There was another splintering crack—almost a crash—and he was in the water, swimming for the shore as he never had swum in his life . . . and the shore was amazingly close. A minute later he was standing waist-deep in water, not five yards from the beach.
Petey splashed toward him, arms out, screaming and crying and laughing. Hal started toward him and floundered. Petey, chest-deep, floundered.
They caught each other.
Hal breathed in great, winded gasps, nevertheless hoisted the boy into his arms and carried him up to the beach where both of them sprawled, panting.
“Daddy? Is it really gone? That monkey?”
“Yes. I think it’s really gone.”
“The boat fell apart. It just . . . fell apart all around you.”
Disintegrated, Hal thought, and looked at the boards floating loose on the water forty feet out. They bore no resemblance to the tight handmade rowboat he had pulled out of the boathouse.
“It’s all right now,” Hal said, leaning back on his elbows. He shut his eyes and let the sun warm his face.
“Did you see the cloud?” Petey whispered.
“Yes. But I don’t see it now . . . do you?”
They looked at the sky. There were scattered white puffs here and there, but no large dark cloud. It was gone, as he had said.
Hal pulled Petey to his feet. “There’ll be towels up at the house. Come on.” But he paused, looking at his son. “You were crazy, running out there like that.”
Petey looked at him solemnly. “You were brave, Daddy.”
“Was I?” The thought of bravery had never crossed his mind. Only his fear. The fear had been too big to see anything else. If anything else had indeed been there. “Come on, Pete.”
“What are we going to tell Mom?”
Hal smiled. “I dunno, big guy. We’ll think of something.”
He paused a moment longer, looking at the boards floating on the water. The lake was calm again, sparkling with small wavelets. Suddenly Hal thought of summer people he didn’t even know—a man and his son, perhaps, fishing for the big one. I’ve got something, Dad! the boy screams. Well reel it up and let’s see, the father says, and coming up from the depths, weeds draggling from its cymbals, grinning its terrible, welcoming grin . . . the monkey.
He shuddered—but those were only things that might be.
“Come on,” he said to Petey again, and they walked up the path through the flaming October woods toward the home place.
From the Bridgton News
October 24, 1980:
MYSTERY OF THE DEAD FISH
By BETSY MORIARTY
HUNDREDS of dead fish were found floating belly-up on Crystal Lake in the neighboring township of Casco late last week. The largest numbers appeared to have died in the vicinity of Hunter’s Point, although the lake’s currents make this a bit difficult to determine. The dead fish included all types commonly found in these waters—bluegills, pickerel, sunnies, carp, brown and rainbow trout, even one landlocked salmon. Fish and Game authorities say they are mystified, and caution fishermen and women not to eat any sort of fish from Crystal Lake until tests have determined . . .
THE GAP by Ramsey Campbell
Born January 4, 1946 in Liverpool, Ramsey Campbell has devoted most of his life to frightening tourists away from that city; Campbell is a writer of urban horrors who revels in deteriorating neighborhoods and industrial slums, and not surprisingly Liverpool has been the setting of many of his stories and novels. Campbell’s first book, The Inhabitant of the Lake & Less Welcome Tenants, was published by Arkham House in 1964. Since this teenage infatuation with the works of H. P. Lovecraft, Campbell moved rapidly to establish his own approach to horror fiction and is now considered one of this genre’s foremost stylists. Campbell is versatile. His books include collections of his own stories: Demons by Daylight, The Height of the Scream; original anthologies that he has edited: Superhorror (retitled The Far Reaches of Fear in paperback), New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, and the two-volume New Terrors; as well as novels: The Doll Who Ate His Mother, The Face That Must Die, To Wake the Dead (which was retitled The Parasite for the U.S. edition and given an alternate ending).
Campbell lives with his wife, Jenny, in cannibal-haunted Liverpool, where for the past several years he has worked full time as a writer—evoking unexpected horrors from territories that threaten to expand worldwide. Currently Campbell is at work on a horror novel set in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. “The Gap” was published in the second number of Fantasy Readers Guide, subtitled The File on Ramsey Campbell; this booklet contains an index to all of Campbell’s fiction to date, along with several commentaries and appreciations, and I recommend it to serious fans of fantasy literature.
Tate was fitting a bird into the sky when he heard the car. He hurried to the window. Sunlit cars blazed, a doublestranded necklace on the distant main road; clouds transformed above the hills, assembling the sky. Yes, it was the Dewhursts: he could see them, packed into the front seat of their Fiat as it ventured into the drive. On his table, scraps of cloud were scattered around the jigsaw. The Dewhursts weren’t due for an hour. He glanced at the displaced fragments and then, resigned, went to the stairs.
By the time he’d strolled downstairs and opened the front door, they were just emerging from the car. David’s coat buttons displayed various colors of thread. Next came his wife Dottie: her real name was Carla, but they felt that Dave and Dottie looked a more attractive combination on book covers—a notion with which millions of readers seemed to agree. She looked like a cartoonist’s American tourist: trousers bulging like sausages, carefully silvered hair. Sometimes Tate wished that his writer’s eye could be less oppressively alert to telling details.
Dewhurst gestured at his car like a conjuror unveiling an astonishment. “And here are our friends that we promised you.”
Had it been a promise? It had seemed more a side effect of inviting the Dewhursts. And when had their friend turned plural? Still, Tate was unable to feel much resentment; he was too full of having completed his witchcraft novel.
The young man’s aggressive bony face was topped with hair short as turf; the girl’s face was almost the color and texture of chalk. “This is Don Skelton,” Dewhurst said. “Don, Lionel Tate. You two should have plenty to talk about, you’re in the same field. And this is Don’s friend, er—” Skelton stared at the large old villa as if he couldn’t believe he was meant to be impressed.
He let the girl drag his case upstairs; she refused to yield it to Tate when he protested. “This is your room,” he told Skelton, and felt like a disapproving landlady. “I had no idea you wouldn’t be alone.”
“Don’t worry, there’ll be room for her.”
If the girl had been more attractive, if her tangled hair had been less inert and her face less hungry, mightn’t he have envied Skelton? “There’ll be cocktails before dinner, if that’s your scene,” he said to the closed door.
The jigsaw helped him relax. Evening eased into the house, shadows deepened within the large windows. The table glowed darkly through the last gap, then he snapped the piece home. Was that an echo of the snap behind him? He turned, but nobody was watching him.
As he shaved in one of the bathrooms he heard someone go downstairs. Good Lord, he wasn’t a very efficient host. He hurried down, achieving the bow of his tie just as he reached the lounge, but idling within were only Skelton and the girl. At least she now wore something like an evening dress; the top of her pale chest was spattered with freckles. “We generally change before going out for dinner,” Tate said.
Skelton shrugged his crumpled shoulders. “Go ahead.”
Alcohol made Skelton more talkative. “I’ll have somewhere like this,” he said, glancing at the Victorian carved mahogany suite. After a calculated pause he added, “But better.”
Tate made a last effort to reach him. “I’m afraid I haven’t read anything of yours.”
“There won’t be many people who’ll be able t
o say that.” It sounded oddly threatening. He reached in his briefcase for a book. “I’ll give you something to keep.”
Tate glimpsed carved boxes, a camera, a small round gleam that twinged him with indefinable apprehension before the case snapped shut. Silver letters shone on the paperback, which was glossy as coal: The Black Road.
A virgin was being mutilated, gloated over by the elegant prose. Tate searched for a question that wouldn’t sound insulting. At last he managed “What are your themes?”
“Autobiography.” Perhaps Skelton was one of those writers of the macabre who needed to joke defensively about their work, for the Dewhursts were laughing.
Dinner at the inn was nerve-racking. Candlelight made food hop restlessly on plates, waiters loomed beneath the low beams and flung their vague shadows over the tables. The Dewhursts grew merry, but couldn’t draw the girl into the conversation. When a waiter gave Skelton’s clothes a withering glance he demanded of Tate, “Do you believe in witchcraft?”
“Well, I had to do a lot of research for my book. Some of the things I read made me think.”
“No,” Skelton said impatiently. “Do you believe in it—as a way of life?”
“Good heavens no. Certainly not”
“Then why waste your time writing about it?” He was still watching the disapproving waiter. Was it the candlelight that twitched his lips? “He’s going to drop that,” he said.
The waiter’s shadow seemed to lose its balance before he did. His trayful of food crashed onto a table. Candles broke, flaring; light swayed the oak beams. Flaming wax spilled over the waiter’s jacket, hot food leapt into his face.
“You’re a writer,” Skelton said, ignoring the commotion, “yet you’ve no idea of the power of words. There aren’t many of us left who have.” He smiled as waiters guided the injured man away. “Mind you, words are only part of it. Science hasn’t robbed us of power, it’s given us more tools. Telephones, cameras—so many ways to announce power.”
Obviously he was drunk. The Dewhursts gazed at him as if he were a favorite, if somewhat irrepressible, child. Tate was glad to head home. Lights shone through his windows, charms against burglary; the girl hurried toward them, ahead of the rest of the party. Skelton dawdled, happy with the dark.
After his guests had gone to bed, Tate carried Skelton’s book upstairs with him. Skelton’s contempt had fastened on the doubts he always felt on having completed a new book. He’d see what sort of performance Skelton had to offer, since he thought so much of himself.
Less than halfway through he flung the book across the room. The narrator had sought perversions, taken all the drugs available, sampled most crimes in pursuit of his power; his favorite pastime was theft. Most of the scenes were pornographic. So this was autobiography, was it? Certainly drugs would explain the state of the speechless girl.
Tate’s eyes were raw with nights of revision and typing. As he read The Black Road, the walls had seemed to waver and advance; the furniture had flexed its legs. He needed sleep, not Skelton’s trash.
Dawn woke him. Oh God, he knew what he’d seen gleaming in Skelton’s case—an eye. Surely that was a dream, born of a particularly disgusting image in the book. He tried to turn his back on the image, but he couldn’t sleep. Unpleasant glimpses jerked him awake: his own novel with an oily black cover, friends snubbing him, his incredulous disgust on rereading his own book. Could his book be accused of Skelton’s sins? Never before had he been so unsure about his work.
There was only one way to reassure himself, or otherwise. Tying himself into his dressing gown, he tiptoed past the closed doors to his study. Could he reread his entire novel before breakfast? Long morning shadows drew imperceptibly into themselves. A woman’s protruded from his open study.
Why was his housekeeper early? In a moment he saw that he had been as absurdly trusting as the Dewhursts. The silent girl stood just within the doorway. As a guard she was a failure, for Tate had time to glimpse Skelton at his desk, gathering pages from the typescript of his novel.
The girl began to shriek, an uneven wailing sound that seemed not to need to catch breath. Though it was distracting as a police car’s siren, he kept his gaze on Skelton. “Get out,” he said.
A suspicion seized him. “No, on second thoughts—stay where you are.” Skelton stood, looking pained like the victim of an inefficient store detective, while Tate made sure that all the pages were still on his desk. Those which Skelton had selected were the best researched. In an intolerable way it was a tribute.
The Dewhursts appeared, blinking as they wrapped themselves in dressing gowns. “What on earth’s the matter?” Carla demanded.
“Your friend is a thief.”
“Oh, dear me,” Dewhurst protested. “Just because of what he said about his book? Don’t believe everything he says.”
“I’d advise you to choose your friends more carefully.”
“I think we’re perfectly good judges of people. What else do you think could have made our books so successful?”
Tate was too angry to restrain himself. “Technical competence, fourth-form wit, naive faith in people and a promise of life after death. You sell your readers what they want—anything but the truth.”
He watched them trudge out. The girl was still making a sound, somewhere between panting and wailing, as she bumped the case downstairs. He didn’t help her. As they squeezed into the car, only Skelton glanced back at him. His smile seemed almost warm, certainly content. Tate found it insufferable, and looked away.
When they’d gone, petrol fumes and all, he read through his novel. It seemed intelligent and unsensational—up to his standard. He hoped his publishers thought so. How would it read in print? Nothing of his ever satisfied him—but he was his least important reader.
Should he have called the police? It seemed trivial now. Pity about the Dewhursts—but if they were so stupid, he was well rid of them. The police would catch up with Skelton if he did much of what his book boasted.
After lunch Tate strolled toward the hills. Slopes blazed green; countless flames of grass swayed gently. The horizon was dusty with clouds. He lay enjoying the pace of the sky. At twilight the large emptiness of the house was soothing. He strolled back from the inn after a meal, refusing to glance at the nodding shapes that creaked and rustled beside him.
He slept well. Why should that surprise him when he woke? The mail waited at the end of his bed, placed there quietly by his housekeeper. The envelope with the blue and red fringe was from his New York agent—a new American paperback sale, hurrah. What else? A bill peering through its cellophane window, yet another circular, and a rattling carton wrapped in brown paper.
His address was anonymously typed on the carton; there was no return address. The contents shifted dryly, waves of shards. At last he stripped off the wrapping. When he opened the blank carton, its contents spilled out at him and were what he’d thought they must be: a jigsaw.
Was it a peace offering from the Dewhursts? Perhaps they’d chosen one without a cover picture because they thought he might enjoy the difficulty. And so he would. He broke up the sky and woodland on the table, and scooped them into their box. Beyond the window, trees and clouds wavered.
He began to sort out the edge of the jigsaw. Ah, there was the fourth corner. A warm breeze fluttered in the curtains. Behind him the door inched open on the emptiness of the house.
Noon had withdrawn most shadows from the room by the time he had assembled the edge. Most of the jumbled fragments were glossily brown, like furniture; but there was a human figure—no, two. He assembled them partially—one dressed in a suit, one in denim—then went downstairs to the salad his housekeeper had left him.
The jigsaw had freed his mind to compose. A story of rivalry between authors—a murder story? Two collaborators, one of whom became resentful, jealous, determined to achieve fame by himself? But he couldn’t imagine anyone collaborating with Skelton. He consigned the idea to the bin at the back of his mind.
The incomplete figures waited. The eye of a fragment gazed up at him. He shouldn’t do all the easy sections first. Surely there must be points at which he could build inward from the edge. Yes, there was one: the leg of an item of furniture. At once he saw three more pieces. It was an Empire cabinet. The shadow of a cloud groped toward him.
Connections grew clear. He’d reached the stage where his subconscious directed his attention to the appropriate pieces. The room was fitting together: a walnut canterbury, a mahogany table, a whatnot. When the shape leaned toward him he started, scattering fragments, but it must have been a tree outside the window. It didn’t take much to make him nervous now. He had recognized the room in the jigsaw.
Should he break it up unfinished? That would be admitting that it had disturbed him: absurd. He fitted the suited figure into place at the assembled table. Before he had put together the face, with its single eye in profile, he could see that the figure was himself.
He stood finishing a jigsaw, and was turning to glance behind him. When had the photograph been taken? When had the figure in denim crept behind him, unheard? Irritably resisting an urge to glance over his shoulder, he thumped the figure into place and snapped home the last pieces.
Perhaps it was Skelton: its denims were frayed and stained enough. But all the pieces which would have composed the face were missing. Reflected sunlight on the table within the gap gave the figure a flat pale gleam for a face.
“Damned nonsense!” He whirled, but there was only the unsteady door edging its shadow over the carpet. Skelton must have superimposed the figure; no doubt he had enjoyed making it look menacing—stepping eagerly forward, its hands outstretched. Had he meant there to be a hole where its face should be, to obscure its intentions?
The Year's Best Horror Stories 9 Page 6
