Inferno

by Ellen Datlow

  She was in the habit of prowling the roads early in the morning, looking for things in the county dump, clothes mostly, though the clothes she wore were always the same—men’s coveralls, men’s work pants, bulky sweaters, in wet weather work boots and in the summer sneakers with rubber soles. She wore an old windbreaker that had belonged to her husband, she wore his old wool-knit cap. Hadn’t given herself a bath in years, people said. Hadn’t washed her hair that had to be running with lice, so matted, greasy, in gummy clumps. But sometimes at the county dump the old woman would find plastic flowers, or a cloth flower, or ribbons like from Christmas wrappings, and she’d wear these for a while with the coveralls until they fell off and you’d find them in the lane, in a mud puddle, or in the dirt.

  One day when the girl was nine years old she was riding her bicycle in the lane when the old woman approached. The old woman was walking with a cane, wearing the filthy windbreaker though it wasn’t a cold day, coveralls and rubber boots and a bright pink silky scarf around her head she must have found at the dump. When the old woman spoke to her, the girl was too polite and too frightened to bicycle away, and it was a surprise to the girl, the old woman didn’t shout at her, or swear at her, but was asking her questions she couldn’t comprehend, for instance was she Beth Dorr’s little girl?—when Beth Dorr was the girl’s grandmother, so the old woman was mixing her up with her own mother, and this made the girl laugh nervously wishing to think it was a joke. The old woman’s eyes were yellow-white and watery as if with mucus, the girl could see tiny red threads, worm-like veins in the eyes, the face was so old and creased and withered it looked as if the bones were trying to poke through; she’d taken care to cover up the goiter-growth on her neck but as she talked to the girl, shaking her head, shaking the cane, from time to time laughing, as if with mounting anger, the bright pink scarf worked loose and the thing was exposed—shiny and red-skinned like tumor, or a bladder, something you weren’t supposed to see or even know about, it was so nasty. And the girl remembered being told Stay away from her. Don’t even look at her. Don’t let her look at you. But the girl was afraid to run away. She would have to leave her bicycle in the lane, she was too clumsy to ride while the old woman was watching her. The old woman was asking her questions and she was saying, I don’t know, I don’t know; her voice was a shy stammer, she was itchy-hot inside her clothes, she was miserable and frightened of the thing growing out of the old woman’s neck, not wanting to see it but unable to look away. The thing was so much smoother than the old woman’s face, it had grown to the size of a small melon and so it was forcing the old woman’s head to one side, which was why she walked off-balance, in that crab-scuttle way. It had not any marks for a face, that the girl could see. The old woman saw where the girl was looking and made an angry hissing sound Shhhh! like scolding a cat and bared her stained and cracked teeth in a nasty smile, You’re not a pretty girl, you will have a hard time, like me. The eyelid over one of the red-veined eyes dropped and winked and the girl felt faint, for all this while she’d been smelling the old woman’s stink, that had worked its way up her nostrils and into her brain.

  The old woman died that winter, back in the falling-down farmhouse where no one ever visited, and it was said that the county coroner found part of a tortoise-shell comb grown into her scalp inside the matted gummy gray hair and that her scalp was reddened and swollen with hundreds of insect bites and that her shriveled and wasted body was covered in insect bites beneath a patina of grime. It was said that the thing on the side of her neck had grown so big it was like a second head, it had tiny eyes like a fish’s eyes beginning to poke through the skin, tiny holes for nostrils, a small moist mouth the size of a cherry pit. The old woman had died in her filthy bed and had lain there for more than two weeks by the time anyone found her, but the thing on her neck was still alive, quivering, pulsing, warm, making a low squeaking noise like it was begging to be cut loose from the corpse so that it could have its own life. Whether they killed it then or it died at some later time was not clear. The girl never told anyone about the day the old woman had stopped her in the lane, but for a long time she dreamt of the old woman, her nostrils pinched with the stink, compulsively she touched her hair dreading to feel that it had become matted and gummy; she had only to shut her eyes to see the face pushing out beside the old woman’s face, the tiny unblinking eyes, and now, nearly fifty years later and hundreds of miles from her childhood home, she finds herself unconsciously stroking her neck, seeing in the glassy surface of the computer screen at which she is working, when dusk enters the room and she hasn’t yet switched on a light, the face reflected there; it is not a face she knows except it is her face, and her fingernails scratch at the itchy skin, the flaming welt, this sinewy growth on her neck, at the very base of her neck at her shoulder bone, hidden by her collar, throbbing with furious heat.

  An Apiary of White Bees

  LEE THOMAS

  Lee Thomas is the author of dozens of stories and nonfiction articles. In addition to magazines and new media, his fiction has appeared in the anthologies A Walk on the Darkside and The Book of Final Flesh.

  His first novel, Stained, won the Bram Stoker Award. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed novella, Parish Damned, and the novels Damage and The Dust of Wonderland. His short fiction is collected in In the Closet, Under the Bed, forthcoming from Haworth Press in early 2008.

  Writing as Thomas Pendleton, he is the coauthor (with Stefan Petrucha) of Wicked Dead, a series of edgy teen horror novels from HarperCollins. His novel Mason, also under the Pendleton name, is forthcoming from HarperCollins.

  Thomas currently lives in Austin, Texas, where he’s working on a number of projects.

  Oliver Bennett walked across the lobby of the Cortland Hotel, nodding to his employees and guests. The floor, a lake of travertine marble, swirling with veins of cream- and beige-colored stone, absorbed the dull light of a stormy afternoon. Behind the concierge desk and sitting area, French doors ran the length of the west wall; their white slats parceled the concrete promenade, the grounds, and the cloud-veiled mountain range beyond the glass into a precise grid.

  Oliver didn’t care much for the Cortland. It was a landmark, decorated with extravagance and taste, but without a single concession to warmth. His wife Amanda wanted it, so he bought it, and they lived here because she wanted that too, but it was hardly a home. A home should be filled with personal belongings and intimate, happy memories. And at least one person in that place should love you.

  The Cortland was an adequate shelter, Oliver supposed, pausing at the French doors, clasping a chilled silver handle in his palm. He looked over his shoulder at the lobby, observed the patrons, dressed in elegant wools, silks, and fur, moving gracefully amid the stiff-backed employees in their crisp black uniforms. Above, a Lalique chandelier hung like an immense pellucid beehive.

  Oliver never noticed the similarity of shape before. The swollen center. The tapered extremes. It really is a beautiful fixture, he thought.

  Outside on the veranda, he zipped his jacket against the chill and looked north over the lawn toward the swimming pool, now covered in a sky blue tarp. The swimming season ended over a month ago, making the destruction around the pool less of an inconvenience, though no less of an eyesore.

  The earth beyond the broken pool was wounded and raw. Ridges of dirt rose in a ring behind a run of yellow warning tape. A bulldozer squatted on the lawn. Oliver checked over his shoulder to make sure that Amanda wasn’t watching him—a reflex only. His wife never watched him, never followed. He knew she couldn’t be bothered to keep track of a man she felt, on kinder days, was simply an obstacle on the way to a bank account. That didn’t stop her from complaining about his behavior, however. If she caught him lighting up, she would use it as an excuse to berate him for the rest of the day. But since she was nowhere to be seen, Oliver pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and lit one. With his lungs warmed by the smoke, he crossed the lawn toward the hole in his
property and the wonderful thing it held.

  Two weeks ago, while digging a trench in an attempt to repair the pool’s broken plumbing, a work crew was interrupted by the discovery of a brick barrier. As the excavation continued, the barrier revealed itself to be a wall—one of four creating a vault buried deep in the ground. Oliver was there that day, standing on the lip of the gouged earth when the door was revealed. His anticipation of its opening had been wonderful, the only good thing he’d felt in years.

  Despite the protests of Joe Hopkins, the crew’s foreman, Oliver insisted on being among the first group of men to examine the contents of the strange brick building. After all, it was unearthed on Oliver’s property. It was his, and he had every right to be part of the discovery.

  And what a find it was. Inside were crates of alcohol, stacked floor to ceiling. Narrow passages cut between them, so that Oliver, Hopkins, and two of his workmen could navigate the length and depth of the chamber.

  They must have hidden it here during prohibition, Hopkins said.

  And nobody remembered it was here?

  Apparently not.

  Amazing.

  Oliver stepped forward, out of the memory, and drew deeply on his cigarette. He ducked under the cordon of warning tape and stepped over the thick cable feeding electricity to the lights Hopkins had strung in the vault. He looked into the hole. Scabs of dirt marred the brick wall and filled the creases in the door’s planks.

  Though he knew this was his property, and he had every right to be here, Oliver hesitated before stepping onto the steep grade that would take him down to the door. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, but he felt wrong, and the sensation brought a distant memory, which made the afternoon chill several degrees colder.

  I want to show you something.

  Where are we going, Kyle?

  Come on. It’s okay. Your dad showed me this.

  Oliver drew away from the hole, just one step, a minor concession to fear. Then he thought, No, this is mine. He dropped his cigarette on a mound of upturned sod and walked toward the door.

  Square-faced lights glowed high on the walls, catching the grain of the crates in their cast. Walking through the narrow paths, Oliver imagined he looked much like a giant passing through a city of wooden skyscrapers. The air was thick with dust and the scent of rotted pine and oak. He paused and read the labels stenciled on the sides of the crates; some were still legible, others had faded to little more than stains. Of course, the names meant little to him. He had neither the mind nor the tongue of a connoisseur. Still, he wondered what these aged liquors might taste like after so long. Was time generous, giving the spirits some special properties, or had it sapped them of essence as it did so many other things?

  He searched, looking for some indication on the wall of crates for the case that most deserved his attention. Among the labels he could read, he found some self-explanatory—Gin, Scotch Whiskey, Bordeaux, and English Rum—and others told him nothing—Belle of Anderson, Crown Prince, and Old Cabin Still.

  The more he explored, the more intriguing he found the vault, and Oliver believed he was working out a pattern in the room’s organization. The pedestrian liquors—the whiskeys, the gins and rums—were at the front, while the middle of the room was filled with more exotic beverages—brandies, liqueurs, and aperitifs. Further back, deeper in the maze of crates, the wines took hold. When he reached the back wall, he recognized the Dom Pérignon crest on two stacks, though the letters were ghosted to indecipherability. Finally, he came to two crates set aside in a corner, not touching any of the other containers. These made him all the more curious for their total lack of identification.

  Every other box in the chamber carried some blemish of ink, but not these. To Oliver’s mind, this was the trove he sought—its value corroborated by its anonymity. Using the knife on his key ring, he pried the lid. Aged wood and nails whined against his efforts. The edge he worked splintered. He dug in again and cracked the wood enough to glimpse the contents.

  The bottles appeared yellow, but it was too gloomy to tell. They were uniquely shaped—six-sided and nestled together like glass honeycombs. Each bottle was capped in wax that ran in clumped rivulets down the neck. They would do fine, he decided, and set to completing the task of opening the crate’s lid.

  Once the boards were torn back, he gazed inside. The case was designed to hold eight of the hexagonal bottles—three to a side, nestling two in the middle. But the two central bottles were missing, and a profound disappointment settled on him. Though, certainly, the culprit had absconded with the bottles nearly three-quarters of a century ago, he couldn’t help but feel somehow violated.

  Oliver carried a bottle of the mysterious liquor to the front of the vault and sat on a crate. He scraped the wax away with his knife, then brushed cream-colored flakes from the thighs of his trousers. Beneath this, a simple cork sealed the bottle, and it pulled free easily. He sniffed, and a sweet yet bitter odor climbed into his nose. Oliver swirled the liquid around in the bottle, and yes, the glass was yellow. Then, he drank. The liqueur cooled his throat instead of burning like so many spirits burned; it numbed his tongue, his stomach, his muscles.

  He prepared himself to feel sick, perhaps poisoned, but the drink enlivened his system. Taking another sip, he leaned back on the crate and observed the vault and found it much to his liking.

  Unlike Amanda, Oliver didn’t need everything in his world to be polished and precious. Whenever he could sneak away for a week or two on his own, earthier places beckoned him. Dockside bars where the men and women were calloused and broken; musk-reeking video arcades with black-walled mazes, leading from one erotic shadow to the next; sweating alleys, running like veins through terminal neighborhoods—these were his places. They tarnished the silver of him and the secret of their visiting made him feel alive.

  Where are you taking me, Kyle?

  It’s a special place. A secret.

  Lifting the bottle to his lips again, Oliver closed his eyes. The childhood recollection was back, and instead of fighting it, he entertained the memory, remembering a fine young man that he once admired, even worshiped.

  Kyle was the son of the gardener who kept the grounds of the Bennett Estate. Two years Oliver’s senior, Kyle was strong and tanned and confident, with a mop of blond hair and sinewy arms corded with veins. He was everything that Oliver was not, and as a boy, Oliver spent hours at windows or pretending to read by the pool to watch his hero work in the yard.

  Succumbing to intoxication, Oliver remembered one day in particular. He was twelve years old and following his hero through the wooded area running at the back of his father’s estate. Kyle’s back muscles flexed as the boy pushed aside tree branches and leafy shrubs, leading Oliver away from the house. After hiking across the property, Kyle stopped at a large shed and opened the door.

  Come on. It’s okay. Your dad showed me this.

  A ringing came up in Oliver’s head. The sound grew shrill and then flattened out into a massaging resonance. With the monotonous hum buzzing behind his eyes, the memory skipped, turned sharp and painful.

  Kyle was angry with him, shouting. Oliver ran away, confused and hurt and needing to be in his comfortable, familiar room. Desperate to be there. Panicked. He raced through the shrubs and low tree branches. Then he tripped on a root. Fell.

  A thousand bees surrounded Oliver’s head. The world shattered into a dozen dislocated images, stacked in a trembling array before his eyes, and the horrible words, words spat at him by the gardener’s son, took on the drone of the swarming bees, grinding terrible accusations into his brain.

  Oliver opened his eyes and waved a hand in the air to rid himself of the daydream bees. He couldn’t remember why he was running, couldn’t recall why Kyle was so angry with him when Oliver did nothing more or less than what his hero asked, but he remembered running. In his panic he’d tripped and fallen, crashing through a low-hanging beehive.

  Over thirty years had been lived and worn since that
afternoon, but now, in this place he felt where each of those vicious creatures had stung him. A spot just below his left ear sang a particular ache now.

  Despite the chill in the shadowed chamber, Oliver was sweating, and his breath hitched rapidly. The memories he indulged fueled an irrational yet intense erotic response in him, an aching heat that demanded release. Oliver put the bottle down on the crate beside him. He went to the thick wooden door and pushed it closed, cutting off the gray afternoon light. With his back to the door, he unsnapped his pants and stepped out wide to keep them from dropping to the dirty concrete.

  He felt like a boy again, locked in his bedroom, his bathroom, a small wooden shack. The stinging at his neck aroused like a kiss, and the hive in his mind dove, tracing along the back of his throat, abrading his esophagus and gathering in his belly before working further into his system and down. The palm on his cock felt rougher than his own, more experienced. The shaft filling his hand was unfamiliar; it was too thick, too ridged with veins.

  He squeezed his eyes closed to more perfectly feel the sensations.

  The hive in his groin crawled frantically, seeking some means of escape. He inhaled and the bouquet of the liquor, the honeyed bitter scent, filled his head and triggered a painful yet perfect climax.

  The thrumming ache of the fleeing swarm tore through his shaft as the imagined bees escaped into the black room. His ragged breath coaxed them out; tears wet his eyes.