Best New Horror 29

by Stephen Jones

  He closed his eyes. That’s the way to do it.

  He pictured the little boy’s face. Is Judy in there? He knew, despite his excitement, the child would not be watching. He was too new, too fresh for any of this. The show wasn’t meant for the likes of him. He knew who would make up his little audience: ladies in voluminous chintzy skirts, their face powder clogging the wrinkles beneath; old men, tired from years of stale marriages and disappointing jobs, disillusioned and spent; the worn out, the mad and the lost. That’s who would be waiting for him, who was always waiting for him.

  In the next moment, he had poked Mr. Punch’s head up over the stage and an odd sort of sigh rose from the audience. With his other hand he stretched down and rummaged in the bag, finding another soft, leathery opening. As Mr. Punch began to shout for his wife, he slipped it on. It wasn’t Judy, he felt that at once. It was the original: it was Joan, though he knew the people watching wouldn’t know the difference. Sure enough he heard a call of “Judy, Judy!” as he used her little hands to grab her baby from within the bag’s innards and sent her up to join her irascible husband.

  He spoke through the swazzle, every word and gesture coming as if from somewhere miles distant, the show drifting over him as if he wasn’t the one in control at all, and yet it was the same as always; a sense of being in the very right place at the very right moment, though he felt discomfited at that, and an image of that hotel sign rose before him, flashing its maimed sign as a woman’s voice said: Mr. Snell. Mr. Snell…

  As he thought of it, Mr. Punch dropped the baby, Joan screamed, and the couple set to, her beating him with her hands, he fighting back with his stick until the sound the swazzle made rose to a scream. Joan fell, though within reach, as she always did; he pulled her into the dark with the tip of his shoe. He knew that she was waiting; she was only ever waiting. And then he realised that no one had yet laughed.

  He listened, hearing only silence on the other side of the booth, and felt the stillness creeping from that side of the grimy fabric and into the dark, and the little twist of discomfiture inside him grew a little. But of course all was still; nothing was happening, and he grasped in the bag for the policeman and sent him up to make his arrest until Mr. Punch beat him too and flung him into the void.

  At last there came a titter, too high and too clear, but there was no time to think of it. The words were forming, the next puppet fitting itself slick and snug onto his hand.

  “It’s dinnertime.” The words were clear, even swazzle-distorted as they were, but as he said them the Professor thought No, it’s not, I haven’t had my dinner, and he knew something was wrong even as Joey the Clown entered stage right and waved his string of sausages at the onlookers. Punch descended once more into the dark and nestled in close. He didn’t speak in words, not exactly, but the Professor heard him anyway: Hungry.

  I know. I know you are.

  It’s my birthday. I want cake.

  The Professor swallowed, carefully, around his swazzle. Punchmen had been known to die that way, choking on the thing that made them what they were: when their time was up. He felt suddenly very tired. His time would never be up, he knew that. The characters were all there, in his bag, waiting: Scaramouche and the Skeleton; the Hangman; the Ghost; the Lawyer; Jim Crow; the Blind Man. The Crocodile, who would soon go up and wrestle the clown for his sausages. All had made their appearance in his show so many times, appearing in the very right place at the very right time. Old words ran through his mind:

  With the girls he’s a rogue and a rover

  He lives, while he can, upon clover

  When he dies—only then it’s all over

  And there Punch’s comedy ends.

  As if in answer, laughter finally came from the other side of the curtain, as the sausages and then the clown went to join Mr. Punch’s wife in the nothingness beyond the booth. It wasn’t the right kind of laughter though, he knew that, felt that, and he found himself wondering if tonight was the night and an odd kind of hope rose within him. Tonight, the Devil might come, the one character from the show who never did; the Devil might come and take them all.

  That’s the way to do it, he thought but didn’t say, because it wasn’t yet time: he always knew when it was time. First Punch went back to dispose of the crocodile and then the doctor tried to treat him only for Punch to beat him with his slapstick—“Take that!” said the swazzle—and he too was thrown into space, emptied and wrinkled without the enlivening force of the Professor’s hand, nothing but an empty skin.

  Another delve into the bag and a jolt of that same electricity he’d felt earlier crackled through him. Jack Ketch, the Hangman, was soft yet cold against his hand. Suddenly, he knew he had to look. He didn’t know why but he felt almost sick with the need to do it, and he used Ketch’s arm to draw the awning back, just a slit.

  The breath seized in his throat. The golden-haired boy he’d seen earlier was there after all, sitting in the front row, his smiling mother on one side and a man who must be his father on the other, all of them smiling, not used up, not worn out, not ready. It wasn’t right. None of it was right, and he realised he’d known it when the steering wheel had turned in his hands and he’d felt the greed rising from the back seat where Mr. Punch lay, watching with his blank blue eyes and hungering, always hungering, but especially today.

  I want cake.

  The Professor closed his eyes. He knew suddenly it was not the right time; it wasn’t the right time and it wasn’t the right place. It never had been. Snell was waiting, he knew that too. Mr. Snell had called him and booked him, the entertainment to follow the strife, to follow the rain, but Mr. Snell wasn’t here.

  The Professor opened his eyes and saw Punch’s blue orbs staring back.

  “I don’t know how to do it,” he said, except it came out in a series of wheezing growls, the words lost, because this was what he did: a duty that could not be shirked. Mr. Punch whipped his head back up onto the stage and Jack Ketch chased him with his noose, Punch pointing at it, condemned but not ready to go quietly, not yet. “I don’t know how to do it.” The words, this time, were clear.

  Here, the Professor knew, was where the Hangman would put his own head in the noose to show Punch how to do it, only to be kicked off the stage and hung himself. That’s what was supposed to happen. It wasn’t what happened in his show, however, because Joan was back, taking Ketch’s place, holding the noose herself and looking about, shading her painted eyes with one hand.

  “I need a volunteer,” she said, every word crystal-sharp despite the swazzle, the old bone that was cold in the Professor’s mouth. He recalled that it was sometimes called a strega. The word meant “witch”. He had never known why, not properly, and yet somehow he had always understood and had felt strangely proud of the fact, because it showed that he belonged: he was the Professor, the Punchman, the Beach Uncle.

  He realised the boy was staring directly at the slit in the curtain, looking straight at him. He nudged it back into place even as the child pushed himself to his feet.

  “A volunteer!” Joan shrieked, waving her little hands in excitement, jangling the noose, beckoning him on, and the Professor heard footsteps approaching, too soft and light.

  For a moment there was silence. Then Joan made prompting noises, little wheezy nudging sounds, and she waved the noose, and he heard:

  “I don’t like it,” spoken softly and with a little breathy laugh at the end, and the same footsteps retreated, and Joan shrieked more loudly than she had ever shrieked, so loudly that it hurt the Professor’s ears.

  Then came another voice, a louder, smoother voice, which said “Don’t worry, it’s fine, I’ll show you,” and louder, more tappy footsteps approached, and the Professor knew without looking that the child’s mother was coming forwards; that she was going to show him the way to do it.

  Joan showed her the noose. She slipped it over the woman’s head. And then there was a pause because Mr. Punch wanted a souvenir; he always wanted a sou
venir. He bobbed down and reached his camera from the bag—an old, heavy, Polaroid camera, and he bobbed up and had her pose, trying this angle and that before there was a loud bang and a flash drowned the world in light, just for an instant, and the woman’s son caught his breath.

  The camera whirred and spat its picture onto the floor. The Professor could just see it, below the old tangled fringe that ran around the bottom of the booth. Faintly, like a ghost, the woman’s grin was appearing in the photograph: only that, her lips parted in the strained semblance of a smile, revealing teeth a little less white than the paper.

  Then Mr. Punch stepped forward and hit her with his slapstick. There was another bang, this time so loud that everyone would be forced to close their eyes, just for a moment, just as long as it took, and the woman was hung, her body limp and falling, emptied of enlivening force; nothing but an empty skin.

  “I don’t know how to do it,” said Mr. Punch.

  “I need a volunteer,” said Joan.

  A rough shout came from the other side of the booth, of mingled surprise and awe, followed by loud clapping, albeit from a single pair of hands. The Professor peeked out to see the woman’s husband looking impressed, grinning and clapping. They always grinned and clapped. And he realised that the child and his father were the only ones watching the show. There were no worn-out old ladies, no tired and ancient men. The boy wasn’t grinning and clapping, however. He was peering to left and right of the booth at the blank grey walls and the grey floor, no doubt wondering when his mother was going to appear again, laughing at his surprise and perhaps, too, his fright.

  But his mother didn’t appear. Instead his father was coming forward, his smooth-soled shoes making hardly any sound on the carpet. Joan placed the noose over his head. There came a bang—flash—whirr, and a photograph drifted to the floor, the ghost of another fixed smile already beginning to form.

  “Dad,” the boy said from his place in the front row. “I don’t like it.”

  “Come on, son!” his dad replied, his voice full of humour. “It’s all jolly good fun!”

  The words didn’t sound right, even to the Professor who didn’t know the man, who should never even have seen him, and yet Joan tightened the noose about his neck and held him steady for Mr. Punch, who grasped his slapstick in both little hands and spun, and the man slid to the floor, as empty and used up as his wife.

  This time there was no laughter; there was no applause. There was only a pensive little boy looking up at the stage, waiting for his mum and dad to come back.

  “I need a volunteer!” said Joan.

  The boy shook his head. The Professor peeked once more through the curtain and thought he saw, in the dim light, the glisten of a tear on his cheek. Don’t, he thought, don’t you do it, that’s not the way, and something in the child sagged and he pushed himself to his feet, as weary as any old lady in chintzy skirts, as any man waiting to use up his retirement, and he stepped forward.

  The Professor felt his hands carry out the motions as Joan slipped the noose over the boy’s golden head. He felt it as she tightened the rope. He heard the bang and the whirr but he didn’t see the flash because his eyes were already pressed tightly closed. He realised he hadn’t felt much at all in a very long time. He wasn’t certain he ever wished to again. There was only the darkness behind his eyes and then Mr. Punch said, “That’s the way to do it!” and it was so full of excitement, so full of triumph, and the Professor opened his eyes to see another little square of white, a photograph of a child’s clean smile. He knew the boy hadn’t been smiling, that he would never smile again, but Mr. Punch’s camera had caught it anyway, just as it always did.

  He lowered his hands, feeling the strain in his elbows and shoulders, feeling suddenly very old. He caught only disjointed words as he started to thrust the puppets, without looking at them, back into their bag. Soon he would be on the road again. He would be driving somewhere else, anywhere, and he knew that it would be raining, and that the rain would smell inexplicably of dust.

  Dinnertime, said Joey the Clown.

  Birthday, said Joan.

  Cake, said Mr. Punch, and his voice was the most contented of all: Cake.

  The Professor slipped his hands under the booth’s fringe and felt for the puppets that had fallen. He grabbed Joey and the Crocodile and the Doctor, feeling the old, cold skin, and then he grabbed the new ones, those who had fallen. He paused when he felt their touch on his hands.

  The skin was still warm, and it was supple, and smooth, and soft. He drew them towards him and picked them up, holding them to his chest, then stroking them against his cheek. He felt them and their warmth went into him. It awakened parts of him he had rather hadn’t awoken because it was wonderful, conditioned by their love, seasoned by their life. They weren’t used up and they weren’t jaded. They weren’t mad or spent or lost. They were fresh and new and something inside him stirred in response.

  Cake, Punch murmured again, and the hard unyielding surface of his face pressed up close to the Professor’s. Cake.

  The Professor pressed his eyes closed, though he could see everything anyway. There were beaches outside, not just rain-tossed promenades. There were hotels limned in sunlight. There were roads he had not yet taken. All he had to do was see where the Wolseley wished to go, and grip the wheel, and force it to go somewhere else.

  The entertainment would arrive, and he did not suppose they would welcome him in. He had a sudden image of Mr. Snell, thin and bent and grey, twitching the dingy curtains of a faded boarding house and waiting, fruitlessly waiting. The Professor decided he did not care. He had tasted cake, the only kind he wanted, but he had not had his dinner; and he found he was very, very hungry indeed.

  One day, he supposed the Devil might come and take them all. Until then, he would find them: the golden little boys and girls who did not laugh and did not clap. He would find every one of them. He whispered under his breath as he emerged from the booth into the empty and quiet bar. He began to dismantle the stage, his whisper sounding different as he slipped the swazzle into his pocket, speaking in his own voice at last the words that were always waiting there for him: That’s the way to do it.

  JOHN LINWOOD GRANT

  HIS HEART SHALL SPEAK NO MORE

  JOHN LINWOOD GRANT lives and works in West Yorkshire, England. Widely published in anthologies and magazines, he writes both contemporary weird fiction and dark stories of the late Victorian and Edwardian period. His extended “Last Edwardian” series—tales of murder, madness and the supernatural—occasionally features Mr. Edwin Dry, the Deptford Assassin, described by one reviewer as: “One of the most evocative presences in modern dark fiction—precise, relentless, inexorable.”

  Recent period works include the collection Persistence of Geraniums and his new Mr. Dry novel, The Assassin’s Coin, set in the Whitechapel Autumn of Terror. The “Last Edwardian” series also covers the Mamma Lucy tales of 1920s hoodoo, and a fair bit of new Holmesian fiction, such as the real canonical answer to Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Musgrave Ritual’.

  Grant’s contemporary fiction can be found in magazines such as Vastarien, Weirdbook and Lackington’s, and ranges from unsettling weird horror to serious explorations of Lovecraftian themes. Plus stories of Mr. Bubbles, a slightly psychotic pony with attitude who stalks the Yorkshire Wolds. He is also senior editor of Occult Detective Quarterly, including the anthology of new longer fiction, ODQ Presents.

  Forthcoming projects include Hell’s Empire, an anthology concerning the incursion of the Prince of Darkness’ forces into Victorian Britain; an interleaved novel, 13 Miller’s Court (with Alan M. Clark); a further collection of weird fiction, and a book on the mysteries of St. Botolph-in-the-Wolds, a village which channels both Enid Blyton and H.P. Lovecraft.

  “‘His Heart Shall Speak No More’ was conceived whilst walking the long, lonely sands of the Holderness coast, not so different from those of Suffolk,” recalls Grant. “Sometimes, by the low cliffs, little mo
re than a scramble of mudstone and sand, you wonder if you see a figure in the distance, and you remember the many drowned settlements of that coastline. A gull shrieks, a cormorant rises, and then there is no one there.

  “The Dark Heart of Dunwich is, of course, a genuine legend, and so I set off with a nod to M.R. James, and a dash of my own Last Edwardians. I knew that the redoubtable Aunt Beatrice would try to face whatever the tide brought in, real or illusory.”

  IT HAD LONG been my habit to spend at least a fortnight each autumn with my friend, Emilia Rawkins, the wife of a successful wine-merchant in Suffolk. The countryside there was charming, with the advantage that their house was only some ten miles from the coast, not that far from the towns of Southwold and Dunwich. Emilia herself had a passion for the natural history of marine life, which inevitably involved numerous enjoyable trips to the long Suffolk shoreline.

  I was disconcerted, therefore, to find that just before my next planned visit, I was unexpectedly placed in charge of my nephew Philip, a young man reading Law at Oxford. Philip had suffered a fearful blow that summer, having been jilted by his fiancée only days before his wedding. Neither his spirits nor his studies had recovered from the blow, and so my ailing sister appealed to me, long widowed and unencumbered by other duties as I was, to take him in hand.

  Whilst I will not say that I had maternal feelings for Philip, I was sufficiently fond of him to see that something had to be done. Accordingly, I agreed, and wrote to Emilia to enquire if an additional guest would be an inconvenience. I received a card by return saying that it would be no bother at all, and so I informed a diffident Philip that he should pack his cases.