Best New Horror 29

by Stephen Jones

  Was it a deer?

  “Did you see that, Dad?” asked Max.

  “I think so,” he said.

  “She was just standing there.”

  Rob wondered how Max knew the deer was female.

  He drove out of the trees into the sunlight, experiencing a peculiar feeling of relief. At the next junction he spotted the garish sign for a fried chicken drive-thru.

  That’s why they come this way, he thought. That’s the lure.

  He crossed the main road and continued up a narrow lane to the car park for the witch cave.

  “Are we there?” asked his son.

  “Yep,” he said. “It’s meant to be great.”

  He took out the leaflet and looked at the picture of the witch, then folded it back into his palm. Some artists were just too good at their job.

  “Why did they think she was a witch?” asked Max.

  They were sitting in the car at the drive-thru, Max munching on chips, Rob sipping a scalding coffee.

  “Because she looked strange,” said Rob. “And because she acted strangely. That’s why she lived in the cave. To get away from people. It was a different time. People believed all sorts of things. Especially out here.”

  “She didn’t like people.”

  “I think it was more that people didn’t like her,” Rob said.

  “She killed the children,” said Max.

  Rob shook his head. “The children died but I don’t think she killed them. She just got the blame because the villagers didn’t like her.”

  “It said she gave them the sacks to bury the children in, and that the next day the children died.”

  “It also said the sacks might have contained remedies,” said Max. “Things to make the children better. But the children were too sick.”

  “So she might have been trying to help the children?” asked Max. He scratched the back of his head, a physical gesture that once again made him look momentarily older than his years. “I’d have been kind to her,” he said.

  “I know you would,” said Rob. “Your mum’s doing a good job.”

  He looked at his son, at his hands, his face, his bright eyes. He felt a surge of love for his boy, almost overwhelming.

  “Dave’s kind to Mum,” said Max.

  The stab pierced his heart. But his son was grinning, innocent of the blow he’d delivered. It wasn’t his fault.

  “Your mum’s not a witch though,” said Rob. “Or maybe she is.” He made a face.

  Max laughed.

  Rob managed to laugh too, but it was different driving back along the lane towards the campsite. His mood had darkened. He kept thinking about Sarah and Dave, about the relationship Dave had with Max, about the future. There was no clarity to any of it, just a variegated succession of images. Sarah and Dave on a sofa with Max wedged in between, the three of them laughing at a family film. Max in his brand new uniform on the first day of secondary school, Dave with his hands on Max’s shoulders. Max asleep in his room. The fishing posters on the wall. Dave checking on Max before bedtime. Sarah stepping out of the shower, naked. Dave following her into their bedroom. Their bedroom door closing…

  He forced the thoughts away.

  The shadows in the woods were thicker now, the surface of the lane slick with moisture. It wouldn’t take much, a lack of concentration, a little too much pressure on the accelerator, a little too much keenness on the brakes. The sort of things inexperienced teenage drivers were susceptible to. He felt the numbing impact, the unbearable pain, the cold terror of impending death. He felt the dark abnormal silence of the lane.

  And something else. A feeling in the pit of his stomach. That it wasn’t just the damp surface of the lane, the awkward bends, the reckless nature of youth.

  The gouged trunk. The slurry pit. The stagnant water.

  All wasn’t well in this place.

  For the briefest moment he thought he saw something in the trees again, a shifting form.

  But it was nothing.

  He reached the bend. He slowed the car to a crawl. He passed the shrine. A fresh set of flowers had been placed amongst the others and a wreath spelling out the word SON.

  To lose a child.

  Rob gripped the steering wheel tighter, focussed on the lane and tried to block the image from his mind. He couldn’t cope, he realised. Such a thing would crush him, render him incapable of living.

  Evening came. Rob braved the pathetic showers then wandered back up the slope to find Max sitting contentedly in the entrance to the tent. Beside him was a sack full of firewood.

  “The lady was here,” said Max.

  “We have enough wood,” said Rob.

  “She said I was precious,” said Max.

  “You are,” said Rob. “You know you are.”

  “She had cold hands.”

  Rob looked at his son, then down the hill towards the farmhouse. He didn’t take the wood back. He used it instead, to build a roaring fire. They cooked sausages on it. They cooked marshmallows. When Max returned to his phone, Rob settled by the fire with a beer. He stared out across the fields below, at the stretching shadows, at the vast, featureless slopes of the border country in the distance. There was something about the timeless nature of the landscape that lent itself to legends and curiosities, to witches and witchcraft, curses and dark magic. And an overpowering sense of futility too, a wilderness in which man and all his undertakings were largely irrelevant.

  He spotted the woman delivering sacks of feed to the sheep. He watched her return the tractor to the yard, watched her climb down from the machine in her thick jacket, watched her make her way across the yard to the house. The old dog lifted its head, rose to its feet, stretched, considered moving towards her, and then sank back down again. He thought he could hear it whining.

  The woman stopped in the middle of the yard and looked long and hard at the dog, and Rob knew she was thinking what he was thinking, that sooner or later a creature is no good to itself, that sooner or later…

  She carried a single cloth sack in her hands.

  The shadow of the escarpment spread effortlessly across the campsite, the farmyard, the distant fields. Rob put some more wood on the fire.

  When Max was asleep, he pulled the sleeping bag up to his son’s chin and pushed the hair from his face. He loved his son the most when he was sleeping, loved the little quiet moments before his own bedtime when he stood watch like this, staring down at Max’s contented face, his perfect skin, like a doll, like a cherub. He missed these moments. He missed them more and more even as they passed.

  Rob drank a beer in the dark. He stared at the fire pit and the white-hot centre of the flames. They’d burned their witch in the end, celebrated her demise as she cursed them and all their offspring, though thankfully he’d managed to steer Max away from that information. Perhaps it wasn’t true anyway. Perhaps it was just a story.

  He heard the woman going about her business, the sound of her dragging something across the yard. And he heard voices coming from the other tent, voices filled with forced restraint. The bearded guy appeared and marched down the hill. Rob gestured to him, but once again he barely registered Rob’s presence. Rob watched him get into his car, flick on the lights, and drive along the track towards the farm exit.

  Too fast. Way too fast.

  Rob finished his beer and opened another.

  The girl walked down the slope to where he was seated.

  “Hi,” she said. “How was today?”

  She perched herself on the edge of the wooden table. She looked pretty in the orange glow from the fire.

  “Good,” he said. “Interesting. A bit unsettling too, if I’m honest.”

  “I expect it’s worse for a parent,” she said. “Was your son scared?”

  Rob shook his head. “Far from it,” he said. “He felt sorry for her. He wanted to look after her. He’s like that.”

  “Must be strong nurturing,” she said. She touched her wrist with the thumb of her other hand.<
br />
  Rob shrugged.

  “Is his mum at work or something?” the girl asked.

  “No,” said Rob. “His mum…we’re not together anymore.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago,” said Rob. Except it wasn’t. Not really.

  “I’d like children,” said the girl. “But Kristian doesn’t want any.”

  She touched her wrist again and stared along the track towards the farm entrance.

  “Are you okay?” asked Rob.

  “I twisted my wrist,” she said. “I’m fine.” She stared into the darkness.

  A light popped on in an upstairs window of the farmhouse. A shadow moved beyond the set of floral curtains. The two of them gazed through the stillness at the farmhouse, towards the thin wash of yellow light.

  “It must be hard on her,” Rob said. “Losing her son like that.”

  He realised the girl was looking straight at him.

  “We found another campsite. A few miles up the road. We’re going to move our stuff there. Are you here all week?”

  “No,” said Rob. “Just tonight. Max has school on Monday. I have to give him back.”

  “That must be hard,” she said.

  “It is what it is,” he said.

  There was nothing else he could say. He thought about asking for the girl’s number, or offering his own. He thought about those things. Before he could decide how, a set of car headlights entered the farm track. The girl stiffened.

  “I have to get packing,” she said.

  She moved away from him, up the slope in the direction of her tent. He watched her go. He’d always been attracted to vulnerable women and never been able to live up to the job of staying with one. The car pulled up and the girl’s fiancé got out. He pounded up the slope. This time he offered Rob a perfunctory nod.

  Wanker, thought Rob.

  He spent much of the next hour thinking about being replaced as a father, about the mistakes he’d made, the irreparable damage, the shouting, the crying, the empty void of nothingness that his relationship with his son’s mother had become. At one time, they’d created a life.

  He listened to the muffled conversation coming from the tent above. When he heard the girl laugh, he grimaced.

  He watched the twinkling lights dotted in the darkness.

  He witnessed the feeble light in the farmhouse bedroom go off.

  He followed the lights of a car as it negotiated the dark lanes far below and heard the distant hammering bass of a car stereo. He imagined the car careering off the road, rolling and smashing into a tree. He thought of shattered lives, distraught parents, grandparents, siblings, friends.

  He thought about a lonely old woman residing in a remote farmhouse and another living out her days in a secluded cave. He turned to look at the tree-line. It was just a smudge in the darkness and it hadn’t moved in the time he’d been at the campsite. It was just a foolish notion he’d had.

  He put out the fire, scrambled around to the back of the tent and pissed into the foliage, then he crawled into the tent and into his sleeping bag. Beside him, Max slept as eight-year-old boys should sleep, without burden, without care.

  It was later.

  Rob woke to hear Max’s soft voice.

  “Dad,” whispered Max. “Dad.”

  “What?” asked Rob. “What is it?”

  “I need the toilet.”

  “Okay,” said Rob, struggling to rise from the fog. “Okay.”

  His head was heavy. He could barely open his eyes.

  He heard Max unzip the tent and push his way through the flap.

  “Max,” said Rob.

  “I’ll be okay, Dad,” said Max. “I’ve got the torch. And the old lady will look after me.”

  “She’ll be in bed,” Rob said.

  But Max was already outside.

  Rob forced himself awake. He rubbed his eyes. He realised where he was, what was happening. His son was heading to the toilet alone. He felt a surge of apprehension. Cocooned in his sleeping bag, he crawled to the tent entrance. He watched the torchlight dancing down the slope towards the toilet block.

  It was okay. It was part of growing up. It was okay.

  The torchlight disappeared beyond the shrubbery. Rob heard the toilet door swing open and closed and the click of the light switch. He felt a swell of pride to think his eight-year-old boy could do such a thing as visit a toilet block alone in the middle of the night like this, in a strange place like this, without fear, without protest, without histrionics. And he felt the familiar nagging, the bitter taste of self-disgust. Couldn’t he have dragged himself awake a little quicker? Couldn’t he have gone with his son? He was a terrible excuse for a father. Sarah was right. He always had been.

  Rob waited.

  He extracted himself from his sleeping bag and stood at the tent entrance, staring at the black void beneath him, above him, all around him. He looked across the valley, trying to discern horizon from sky, but the border country was one and the same—earth and air, real and imaginary. There was no other place like it.

  He thought about the bend in the road.

  He thought about the witch from Snow White.

  He heard a rustling in the undergrowth and turned in its direction. As soon as he did, the rustling ceased. He waited, trying not to make a sound. The rustling started again. Some nocturnal animal foraging for food. A badger perhaps. Or something else. Something that had come down from the hills.

  Something ageless.

  Something wild.

  Rob shook himself loose of his imaginings. The farmhouse beneath him was a grey silhouette.

  All was silent.

  All was still.

  He promised himself he’d be better from now on, less frustrated, less angry, less occupied. The weekend had been a start, but even on this trip he’d been more engaged with cooking, carrying, organising—occupied with being a father, but not a dad. There was a difference. He thought about his son, alone in the dark. He thought about Sarah’s hesitancy in letting him take Max away in the first place, her concerns about his ability to look after a boy of eight even if it was their boy.

  His boy. Max was his boy.

  Rob contemplated the time that had passed since he’d let Max venture to the toilet alone. Anxiety gripped him. How long had it been? He ducked back inside the tent, searching for his phone. It had a torch, but the battery was low. No matter. He turned on the torch and pointed it into the night.

  He thought he could hear voices. He thought he could hear Max’s voice and the hushed, barely perceptible voice of another. Who was Max talking to?

  Rob started making his way down the slope.

  He heard the toilet door slam shut, the sound of stones clicking against stones.

  “Max,” he whispered, as loudly as the night allowed.

  There was no reply.

  He thought he heard the sound of a woman’s voice but it was barely perceptible, hardly a sound at all.

  Rob ran down the slope.

  “Max,” he said. Louder now. With urgency.

  He reached the rickety gate, pushed it open, skirted the outhouse. The toilet block was empty. The funnel-like web trembled. He felt something growing inside of him, a bone-gnawing fear. He ducked around the back of the farmhouse. There were no lights on, no signs of life. He hammered on the door. Nobody came to answer it. There was no movement at all. He circled the house until he reached the farmyard, pointed the torch in the direction of the dog kennel. The dog kennel was empty, the old dog nowhere to be seen.

  He clambered over the farmyard gate, shivering now, unable to control his nervous energy. He spotted the flash of a torch light, far away in the next field.

  “Max,” he shouted. “Max!”

  Rob ran across the field in the direction of the torchlight. The light skipped away from him. He tried to shout, but running and shouting were hard. He was dizzy from the sudden exertion, from a lack of oxygen, from the alcohol in his bloodstr
eam. But he was gaining. He felt a surge of hope. He’d reach Max. He’d pull his boy into his arms, take him away from this place, repair the damage with Sarah, wrestle her free from Dave, learn from his mistakes.

  All would be well.

  His phone lost its power and the darkness swallowed him.

  The torchlight in the field winked.

  It seemed to be further away.

  How could it be further away?

  Something screamed in the night, something shrill and severe. An owl? A fox? A child?

  “Max,” he screamed. “Max!”

  The torchlight in the field went out.

  Rob tried to run across the field, but there was nothing to see now, nothing to orientate himself against. The darkness became a physical entity. Like water. Like oil. It resisted his movements. He had to force his way through it, blindly and impossibly.

  He fought for breath as he waded into an ever-deepening sea of darkness. It was possible to drown in darkness, he realised, to sink into its depths and never return.

  He stumbled blindly onwards until his right shinbone struck an object. He was sent sprawling. For a moment he lay in the field, his nose buried in the damp grass, then he pulled himself up, turned to look at the thing he’d fallen over. He couldn’t see very much, just an unnatural contour in the gloom.

  He squinted into the blackness.

  It was a cloth sack. As he crawled towards it he thought he saw something move in the periphery of his vision, something slipping away into the folds of night, something in a thick coat, or a heavy shawl, something.

  Someone.

  Something.

  Rob knelt in the grass, pressed his palms against the cloth sack. He felt its coarse texture, reached inside it, registered the warm, organic bulk of its contents.

  He screamed in the catastrophic darkness.

  TIM LEBBON

  IN STONE

  TIM LEBBON is a New York Times best-selling writer from South Wales. He’s had over forty novels published to date, as well as hundreds of novellas and short stories. Recent novels include thrillers The Hunt and The Family Man, as well as The Silence, Relics, The Folded Land and the “Rage War” trilogy of Alien/Predator novels.