  By the time Willie caught up, winded and sweating beneath his down jacket, Andy and Jack had taken off their backpacks and stopped for a rest.

  “It’s your tough luck,” Jack was telling him. “You’ve heard the old saying, ‘You made your bed, now lie in it’?”

  Andy nodded glumly.

  “Well, it’s the same thing,” said Jack. “You wanted the damn bag, so tonight you’re just gonna have to lie in it.”

  All morning, that’s exactly what Andy had been worrying about. He eyed the pack at his feet, with the puffy brown shape strapped beneath it, and wished the night would never come. You made your bed, he told himself. Now die in it.

  “Andy, for God’s sake, stop obsessing about that bag!” said Willie. “You’re letting your fears get the best of you. Honest, it’s a perfectly ordinary piece of camping gear.”

  “Willie’s right,” said Jack. Hoisting his backpack onto his shoulders, he grinned and added cruelly, “And the people it eats are perfectly ordinary, too!”

  As they continued up the trail, the trees grew smaller and began to thin; the air grew cooler. Andy could feel the weight of the thing on his back, heavier than a sleeping bag ought to be and pressing against him with, he sensed, a primitive desire—a creature impatient for its dinner.

  Ahead of him, Jack turned. “Hey, Willie,” he yelled. “Did Andy tell you where his bag is from?”

  “No,” said Willie, far behind them. “Where?”

  Jack laughed delightedly. “Hungary!”

  They made camp at a level clearing halfway up the mountain. Andy and Willie would be sharing a tent that night; Jack had one to himself. Late afternoon sunlight gleamed from patches of snow among the surrounding rocks.

  The three unrolled their sleeping bags inside the tents. Andy paused before joining the others outside. In the dim light his bag lay brown and bloated, a living coffin waiting for an occupant. Andy reminded himself that it was, in fact, a fairly normal-looking bag—not very different, in truth, from Jack’s new Arctic Explorer. Still, he wished he had a sleeping bag like Willie’s, a comfortable old thing that had been in the family for years.

  Willie lagged behind again as the brothers left camp and returned to the trail. They waited until he’d caught up. Both younger boys were tired and would have preferred to stay near the tents for the rest of the day, but Jack, impatient, wanted to press on toward the summit while it was still light.

  The three took turns carrying a day pack with their compasses, flashlights, emergency food, and a map. The slope was steeper here, strewn with massive boulders, and the exertion made them warm again. Maybe, thought Andy, he wouldn’t even need the bag tonight.

  The terrain became increasingly difficult as they neared Wendigo’s peak, where the trail was blanketed by snow. They were exhausted by the time they reached the top—too exhausted to appreciate the sweeping view, the stunted pines, and the small mounds of stones piled in odd patterns across the rock face.

  They raised a feeble shout of triumph, rested briefly, then started down. Andy sensed that they would have to hurry; standing on the summit, he’d been unnerved at how low the sun lay in the sky.

  The air was colder now, and shadows were lengthening across the snow. Before they’d gotten very far, the sun had sunk below the other side of the mountain.

  They’d been traveling in shadow for what seemed nearly an hour, Jack leading the way, when the older boy paused and asked to see the map. Andy and Willie looked at one another and realized, with horror, that they had left the day pack at the top of the mountain, somewhere among the cairns and twisted trees.

  “I thought you had it,” said Andy, aghast at the smaller boy’s carelessness.

  “I thought you did,” said Willie.

  No matter; it was Andy that Jack swore at and smacked on the side of the head. Willie looked pained, as if he, too, had been hit.

  Jack glanced up the slope, then turned and angrily continued down the trail. “Let’s go!” he snapped over his shoulder. “Too late to go back for it now.”

  They got lost twice coming down, squeezing between boulders, clambering over jagged rocks, and slipping on patches of ice. But just as night had settled on the mountain, and Andy could no longer make out his brother’s red hair or his friend’s pale face, they all felt the familiar hard-packed earth of the trail beneath their boots.

  They were dog-tired and aching by the time they stumbled into camp. They had no flashlights and were too fatigued to try to build a fire. Poor Willie, weariest of all, felt his way to the tent and crawled inside. Andy hung back. In the darkness he heard Jack yawn and slip into the other tent.

  He was alone now, with no light but the stars and a sliver of moon, like a great curved mouth. The night was chilly; he knew he couldn’t stay out here. With a sigh, he pushed through the tent flaps, trying not to think about what waited for him inside.

  The interior of the tent was pitch black and as cold as outdoors. Willie was already asleep. The air, once crisp, seemed heavy with an alien smell; when he lifted the flap of his sleeping bag, the smell grew stronger. Did all new bags smell like this? He recognized the odors of canvas and rubber, but beneath them lurked a hint of something else: fur, maybe, or the breath of an animal.

  No, he was imagining things. The only irrefutable fact was the cold. Feeling his way carefully in the darkness, Andy unlaced his boots, barely no
ticed that his socks were encrusted with snow. Gingerly he inserted one foot into the mouth of the bag, praying he’d feel nothing unusual.

  The walls of the bag felt smooth and, moments later, warm. Too warm. Surely, though, it was just the warmth of his own body.

  He pushed both legs in further, then slipped his feet all the way to the bottom. Lying in the darkness, listening to the sound of Willie’s breathing, he could feel the bag press itself against his ankles and legs, clinging to them with a weight that seemed, for goosedown, a shade too heavy. Yet the feeling was not unpleasant. He willed himself to relax.

  It occurred to him, as he waited uneasily for sleep, what a clever disguise a bag like this would make for a creature that fed on human flesh. Like a spider feasting upon flies that had blundered into its web, such a creature might gorge contentedly on human beings stupid enough to disregard its warning: One size eats all ... Imagine, prey that literally pushed itself into the predator’s mouth!

  Human stomach acid, he’d read, was capable of eating through a razor blade; and surely this creature’s would be worse. He pictured the thing dissolving bones, draining the very life-blood from its victim, leaving a corpse sucked dry of fluids, like the withered husk a spider leaves behind ...

  Suddenly he froze. He felt something damp—no, wet—at the bottom of the bag. Wet like saliva. Or worse.

  Kicking his feet, he wriggled free of the bag. Maybe what he’d felt was simply the melted snow from his socks, but in the darkness he was he was taking no chances. Feeling for his boots, he laced them back on and curled up on top of the bag, shivering beneath his coat.

  Willie’s voice woke him.

  “Andy? Are you okay?”

  Andy opened his eyes. It was light out. He had survived the night.

  “Why were you sleeping like that?” said Willie. “You must be frozen.”