The Year's Best Horror Stories 22

by Karl Edward Wagner (Ed. )

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” I asked as I adjusted my pillow.

  “I did.”

  And she certainly had, at an hour too late to seek entertainment, at least for people like us, too old for trendy discos and noisy bars full of brash youngsters. I wished she had left me sleeping on the sofa; it had been comfortable and dream-free. Now I was beginning to lose my sleepiness.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so tired,” Marjory complained. “You haven’t done anything today except allow us to get dragged off by those awful timeshare touts.”

  They hadn’t been so awful and my resultant chat with the main representative had been interesting. Not that I would seriously consider investing in Lanzarote. The volcanic island reminded me too much of Marjory, except her grumbling was audible.

  “We got a bottle of gin out of it,” I countered.

  She grunted and craned her neck at me, her eyes as cold and blue as the early morning water in our apartment complex swimming pool.

  “If I hadn’t been there, you would have signed on the dotted line.”

  The rep. had never come that close to sealing the deal. Marjory’s haughty silent stare had seen to that. Not that I had needed her support. Still, she had already made good use of the gin, and now she would sleep soundly, filling the still warm air with a flurry of snoring while I tossed and turned, too much awake to follow.

  “Turn your light out,” she ordered. “It’s in my eyes.” Then, as I reached for the switch: “But first, give me a good night kiss.”

  Her tone was a shade sweeter, the difference between a lump of sugar and a lump with an extra grain. The request took me by surprise, then I remembered the gin.

  I leaned over and gave her a brief kiss; brief because she always seemed to move away before I felt I had finished it. Had we been teenagers, it might have been interpreted as a tease. In the twilight of middle-age it was a remnant of faded affections, the closest we ever came to physical intimacy.

  “Good night,” she said as I filled the room with darkness.

  I didn’t bother to reply.

  The next hour passed slowly as sleep kept its distance. I ended up thinking of our activities since arriving in Lanzarote four days earlier. The memories aggravated me.

  Lanzarote, or Puerto del Carmen to be more precise, had been Marjory’s idea. Our three children had more adventurous things planned for the Christmas break than staying with us in cold wet Orpington. As for myself, I did a lot of foreign travel in my job as an Export Manager, so staying at home and pottering about would have been, in its own quiet way, most appealing.

  However, Marjory had decided that she couldn’t be bothered cooking for just the two of us (but would have been only too happy to have done so for the whole family) and that a holiday “away from it all” was just what she needed. After a brief perusal of a few brochures, and without consulting me, she made her choice: one of the Canary Islands. It only remained for me to go and book it and pay for it.

  Due to work, it was a few days before I got round to it; during that time I tried to coax her into trying somewhere really different, like the Dominican Republic—“Too far away, wherever it is”—or Gambia—“Africa! You must be joking!”—or Thailand—“You know I hate Indian food.” And so, running late with only a week to Christmas, I had wandered into the local travel agent, seen a “cheapie” advertised for half the price of the one Marjory had picked, and had booked it there and then: same dates, same island, same resort, apartment unknown but promised to be up to the company’s usual high standard.

  “The money I’ve saved will enable us to spend even more when we’re there,” I said triumphantly on my return.

  Marjory was unimpressed. “I’m surprised you haven’t joined the local synagogue,” she replied sourly.

  Our apartment in the Villas Verdes was more than adequate. It was modern, bright and comfortably furnished in that typically simple aesthetic style the Spanish are so good at, a style that makes the British seem a cluttered lot. It had a south-facing balcony with a sea view and was positioned above Tinosa, the old part of Puerto del Carmen, just a ten minute stroll from the sea front with its little harbour, double that to the main Playa Blanca beach with its promenade of bars, discos and European restaurants. It was just right, or so I thought.

  “It’s too small,” she croaked as soon as she had stepped inside. (It wasn’t).

  “It smells.” (Sea air with a trace of fish from the harbour).

  “The bed’s hard.” (As soft as her own back home).

  “The beach is miles away.” (Marjory hates beaches because of the sand or pebbles or people).

  And then, after her initial shock: “Damn it! Our neighbours are fat Germans.” (Very pleasant couple).

  “Everything’s so expensive.” (Except what she buys).

  “Too many foreigners here.” (She, of course, wasn’t one of them).

  “The pool’s too small.” (Marjory can’t swim).

  Can’t swim. A horrible idea had rushed through my mind then. Silly idea, really; I had no need to dispose of Marjory to make my life happy. A perk of my job was the discreet young ladies provided by my foreign hosts: an enjoyable dalliance on a quiet evening away from it all. Another perk was visiting interesting countries. In comparison, Lanzarote was sterile without any discernible character. Still, it didn’t matter. I suppose in a way I was living a double life and Marjory was not only the reason why I was living it, but also the price I had to pay for it. I could handle it. But then again, why should I?

  It was a thought I had had many times, but it had never lingered long enough to make an impression. Until Lanzarote. In four days it had come and gone so many times on a daily basis that it seemed almost a preoccupation.

  Marjory can’t swim.

  I looked across to her bed, her narrow shoulders in my direction. Her emerging suntan made her skin look less pale in the dark. Usually it was visible even when the bedroom light was out. Now it looked almost foreign. Pity it wasn’t.

  We did our sunbathing on the balcony, Marjory smothered in creams and lotions. It was a sun trap, and a trap of another kind, a place where Marjory honed her impeccable skills of ill-timing or chattering irrelevancies.

  She would talk nonsense just as I got to an engrossing part of a paperback, or deposit a cold unwanted beer on my chest just as I was dozing off in the sun. Or she would fill my ears with valuable comments:

  “I can see a cloud,” or,

  “It’s hot today,” or her favorite,

  “Are you asleep?” (If so, then I shall bloody well wake you up, because that’s what I’m like).

  With increasing frequency, I would stand on the balcony and gaze across the old town—which wasn’t particularly old—and sense the attraction of the dazzling white-walled buildings with their blue and green doors and frames. Yet something was missing. The resort was vacuous and clinically clean. Perhaps this was a result of it being originally discovered as a tourist spot by Germans and Scandinavians twenty years ago. I wondered if anything truly old and Canarian remained, apart from an old wrinkled woman in black sitting on a doorstep that I had seen one morning when I was going to the supermarket. She had the strangest eyes I’d ever seen, like those of a dead fish.

  Marjory was temporarily off fish. On our second night we had strolled around the old town and ended up by the harbor, appropriately called Fish Harbor. It was a landfill, a large rectangle bordered on the west by a stone quay and small fishing boats, on its seaward side by a wall of volcanic rocks, and on its east side by a restaurant. Near the quayside stood a stone table. On it had been a small pool of blood, fresh, dark, unmistakable in the light of a large moon. A strange odor had filled the immediate area, neither sea, fish or sewage, but rather a combination of all three.

  Marjory came over for a look, her eyes narrowing at the sight, her large nose twitching with the smell. “Yuk,” was all she said.

  As she walked back to the road I inspected the fishing boats; they bobbe
d, empty, none showing signs of recent use. No one else was at Fish Harbor then, which I suppose was understandable, it being after midnight and on the road to nowhere. With a cool breeze blowing in from the sea, I had hastened after Marjory and caught her up.

  “Probably blood from fish being gutted, the evening catch of a boat long gone.”

  “What?”

  “The blood on the stone.”

  She had looked at me as if I was stupid. “Well, of course it’s fish; it’s Fish Harbor, isn’t it? What did you expect it to be? Some sacrificial altar like those Inca Aztecs you were once so infatuated with?”

  I wondered what I would have done had it been Marjory’s blood on that stone table.

  Two days later and I was still wondering. Wondering, wondering, wondering ... She can’t swim.

  I illuminated my watch. One-thirty. Wide awake. Lying in bed was becoming unbearable. I decided to get up and go for a walk, do some serious thinking. I fumbled quietly for some clothes, bundled them together and crept carefully to the door. Unfortunately I was not careful enough and bashed my toes against one of Marjory’s bed legs. With muttered curses I limped on, reached the door and—

  “Ha! That’ll teach you to creep about when I’m asleep.”

  “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “I’ve been awake since I got into bed. My mind’s too active.” The gin, I thought, as I hobbled into the lounge and flicked on a light. “What are you doing up at this hour?” she continued. “Are you going out?”

  “Yes. Thought I’d get some fresh air. Bit stuffy in here. Maybe a good walk would tire me out.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you at all.” Her pause was one of suspicion, and I had a horrible feeling that—“Sounds a good idea. Think I’ll join you.”

  Damn the bloody woman.

  The streets were deserted as we strolled past the shops, Marjory looking in the windows and complaining about the prices. And if it wasn’t the shops it was the restaurant menus. Her presence was beginning to annoy me far more than I would have expected. Eventually we came to the sea and took a path that ran parallel to it. Soon we found ourselves approaching Fish Harbor.

  Much to our surprise we saw some figures moving in the darkness. They hadn’t noticed us so out of caution I took Marjory’s elbow and guided her to a low jutting wall by the road. She was about to protest when I hissed for quiet and motioned for her to crouch behind the wall. Peeping over the top we watched what was going on.

  There were four men standing around the stone table and another by the quayside. One of the four stepped away and I glimpsed something large before he moved back. Marjory saw it, too.

  “Is that a fish on the table?” she whispered. “It looked too big, too ... unfishlike.”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back, then: “Sshh, they’re talking.”

  Their conversation was faint and I didn’t catch all the words, but what I did catch was enough.

  “You speak Spanish,” said Marjory. “What are they saying?”

  “Something about better fishing at night,” I lied. Had I told her the truth she would have found fault with my ability to translate.

  What had really been said was bizarre. One of the men had referred to whatever was on the table as a “poor sacrifice.” Another had said it was too small, too young, wouldn’t sate the appetite of the God-fish. A third said it would have to do, that it was too late to find a better gift. I must admit I did wonder if my translation abilities were as good as I thought they were.

  Marjory nudged me. “What’s he holding?” She was referring to the man by the quayside. He was moving to the others with something in his hand. When he handed it to one of the others, I saw that it was a knife. And then I smiled as the obvious hit me. They were cutting up bait for a night’s fishing. Probably had a special fish in mind they wanted to catch. Something fussy and difficult to hook. I started to chuckle. For a moment there I thought they’d been talking about something sinister.

  “What are you giggling at?” asked Marjory.

  “Us.”

  She looked offended and stared along her big nose at me. Then in a loud voice she said, “Huh. You can be such a bloody fool at times.”

  Abruptly she stood and stuck her chin out at the men round the table, as if aiming the tip of her nose at them. Her lack of discretion startled me and I glanced nervously at the men. They were staring at Marjory. I looked up at her, saw her mouth open and her eyes widen. I looked back at the men. One had moved a few steps forward, and between him and another I saw an arm hanging over the side of the slab.

  I don’t know what I thought or felt when I saw that small arm. The sight simply stunned me. It was a few seconds before I heard Marjory’s strained voice.

  “Do something, Jack.”

  Stand up, I thought, but before I could do so a bony hand pressed down on my shoulder. I sprung up, turned and stumbled back against the wall. Before me was the old woman in black with the eyes of a dead fish. I stared down at her wrinkled face, dark and mottled like a brown trout. Her mouth was a thin, wide line, and when the lips parted I saw she was as toothless as a ... But it was her eyes that hooked me. Hooked me. Like savage barbs in my heart. Not inappropriate for I thought I was on the verge of a heart attack with the hammering in my chest. Those dead fish eyes bored straight into mine. It was like coming face-to-face with a shark and thinking: this is it, my time’s up. Except it wasn’t. Marjory’s voice broke through the background of my perceptions.

  “For God’s sake, Jack, do something,” she screeched. “Get that awful woman away, she—she smells disgusting. And those men, they’re coming, Jack.”

  But the old woman held my attention. And she spoke, her voice muffled, like underwater noises. Her Spanish was unlike anything I’d heard before. I understood only part of it, but it was enough to guess the rest.

  She asked me if I wanted to be free. Free of life’s mundane burdens. Free of the octopus with an eye and a mouth in every tentacle. I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. She continued, asking if I was understanding enough to give, understanding enough to take, understanding enough to know why one must give and take. I mumbled that I didn’t understand. She turned her head slowly to look at Marjory, and that simple movement sent a current of fright right through me, because her eyes stayed fixed at the same angle, as if eye movement was impossible. It was unnerving. Marjory must have thought so too, because she fell silent.

  When the woman turned her face back to me, I understood what she had said. I looked at Marjory, glanced over my shoulder at the men, now gathered by the wall, and looked at Marjory again.

  “What is it, Jack? What’s going on?” Her voice was shaky, her expression fearful. I continued staring at her, on the one hand enjoying her discomfort, on the other being troubled by mine. She turned to the men. “Do any of you speak English?”

  They didn’t move a muscle.

  She looked back at me, a new fear in her eyes. A deeper fear. “For God’s sake pull yourself together,” and she grabbed my arm. “I think they’re going to rape me.”

  I burst out laughing, repeating in Spanish what she’d said, the men adding laughter to mine. Even the old woman smiled. But Marjory didn’t. Oh, no. She took a step closer and without warning slapped me across the face.

  “You despicable bastard,” she said with great enunciation. “How dare you act like this in front of strangers. How dare you!” There was true anger in her voice. “How can you—my husband of thirty years—humiliate me like this? How?” Her eyes brimmed with hatred. She glanced quickly at the others. “I suppose this is your idea of a sick joke, is it? Scaring me like this? Well, Jack-the-big-I-am, you can go to Hell,” and she lashed out again.

  This time I caught her wrist and held it tight.

  “Let go of me,” she growled. “Let go before I scream the place down.” I kept my grip. “I will, you know, you stupid little man.” The condescension in her voice inflamed me. She started to rant. “How I’ve put up with
you for so long I don’t know. But rest assured that when we get back home there are going to be some tough changes for you. It’s time you started showing me some consideration. Now let go!”

  I let go and in that instant knew I detested her. Totally. I watched her rub her wrist and it reminded me of something.

  “Have you forgotten what’s on the table?” I said.

  She stopped rubbing and looked up at me, then slowly scanned the others. A vague awareness seemed to creep across her face. One of the men made a clicking sound with his tongue. I looked at him and he raised his eyebrows enquiringly.

  The old woman asked me again if I was understanding enough.

  “The table? The God-fish? These I don’t understand.”

  She said a name and one of the men began to speak.

  “Our family blood is in the soil of this island. It burns even now in the volcanoes that slumber beneath the lava fields. It struggles for life in the sap of twisted trees. But nowhere does it struggle more than in the sea. In no other place have more lives been lost. The sea stanches the flow of lava. It surrounds this island. It must be treated with respect. It must be appeased.”

  “Why?”

  “With the decline in fishing and the increase in seaworthy boat designs, the sea goes hungry.”

  “And the God-fish?”

  “The link between the sea and us. A messenger. A very old messenger.”

  “A fish?”

  “More than just a fish. A creature of the deep.”

  A second man stepped forward. “A creature as happy in deep waters as it is happy in the dark depths of the human mind.”

  “What?”

  “Dolphins and whales have intelligence, can communicate. The God-fish also, but with us.”

  “You?”

  “Humans.”

  “Me,” said the old woman.

  I turned and looked at her. “Telepathy?” I must have sounded incredulous, for the woman’s mouth puckered.

  “Possession,” said a man.