The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 24

by Stephen Jones

  On the third day she slept peacefully. Deeply, tranquilly, with a faint smile on her lips, as a child sleeps.

  Once or twice I thought I didn’t quite like that smile; there was a faint shade of mockery in it; something not like her. As if her face were a mirror, reflecting another, unseen face. But I told myself that was nerves; I tiptoed round the house, to keep from waking her.

  Toward evening she did wake, long enough to eat, and she was entirely like herself; sweet and frank and friendly. But she soon slept again. I did too, on my couch by the fire.

  About midnight I woke up. And saw her kneeling before the embers, the faint light shining in her hair. It must have been moonlight really, coming in through the Venetian blinds, that were open, though I’d thought I’d closed them. It couldn’t have come, as it seemed to come, from her.

  Nor could it have been – as it seemed to be – red . . .

  But before I had time to wonder about it she turned and looked at me. Smiled at me, and there was such witchery in her eyes and in her mouth as I had never seen in any woman’s face.

  “I’m all well now, Frank.” She held out her arms. No man could have resisted.

  In the early morning I got up. She was still lying there, wide-eyed, flushed and rosy, in the dawn. It was I who felt feverish, shaky; somehow drained. I wanted, queerly, to get away. I went into the bedroom, for a clean shirt, for the morning; no fear, now, of disturbing Anne.

  But Anne was still lying there in bed, fast asleep.

  I staggered back into the living-room. Fast, hoping to prove that I’d been dreaming. But she was still lying there, that thing on the couch, smiling up at me.

  She said softly, “I’m a better lover than Anne. You know that now.”

  I stood there, gaping. And her smile widened.

  “After tonight we’ll let her sleep soundly always, won’t we? Every night, so that I can come to you? I’ve been wanting to come to you for a long time; I’ve been wanting a body for a long time. But I couldn’t get one – not until her love for her father and her jealousy of her stepmother made a way for me to get in.”

  I said stupidly, “It was you, then, who lamed Mrs MacNair?”

  She laughed. “Not for that old fool’s sake – I never cared for old men. I couldn’t even have the fun of killing the poor dowdy old frump; Anne’s wish wasn’t strong enough, and I wasn’t far enough in yet. It’s taken me time. But I knew Anne would bring me better game in the end; she’s young and pretty – pretty enough to catch most men. But neither she nor any other woman of earth can give a man what I can give . . . Come!”

  And she held out her arms again. And I came.

  I didn’t love her; I never loved her. I still loved Anne. But I couldn’t withstand the other one. It was true that she could give a man what no woman on earth could – what no other lover outside hell could. Night after night she gave it to me.

  And Anne slept more and more, by day as well as by night. Sometimes she’d look at me in a puzzled way and say, “I’m sorry, Frank. I don’t know why I can’t seem to get stronger. It is hard on you.” And I would grin and shrug and soothe her; and the day would seem like a dream, an unreal, half-alive time of waiting for the darkness to fall. For Mary’s arms.

  Night after night we’d lie on that couch before the fire, and love and whisper. I’ve said that she talked now; but I’m not sure that I ever really heard a voice. That part may have been all inside my head, her thoughts coming to meet my thoughts. She did think; she was terribly real, whatever she was. About that I have no idea. She may have been some passionate, wicked woman who had died and wanted to get back to earth, or she may have been some evil spirit who had never worn flesh. I know one thing – that she was utterly, altogether evil.

  It scared me sometimes, by flashes – brief flashes of my normal consciousness, like waking up for a minute, out of a dream – to realise that Anne was constantly getting weaker. That this creature was draining out her life in the effort to get vitality, substance enough out of her body to maintain her own dreadful, half-embodied earthly existence.

  Old Barker noticed it on his visits. He said once, “Hadn’t you better let me get a doctor for Miz Carter yet? She seems mighty poorly – mighty slow about pulling around.” But I shook my head: “No, Barker. It’s good of you, but she’s prejudiced against doctors.” I don’t know what made me say that.

  He said, a worried look in his eyes, “You look as if you could use one, too.”

  That was true. I knew that I too was getting weaker. I couldn’t write any more. I couldn’t think much. All the vitality was being drawn out of me in those flaming hours with that creature whom I had once thought creepy, cold.

  One night I tried remonstrating with her. “Mary, Anne can’t stand much more of this. Neither can I. You’d better slow up a bit – you don’t want to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs.”

  She laughed; that soft shrill laugh of hers that may never have made any sound at all.

  “You mean you are not man enough for me, my Frank? Do not let that humiliate you. No man could be – for long. But tonight you are. Come here.” And again she pressed her mouth to mine.

  I forgot everything for a while. Everything but the hellish delight of her. But presently I did manage to remonstrate again.

  “Mary, whatever you do with me you can’t afford to get rid of Anne. You can’t replace her as easily as you can me. You’ve said yourself that it took you a long time to get in – to be able to make yourself a body out of hers.”

  She made a little face. “What use is a body if you do not enjoy it while you have it? Kiss me again, my Frank.”

  To her we were only instruments that served her pleasure. When we were useless – that is, dead – she would regret nothing but the loss of that pleasure. And begin looking about for new instruments.

  I had moments of despair; of fear and horror. But I don’t suppose I ever would have done anything about them if Anne hadn’t found out.

  I woke late one morning – it must have been almost noon – from a deep sleep. A heavy, stupor-like sleep. And it was Anne who stood there looking down at me. Not the other.

  Her eyes were wide and frightened. She said, “You look ill, Frank. You look white – almost as if you were dead. Nursing me never got you down like this.” Then she put her hand on my shoulder; her voice was quick and rough. “Is it – Mary?”

  I couldn’t answer. I felt the red burning up under my skin until my face, however white it had been, must have looked brick-coloured. I felt as if my whole body was. I turned away my head.

  She gave a short, strangled cry. As hurt a cry as if I’d stuck a knife into her. Then she sank into a chair and began to weep.

  I lay there; too miserable, too ashamed, to try to do anything. After a while she said: “It’s all my fault. I never should have married you. I never should have let you come to see me. I knew that something awful might happen if I did. But I – I wanted so much to be like other girls – to live. I wanted you. And so did she. I might have known that she’d never have kept away so long – been so quiet – if she hadn’t wanted me to marry you. To get you where she could get at you!”

  I got up then. I went to her and put my arms around her. I said, “I love you, Anne.”

  But she pulled away from me. “What difference does that make? She’s stronger than you – stronger than I. Stronger than anyone who has a body! But she can’t do without a body. Well, she can’t have mine any more!”

  And she turned and ran out of the house. Straight for the place where the cliffs fell sheer.

  I caught her at the edge of the mountainside. At the very place where the slopes turned to cliffs. She fought me, but I dragged her back; carried her back to the house. I seemed to have all my strength back then.

  She lay quietly when I put her down on the couch. She said as quietly, “You shouldn’t have done that, Frank. Because, you see, I must die – that’s the only way out.”

  I said, “You shan’t.�
��

  But she shook her head. Wearily, like a tired child. “It’s the only way to save you, Frank. To save myself. I should have known that she was back. I did know it, there when I was ill. But I didn’t want to know – I didn’t want to remember. She’s taken my life, but she shan’t have yours. I’ll die today or tomorrow, or the day after – you can’t stop me, Frank. There’s no other way. Even if I left you, would she?”

  She began to cry, softly and drearily, like a child who has cried so long that it no longer has the strength to cry aloud. She cried herself to sleep.

  I sat there by her, all afternoon. I saw the shadows lengthen, the sun sink toward the jagged western peaks. The golden-brown glare that burned the land begin to dim a little.

  In an hour it would be twilight. The delicate Western twilight. In another hour it would be dark, and the materialised Mary would come. And I would forget all about Anne.

  And then all of a sudden Mary was there. Standing beside us, looking down at Anne with an angry, scornful face.

  “It would have been better for the poor fool if she had stayed stupid. Now she will have to be bedridden, without strength to walk. Perhaps without strength to think, if she should be stubborn and try to refuse food. I must take enough more of her life to see to that.”

  She bent over, swiftly. Her whole body dropped down, like a cat’s, upon Anne’s. She pressed her lips to the sleeping girl’s lips. It looked as if she were sucking up her breath.

  I rose. I went to the bedroom. There was a gun in one of the drawers there – a gun that I had bought as a curiosity, because one of the famous old Western marshals was supposed to have carried it. I loaded it; I came back into the living-room with it in my hand.

  Mary was still very busy. I came quite close to them without her seeing me. I took deliberate aim. I knew that there was no use in firing on the one I wanted to fire on – on that thing out of Hell! But there were some things, at least, from which I could save Anne. I shot her through the head.

  I woke up, days later, in a Tucson hospital. I have been very ill; they think that I breathed in smoke while trying to rescue my wife from our burning home. Old Barker found our bodies together just outside the door; Anne’s badly charred. An adobe house with cement floors cannot burn easily, but the interior of ours was gutted. I remember setting fire to the curtains; I remember pouring kerosene over the couch where Anne lay, and firing that; while all the time fists that had no force beat me, and cries of fear and satanic rage rang in my ears. But I did not drag Anne’s body out; I know that. I was faint – with smoke and horror – when I staggered out myself.

  They have asked me, very gently, if Anne, my wife, had been discouraged, unbalanced, because of her long illness. They might not have been so gentle if a woman’s fingerprints had not overlaid mine on the gun they picked up from the cement floor; the corpse’s fingerprints, they think. That puzzled me at first; I couldn’t think why or when Mary had touched the gun.

  But last night I found out. Yesterday I went from the hospital to a hotel. In the afternoon I had scattered the ashes that used to be Anne from a mountain peak – so that they will drift through that valley into which we used to look down when we were happy. The ride back took me until after dark. And when I turned on the light in my hotel room – the room that had been so clean and pleasant and empty that afternoon when I had left it – I saw her sitting there. A charred figure, on the bed.

  But she still smiled – smiled with teeth that showed unpleasantly through the blackened places where her lips had been.

  “I’m not as pretty as I was before you tried to burn her, am I? But I’m here. I’ll always be here – or wherever you are – whenever it gets dark.”

  I said, “But you can’t be. Anne was burned – I scattered her ashes this afternoon.”

  She laughed; her old laugh. “Not in time. If you’d been able to burn her the day she died I wouldn’t have been able to come back. But I’ve had time now – time to learn how to use your body a little. Your ka wasn’t so well anchored when you were sick, there in the hospital. I’ll always be with you now, Frank. You’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

  And she began singing softly and combing her hair – hair that fell away in ashes while she combed it.

  All night long I walked. I walked the quiet downtown streets where Eastern-looking stores mingle with Indian trading-posts; I walked the lovely still streets of the residential area where Spanish-style houses loomed up like thicker masses of night shadows behind avenues of palm and orange trees. And all the time I heard soft footsteps behind me – knew what I should see if I looked over my shoulder. For two nights I have walked so.

  Tomorrow afternoon – no, it is this afternoon now – the Sheriff’s office will give me back my gun. And I shall use it again. Then perhaps I shall find Anne in some place where Mary cannot follow. And Mary will be powerless for awhile – until she finds some other instrument she can use.

  JOEL LANE

  Slow Burn

  JOEL LANE lives in Birmingham, England. His publications in the weird fiction genre include four short story collections: The Earth Wire, The Lost District, The Terrible Changes and Where Furnaces Burn – the latter a book of supernatural crime stories set in the West Midlands – as well as a novella, The Witnesses Are Gone.

  His short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies including Black Static, Weird Tales, Cemetery Dance, Gutshot, The End of the Line, Evermore, The Museum of Horror, Gathering the Bones, Shadows Edge and two Mammoth series: Best New Horror and Best British Crime. A booklet of his short crime stories, Do Not Pass Go, was published in 2011, and his articles on classic weird fiction writers have appeared in Wormwood, Foundation, Supernatural Tales and other periodicals.

  “‘Slow Burn’ was one of several weird crime stories that appeared for the first time in Where Furnaces Burn,” reveals Lane. “Unlike most of that cycle of stories, it’s not set in an urban underworld, but rather in one of the Black Country’s most strange and compelling areas of natural beauty – the Wren’s Nest nature reserve, an ash forest growing on limestone rocks.

  “The book as a whole was equally influenced by the occult detective and noir fiction sub-genres, and some of the stories – including this one – tried to create fragments of a regional mythology.”

  EVERYONE KNEW THE fires at the Wren’s Nest were the work of untraceable kids with spray cans and lighters. But we had to investigate, if only to make some of them less confident about doing it again. The tracksuited youths huddled on the bare streets of the estate around the nature reserve told us as much by their turned backs as we could have learned from interrogating them. The charred debris of fire-starting equipment among the burned trees and shrubs told its own story. Why wasn’t a question for the police, though I wondered at the time whether adolescent rage was enough of an explanation.

  When Elaine and I had been courting, we’d come here a few times in the spring of 1980. In those days, the paths were less clearly marked and it was easy to get lost. The limestone cliffs, after millions of years on dry land, still had their own secret geography. The layered ash woods filtered the daylight, made you feel sheltered by some kind of ancient building. Elaine and I walked for hours, holding hands, sometimes pausing to kiss. We searched the exposed rock faces for tiny fossil shells, and chased each other through labyrinths of creepers and ash-fronds. But we never tried to make love there, for a reason we agreed some time afterwards: we both felt watched.

  Coming back in the autumn, twenty years later, felt strange. The place no longer seemed peaceful. Black cinders were scattered through the undergrowth, and scorched trees had fallen into the deep gullies. It was hard to see where the effects of fire ended and those of seasonal decay began: dead leaves and black fungus covered everything. Ash trees are called that because of how they look in autumn. The years of police work meant that wherever I looked, I saw places to hide bodies. The sunlight flared randomly off branches as if they were on fire.

/>   Near one of the signposts that guided visitors through the nature reserve, we passed a large wooden effigy of a trilobite fossil. Its ridged surface was charred and split open. The real “Dudley Bug”, which had given the town its municipal symbol, had been found here. The Wren’s Nest was high above the surrounding area, though it didn’t feel like it. Further on, the footpath led us around the edge of a pool long since rendered inert by blue-green algae. Beer cans and condoms floated on the dark surface. The limestone rim was yellowed and crumbly like old cheese.

  I wondered why Elaine and I had stopped coming here. The place had a way of confronting you with sudden views – sheer hillsides, layered depths – that made you feel on the edge of the unknown. Maybe it was just vertigo. Maybe it had to do with the way our relationship had become focused on the home, on maintaining our own peace and security, not taking chances. If we came here again, it would feel like the end of something.

  Most of the fires had started near the edge of the reserve, where the warden’s office had been destroyed for the second time in five years. It was a blackened hulk, marked off by scene of crime tape. An earlier police team had already gone through the wreckage, though the fire had started some distance away. The wind blew flakes of ash into our faces. We circled the high metal fence around the disused mines, looking for any discarded items that might hold fingerprints. It was colder out here than among the trees. The bloodshot sun was setting behind the estate.

  The old limestone mines had been shut down for decades, due to the effects of subsidence. I’d heard something about a fire in one of the mines, around the time I joined the force. The area was sealed off to stop kids trying to get into them. Looking through the steel chain-link fence, I began to wonder if the fires might have some kind of symbolic meaning. The dark, shapeless buildings inside made me think of ancient burial vaults. Once again, I had the sense of being watched.