The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 17

by Stephen Jones

  Couldn’t bear to look behind me and see another one close up. I snatched at the board and pulled with all my strength at the bit not nailed down, so the whole thing bent and made a gap. Sideways, I squeezed a leg, hip, arm and shoulder out. Then my head was suddenly bathed in warm sunlight and fresh air.

  It must have reached out then and grabbed my left arm under the shoulder. The fingers and thumb were so cold they burned my skin. And even though my face was in daylight, everything went dark in my eyes except for little white flashes, like when you stand up too quick. I wanted to be sick. Tried to pull away, but one side of my body was all slow and heavy and full of pins and needles.

  I let go off the hardboard sheet. It slapped shut like a mouse trap. The wood knocked me through the gap and into the grass outside. Behind my head, I heard a sound like celery snapping. Something shrieked into my ear which made me go deafish for a week.

  Sitting down in the grass outside, I was sick down my jumper. Mucus and bits of spaghetti hoops that looked all white and smelled real bad. I looked at the door I had fallen out of. Through my bleary eyes I saw an arm that was mostly bone, stuck between the wood and door-frame. I made myself roll away and then get to my feet on the grass that was flattened down.

  Moving around the outside of the house, back toward the front of the building and the path that would take me down to the gate, I wondered if I’d bashed my left side. The shoulder and hip were achy and cold and stiff. It was hard to move. I wondered if that’s what broken bones felt like. All my skin was wet with sweat too, but I was shivery and cold. I just wanted to lie down in the long grass. Twice I stopped to be sick. Only spit came out with burping sounds.

  Near the front of the house, I got down on my good side and started to crawl, real slow, through the long grass, down the hill, making sure the path was on my left so I didn’t get lost in the meadow. I only took one look back at the house and will wish forever that I never did.

  One side of the front door was still open from where we went in. I could see a crowd, bustling in the sunlight that fell on their raggedy clothes. They were making a hooting sound and fighting over something; a small shape that looked dark and wet. It was all limp. Between the thin, snatching hands, it came apart, piece by piece.

  In my room, at the end of my bed, Nanna Alice has closed her eyes. But she’s not sleeping. She’s just sitting quietly and rubbing her doll hand like she’s polishing treasure.

  TERRY LAMSLEY

  Sickhouse Hospitality

  TERRY LAMSLEY WAS BORN in the south of England but lived in the north for most of his life. He currently resides in Amsterdam, Holland.

  His first collection of supernatural stories, Under the Crust, was initially published in a small paperback edition in 1993. Originally intended to only appeal to the tourist market in Lamsley’s home town of Buxton in Derbyshire (the volume’s six tales are all set in or around the area), its reputation quickly grew, helped when stories from the book were included in two of the annual “Year’s Best” horror anthologies.

  The book was subsequently nominated for three prestigious World Fantasy Awards, with the title story winning the award for Best Novella. Ramsey Campbell accepted it on the author’s behalf, and Lamsley’s reputation as a writer of supernatural fiction was assured.

  In 1997, Canada’s Ash-Tree Press reissued Under the Crust as a handsome hardcover, limited to just five hundred copies and now as sought-after as the long out-of-print first edition. A year earlier, Ash-Tree had published a second, equally remarkable collection of Lamsley’s short stories, Conference with the Dead: Tales of Supernatural Terror, and it was followed in 2000 by a third collection, Dark Matters.

  More recently, Night Shade Books has reprinted Conference with the Dead, with the limited edition containing a previously-uncollected story. Edited by Peter Crowther, Fourbodings: A Quartet of Uneasy Tales from Four Members of the Macabre showcases the fiction of Lamsley, Simon Clark, Tim Lebbon and Mark Morris, while Made Ready & Cupboard Love is a collection of two original novellas from Subterranean Press, illustrated by Glenn Chadborne.

  About the following story, the author reveals: “Having worked in a number of hospitals, I have had plenty of opportunity to observe how, when, due to disease or accident people are abruptly removed from their familiar circumstances and taken into care, they are forced to develop strategies to help them deal with their state of dependency.

  “They find themselves surrounded by people involved in complex, inexplicable activities. Isolated in their own beds, they have to put their trust in expert strangers whose motives they must assume are well-meaning and benign.

  “Recently, however, I have detected signs that this is not now always the case.”

  “COULD I HAVE the name again?”

  “Jasper Jonette.”

  The receptionist took a second look through some sheets of paper on her desk then turned her attention to a computer screen. As her fingers fluttered above the keyboard her face settled into a mask of bemused concentration.

  “I don’t suppose you know when he was admitted?”

  She turned her head and glanced at Erik over the top of her tiny spectacles. A small scar on the right corner of her mouth gave her lower lip a downturn that made her look mildly sceptical.

  “I last saw him a month ago. It could have been any time since.”

  “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve been off sick and the system has been changed while I was away. I’m not quite with it yet.” She pushed more keys then said, “Here he is, up on the fourth floor. The man you’re looking for is in D12 in the Samuel Taylor Unit.”

  “Is that the new building? The one they just opened, with the dome? I saw something about it on TV. It looked impressive.”

  “Very up-to-date I believe,” the woman confirmed, “though I haven’t had the opportunity to take a look round there yet.” She sank back in her chair and allowed her shoulders to sag, as though her efforts to locate Jasper Jonette had tired her.

  “Okay if I just go on up?” Erik said.

  “You’d better hurry. Visiting time ends at three and it’s a quarter past two now.”

  “Is it far?”

  The woman nodded. “Quite a distance. Take the lift to the fourth floor then follow the signs to the Exotology Department. When you get there you should see indicators pointing to the Samuel Taylor Unit. Then you’d better ask someone for D12. I’m not sure exactly how to get there.”

  “I see. And the lift is . . .?”

  The receptionist pointed to a sign above Erik’s head. “That way,” she said, and gave a welcoming smile to the first of the queue of people standing behind him.

  Erik walked off at a smart pace. After three or four minutes he’d failed to find an elevator and a man pushing a trolley loaded with medical supplies was not able to help him. “You’re in the wrong part. As far as I know, there isn’t a visitor’s lift at this end any more,” he said, “and you can’t use our porter’s one. You’d better get up them stairs.”

  The first flight was easy enough and Erik took it at a run, but the original Victorian section of the hospital had high ceilings and the ascent soon took the breath out of him. He was panting when he reached the fourth floor but was relieved to see, amongst a cluster of a dozen or more similarly brash signs, one, clearly arrowed in bright blue, pointing to Exotology.

  As it happened, there was no shortage of such signs; a new one appeared every time he turned a corner, and he turned many of them. Following their prompting, he covered a lot of ground, and was pleased when he was able to exchange them for a smaller, more discreet, and less obviously situated set of cards marked SAMUEL TAYLOR. These led him into a much quieter and less populated part of the hospital.

  He had passed many large wards on his way to Exotology, and all of them had been fully occupied by patients sitting or repining on or in closely packed beds. Groups of mostly uneasy-looking guests stood around a large proportion of the beds and the air along the corridors was made pleasant
by the scents of the flowers they had brought. Nursing staff, though few and far between, stood ready to receive the questions, compliments and complaints of the visitors, or hastened about, dutifully providing bedpans for the relief of the patients and water-filled vases for the garlands of flowers.

  But once Erik had got Exotology behind him he entered a different, more orderly, world where the ward spaces were much smaller and none of them contained more than two or three beds, a surprising number of which were empty. Some attempt had been made to brighten up the corridors in the old building with posters and bright paint, but the walls in the most modern part of the hospital complex were unadorned with decoration of any kind, beyond a thin coat of mousy grey matt emulsion. The place had an unfinished look.

  When he came to a SAMUEL TAYLOR UNIT sign that did not have an arrow pointing away from it, Erik assumed he had arrived at his destination, or close to it. He found himself standing on a broad corridor that curved away from him on either side, with many doors off it. Remembering the receptionist’s advice, he looked around for someone to ask about the location of D12. There was no sign or sound of any member of staff: the area seemed deserted. To make sure it wasn’t, Erik went and looked through a glass panel in one of the doors on the assumption that it led into yet another ward. On the nearest of two beds an elderly man with a close-cropped head and dull eyes, lying on his side, dressed, in spite of the cool air, only in what might have been a large nappy, stared back at Erik. Or it could have been through him. He made no sign that he was aware that he was being observed. A number of colour-coded lines and tubes connected him to a bank of machinery above his bed. His legs were tightly bent, but his back was unnaturally straight and his position did not look comfortable. In fact, he must have been making an effort to maintain the posture. The other bed contained the stretched-out form of somebody sleeping, presumably, face down.

  Erik pushed the door experimentally. When it was open wide enough, he stuck his head around the edge of it and said, “Excuse me. I’m looking for D12. Am I close?”

  The man reposing on his side didn’t respond; gave no sign that he was aware of Erik’s presence. Erik was just about to withdraw when a voice from under the blankets on the other bed said, “You’ve a way to go yet. This is D24.”

  “Thanks. Which way do I go now, though? Left or right?”

  “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter,” said the prone man. “We’re on the circle outside of the dome.”

  Erik considered this for a moment. “So, either way, I’m bound to come to D12?”

  “Sooner or later. Shut the door behind you. There’s a draught.”

  Erik did as he was told then turned from right to left, then right again, and walked on. It was annoying that there were no numbers on the doors, and it must be very confusing for the staff. He assumed the building had opened on schedule, even though it had not been finished.

  As he walked he started counting, “Twenty-six, twenty-eight, thirty,” since there were wards on both sides of the curving corridor, and it made some sort of sense to him to do so. After making a rough calculation, he decided he couldn’t believe there were more than thirty of the little wards on the circle suggested by the curve of the corridor ahead of him, so he stopped when he reached that number and started to count from two. When he reached twelve he stopped and stared through the ward door in front of him. The room was empty, so he went on and looked into the next one.

  Inside, Jasper Jonette, who was sitting up in bed fumbling with both hands at some apparatus attached to throat and chest, started at the sight of Erik. He held up his hands and shook his head in what could have been a gesture of disbelief or a warning to keep out.

  “Is it contagious?” Erik said as he entered the ward and sat down on a chair near the bottom end of Jasper’s bed.

  “What the hell are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  “Applied guess work.”

  “I was sure no one knew where I was.”

  Jasper’s voice was so weak Erik had to move the chair closer to hear him clearly.

  “People were saying they’d not seen you around so, since you’ve been off-colour for a while, I went to your flat to look you up. As I was going, your landlady ran after me to tell me someone had told her he’d seen you getting into an ambulance some time ago.”

  “The rent’s not been paid,” Jasper said.

  “So she said. She was okay about that. She knows you’re not short of cash. But she was worried about you. Is there something going on between you and her?”

  Jasper said. “Not recently, since I started seeing Carol.”

  “I was going to ask about her, Jasper. Have you two fallen out? I saw her the other day in the Waldorf and she didn’t mention you once. When I did, she pretended she hadn’t heard me, insisted on talking about something else, and left as soon as she decently could. She had a peculiar expression on her face. I couldn’t describe it.”

  “I don’t want to talk about her, either.”

  “Please yourself. But does she know where you are? Would you like me to tell her so she can come and see you?”

  “Christ, no!” Jasper lurched forward, then flopped back down in agitation. Staring up at the ceiling he said, “Don’t meddle in my affairs, Erik. I warn you; keep your nose out.”

  “Okay. That’s fine. Just as you like. But let’s get back to your landlady. Mrs Pollit, isn’t it? What a nice woman. We had a long talk. Anyway, because she was so concerned about you – we both were, of course – I said I’d dig about, see if I could track you down. She’ll be pleased when I tell her I’ve found you.”

  “You keep away from there, Erik.”

  Erik tipped the contents of a bag he’d been carrying onto the bed. “I’ve been lugging these around for a couple of days,” he said. “They’re a bit battered, but they’re still edible.”

  Jasper gave the pile of bruised fruit by his knees a dismal look and said, “Good of you. Thanks. But how did you find me?”

  “Simple. Both local hospitals are close to where I live. I did the Royal Free yesterday and this one today.”

  “I’m surprised you’ve nothing better to do.”

  “I’ve got time on my hands.”

  “And they just sent you up?”

  “No problem at all.”

  “We’re not supposed to have visitors. The doctors promised me there wouldn’t be any.”

  “The woman at the reception desk didn’t seem to know quite what she was doing. Maybe she made a mistake.”

  Jasper pulled a face that revealed his slightly protuberant front teeth and made him look like a cartoon fox. He said, “I was under the impression this place was supposed to provide state-of-the-art health care and privacy and security.”

  “That’s what I heard, Jasper. It must have cost you plenty to get in here, eh? Samuel Taylor is mostly private, isn’t it?”

  “It would appear not, if people like you can come strolling in whenever you like.”

  Erik stretched out his legs and made himself more comfortable in his seat. “You know that’s not what I mean,” he said. “Some people say Sam Taylor is a cuckoo in the nest: the private sector infiltrating the public health service. They see it as a threat. There are a couple of people outside the main entrance with banners demanding its closure.”

  “Name something innovative that some fool won’t protest about nowadays. Waving placards has the same significance to them as waving a holy book has to religious fundamentalists.”

  “Well, if the organisation here is as inefficient as you seem to think it is, they may have a point.”

  Jasper Jonette made a snuffling noise, moved onto his side, and contracted his legs. Somewhere under his bed a switch clicked softly and a machine came to life. There were gurgling sounds in a tube attached to the apparatus fastened to his chest. Jasper’s whole body twitched from head to foot a couple of times. A louder, dreadful sound came from under the blankets covering his lower trunk. He glared defiantly at
Erik as the device below the bed gave out a low whine, like a vacuum cleaner.

  “I’ll wait outside for a couple of minutes,” Erik said.

  When he returned Jasper looked more comfortable. Enfeebled perhaps by his recent violent spasms, he was lying on his back now with his head propped up on two pillows. In this position, with his long prematurely grey hair parted in the middle and hanging over his ears, he resembled a figure in a Victorian painting of a Great Man of the Age on his deathbed.

  “What are you in here for, Jasper?” Erik said solicitously, dropping his jaunty bedside manner. “If you’re doing a stretch in a place like this it must be something serious, I suppose?”

  At first Jasper seemed modestly reluctant to discuss his condition but, after pausing for consideration, he said, somewhat testily, “The truth is, as yet, no one can tell me. I’m still at the ‘exploration and observation’ stage. After sixteen days! Obviously, a lot of me is not functioning correctly, but why that should be is still a mystery to everyone. But I believe I’m not the only person in this unit with the same symptoms. They keep us apart for obvious reasons – they don’t want us cross-infecting each other. But the few people I have been able to snatch a conversation with, on the occasions I’ve been moved to and from the various departments, described the same – complaints – if that’s the word, that I have, or something like them.”

  “So I suppose I’m taking a risk being here at all?”

  Jasper nodded. “Almost certainly. For your own good, you’d better go. Now.” He turned away from Erik, reached out an arm, and jerked down a cord with a large red bead on the bottom of it. “Someone will be along in a moment and I’ll ask them to escort you back to the main hospital. It was kind of you to think of me and make the effort to find me, but I’d rather you didn’t come again. If and when I make a recovery, I’ll get in touch. If you feel you have to tell Mrs Pollit where I am, you could also tell her I’ll get a cheque for the rent owing plus six months in advance to her soon. I don’t want her or anyone else bothering me. In fact, after your intrusion, I’ll get the people here to tighten up security around me.”