The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 17

by Stephen Jones

  Nicholas and Madeline exchanged glances of their own. Nicholas thought the man spoke in a stilted, old-fashioned manner, with silly words. Madeline felt the woman was too proper, and that she smelled musty and dirty like an old house; not like their cool mum who spiked her hair and wore exotic perfumes. The cottage looked the same as when they were last there, but sheets covered most of the furniture, just as they would leave it when they went home. Madeline couldn’t tell if it was the same furniture as before.

  As Nic and Maddie sat at the table staring into the cups of tea, the young couple told them it might be better if they stay with them for the night. Just until they could sort things out in the morning. They had a bed made up in the front room. Really, it would be just fine.

  Lying in bed, the same one they had woken from in the morning, they couldn’t sleep. So very tired they were, too. Madeline sniffed at the sheets to see if they still smelled of Nicholas’s sandy feet and her sweaty head on the pillow. But it smelled foreign, like damp and disuse. They listened for the couple’s footsteps going upstairs to the bedroom above, but there were no sounds except whispers that could have been a wind going through the reeds on the beach.

  Madeline rolled close to Nicholas, and he clung to her. Somehow she knew they were thinking the same thing. They must not fall asleep. They had to think of things to keep them awake, anything.

  Madeline imagined herself sitting behind a small table, Mum beside her, at the fair. Lined up on a sheet of Hessian were many beautiful clean seashells, ten pence a piece. She’d made the little sign all by herself with a marker. There was nearly a pound in coins in her pocket. If she just closed her eyes, she could see Nic racing through the stands with his friends, upsetting displays and hear the shouting of the vendors.

  When she woke, the day was grey and cloudy. Madeline turned to see Nicholas, but she wasn’t in the bed she’d fallen asleep in. This one was higher off the floor with curly iron feet and head boards. The room was different, too. Old fashioned and flowery with three kinds of wallpaper and heavy draperies. She threw her feet over the edge of the bed and saw she was wearing a long thin cotton gown. She grabbed her foot and looked at her toe. It was perfectly healed!

  She stepped onto the wood floor and headed to the door. For a moment she feared it would be locked, but it opened with a soft whine. She could hear people moving about, no one speaking, though. She looked to the end of the hall and saw an inlet where the cold light of morning from a curved bank of bay windows touched heavy white wicker furniture. She hurried to it.

  At the windows, she looked out and down. The familiar front garden three floors below her stretched to the ironwork gate to the boardwalk. A wooden pier met the wood planks of the boardwalk. At the end was a large yacht, and huge rocks formed a small harbour from the rolling of the sea.

  The sound of footsteps made her turn.

  “Maddie!” Nicholas ran to her, nearly knocking her over. “Maddie.” He hugged her so tight, she struggled to breath. His wool shirt made her arms itch.

  The sound of more footsteps made them both turn.

  The light made them pale and their fear was etched like death their faces, but there they were, Mum and Dad. Mum wore the dark restricting dress, her short hair gone. Dad wore a suit. He hated suits and ties with a passion. They came forward and embraced Nicholas and Madeline. They mumbled “sorry” and Mum wept.

  Madeline wanted to shout, “What’s happened? Why are we here? What is this?” Somehow, she knew they all wondered and was quiet.

  “Look.” Her father went to the windows and pointed out to the beach. The family huddled around him, no one letting go an arm or hand. And they looked.

  Down on the beach, a boy and a girl splashed at the edge of the ocean while a mum and dad stood on the beach, arms around each other’s waists. They wore familiar clothing; the mum in pale shirt and shorts, the dad in khaki cargo trousers and faded work shirt. Suddenly, they all stopped and twisted to look back at the huge old house on the beachhead. They stared up, their faces unreadable. Then they looked at each other and smiled self-satisfied smiles.

  The sun broke through the grey and cast the beach in a hot light, though the grey still shrouded the house. Nicholas recognized Paul wearing his surfer trunks, and Madeline knew Celine, ghostly pale, in Maddie’s bright orange and yellow bikini. And there on the beach was the yellow shovel and blue bucket, just brimming with shells to sell.

  GAHAN WILSON

  The Outermost Borough

  GAHAN WILSON WILL ALWAYS BE best known for his macabre cartoons in Playboy and The New Yorker. His artwork has also appeared in publications as diverse as Punch, Paris Match, New York Times, Newsweek, National Lampoon during its glory days and Gourmet.

  His cartoons have been collected in Gahan Wilson’s Graveside Manner, The Man in the Cannibal Pot, I Paint What I See, Is Nothing Sacred?, . . . And Then We’ll Get Him, The Weird World of Gahan Wilson, Gahan Wilson’s Cracked Cosmos, Still Weird, Even Weirder, Gahan Wilson’s Gravedigger’s Party and Gahan Wilson’s Monster Party.

  An anthology of his work, The Best of Gahan Wilson, was published by Underwood Books, and he recently completed a new children’s book, Didn’t.

  Gahan Wilson’s Diner was a cartoon short for Twentieth Century Fox, while Gahan Wilson’s Kid was an animated special from the Showtime Network. A number of other film projects are currently in development and some may actually happen.

  Wilson has also written a number of short stories for magazines and anthologies, some of which were collected in The Cleft and Other Odd Tales. He has also published a number of children’s books, including the Harry the Fat Bear Spy series, written two unusual mystery novels (Eddy Deco’s Last Caper and Everybody’s Favourite Duck), and edited the anthologies First World Fantasy Awards and Gahan Wilson’s Favorite Tales of Horror.

  He relates the following true anecdote regarding “The Outermost Borough”: “Writing this story stirred up memories of way back when starving artists such as I was could rent a dinky perch in a Greenwich Village tenement for very little money and didn’t have to move to an outer borough, but they were pretty grim.

  “I remember a wonderful comment made by a highly talented Japanese painter friend of mine one night after the two of us had just heard a dreadful fight between a wretched couple in the horrible lair next to his horrible lair terminate with a shocking thud on the wall followed by an awful, long-lasting silence.

  “ ‘It must be terrible,’ he said, and paused. ‘To live like this,’ he said, and paused again. ‘If you are ordinary people.’

  “I’ve never heard a better summing up of what you need if you hope to successfully survive bohemian life.”

  ONCE AGAIN, WITH A GESTURE which had turned into a sort of nervous tic during this morning’s long waiting, Barstow pressed his face against the dirty glass of his studio’s wide central window in order to peer anxiously down the crowded city street below, westward towards Manhattan.

  At first his body began to sag in disappointment yet again but then he suddenly straightened and his sharp little eyes brightened in their darkish sockets at the sight of a shiny black speck making its way smoothly as a shark through the otherwise dingy traffic.

  Barstow clenched his hands into small triumphant fists as he saw the speck draw nearer to the ancient building his loft perched atop and gleefully observed it shape itself into a long, sleek limousine gliding with regal incongruity amidst graffiti-laden delivery trucks and unwashed second hand cars scarred with multitudes of dents and dings.

  Without any doubt he knew it was the vehicle of Max Ratch, Barstow’s long-time associate and the owner of one of New York’s most prestigious galleries. He had come as he had promised!

  Barstow turned for one last burning survey of the works of art he had spent the whole of last week arranging for Ratch’s inspection. He was pleased to see that the thickly textured strokes of oil paint he had spread upon the canvases gave out satisfactorily ominous gleams in the gray light seeping
into the studio and delighted to observe that the portraits and cityscapes lurking like muggers in the studio’s darker corners created exactly the dangerous and intimidating effect he had striven so carefully to achieve.

  Suddenly struck by a disturbing notion, the artist whirled and darted back to the windows just in time to see the large chauffeur open the rear passenger door of the limo and be suddenly diminished by the emergence of Ratch’s long, bulky body. The art dealer had barely got both feet on the sidewalk when the very much smaller form of his ever-present assistant, Ernestine, darted out after him with the scuttling alacrity of a pet rat.

  Barstow peered nervously up and down the street and spat a strangled curse as he spotted Mrs Fengi and her son, Maurice, swaying rhythmically like inverted pendulums as they waddled unevenly but directly towards his approaching visitors. He could see Mrs Fengi’s enormous, toad-like eyes bulge eagerly while, with considerable difficulty, she accelerated her froggish shuffle.

  It was obvious the weird old creature was desperate to buttonhole these exotic strangers to the neighborhood and to gossip with them and Barstow knew that would never do!

  He glared intently down, unbreathing, his teeth clenched, his heart throbbing hurtfully in his chest and desperately prayed that the dealer and his aide would not turn and observe the approaching duo.

  But then a huge wave of grateful relief rushed through his thin body as he saw Ratch and Ernestine purposefully make their way from the limo to the stoop of Barstow’s building and glide efficiently up its old worn steps without having made any contact with – or even so much as taken a sideways glance at – the approaching Fengis.

  The doorbell rang and Barstow rushed through his studio to push the button releasing the lock downstairs. He shouted instructions to his guests via the entrance intercom as to how they could locate and use the freight elevator, then hurried to the door of his studio and threw it open.

  He stood on the landing, rubbing his hands and gloating at the sound of the ancient lift whining and rattling five stories upwards, then reached forward so he could haul its squeaking door open the moment it arrived.

  Ratch strode majestically out with Ernestine behind him and gazed down at Barstow with his large blue eyes.

  “Well, well,” he said in his usual reverberating basso, “When you said you’d moved from Manhattan to an outer borough, dear boy, you truly meant an outer borough!”

  “It’s almost as long a trip as that ghastly drive to the Hamptons!” snapped Ernestine behind him.

  “I wasn’t all that crazy about being this far away from everything myself, at first,” Barstow admitted apologetically, “But then I got used to it, really began to see the place, and finally I realized it had turned out to be an inspiration!”

  “That is very interesting,” murmured Ratch gazing speculatively at Barstow, and then he turned to his assistant. “Besides, Ernestine, we must not chide poor Barstow for living in such a far-off place. The rents in Manhattan have forced all artists save for the most outrageously successful to shelter in odd and obscure locations such as this.”

  He turned to gaze down benignly at the artist and then bent to firmly grasp both of Barstow’s narrow shoulders possessively in his huge, gloved hands.

  “But let us leave all that aside, shall we? I have a feeling that what we are about to see here will be well worth the ordeal of the journey!”

  He increased his stately downward inclination further until his wide, pink face almost touched Barstow and stared closely at the artist with an odd look of crafty affection.

  “Am I right, Kevin?” he whispered. “Do I really smell a breakthrough? Dare I hope that the potential I have always sensed in you has finally started to flower?”

  The skin of Barstow’s face skin gave little mouse-like quivers under the impact of Ratch’s breath and he smiled up at Ratch as a frightened child might smile at a Santa Claus who had actually, terrifyingly, climbed out of the family fireplace.

  “I think so!” he whispered back. “I really do!”

  Ratch regarded him for a long moment before letting go of the artist and then pointed to the open door of the studio with a flourish.

  “Then lead on!” he said.

  Without any further discussion the three of them immediately absorbed themselves into the business at hand with Barstow gently and unobtrusively guiding Ratch and Ernestine from one work to the next, always moving quietly, always keeping just a glance or two ahead of the art dealer as the large man stepped thoughtfully and elegantly from painting to painting.

  Skillfully, like a sort of acolyte, Barstow unobtrusively carried the works to a back wall once they had been observed by Ratch and then gently moved forward the ones he wanted him to look at next.

  A clammy – he hoped not very noticeable – sheen of sweat now covered Barstow’s face and hands and occasionally a tremor ran the length of both his arms as he leaned a painting against the leg of an easel or delicately adjusted the positioning of several connected works in a row. It took him an enormous effort to keep his breathing steady and inaudible.

  So far he could not determine exactly how positively Ratch was reacting to these new works, but he found himself becoming increasingly hopeful. Though he had made no spoken comment since starting his slow march through Barstow’s domain the artist was encouraged to observe the obvious depth of the dealer’s absorption in the paintings.

  It was an enormously good sign that Ratch sometimes paused silently before one or another of them for long, thoughtful moments but when he stripped off his gloves and stuffed them into a pocket of his Astrakhan coat so that he could reach upwards with his thick but sensitive fingers and tug delicately at the sensuous pout of his full lips a great beat of triumph throbbed through Barstow for he knew, from long years of experience, that this was always a foolproof sign of great approval.

  After a full hour that seemed to last at least a century Ratch came to a halt before the grand finale, an enormous painting of a gigantic female nude gazing through what was recognizably the studio’s main window at pigeons milling on its sill.

  He stood absolutely motionless and expressionless for a very lengthy time and then a satisfied smirk curled his lips and slowly spread into a smile which grew broader and wider and more open until Ratch turned toward Barstow with a full display of his famously fearsome toothiness and violently broke the long silence with an enthusiastic clapping of his hands.

  “Bravo, Kevin, Bravo!” he cried, spreading his arms like the ringmaster of a three ring circus and gazing happily at the multitude of paintings about him. Ernestine, who up to now had tagged along behind her employer in quiet watchfulness, vouchsafed the first sure indication that the project would successfully advance by drawing a notebook from her carrying case and from that moment on jotting down in shorthand every word said which might be of historical or legal import.

  “Thank you, Max,”said Barstow, “Thank you so much!”

  “Ah, no, Kevin, ah, no – thank you!” said Ratch, waving a huge paw in an elegant sweep around the room. “Not only have you assuredly made both yourself and my gallery a very large amount of money, I am convinced you have guaranteed yourself everlasting fame and glory.”

  The blood rushed to Barstow’s head and for a moment or two he was terrified that he would actually faint for joy. The art dealer had always been supportive, occasionally even highly encouraging, but this was a level of praise dazzlingly higher than any which had ever been granted before.

  In a giddy daze he watched Ratch almost waltz from one of the paintings to another, gently patting their tops or stroking the sides of their stretchers and sometimes even stopping to inhale the perfume of their paint.

  “This is the work you were born to do, my friend,” he said. “Everything you have done before has only been a promise of what was to come – merely the tiniest hint!”

  He paused at the painting of a hunched, grotesque news dealer peering out bleakly from the small, dark pit of his shoddy sidewalk stan
d kiosk plastered with newspapers bannered with headlines of war and plague and tabloid magazines displaying gaudy photos of mutilated freaks and sobbing celebrities and smiled benignly at the way the grotesque creature’s fearful, pockmarked face stared out at the viewer with eyes slitted like a lurking crocodile’s.

  “The totally convincing way you have depicted the reptilian quality of this wretched fellow, the believability of his actually not being altogether human, is simply astounding,” he gently whispered while stroking the heads of the tacks which pinned the canvas to its frame.

  He stood back and continued to survey the painting.

  “Forget Bacon, my dear boy,” he said, “forget even Goya.”

  “Even Goya?” Barstow gasped, then gulped and made his way to a paint splotched stool lest he indeed fall to the floor. “You say even Goya?”

  Ratch grinned down at him and for the first time in his whole long association with this legendary entrepreneur of art it seemed to Barstow that the broad white curve of his gleaming teeth seemed to have an almost motherly gentleness.

  “Even Goya,” whispered Ratch, gently patting the artist on his pale, sweat-bedewed forehead, “And all form within this odd little skull of yours. Ah – the sublime mystery of creative talent!”

  He stepped to a painting of extraordinary ominousness depicting a neighborhood butcher store window filled to bursting with glistening red fragments of dismembered animals artfully displayed in order to promote their consumption and with a sly expression began to archly mimic the speech of a museum guide.

  “Here you see that the artist has delicately implied, but somehow not directly revealed, that the meat on display may be even more horribly varied than that put on view in the usual butcher’s window. Has this steak with a largish round bone, for instance, come from a lamb’s hindquarters or was it chopped from a neighborhood school girl’s pale and tender thigh? Eh? Eh?”